ess, and your Highness will do well not to proceed
in it without probing the matter to the bottom."

That was enough. It shriveled up the King's little soul like a raisin,
with terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a
commission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should
find out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell.

The King's relative, the Duke of Alencon, three years prisoner of war to
the English, was in these days released from captivity through promise of
a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached him--for
the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all parts--he came to
Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she might be. The
King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She said, in her
simple fashion:

"You are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this
cause, the better for the cause and it."

Then the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when
they departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate.

Joan attended the King's mass the next day, and afterward dined with the
King and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value
her conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he was
used to getting nothing out of people's talk but guarded phrases,
colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color
of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and
bores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and
honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said
the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain,
straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been
like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the
water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain.

After dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance
practice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King also had
come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black war-steed.

Every day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her
Voices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report.
These pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she considered
advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and trickeries were
wasted upon her. She did not care for the t