Burgundy.

I had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but the
good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him and was safe
enough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and
went slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through
the enemy's lines. We were challenged only once; we made no answer, but
held our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through
without any accident. About three or half past we reached Compiegne, just
as the gray dawn was breaking in the east.

Joan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy,
captain of the city--a plan for a sortie toward evening against the
enemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in
the level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with a
bridge. The end of this bridge was defended on the other side of the
river by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard
also commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the
plain to the village of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy;
another was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road;
and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A
kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the
boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one
end of the bow, Clairoix at the other.

Joan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by
assault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and capture
that camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy
work, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve.
Flavy's lieutenant, with archers and the artillery of the boulevard, was