CHAPTER THE FOURTH. HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR (CONTINUED).

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EDFORD had for some time been struggling in France under the extreme disadvantage of shortness of cash, for the council being engaged in continual quarrelling at home, had become very irregular in sending remittances. He had gone week after week without his own salary, but he never grumbled at that until he found his army, from getting short of cash, beginning to fail in allegiance. Often, while reviewing the troops, if he complained of awkwardness in the evolutions, he would hear murmurs of "Why don't you pay us?" and on one occasion an insolent fellow, who had been bungling over the easy manouvre of standing at ease, cried out, "It's all very well to say 'Stand at ease,' but how is a man to stand at when he never receives his salary?" Upon another occasion, Bedford had given the word to "Charge!" when a suppressed titter ran through the ranks, and, on his demanding an explanation, he was told respectfully by one of his aides-de-camp that the troops thought it an irresistible joke to call upon them to "charge," when, if they charged ever so much, there was no prospect of their demand being satisfied. Bedford used to rush regularly every morning to the outpost, in the hope of finding a letter containing the means of liquidating some of the arrears of pay into which he had fallen with his soldiers. He was, however, always doomed to disappointment, for there was either no communication for him at all, or an intimation that "next week"—which never comes—would bring him the cash he was so eagerly waiting for. His repeated visits to the outpost usually ended in a shake of the head from the officer on duty, whose "No, sir; there's nothing for you," had in it a mixture of compassion and contempt, which are not always incompatible.

Bedford, the regent, having left Paris, Charles thought that, the cat being away, the mice might be at play, and that the city would be unprepared if an attack should be made upon it. Beauvais and St. Denis opened their gates, but the Parisians were not so complaisant, and Charles, unwilling to resort to force, tried the effect of flummery. He issued proclamations, full of the most brilliant promises to his "good and loyal city," but the inhabitants replied by hanging out an allegorical banner, representing an individual in the act of offering some chaff to an old bird, who was refusing to be caught by it. Stung by this sarcasm, Charles determined to make an attack, and on the 12th of September he commenced an assault on the Faubourg St. Honoré.

Joan threw herself against the wall, but could make no impression upon it, and she could only lament that among the French artillery there was no mortar to be brought to bear upon the bricks of the city. She then resorted to other steps—or, rather, to a ladder—and had reached every successive round amid successive rounds of applause from her followers, when she was stopped by a wound, which fairly knocked her over. A friendly ditch received the disabled Joan, who went into it with a splash, which caused all her companions to basely run away, lest they should participate in the consequences of her downfall. Drenched and disheartened, sobbing, and in a perfect sop, the Maid crawled out of the ditch and lay down for a little while; but suddenly rising, and giving herself a shake, she made another rush at the battlements. A few better spirits, ashamed of seeing the weakest thus a second time going to the wall, joined her in her advance, but, meeting with resistance, they rolled back like a wave of the sea, almost swamping the Maid, and carrying her violently away with them.