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The French have met with disaster. The English have triumphed, and I still waste my time in idleness here! How long is this to continue, Robert de Baudricourt?" A new note had come into her voice the note of the general who commands. We heard it often enough later; but this was the first time I had noted it. How would De Baudricourt take it?
She is beloved of all, full of piety and good works, constant in attendance at church, regular in her confession and at mass. So much have I heard from her kinsman Laxart, though for mine own part I have not seen her again." "And what thinks De Baudricourt of her mission? Does he ever speak of it?" "Not often; and yet I know that he has not forgotten it.
From the young Duke of Alençon she received the gift of a horse; and the King carried out on a large scale what de Baudricourt had done on a small one, by making her a gift of arms and accoutrements. Before, however, deciding to entrust the fate of hostilities into the hands of the Maid, it was decided that the advice and counsel of the prelates assembled at Poitiers should be taken.
M. La Tour's description is so interesting that we all long to follow in his footsteps and in those of the Maid, from the clump of oak trees of which one still stands and the "Fountain of the Voices" to the ruins of the Château of Vaucouleurs, where the chivalrous Robert de Baudricourt, impressed by the girl's serene confidence, gave her a letter for the King, who was at Chinon, as we know.
"They tell me," he wrote to De Baudricourt, "that you have at Vaucouleurs a woman who may be in sooth that Maid of Lorraine who, it has been prophesied, is to arise and save France. I have a great curiosity to see her; wherefore, I pray you, send her to me without delay. It may be that she will recover me of my sickness.
She said also that when she left Vaucouleurs she wore the dress of a man, without any other arms than a sword which Robert de Baudricourt had given her; and that she had with her a chevalier, a squire, and four servants, and that they slept for the first night at St. Urbain, in the abbey there. She was then asked by whose advice she wore the dress of a man, but refused to answer.
And it was no doubt a great relief to his mind thus to put the decision of the question into the hands of a man better informed than himself. Laxart proceeded to Vaucouleurs upon his mission, shyly yet with confidence. He would seem to have had a preliminary interview with Baudricourt before introducing Jeanne.
He became minute in his directions, indicating exactly what she was to do. "Go to Messire de Baudricourt, captain of Vaucouleurs, and he will take you to the King. St. Catherine and St. Margaret will come and help you." Jeanne was overwhelmed by this exactness, by the sensation of receiving direct orders.
Bertrand knew from his manner that he was thinking more and more earnestly of that declaration on the part of the village maiden that her Lord the King of Heaven had revealed to her that she must be sent to the Dauphin, to help him to drive out the English from his country, and to place the crown of France upon his head, and that he, Robert de Baudricourt, was the instrument who would be used to speed her on her way.
The final start was not made till the 23d February, 1429, when the permission is supposed to have come by the hands of Colet de Vienne, the King's messenger, who attended by a single archer, was to be her escort. It is possible that he had no mission to this effect, but he certainly did escort her to Chinon. The whole town gathered before the house of Baudricourt to see her depart.
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