d house, there was shown a well on the edge of which,
according to tradition, Jeanne set foot when she alighted from her
horse, before climbing the steep ascent leading to the Castle.
Through La Vieille Porte,[660] she was already crossing the moat when
the King was still hesitating as to whether he would receive her. Many
of his familiar advisers, and those not the least important,
counselled him to beware of a strange woman whose designs might be
evil. There were others who put it before him that this shepherdess
was introduced by letters from Robert de Baudricourt carried through
hostile provinces; that in journeying to the King she had forded many
rivers in a manner almost miraculous. On these considerations the King
consented to receive her.[661]

[Footnote 659: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 143.]

[Footnote 660: The kerb was removed during the Second Empire. Moreover
it is admitted that no faith should be put in such traditions. G. de
Cougny, _Charles VII et Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon_, Tours, 1877, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 661: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 75; vol. iii, p. 115. _Chronique de
la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, pp. 46, 47. Th. Basin,
_Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 68.]

The great hall was crowded. As at every audience given by the King the
room was close with the breath of the assembled multitude. The vast
chamber presented that aspect of a market-house or of a rout which was
so familiar to courtiers. It was evening; fifty torches flamed beneath
the painted beams of the roof.[662] Men of middle age in robes and
furs, young, smooth-faced nobles, thin and narrow shouldered, of
slender build, their lean legs in tight hose, their feet in long,
pointed shoes; barons fully armed to the number of three hundred,
according to Aulic custom, pushed, crowded and elbowed each other
while the usher was here and there striking the courtiers on the head
with his rod.[663]

[Footnote 662: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75, 141.]

[Footnote 663: Le Curial, in _Les oeuvres de Maistre Alain
Chartier_, ed. Du Chesne, Paris, 1642, in 4to, p. 398.]

Besides the two ambassadors from Orleans, Messire Jamet du Tillay and
the old baron Archambaud de Villars, governor of Montargis, there were
present Simon Charles, Master of Requests, as well as certain great
nobles, the Count of Clermont, the Sire de Gaucourt, and probably the
Sire de La Tremouille and my Lord the Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor
of the kingdom.[664] On hearing