Crying, "A miracle! A miracle!" the maidens ran for the priest, and brought him. When he came to the side of the child he saw that it was indeed alive, and straightway baptized it and received it into the Church. And as soon as this had been done the little life that had flared up so suddenly went out, and the infant was buried in holy ground. If receiving an answer to earnest prayer be witchcraft were not the maidens of Lagny equally guilty with Jeanne? But this act was later included in the list of charges brought against her. From Lagny Jeanne went to various other places in danger, or that needed encouragement or help. She made two hurried visits to Compiègne which was being menaced in more than one direction by both parties of the enemy, and was now at Soissons, now at Senlis, and presently in the latter part of May came to Crépy-en-Valois. And here came the news that Compiègne was being invested on all sides, and that preparations to press the siege were being actively made. Eager to go at once to the aid of the place Jeanne ordered her men to get ready for the march. She had but few in her company, not more than two or three hundred, and some of them told her that they were too few to pass through the hosts of the enemy. A warning of this sort never had any effect upon Jeanne. "By my staff, we are enough," she cried. "I will go to see my good friends at Compiègne."[25] At midnight of the twenty-second, therefore, she set forth from Crépy, and by hard riding arrived at Compiègne in the early dawn, to the great joy and surprise of the Governor, Guillaume de Flavy, and the people who set the bells to ringing and the trumpets to sounding a glad welcome. The men-at-arms were weary with the night's ride, but Jeanne, after going to mass, met with the Governor to arrange a plan of action. Now Compiègne in situation was very like to Orléans, in that it lay on a river, but it was on the south instead of the north bank. Behind the city to the southward stretched the great forest of Pierrefonds, and at its feet was the River Oise. In front of the city across the river a broad meadow extended to the low hills of Picardy. It was low land, subject to floods, so that there was a raised road or causeway from the bridge of Compiègne to the foot of the hills, a mile distant. Three villages lay on this bank: at the end of the causeway was the tower and village of Margny, where was a camp of Burgundians; on the left, a mile and a half below the causeway, was Venette, where the English lay encamped; and to the right, a league distant above the causeway, stood Clairoix, where the Burgundians had another camp. The first defence of the city, facing the enemy, was a bridge fortified with a tower and boulevard, which were in turn guarded by a deep fosse.