But good and devout and charitable as she was she was no colorless person. There are numerous delightful human outbreaks recorded in the documents of her life. She wept like an ordinary girl when she received her first wound. She flew often into a passion when her commands had been disobeyed. She was particularly hard on the wanton women who followed the camp, often herself chasing them off. Once she broke a sword over the head of one, and again killed one by the blow she gave.
She guarded her own divine prerogative with quite human jealousy. As there were many women prophesying in those days, a company of them were enlisted to help the king after Joan's first success. Joan never liked them. "Folly and futility," was her characterization of the work of the most prominent of these women, Catherine de la Rochelle. "Send her home to her husband and children," was her order. A common enough point of view of the Maid who has made a career for herself and sees a married woman seeking to do the same! However, in Catherine's case Joan suspected fraud, and there seems to have been reason.
THE END OF HER MISSION AND CAPTURE
THE VICTORIOUS ENTRANCE INTO ORLÉANS
From the painting by J. J. Scherrer
With the crowning of the king at Rheims Joan seemed to feel that her mission was at an end. She was homesick when she saw her father and those who had come from Domrémy to witness her miraculous elevation. She prayed Charles to release her, to send her back to her spinning and her flocks, her mother and her friends. But she was too precious at the moment. The king and his counselors would have more of her aid; but they wanted it without admitting her to their councils and without heeding the orders she gave as coming from her Voices. She was severe and outspoken about this treatment. "Truces have been made," she wrote once to the people of Rheims, "that are not pleasing to me, and I know not whether I shall keep them; but if I keep them, it will be solely to maintain the king's honor."
THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS
In the lower right corner may be seen the equestrian statue of Joan of Arc
After Rheims there followed campaigns in which she had little or no support, treaties of which she did not approve, intrigues which, though she frequently divined and frustrated them, slowly produced their effect on king and people. She failed in September to take Paris; though she had been as confident that it would fall as that Orléans would. She scandalized the church by attacking it on the anniversary of the birth of the Virgin Mary. She was sorely wounded too in this attack and had to be carried from the field. It hurt her prestige.
In the winter following the failure to take Paris Joan wrought many marvels in the Loire country to which the king had retreated. The greatest was that, among doubters and flatterers, and in spite of intrigue and discouragement, she kept her purpose clear, her confidence unshaken. She was still Joan, the Maid sent by God to drive the English from all France. But she was no longer a Maid with full power over the king.