It was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead
assault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally
and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last
the tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon, who
was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on his
head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after
him--as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of the
staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to come,
saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye danced
merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:

"A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thousand, and will never budge
till this place is taken!

"Sound the charge!"

Which he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old
D'Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she meant was, that she
felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a
fanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer word was never said.

Then there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched
Burgundians through the open field four times, the last time
victoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the free-booter and
pitiless scourge of the region roundabout.

Now and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of May,
1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegne, and Joan resolved to go
to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke of