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Now, as Joan's army mustered at Blois, south of Orleans, further down the river, she might march on the left side of the river, cross it by boats above Orleans, and enter the town where the English were weakest and had only one fort, St. Loup. Or she might march up the right bank, and attack the English where they were strongest, and had many bastilles.
The second of the sons of Henry IV., who was no more fortunate as a father than as a husband, younger brother of Louis XIII., and father of the great Mademoiselle, the most celebrated, most ambitious, most self-complacent, and most unsuccessful fille a marier in French history, passed in enforced retirement at the castle of Blois the close of a life of clumsy intrigues against Cardinal Richelieu, in which his rashness was only equalled by his pusillanimity and his ill-luck by his inaccessibility to correction, and which, after so many follies and shames, was properly summed up in the project be- gun, but not completed of demolishing the beautiful habitation of his exile in order to erect a better one.
And for my armour, which must needs be light, they gave me a maillet a coat of slender mail, which did not gall my old wound. So accoutred, I departed next day, in good company, to Blois, whence the Maid was to set forth to Orleans. Marvel it was to find the road so full of bestial oxen, cows, sheep, and swine all gathered, as if to some great market, for the victualling of Orleans.
Henry's first care was to secure his ill-defined and ill-defended frontier, and to recover those border fortresses which had been wrested from Geoffrey by his enemies. In Normandy the Vexin, which was the true military frontier between him and France, and commanded the road to Paris, had been lost. In Anjou he had to win back the castles which had fallen to the House of Blois.
In England, where the French priests were not thus exposed, there are some who have likewise married, and even some who have apostatized. It is well known that, amidst the terrors of impiety, GREGOIRE, bishop of Blois, declared that he braved them, and remained attached to his principles and duties, as a christian and bishop.
That terrible personage himself, accompanied by six of his men, conducted Christophe to the prison in the vaulted cellar of the tower, now in ruins, which the concierge of the chateau de Blois shows you with the information that these were the dungeons. After such an event the Council could be only a formality.
During this interval we find Charles VII. and Joan of Arc at Chatelherault, at Poitiers, at Tours, at Florent-les-Saumur, at Chinon, and at Blois, going to and fro through all that country to push forward the expedition resolved upon, and to remove the obstacles it encountered.
Since the birth of Mademoiselle de Blois, and the death of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the King hardly ever saw me except a few minutes ceremoniously, a few minutes before and after supper. He showed himself always assiduous with Madame de Maintenon, who, by her animated and unflagging talk, had the very profitable secret of keeping him amused.
It was affirmed that the King, when intending to give him as bride Mademoiselle de Blois, his eldest daughter and great favourite, had offered to place him on the Dutch throne as independent King, and that to such generous proposals the petty Stadtholder replied, "I am not pious enough to marry the daughter of a Carmelite nun."
And Colbert went out. "Now, let us return to our affair, M. d'Artagnan," said the king, as if nothing had happened. "You see that, with respect to money, there is already a notable change." "Something to the tune of from zero to eighteen millions," replied the musketeer, gayly. "Ah! that was what your majesty wanted the day King Charles II. came to Blois.
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