yal attention had an immediate result: all the great lords
and ladies of the Court began to flock there to see and listen to the
wonderful girl-soldier that all the world was talking about, and who had
answered the King's mandate with a bland refusal to obey. Joan charmed
them every one with her sweetness and simplicity and unconscious
eloquence, and all the best and capablest among them recognized that
there was an indefinable something about her that testified that she was
not made of common clay, that she was built on a grander plan than the
mass of mankind, and moved on a loftier plane. These spread her fame.
She always made friends and advocates that way; neither the high nor the
low could come within the sound of her voice and the sight of her face
and go out from her presence indifferent.

Chapter 6 Joan Convinces the King

WELL, anything to make delay. The King's council advised him against
arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a
decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests--always
priests--into Lorraine to inquire into Joan's character and history--a
matter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how
fastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the
fire when a man's house was burning down, and they waited till they
could send into another country to find out if he had always kept the
Sabbath or not, before letting him try.

So the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but
not in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had
never seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious
spectacle to see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we
were on the lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The
others were doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day
great news came--the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights,
had at last turned the council's position and persuaded the King to see
Joan.

Joan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head,
but with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any
rational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days
our pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan's
account, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that
Joan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files
of torches, the sol