assumed an air
of unconscious command which sat with curious graceful dignity upon
the serene calm of her ordinary demeanour. Towards her followers of
the humbler sort she ever showed herself full of consideration and
kindliness. She felt for their fatigues or privations in marching,
was tenderly solicitous later on for the wounded. Above all, she
was insistent that the dying should receive the consolations of
religion, and it was a terrible thought to her that either friend
or foe should perish unshriven and unassoiled.

Her last act at Vaucouleurs, ere we started off in the early dawn
of a late February day, was to attend Mass with all her following.

An hour later, after a hasty meal provided by De Baudricourt, we
were all in the saddle, equipped and eager for the start. The Maid
sat her chestnut charger as to the manner born. The pawings of the
impatient animal caused her no anxiety. She was looking with a keen
eye over her little band of followers, taking in, as a practised
leader of men might do, their equipment and general readiness for
the road. She pointed out to me several small defects which
required adjusting and rectifying.

Already she seemed to have assumed without effort, and as a matter
of course, the position of leader and general. There was no
abatement of her gentle sweetness of voice or aspect, but the air
of command combined with it as though it came direct and without
effort as a gift from heaven. None resented it; all submitted to
it, and submitted with a sense of lofty joy and satisfaction which
I have never experienced since, and which is beyond my power to
describe.

There was one change in the outward aspect of the Maid, for her
beautiful hair had been cut off, and now her head was crowned only
by its cluster of short curling locks, upon which today she wore a
cloth cap, though soon she was to adopt the headpiece which
belonged to the light armour provided. She had been pleased by the
dress of white and blue cut-cloth which I had humbly offered her,
and right well did it become her. The other suit provided by the
townsfolk was carried by one of the squires, that she might have
change of garment if (as was but too probable) we should encounter
drenching rains or blustering snow storms.

So far she had no sword of her own, nor had she spoken of the need
of such a weapon for herself. But as we assembled in the courtyard
of the Castle, getting ourselves into the order of the march, De
Ba