It was not unnatural that the King and his councillors should hesitate before making up their minds to undertake the journey to Rheims, for the English were posted in force at Beaugency, at Meun, where Talbot was encamped, and at Jargeau.  They also held a strong position on the Loire; it would be difficult to reach Rheims without encountering some of their forces.  Jargeau had been attacked, indeed, by Dunois and Xaintrailles, but unsuccessfully; and there was real danger in going northwards while the English were still so plentiful and so strongly entrenched in the towns of the centre and south of France.  Another reason for delaying the journey to Rheims and the ceremony of the coronation, was that some time must elapse before the princes and great nobles, who would have to take part in the coronation, could assemble at Rheims.

Joan, thus thwarted in her wish of marching directly on to Rheims, suggested driving the English from their fortresses and encampments on the Loire.  To this scheme the royal consent was obtained, and the Duke of Alencon was placed in command of a small force of soldiers.  Joan directed the expedition, and it was ordered that nothing should be done without the sanction of the Maid.

In a letter, dated the 8th June, 1429, written by the young Count of Laval, who met Joan of Arc in Selles in Berri, the place of rendezvous for the expedition, is a pleasant notice of the impression the heroine caused him.  He describes her as being completely armed, except that her head was bare.  She entertained the Count and his brother at Selles.  ‘She ordered some wine,’ he writes, ’and told me that I should soon drink wine with her in Paris.’  He adds that it was marvellous to see and hear her.  He also describes her leaving Selles that same evening for Romorantin, with a portion of her troops.  ‘We saw her,’ he writes, ’clothed all in white armour excepting her head; her charger, a great black one, plunged and reared at the door of her lodging, so that she could not mount him.  Then she said, “Lead him to the Cross,” which cross stood in front of the church on the high road.  And then he stood quite still before the cross, and she mounted him; then as she was riding away she turned her face to the people who were standing near the door of the church; in her clear woman’s voice she said:—­“You priests and clergy, make processions, and pray to God for our success.”  Then she gave the word to advance, and with her banner borne by a handsome page, and with her little battle-axe in her hand, she rode away.’

The church before which this scene took place at Selles-sur-Cher still exists, a fine massive building, dating from between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries; but the old cross that stood before it, to which Joan of Arc’s black charger was led, has long ago disappeared.

In my opinion, this graphic description of the Maid of Orleans, written by Guy de Laval to his parents, is the best that has come down to our day of the heroine.  There is to us a freshness about it which proves how deeply the writer must have been stirred by that wonderful character; it shows too that, with all her intensely religious and mystic temperament, Joan of Arc had a good part of sprightliness and bonhomie in her character, which endeared her to those whose good fortune it was to meet her.