and devout people.'

And on the prelate asking her how it was that at such a moment her
mind should set itself on the thought of death, and when she expected
her death to happen, she answered: 'I know not--it will come when God
pleases; but how I would that God would allow me to return to my home,
to my sister and my brothers! For how glad would they be to see me
back again. At any rate,' she added, 'I have done what my Saviour
commanded me to do.'

Her mission was indeed accomplished: that is to say, if her mission
consisted of the two great deeds which while at Chinon she had
repeatedly assured her listeners she was born to accomplish. These
were, first, to drive the English out of Orleans, and thereby deliver
that town; the second, to take the King to Rheims, where he would
receive his crown. The other enterprises, such as the wish to deliver
the Duke of Orleans from his captivity in England, and then to wage a
holy war against the Moslems, may be left out of the actual task
which, encouraged by her voices, Joan had set herself to accomplish.
But the two great deeds had now been carried out--and with what
marvellous rapidity! In spite of all the obstacles placed in her path,
not only by the enemies of her country, but by those nearest to the
ear of the King, Orleans had been delivered in four days' time, the
English host had been in a week driven out of their strongholds on the
Loire, and defeated in a pitched battle! The King unwillingly, and
with many of his Court opposed to the enterprise, after passing
through a country strongly occupied by the enemy without having lost a
man, had by the tact and courage of Joan of Arc been enabled to reach
Rheims; and after this successful march he had received his crown
among his peers and lieges, as though the country were again at peace,
and no English left on the soil of France. What was still more
surprising was, that all these things should have been accomplished at
the instigation and by the direction of a Maid who only a few months
before had been an unknown peasant in a small village of Lorraine. How
had she been able not only to learn the tactics of a campaign, the
rudiments of the art of war, but even the art itself? No one had shown
in these wars a keener eye for selecting the weakest place to attack,
or where artillery and culverin fire could be used with most effect,
or had been quicker to avail himself of these weapons. No one saw with
greater rapidity--(that r