แ

the clear sky, he yelled forth this imprecation. St. Denis and St. Honoré, from the commanding "Ah, sweet Lord Jesu! let me but live to bring this accursed witch to punishment, and to expose her villanies, and then devour me if thou wilt with red lightnings, like a blasted tree !"

hill of the Marché-aux-Pourceaux. Gunners of almost equal skill replied to him, destroyed his approaches, and kept the line of attack clear with a perpetual storm of artillery and arrows. The operations were continually interrupted by the real or pretended necessity of retiring every night to a distance from the city, to prevent the danger of a sortie by its inclosed army, not altogether unequal to an open combat. The assail

So saying, spurless as he was, he set the charger to so wild a speed, that although he had to traverse a narrow line of earth, with deep ditches on either side, for nearly a mile, he seemed to vanish as he spoke. Wulfstan of Warbois' voice, faintly requesting his master to await his accom-ants retreated at sunset to a station about midpaniment, sped too slowly after him to be heard. "What sayest thou, Jeanne? Will it not fare ill with thee if, continuing in the wars, thou fallest into this knight's hands?" said the Duke of Alençon.

"Therefore let us guard her well," said Dunois sorrowfully. "If she hath lost our Lady's aid, the more need of ours!"

"All is in the hands of God! unless He hath excepted me only of all his works," said Jeanne, with a shudder and a start, for the first time suspecting, in her isolated innocence, that the nature of her intercourse with the king was doubted.

CHAPTER XXIX.
BEFORE PARIS.

"And now my race of terror run,
Mine be the eve of tropic sun!
No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay;
With disk like battle-target red,
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wild wave with bloody light,
Then sinks at once-and all is night.
SCOTT.

THE spectacle of her enemy's degradation produced an unfavorable effect on Jeanne herself among the chivalry of France. They sympathized rather with the fallen knight than with the victorious peasant girl. Without visibly working at such a result, it was so managed by them that the preparations for an assault on Paris languished to a tedious length.

Jeanne herself had lost the energy and decision of her earlier career. She listened to counsel, she perceived difficulties:-for the first time, with all her genius for war, she appreciated the dangers of her undertaking. And they were great and many. Paris was fortified with all the resources of art in that age. The citizens were either more enlightened or less credulous than the rest of France. They ridiculed and despised the celestial claims of the weird peasant girl. They dreaded the vengeance of Charles and of his friends, for the great massacre they had perpetrated some years before on his kin and allies. The English chivalry were roused and appalled with the terrible chastisement of Fastolfe, and the soldiery were fired with hope to avenge the shame of a once beloved leader while comforted by it against their superstitious fears.

way between St. Denis and the capital, called La Chapelle, which became their head-quarters. But thither the king never came, much less to the operations of the siege; and from the moment when the frank-spoken Dunois had intimated his suspicions, Jeanne never accompanied the other captains on their visits to the court.

Reports of the revelries and pleasures in which the king had replunged, meanwhile increased the discontent of the troops, lying without shelter and often without food, beneath the walls of Paris. The Duke of Alençon always brought full details of these desports to Jeanne in her melancholy solitude at La Chapelle, or in her exhausting and dangerous toils of the siege. But it was not until he gayly and carelessly informed her of a joyful piece of court news, which intimated that the Lady of Beauty was on her way to St. Denis, that her patience seemed exhausted.

"Let the king come and join us! What means he by keeping at such a distance while men bleed for him?" she exclaimed. All is ready for an assault, or shall be by to-morrow noon; and bid him come, and strive first by his presence and promises of pardon, to melt these furious hearts of Paris to remorse!"

"He will not come without some strong enforcement, Jeanne, since he expects his paramour, who will not willingly put her rosy body in danger," said Alençon. Therefore let us all go

to the court to-morrow, well-attended, and bring him in a loving and most honorable manner to the camp."

"Go all of ye-but without me!” replied Jeanne, with a sigh. "I will be busied making the preparations complete before Paris."

