University of Virginia Library

THE FORTUNES OF THE MAID OF ARC;
A Superstitions Legend of the English Wars in France.
1428.

1. CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY: — ON THE HISTORY AND CHARACTER OF THE
MAID OF ORLEANS.

It is not within the compass of argument to maintain that
the progress of society, the advance of civilization, and the
growth of science, have not, in some degree, affected and even
altered the standards, by which men judge of thoughts, principles,
and actions, as praiseworthy or culpable — nay! in the
abstract, as virtuous or vicious. So, if I be not in error, it is
perfectly possible and consistent that, in two different periods
of the world, two different constitutions of society, the very
same line of conduct in man or woman should call forth the
highest admiration, and acquire deathless fame, or awaken
criticism only, and be judged dubious, at the least, if not disgraceful.

I might instance the recorded hardihood of Spartan mothers,
inaccessible to the slightest touch of womanly or motherly

feeling, a hardihood which it is still the fashion to laud in
Fourth-of-July orations as the bean-ideal of patriotism, heroism,
and a genuine love of freedom, whereas it was in truth no
more than the cold and stupid insensibility of minds unrefined
by civilization, unswerved by sentiment, and unsoftened by any
of those redeeming graces, which it is said, even among the
most barbarous and savage hordes, are observed to relieve the
primitive ruggedness of nature in the softer sex — a hardihood,
which, were it now affected or put on by maiden, wife or
mother of our race, would consign her to endless scorn and
loathing, as a woman deprived of the best attribute of womanhood,
and differing only from the lost and lowest of her sex as
inferior to them in the want of that “one touch of nature,”
which, in the words of the great English dramatist, “makes
the whole world kin.”

In the like manner, I might adduce the practice — for,
among the ancients, before the Christian era, it was a practice,
and a time-honored practice, too, among the wisest and the
best of men — of deliberate and long-premeditated suicide.
For in those days, not to die by his own hand, for one guiltlessly
sentenced to the hand of the executioner, or fallen into
the power of unrelenting enemies, was certainly regarded as
an act of cowardice and dishonor; while self-murder, in a
similar state of circumstances, was held an added title to the
immortal honor of the sage, the patriot, or the unsuccessful
hero.

At a much later period to decline the arbitration of the
sword in quarrels of a private and social nature, and, whether
in the case of receiving a wrong at the hands of another, or
inflicting it at his own, to deny the appeal to single combat,
was sufficient, nay! in some countries, to this very hour, is
sufficient, to deprive the highest member of society of all claim
to social position, to stigmatize him as a poltroon and banish

him, deprived of caste for ever, from the companionship of men
of honor; whereas, it is now the cry of that popular voice,
which some infatuated Roman once defined as being the voice
of God, that to endure obloquy, calumny, insult, nay! but
blows without resenting them, is the best proof of manhood,
of gentlemanly bearing, and of a clear and correct sense of
honor.

Without entertaining the slightest idea of entering into the
discussion of any one of these vexed and disputed questions,
I have thought it well to dwell something at length upon the
alteration of popular sentiment in these foregoing questions,
the rather that in the very person of the heroine whom I have
selected as the subject of the following romance, we have an
instance directly in point — an instance of conduct on the part
of a young woman, which, occurring as it did, in the early part
of the fifteenth century, I can not hesitate to pronounce the offspring
of genuine patriotism, of genuine heroism, and absolved,
in consequence of the mode of thinking and acting in those
days, from any censure of indecorum or want of those feminine
attributes, to which everything else is now, and most justly,
held subservient.

I am the more especially called upon to note this discrepance,
as I might otherwise myself fall under the charge of inconsistency,
since in many recent papers, I have taken occasion
to express my abhorrence and loathing of those women,
who, in an age of gentleness, civilization, refinement, and a
thorough apportionment of their appropriate rights, duties, and
tasks, to the two sexes, have chosen, in defiance of the laws
of nature, the modesty of nature, and the wholesome prescriptions
of society, and in obedience to a morbid love of excitement,
or masculine lust for power and fame, to undertake the parts,
unsolicited and uncalled for by anything of duty or of station,
of propagandists, conspirators, patriots, and statesmen; and

have actually so far forgotten themselves as to don, not figuratively,
but actually, the breeches, to become colonels of dragoons,
and to fight hand in hand among the shock of martial
gladiators. Of a truth! little as I can sympathize with the
executioners, the scourgers, as it is alleged, of women, quite
as little can I feel for the scourged, who, according to my
judgment, having made their election, were bound to abide by
the consequences, and having adopted the duties of manhood
had no right to complain of finding that they had thereby incurred
the responsibilities of manhood also.

It is to her gentleness, to her weakness, and to her alleged
incapacity to contend with man in braving the shocks of the
world, the inclemency of seasons, the severity of toils, and
more especially the brunt of battle, that woman is entitled to
the protection, the reverence, and even when perverse and
reprobate, to the pitiful clemency and considerate-tolerance of
man. The moment she assumes an equality of mental hardness,
of physical robustness, or of active hardihood and daring,
she forfeits the indulgences willingly conceded to the implied
weakness of her feminine organization, and having deliberately
unsexed herself, may properly and most righteously be judged
as one of those among whom she has chosen to enroll herself,
not as one of those whom she has deserted, in defiance of
every principle of decorum, decency, or nature.

An effeminate and effete, and unsexed man, the Hercules
degraded into a willing Omphale, has at all times been regarded
with scorn, abhorrence, and that disgust which is felt
for reptiles beyond and below the attributes of nature. Men
shrink from him with plainly-discovered loathing, and true
women shake the contamination of his vile presence from the
very skirts of their raiment.

Why is it, then? why should it be? How can it be? — for
it is, alas! — it is even among ourselves that the loud-tongued

viragoes, the sword-drawing termagants, who, ashamed of
their highest attributes, the delicate sensibilities, the finer organization,
the more perfect perceptions, purer motives, holier
aspirations, and more admirable powers of their own sex, who
in love with the brute force, the fierce ambition, the fiery excitement
peculiar to us,
who forgetful of all modesty, propriety, decorum, nature, unsex
themselves even to the putting on not the garb only, but the
feelings of the gladiator, looking on death with wolfish eyes,
nay! dealing death with gory hands. How can it be that
these, and such as these, can meet with sympathy, nay! but
with raptures of applause, triumphs of adulation, not from the
men alone — though that were bad enough — but from the
women — the sensitive, the delicate, the feminine — would that
we could add, the true-hearted women of America.

Even in men, and with a good cause to boot, heroism of the
battle-field, is it not a bloody and a beastly business? and if the
state of society may not dispense with it, nor the constitution
of the human heart deny its thrill of admiring sympathy to the
brave man, the strength and daring of whose spirit conquers the
weakness of his flesh, and in whom the love of country or of
glory is greater than the fear of death — in Heaven's high
name, let us at least limit the license of the sword to the male
hero, and doom the woman who betakes herself to so bloody
work to a sentence as disgraceful as that which in the male
attaches to the coward. It were a just doom, sanctioned by
nature and analogy — for each is alike guilty of unfitness to
rational duties, of rebellion against the veriest law of nature —
and here the woman is the worst sinner, as offences of commission
must needs be heavier than those of omission, and as

wilfulness is at all times less the subject of pity than weakness
which can not always be controlled.

But, as I have before remarked, there have been ages of
the world in which the generally-received opinions concerning
duties, obligations, and the appropriate functions and fitnesses
of the sexes have been so different from those which now exist,
that the historian of modern days is bound to judge of the
actions and principles, the characters and conduct of the great
and good, as well as of the base and bad, in accordance with
the lights which they possessed and the views which these
obtained, not as if they had occurred under the clearer blaze
of recent knowledge, or under the better-ordered standards of
a wiser and more decorous society. So that many deeds may
have been done, nay! have been done in the troublous times
of the middle ages, which we must admire, must elaborate,
must hold aloft, as examples of splendid heroism; though they
would now-a-days be stigmatized with propriety as indecorous,
and as indicative of feeling and impulses which must be regarded
as anything rather than honorable. And again, many
deeds, which would now be recorded, with execrations on the
heads of the perpetrators; as prodigies of cruelty and honor,
must be narrated as lamentable instances of the ignorance and
semi-barbarism of general society at that period, but by no
means as examples of unusual or peculiar ferocity, or insensibility,
or ignorance of the individual. Of the former class are
many of the most highly-lauded warlike exploits of the middle
ages, many of which are tinctured with a degree of hardness,
ruthlessness, insensibility, and love of battle, if not of blood-shed,
which would be pronounced in the nineteenth century as
purely detestable. High-bred and gentle women looked upon
strife and slaughter, not with dismay and loathing, but with
applause and admiration, and rewarded the most blood-stained
homicide with renown and love. The dearest ties of affection

were broken on trivial points of honor. Insensibility to the
death of children, parents, wives, nay, the sacrifice of near
kinsmen to small points of chivalry, were held claims for honorable
note and fame of patriotic heroism. Quarter was rarely
given on the field of battle until the victors were weary and
worn out with slaying, unless for the sake of immeasurable
ransoms, and men of the highest rank, character, and condition,
were suffered to languish miserable years in closer durance
than the worst felon of our days, if once they were so
hapless as to fall into the hands of an enemy as prisoners-of-war.

Of the second class are the judicial combats, the fearful punishments
inflicted on innocent persons for witchcraft, magic,
devil-worship, and the like, all which absurdities were then
more generally believed to be positive truths, and atrocities of
hourly occurrence, by the nations at large, from the highest
and best to the lowest intellects, than are the truths of Holy
Writ accepted as truths by the masses of even the most Christian
communities. It is much to be doubted whether down to
the fourteenth century there were even ten men living in Europe,
from the Danube to the Bay of Biscay, who disbelieved
the actual and present agency of the Supreme Being in judicial
battles, or of the Evil Being in necromancies, magical murders,
false prophecies, and all the fanciful wickednesses comprised
under the vulgar name of witchcraft.

In reviewing, therefore, the first class, we must not be detained
by the ruggedness, the hardness, the impossibility, nor
even by the fierce and sanguinary habits of the times, for attributing
the praise of true heroism to many who were in their
days, and according to their acceptance of the nature of heroism,
true heroes, whatever might be the title which should be
justly given to their deeds done now-a-days.

In like manner, recording the events of the second order,

we must beware of attributing individual cruelty and savageness
to rulers or magistrates who ordered the infliction of
penalties which make our blood run cold, for offences which
we know to have no existence, but in the reality of which they
implicitly believed; for they were in reality no more censurable
than the judge and jury of a modern court is for pronouncing
a sentence, or finding a verdict of death, this year, for an
offence, which the milder law of another year pronounces
worthy only of a more venial penalty.

In both these classes of events and actions so long as the
actors have acted up to the standards which their own ages
considered best, highest, purest, noblest, they must be acquitted
of all blame, and entitled to all honor. It is only where
they have fallen below the spirit of their time in morality, or
clemency, or virtue, or where they have grossly exceeded it
in superstition, intolerance, bigotry, or severity, or, once
more, where being themselves endued with clearer lights,
purer perceptions, and higher talents, they have used and
perverted the less elevated spirit of the times to their own
selfish, ambitious, personal, or even patriotically political
views.

The heroine whom I have assigned to this romance presents
a remarkable case in point, under both the views in question
— under the first as regards her character, and the light in
which we are to regard her — under the second, as relates
to her lamentable and unmerited end.

The first question, as regards written history, has always
been decided in her favor, though it is quite certain that according
to existing ideas, a woman playing such a part to-day,
would receive no higher credit from the judicious or the right-minded
than a Marie Ambree, an Augustina of Saragossa, an
Apollonia Jagello, or any other high-spirited virago, whom we
puff in newspaper columns and praise in after-dinner speeches.

yet never dream of introducing to our wives, or holding up as
objects of imitation to our daughters. The second question
has as generally been mistreated by historians, and attributed
nationally as a peculiar disgrace to England, and individually
as an act of unusual atrocity to the regent Bedford, though it
is perfectly evident that her fate would have been identical,
if her captors had been Frenchmen, and her judges Charles or
Dunois, for as the winning side really believed her mission,
inspiration, and powers, to be divine, the losers as readily supposed
them to be fiendish: and, in truth, the whole of her
career is so strange, unaccountable, and marvellous, even apart
from the supernatural wonders added to it by the one party,
and implicitly received by both, that it would be scarce surprising,
if, in much milder and more recent times, and among
more enlightened actors, such a course of success were considered
by the vulgar minds, of which by the way there are
many in every place, as the result of superhuman powers.
Nay! I believe that, could such a thing have occurred, as the
checking of the career of the French arms, after Lodi, Marengo,
Austerlitz, and Jena, the total and repeated overthrow of
Napoleon, and the rolling back the refluent tide of battle from
the Po and Danube to the Seine and Loire, by an Austrian or
Italian peasant-maiden, half the consular or imperial armies
would have cried sorcery and the other treason, and if taken,
she would unquestionably have shared the fate, if not of Joan
of Arc, at least of Hofer and a hundred Spanish partisans shot
in cold blood as brigands. Nor do I think the case would
have been much altered if Wellington had been driven from
the conquered Pyrenees to the Tagus by a French paysanne,
or the victor of Buena Vista into the Rio Grande by a black-browed
Mexicana — at least, I am sure that such events would
go further to justify the belief of supernatural agency than any
part of the performance of the Misses Fox at Rochester with
their assistant knockers, which are believed by many, of what
some are pleased to call “the best minds in the country,” to
be, not only superhuman and divine, but the best, if not sole
convincing proofs of the immortality of the soul. Oh! Plato,
Plato, if thy reasonings were well, some of them have been
received into most ill understandings.

But to come more directly to the personality of my heroine,
it can not, I think, be doubted, whatever hypothesis we may
take of her career, that she was a very extraordinary, unusual,
and in some sort, superior person. That she was an impostor
is incredible, and if, as I doubt not to have been the case, she
was a visionary or enthusiast, and perhaps something approaching
to what we call a somnambulic or mesmeric personage,
she must have had very rare faith in her own mission as a
reality, and, what is more, very rare powers of making others
also believe in its truth and divinity, to have effected what she
did, with the means which she had at her command. For the
minds with which, and against which, she acted, were all
minds of greatly above average capacity; and yet it appears
to me to be very certain that the leaders of both hosts did believe
in her real possession of superhuman powers — indeed,
I scarcely see how at that day, and in the then state of the
human mind, they could have believed otherwise — though the
French would of course regard the supernaturalism as a divine,
the English as a diabolical agency; for such is the natural
constitution of the human mind, the partisans of any cause,
which they have once fairly adopted, under whatever views,
coming in the end to regard it as the true and Heaven-favored
cause.

But in order to get a little more nearly at this, let us see
what was the state of France at her appearance, what the circumstances
of her success, and what the real extent of her services
to her king and country.

About fourteen years before, the tremendous battle of Agincourt,
won by the fifth Henry of England, had more than decimated
the aristocracy, and completely subdued the feudal military
power of France; all the leading princes of the blood
royal, and a fearful proportion of the nobility of the realm had
been slain on the fatal field, or still languished in English dungeons.
From that day forth, every species of calamity had
befallen the unhappy France, the queen-mother hostile to her
own son, a minor, the dauphin Charles, the furious factions of
the Armagnacs and Burgundians literally deluging the streets
of Paris with French blood, province against province, prince
against prince, and ever and anon the English profiting by the
dissensions and disasters of the enemy, to break in and overrun,
and desolate, and take possession, until it really did seem as
though the boastful pretensions of the English king were true;
and as though his utmost ambition was about to be realized,
when he replied to the cardinal des Ursins, who would have
persuaded him to peace: “Do you not see that God has led
me hither as by the hand? France has no sovereign; I have
just pretensions to the kingdom; everything here is in the utmost
confusion, no one thinks of resisting me. Can I have a
more sensible proof that the Being who disposes of empires has
determined to put the crown of France upon my head?”

And shortly afterward, though the battle of Beaugè, wherein
the duke of Clarence fell by the spear of the Scottish champion,
Allan Swinton, and Dorset, Somerset, and Huntingdon, were
made prisoners, threw a solitary gleam of lustre over the dark
affairs of France, it availed not to retard the progress of Henry,
who had, in fact, conquered all the northern provinces, and held
them in quiet possession; who was master of the capital, Paris,
wherein his son, afterward Henry VI., of most hapless memory,
was born amid general acclamations, and almost unanimously
hailed as heir to both crowns; and who had chased the

dauphin beyond the Loire, whither he was pursued, almost in
despair, by the victorious and united arms of Burgundy and
England.

Had Henry's life been prolonged, it is difficult to conjecture
what would have been the end, for he was no less politic as a
prince, and shrewd as a man, than daring, skilful, and successful
as a leader. But the Disposer of empires, whose fiat he
had so recently anticipated, had already disposed of the tenure
of his own, much more of his half-conquered and rashly-expected
crown, and he was summoned from the captured capital of
France, before that throne, where kings and crowns are judged
equally, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of
his reign — a great king, a great conqueror, a brave, honorable,
and, in the main, a just and good man. Few men have performed
more splendidly, ambitious acts from less personally
selfish motives; few kings have attained such glorious greatness
through their own personal action, with less alloy of evil or
detraction.

His son, whom he left not nine months old, and “whose
misfortune in the course of his life,” to quote the language of
Hume, “surpassed all the glories and successes of his father,”
succeeded to the crown of his father, and to his claims on that
of France; nor, although minorities are proverbially weak, and
the times were turbulent and stormy, did his tenure of the one,
or his accession to the other, appear at first doubtful.

Soon after the death of Henry, his rival, Charles VI. died
also. He had for many years possessed mere nominal authority
of his France, and his life had been as unhappy to himself
as disastrous to his country. To his son he left only a disputed
crown and a divided country, and that he ever owned the one
unquestioned and the other entire, he owed in part to his own
high qualities and in part to the character and achievements
of Joan, the maid of Arc and Orleans. He was crowned at

Poictiers, Charles VII.; his Paris, and Rheims, the sacred coronation
city, being both in the hands of the English. This
event occurred in the year 1422, and, although Henry was an
infant, and when even he arrived at manhood, little better than
imbecile, so splendid was the administration of the protector,
the duke of Bedford, and so great the talents of the renowned
generals who commanded under him, Somerset, Warwick,
Arundel, Salisbury, Suffolk, and the still greater Talbot, that
they not only held Guienne, the capital, and all the northern
provinces, but pressed the war with vigor in the south and west,
so that this position of Charles VI. had become almost desperate,
when the disastrous battle of Verneuil, second only in the
slaughter of nobility to the fields of Cressy, Poictiers, and
Agincourt, reduced him to the last extremity, and to such a
state of hopeless poverty and depression, that not only was he
compelled to abandon every effort at sustaining the parade of a
court, but was scarcely enabled to procure daily subsistence for
himself and a few faithful followers.

Just at this moment, some dissensions occurred in the English
ministry, and the duke of Bedford was recalled home, his
place being ably filled by Suffolk, and, although the duke of
Brittany was beginning to look distastefully on the English alliance,
and Montargis was relieved by the bastard of Orleans,
better known in after-days as the count of Dunois, so little
effect did the change of hands appear to have produced on the
conduct of the war, that Orleans, the most important city of
France, in the possession of Charles, was closely invested and
on the point of yielding, while the king himself was dissuaded
from retreating into the remote provinces of Dauphiny and Languedoc
by the entreaties only of the fair but frail Agnes Sorel.

At this time an incident occurred so strange, and with consequences
so extraordinary, that once can scarce wonder at
the credulity of a French historian, who, describing the first

appearance of Joan on the scene of history, commences thus:
“But at this crisis the Lord, not desiring that France should
be entirely undone, sent a woman,” &c., &c., evidently esteeming
her mission as positive and direct as that of St. John, or
any of the holy apostles— nor, I conceive, is it all to be doubted
that she herself, and those to whom she revealed her visions,
were as confident of her divine inspiration and suprehuman
power.

She was a poor girl, of the small village of Domremi, near
Vaucouleurs, in Lorraine, of the very lowest class of society.
She is variously stated to have been a hostler-wench at an inn,
and shepherdess; but of irreproachable conduct, and undoubted
virtue. It is said that she had manifested no singularity nor
given any tokens of possessing superior genius, until she was
seized by a sudden idea that she saw visions and heard voices
commissioning her to re-establish the throne of France, and
expel the foreign invaders. She first made her way to the
presence of Baudricourt, the governor of Vancouleurs, to whom
she declared her mission, and, although he at first treated her
with neglect, she at length so far convinced him that he sent
her on with an escort to the French court, at the little town of
Chinon. Here, it is asserted, that she at once recognised the
king, though purposely disguised and surrounded by his courtiers,
and that she claimed and described, even to its minutest
ornaments, and the place where it had long lain concealed, a
curious antique sword, which was found in the church of St.
Catharine de Fierbois. Hume, who is ever skeptical, leans to
the view that all this was jugglery, not exactly on Joan's part,
but on that of the French king and Dunois, who were determined
to use her as an instrument; and to the talents and skill
of the leaders, whose tactics he supposed were followed, Joan
being merely led as a puppet through the host, he ascribes all
that follows.

This appears to me to be in no degree tenable. In the first
place, no person can be half-real enthusiast, half-impostor —
the one or other phase of character must prevail — the impostor
who knows his own jugglery, can not believe in his own supernatural
power; the enthusiast who does believe, has no need
to have recourse to imposture. Secondly, so general a religious
imposture, to which jurists, doctors of divinity, and ignorant,
superstitious warriors must have lent themselves, is
wholly inconsistent with the spirit of the age, and the character
of the popular mind. Thirdly, Dunois, and the other French
leaders had been daily and hourly beaten, and had never shown
either the talents or the force which they subsequently displayed.
Fourthly, it is little likely that on the faith of so shallow
and childish an imposture as dressing up a simple-village
girl, not only sane but shrewd and wise men, who had not previously
ventured to undertake the most trivial sally, now boldly
should set armies in the field, carry out enterprises of great
pith and moment, and utterly paralyze foes so able as Suffolk,
Talbot, Scales, and Falstoffe, by a series of well-directed blows,
stunningly delivered and rapidly followed up. Fifthly, it is
incredible, that, if the French had been such fools as to try so
silly a trick, if a mere trick, the English could be so miserably
gulled. And lastly, the empty and useless pageant of the procession
to Rheims, the whole distance through the heart of
an enemy's country and in the midst of his hostile and undismayed
garrisons, can not be accounted for by political, military,
or rational grounds, or by any supposition, unless this, that
every person of the French army, and of the English army
also, was thoroughly convinced of her supernatural power, and
irresistible prowess.

This supposition, accounts for the attempt, and accounts also
for its success. And such a conviction only could be wrought
upon such minds as those of Charles VII., and Dunois, of Suffolk,

and Sir John Talbot, by a person who did really possess
extraordinary talents, extraordinary enthusiasm, and did really
perform extraordinary things. No one now believes that
Oliver Cromwell really heard a voice, at the dead of night,
telling him in his obscure boyhood that he should be “not
king, but the first man in England,” nor is it probable that John
Hampden then believed the vision, but he did believe the enthusiasm,
and did believe the fact, as he told Sir Philip Warwick,
that “you sloven would be the greatest man in England.”
The belief made the enthusiasm of the man — the enthusiasm
of the man made the belief of the followers, and the enthusiasm
and the belief excited, made the imagined vision to come to
pass in a palpable fact.

The facts are that she relieved Orleans, in the first place giving
up her own opinion to the advice of Dunois, hers being the
more daring council — that she then threw herself into the city,
marching, according to her own plan, directly through the English
lines, the hitherto victorious Britons, before a dozen of
whom hundreds of French had been daily flying in panic torror,
not daring to attack her — that she stormed the lines of Suffolk,
and utterly defeated his whole army with prodigious loss
— that, then, following up her successes, she stormed Jergeau,
whither the regent had retired, carried the town by assault,
Suffolk himself being obliged to surrender himself, and that a
few days after, she again attacked the rear of the late victorious
forces, with such headlong valor, that the redoubted Falstoffe
fled like a poltroon before her, and was deprived of his garter
for cowardice, while Talbot and Scales were made prisoners,
and the whole army and cause of the English utterly disorganized
and lost.

These are not the acts of an impostor, nor of men palming
an enthusiast, in whom they did not believe, on inferior
minds. Where did Charles and Dunois gain the audacity, the

skill, and the fortune to recover all that they had lost in fourteen
years, in as many days — where, indeed, if not in the conviction
that Joan's enthusiasm, visionary possession, and energetic
will were indeed of Heaven, and themselves consequently destined
to be victorious?

