l_, vol. iii, p. 22. These facts were known at
Lyons on the 22nd of April, 1429. (Clerk of the Chambre des Comptes of
Brabant, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 426.)]

Having journeyed as far as the Plain of Beauce, where King John,
impatient for battle, was encamped with his army, the vavasour of
Champagne entered the camp and asked to see the wisest and best of the
King's liegemen at court. The nobles, to whom this request was
carried, began to laugh. But one among them, who had with his own eyes
seen the vavasour, recognised at once that he was a good, simple man
and without guile. He said to him: "If thou hast any advice to give,
go to the King's chaplain." The vavasour therefore went to King John's
chaplain and said to him: "Obtain for me an audience of the King; I
have something to tell that I will say to no one but to him." "What is
it?" asked the chaplain. "Tell me what is in your heart." But the good
man would not reveal his secret. The chaplain went to King John and
said to him: "Sire, there is a worthy man here who seems to me wise in
his way. He desires to say to you something that he will tell to you
alone." King John refused to see the good man. He summoned his
confessor, and, accompanied by the chaplain, sent him to learn the
vavasour's secret. The two priests went to the man and told him that
the King had appointed them to hear him. At this announcement,
despairing of ever seeing King John, and trusting to the Confessor and
the chaplain not to reveal his secret to any but the King, he uttered
these words: "While I was alone in the fields, a voice spake unto me
three times, saying: 'Go unto King John of France and warn him that he
fight not with any of his enemies.' Obedient to that voice am I come
to bring the tidings to King John." Having heard the vavasour's secret
the confessor and the chaplain took him to the King, who laughed at
him. With his comrades-in-arms he advanced to Poitiers, where he met
the Black Prince. He lost his whole army in battle, and, twice wounded
in the face, was taken prisoner by the English.[647]

[Footnote 647: S. Luce, _Chronique des quatre premiers Valois_, Paris,
1861, in 8vo, pp. 46, 48.]

The ecclesiastics, who had examined Jeanne, held various opinions
concerning her. Some declared that her mission was a hoax, and that
the King ought to beware of her.[648] Others on the contrary held
that, since she said she was sent of God, and that she had something
to tell the King, the Kin