On the morrow, the 8th of May, 1429, at daybreak, the English leaders drew up their troops close to the very moats of the city, and seemed to offer battle to the French. Many of the Orleannese leaders would have liked to accept this challenge; but Joan got up from her bed, where she was resting because of her wound, put on a light suit of armor, and ran to the city gates. “For the love and honor of holy Sunday,” said she to the assembled warriors, “do not be the first to attack, and make to them no demand; it is God’s good will and pleasure that they be allowed to get them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend yourselves boldly; you will be the masters.” She caused an altar to be raised; thanksgivings were sung, and mass was celebrated. “See!” said Joan; “are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their backs?” They had commenced their retreat in good order, with standards flying. “Let them go: my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting to-day; you shall have them another time.” The good words spoken by Joan were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English, and cut off stragglers and baggage. Their bastilles were found to be full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many of their prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised. The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the king, and prosecute her work at his side. She fell in with him on the 13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger’s neck, made him a deep obeisance. Charles took off his cap, held out his hand to her, and, “as it seemed to many,” says a contemporary chronicler, “he would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt.” But the king’s joy was not enough for Joan. She urged him to march with her against enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned. “I shall hardly last more than a year,” said she; “we must think about working right well this year, for there is much to do.” Hesitation was natural to Charles, even in the hour of victory. His favorite, La Tremoille, and his chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan’s entreaties with all the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey; and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing. Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice, and tapped softly at the door of the king’s privy chamber (chambre de re- trait). He bade her enter. She fell upon her knees, saying, “Gentle _dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you thither.” “Joan,” said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d’Harcourt,