some of the wounded French who had been carried back
from the fight. "Ha!" she exclaimed, "I never can see French blood flow
without my hair standing on end." She rode out of the gate, and met the
tide of her countrymen, who had been repulsed from the English fort, and
were flying back to Orleans in confusion. At the sight of the holy Maid
and her banner they rallied and renewed the assault, Jeanne rode forward
at their head, waving her banner and cheering them on. The English
quailed at what they believed to be the charge of hell; St. Loup was
stormed, and its defenders put to the sword, except some few, whom
Jeanne succeeded in saving. All her woman's gentleness returned when the
combat was over. It was the first time that she had ever seen a
battlefield. She wept at the sight of so many bleeding corpses; and her
tears flowed doubly when she reflected that they were the bodies of
Christian men who had died without confession.

The next day was Ascension Day, and it was passed by Jeanne in prayer.
But on the following morrow it was resolved by the chiefs of the
garrison to attack the English forts on the south of the river. For this
purpose they crossed the river in boats, and after some severe fighting,
in which the Maid was wounded in the heel, both the English bastiles of
the Augustins and St. Jean de Blanc were captured. The Tourelles were
now the only posts which the besiegers held on the south of the river.
But that post was formidably strong, and by its command of the bridge
it was the key to the deliverance of Orleans. It was known that a fresh
English army was approaching under Fastolfe to reenforce the besiegers,
and, should that army arrive while the Tourelles were yet in the
possession of their comrades, there was great peril of all the
advantages which the French had gained being nullified, and of the siege
being again actively carried on.

It was resolved, therefore, by the French to assail the Tourelles at
once, while the enthusiasm which the presence and the heroic valor of
the Maid had created was at its height. But the enterprise was
difficult. The rampart of the tete-du-pont, or landward bulwark, of the
Tourelles was steep and high, and Sir John Gladsdale occupied this
all-important fort with five hundred archers and men-at-arms, who were
the very flower of the English army.

Early in the morning of the 7th of May some thousands of the best French
troops in Orleans heard mass and attended the confe