"At least, we must have thy signature to a woful petition we will all jointly indite," said the crafty duke.

"I cannot write, fair duke, as well thou knowest," returned the Maid.

duke.

Accordingly a species of military round-robin was presented to Charles at his breakfast on the following day, entreating him to come, and by his presence hearten the soldiery in the intended assault on Paris that day. It was so well seconded by the masses of chivalry accompanying their chiefs, that neither the king nor his minister dared refuse compliance, especially as Jeanne's peremptory flourish was among the sigEvery thing presaged an obstinate resistance, natures. Charles proceeded on the journey very instead of the facile conquest anticipated by much out of humor; for not only was he taken Charles and his advisers. Innumerable and to scenes and company alien to his temper, but bloody sorties and skirmishes interrupted the he was compelled to leave St. Denis at a time assailants, for besiegers they could not be called, when the arrival of the Lady of Beauty was in their attempts to make an impression on the hourly expected. The repulses of her heroic northern face of the city, to which they confined rival, absence, and a skillfully tender love-message their efforts. In vain did the cannon of John of from Agnes, had almost entirely restored his Lorraine batter the walls between the gates of heart to its soft allegiance.

"I thought that Paris would have yielded like the other cities, else well both I and my council know the vanity of setting my soldiers to butt at it, like rams at a pin-fold," returned Charles.

"You summoned them in person-summon this !" said Jeanne, gazing with a fraught and mournful passion of grief and tenderness at the king.

Charles arrived about noonday before his capi- in an altered and impatient tone. "Let us show tal, attended by all the chivalry; but long before Paris her king; let us see if his aspect can daunt he came in sight of the siege, the terrific roar the hearts of his enemies as it doth those of his of culverins announced with what vigor Jeanne friends!-Nay, my king, I said not that: my sorwas carrying it on. He arrived at length on the row raves!-John, bid your dragoons hold their eminence occupied by John of Lorraine with wasteful breath, and we will talk with Paris." his artillery, whence he thundered on Paris, which replied in thunder. The main host was drawn up in battle-array behind these sheltering hights, ready to repel any interruption that might be made from the city. With all his constitutional indifference to danger, Charles could not forbear starting and crossing himself when he beheld the raging hell of fire and smoke that filled the whole valley between Paris and the point of attack. It was only at intervals that he caught a view of the ramparts, crowded with glittering masses of armor, and the overlooking spires and buildings of the capital. Out of temper, too, as he was with Jeanne and her doings, and considering what he had been obliged to leave, the king could scarcely conceal his feelings of disgust and anger when he discerned her engaged indeed like the sorceress her enemies called her, in directing this tempest of war.

Jeanne was on foot, personally occupied in the remount of a species of cannon called a serpent, which had been three times cast from its embankment, and which the soldiers would else have deserted, so dreadful was the carnage around it, and so persevering the efforts of the beseigers to dislodge it. "Courage, my brothers!" she was saying. "See you not that it does them most harm, since they are most anxious to be quit of it?" Her complexion was embrowned and blistered by a six weeks' exposure in this laborious attack, and it was farther blackened and disfigured by the fire and smoke of the artillery. Her helmet was off, and her dark hair lay mattedly on her temples; her eyes flamed; a warlike perspiration bathed her limbs; her attitude was full of energy and amazonian daring --but in nothing feminine. An emotion of horror was visible on the countenance of the king when he recognized her. With all that she had won for him, it was the first time that he had seen her engaged in actual warfare, or witnessed the horrors of battle with his own eyes.

La Trimouille was not at all valiant by nature, and he was harassed by fears almost as potent as those which the enemy diffused, of the friends around him. A stone shot from a veuglaire fell at his horse's feet, covering him with clay and dust; and in his alarm he threw himself on the ground. Jeanne herself could not forbear a scornful laugh at this exhibition of animal fear, in which all the captains and the king himself joined, and La Trimouille was taken up severely bruised. He healed of his bruises soon, but never of that laugh.

