‘And who is he?’ asked de Baudricourt.

‘He is the King of Heaven,’ she answered.

The knight treated Joan’s words with derision, and Joan herself with insults; and thus ended the first of their interviews.

It was only in the season of Lent of the next year (March 1427) that Joan again sought the aid of de Baudricourt.  On the plea of attending her cousin Laxart’s wife’s confinement, Joan returned to Burey-le-Petit.  She left Domremy without bidding her parents farewell; but it has been recorded by one of her friends, named Mengeth, a neighbour of the d’Arcs, that she told this woman of her intention of going to Vaucouleurs, and recommended her to God’s keeping, as if she felt that she would not see her again.  At Burey-le-Petit Joan remained between the end of January until her departure for Chinon, on the 23rd of February; and before taking final leave she asked and received her parents’ pardon for her abrupt departure from them.

While with the Laxarts, news reached Vaucouleurs that the English had commenced the siege of Orleans.  This intelligence brought matters to a crisis, for with the loss of Orleans the whole of what remained to the French King must fall into the hands of the enemy, and France felt her last hour of independence had come.

Joan determined on again seeking an interview with Robert de Baudricourt, and this second meeting between her and the knight, which took place six months after the first, had far happier results.  As M. Simeon Luce has pointed out in his history of ’Jeanne d’Arc at Domremy,’ the situation both of Charles vi. and of the knight of Vaucouleurs was far different in 1429 to what it had been when Joan first saw de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs in the previous year.  The most important stronghold held by the French in their ever-lessening territory was in utmost danger of falling into the grasp of the English; while de Baudricourt was anxiously waiting to hear whether his protector, the Duc de Bar, whom Bedford had summoned to enter into a treaty with the English, would not be prevailed upon to do so.  If he consented, this would make the knight’s tenure of Vaucouleurs impracticable.  It was probably owing to this state of affairs that, on her second interview with the knight of Vaucouleurs, Joan of Arc was favourably received by him.  Since the first visit to de Baudricourt by the Maid of Domremy, her name had become familiar to many of the people in and about Vaucouleurs.  An officer named Jean de Metz has left some record of his meeting at this time with Joan; for he was afterwards examined among other witnesses at the time of the Maid’s rehabilitation in 1456.  De Metz describes the Maid as being clothed in a dress of coarse red serge, the same as she wore on her first visit to Vaucouleurs.  When he questioned her as to what she expected to gain by coming again to Vaucouleurs, she answered that she had returned to induce Robert de Baudricourt to conduct her to the King; but that on her first visit he was deaf to her entreaties and prayers.  But, she added, she was still determined to appear before Charles, even if she had to go to him all the way on her knees.