As she lay at Blois she sent a letter to the English captain who was besieging Orleans, bidding him depart in peace, or else she would fall upon him with blows, and “we shall see who hath the better right, God or you.” The English laughed at her words, and threatened to burn her as a witch if they caught her. Nevertheless she advanced, and entered the town, whereat the spirits of the citizens rose and their confidence returned. And now, being strengthened by fresh troops and fresh stores, they no longer acted merely on the defensive, but began to assault the English forts, and with Joan as leader captured two of them. Then Joan led them against the Bulwark and the Round Towers. All morning they fought without success, and at one o’clock in the afternoon a bolt from an English cross-bow wounded her in the shoulder. The arrow was extracted, and still the fight went on. After sunset the captain wished to withdraw for the night, but Joan begged him to fall to again. She mounted her horse and rode to a quiet place and prayed, and then returned to the fight. She alighted from her horse, and taking her standard in her hand, waved it to and fro so that all men saw it. “Take heed,” she said, “when the float of my banner shall touch the Bulwark.” “It touches! it touches!” they cried. Then said she to her men, “All is yours; enter in.” With a great rush the French climbed the scaling-ladders, captured the Round Towers, stormed the Bulwark, and put to the sword most of the defenders. That night the English, terrified by the reappearance of the Maid, raised the siege and departed, leaving their big guns and much victual behind them. So the town of Orleans was delivered, and Frenchmen everywhere began to believe that the Maid was really an angel of God sent to deliver France. Without delay Joan rode to the Dauphin and besought him to make ready to be crowned at Rheims, the old coronation place of the French kings. But he would not set forth until the way was cleared of English. So with six hundred lances and some infantry Joan led an attack on them, and drove them before her. And now in June the Dauphin at her entreaty gat him on the road for Rheims, Joan warning him that “she would only last for a year, or not much longer, and that he must make haste.” At Troyes the garrison yielded, and ere long the Dauphin was in Rheims, and the scene in which you saw the Maid for the first time took place. Hardly was the coronation over ere Joan urged the king to march on Paris. As he advanced, town after town opened its gates to him, and Bedford dared not give him battle. But when the first attack on Paris failed, he withdrew, like the coward that he was, and would not persevere, in spite of all Joan’s prayers and tears. Almost broken-hearted, she hung up her arms in the church of St. Denis, and begged leave to go home to her father and mother and herd the cattle as of yore. The king, however, would not let her go, but gave her a pension and a title of nobility.