HOW THE MAID CLEARED THE KING'S WAY.
We started forth from Selles, where the army which was to do this
work had assembled. It was not so great a force as it would have
been but for the hesitations of the King, and the delays imposed by
his Council. For the men who had marched from Orleans, flushed with
victory, eager to rush headlong upon the foe and drive them back to
their own shores, had grown weary of the long waiting, and had been
infected by the timidity or the treachery of those about the Court.
They had melted away by little and little, carrying with them the
booty they had found in the English bastilles round Orleans, glad
to return to their homes and their families without further
fighting, though had the Maid been permitted to place herself at
their head at once, as she did desire, they would have followed her
to the death.
Still, when all was said and done, it was a gallant troop that
responded to her call and mustered at her summons. The magic of her
name still thrilled all hearts, and throughout the march of events
which followed, it was always the common soldiers who trusted
implicitly in the Maid; they left doubts and disputings and
unworthy jealousies to the officers and the statesmen.
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