But, side by side with these friends, she had an adversary in the king's

favorite, George de la Tremoille, an ambitious courtier, jealous of any
one who seemed within the range of the king's favor, and opposed to a
vigorous prosecution of the war, since it hampered him in the policy he
wished to keep up towards the Duke of Burgundy.  To the ill will of La
Tremoille was added that of the majority of courtiers enlisted in the
following of the powerful favorite, and that of warriors irritated at the
importance acquired at their expense by a rustic and fantastic little
adventuress.  Here was the source of the enmities and intrigues which
stood in the way of all Joan's demands, rendered her successes more
tardy, difficult, and incomplete, and were one day to cost her more
dearly still.

At the end of about five weeks the expedition was in readiness.  It was a
heavy convoy of revictualment, protected by a body of ten or twelve
thousand men, commanded by Marshal de Boussac, and numbering amongst them
Xaintrailles and La Hire.  The march began on the 27th of April, 1429.
Joan had caused the removal of all women of bad character, and had
recommended her comrades to confess.  She took the communion in the open
air, before their eyes; and a company of priests, headed by her chaplain,
Pasquerel, led the way whilst chanting sacred hymns.  Great was the
surprise amongst the men-at-arms, many had words of mockery on their
lips.  It was the time when La Hire used to say, "If God were a soldier,
He would turn robber."  Nevertheless, respect got the better of habit;
the most honorable were really touched; the coarsest considered
themselves bound to show restraint.  On the 29th of April they arrived
before Orleans.  But, in consequence of the road they had followed, the
Loire was between the army and the town; the expeditionary corps had to
be split in two; the troops were obliged to go and feel for the bridge of
Blois in order to 'cross the river; and Joan was vexed and surprised.
Dunois, arrived from Orleans in a little boat, urged her to enter the
town that same evening.  "Are you the bastard of Orleans?" asked she,
when he accosted her.  "Yes; and I am rejoiced at your coming."  "Was it
you who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river,
and not the direct way, over yonder where Talbot and the English were?"
"Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains."  "In the name of God,
the counsel of my Lord is wiser than yours; you thought to deceive me,
and you have deceived yourselves, for I am bringing you the best succor
that ever had knight, or town, or city, and that is the good will of God,
and succor from the King of Heaven; not assuredly for love of me, it is
from God only that it proceeds."  It was a great trial for Joan to
separate from her comrades, "so well prepared, penitent, and well
disposed; in their company," said she, "I should not fear the whole power
of the English."  She was afraid that disorder might set in amongst the
troops, and that they might break up, instead of fulfilling her mission.
Dunois was urgent for her to go herself at once into Orleans, with such
portion of the convoy as boats might be able to transport thither without
delay.  "Orleans," said he, "would count it for nought, if they received
the victuals without the Maid."  Joan decided to go: the captains of her
division promised to rejoin her at Orleans; she left them her chaplain,
Pasquerel, the priests who accompanied him, and the banner around which
she was accustomed to muster them; and she herself, with Dunois, La Hire,
and two hundred men-at-arms, crossed the river at the same time with a
part of the supplies.

[Illustration: JOAN ENTERING ORLEANS----104]

The same day, at eight P. M., she entered the city, on horseback,
completely armed, preceded by her own banner, and having beside her
Dunois, and behind her the captains of the garrison and several of the
most distinguished burgesses of Orleans who had gone out to meet her.
The population, one and all, rushed thronging round her, carrying
torches, and greeting her arrival "with joy as great as if they had seen
God come down amongst them.  They felt," says the Journal of the Siege,
"all of them recomforted and as it were disbesieged by the divine virtue
which they had been told existed in this simple maid."  In their anxiety
to approach her, to touch her, one of their lighted torches set fire to
her banner.  Joan disengaged herself with her horse as cleverly as it
could have been done by the most skilful horseman, and herself
extinguished the flame.  The crowd attended her to the church whither she
desired to go first of all to render thanks to God, and then to the house
of John Boucher, the Duke of Orleans's treasurer, where she was received
together with her two brothers and the two gentlemen who had been her
guides from Vaucouleurs.  The treasurer's wife was one of the most
virtuous city dames in Orleans, and from this night forth her daughter
Charlotte had Joan for her bedfellow.  A splendid supper had been
prepared for her; but she would merely dip some slices of bread in wine
and water.  Neither her enthusiasm nor her success, the two greatest
tempters to pride in mankind, made any change in her modesty and
simplicity.

The very day after her arrival she would have liked to go and attack the
English in their bastilles, within which they kept themselves shut up.
La Hire was pretty much of her opinion; but Dunois and the captains of
the garrison thought they ought to await the coming of the troops which
had gone to cross the Loire at Blois, and the supports which several
French garrisons in the neighborhood had received orders to forward to
Orleans.  Joan insisted. Sire de Gamaches, one of the officers present,
could not contain himself. "Since ear is given," said he, "to the advice
of a wench of low degree rather than to that of a knight like me, I will
not bandy more words; when the time comes, it shall be my sword that
will speak; I shall fall, perhaps, but the king and my own honor demand
it; henceforth I give up my banner and am nothing more than a poor
esquire.  I prefer to have for master a noble man rather than a girl who
has heretofore been, perhaps, I know not what."  He furled his banner
and handed it to Dunois.  Dunois, as sensible as he was brave, would not
give heed either to the choler of Gamaches or to the insistence of Joan;
and, thanks to his intervention, they were reconciled on being induced
to think better, respectively, of giving up the banner and ordering an
immediate attack.  Dunois went to Blois to hurry the movements of the
division which had repaired thither; and his presence there was highly
necessary, since Joan's enemies, especially the chancellor Regnault,
were nearly carrying a decision that no such re-enforcement should be
sent to Orleans.  Dunois frustrated this purpose, and led back to
Orleans, by way of Beauce, the troops concentrated at Blois.  On the 4th
of May, as soon as it was known that he was coming, Joan, La Hire, and
the principal leaders of the city as well as of the garrison, went to
meet him, and re-entered Orleans with him and his troops, passing
between the bastilles of the English, who made not even an attempt to
oppose them.  "That is the sorceress yonder," said some of the
besiegers; others asked if it were quite so clear that her power, did
not come to her from on high; and their commander, the Earl of Suffolk,
being himself, perhaps, uncertain, did not like to risk it: doubt
produced terror, and terror inactivity.  The convoy from Blois entered
Orleans, preceded by Brother Pasquerel and the priests.

