threw her down; but she sprang up again in a moment unhurt. “Sus!  Sus! Our Lord has condemned the English—­all is yours!” she cried.  She would seem to have stood there in her place with her banner, a rallying-point and centre in the midst of all the confusion of the fight, taking this for her part in it, and though she is always in the thick of the combat, never, so far as we are told, striking a blow, exposed to all the instruments of war, but injured by none.  The effect of her mere attitude, the steadiness of her stand, under the terrible rain of stone bullets and dreadful arrows, must of itself have been indescribable.

In the midst of the fiery struggle, there is almost a comic point in her watch over Alencon, for whose safety she had pledged herself, now dragging him from a dangerous spot with a cry of warning, now pushing him forward with an encouraging word.  On the first of these occasions a gentleman of Anjou, M. de Lude, who took his place in the front was killed, which seems hard upon the poor gentleman, who was probably quite as well worth caring for as Alencon. “Avant, gentil duc,” she cried at another moment, “forward!  Are you afraid? you know I promised your wife to bring you safe home.”  Thus her voice keeps ringing through the din, her white armour gleams. “Sus!  Sus!” the bold cry is almost audible, sibilant, whistling amid the whistling of the arrows.

Suffolk, the English Bayard, the most chivalrous of knights, was at last forced to yield.  One story tells us that he would give up his sword only to Jeanne herself,(1) but there is a more authentic description of his selection of one youth among his assailants whom the quick perceptions of the leader had singled out.  “Are you noble?” Suffolk asks in the brevity of such a crisis.  “Yes; Guillame Regnault, gentleman of Auvergne.”  “Are you a knight?” “Not yet.”  The victor put a knee to the ground before his captive, the vanquished touched him lightly on the shoulder with the sword which he then gave over to him.  Suffolk was always the finest gentleman, the most perfect gentle knight of his time.

“Now let us go and see the English of Meung,” cried Jeanne, unwearying, as soon as this victory was assured.  That place fell easily; it is called the bridge of Meung, in the Chronicle, without further description, therefore presumably the fortress was not attacked—­and they proceeded onward to Beaugency.  These towns still shine over the plain, along the line of the Loire, visible as far as the eye will carry over the long levels, the great stream linking one to another like pearls on a thread.  There is nothing in the landscape now to give even a moment’s shelter to the progress of a marching army which must have been seen from afar, wherever it moved; or to veil the shining battlements, and piled up citadels rising here and there, concentrated points and centres of life.  The great white Castle of Blois, the darker tower of Beaugency, still stand where they stood when Jeanne and her men drew near, as conspicuous in their elevation of walls and towers as if they had been planted on a mountain top.  On more than one occasion during this wonderful progress from victory to victory, the triumphant leaders returned for a day or two to Orleans to tell their good tidings, and to celebrate their success.