This, however, if it was true, was only a mild instance of the
perpetual opposition which the Maid encountered from the very beginning
of her career and wherever she went. Notwithstanding her victories, she
remained through all her career a _peronnelle_ to these men of war (with
the noble exception, of course, of Alencon, Dunois, Xaintrailles, La
Hire, and others). They were sore and wounded by her appearance and her
claims. If they could cheat her, balk her designs, steal a march in any
way, they did so, from first to last, always excepting the few who were
faithful to her. Dunois could afford to be magnanimous, but the lesser
men were jealous, envious, embittered. A _peronnelle_, a woman nobody
knew! And they themselves were belted knights, experienced soldiers, of
the best blood of France. It was not unnatural; but this atmosphere
of hate, malice, and mortification forms the background of the picture
wherever the Maid moves in her whiteness, illuminating to us the whole
scene. The English hated her lustily as their enemy and a witch, casting
spells and enchantments so that the strength was sucked out of a man's
arm and the courage from his heart: but the Frenchmen, all but those
who were devoted to her, regarded her with an ungenerous opposition, the
hate of men shamed and mortified by every triumph she achieved.

Jeanne was angry, too, and disappointed, more than she had been by all
discouragements before. She had believed, perhaps, that once in the
field these oppositions would be over, and that her mission would be
rapidly accomplished. But she neither rebelled nor complained. What
she did was to occupy herself about what she felt to be her business,
without reference to any commander. She sent out two heralds,(1) who
were attached to her staff, and therefore at her personal disposal, to
summon once more Talbot and Glasdale (Classidas, as the French called
him) _de la part de Dieu_ to evacuate their towers and return home. It
would seem that in her miraculous soul she had a visionary hope that
this appeal might be successful. What so noble, what so Christian, as
that the one nation should give up, of free-will, its attempt upon the
freedom and rights of another, if once the duty were put simply before
it--and both together joining hands, march off, as she had already
suggested, to do the noblest deed that had ever yet been done for
Christianity? That same evening she rode forth with her little train;
and placing he