together the King's army that it be ready at the
end of fifteen days, if they make not peace. Wherefore my
beloved and perfect friends, I pray ye to be in no
disquietude as long as I shall live; but I require you to
keep good watch and to defend well the good city of the
King; and to make known unto me if there be any traitors who
would do you hurt, and, as speedily as I may, I will take
them out from among you; and send me of your tidings. To
God I commend you. May he have you in his keeping."

Written this Friday, 5th day of August, near Provins,[1614] a
camp in the country or on the Paris road. Addressed to: the
loyal French of the town of Rains.[1615]

[Footnote 1614: This place name is not to be found in Rogier's copy.]

[Footnote 1615: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 139, 140, and Varin, _loc. cit._
_Statuts_, vol. i, p. 603, according to Rogier's copy. H. Jadart,
_Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, proofs and illustrations, vol. xiv, pp. 104,
105, and facsimile of the original copy formerly in the Reims
municipal archives, now in the possession of M. le Comte de
Maleissye.]

It cannot be doubted that the monk who acted as scribe wrote down
faithfully what was dictated to him, and reproduced the Maid's very
words, even her Lorraine dialect. She had then attained to the very
highest degree of heroic saintliness. Here, in this letter, she takes
to herself a supernatural power, to which the King, his Councillors
and his Captains must submit. She ascribes to herself alone the right
of recognising or denouncing treaties; she disposes entirely of the
army. And, because she commands in the name of the King of Heaven, her
commands are absolute. There is happening to her what necessarily
happens to all those who believe themselves entrusted with a divine
mission; they constitute themselves a spiritual and temporal power
superior to the established powers and inevitably hostile to them. A
dangerous illusion and productive of shocks in which the illuminated
are generally the worst sufferers! Every day of her life living and
holding converse with saints and angels, moving in the splendour of
the Church Triumphant, this young peasant girl came to believe that in
her resided all strength, all prudence, all wisdom and all counsel.
This does not mean that she was lacking in intelligence; on the
contrary she rightly perceived that the Duke of Burgundy, with his
embassies, was but playing with