st under
the walls with her standard which was the signal for battle, to which
the impatient troops responded, confident in her, as she in herself. But
for the first time we hear how the young general, learning her trade of
war day by day, made her preparations for the siege. She was a gunner
born, according to all we hear, and was quick to perceive the advantage
of her rude artillery though she had never seen one of these _bouches
de feu_ till she encountered them at Orleans. The whole army was set to
work during the night, knights and men-at-arms alike, to raise--with any
kind of handy material, palings faggots, tables, even doors and windows,
taken it must be feared from some neighbouring village or faubourg--a
mound on which to place the guns. The country as we have said is as
flat as the palm of one's hand. They worked all night under cover of
the darkness with incredible devotion, while the alarmed townsfolk not
knowing what was being done, but no doubt divining something from the
unusual commotion, betook themselves to the churches to pray, and began
to ponder whether after all it might not be better to join the King
whose armies were led by St. Michael himself in the person of his
representative, than to risk a siege. Once more the spell of the Maid
fell on the defenders of the place. It was witchcraft, it was some
vile art. They had no heart to man the battlements, to fight like their
brothers at Orleans and Jargeau in face of all the powers of the evil
one: the cry of "_Sus! Sus!_" was like the death-knell in their ears.

While the soldiers within the walls were thus trembling and drawing
back, the bishop and his clergy took the matter in hand; they sallied
forth, a long procession attended by half the city, to parley with the
King. It was in the earliest dawn, while yet the peaceful world was
scarcely awake; but the town had been in commotion all night, every
visionary person in it seeing visions and dreaming dreams, and a panic
of superstition and spiritual terror taking the strength out of every
arm. Jeanne was already at her post, a glimmering white figure in the
faint and visionary twilight of the morning, when the gates of the city
swung back before this tremulous procession. The King, however, received
the envoys graciously, and readily promised to guarantee all the rights
of Troyes, and to permit the garrison to depart in peace, if the town
was given up to him. We are not told whether the Maid acquiesce