At her command, the fire ceased along the whole line of the Lorrainer's artillery; and as soon as the smoke had sufficiently cleared away, the signal for parley was made, and responded to by the city. The warriors of the middle ages, like those of the Iliad, rarely declined occasions for the exercise of their conversational powers. The Duke of Bedford, attended by a great concourse of knights and citizens, appeared on the ramparts, and the king with the Maid and his retinue, advanced to the edge of the second fosse. "Who speaks for France?" inquired the Duke of Bedford, scornfully.

"France himself!" replied the young king, and advancing with a dignity well answering the title, he continued, “France speaks, but not to usurping Bedford and his crew, but to ye, ye citizens of Paris, bidding ye return to your revolted allegiance, and to your king's eternal love and gratitude, which here, by my right hand and mine anointed royalty, I swear shall be yours, if ye cast forth these rude invaders, and welcome your father home!"

"A young father for many of us!-Father thine own bastards, if Alençon will let thee!" replied a rude voice from the mass of citizens. "Thus Paris answers: Until the blood of John of Burgundy is avenged on his murderers, whereof thou art the chief, treacherous Valois! Paris will have but one executioner within her walls, and I am he!"

"Let the people see the butchers' flag!-let them have way from below!" said the regent; and Charles, turning pale with disgust and anger, beheld a rabble of the Grande Boucherie pour on the ramparts, carrying a great banner of the arms of Burgundy, bathed in the blood of some newlyslaughtered beast. This they flourished, with loud yells of defiance and vengeance, at Charles and his company..

"When this crimson is as white as the lilies thou usurpest, murderer, then shall Paris be thine!" said the Duke of Bedford, who was sonin-law to the slain John the Fearless.

"Hear me, then, Paris!" cried Jeanne, exasperated to the highest at these insults heaped on her There was little mirth in Jeanne's countenance, sovereign. Yield, in the name of Jesus, yield nevertheless, when after this effusion she turned the town to us; for if ye surrender not ere night, and greeted the king. There was something we will enter it by force, willing or unwilling, sadder than tears in her eyes-more reproachful and the sword and fire and the furious soldier than upbraidings in her accents-as she exclaimed, shall do their worst on ye and yours!" "Ah, gentle king!-how many eyes are closed forever that would have brightened to see thee hadst thou come sooner!"

"I have obeyed my masters and mistress, Jeanne!-what wouldst thou more?" replied Charles pettishly.

"Let us cease this rage of fire: it is vain; the walls of Paris are built of rock!" said Jeanne,

"Let thy woman talk, Charles; she is the braver speaker as well as doer!" said Bedford, with a scoffing laugh.

"Let the trumpets sound an assault instantly!— an assault !—an assault!" shouted Jeanne.

แ

Our soldiers are daunted with our infinite loss, Jeanne, and would bury their dead," said the Duke of Alençon.

"Destroy if thou wilt and must, but let me begone; my soul sickens over this carnage," said Charles, striving to turn his horse's head away. But the Maid caught its bridle, and exclaimed with wild fervor, "O, Charles, my king, never until now did I endure, much less entreat thee, to remain in danger! But now my all is pledged; the people have heard me swear that Paris shall be ours ere night! And so it shall; it shall, by Him who died for those who have died for thee to-day, if thou wilt promise not to desert me in this direst moment of my destiny,-to tarry and witness the assault !"

። But, Jeanne, thou hadst forgotten when that rash oath passed thy lips that it is the Feast of our Lady, to-day, but little suitable for deeds of violence and slaughter!" said even Dunois.

"Is it so? Why, then, Dunois, her care of me and aid to-day shall prove to thee how little I deserve the blame in thy glance !" replied the Maid. "Advance standards!-sound trumpets! to the assault, all France! Ah, king, thou wilt not desert me to ruin, I that saved thee from its rotten embrace ?"

"I will not, Jeanne; I will tarry and witness thy deeds," said Charles, greatly moved at this appeal.

