They had no idea of obeying her except in cases where their veteran military knowledge and experience showed them that the thing she required was sound and right when gauged by the regular military standards.  Were they to blame for this attitude?  I should think not.  Old war-worn captains are hard-headed, practical men.  They do not easily believe in the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns and command armies.  No general that ever lived could have taken Joan seriously (militarily) before she raised the siege of Orleans and followed it with the great campaign of the Loire.

Did they consider Joan valueless?  Far from it.  They valued her as the fruitful earth values the sun—­they fully believed she could produce the crop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take it off.  They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her as being endowed with a mysterious supernatural something that was able to do a mighty thing which they were powerless to do—­blow the breath of life and valor into the dead corpses of cowed armies and turn them into heroes.

To their minds they were everything with her, but nothing without her.  She could inspire the soldiers and fit them for battle—­but fight the battle herself?  Oh, nonsense—­that was their function.  They, the generals, would fight the battles, Joan would give the victory.  That was their idea—­an unconscious paraphrase of Joan’s reply to the Dominican.

So they began by playing a deception upon her.  She had a clear idea of how she meant to proceed.  It was her purpose to march boldly upon Orleans by the north bank of the Loire.  She gave that order to her generals.  They said to themselves, “The idea is insane—­it is blunder No. 1; it is what might have been expected of this child who is ignorant of war.”  They privately sent the word to the Bastard of Orleans.  He also recognized the insanity of it—­at least he though he did—­and privately advised the generals to get around the order in some way.

They did it by deceiving Joan.  She trusted those people, she was not expecting this sort of treatment, and was not on the lookout for it.  It was a lesson to her; she saw to it that the game was not played a second time.

Why was Joan’s idea insane, from the generals’ point of view, but not from hers?  Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out by closing their communications—­a plan which would require months in the consummation.

The English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles around Orleans—­fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but one.  To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past those fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they believed that the result would be the army’s destruction.  One may not doubt that their opinion was militarily sound—­no, would have been, but for one circumstance which they overlooked.  That was this:  the English soldiers were in a demoralized condition of superstitious terror; they had become satisfied that the Maid was in league with Satan.  By reason of this a good deal of their courage had oozed out and vanished.  On the other hand, the Maid’’ soldiers were full of courage, enthusiasm, and zeal.