nch soldiery, that in February 1429 a
mere detachment of archers under Sir John Fastolfe repulsed a whole army
in what was called "the Battle of the Herrings" from the convoy of
provisions which the victors brought in triumph into the camp before
Orleans. Though the town swarmed with men-at-arms not a single sally was
ventured on through the six months' siege, and Charles the Seventh did
nothing for its aid but shut himself up in Chinon and weep helplessly.

[Sidenote: Jeanne Darc]

But the success of this handful of besiegers rested wholly on the spell of
terror which had been cast over France, and at this moment the appearance
of a peasant maiden broke the spell. Jeanne Darc was the child of a
labourer of Domremy, a little village in the neighbourhood of Vaucouleurs
on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne. Just without the cottage where
she was born began the great woods of the Vosges where the children of
Domremy drank in poetry and legend from fairy ring and haunted well, hung
their flower garlands on the sacred trees, and sang songs to the "good
people" who might not drink of the fountain because of their sins. Jeanne
loved the forest; its birds and beasts came lovingly to her at her
childish call. But at home men saw nothing in her but "a good girl, simple
and pleasant in her ways," spinning and sewing by her mother's side while
the other girls went to the fields, tender to the poor and sick, fond of
church, and listening to the church-bell with a dreamy passion of delight
which never left her. This quiet life was broken by the storm of war as it
at last came home to Domremy. As the outcasts and wounded passed by the
little village the young peasant girl gave them her bed and nursed them in
their sickness. Her whole nature summed itself up in one absorbing
passion: she "had pity," to use the phrase for ever on her lip, "on the
fair realm of France." As her passion grew she recalled old prophecies
that a maid from the Lorraine border should save the land; she saw
visions; St. Michael appeared to her in a flood of blinding light, and
bade her go to the help of the king and restore to him his realm.
"Messire," answered the girl, "I am but a poor maiden; I know not how to
ride to the wars, or to lead men-at-arms." The archangel returned to give
her courage, and to tell her of "the pity" that there was in heaven for
the fair realm of France. The girl wept and longed that the angels who
appeared to her would carry he