o Rheims. And in the great cathedral of Rheims,
the Dauphin actually was crowned Charles the Seventh in a great assembly
of the people. Then, the Maid, who with her white banner stood beside
the King in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement at
his feet, and said, with tears, that what she had been inspired to do,
was done, and that the only recompense she asked for, was, that she
should now have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily
incredulous father, and her first simple escort the village wheelwright
and cart-maker. But the King said 'No!' and made her and her family as
noble as a King could, and settled upon her the income of a Count.

Ah! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans, if she had resumed her
rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the little chapel and the
wild hills, and had forgotten all these things, and had been a good man's
wife, and had heard no stranger voices than the voices of little
children!

It was not to be, and she continued helping the King (she did a world for
him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying to improve the lives of
the coarse soldiers, and leading a religious, an unselfish, and a modest
life, herself, beyond any doubt. Still, many times she prayed the King
to let her go home; and once she even took off her bright armour and hung
it up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. But, the King always
won her back again--while she was of any use to him--and so she went on
and on and on, to her doom.

When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, began to be active for
England, and, by bringing the war back into France and by holding the
Duke of Burgundy to his faith, to distress and disturb Charles very much,
Charles sometimes asked the Maid of Orleans what the Voices said about
it? But, the Voices had become (very like ordinary voices in perplexed
times) contradictory and confused, so that now they said one thing, and
now said another, and the Maid lost credit every day. Charles marched on
Paris, which was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of Saint Honore.
In this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, she was abandoned
by the whole army. She lay unaided among a heap of dead, and crawled out
how she could. Then, some of her believers went over to an opposition
Maid, Catherine of La Rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell where
there were treasures of buried money--though she never did--and then Joan