honest and true, but no longer the inspired Maid, the Envoy of God?  To these questions we can give no answer; but the act is pathetic, and fills the mind with suggestions.  She who had carried every force triumphantly with her, and quenched every opposition, bitter and determined though that had been, was now a thrall to be dragged almost by force in an unworthy train.  It is evident that she felt the humiliation to the bottom of her heart.  It is not for human nature to have the triumph alone:  the humiliation, the overthrow, the chill and tragic shadow must follow.  Jeanne had entered into that cloud when she offered the armour, that had been like a star in front of the battle, at the shrine of St. Denis.(2) Hers was now to be a sadder, a humbler, perhaps a still nobler part.

It is enough to trace the further movements of the King to perceive how at every step the iron must have entered deeper and deeper into the heart of the Maid.  He made his arrangements for the government of each of the towns which had acknowledged him:  Beauvais, Compiegne, Senlis, and the rest.  He appointed commissioners for the due regulation of the truce with Philip of Burgundy.  And then the retreating army took its march southward towards the mild and wealthy country, all fertility and quiet, where a recreant prince might feel himself safe and amuse himself at his leisure—­by Lagny, by Provins, by Bercy-sur Seine, where he had been checked before in his retreat and almost forced to the march on Paris—­by Sens, and Montargis:  until at last on the 29th of September, no doubt diminished by the withdrawal of many a local troop and knight whose service was over, the forces arrived at Gien, whence they had set forth at the end of June for a series of victories.  It is to be supposed that the King was well enough satisfied with the conquests accomplished in three months.  And, indeed, in ordinary circumstances they would have formed a triumphant list.  Charles must have felt himself free to play after the work which he had not done; and to leave his good fortune and the able negotiators, who hoped to get Paris and other good things from Philip of Burgundy without paying anything for them, to do the rest.

We can imagine nothing more dreadful for the Maid than the months that followed.  The Court was not ungrateful to her; she received the warmest welcome from the Queen; she had a maison arranged for her like the household of a noble chief, with the addition of women and maidens of rank to her existing staff, and everything which could serve to show that she was one whom the King delighted to honour.  And Charles would have her apparelled gloriously like the king’s daughter in the psalm.  “He gave her a mantle of cloth of gold, open at both sides, to wear over her armour,” and apparently did his best to make her, if not a noble lady, yet into the semblance of a noble young chevaliere, one the glories of his Court, with all the distinction of her