of the sort, notwithstanding her armour and her rank as General-in-Chief, she cried with the pain, this commander of seventeen.  Somebody then proposed to charm the wound with an incantation, but the Maid indignant, cried out, “I would rather die.”  Finally a compress soaked in oil was placed upon it, and Jeanne withdrew a little with her chaplain, and made her confession to him, as one who might be about to die.

But soon her mood changed.  She saw the assailants waver and fall back; the attack grew languid, and Dunois talked of sounding the retreat.  Upon this she got to her feet, and scrambled somehow on her horse.  “Rest a little,” she implored the generals about her, “eat something, refresh yourselves:  and when you see my standard floating against the wall, forward, the place is yours.”  They seem to have done as she suggested, making a pause, while Jeanne withdrew a little into a vineyard close by, where there must have been a tuft of trees, to afford her a little shelter.  There she said her prayers, and tasted that meat to eat that men wot not of, which restores the devout soul.  Turning back she took her standard from her squire’s hand, and planted it again on the edge of the moat.  “Let me know,” she said, “when the pennon touches the wall.”  The folds of white and gold with the benign countenance of the Saviour, now visible, now lost in the changes of movement, floated over their heads on the breeze of the May day.  “Jeanne,” said the squire, “it touches!” “On!” cried the Maid, her voice ringing through the momentary quiet.  “On!  All is yours!” The troops rose as one man; they flung themselves against the wall, at the foot of which that white figure stood, the staff of her banner in her hand, shouting, “All is yours.”  Never had the French elan been so wildly inspired, so irresistible; they swarmed up the wall “as if it had been a stair.”  “Do they think themselves immortal?” the panic-stricken English cried among themselves—­panic-stricken not by their old enemies, but by the white figure at the foot of the wall.  Was she a witch, as had been thought? was not she indeed the messenger of God?  The dazzling rays that shot from her armour seemed like butterflies, like doves, like angels floating about her head.  They had thought her dead, yet here she stood again without a sign of injury; or was it Michael himself, the great archangel whom she resembled do much?  Arrows flew round her on every side but never touched her.  She struck no blow, but the folds of her standard blew against the wall, and her voice rose through all the tumult.  “On!  Enter! de la part de Dieu! for all is yours.”

The Maid had other words to say, “Renty, renty, Classidas!” she cried, “you called me vile names, but I have a great pity for your soul.”  He on his side showered down blasphemies.  He was at the last gasp; one desperate last effort he made with a handful of men to escape from the boulevard by the drawbridge to Les Tourelles, which crossed a narrow strip of the river.  But the bridge had been fired by a fire-ship from Orleans and gave way under the rush of the heavily-armed men; and the fierce Classidas and his companions were plunged into the river, where a knight in armour, like a tower falling, went to the bottom in a moment.  Nearly thirty of them, it is said, plunged thus into the great Loire and were seen no more.