him to whom she was to speak;” others affirm
that she went straight to the king, whom she had never
seen, “accosting him humbly and simply, like
a poor little shepherdess,” says an eye-witness,
and, according to another account, “making the
usual bends and reverences as if she had been brought
up at court.” Whatever may have been her
outward behavior, “Gentle dauphin,”
she said to the king (for she did not think it right
to call him king so long as he was not crowned), “my
name is Joan the maid; the King of Heaven sendeth
you word by me that you shall be anointed and crowned
in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of
the King of Heaven, who is King of France. It
is God’s pleasure that our enemies the English
should depart to their own country; if they depart
no evil will come to them, and the kingdom is sure
to continue yours.” Charles was impressed
without being convinced, as so many others had been
before, or were, as he was, on that very day.
He saw Joan again several times. She did not
delude herself as to the doubts he still entertained.
“Gentle dauphin,” she said to him
one day, “why do you not believe me? I
say unto you that God hath compassion on you, your
kingdom, and your people; St. Louis and Charlemagne
are kneeling before Him, making prayer for you, and
I will say unto you, so please you, a thing which will
give you to understand that you ought to believe me.”
Charles gave her audience on this occasion in the
presence, according to some accounts, of four witnesses,
the most trusted of his intimates, who swore to reveal
nothing, and, according to others, completely alone.
“What she said to him there is none who knows,”
wrote Alan Chartier, a short time after [in July,
1429], “but it is quite certain that he was all
radiant with joy thereat as at a revelation from the
Holy Spirit.” M. Wallop, after a scrupulous
sifting of evidence, has given the following exposition
of this mysterious interview. “Sire de
Boisy,” he says, “who was in his youth
one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber on the most
familiar terms with Charles VII., told Peter Sala,
giving the king himself as his authority for the story,
that one day, at the period of his greatest adversity,
the prince, vainly looking for a remedy against so
many troubles, entered in the morning, alone, into
his oratory, and there, without uttering a word aloud,
made prayer to God from the depths of his heart that
if he were the true heir, issue of the house of France
(and a doubt was possible with such a queen as Isabel
of Bavaria), and the kingdom ought justly to be his,
God would be pleased to keep and defend it for him;
if not, to give him grace to escape without death or
imprisonment, and find safety in Spain or in Scotland,
where he intended in the last resort to seek a refuge.
This prayer, known to God alone, the Maid recalled
to the mind of Charles VII.; and thus is explained
the joy which, as the witnesses say, he testified,
whilst none at that time knew the cause. Joan
by this revelation not only caused the king to believe
in her; she caused him to believe in himself and his
right and title: though she never spoke in that
way as of her own motion to the king, it was always
a superior power speaking by her voice, ’I tell
thee on behalf of my Lord that thou art true heir
of France, and son of the king.’” (Jeanne
d’Arc, by M. Wallon, t. i. p. 32.)