of warmth and light which makes ruin more conspicuous. The room must
have been on the ground floor almost level with the soil towards the
interior of the castle, but raised to the height of the cliffs outside.
It was evening, an evening of March, and fifty torches lighted up the
ample room; many noble personages, almost as great as kings, and clothed
in the bewildering splendour of the time, and more than three hundred
cavaliers of the best names in France filled it to overflowing. The
peasant girl from Domremy in the hose and doublet of a servant, a
little travel-worn after her tedious journey, was led in by one of those
splendid seigneurs, dazzled with the grandeur she had never seen before,
looking about her in wonder to see which was the King--while Charles,
perhaps with boyish pleasure in the mystification, perhaps with a little
half-conviction stealing over him that there might be something more in
it, stood among the smiling crowd.

The young stranger looked round upon all those amused, light-minded,
sceptical faces, and without a moment's hesitation went forward and
knelt down before him. "Gentil Dauphin," she said, "God give you good
life." "But it is not I that am the King; there is the King," said
Charles. "Gentil Prince, it is you and no other," she said; then rising
from her knee: "Gentil Dauphin, I am Jeanne the Maid. I am sent to you
by the King of Heaven to tell you that you shall be consecrated and
crowned at Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who
is King of France." The little masquerade had failed, the jest was over.
There would be little more laughing among the courtiers, when they saw
the face of Charles grow grave. He took the new-comer aside, perhaps to
that deep recess of the window where in the darkening night the glimmer
of the clear, flowing river, the great vault of sky would still be
visible dimly, outside the circle of the blazing interior with all its
smoky lights.