urt nobles, warrior nobles, captains of independent bands -- and a new, unprecedented, explosive factor in the person of Joan. As before, the testimony given in Joan’s retrial must be the foundation of any effort to grasp the truth of the situation.
In the retrial, Simon Charles, who served as President of the Chamber of Accounts to Dauphin and King Charles VII, and who accompanied the army in the field, testified that "Joan was very simple in all her actions, except in the conduct of war, in which she was altogether an expert."35 A knight named Thibault d’Armagnac stated
Except in matters of war, she was simple and innocent. But in the leading and drawing up of armies and in the conduct of war, in disposing an army for battle and haranguing the soldiers, she behaved like the most experienced captain in all the world, like one with a whole lifetime of experience. 36
In everything that she did, apart from the conduct of the war, Joan was young and simple; but in the conduct of war she was most skillful, both in carrying a lance herself, in drawing up the army in battle order, and in placing the artillery. And everyone was astonished that she acted with such prudence and clear-sightedness in military matters, as cleverly as some great captain with twenty or thirty years experience; and especially in the placing of artillery, for in that she acquitted herself magnificently.37
These general comments find backing in specific instances of Joan’s words and deeds. During the series of battles that Joan participated in to break the English siege of Orléans, it was Dunois who held the ultimate authority of command. Nonetheless, Joan made herself into a loud and forceful voice in the conduct of operations. When she arrived outside the city with the relief army behind her on April 28, 1429, Dunois rode out from the city, passed through the gap in the still incomplete English encirclement, and met Joan face to face. Dunois testified that Joan became livid when she realized that, following Dunois’ orders, she and the relief army had arrived at the city on the side of the Loire River that was away from the main English forces. Joan had been hot to launch an immediate attack on the English and she felt that Dunois had deceived her by having her army approach from the direction it did. Dunois recalled that Joan immediately burst out at him "In God’s name, the counsel of the Lord God is wiser and surer than yours. You thought you had deceived me but it is you who have deceived yourselves, for I am bringing you better help than ever you got from any soldier or any city. It is the help of the King of Heaven."38 As was to become commonplace, Joan ascribed the source of her strategic and tactical insights to divine guidance. Whether Joan was sincere in this or merely used the claim of divine guidance as a means to win the credibility that an illiterate peasant girl could never command on her own is something that must forever remain unknown.
After this rough beginning Joan accompanied Dunois back into Orléans on April 29. The people of the city gave her the rapturous welcome previously described. Over the next few days, she and Dunois quickly overcame any ill-feeling between them and established a close relationship that would last for as long as they made war together.
Dunois continued his testimony saying that as eager as Joan was to get into the fight, she still insisted on sending a letter of ultimatum to the English, demanding that they lift their siege or suffer the consequences.39 Joan sent the English another ultimatum on May 5 which Pasquerel quoted in his testimony for the retrial. She declared that "the King of Heaven orders and commands you through me, Joan the Maid, to leave your fortresses and return to your country, and if you do not so I shall make an uproar that will be perpetually remembered" (emphasis mine).40 Joan took this tone in many of the pieces of correspondence that she dictated to scribes and had sent to the powerful, both friends and enemies. Obviously, she had no doubts about the power of her own authority, even 