ven in the hour of victory. His favorite, La Tremoille, and his
chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan's entreaties with all
the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill
will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey;
and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing.
Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice,
and tapped softly at the door of the king's privy chamber (chambre de re-
trait). He bade her enter. She fell upon her knees, saying, "Gentle
_dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to
Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you
thither." "Joan," said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d'Harcourt,
the king's confessor, "cannot you tell the king what pricketh you?"
"Ah! I see," replied Joan, with some embarrassment: "well, I will tell
you. I had set me to prayer, according to my wont, and I was making
complaint for that you would not believe what I said; then the voice came
and said unto me, 'Go, go, my daughter; I will be a help to thee; go.'
When this voice comes to me, I feel marvellously rejoiced; I would that
it might endure forever." She was eager and overcome.

Joan and her voices were not alone in urging the king to shake off his
doubts and his indolence. In church, and court, and army, allies were
not wanting to the pious and valiant maid. In a written document dated
the 14th of May, six days after the siege of Orleans was raised, the most
Christian doctor of the age, as Gerson was called, sifted the question
whether it were possible, whether it were a duty, to believe in the Maid.
"Even if (which God forbid)," said he, "she should be mistaken in her
hope and ours, it would not necessarily follow that what she does comes
of the evil spirit, and not of God, but that rather our ingratitude was
to blame. Let the party which hath a just cause take care how, by
incredulity or injustice, it rendereth useless the divine succor so
miraculously manifested, for God, without any change of counsel, changeth
the upshot according to deserts." Great lords and simple gentlemen, old
and young warriors, were eager to go and join Joan for the salvation of
the king and of France. The constable, De Richemont, banished from the
court through the jealous hatred of George la Tremoille, made a pressing
application there, followed by a body of men-at-arms; and