erself great mutual confidence had sprung up. Even the
commission which had at last been put in her hands was a trifling one
and led to nothing, bringing the King no nearer to any satisfactory end:
and the troops were under command of a new captain whom she scarcely
knew, d'Albert, who was the son-in-law of La Tremoille, and probably
little inclined to be a friend to Jeanne. In these circumstances there
was little of an exhilarating or promising kind.

Nevertheless as an episode, few things had happened to Jeanne more
memorable than the siege of St. Pierre-le-Moutier. The first assault
upon the town was unsuccessful; the retreat had sounded and the troops
were streaming back from the point of attack, when Jean d'Aulon, the
faithful friend and brave gentleman who was at the head of the Maid's
military household, being himself wounded in the heel and unable to
stand or walk, saw the Maid almost alone before the stronghold, four or
five men only with her. He dragged himself up as well as he could upon
his horse, and hastened towards her, calling out to her to ask what she
did there, and why she did not retire with the rest. She answered him,
taking off her helmet to speak, that she would leave only when the place
was taken--and went on shouting for faggots and beams to make a
bridge across the ditch. It is to be supposed that seeing she paid no
attention, nor budged a step from that dangerous point, this brave man,
wounded though he was, must have made an effort to rally the retiring
besiegers: but Jeanne seems to have taken no notice of her desertion
nor ever to have paused in her shout for planks and gabions. "All to the
bridge," she shouted, "_aux fagots et aux claies tout le monde!_ every
one to the bridge." "Jeanne, withdraw, withdraw! You are alone,"
some one said to her. Bareheaded, her countenance all aglow, the Maid
replied: "I have still with me fifty thousand of my men." Were those
the men whom the prophet's servant saw when his eyes were opened and he
beheld the innumerable company of angels that surrounded his master? But
Jeanne, rapt in the trance and ecstasy of battle, gave no explanation.
"To work, to work!" her clear voice went on, ringing over the startled
head of the good knight who knew war, but not any rapture like this.
History itself, awe-stricken, would almost have us believe that alone
with her own hand the Maid took the city, so entirely does every figure
disappear but that one, and the perplexed a