Charles no longer hesitated.  Joan was treated, according to her own expression in her letter to the English, “as a war-chief;” there were assigned to her a squire, a page, two heralds, a chaplain, Brother Pasquerel, of the order of the hermit-brotherhood of St. Augustin, varlets, and serving-folks.  A complete suit of armor was made to fit her.  Her two guides, John of Metz and Bertrand of Poulengy, had not quitted her; and the king continued them in her train.  Her sword he wished to be supplied by himself; she asked for one marked with five crosses; it would be found, she said, behind the altar in the chapel of St. Catherine-de-Fierbois, where she had halted on her arrival at Chinon; and there, indeed, it was found.  She had a white banner made, studded with lilies, bearing the representation of God seated upon the clouds, and holding in His hand the globe of the world.  Above were the words “Jesu Maria,” and below were two angels, on their knees in adoration.  Joan was fond of her sword, as she said two years afterwards at her trial, but she was forty times more fond of her banner, which was, in her eyes, the sign of her commission and the pledge of victory.  On the completion of the preparations she demanded the immediate departure of the expedition.  Orleans was crying for succor; Dunois was sending messenger after messenger; and Joan was in a greater hurry than anybody else.

More than a month elapsed before her anxieties were satisfied.  During this interval we find Charles VII. and Joan of Arc at Chatelherault, at Poitiers, at Tours, at Florent-les-Saumur, at Chinon, and at Blois, going to and fro through all that country to push forward the expedition resolved upon, and to remove the obstacles it encountered.  Through a haze of vague indications a glimpse is caught of the struggle which was commencing between the partisans and the adversaries of Joan, and in favor of or in opposition to the impulse she was communicating to the war of nationality.  Charles VII.’s mother-in-law, Yolande of Arragon, Queen of Sicily, and the young Duke of Alencon, whose father had been killed at the battle of Agincourt, were at the head of Joan’s partisans.  Yolande gave money and took a great deal of trouble in order to promote the expedition which was to go and succor Orleans.  The Duke of Alencon, hardly twenty years of age, was the only one amongst the princes of the house of Valois who had given Joan a kind reception on her arrival, and who, together with the brave La Hire, said that he would follow her whithersoever she pleased to lead him.  Joan, in her gratitude, called him the handsome duke, and exhibited towards him amity and confidence.