od of France was being shed!... In God's
name, our people are hard put to it."[1010]

[Footnote 1010: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 68 (evidence of Louis de
Coutes).]

She bade him bring her horse and leave the wife and daughter of her
host to finish arming her. On his return the page found her fully
accoutred. She sent him to fetch her standard from her room. He gave
it her through the window. She took it and spurred on her horse into
the high street, towards the Burgundian Gate, at such a pace that
sparks flashed from the pavement.

"Hasten after her!" cried the treasurer's wife.[1011]

[Footnote 1011: _Ibid._, p. 69.]

Sire d'Aulon had not seen her start. He imagined, why, it is
impossible to say, that she had gone out on foot, and, having met a
page on horseback in the street, had made him dismount and give her
his horse.[1012] The Renard Gate and the Burgundian Gate were on
opposite sides of the town. Jeanne, who for the last three days had
been going up and down the streets of Orleans, took the most direct
way. Jean d'Aulon and the page, who were hastily pursuing her, did not
come up with her until she had reached the gate. There they met a
wounded man being brought into the town. The Maid asked his bearers
who the man was. He was a Frenchman, they replied. Then she said: "I
have never seen the blood of a Frenchman flow without feeling my heart
stand still."[1013]

[Footnote 1012: _Ibid._, p. 212.]

[Footnote 1013: _Ibid._, pp. 212, 213 (Jean d'Aulon's evidence).]

The Maid and Sire d'Aulon, with a few fighting men of their company,
pressed on through the fields to Saint-Loup. On the way they saw
certain of their party. The good squire, unaccustomed to great
battles, never remembered having seen so many fighting men at
once.[1014]

[Footnote 1014: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 213.]

For an hour the Sire de Rais' Bretons and the men from Le Mans had
been skirmishing before the bastion. As the custom was those who had
arrived last were keeping watch.[1015] But if these combatants, who
had reached the town only that very morning, had attacked without
taking time to breathe, they must have been hard pressed. They were
doing what had been done on the 29th of April, and for the same
reason:[1016] namely, occupying the English while the barges
corn-laden were coming down the river to the moat. On the top of their
high hill, in their strong fortress, the English had easily held out
albeit they were but few; and the French