a Barres
cannot be identified, there are many houses in the street of Saint
Maurice old enough to have witnessed the advent of the Maid on that
memorable Sunday in the month of March 1430. Few French towns are so
rich in the domestic architecture of the better kind dating from the
early part of the fifteenth century as that of Chinon; and now that
Rouen, Orleans, and Poitiers have been so terribly modernised, a
journey to Chinon well repays the trouble. Little imagination is
required to picture the street with its crowd of courtiers and Court
hangers-on, upon their way to and from the castle above; so mercifully
have time and that far greater destroyer of things of yore dealt with
this old thoroughfare.

Two days elapsed before Joan was admitted to the presence of the King.
A council had been summoned in the castle to determine whether the
Maid should be received by the monarch. The testimony of the knights
who had accompanied the Maid from Vaucouleurs carried the day in her
favour.

While waiting to see the King, we have from Joan's own lips a
description of how her time was passed. 'I was constantly at prayers
in order that God should send the King a sign. I was lodging with a
good woman when that sign was given him, and then I was summoned to
the King.'

The church in which she passed her time in prayer was doubtless that
of Saint Maurice, close by the place at which she lodged. It owed its
origin to Henry II. of England; it is a rare and beautiful little
building of good Norman architecture, but much defaced by modern
restoration. Its age is marked by the depth at which its pavement
stands, the ground rising many feet above its present level.

A reliable account of Joan of Arc's interview with King Charles has
come down to us, as have so many other facts in her life's history,
through the witnesses examined at the time of the heroine's
rehabilitation. Foremost among these is the testimony of a priest
named Pasquerel, who was soon to become Joan's almoner, and to
accompany her in her warfare. He tells how, when Joan was on her road
to enter the castle, a soldier used some coarse language as he saw the
young Maid pass by--some rude remark which the fellow qualified with
an oath. Turning to him, the Maid rebuked him for blaspheming, and
added that he had denied his God at the very moment in which he would
be summoned before his Judge, for that within an hour he would appear
before the heavenly throne. The soldier