The old enthusiasm of her glory reanimated Jeanne at the words, and forgetful or undreaming that every effort which made her more of a hero made her less of a woman, such as the voluptuous heir of the Valois could cherish, she displayed all the marvels of her prowess until his own cheek colored with shame at the comparative safety in which he remained. The captains, either fearful that she would win the prize without their aid, or seized with a generous emulation, rushed to plant their standards beside hers in the first ditch. The combat of artillery ceased. The lumbrous cannon of the fifteenth century could not shift their range without great difficulty, and a close assault was usually withstood with archery and hand-to-hand

weapons.

two of his light culverins. An emulous crowd
followed, and while at Jeanne's command the
archers kept up an incessant discharge at the
ramparts, she herself made preparations to de-
scend into the ditch or moat immediately below
the walls, to try the depth of the water.
The chiefs of the French chivalry were all
beside her; but at this moment an alarm was
given that the English were preparing to make
a sortie from the gate of St. Honoré. The Duke
of Alençon was therefore obliged to retire with
some other leaders to take command of the army
drawn up in the Marché-aux-Pourceaux to re-
pulse any attempt on the rear of the assailants.
None was, however, in reality intended. The
Duke of Bedford was even yet unwilling to trust
his troops in the open field. But his appearance
and the opening of the gate produced almost as
good an effect as an actual sortie. An alarm was
generally spread that the army was attacked on
its flanks, and the assailants were seized with
terror. Dunois himself and La Hire pressed
Jeanne to retire, but her only reply was, " Paris
or death!"

A species of delirium seemed to possess her; and she turned furiously and struck many of her own men with her sword whom she observed in the act of retiring. "Ah, slaves, ah, cowards! Alençon will keep them busy; on with me! He who flees, myself will slay him! Turn your culverins on those who fly, John, not on the walls! Bring me my standard. Forward, France!"

"It is in vain, Jeanne; look here, the moat is deeper than the depth of my lance, with mud and water!" said the Marshal de Raix, ascending a machine called an "Ass's back," by which he had lowered himself into the fosse below the walls. He showed his lance covered with green slime to the top of the rest.

66

"Ha, ha, De Raix, now as ever, my foe! Thou hast dipped the lance, traitor, not plunged it!" exclaimed Jeanne, with a look of frenzy. "Ho, there, will no man bring my standard for the love of France and our Lady?" She had left it, in the ardor of her progress, planted on the crest of the first ditch.

"I will bear it to her," said Charles, impetuously.

"No, my liege, no! Your horse would founder on those trunks of trees," said La Trimouille, who quivered in every fiber but dared not trust himself at a distance from the king. “Ho, thou cowardly Lorrainer, that canst only hit men at a distance!-dost thou hear thy mistress and the king call, and stir no more than thy mis-shapen logs of iron?"

The first ditch of Paris, from the exterior, was a dry one; and it was rather of advantage as a ready-made trench to the besiegers, until they attempted to mount to the other side. The archers of Paris-picked men at their craft-then kept up so incessant a discharge of their shafts and bolts, that of the numbers who repeatedly crowned the summit none obtained footing long enough to plant a banner. Carcass after carcass rolled back into the ditch, and lay like leeches wallowing in their crimson spoil, making a hideous spectacle of slaughter, that filled Charles with horror. In vain, however, did he attempt to recall his troops from the attack. They heeded no voice and no gestures but those of their heroine, which were all forward. Finally she reached the crest of the ditch, accompanied by such a mass of archers and men-at-arms, that the defenders on the walls were in their turn overwhelmed with the feathered artillery of the assailants. Their "Take her her standard and beseech her in my deadly showers slackened, and a good many took name to return," said Charles, "she has shed refuge behind the battlements and covers con-blood enough to-day-enough for all her sex to trived in the walls, whence they kept up a less shed for ages to come!" furious but well-directed and fatal discharge.

