r away, but her mission was clear. It was in
vain that her father when he heard her purpose swore to drown her ere she
should go to the field with men-at-arms. It was in vain that the priest,
the wise people of the village, the captain of Vaucouleurs, doubted and
refused to aid her. "I must go to the King," persisted the peasant girl,
"even if I wear my limbs to the very knees." "I had far rather rest and
spin by my mother's side," she pleaded with a touching pathos, "for this
is no work of my choosing, but I must go and do it, for my Lord wills it."
"And who," they asked, "is your Lord?" "He is God." Words such as these
touched the rough captain at last: he took Jeanne by the hand and swore to
lead her to the king. She reached Chinon in the opening of March, but here
too she found hesitation and doubt. The theologians proved from their
books that they ought not to believe her. "There is more in God's book
than in yours," Jeanne answered simply. At last Charles himself received
her in the midst of a throng of nobles and soldiers. "Gentle Dauphin,"
said the girl, "my name is Jeanne the Maid. The Heavenly King sends me to
tell you that you shall be anointed and crowned in the town of Reims, and
you shall be lieutenant of the Heavenly King who is the King of France."

[Sidenote: Relief of Orleans]

Orleans had already been driven by famine to offers of surrender when
Jeanne appeared in the French court, and a force was gathering under the
Count of Dunois at Blois for a final effort at its relief. It was at the
head of this force that Jeanne placed herself. The girl was in her
eighteenth year, tall, finely formed, with all the vigour and activity of
her peasant rearing, able to stay from dawn to nightfall on horseback
without meat or drink. As she mounted her charger, clad in white armour
from head to foot, with a great white banner studded with fleur-de-lys
waving over her head, she seemed "a thing wholly divine, whether to see or
hear." The ten thousand men-at-arms who followed her from Blois, rough
plunderers whose only prayer was that of La Hire, "Sire Dieu, I pray you
to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for you, were you captain-at-arms
and he God," left off their oaths and foul living at her word and gathered
round the altars on their march. Her shrewd peasant humour helped her to
manage the wild soldiery, and her followers laughed over their camp-fires
at an old warrior who had been so puzzled by her prohibition