The rest of her career is explained yet more easily on the
same hypothesis. She next declared that her further mission
was to conduct Charles in triumph, at the head of a small
force, to Rheims, across one half of the breadth of France, and
there to crown him with the due ceremonial of the kings of
France; and this, too, she accomplished without a banner
raised, a trumpet blown, or a spear couched against her. The
attempt justified the success, for the very rashness of the undertaking
and inadequacy of the object increased the panic of
the English. But in what possible light must we regard the
statesmen and warriors whom Hume believes to have been the
moving actors of this wonderful drama? If we believe them,
when it was their business to have hunted the invaders from
post to post while their panic was fresh upon them, until they
left the land they had so long held as their own — if we believe
them, I say, at such a time, to have risked all they had won,
and their army and king to boot, for the sake of a mere empty
pageant, which might well have followed, but absurdly preceded
the conquest of the enemy.

This done, Joan declared her mission ended, her powers
revoked, and made public her desire to resume the dress of her
sex and her former condition. She was overruled, and a few
days afterward taken in a sally from Compiegne, by John of
Luxembourg, and transferred to the duke of Bedford, by whom
she was delivered over to the ecclesiastical power, tried by a
court of bishops at Rouen, in which only one Englishman
sat, and sentenced to be burned to death as a witch. Assailed
on all sides by doctors and divines, by promises and

threats, and naturally and consistently doubting, from her fall, the
origin of her former successes, she declared her visions to be illusions,
and her powers impostures, and her sentence was thereupon
commuted. Having, however, resumed male habits, said
to have been purposely thrown in her way, and again returned to
her former belief in her supernatural inspiration, probably from
the idea that the male habiliments were supernaturally sent to
her, she was adjudged a relapsed heretic and magician, and
was cruelly, but in direct accordance with the notions and
ideas of the age, burnt to ashes in the market-place at Rouen.

I see no cause to agree in the belief that any peculiar cruelty
excited, or that any political tactics prompted either
Bedford or her judges, nor that it was any “pretence,” as
Hume terms it, “of heresy and magic,” by which she was
consigned to the flames; but that it was as full a belief on the
part of her slayers that she was a foul and fiendish wizard,
as her own conviction, and that of her followers, was full and
certain that she was a messenger of Heaven.

Heroine and enthusiast she was, spotless of life, dauntless
of courage, hapless of death, but most fortunate of glory —
certainly an agent and minister of Providence, not by divine
mission, but by the working of natural causes — for she redeemed
the throne of France to its native owners, never again
to be seriously disputed by an English claimant. Few heroines
have a fairer title to the name, and none a fame more spotless.

2. CHAPTER II.
THE MISSION.

The destinies of France were at the lowest. From the
rapid waters of the Rhine to the stormy coasts of the Atlantic,
from Calays to the heights of Jura, there was but a single
thought, a single terror among the inhabitants of that fair
and fertile kingdom — the English! the victorious English!
Never, since the days of Charles the Bold, when the roving
Northmen had moored their galleys on the coast, and erected
their raven-standards on the conquered walls of Neustria —
never had the arm of foreign invader so paralyzed the efforts,
so overawed the high and cheerful courage of that warlike
people. Paris herself was garrisoned by the victorious archers
of the Ocean Isle, and scarce an echo throughout the
western provinces but had sent back the twanging of their
bows and the deep terrors of their Saxon war-cry. Force and
guile had hitherto been tried in vain. If, for a moment, at the
death of some bold leader on the field of his renown Fortune
had seemed to smile, it was but to efface the recollection of
that transitory gleam in the dark sorrows that succeeded it.
Salisbury, indeed, had fallen; but, in his place, the stern and
politic Bedford, than whom a wiser regent never swayed the

terrible engine of military power, lorded it over the crouching
natives with equal ability and tenfold rigor; nor could the
united force of France and Scotland, the emulous and well-matched
valor of Douglas and the bold Dunois, effect more
than a temporary check on men to whom battle had become
the very breath of life, and victory the certain consequence of
battle.

It was at this fatal period, when, the English lion “camped
in gold” over the subject towers of every town or castle from
Brest to Calays — when the feeble garrison of Orleans alone
maintained a protracted resistance — the resistance of despair
— when the battle of the Herrings had put an end, even in the
boldest spirit, to the hope of raising that last siege — when the
trembling parliament was convened at Poictiers, and the court
dwelt, shorn of half its honors, in the petty town of Chinon —
when the aisles of Notre-Dame were polluted by mass and
requiem chanted in the strange dialect of the invaders. It
was at this stormy period that the sire de Baudricourt sat alone
in his ancient chateau of Vancouleurs Night had already
closed around, and the small turret-chamber, in which he sat,
was dark and gloomy; but not more gloomy nor more dark
than was the visage of the stern old governor. No lights
had yet been brought, and the embers of an expiring fire
scarce threw their fitful illuminations beyond the jambs of the
waste and tomb-like chimney. A table covered with a faded
carpet, and strewn with two or three huge folios, treatises on
the art of war, and several rude scrawls, the nearest approach
to maps of which that remote age was capable, occupied the
centre of the chamber; and beside it in a high chair of antique
oak, the tall, spare form of the old warrior, his arms
folded and his teeth set, brooded over the misfortunes of his
sovereign and of his native land. A loose robe of sad-colored
velvet, gathered round his waist by a broad belt of buff

from which protruded the hilt of a long and formidable poniard,
and a bonnet of the same materials carelessly thrown
upon his time-blanched locks, composed his present attire;
though at a few paces' distance from his seat, a heart-shaped
shield, dinted by many a shrewd blow; and a huge two-handled
espaldron, at least five feet in length, on which might be
traced, even through the growing darkness, as the red glare
of the wood-fire rose and fell in transient gleams upon its
corsleted hilt and pondrous blade, the stains of recent slaughter,
together with a crested burgonet and shirt of linked mail,
lying in confusion in a recess formed by an embrasure, proved
that the sire of Baudricourt had not as yet neglected the practice
or the theory of war, nor forgotten in his old age the lessons
of hard experience, which he had been taught in the
well-fought, though fatal field of Agincourt, and many a disastrous
battle since.

The shades of night fell darker yet and darker, the clash
of arms without, and a repeated flourish of trumpets, mingled
with the booming of the kettle-drums, announced the setting
of the watch, but failed to arouse the old man from the stupor,
which, it would seem, had fallen on his usually elastic and
energetic spirit. There he sat alone in the deepening gloom
like some desolate and foiled magician, forsaken by the very
friends who had ministered to his success, but ministered only
to precipitate his fall, gazing with a fixed and stormy eye upon
the vacant darkness. A quick step was heard without, the
fastenings of the door jingled beneath the pressure of a hasty
hand, the creaking leaves flew open with a jar that might have
roused a thousand sleepers buried in the deepest slumbers of
the flesh; but his were slumbers of the mind, nor did he start
from his chair until the light and reverential touch of the
squire, who stood beside his elbow, had thoroughly dispelled
the waking dreams which had so completely enthralled his mind.

“Damian,” he cried, as soon as he became aware of the
intruder's presence, “Damian, what wouldst thou? hast thou
more ill-tidings for our ear? For, by my faith, all tidings have
been ill for France, these six months. Alas! alas! poor
France! Unhappy country!” and he smote his breast heavily
as the full sense of all her miseries flashed upon his mind,
stunned as it had been before, and paralyzed by the news of
the last defeat.

“Not so, beau sire,” replied the squire; “but there is one
below urgent to see your valor on matters, it is rumored, of
high import.”

“Admit him on the instant,” was the hasty answer of the
impatient baron — “on the instant! Sir, this is no time for
loitering; and let those lazy knaves bring lights and mend the
fire. This is cold cheer! Look to it, sir, and speedily.”

The dormant spark once kindled in his bosom, he did not
again sink into despondency or gloom; and, till the return of
the squire bearing a pair of huge waxen torches, flaming and
smoking in the sudden gusts of wind that wandered through
those old apartments, he strode impatiently, almost fiercely,
across the narrow floor, the solid timbers groaning beneath his
still firm stride, now muttering to himself, now playing with
his dagger-hilt, and now pausing awhile to mark if he could
eatch the footsteps of the new-comer. “They come not yet.
Tete Dieu, the loitering knaves. Heaven's malison upon
them! And it may be despatches from Poictiers! Would
that it were — would that it were! Ma foi, this garrison duty,
and these dull skirmishes with the base Flemish hogs upon
the frontier, are foul checks on the spirit of a gentleman of
France! Would that it were despatches, that old Baudricourt
might see once more the waving of the oriflamme, the ban
and arriêre ban of France, and stand some chance of falling,
as brave men should fall, among the splintering of lances, and

the gallopping of war-steeds, the fluttering of pennons, and the
merry blaze of trumpets; but, mea culpa! mea culpa! what
have I said or thought? The best, the bravest knight is
enough honored — enough, did I say? — is too much honored,
so he may serve his country!”

The muttered soliloquy of the baron was interrupted by the
entrance of a dozen of serving-men, not in rich liveries or
peaceful garb, but helmed and booted, with sword on the hips,
and the spur on the heel, ready alike for the service of their
lord in the hall of banquet, or on the field of carnage, and
prompt to execute his bidding almost before it was expressed.
Fresh logs were heaped upon the hearth, which soon diffused
a broad and cheerful glare athwart the Gothic niches and
richly-tinted casements; a dozen lights glittered around the
walls; the worm-eaten folios and dusty parchments disappeared
from the central table, and in their place two massive
flagons of burnished silver, with as many goblets of a yet more
precious metal, sent back the mingled light of fire and torches
in a dozen streams of bright reflection. Scarce were these
dispositions of the chamber completed, ere Damian returned,
accompanied by the stranger whose arrival had created so
much anxiety. This was a low, slight figure, apparently a
stripling of some eighteen years, wrapped in a long, dark
mantle, which fully answered the purpose of a disguise, as it
trailed upon the ground behind, while in front it hung far below
the ankles; a Spanish hat, much slouched over the face,
with a black, drooping feather, concealed the features of the
wearer as completely as the mantle did his form. Entering
the turret-chamber, the figure advanced quickly for about three
paces, then, without uncloaking, or even removing his hat,
although the stately baron had uncovered his locks of snow,
in deference to his guest, turned abruptly to the squire, who
had paused upon the threshold, motioning him to retire.

“Not I, by Heaven!” muttered the favorite attendant; “not
I, and that, too, at a nameless and most discourteous stranger's
bidding.”

“Damian!” exclaimed the old baron, with a stern and solemn
emphasis, “Damian, begone.”

“My master! — my honored, my adored master,” cried the
squire flinging himself at the feet of the lord he had followed
in many a bloody day, and wetting his buskins with honest
tears — “anything! — anything but this! Bid me not leave
you — and alone with yon dark stranger. Bethink you, sir, for
France's sake, if not for Damian's, or your own — bethink you!
It is scarce three months since the bold knight of Bracquemont
was murthered — basely murthered — on his own hearthstone,
and by a nameless guest. Who knows not, too, of the captal
de Bûche kidnapped in his princely hall, and borne from the
midst of his own retainers to an eternal dungeon? Let me
stay with you, beau sire; a Villeneuve has no ears to hear,
nor eyes to see, nor hand to strike, save at the bidding of a
Baudricourt.”

“This must not be, good Damian,” replied the knight, but
no longer in accents of anger; “this must not be! Your fears
for me have overpowered your wonted penetration. See, 'tis
a stripling — a mere stripling! Why, this old arm could quell
— hath quelled a score of such, and thought it light work, too,
good Damian. So! my faithful friend. Is your old lord so
fallen in your estimation that you dare not trust him to his own
good blade against a single boy? Why, I have known the
day you would have borne our gage of battle to Roland, and
pledged your hope of golden spurs upon our battle! Leave us
awhile, good Damian! It needs not this — away!”

Reluctantly and slowly did the trusty squire withdraw, keeping
his eye fixed on the dark cloak and slouched head-gear,
which seemed so suspicious to his loves or to his fears, and

his hand griping the hilt of his short, sharp estoc until the door
closed upon him; and even then he stood at a short distance,
watching, as the greyhound straining in the slips, when the
slow-hounds are making the coppice ring with their deep baying,
to catch the slightest indication of tumult or disturbance
in the chamber of his lord, that he might fly to his aid, and,
if not rescue, at least die for his benefactor. With a keen
eye, and watchful, if not suspicious spirit, the old knight scrutinized
the motions of his guest. Before the jarring of the
ponderous door had fully announced that they were alone, the
plumed hat was cast aside, revealing, by its absence, a well-formed
head, covered with a profusion of black and silky hair,
hanging in short but massy ringlets, far down the neck of the
stranger, and a set of features which might well have passed
for those of a beautiful girl, but which might yet belong to extreme
youth and delicacy in the other sex. The brow was
broader and more massive than is often seen in women, and
the eyes, though fringed with long and lovely lashes, had an
expression of wild and almost ecstatic boldness; the rest of
the lineaments that met the eye of Baudricourt were regular
and delicate, even to effeminancy, in their chiselling.

“In God's name, what art thou?” cried the stern warrior,
losing, in the wonder and excitement of the moment, all the
cold dignity and hauteur of his wonted mood. “Maiden, or
page, spirit of the blessed, or dark and evil fiend, I know not,
and I care not, speak? Stand not thus, I do conjure thee —
speak?”

The mantle fell slowly to the ground, and a female form of
exquisite proportions, though somewhat lofty for its years and
sex, stood palpably before him. The dress had nothing to
create even a moment's attention: a dark, close robe of serge,
gathered about the waist by a broad, leathern girdle, and sandals
of the chamois hide, and no more; but in the attitude, the

supernatural expression of the features, the hands uplifted,
and, above all, the penetrating glance of the full and flashing
eyes, there was much, which, in that age of mystery and
superstition, might well have led the governor to deem his
visitant a being of no mortal origin.

“Thou art a lover of thy country,” she said at length in harmonious,
but slow and solemn tones, “a faithful servant of thy
king, a fervent worshipper of the one living God? I tell thee,
sire de Baudricourt, that by the special favor of the last, thou
shalt save thy native land from the fury of the invader, and
seat thy monarch once again upon the throne of his forefathers.
This shalt thou do. Swear only to follow my commands, the
commands of thy king, thy country, and thy God?”

“And who art thou to speak thus boldly of the will of monarchs,
and the destined mercies of Almighty power?” cried
Baudricourt, recovering somewhat from his first surprise, and
becoming rapidly incredulous, nearly to the same degree in
which he had lately been the contrary.

“I might say to thee, as He once said to his doubting servant
in the wilderness, I AM, and, did I speak the words,
't were parricidal sin in thee to doubt them. But though thy
flesh is weak and faithless, thy heart is true and loyal; therefore,
I say to thee, I am the Maid of Arc, the Maid of Orleans
that shall be, and thence the Maid of Rheims. In me hath
God raised up a savior to his bleeding country, a deliverance
to his people!”

“Tush, tell me not! Heaven chooses other messengers, I
trow, than such as thee to work its miracles! Nor would thy
slender form bide long the brunt of Suffolk's levelled lances,
or Bedford's archery!”

“Ha! Doubtest thou the will of the Omnipotent? — doubtest
thou that He, who chose the son of the humble carpenter
to be his Son, is the anointed King and Savior of the universe? —

doubtest thou that he can turn the frailty of the weakest girl into
an engine ten thousand times more mighty than the practised
valor of the bravest veteran? Me! me! has he raised up,
and, spite of thee, old warrior, I will save my country! And
thou, whose patriotism, whose loyalty, and whose religion, are
but a mockery and a lie, thou, too, shalt see the glories thou
hast presumed to doubt!”

“Sayest thou?” shouted her enraged host — “sayest thou
so, wench? By Him that made us both, but that I deem thee
mad, dearly shouldst thou rue thy contumely!”

“Even as I entered,” was the calm reply — “even as I entered,
thou didst frame a wish to perish, as a brave man should,
upon the field of glory.”

“Knowest thou that?” he gasped; “then is the fiend, indeed,
at work here!”

“Listen, and thou shalt hear. But three nights since I was
a peasant-maiden without a care or thought beyond my humble
duties, and my innocent, though happy pleasures. Now am I
a woman, indeed, but a woman inspired with that high and
holy inspiration that armed of yore a Jael, and a Deborah, and
a Judith, against the mailed oppressors of their country and
their God. But three nights since, a voice came to me in my
sleep — a mighty voice, loud as the rolling thunder, but sweeter
than the breeze of summer — `Slumber no more,' it cried. `Arise!
arise! thou humble one that shall be mightier than the mightiest,
arise!' it cried in tones that still ring in my mortal ears, like
strains of unforgotten music, `thou shalt save thy country!' I
started from my sleep, and there they stood — there, beside
my lowly pallet — mother of the blessed Jesus, meek and gentle,
in her exceeding beauty, and with a pure and holy fire in
her deep-blue eyes, that spoke of immortality, bright and all-glorious,
and eternal! And by her side there stood a mailed
and helmed shape of glory; but his arms were of a fashion

not like thine, for his limbs were naked in their strength, and
his face unshaded by the vizor, a planet-star gleamed on his
kingly crest, and a broad cross of living lustre flamed on the
buckler of the great archangel, and they held converse with
me in that low and solitary chamber — high, but voiceless converse
— and they told of the things that were, that are, and
that shall be hereafter! Then was I unlearned and rude-spoken.
Now, blessed be they that gave, can I speak many
and great things; and now I say to thee, as it was said to me
— `Arise! Do on thy arms of steel, and mount thy destrier,
summon thy vassals, and display thine ancient banner, the
Lord doth lack thy services! and — ' ”

“And for what?” interrupted the impatient veteran — “for
what shall I do on my armor, and erect the banner of mine
house — at whose bidding?”

“To speed the messenger of victory, the deliverance of
France, to the king — even to the king — thou hard of heart,
and stubborn, that I may say to him the words of Him who
sent me — `This do, and thou shalt live!' ”

“Away!” was the reply. “I will not don mine harness,
nor bestride my charger — trumpet shall not sound, nor banner
wave this night.”

“Ere an hour shall go by,” the maiden again broke in with
clear, unfaltering voice — “ere an hour shall go by, thou unbeliever,
trumpet shall sound, banner shall wave, and at thy
bidding! and thou shalt don thine arms, and rein thy puissant
steed at my command, and His that sent me. I talk not to
thee of glory, or of loyalty, for it were of no avail. I talk to
thee of Power! Power which made thee — as it made the
fiends — made thee, and may destroy.”

“And by that Power I swear!” he shouted —

“Swear not at all! but hear me. Since all other methods
fail, hear me and tremble. By the immortal soul of her whose

mortal body thou didst destroy, warping her purest and most
womanish affections to thine unholy will and her destruction,
I bid thee follow and obey. Not that the works of Heaven
need the aid of men, but that all earth may know the arm
of Heaven by the union of a scarlet sinner, such as thou, to a
maid, as I am, humble, but, as I am — all glory be to Him! —
holy and innocent, wilt thou obey me?”

“Never! never! I mock thy power, scoff at thy words.
Thou knowest not — none ever knew.”

“Knew not the clear and glassy waves of the Garonne,
which thou didst render loathsome as the charnel-house?
Knew not the high and holy stars that heard her cries for
mercy? Knew not the Sitter on the Throne, the Maker and
Judge of men and things? Knew not the Almighty Shepherd
the fate of his still loved, though erring child? Knew not the
blood of Agnes de —”

“Speak not her name! — speak not her name! Slay me —
do with me as thou wilt — but, oh! speak not her name!”
And in a paroxysm of agony and shame the old man dashed
himself at her feet!

“Rise up and do my bidding.” And he arose, silent and
submissive as a chastened infant; and banners did wave, and
trumpets ring that night. Torches and cressets flashed through
Gothic armory and vaulted stable. Horses were saddled, and
their steel-clad riders mounted beneath the midnight moon.
The drawbridge fell, and hollowly did its echoes sound beneath
the trampling feet, as, followed by knightly crests, and
noble banners, and with that proud old governor, a willing vassal
at her bridle-rein, the Maid of Arc rode forth on her first
path of glory.

3. CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE.

The sun was some three hours high, on a bright September
morning, when the rich meadows, lying to the southwest of
the Loire, were disturbed by the merry shout of the falconers,
and the yelping cry of their busy spaniels. No tract of country
could possibly have been found more suitable to the princely
sport, designated in the quaint language of the day as the mystery
of rivers, than the broad, verdant plains, through which
that noble stream rolls on its downward course from the antiquated
spires of Blois, even to the Western ocean. The smooth
velvet turf, free from the slightest obstacle of fence or barrier,
was as perfectly adapted to the reckless gallop of the sportsman
— who, with eyes turned heavenward, intently gazing on
the towering flight of his gallant falcon, must dash onward free
of rein and fearless of heart, at desperate risk to life and limb
— as were the rushy margins of the broad river and its hundred
tributaries to the food and sport of the aquatic birds, that
afford to him his keenest pleasure. The party, which had
sallied forth, as it would seem, on this delicious morning, from
the neighboring walls of Chinon, consisted of five mounted cavaliers,
with a dozen grooms and servitors on foot, some bearing
frames on which to cast the falcons; others with lures, and

hunting-poles to beat the thickets, and not a few with dogs of
almost every denomination, straining and panting in the slips.
The falconers — all gallantly mounted, and all bestriding their
fiery horses, now chafed into unusual ardor by he excitement
of the sport, with that peculiar ease and mastery, which was
then indicative in a high degree of noble birth and knightly
bearing — would have appeared to a careless observer, to be
equals in rank and station. But on a closer scrutiny it must
have been perceived, that, although arrayed for his rural occupation
in the simple garments of a sportsman, one of the party
was of no small dignity, perhaps of no small power. This
was a youth, whose age could not have exceeded the twentieth
summer, tall of his years, well-formed, and even elegant in his
proportions. His black velvet tocque, with its single heron
plume, set jauntily on the side of a well-shaped head, suffered
his long, light hair to float over his shoulders in loose curls,
while it threw no shadow over his bold, and speaking features;
an eye, darker than was warranted by the color of his hair,
with brows of the same shade, straight and decided, lent an
expression of sternness to his lineaments, which was belied by
the sweet and winning smile that would light them up at intervals,
as an April sunbeam would gleam npon the edges, and
clear away the gloom, of an equinoctial storm-cloud; his nose
was prominent, and slightly aquiline; his upper lip shadowed
by a small mustache, and his chin, contrary to the custom
of the age, closely shaven, and betokening, in its square and
clearly-cut outlines, resolution, and manliness of purpose. Altogether,
it was a countenance which women would adore, and
men might reverence; there was a mixture of voluptuousness
and hardihood, of gentleness and dignity, such as unite but
rarely in the features of a single individual, and which, as certainly
as they do so mingle, betoken the existence of no common
character. His garb was a close tunic, or jerkin, of forest-green,
furred deeply at the cape with minever, tight hose of
snow-white chamois leather, with falling buskins of russet, and
long spurs of solid gold. On his right hand, covered by the
peculiarly-formed hawking glove, sat a Norway falcon of the
choicest breed, unhooded and ready, as its clear, wild eye announced,
for instant flight; while by the slightest motion of his
left, he turned and wound the beautiful animal he rode, with
an ease that almost savored of the magic. As widely different
in appearance from this gay youth, as was his heavy coal-black
charger from the slight Arab of his comrade, was the knight
who rode at his right hand, and from whose tones and demeanor,
even more than from his words, the station of the other might
be conjectured. His stern, and hard-favored countenance,
scorched to almost negro blackness, from exposure to the vicissitudes
of climate — his harsh, black hair, clipped short upon
his swart brow — his strong features, and forehead, almost
rendered callous by the pressure of his cerveilliere — and yet
more than these, his deep chest, thin flanks, limbs of gigantic
muscle, and bony hands, from which the veins and sinews projected
like a network of cords, proved him to be a man more
used to camps than courts, and, unless appearances were more
than commonly deceitful, a tried and powerful warrior. The
dress of this dark soldier was, like the person of the wearer,
fitted for action rather than for show. A frock of buff-leather,
such as was worn beneath the complete panoply of knighthood,
and stained in many places by rust, with the rim of a jazeran,
or light shirt of chain-mail, peeping above the collar, high
boots of heavy leather, and a bonnet of scarlet cloth, with a
long drooping plume, worn without the slightest decoration,
completed his personal attire; but on one side of the saddlebow,
hung a bacinet, or open helmet, of highly-polished steel, without
crest or burgonet of any kind, while from the other was
slung in its leathern case, a heavy, double-headed battle-axe.

“By Heaven! Dunois,” cried the young cavalier, in tones
that rung like tempered steel, “by Heaven, but the free morning
air of our belle France smells fragrantly, after the musty
vapors of yon dull garrison, in which we have been pent so
long. And thou, old croaker, wouldst have cooped us up yet
longer in its dungeon walls with thy perpetual caution. Confess
thyself in fault, my paladin; here are we within some five
leagues of the outpost of those dogged islanders, whom God
confound, and not a sound or sight of peril hath disturbed our
sport! By the head of Charlemagne, I have a mind to beat up
their quarters, this blithe morning. How say you, cousin
mine, shall we five cavaliers ride on and break a lance in sport
with these knights of England?”