Joan, whilst she was awaiting it, sent the English captains a fresh
summons to withdraw conformably with the letter which she had already
addressed to them from Blois, and the principal clauses of which were
just now quoted here.  They replied with coarse insults, calling her
strumpet and cow-girl, and threatening to burn her when they caught her.
She was very much moved by their insults, insomuch as to weep; but
calling God to witness her innocence, she found herself comforted, and
expressed it by saying, "I have had news from my Lord."  The English had
detained the first herald she had sent them; and when she would have sent
them a second to demand his comrade back, he was afraid.  "In the name of
God," said Joan, "they will do no harm nor to thee nor to him; thou shalt
tell Talbot to arm, and I too will arm; let him show himself in front of
the city; if he can take me, let him burn me; if I discomfit him, let him
raise the siege, and let the English get them gone to their own country."
The second herald appeared to be far from reassured; but Dunois charged
him to say that the English prisoners should answer for what was done to
the heralds from the Maid.  The two heralds were sent back.  Joan made up
her mind to iterate in person to the English the warnings she had given
them in her letter.  She mounted upon one of the bastions of Orleans,
opposite the English bastille called Tournelles, and there, at the top of
her voice, she repeated her counsel to them to be gone; else, woe and
shame would come upon them.  The commandant of the bastille, Sir William
Gladesdale [called by Joan and the French chroniclers _Glacidas_],
answered with the usual insults, telling her to go back and mind her
cows, and alluding to the French as miscreants.  "You lie," cried Joan,
"and in spite of you soon shall ye depart hence; many of your people
shall be slain; but as for you, you shall not see it."

Dunois, the very day of his return to Orleans, after dinner, went to call
upon Joan, and told her that he had heard on his way that Sir John
Falstolf, the same who on the 12th of the previous February had beaten
the French in the Herring affair, was about to arrive with
re-enforcements and supplies for the besiegers.  "Bastard, bastard," said
Joan, "in the name of God I command thee, as soon as thou shalt know of
this Pascot's coming, to have me warned of it, for, should he pass
without my knowing of it, I promise thee that I will have thy head cut
off."  Dunois assured her that she should be warned.  Joan was tired with
the day's excitement; she threw herself upon her bed to sleep, but
unsuccessfully; all at once she said to Sire Daulon, her esquire, "My
counsel doth tell me to go against the English; but I know not whether
against their bastilles or against this Fascot.  I must arm."  Her
esquire was beginning to arm her when she heard it shouted in the street
that the enemy were at that moment doing great damage to the French.  "My
God," said she, "the blood of our people is running on the ground; why
was I not awakened sooner?  Ah! it was ill done!  .  .  .  My arms!  My
arms! my horse!" Leaving behind her esquire, who was not yet armed, she
went down.  Her page was playing at the door: "Ah! naughty boy," said
she, "not to come and tell me that the blood of France was being shed!
Come! quick! my horse!" It was brought to her; she bade them hand down to
her by the window her banner, which she had left behind, and, without any
further waiting, she departed and went to the Burgundy gate, whence the
noise seemed to come.  Seeing on her way one of the townsmen passing who
was being carried off wounded, she said, "Alas! I never see a Frenchman's
blood but my hair stands up on my head!"  It was some of the Orleannese
themselves who, without consulting their chiefs, had made a sortie and
attacked the Bastille St. Loup, the strongest held by the English on this
side.  The French had been repulsed, and were falling back in flight when
Joan came up, and soon after her Dunois and a throng of men-at-arms who
had been warned of the danger.  The fugitives returned to the assault;
the battle was renewed with ardor; the bastille of St. Loup,
notwithstanding energetic resistance on the part of the English who
manned it, was taken; and all its defenders were put to the sword before
Talbot and the main body of the besiegers could come up to their
assistance.  Joan showed sorrow that so many people should have died
unconfessed; and she herself was the means of saving some who had
disguised themselves as priests in gowns which they had taken from the
church of St. Loup.  Great was the joy in Orleans, and the enthusiasm for
Joan was more lively than ever.  "Her voices had warned her," they said,
"and apprised her that there was a battle; and then she had found by
herself alone and without any guide the way to the Burgundy gate."
Men-at-arms and burgesses all demanded that the attack upon the English
hastilles should be resumed; but the next day, the 5th of May, was
Ascension-day.  Joan advocated lions repose on this holy festival, and
the general feeling was in accord with her own.  She recommended her
comrades to fulfil their religious duties, and she herself received the
communion.  The chiefs of the besieged resolved to begin on the morrow a
combined attack upon the English bastilles which surrounded the palace;
but Joan was not in their counsels.  "Tell me what you have resolved,"
she said to them; "I can keep this and greater secrets."  Dunois made her
acquainted with the plan adopted, of which she fully approved; and on the
morrow, the 6th of May, a fierce struggle began again all round Orleans.
For two days the bastilles erected by the besiegers against the place
were repeatedly attacked by the besieged.  On the first day Joan was
slightly wounded in the foot.  Some disagreement arose between her and
Sire de Gaucourt, governor of Orleans, as to continuing the struggle; and
John Boucher, her host, tried to keep her back the second day.  "Stay and
dine with us," said he, "to eat that shad which has just been brought."
"Keep it for supper," said Joan; "I will come back this evening and bring
you some goddamns (Englishman) or other to eat his share;" and she
sallied forth, eager to return to the assault.  On arriving at the
Burgundy gate she found it closed; the governor would not allow any
sortie thereby to attack on that side.  "Ah! naughty man," said Joan,
"you are wrong; whether you will or no, our men-at-arms shall go and win
on this day as they have already won."  The gate was forced; and
men-at-arms and burgesses rushed out from all quarters to attack the
bastille of Tournelles, the strongest of the English works.  It was ten
o'clock in the morning; the passive and active powers of both parties
were concentrated on this point; and for a moment the French appeared
weary and downcast.  Joan took a scaling-ladder, set it against the
rampart, and was the first to mount.  There came an arrow and struck her
between neck and shoulder, and she fell.  Sire de Gamaches, who had but
lately displayed so much temper towards her, found her where she lay.
"Take my horse," said he, "and bear no malice: I was wrong; I had formed
a false idea of you."  "Yes," said Joan, "and bear no malice: I never saw
a more accomplished knight."  She was taken away and had her armor
removed.  The arrow, it is said, stood out almost half-a-foot behind.
There was an instant of faintness and tears; but she prayed and felt her
strength renewed, and pulled out the arrow with her own hand.