66

My life is worth more to the king than to hazard it so wildly. No man can manage the artillery of France but me," replied John of Lorraine, with great coolness. But if the king

commands me-"

John of Lorraine was brave and stanch as his Jeanne d'Arc continued to give orders with a own best metal of gunnery, but he considered calmness and sagacity which astonished the old- himself as too skillful and valuable a machine to est generals, and filled the king with mingled be lightly hazarded. And so he was. Neverthedread and surprise. A bridge of trunks of trees less, offended at his sovereign's want of considerwas thrown by her direction over the dry ditch, ation on this point, he darted over the bridge, which John of Lorraine eagerly crossed with seized Jeanne's standard, and approached her.

She was nearly the depth of her lance down in the fosse, amidst a perfect hailstone of bolts and arrows, probing the hight of the water that stagnated in it. It was at this moment that the Duke of Bedford, satisfied with the success of his feint, ordered the gate of St. Honoré to be closed, and appeared with a mighty reinforcement on the ramparts above.

John of Lorraine knelt at the edge of the fosse, and bending down, repeated the king's message to Jeanne, which she could scarcely hear amidst the uproar.

"He thinks of me? It is well, I will win him Paris in recompense! I must, John, or perish! Give me my standard; let them bring faggots and bushes and fill the ditch. It is not so deep on my lance as on De Raix's!" she replied hurriedly, and still sounding the foul black depths of the moat.

"I can

with an endearing appellation that awakened a thousand melting recollections of their earlier passion in the king's heart.

"I have bidden her return, but it is in vain;" said Charles, glancing back. "Where is she? And look how the walls are crowding with fresh defenders!"

แ

"And, lo, the Parisians have a woman-leader too, and one crowned like a serpent! O, Charles, it is thy mother, Isabeau !" said the Lady of Beauty, now rising on her couch in an unaffected agony of fear.

It was so. The unnatural mother of Charles VII. appeared on the ramparts with the Duke of Bedford, to refute the fears of the soldiers with her presence, and encourage the fury of the citizens against him.

"Let Jeanne return! Let her not make me a parricide !" exclaimed Charles, aloud, in a frantic

"She will not, methinks, until she has caused the destruction of the entire host;" said the Duke of Alençon, breathlessly arriving.

"She-they-shall obey me! I am the King!" said Charles, and putting his horse in motion in spite of the shrieks and extended arms of Agnes, the king crossed the rude bridge to the second fosse. The Duke of Alençon gallantly pressed the Lady of Beauty's hand to his lips, and followed. La Trimouille remained-to pro

"He is all for the lance, and hates my culve-tone. rins! What, ho, faggots and piles for the ditch!" shouted John of Lorraine; and even as he spoke an arrow pierced his foot, and in a manner nailed him to the ground on which he stood. not fly now an I would, my captainess!" he said, with the utmost sang-froid. "And in this cursed cap I cannot see to take the goosequill out." So saying he raised the vizor of a bassinet he wore, and with which he but rarely troubled himself, and so laid himself open to a second arrow, which pierced his brain! The first artilleryman of tect her. France perished by the weapon he was rapidly Charles found the Maid with her naked sword superseding; and without uttering another word in her hand, standing on the very verge of the or sound, rolled over with the standard of Jeanne ditch, and seemingly absorbed in the operations firmly grasped, into the muddy ditch. He disap- of the soldiers, who continued vainly heaping the peared almost instantly. "Thou too! Everything that is mine perishes!" burst from the heart of Jeanne d'Arc. But without giving another instant to vain laments, she ascended from the fosse, and shouted in tones neither unheard nor unechoed, "To the assault! Paris is ours! Faggots and ladders to the ditches!" The soldiers, reanimated by her appearance and cries, responded with hearty shouts and zealous obedience.

