nds of hope, yet matters which seemed too far above us to
arouse that personal rapture which was shining from the eyes and
irradiating the whole face of the Maid.

It was a beautiful beginning to the day; and all the early hours
were spent by the Maid in meditation and prayer within the walls of
the Cathedral, where the people flocked, as perhaps they had never
done before, to give thanks for the mercies received with the
advent of the Maid, and to gaze upon her, as she knelt in a trance
of rapture and devotion in her appointed place not far from the
altar. We, her knights, went to and fro, some of us always near to
her, that the crowd might not too curiously press upon her when she
went forth, or disturb her devotions by too close an approach.

I noted that none of the Generals appeared or took part in the acts
of devotion that day. And as I issued forth into the sunny street
at the close of the High Mass, Bertrand met me with a look of
trouble and anger on his face.

"They are all sitting in council of war together," he said, "and
they have not even told her of it, nor suffered her to join them!
How can they treat her so--even Dunois and La Hire--when they have
seen again and yet again how futile are all plans made by their
skill without the sanction of her voice? It makes my gorge rise! Do
they think her a mere beautiful image, to ride before them and
carry a white banner to affright the foe? It is a shame, a shame,
that they should treat her so, after all that they have seen and
heard!"

I was as wroth as Bertrand, and as full of surprise. Even now,
looking back after all these years, the blindness of these men of
war astonishes and exasperates me. They had seen with their own
eyes what the Maid could accomplish; again and again she had proved
herself the abler in counsel as in fight; and yet they now
deliberately desired to set her aside from their councils, and only
inform her of their decisions when made, and permit her to take a
share in the fighting they had planned.

Bertrand was furiously angry. He led me up into a lofty turret
which commanded a bird's-eye view of the whole city and its
environs, and he pointed out that which the Maid had declared she
would straightway do, so soon as the Feast of the Ascension was
over, and how the Generals were about to follow a quite different
course.

Orleans, as all men know, lies upon the right--the north--bank of
the Loire, and the country to the north was then