Was Paris in the
King's hands in less than seven years? Were the English driven from
France in less than twenty?
She was wounded, too; and had been forcibly carried away from the
field of battle; but it was against her own will. She would have
fought through thick and thin, had the King's commands not
prevailed; and even then she begged to be left with a band of
soldiers at St. Denis.
"My voices tell me to remain here," she said; but alas! her voices
were regarded no longer by the King, whose foolish head and
cowardly heart were under other influences than that of the Maid,
to whom he had promised so much such a short while since.
And so his word prevailed, and we were perforce obliged to retreat
from those walls we had so confidently desired to storm. And there
in the church of St. Denis, where she had knelt so many hours in
prayer and supplication, the Maid left her beautiful silver armour,
which had so often flashed its radiant message of triumph to her
soldiers, and with it that broken sword--broken outside the walls
of Paris, and which no skill had sufficed to mend--which had been
taken from St Catherine's Church in Fierbois.
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