“May Heaven forefend,” replied the renowned warrior, to
whom he spoke, in a voice so deep and sonorous, that it was
almost startling, when compared with the appearance of the
speaker, “may Heaven forefend, your majesty should be put to
such necessity; but little would your hunting-sword, or, for
that matter, my good battle-axe, avail against the espaldrons
and lances of Bedford's chivalry. And, now your majesty has
given me permission, I do beseech you turn your bridle-rein;
there is frank courtesy among the prickers of yon island host,
and by my faith if we fall in with one of their videttes, it may
go hard with us to scape a lodging in their tower of London.
Methinks, since Azincour, there have been princes of the blood
enow within those fatal walls, that your majesty should not
seek to share their dwelling, unless, tête Dieu, it please you to
prove the politesse of their sixth Henry. Methinks, he scarce
will change your highness' platter, and wait your bidding on
his knee, as did the black prince at Poictiers, that of your
grandsire John.

“Ha! By mine honor, but they come! lo there! yon cloud
of dust, and you dense plump of spears beneath a knightly banner!

Ride for your life, my liege; spare not to spoil your
horseflesh; ride for your liberty and life! I go to check their
progress! Reignier, attend the king; and ye, Vendôme and
Bourcicaut, tarry with me!”

“Not so, fair cousin of Dunois,” replied the noble boy, as
calmly as though he were declining an invitation to a banquet,
“not so! Most base it were and craven, that I, who by my
waywardness, have brought ye into this great peril, that I,
Charles of France, should purchase a rascal freedom by the
blood of my best counsellor, and bravest knight. We will
fight, or flee together; which shall it be; say Bourcicaut, spurs
or the sword? Ha! Reignier, Vendôme, speak!”

But, while he was yet speaking, Dunois had changed his
bonnet for the trusty casque, loosed his cross-handled sword
in its scabbard, and grasped his axe. He listened with a
grim smile to the young monarch's answer, and, dropping the
heavy weapon into the hollow of his bridle-arm, flung out his
right hand impatiently toward the other courtiers — “This is
no time for boys' play. France will be lost, an' we stand parleying
thus; you spears are within a brief mile of us now —
seize on his highness's rein, De Bourcicaut; away with him
— no time for courtesy — force him from the field, brave sirs,
and he will pardon the discourtesy in guerdon of his safety!”

It was, perhaps, a task of greater enterprise and daring, to
those high spirits, to lay hands upon the person of their sovereign,
than it would have been to rush, in their garments of
peace, against the levelled lances of the English skirmishers;
undoubtedly it was a deed which manifested in a higher degree
their resolution and devoted attachment. In an instant it
was done: Bourcicaut and Vendôme seized his reins on either
hand, and, Reignier striking the monarch's Arab sharply with
his riding-rod, all three dashed off at a pace scarcely inferior
to that of the swallows, a few of which lingered in the mild

climate beside those gentle waters. “After them, Reignier,”
cried the delighted Dunois; “after them! I can find play for
these dogs, for an hour, with my single arm, and ere then, if
ye spur sharply, ye can bring me succor; and hark thee, by
yon clump of elms, there on the river's edge, I marked, as we
rode by, a boat at moorings — put but the Loire between us,
and ye are in safety! Farewell! Away!”

And without another word, actuated by the same noble spirit,
the two gallants parted — the one, as he believed, to rush on
certain death; the other, harder to him than death, to leave a
tried and valued comrade to cope, single-handed, with a host.
But duty — ay, and more than duty — imperious honor called,
and they obeyed! — the one in all the triumphant joy of confidence
and valor, for in those iron days there was no consummation
so devoutly to be prayed for, as a death under shield,
and in a rightful cause; the other, downcast and sorrowful,
but still determined.

Resolutely, almost fiercely, had the young king struggled at
the first, charging his attendants by their faith, their allegiance,
and their honor, to desist; nay, he had unsheathed his hunting-sword,
and threatened those devoted men with death.
“We can die,” was the brief but reverential answer — “we
can die, if so your royal highness will it — but we shall die in
our duty!” Further opposition was vain, and when they had
ridden, perhaps, a mile, his better judgment mastered his impetuosity,
and he pledged his kingly word, his knightly honor,
to accompany their flight. Often, however, did they pause —
often did they turn the head to mark the fortune of their bold
defender. For a while, they saw him galloping steadily forward,
his helmet flashing to the sunshine, and the outlines of
his unblenching form, drawn in gigantic relief against the low
horizon, plunging toward the band, that still advanced to meet
him, as confidently, though he rode alone against a score of

lances, as though he had been the leader of a host. They
saw him for the last time, as they paused to breathe their
horses on the summit of a gentle slope, they passed the brow,
and he was lost to their lingering eyes. The clump of elms
was reached, the barge unmoored, the horses embarked —
hands used to the lance and buckler, grasped oar and boat-hook,
but no prayers, no violence, could induce the noble
Charles to enter. “Never! by the soul of my fathers, never!
Thus far have I yielded to your will, but now am I resolved.
Here will I tarry till Dunois return, or till my foes have passed
you knoll. If he have fallen, then 't will be time, and time
enough, to flee; if he be yet alive, as, by the Virgin's grace, I
trust he may, we yet will rescue him.” His words bore too
much of weight and reason to be denied; but, had they been
wild as the autumnal winds, denial had been fruitless. With
eyes on the alert, and ears eagerly drinking in the smallest
and most distant sounds, that little group awaited the tidings
of victory, or of death. Long and keenly did they listen —
but no charging shout, no clash of steel, no shivering of lances,
came on the light air, that waved the foliage round them.

“Mere de Dieu!” shouted the king, after a pause of deeper
and more thrilling attention; “it is the tramp of Dunois's Olivier
— I could swear to his long gallop from a thousand!”

“Not so! not so — that is no single horse-tramp! — it is the
foe! the foe! — to the boat, my liege, to the boat pour l'amour
des cieux!”

“Thy fear for us, and not thy reason speaks, brave Bourcicaut
— see 'tis the man himself! Hail, all hail, my gallant
Dunois! — How didst thou 'scape the dogs of England? —
quick, quick — on board! we will delay no longer!”

“Pour le coup, beau sire — we are in safety,” replied the
knight. “'Tis old Baudricourt from Vaucouleurs, come witl

a score of lances, and a prophetess, Heaven save the mark!
to raise the siege of Orleans,” and he laughed scornfully.

“A prophetess — ha! Dunois! Is she fair? — and young,
Dunois? A maiden, or a grandam? — speak, man — hast lost
thy tongue? By all the saints in heaven, but we will see
this prophetess!”

“Her favor, I marked not, my liege — nor recked, in good
sooth, of it! — The constable of France has other things to
look to besides the beauty of young dames. — But she doth
speak of visions — doth aver that she can name your grace
among a thousand — doth demand a sword, an antique sword,
concealed beneath the altar-stone of St. Catharine de Fierbois
— doth boast that she will raise the siege of Orleans, and
crown your highness with the diadem of Clovis, in the high
church of Rheims. Old Baudricourt doth vouch most strongly
for her inspiration. Rank mummery, I trow — rank mummery!”

“By Heaven! but we would see more of this,” replied the
prince, not wholly untinctured by the superstition of the age.
“Where loiters this fair prophetess? — Lead on, Dunois!
Lead on our martial Mercury!”

“Nay, but — my liege,” interrupted the blunt warrior, “if
that you deem it worth the while to speak with this same juggler,
what if you don the garb and mount the horse of Bourcicaut
— or, better yet, do on the liveries of Hugonet, he is about
your grace's years, and not ill-favored — let him mount your
gay Arabian, and play king for the nonce! A hundred marks
of gold she greets him as the sovereign!”

“Well thought of, by mine honor — it shall be so. Here,
Hugonet, thy livery cloak, and boots — soh! — now thine
hunting-pole, aye, and the leash of spaniels. — I had forgot
the bonnet, and the lures! Methinks if English Henry win
our father's throne, that we can earn our bread, indifferent
well, as varlet to this island lord of France! Now, boy, don

thou my hunting jerkin, and my russet buskins. — Thou'st
buckled on the golden spurs betimes — 'tis a good omen, Hugonet;
who knows but one day thou shalt win them! — My
tocque and feather — faith but thou showest a gallant gentleman
— and here, take Bright-eye, and my hawking-glove.
Buckle this diamond bauble round thy collar, and thou art,
every inch, a king. Soh! Brave Gazelle — stand — stand,
good horse, and bear thine honors meekly,” and doffing his
felt bonnet sportively, the monarch held the stirrup for his
serving man. “On — on, Dunois, we fain would try the truth
of this your prophetess! — Lead on!”

“It needs not — here they come,” cried Dunois. “Unbonnet
yourselves, gentlemen — unbonnet all, save Hugonet — I
go to warn old Baudricourt!” and in an instant he dashed forward
to the advancing party.

It was a subject for a painter that brief interview. The
pretended king, bearing himself worthily of his part, sat a little
in advance of the nobles, on the finely-formed Arabian;
while close beside his stirrup stood the true prince, in rude
garb and clownish attitude, now playing with the dogs, now
gazing with feigned indifference, but real anxiety, at the approaching
group. On the other hand, were the old governor
of Vaucouleurs bending his mailed form over his saddle-bow
in feigned respect, the stately knights behind him, motionless
as statues of solid steel, save that the pennons of their long
lances fluttered freely in the breeze, and the prophet-maiden,
her dark locks floating on the air, her bosom panting, as it
were, and laboring with the spirit that worked within, her
wild eye flashing with the speed and brilliancy of lightning
over every person of the party.

“Come forth,” she said, at length — “Come forth, thou
Royal Eagle!” — She spoke, not with the bashful rusticity of
a peasant-maid, but with a high and free demeanor that might

have beseemed the heiress to a line of sovereigns, waving her
hand toward the disguised prince with an eager and inquiring
gesture: “Come forth, thou noble bird — nor let the base and
carrion vulture put on thy semblance! Monarch of France!
I bid thee hail. I, Joan, the Maid of Are. — Even as thou
throwest by those servile trappings, even as thou doest on thy
proper garb, so, by the grace of Him who sent me, so shalt
thou dash aside the proud invaders, so don the crown, and
mount the throne, of glory!”

“Maiden, I hail the omen — I accept the messenger — I
bless the God who sent thee!” cried the enthusiastic youth,
tossing aside his disguise, and springing forward in his own
noble and natural bearing. Astonishment was painted on the
lineaments of all — and even the sneer that sat upon the lip of
the dark constable, relaxed into a smile.

“'Tis strange,” he muttered — “passing strange! — and yet” —

“Yet what, proud noble? — I tell thee I will move the
world, but men shall know me for the holy thing I am, and
speed me to the duties for which I am ordained. — Knowing
of myself nothing, yet do I know all things. I know that thou,
Dunois, that thou didst counsel this disguise; as if a web of
mortal texture could cheat the eyes, that see with the pervading
vision of the All-seeing. I know that three nights since
— even at the hour when first the power and the sign were
sent to me — thou, Charles of France, didst sit and gaze from
the dark battlements of Chinon, over the mournful murmurings
of the Loire; I know that thou didst raise thy voice, the voice
of thy inmost soul, to the Lord — even to the Lord of hosts —
beseeching him to nerve thine arm, and save thy people — and
lo, HE hath sent ME! — I know, that, ere an hour had passed
away, the prayer and the mournful river were alike forgotten
in the dream of luxury and dalliance; that the ardent aspirations
of thy spirits were forgotten, as thy heart beat fast and

hot to the responsive heart of that young beauty — I know that
the dark and quiet heavens, which heard and registered thy
vow, were banished from thy memory by the brighter heavens
that smiled upon thee from the eyes” —

“Enough! enough!” shouted the king, fearful perhaps lest
she should disclose more of her knowledge, whether it were
indeed supernatural or merely the result of intelligence and
shrewd deceit. “Were I as incredulous as the Apostle of
old — may he vouchsafe us his most holy aid — I were convinced!
To horse — to horse! we will to Poictiers to our
parliament; they shall acknowledge thee, and thou shalt lead
our hosts to glory! Follow us to Poictiers!”

“Not so, sir king — not so! Mine is a heavenly mission;
thine but an earthly bidding. I go to the chapel of St. Catharine
de Fierbois, for I must travel in the road of Him who sent me.
Beneath the altar-stone there lies a sword — an ancient sword
— the weapon of St. Denys, and by this sign shalt thou know
it. On its pommel there is a skull of gold, and for its guard
five fleurs-de-lis of the same precious metal. Five hundred
years hath it lain in that damp grave, but rust may not darken,
nor the cold dews of the charnel-house consume that, which
the Lord did consecrate. With that sword must I go forth to
battle — with that sword must I drive back the foes of France
like howling wolves — with that sword must I redeem the diadem
of Clovis, to place it on thine anointed brows, even in the
high church of Rheims! Follow, nobles and knights, follow
me rather, to the chapel of Fierbois!”

And they rode on to that ancient shrine, and mass was said
by the prior, and anthems chanted by the assembled monks;
but neither monk nor prior knew, nor ere had heard, of that
mysterious sword. And the altar-stone was moved from its
deep foundations, and the bones of the dead were moved, and
there, in the dark mould of the grave, found they the sword of

St. Denys, with the skull of gold on the pommel, and the fleurs-de-lis
on the guard, and the blue steel bright and burnished,
as though it had been forged but yesterday; and the maiden
girded it by her side, and cried out in a high and clear tone,
“By this sign shall ye know me that I am sent, for is it not
written in HIS holy book — `Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O
most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy
majesty ride prosperously, because of truth, and meekness, and
righteousness, and thy right hand shall teach terrible things.' ”

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE RECOGNITION.

In a vast Gothic hall, within the ancient walls of Poictiers,
the parliament of France had been convened, during the occupation
of the capital by their brave invaders. They had come
together, the peers, both temporal and spiritual of the realm, in
full numbers, and in all the gorgeous magnificence of the
feudal ages; nor would it be easy to conceive a scene of more
exalted splendor than that which was presented by this august
assemblage. The long hall, lighted on either hand by a row
of tall, lanceolated windows, through which the daylight
streamed, not in its garish lines of unmellowed lustre, but tender,
rich, and melancholy, through the medium of the thousand
hues, in which were blazoned on the narrow panes the bearings

of many a noble house; the clustered columns hung with
gigantic suits of armor; the fantastic carvings of the capitals;
the groining of the vaulted roof, with the bannered trophies of
ten centuries swaying to and fro in the light currents of air
that played through the hall; the long central table, with its
rich covering of crimson velvet, and the displayed insignia of
royalty, the sword, the sceptre, and the mace of Charlemagne;
the throne, with its massive gilding, and its canopy of cloth
of gold; all had been prepared with as much of elaborate
taste, as though a victorious monarch were about to receive the
congratulations of his assembled feudatories, in the high places
of his hereditary dominion. Far different, however, from the
splendor which surrounded them on every side, was the expression
that sat, with hardly an exception, on every brow
through that proud conclave. It was one pervading universal
expression of restless anxiety, of universal dismay. Old
knights were there, whose beards had grown long and hoary
beneath the helmet, which had scarcely left their brows since
the distant days of their boyhood; men who had proved and
rued the discipline and valor of the English yeomanry at
Cressy and Poictiers; men, over whom a silent century had
sped its course, and left them broken in body, but untamed in
spirit, and unsubdued in intellect; chiefs were there, whose
maiden swords had, for the first time, gleamed on the disastrous
field of Agincourt — chiefs, to whom the deadly onset was
dearer than the voluptuous dance, the maddening clamor of
the trumpet more congenial than the minstrel's lute; but of the
hundreds who sat in long array — in ermined robes and caps
of maintenance, scarce one in fifty had passed the middle age
of manhood. The noblesse of France had been fearfully decimated
by the merciless sword of England, which had converted
their finest provinces into sterile and uncultivated deserts.
Year after year had brought the same dark tidings of defeat
and desolation, of captivity and death. The burgonets of ancient
houses, for the most part, pressed the sunny locks of
boyhood; and the task of deliberating on the weal of kingdoms
had, for the most part, descended to the gallant youth, more
fitted to chant love-ditties in the bower of willing beauty, or to
fight with impetuous ardor in the first ranks of the battle, than
to frame laws, or to solve nice points of casuistry. A yet
more remarkable token of the insecurity of the times, was to be
found in the shirts of linked mail, or coats of plate, which were
universally worn beneath the ermined garments of the senators
— in the concourse of pages and esquires without, bearing each
the casque, the buckler, and the weapons of his lord — and in
the barbed war-horses, that were led to and fro, in full caparison,
beneath the windows of the council-chamber. More incongruous
yet would it have appeared to modern eyes, could
they have witnessed the highest dignitaries of the church,
clad like their temporal brethren, in all the panoply of warfare;
yet there were present at least a score of these literal members
of a church militant, who would have been, perhaps, more
familiar with the usage of the lance than of the crosier, and to
whose lips the banner-cry of their families would have risen
more promptly than mass or benediction.

Assembled as these nobles were, ready alike for combat or
for council, it would seem that there was yet a something
wanting ere they could proceed to business; impatient glances
were thrown toward the sun, that was already riding high in
the heavens, and to the throne, which was as yet unoccupied.
Nor was this all; murmurs of disapprobation were beginning
to be heard, even among the most volatile spirits of the parliament,
while the more aged councillors knit their dark brows
and shook their heads, boding no good to France or its inhabitants,
so long as its destinies should be swayed by a monarch
ever willing to postpone the most serious duties for the prosecution

of some headlong sport, or of some licentious amour.
It was, perhaps, with a view of calling the attention of the
court to this strange neglect of the reigning sovereign — for
the sway of monarchs was vastly abridged by the power of
their higher vassals — that the bishop of Senlis, a tall, iron-limbed,
and hard-featured prelate, who wore his cape and robes
over a suit of Milan steel superbly damasked with gold, which
clanked omniously as he strode to the central table, rose as if
to speak. Scarcely, however, had he broken silence, before a
cry was heard without — “Room! room! for the king! — room!
for the bold Dunois — room! for the prophet-maiden” — followed
by cheering so tumultuous that the banners flapped heavily,
as if a mighty wind had fallen upon their folds, and not a few
of the younger nobles sprang to their feet in astonishment.

In an instant the doors were thrown open; and well might
the nobles gaze in wonder at the group that entered. With
his wonted impetuosity, Charles had not stopped, even for a
moment's space, to alter his attire, ere he entered the presence
of his peers — springing from his horse, and casting its rein to
the esquire in waiting, commanding his attendants to follow
without delay, he rushed into the supreme council of his nation
in his hunting-dress, with the stains of the chase fresh
upon spur and buskin. This would, however, have called
forth no surprise on the part of the peers, accustomed, as they
long had been, to the extravagances of the young king, who,
though he could, when it listed him so to do, debate as sagely
as the wisest of their number, or array a host, with his own
lance for leading staff, as soldierly as any, save perhaps Dunois,
was just as likely to fling away from business of the most engrossing
interest to mingle in the dance or lead the hunt. On
the entrance of Charles, indecorous as was the speed with
which he strode up the hall, and unsuited as was his garb to
the occasion, all had arisen and several of the highest dignity

advanced as if to conduct him to the throne; but when Dunois
was seen to pass the threshold with the prophet-maiden supported
on his stalwart arm, a general murmur of disgust passed
along the crowded benches, and seemed about to swell into
notes of deeper and more fearful import. Nor indeed was she
a spectacle peculiarly adapted to the scene. In an age when
the greatest possible veneration was paid to rank, and when
humble parentage was almost deemed a crime, it was scarcely
possible that the haughtiest council of Europe would brook
the intrusion — even when sanctioned by their monarch — of a
mere peasant-girl into their solemn halls of audience. At this
moment, too, there was another, and yet a stronger reason for
the anger of the peers. They doubted not but that Charles,
with a degree of levity which he had never before reached,
even in his wildest moments of license, was introducing a paramour
to their august presence — a peasant paramour. Yet,
had they looked on the speaking lineaments, rather than on
the frock of serge and leathern girdle — had they marked the
flash of her dark eye, as she gazed around her, unawed by the
dignity, and undisturbed by the displeasure of the parliament
— had they marked the indignant expression, the curl of her
lip, and the expansion of her nostrils, as she caught the sound
of some disparaging epithet — had they cared to read the
meaning of the deep crimson flush, that rushed over her cheek
and brow, they could not, for a second's space, have deemed
her a thing of infamy, perhaps they scarcely could have believed
her other than a scion of some time-honored race.

It was but for a moment, however, that the tumult — for the
manifestation of anger had reached a pitch which almost justified
that title — was permitted to endure. The best and noblest
of the peers rushed forward, though scarcely less indignant
than their fellows, to enforce silence at least, if not respect and
homage.

“How now, my lieges!” cried the youthful king, standing
erect in the centre of the hall, “have you no warmer welcome
for your sovereign than these tumultuous clamors? — methinks
such tones were best reserved till we join fronts with England's
archery; and then, my lords, will Charles send forth
his voice to swell the war-cry of his fathers! — Mont Joy
Saint Denis!”

“But little chance is there, beau sire,” interrupted the warrior-bishop,
with a freedom of speech that would at any time
have been deemed to border upon discourtesy at least, if not
on treason — “But little chance is there, beau sire, that
France's nobles should be summoned to other conflict than
that of the midnight banquet or the morning chase, by a prince
who deems it fitting his own dignity to lead his low-born concubines
into the very halls of his high parliament! — And for
that matter, little chance is there that they would heed his bidding,
even should he, in some wild caprice, unfold the oriflamme,
and call his vassals to the field of honor.”

“Sayest thou, sir bishop!” shouted the gallant boy, his brow
crimsoning with the eloquent blood of indignation — “sayest
thou — and to me? Now, by the honor of a child of France,
thou shalt account to me for this outrage. Ho! Dunois —
summon our guards, and let yon brawler learn if cope and
cowl should buckler such a cause as he has dared uphold this
morning. Nay, speak not for him, Dunois — nor thou, fair
prophetess; for by my father's soul, Senlis shall lose her
bishop ere the sun set. Our guards! what ho! our guards!”

The gates were flung open at the monarch's cry; and a
dozen sergeants of the guard, in royal liveries, with partisans
advanced, and swords already glittering in the sunshine, were
seen without the archway. “Forward! my guards,” he cried
again in a yet louder voice. “Bertrand de Montmorenci,
seize yon factious bishop — seize him!” he continued, seeing

some slight hesitation on the part of the officer — “seize him,
were he at the holy altar — ourselves will reckon with the
mother-church!”

Slowly the guards marched forward, in compact and steady
order; and so silent was that assembly, which had but a moment
before showed like the ocean billows chafing beneath
the tempest, that not a sound was heard, save the heavy tramp
of the armed warders, as they advanced to do the bidding of
their monarch. The haughty prelate stood erect and fearless,
meeting the glowing features and flashing eye of the youthful
king with an expression as proud, a port as fearless, as his
own. The guards drew nigher, and yet nigher; but, at the
very instant when they were about to lay hands on the offender,
as if by a common impulse, the whole assembled peerage
advanced a pace or two, as if to assert the privilege of parliament;
and although no word or gesture of violence had as yet
occurred, it became evident even to the prince that the sense
of the assemblage was against him, and that a tumult, the desperate
nature of which might be conjectured from the determined
silence of the actors, must be the result of his persisting
in the arrest of his seditious noble. Still there was no touch
of fear or hesitation in his noble spirit. “Speak not to me,
Dunois,” he replied, in a hoarse, low whisper, as his best
councillor implored him to be prudent — “speak not to me.
I am the king of France! and never did king brook so foul a
contumely from the lips of subject. No! Let them murther
me, if they will, in my own courts of parliament, and write in
the records of their house, that the peers of France have
deemed it worthy of their own, and of their country's honor,
to slay the heir of Charlemagne for upholding his own good
name. Speak not to me; for by the blessed sun that sees us
both, Albert of Senlis, or Charles of France, shall close his
eyes this night upon those splendors, never to see them more!”

As he spoke, he laid his hand on the hilt of his hunting-sword,
and advanced in person to seize, with his own hand,
the haughty churchman. A hoarse, low murmur ran through
the hall, like the shuddering breath that agitates the woodland
before the coming of the tempest, but he marked or recked it
not — another instant would have unsheathed a thousand swords,
and the miseries of that unhappy realm would have been augmented
yet more terribly by the mutual strife and slaughter of
those, who should have been her best defenders. The bishop
still stood erect; and now, confident of the support of the
banded feudatories, a smile curled his lip, and he perused,
with a half-contemptuous expression, the lineaments of the
king as he strode on to seize him, followed by the resolute
though still reluctant Dunois. At this critical moment, when
another word or action would have given rise to deeds, which
never could have been recalled, the Maid of Arc stood forward.