[Illustration: Herself drew out the Arrow----109]

Some one proposed to her to charm the wound by means of cabalistic words;
but "I would rather die," she said, "than so sin against the will of God.
I know full well that I must die some day; but I know nor where nor when
nor how.  If, without sin, my wound may be healed, I am right willing."
A dressing of oil and lard was applied to the wound; and she retired
apart into a vineyard, and was continually in prayer.  Fatigue and
discouragement were overcoming the French; and the captains ordered the
retreat to be sounded.  Joan begged Dunois to wait a while.  "My God,"
said she, "we shall soon be inside.  Give your people a little rest; eat
and drink."  She resumed her arms and remounted her horse; her banner
floated in the air; the French took fresh courage; the English, who
thought Joan half dead, were seized with surprise and fear; and one of
their principal leaders, Sir William Gladesdale, made up his mind to
abandon the outwork which he had hitherto so well kept, and retire within
the bastille itself.  Joan perceived his movement.  "Yield thee," she
shouted to him from afar; "yield thee to the King of Heaven!  Ah!
Glacidas, thou hast basely insulted me; but I have great pity on the
souls of thee and thine."  The Englishman continued his retreat.  Whilst
he was passing over the drawbridge which reached from the out-work to the
bastille, a shot from the side of Orleans broke down the bridge;
Gladesdale fell into the water and was drowned, together with many of his
comrades; the French got into the bastille without any fresh fighting;
and Joan re-entered Orleans amidst the joy and acclamations of the
people.  The bells rang all through the night, and the Te Deum was
chanted.  The day of combat was about to be succeeded by the day of
deliverance.

On the morrow, the 8th of May, 1429, at daybreak, the English leaders
drew up their troops close to the very moats of the city, and seemed to
offer battle to the French.  Many of the Orleannese leaders would have
liked to accept this challenge; but Joan got up from her bed, where she
was resting because of her wound, put on a light suit of armor, and ran
to the city gates.  "For the love and honor of holy Sunday," said she to
the assembled warriors, "do not be the first to attack, and make to them
no demand; it is God's good will and pleasure that they be allowed to get
them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend
yourselves boldly; you will be the masters."  She caused an altar to be
raised; thanksgivings were sung, and mass was celebrated.  "See!" said
Joan; "are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their
backs?"  They had commenced their retreat in good order, with standards
flying.  "Let them go: my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting
to-day; you shall have them another time."  The good words spoken by Joan
were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English,
and cut off stragglers and baggage.  Their bastilles were found to be
full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many
of their prisoners.  The siege of Orleans was raised.

The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the
king, and prosecute her work at his side.  She fell in with him on the
13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her
hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger's neck,
made him a deep obeisance.  Charles took off his cap, held out his hand
to her, and, "as it seemed to many," says a contemporary chronicler, "he
would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt."  But the king's
joy was not enough for Joan.  She urged him to march with her against
enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start
without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned.  "I shall hardly
last more than a year," said she; "we must think about working right well
this year, for there is much to do."  Hesitation was natural to Charles,
even in the hour of victory.  His favorite, La Tremoille, and his
chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan's entreaties with all
the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill
will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey;
and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing.
Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice,
and tapped softly at the door of the king's privy chamber (chambre de re-
trait).  He bade her enter.  She fell upon her knees, saying, "Gentle
_dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to
Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you
thither."  "Joan," said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d'Harcourt,
the king's confessor, "cannot you tell the king what pricketh you?"
"Ah!  I see," replied Joan, with some embarrassment: "well, I will tell
you.  I had set me to prayer, according to my wont, and I was making
complaint for that you would not believe what I said; then the voice came
and said unto me, 'Go, go, my daughter; I will be a help to thee; go.'
When this voice comes to me, I feel marvellously rejoiced; I would that
it might endure forever."  She was eager and overcome.

