hinder the French operations, but when the enemy crossed the river by a bridge of boats and made a feint of attacking the fortress on the left bank, retreating apparently in confusion, the English sallied forth after them, thus provoking a real attack upon the bridge fort. During the fray the girl-leader was wounded; never for a moment did she give in, but stood in the fosse grasping the white banner--sword she would not wield--and cheering on her companions; with the result that by nightfall the position was gained, the English were driven out, and Joan returned in triumph into Orléans by the bridge. The greater part of her victory was now accomplished. On the following day the French forces marched outside the walls of the town to meet the English line; but Talbot and his men had not reckoned with what they, in the superstition of their time, believed to be “a force not of this world,” and the morning light shone upon their helmets and spears in full retreat towards the north. France was saved, and a clear field was left for Charles the Dauphin--the gates of his kingdom were flung open wide, that he might enter in and possess it. [Illustration: ORLÉANS] But the greatness of Orléans belongs to an earlier day, before Joan heard the voices in the Domrémy meadows, probably before Domrémy ever existed. It was Attila the Hun who indirectly brought the town up the ladder of fame. Aurelianum in the fifth century was a desirable stronghold, and as such, Attila spied it afar from his Asiatic plains, and set out to conquer, and, as one authority has it, to “vainly besiege” it, though Freeman inclines to the opinion that “the business of West Goth and Roman was, in the end, not to keep them (the Huns) out, but to drive them out.” However that may be, Attila was eventually forced to give up his project, and Aurelianum emerged from the struggle glorious and triumphant, to become the seat and stronghold of kings, and, until its union with Paris in 613, the capital of a separate kingdom. Since then it has been the scene of siege, martyrdom and persecution, down to the days of the Franco-Prussian war, when it finished an eventful history by a Prussian occupation in October, 1870, a sequel to the battles of Patay and Bonbay.