importance to secure his good opinion. Jeanne gave the exalted
patient no light on the subject of his health, but only the (probably
unpleasing) advice to flee from the wrath of God and to be reconciled
with his wife, from whom he was separated. He too, however, was moved by
the sight of her and her straightforward, undeviating purpose. He gave
her four francs, Durand tells us,--not much of a present,--which she
gave to her uncle, and which helped to buy her outfit. Probably he made
a good report of her to his mother, for shortly after her return to
Vaucouleurs (I again follow Michelet who ought to be well informed)
a messenger from Chinon arrived to take her to the King.(4) In the
councils of that troubled Court, perhaps, the idea of a prodigy and
miraculous leader, though she was nothing but a peasant girl, would
be not without attraction, a thing to conjure withal, so far as the
multitude were concerned.

Anyhow from any point of view, in the hopeless condition of affairs, it
was expedient that nothing which gave promise of help, either real or
visionary, should lightly be rejected. There was much anxiety no
doubt in the careless Court still dancing and singing in the midst
of calamity, but the reception of the ambitious peasant would form an
exciting incident at least, if nothing more important and notable.

Thus the whole anxious world of France stirred round that youthful
figure in the little frontier town, repeating with many an alteration
and exaggeration the sayings of Jeanne, and those popular superstitions
about the Maid from Lorraine which might be so naturally applied to her.
It would seem, indeed, that she had herself attached some importance to
this prophecy, for both her uncle Laxart and her hostess at Vaucouleurs
report that she asked them if they had heard it: which question
"stupefied" the latter, whose mind evidently jumped at once to the