Joan and her voices were not alone in urging the king to shake off his
doubts and his indolence.  In church, and court, and army, allies were
not wanting to the pious and valiant maid.  In a written document dated
the 14th of May, six days after the siege of Orleans was raised, the most
Christian doctor of the age, as Gerson was called, sifted the question
whether it were possible, whether it were a duty, to believe in the Maid.
"Even if (which God forbid)," said he, "she should be mistaken in her
hope and ours, it would not necessarily follow that what she does comes
of the evil spirit, and not of God, but that rather our ingratitude was
to blame.  Let the party which hath a just cause take care how, by
incredulity or injustice, it rendereth useless the divine succor so
miraculously manifested, for God, without any change of counsel, changeth
the upshot according to deserts."  Great lords and simple gentlemen, old
and young warriors, were eager to go and join Joan for the salvation of
the king and of France.  The constable, De Richemont, banished from the
court through the jealous hatred of George la Tremoille, made a pressing
application there, followed by a body of men-at-arms; and, when the king
refused to see him, he resolved, though continuing in disgrace, to take
an active part in the war.  The young Duke of Alencon, who had been a
prisoner with the English since the battle of Agincourt, hurried on the
payment of his ransom in order to accompany Joan as lieutenant-general of
the king in the little army which was forming.  His wife, the duchess,
was in grief about it.  "We have just spent great sums," said she, "in
buying him back from the English; if he would take my advice, he would
stay at home."  "Madame," said Joan, "I will bring him back to you safe
and sound, nay, even in better contentment than at present; be not
afraid."  And on this promise the duchess took heart.  Du Guesciin's
widow, Joan de Laval, was still living; and she had two grandsons, Guy
and Andrew de Laval, who were amongst the most zealous of those taking
service in the army destined to march on Rheims.  The king, to all
appearance, desired to keep them near his person.  "God forbid that I
should do so," wrote Guy de Laval, on the 8th of June, 1429, to those
most dread dames, his grandmother and his mother; "my brother says, as
also my lord the Duke d'Alencon, that a good riddance of bad rubbish
would he be who should stay at home."  And he describes his first
interview with the Maid as follows: "The king had sent for her to come
and meet him at Selles-en-Berry.  Some say that it was for my sake, in
order that I might see her.  She gave right good cheer (a kind reception)
to my brother and myself; and after we had dismounted at Selles I went to
see her in her quarters.  She ordered wine, and told me that she would
soon have me drinking some at Paris.  It seems a thing divine to look on
her and listen to her.  I saw her mount on horseback, armed all in white
armor, save her head, and with a little axe in her hand, on a great black
charger, which, at the door of her quarters, was very restive, and would
not let her mount.  Then said she, 'Lead him to the cross,' which was in
front of the neighboring church, on the road.  There she mounted him
without his moving, and as if he were tied up; and turning towards the
door of the church, which was very nigh at hand, she said, in quite a
womanly voice, 'You, priests and church-men, make procession and prayers
to God.'  Then she resumed her road, saying, 'Push forward, push
forward.'  She told me that three days before my arrival she had sent
you, dear grand-mother, a little golden ring, but that it was a very
small matter, and she would have liked to send you something better,
having regard to your estimation."

It was amidst this burst of patriotism, and with all these valiant
comrades, that Joan recommenced the campaign on the 10th of June, 1429,
quite resolved to bring the king to Rheims.  To complete the deliverance
of Orleans, an attack was begun upon the neighboring places, Jargeau,
Meung, and Beaugency.  Before Jargeau, on the 12th of June, although it
was Sunday, Joan had the trumpets sounded for the assault.  The Duke
d'Alencon thought it was too soon.  "Ah!" said Joan, "be not doubtful; it
is the hour pleasing to God; work ye, and God will work."  And she added,
familiarly, "Art thou afeard, gentle duke?  Knowest thou not that I have
promised thy wife to take thee back safe and sound?"  The assault began;
and Joan soon had occasion to keep her promise.  The Duke d'Alencon was
watching the assault from an exposed spot, and Joan remarked a piece
pointed at this spot.  "Get you hence," said she to the duke; "yonder is
a piece which will slay you."  The Duke moved, and a moment afterwards
Sire de Lude was killed at the self-same place by a shot from the said
piece.  Jargeau was taken.  Before Beaugency a serious incident took
place.  The constable, De Richemont, came up with a force of twelve
hundred men.  When he was crossing to Loudun, Charles VII., swayed as
ever by the jealous La Tremoille, had word sent to him to withdraw, and
that if he advanced he would be attacked.  "What I am doing in the
matter," said the constable, "is for the good of the king and the realm;
if anybody comes to attack me, we shall see."  When he had joined the
army before Beaugency, the Duke d'Alencon was much troubled.  The king's
orders were precise, and Joan herself hesitated.  But news came that
Talbot and the English were approaching.  "Now," said Joan, "we must
think no more of anything but helping one another."  She rode forward to
meet the constable, and saluted him courteously.  "Joan," said he, "I was
told that you meant to attack me; I know not whether you come from God or
not; if you are from God, I fear you not at all, for God knows my good
will; if you are from the devil, I fear you still less."  He remained,
and Beaugency was taken.  The English army came up.  Sir John Falstolf
had joined Talbot.  Some disquietude showed itself amongst the French, so
roughly handled for some time past in pitched battles.  "Ah! fair
constable," said Joan to Richemont, "you are not come by my orders, but
you are right welcome."  The Duke d'Alencon consulted Joan as to what was
to be done.  "It will be well to have horses," was suggested by those
about her.  She asked her neighbors, "Have you good spurs?"  "Ha!" cried
they, "must we fly, then?"

