Before this ratification all opposition to Joan fell. She was proclaimed by the king as one sent by God to assist him. She was given armor, a guard, soldiers, and under her orders a theatrical campaign was conducted. Orléans fell before her; though it was so invested that Charles had ceased to hope for its recovery. The winning of Orléans converted some who had doubted her in spite of learned jurists and theologians. It was with them as with d'Aulon, her steward: "It was not possible for so young a maid to do such things without the will and guidance of our Lord." Those who, because of personal ambition, did not believe in her, those who hated her purity and the habits of restraint and temperance she imposed on the army, those who called her witch, still did not dare oppose her openly. She might be from God, and whether she was or not she was in the saddle, adored of the people, supported by the king, a terror to the English.
CORONATION OF CHARLES VII.
KING CHARLES VII OF FRANCE
From an engraving
KING CHARLES VII OF FRANCE
From an engraving published in 1805
The complete ascendancy Joan of Arc had won in France in two months from the time of her first interview with the king lasted from the fall of Orléans to the coronation of Charles at Rheims, on July 17, 1429. The march which proceeded the crowning was most of it through land which the English held. There were sieges and battles, dangers and escapes. It was managed by the Maid with a calm authority, an unwavering reliance on her Voices, which lifted her even in the minds of her most cynical associates quite out of the ranks of human leaders. She was a greater general than them all. She foresaw all, she never feared nor hesitated—and she a girl of seventeen! She must be of God! And when finally the impossible had been accomplished, and, in spite of English, Burgundians, and the plotters, Charles was crowned, there were few of the French who even secretly denied her claim.
How could they when all she foretold promptly came true? It was by the success or failure of their prophesying that men of those days judged largely whether one came from God or not. It was because she told the governor of Vaucouleurs of a distant battle on the day it occurred and days before the news could reach him that he finally yielded to her demands for an escort. It was because she selected the king from a throng in which he mingled and told him that which no one but he knew that he accepted her. She had said that she would be wounded at Orléans—and she was. She had warned a wicked fellow that he would be dead shortly—and he was. Who could deny the holy origin of such a Maid? Certainly not the average man or woman of the fifteenth century; certainly not the loyal and devout French she succored. As for the English who fled before her, they acknowledged her powers; but they declared them to be of the devil—as was natural, since they were the sufferers!
THE PALACE AT CHINON
The ruins of the Hall