been separated from her lieutenant Alencon, and from
all the friends between whom and herself great mutual
confidence had sprung up. Even the commission
which had at last been put in her hands was a trifling
one and led to nothing, bringing the King no nearer
to any satisfactory end: and the troops were
under command of a new captain whom she scarcely knew,
d’Albert, who was the son-in-law of La Tremoille,
and probably little inclined to be a friend to Jeanne.
In these circumstances there was little of an exhilarating
or promising kind.
Nevertheless as an episode, few things had happened
to Jeanne more memorable than the siege of St. Pierre-le-Moutier.
The first assault upon the town was unsuccessful;
the retreat had sounded and the troops were streaming
back from the point of attack, when Jean d’Aulon,
the faithful friend and brave gentleman who was at
the head of the Maid’s military household, being
himself wounded in the heel and unable to stand or
walk, saw the Maid almost alone before the stronghold,
four or five men only with her. He dragged himself
up as well as he could upon his horse, and hastened
towards her, calling out to her to ask what she did
there, and why she did not retire with the rest.
She answered him, taking off her helmet to speak,
that she would leave only when the place was taken—and
went on shouting for faggots and beams to make a bridge
across the ditch. It is to be supposed that seeing
she paid no attention, nor budged a step from that
dangerous point, this brave man, wounded though he
was, must have made an effort to rally the retiring
besiegers: but Jeanne seems to have taken no notice
of her desertion nor ever to have paused in her shout
for planks and gabions. “All to the bridge,”
she shouted, “aux fagots et aux claies tout
le monde! every one to the bridge.”
“Jeanne, withdraw, withdraw! You are alone,”
some one said to her. Bareheaded, her countenance
all aglow, the Maid replied: “I have still
with me fifty thousand of my men.” Were
those the men whom the prophet’s servant saw
when his eyes were opened and he beheld the innumerable
company of angels that surrounded his master?
But Jeanne, rapt in the trance and ecstasy of battle,
gave no explanation. “To work, to work!”
her clear voice went on, ringing over the startled
head of the good knight who knew war, but not any rapture
like this. History itself, awe-stricken, would
almost have us believe that alone with her own hand
the Maid took the city, so entirely does every figure
disappear but that one, and the perplexed and terrified
spectator vainly urging her to give up so desperate
an attempt. But no doubt the shouts of a voice
so strange to every such scene, the vox infantile,
the amazing and clear voice, silvery and womanly,
assez femme, and the efforts of d’Aulon
to bring back the retreating troops were successful,
and Jeanne once more, triumphantly kept her word.
The place was strongly fortified, well provisioned,
and full of people. Therefore the whole narrative
is little less than miraculous, though very little
is said of it. Had they but persevered, as she
had said, a few hours longer before Paris, who could
tell that the same result might not have been obtained?
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