d had been whipped, and were arriving on our
side of the river after dark, bruised and weary, when we heard the bell
ringing the tocsin. We ran all the way, and when we got to the square
we found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by
smoking and flaring torches.

On the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest, who
was telling the people news which made them weep, and rave, and rage,
and curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we
and France and the crown were the property of an English baby lying in
his cradle in London. And he urged us to give that child our allegiance,
and be its faithful servants and well-wishers; and said we should now
have a strong and stable government at last, and that in a little time
the English armies would start on their last march, and it would be a
brief one, for all that it would need to do would be to conquer what
odds and ends of our country yet remained under that rare and almost
forgotten rag, the banner of France.

The people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of them
stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them
at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and
the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the
strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and
most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake,
you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up
was the coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of
our old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office
over the coffin of "Charles VI. and his dynasty," at the same time
saying, in a loud voice, "God grant long life to Henry, King of France
and England, our sovereign lord!" and then he asked them to join him
in a hearty Amen to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied
their tongues for the moment, and they could not speak. But Joan was
standing close by, and she looked up in his face, and said in her sober,
earnest way:

"I would I might see thy head struck from thy body!"--then, after a
pause, and crossing herself--"if it were the will of God."

This is worth remembering, and I will tell you why: it is the only harsh
speech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you
the storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you
will see that i