We have often spoken of ‘chivalry’, the ideal of good conduct in the Middle Ages. The kings, princes, and knights, whose prowess has made the chronicles of Froissart famous, were to their journalist veritable heroes of chivalry, exponents of courage, courtesy, and breeding. Yet to modern eyes these qualities seem often tarnished, since the heroes who flaunted them were in no way ashamed of vices like cruelty, selfishness, or snobbery. A King John of France would die in a foreign prison rather than break his parole, but he would disdainfully ride down a ‘rabble’ of archers whom his negligence had left too tired to fight his battles. The Black Prince would wait like a servant on his royal prisoner, but accept as a brother-in-arms to be succoured a human devil like Pedro the Cruel; or put a town to the sword, as he did at Limoges, old men, women, and children, because it had dared to set him at defiance. There is nothing of this tarnish in the chivalry of the peasant-maid who saved France. Pure gold were her knightly deeds, yet achieved without a trace of the prig or the boaster. Jeanne d’Arc was always human and therefore lovable, quick in her anger at fraud, yet easily appeased; friendly to king and soldier alike, yet never losing the simple dignity that was her safeguard in court and camp. Of all mediaeval warriors of whom we read she was the bravest; for she knew what fear was and would often pray not to fall into the hands of her enemies alive, yet she never shirked a battle or went into danger with a downcast face. A slim figure, with her close-cropped dark hair and shining eyes, she rode wherever the fight was thickest, always, in the words of a modern biographer, ‘gay and gaily glad,’ quick to see her opportunities and follow them up, joyful in victory, generous to her foes, pitiful to the wounded and prisoners. The sight of her awoke new courage in her countrymen, dismay as at the supernatural in her enemies, who dubbed her a witch and vowed to burn her. ‘Suddenly she turned at bay,’ says a contemporary account of one of her battles, ‘and few as were the men with her she faced the English and advanced on them swiftly with standard displayed. Then fled the English shamefully and the French came back and chased them into their works.’ Orleans was relieved and entered, the reluctant, still half-doubting Charles led to Reims, and there in the ancient capital of France crowned, that all Frenchmen might know who was their true king. ‘The Maid’ urged that the ceremony should be followed by a rapid march on Paris; but favourites who dreaded her influence whispered other counsels into the royal ear, and Charles dallied and hesitated. When at last he advanced it was to find that the bridges over the Seine had been cut, not by the retreating English but by French treachery.