354 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. Be this as it may. from this time the marvellous fortune which had attended her disappears ; alternations of success and defeat show that either the French had lost the first flush of confident enthusiasm, or that the English had recovered from their panic and were doggedly resolved to fight the powers of hell. Bedford managed to put a respectable force in the field, with the assistance of Cardinal Beaufort, who made over to him, it was said for a heavy bribe, four thousand crusaders whom he was leading from England to the Hussite wars. He barred the way to Paris, and three times the opposing armies, of nearly equal strength, lay face to face, but Bedford always skilfully chose a strong position which Charles dared not attack, showing that human prudence had replaced the reckless confidence of the march to Reims. AVe catch a glimpse of the intrigues of the factions surrounding Charles in the attempted retreat to the Loire, frustrated at Bray- sur-Seine, when the defeat of the courtiers who assailed the En£- lish guarding the passage of the river was hailed with delight by Joan, Bourbon, Alencon. and the party opposed to La Tremouille. Charles, perforce, remained in the Xorth. Towards the end of August, Bedford, fearing an inroad on Xormandy, marched thither, leaving the road to Paris open, and Charles advanced to St. Denis, which he occupied without resistance, August 25. On September 7 an attempt was made to capture Paris by surprise, with the aid of friends within the walls, and this failing, on the 8th, the feast of the Xativity of the Virgin, an assault in force was made at the Porte St. Honore. The water in the inner moat, however, was too deep and the artillery on the walls too well served : after five or six hours of desperate fighting the assailants were disastrously repulsed with a loss of five hundred killed and one thousand wounded. As usual Joan had been at the front till she fell with an arrow through the leg, and her standard-bearer was slain by her side. Joan subsequently averred that she had had no counsel from her Voices to make this attempt, but had been over-per- suaded by the eager chivalry of the army ; but this is contradicted by contemporary evidence, and her letter to d' Armagnac promises him a reply when she shall have leisure in Paris, showing that she fully expected to capture the city.*
- Chronique, pp. 446-50. — Jean Chartier, p. 33-36.— Gorres, p. 215. — Monstre-
