were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English,
and cut off stragglers and baggage. Their bastilles were found to be
full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many
of their prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised.

The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the
king, and prosecute her work at his side. She fell in with him on the
13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her
hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger's neck,
made him a deep obeisance. Charles took off his cap, held out his hand
to her, and, "as it seemed to many," says a contemporary chronicler, "he
would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt." But the king's
joy was not enough for Joan. She urged him to march with her against
enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start
without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned. "I shall hardly
last more than a year," said she; "we must think about working right well
this year, for there is much to do." Hesitation was natural to Charles,
even in the hour of victory. His favorite, La Tremoille, and his
chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan's entreaties with all
the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill
will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey;
and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing.
Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice,
and tapped softly at the door of the king's privy chamber (chambre de re-
trait). He bade her enter. She fell upon her knees, saying, "Gentle
_dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to
Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you
thither." "Joan," said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d'Harcourt,
the king's confessor, "cannot you tell the king what pricketh you?"
"Ah! I see," replied Joan, with some embarrassment: "well, I will tell