Thus, full of spirits and with a brave heart, the Maid rode off to meet the foe. When she reached the gate called Burgundy, she found it closed by order of De Gaucourt, Grand Master of the King's Household, who had done so at the instigation of those officers who wished the attack on the English deferred until fresh reinforcements arrived. But the Maid was not to be beaten and kept back even by barred gates.
'You are doing a bad deed,' she indignantly said to those about the gate, 'and whether you wish it or not, my soldiers shall pass.'
The gate was opened, and Joan, followed by her men, galloped to where some troops who had been left in possession of the fortifications taken on the previous day were stationed. The attack on the Tournelles commenced as soon as Joan arrived--it was then between six and seven in the morning. Meanwhile Dunois, La Hire, and the principal forces from the town came up. A desperate struggle ensued; both sides knew that, whatever the result, that day would decide the fate of Orleans--even that of the war.
The French were fighting under the eyes of their countrymen, who manned the walls, and under the guidance of a leader they already regarded as more than human--and never had they fought so well, during that long and bloody century of warfare, as they did on that day.
The English, on the other hand, knew that if they were beaten out of the Tournelles their defeat would be complete, and they too fought with desperate courage.
Down into the ditches rushed the French, and up the sides of the glacis; scaling-ladders were placed against the walls, to which the men upon them clung like a swarm of bees. The defenders met them with showers of arrows and shot, and hurled them back with lance and hatchets. Constantly beaten back, they returned as constantly to the charge. For six hours this fight lasted, and weariness and discouragement fell on the French. Joan, who had been all these hours in the thick of the engagement, seeing her men were losing heart, redoubled her efforts; and, helping to raise a scaling-ladder, she placed it against the parapet of one of the towers. While thus engaged she was struck by a bolt from a cross-bow, between her shoulder and neck. The wound was a severe one; she fell, and was carried out of the press. Although she suffered acutely, she had the nerve to draw the arrow from the wound. She refused to have the wound 'charmed,' as some of those standing around her suggested, saying she would sooner die than do anything that might be displeasing in the sight of Heaven. A compress, steeped in oil, was then applied, and it staunched the bleeding. She was faint and unnerved, and, as she seemed to feel her death was near, made her confession to her priest.