These last words do not ring true; we know that Joan was always for sparing life when it was possible. Another Anglo-Burgundian, Clément de Fauquembergen, describes how the people, at news of the attack, fled from the churches, where they were at prayers, and hid in their cellars; while the defenders of the city took their stations on the walls and made valiant defence, giving the assailants back shot for shot, bolt for bolt. The first ditch was deep but dry, the second filled with water. Those watching from the walls saw a slender white-clad figure spring forward from the French ranks, lance in hand; saw it climb slowly and carefully down and up the steep sides of the dry ditch, and stand on the brink of the moat. "The Maid! the Witch of Armagnac!" the murmur ran like flame along the walls, and archers and gunners sprang to their posts and took careful aim at the shining figure. Serene, unmoved, amid a storm of bullets and arrows, the Maid stood beside the water, probing its black depth with her lance; calling on her men to follow her. So she stands for all time, one of the imperishable pictures. Another moment, and a bolt from an arblast struck her down. Still, as she lay bleeding from a wound in the thigh, she ceased not to cheer the French on to the assault. Let them only fill the ditch, she cried, and all would be well; the city would be theirs. It was not to be. The garrison, seeing her fall, redoubled their volleys of iron and stone; the assailants were weary, twilight was gathering, and no radiant armor shone through the dusk to light them on. Now it was night, and all but the Maid knew that the end had come. She, lying beside the ditch, refusing to be moved, still cried for the charge, still gave assurance of victory. At last, long after nightfall, Alençon and de Gaucourt, unable to prevail upon her otherwise, lifted her out of the fosse, set her on a horse, and rode back to the line. "_Par mon martin_," she still cried, "the place would have been taken!" One at least of the Burgundian chroniclers is of her mind. "Had anyone in the king's command," he says, "been as manly as Joan, Paris would have been in danger of capture; but none of the others could agree upon the matter." Next morning, Friday the ninth, the Maid sent for Alençon and implored him to sound the trumpets and lead the assault. She would never leave the spot, she vowed, till the city was taken. Alençon was willing enough, and some of the captains with him; others demurred. While they debated the matter, came messengers from the king, with orders for them to return at once to St. Denis. La Trémoïlle had won, and Paris was lost.