The Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be
ours, too, if we would free the bridge and raise the
siege. We had achieved one great undertaking,
Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We
must lie on our arms where we were, hold fast to what
we had got, and be ready for business in the morning.
So Joan was not minded to let the men be demoralized
by pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins
burned, with all its stores in it, excepting the artillery
and ammunition.
Everybody was tired out with this long day’s
hard work, and of course this was the case with Joan;
still, she wanted to stay with the army before the
Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning.
The chiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded
her to go home and prepare for the great work by taking
proper rest, and also by having a leech look to a
wound which she had received in her foot. So we
crossed with them and went home.
Just as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy,
all the bells clanging, everybody shouting, and several
people drunk. We never went out or came in without
furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one of
these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always
on hand. There had been a blank absence of reasons
for this sort of upheavals for the past seven months,
therefore the people too to the upheavals with all
the more relish on that account.
To get away from the usual crowd of visitors
and have a rest, Joan went with Catherine straight
to the apartment which the two occupied together,
and there they took their supper and there the wound
was dressed. But then, instead of going to bed,
Joan, weary as she was, sent the Dwarf for me, in
spite of Catherine’s protests and persuasions.
She said she had something on her mind, and must send
a courier to Domremy with a letter for our old Pere
Fronte to read to her mother. I came, and she
began to dictate. After some loving words and
greetings to her mother and family, came this:
“But the thing which moves me to write now,
is to say that when you presently hear that I am wounded,
you shall give yourself no concern about it, and refuse
faith to any that shall try to make you believe it
is serious.”
She was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said:
“Ah, but it will fright her so to read these
words. Strike them out, Joan, strike them out,
and wait only one day—two days at most—then
write and say your foot was wounded but is well again—for
it surely be well then, or very near it. Don’t
distress her, Joan; do as I say.”
A laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive
free laugh of an untroubled spirit, a laugh like a
chime of bells, was Joan’s answer; then she
said:
“My foot? Why should I write about such
a scratch as that? I was not thinking of it,
dear heart.”
