ued light upon the massed armor, but striking
bright upon the soaring lance-heads--a vaguely luminous nebula, so to
speak, with a constellation twinkling above it--and that was our guard of
honor. It joined us, the procession was complete, the first war-march of
Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain was up.

Chapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army

WE WERE at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures of
my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than there
is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roaring and drinking about,
whooping, shouting, swearing, and entertaining themselves with all manner
of rude and riotous horse-play; and the place was full of loud and lewd
women, and they were no whit behind the men for romps and noise and
fantastics.

It was in the midst of this wild mob that Noel and I had our first
glimpse of La Hire. He answered to our dearest dreams. He was of great
size and of martial bearing, he was cased in mail from head to heel, with
a bushel of swishing plumes on his helmet, and at his side the vast sword
of the time.

He was on his way to pay his respects in state to Joan, and as he passed
through the camp he was restoring order, and proclaiming that the Maid
had come, and he would have no such spectacle as this exposed to the head
of the army. His way of creating order was his own, not borrowed. He did
it with his great fists. As he moved along swearing and admonishing, he
let drive this way, that way, and the other, and wherever his blow
landed, a man went down.

"Damn you!" he said, "staggering and cursing around like this, and the
Commander-in-Chief in the camp! Straighten up!" and he laid the man flat.
What his idea of straightening up was, was his own secret.

We followed the veteran to headquarters, listening, observing,
admiring--yes, devouring, you may say, the pet hero of the boys of France
from our cradles up to that happy day, and their idol and ours. I called
to mind how Joan had once rebuked the Paladin, there in the pastures of
Domremy, for uttering lightly those mighty names, La Hire and the Bastard
of Orleans, and how she said that if she could but be permitted to stand
afar off and let her eyes rest once upon those great men, she would hold
it a privilege. They were to her and the other girls just what they were
to the boys. Well, here was one of them at last--and what was his errand?
It was hard to realize it, and yet it was true