High and redoubtable Prince, Duke of Burgundy.  Jeanne the Maid requires on the part of the King of Heaven, my most just sovereign and Lord (mon droicturier souverain seigneur), that the King of France and you make peace between yourselves, firm, strong and that will endure.  Pardon each other of good heart, entirely, as loyal Christians ought to do, and if you desire to fight let it be against the Saracens.  Prince of Burgundy, I pray, supplicate, and require, as humbly as may be, fight no longer against the holy kingdom of France:  withdraw, at once and speedily, your people who are in any strongholds or fortresses of the said holy kingdom; and on the part of the gentle King of France, he is ready to make peace with you, having respect to his honour, and upon your life that you never will gain a battle against loyal Frenchmen and that all those who war against the said holy kingdom of France, war against the King Jesus, King of Heaven and of all the world and my just and sovereign Lord.  And I pray and require with clasped hands that you fight not, nor make any battle against us, neither your friends nor your subjects; but believe always however great in number may be the men you lead against us, that you will never win, and it would be great pity for the great battle and the blood that would be shed of those who came against us.  Three weeks ago I sent you a letter by a herald that you should be present at the consecration of the King, which to-day, Sunday, the seventeenth of the present month of July, is done in the city of Rheims:  to which I have had no answer, nor even any news by the said herald.  To God I commend you, and may He be your guard if it pleases Him, and I pray God to make good peace.

Written at the aforesaid Rheims, the seventeenth day of July, 1429.

When the letter was finished Jeanne put on her armour and prepared for the great ceremony.  We are not told what part she took in it, nor is any more prominent position assigned to her than among the noble crowd of peers and generals who surrounded the altar, where her place would naturally be, upon the broad raised platform of the choir, so excellently adapted for such ceremonies.  Her banner we are told was borne into the cathedral, in order, as she proudly explained afterwards, that having been foremost in the danger it should share the honour.

But we have no right to suppose that the Maid took the position of the chief actor in the pageant and stood alone by the side of Charles, as the exigencies of the pictorial art have required her to do.  When, however, the ceremony was completed, and he had received on his knees the anointing which separated him as king from every other class of men, and while the lofty vaults echoed with the cries of Noel!  Noel! by which the people hailed the completed ceremony, Jeanne could contain herself no longer.  The object was attained for which she had laboured and struggled, and overcome every opponent.  She stepped forward out of the brilliant crowd, and threw herself at the feet of the now crowned monarch, embracing his knees.  “Gentle King,” she cried with tears, “now is the pleasure of God fulfilled—­whose will it was that I should raise the siege of Orleans and lead you to this city of Rheims to receive your consecration.  Now has He shown that you are true King, and that the kingdom of France truly belongs to you alone.”