The panic had now completely seized the ranks of the French. They no longer fought but fled wildly towards the Loire. In vain did the Maid seek to rally them. Suddenly and obedient to an inspiration of her genius, instead of resisting the current that was carrying her away, she outran it and overtook the swiftest fleers, waving her standard. These followed and rallied around her and thus naturally and perforce order was gradually restored. During this move, the jeers, imprecations and insults of the English, hurled at the Maid, redoubled in volume, especially when they saw the skippers, witnessing the French defeat, share the general panic, raise the sails of their barges, the only means of retreat for the French, and push off from the shore out of fear of being boarded by the vanquishers. The latter, now certain of the success of the day, even disdained to hasten the rout of the fleeing French, who, crowded against the Loire, were sure to be drowned or taken—Joan first of all. The bulk of the English troops halted to shout three cheers of triumph, a few companies advanced unsupported and with mocking slowness to make the assured capture.
"Come, now, Joan! Come!" cried the English captains from a distance. "Come now, strumpet, surrender! You shall be burned! That's your fate!"
The presumptuous confidence of the enemy afforded the heroine the necessary time to re-form her lines.
"Prisoners or drowned!" she said to them, pointing to the receding barges. "One more effort—and by the order of God we shall vanquish, as we have vanquished twice before! Let us first attack this English vanguard that boasts to have us in its clutches! Be brave! Forward!"
And turning about she rushed upon the enemy.
"Be brave! Forward! Forward!" repeated Master John and the most determined townsmen of Orleans, following the Maid.
"Be brave! Forward!" echoed all the others. "Let us exterminate the English!"
The scene that ensued was no longer one of courage, or of heroism; it was a superhuman frenzy that transported the handful of French and added tenfold strength to their arms. The enemy's companies, that had been detached from the main body and sent forward to make a capture deemed unquestionable, were stupefied at the offensive move, and unable to resist the superhuman shock of despair and patriotism. Driven in disorder, the sword in their flanks, towards the main body, they overthrew its front ranks and spread disorder and confusion in the English army.
The superstitious fears of the English, fears that they had once before succumbed to, now gained new empire over them that seemed justified by the unheard-of audacity of a body of men, once in full flight, suddenly returning to the attack with intrepidity. The front ranks of the English being broken through, the general panic spread all the quicker seeing that, in sharing it, those who stood away from the center of action were wholly in the dark as to the cause of the sudden rout. The English soldiers struck at and trampled one another; the orders of their captains were lost in the frightful tumult; their efforts were powerless to conjure away the defeat. The cry of the first soldiers to flee: "The witch has let loose her fiends upon us!" was carried from mouth to mouth. Finally, and as if to overfill the measure, the English of the bastille of St. Privé, upon arriving to the aid of their fellows, saw the barges, that had shortly left the near shore, now returning from the opposite side filled with fresh French soldiers. The French captains had been compelled by the exasperation of the inhabitants of Orleans to decide to co-operate with the Maid,[91] and they had marched out and reached the river bank just as the barges arrived on that side. At the sight of the re-inforcements, the corps from St. Privé hastened back to its own encampment, while the rest of the panic-stricken English ran to their respective bastilles for shelter behind the entrenchments of the redoubts of the Augustinians and the Tournelles. When the fresh French contingent brought by Marshal St. Sever and other captains disembarked, the martial maid was preparing to attack the Convent of the Augustinians, determined not to allow the enemy time to recover from their panic. Now supported by the reinforcements, Joan threw herself upon the convent, but at the moment when, in the lead of all she set foot upon a narrow passage leading to the palisade that she was to attack, she uttered a piercing cry. The teeth of a man trap had closed above her ankle; it penetrated her jambards and her skin and even reached the bone. It was an English "ruse of war," into which the Maid had put her foot.[92]
The pain was so keen that Joan, exhausted from the fatigues of the day, fainted away, and fell in the arms of her equerry Daulon. When she recovered consciousness, the day was nearing its end; the bastille of the Augustinians had been carried and its defenders were either dead or prisoners. The heroine had been transported to the lodgings of one of the English captains who had been killed in the combat. When Joan returned to consciousness, her equerry wished to remove the armor from her wounded limb and bathe the wound, but blushing at the exposure of even her foot to the surrounding soldiers, Joan obstinately refused all attention, and bestowed all her thought to the best use to be made of the capture of the Augustinian Convent. She forbade that it be set on fire, and ordered it to be held during the night by a strong garrison, that should lead the next day in a determined attack upon the Tournelles. After issuing these and other necessary orders with remarkable military sagacity, the warrior maid had herself conveyed to Orleans in a boat, feeling unable to walk by reason of the pain of her wound. The Augustinian Convent rose almost on the river's edge. Daulon, Master John and a few other cannoniers carried Joan to the river on a stretcher improvised out of the shafts of lances and placed her in a boat. Her page and equerry accompanied her, and she was rowed over to Orleans where she arrived at night. Modestly desiring to escape observation in her transit through the town to the house of her host, especially seeing that all the windows in the houses were illuminated, Joan asked Daulon to spread her cloak over her on the stretcher. Thus, although unseen of all, Joan was the witness of the delirious joy inspired by her last triumph. The town was in gala, hope radiated from all countenances. In two days, the Maid had destroyed or carried three of the most redoubtable fortifications of the English, and set free a large number of prisoners. More than eight hundred of these were found in the Augustinian Convent. By virtue of the confidence that she inspired, there was no doubt entertained on the success of the morrow's assault—the Tournelles would be taken, and, agreeable to the promise she had made in the name of God, the enemy would raise the siege.