It is pretended, that Joan, immediately on her admission, knew the king, though she had never seen his face before, and though he purposely kept himself in the crowd of courtiers, and had laid aside every thing in his dress and apparel which might distinguish him: that she offered him, in the name of the supreme Creator, to raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct him to Rheims to be there crowned and anointed; and on his expressing doubts of her mission, revealed to him, before some sworn confidants, a secret which was unknown to all the world beside himself, and which nothing but a heavenly inspiration could have discovered to her: and that she demanded, as the instrument of her future victories, a particular sword, which was kept in the church of St.Catharine of Fierbois, and which, though she had never seen it, she described by all its marks, and by the place in which it had long lain neglected.[*] This is certain, that all these miraculous stories were spread abroad, in order to captivate the vulgar.

The more the king and his ministers were determined to give into the illusion, the more scruples they pretended.

An assembly of grave doctors and theologians cautiously examined Joan's mission, and pronounced it undoubted and supernatural.

She was sent to the parliament, then residing at Poictiers; and was interrogated before that assembly: the presidents, the counsellors, who came persuaded of her imposture, went away convinced of her inspiration.

A ray of hope began to break through that despair in which the minds of all men were before enveloped.