Thus Jeanne was led back after the first day's attack. Her wound was not serious, and she had been repulsed during one of the day's fighting at Orleans without losing courage. But something had changed her spirit as well as the spirit of the army she led. There is a curious glimpse given us into her camp at this point, which indeed comes to us through the observation of an enemy, yet seems to have in it an unmistakable gleam of truth. It comes from one of the parties which had been granted a safe-conduct to carry away the dead of the English and Burgundian side. They tell us, among other circumstances,--such as that the French burnt their dead, a manifest falsehood, but admirably calculated to make them a horror to their neighbours,--that many in the ranks cursed the Maid who had promised that they should without any doubt sleep that night in Paris and plunder the wealthy city. The men with their safe-conduct creeping among the dead, to recover those bodies which had fallen on their own side, and furtively to count the fallen on the other--who were delighted to bring a report that the Maid was no longer the fountain of strength and blessing, but secretly cursed by her own forces--are sinister figures groping their way through the darkness of the September night.
Next morning, however, her wound being slight, Jeanne was up early and in conference with Alençon, begging him to sound his trumpets and set forth once more. "I shall not budge from here, till Paris is taken," she said. No doubt her spirit was up, and a determination to recover lost ground strong in her mind. While the commanders consulted together, there came a band of joyful augury into the camp, the Seigneur of Montmorency with sixty gentlemen, who had left the party of Burgundy in order to take service under the banner of the Maid. No doubt this important and welcome addition to their number exhilarated the entire camp, in the commotion of the reveillé, while each man looked to his weapons, wiping off from breastplate and helmet the heavy dew of the September morning, greeting the new friends and brothers-in-arms who had come in, and arranging, with a better knowledge of the ground than that of yesterday, the mode of attack. Jeanne would not confess that she felt her wound, in her eagerness to begin the assault a second time. And all were in good spirits, the disappointment of the night having blown away, and the determination to do or die being stronger than ever. Were the men-at-arms perhaps less amenable? Were they whispering to each other that Jeanne had promised them Paris yesterday, and for the first time had not kept her word? It would almost require such a fact as this to explain what follows. For as they began to set out, the whole field in movement, there was suddenly seen approaching another party of cavaliers--perhaps another reinforcement like that of Montmorency? This new band, however, consisted but of two gentlemen and their immediate attendants, the Duc de Bar and the Comte de Clermont,(1) always a bird of evil omen, riding hot from St. Denis with orders from the King. These orders were abrupt and peremptory--to turn back. Jeanne and her companions were struck dumb for the moment. To turn back, and Paris at their feet! There must have burst forth a storm of remonstrance and appeal. We cannot tell how long the indignant parley lasted; the historians do not enlarge upon the disastrous incident. But at last the generals yielded to the orders of the King--Jeanne humiliated, miserable, and almost in despair. We cannot but feel that on no former occasion would she have given way so completely; she would have rushed to the King's presence, overwhelmed him with impetuous prayers, extorted somehow the permission to go on. But Charles was safe at seven miles' distance, and his envoys were imperious and peremptory, like men able to enforce obedience if it were not given. She obeyed at last, recovering courage a little in the hope of being able to persuade Charles to change his mind, and sanction another assault on Paris from the other side, by means of a bridge over the Seine towards St. Denis, which Alençon had constructed. Next morning it appears that without even asking that permission a portion of the army set out very early for this bridge: but the King had divined their project, and when they reached the river side the first thing they saw was their bridge in ruins. It had been treacherously destroyed in the night, not by their enemies, but by their King.