heavy armor–and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a
death as that.
“Ah, God pity them!” said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful
spectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those
compassionate tears although one of those perishing men had
grossly insulted her with a coarse name three days before, when
she had sent him a message asking him to surrender. That was
their leader, Sir Williams Glasdale, a most valorous knight. He
was clothed all in steel; so he plunged under water like a lance,
and of course came up no more.
We soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves
against the last stronghold of the English power that barred
Orleans from friends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down,
Joan’s forever memorable day’s work was finished, her banner
floated from the fortress of the Tourelles, her promise was
fulfilled, she had raised the siege of Orleans!
The seven months’ beleaguerment was ended, the thing which the
first generals of France had called impossible was accomplished;
in spite of all that the King’s ministers and war-councils could do
to prevent it, this little country-maid at seventeen had carried her
immortal task through, and had done it in four days!
Good news travels fast, sometimes, as well as bad. By the time we
were ready to start homeward by the bridge the whole city of
Orleans was one red flame of bonfires, and the heavens blushed
with satisfaction to see it; and the booming and bellowing of
cannon and the banging of bells surpassed by great odds anything
that even Orleans had attempted before in the way of noise.
When we arrived–well, there is no describing that. Why, those
acres of people that we plowed through shed tears enough to raise
the river; there was not a face in the glare of those fires that hadn’t
tears streaming down it; and if Joan’s feet had not been protected
by iron they would have kissed them off of her. “Welcome!
welcome to the Maid of Orleans!” That was the cry; I heard it a
hundred thousand times. “Welcome to our Maid!” some of them
worded it.
No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory
as Joan of Arc reached that day. And do you think it turned her
head, and that she sat up to enjoy that delicious music of homage
and applause? No; another girl would have done that, but not this
one. That was the greatest heart and the simplest that ever beat.
She went straight to bed and to sleep, like any tired child; and
when the people found she was wounded and would rest, they shut
off all passage and traffic in that region and stood guard
themselves the whole night through, to see that he slumbers were
not disturbed. They said, “She has given us peace, she shall have
peace herself.”
All knew that that region would be empty of English next day, and
all said that neither the present citizens nor their posterity would
ever cease to hold that day sacred to the memory of Joan of Arc.
That word has been true for more than sixty years; it will continue
so always. Orleans will never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail
to celebrate it. It is Joan of Arc’s day–and holy. [1]
[1] It is still celebrated every year with civic and military pomps
and solemnities. — TRANSLATOR.
Chapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King
IN THE earliest dawn of morning, Talbot and his English forces
evacuated their bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn,
destroy, or carry off anything, but leaving their fortresses just as
they were, provisioned, armed, and equipped for a long siege. It
was difficult for the people to believe that this great thing had
really happened; that they were actually free once more, and might
go and come through any gate they pleased, with none to molest or
forbid; that the terrible Talbot, that scourge of the French, that
man whose mere name had been able to annul the effectiveness of
French armies, was gone, vanished, retreating–driven away by a