speak; I shall fall, perhaps, but the king and my own honor demand it; henceforth I give up my banner and am nothing more than a poor esquire.  I prefer to have for master a noble man rather than a girl who has heretofore been, perhaps, I know not what.”  He furled his banner and handed it to Dunois.  Dunois, as sensible as he was brave, would not give heed either to the choler of Gamaches or to the insistence of Joan; and, thanks to his intervention, they were reconciled on being induced to think better, respectively, of giving up the banner and ordering an immediate attack.  Dunois went to Blois to hurry the movements of the division which had repaired thither; and his presence there was highly necessary, since Joan’s enemies, especially the chancellor Regnault, were nearly carrying a decision that no such re-enforcement should be sent to Orleans.  Dunois frustrated this purpose, and led back to Orleans, by way of Beauce, the troops concentrated at Blois.  On the 4th of May, as soon as it was known that he was coming, Joan, La Hire, and the principal leaders of the city as well as of the garrison, went to meet him, and re-entered Orleans with him and his troops, passing between the bastilles of the English, who made not even an attempt to oppose them.  “That is the sorceress yonder,” said some of the besiegers; others asked if it were quite so clear that her power, did not come to her from on high; and their commander, the Earl of Suffolk, being himself, perhaps, uncertain, did not like to risk it:  doubt produced terror, and terror inactivity.  The convoy from Blois entered Orleans, preceded by Brother Pasquerel and the priests.

Joan, whilst she was awaiting it, sent the English captains a fresh summons to withdraw conformably with the letter which she had already addressed to them from Blois, and the principal clauses of which were just now quoted here.  They replied with coarse insults, calling her strumpet and cow-girl, and threatening to burn her when they caught her.  She was very much moved by their insults, insomuch as to weep; but calling God to witness her innocence, she found herself comforted, and expressed it by saying, “I have had news from my Lord.”  The English had detained the first herald she had sent them; and when she would have sent them a second to demand his comrade back, he was afraid.  “In the name of God,” said Joan, “they will do no harm nor to thee nor to him; thou shalt tell Talbot to arm, and I too will arm; let him show himself in front of the city; if he can take me, let him burn me; if I discomfit him, let him raise the siege, and let the English get them gone to their own country.”  The second herald appeared to be far from reassured; but Dunois charged him to say that the English prisoners should answer for what was done to the heralds from the Maid.  The two heralds were sent back.  Joan made up her mind to iterate in person to the English the warnings she had given them in her letter.