fications to fall back upon, they seem to have been paralysed, and
did not strike a blow. Jeanne was not afraid of them, but her ardour
to continue the fight dropped all at once; enough had been done. She
awaited the conclusion with confidence. Needless to say that Orleans was
half mad with joy, every church sounding its bells, singing its song of
triumph and praise, the streets so crowded that it was with difficulty
that the Maid could make her progress through them, with throngs of
people pressing round to kiss her hand, if might be, her greaves, her
mailed shoes, her charger, the floating folds of her banner. She had
said she would be wounded and so she was, as might be seen, the envious
rent of the arrow showing through the white plates of metal on her
shoulder. She had said all should be theirs _de par Dieu:_ and all
was theirs, thanks to our Lord and also to St. Aignan and St. Euvert,
patrons of Orleans, and to St. Louis and St. Charlemagne in heaven who
had so great pity of the kingdom of France: and to the Maid on
earth, the Heaven-sent deliverer, the spotless virgin, the celestial
warrior--happy he who could reach to kiss it, the point of her mailed
shoe.

Someone says that she rode through all this half-delirious joy like
a creature in a dream,--fatigue, pain, the happy languor of the end
attained, and also the profound pity that was the very inspiration of
her spirit, for all those souls of men gone to their account without
help of Church or comfort of priest--overwhelming her. But next day,
which was Sunday, she was up again and eagerly watching all that went
on. A strange sight was Orleans on that Sunday of May. On the south
side of the Loire, all those half-ruined bastilles smoking and silenced,
which once had threatened not the city only but all the south of France;
on the north the remaining bands of English drawn up in order of battle.
The excitement of the town and of the generals in it, was intense; worn
as they were with three days of continuous fighting, should they sally
forth again and meet that compact, silent, doubly defiant army, which
was more or less fresh and unexhausted? Jeanne's opinion was, No;
there had been enough of fighting, and it was Sunday, the holy day; but
apparently the French did go out though keeping at a distance, watching
the enemy. By orders of the Maid an altar was raised between the two
armies in full sight of both sides, and there mass was celebrated, under
the sunshine,