As they were full of respect, though at the same time also of doubt, towards Joan, she never had to defend herself against their familiarities, but she had constantly to dissipate their disquietude touching the reality or the character of her mission.

"Fear nothing," she said to them; "God shows me the way I should go; for thereto was I born." On arriving at the village of St.Catherine-de-Fierbois, near Chinon, she heard three masses on the same day, and had a letter written thence to the king, to announce her coming and to ask to see him; she had gone, she said, a hundred and fifty leagues to come and tell him things which would be most useful to him.

Charles VII.

and his councillors hesitated.

The men of war did not like to believe that a little peasant-girl of Lorraine was coming to bring the king a more effectual support than their own.