1522: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 445.]

[Footnote 1523: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 198.]

Jacques d'Arc was one of the notables and perhaps the best business
man of his village.[1524] It was not merely to see his daughter riding
through the streets in man's attire that he had come to Reims. He had
come doubtless for himself and on behalf of his village to ask the
King for an exemption from taxation. This request, presented to the
King by the Maid, was granted. On the 31st of the month the King
decreed that the inhabitants of Greux and of Domremy should be free
from all _tailles_, aids, subsidies, and subventions.[1525] Out of the
public funds the magistrates of the town paid Jacques d'Arc's
expenses, and when he was about to depart they gave him a horse to
take him home.[1526]

[Footnote 1524: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. 1 _et seq._;
proofs and illustrations no. li, pp. 97, 100; supplement, pp. 359,
362. Boucher de Molandon, _Jacques d'Arc, pere de la Pucelle, sa
notabilite personnelle_, Orleans, 1885, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 1525: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 137, 139. In the royal records
this privilege is described as having been granted at Jeanne's
request; in such a request we cannot fail to discern the influence of
her father.]

[Footnote 1526: _Ibid._, pp. 141, 266, 267.]

During the five or six days she spent at Reims the Maid appeared
frequently before the townsfolk. The poor and humble came to her; good
wives took her by the hand and touched their rings with hers.[1527] On
her finger she wore a little ring made of a kind of brass, sometimes
called electrum.[1528] Electrum was said to be the gold of the poor.
In place of a stone the ring had a collet inscribed with the words
"Jhesus Maria" with three crosses. Oftentimes she reverently fixed her
gaze upon it, for once she had had it touched by Saint Catherine.[1529]
And that the Saint should have actually touched it was not incredible,
seeing that some years before, in 1413, Sister Colette, who was vowed
to virginal chastity, had received from the Virgin apostle a rich
golden ring, as a sign of her spiritual marriage with the King of
Kings. Sister Colette permitted the nuns and monks of her order to
touch this ring, and she confided it to the messengers she sent to
distant lands to preserve them from perils by the way.[1530] The Maid
ascribed great powers to her ring, albeit she never used it to heal
the sick.[1531]

[Footnote 1527: _Ibid._, p. 103.]

[Footnote 1