rance
they passed the Saint-Loup bastion. My Lord the Bastard sailed in one
of these boats with Nicole de Giresme, Grand Prior of France of the
order of Rhodes. And the flotilla came to the port of Checy, where it
remained at anchor all night.[935] It was decided that the relieving
army should that night encamp at the port of Bouchet and guard the
convoy by watching down the river, while one detachment was stationed
near the Islands of Checy to watch up the river in the direction of
Jargeau. In company with certain captains, and with a body of
men-at-arms and archers, the Maid followed the bank as far as
l'Ile-aux-Bourdons.[936]

[Footnote 934: Boucher de Molandon, _La delivrance d'Orleans et
l'institution de la fete du 8 mai, Chronique anonyme du XV'e
siecle_, Orleans, 1883, in 8vo, pp. 28, 29.]

[Footnote 935: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 6. _Journal du siege_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 936: _Chronique de la fete_, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 290.
Morosini, vol. iii, p. 23, note 5. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere
expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 52-56.]

The lords who had brought the convoy decided that they would set out
immediately after the unloading. Having accomplished the first part of
its task, the army would return to Blois to fetch the remaining
victuals and ammunition, for everything had not been brought at once.
Hearing that the soldiers, with whom she had come, were going away,
Jeanne wished to go with them; and, after having so urgently asked to
be taken to Orleans, now that she was before the gates of the city,
her one idea was to go back.[937] Thus is the soul of the mystic blown
hither and thither by the breath of the Spirit. Now as always Jeanne
was guided by impulses purely spiritual. She would not be parted from
these soldiers because she believed they had made their peace with
God, and she feared that she might not find others as contrite. For
her, victory or defeat depended absolutely on whether the combatants
were in a state of grace or of sin. To lead them to confession was her
only art of war; no other science did she know, whether for fighting
behind ramparts or in the open field.[938]

[Footnote 937: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 285. This document very
untrustworthy as a whole is in certain passages a better authority
than _Le journal du siege_.]

[Footnote 938: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 104, 105 (Pasquerel's
evidence).]

"As for entering the town," she said, "it would hurt me to leave my
men, and I