Our Maid was at Monlieu that very November; she may have met St. Colette, and talked with her of matters human and divine; who knows?
We do know that she met Catherine of La Rochelle, who came to Mehun that autumn or winter; and that she advised the lady to go home, see to her household (she was a married woman), and take care of her children. Catherine in return advised Joan not to go to La Charité, "because it was much too cold." Evidently, a lady who liked her little comforts. Joan asked St. Catherine about her namesake, and was told that her story was nonsense. Still, the two women had much talk together. The Rochellaise had high ambitions, was not in the least minded to go home to husband and children. She wanted to go in person to Philip of Burgundy and make peace; she wanted to prophesy for the king; like Nick Bottom, she would play the lion, too. Joan seems to have been patient with her; sat up all one night in her company, to see the lady in white and gold, who failed to appear. We need not concern ourselves further with Catherine of La Rochelle, though Brother Richard, the Franciscan, admired her greatly, and would fain have set her up on a pedestal beside Joan. She faded away presently, and is visible to-day only by a little reflected light from the flare of the Maid.
Winter came to an end at last, and with it the truce. Philip of Burgundy resumed hostilities, and Joan burnished her white armor, and laid her lance in rest with right good will. The end was near; all the more would she fight the good fight, so long as she was permitted.
About this time the people of Rheims wrote to her in great alarm, begging for help. Their captain had abandoned them, and gone no one knew whither. They had discovered a conspiracy, headed by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais and Joan's inveterate enemy, to deliver them up to the English. The discovery was made in time, but who could tell what new dangers might await them?
Joan wrote from Sully on March 16th, promising speedy help, and bidding them be of good heart, and man their walls in case of attack.
"You should have other good news," she says, "whereat you would rejoice, but I fear lest this fall into other hands."
A few days later she wrote again, assuring them that all Brittany was French at heart, and that its duke would shortly send to the king three thousand soldiers, paid two months in advance.
In late March or early April she took a new step. After months of waiting, after vigils of anguished prayer such as we can only feebly imagine, she decided to wait no longer for the king, but strike by herself one more blow for the country. She looked for no help of man; she had no encouragement from Heaven. Her Voices were not silent, but they spoke vaguely, confusedly; prophesied ultimate deliverance of France, but said nothing of her being the deliverer; seemed dimly to hint at some forthcoming disaster.
Taking no leave of king or Council (although it seems probable that Charles knew of and consented to her departure), receiving no direction from saint or angel, she rode out from Sully with her "military household," four or five lances, among them her brothers and the ever-faithful D'Aulon. At Lagny she found a little band of men-at-arms who were ready to fight for France; they joined forces, and rode on toward Paris. There, the Maid always knew, lay the key of the situation; there, at what Philip of Burgundy called "the heart of the mystical body of the kingdom," the final blow must be struck.
The chronicles have little or nothing to say about this journey; we know that about Easter, April 16th, she came to Melun, and that the city, hearing of her approach, rose suddenly upon its Anglo-Burgundian garrison, drove them out of town, and opened wide its gates to the Maid. Here was good fortune indeed. Joan crossed the Seine, and entered the town amid general rejoicings. However it might be in Royal Councils, the heart of France still honored and loved its Pucelle.