where the service for the dead was chanted
as it passed along, they brought the body to
Westminster Abbey, and there buried it with
great respect and reverence.

It had been the wish of the late King, that
while his infant son KING HENRY THE SIXTH,
at this time only nine months old, was under
age, the Duke of Gloucester should be
appointed Regent. The English Parliament,
however, preferred to appoint a Council of
Regency, with the Duke of Bedford at its
head: to be represented, in his absence only,
by the Duke of Gloucester. The Parliament
would seem to have been wise in this, for
Gloucester soon showed himself to be
ambitious and troublesome, and, in the gratification
of his own personal schemes, gave dangerous
offence to the Duke of Burgundy, which was
with difficulty adjusted.

As that duke declined the Regency of
France, it was bestowed by the poor French
King upon the Duke of Bedford. But, the
French King dying within two months, the
Dauphin instantly asserted his claim to the
French throne, and was actually crowned
under the title of CHARLES THE SEVENTH. The
Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him,
entered into a friendly league with the Dukes
of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave them his
two sisters in marriage. War with France
was immediately renewed, and the Perpetual
Peace came to an untimely end.

In the first campaign, the English, aided by
this alliance, were speedily successful. As
Scotland, however, had sent the French five
thousand men, and might send more, or
attack the North of England while England
was busy with France, it was considered
that it would be a good thing to offer the
Scottish King, James, who had been so
long imprisoned, his liberty, on his paying
forty thousand pounds for his board and
lodging during nineteen years, and engaging
to forbid his subjects from serving under the
flag of France. It is pleasant to know, not
only that the amiable captive at last regained
his freedom upon these terms, but, that he
married a noble English lady with whom he
had been long in love, and became an excellent
King. I am afraid we have met with some
Kings in this history, and shall meet with
some more, who would have been very much
the better, and would have left the world
much happier, if they had been imprisoned
nineteen years too.

In the second campaign, the English gained
a considerable victory at Verneuil, in a battle
which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, for
their resorting to the odd expedient of tying
their baggage-horses together by the heads
and tails, and jumbling them up with the
baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of
live fortification—which was found useful to
the troops, but which I should think was not
agreeable to the horses. For three years
afterwards very little was done, owing to both
sides being too poor for war, which is a very
expensive entertainment; but, a council was
then held in Paris, in which it was decided to
lay siege to the town of Orleans, which was a
place of great importance to the Dauphin's
cause. An English army of ten thousand
men was dispatched on this service, under the
command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general
of fame. He being unfortunately killed early
in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took his
place; under whom (reinforced by SIR JOHN
FALSTAFF, who brought up four hundred
waggons laden with salt herrings and other
provisions for the troops, and, beating off the
French who tried to intercept him, came
victorious out of a hot skirmish, which was
afterwards called in jest the Battle of the
Herrings), the town of Orleans was so
completely hemmed in, that the besieged proposed
to yield it up to their countryman the Duke
of Burgundy. The English general, however,
replied that his English men had won it, so
far, by their blood and valor, and that his
English men must have it. There seemed to
be no hope for the town, or for the Dauphin,
who was so dismayed that he even thought
of flying to Scotland or to Spain when a
peasant girl rose up and changed the whole
state of affairs.

The story of this peasant girl I have now
to tell.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN a remote village among some wild hills
in the province of Lorraine, there lived a
countryman whose name was JACQUES D'ARC.
He had a daughter, JOAN OF ARC, who was at
this time in her twentieth year. She had been
a solitary girl from her childhood; she had
often tended sheep and cattle for whole days
where no human figure was seen or human
voice heard; and she had often knelt, for hours
together, in the gloomy empty little village
chapel, looking up at the altar and at the
dim lamp burning before it, until she fancied
that she saw shadowy figures standing there,
and even that she heard them speak to her.
The people in that part of France were very
ignorant and very superstitious, and they had
many ghostly tales to tell about what they
dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely
hills when the clouds and the mists were
resting on them. So, they easily believed that
Joan saw strange sights, and they whispered
among themselves that angels and spirits
talked to her.

At last, Joan told her father that she had
one day been surprised by a great unearthly
light, and had afterwards heard a solemn
voice, which said it was Saint Michael's voice,
telling her that she was to go and help the
Dauphin. Soon after this (she said), Saint
Catherine and Saint Margaret had appeared
to her, with sparkling crowns upon their
heads, and had encouraged her to be virtuous
and resolute. These visions had returned
sometimes; but the Voices very often; and