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It was at Tours that Jeanne d’Arc had her first meet- ing with the king after her great deeds at Orleans. They were both on horseback. Jeanne, with standard in hand, uncovered and bowed profoundly before him. Charles saluted her with reverence and evident emotion; some persons present thought he would have kissed her. My opinion is that he could not have done a better thing! A kiss from her pure lips might have armed his soul against the black treachery and ingratitude which would soon be festering there.

They remained a few days at Tours, and in her first audience Jeanne urged him to come to Reims for his consecration—that being the second part of her mis- sion, as he himself well knew. Jeanne insisted as if the brevity of time weighed upon her; but the king hesitated, though with no lack of kindness, and said at length that it was a matter for his council to decide upon. A little later Jeanne appeared before Charles and his council and repeated her supplication, which was rejected as impracticable. The truth is that Charles was desperately poor for a king, and these expeditions were costly as well as dangerous. La Trémoille alone could supply him with money, but La Trémoille demanded a ruling hand in affairs, as well as the highest rate of interest. He and the chan- cellor argued, not without a show of reason, that it would first be necessary to take account of the Loire towns held by the English or Burgundians, on the direct course to Reims. This meant fighting—and funds!

Nothing was decided, but the councils continued, while Jeanne suffered visibly under the anxiety and inaction. She was now relieved of her title chef de guerre—the nominal command of the army; no doubt upon the advice of her good friends in the council, who would have heard from their creature Gaucourt, still smarting under Jeanne’s rebuke. But there was some consolation for her in the appointing of d’Alen- con to the command, a young nobleman, relative of the king and son-in-law of the Duke of Orleans, who had the utmost faith in Jeanne, mingled with some romantic sentiment of a chivalrous nature. He had not fought at Orleans, being under pledge to the English, whose prisoner he had lately been, to abstain from action against them until his ransom was paid. It is evident that king and council desired to benefit from the military genius which Jeanne had demon- strated, while reducing her formal honors. D’Alengon received the command, with the express charge that he was to “guide himself in all things and act accord- ing to the counsel of La Pucelle.”

While the question of the Loire campaign, involv- ing the march to Reims, was still pending, Charles retired to his chateau of Loches, which the present writer visited last year in quest of materials for this narrative, or at least for the breath of inspiration which locality—the authentic scene—alone can give. This famous castle, the residence of several kings, occupies a hillside and summit overlooking the Indre, which makes its orderly course through the prettiest bit of country imaginable. The chateau has been more or less restored and modernized, but its general aspect, with the formidable keep, remains much the same as when Jeanne first saw it. Adjoining it, but on a lower slope, is the king’s house where those momen- tous conferences were held which decided the fate of France and of the Maid. One is shown the oratory of Anne of Brittany and the beautiful tomb of Agnes Sorel, beloved mistress of Charles VII, from whom no envoyée de Dieu could separate him! One looks in vain for some personal memento of La Pucelle, some trifle belonging to her which reverent hands should have bequeathed “as a rich legacy unto their issue.” Neither here nor elsewhere is such a treasure to be found; no saint is so poor in relics, due no doubt to the faithlessness of her friends and the savage hatred of her enemies. But the fact remains that here king and council met, with Jeanne in attendance, and here she was moved by their faithlessness, incredulity, and procrastination to utter some of her most memorable words.

One day she said to the king: “Sire, I shall not last more than a year. Decide then to make plenty of work for me in this time.” Another day, acting upon a sudden inspiration, she went with Dunois to the king’s private room, where he was in conference. Admitted, she knelt be- fore him, clasping his knees, and said in imploring accents: “Noble Dauphin,? do not hold so many and so long councils, but come as soon as possible to Reims, in order that you may receive your worthy crown,”

And as Charles looked at her in surprise and doubt, not knowing how to answer her, a gentleman present took the word and asked Jeanne if her Voices had prompted this appeal to the king. She replied yes, that she was being harassed very much on this point (fort aiguillonnée). The gentleman then asked Jeanne to say, in pres- ence of the king, how the Voices spoke to her. Blushing, she rejoined that she would tell will- ingly, but as she hesitated, as if from emotion, Charles seconded the request. “Please, Jeanne,” he said kindly, “explain yourself before the persons present.”

And this was her answer: “When I am grieved because some people do not easily believe in the things which I announce on the part of God, I retire by myself and | pray to Him, complaining and asking why they do not believe my words. My prayer made, I hear a voice which tells me, ‘Daughter of God, on! on! on! I shall be near to help you.’ And when I hear this voice resounding in my ear, I feel a great joy, and I should wish always to be in that state.”

As she spoke, her timidity vanished and her face became illumined with the mystic light of her great faith. Her hearers were stricken with awe, Charles no less than the rest. Completely gained, he decided to proceed to Reims, and he issued orders forthwith for the campaign on the Loire.

(On the subject of her Voices or heavenly coun- selors, Jean d’Aulon, her faithful equerry, testifies: “When La Pucelle had to do anything in war she said that her ‘counsel’ had told her what she ought to do. I asked her who was her counsel and she said there were three counselors, one of whom was always with her; the second came and went often, visiting her; and the third was he with whom the others de- liberated. It happened one time among others that I asked Jeanne to show me this counselor just once. She answered that I was not worthy or virtuous enough to see him.”—Rehabilitation. )

A SOLDIER’S SONG

Ah, those were brave and merry days
That I would live again,
When youth and youth’s desires were strong,
And I stood up with men;
For we joined the Army of the King
And made a jest of war,
And with our Jeanne to lead the van,
Went soldiering down the Loire.!

The King he made his mess with us,
The captains all were young,
And if it wasn’t for the “preach”
Our lines were gaily flung.
The goddons ° all were lying low
And cursed us from afar:
They seemed an offish lot to us
As we went down the Loire.

How jolly when the little towns
Surrendered one by one,
And the bourgeois gave us welcome
With feast and wine and fun,
And the pretty girls made up to us
For all our perils run!
Ah, that’s the soldier’s life for me,
With nothing rough to jar
Our gay content as on we went
Philandering down the Loire.

Oh, now and then we came to blows
And had a lively brush
With Bourguignon or British foes,
But honors were not flush.
This did not put us to the grief,
Nor seemed our sport to mar;
A little fighting gave relief
When we went down the Loire.

Not so our Jeanne. She raged to see
The foeman keep his place,
Nor stir a foot e’en tho’ she waved
Her banner in his face.
Her presence struck the goddons cold,
Who saw in her the bar
To victory and land and gold,
As we went down the Loire.

At Jargeau sure the English fought
With desperate pluck and skill,
And once or twice they drove us back,
But Jeanne would have her will!
They stoned her from the wall—she fell,
And rose without a scar:
Then took the town—while English blood
Went crimsoning the Loire.

This nearly broke the goddons’ nerve,
But there came a blacker day;
And who is he that can forget
The Battle of Patay,
Where the English rode a race with death,
And Jeanne did guide the fray!

It was a messy business, sure,
The kind that makes you sick
To think of afterward—but then
At nothing would you stick!
Like sheep the dead lay scattered wide,
All stripped for spoil of war;
And the carrion kites were gorging
As we went down the Loire!

All this is now an olden tale,
And I have lived to see
The goddons driven from our land,
And France grown great and free.
Yea, all in sooth, as Jeanne would say,
The future was to be!
Right gloriously she gave her life,
And still she leads, a star,
As when she blazed the way for us,
From Orleans down the Loire!