ootnote 399: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 363; _Journal du siege_, p. 45. S.
Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. xcv, cxi, cxxvj. De Beaucourt,
_Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 204, note. E. de Bouteiller and
G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. xxv _et seq._]

Of his morals and manner of life we know nothing, except that three
years before he had sworn a vile oath and been condemned to pay a fine
of two _sols_.[400] Apparently when he took the oath he was in great
wrath.[401] He was more or less intimate with Bertrand de Poulengy,
who had certainly spoken to him of Jeanne.

[Footnote 400: _A sol tournois_ is the twentieth part of a _livre
tournois_ (W.S.).]

[Footnote 401: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. cxc, 160, 161.]

One day he met the damsel and said to her: "Well, _ma mie_, what are
you doing here? Must the King be driven from his kingdom and we all
turn English?"[402]

[Footnote 402: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 435-457. E. de Bouteiller and G.
de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. xxvi, xxvii.]

Such words from a young Lorraine warrior are worthy of notice. The
Treaty of Troyes did not subject France to England; it united the two
kingdoms. If war continued after as before, it was merely to decide
between the two claimants, Charles de Valois and Henry of Lancaster.
Whoever gained the victory, nothing would be changed in the laws and
customs of France. Yet this poor freebooter of the German Marches
imagined none the less that under an English king he would be an
Englishman. Many French of all ranks believed the same and could not
suffer the thought of being Anglicised; in their minds their own fates
depended on the fate of the kingdom and of the Dauphin Charles.

Jeanne answered Jean de Metz: "I came hither to the King's territory
to speak with Sire Robert, that he may take me or command me to be
taken to the Dauphin; but he heeds neither me nor my words."

Then, with the fixed idea welling up in her heart that her mission
must be begun before the middle of Lent: "Notwithstanding, ere mid
Lent, I must be before the Dauphin, were I in going to wear my legs to
the knees."[403]

[Footnote 403: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de
Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 396 _et seq._]

A report ran through the towns and villages. It was said that the son
of the King of France, the Dauphin Louis, who had just entered his
fifth year, had been recently betrothed to the daughter of the King of
Scotland, t