Orléans went mad with joy at the advent of its heaven-sent deliverer. As she rode through the streets the crowds blocked her way, and eager admirers rudely jostled each other in the struggle but to touch the horse that bore her. With sweet kindliness, she thanked them, losing none of her humility, and exhorting them to thank not her, but God and the dauphin. For that night and the rest of her stay in Orléans she was lodged with the wife of the treasurer of Charles d'Orléans, and slept with one of the daughters of the house. Sturdy and healthy as she was, the unaccustomed rough life of the camp, sleeping with her armor on and none but men about her, had occasioned her great fatigue. The operations of the siege had been suspended by the English, who sullenly kept to their _bastilles_. Jeanne insisted upon an immediate attack, and during the week that followed she was with difficulty restrained from rash enterprises. Indeed, she could not always be restrained, and her rashness was not infrequently rewarded with unexpected success. Warned of the approach of English reinforcements under Sir John Fastolf, she conjured Dunois to let her know without delay of his coming. She suspected Dunois of intending to engage Fastolf without her, and in her nervous eagerness to be up and doing for France she precipitated a successful attack upon the bastilles. She had retired to rest for a few hours in the middle of the day when the noise of a tumult in the streets aroused her; the cry was that the French were being slaughtered at one of the gates. Leaping from her couch, and hardly taking time to have half of her armor buckled on, she mounted her horse and, seizing her banner as it was reached to her from a window, galloped toward the gates. On the way, she met the wounded and her heart was moved at the sight of blood. Without the authority of Dunois the garrison had undertaken an assault upon the _bastille_ of Saint-Loup, which stood most directly across the path of those who would bring supplies into Orléans. The French had been beaten back, but with the arrival of Jeanne hope and courage returned. Jeanne in person led a fresh assault, while Talbot, the English commander, vainly strove to rally his men and dissipate their fears of "the witch." The English were forced to retire, and the fort fell into the hands of Jeanne, who, lapsing at once from warrior into woman after this first experience of an actual battle, wept over the slain, cared for the wounded, and did her best to protect the English prisoners from her own savage followers.