These words may well be called Joan of Arc’s life motto, and the secret of her success.  ‘Had she,’ she asked Alencon, ’ever given him reason to doubt her word?’ And she reminded him how she had promised his wife to bring him, Alencon, back safe and sound from this expedition.  Joan seems throughout that day’s fighting to have watched over the Duke’s safety with much anxious care; at one hour of the day she bade him leave a position from which he was watching the attack, as she told him that if he remained longer in that place he would get slain from some catapult or engine, to which she pointed on the walls.  Hardly had the Duke left the spot when a Seigneur de Lude was struck and killed by a shot from the very engine about which Joan had warned Alencon.

Hour after hour raged the attack; both Joan and Alencon directed the storming parties under a heavy fire.  A stone from a catapult struck Joan on her helmet as she was in the act of mounting a ladder—­she fell back, stunned, into the ditch, but soon revived, and rising, with her undaunted courage, she turned to hearten her followers, declaring that the victory would be theirs.  In a few more moments the place was in possession of the French.  Suffolk fled to the bridge which spanned the Loire:  there he was captured.  A soldier named William Regnault beat him to the ground, but Suffolk refused to yield to one so low in rank, and is said to have dubbed his victor knight before giving him up his sword.  Besides Suffolk, a brother of his was taken, and four or five hundred men were killed or captured.  The place was pillaged.  The most important of the prisoners were shipped to Orleans.

The following day Joan returned to Orleans with Alencon, where they remained two days to rest their men, after which they proceeded to Meun.  This was a strongly fortified town on the Loire, about an equal distance from Orleans on the west and from Jargeau on the east.

The first success of the French was the occupation of a bridge held by the English.  They then descended the river, and attacked the town of Beaugency.  This town had been abandoned by the English garrison, who had thrown themselves into the castle.  Here it was that the army of the Loire was joined by the Constable de Richemont, who could be almost considered as a little monarch in his own territory of Brittany.  This magnate appears to have been a somewhat unwelcome addition to Joan and Alencon’s army.  He was, however, tolerated, if not welcomed.  Alencon and the Constable, who had till now been at enmity, were reconciled by Joan’s influence, and she paved the way for a reconciliation between Richemont and the King.