Trying to bolster their claim to the French throne by adding more territory, the English broke the Treaty of Troyes. They invaded central France and, on October 12, 1428, began the siege of Orleans, only eighty miles south of Paris. If the English took the city of Orleans, they would soon control all of southern France.

France had already lost control of its territory north of the Loire (in northern France). The English occupied this area thanks to the help of the Burgundians (French people who had a separate state within France). This map shows where Burgundy was located at the time of Joan of Arc.

Philip of Burgundy favored an alliance with England, not France. Charles, the dauphin, knew he could not count on the Burgundians to keep France for the French. Nor could the dauphin count on the French people themselves who had barely resisted English advances and who believed the English were invincible. An illumination, from Froissart's chronicles, depicts the negotiations between France and England at Amiens. The town was ultimately lost to the English. By the spring of 1429, the situation looked hopeless for Charles and his countrymen.

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