n's cause was lost in the Lorraine Marches, had every reason for
proceeding to the banks of the Loire, where they might still fight
with the hope of advantage.

On the eve of setting out, they appeared disposed to take the seeress
with them, and even to defray all her expenses, reckoning on repaying
themselves from the royal coffers at Chinon, and deriving honour and
advantage from so rare a marvel. But they waited to be assured of the
Dauphin's consent.[413]

[Footnote 413: Extract from the eighth report of Guillaume Charrier,
in the _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 257 _et seq._]

Meanwhile Jeanne could not rest. She came and went from Vaucouleurs to
Burey and from Burey to Vaucouleurs. She counted the days; time
dragged for her as for a woman with child.[414]

[Footnote 414: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 447.]

At the end of January, feeling she could wait no longer, she resolved
to go to the Dauphin Charles alone. She clad herself in garments
belonging to Durand Lassois, and with this kind cousin set forth on
the road to France.[415] A man of Vaucouleurs, one Jacques Alain,
accompanied them.[416] Probably these two men expected that the damsel
would herself realise the impossibility of such a journey and that
they would not go very far. That is what happened. The three
travellers had barely journeyed a league from Vaucouleurs, when, near
the Chapel of Saint Nicholas, which rises in the valley of Septfonds,
in the middle of the great wood of Saulcy, Jeanne changed her mind and
said to her comrades that it was not right of her to set out thus.
Then they all three returned to the town.[417]

[Footnote 415: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 53; vol. ii, pp. 443 _et seq._]

[Footnote 416: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 445-447.]

[Footnote 417: _Ibid._, pp. 447-457.]

At length a royal messenger brought King Charles's reply to the
Commander of Vaucouleurs. The messenger was called Colet de
Vienne.[418] His name indicates that he came from the province which
the Dauphin had governed before the death of the late King, and which
had remained unswervingly faithful to the unfortunate prince. The
reply was that Sire Robert should send the young saint to
Chinon.[419]

[Footnote 418: _Ibid._, p. 406. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p.
160, note 6.]

[Footnote 419: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 314, 315. Anonymous poem on
the arrival of the Maid, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 30.]

That which Jeanne had demanded and which it had seemed impossible to
obtain was g