till more hard now to mould a young King elated with triumph,
beginning to feel the crown safe upon his head, and to feel that if
there was still much to gain, there was now a great deal to be lost.
The position was complicated and made more difficult for Jeanne by every
advantage she had gained.

In the meantime the secret negotiations, which were always being carried
on under the surface, had come to this point, that Charles had made
a private treaty with Philip of Burgundy by which that prince pledged
himself to give up Paris into the King's hands within fifteen days.
This agreement furnished a sufficient pretext for the delay in marching
against Paris, delay which was Charles's invariable method, and which
but for Jeanne's hardihood and determination, had all but crushed the
expedition to Rheims itself. It was never with any will of his or of his
adviser, La Tremouille, that any stronghold was assailed. He would fain
have passed by Troyes, as the reader will remember, he would fain have
delayed going to Rheims; in each case he had been forced to move by the
impetuosity of the Maid. But a treaty which touched the honour of the
King was a different matter. Philip of Burgundy, with whom it was made,
seems to have held the key of the position. He was called to Paris by
Bedford on one side to defend the city against its lawful King; he had
pledged himself on the other to Charles to give it up. He had in his
hands, though it is uncertain whether he ever read it, that missive of
the sorceress, the letter of Jeanne which I have quoted, calling upon
him on the part of God to make peace. What was he to do? There were
reasons drawing him to both sides. He was the enemy of Charles on
account of the murder of his father, and therefore had every interest in
keeping Paris from him; he was angry with the English on account of the
marriage of the Duke of Gloucester with Jacqueline of Brabant, which
interfered with his own rights and safety in Flanders, and therefore
might have served himself by giving up the capital to the King. As for
the appeal of Jeanne, what was the letter of that mad creature to a
prince and statesman? The progress of affairs was arrested by this
double problem. Jeanne had been the prominent, the only important figure
in the history of France for some months past. Now that shining figure
was jostled aside, and the ordinary laws of life, with all the counter
changes of negotiation, the ineffectual comings and goi