astic votaries. She urged the generals to attack the main body
of the English in their intrenchments, but Dunois, still unwilling to
hazard the fate of France by too great temerity, and sensible that the
least reverse of fortune would make all the present visions evaporate,
and restore every thing to its former condition, checked her vehemence
and proposed to her first to expel the enemy from their forts on the
other side of the river, and thus lay the communication with the country
entirely open, before she attempted any more hazardous enterprise. Joan
was persuaded, and these forts were vigorously assailed. In one attack
the French were repulsed; the maid was left almost alone; she was
obliged to retreat, and join the runaways; but, displaying her sacred
standard, and animating them with her countenance, her gestures, her
exhortations, she led them back to the charge, and overpowered the
English in their intrenchments. In the attack of another fort, she was
wounded in the neck with an arrow; she retreated a moment behind the
assailants; she pulled out the arrow with her own hands; she had the
wound quickly dressed; and she hastened back to head the troops, and to
plant her victorious banner on the ramparts of the enemy.

By all these successes, the English were entirely chased from their
fortifications on that side: they had lost above six thousand men in
these different actions; and, what was still more important, their
wonted courage and confidence were wholly gone, and had given place to
amazement and despair. The maid returned triumphant over the bridge, and
was again received as the guardian angel of the city. After performing
such miracles, she convinced the most obdurate incredulity of her divine
mission: men felt themselves animated as by a superior energy, and
thought nothing impossible to that divine hand which so visibly
conducted them. It was in vain even for the English generals to oppose
with their soldiers the prevailing opinion of supernatural influence:
they themselves were probably moved by the same belief: the utmost they
dared to advance was, that Joan was not an instrument of God; she was
only the implement of the devil: but as the English had felt, to their
sad experience, that the devil might be allowed sometimes to prevail,
they derived not much consolation from the enforcing of this opinion.

It might prove extremely dangerous for Suffolk, with such intimidated
troops, to remain any longer in