now. They believed the Maid was a match for the council, and they
were right.
When we reached the gate, Joan told Gaucourt to open it and let
her pass.
He said it would be impossible to do this, for his orders were from
the council and were strict. Joan said:
“There is no authority above mine but the King’s. If you have an
order from the King, produce it.”
“I cannot claim to have an order from him, General.”
“Then make way, or take the consequences!”
He began to argue the case, for he was like the rest of the tribe,
always ready to fight with words, not acts; but in the midst of his
gabble Joan interrupted with the terse order:
“Charge!”
We came with a rush, and brief work we made of that small job. It
was good to see the Bailly’s surprise. He was not used to this
unsentimental promptness. He said afterward that he was cut off in
the midst of what he was saying–in the midst of an argument by
which he could have proved that he could not let Joan pass–an
argument which Joan could not have answered.
“Still, it appears she did answer it,” said the person he was talking
to.
We swung through the gate in great style, with a vast accession of
noise, the most of which was laughter, and soon our van was over
the river and moving down against the Tourelles.
First we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and
which was otherwise nameless, before we could assault the great
bastille. Its rear communicated with the bastille by a drawbridge,
under which ran a swift and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard
was strong, and Dunois doubted our ability to take it, but Joan had
no such doubt. She pounded it with artillery all the forenoon, then
about noon she ordered an assault and led it herself. We poured
into the fosse through the smoke and a tempest of missiles, and
Joan, shouting encouragements to her men, started to climb a
scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which we knew
was to happen–the iron bolt from an arbalest struck between her
neck and her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor.
When she felt the sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her
breast, she was frightened, poor girl, and as she sank to the ground
she began to cry bitterly.
The English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong
force to take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both
adversaries was concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above
her, English and French fought with desperation–for she stood for
France, indeed she was France to both sides–whichever won her
won France, and could keep it forever. Right there in that small
spot, and in ten minutes by the clock, the fate of France, for all
time, was to be decided, and was decided.
If the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have
flown the country, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and
France, already English property, would have become, without
further dispute, an English province, to so remain until Judgment
Day. A nationality and a kingdom were at stake there, and no more
time to decide it in than it takes to hard-boil an egg. It was the
most momentous ten minutes that the clock has ever ticked in
France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories about hours or
days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation hung in
the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts to
beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France,
called otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day,
with two nations struggling over her for her possession.
And you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did
the work of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both
hands; whenever it came down, he said those two words, “For
France!” and a splintered helmet flew like eggshells, and the skull
that carried it had learned its manners and would offend the French