A reliable account of Joan of Arc’s interview with King Charles has come down to us, as have so many other facts in her life’s history, through the witnesses examined at the time of the heroine’s rehabilitation.  Foremost among these is the testimony of a priest named Pasquerel, who was soon to become Joan’s almoner, and to accompany her in her warfare.  He tells how, when Joan was on her road to enter the castle, a soldier used some coarse language as he saw the young Maid pass by—­some rude remark which the fellow qualified with an oath.  Turning to him, the Maid rebuked him for blaspheming, and added that he had denied his God at the very moment in which he would be summoned before his Judge, for that within an hour he would appear before the heavenly throne.  The soldier was drowned within the hour.  At least such is the tale as told by Priest Pasquerel.

The castle was shrouded in outer darkness, but brilliantly lit within, as Joan entered its gates.  The King’s Chamberlain, the Comte de Vendome, received the Maid at the entrance of the royal apartments, and ushered her into the great gallery, of which fragments still exist—­a blasted fireplace, and sufficient remains of the original stone-work to prove that this hall was the principal apartment in the palace.  Flambeaux and torches glowed from the roof and from the sides of this hall, and here the Court had assembled, half amused, half serious, as to the arrival of the peasant girl, about whom there had been so much strange gossip stirring.  Now the grass grows in wild luxuriance over the pavement, and the ivy clings to the old walls of that noble room, in which, perhaps, the most noteworthy of all recorded meetings between king and subject then took place.  A score of torches held by pages lit the sides of the chamber.  Before these were ranged the knights and ladies, the latter clothed in the fantastically rich costume of that time, with high erections on their heads, from which floated long festoons of cloth, and glittering with the emblems of their families on their storied robes.  The King, in order to test the divination of the Maid, had purposely clad himself in common garb, and had withdrawn himself behind his more brilliantly attired courtiers.

Ascending the flight of eighteen steps which led into the hall, and following Vendome, Joan passed across the threshold of the hall, and, without a moment’s hesitation singling out the King at the end of the gallery, walked to within a few paces of him, and falling on her knees before him—­’the length of a lance,’ as one of the spectators recorded—­said, ‘God give you good life, noble King!’ (’Dieu vous donne bonne vie, gentil Roi’).

‘But,’ said Charles, ‘I am not the King.  This,’ pointing to one of his courtiers, ‘is the King.’

Joan, however, was not to be hoodwinked, and, finding that in spite of his subterfuges he was known, Charles acknowledged his identity, and entered at once with Joan on the subject of her mission.