Joan of Arc Author:Janet Tuckey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ORLEANS. JOAN being accepted, the National party made rapid preparations for the relief of Orleans. Queen Yolande and the Duke of Alenc,on wen... more »t to Blois to hasten the collecting of troops and supplies, and Joan soon followed them, accompanied by the Archbishop of Reims. Before long an army of about 6000 men was got together. It was commanded by the best Armagnac captains, the Marshal de Boussac, the Sire de Retz, La Hire, Florent d'llliers, Poton de Saintrailles, and others—strange comrades, most of them, for the pure Maid with her white banner and sacred sword. Her first care was that the army given her by God should be worthy of His favour. For the priests attached to it, she had a banner made with a picture of the Crucifixion, beneath which they said mass and sang hymns to the Virgin morning and evening. She entreated her soldiers to confess themselves, and The Maid's Letter, 43 banished from their camp the women of ill fame who would have followed it. Before leaving Blois, she sent to the besiegers of Orleans the letter she had dictated at Poitiers :— + JESUS MARIA. + " King of England, and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself Regent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you Thomas Lord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford, do right to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who is sent by God the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. She is sent hither by God to restore the blood royal. She is very ready to make peace if you will do her right by giving up France and paying for what you have held. And you archers, companions of war, noble and otherwise, who are before the good city of Orleans, begone into your own land in God's name, or expect news from the Maid who will shor...« less