"No, surely," replied Joan: "but there will be need to ride boldly; we
shall give a good account of the English, and our spurs will serve us
famously in pursuing them."  The battle began on the 18th of June, at
Patay, between Orleans and Chateaudun.  By Joan's advice, the French
attacked.  "In the name of God," said she, "we must fight.  Though the
English were suspended from the clouds, we should have them, for God hath
sent us to punish them.  The gentle king shall have to-day the greatest
victory he has ever had; my counsel hath told me they are ours."  The
English lost heart, in their turn; the battle was short, and the victory
brilliant; Lord Talbot and the most part of the English captains remained
prisoners.  "Lord Talbot," said the Duke d'Alencon to him, "this is not
what you expected this morning."  "It is the fortune of war," answered
Talbot, with the cool dignity of an old warrior.  Joan's immediate return
to Orleans was a triumph; but even triumph has its embarrassments and
perils.  She demanded the speedy march of the army upon Rheims, that the
king might be crowned there without delay; but objections were raised on
all sides, the objections of the timid and those of the jealous.  "By
reason of Joan the Maid," says a contemporary chronicler, "so many folks
came from all parts unto the king for to serve him at their own expense,
that La Tremoille and others of the council were much wroth thereat,
through anxiety for their own persons."  Joan, impatient and irritated at
so much hesitation and intrigue, took upon herself to act as if the
decision belonged to her.  On the 25th of June she wrote to the
inhabitants of Tournai, "Loyal Frenchmen, I do pray and require you to be
all ready to come to the coronation of the gentle King Charles, at
Rheims, where we shall shortly be, and to come and meet us when ye shall
learn that we are approaching."  Two days afterwards, on the 27th of
June, she left Gien, where the court was, and went to take up her
quarters in the open country with the troops.  There was nothing for it
but to follow her.  On the 29th of June, the king, the court (including
La Tremoille), and the army, about twelve thousand strong, set out on the
march for Rheims.  Other obstacles were encountered on the road.  In most
of the towns the inhabitants, even the royalists, feared to compromise
themselves by openly pronouncing against the English and the Duke of
Burgundy.  Those of Auxerre demanded a truce, offering provisions, and
promising to do as those of Troyes, Chalons, and Rheims should do.  At
Troyes the difficulty was greater still.  There was in it a garrison of
five or six hundred English and Burgundians, who had the burgesses under
their thumbs.  All attempts at accommodation failed.  There was great
perplexity in the royal camp; there were neither provisions enough for a
long stay before Troyes, nor batteries and siege trains to carry it by
force.  There was talk of turning back.  One of the king's councillors,
Robert le Macon, proposed that Joan should be summoned to the council.
It was at her instance that the expedition had been undertaken; she had
great influence amongst the army and the populace; the idea ought not to
be given up without consulting her.  Whilst he was speaking, Joan came
knocking at the door; she was told to come in; and the chancellor, the
Archbishop of Rheims, put the question to her.  Joan, turning to the
king, asked him if he would believe her.  "Speak," said the king; "if you
say what is reasonable and tends to profit, readily will you be
believed."  "Gentle king of France," said Joan, "if you be willing to
abide here before your town of Troyes, it shall be at your disposal
within two days, by love or by force; make no doubt of it."  "Joan,"
replied the chancellor, "whoever could be certain of having it within six
days might well wait for it; but say you true?"  Joan repeated her
assertion; and it was decided to wait.  Joan mounted her horse, and, with
her banner in her hand, she went through the camp, giving orders
everywhere to prepare for the assault.  She had her own tent pitched
close to the ditch, "doing more," says a contemporary, "than two of the
ablest captains would have done."  On the next day, July 10, all was
ready.  Joan had the fascines thrown into the ditches, and was shouting
out, "Assault!" when the inhabitants of Troyes, burgesses and
men-at-arms, came demanding permission to capitulate.  The conditions
were easy.  The inhabitants obtained for themselves and their property
such guarantees as they desired; and the strangers were allowed to go out
with what belonged to them.  On the morrow, July 11, the king entered
Troyes with all his captains, and at his side the Maid carrying her
banner.  All the difficulties of the journey were surmounted.  On the
15th of July the Bishop of Chalons brought the keys of his town to the
king, who took up his quarters there.  Joan found there four or five of
her own villagers, who had hastened up to see the young girl of Domremy
in all her glory.  She received them with a satisfaction in which
familiarity was blended with gravity.  To one of them, her godfather, she
gave a red cap which she had worn; to another, who had been a Burgundian,
she said, "I fear but one thing--treachery."  In the Duke d'Alencon's
presence she repeated to the king, "Make good use of my time, for I shall
hardly last longer than a year."  On the 16th of July King Charles
entered Rheims, and the ceremony of his coronation was fixed for the
morrow.

