The English had halted in the open field in the environs of Patay; Sir John Falstaff and many others were inclined not to fight. The soldiers were discouraged by their recent checks, they said, and the spells of Joan took away all their courage; but Talbot was ashamed of having retreated so far; he began to make his arrangements for the fight; and the archers were driving in their stakes, when the advanced guard of the French army came and attacked them with that inconsiderate ardour, so sadly rewarded at Crecy and at Poictiers; but this time the English were in disorder; the soldiers who had remained on horseback fled; the rout was complete, and Sir John Falstaff gallopped to Paris, where the Duke of Bedford, in a great rage, wished to send him the Garter. Lord Talbot and a large number of knights were made prisoners. "Well, Messire Talbot," said the Duke of Alençon, "you did not expect this, this morning?" "It is the fortune of war," replied the Englishman, without emotion. Joan no longer spoke of anything but the visit to Rheims.
The councillors of King Charles still hesitated; the Sire de la Trémoille feared lest he might be supplanted beside his master; he contrived once more to remove the Constable; at length the persistence of Joan prevailed, and the king started with his little army; Auxerre, summoned to surrender, promised to open its gates if Troyes and Rheims would do likewise. The Burgundian garrison of Troyes resisted, and the French had no provisions. Murmurs began to be uttered against Joan; she urged the king to make the assault. "You will enter into Troyes within two days, by love or by force, and the trecherous Burgundians will be completely dismayed." "Whoever should be certain of obtaining possession of it in six days, could well wait Joan," said the chancellor, Archbishop of Rheims. "Yes," she persisted, "you shall have it to-morrow." On the morrow the entry into Troyes was made; Friar Richard, a famous preacher, came to meet Joan, and besprinkled her with holy water, to assure himself that she was not a sorceress; Joan smiled. On the 15th of July, 1429, Rheims opened its gates, and on the 17th the king was at length crowned in the cathedral. Joan stood beside him, holding her white standard, with these two words: "Jesus, Maria." When the king had received the sacrament, she threw herself at his feet, in tears. "Gentle king," she said, "now is fulfilled the good pleasure of God, who willed it that you should come to Rheims to receive your worthy consecration, to show that you were king, and he to whom the kingdom should belong." And, from that day, she spoke no longer but of returning to her village. "I have accomplished that which Messire has commanded me," she repeated, "which was to raise the siege of Orleans and to cause the gentle king to be crowned; I wish he could cause me to be taken back to my father and mother, who would be so pleased to see me again. I would mind their sheep and cattle, as I was wont to do."
Meanwhile, the Duke of Bedford was collecting reinforcements; the dissensions which continued in the English council between the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal de Beaufort impeded the consignments of men and money; the regent had even been compelled to weaken his garrisons in Normandy, to assemble an army in the neighbourhood of Paris, when his uncle, the Cardinal, sent him a corps of two or three thousand men, whom he had raised with the object of making war in Bohemia, against the partisans of John Huss, that were excommunicated in a body by the Pope. The cardinal had already furnished heavy sums for sustaining the war in France, and this fresh succour enabled the Duke of Bedford to make an expedition into Normandy, with the intention of stifling the insurrections which had attracted the Constable. The noblemen favourable to the French were restrained and the Constable was repulsed; but meanwhile Charles VII., led by Joan of Arc, whom he retained beside him, made an attempt upon Paris. Soissons, Senlis, Beauvais, had opened their gates to him, but the soldiers marched unwillingly towards the capital; the captains did not agree; the assault was lightly made, and Joan was wounded. The troops were furious. "You told us that we should be in Paris this evening," they said to Joan. "And so should we have been there, if you had fought well," she replied. The king, discouraged, retired to Bourges, to spend the winter.
While the King of France was going away from his good city of Paris, the Duke of Burgundy arrived there, still hesitating between the two parties, notwithstanding the efforts of his sister, the Duchess of Bedford, to renew his old intimacy with the English regent. By degrees the influence of national feeling began to reawaken in the soul of the Duke Philip, as his thirst for vengeance was appeased; the French promised him every conceivable reparation for the assassination of John Sans Peur, and it was necessary, in order to retain him in the camp of the English, for the Duke of Bedford to offer him the command of the allied forces, thus abdicating in his favour. The regent retired to Normandy, where he preserved the most complete authority. Joan was waging war upon the banks of the Loire; she had taken the castle of Pierre-le-Montoir, but she had been repulsed before La Charité. When the king at length took the field in the spring of 1430, Joan was entrusted to deliver Compiègne, besieged by the Duke Philip in person, and she contrived to enter into the town. The fatal moment however was approaching.
On the 25th of May the garrison of Compiègne made a sally. Joan led the troops, and she had attacked an important position occupied by the Burgundians, when a crushing force made her retreat. She covered and directed the retreat: at the moment when she was about to re-enter the town, the drawbridge was withdrawn, and, whether by mistake or treason, Joan found herself almost alone outside the walls. She had rallied a few soldiers around her, and endeavoured to gain the country; but she had been recognized and was surrounded and thrown from her horse. She was still upon the ground when she surrendered to the Bastard of Vendôme, who conducted her to the quarters of John of Luxembourg.
The rejoicing was great in the English and Burgundian camp, the Duke of Bedford caused a Te Deum to be sung; but the French did not concern themselves about the heroine who had delivered them: her task was accomplished; she had restored courage to the soldiers and hope to the captains; her enthusiasm had drawn along the most distrustful. Now she was a prisoner. Her enemies were negotiating among themselves to possess her; but those whom she had saved by the help of God did not raise a sword to defend her, nor a farthing to ransom her.
The Duke of Burgundy had returned to his dominion of Flanders, agitated by several insurrections when the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon, at the instigation of the English, claimed Joan from John of Luxembourg. "The sorceress had been captured in his diocese," he said, "and should be tried by the Church." The count resisted for a long time, but they finally gave him ten thousand livres, and he sold Joan. She was led in the first place to Arras, then to Crotoy; at length she was taken to Rouen, where the little king, Henry VI., had recently arrived. The French arms continued to make fresh progress; every day the English lost some towns; the Duke Philip, lieutenant-general of the kingdom, who had recently become master of Brabant by the death of the young duke, maintained the English alliance by such slight bonds, that one check more might suddenly break them; the anger and shame of the English willingly attributed all their misfortunes to Joan; when she appeared they were at the height of success; since then every thing had failed them. Perhaps her death might bring a return of good fortune. The most enlightened among the English captains looked upon her as a sorceress. "She is an agent of Satan," the Duke of Bedford had written to the Council of England. Hatred always finds cowards to serve her; Peter Cauchon had been driven from Beauvais by his flock, as English, when [the] town had surrendered to Charles VII., he had been proposed to the Pope by the Duke of Bedford for the archbishopric of Rouen; his vengeance and ambition impelled him to ruin Joan. The English, however, had not sufficient confidence in him to place her in his hands. Joan was kept in the large tower of the castle, in the custody of the Earl of Warwick.