Then came the Marshal de Boussac, Guy de Cailly, Pierre and Jean d'Arc, Jean de Metz, and Bertrand de Poulengy, the Sire d'Aulon, and those lords, captains, men-of-war, and citizens who had come to meet her at Checy.[954] Bearing torches and rejoicing as heartily as if they had seen God himself descending among them, the townfolk of Orleans pressed around her.[955] They had suffered great privations, they had feared that help would never come; but now they were heartened and felt as if the siege had been raised already by the divine virtue, which they had been told resided in this Maid.

They looked at her with love and veneration; elbowing and pushing each other, men, women, and children rushed forward to touch her and her white horse, as folk touch the relics of saints.

In the crush a torch set her pennon on fire.

The Maid, beholding it, spurred on her horse and galloped to the flame, which she extinguished with a skill apparently miraculous; for everything in her was marvellous.[956] Men-at-arms and citizens, enraptured, accompanied her in crowds to the Church of Sainte-Croix, whither she went first to give thanks, then to the house of Jacques Boucher, where she was to lodge.[957] [Footnote 952: _Journal du siege_, pp.

74, 75.] [Footnote 953: And even now trumpeters ride white horses (_Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, by Lebrun de Charmettes, 1817, in 8vo, vol.ii, p.
21).] [Footnote 954: _Trial_, vol.iii, p.7._Journal du siege_, p.