n country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their dull
and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair
regions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary, but
laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh
country air and the vigorous exercise.

After the burnings, the grown folk followed Joan from church to church
and put in the day in thanksgivings for the city's deliverance, and at
night they feted her and her generals and illuminated the town, and high
and low gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicings. By the time the
populace were fairly in bed, toward dawn, we were in the saddle and away
toward Tours to report to the King.

That was a march which would have turned any one's head but Joan's. We
moved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way.
They crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and they
even knelt in the road and kissed her horse's hoof-prints.

The land was full of her praises. The most illustrious chiefs of the
church wrote to the King extolling the Maid, comparing her to the saints
and heroes of the Bible, and warning him not to let "unbelief,
ingratitude, or other injustice" hinder or impair the divine help sent
through her. One might think there was a touch of prophecy in that, and
we will let it go at that; but to my mind it had its inspiration in those
great men's accurate knowledge of the King's trivial and treacherous
character.

The King had come to Tours to meet Joan. At the present day this poor
thing is called Charles the Victorious, on account of victories which
other people won for him, but in our time we had a private name for him
which described him better, and was sanctified to him by personal
deserving--Charles the Base. When we entered the presence he sat throned,
with his tinseled snobs and dandies around him. He looked like a forked
carrot, so tightly did his clothing fit him from his waist down; he wore
shoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up
to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape
that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing
like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a
pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair
stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the
cap and the hair together made the