other hand we may conclude that the Queen of Sicily would not be
unfavourable to the march of the King, her son-in-law, in a north
easterly direction. This Spanish lady was possessed by the Angevin
mania. Reassured for the moment concerning the fate of her duchy of
Anjou, she was pursuing eagerly, and to the great hurt of the realm of
France, the establishment of her son Rene in the duchy of Bar and in
the inheritance of Lorraine. She cannot have been displeased,
therefore, when she saw the King keeping her an open road between Gien
and Troyes and Chalons. But since the Constable's exile she had lost
all influence over her son-in-law, and it is difficult to discover who
could have watched her interests in the Council of May, 1429.[1329]
Besides, without seeking further, it is obvious that there was one
person, who above all others must have desired the anointing of the
King, and who more than any was in a position to make his opinion
prevail. That person was the man on whom devolved the duty of holding
in his consecrated hands the Sacred Ampulla, my Lord Regnault de
Chartres, Archbishop Duke of Reims, Chancellor of the Kingdom.[1330]

[Footnote 1326: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1327: Perceval de Cagny, p. 170.]

[Footnote 1328: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 310.]

[Footnote 1329: E. Cosneau, _Le connetable de Richemont_, pp. 179 _et
seq._]

[Footnote 1330: Even after the coronation Regnault de Chartres would
not "suffer the Maid and the Duke of Alencon to be together nor that
he should recover her." Perceval de Cagny, p. 171.]

He was a man of rare intelligence, skilled in business, a very clever
diplomatist, greedy of wealth, caring less for empty honours than for
solid advantage, avaricious, unscrupulous, one who at the age of about
fifty had lost nothing of his consuming energy; he had recently
displayed it by spending himself nobly in the defence of Orleans. Thus
gifted, how could he fail to exercise a powerful control over the
government?

Fifteen years had passed since his elevation to the archiepiscopal see
of Reims; and of his enormous revenue he had not yet received one
penny. Albeit the possessor of great wealth from other sources, he
pleaded poverty. To the Pope he addressed heart-rending
supplications.[1331] If the Maid had found favour in the eyes of the
Poitiers doctors, Monseigneur Regnault had had something to do with
it. Had it not been for him, the doctors at court would never have
proposed her examin