(3) "It was her oath," adds the chronicler; no one is quite sure what it means, but Quicherat is of opinion that it was her _baton_, her stick or staff. Perceval de Cagny puts in this exclamation in almost all the speeches of the Maid. It must have struck him as a curious adjuration. Perhaps it explains why La Hire, unable to do without something to swear by, was permitted by Jeanne in their frank and humorous _camaraderie_ to swear by his stick, the same rustic oath.
CHAPTER VIII -- DEFEAT AND DISCOURAGEMENT. AUTUMN, 1429.
It was on the 7th September that Jeanne and her immediate followers reached the village of La Chapelle, where they encamped for the night. The next day was the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a great festival of the Church. It could scarcely be a matter of choice on the part of so devout a Catholic as Jeanne to take this day of all others, when every church bell was tinkling forth a summons to the faithful, for the day of assault. In all probability she was not now acting on her own impulse but on that of the other generals and nobles. Had she refused, might it not have been alleged against her that after all her impatience it was she who was the cause of delay? The forces with Jeanne were not very large, a great proportion of the army remaining with Charles no one seems to know where, either at St. Denis or at some intermediate spot, possibly to form a reserve force which could be brought up when wanted. The best informed historian only knows that Charles was not with the active force. But Alençon was at the head of the troops, along with many other names well known to us, La Hire, and young Guy de Laval, and Xantrailles, all mighty men of valour and the devoted friends of Jeanne. There is a something, a mist, an incertitude in the beginning of the assault which was unlike the previous achievements of Jeanne, a certain want of precaution or knowledge of the difficulties which does not reflect honour upon the generals with her. Absolutely new to warfare as she was before Orleans she had ridden out at once on her arrival there to inspect the fortifications of the besiegers. But probably the continual skirmishing of which we are told made this impossible here, so that, though the Maid studied the situation of the town in order to choose the best point for attack, it was only when already engaged that the army discovered a double ditch round the walls, the inner one of which was full of water. By sheer impetuosity the French took the gate of St. Honoré and its "boulevard" or tower, driving its defenders back into the city: but their further progress was arrested by that discovery. It was on this occasion that Jeanne is supposed to have seized from a Burgundian in the mêlée, a sword, of which she boasted afterwards that it was a good sword capable of good blows, though we have no certain record that in all her battles she ever gave one blow, or shed blood at all.