ayer, Maitre Mousque. On that day, the end of which he was never
to see, as he was going to the Bridge of Montereau, Maitre Mousque
counselled him not to advance any further, prophesying that he would
not return. The Duke continued on his way and was killed.[653] The
Dauphin Charles confided in Jean des Builhons, in Germain de
Thibonville and in all others of the peaked cap.[654]

[Footnote 653: Chastellain, vol. iii, p. 446.]

[Footnote 654: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i,
p. 173.]

He always had two or three astrologers at court. These almanac makers
drew up schemes of nativity, cast horoscopes and read in the sky the
approach of wars and revolutions. One of them, Maitre Rolland the
Scrivener, a fellow of the University of Paris, was one night, at a
certain hour, observing the heavens from his roof, when he saw the
apex of Virgo in the ascendant, Venus, Mercury, and the sun half way
up the sky.[655] This his colleague, Guillaume Barbin of Geneva,
interpreted to mean that the English would be driven from France and
the King restored by the hand of a mere maid.[656] If we may believe
the Inquisitor Brehal, some time before Jeanne's coming into France, a
clever astronomer of Seville, Jean de Montalcin by name, had written
to the King among other things the following words: "By a virgin's
counsel thou shalt be victorious. Continue in triumph to the gates of
Paris."[657]

[Footnote 655: I here correct the text of Simon de Phares (_Trial_,
vol. iv, p. 536) according to the written opinion of M. Camille
Flammarion.]

[Footnote 656: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 536.]

[Footnote 657: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 341.]

At that very time the Dauphin Charles had with him at Chinon an old
Norman astrologer, one Pierre, who may have been Pierre de
Saint-Valerien, canon of Paris. The latter had recently returned from
Scotland, whither, accompanied by certain nobles, he had gone to fetch
the Lady Margaret, betrothed to the Dauphin Louis. Not long afterwards
this Maitre Pierre was, rightly or wrongly, believed to have read in
the sky that the shepherdess from the Meuse valley was appointed to
drive out the English.[658]

[Footnote 658: Recueil de Simon de Phares, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.
32, note.]

Jeanne had not long to wait in her inn. Two days after her arrival,
what she had so ardently desired came to pass: she was taken to the
King.[659] In the last century near the Grand-Carroy, opposite a
wooden-fronte