Amidst the confused rush and tumult of the scene, surrounded with death and destruction in their direst forms, Jeanne's eye sought only to be assured of her king's safety. She perceived an extraordinary bustle and crowding about the spot where she had left him, and for the first time on that dreadful day her heart beat thick and pantingly with fear. She looked again-for she could not believe her own eyes at the first glance -and yet she beheld with undoubted certainty a glistening company of courtiers, in the gayest attires, surrounding a litter of rose-hued satin embroidered with gold! Couched on that as if too ill or terror-stricken to raise her head, but in all the glow of her loveliness, while the king bent from his steed over her to reassure her with his loving words, was the Lady of Beauty herself!

"Retire, my sweet Agnes! I love thee now as ever! I am in no danger while thou art safe," Charles was saying; and though his words were inaudible to the Maid, the dread instinct of the passions repeated them like a stupefying thunder in her heart.

"I will not retire and leave thee here, Charlot! Thou and thy host are led by a mad-woman! Alençon himself has told me so;" Agnes replied,

moat with everything,-earth, stakes, faggots, bushes tied together, tent-poles, cannons even, which they imagined might fill it up so as to allow footing for the stormers. The water only seemed to rise higher.

"Jeanne! dost thou hear me !-Return from this mad endeavor, or I-thy king-will depart with all that will obey me!" said Charles, angrily grasping her shoulder.

She did not look round, but replied in a strange ly staggering and disordered tone, "Leave me! Go where thou wilt!-Betray France who will, the Maid of Orleans will win Paris to-night, or perish!"

"On thy allegiance I command thee! as thou wouldst not have me hold thee for a traitoress, too,-retire!" returned Charles, with unwonted passion and energy.

"It is thou that art the traitor, lascivious king! blasphemous betrayer!" returned Jeanne, yielding to the mighty tempest of emotions in her heart. "Thou who art the traitor to France, that bleeds at every vein for thee! Retire, and prove thyself the coward thine enemies have called thee! Lose thy crown-thine honor-thy Paris-and me-for a wanton's smile! Death will save Jeanne, or victory!"

"Insolent rebel! I have too long endured the sway of a churlish peasant wench," said Charles, with vehement indignation. Soldiers, I command ye, retire with me, and leave this madwoman to her doom!"

"Go to thine harlot, king!-and forward, France, to victory!" was Jeanne's mad response; and rushing to the edge of the fosse, she waved her sword in flashing circles over her head, and shrieking, "I am Jeanne the Maid!" instantly

cry even reached the ears of the enemy on the ramparts.

collected a mass of combatants around her. The fallen. It was long past sunset, and the assault had continued the whole day; but until this event was known there were few perceptible signs of exhaustion or of flagging hope. The news acted instantaneously as the departure of the principle of life from its claywork of mortality. The assault ceased at every point; the soldiery rather fled than gathered toward their standards on the hill; and only a few distracted and affrighted men, almost as much afraid of retiring from the dry fosse, to which they had conveyed Jeanne, as of staying, were around her when Dunois arrived. Yet the Duke of Alençon found him vainly engaged in endeavoring to prevail upon her to permit herself to be borne away from the scene of conflict and danger.

"Hear you, fair cousin! It is the Maid!" said Isabeau de Bavière, who, withered and malignant as hate, surveyed the horrible spectacle with a kind of joy. "Archer! thou art a peerless one! I saw thee lay low her standard-bearer! Rid us of this shewolf of Lorraine, and win a knight's fee!" said the Duke of Bedford to the Verdurer, Wulfstan of Warbois, who had unremittingly plied his craft during this sanguinary day.

The yeoman nevertheless raised his weapon with such slowness and agitation, that Isabeau perceived it. "Art thou one of the possessed?" she exclaimed. "Knowest thou not, good fellow, that the sole remedy against a witch is to draw her blood?"

The bow seemed to spring of its own accord to the verdurer's aim.

"Remember thy master, and free us all with him!" said the regent-and the shaft flew !

"She has brought her pigs this time to a bad market!" said the worthy yeoman, wiping his brows with the back of his hand, and staggering back from the sight of what he had done! The shaft had entirely pierced Jeanne's covering of finely-woven mail, and through the fleshy part of her right thigh, entering deeply into the left one, where the barb retained it fixed!

