for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggagehorses
together by the heads and tails, and jumbling them up with
the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live
fortification – which was found useful to the troops, but which I
should think was not agreeable to the horses. For three years
afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides being too poor
for war, which is a very expensive entertainment; but, a council
was then held in Paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the
town of Orleans, which was a place of great importance to the
Dauphin’s cause. An English army of ten thousand men was
despatched on this service, under the command of the Earl of
Salisbury, a general of fame. He being unfortunately killed early
in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took his place; under whom
(reinforced by SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, who brought up four hundred
waggons laden with salt herrings and other provisions for the
troops, and, beating off the French who tried to intercept him,
came victorious out of a hot skirmish, which was afterwards called
in jest the Battle of the Herrings) the town of Orleans was so
completely hemmed in, that the besieged proposed to yield it up to
their countryman the Duke of Burgundy. The English general,
however, replied that his English men had won it, so far, by their
blood and valour, and that his English men must have it. There
seemed to be no hope for the town, or for the Dauphin, who was so
dismayed that he even thought of flying to Scotland or to Spain –
when a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state of affairs.
The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell.
PART THE SECOND: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC
IN a remote village among some wild hills in the province of
Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was JACQUES D’ARC.
He had a daughter, JOAN OF ARC, who was at this time in her
twentieth year. She had been a solitary girl from her childhood;
she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole days where no human
figure was seen or human voice heard; and she had often knelt, for
hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel,
Page 122
Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it,
until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing there, and
even that she heard them speak to her. The people in that part of
France were very ignorant and superstitious, and they had many
ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they
saw among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were
resting on them. So, they easily believed that Joan saw strange
sights, and they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits
talked to her.
At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been surprised
by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn
voice, which said it was Saint Michael’s voice, telling her that
she was to go and help the Dauphin. Soon after this (she said),
Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret had appeared to her with
sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged her to be
virtuous and resolute. These visions had returned sometimes; but
the Voices very often; and the voices always said, ‘Joan, thou art
appointed by Heaven to go and help the Dauphin!’ She almost always
heard them while the chapel bells were ringing.
There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and heard these
things. It is very well known that such delusions are a disease
which is not by any means uncommon. It is probable enough that
there were figures of Saint Michael, and Saint Catherine, and Saint
Margaret, in the little chapel (where they would be very likely to
have shining crowns upon their heads), and that they first gave
Joan the idea of those three personages. She had long been a
moping, fanciful girl, and, though she was a very good girl, I dare