m to us for us to punish them."59 Dunois recalled that she loudly said "See that you all have good spurs!" When she was asked if this meant that they should retreat, she hotly replied no, they would need good spurs to chase after a fleeing enemy.60 Their spines thus stiffened, the French went on to win their greatest victory to that point in the war.
After the decisive triumph at Patay, it was time to get Charles to Rheims.61 Joan and her co-commanders set out at the head of the army. The Dauphin Charles became a prisoner of the success of his own subjects. The crisis of the march on Rheims came when the city of Troyes closed its gates in the faces of Joan, the Dauphin, and the army. Troyes became the apogee of Joan’s career as a true battle commander. Troyes was strongly defended and the supply situation of the army was tenuous. After several days of dithering by Charles, Joan once more had to burst into a royal war council to demand immediate aggressive action. "For in God’s name, within three days I will lead you into the city of Troyes by love, force, courage,... "was how Dunois recalled her exhortation to battle. ‘Then," continued Dunois,
the Maid immediately went over with the King’s army, and pitched her camp alongside the moat. The positions she took up were so admirable that even the two or three most famous and experienced captains would not have made as good a plan of battle. Indeed, the work that she did that night was so effective that the next day the bishop and citizens of the city offered their allegiance to the King, in fear and trembling.62
Jean Chartier claimed in his chronicle that Joan took charge of placing the big cannons to aim them at the walls.63 Simon Charles, that observant royal court bureaucrat, was present at these events. He testified that it was Joan who gave the orders to make bundles of tree branches with which to fill in the moat and Joan who gave the order to commence the attack -- then the city surrendered in terror without a fight.64 This is the clearest case we have to show that a teenage peasant girl was the true commander of the royal army of France.
The march to Rheims continued and on July 17, 1429, Charles felt the crown come to rest on his head while the warrior girl who put it there stood behind him, magnificent in her shining armor.
In one of the bitterest tragedies of history, the day Charles received the crown, he started to knock the legs out from underneath the people whose courage had brought him to the crown.65 The moment was perfect for an immediate march on Paris to take back France’s capital. The English and Burgundians were in panicked disarray and the city was weakly defended. Instead, Charles immobilized the army and Joan while he entered into negotiations with the enemies of his people and his country. Weeks dragged by while the English and Burgundians used the negotiations as a cover to massively reinforce the garrison of Paris and to refurbish the city walls. Joan and d’Alençon could only seethe in fury. On August 14, they led the French in an inconclusive confrontation with a large Anglo-Burgundian army at Montepilloy. At last, on September 8, weeks after the moment had passed, Charles allowed his champions to attack Paris. Joan suffered her first repulse, made even more bitter by the arrow shot through her thigh. Now, Charles’ conduct descended to treason. Joan and d’Alençon had hoped to renew the attack from a different direction by crossing a timber bridge over the Seine that d’Alençon had ordered built for just that purpose. Their rage and disgust must have been total when they found that the bridge had been secretly demolished on Charles’ orders. Charles ordered a retreat back to the territory that had always been his and on September 21, he disbanded the great army with which Joan, Dunois, d’Alençon and the rest had saved France.66 Joan and her loving circle of co-commanders went their ways, never to see each other again.
Charles conferring titles of nobility on Joan and her family did little to make her feel better.67 She continued to carry on the war