The earl of Suffolk was in a situation very unusual and extraordinary, and which might well confound the man of the greatest capacity and firmest temper. He saw his troops overawed, and strongly impressed with the idea of a divine influence accompanying the maid. Instead of banishing these vain terrors by hurry, and action, and war, he waited till the soldiers should recover from the panic; and he thereby gave leisure for those prepossessions to sink still deeper into their minds. The military maxims which are prudent in common cases, deceived him in these unaccountable events. The English felt their courage daunted and overwhelmed; and thence inferred a divine vengeance hanging over them. The French drew the same inference from an inactivity so new and unexpected. Every circumstance was now reversed in the opinions of men, on which all depends: the spirit resulting from a long course of uninterrupted success, was on a sudden transferred from the victors to the vanquished.
The maid called aloud, that the garrison should remain no longer on the defensive; and she promised her followers the assistance of Heaven in attacking those redoubts of the enemy which had so long kept them in awe, and which they had never hitherto dared to insult. The generals seconded her ardor: an attack was made on one redoubt, and it proved successful:[*] all the English who defended the intrenchments were put to the sword or taken prisoners: and Sir John Talbot himself, who had drawn together, from the other redoubts, some troops to bring them relief, durst not appear in the open field against so formidable an enemy.
* Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 45.
Nothing, after this success, seemed impossible to the maid and her enthusiastic votaries. She urged the generals to attack the main body of the English in their intrenchments, but Dunois, still unwilling to hazard the fate of France by too great temerity, and sensible that the least reverse of fortune would make all the present visions evaporate, and restore every thing to its former condition, checked her vehemence and proposed to her first to expel the enemy from their forts on the other side of the river, and thus lay the communication with the country entirely open, before she attempted any more hazardous enterprise. Joan was persuaded, and these forts were vigorously assailed. In one attack the French were repulsed; the maid was left almost alone; she was obliged to retreat, and join the runaways; but, displaying her sacred standard, and animating them with her countenance, her gestures, her exhortations, she led them back to the charge, and overpowered the English in their intrenchments. In the attack of another fort, she was wounded in the neck with an arrow; she retreated a moment behind the assailants; she pulled out the arrow with her own hands; she had the wound quickly dressed; and she hastened back to head the troops, and to plant her victorious banner on the ramparts of the enemy.
By all these successes, the English were entirely chased from their fortifications on that side: they had lost above six thousand men in these different actions; and, what was still more important, their wonted courage and confidence were wholly gone, and had given place to amazement and despair. The maid returned triumphant over the bridge, and was again received as the guardian angel of the city. After performing such miracles, she convinced the most obdurate incredulity of her divine mission: men felt themselves animated as by a superior energy, and thought nothing impossible to that divine hand which so visibly conducted them. It was in vain even for the English generals to oppose with their soldiers the prevailing opinion of supernatural influence: they themselves were probably moved by the same belief: the utmost they dared to advance was, that Joan was not an instrument of God; she was only the implement of the devil: but as the English had felt, to their sad experience, that the devil might be allowed sometimes to prevail, they derived not much consolation from the enforcing of this opinion.
It might prove extremely dangerous for Suffolk, with such intimidated troops, to remain any longer in the presence of so courageous and victorious an enemy; he therefore raised the siege, and retreated with all the precaution imaginable. The French resolved to push their conquests, and to allow the English no leisure to recover from their consternation. Charles formed a body of six thousand men, and sent them to attack Jergeau, whither Suffolk had retired with a detachment of his army. The siege lasted ten days; and the place was obstinately defended. Joan displayed her wonted intrepidity on the occasion. She descended into the fosse, in leading the attack: and she there received a blow on the head with a stone, by which she was confounded and beaten to the ground: but she soon recovered herself, and in the end rendered the assault successful: Suffolk was obliged to yield himself prisoner to a Frenchman called Renaud; but before he submitted, he asked his adversary whether he were a gentleman. On receiving a satisfactory answer, he demanded whether he were a knight. Renaud replied, that he had not yet attained that honor. “Then I make you one,” replied Suffolk; upon which he gave him the blow with his sword which dubbed him into that fraternity; and he immediately surrendered himself his prisoner.
The remainder of the English army was commanded by Fastolffe, Scales, and Talbot, who thought of nothing but of making their retreat, as soon as possible, into a place of safety; while the French esteemed the overtaking them equivalent to a victory; so much had the events which passed before Orleans altered every thing between the two nations! The vanguard of the French under Richemont and Xaintrailles attacked the rear of the enemy at the village of Patay. The battle lasted not a moment: the English were discomfited and fled: the brave Fastolffe himself showed the example of flight to his troops; and the order of the garter was taken from him, as a punishment for this instance of cowardice.[*] Two thousand men were killed in this action, and both Talbot and Scales taken prisoners.
* Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 46.
In the account of all these successes, the French writers, to magnify the wonder, represent the maid (who was now known by the appellation of “the Maid of Orleans”) as not only active in combat, but as performing the office of general; directing the troops, conducting the military operations, and swaying the deliberations in all councils of war. It is certain that the policy of the French court endeavored to maintain this appearance with the public: but it is much more probable, that Dunois and the wiser commanders prompted her in all her measures, than that a country girl, without experience of education, could on a sudden become expert in a profession which requires more genius and capacity than any other active scene of life. It is sufficient praise, that she could distinguish the persons on whose judgment she might rely; that she could seize their hints and suggestions, and on a sudden, deliver their opinions as her own; and that she could curb, on occasion, that visionary and enthusiastic spirit with which she was actuated, and could temper it with prudence and discretion.
The raising of the siege of Orleans was one part of the maid’s promise to Charles: the crowning of him at Rheims was the other: and she now vehemently insisted that he should forthwith set out on that enterprise. A few weeks before, such a proposal would have appeared the most extravagant in the world. Rheims lay in a distant quarter of the kingdom; was then in the hands of a victorious enemy; the whole road which led to it was occupied by their garrisons; and no man could be so sanguine as to imagine that such an attempt could so soon come within the bounds of possibility. But as it was extremely the interest of Charles to maintain the belief of something extraordinary and divine in these events, and to avail himself of the present consternation of the English, he resolved to follow the exhortations of his warlike prophetess, and to lead his army upon this promising adventure. Hitherto he had kept remote from the scene of war: as the safety of the state depended upon his person, he had been persuaded to restrain his military ardor: but observing this prosperous turn of affairs, he now determined to appear at the head of his armies, and to set the example of valor to all his soldiers, And the French nobility saw at once their young sovereign assuming a new and more brilliant character, seconded by fortune, and conducted by the hand of Heaven, and they caught fresh zeal to exert themselves in replacing him on the throne of his ancestors.