forces and their leaders, and especially for the Maid, he had nothing
but discouragement, distrust, and auguries of evil.

Nevertheless, these oppositions came to an end, and Jeanne, though less
ready and eager for the assault, found herself under the walls of Paris
at last.

(1) "The English, not US," says Mr. Andrew Lang: and it is
pleasant to a Scot to know that this is true. England and
Scotland were then twain, and the Scots fought in the ranks
of our auld Ally. But for the present age the distinction
lasts no longer, and to the writer of an English book on
English soil it would be ungenerous to take the advantage.

(2) It is taken as a miraculous sign by another chronicler,
Jean Chartier, who tells us that when this fact came to the
knowledge of the King the sword was given by him to the
workmen to be re-founded--"but they could not do it, nor put
the pieces together again: which is a great proof (_grant
approbation_) that the sword came to her divinely. And it is
notorious that since the breaking of that sword, the said
Jeanne neither prospered in arms to the profit of the King
nor otherwise as she had done before."

(3) "It was her oath," adds the chronicler; no one is quite
sure what it means, but Quicherat is of opinion that it was
her _baton_, her stick or staff. Perceval de Cagny puts in
this exclamation in almost all the speeches of the Maid. It
must have struck him as a curious adjuration. Perhaps it
explains why La Hire, unable to do without something to
swear by, was permitted by Jeanne in their frank and
humorous _camaraderie_ to swear by his stick, the same
rustic oath.

CHAPTER VIII -- DEFEAT AND DISCOURAGEMENT. AUTUMN, 1429.

It was on the 7th September that Jeanne and her immediate followers
reached the village of La Chapelle, where they encamped for the night.
The next day was the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a great
festival of the Church. It could scarcely be a matter of choice on the
part of so devout a Catholic as Jeanne to take this day of all others,
when every church bell was tinkling forth a summons to the faithful, for
the day of assault. In all probability she was not now acting on her own
impulse but on that of the other generals and nobles. Had she refused,
might it not have been alleged against her that after all her impatience
it was she wh