a successful attack on the capital.  And he again succeeded in thwarting the Maid of Orleans when he resisted her wish to make a second attack upon Paris.  Later on it was La Tremoille who tried to make Joan of Arc fail at the siege of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier.  When she was unsuccessful before La Charite-sur-Loire, and when the blame of that failure was laid at Joan’s door, La Tremoille for very shame was obliged publicly to acknowledge the heroic zeal with which she had carried out the operations of that siege.  The higher Joan’s popularity rose among the people and in the army, the more her two bitter enemies, La Tremoille and the Archbishop of Rheims, shared between them their jealous dislike.

[Illustration:  XV CENTURY HOUSE—­COMPIEGNE.]

Thus, even before her capture and trial, Joan of Arc met with some of her worst foes among those whose duty it was to have been her staunchest friends and helpers; and, deplorable to say, among her own countrymen.

Charles left Saint Denis on the 13th of September.  Before his departure, Joan of Arc performed an act which indicated that she felt her mission to be finished.  In the old fane of Saint Denis, the tomb-house of the long line of French kings, she solemnly placed her armour and arms at the foot of an image of the Holy Mother, near the spot where were kept the relics of the Patron Saint of France.  By that act of humility she seemed to wish to show her abnegation of any further earthly victory by the aid of arms.

We have now arrived at the turning-point of Joan of Arc’s successes, and although the heroine is even more admirable in her days of misfortune and suffering than in those of her triumphs, when she led her followers on from victory to victory, the course of her brief life now darkens rapidly, and the approaching fate of the brave-hearted maiden is so terrible that it requires some courage to follow her to the very end, glorious as that end was, and bright with its sainted heroism.

The King’s return journey from Compiegne to Gien was so hurried that it almost resembled a flight.  Avoiding the towns still doubtful in their loyalty to him, Charles sped from Lagny to Bovins, then to Bray, Courtenay, Chateau-Regnaut, and Montargis, arriving at Gien on the 21st of September.  Ere this time there could be little doubt of the Duke of Burgundy’s unwillingness to abide by his pledge, and restore Paris to Charles.  The Duke and Bedford had in fact already come to terms.  The Regent resigned to Burgundy the Lieutenancy of the country, keeping only the now empty title of Regent and the charge of Normandy.  The result of the King’s withdrawal from the neighbourhood of Paris, and his hurried march, or rather retreat, to Gien, was that the English felt that there was now no longer any fear of their being drawn out of the capital.  They promptly marched on and occupied Saint Denis, pillaging that town and carrying off as a trophy the arms which Joan of Arc had placed by the shrine of Saint Denis, in the ancient basilica of Dagobert.