o Lettree to meet the King and
gave up to him the keys of the town. He was Jean de Montbeliard-Saarbrueck,
one of the Sires of Commercy.[1473]

[Footnote 1473: _Gallia Christiana_, vol. v, col. 891-895. _Chronique
de la Pucelle_, pp. 319-320. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p.
96. L. Barbat, _Histoire de la ville de Chalons_, 1855 (2 vols. in
4to), vol. i, p. 350. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, proofs and
illustrations no. 33. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 182, note 2.]

On the 14th of July the King and his army entered the town of
Chalons.[1474] There the Maid found four or five peasants from her
village come to see her, and with them Jean Morel, who was her
kinsman. By calling a husbandman, and about forty-three years of age,
he had fled with the d'Arc family to Neufchateau on the passing of the
men-at-arms. Jeanne gave him a red gown which she had worn.[1475] At
Chalons also she met another husbandman, younger than Morel by about
ten years, Gerardin from Epinal, whom she called her _compeer_,[1476]
just as she called Gerardin's wife Isabellette her _commere_[1477]
because she had held their son Nicolas over the baptismal font and
because a godmother is a mother in the spirit. At home in the village
Jeanne mistrusted Gerardin because he was a Burgundian. At Chalons she
showed more confidence in him and talked to him of the progress of the
army, saying that she feared nothing except treason.[1478] Already she
had dark forebodings; doubtless she felt that henceforth the frankness
of her soul and the simplicity of her mind would be hardly assailed by
the wickedness of men and the confusing forces of circumstance.
Already the words of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret
had lost some of their primitive clearness, for they had come to treat
of those French and Burgundian state secrets which were not heavenly
matters.

[Footnote 1474: J. Rogier, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 298. Letter from
three noblemen of Anjou in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 130. Perceval de Cagny,
p. 158. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 96, 97. _Chronique des
Cordeliers_, fol. 85, v. E. de Barthelemy, _Chalons pendant l'invasion
anglaise_, Chalons, 1851, p. 16.]

[Footnote 1475: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 391, 392 (Jean Morel's
evidence).]

[Footnote 1476: French _compere_, gossip or fellow godfather,
sometimes a close friend. Cf. Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales:

"With hym ther was a gentil Pardoner
Of Rouncivale, his freend