The Maid had done very much upon the forced march from Nancy to Chinon to reform the discipline and the freedom of the soldiers. She forbade swearing and the use of strong drink. Gambling of every kind, and resort to fortune-telling mummers, she penalized, as well as every other illicit distraction. She expelled in person _les filles de joie_--the gay women who hung upon the fringe of the army and demoralized both officers and men. Daily she insisted upon Mass being celebrated on the field of march, and moved each man to offer his own orisons upon his bended knee. Among her immediate attendants were priests and acolytes--strange comrades, perhaps, for Duke René’s minstrels; but, then, the two cults,--Religion and Chivalry,--were ever in intimate affinity: all-honoured Blessed Mary first, and the saints of God, and all respected the persons of the weaker sex around them. It was a well-found, well-disciplined, and well-led army that left the sheltering battlements of Chinon on April 29, 1429--it was a momentous move. Some in river barges, some in saddle, some afoot, traversed the lovely spring-smiling valley of the Loire. Forest echoes were awakened and church-bells set chiming in response to holy litanies of Church and lilting songs of chivalry. Peasants put lighted candles on the lintels of doors and windows of their rude hovels; every castle and _manoir_ displayed their banners and boomed their guns _en route_. In the churches the Host was exposed on decorated altars, and _Miserere_ sung. Before bidding farewell to King Charles, La Pucelle,--fully armed, cap-à-pie, in burnished steel armour of Zaragoza damascened with gold, wherein she had been clothed by Queen Yolande’s royal hands,--took her place upon the foot-pace of the high-altar of St. Maurice. She placed her white oriflamme and her crimson-sheathed sword of Fierbois upon the sacred stone for episcopal benediction, and then, dedicating her mission and herself once more solemnly to the God of battles, assumed her trophy and her weapon. Led by René, she slowly passed down the nave of the grand old church, and out by the great portal, whence, mounting her strong white charger, she rode off amid enthusiastic plaudits and many hearty prayers, to put herself at the head of the French host, and thus awaited the signal to advance. [Illustration: JEANNE D’ARC AT THE SIEGE OF ORLÉANS From a Fresco by E. Lepenveu. Pantheon, Paris _To face page 160_]