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What followed is shrouded in doubt. Some say that Joan told Charles things that none but himself had known. However this be, the king determined to go to Poitiers and have this seeming messenger from Heaven questioned strictly as to her mission, by learned theologians of the University of Paris there present.

“In the name of God,” said Joan, “I know that I shall have rough work there, but my Lord will help me. Let us go, then, for God’s sake.”

They went. It was an august and learned assembly into which the unlettered girl was introduced, yet for two hours she answered all their questions with simple earnestness and shrewd wit.

“In what language do the voices speak to you?” asked Father Seguin, the Dominican, “a very sour man,” says the chronicle.

“Better than yours,” answered Joan. The doctor spoke a provincial dialect.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked, sharply.

“More than you do,” answered Joan, with equal sharpness.

“Well,” he answered, “God forbids belief in you without some sign tending thereto; I shall not give the king advice to trust men-at-arms to you and put them in peril on your simple word.”

“In the name of God,” replied Joan, “I am not come to Poitiers to show signs. Take me to Orleans and I will give you signs of what I am sent for. Let me have ever so few men-at-arms given me and I will go to Orleans.”

For a fortnight the questioning was continued. In the end the doctors pronounced in Joan’s favor. Two of them were convinced of her divine mission. They declared that she was the virgin foretold in ancient prophecies, notably in those of Merlin. All united in saying that “there had been discovered in her naught but goodness, humility, devotion, honesty, and simplicity.”

Charles decided. The Maid should go to Orleans. A suit of armor was made to fit her. She was given the following of a war-chief. She had a white banner made, which was studded with lilies, and bore on it a figure of God seated on clouds and bearing a globe, while below were two kneeling angels, above were the words “Jesu Maria.” Her sword she required the king to provide. One would be found, she said, marked with five crosses, behind the altar in the chapel of St. Catharine de Fierbois, where she had stopped on her arrival in Chinon. Search was made, and the sword was found.

And now five weeks were passed in weary preliminaries, despite the fact that Orleans pleaded earnestly for succor. Joan had friends at court, but she had powerful enemies, whose designs her coming had thwarted, and it was they who secretly opposed her plans. At length, on the 27th of April, the march to Orleans began.

On the 29th the army of relief arrived before the city. There were ten or twelve thousand men in the train, guarding a heavy convoy of food. The English covered the approach to the walls, the only unguarded passage being beyond the Loire, which ran by the town. To the surprise and vexation of Joan her escort determined to cross the stream.

“Was it you,” she asked Dunois, who had left the town to meet her, “who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river, and not the direct way, over there where Talbot and the English are?”

“Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains,” he replied.

“In the name of God, the counsel of my Lord is wiser than yours. You thought to deceive me, and you have deceived yourselves, for I am bringing you the best succor that ever had knight, or town, or city, and that is, the good-will of God and succor from the King of Heaven; not, assuredly, for love of me; it is from God only that it proceeds.”

She wished to remain with the troops until they could enter the city, but Dunois urged her to cross the stream at once, with such portion of the convoy as the boats might convey immediately.