that she might afford him relief from the infirmities from which he
suffered. Whatever the reason may have been, he sent her an urgent
request to visit him, a message with which Joan at once complied.

Accompanied by Jean de Metz, Joan went to Toul, and thence with her
cousin, Durand Laxart, she proceeded to Nancy. Little is known of her
deeds while there. She visited Duke Charles, and gave him some advice
as to how he should regain his character more than his health, over
which she said she had no control. The old Duke appears to have been
rather a reprobate, but whether he profited by Joan's advice does not
appear.

Possibly this rather vague visit of the Maid's to Nancy was undertaken
as a kind of test as to how she would comport herself among dukes and
princes. That she showed most perfect modesty of bearing under
somewhat difficult circumstances seems to have struck those who were
with her at Nancy. She also showed practical sagacity; for she advised
Duke Charles to give active support to the French King, and persuaded
him to allow his son-in-law, young Rene of Anjou, Duke of Bar, to
enter the ranks of the King's army, and even to allow him to accompany
her to the Court at Chinon. By this she bound the more than lukewarm
Duke of Lorraine to exert all his influence on the side of King
Charles.

Before leaving Nancy on her return to Vaucouleurs, Joan visited a
famous shrine, not far from the capital, dedicated to St. Nicolas,
after which she hastened back to Vaucouleurs to make ready for an
immediate start for Chinon.

Joan's equipment for her journey to Chinon was subscribed for by the
people of Vaucouleurs; for among the common folk there, as wherever
she was known, her popularity was great. She seems to have won in
every instance the hearts of the good simple peasantry, the poorer
classes in general, called by a saintly King of France the 'common
people of our Lord,' who believed in her long before others of the
higher classes and the patricians were persuaded to put any faith in
her. To the peasantry Joan was already the maiden pointed out in the
old prophecy then known all over France, which said that the country
would be first lost by a woman and then recovered by a maiden hailing
from Lorraine. The former was believed to be the Queen-mother, who had
sided with the English; Joan, the Maid out of Lorraine who should save
France, and by whose arm the English would be driven out of the
country.

Clad in a s