d's wish that it should belong to him. And
this has been revealed to him by the Maid, who will enter Paris. If
you will not obey, we shall make such a stir [_ferons un si gros
hahaye_] as hath not happened these thousand years in France. The Maid
and her soldiers will have the victory. Therefore the Maid is willing
that you, Duke of Bedford, should not destroy yourself.'

And Joan finishes this strange effusion by proposing to Bedford that
they should combine in making a holy war for Christianity!

This letter, written 'in the name of the Maid,' was dated on a Tuesday
in Holy Week. The address ran thus: 'To the Duke of Bedford, so called
Regent of the Kingdom of France, or to his Lieutenants, now before the
town of Orleans.'

Doubtless the reference to the deed of arms which, once again at peace
together, might be accomplished by the combined English and French
armies, was an idea which seems to have floated in Joan's enthusiastic
imagination, that the day might come when the two foremost nations in
Christendom would fight together for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre.

As might be expected, this letter was received by the English with
gibes and jeers, which was pardonable; but what was not so was the
bad treatment of the messenger who had brought it to the English
camp. He was kept prisoner, and, if some rather doubtful French
writers of the day are to be believed, it was seriously debated
whether or not he should be burnt. Let us trust this is but an
invention of the enemy.

Joan, before leaving Blois, insisted on the dismissal of all camp
followers--such bad baggage was certainly well left behind, and could
not have followed an army led by one who, night and morning, had an
altar erected, around which her hallowed flags were placed, and where
the Maid, and those willing, took the Sacrament at the head of the
army. It must have been a striking sight during that spring-time--that
army, led by a maiden all clad in white armour, and mounted on a black
charger, surrounded by a brilliant band of knights, riding along the
pleasant fields of Touraine, then in their first livery of brilliant
green. And a striking sight it must have been, when, at the close of
the long day's march, the tents were pitched and the altar raised, the
officiating priests grouped about it and the sacred pictured standards
waving above, while the solemn chant was raised, and the soldiers
knelt around.

One can well think how ready were thos