Yet the greater part of the surviving English had succeeded in reaching
the fortress, but here they found themselves assailed from another
quarter--Orléans. The gap whence the arches had been broken had been
spanned by gutters and beams, and through the smoke and dusk came the
knights from the city, assaulting the Tourelles from that side. The
struggle was soon over. Of all the stout defenders of the fort not one
escaped; all were slain, drowned, or taken and held to ransom. Talbot
with his English in the forts before the city had heard the French
trumpets sound the recall, and had believed that the battle was over. Now
the flames of boulevard and bridge blazed out the story of a new defeat.
The bells of Orléans pealed forth joyously as Jeanne re-entered the town
by the bridge, as she had said she would do. The streets were crowded
with people so that it was with difficulty that she could make her way
through them. They pressed about her as closely as they could, to kiss
her hand, her greaves, her mailed shoes, her charger, or the floating
folds of her banner, while others went before her, crying:
"Room! Room for the Maid of Orléans!"
She was no longer the holy Maid from Vaucouleurs or Domremy, she was
their Maid; the Heaven-sent deliverer of their city; their Maid whom God
had raised from among His poor for their salvation; their Maid, and so
she has remained, and always will remain--The Maid of Orléans.
Through all the delirious joy Jeanne rode in a maze of happiness,
fatigue, languor, pain, and profound pity for the souls of those who had
gone unshriven to their maker. She stopped only to return thanks in the
Church of St. Paul, and then rode to her lodgings, and went to bed.
On Sunday morning she arose and, weak from her wound, put on a coat of
armour lighter than she had worn, and with Dunois and the captains
marched out of the Regnart Gate, for the English had come out of their
fortresses and were drawn up outside in battle array. The confident
French soldiers were eager to attack them, but Jeanne was reluctant to do
so.
"Let us not attack them, for it is Sunday," she said. "But if they attack
you, fight bravely, and you will get the better of them."
She then sent for an altar and a priest, and bade him celebrate mass in
front of both armies. When one mass was done, she bade him celebrate
another, both of which she and the French and English soldiers heard with
devotion.
"Now look," she said, "and see if their faces are set toward us."
"No," was the answer. "They have turned their backs and are retreating
toward Meung."
"In God's name, let them go," she said. "Our Lord does not wish us to
fight them to-day. You shall have them another time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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