At such moments she appeared gifted with a power impossible rightly to describe.

Without setting herself up in haughtiness, she yet overbore all opposition by her serene composure and calm serenity in the result.

Men of war said that she spoke like a soldier and a strategist; they listened to her in amaze, and wondered what the great La Hire would say when he should arrive, to find that a country maiden had been set over his head.
In other matters, too, the Maid knew her mind, and spoke it with calm decision.

The Queen of Sicily had not been content with ordering the Maid's dress alone, she had also given orders to the first armourer in Tours to fashion her a suit of light armour for the coming strife.

This armour was of white metal, and richly inlaid with silver, so that when the sun glinted upon it, it shone with a dazzling white radiance, almost blinding to behold.