So Joan saved the Duke, as she had promised.
Then they ran together to the wall, and Jean was climbing up a ladder, when a heavy stone thrown by the English struck her helmet, and she fell.
She rose again at once, crying, “Forward, we shall take them all,” and the English ran through the streets to the bridges, the French following and cutting them down, or taking them prisoners. It is said that the Earl of Suffolk surrendered to Joan, as “the bravest woman in the world.” If this is true, she might have made a great deal of money out of his ransom, that is, the price which a prisoner paid for his freedom. There is another story that Suffolk was taken by a squire, and that he dubbed him knight before he surrendered as it was more honourable to yield to a knight. This is more likely to be true, for the English thought that Joan was a witch. Now, as Suffolk was general of all the English forces on the Loire he would not choose to surrender to a lass of sixteen, whether he believed in witches or not Besides, he could not dub Joan a knight.
CHAPTER IX. HOW JOAN DEFEATED THE ENGLISH IN FAIRFIELD
THE Maid had now driven the English away from Orleans, and had taken a strong town which they held, a thing the French, without her, had failed to do. She was next to beat their army In the open country and in fair field. We know most about this battle from a book written by a gentleman named Pierre de Cagny, who rode with the Duke of Alencon and knew what happened, and wrote all down very soon afterwards. He says that the Maid placed a garrison of soldiers to keep Jargeau, and then rode to Orleans with the Duke, where the townspeople gave a great feast to her and her friends. But she did not stay long to be petted and praised at Orleans. In the evening she said to the Duke, “I am going, after dinner tomorrow, to see the English at Meun. Have the men ready to march.” She easily made Meun surrender, and then her guns fired at the town of Beaugency.
Then news came to Joan that the whole English army, under Talbot and Sir John Fastolf (who cannot be Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare, for the fat knight was dead), were marching against her. Now Sir John Fastolf, though a very brave captain, thought, like the fat knight, that “discretion was the better part of valour.” He wished to be cautious, and to avoid a battle, for he saw that the French were in high spirits, while the English soldiers had lost heart. This is told in the book written by a knight named Jean de Wavrin, a Burgundian. He was, like all of them of Burgundy, on the English side, and he rode under the banner of Sir John Fastolf.
I tell you generally how we come to know the things done by the Maid, to show that the story is true, as the people who described it were present, and saw what happened.
The other English captains thought Sir John rather too cautious, and Talbot said. “By St George. I will fight if I have only my own few men with me!” Next morning the English rode out with banners flying, and again Sir John said that they were too few, and that they were risking all that Henry V. had gained in France. But Talbot and the rest would not listen to him, so the trumpets blew, and the horsemen rode on towards Meun, which Joan had taken. When they came to a place about three miles from Meun, and three from Beaugency, they saw the banner of the Maid, with Our Lord and the Lilies of France, and the banners of the Duke of Alençon, and Dunois, and La Hire, and young Pothon de Xaintrailles, a very gallant boy, waving over the ranks of 6000 men.