be compelled to abandon the centre of France altogether, and leave the
way open to Paris and to the recovery of the entire kingdom; but the
King, or La Tremoille, as the historians prefer to say, would not
permit Jeanne to accompany him, and this hope came to nothing. Alencon
disbanded his troops, everything in the form of an army was broken
up--the short period of feudal service making this inevitable, unless
new levies were made--and no forces were left under arms except those
bands which formed the body-guard of the King. Nevertheless, there
was plenty of work to be done still, and the breaking up of the French
forces encouraged many a little garrison of English partisans, which
would have yielded naturally and easily to a strong national party.

In the midst of the winter, however, it seemed appropriate to the Court
to launch forth an expedition against some of the unsubdued towns,
perhaps on account of the mortal languishment of Jeanne herself, perhaps
for some other reason of its own. The first necessity was to collect the
necessary forces, and for this reason Jeanne came to Bourges, where she
was lodged in one of the great houses of the city, that of Raynard de
Bouligny, _conseiller de roi_, and his wife, Marguerite, one of the
Queen's ladies. She was there for three weeks collecting her men,
and the noble gentlewoman, who was her hostess, was afterwards in the
Rehabilitation trial, one of the witnesses to the purity of her life.

From this lady and others we have a clear enough view of what the Maid
was in this second chapter of her history. She spent her time in the
most intimate intercourse with Madam Marguerite, sharing even her room,
so that nothing could be more complete than the knowledge of her hostess
of every detail of her young guest's life. And wonderful as was the
difference between the peasant maiden of Domremy and the most famous
woman in France, the life of Jeanne, the Deliverer of her country, is as
the life of Jeanne, the cottage sempstress,--as simple, as devout, and
as pure. She loved to go to church for the early matins, but as it was
not fit that she should go out alone at that hour, she besought Madame
Marguerite to go with her. In the evening she went to the nearest
church, and there with all her old childish love for the church bells,
she had them rung for half an hour, calling together the poor, the
beggars who haunt every Catholic church, the poor friars and bedesmen,
the penniless and