Enter a French Sergeant of a Band, with two
Sentinels on the walls
SERGEANT
Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.
If any noise or soldier you perceive
Near to the walls, by some apparent sign
Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.
SENTINEL
Sergeant, you shall.
Exit Sergeant
Thus are poor servitors,
When others sleep upon their quiet beds,
Constrained to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.
Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, and soldiers, with
scaling-ladders
TALBOT
Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
By whose approach the regions of Artois,
Walloon, and Picardy are friends to us,
This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
Having all day caroused and banqueted;
Embrace we then this opportunity,
As fitting best to quittance their deceit
Contrived by art and baleful sorcery.
BEDFORD
Coward of France! How much he wrongs his fame,
Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,
To join with witches and the help of hell!
BURGUNDY
Traitors have never other company.
But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?
TALBOT
A maid, they say.
BEDFORD
A maid? and be so martial?
BURGUNDY
Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,
If underneath the standard of the French
She carry armour as she hath begun.
TALBOT
Well, let them practise and converse with spirits.
God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.
BEDFORD
Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.
TALBOT
Not all together; better far, I guess,
That we do make our entrance several ways;
That, if it chance the one of us do fail,
The other yet may rise against their force.
BEDFORD
Agreed; I'll to yond corner.
BURGUNDY
And I to this.
TALBOT
And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave.
Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right
Of English Henry, shall this night appear
How much in duty I am bound to both.
FIRST SENTINEL
Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault!
The English scale the walls, cry ‘ Saint George!
À Talbot!’, and exeunt
The French leap over the walls in their shirts. Enter,
several ways, the Bastard, Alençon, Reignier, half
ready and half unready
ALENÇON
How now, my lords? What, all unready so?
BASTARD
Unready? Ay, and glad we 'scaped so well.
REIGNIER
'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,
Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.
ALENÇON
Of all exploits since first I followed arms
Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise
More venturous or desperate than this.
BASTARD
I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
REIGNIER
If not of hell, the heavens sure favour him.
ALENÇON
Here cometh Charles. I marvel how he sped.
Enter Charles and Joan la Pucelle
BASTARD
Tut, holy Joan was his defensive guard.
CHARLES
Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,
first, at at once, immediately, from the start
Make us partakers of a little gain
That now our loss might be ten times so much?
PUCELLE
Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
At all times will you have my power alike?
Sleeping or waking must I still prevail,
Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?
Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good,
This sudden mischief never could have fallen.
CHARLES
Duke of Alençon, this was your default
That, being captain of the watch tonight,
Did look no better to that weighty charge.
ALENÇON
Had all your quarters been as safely kept
As that whereof I had the government,
We had not been thus shamefully surprised.
BASTARD
Mine was secure.
REIGNIER
And so was mine, my lord.
CHARLES
And for myself, most part of all this night
Within her quarter and mine own precinct
I was employed in passing to and fro
About relieving of the sentinels.
Then how or which way should they first break in?
PUCELLE
Question, my lords, no further of the case,
How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place
But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
And now there rests no other shift but this:
To gather our soldiers, scattered and dispersed,
And lay new platforms to endamage them.
Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying ‘ À Talbot!
À Talbot!’ They fly, leaving their clothes behind
SOLDIER
I'll be so bold to take what they have left.
The cry of ‘ Talbot ’ serves me for a sword;
For I have loaden me with many spoils,
Using no other weapon but his name.
Exit