Duke Charles went and laid siege to Beauvais, and on the 27th of June delivered the first assault.

The inhabitants were at this moment left almost alone to defend their town.

A young girl of eighteen, Joan Fourquet, whom a burgher's wife of Beauvais, Madame Laisne, her mother by adoption, had bred up in the history, still so recent, of Joan of Arc, threw herself into the midst of the throng, holding up her little axe (hachette) before the image of St.Angadresme, patroness of the town, and crying, "O glorious virgin, come to my aid; to arms! to arms!" The assault was repulsed; re-enforcements came up from Noyon, Amiens, and Paris, under the orders of the Marshal de Rouault; and the mayor of Beauvais presented Joan to him.

"Sir," said the young girl to him, "you have everywhere been victor, and you will be so with us." On the 9th of July the Duke of Burgundy delivered a second assault, which lasted four hours.

Some Burgundians had escaladed a part of the ramparts; Joan Hachette arrived there just as one of them was planting his flag on the spot; she pushed him over the side into the ditch, and went down in pursuit of him; the man fell on one knee; Joan struck him down, took possession of the flag, and mounted up to the ramparts again, crying, "Victory!" The same cry resounded at all points of the wall; the assault was everywhere repulsed.