“Forbear!” she cried, in a voice so high and musical that,
even in that moment of excitement and impending violence, it
fell on every ear with a soothing sound, and arrested every impetuous
arm — “Forbear! thou child of France — and thou, sir
bishop. Shame! — Shame, that a minister of holy church should
be a minister of wrath and evil. Hear me!” she continued, with
animation still increasing as she spoke — “Nobles and knights
of France hear me, the Messenger of Heaven! I have
come by the will of The Father, to save the sons of France
from the polluting blight of the invader! — I, a peasant-maiden,
who lay down to rest, and rose up to labor, with no higher
thoughts than of my daily toils — I, Joan of Arc, am sent by
the Most High to lead the hosts, and wield the sword of vengeance!
A few short hours since were my words rude, and my
thoughts lowly; now, by gift of Him who sent me, my speech
is eloquent, my breast is full of high and glorious aspirations,

my soul is rich with wisdom! Start not, nor doubt my words,
for I have proved them! See ye this blade?” and she waved
it triumphantly above her head. “This blade — once of St.
Denis, now of a mightier than St. Denis? Five dark and
silent centuries hath it lain in the mouldering tomb, unknown,
unnoted, and forgotten, for it was unneeded! But the voice
which roused me from my sleep of ignorance revealed it.
The Lord of Hosts hath need of an avenger, and he hath
armed her for the field with that miraculous sword, which shall
be red as crimson with the proudest blood of England. Nobles
and knights, to arms — your king, your country, and your God,
call you to arms! Ere six months have elapsed, I tell ye,
France shall be delivered. I tell ye that the oriflamme shall
float in glory o'er the walls of Orleans. I tell ye that this
child of France shall buckle on the sword, and shall be crowned
with the crown of Charlemagne in the high church of
Rheims — and by thy hands, lord bishop! Princes, and paladins,
and peers, I do conjure you by a sign; I do command
ye by a power which ye see not, but must obey! To arms
for France and Freedom! To arms for France and Vengeance!
It is the will of God!”

Strange had been the emotions of those high spirits during
the appeal of the peasant-maiden; pride, at first, and contempt
were painted on every scowling brow; but as her words
waxed powerful and high, as her voice flowed like the continued
blast of a silver trumpet, as her bosom heaved with inspiration,
and as her dark eyes flashed with supernatural lustre,
contempt and pride were lost in astonishment and admiration.
She struck the key of their insulted patriotism, and they
burned — she spoke to their superstitions, and they well nigh
trembled — she asserted the assistance of a power which they
must obey; and the proudest, the noblest, the haughtiest assembly
of the Christian world heard — and they did obey.

One voice — as she concluded her fervid harangue — one
powerful voice sent forth her last words, shouting them as
though they were a battle-cry — “To arms! It is the will of
God!” It was the voice of the best and bravest — it was the
voice of the stern Dunois.

From heart to heart it ran like an electric shock —
from lip to lip it pealed — “To arms — for France and Freedom!
To arms — for France and Vengeance! It is the will
of God!” Louder it rang, and louder, till battlement and turret
seemed to rock before the earthquake clamor, and the
maiden read the certainty of triumph in the enthusiastic confidence
of those she was about to lead to victory.

5. CHAPTER V.
THE RELIEF OF ORLEANS.

All night long the streets of Blois had rung with the wildest
confusion. War-drum and nakir mingled their long rolling
cadences with the shrill flourish of horn and trumpet, and the
tinkling clang of cymbals. The blacksmiths' forges blazed
red and lurid, while the strong-limbed artisans plied their
massive hammers to shape and bend the shoes of the huge
destriers, that pawed and snorted round the smithies. Pages
and squires were hurrying to and fro with helms and hauberks,
to be polished or repaired for to-morrow's service — wagons
laden with wine and wheat, were dragged along the ill-paved

streets, groaning and creaking with their own weight, by the
reluctant oxen — ever and anon a piece of rude and cumbrous
ordnance, shaped like a cask with bars of hammered iron,
hooped into the form of tubes by solid rings of the same metal,
was hauled along with yet mightier effort, amidst the shouts
of the fierce soldiery.

Still, among all the din and note of preparation, there was
naught of riot or debauchery — no healths pottle-deep — no
carousings round the midnight watch-fires — no squeaking of
rote or gittern — no lascivious dances, or loose songs of courtesan
and jongleur! — all was stern, grave, and business-like.
Men felt as if they were on the eve of a dread convulsion —
of a mighty effort — they passed to and fro, as the exigencies
of the time required, with bent brows and long-determined
strides; their conversation was in short stern whispers! —
The spirit of THE MAIDEN was among them — the very men,
who a few short weeks before had been all fickleness and
levity, who would have endured death itself more willingly
than the curtailment of the least of those licenses, which they
chose to call their liberty — these very men now moved about
in silent resolution, too full of purpose to leave any room for
levity! — They swore no strange oaths, they kneeled humbly at
the confessional, they bowed themselves in awestruck adoration
before the shrines of their patron-saints! — They were now the
stuff whereof to model conquerors — their minds were strung
to the very pitch — and therefore they were well-nigh certain
of success.

As the night wore away, and the stars began to fade in the
heavens, the banner-cries of the different companies, the en-seancies
of ancient houses, and the gathering shout of France,
Montjoye! Montjoye! St. Denis! pealed fast and frequently;
and at every cry the ready veterans announced their presence
at the banners of their following by the national response of

Vive le roi! The great place in the centre of the city was
thronged well-nigh to suffocation with armed multitudes. The
brave gen-d'armerie of the surrounding districts, monnted on
small rugged horses, with brigantines of leather rudely covered
by scales of rusty steel, long lances, and helmets without either
crest or vizor — Switzers in their massive coats of plate, burnished
till every rivet shone like silver; bright bacinets upon
their heads, and in their hands short heavy partisans with
blades two feet in length — Genoese cross-bowmen in gaudy
dresses, and light shirts of chain-mail, their ponderous weapons
slung across their shoulders — and above all, the men-at-arms,
the flower of France, sheathed from crest to spur in
complete suits of mail and plate, and mounted upon steeds of
blood and bone proportioned to the weight which they supported;
with their tilting lances eighteen feet in length, each
having a gay pennon streaming from the head, their axes and
maces slung on either hand the saddle, their huge two-handed
swords extending, as they sat on their tall war-horses, from
heel to shoulder — all these groped beneath the projecting bartizans
and around the Gothic cross of the market-place, and
partially revealed by the pale moonlight or the ruddy glare of
torch and cresset, presented a picture to which the gayest
pomp and circumstance of modern warfare are but tame and
insignificant.

Day broke at length, and as the expected rays shot upward
from the horizon, a loud flourish of trumpets swelled almost
painfully upon the ear, accompanied by the distant acclamations
of the populace. Then might you have seen the war-steeds
toss their heads and paw till the pavements rang, and
the riders curbing them steadily and skilfully into the ranks;
while the shouts of the harbingers and fouriers — “Ha! debout,
messires! debout!” and the redoubled efforts of banner-men
and esquires restrained them in their ranks, and marshalled

them, after much tumult and confusion, in a huge hollow
square around the market-place. Nearer the trumpets
flourished, and nearer yet — then there arose a cry — a single
cry swelled by a thousand voices — “the king! the king!”
Ten thousand men stood there, but not a spear clashed, not a
charger pawed, not a voice or whisper could be heard in that
vast concourse as the leaders entered the place-of-arms.

First came the pursuivants, riding two by two on snow-white
horses, clothed in tabards of murrey-colored satin semés
with fleurs-de-lis of gold, and in their hands the bannered
trumpets, with the royal quarterings of France glowing in rich
heraldic blazonry. Then came Montjoye! the hereditary king-at-arms,
in his emblazoned coat, one solid sheet of gems and
gold. And after him the bold Dunois, on his black Olivier,
sheathed in his plain dark panoply, with the bend sinister of
bastardy crossing the arms of Orleans on his triangular buckler,
and his vizor at half-spring, showing his calm observant
eye and eagle features above the rim of the raised beaver —
the plainest and the simplest, though, perhaps, the most rigidly
complete in his war-array of all that gallant company.
There rode not there a knight, on whom the eye of one, who
loved like the eighth Henry to look upon a man, would have
dwelt with so much pleasure as on the bold Dunois. Behind
him came the knights and squires of his body, all armed; and
after him a standard-bearer, gallantly mounted, and holding
aloft a banner of rich yet singular device. It was a sheet of
pure white damask, with a triple tressure of golden fleurs-de-lis,
but in the midst of there was emblazoned, with the utmost of
the herald's skill, a figure, which it would now be deemed the
worst profanity thus to mingle with preparations for carnage
and destruction — it was the figure of the One Eternal!
grasping in his hands the globes celestial and terrestrial, as
when at the instant of creation he launched them into immen

sity! — Profane, however, and horrible as such a representation
would now be regarded, it was then looked upon far otherwise;
as the hallowed banner was borne into the market-place every
footman sunk upon his knee, every cavalier bowed his crest in
meek adoration, every weapon of war was lowered, every banner
veiled![1]

They arose from their devotion, and before them stood a
pair that would have claimed the pencil of a Raphael, or the
pen of a Froissart, to represent them justly. On the king's
chestnut Arabian — strong enough to be the war-horse of one
so slightly framed as she, who reined him in with equal skill
and grace — snorting and champing on his bits of gold, as if
proud to bear so proud a rider, sat the prophet-maiden! Her
head was bare, and her dark locks now streamed to the light
wind in spiral ringlets, now fell in heavy masses over her
polished forehead; her throat was covered to the chin by her
bright gorget; her corslet, cuishes, and greaves, were of azure
steel, damasked and riveted with gold; a scarf of white sennit
fringed with gold supported the sacred weapon of St. Denis,
and attached to the cantle of her demipique swung the long
lance of knighthood. But it was not the panoply of price, nor
the high-mettled charger, but the beaming eye, the glorious
intellect, the all-pervading soul, the untaught flexibility and
grace of every limb, whether in action or repose, that stamped
the peasant-maid of Arc as one of nature's aristocracy.

Beside her bridle-rein rode Charles the Seventh, like his
comrade sheathed in armor, and like her with his head uncovered;
but his sunny locks and bright blue eye rendered
his countenance, if possible, more feminine, on a slight inspection,

than that of the fair being at his side. His coat of plate
was, like the maiden's, of the choicest Milan steel, but, unlike
hers, was not engraved with arabesques, being covered entirely
with a thin coating of gold, so admirably enamelled upon
the stronger metal, that no violence could have parted them,
and presenting the appearance of an entire suit of golden
armor! His buckler was hung about his neck by a thong of
gilded leather plaited upon a chain, a plain field of azure with
the urgent fleurs-de-lis of France; the barbings of a magnificent
bay-destrier, which he bestrode with a firm seat, yet easy
withal, were bright plain steel, with housings of azure velvet.
Two pages, in common half-armor, with steel spurs and bacinets,
but neither crest or vizor, followed, bearing the plumed
casques of either rider; and behind these again two others,
bearing, one the lance and espaldron of the monarch, the other
the buckler and axe of the maiden. The rear of this gorgeous
cavalcade was brought up by full five hundred knights of every
rank, and every station of renown, from the high feudatories
and greater barons of the crown — some bearing ducal coronets
around their cerveillieres, and all having the broad pennon, as
distinguished from the banderol, attached to their long lances
— down to the simple bannerets, and young esquires burning
to win their spurs in the first field of glory. As the monarch
advanced with the maiden to the foot of the Gothic market-cross,
all eyes were fixed upon him with one single expression
of enthusiastic love and admiration! All his youthful extravagances,
all his mad passions, all his intrigues, were swept
away, forgotten as though they had never been, in the joy of
all sorts and classes of men at beholding a legitimate king of
France once again riding forth under shield, boldly to do or
die! He spoke not, but looked slowly round the circle with a
cheerful eye; he waved his hand, and the count of Harcourt,
one of the oldest and most noble barons of the realm, displayed
the sacred oriflamme of France — a banner of dark green stain,
already rent in many places, and showing the effects of time
which only rendered it the more venerable, charged with a
royal diadem of gold, surrounded by six langues of flame,
whence it derived its title. Never displayed but on occasions
the most holy and important, its very appearance on the field
was hailed as an auspice and almost as a pledge of victory! —
Scarcely was it now flung abroad to the free winds, before
every voice throughout the crowded ranks went up to heaven
in one universal soul-fraught cry — “France! France! Montjoye!
St. Denis!” The trumpets flourished cheerily and
high, the word was given for the march, and with a steady
and increasing motion, like the flowing of a spring tide, that
mighty mass rolled onward, and, ere an hour had passed, the
streets of Blois were silent and deserted.

As soon as they had cleared the gates of the borough, they
moved forward with as much rapidity as was consistent with
good order; and three hours had not elapsed before the vanguard
were in view of the lines of circumvallation, which had
been drawn around Orleans by the English, under that consummate
knight and leader, the regent duke of Bedford.

At this point they made a wide circuit under the very guns
of the British bastions, to gain the banks of the broad Loire,
but strange to say no shot was fired from the heavy ordnance,
no arrow was sent from the green-frocked archery of England.
Onward they filed, and now they gained the banks, when from
the city rose a pealing shout — the gates were thrown open on
the side of Beausse, and with trumpet-note and battle-cry, pennon,
and plume, and lance, the garrison dashed out in a bold
sally, charging, for the first time in many months, resolutely
and boldly upon the breastworks and intrenchments of the
islanders. Then were heard the mingled cries of France's
and England's warfare — “St. George! St. George for merry

England!” — “France! France! Montjoye! St. Denis!” The
gallant yeomanry of Lancashire and Yorkshire advanced slowly
and in compact array — they halted. Then, as the charging
chivalry drew near, they stepped forward a single pace; they
raised their six-foot bows, and, without a shout or a word
spoken, at the moving of their marshal's truncheon, let fly a
volley of cloth-yard arrows, shooting so wholly and together,
that no atmosphere was ever filled more closely with the snow-flakes
of December, than was the space between the hostile
forces with the fatal shafts of England. No species of missile
has ever been invented half so deadly as was the Anglo-Norman
archery. The musket is superior in certainty, and, above
all, in the comparatively small space required for the transportation
of its ammunition, but no volley of musket-shot ever
swept the ground, piercing through triple steel, and hurling
horse and man to earth, with one continual and incessant
shower, as did that iron storm. A few — a few only — of the
best and bravest reached the lines, protected by strong barriers
and steel-shod palisades — but wo to the yeoman who met
those desperate few! No offensive armor that could be worn
by the heaviest infantry, much less the light hacquetons and
open morions, which, with a buckler of a hand's breadth,
formed the sole protection of the bow-men, could resist the
thundering sweep of the two-handed swords, which rose and
fell like ponderous engines rather than mere human weapons,
or the tremendous thrust of the level lance! Boldly, however,
and with stubborn hearts did they make good the fight despite
the odds — hurling their iron mallets at the heads of their
steel-clad antagonists, plunging their swords into the crevices
of the barbed armor which covered the destriers, and here
and there inflicting ghastly wounds on the riders themselves,
through plate and mail, with their national weapon, the brown-hill.
Anon the tramp of horses and the clank of armor announced
the British chivalry, as wheeling round on either
flank from the rear of the archery, their plumes streaming
backward in the current of air created by the violence of their
own motion, and their lances levelled to the charge, they
swept irresistibly over the plain. Had they thus fallen on
the rear of the sallying force, already galled almost beyond
endurance by the incessant discharge of arrows with which
they had been plied, not a man of all that gallant company
would ever have returned within the walls of Orleans. But
so it was not ordained; with the steady generalship of an old
experienced leader, the maid had profited, in the first instance,
by the superstitious terror of the English outposts, who were
half-defeated by their consternation before a blow was struck,
and then by the diversion caused by the sally of the besieged.
Slowly and cautiously she had marshalled her army upon the
river bank — had embarked strong reinforcements and store of
provisions in the galleys on the broad and beautiful river —
had watched their progress with sail and oar, until they had
entered the water-gates, and until the joyous acclamations from
within announced that Orleans was indeed relieved. Then
wheeling her columns of chivalry into long lines, she advanced
with lance in rest, at a smart trot in beautifully accurate array,
to bring off the party which had so seasonably and so gallantly
sallied forth in her behalf. At the very moment when the
scanty forces of France were hemmed in, as it seemed, hopelessly
between the archery and the men-at-arms of England,
so promptly had she timed, and so skilfully executed her man
œuvre — at the very point of time, the faint shout of the besieged
was answered by a shrill clear voice — the cry of the
inspired maid — “God aid! God aid! — France! France and
victory!” The English were in turn outflanked; and, although
Bedford with the almost instinctive skill that can only be acquired
by minds naturally martial, and by those only after long
experience, brought off his chivalry unhurt, he was nevertheless
compelled to abandon his prey. In sullen mood, he saw
the relieved garrison draw off their shattered companies — he
saw them enter the fresh files of the maiden's marshalled host,
and pass off to the gates, while she, unmoved and calm amid
the shouting and the din, sat bareheaded beneath her mystic
banner! Not a bow was bent, not a lance levelled! The
very banners of the English host, the lion banners that for ten
long years had never been displayed, except to wave o'er conquered
fields of glory, were furled around their staves! The
spell was broken! the most potent spell on earth, while it endures,
the confidence in their own valor — the certainty of
victory was torn from those bold islanders; nay, more, it was
already transferred to their despised antagonists: for there
was not one French heart, of all the thousands gathered there,
that beat not high with self-congratulating pride and valor, as
the long array entered the gates of Orleans.

“Gentlemen, and knights of France — princes and paladins,
and thou, sir king, have I, or have I not fulfilled my plighted
word? I said that Orleans should be saved, and we are within
her walls! Is she not saved already?” Such were the
words of Joan, as she displayed her sacred banner, beside the
oriflamme of France, high on the outer walls. “As I said
then, so say I now; and, as I say, so shall it be for ever!
The Maid of Are shall be forgotten in the Maid of Orleans!
It is so even now! The Maid of Orleans shall be forgotten
in the Maid of Rheims! So shall it be right shortly! On!
on! nobles and knights — behind ye is defeat and death, before
ye is a bright career of honor, victory, and immortal
fame! On! on! for I have said that France shall once again
be free!”

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE TEMPTATION.

It was a night of revelry in Orleans. The contrast between
the wild and joyous mirth that now rang through every court
and alley of the Gothic city, and the dark sullen gloom, which
for weeks before had brooded over its beleagured walls and its
well-nigh famished inmates, was as perfect as it was delightful.
In place of the bent brow, and compressed lips of men,
nerving themselves to bear the torments of that most fell destroyer,
gaunt famine — in place of the pale cheek, dim eye,
and slight, attenuated form of the faint mothers, robbing themselves
of their scant sustenance, to minister to the wants of
their weak and wailing little ones — in place of tears and
lamentations, deep groans, and deeper curses — there might
now be seen on every lip a smile of heartfelt gratitude, in
every eye a bright expression, on every cheek, how delicate
and thin soever, the bright flush of new-springing hope —
there might now be heard the jocund laugh, the loud hurrah,
the pealing cadence of minstrelsey and song.

On that night, every window of the poorest and most lowly
habitations, was gleaming with lights of every degree of brilliancy
and price. From the coarse candle of unbleached tallow,
or the lantern of oiled paper, to the gigantic torch of virgin
wax, and the lamp of golden network, all was in blaze of

lustre; banners were waving from the casement, or hung from
lines traversing the narrow streets — flowers were strewed on
the pavements — trumpets were sending forth their wild notes
of rejoicing, far into the surrounding country, announcing to
the peasantry for miles around, that Orleans was relieved, and
telling to the warders of the English camp, that their reign of
victory was at an end, their bows broken, and their lion hampered,
when in the very act of bounding on its prostrate victim.

Wine flowed in profusion — bread was distributed to all,
with no stint, save that of appetite — muttons and beeves were
roasted whole in every court and square — and wretches who,
perhaps, had been deprived of wholesome food, nay, of a sufficiency
of any food, for weeks and months, now gorged themselves
beside the blazing bonfires, till wearied, if not satiated
with the feast, they sank down upon the rugged pavement, in
the deep slumbers of insensibility.

Nor did the very watchers, as it would seem, upon the outer
walls, who were placed there to guard the blessings they had
won, sit on their airy pinnacles without participating in the
general festivities. Lights might be seen glancing to and fro
on battlement and rampart, and here and there behind some
sheltering curtain, or in the angle of some salient bastion,
might be caught the redder glare of fires, around which the
heedless guards were carousing no less blithely than their
comrades in the streets below. It required, indeed, all the
attention of the provost of the watch, and captains of the guard,
who, through the livelong night might be distinguished by the
clashing of their armor, and by the exchange of watchwords,
as they made their hourly circuits of the ramparts, to keep
them to their duty; nor were they even without fears that the
ever alert and energetic Bedford might profit by the relaxation,
or to speak more justly, by the utter absence of all discipline,

to make an attack, which could hardly fail of success, on the
city, buried, like Troy of old, in sleep and wine.

Blithe, however, as was the merriment, and picturesque as
was the scene without, nothing might vie with the pomp, the
revelry, and the magnificence that were crowded into the wide
halls and echoing corridors of the Hotel de Ville. The king
and all his chivalry had feasted, in celebration of this their
first success, with the burghers and echevins of Orleans, and
in that feast had been concentrated all of civic luxury — all of
regal magnificence. But the feast was ended — of the peacock
that had so lately graced the board — decked with his
starry train, as when in life with gilded claws and coronetted
head — nothing was left save a despoiled and most unseemly
carcass! — boars'-heads from Montrichart, heronshaws and
egrets from the marshy woodlands of Hainault, had shared the
same reverse of fortunes, and having a short hour before, ministered
to the goodly appetites of lordly knights and their
queen-like damoiselles, by the aid of steward and seneschal,
were now rudely torn asunder among the strife and rioting of
pages, and yet meaner varlets; yet, even still, there was
enough in the canopied dais — in the long array of seats
cushioned with rich furs and velvet — in the display of massive
plate — ewers and flasks of gold, enriched with marquetry
and chasings — bowls rough with the designs of the earlier
schools of Italian art — mirrors of polished steel, wherein the
fabled centaurs might have viewed the gigantic bulk of their
double frames entire — torches of wax flaring and streaming in
the sockets of huge golden standishes — flowers and rushes
strewed on the marble floor — which had sent up their dewy
perfumes, mingling with the savor of rich meats, and with the
odorous fragrance of the wines, already celebrated, of Aix,
of Sillery, and of Auxerre — now trampled into an unseemly
mass of verdant confusion — and, above all, in the gay attire

and evident rank of the servitors, who yet bustled to and fro
in those banquet-halls deserted — to mark the consequence of
the guests, who had thus partaken of the hospitality of the
merchant-lords of Orleans.

But if the banquet-chamber was mute and voiceless, not so
were the yet loftier halls, which stretched their long lines of
illuminated windows from end to end of that huge Gothic building.
From those windows pealed the rejoicing music, mingled
with the light merriment of girls, and the hearty merriment of
paladins and peers. Nor was the scene within less brilliant,
than the promise given by the sounds which issued into the
bosom of the night. A thousand torches were gleaming along
the walls, doubled and trebled by the reflectors of polished
steel or silver, that were arranged behind them — banners of
all times and nations, covered the vaulted roof with a bright
canopy, that waved and rustled in every breath of air — in a
high gallery were seated the choicest musicians of the age,
with every instrument then invented, to soothe the ear or gladden
the heart of man, by their mingled harmonies. Trumpet,
and horn, and kettledrum, and cymbal, sounded in wild, yet
beautiful unison with the softer symphonies of harp and lute,
and the melodious warblings of the birdlike fife; and ever and
anon the richer and more perfect note, of that most exquisite
of vocal instruments, the human voice, gushed forth in choral
strains, now unaccompanied by aught of string or wind, now
blended, but still distinct, in the deep diapason of that noble
band. But who shall describe the crowd that swayed to and
fro over the tesselated pavement below, in obedience to the
minstrelsey and music, even as the light waves of a summer
sea heave at the bidding of the light air, that crisps, but may
not curl or whiten their sparkling crests. It was not merely
in the deep splendor, the harmonious coloring, the picturesque
forms of the antiquated costume, it was not merely in the

plumes of heron or ostrich — the snowy ermine, the three-piled
mantles of Genoa velvet — not in the hose of sandal twined
with threads of silver — not in the buskins of satin, or the spurs
of gold — not in the bright gems, the medals, and the fanfaronas
— not in the robes of vair and caps of maintenance, that
graced the stately warriors of the court. Nor yet was it in
the flowing trains, the graceful ruffs, the pearls wreathed in
the pleached and plaited hair, the diamond stomachers, and
chains of goldsmiths' work — it was not in these, that centred
the attraction of the glorious concourse — though with these,
not the costliest pageantry of modern times, could for a moment's
space compare. Nor was it even more striking than
these — the beauty, the mere personal beauty of the wearers
— the mingled strength and grace of the knights, whose places
were filled no less decorously in the bower of ladies, than in the
strife of men — the sylph-like forms, the wavy and voluptuous
motions, the eyes brilliant or laughing, tender or agacante, of
those highborn damoiselles. No, it was not in any, nor in all
of these. But in the aristocratic bearing, the high, full-blooded
look, that might be traced in the features and the forms, alike
of either sex; the small and well-set heads; the tall and
slight, though exquisitely rounded limbs; the delicate hands
— practised, however, they might be, in wielding the huge
espaldron, or yet more weighty battle-axe; the blue veins rising
in bold and pencilled relief, from brow and neck; the expanded
nostrils; and, above all, the perfect grace of every
movement, whether in voluptuous repose, or in the mazes of
the wheeling dance. It was in these rare attributes, that consisted
the real splendor of that assemblage — it was by these —
the distinctive marks of Norman blood — that the most casual
observer might have styled each individual there, even at a
moment's notice, as the descendant of some immemorial line.
All the magnificence might have been lavished upon a troop
of mendicants — but lavished to no purpose. No art, no splendor,
no disguise, could have metamorphosed those into the
most transitory likeness to nobility — more than the mean
weeds and tattered garments could have banished from these,
their inborn air of aristocracy.

