Chinon, announcing
the Maid's approach, and craving an audience. At length, on the 6th of
March, Joan of Arc arrived beneath the long stretch of castle walls of
the splendid old Castle of Chinon.

That imposing ruin on the banks of the river Vienne is even in its
present abandoned state one of the grandest piles of mediaeval building
in the whole of France. Crowning the rich vale of Touraine, with the
river winding below, and reflecting its castle towers in the still
water, this time-honoured home of our Plantagenet kings has been not
inaptly compared to Windsor. Beneath the castle walls and the river,
nestles the quaint old town, in which are mediaeval houses once
inhabited by the court and followers of the French and English kings.

When Joan arrived at Chinon, Charles's affairs were in a very perilous
state. The yet uncrowned King of France regarded the chances of being
able to hold his own in France as highly problematical. He had doubts
as to his legitimacy. Financially, so low were his affairs that even
the turnspits in the palace were clamouring for their unpaid wages.
The unfortunate monarch had already sold his jewels and precious
trinkets. Even his clothes showed signs of poverty and patching, and
to such a state of penury was he reduced that his bootmaker, finding
that the King was unable to pay him the price of a new pair of boots,
and not trusting the royal credit, refused to leave the new boots, and
Charles had to wear out his old shoe-leather. All that remained in the
way of money in the royal chest consisted of four gold 'ecus.' To such
a pitch of distress had the poor King, who was contemptuously called
by the English the King of Bourges, sunken.

Now that Orleans was in daily peril of falling into the hands of the
English, and with Paris and Rouen in their hold, the wretched
sovereign had serious thoughts of leaving his ever-narrowing territory
and taking refuge either in Spain or in Scotland. Up to this time in
his life Charles had shown little strength of character. His existence
was passed among a set of idle courtiers. He had placed himself and
his broken fortunes in the hands of the ambitious La Tremoille, whose
object it was that the King should be a mere cipher in his hands, and
who lulled him into a false security by encouraging him to continue a
listless career of self-indulgence in his various palaces and pleasure
castles on the banks of the Loire. Charles had, indeed, become a mere
tool i