[16]Robert of Baudricourt was the governor of Vaucouleurs.
[17]Gien is in the department of Loiret, and thirty-eight miles in a direct line from Orleans. Its principal industry is the manufacture of faience.
[18]Joan called him “Dauphin” because she did not consider him a king until he was crowned.
[19]The doubt which was thrown upon the King’s legitimacy greatly weighed upon his spirits. This doubt Joan removed. Her words to him are thus reported: “On the part of my Lord, I tell thee thou art true heir of France and son of the King, and he sends me to lead thee to Rheims to the end thou may’st receive thy crown and thy coronation if thou wilt.”
[20]Poitiers is the capital of the department of Vienne, and is famous not alone for its university, but for its cathedral and the Temple de St. Jean, the oldest Christian structure in France.
[21]The Duke d’Alençon was a relative of the King, and had been held prisoner by the English for three years. He was released upon the promise of a heavy ransom.
[22]The Duke of Bedford, an English general and statesman, was John Plantagenet, third son of Henry IV, and at this time regent of France. He was conspicuous in the prosecution of Joan of Arc.
[23]Joan of Arc, testifying at her trial, said: “I had a banner of which the field was sprinkled with lilies; the world was painted there, with an angel at each side; it was white, of the white cloth called bocasine; there was written above, I believe, ‘Jhesus, Maria’; it was fringed with silk. Because the Voices had said to me, ‘Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven,’ I had this figure of God and of two angels done. I did all by their command.”
[24]Count Jean Dunois, called the “Bastard of Orleans,” was born in 1402, and died in 1468. He was the natural son of Louis, Duke of Orleans, and Mariette d’Enghien, and at this time was in command at Orleans.
[25]It was after the victory at Patay that Joan of Arc declared that the English power in France would not recover from the blow in a thousand years.