as Jeanne:  but the courtiers were not of that mind.  The weak and foolish notion of falling back upon what they had gained, and of contenting themselves with that, was all they thought of; and the un-French, unpatriotic temper of Paris which wanted no native king, but was content with the foreigner, gave them a certain excuse.  We could not even imagine London as being ever, at any time, contented with an alien rule.  But Paris evidently was so, and was ready to defend itself to the death against its lawful sovereign.  Jeanne had never before been brought face to face with such a complication.  It had been a straightforward struggle, each man for his own side, up to this time.  But now other things had to be taken into consideration.  Here was no faithful Orleans holding out eager arms to its deliverer, but a crafty, self-seeking city, deaf to patriotism, indifferent to freedom, calculating which was most to its profit—­and deciding that the stranger, with Philip of Burgundy at his back, was the safer guide.  This was enough of itself to make a simple mind pause in astonishment and dismay.

There is no evidence that the supernatural leaders who had shaped the course of the Maid failed her now.  She still heard her “voices.”  She still held communion with the three saints who, she believed devoutly, came out of Heaven to aid her.  The whole question of this supernatural guidance is one which is of course open to discussion.  There are many in these days who do not believe in it at all, who believe in the exaltation of Jeanne’s brain, in the excitement of her nerves, in some strange complication of bodily conditions, which made her believe she saw and heard what she did not really see or hear.  For our part, we confess frankly that these explanations are no explanation at all so far as we are concerned; we are far more inclined to believe that the Maid spoke truth, she who never told a lie, she who fulfilled all the promises she made in the name of her guides, than that those people are right who tell us on their own authority that such interpositions of Heaven are impossible.  Nobody in Jeanne’s day doubted that Heaven did interpose directly in human affairs.  The only question was, Was it Heaven in this instance?  Was it not rather the evil one?  Was it sorcery and witchcraft, or was it the agency of God?  The English believed firmly that it was witchcraft; they could not imagine that it was God, the God of battles, who had always been on their side, who now took the courage out of their hearts and taught their feet to fly for the first time.  It was the devil, and the Maid herself was a wicked witch.  Neither one side nor the other believed that it was from Jeanne’s excited nerves that these great things came.  There were plenty of women with excited nerves in France, nerves much more excited than those of Jeanne, who was always reasonable at the height of her inspiration; but to none of them did it happen to mount the breach, to take the city, to drive the enemy—­up to that moment invincible,—­flying from the field.