Hundreds there were of the most brave, of the most beautiful
— Agnes de Sorel, the acknowledged mistress of the king,
with her broad laughing eyes of blue, and her profusion of
sunny ringlets shadowing a neck of alabaster. Isabel de Castelnau,
her noble form and majestic expression of features,
well-suited to the antique head-dress, and the purple robe,
with a delicate merlin, perched unhooded on her wrist, gazing
with his wild, bright eyes into the equally brilliant mirrors of
his lady's soul, without manifesting the slightest wish to flutter,
or to fly. Helence de Marigny, with her slender, girl-like
proportions, and that air of timid bashfulness, that so belied
her character; Helene de Marigny, who, in her brother's absence,
roused at the dead of night by the clash of armor and
the trumpet-note, had seen the English foemen scaling the
windows of her virgin-bower; had seen, and with no woman-terror,
grasped to the mortal sword, and wielded it triumphantly,
till succor completed that defence, which she — a fairy-looking
maid of seventeen — had protracted so manfully and
well. Diane de Bourcicaut, sister to the bravest and the best
of Charles's young warriors. Louise de Querouaille fairer
and far more chaste than her more famous namesake of after-ages
— and last, not least, Mademoiselle, the lovely sister of
the king. All these were there, and others, unnumbered and
beautiful as the stars in a summer heaven, toying, in mere dalliance,
or yielding, perchance, to deeper and more real feelings,
as they moved in the giddy dance, or reclined on the canopied
settees beside those gallant lovers, who might to-morrow lie,
all maimed and bleeding, on the red battle-field. But among

all these, the flower of France's female aristocracy — among
all these, there was one pre-eminent — pre-eminent not only
in her actual beauty, but in that woman grace, that free, yet
gentle demeanor, that airiness of motion, and exquisite propriety
of manner, which are so essentially the offspring of noble
birth, and of unconscious practice, if not of conventual rules.
That one — the fairest and the noblest — insomuch as the eye
might judge by any outward token — that one, was the peasant-maiden!
Admired almost to adoration by the chivalrous spirits
of the day, and tested with the severest and most bitter criticism
of those of her lovely rivals, who had seen, in too many
instances, the knights who had been sworn their servants,
desert from their allegiance, humbly and hopelessly to throw
their services, their homage, and their love, at the feet of the
inspired shepherdess. All this had she gone through, triumphantly;
in the ordeal of the banquet and the ball, she
had proved her noble qualities, no less completely than amid
the din of battle. The test of private and familiar intercourse
she had endured and conquered — the test of that society
wherein enthusiasm is ridiculous, and nothing is deemed becoming
of a lady, save the conventional bearing of the circle,
whether it be of hoyden mirth, or of the habitual posé, concealing
the deepest feelings, and perchance, the wildest profligacy,
beneath the semblance of unmoved composure, and self-restraint.

At the banquet, she had feasted beneath the canopy of state,
at the right of the victorious monarch — through her means
victorious — she had been served, on the knee, by knights and
nobles — she had sipped from jewelled goblets the richest vintages
of France — she had seen and heard a thousand things,
which must have been equally new and wondrous to the village-girl
of Domremy; and this, too, with the consciousness
that hundreds of bright female eyes were reading her every

look, with envious eagerness, to see some breach of etiquette,
some symptom of embarrassment, some gaucherie, which —
however pardonable in itself, and however naturally to be expected
in her, who had heretofore scarce heard of, much less
mingled on the footing of equality, with princesses and kings
— might at least have justified them in pronouncing her a
creature beneath the notice, much more the devotion of the free
and noble. All this had she done, yet by no sign, no motion
however trivial, no expression of eye or feature, had she betrayed
the slightest confusion, the least consciousness of being
otherwise waited on, or differently respected, than from her
earliest childhood.

The feast was ended, and, each lady leaning on the shoulder
of her chevalier, the gay assembly filed, to the chiming melody
of instruments, through the long corridors to the halls already
cleared for the high dance, and as they passed along, it was
the arm of Charles that led — in preference to wife or maiden
of ancestral dignity — the Maid of Arc.

Mantles and plumed-hats and jewelled estocs were thrown
by, spurs were drawn from satin buskins, trains were looped
up, or quite removed by page and servitor — the halls were
cleared — the minstrels breathed into their instruments the
fullest soul of their vocation. Wherefore that pause — it was
the king's to lead the festive measure — the king's, who was
even now engrossed to utter inconsciousness of all that was
around him, by the strange beauty, the rich enthusiasm, and
above all, the naive and natural simplicity of his companion.

“Pray God, that she may dance,” whispered Diane the
Bourcicaut, to the fair Agnes; “pray God that she may dance
— none of your canaille may attempt the pavon and fail to be
ridiculous. Is it not so, my Agnes?”

With a faint smile she who was addressed looked up, but it
was beyond the powers of a spirit, highly strung and noble —

even as was hers — to reply in the tones of polished raillery,
or to affect the air of unconcern, that would have best befitted
the occasion. She turned her beautiful blue eyes toward her
faithless lover, and though she spoke not to complain, or even
to regret, a large tear hung for a moment on the long dark
lashes, and slid slowly down that cheek, that lately might have
vied with all that is most sweet and warm in the created universe,
now cold and colorless as the sepulchral marble. Hers
was not a heart to wish for the failure of a rival in aught trivial,
or of mere court-fashion. “No, no!” she murmured to herself,
almost unconsciously. “If in all else she be superior to
poor Agnes — superior even to the winning from her of that
false heart she deemed assuredly her own, then may she conquer
in all else — and oh, may HE be happy!”

None heard the words — none heeded, or perchance understood
the sorrows of the heart-wronged maiden; but neither
were the light wishes expressed by Diane, nor the similar
hopes indulged if unexpressed by many a jealous fair one, to
be gratified. The maiden was too high-minded for so frivolous
a practice as the soulless dance, or, perchance, too circumspect
to attempt aught wherein she was so like to fail. It was in
vain that the king, the young and glorious monarch, pleaded
with an enthusiastic ardor, somewhat disproportioned to the
magnitude of the boon, for her fair hand, if it were but for a
single revel. The maiden was inflexible, yet Charles departed
not from her elbow. The music sounded clearly and high,
driving the blood in faster and more tumultuous currents
through many a bounding form — the dance went on — couple
after couple glancing or gliding, part in slow voluptuous movements,
part in the giddy whirl of the swift maze. A few short
moments passed, and the maiden and the monarch were alike
forgotten.

On a solitary couch, deep set in the embrazure of a huge

oriel window that overlooked the ramparts though at a long
distance, the maiden was reclining. Her head and exquisitely-moulded
bust supported on a pile of damask cushions, and
the symmetrical lines of her person and her limbs scarcely
perceptible by the wavy motions of her velvet robe; but her
countenance was buried in her hand, and the beautiful bust
was throbbing, and panting, as though it were about to burst
with the fierceness of its own emotions. With an insidious
whisper, a flushed cheek, and a quickened pulse, Charles
knelt beside her. One of her fairy hands he had mastered,
spite of some feminine resistance, and held it to his bosom —
his words were inaudible, but the purport might be easily conjectured,
from the effect they produced on her who listened in
such manifest abandonment of feeling.

She raised her speaking features — there was a softness, an
expression of deep feeling, almost of yielding in her eye, but
the firmness of the chiseled mouth denied the weakness.

“Oh, sire,” she said, in notes of the most harmonious softness,
in which there might be traced a shadow of reproach —
“Oh, sire, and is it thus you would reward your savior? I am
a woman — a frail woman — though for a special end, and by
a mighty God inspired — but save my own weak judgment, my
own erring — yet thanks be to the Eternal — not, oh, not
abandoned impulses, I have no inspiration to guide me in the
narrow path of duty. And is it generous, or great, or kingly?
is it worthy the last heir of a long line of mighty ones, to pit
his strength against a woman's weakness? — his eloquence,
fervid and impassioned as it is, against her fond credulity? —
his rank and beauty against the ignorance, the admiring ignorance
of her peasant-heart. For thee I have left home, and
friends, and country — for to me my native valley was my
country — for thee I have violated the strict laws of womanhood,
incurring the reproach of over-boldness and unmaidenly

demeanor in donning male attire and backing the fierce war-horse.
All this have I done for thee; oh, strive not, thou, to
rob me of my sole remaining heritage, my maiden virtue —
my unblemished honor!”

“Oh, say not so! most beautiful and sweetest,” returned the
king; “knowest thou not that kings who may not wive them,
save for policy, may give their fondest love, may give their
hand and homage par amours, and do naught of dishonor to the
proudest.”

“Nay! then,” she cried, springing to her feet, with the air
of some young Pythoness full of the oracular presence —
“Nay, then, I will be heard — selfish and base! — ay, base
and selfish art thou! Dost think that I, I, the inspired of
Heaven, could bend to infamy? Dost dare to think that I, if
I could love a thing so exquisitely false as thou art, that I
would not tear out the guilty passion from my heart, though it
should rend the heart-strings? But so it is not — so shall it
never be! In that lone valley I deserted one, who would have
died for me — ay, died! not in your poor court-phrase, not to
dishonor, not to damn with the blight of his own infamy the
creature he pretended to adore! but to have called me his, his
in the face of Heaven. Him did I leave, not that I felt not the
blow which severed us — not that I was senseless to his honest
love — not that I was ingrate or cold; but that I had a duty,
a duty paramount, summoning me, trumpet-tongued, to rescue
thee! — thou who wouldst now destroy me, and for ever! Now,
know me! Know me, and tremble! First know, that not for
ten — for ten — not for ten thousand crowned THINGS like thee,
would Joan of Orleans barter the true peasant-love of that forsaken
one! Know further, that even now while thou art striving
to dishonor thy defender — even now the English Lion is
ramping at your gates — even now fierce Bedford is beneath
your ramparts. Pray to your God, if you believe in his existence

— pray to your God that he give you not up for ever, to
your own most guilty wishes — give not your country up to the
unrelenting islander!”

As she spoke, the long, shrill blast of a trumpet swept wailingly
over the festive city, and a remote din of arms succeeded
it, with the mingled cries of France's and of England's warfare.
In mute astonishment Charles gazed to the distant ramparts,
on which a deadly strife was even then in progress,
while the bright banners and glancing casques of the besieger
flashed to the moonbeams in still increasing numbers, as ladder
after ladder sent up its load to overpower the slumbering wardens,
and win the city thus relieved in vain. Thence, slowly
and with a faltering mien, he turned to the dilating form and
speaking eye of the prophetic maid — he clasped his hands,
overpowered with superstitious awe —

“Save me,” he cried, “thou holy one; oh, save my country!”

“Swear, then,” she answered; “swear, then, by the Eternal
Lord who sent me to thy succor; swear that never again
thou wilt form in thy heart of hearts the base and blackening
thought thou didst express but now! — Swear this and I will
save thee!”

“I swear — I swear by the” —

“St. Denis, ho!” cried Joan, in notes that pierced the ears
of the revellers like a naked sword — “Montjoye! St. Denis!
— and to arms! — The English ho! the English! Joan!
Joan for France, and vengeance!”

The well-known warcry was repeated from a hundred lips.
The maiden snatched the banner, and the brand — helmless
and in her woman robes she rushed into the conflict, followed
by thousands in their festive garb, with torch, and spear, and
banner! Short was the strife, and desperate. Bedford had
hoped to win a sleeping woman — he found a waking lion.
After a furious, but a hopeless encounter, he drew off his
foiled and thwarted bands, and Orleans was again preserved!

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE VICTORY.

A WEEK had passed since the relief of Orleans; — a week
of stern repose, of inaction, that was but preparatory to most
fierce activity. A week, like the brief, breathless pause between
the mustering of the storm-cloud and the first crash of
Heaven's artillery. Within the walls of the relieved city —
unexpectedly relieved from a state of the most abject despair
— the aspect of affairs widely changed! Instead of the pale
cheek, the whispered doubt or open lamentation, the oringing
step, and the frame already bowed to the earth with apprehension,
might be seen the bold and fiery glance, the manly front
of confidence restored, the firm and martial stride! Without
— there was a change, if possible, more clearly visible; a
change from earth-defying valor to superstitious dread, and
coward indecision. It was in vain that Bedford, Salisbury,
and Talbot, those thunderbolts of war; in war's most stirring
days, did all that men could do, to dispel the craven fear, to
relume the drooping valor of the self-same soldiery, before a
score of whom, a short week past, hundreds of steel-clad
Frenchmen would have fled, without one good blow stricken,
or one charger spurred to meet the onset. Nay, more than

all, it was in vain that one transient gleam of fortune smiled
on their arms, that one hour of victory chequered the now
wonted tale of their disasters. That very smile of fortune,
that very glimpse of victory went farther to confirm the gloomy
doubts which were rising up on every side to mask the sunset
of their declining hopes, than the relief of Orleans had
already gone, or than would ten fair defeats with marshalled
front and fruitless fighting. They had repelled, and it was
true — nobly repelled, and with decisive energy, a fierce attack
upon one of the bastions, erected by the far-sighted regent to
protect the lines of his blockade; — they had driven the hotheaded
lords of France before them, as had been their wont in
days of old — had chased them to the very sally-ports, from
which they had so lately issued, “defying earth and confident
of Heaven” — Nay, so complete had been their success, that
for a moment they believed the city theirs — but the MAIDEN
was not there! Her sacred banner fluttered not in the retreat
— nor had her battle-cry, “God aid — God aid, for France and
vengeance!” — been heard in the advance! But as they
reached the city-gates, pursuers and pursued, in wild confusion,
like the clear tones of a trumpet, they pealed upon the
air — reanimating the faint hearts and failing hands of France's
routed sons, and striking with the cold chill of dismay to the
hearts of England's bravest — the well-remembered cadences
of her war-shout! Springing from the couch to which she
had retired during the heat and weariness of noon, she had
buckled on her armor, vaulted on her charger, and, with a
dozen knights and squires chance collected for the rescue, had
galloped forth, in time to save the rash assailants from the fate
which their temerity had well deserved, and once again to
drive the English lion from before the walls of Orleans!

It was then evident — undoubted as the sun at his meridian
— that against the maiden's banner there could be no victory;

remove that magic obstacle, and with its wonted brightness
blazed forth the British valor; uplift it, and the hearts were
shaken, the arms paralyzed, the confidence abolished, which,
more than either heart or hand, had well-nigh justified the title
of the English monarchs to the subjugated crown of France.
Still was there naught of craven shrinking from the contest,
no thought of flight, or even of abandoning their conquests.
No! not in the meanest sutler of the camp! That stubborn
hardihood, that dogged insensibility to defeat, that passive endurance
of extremities after hope itself is dead, which has
ever been the characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, from the
fated day of Hastings to red Waterloo, was there displayed in
all its vigor. The privates, whether men-at-arms or archery,
held to their posts in cool defiance, and mustered around their
banners, if not with their accustomed alacrity, at least with
readiness and prompt submission! Nor would one of the
sturdy knaves have shrunk from or shunned the contest, with
the best paladin in the court of Charles — but striving to outrance
against the banner, in the teeth of which he deemed his
valor fruitless, and victory impossible, he would have fallen
unyielding, with his wounds in front, and his heart undismayed!

Such was the state of things in either host, when a general
assault of the English lines, at every accessible point, was resolved
on by the maiden and her council. The day was fixed
for the attack, at nearly a week's distance, nor was aught of
concealment or surprise so much as meditated! On the contrary,
defiances were interchanged between the leaders of the
hostile armies, and more cartels than one were given and accepted
for mortal combat, at the head of their several divisions,
and at places clearly specified! The very sentinels at the
extreme outposts, between whom but a few yards of unobstructed
turf, or perhaps some puny brooklet, intervened,

exulted in the prospect of a meeting under shield, face to
face!

The expected morning had at length arrived, but the sun
rose not in his accustomed brightness — the sky was black and
overcast, a dense mist rose, like a body of packed smoke, from
the low-lands, above which the occasional elevations of the
country, crowned with the castellated dwellings of the nobility,
or with the Gothic steeple of some village-church, loomed like
distant islands, while it would have required no wild stretch
of fancy to discover in the bastions of the invaders, decked
with their broad banners and their woods of lances, a resemblance
to a fleet becalmed, or idly waiting a renewal of the
breeze.

The hour was yet early, when mass was finished in the high
cathedral; the sacred host had been displayed to the reverential
soldiers, as they filed onward, troop after troop, bending
their mail-clad knees, and veiling their victorious standards, as
they passed the ministering priest, and received his patriotic
benediction, accompanied by showers of holy water, and followed
by the pealing anthems of a full and noble choir.
Meekly and humbly had they knelt before the shrine — the
young monarch and his lovely champion! — All armed, save
that their casques were held without by page and squire, had
they partaken of the eucharist; draining, with lips that soon
should shout the unrelenting war-cry, or perchance quiver in
the pangs of violent and sudden dissolution, the typical blood
of the Redeemer; and receiving, with the hands that soon
must reek with human gore and wield the mortal weapon, the
consecrated pledge of their salvation.

The rites had been concluded, the army was already marshalled
on the plain under the guidance of its subalterns! —
and now, with their attendants — banner-men and esquires of
the body on gallant steeds — varlets and couteliers on foot,

but trained to run beside the charger of the lord with their
huge knives, misnamed of mercy, and heavy pole-axes — the
leaders galloped from the rear to their respective stations.

Slowly the mist had been dispersing beneath the influence
of the sun, and of a light air from the eastward, which seemed
to increase with the increasing redness of the east, although
the vapors still clung heavily to the level plain. The monarch
and the maiden had reached the centre of their lines —
Alençon's banner might be seen on the extreme right, though
its quartered bearings were invisible from the distance and the
darkness; Vendome and Bourcicaut had announced their
presence on the left by bugle-note and banner-cry; but it was
around the person of the king, and of his bright associate in
arms, that were mustered the pride and flower of France's
chivalry! Gancourt, and La Fayette, Graville, Xaintrailles,
De La Hire, and the dark Dunois, each with his chosen band
of lances, each with his bannerol displayed, a knight of high
renown, were gathered there, amidst a sea of waving plumes
and sparkling armor.

“The time hath come, my liege,” cried Joan — “the time
hath come, when you shall see your foemen scattered before
your lances like chaff before the wind of Heaven! And lo!
a signal shall be given even now, and in that signal shalt thou
conquer! When the first blast of our trumpets shall be heard
abroad — when the first roar of our ordnance shall awake the
slumbering echoes, then shall this cloudy tabernacle be rent
in twain. Then shall the bright day-star shine down in unobstructed
glory, to witness, and to aid our daring! — To your
posts, nobles and knights, to your posts! — and, when the signal
shall be given from on high, let each one couch his spear,
and spur his steed, For France — for France and glory!”

“Away, Xaintrailles, away to these knave cannoneers, and
let them lay their ordnance fairly, and load it heavily!” cried

Dunois; “and, when they hear a royal trumpet, let them
shoot on while fire and linstock hold!”

The clash of hoofs was heard, and ere a moment elapsed the
youthful warrior and train were lost in the near mist-wreaths.

There was a pause of deep, deep silence! Joan sat upon
her motionless and well-trained charger, gazing aloft, and toward
the east, with a calm, searching eye; not the wild glance
of doubt or anxiety, but the steady gaze of confident and conscious
faith, awaiting the confirmation of its promise. With
the speed of light had the prophecy been rumored through the
host, and — though every vizor was lowered, every buckler
braced, and every lance lowered in preparation for the instant
charge — though the advance of the enemy might be already
noted, in the heavy tramp of the approaching squadrons, and in
the occasional clang of armor — still every eye was directed
heavenward, in keen anxiety for the proof of the prophet-maiden's
inspiration.

Was it indeed inspiration — was it the divine gift of foresight
bestowed, on one most ignorant of the world's wisdom, for high
and holy purposes? Or was it that intimate acquaintance with
the atmospheric phenomena, so often possessed by those whose
duty it is to tend their flocks on the upland pasture or in the
mountain-valley, operating now on her enthusiastic and zealous
temperament, that caused the peasant-maiden to predict occurrences,
which were in truth about to be fulfilled; thus deceiving
alike herself and those who followed her?

The sounds of the approaching foemen rose clearly and
more clearly on the ear; the very words of the leaders might
be heard in the deep hush of expectation, and now, through
the intervening mist, might be seen, dimly and ghost-like, the
long array of the invaders. The maiden cast a quick glance
to the king, and, catching his assent from the motion of his
closed helmet, flung her hand aloft —

“Now trumpets!” she cried — “sound! sound for France!
Montjoye! St. Denis!”

A single clear blast arose, blown from the silver-trumpet of
a pursuivant who stood beside her stirrup — shrilly was it protracted,
without flourish or variation, till caught up, and repeated
from a thousand brazen instruments. While their
screaming cadences were yet deafening every ear, and thrilling
every heart, a sharp crash, a deep, hoarse roar, burst forth
on the extensive right. Crash after crash, roar after roar, the
stunning voice of the newly-invented ordnance rolled along the
front. For a moment's space the darkness was increased —
the smoke from the artillery rolled thickly back upon the lines
— there was a stir in the atmosphere, a quick, shivering motion
— a cold breath — the banners fluttered wildly, the feathers
tossed, and fell again, and then streamed out at length, and all
in one direction. A fresh breeze swept down from the eastward,
and, like a huge curtain raised by unseen machinery, the
whole volume of mingled smoke and mist surged upward, was
swept violently away, and, in less time than the narration occupies,
was curling in scattered vapors over the far horizon.
As the fog lifted, the glorious sun burst forth, not gradually or
with increasing splendor, but in one rich, sudden flood of
glory. The animated scene was kindled as if by magical illumination;
from flank to flank, each host was visible — a line
of polished steel, with its bright lance-heads twinkling aloft
like stars, and its emblazoned banners of a thousand mingled
hues, floating and nestling on the breath of morning.

Louder than the trumpet's clamor, louder than the thunders
of the ordance — as the maiden's signal was given, as she
had said it, from on high — pealed the exulting shout of those
assembled myriads. A thousand spurs were dashed into the
horses' flanks, a thousand lances levelled, and a thousand different
war-cries shouted aloud, as the French chivalry rushed to

the onset. Their infantry had been drawn up in solid columns
of reserve, while the archery and yeomen of the English force
were posted within the lines, which were fortified by a long
trench and palisade, strengthened at intervals by half-moons
of stone, and masked by scattered shrubs and coppice. The
charge was, therefore, horse to horse, and knight to knight;
but fiercely as the main bodies rushed to the encounter; they
were yet outstripped by a score of leaders, on either side, who
galloped forth to redeem their plighted words, and win them
glory before men, and love of ladies.

The king and Dunois were the foremost, but ere they had
met their antagonists, a third rider was abreast of these. The
azure panoply and scarf, the chestnut charger, the slender
form, and more than manly grace, announced the MAIDEN.
Nor were the English champions slower in the shock — Talbot
spurred out, and Salisbury, and young De Vere. D'Alen
çon was opposed by Somerset, and the wise regent couched
his lance against the breast of Dunois. On they came, with
the rush of the whirlwind — a long series of single combats.
The bay destrier of D'Alençon went down before the spear of
Somerset — but De Vere's life-blood streamed on the unsplintered
lance of Bourcicaut. The king had met the noble Salisbury
in stout equality — their lances splintered to the grasp,
their steeds recoiling on their haunches, told the fury of the
shock. The maid had couched her untried weapon against no
less a warrior than the gallant Talbot, as she charged side by
side with the bold bastard. But, had the lance of that unrivalled
warrior met with no more resistance than the virgin's
feeble thrust, that day had ended her career. Fair and knightly
did she bear her weapon against his triple-shield, but his
lance-point, levelled at her crest, encountered the bars of her
elastic vizor; it caught firm hold, and spurring his steed more
fiercely on, he had well nigh borne her from the selle. But

there was one who marked her peril; Dunois, even in the instant
of the shock, beheld her overmatched, and well nigh conquered.
With a devotedness of valor well worthy of the best
cavalier of France, he turned his lance, from his own antagonist,
against the helm of Talbot, meeting the overpowering
charge of Bedford, with undaunted, although unresisting firmness.
It was over in an instant: Talbot, although unharmed
by the slight charge of Joan, was hurled to earth, as by a thunderbolt,
on meeting the unlooked-for weapon of Dunois, in the
same instant that his conqueror went down before the unhindered
shock of Bedford.

