their children in turn grew up, married, died--the war raged on; their
children, growing, saw France struck down again; this time under the
incredible disaster of Agincourt--and still the war raged on, year after
year, and in time these children married in their turn.

France was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to
England, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half belonged
to nobody--in three months would be flying the English flag; the French
King was making ready to throw away his crown and flee beyond the seas.

Now came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and
confronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that had
swept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest and most
amazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven weeks it was
finished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that gigantic war that
was ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it a staggering blow; on
the field of Patay she broke its back.

Think of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is another
matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that stupefying marvel.

Seven weeks--with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the most of
it, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began six thousand
strong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is said and believed
that in three battles alone--Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt--near a
hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without counting the thousand other
fights of that long war. The dead of that war make a mournful long
list--an interminable list. Of men slain in the field the count goes by
tens of thousands; of innocent women and children slain by bitter
hardship and hunger it goes by that appalling term, millions.