" 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 head like a shuttlecock. All the
materials of his dress were rich, and all the colors brilliant. In his
lap he cuddled a miniature greyhound that snarled, lifting its lip and
showing its white teeth whenever any slight movement disturbed it. The
King's dandies were dressed in about the same fashion as himself,
and when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans
"disguised ladies' maids," it reminded me of people who squander all
their money on a trifle and then haven't anything to invest when they
come across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved for
these creatures.

Joan fell on her knees before the majesty of France, and the other
frivolous animal in his lap--a sight which it pained me to see. What
had that man done for his country or for anybody in it, that she or any
other person should kneel to him? But she--she had just done the only
great deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had
consecrated it with the libation of her blood. The positions should have
been reversed.

However, to be fair, one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very
well for the most part, on that occasion--very much better than he was
in the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a c