ith him. The Count of Armagnac joined the King's party.
For the baptism of his children the Count had holy water blessed by
Benedict XIII brought from Peniscola. He likewise was excommunicated.
The blow had fallen upon him in this very year, 1429. Thus for some
months he had been deprived of the sacraments and excluded from public
worship. Hence arose all manner of secular difficulties, in addition
to which he was probably afraid of the devil.

Moreover his position was becoming impossible. His powerful ally, King
Alfonso, gave in, and himself called upon Clement VIII to resign. When
he addressed his inquiry to the Maid of France, the Armagnac was
evidently meditating the withdrawal of his allegiance from an
unfortunate anti-pope, who was himself renouncing or about to renounce
the tiara; for Clement VIII abdicated at Peniscola on the 26th of
July. The dictation of the Count's letter cannot have occurred long
before that date and may have been after. At any rate whenever he
dictated it he must have been aware of the position of the Sovereign
Pontiff Clement VIII.

As for the third Pope mentioned in his missive, Benedict XIV, he had
no tidings of him, and indeed he was keeping very quiet. His election
to the Holy See had been singular in that it had been made by one
cardinal alone. Benedict XIV's right to the papacy had been
communicated to him by a cardinal created by the Anti-pope, Benedict
XIII, at the time of his promotion in 1409. That Cardinal was Jean
Barrere, a Frenchman, Bachelor of laws, priest and Cardinal of
Saint-Etienne _in Coelio monte_. It was not to Benedict XIV that the
Armagnac was thinking of giving his allegiance; obviously he was eager
to submit to Martin V.

It is not easy therefore to discover why he should have asked Jeanne
to indicate the true pope. Doubtless it was customary in those days to
consult on all manner of questions those holy maids to whom God
vouchsafed illumination. Such an one the Maid appeared, and her fame
as a prophetess had been spread abroad in a very short time. She
revealed hidden things, she drew the curtain from the future. We are
reminded of that _capitoul_[1695] of Toulouse, who about three weeks
after the deliverance of Orleans, advised her being consulted as to a
remedy for the corruption of the coinage. Bona of Milan, married to a
poor gentleman in the train of her cousin, Queen Ysabeau, besought the
Maid's help in her endeavour to regain the duchy which she claim