It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which
recur after a forced suspension.  Joan rode between Dunois and the
Archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France.  The air resounded with the
Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd.  "In God's name,"
said Joan to Dunois, "here is a good people and a devout when I die, I
should much like it to be in these parts."  "Joan," inquired Dunois,
"know you when you will die, and in what place?"  "I know not," said she,
"for I am at the will of God."  Then she added, "I have accomplished that
which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the
gentle king crowned.  I would like it well if it should please him to
send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their
cattle, and do that which was my wont."  "When the said lords," says the
chronicler, an eye-witness, "heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes
towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed that it was
somewhat sent from God, and not otherwise."

Historians, and even contemporaries, have given much discussion to the
question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really
limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the
coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims.  She had said so herself several
times, just as she had to Dunois at Rheims on the 17th of July, 1429; but
she sometimes also spoke of more vast and varied projects, as, for
instance, driving the English completely out of France, and withdrawing
from his long captivity Charles, Duke of Orleans.  He had been a prisoner
in London ever since the battle of Agincourt, and was popular in his day,
as he has continued to be in French history, on the double ground of
having been the father of Louis XII. and one of the most charming poets
in the ancient literature of France.  The Duke d'Alencon, who was so high
in the regard of Joan, attributed to her more expressly this quadruple
design: "She said," according to him, "that she had four duties; to get
rid of the English, to have the king anointed and crowned, to deliver
Duke Charles of Orleans, and to raise the siege laid by the English to
Orleans."  One is inclined to believe that Joan's language to Dunois at
Rheims in the hour of Charles VII.'s coronation more accurately expressed
her first idea; the two other notions occurred to her naturally in
proportion as her hopes as well as her power kept growing greater with
success.  But however lofty and daring her soul may have been, she had a
simple and not at all a fantastic mind.  She may have foreseen the
complete expulsion of the English, and may have desired the deliverance
of the Duke of Orleans, without having in the first instance premeditated
anything more than she said to Dunois during the king's coronation at
Rheims, which was looked upon by her as the triumph of the national
cause.

However that may be, when Orleans was relieved, and Charles VII.
crowned, the situation, posture, and part of Joan underwent a change.
She no longer manifested the same confidence in herself and her designs.
She no longer exercised over those in whose midst she lived the same
authority.  She continued to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, sometimes
with and sometimes without success, just like La Hire and Dunois; never
discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking upon her-self as
triumphant.  After the coronation, her advice was to march at once upon
Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, as being the political
centre of the realm of which Rheims was the religious.  Nothing of the
sort was done.  Charles and La Tremoille once more began their course of
hesitation, tergiversation, and changes of tactics and residence without
doing anything of a public and decisive character.  They negotiated with
the Duke of Burgundy, in the hope of detaching him from the English
cause; and they even concluded with him a secret, local, and temporary
truce.  From the 20th of July to the 23d of August Joan followed the king
whithersoever he went, to Chateau-Thierry, to Senlis, to Blois, to
Provins, and to Compigne, as devoted as ever, but without having her
former power.  She was still active, but not from inspiration and to obey
her voices, simply to promote the royal policy.  She wrote the Duke of
Burgundy a letter full of dignity and patriotism, which had no more
effect than the negotiations of La Tremoille.  During this fruitless
labor amongst the French the Duke of Bedford sent for five thousand men
from England, who came and settled themselves at Paris.  One division of
this army had a white standard, in the middle of which was depicted a
distaff full of cotton; a half-filled spindle was hanging to the distaff;
and the field, studded with empty spindles, bore this inscription: "Now,
fair one, come!"  Insult to Joan was accompanied by redoubled war against
France.  Joan, saddened and wearied by the position of things, attempted
to escape from it by a bold stroke.  On the 23d of August, 1429, she set
out from Compiegne with the Duke d'Alencon and "a fair company of
men-at-arms;" and suddenly went and occupied St. Denis, with the view of
attacking Paris.  Charles VII. felt himself obliged to quit Compiegne
likewise, "and went, greatly against the grain," says a contemporary
chronicler, "as far as into the town of Senlis."  The attack on Paris
began vigorously.  Joan, with the Duke d'Alencon, pitched her camp at La
Chapelle.  Charles took up his abode in the abbey of St. Denis.  The
municipal corporation of Paris received letters with the arms of the Duke
d'Alencon, which called upon them to recognize the king's authority, and
promised a general amnesty.  The assault was delivered on the 8th of
September.  Joan was severely wounded, but she insisted upon remaining
where she was.  Night came, and the troops had not entered the breach
which had been opened in the morning.  Joan was still calling out to
persevere.  The Duke d'Alencon himself begged her, but in vain, to
retire.  La Tremoille gave orders to retreat; and some knights came up,
set Joan on horse-back, and led her back, against her will, to La
Chapelle.  "By my martin" (staff of command), said she, "the place would
have been taken."  One hope still remained.  In concert with the Duke
d'Alencon she had caused a flying bridge to be thrown across the Seine
opposite St. Denis.  The next day but one she sent her vanguard in this
direction; she intended to return thereby to the siege; but, by the
king's order, the bridge had been cut adrift.  St. Denis fell once more
into the hands of the English.  Before leaving, Joan left there, on the
tomb of St. Denis, her complete suit of armor and a sword she had lately
obtained possession of at the St. Honore gate of Paris, as trophy of war.