The dark tresses of the maiden streamed upon the air, her
ecstatic eye, her flushed brow, and speaking lineaments, were
exposed to the brunt of battle; for the lacings of her casque
had broken, and she had escaped being unhorsed, only by the
scarce inferior peril of being thus violently unhelmed. Still
she was unshaken in her seat, and, as she was borne forward
by her mettled steed, swinging her bright espaldron above her
head, she looked rather an avenging angel, than a mortal warrior.
In the rush, Bedford had been carried over his fallen
antagonist, ere he could check his charger; and, as he turned
to renew the combat, the maiden wheeled round likewise to
rescue her preserver.

“God aid!” she cried — “God aid! — The virgin to the
rescue!” and as his eyes were directed downward to the unhorsed
Dunois, who had already gained his feet and grasped
his massive axe, she smote him on the casque with the full
sweep of her two-handed blade. Sparks of fire flashed from
the concussion, and the stout regent reeled in his saddle. Another
second, and the axe of Dunois fell on the chamfront of
steel that protected his charger's brow, and, dashing it to atoms,
sunk deeply into the brain of the animal. Down went Bedford,
and over him stood his conqueror, with his poniard already

pointed to the barred vizor, and his deep voice summoning
him to surrender. But the summons was premature, a score
of English knights rushed to the rescue, while the king, with
La Fayette, Xaintrailles, and De La Hire, bore down to the
support of his companions. Long would it be, and tedious, to
recount the deeds of arms that were performed, the brilliant
valor that was there displayed. The melée was fought out by
the best knights of France and England, and fought with equal
vigor; but fate was, on that day, adverse to the bold invaders.
At this point in their line, and at this point only, did they hold
the battle in suspense; in every other part of the field they
were already foiled, and in retreat; and now, as the chivalry
of Charles, by the defeat of their immediate opponents, was
enabled to concentrate their forces, Bedford, and Salisbury,
and Talbot, whose backs no Frenchman had ever seen before,
were fain to extricate themselves, as best they might, and retreat
to their entrenchments. Nor was this last effort successful,
till they had left a fearful number of their best and bravest
outstretched, never again to rise upon the bloody plain. Foot
by foot, they retreated, bearing up dauntlessly against their
overwhelming foes, and giving the foremost of their adversaries
deep cause to rue their rashness. Bourcicaut fell, cloven
to the teeth by Salisbury — the right-arm of La Fayette was
shattered by the mace of Somerset — the blood was gushing
in a dozen places from the sable armor of Dunois, and the
golden panoply of Charles was broken, and besmeared with
dust and gore.

Still not a man of those bold barons, but must have fallen,
or yielded them to the courtesy of their antagonists, had not
the tide of battle swept them, pursuers and pursued alike, to
the vicinity of the British line. Then rose once more the
jovial island shout—“St. George! St. George for merry England!”
A heavy and incessant shower of cloth-yard shafts

came sailing over the heads of the retreating party, and fell
with accurately-measured aim, and terrible effect, into the
crowded ranks of the pursuers. Then came the roar of ordnance;
in a dozen spots the ponderous balls of stone or metal
ploughed their paths of devastation through the French columns;
while under cover of their archery, the discomfited
islanders filed slowly into their entrenchments — Charles draw-ing
off his troops, in order to reform his array, and give his
men brief space for refreshment and repose, ere he should
make his final effort on the position of the half-conquered
Bedford.

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE ASSAULT.

The din of battle ended suddenly as it had commenced;
the weary and discomfited forces of the islanders were now
concealed behind their palisades, save here and there a solitary
warder, pacing to and fro on the low bastions, his steel-cap
and spear-point flashing back the rays of the noontide sun.
The long array of France, which had fallen orderly and slowly
back without the flight of arrow or the range of ordnance,

might be seen midway between the town and the works of the
besiegers. Horses were picqueted, and outposts stationed
along their front; while, their weapons stacked, their helmets
unlaced, and their bodies cast leisurely on the ground, the
troops enjoyed to the utmost their brief interval of truce.
Camp fires had been lighted, and their smoke curled peacefully
in fifty places toward the bright sky above them; sutlers
had come out from the town, beeves had been slaughtered,
wine-casks broached, and without a sign of revelry, or wild
debauch, the army feasted after their noonday strife.

At a short distance in advance of the line occupied by the
main body of the forces, there stood a magnificent elm-tree,
the only one in sight, which had risen in height sufficient to
protect those beneath its shadow from the glare of a meridian
sun. Immediately from under its roots a pure cold spring
welled forth into a basin of stone artificially, though roughly,
hewn to receive its waters; and trickling thence in a small
but limpid streamlet wound its way toward the distant river.
Beneath this tree, and around the basin of the spring, a group
of warriors was collected whom the slightest glance might
have discovered to be of no ordinary rank; their splendid
arms, their gallant steeds, let forth and backward by squires
of gentle birth and gay attire, and their emblazoned banners
pitched into the ground beside their place of rest, designated
at once the leaders of the host.

A wide sheet of crimson damask had been spread out upon
the turf; bottians of leather or flasks of metal were plunged
into the vivid waters to cool their rich contents; goblets of
gold, and dishes already ransacked, were mingled in strange
confusion with sculptured helmets, jewelled poniards, and the
hilts of many a two-handed blade cast on the sod in readiness
to the grasp of its bold owner.

The visage of the king was flushed, and his eye sparkled

with the intoxication, not of the grape, but of his recent victory.
Nor did the brow of Dunois wear its wonted gravity;
gay words and boasts, rendered less offensive by their prowess
of the morning, passed among the younger knights; but on
the lips of Joan there was no smile, and in her eye no flash;
steadfastly gazing on the heavens, she sat with a deep shade
of melancholy on her chiselled lineaments, resembling rather
some sad captive waiting the hour of her doom, than a prophetess
whose words had been accomplished — a warrior whose
first field had been a triumph.

“Why lies so deep a shadow on the brow of our fair champion!”
cried the youthful monarch. “In such an hour as this
sadness is ominous, and open melancholy — treason! Cheer
thee, bright being — the king drinks to his preserver!” and,
suiting the action to the word, he filled a goblet with the mantling
wine of Auvergnat, and tendered it to the silent maiden.
“One more carouse,” he said, “and then to horse, to horse,
and we will win the trenches of those dog-islanders ere the
sun sinks on the lea!”

“And you are then determined,” she replied in tones of sorrowful,
not angry, import; — “and you are then determined to
risk all — honor, life, victory, your country's hope, your people's
happiness, by this mad haste, this rash and obstinate impiety!
I tell you now, as heretofore I told you, be patient
and victorious — be rash, and infamy shall fall on you; the
infamy of flight, and terror, and defeat!”

“I am determined!” was the cool and somewhat haughty
answer; “I am determined to force these ramparts ere I
sleep this night; or under them to sleep that sleep which
knows no earthly waking!”

“And thou shalt force those ramparts — wilt thou but tarry.
Tarry till the shadows of this elm-tree fall far eastward; till
the sun hath stooped within a hand's breadth of the horizon;

tarry till then, and thou shalt conquer — advance now, and, 'tis
I that say it — I, Joan of Orleans — advance now, and thou
shalt rue the hour!”

“Nay, maiden,” replied Dunois, who hitherto had sat a
silent, though not interested, listener, “for once inust I oppose
thee; to tarry would be but to give space to the troops of Bedford
to shake off their superstitions — to ours to lose their confidence
of glory. To tarry is defeat — to advance, victory!
— victory as surely as steel blade and silver hilt may hold
together!”

“I say to thee, Dunois,” she answered, “the ways of the
Most High are not the ways of man! He who hath raised a
peasant-girl to be a royal leader, can turn defeat to victory,
and triumph to most foul disaster. Neither if ye advance, as
well I know ye will, shall the steel blade and silver hilt hold,
as their wont, together! Seeing, thou shalt believe, and suffering,
tremble!”

“Enough!” shouted the impatient king; “enough of this —
sound trumpets, and advance!”

No further words were uttered, nor had one spoken could
the import of his speech have been discovered, among the clanging
of the trumpets, the wild shouts of the troopers hurrying to
their ranks, the tramp of the cavalry, and the breathless din of
the advance.

The maiden turned her dark eyes plaintively upward; she
stretched her arms slowly apart, and with a gaze of mute appeal
prayed silently. Her brief orisons at an end, she too
buckled her weapon to her side, laced her plumed helmet, and
haughtily rejecting the proffered aid of Charles, vaulted, without
the use of rein or stirrup; into her steel-bound demipique.

The host was already in motion — marching in four solid
columns against the besiegers' lines; the knights and men-at-arms
dismounted from their destriers, crowding the front, on

foot, with mace, and battle-axe, and espaldron, instead of lance
and pennon; their hoods of mail drawn closely over their
crested helmets, their small triangular bucklers flung aside,
and each protected from the missiles of the British by his
huge pavesse of polished steel without device or bearing, six
feet in height, and three in breadth, borne by his squire before
him. Behind this powerful mass came on the pioneers, with
axe and mattock, fagots and piles, to undermine the walls,
ladders to scale their summits, and mantelets of plank covered
with newly-severed hides, huge machines, beneath the protection
of which to labor at the walls in safety. In the rear the
light-armed followed: archers, and crossbowmen, and javelineers,
and slingers. It was, indeed, a host to strike dismay
into the hearts of the defenders, as it advanced steadily and
silently, with the deep silence of resolve, right onward to the
bastion.

At the head of the right-hand column rode the monarch,
that to his left commanded by Dunois — Gaucourt and De La
Hire leading the others; and the maiden, who had refused to
serve save as a private lance, riding in sullen apathy beside
the bridle-hand of the bold bastard. At a short mile's distance
the columns halted, while Dunois and the leaders galloped forward,
confident in their coats of plate, to reconnoitre the position
of the heavy ordnance, the effects of which they had too
terribly experienced to endure without an effort at avoidance
a second discharge, which to troops in solid column must have
carried certain destruction. Boldly they performed their duty,
dashing up to within twenty paces of the outworks, under a
storm of bolts and shafts, that rattled against their armor as
closely, but as harmlessly, as hail-stones on a castle-wall.
Two batteries were at once discovered, and as the rude artillery
of that day, placed, when about to be discharged, on motionless
beds of timber, and dragged, when on the march, by

teams of oxen, could not be made to traverse or command any
other points than those on which it had been previously laid,
there was but little fear of so arranging the advance as to
avoid their fatal fire. Still as he returned the last from his
reconnoissance, Dunois was ill at ease. “There should be
yet another,” he muttered; “and to encounter it were certain
ruin. A murrain on that wily regent; now hath he masked it
cunningly!”

But there was no space for further parley; with the
bray of the trumpets, and the deep clang of the kettle-drum, the
signal for the charge was given; the soldiery of France deployed
from column into line, and with a quickened step and
levelled weapons rushed forward to the assault. At the distance
of some fifty paces from the works of the besiegers, the
ground was rugged and broken, the channel of a dry rivulet
running the whole length of their front, its banks scattered
with blocks of stone, and thickly planted with thorny shrubs.
The troops, which had been formed obliquely to avoid the fire
of the artillery, had advanced into this difficult pass before they
were well aware of its existence, and before meeting with any
opposition from the enemy. The most broken ground had been
selected by Dunois as the point of attack, hoping by that
means to escape the range not only of the two batteries, which,
having been discovered, he had already guarded against, but
that of a third which had been so cunningly masked, as to
defy the closest observation. Well, however, as this had been
devised, it so fell out that the column of the king, which, partly
through the obstinacy of the royal chief, and partly from the
ill advice of leaders jealous of the gallant bastard, had failed
to deploy with the remainder of the host, advanced blindly in
its crowded ranks upon the very muzzles of the concealed ordnance.
Hitherto not a symptom of resistance had appeared;
not a man had been seen upon the English ramparts; not a

banner was displayed, not a trumpet blown. But at this instant
— when the line had been compelled to halt, within half
bow-shot of the bastions, while the pioneers, with axe and
mattock, were clearing the ground in their front — at this instant
the wailing note of a single bugle rang from within the
works. Ere the signal had well reached the assailants, the
rampart was thronged from end to end with thousands of the
green-frocked archery of England; again the bugle was winded,
and at that brief distance the cloth-yard shafts fell in one
continuous volley, darkening the air with their numbers, and
almost drowning the shouts of the battle with their incessant
whizzing. Close, however, as they fell and bodily, each arrow
there was aimed at its peculiar mark; and each, with few
exceptions, was buried feather-deep in the breast of a French
skirmisher. It was in vain that they replied to that blighting
volley with cross-bow, bolt, and javelin, no missiles could compete
with that unrivalled archery; the advance was strewn
upon the ground in heaps of slaughtered carcases; the host
wavered and was about to fly — but then arose the trumpet-like
shout of Dunois.

“On! on! Orleans! Orleans! to the rescue! Close up!
— close up! even to the palisades; it is but a distance that
their shot is deadly.”

And, seconding his words by deeds, the powerful knight
rushed forth, bearing his pavesse high on his left arm, and his
massive axe sweeping in circles round his head — a dozen
arrows struck him on the crest and corslet and glanced off
harmlessly — on he rushed, though every step was planted on
a writhing corpse, and none came on to second him — he
reached the base of the rampart, his axe smote on the timbers
of the palisade, and down came stones, and beams, and shaft,
and javelin, ringing and rattling upon his heavy shield and
panoply of proof; yet he heeded them no more than the oak

heeds the thistle-down that floats upon the summer wind.
Valor, like terror, is contagious; with a mighty effort a dozen
knights broke through the throng of their own disordered sol-diery,
and forced their way to the side of the bold bastard —
but not like him unharmed; an arrow skilfully directed against
the vizor of young Delaserre, shot through the narrow aperture,
and clove his brain; a ponderous axe, hurled from the
hand of Salisbury, crushed through the cerveilliere of Montmorency,
as though it were a bowl of crystal; yet still undauntedly
they hurried on — and now they joined their leader.
The dust already eddying upward, the heavy masses of wood
and timber that rolled down beneath his ponderous blows,
showed that his attack was prosperous as it was gallant. The
din of blows given and taken, hand to hand, between or above
the broken palisades, was mingled with the hurtling of the arrows,
the shouts or cries of the fierce combatants.

“On! on!” the voice of Dunois rose again above the confusion
— “On! on! the breach is opened! — Orleans and victory!”
but as he spoke, a stone heavier than any yet hurled
against him, fell from a huge machine full on his lifted pavesse;
his arm fell powerless by his side, and the tall warrior reeled
backward from the breach, dizzy and helpless as a child — but
yet more evil was the fate of his companions; one dropped,
crushed out of the very form of humanity, by the same stone;
and then a flood of boiling oil was showered upon the heads
of the weak and wearied remnant.

“St. George for merry England! — forward brave hearts,
and drive them from our palisades!” and with the word, Bedford
and Huntingdon leaped down with axe and espaldron,
while many a youthful aspirant rushed after them in desperate
emulation. The gallant Dunois, roused like a wearied war-horse
to the fray, fought fearlessly and well; yet his blows
fell no longer, as was their wont, like hammers on the anvil —

his breath came thick, the sweat rolled in black drops through
the bars of his vizor; he staggered beneath the blade of Bedford.
At this perilous moment, a roar, louder than the ocean
in its fury, louder than the Alpine avalanche, burst on their
senses. “God aid the king,” cried Dunois, even in this
extremity careless of his own peril — “it is the British ordnance!”

The smoke rolled like a funeral pall over the fray, that still
raged beneath it; and a mingled clamor, as of thousands in
agony and despair, smote on the ears and appalled the hearts
of the half-conquered Frenchmen. The column of the king
had advanced upon the very muzzles of the ordnance, as with
heavy loss from the archery they too had passed the channel
of the stream, and had but narrowly escaped annihilation. A
mounted messenger came dashing through the strife, “Draw
off your men, Dunois,” he shouted from a distance; “draw off
— no victory to-day!”

But he shouted to no purpose, for the bold ear which he addressed
was for a space sealed in oblivion deep as the grave
— his well-tried sword had shivered in his grasp, stunned by
the sweeping strokes of Bedford — he had fallen, and must
there have perished, had not a young knight, in azure panoply,
bestriven him, and battled it right gallantly above his senseless
form.

It was the maiden! Fresh and unwearied she sprang to
the strife from which she had refrained before, and he, her
terrible antagonist, the unvanquished Bedford, reeled before
her blows.

Gathering himself to his full height as he retreated from the
sway of her two-handed blade, he struck a full blow with his
axe upon her crest, and again the treacherous helm gave way
— her dark hair streamed on the wind, and her eagle eye met
his with an unblenching gaze; at the same point of time an arrow

grazed her neck, and quivered in the joint of her gorget.
“Fly! fly!” shouted the crowd behind her, who had again
rallied during her combat with the regent — “fly! fly! the
maid is slain!”

“Fly not, vile cravens — fly not,” she cried in tones clearer
than human, as she pressed bare-headed after the retreating
Bedford — “fly not, the time hath come, and victory is ours!
— Joan! Joan! to the rescue! Victory! God sends — God
sends us victory! The sun is in the west — our toils are
ended!”

At her high voice, many an eye was turned toward the western
horizon, and her well-remembered prophecy cheered their
faint hearts and nerved their faltering courage. The day had
been spent, had been forgotten, in the fearful strife, and the
sun was hanging like a shield of gold a hand's breadth high in
the horizon. Like wild-fire in the stubblefield the clamor
spread — “Heaven fights for France! Victory! — God sends
us victory!” and still, at the cry, they pressed onward with renewed
vigor to the breach. It was in vain that Salisbury and
Talbot strove — that Bedford plied his axe, taking a mortal life
at every blow — for a panic, a fatal, superstitious panic, had
seized on their victorious countrymen. At every charge of
the encouraged Frenchmen — at every repetition of the cry,
“Heaven fights for France,” they shrunk back timid and
abashed; and it was of necessity, though with evident reluctance,
that the leaders of the English war gave orders to withdraw
the men from the sally, and trust only to the defence of
their entrenchments.

There was a brief pause — a silence like that which precedes
the burst of the thunder-cloud — as Joan arrayed her
followers — “Forward,” she cried, “and conquer! Heaven
has given us the strength — the valor — and the victory! —
Forward and conquer!” and with the word, the living torrent

was let loose against the breach. It was but a girl — a weak,
bare-headed girl — that led them, mingling in deadly strife
with the best champions of the day; yet superstition and success
were stronger than the shield or crested casque. Her
cry struck terror to the hearts of the defenders; her sword
was scarcely parried in its sweeping blows; her foot was
planted on the summit of the breach; her sacred banner floated
above her head. From point to point her prophecy had been
accomplished; the sun had sunk in the west, and his last rays
had shone upon the triumph of the French — upon the rout,
the carnage, and the desolation of their island foemen.

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE CORONATION.

The capture of the English lines at Orleans was not a solitary
or unsupported triumph of the French. On the succeeding
morning not a trace of the discomfited islanders could be
discovered from the walls of the long-beleagured city, save
the shattered and deserted bastions so lately occupied by their
green-frocked archery, and the heaps of their unburied dead,
which choked the trenches, and tainted the pure atmosphere
with their charnel exhalations. Nor was this all. The confidence
of France had been restored to a degree unwonted, if
not unknown, before. The virgin fought not but to conquer.
Gergeau was taken by assault; the daring girl mounting the
foremost, and carrying the walls, though wounded, with undaunted

spirit. Beaugency opened its gates at the first summons;
and the British garrison, which had retired to the
castle, yielded on fair condition. Roused from his long inaction
by this series of bright successes, the constable of
France levied his vassals to share the triumphs of the royal
army. Nor were the English idle. Bedford, who had by
dint of unexampled perseverance collected some six thousand
men to reinforce the relics of the host which, under the brave
but wary Talbot, still kept the field, effected his junction at
Patai-en-Beauce, but effected it not unmolested. “We must
give battle,” cried the heroic Joan; “we must give battle to
the English were they horsed upon the clouds — ay! and
equip ourselves with right good spurs for the pursuit.”

She fought again, and was again successful; and this day
more than all decided the fortunes of the land. The British
troops, struck down from their high pitch, heart-sick with super-stition,
and half-defeated before a blow was stricken, scarcely
awaited the first onslaught of the French, who charged with a
degree of confidence that insured the result by which it was so
fully justified.

And now the object of the maiden's mission was brought
forth in council. “To Rheims,” she cried, “to Rheims! it is
the will of God!” To every argument that was adduced
against her, she had no other answer. “To this end am I inspired
— to this end was I sent — that I should conduct this
son of France in triumph to the walls of Rheims, and crown
him with the diadem of Clovis. The way is clear before us
— the sword of the Most High hath fallen on the foes of
France — the victory lacks only its accomplishment!”

It was in vain that Richmont the gallant constable opposed
the scheme as visionary, the march as desperate. The
haughty spirit of Charles himself was now aroused, and his
best counsellors, Dunois, La Hire, and D'Alençon, approved

the project. The recent services of Richmont were all forgotten;
his disgrace ensued, and in solitude he learned that to
say unwelcome truths to princes is a counterpoise to the most
exalted merit, to the most splendid virtues.

The army marched through a waste tract of country, occupied
by the troops of England, hostile or disaffected; without
provisions, equipage, or baggage; with banners waving, and
music pealing, like some gay procession in the high-tide of
peace, the army marched for Rheims. No human forethought
could have calculated the effect — no human intelligence could
have divined the wonderful result. Defeat, destruction, and
despair, could only have been looked for — these the natural,
the almost certain consequences of such a step. They marched,
and every fortress sent its keys to Joan in peaceable submission;
every city threw its gates apart for her admission; the
country people flocked in thousands to behold the pomp, to
glut their eyes with gazing on the heavenly maiden, to tender
their allegiance to the king — to bless, and almost to adore the
savior of their country. Not a fort was guarded by the British
archery; not a bridge was broken to delay her progress; not
an enemy was seen throughout the march. The spirit, the
enthusiastic spirit of the prophet-maiden, had spread like a
contagious flame throughout the land; the confidence in her
had wrought the miracle; the valor of the determined was
augmented; the doubts of the wavering dispersed; the fears
of the timid put to flight. Beneath the walls of Troyes, for
the first time, was her career disputed. The drawbridges
were up; the frowning ramparts bristled with pikes and partisans;
the heavy ordnance levelled, and the lintstocks blazing
in the grasp of the Burgundian cannoniers.

The army was arrayed for the assault; ladders were hastily
collected; mantelets and pavesses were framed as best they
might be, on this emergency unlooked for and ill-omened.

The bold visage of Dunois was graver than its wont, and the
gay jest died on the lips of D'Alençon. Well did those politic
commanders know that to be checked was in itself destruction.
Founded upon the widely-credited report that their success
was certain, it was indeed secure. But let that superstitious
faith be shaken, and the spell was broken. Let but the
English learn that victory were not impossible, and they would
be again victorious. Let but the French discover that Joan
might be defeated, and they would faint again and fly before
their foemen. Now, then, was to be the touchstone of their
power, the proof of their success; and now — it would be
scarce too much to say — those undaunted leaders trembled,
not for themselves, nor with a base and coward fear; but with
a high and patriotic apprehension for the safety of their country
and their king, for the accomplishment of their designs,
for the well-being of the myriads intrusted to their charge.

Bows were already bent, and lances levelled, when the
maid herself rode forth. All armed, from spur to gorget, in
her azure panoply, but with her beaming features and dark
locks uncovered by the cerveilliere or vizor of her plumed helmet,
she rode forth a bow-shot in the front. The consecrated
banner was elevated in her right hand, while with her left
she turned and wound the fiery charger with an easy government,
that well might be considered the result of supernatural
powers. Her sheathed sword hung by its embroidered baldrick
from the shoulder to the spur; her mace-at-arms and
battle-axe were ready at the saddle-bow; her triangular shield
of Spanish steel was buckled round her neck; yet fully equipped
for war, her errand was of peace.

“Jesu Maria!” she cried, “good friends and dear,” in accents
so trumpet-like in their intense and thrilling clearness,
that every ear in either host caught the sounds, and every
bosom throbbed at their import. “Good friends and dear —

for so with you it rests to be — lords, burgesses, inhabitants
of this fair town of Troyes, the virgin, Joan, commands ye —
that ye may know it from the King of heaven, her liege and
sovereign lord, in whose most royal service she abideth every
day — that you shall make true homage to this gentle king of
France, who soon shall be at Rheims, and soon at Paris, who
standeth now to the fore! By the help of your King, Jesus,
true and loyal Frenchmen, come forth to succor your king,
Charles — so shall there be no blame!”[2]

For a moment there was a pause — but for a moment only.
The spears fell from the hands of the defenders; the banners
were lowered; the gates opened. The Burgundian garrison
retired; the citizens of Troyes rushed forth with joyful acclamations,
casting themselves prostrate before the charger of
the maiden, covering her stirrups with their kisses, and shedding
tears of unfeigned happiness.

