At midnight of May 22nd, the Maid left Crépy with her band, and rode rapidly through the forest. The soldiers themselves seem to have been disheartened at the prospect before them. "We are but a handful!" they told her. "How can we pass through the armies of England and Burgundy?"
"Par mon martin!" cried Joan; "we are enough. I am going to see my good friends at Compiègne."
That was a wild ride through the midnight forest. Fancy, always at her tricks, tempts me to make it even wilder; to tamper with the Shuttle, and set the Loom astray. How if the centuries should in some way juggle themselves together, and the Nineteenth come sweeping along with hound and horn before the eyes of the Maid? What would she make, I wonder, of those two lovely ladies, her of the shoulders and her of the silken tresses? What in return would they make of the slim rider in battered armor, urging her horse to the gallop? They would probably give orders to have her arrested for disturbing the royal sport.
But how if, instead of these, it might have been given her, as part of her reward from Heaven, to come upon that other band, in armor not wholly unlike her own (seeing that our To-day must needs snatch from Yesterday anything and everything that may still avail to help); that band in brown and blue, who hold the line against the onrushing waves of the Gray Tide? How then? She scans the Line; her keen eyes lighten, then grow bewildered. France? Yes; but—England beside her? Friends then? Allies? À la bonne heure! The word?
"On ne passe pas!" and the Maid ranges herself beside those steadfast figures immovable; and "They" do not pass.
Shuttle and Loom to their proper places once more; back to May 22nd, 1430!
Joan was right. Her little troop was enough, for no one molested them, the enemy not having yet reached that neighborhood. They came to Compiègne about sunrise of May 23rd, and once more were joyfully received.
How Joan spent that last fateful day we know not from any chronicle; we may be sure that she prayed, and heard mass if mass were to hear; we may hope she had some rest, for she needed it sorely. We may well believe, too, that she listened for her Voices, hoping for counsel and—if it might be—cheer; but the Voices were silent. She was alone now. Nevertheless, she said afterward, had the heavenly counsellors bidden her go out, saying plainly that she would be captured, she would still have gone. In another mood, it is true, after imprisonment, and with death close upon her, she thought that had she known the hour, she might have kept her chamber during it; but the first is the true mood, for all who know her.
At five in the afternoon she rode out to attack the nearest Burgundian outpost, at the village of Margny, opposite the bridge-head on the northern side of the river. Boldly she rode her gray charger, in full armor, wearing a surcoat of scarlet and gold, followed by her four or five hundred men-at-arms, horse and foot. The enemy, taken by surprise, scattered in disorder. All might have gone well, had not John of Luxembourg, commander of Flemings at Clairoix hard by, chosen this moment to visit the Burgundian captain in charge of Margny. Seeing the skirmish, and his brother officer in difficulties, he dashed to the rescue, sending back meanwhile to his own camp for reinforcements. Another moment and the tide had turned. The French were surrounded, set upon, cut down, routed. The Maid tried desperately to rally them; cried her brave battle cry, waved her shining standard. What mortal could do, she did.
"Beyond the nature of woman," says Chastellain, the Burgundian chronicler, "she did great feats, and took great pains to save her company from loss, staying behind them like a captain, and like the bravest of the troop."