From the 13th of September, 1429, to the 24th of May, 1430, she continued
to lead the same life of efforts ever equally valiant and equally
ineffectual.  She failed in an attempt upon Laemir.  Charite-sur-Loire,
undertaken, for all that appears, with the sole design of recovering an
important town in the possession of the enemy.  The English evacuated
Paris, and left the keeping of it to the Duke of Burgundy, no doubt to
test his fidelity.  On the 13th of Aprils 1430, at the expiration of the
truce he had concluded, Philip the Good resumed hostilities against
Charles VII.  Joan of Arc once more plunged into them with her wonted
zeal.  Ile-de-France and Picardy became the theatre of war.  Compiegne
was regarded as the gate of the road between these two provinces; and the
Duke of Burgundy attached much importance to holding the key of it.  The
authority of Charles VII. was recognized there; and a young knight of
Compiegne, William de Flavy, held the command there as lieutenant of La
Tremoille, who had got himself appointed captain of the town.  La
Tremoille attempted to treat with the Duke of Burgundy for the cession of
Compiegne; but the inhabitants were strenuously opposed to it.  "They
were," they said, "the king's most humble subjects, and they desired to
serve him with body and substance; but as for trusting themselves to the
lord Duke of Burgundy, they could not do it; they were resolved to suffer
destruction, themselves and their wives and children, rather than be
exposed to the tender mercies of the said duke."  Meanwhile Joan of Arc,
after several warlike expeditions in the neighborhood, re-entered
Compiegne, and was received there with a popular expression of
satisfaction.  "She was presented," says a local chronicler, with three
hogsheads of wine, a present which was large and exceeding costly, and
which showed the estimate formed of this maiden's worth."  Joan
manifested the profound distrust with which she was inspired of the Duke
of Burgundy.  There is no peace possible with him," she said, "save at
the point of the lance."  She had quarters at the house of the king's
attorney, Le Boucher, and shared the bed of his wife, Mary.  "She often
made the said Mary rise from her bed to go and warn the said attorney to
be on his guard against several acts of Burgundian treachery."  At this
period, again, she said she was often warned by her voices of what must
happen to her; she expected to be taken prisoner before St. John's or
Midsummer-day (June 24); on what day and hour she did not know; she had
received no instructions as to sorties from the place; but she had
constantly been told that she would be taken, and she was distrustful of
the captains who were in command there.  She was, nevertheless, not the
less bold and enterprising.  On the 20th of May, 1430, the Duke of
Burgundy came and laid siege to Compiegne.  Joan was away on an
expedition to Crepy in Valois, with a small band of three or four hundred
brave comrades.  On the 24th of May, the eve of Ascension-day, she
learned that Compiegne was being besieged, and she resolved to re-enter
it.  She was reminded that her force was a very weak one to cut its way
through the besiegers' camp.  "By my martin," said she, "we are enough; I
will go see my friends in Compiegne."  She arrived about daybreak without
hinderance, and penetrated into the town; and repaired immediately to the
parish church of St. Jacques to perform her devotions on the eve of so
great a festival.  Many persons, attracted by her presence, and amongst
others "from a hundred to six-score children," thronged to the church.
After hearing mass, and herself taking the communion, Joan said to those
who surrounded her, "My children and dear friends, I notify you that I am
sold and betrayed, and that I shall shortly be delivered over to death; I
beseech you, pray God for me."  When evening came, she was not the less
eager to take part in a sortie with her usual comrades and a troop of
about five hundred men.  William de Flavy, commandant of the place, got
ready some boats on the Oise to assist the return of the troops.  All the
town-gates were closed, save the bridge-gate.  The sortie was
unsuccessful.  Being severely repulsed and all but hemmed in, the
majority of the soldiers shouted to Joan, "Try to quickly regain the
town, or we are lost."  "Silence," said Joan; "it only rests with you to
throw the enemy into confusion; think only of striking at them."  Her
words and her bravery were in vain; the infantry flung themselves into
the boats, and regained the town, and Joan and her brave comrades covered
their retreat.  The Burgundians were coming up in mass upon Compiegne,
and Flavy gave orders to pull up the draw-bridge and let down the
portcullis.  Joan and some of her following lingered outside, still
fighting.  She wore a rich surcoat and a red sash, and all the efforts of
the Burgundians were directed against her.  Twenty men thronged round her
horse; and a Picard archer, "a tough fellow and mighty sour," seized her
by her dress, and flung her on the ground.  All, at once, called on her
to surrender.  "Yield you to me," said one of them; "pledge your faith to
me; I am a gentleman."  It was an archer of the bastard of Wandonne, one
of the lieutenants of John of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny.  "I have
pledged my faith to one other than you," said Joan, "and to Him I will
keep my oath."  The archer took her and conducted her to Count John,
whose prisoner she became.

Was she betrayed and delivered up, as she had predicted?  Did William de
Flavy purposely have the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered
before she could get back into Compiegne?  He was suspected of it at the
time, and many historians have indorsed the suspicion.  But there is
nothing to prove it.  That La Tremoille, prime minister of Charles VII.,
and Reginald de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, had an antipathy to Joan
of Arc, and did all they could on every occasion to compromise her and
destroy her influence, and that they were glad to see her a prisoner, is
as certain as anything can be.  On announcing her capture to the
inhabitants of Rheims, the arch-bishop said, "She would not listen to
counsel, and did everything according to her pleasure."  But there is a
long distance between such expressions and a premeditated plot to deliver
to the enemy the young heroine who had just raised the siege of Orleans
and brought the king to be crowned at Rheims.  History must not, without
proof, impute crimes so odious and so shameful to even the most depraved
of men.

