ation. And we shall not be making too bold a
hypothesis if we conclude, that when the march on Reims was decided in
the royal council, it was because the Archbishop, on grounds suggested
by human reason, approved of what the Maid proposed by divine
inspiration.[1332]

[Footnote 1331: Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises_,
introduction.]

[Footnote 1332: See _ante_, pp. 153-159.]

While the coronation campaign was attended with grave drawbacks and
met with serious obstacles, it nevertheless brought great gain and a
certain subtle advantage to the royal cause. Unfortunately it left
free from attack the rest of France occupied by the English, and it
gave the latter time to recover themselves and procure aid from over
sea. We shall shortly see what good use they made of their
opportunities.[1333] As to the advantages of the expedition, they were
many and various. First, Jeanne truly expressed the sentiments of the
poor priests and the common folk when she said that the Dauphin would
reap great profit from his anointing.[1334] From the oil of the holy
Ampulla the King would derive a splendour, a majesty which would
impress the whole of France, yea, even the whole of Christendom. In
those days royalty was alike spiritual and temporal; and multitudes of
men believed with Jeanne that kings only became kings by being
anointed with the holy oil. Thus it would not be wrong to say that
Charles of Valois would receive greater power from one drop of oil
than from ten thousand lances. On a consideration like this the King's
Councillors must needs set great store. They had also to take into
account the time and the place. Might not the ceremony be performed in
some other town than Reims? Might not the so-called "mystery" take
place in that city which had been delivered by the intercession of its
blessed patrons, Saint-Aignan and Saint Euverte? Two kings descended
from Hugh Capet, Robert the Wise and Louis the Fat, had been crowned
at Orleans.[1335] But the memory of their royal coronation was lost in
the mists of antiquity, while folk still retained the memory of a long
procession of most Christian kings anointed in the town where the holy
oil had been brought down to Clovis by the celestial dove.[1336]
Besides, the lord Archbishop and Duke of Reims would never have
suffered the King to receive his anointing save at his hand and in his
cathedral.

[Footnote 1333: Morosini, vol. iv, supplement, xvii.]

[Footnote 1334: _Trial