Meanwhile no progress was made, and night was at hand. Dunois himself gave orders to sound a retreat. A Basque had taken out of the hands of the Maid’s squire that standard of hers which struck such dismay into the enemy. “When the standard touches the wall,” said she, “you will be able to enter.” “It is touching it.” “In then! all is your own.” And just as she had predicted, the assailants in a frenzy of enthusiasm climbed the wall “as though by one step.” The English were at this moment attacked on two sides at once. Meanwhile the men of Orleans, who watched the fight from the other side of the Loire, could contain themselves no longer. They threw open their gates and rushed to the bridge, but there was an arch broken; they pushed a rickety plank across the opening, and a knight of St. John ventured to pass over the frail spar in full armour. The bridge was hastily repaired, and the whole multitude hurried to the other side. The English, seeing such a human sea rushing upon them, thought the whole world had come together against them. Their senses grew bewildered; some of them beheld St. Aignan, the patron of the town, others the archangel Michael. Glasdale endeavoured to retreat from the rampart to the bastille, across a small bridge; but it was shattered by a shot, and the Englishman fell into the water and was drowned, before the eyes of the maid he had so vilified. There were five hundred men in the bastille, all of whom were put to the sword. Not one Englishman remained south of the Loire. Next day, Sunday, the besiegers on the northern side abandoned their bastilles, their artillery, their prisoners, and their wounded comrades. Talbot and Suffolk conducted the retreat steadily and in good order. The Maid would not allow them to be pursued, since they retired of their own accord; but before they withdrew out of sight of the town, she had an altar erected on a plain, at which mass was celebrated, and the people returned thanks to God in the presence of the enemy (Sunday, May 8th). The effect of the deliverance of Orleans was prodigious; everyone beheld in it the agency of supernatural power. Many attributed it to the devil, but the majority to God; it began to be generally believed that Charles had right on his side.[c] _Joan of Arc leads the King to Rheims_ However discomfited and paralysed by the panic of their soldiers, as well as by the great diminution of their numbers in the siege, the English generals would not retreat from the Loire, but withdrew, Suffolk to Jargeau, up the stream of the river, Talbot to Meung, lower down its current. They were unmolested for a month. The French were lost in jubilation. Joan left Orleans on the 13th of May, and hurried back to the court at Tours to press the king for an army to proceed to Rheims.[g]