r seen his face before, and though
he purposely kept himself in the crowd of courtiers, and had laid aside
every thing in his dress and apparel which might distinguish him: that
she offered him, in the name of the supreme Creator, to raise the siege
of Orleans, and conduct him to Rheims to be there crowned and anointed;
and on his expressing doubts of her mission, revealed to him, before
some sworn confidants, a secret which was unknown to all the world
beside himself, and which nothing but a heavenly inspiration could
have discovered to her: and that she demanded, as the instrument of her
future victories, a particular sword, which was kept in the church of
St. Catharine of Fierbois, and which, though she had never seen it, she
described by all its marks, and by the place in which it had long lain
neglected.[*] This is certain, that all these miraculous stories were
spread abroad, in order to captivate the vulgar. The more the king
and his ministers were determined to give into the illusion, the more
scruples they pretended. An assembly of grave doctors and theologians
cautiously examined Joan's mission, and pronounced it undoubted
and supernatural. She was sent to the parliament, then residing at
Poictiers; and was interrogated before that assembly: the presidents,
the counsellors, who came persuaded of her imposture, went away
convinced of her inspiration. A ray of hope began to break through that
despair in which the minds of all men were before enveloped. Heaven
had now declared itself in favor of France, and had laid bare
its outstretched arm to take vengeance on her invaders. Few could
distinguish between the impulse of inclination and the force of
conviction; and none would submit to the trouble of so disagreeable a
scrutiny.

* Hall, fol. 107. Holingshed, p. 600.

After these artificial precautions and preparations had been for some
time employed, Joan's requests were at last complied with: she was armed
cap-a-pie, mounted on horseback, and shown in that martial habiliment
before the whole people. Her dexterity in managing her steed, though
acquired in her former occupation, was regarded as a fresh proof of
her mission; and she was received with the loudest acclamations by the
spectators. Her former occupation was even denied: she was no longer the
servant of an inn. She was converted into a shepherdess, an employment
much more agreeable to the imagination. To render her still more
interesting, near ten