to the bastille without any fresh fighting;
and Joan re-entered Orleans amidst the joy and acclamations of the
people. The bells rang all through the night, and the Te Deum was
chanted. The day of combat was about to be succeeded by the day of
deliverance.

On the morrow, the 8th of May, 1429, at daybreak, the English leaders
drew up their troops close to the very moats of the city, and seemed to
offer battle to the French. Many of the Orleannese leaders would have
liked to accept this challenge; but Joan got up from her bed, where she
was resting because of her wound, put on a light suit of armor, and ran
to the city gates. "For the love and honor of holy Sunday," said she to
the assembled warriors, "do not be the first to attack, and make to them
no demand; it is God's good will and pleasure that they be allowed to get
them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend
yourselves boldly; you will be the masters." She caused an altar to be
raised; thanksgivings were sung, and mass was celebrated. "See!" said
Joan; "are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their
backs?" They had commenced their retreat in good order, with standards
flying. "Let them go: my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting
to-day; you shall have them another time." The good words spoken by Joan
were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English,
and cut off stragglers and baggage. Their bastilles were found to be
full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many
of their prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised.

The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the
king, and prosecute her work at his side. She fell in with him on the
13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her
hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger's neck,
made him a deep obeisance. Charles took off his cap, held out his hand
to her, and, "as it seemed to many," says a contemporary chronicler, "he
would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt." But the king's
joy was not enough for Joan. She urged him to march with her against
enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start
without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned. "I shall hardly
last more than a year," said she; "we must think about working right well
this year, for there is much to do." Hesitation was natural to Charles,
e