THE CATHEDRAL, RHEIMS.

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Charles put himself at the head of his forces, and collected all his power on the banks of the Loire. He proposed, however, first to clear the enemy from their strongholds, and afterwards to march to Rheims. His army, led on by the Maid, invested the town of Jargeau, where Suffolk, the commander-in-chief, lay, and within ten days the place was carried by storm, and Suffolk himself taken prisoner. In this triumphant action Joan, as usual, led the way. She was the first to scale the wall of the city; but on her head appearing above it she received a blow which precipitated her into the ditch. She was severely bruised, but not killed; and as she lay on the ground, unable to raise herself, she cried, "Forward, countrymen! fear nothing; the Lord has delivered them into our hands." The soldiers, fired to enthusiasm by her heroism and her confident words, rushed on and took the place. Three hundred of the garrison lay dead. Six thousand of the English had fallen at Orleans, and a panic seized them everywhere. The Lord Talbot, who was now left in command, evacuated the different ports and towns, and retreated towards Paris.

At Patay he was met by a reinforcement of 4,000 men, and made a stand. Sir John Fastolf, who had brought these troops, advised further retreat, but Talbot refused. While the commanders debated the point, the French were upon them; and Talbot, who saw himself on a flat, open country, endeavoured, but too late, to secure his rear by a village and fenced enclosures. On the other side, the French commanders, dreading an attack of the English in the open field, remembering Agincourt and Verneuil, advised waiting for additional cavalry, but Joan indignantly exclaimed, "Have you not good spears? Ride on in the name of the Lord; the English are delivered into my hands,—you have only to smite them!" So saying, she led the way in charge, and the men clamoured to follow. La Hire and Saintrailles dashed on with the Maid, and broke into the very midst of the English before they had time to form. Fastolf without striking a blow, led off his men; and the brave Talbot, fighting amid heaps of his slain soldiers, was taken, with the Lord Scales and Hungerford, and the bulk of the officers. Twelve hundred of the English lay dead on the field.

In this moment of victory Joan again urged on Charles to march to Rheims, and be crowned. At this the contemptible king, who on all occasions of danger kept aloof, shrank back. The distance was great, the whole way was full of strong towns in the hands of the English and Burgundians. His officers supported him in this view, but the undaunted Maid upbraided them with their want of faith, after so many wondrous proofs of the truth of her promises.

She strove wisely to reconcile Charles to the Constable, the Count of Richemont, whom La Tremouille, the king's favourite, hated and feared; but in vain. Not only Richemont with his troops, but many other knights, were refused attendance in the court, and with these diminished forces Charles set forward on the road to Rheims. But everywhere the fortified towns fell before them. Auxerre made a treaty of submission, but Troyes for a time held out. As the soldiers suffered greatly in the siege for want of provisions, they began to lose faith in Joan, and openly to insult her as a foul witch. The murmurs of the base soldiery were quickly seized upon by the Archbishop of Rheims, who had always expressed his disbelief in Joan's inspiration, and the poor maid was summoned before the council, and interrogated like a criminal. But with a simple and fearless eloquence she made the leaders feel ashamed of their doubts. She challenged them to follow her to the walls, and see them surmounted, and she prevailed. With bags of earth and fagots the soldiers filled up the ditch, and were preparing with scaling-ladders to pour over the walls in a frenzy of enthusiasm, when a parley was demanded by the besieged, and the notorious Friar Richard, who figured so much in the camp from this time, made terms of surrender. As Joan was in the act of passing the city gate at the head of the troops, the friar, still believing that he had to do with an imp of Satan, crossed himself in great agitation with many crosses, and sprinkled holy water on the threshold of the gate. Instead of seeing the Maid resolve herself into a hideous demon and vanish away, or find herself unable to cross the threshold, he beheld her march on calm and unmoved; and at once he pronounced her an angel, and the people flocked round with admiring wonder. From that hour Friar Richard became a zealous ally of the king, though often relapsing into doubt of the Maid and into bigoted opposition to her. He now, however, went on preaching to the people of the neighbouring towns to rise in defence of the king, and drive out the Burgundians. Châlons sent Charles the keys of the town, and on arriving at Rheims, he found that the people had risen at the approach of the Maid, had driven out the adherents of Bedford and Burgundy, and received him with open arms. A grand procession of priests waited to accompany the king and the Maid into the city, and on the 15th of July, 1429, Charles and Joan, attended by all the chief officers, marched into the city preceded by the banners of the Church, and amid the sound of its hymns. Two days after this, Charles VII. was crowned in the cathedral, as the Maid had promised him.

But in entering on so stupendous a mission as the salvation of the nation, a humble village girl like Joan had entered on the field of martyrdom. From such a career there could be no retreat but through death. The same voices which she invariably avowed had called her to the enterprise, had pronounced her early doom. The enthusiasm of the multitude is short-lived; the envy and the hatred of the military chiefs, scarcely suppressed during the hour of triumph, were eternal in their nature. She had snatched the prestige of invincibility from the English, and raised the spirit of France. This had to be avenged. In the meantime, however, she was too indispensable to the completion of the conquest of France. Charles resolutely refused to listen to her tears and prayers to be permitted to withdraw. But from that hour the Maid was no longer the same. The spirit had departed from her. She was dejected, and full of distress. When importuned to direct what should next be done, she was uncertain and confused, which she never had been before. Bedford was exerting himself to check this unexampled progress of the French. Cardinal Beaufort came over with 2,000 archers and 250 men-at-arms. Every means was used to fix the alliance of the wavering Burgundy, who, however, gave no essential assistance. He had withdrawn his garrisons from Normandy, and the constable had seized them. Bedford was compelled to march himself from Paris to recover them; and the Maid, who had hung up her arms in the Church of St. Denis, at Rheims, as the sign that her mission was over, was induced by the king to assume them again. Once in her old panoply, her courage, if not her confidence, seemed to revive. She advised the monarch to march on Paris while Bedford was absent. She led the way and Soissons, Senlis, Beauvais, and St. Denis, opened their gates. At the assault on the Faubourg St. Honoré, Joan was again wounded, and left in the ditch for hours. Charles, mortified at the repulse, retired in dudgeon to Bourges; and Joan, again hanging up her armour, implored her dismissal. Charles refused, and endeavoured to fix her in his interest by granting her a patent of nobility, with an income equal to that of an earl, and freed her native parish of Domrémy from all taxation for ever. The unhappy Maid went on; but her voices were gone, and she was no longer a safe oracle. During the winter, indeed, Friar Richard had brought forward his rival prophetess—one Catherine of La Rochelle—who undertook, not to fight, but to raise money, by preaching to the populace and revealing hidden treasures. Joan refused any connection with her, declaring that success lay at the point of the lance.

In May, 1430, Joan was sent to raise the siege of Compiègne, which was invested by the Duke of Burgundy. She fought her way into the city with her accustomed valour, but, in making a sortie, was deserted by her followers, and bravely fighting her way back to the city, just as she approached the gates, she was dragged from her horse by an archer, and, as she lay on the ground, she surrendered to the Bastard of Vendôme.

The news of the capture of the terrible Maid flew like lightning through the Burgundian camp. All the officers of the army ran to gaze at her, the duke himself amongst them. Monstrelet, the historian, who recounts these transactions, was present on the occasion.