The army reached the brow of the last hill that overlooks
the rich and lovely district in which the ancient town of
Rheims is situated, and never did a sight more glorious meet
the eyes of youthful monarch than that which lay outstretched
before him. It was early in the month of July, the earth gay
in its greenest pomp of foliage, its richest flush of bloom; the
heavens dazzlingly blue; the air mild and balmy; the wild
landscape diversified with its laughing wineyards, its white
hamlets, its shadowy forests; the silvery line of the river
Vele flashing and sparkling in sunshine; and the gray towers
of Rheims arising from a mass of tufted woodland in the centre
of the picture; and all this was his — his heritage — his
birthright — wrested from his hand by the mailed gripe of the

invader — redeemed, recaptured, but to be restored by the fair,
frail being, who sat beside him, her bright eyes flashing with
triumph, and her whole frame quivering with the well-nigh
unearthly rapture of the moment.

Before their feet the road fell rapidly into a deep ravine
with sandy banks, partially shadowed by stunted shrubs, and
patches of furze with its dark prickly masses beautifully contrasted
by its golden bloom; beyond this gorge lay a thick
woodland, through which the highway might be seen wandering
in irregular curves, with a license not often found in the
causeways of La belle France. On the summit of this hill, the
monarch and his immediate train had halted, while the advanced
guard, a brilliant corps of light-armed cavalry — prickers,
as they were termed, with long, light lances for their only
weapon, and mounted cross-bowmen, filed slowly forward,
company after company, veiling their gay banners, and saluting
with trailed weapons and bended heads, as they passed,
the presence. In the rear the long array came trooping on;
for miles and miles the champaign country was overrun with
scouring parties, and light detachments, hurrying in concentric
lines toward the place of their destination; while the cause-ways
were so thronged as to be almost impassable, with solid
columns of men-at-arms, trains of artillery, and all the paraphernalia
of an army on the march.

The light-armed horsemen, file after file, swept out of sight,
and still as they were lost in the recesses of the shadowy
woodland, fresh troops mounted the summit, and deployed
from column into line, until the whole ridge of the hill was
covered with a dense and threatening mass, in the dark outlines
of which it would have required no unnatural stretch of
fancy to discover the likeness of a thunder-cloud; while the
dazzling rays of the sun flashed back from casque or corslet
might have passed for the electric fluid.

Tidings had reached the army, at the halt of the preceding
night, that Rheims like Troyes was garrisoned with a Burgundian
force of full three thousand lances; a power, which,
amounting to five times that number of men-at-arms, it would
have been an arduous task for Charles to encounter in the
open field; and which, when fighting from the vantage ground
of wall and battlement, and under the guidance of warriors so
renowned as the counts of Saveuse and of Chatillon-sur-Harne,
he could not even hope to conquer.

It was for this, then, that the royal army halted, till their
prickers might return with tidings from the vicinage of Rheims,
lest, upon marching down from the strong eminences which it
now occupied, it should become entangled among the swamps
and thickets of the forest, and so be taken by the foe at disadvantage.
Not long, however, were they compelled to tarry; for
the troops had scarcely piled their arms, and the fires were
not yet kindled to prepare the mid-day meal, ere a sound of
music came faintly up the wind; so faintly, that it could not be
discovered whether it were a point of war, or a mere peaceful
flourish that was uttered by the distant trumpets. A moment
ensued of thrilling interest — of excitement almost fearful —
then was heard the clang of hoofs, and a pricker spurred
fiercely up the hill. “To arms,” he cried, “to arms, the enemy
are in the field — to arms!” Then came the quick, stern
orders of the leaders; horses were unpicqueted, and riders
mounted; the preparations for the feast made way for preparations
of a sterner nature. Another moment brought in another
rider — a column of cavalry was already entering the forest, at
the least five thousand strong, but yet their Burgundian cross.
Gradually the din of the music approached, and the notes
might be distinguished. Trumpet, and kettle-drum, and cymbal,
sent forth their mingled strains, but not in warlike harmony.
Anon the cavalcade drew nigh, and, like the music

which had preceded its arrival, it was peaceful. Heralds and
pursuivants rode in the front on snow-white horses, with trumpeters
on foot, and grooms beside their bridle-reins; then
came the burgesses of Rheims in their embroidered pourpoints
of dark taffeta, with golden chains about their necks, and velvet
caps above their honest features; minstrels and jongleurs
followed, with here a cowled priest, and there a flaunting damsel
of the lower class, crowding to see the show. Before the
steed of the chief echevin strode a burly-looking servitor in
the rich liveries of the city, carrying a gorgeous standard emblazoned
with the quarterings of Rheims, while on a velvet
cushion by his side, his fellow bore the massive keys, their
dark and rusty iron contrasting strangely with the crimson
velvet and the golden fringes of the cushion which supported
them.

“Tête Dieu, my Dunois,” cried Charles, with an exulting
smile. “These are no spears of Burgundy, nor shall we need
to break one lance to win our entrance? Lo! the good
citizens come forth to greet us. All thanks to thee, bright
maiden.”

“All thanks to Him who sent me — all praises and all
glory!” replied the virgin. “Not my arm — not the arm of
man, not all the might of warfare could else have forced a
passage hither! Be humble and be grateful, else shall thy
fall be sudden and disastrous, as thy rising hath been unexpected,
and superb withal, and joyous!”

Yet as she spoke the words of calm humility, her mien belied
her accents. Her eyes sparkled, her bosom heaved, her
bright complexion went and came again, and her lip paled, as
the blood coursed more fiercely than its wont through her
transparent veins. As the column of the citizens approached,
the pursuivants, the heralds, and the minstrels, opening their
ranks on either hand, and filing to the left and right of the

royal presence, she flung abroad the folds of her consecrated
banner, and gave her fiery steed the spur, till he caracoled in
fierce impatience against the curb which checked him.

“All hail!” she cried in a voice that all might hear, so clear
it was and thrilling, though pitched in the low tones of feeling —
“all hail, Charles, by the special providence of Heaven, that
shalt, ere the sun sinks, be king and lord of France!”

For an instant there was a pause, and then, “all hearts and
tougues uniting in that cry,” the woodlands echoed for miles
around to the shout, louder than the shock of charging squadrons:
“Life — life to Charles — our true, our gentle king!”

Gayly did the procession then advance; no more of doubt,
no more of hesitation as they threaded the leafy vistas of the
forest! All was calm, and sunshiny, and bright, to the hopes
of the young monarch, as were the limpid waters, and the
laughing landscape, and the summer skies, that looked so
cheeringly upon his hour of triumph.

A few short hours brought them to the gates of Rheims, and
with the clang of instruments, and the deep diapason of ten thousand
human voices, Charles and his youthful champion entered
that ancient city, the goal of so many labors, the reward of so
much perseverance. The streets were strewed with flowers;
the walls were hung with tapestries of Luxembourg and Arras;
the balconies were crowded with the bright and beautiful; the
doorways thronged with happy faces; and the whole atmosphere
alive with merriment and triumph. That very night the
marechals of Boussac and Rieu were sent to St. Remi bearing
the greetings of the virgin, Joan, to bring thence the holy
flask of oil — oil, which, if ancient legends may be credited,
had been brought from heaven by a dove to Clovis, when the
bold Frank laid the first foundation of the Gallic monarchy.

The morning, so earnestly desired, had at length arrived;
the court before the towers of the old cathedral was crowded

well-nigh to suffocation. The archers of the guard vainly
endeavored to repress the jovial tumult, backing their Spanish
chargers on the mob, or beating back the boldest with the
staves of their bows, unstrung for the hour and void of peril.
Peers of France in their proud ermined robes and caps of
maintenance; knights in their rich habiliments of peace, or
yet more nobly dight in panoply of steel, pressed through the
crowd unheeded, jostled by the brawny shoulders of clowns or
burghers, and over-impatient to join the sacred pomp to think
of precedence or ceremony.

Within the holy building, its long aisles thronged with noble
forms, and the rays of the early sunshine streaming in a thousand
gorgeous dyes upon the assembled multitudes through the
richly-traceried panes, stood Charles. Clad as an aspirant for
the honors of chivalry, in the pure and virgin white, he bent
the knee before the brave D'Alençon, received the acolade,
and rose a belted knight. On his right stood the proud bishop
of Senlis; the same who had braved the wrath of Charles on
his first interview, but afterward had redeemed his error
nobly, with the mortal sword before the walls of Orleans, and
on the field of Patai. On his left, sheathed, as was her wont,
from head to heel in armor, Joan, the preserver. Amidst the
thunder of the distant ordnance, and the nearer clamor of
the trumpets; amidst the shouts of pursuivant and herald —
“Largesse! largesse! notre trez noble, et trez puissant roi!”
— and the acclamations of the populace, the diadem of Clovis
was placed upon his sunny curls! Barons and vassals, high
and powerful, swore on the crosses of their heavy swords,
against all foes ever to succor and maintain his cause, so help
them Heaven and their fair ladies; and damsels waved their
kerchiefs, and their sendal veils, with beaming smiles of exultation
from the carved galleries aloft.

Tears — tears of gratitude and happiness — gushed torrent-like

from the eyes of the victorious maiden. She flung herself
before the knees of the young monarch, whom she alone
had seated on the throne of his high ancestors; she clasped
his ankles with her mail-clad arms, and watering his very feet
with streams of heartfelt joy — “My task,” she cried, “my
task is ended! — my race is run! — my victory accomplished!
For this, and for this only have I lived, and for this am I content
to die! For this do I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast
suffered thy servant to perform her duties and thy bidding!
and now that thy behest is done, bending before thine imperial
throne the knees of her heart, thy servant doth implore thy
grace for this thy well-beloved son, and that in peace thou
wilt permit her to depart, an humble peasant-maiden to the valley
of her birth, and the home of her untroubled innocence!”

“Never,” cried the monarch, touched beyond the power of
expression by this revelation of deep feeling — “never, my
friend, my more than friend — my hope and my deliverance!
As thou hast won for me this throne, so teach me now to
grace it! As thou hast set upon my head this kingly crown,
so guard it for me now! Oh! never speak of quitting me,
thou — thou to whom I owe my kingdom and my crown, and,
more than all, my country and my country's freedom!”

“Maiden, it must not be,” the grave Dunois burst, as he
spoke, into the greatest animation; “it must not be! The
victory is but half achieved. If thou shouldst leave us now
all will be lost. Stay, virtuous and holy one, stay and accomplish
thou what thou alone canst furnish! Dunois approves,
yet deprecates thy resolution! In the shades of Vaucouleurs
lies humble happiness, but honor calls thee to the field of
strenuous exertion! Choose between happiness and honor,
thou!”

“Thou, too,” she answered, “noble Dunois; thou, too?
Then to my fate I yield me! If I shall buckle blade again,

France shall, indeed, be free; but Joan shall never see that
freedom. Said I not long ago that Joan of Are should, in a
few brief months, be Joan of Orleans, and thereafter Joan of
Rheims? Lo! she who said it then, saith now — hear it,
knights, paladins, and princes — hear the last prophecy of
Joan: — France shall be free, but never shall these eyes behold
its freedom! Dunois hath called her to the choice —
the choice 'twixt happiness and honor! Lo! it is made.
Honor through life — ay, and to death itself, still bright, untarnished,
everlasting honor!”

10. CHAPTER X.
THE CAPTURE.

Days, weeks, and months, elapsed. The king, now such in
truth, with his victorious army and triumphant leaders, swept
onward unresisted; town after town opened its gates; district
after district sent out its crowds to hail the royal liberator,
chanting the hymn of victory, the proud Te Deum. Twice,
since the coronation, had the rival armies met; once at Melun,
and once again before the walls of Dammartin; — and twice,
had the wily Bedford declined the battle; not, however, as the
friends of Charles, intoxicated with success, imagined in their
vanity, through doubt or fear; but from deep craft, and dangerous
policy. Well had he studied human nature, in its lights as in
its shadows, in its day of exultation as in its moments of

despair — that ablest of the British chieftains. He saw that
the French were elated to the skies, buoyed up beyond the
present reach of danger or despondency, by a confidence in
their divinely-chartered leader; and farther yet than this, by
a proud consciousness of their own strength and valor. In
such a state of things, in either host, it needed not the penetration
of a Bedford to discover, that till some change should
come about, it would be worse than madness to try the field.
He waited therefore — but he waited like the tiger, when he
meditates his spring. His knowledge of mankind assured him
that, ere long, success would lead to carelessness, incaution to
reverses, and reverses to the downfall of that high spirit,
which had, in truth, been the winner of all the victories of
Charles.

Bedford was not deceived. Ingratitude, the bane alike of
monarchs and republics — “ingratitude more strong than
traitors' arms” — struck the first blow — fate did the rest. On
every side the English were trenched in with new opponents,
or encumbered with false friends, irresolute allies. In Normandy
the constable of France was up and doing; and so
celebrated were his talents, so rapid his manœuvres, and so
formidable his increase of power, that the regent deemed it
wise to quit at once the walls of Paris, against which the
maiden and the king were even then advancing, that he might
make head, while there was yet time, against this fresh assailant.
Scarce had he marched, when with Xaintrailles and
Dunois, and all his best and bravest, Charles hurried to seize,
as he expected, by an easy and almost unresisted charge, his
country's capital.

At the first, too, it seemed as though his towering hopes
were again about to be rewarded with success. Beneath a
storm of shafts and bolts from bow and arbalast, with the holy
banner of the maiden, and the dark green oriflamme displayed,

the chivalry of France rushed on against the guarded barriers,
Joan leading, as was her wont, the van. Down went the
outer palisades, beneath the ponderous axes; the defenders
had scarce time to breathe a prayer, before the living flood of
horse rushed over them. Down went the barricade, and on,
still on, they charged. The barbacan was won, despite the
shower of cloth-yard arrows, and the streams of boiling oil and
blazing pitch, that fell from embrasure, crenelle, and battlement.
A single moat alone lay between them and Paris.
The inner walls, weakly defended, and devoid of ordnance,
were all that barred out the monarch from his heritage.

“What, ho! our squires,” shouted Joan, curbing her charger,
on the brink of the fosse; “What, ho! — bring up our pavesses
— ladders to scale the rampart — hooks to force down the
drawbridge! Lo! the knave bowmen muster on the walls —
our cross-bows to the front! St. Denys, and God aid!”

“St. Mary!” cried Dunois, who, erect in his stirrups, was
making desperate but fruitless efforts to sever the chains of the
drawbridge with his espaldron — “St. Mary! we are lost, an'
these false varlets tarry! What, ho! bring mantelets and
pavesses, or we shall perish, like mere beasts of game, beneath
this archery of England!”

As he spoke, shaft after shaft rattled against his Milan coat,
but bounded off innocuous and blunted. Not so his comrades;
for the fatal aim of that brave yeomanry brought down full
many a gallant knight, full many a blooded charger; yet ever
and anon the battle-cry rose fiercely from the rear — “On!
on! St. Denys, and God aid!” While pressing forward, to
partake the sack which they believed to be in actual progress,
the squadrons of reserve cut off alike the possibility of succor
and retreat!”

“Ha!” shouted Dunois, once again, as he snatched a cross-bow
from the hands of a cowering Genoese, and launched its

heavy quarrel against the archers. “Ha! good bow!” The
sturdy peasant fell headlong from the rampart; but what
availed the death of one. Again and again, the steady arm of
the bastard shot certain death among them, while, confident in
his impenetrable harness, he defied their slender missiles —
but it was useless. A louder shout from the battlements, a
closer volley — and with a faint cry, between a shriek of anguish
and a shout of triumph, the maiden reeled in her stirrups,
and fell heavily to the earth. “Back — back!” was now the
word. “Save him who can! Flight is our only chance!”
and they did fly in hopeless disarray — trampling down, ay,
and smiting with the sword those of their countrymen, who
were stretched wounded beneath their horses' feet, or who,
bolder than the rest, would have persuaded or compelled them
to return. Dunois alone escaped the base contagion; he had
already sprung from his destrier to rescue the dismounted
maiden, when Gaucourt and La Hire seized him by either arm,
and dragged him into the press, from which no efforts of his
own availed to extricate him, till the last barricade was passed.
Then, then, at length, they paused; aware, for the first time,
that they were unpursued; that no foe had sallied; no cause
prevented the otherwise inevitable capture of the metropolis,
save their own want of concert and unreasonable panic.

“False friends, and craven soldiers!” cried Dunois, in low
and choking tones; “dearly, right dearly, shall ye rue this
foul desertion! The Maid of Arc, the liberator of our country,
the crowner of our king, the prophet of our God, lies wounded,
if not already made a captive, before the gates of Paris! Ho!
then to the rescue. Rescue for the Maid of Arc! A Dunois
to the rescue!”

But no kindred chords were stricken in the breasts of his
companions; Xaintrailles was silent; De La Hire bit his lips,
and played with the hilt of his two-handed sword; Gaucourt

shrugged his strong shoulders, and muttered words inarticulate,
or lost within the hollow of his helmet; but Charles himself
— the deepest debtor to the maiden who had raised him
from ignominy and defeat to triumph and a crown — Charles
himself answered coldly, “As thou wilt, fair cousin; be it as
thou wilt, but methinks she is already past reach of rescue,
even if those knave archers have not secured their prisoner,
within the walls of Paris. An hour hath flown since that
same arrow pierced her!”

“And if you English archers have secured her — what are
you English archers but men? — and men whose backs we
have beheld more often than their visages, while Joan was
here to lead us? And if she be within the walls of Paris —
what are those walls but stone and mortar, less strong, less
lofty, and less ably manned, than scores which Joan has
mounted? And what are we, that we should see the champion
of our country perish, without one struggle to preserve her?
My liege, my liege, this is cold counsel, not to say coward!
If Charles owe nothing to the savior of his diadem, Dunois
at least will spare him the reproach of Christendom for base
ingratitude!” Thus the bold bastard spoke; he unclasped the
fastenings of his casque, and, waving it aloft in his right hand,
he galloped back alone on his chivalrous and Christian errand.

Shame at length prevailed. First one, and then another
knight turned bridle, and spurred steed, to follow — a dozen
left the monarch's presence — a score — a hundred — but gallop
as they might, they could not overtake black Olivier; they
reached the shattered barbacan — Dunois had vanished beneath
its gloomy portal, flinging his casque before him into the lines
of the enemy. His followers might hear it clash and rattle on
the pavement; but ere those sounds had ceased, they caught
the din of arms, and over all the shout of Dunois, “Orleans!
Orleans to the rescue!”

Well had it been for Joan, that when she fell, her foemen
were parted from her by full moat and locked portcullis. A
captain of the guard had recognised her person; but in their
eagerness to prevent the ingress of the foe, they had prevented
their own power of sallying. The keys were in charge of the
governor; the governor was in the far Bastile — a watch was
set upon the turrets with commands to shoot her to the death,
should she attempt to escape; a messenger was despatched in
all haste to the citadel to seek the keys. Once, as she rallied
from the effects of her wound, the maiden raised her head, and
on the instant an arrow grazed her crest. With the speed of
light the truth flashed on her mind, and she lay passive, hoping,
yet hardly daring to expect, a rescue. An hour passed — an
hour that seemed longer, to the faint and tortured girl, than a
whole day of battle. There was a bustle on the walls; the
blocks of the drawbridge creaked and groaned; the chains
clashed heavily — it fell! The bolts of the heavy gate shot
back, the leaves were violently driven open; armed footsteps
clanked along the timbers of the bridge. An archer on the
ballium bent his yew bow, and drew the silken cord back to
his ear; for he had seen a movement in the form, which had
lain motionless so long that he had deemed it lifeless. She
had drawn her limbs, which had lain at their full extent, beneath
her, as though in readiness for a spring; she had
clutched her dagger, in desperate resolution to be slain, not
taken. The yeoman's aim was true; the point of the arrow
ranged with an aperture in the damsel's corslet; death had
been certain had he loosed the string.

“Nay, shoot not, Damian; the witch is well nigh sped already;
and our comrades close on her haunches. Lo, even
now they hold her.”

The archer lowered his weapon at the warden's sign; and
in truth relief did seem so hopeless, rescue so far beyond the

bounds of possibility, that to have shot might well have been
deemed an act of needless mercy. The foremost soldier had
already stretched out his hand to seize her, when she started
to her feet, and, as the man, thrown off his guard by the suddenness
of the movement, faltered, sheathed her poniard in his
throat. At the same point of time the empty helmet of Dunois
rolled clanging through the archway; and the bold bastard,
whose approach had been unheard amid the tumult of the sally,
dashed bareheaded on the scene of action. His axe was brandished
round his head, then hurled with the directness and almost
with the force of a thunderbolt; the captain of the guard
was dashed lifeless to the earth; and ere they had recovered
from their surprise, another, and another, of the captors bit the
dust around him. “In! in!” shouted a loud voice from the
walls; “in Englishmen! Room for the archery!” But the
confusion was too great. Their momentary panic past, the
knights of France redeemed their character; there was no
check, no faltering; bravely as Dunois had charged, they followed
him; and ere the sallying party had sufficient time, by
bugle-note and banner-cry, to rally and recross the bridge, a
score of the pursuers had passed the barbacan, and filled the
esplanade.

Down thundered the portcullis, and uprose the bridge;
leaving the wretches who had sallied forth in haughty triumph,
to a miserable fate. And miserable was the melée, that
not a bowman drew his string, lest he should slay a comrade.
As soon as he had been relieved, Dunois had borne the damsel,
still faint and stunned, to the rear-guard.

“Ha! is it thou, Gaucourt?” he muttered. “Thou wert
but backward even now. Save her, however, save her. As
well thou as any other.”

He spoke in scorn, and well the other knew it; yet not for
that dared he to bandy words with the best chevalier of France.

With a calm eye he saw her borne to a place of safety, and
then, with a slow step, turned again to join the conflict. But it
was well nigh over; a few wounded and weary Britons on
foot, and unarmed, save their short swords and quarter-staves
— frail weapons against mace and two-handed falchion — staggered
to and fro, blind with their wounds, yet battling it to the
last against unnumbered odds, while their own comrades stood
aloft, unable to protect or rescue them.

“Hold off your hands, fair sirs!” the bastard shouted, in a
voice of thunder! “hold off your hands! our victory is won
our prize is gained! the maiden is in safety! Draw off, then,
fairly — front to the walls — retire!”

It was sufficient; rescue or no rescue, that frail remnant
yielded them to the kind mercies of the conqueror; and with
a single and well-ordered movement the paladins drew off their
forces, the best armed and best mounted facing the ramparts
to the last, though the arrow-shots fell fast around them, till
their feebler comrades had filed from out the barbacan. Once
through the archway, the whole line halted in a serried line
of lances, and awaited the commands of him of Orleans.

“Xaintrailles,” he cried, “lead on! Gaucourt hath borne
the maiden hence erewhile. Commend me to the king. Lead
on! Adieu!”

With a heavy tramp the knights passed onward, but the
count de Xaintrailles paused. “And whither,” he said;
“whither, thou?”

“My casque,” replied Dunois. “I, too!” answered the
count; “bareheaded thou amid the shafts of those rogue
archers, and that untended? — never, by the bones of my
father — never!”

“Tarry, then, thou, and hold me, Olivier, till I go fetch it
thence,” cried Dunois; then, without waiting a reply, he flung
the rein to his companion, and holding his triangular buckler

aloft, strode steadily forth into the open space, whereon no
shelter intervened to dazzle the eyes of the archers, or to protect
the object of their aim.

As first he crossed the threshold of the barbacan, a dozen
arrows rattled against his armor, while a hundred others
aimed at the portal whizzed through it harmlessly. Still he
advanced, unharmed as yet and fearless: again the bows
were bent, again shafts were notched and fitted to the string.

“Hold, for your lives, ye varlets; harm him not,” cried a
voice of authority. “Now, by my faith, it is Dunois! My
noble friend, what wouldst thou?”

“Ha! Salisbury, good knight, and true,” returned the
Frenchman. “I knew not thou wert here. Gramercy for
thy caution, else had it fared with me right hardly. There
lies my casque, beside the fosse; I flung it there anon to win
it hence, as best I might, by strong heart and keen blade.
Come down, I prithee, Salisbury, that we may prove it here
which is the better knight; thou hast the vantage on thine
head — but hold thine archery aloof and I will stand the venture!”

“Who looses a shaft, dies!” shouted the baron, as he perceived
a hostile movement among his soldiery, at the bold
vaunt; “and thou, Dunois, take up thy casque, and get thee
hence betimes, else will these knaves riddle thee, despite me.
Begone, fair sir, and trust me we shall meet, and that right
early!”

