the two angels, each bearing a lily in his hand, carried before her. At her left side rode Count Dunois in armour, richly appointed, and behind her came her Household and many noble and valiant lords and squires, captains and soldiers,
with the burghers of Orléans who had gone out to escort her. At the gate crowds of people were waiting; the rest of the soldiers and the men and women of Orléans. All the bells of the city were ringing, and the people laughed, and wept, and shouted for joy. The Maid, the God-sent Maid had come; and they rejoiced
greatly, not without cause. For they had endured much labour, and weariness and pain, and what is worse, great fear lest they should never be succored, but should lose both life and goods. Now they felt greatly comforted through the divine virtue of which they had heard in this simple maid.[8]
Through the glare of the torches Jeanne saw the sea of faces turned adoringly toward her. She stretched out her mailed hands toward them lovingly:
“Be of good cheer,” she cried. “Messire hath taken pity on your distresses.”
There came a press to touch her, and to touch even the horse on which she rode.
So closely did the people come that a torch bearer was pushed against the pennon and the fringe took fire. Almost instantly Jeanne spurred forward, leaned down, and put out the flame with her hand, and the people shouted with enthusiasm.
To the cathedral of Saint Croix the procession wended, and entering it the maiden returned thanks. Once more the line of march was taken up, the people
accompanying her the whole length of the city to the house of Jacques Boucher,
treasurer of the duke of Orléans, where she was received with joy. She was to be the guest of Madame Boucher as long as she remained in the city. The Squire d’Aulon, her brothers, the two knights, and her pages were lodged in the same house.
Jeanne was in Orléans at last, ready to show the sign for which she was sent.
[8]
Journal du Siège, upon which this description is founded.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HOUR AND THE GIRL
“By Esther, Judith and Deborah, women of high
esteem, He delivered His oppressed people. And well I
know there have been women of great worship. But
Jeanne is above all. Through her God hath worked many
miracles. ”
CHRISTINE DE PISAN. Poem in honour of the Maid.
July 31st, 1429.
Jeanne was eager to engage the enemy the next day, and the citizens would gladly have followed her, but Dunois and the captains of the garrison did not wish it. Their argument was that they ought to await the return of the army from Blois. Jeanne’s influence in war had not yet begun to be felt, and so great was the fear of the French for the English that it was said that two hundred Englishmen could put eight hundred or a thousand Frenchmen to flight.
Forced into inactivity the Maid sent a herald with a summons to the English, a
procedure common at the time. There had been no reply to the letter that she had sent from Blois, and neither had the herald been returned. In this later epistle she summoned the surrender of the enemy before the attack, demanding the return
21 5of
her messenger. At the same time Dunois wrote, warning them that any harm that
came to the herald should be retaliated upon the persons of the English prisoners held by him. In compliance with Dunois’ request the last herald was sent back,
but the English threatened to burn the other. While the person of a herald was regarded as sacred by all the usages of war this man from the Armagnac witch
could have no rights, they declared, and should be burned for his mistress. They laughed at the letter, and gave fierce defiances to the Maid, calling her a dairy
maid, bidding her go back to her cows, and threatening to burn her if they caught her.
But in spite of these high words there was an undercurrent of fear in the defiance. The English as well as the French believed that the latter had supernatural aid, though the English held that the Witch of the Armagnacs was
emissary of evil rather than of good.
In the afternoon La Hire and Florent d’Illiers, two of the captains who had entered the city with Jeanne, with a force of men-at-arms and some citizens sallied forth from the city and attacked an English outpost between their fortress of Paris and the city wall, and drove the men into the main work. They thought
to have burned this, but before they could do so the English rallied and drove them back without much firing.
Jeanne was not present at this fray, but in the evening she rode forth, the townspeople crowding about her, and placing herself on the town end of the broken bridge––called out to the enemy, addressing them courteously,
summoning them once more to withdraw while there was time. Sweetly and clearly her voice rang across the water, so that the English who were in the fortress called Les Tourelles on the other side of the bridge could not fail to hear her. Sir William Glasdale,––whom the French called Classidas,––the knight in charge, came out on the bridge and answered by hurling a volume of abuse upon
her. Jeanne was not prepared for the foul epithets that he called her, and for a brief time could not speak, so overwhelmed was she. Then drawing her mystic
sword she waved it above her head, crying:
“Dost thou so speak, Classidas? Thou who art to die in so short a time without
