caused to be made and embroidered as
her voices enjoined. It was white satin, strewn with _fleurs-de-lis_,
and on it were the words

"JHESUS MARIA,"

and the representation of the Saviour in his glory. Jeanne afterward
generally bore her banner herself in battle; she said that though she
loved her sword much, she loved her banner forty times as much; and she
loved to carry it, because it could not kill anyone.

Thus accoutred, she came to lead the troops of France, who looked with
soldierly admiration on her well-proportioned and upright figure, the
skill with which she managed her war-horse, and the easy grace with
which she handled her weapons. Her military education had been short,
but she had availed herself of it well. She had also the good sense to
interfere little with the manoeuvres of the troops, leaving these
things to Dunois and others whom she had the discernment to recognize as
the best officers in the camp.

Her tactics in action were simple enough. As she herself described it,
"I used to say to them, 'Go boldly in among the English,' and then I
used to go boldly in myself." Such, as she told her inquisitors, was the
only spell she used, and it was one of power. But, while interfering
little with the military discipline of the troops, in all matters of
moral discipline she was inflexibly strict. All the abandoned followers
of the camp were driven away. She compelled both generals and soldiers
to attend regularly at confessional. Her chaplain and other priests
marched with the army under her orders; and at every halt, an altar was
set up and the sacrament administered. No oath or foul language passed
without punishment or censure. Even the roughest and most hardened
veterans obeyed her. They had put off for a time the bestial coarseness
which had grown on them during a life of bloodshed and rapine; they
felt that they must go forth in a new spirit to a new career, and
acknowledged the beauty of the holiness in which the heaven-sent Maid
was leading them to certain victory.

Jeanne marched from Blois on the 25th of April with a convoy of
provisions for Orleans, accompanied by Dunois, La Hire, and the other
chief captains of the French, and on the evening of the 28th they
approached the town. In the words of the old chronicler Hall: "The
Englishmen, perceiving that thei within could not long continue for
faute of vitaile and pouder, kepte not their watche so diligently as
thei were accustomed, nor sco