 at Orléans -- and after the arrow was pulled out, returned to the forefront of the fight with redoubled ardor. Hundreds of men saw her take that arrow and hundreds of men saw her come back, a bloodstain at her shoulder, her good arm waving her banner, her voice carrying over the din, shouting for one more assault. At that sublime moment she became forever their Maid and they became forever her soldiers. There is a still extant chronicle called The Life of Guillaume de Gamaches. De Gamaches was a French knight who served in the defense of Orléans. According to The Life, when Joan first arrived in the city, de Gamaches called her "a little saucebox of low birth" in her presence and threatened to furl his banner rather than follow her. Mere days later, at the moment Joan was wounded, de Gamaches was one of the first to rush to her and stand over her to protect her. Speaking a deep apology, he offered his horse to carry her to safety.92 Joan had what it took to make the most haughty warrior nobleman accept and then admire her.
After a military female has displayed the strength and courage to win the acceptance and respect of her male peers, the fact that she is a female may become an asset rather than a liability to her. When a military female has shown herself good enough to be "one of the guys," and, if she retains a spirited, cheery, yet compassionate, sort of feminine charm, the "guys" may find the juxtaposition of her masculine and feminine traits all the more endearing. Multiple pieces of evidence demonstrate that Joan had precisely that kind of charm.
A French government official named Perceval de Boulainvilliers, who met Joan, wrote a letter describing her to the Duke of Milan. The letter described the mixture of masculine and feminine traits that fascinated and charmed de Boulainvilliers and innumerable other men who knew Joan:
This Maid has a certain elegance. She has a virile bearing, speaks little, shows an admirable prudence in all her words. She has a pretty, woman’s voice, eats little, drinks very little wine; she enjoys riding a horse and takes pleasure in fine arms, greatly likes the company of noble fighting men, detests numerous assemblies and meetings, readily sheds copious tears, has a cheerful face; she bears the weight and burden of armor incredibly well, to such a point that she has remained fully armed during six days and nights.93
Before battle, Joan was ferocious in councils of war as she constantly demanded that the army attack. During battle, she was ferocious as she placed herself at the head of every assault, heedless of danger and her own wounds. But after battle, the little girl in her came out as she spent as much time weeping over the English dead as the French. In the aftermath of the Battle of Patay, she even held a dying English soldier’s head in her lap to hear his confession and comfort him as he died.94 To the warrior men of her inner circle, the cycle of her conflicting moods must have been exhausting -- and endearing. She was strong and fierce when her men wanted a warrior comrade who was strong and fierce. She was gentle and kind when they most needed to be near a woman who was gentle and kind.
Frances Gies, in her Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality, further describes the natural charm that drew fighting men to the Maid. Gies asserts that low-born peasant girl Joan had the cheerful boldness to address the great noble d’Alençon with the familiar "tu" form rather than the formal "vous" form as would have been appropriate. Joan also, says Gies, kept up a "playful" rapport with d’Alençon, calling him her "gentle duke" and "pretty duke."95 D’Alençon, by his own testimony, was enraptured by Joan from the moment he met her and her informal playfulness must have been part of what charmed him. The squire Gobert Thibault testified that when he first met Joan, "she tapped me on the shoulder, saying that she would like to have a few men of my sort with her."96 It is easy to visualize Thibault blushing crimson -- and being charmed out of his boots. In his often-cited letter to his mother,