aeval city. King and Archbishop had a
double triumph, for the priest like the monarch had been shut out from
his lawful throne, and it was only in the train of the Maid that this
great ecclesiastic was able to take possession of his dignities. The
King alighted with the Archbishop at the Archeveche which is close
to the cathedral, an immense, old palace in which the heads of the
expedition were lodged. There is a magnificent old hall still remaining
in which no doubt they all assembled, scarcely able to believe that
their object was accomplished and that the King of France was actually
in Rheims, and all the prophecies fulfilled. The Archbishop marched
into the city in the morning; Charles and his Court, and all his great
seigneurs, and the body of his army, in which there were many fighting
men half armed, and some in their rustic clothes as they had left their
fields to join the King in his march--poured in in the evening, after
the ecclesiastical procession, filling the town with commotion. Jeanne
rode beside the King, her banner in her hand. It was July, the vigil of
the Madeleine, and every church poured forth its crowd to witness the
entry, and the populace, half troubled, half glad, gazed its eyes out
upon the white warrior at the side of the King. Her father and uncle
were there to meet her at the old inn in the Place, which still proudly
preserves the record of the peasant guests: two astonished rustics,
no doubt, were thrust forth from some window to watch that incredible
sight--Jacques who would rather have drowned his daughter with his own
hands, than have seen her thus launched among men, gazing still
aghast at the resplendent figure of the chevaliere at the head of the
procession. This was very different from what he had thought of when his
village respectability was tortured by the idea of his girl among the
troopers, yet probably the rigid peasant had never changed his mind.

We are told by M. Blaze de Bury of an ancient custom which we do not
find stated elsewhere. A platform was erected, he tells us, outside the
choir of the cathedral to which the King was led the evening before the
coronation, surrounded by his peers, who showed him to the assembled
people with a traditional proclamation: "Here is your King whom we,
peers of France, crown as King and sovereign lord. And if there is a
soul here which has any objection to make, let him speak and we will
answer him. And to-morrow he shall be consecrated b