This service of thanksgiving ordered by Joan of Arc on the ninth of May, 1429, was the virtual foundation of the great festival which Orleans has now celebrated with hardly a break for five hundred years.
After that first outbreak of thanksgiving, Dunois himself laid down the rules for the annual keeping of the festival, which are given in the "Chronicle of the establishment of the fête," written thirty years after the siege.
"My lord the bishop of Orleans, and my lord Dunois (the Bastard), brother of my lord the duke of Orleans, with the duke's advice, as well as the burghers and inhabitants of the said Orleans, ordered that on the eighth of May there should be a procession of people carrying candles, which procession should march as far as the Augustines, and, wherever the fight had raged, there a halt should be made and a suitable service should be had in each place with prayer. We cannot give too much praise to God and the Saints, since all that was done by God's grace, and so, with great devotion, we ought to take part in the said procession. Even the men of Bourges and of certain other cities celebrate the day, because if Orleans had fallen into the hands of the English, the rest of the kingdom would have taken great harm. Always remembering, therefore, the great mercy which God has shown to the said city of Orleans, we ought always to maintain and never to abandon this holy procession, lest we fall into ingratitude, whereby much evil may come upon us. Every one is obliged to join the said procession, carrying a lighted candle in his hand. It passes round about the town in front of the church of our Lady of Saint Paul, at which place they sing praises to our Lady; and it goes thence to the cathedral, where the sermon is preached, and thereafter a mass is sung. There are also vigils at Saint Aignan, and, on the morrow, a mass for the dead. All men, therefore, should be bidden to praise God and to thank Him; for at the present time there are youths who can hardly believe that the thing came about in this wise; you, however, should believe that this is a true thing, and is verily the great grace of God."[44]
Walls and boulevard have long since been outgrown by the city of the Loire: dynasties have risen and fallen, wars have swept and harried France after their fashion. Still, in the early May time, when Nature is fair and young and sweet as the Maid herself, Orleans rises up to do reverence to her rescuer. The priests walk in holiday vestments, the bells ring out, the censers swing, the people throng the streets and fill the churches.
During her brief stay in Orleans after its deliverance, Joan bore herself with her own quiet modesty. She loved solitude, and rather shunned than sought company. She took no credit to herself; the glory was God's and God's alone, she repeatedly told the people, who flocked about her in adoration.
"Never were seen such deeds as you have wrought!" they told her. "No book tells of such marvels!"
"My Lord," replied the Maid, "has a book in which no clerk ever read, were he ever so clerkly."[45]
What next was for the Maid to do?
Orleans was delivered, but France was still under English rule. John of Bedford, "brave soldier, prudent captain, skilful diplomatist, having experience of camps and courts," was startled, but not discouraged by the rescue of Orleans. He meant to rule France for his child-king, and to rule it well; as a matter of fact, he did rule it for thirteen years, striving always "in a degree superior to his century," to bring order out of chaos, to convert the bloodstained wilderness of the conquered country into a decent and well-ordered realm.
Nor was John Talbot himself one whit disheartened. He had lost some of his best men on the bloody day of the Tourelles, but he had plenty more. He had lost Orleans, but the river towns on either side of it were still his, Meung, Beaugency, Jargeau; all strongly fortified, all guarding river and high road so that no man might pass without their leave.