rid of the English, to have the king anointed and crowned, to deliver
Duke Charles of Orleans, and to raise the siege laid by the English to
Orleans." One is inclined to believe that Joan's language to Dunois at
Rheims in the hour of Charles VII.'s coronation more accurately expressed
her first idea; the two other notions occurred to her naturally in
proportion as her hopes as well as her power kept growing greater with
success. But however lofty and daring her soul may have been, she had a
simple and not at all a fantastic mind. She may have foreseen the
complete expulsion of the English, and may have desired the deliverance
of the Duke of Orleans, without having in the first instance premeditated
anything more than she said to Dunois during the king's coronation at
Rheims, which was looked upon by her as the triumph of the national
cause.

However that may be, when Orleans was relieved, and Charles VII.
crowned, the situation, posture, and part of Joan underwent a change.
She no longer manifested the same confidence in herself and her designs.
She no longer exercised over those in whose midst she lived the same
authority. She continued to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, sometimes
with and sometimes without success, just like La Hire and Dunois; never
discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking upon her-self as
triumphant. After the coronation, her advice was to march at once upon
Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, as being the political
centre of the realm of which Rheims was the religious. Nothing of the
sort was done. Charles and La Tremoille once more began their course of
hesitation, tergiversation, and changes of tactics and residence without
doing anything of a public and decisive character. They negotiated with
the Duke of Burgundy, in the hope of detaching him from the English
cause; and they even concluded with him a secret, local, and temporary
truce. From the 20th of July to the 23d of August Joan followed the king