go out
with what belonged to them. On the morrow, July 11, the king entered
Troyes with all his captains, and at his side the Maid carrying her
banner. All the difficulties of the journey were surmounted. On the
15th of July the Bishop of Chalons brought the keys of his town to the
king, who took up his quarters there. Joan found there four or five of
her own villagers, who had hastened up to see the young girl of Domremy
in all her glory. She received them with a satisfaction in which
familiarity was blended with gravity. To one of them, her godfather, she
gave a red cap which she had worn; to another, who had been a Burgundian,
she said, "I fear but one thing--treachery." In the Duke d'Alencon's
presence she repeated to the king, "Make good use of my time, for I shall
hardly last longer than a year." On the 16th of July King Charles
entered Rheims, and the ceremony of his coronation was fixed for the
morrow.

It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which
recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the
Archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with the
Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. "In God's name,"
said Joan to Dunois, "here is a good people and a devout when I die, I
should much like it to be in these parts." "Joan," inquired Dunois,
"know you when you will die, and in what place?" "I know not," said she,
"for I am at the will of God." Then she added, "I have accomplished that
which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the
gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it should please him to
send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their
cattle, and do that which was my wont." "When the said lords," says the
chronicler, an eye-witness, "heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes
towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed that it was
somewhat sent from God, and not otherwise."

Historians, and even contemporaries, have given much discussion to the
question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really
limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the
coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She had said so herself several
times, just as she had to Dunois at Rheims on the 17th of July, 1429; but
she sometimes also spoke of more vast and varied projects, as, for
instance, driving the English completely out of France, and withdraw