any attack upon Paris; her heart
misgave her, but she yielded to the will of the king. The assault that
followed (September 8, 1429), in which she behaved with desperate but
hopeless courage, fighting on in spite of a severe wound, resulted in a
disastrous repulse, the French losing heavily. Jeanne, who had opposed
making the attack, was nevertheless held responsible for the result.
Faith in her was rudely shaken, and even those courtiers who had fawned
upon her now said that her impiety--they, of course, were qualified to
pronounce upon such a point--had been fitly rebuked in this defeat: had
she not ventured to deliver the assault upon the anniversary of the
Nativity of Our Lady? "The Armagnacs," says the journal of a pious
citizen of Paris, "were so filled with wickedness and unbelief, that, on
the word of a creature in the shape of a woman with them, called La
Pucelle (what it might be God alone knows!), they conspired on the
anniversary of the Nativity of Our Lady... to attack Paris."

Jeanne, utterly disheartened by her defeat, and half believing that she
had merited this rebuke from heaven, humbled herself before God and
before the king, and renounced her arms, laying her sword upon the altar
of Saint-Denis. But though willing to shift the blame for failures upon
her, Charles was not willing to dispense with her services if there was
anything more to be hoped from them. She was induced to take up arms
again; but we will pass over in silence the details of her later valiant
but hopeless service and speak only of her last feat of arms.

The Burgundians, though their duke was already in secret correspondence
with Charles, had laid siege to Compiegne. Jeanne, with a small body of
troops succeeded in forcing her way into the town, and that same day
(May 23, 1430) led a sortie that at first drove back the besiegers. The
Burgundians rallied, however, and Jeanne's troops were beaten back into
the town. As she herself, bringing up the rear in the retreat, turned to
drive back a band of the pursuers that her troops might reach the gates
in safety, she was left alone; and the drawbridge of Compiegne rose,
cutting her off from rescue or from escape. Surrender, Jeanne, there is
no hope for thee; France is weary of thee; for hast thou not done all
that France could hope from thee? Jeanne herself had said that she
feared nothing but treachery. Whatever the immediate motive of those who
raised the drawbridge at Compiegne, whethe