“If then the Lord be with us, must we not show ourselves worthy of His holy presence in our midst?  O my friends, since I have been with you these few days, my heart has been pained and grieved by that which I have heard and seen.  Oaths and blasphemies fall from your lips, and you scarce know it yourselves.  Drunkenness and vice prevail.  O my friends, let this no longer be amongst us!  Let us cleanse ourselves from all impurities; let our conversation be yea, yea, nay, nay.  Let none take the name of the Lord in vain, nor soil His holy cause by vice and uncleanness.  O let us all, day by day, as the sun rises anew each morning, assemble to hear Mass, and to receive the Holy Sacrament.  Let every man make his confession.  Holy priests are with us to hear all, and to give absolution.  Let us start forth upon the morrow purified and blessed of God, and let us day by day renew that holy cleansing and blessing, that the Lord may indeed be with us and rest amongst us, and that His heart be not grieved and burdened by that which He shall see and hear amongst those to whom He has promised His help and blessing!”

Thus she spoke; and a deep silence fell upon all, in the which it seemed to me the fall of a pin might have been heard.  The Maid sat quite still for a moment, her own head bent as though in prayer.  Then she lifted it, and a radiant smile passed over her face, a smile as of assurance and thankful joy.  She raised her hand and waved it, almost as though she blessed, whilst she greeted her soldiers, and then she turned her horse, the crowd making way for her in deep reverential silence, and rode towards her own lodging, where she remained shut up in her own room for the rest of the day.

But upon the following morning a strange thing had happened.  Every single camp follower—­all the women and all the disorderly rabble that hangs upon the march of an army—­had disappeared.  They had slunk off in the night, and were utterly gone.  The soldiers were gathered in the churches to hear Mass.  All that could do so attended where it was known the Maid would be, and when she had received the Sacrament herself, hundreds crowded to do the like; and I suppose there were thousands in the city that day, who, having confessed and received absolution, received the pledge of the Lord’s death, though perhaps some of them had not thought of such a duty for years and years.

And here I may say that this was not an act for once and all.  Day by day in the camp Mass was celebrated, and the Holy Sacrament given to all who asked and came.  The Maid ever sought to begin the day thus, and we of her personal household generally followed her example.  Even La Hire would come and kneel beside her, a little behind, though it was some while before he desired to partake of the Sacrament himself.  But to be near her in this act of devotion seemed to give him joy and confidence and for her sake, because he saw it pained her, he sought to break off his habit of profane swearing, and the use of those strange oaths before which men had been wont to quake.