The university, the parlement, the queen-mother, the whole of North France, from Brittany and Normandy to Flanders, from the Channel to the line of the Loire, accepted the situation, and the Duke of Burgundy, most powerful of the royal princes, was a friend of the English. Yet a few French hearts beat true. While the regent Duke of Bedford was entering Paris, a handful of knights unfurled the royal banner at Melun, crying--"Long live King Charles, seventh of the name, by the grace of God king of France!" And what a pitiful incarnation of national independence was this to whom the devoted sons of France were now called to rally!--a feeble youth of nineteen, indolent, licentious, mocked at by the triumphant English as the "little king of Bourges." The story of the resurrection of France at the call of an untutored village girl is one of the most enthralling dramas of history. When all men had despaired; when the cruelty, ambition and greed of the princes of France had wrought her destruction; when the miserable dauphin at Chinon was prepared to seek safety by an ignominious flight to Spain or Scotland; when Orleans, the key to the southern provinces, was about to fall into English hands--the means of salvation were revealed in the ecstatic visions of a simple peasant maid. With that divine inspiration vouchsafed alone to faith and fervent love, she saw with piercing insight the essential things to be done. The siege of Orleans must be raised and the dauphin anointed king at Rheims. "The originality of the Maid," says Michelet, "and the cause of her success was her good sense amid all her enthusiasm and exaltation." We may not here narrate the story of those miraculous three months of the year 1429 (27th April-16th July), which saw the relief of Orleans, the victories of Jargeau, of Patay (where invincible Talbot was made prisoner), of the surrender of ill-omened Troyes and of the solemn coronation at Rheims. Jeanne deemed her mission over after Rheims, but to her ill-hap was persuaded to follow the royal army after the retreat of the English from Senlis, and on 23rd August she occupied St. Denis. She declared at her trial that her voices told her to remain at St. Denis, but that the lords made her attack Paris. On the 8th September the assault was made, but it was foiled by the king's apathy, the incapacity and bitter jealousy of his counsellors, and the action of double-faced Burgundy. In the afternoon Jeanne, while sounding the depth of the fosse with her lance,[91] was wounded by an arrow in the thigh. She remained till late evening, when she was carried away to St. Denis, at whose shrine she hung up her arms--her mysterious sword from St. Catherine de Fierbois and her banner of pure white, emblazoned with the fleur-de-lys and the figure of the Saviour, with the device "Jesu Maria." [Illustration: NOTRE DAME FROM THE NORTH]