to take that big
bastille, and must. The English fought like--well, they fought like the
English; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made assault
after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening
cannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place
with a rush, and planted our standard on its walls.

The Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be ours, too, if we would free
the bridge and raise the siege. We had achieved one great undertaking,
Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We must lie on our arms
where we were, hold fast to what we had got, and be ready for business in
the morning. So Joan was not minded to let the men be demoralized by
pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins burned, with all
its stores in it, excepting the artillery and ammunition.

Everybody was tired out with this long day's hard work, and of course
this was the case with Joan; still, she wanted to stay with the army
before the Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning. The
chiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded her to go home and prepare
for the great work by taking proper rest, and also by having a leech look
to a wound which she had received in her foot. So we crossed with them
and went home.

Just as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy, all the bells
clanging, everybody shouting, and several people drunk. We never went out
or came in without furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one of
these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always on hand. There had
been a blank absence of reasons for this sort of upheavals for the past
seven months, therefore the people too to the upheavals with all the more
relish on that account.

Chapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend

TO GET away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan went
with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied together,
and there they took their supper and there the wound was dressed. But
then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent the Dwarf for
me, in spite of Catherine's protests and persuasions. She said she had
something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy with a letter
for our old Pere Fronte to read to her mother. I came, and she began to
dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her mother and family,
came this:

"But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you
presently hear tha