"Kneel, good yeoman! and arise a knight by the hand of John of Lancaster!" said the regent, drawing his sword, and Isabeau, leaning on the archer's shoulder, as he mechanically obeyed, joyfully exclaimed, And I, the queen, am his godmother of this baptism of chivalry!"

Her wounds were coarsely stanched with shreds of her own emblazoned petticoat or surcoat, and he learned that they were of the most perilous description, the head of the arrow having broken short in the left thigh in the effort to withdraw it. But insensible to every agony but that of defeat and failure, she still ravingly refused to be stirred-struck the soldiers who attempted it, and overwhelmed Dunois himself with reproaches.

"Thou wilt not counsel flight, Alençon, as the once brave Dunois doth ?" she cried, starting up with a revived frenzy of hope. "Let us have another assault, Alençon, in the name of God and of France, we will no longer speak of kingsand all shall yet be well!"

"Alas, Jeanne! it were impossible. The king has deserted, and with him half the army," replied the duke. "The rest have his authority to fly, and stay trembling but for very shame to leave! their woman-captain alone. I have his peremptory command to withdraw the army, and bring after him like a beaten pack from too wild a quarry !”

"It cannot be. I have spoken to him harshly, but can a few words outweigh twenty cities and a crown, which I have given him? returned Jeanne. "He knows it were my ruin to retire

Jeanne fell at the very moment when the exasperated king had rejoined Agnes Sorel, every-it where ordering the soldiers to retire, and setting the example by directing the litter-bearers to return to St. Denis, while Agnes firmly grasped the long tassel of his baldric to make sure that he would be of the company. The Duke of Alençon had followed the king so far almost unnoticed; but La Trimouille spoke to him in a whisper, and the sovereign suddenly turned to him, "What commands dost thou ask of us, cousin, that wilt obey none?" he exclaimed, with a fierceness rarely witnessed in him.

"Sire!-that can obey none! The soldiers obey only this woman whom you have made our master," replied the duke.

"Henceforth then I unmaster her; never more shall she have commission or power from us!" returned the irritated prince. "I revoke all that I have ever granted her! Go, cousin, and draw my troops from this frantic buffeting at stone walls, and follow us to St. Denis. If she refuses to come, bring her perforce, a prisoner! Dunois, if thou hast any love and duty for us, see this done!" he concluded as the gallant bastard came past on a wounded horse, with a body of men-atarms, hastily rallied.

"Let us save Jeanne !-that is all," returned the knight, and continued his way.

"I am general again! this staff of mine office is no longer a child's bauble," said Alençon; and bending with a glance of deep expression at the Lady of Beauty, he departed to execute the royal command.

The recall now sounded in every direction; in every direction tidings spread that the Maid had

that the soldiers will believe in me no more; that I have lost all for him, my God, my father, my kindred, our Lady's love, mine own heart, my blood! And now would he filch from me my glory too, and brand me with imposture, because I have disobeyed Heaven to serve him?"

"He needs nothing of this-he has fled to revel in the charms of the Lady of Beauty at St. Denis! You have given him a long fast from such soft loveliness, Jeanne," replied the Duke, bitterly, for the thought was little pleasing to himself.

I

"Let us return then but once more to the assault, fair duke," said Jeanne, suppressing the shriek of agony that came to her lips as she raised herself in her eagerness on the brancard. swear to you that we shall take the city, though but my corpse be borne before the host, such is the power yet given to me! Look, thou art a soldier! See how the ditches are filled-firm footing is there for fifty men, abreast and rushing! The ladders are ready-nothing is wanting

but men to mount them!"

The Duke of Alençon looked indeed with a mixture of wonder and envy at the result of the prodigious labor and rapidity of Jeanne and her soldiery.

"It is certainly as she says," said the generous Dunois. "Let me lead a renewed attack, and I think her prophecy shall yet be fulfilled.""