“Thanks for thy courtesy, and trust me, Salisbury; times
shall go hard with Orleans if he requite it not!”

He donned his holmet, waved his hand to his renowned antagonist,
and joined his comrade, as carelessly as though he
had but parted from him in the joyous chase, and returned to
his side bearing the sylvan trophies at his saddle-bow.

It was dark night when they reached the host, in triumph it

is true, for they had saved the savior of France; but in the
host there was no triumph, no confidence, no hope. The first
blow had been stricken; the wheel of fortune had turned once
round upon its downward revolution; the victors had been vanquished.
The maid herself, though her chirurgeons spoke
but lightly of the wound, was in a sad, despondent mood, far
different from her wonted spirit.

“Now,” she said — “now would I willingly go hence; my
task is ended; my race run!”

“Wherefore,” inquired her preserver — “wherefore this
dark presentiment? Is aught revealed to thee, from those
who sent thee on thy mission? or hast thon warning of thy
death in anything?”

“Not so!” she answered; “I knew but this — God sent me
hither; sent me to raise the siege of Orleans; to crown my
king at Rheims — no more! Than this I have no further mission:
no further duty! Oh! may it please the king to spare
his servant!”

From that day forth the star of Charles declined. No other
attempt was made on the metropolis; no stricken field was
fought, no boroughs taken; the ardor of the troops was frittered
away in trifling skirmishes, wherein the English gained as
much as the French lost, of confidence. Ere long the tables
were turned once again; the chivalry of France retired to
their separate demesnes; their vassals withdrew to their metairies;
the armies were disbanded. A few scattered garrisons
were maintained in fortified towns and castles, while the troops
of Bedford kept the field, and again ventured to open their
trenches, and beleaguer their late victorious foemen. Compiègne,
closely invested, was well night driven to surrender, by
the united force of England and of Burgundy; with a selected
company Joan beat up their quarters one moonless and tempestuous
night, spiked half their battering cannon, and, without

the loss even of a single sergeant, made good her entrance to
the town. For a brief space, the spirits of the citizens surged
up against the pressure of calamity; the valor of the maiden
relumed for awhile their falling fortunes, shining out itself
more brightly, as it drew nigher to the hour of its extinction.
Day after day some new annoyance of the enemy was devised;
at one time a convoy was cut off; at another, a picquet was
utterly destroyed; now a mine exploded beneath the trenches;
and then, while the attention of the assailants was attracted to
one quarter, provisions, men, and munitions, were introduced
from another. The summer passed away, with its gay flowers
and bright hopes — autumn wore onward, with its sere foliage,
its brilliant skies, and all the melancholy thoughts it can not
fail to conjure up in every feeling bosom — winter drew nigh,
with its first hoar-frosts, and its nipping showers; the trees
were leafless, the spirits of the besieged waxed faint and
drooping; their garnered stores were wasted, their wells were
dried, their wine-butts had run low. Famine and despair had
traced their painful lines on every countenance; the hopes of
all were at the lowest ebb. In this dark crisis the maiden
saw the need of instant energy. “We will cut our way
through them,” she cried, “once again! With our good
swords and gallant steeds, will we win us provender; courage,
St. Denys and God aid!”

The wind wailed mournfully as she set forth, before the
dawn of day, on this her last excursion; the atmosphere was
raw and gusty; a thin, drizzling rain had saturated every
plume and banner, till they drooped upon their helms, or clung
around their staves in dismal guise of sorrow; the very horses
hung their heads, and neither pawed nor pranced at the call
of the war-trumpet. It was remembered, too, in after-days
that the consecrated sword of Joan, rusted perchance by the
dank air of morning, seemed loath to leave the scabbard; and

that her charger swerved as in terror, though there was naught
in sight, from the city-gates, and could be forced beyond the
threshold only by the utmost of the rider's strength and skill.

“Once more in the free air,” she cried exultingly; “once
more on a fair field, with France's foes before us! Charge,
then, my friends; charge cheerily; charge all! Better to
fall beneath the buckler bravely, than to perish piecemeal in
the guarded chamber! The standard of our God is waving
o'er us — the soil of our birth is beneath our feet! Victory is
in our hands — vengeance and victory! Once more we cry,
“God aid! St. Denys, and set on!”

And they did set on right bravely: straightway they
charged against the lines, passed them, and all was theirs. A
joyous gallop through the open fields; a scattering of convoys;
a gathering of rich booty; and with droves of oxen, wains
groaning beneath the weight of forage, they turned them homeward
at night-fall. A furious onslaught on the British outposts,
which lay betwixt the river and the town, led on by
Joan in person, was successful; the troops of Burgundy, already
on the alert, rushed to the rescue, leaving their own
trenches vacant or feebly guarded. The strife was short, but
furious — a shrill bugle-note from the further gates of the beleaguered
city gave note that the last wain had entered. On
the instant the maid drew off her skirmishers, and wheeling
her divided forces to the left and the right, rode hastily toward
the gate, so to effect her entrance.

Thus far the night had favored them with friendly darkness;
now, when their peril was the greatest, the moon burst out in
garish brilliancy, revealing every object for miles around, as
clearly as it would have showed beneath a mid-day sun. The
maiden's stratagem was marked, and, as she wheeled around
the walls, a heavy force of archery and men-at-arms, dismounted
for the purpose, stole secretly along their trenches,

to cut off her retreat. Such, however, was the rapidity of her
manœuvres, that she had reached the barrier before them; her
comrades were about her — the bridge was lowered — her triumph
was achieved. Soldier after soldier filed inward; yet
still she sat upon her docile steed, the last to enter, as she had
been the first to gallop forth. All had passed in but three,
when there arose a shout of, “Burgundy — a Luxembourg for
Burgundy;” and forth from the trenches, under cover of a
heavy volley, rushed the dismounted troopers.

“Stand to your arms, true friends!” cried the undaunted
maiden; “courage, and all is well!”

All was in vain; one squire turned his steed to join her, but
an arrow pierced his vizor, and he dropped from his saddle a
dead man. The hoof-tramps of the others, as they dashed
across the bridge, smote heavily on her heart — she was deserted!
Yet, there was yet time. She whirled her weapon
from its scabbard — she smote down a wretch whose hand was
on her bridle-rein; she dashed her spurs into the fleet Arab's
side; one other bound had placed her on the drawbridge; it
had begun to rise slowly; the dark planks reared their barrier
against her. “Treason!” she called aloud, in notes of super-human
shrillness. “Lower the bridge! Ho! treason!”

As she spoke, an arrow quivered in her charger's flank;
erect he bounded from the earth ten feet aloft; another pierced
his brain, and he plunged headlong. Still, as he fell beneath
her, she kept her footing, and with a fearless mien faced her
assailants. Even yet one sally — one charge of a determined
handful had preserved her, but the charge — the sally — came
not; the bridge swung to its elevation, and was there secured.

“Yield, Joan, I take thee to surrender; I, John de Ligny-Luxembourg;”
and with the words a stately knight sprang forward
to receive her weapon; and with a vengeance did he
receive it. The burghers from the ramparts, whereon they

hurried to and fro, incapable, from very terror, of exertion, beheld
her as she met him. Her eyes, they said, flashed fire
through the bars of her closed vizor, and her stature showed
loftier than its wont. Down came the consecrated blade upon
the crest of Luxembourg — the sparks, which sprang up from
the dinted casque, alone had proved the shrewdness of the
blow; but the strong warrior reeled beneath the stroke, like a
weak infant. Had the sword done its duty, the stout John de
Ligny had never more stirred hand or foot; but, like all else,
the sword was faithless. It shivered to the grasp, and she
stood weaponless. A dark cloud passed before the moon, and
the faint-hearted watchers beheld not the capture of the maiden;
but the reiterated shouts of thousands, the din of trump
and nakir, the shot of cavaliers, and the deep roar of ordnance,
announced to the inhabitants of many a league that the champion
of her king and country had been betrayed by faithless
friends to unrelenting foemen.

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE DEATH OF LA PUCELLE.

Three months had elapsed, since, in the flower of youth
and beauty, in the flush of conquest, and in the accomplishment
of all her own — of all her country's aspirations — the
Maid of Arc had fallen, through the envious treason of the
count de Flavy — he who had shut the gates and raised the
bridges of Compiègne against her — into the hands of John de
Ligny-Luxembourg — since he, false gentleman and recreant
knight, had sold the heroine of France — sold her, despite the
prayers, despite the tears and the reproaches of his high-minded
lady — sold her for base and sordid lucre to her unsparing foemen.
Three months had elapsed of wearisome confinement — not in a
guarded chamber — not with the blessed light of heaven streaming,
albeit, through grates of iron into her prison-casements —
not with the miserable semblance of freedom that might be fancied
to exist in the permission to pace the narrow floor — not
with the wonted dungeon-fare of the worst malefactor — not with
the consolations of religion vouchsafed even to the dying murderer
— not even with the wretched boon of solitude! No;
in a dungeon many a foot beneath the surface of the frozen
earth, with naught of air but what descended through a deep-cut
funnel — with naught of light but what was furnished by a
pale and winking lamp — loaded with a weight of fetters that

would have bowed the strongest man-at-arms to child-like
helplessness — bound with a massive chain about her waist,
linking her to the rocky floor — fed on the bread of bitterness,
her thirst slaked with the waters of sorrow — her feelings out-raged
by the continual presence of a brutal soldier, violating
the privacies, alike by day and night, of her sad condition, the
noble girl had languished without a hope of rescue, without
even a dream of liberty or life — taunted by her foes and persecuted
— deserted by her friends and utterly forgotten. Yet,
though her frame was shrunken with disease, and worn with
famine, though her bright eyes were dimmed by premature
old age, her stature bent to half its former height, and her
whole appearance deprived of that high and lustrous beauty
that had of yore been so peculiarly her own; her confidence
in Him, whom she believed, erroneously perhaps, but not
therefore the less fervently, to have sent her on that especial
mission which she had so gloriously accomplished — her confidence
in that being whose decrees are, of a truth, inscrutable
— was all unshaken. If she had formerly displayed the courage
to endure — if she had proved herself the equal of men in
the mêlée of active valor, she now showed herself to be endowed
in no secondary degree with the calm fortitude of her sex, the
uncomplaining, patient resignation to inevitable pain, or inconsolable
affliction, which is so much harder to put on than the
bold front which rushes forth to meet the coming danger.
Day after day she had been led forth from her cold dungeon,
to undergo examination, to hear accusations the most inconceivably
absurd, to confute arguments, the confutation of which
aided her cause in nothing; for when did prejudice, or, yet
worse than prejudice — fanatic bigotry — hear the voice of
reason, and hear it to conviction. Night after night she had
been led back to the chilly atmosphere of that dank cell, hopeless
of rescue or acquittal, harassed by persecution, feeble of
frame, and sick at heart, yet high and firm in her uncompromising
spirit as when she first rode forth with consecrated blade
and banner to raise the siege of Orleans. From the very commencement
of her protracted trial she had felt a sure foreknowledge
of its termination! She had known that, in the
hearts of her judges, her doom was written down already;
yet, with a calm confidence that would have well become a
Socrates, ay, or the apostle of a holier creed, she had striven
to prove her innocence to posterity, at least, if not to the passing
day — to eternity, at least, if not to time! When reviled,
she answered not — when taunted, her replies were meek but
pertinent — when harassed by the simultaneous questioning of
her hard-hearted judges, eager to confuse by clamor the weak
woman whom they could not confound by sophistry, she was
collected as the sagest jurist, undisturbed as though she were
pleading another's cause, and not her own. The base Cauchon,
the bishop of Beauvais, the bigoted, bribed, fanatic, to
whom had been committed the conduct of her judicial murder,
strove hard, but strove in vain, to wring from her pale lips
some evidence of unholy dealings, for which he might condemn
her to the stake — some word of petulance which he
might construe into treason.

“Swear,” he cried, in haughty and imperious tones, from his
crimson chair of state to the fair, frail girl, who, clad in sack-cloth,
with bare feet and dishevelled hair, stood at his footstool,
upheld by the supporting might of conscious innocence —
“swear to speak truth, question thee as we may!”

“I may not swear, most holy bishop,” she replied, and her
eye flashed for a moment, and her lip curled as she spoke, so
that men deemed it irony — “I may not swear, most righteous
judge, since you may question me of that, which to reveal be
foul perjury, so should I, if I swore, stand perjured in the
same by speech or silence!”

“Swear, Joan of Domremi — most falsely styled of Orleans
and of Arc — swear to thy judges that thou wilt seek no rescue
— attempt no escape!”

“Be not your fetters strong enough?” she asked in answer;
and she half raised her feeble arm to show the weight of rusty
steel that had already well-nigh crippled it. “Be not your fetters
strong enough — your rock-hewn vaults, where never comes
the first-created gift of natural light — your iron cages, and
your steel-clad warders — be they not guards enough, that ye
would bind me yet more straitly? This will I not swear, O
thou most merciful, so shall you not condemn me of faith
broken.”

“Then thou dost look to rescue — dost hope for liberty —
wouldst evade, hadst thou the power, the bonds of Holy
Church?”

“To whom should I look for rescue, save to Him who has
abandoned his frail servant for her own transgression.”

“Ha! she confesses!”

“Mark well the words, sir scribe!”

“Judgment, lord president; a judgment!”

“No need for further question!”

“She has avowed it!”

Such were the disjointed clamors that burst at once in fiendish
exultation from the lips of that holy-seeming conclave; but
ere the wily bishop could express his sentiments, the maiden
again took up the word.

“I have confessed, great sirs, I have confessed transgression.
And make not ye the same at prime, at matin, and at
vesper, the same avowal? Riddle me, then, the difference,
ye holy men, between the daily penitence ye proffer, for the
daily sins which even ye confess, and this the free confession
of a prisoner — a helpless, friendless, persecuted prisoner!
Tell me, lord bishop, what am I that I should suffer judgment

to the uttermost, for the same avowal that thou makest daily,
if thou dost obey the bidding of Him whose cross thou hast
uplifted! But ye did ask me if I hope for liberty; if I would
exchange the prison-house, the hall of condemnation, and the
bread of tears, for the free air, the blessed sunshine, and the
humblest peasant's fare! Go, ask the wild herds of the forest
will they prefer the yoke and the goad, the halter and the stall,
to the green-woods and liberal pastures in which their Maker
set them! Go, ask the eagle will he endure the jesses and
the hood of the trained goss-hawk, will he choose the perch
and mew before the boundless azure; will he list to the whistle,
or regard the lure of the falconer when the thunder is rolling
beneath him, when the lightning, which he alone can gaze
upon undazzled, is flashing round the aërie his Creator made
him to inhabit. If these shall answer yea, then will I do your
bidding, and swear to keep my prison, though the chains
should be stricken from my limbs, and the door of deliverance
opened; though the fagot were kindled to consume me on the
one hand, and the throne of your monarch were tendered on
the other! Then will I swear, sir priest, and not till then!”

Such was the tone, and such the tenor of all her speeches;
ever submissive to the forms, to the ordinances, and to the
spirit of religion; ever professing her faith in Holy Writ; her
whole and sole reliance on the Virgin and her blessed Son;
ever denying and disproving the charge of witchery or demon-worship;
offering to confess under the sacramental seal; to
confess to her very judges, she yet suffered them to know at
all times, to perceive by every glance of her eye, to hear in
every word of her mouth, that it was the religion they professed,
and not the men who professed it, to which her deference
was paid, to which her veneration was due.

Still, though they labored to the utmost to force her into
such confession as might be a pretext for her condemnation,

the court could by no means so far confuse her understanding,
or so corrupt the judges, as to effect its nefarious purpose.
With a clear understanding of her own cause, she refused at
once, and boldly, to answer those questions on nice points of
doctrine which she perceived to have no bearing on her case.
On every other matter, she spoke openly and with the confidence
of innocence, maintaining to the last, however, that
“spirits, were they good or evil, had appeared to her;” but
denying that she had ever by sign or periapt, by spell or
charm, invoked the aid of supernatural powers, otherwise than
by the prayers of the church offered in Christian purity of
purpose to the most holy Virgin and her everlasting Son It
was at length proposed that the question should be enforced
by the means of torture! But by Cauchon himself the proposition
was overruled — not in mercy, however — not in charity
toward a weak and suffering woman, but in the deepest
refinement of cruelty. Confident, as he then was, that she
would be condemned to the fierce ordeal of the fagot and the
stake, he spared her the rack, lest, by exhausting her powers
of endurance, it might diminish the duration of her mortal
agonies. Bitterly, however, was that corrupt judge and false
shepherd disappointed when the decisive verdict was pronounced
— “Perpetual chains, the bread of sorrow, and the
waters of misery!” The courts ecclesiastic had no weapon
to affect her life, and for the present the secular arm had dismissed
her beyond the reach of its tyrannic violence. The
sentence was heard by the meek prisoner in the silence of
despair. She was remanded to her living tomb. She passed
through the gloomy archway; she deemed that all was over;
that she should perish there — there, in that dark abyss, uncheered
by the fresh air, or the fair daylight, unpitied by her
relentless foemen, unsuccored by her faithless friends; and
she felt that death — any death, so it were but speedy — had
been preferable to the endurance of that protracted torture
which life had now become to her, who lately fought and
feasted at the right hand of princes.

Not all the sufferings, however, of the wretched girl — not
all the mental agonies and corporeal pains, that she must bear
in silence, could satisfy the fears of England, or the policy of
England's regent. It was not in revenge, much less in hatred,
that the wise Bedford urged it on the court that they should
destroy, not her body only, but her fame. He well knew it
was enthusiasm only that had thus far supported her and liberated
France. He deemed not for a moment, that she was
either heavenly messenger, or mortal champion; but he felt
that France believed in joy, England in trembling! He felt
that, dead or living, so she died a martyr, Joan would be
equally victorious. Her death, if attributed to vengeance,
would but stir up the kindling blood of Gaul to hotter anger,
would but beat down the doggedness of Saxon valor with remorse
and superstitious terror!

“Ill hast thou earned thy see,” he cried, at their first interview,
“false bishop! As well she were a horse, and in the
field, as living thus a famous prisoner! She must die! —
die, sir priest, not as a criminal, but as a witch and heretic!
Her name must be a scoff and a reproach to France; her
death an honor to her slayers; a sacrifice acceptable to Mother
Church, and laudable throughout all Christentie! See it be
done, sir! Nay, interrupt me not, nor parley, and thou mayest
not accomplish it; others more able, or perchance more
willing, may be found, and that right speedily; the revenues
of Beauvais's bishopric might serve a prince's turn! See that
thou lose them not!” And he swept proudly from the chamber,
leaving the astounded churchman to plot new schemes,
to weave more subtle meshes for the life of the innocent. Nor
did it occupy that crafty mind long time, nor did it need deep

counsel! The sentence of the church decreed that she should
never more don arms, or masculine attire! The bishop's eye
flashed as it lighted on that article. “Ha!” he muttered.
“Here, then, we have her on the hip! Anselm, what, ho!
Let them bid Gaspard hither, the warden of the sorceress, and
let us be alone!”

He came, and with closed doors they sat in conclave; the
highest officer, save one, of holy church; the lowest and most
truculent official of state policy! Ear heard not, nor eye saw,
the secrets of that meeting; but on the morrow, when the first
glimpse of sickly daylight fell through the tunnelled window
of her dungeon, the maiden's female garb was gone, and by
the pallet bed lay morion and corslet, cuishes, and greaves,
and sword — her own bright azure panoply! At the first moment,
ancient recollection filled her whole soul with gladness!
Joy, triumph, exultation, throbbed in her burning veins; and
the tears that rained down full and frequent, tarnishing the
polished surface, were tears of gratitude and momentary bliss.
Then came the cold reaction, the soul-sickening terror, the
prophetic sense of danger, the certainty of treachery. She
donned them not, she rose not from her wretched couch,
though her limbs were cramped, and her very bones were sore
with lying on the hard and knotted pallet. Noon came, and
her guards entered; but it was in vain that she besought
them, as they would not slaughter a poor maiden, slaughter
her, soul and body, to render back the only vestments she
might wear in safety.

“'Tis but another miracle, fair Joan;” sneered the grim
warden. “St. Katharine, of Ferbois, hath returned the sword
she gave thee erst, for victory. Tête Dieu, 'tis well she left
thee not the destrier, to boot of spurs, and espaldron, else
wouldst thou have won through wall of stone and grate of iron!
Don them, then, holy maiden; don the saint's gift, and fear
not; she will preserve thee!”

And, with a hoarse and chuckling laugh, the churl laid
down the scanty meal his cruelty vouchsafed her, and departed.

Thus three days passed away; her prayers for fitting raiment
were unheeded; or, if heeded, scoffed at. Meantime
the chill air of the dungeon paralyzed her as she lay, with
scanty covering, cramped limbs, and curdling blood, on the
straw mattress that alone was interposed between her delicate
frame and the damp, rock-hewn pavement. On the third day
she rose; she donned the fatal armor, all save the helm and
falchion, she might not otherwise enjoy the wretched liberty
of moving to and fro across the dungeon floor. Scarce had
she fastened the last rivet when the door flew open. A dozen
men-at-arms rushed in, and dragged her to the chamber of the
council. The board was spread with all the glittering mockery
of judgment — the brass-bound volumes of the law, the
crosier of the church, the mace of state, the two-edged blade
of justice, and the pointless sword of mercy. The judges
were in session, waiting the moment when necessity should
force her to don the fatal armor. From without the clang of
axe and hammer might be heard framing the pile for execution,
prepared already ere the sentence was pronounced on
that doomed victim, condemned before her trial.

“Lo! there, my lords!” cried Cauchon, as she entered,
dragged like a lamb to the slaughter. “Lo! there, my lords!
What need of further trial? Even now she bears the interdicted
arms, obtained as they must have been by sorcery!
Sentence, my lords; a judgment!”

And with one consent they cried aloud, corrupt and venal
Frenchmen, “Judgment, a sentence!”

Then rose again the bishop, and the lust of gain twinkled
in his deep gray eye, and his lip curled with an ill-dissembled
smile, as he pronounced the final judgment of the church.

“Joan of Domremi — sorceress, apostate, heretic! Liar,
idolater, blasphemer of thy God! The Church hath cast thee
from her bosom, excommunicated and accurst! Thou art delivered
to the arm of secular justice. And may the temporal
flames which shall, this hour, consume thy mortal body, preserve
thy soul from fires everlasting! Her doom is said;
hence with her, to the fagot!”

Steadfastly she gazed on the face of the speaker, and her
eye closed not, nor did her lips pale as she heard that doom,
the most appalling, that flesh can not endure.

“Ye have conquered,” she said slowly, but firmly; “ye
have prevailed, and I shall perish. But think not that ye
harm me; for ye but send me to my glory! And believe not,
vain that ye are, and senseless, believe not that, in destroying
me, ye can subdue my country. The fires that shall shrivel
up this weak and worthless carcase, shall but illume a blaze
of vengeance in every Frenchman's heart that will never
waste, nor wink, nor weary, till France again be free! This
death of mine shall cost thousands — hundreds of thousands of
the best lives of Britain! Living, have I conquered your best
warriors heretofore! Dead, will I vanquish them hereafter!
Dead, will I drive ye out of Paris, Normandy, Guyenne.
Dead, will I save my king, and liberate my country! Lead
on, assassins — lead me to the pile! the flesh is weak and
fearful, yet it trembles not, nor falters; so does the spirit pine
for liberty and bliss!”

Who shall describe the scene that followed; or, if described,
who would peruse a record so disgraceful to England, to
France, to human nature? England, from coward policy, condemned
to ignominious anguish a captive foe! France, baser
and more cruel yet, abandoned without one effort, one offer of
ransom, one stroke for rescue, a savior and a friend! and human
nature witnessed the fell deed, pitying, perhaps, in

silence, but condemning not, much less opposing the decree of
murder, sanctioned as it was, and sanctified by the assent of
holy church.

It is enough! she perished — perished as she had lived, undauntedly
and nobly. Her fame, which they would have destroyed,
lives when the very titles of her judges are forgotten.
The place of her torture is yet branded with her name. Her
dying prophecy has been fulfilled. A century had not elapsed
ere Paris, Normandy, Guyenne, were free from England's
yoke; and every battle-field of France hath reeked, from that
day downward to red Waterloo, with blood of England, poured
forth like water on the valleys of her hereditary foe.

The maiden perished, and the terror-stricken soldiery who
gazed on her unmurmuring agonies beheld, or fancied they beheld,
a saintly light, paler but brighter than the lurid glare of
the fagots, circling her dark locks and lovely features; they
imagined that her spirit visible to mortal eyes, soared upward,
dove-like, on white pinions, into the viewless heavens; and
they shuddered, when they found, amid the cinders of the pile,
that heart which had defied the bravest, unscathed by fire, and
ominous to them of fearful retribution.

12. CHAPTER XII.
ELEGY.