However that may be, Joan remained for six months the prisoner of John of
Luxembourg, who, to make his possession of her secure, sent her, under
good escort, successively to his two castles of Beaulieu and Beaurevoir,
one in the Vermandois and the other in the Cambresis.  Twice, in July and
in October, 1430, Joan attempted, unsuccessfully, to escape.  The second
time she carried despair and hardihood so far as to throw herself down
from the platform of her prison.  She was picked up cruelly bruised, but
without any fracture or wound of importance.  Her fame, her youth, her
virtue, her courage, made her, even in her prison and in the very family
of her custodian, two warm and powerful friends.  John of Luxembourg had
with him his wife, Joan of Bethune, and his aunt, Joan of Luxembourg,
godmother of Charles VII.  They both of them took a tender interest in
the prisoner; and they often went to see her, and left nothing undone to
mitigate the annoyances of a prison.  One thing only shocked them about
her--her man's clothes.  "They offered her," as Joan herself said, when
questioned upon this subject at a later period during her trial, "a
woman's dress, or stuff to make it to her liking, and requested her to
wear it; but she answered that she had not leave from our Lord, and that
it was not yet time for it."  John of Luxembourg's aunt was full of years
and reverenced as a saint.  Hearing that the English were tempting her
nephew by the offer of a sum of money to give up his prisoner to them,
she conjured him in her will, dated September 10, 1430, not to sully by
such an act the honor of his name.  But Count John was neither rich nor
scrupulous; and pretexts were not wanting to aid his cupidity and his
weakness.  Joan had been taken at Compiegne on the 23d of May, in the
evening; and the news arrived in Paris on the 25th of May, in the
morning.  On the morrow, the 26th, the registrar of the University, in
the name and under the seal of the inquisition of France, wrote a
citation to the Duke of Burgundy "to the end that the Maid should be
delivered up to appear before the said inquisitor, and to respond to the
good counsel, favor, and aid of the good doctors and masters of the
University of Paris."  Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, had been the
prime mover in this step.  Some weeks later, on the 14th of July, seeing
that no reply arrived from the Duke of Burgundy, he caused a renewal of
the same demands to be made on the part of the University in more urgent
terms, and he added, in his own name, that Joan, having been taken at
Compiegne, in his own diocese, belonged to him as judge spiritual.  He
further asserted that "according to the law, usage, and custom of France,
every prisoner of war, even were it king, _dauphin_, or other prince,
might be redeemed in the name of the King of England in consideration of
an indemnity of ten thousand livres granted to the capturer."  Nothing
was more opposed to the common law of nations and to the feudal spirit,
often grasping, but noble at bottom.  For four months still, John of
Luxembourg hesitated; but his aunt, Joan, died at Boulogne, on the 13th
of November, and Joan of Arc had no longer near him this powerful
intercessor.  The King of England transmitted to the keeping of his
coffers at Rouen, in golden coin, English money, the sum of ten thousand
livres.  John of Luxembourg yielded to the temptation.  On the 21st of
November, 1430, Joan of Arc was handed over to the King of England, and
the same day the University of Paris, through its rector, Hebert,
besought that sovereign, as King of France, "to order that this woman be
brought to their city for to be shortly placed in the hands of the
justice of the Church, that is, of our honored lord, the Bishop and Count
of Beauvais, and also of the ordained inquisitor in France, in order that
her trial may be conducted officially and securely."

It was not to Paris, but to Rouen, the real capital of the English in
France, that Joan was taken.  She arrived there on the 23d of December,
1430.  On the 3d of January, 1431, an order from Henry VI., King of
England, placed her in the hands of the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter
Cauchon.  Some days afterwards, Count John of Luxembourg, accompanied by
his brother, the English chancellor, by his esquire, and by two English
lords, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Humphrey, Earl of
Stafford, the King of England's constable in France, entered the prison.
Had John of Luxembourg come out of sheer curiosity, or to relieve himself
of certain scruples by offering Joan a chance for her life?  "Joan," said
he, "I am come hither to put you to ransom, and to treat for the price of
your deliverance; only give us your promise here to no more bear arms
against us."  "In God's name," answered Joan, "are you making a mock of
me, captain?  Ransom me!  You have neither the will nor the power; no,
you have neither."  The count persisted.  "I know well," said Joan, "that
these English will put me to death; but were they a hundred thousand more
Goddams than have already been in France, they shall never have the
kingdom."

At this patriotic burst on the heroine's part, the Earl of Stafford half
drew his dagger from the sheath as if to strike Joan, but the Earl of
Warwick held him back.  The visitors went out from the prison and handed
over Joan to the judges.

The court of Rouen was promptly formed, but not without opposition and
difficulty.  Though Joan had lost somewhat of her greatness and
importance by going beyond her main object, and by showing recklessness,
unattended by success, on small occasions, she still remained the true,
heroic representative of the feelings and wishes of the nation.  When she
was removed from Beaurevoir to Rouen, all the places at which she stopped
were like so many luminous points for the illustration of her popularity.
At Arras, a Scot showed her a portrait of her which he wore, an outward
sign of the devoted worship of her lieges.  At Amiens, the chancellor of
the cathedral gave her audience at confession and administered to her the
eucharist.  At Abbeville, ladies of distinction went five leagues to pay
her a visit; they were glad to have had the happiness of seeing her so
firm and resigned to the will of Our Lord; they wished her all the favors
of heaven, and then wept affectionately on taking leave of her.  Joan,
touched by their sympathy and open heartedness, said, "Ah! what a good
people is this!  Would to God I might be so happy, when my days are
ended, as to be buried in these parts!"

When the Bishop of Beauvais, installed at Rouen, set about forming his
court of justice, the majority of the members he appointed amongst the
clergy or the University of Paris obeyed the summons without hesitation.