It seemed to him that this fiery and furious new fashion of hurling masses of men against impregnable walls of stone, in defiance of the established laws and usages of war, was-- But he got no further. La Hire gave his plumed helm an impatient toss and burst out with:
"By God, she knows her trade, and none can teach it her!"
And before he could get out anything more, D'Alen‡on was on his feet, and the Bastard of Orleans, and a half a dozen others, all thundering at once, and pouring out their indignant displeasure upon any and all that mid hold, secretly or publicly, distrust of the wisdom of the Commander-in-Chief. And when they had said their say, La Hire took a chance again, and said:
"There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change, but those people are never able to see that they have got to change too, to meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten track that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they themselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip the land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and into morasses, those people can't learn that they must strike out a new road--no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one, to death and perdition. Men, there's a new state of things; and a surpassing military genius has perceived it with her clear eye. And a new road is required, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has marked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never will live, that can improve upon it! The old state of things was defeat, defeat, defeat--and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart, no hope. Would you assault stone walls with such? No--there was but one way with that kind: sit down before a place and wait, wait--starve it out, if you could. The new case is the very opposite; it is this: men all on fire with pluck and dash and vim and fury and energy--a restrained conflagration! What would you do with it? Hold it down and let it smolder and perish and go out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn it loose, by the Lord God of heaven and earth, and let it swallow up the foe in the whirlwind of its fires! Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom of her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing, and going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm! storm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his hole, then turn her French hurricanes loose and carry him by storm! And that is my sort! Jargeau? What of Jargeau, with its battlements and towers, its devastating artillery, its seven thousand picked veterans? Joan of Arc is to the fore, and by the splendor of God its fate is sealed!"
Oh, he carried them. There was not another word said about persuading Joan to change her tactics. They sat talking comfortably enough after that.
By and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted with their swords, and she asked what their pleasure might be. La Hire said:
"It is settled, my General. The matter concerned Jargeau. There were some who thought we could not take the place."
Joan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree laugh; the laugh that rippled so buoyantly from her lips and made old people feel young again to hear it; and she said to the company:
"Have no fears--indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We will strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see." Then a faraway look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home drifted across the vision of her mind; for she said very gently, and as one who muses, "But that I know God guides us and will give us success, I had liefer keep sheep than endure these perils."
We had a homelike farewell supper that evening--just the personal staff and the family.