"Do you believe all this, gentle Dauphin?" she asked.
Charles was not sure, perhaps, what La Trémoïlle would allow him to believe. He made cautious answer; if the Maid had anything profitable and reasonable to say, she would be trusted.
"Good Dauphin," said the Maid in her clear thrilling voice, "command your people to advance to the siege, and waste no more time in councils; in God's name, before three days pass I will bring you into Troyes, by favor or force or valor, and false Burgundy shall be greatly amazed."
Even the Archbishop seems to have been impressed by these words.
"Joan," he said, "we could wait for six days were we sure of having the town, but can we be sure?"
"Have no doubt of it!" replied the Maid. Thereupon she mounted her horse and rode through the camp, banner in hand, exhorting, encouraging, ordering preparations for the assault.
Following the example of the English at Meung, she collected doors, tables, screens, to shelter the advance, bundles of fagots to fill in the ditches.
"Immediately," says Dunois (quorum pars magna, we may well believe), "she crossed the river with the royal army and pitched tents close by the wall, laboring with a diligence that not two or three most experienced and renowned captains could have shown."
All night she worked, never pausing for an hour. When morning broke, the burgesses of Troyes, looking over their battlements, saw an army in storming array; saw in the very front a slender figure in white armor, waving on her men.