re were no question but that
the place was hers; that to her belonged the ordering of the
forces, the overlooking of all. Again and again, even we, who had
come to believe so truly in her divine commission, were astonished
at the insight she showed, the sagacity of her counsels, the
wonderful authority she was able to exert over the soldiers brought
together, a rude, untrained, insubordinate mass of men, collected
from all ranks and classes of the people, some being little better
than bands of marauders, living on prey and plunder, since of
regular fighting there had been little of late; others, mercenaries
hired by the nobles to swell their own retinues; many raw recruits,
fired by ardour at the thought of the promised deliverance; a few
regular trained bands, with their own officers in command, but
forming altogether a heterogeneous company, by no means easy to
drill into order, and swelled by another contingent at Blois, of
very much the same material.

But the Maid assembled the army together, and thus addressed them.
At least, this was the substance of her words; nothing can
reproduce the wonderful earnestness and power of her voice and
look, for her face kindled as she spoke, and the sunshine playing
upon her as she sat her charger in the glory of her silver armour,
seemed to encompass her with a pure white light, so that men's eyes
were dazzled as they looked upon her, and they whispered one to the
other:

"The Angelic Maid! The Angelic Maid! surely it is an Angel of God
come straight down from Heaven to aid and lead us."

"My friends," she spoke, and her voice carried easily to every
corner of the great square, packed with a human mass, motionless,
hanging upon her words; "My friends, we are about to start forth
upon a crusade as holy as it is possible for men to be concerned
in, for it is as saviours and deliverers of your brethren and our
country that we go; and the Lord of Hosts is with us. He has bidden
us march, and He has promised to go with us, even as He was with
the Israelites of old. And if we do not see His presence in pillar
of cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night, we yet do know and
feel Him near us; and He will give abundant proof that He fights
upon our side!"

She lifted her face for a moment to the sky. She was bareheaded,
and every head was bared in that vast crowd as she uttered the name
of the Most High. It seemed as though a light from Heaven fell upon
her as she spoke, and a dee