Drawing of St. Joan of Arc by Frank DuMond
When Joan came to find the King, he was at the town of Chinon, and I at Saint Florent. I was riding out on a quail hunt when a message came that a Maid had come to the King who maintained that she was sent by God to drive away the English, and to raise the siege which these English had laid to Orléans. That is why I went to the King next day, at Chinon, where he was, and I found Joan talking with the King. Just as I drew near, Joan asked who I was, and the King replied that I was the Duke of Alençon. Then Joan said: “You have come at a good time. The more of the blood royal there are together, the better it will be.” And the next day Joan attended the King’s Mass, and when she saw the King she bowed, and the King led Joan into a chamber; and I was with him and the lord de la Trémoille, whom the King held back, telling the others that they could retire.
Statue of St. Joan of Arc in the Palace of Versailles
Then Joan made the King several requests, among others that he should give his kingdom to the Lord of Heaven; and when he had made this gift, she said, the King of Heaven would do to him as he had done to his predecessors and restore him to his former state.
“Sworn testimony at the Retrial provided by Jean II, Duke of Alençon, prince of the blood royal” in Wilfred T. Jewkes and Jerome B. Landfeld, Joan of Arc: Fact, Legend, and Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964), 60.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 301
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