instantly and almost in a
panic--for what were they without her? She was the army, herself.

Although disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new assault
be made, saying it must win; and adding, with the battle-light rising in
her eyes, "I will take Paris now or die!" She had to be carried away by
force, and this was done by Gaucourt and the Duke d'Alencon.

But her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming
with enthusiasm. She said she would be carried before the gate in the
morning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any question.
She could have kept her word. About this there was no doubt. But
she forgot one factor--the King, shadow of that substance named La
Tremouille. The King forbade the attempt!

You see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of Burgundy, and
another sham private trade of some sort was on foot.

You would know, without my telling you, that Joan's heart was nearly
broken. Because of the pain of her wound and the pain at her heart she
slept little that night. Several times the watchers heard muffled
sobs from the dark room where she lay at St. Denis, and many times the
grieving words, "It could have been taken!--it could have been taken!"
which were the only ones she said.

She dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope. D'Alencon
had thrown a bridge across the Seine near St. Denis. Might she not cross
by that and assault Paris at another point? But the King got wind of it
and broke the bridge down! And more--he declared the campaign ended!
And more still--he had made a new truce and a long one, in which he had
agreed to leave Paris unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the
Loire whence he had come!

Joan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by
her own King. She had said once that all she feared for her cause was
treachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white
armor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King
to relieve her of her functions and let her go home. As usual, she was
wise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great military moves were at an
end, now; for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be
merely a war of random and idle skirmishes, apparently; work suitable
for subalterns, and not requiring the supervision of a sublime military
genius. But the King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all
France; there were French strongholds