The King looked graciously upon her but answered nothing. The Lord d'Harcourt, having heard that the Maid held converse with angels and saints, was curious to know whether the idea of taking the King to Reims had really been suggested to her by her heavenly visitants. Describing them by the word she herself used, he asked: "Is it your Council who speak to you of such things?"
She replied: "Yes, in this matter I am urged forward." Straightway my Lord d'Harcourt responded: "Will you not here in the King's presence tell us the manner of your Council when they speak to you?"
At this request Jeanne blushed.
Willing to spare her constraint and embarrassment, the King said kindly: "Jeanne, does it please you to answer this question before these persons here present?"
But Jeanne addressing my Lord d'Harcourt said: "I understand what you desire to know and I will tell you willingly."
And straightway she gave the King to understand what agony she endured at not being understood and she told of her inward consolation: "Whenever I am sad because what I say by command of Messire is not readily believed, I go apart and to Messire I make known my complaint, saying that those to whom I speak are not willing to believe me. And when I have finished my prayer, straightway I hear a voice saying unto me: 'Daughter of God, go, I will be thy help.' And this voice fills me with so great a joy, that in this condition I would forever stay."[1146]
While she was repeating the words spoken by the Voice, Jeanne raised her eyes to heaven. The nobles present were struck by the divine expression on the maiden's face. But those eyes bathed in tears, that air of rapture, which filled my Lord the Bastard with amazement, was not an ecstasy, it was the imitation of an ecstasy.[1147] The scene was at once simple and artificial. It reveals the kindness of the King, who was incapable of wounding the child in any way, and the light-heartedness with which the nobles of the court believed or pretended to believe in the most wonderful marvels. It proves likewise that henceforth the little Saint's dignifying the project of the coronation with the authority of a divine revelation was favourably regarded by the Royal Council.
The Maid accompanied the King to Loches and stayed with him until after the 23rd of May.[1148]
The people believed in her. As she passed through the streets of Loches they threw themselves before her horse; they kissed the Saint's hands and feet. Maître Pierre de Versailles, a monk of Saint-Denys in France, one of her interrogators at Poitiers, seeing her receive these marks of veneration, rebuked her on theological grounds: "You do wrong," he said, "to suffer such things to which you are not entitled. Take heed: you are leading men into idolatry."
Then Jeanne, reflecting on the pride which might creep into her heart, said: "In truth I could not keep from it, were not Messire watching over me."[1149]