to Colet de Vienne, the royal messenger, the same who rode
from Vaucouleurs to Chinon, in the beginning of the Maid's mission, and
who, as then, was faring to Tours with letters from Orleans.

Meanwhile all the town was full of joy, in early June, because the Maid
was to visit the city, with D'Alencon and the Bastard, on her way to
besiege Jargeau. It was June the ninth, in the year of our Lord fourteen
hundred and twenty-nine, the sun shining warm in a clear blue sky, and
all the bells of Orleans a-ringing, to welcome back the Maiden. I myself
sat in the window, over the doorway, alone with Charlotte sitting by my
side, for her father had gone to the Hotel de Ville, with her mother, to
welcome the captains. Below us were hangings of rich carpets, to make
the house look gay, for every house was adorned in the best manner, and
flags floated in the long street, and flowers strewed the road, to do
honour to our deliverer. Thus we waited, and presently the sound of
music filled the air, with fragrance of incense, for the priests were
walking in front, swinging censers and chanting the Te Deum laudamus. And
then came a company of girls strewing flowers, and fair boys blowing on
trumpets, and next, on a black horse, in white armour, with a hucque of
scarlet broidered with gold, the blessed Maid herself, unhelmeted,
glancing every way with her happy eyes, while the women ran to touch her
armour with their rings, as to a saint, and the men kissed her mailed
feet.

To be alive, and to feel my life returning in a flood of strength and joy
in that sweet air, with the gladness of the multitude pulsing through it
as a man's heart beats in his body, seemed to me like Paradise. But out
of Paradise our first parents were driven long ago, as anon I was to be
from mine. For, as the Maid passed, I doffed my cap and waved it, since
to shout "Noel" with the rest, I dared not, because of my infirmity. Now,
it so fell that, glancing around, she saw and knew me, and bowed to me,
with a gesture of her hand, as queenly as if she, a manant's child, had
been a daughter of France. At that moment, noting the Maid's courtesy
towards me, Charlotte stood up from beside me, with a handful of red
roses, which she threw towards her. As it chanced, belike because she
was proud to be with one whom the Maid honoured, or to steady herself as
she threw, she laid her left hand about my neck, and so standing, cast
her flowers, and then looked laughing