and she was admitted to see the king,
or, as she continued to call him until after the consecration at Rheims,
the dauphin. The story of how this country maiden was introduced into
the throng of dazzling courtiers and left to divine which was the chosen
of the Lord has been too often told, and too generally credited, to need
either retelling or defence; the whole story of Jeanne d'Arc is so
little short of what we would call miraculous that it seems a petty
thing to balk at this one detail. Whether by divine inspiration, or by
mere luck, or by the friendly and secret guidance of her followers,
Jeanne did discover Charles, and spoke without fear as she knelt at the
feet of this unworthy prince whom she had come so far to save: "Gentle
Dauphin, I am called Jeanne la Pucelle; the King of Heaven sends you
word by me that you shall be consecrated and crowned in the city of
Rheims, and that you shall be his lieutenant in France. Give me,
therefore, soldiers, that I may raise the siege of Orleans and take you
to Rheims to be consecrated. It is God's will that your enemies, the
English, shall go back to their own land; and woe be unto them if they
do not go; for the kingdom shall be and remain your own."

The dauphin could but be struck by these words, uttered with such
directness and earnestness; but he still doubted of the divine mission
of the peasant girl. Might she not be an impostor, hired by his enemies?
Might she not be, if nothing worse, merely a poor demented creature? His
mind had been much tormented by doubts of his own legitimacy. The
English openly proclaimed him no son of Charles VI.; his mother's
intimacy with Orleans was too notorious and too recent a scandal to be
concealed, and he had been born at the very moment when that intimacy
was at its height, while she who was his mother had acted as if there
were good reason why he should not inherit the crown; is it any wonder
that the wretched young prince himself half believed the allegations of
his foes? He desired reassurance on this point, and it was doubtless to
ask some question of the kind that he now led Jeanne d'Arc aside and
seemed to converse with her in low tones. All that passed between them
has never been told, since Jeanne refused to reveal it; but the
courtiers saw his countenance light up, and it was known that she had
told him good news, and this much she confessed to having said: "I am
sent from God to assure you that you are the true heir of Fran