Note 217b — Chapter X · ON THE GENERAL USE OF FIREARMS BY THE ENGLISH, IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. [213]

It is by no means improbable, that the “bastons à feu,” the nature of which, is not clear, adverted to by Monstrelet, as with the convoy brought up by the English, in besieging Orleans in 1428, were some kind of portable firearms. He several times uses that expression, particularly in describing the wars of the Burgundians and French. It ought, however, to be mentioned here, that with reference to the attack by the Burgundians upon Paris, in 1460, he uses the expression, “canons serpentines, et autres bastons de pouldre et a feu, avec trait de bastons inuasibles a main.” During the early part and middle of the fifteenth century, if gun-carriages were occasionally used, they certainly were not always adopted; and when cannons had to be transported from place to place, they were frequently conveyed in carts or waggons; and we learn from the ancient historical writers, that at that period, for want of carts and waggons, the besiegers were occasionally obliged, on raising a siege, to abandon their cannons.