Journal du Siège, upon which this description is founded.
CHAPTER XIX
The Hour and the Girl
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“By Esther, Judith and Deborah, women of high esteem, He delivered His oppressed people. And well I know there have been women of great worship. But Jeanne is above all. Through her God hath worked many miracles.” Christine de Pisan. Poem in honour of the Maid. July 31st, 1429. |
Jeanne was eager to engage the enemy the next day, and the citizens would gladly have followed her, but Dunois and the captains of the garrison did not wish it. Their argument was that they ought to await the return of the army from Blois. Jeanne’s influence in war had not yet begun to be felt, and so great was the fear of the French for the English that it was said that two hundred Englishmen could put eight hundred or a thousand Frenchmen to flight.
Forced into inactivity the Maid sent a herald with a summons to the English, a procedure common at the time. There had been no reply to the letter that she had sent from Blois, and neither had the herald been returned. In this later epistle she summoned the surrender of the enemy before the attack, demanding 215 the return of her messenger. At the same time Dunois wrote, warning them that any harm that came to the herald should be retaliated upon the persons of the English prisoners held by him. In compliance with Dunois’ request the last herald was sent back, but the English threatened to burn the other. While the person of a herald was regarded as sacred by all the usages of war this man from the Armagnac witch could have no rights, they declared, and should be burned for his mistress. They laughed at the letter, and gave fierce defiances to the Maid, calling her a dairy maid, bidding her go back to her cows, and threatening to burn her if they caught her.