It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which
recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the
Archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with the
Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. "In God's name,"
said Joan to Dunois, "here is a good people and a devout when I die, I
should much like it to be in these parts." "Joan," inquired Dunois,
"know you when you will die, and in what place?" "I know not," said she,
"for I am at the will of God." Then she added, "I have accomplished that
which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the
gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it should please him to
send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their
cattle, and do that which was my wont." "When the said lords," says the
chronicler, an eye-witness, "heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes
towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed that it was
somewhat sent from God, and not otherwise."

Historians, and even contemporaries, have given much discussion to the
question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really
limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the
coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She had said so herself several
times, just as she had to Dunois at Rheims on the 17th of July, 1429; but
she sometimes also spoke of more vast and varied projects, as, for
instance, driving the English completely out of France, and withdrawing
from his long captivity Charles, Duke of Orleans. He had been a prisoner
in London ever since the battle of Agincourt, and was popular in his day,
as he has continued to be in French history, on the double ground of
having been the father of Louis XII. and one of the most charming poets
in the ancient literature of France. The Duke d'Alencon, who was so high
in the regard of Joan, attributed to her more expressly this quadruple
design: "She said," according to him, "that she had four duties; to get