THE MAID AT CHINON--PROPHECIES From the village of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, Jeanne dictated a letter to the King, for she did not know how to write.

In this letter she asked permission to come to him, and told him that to bring him aid she had travelled over one hundred and fifty leagues, and that she knew of many things for his good.

She was said to have added that were he hidden amidst many others she would recognise him;[572] but later, when she was questioned on this matter, she replied that she had no recollection of it.
[Footnote 572: _Trial_, vol.i, pp.

56, 75.] Towards noon, when the letter had been sealed, Jeanne and her escort set out for Chinon.[573] She went to the King, just as in those days there went to him the sons of poor widows of Azincourt and Verneuil riding lame horses found in some meadow,--fifteen-year-old lads coming forth from their ruined towers to mend their own fortunes and those of France; just as Loyalty, Desire, and Famine went to him.[574] Charles VII was France, the image and symbol of France.

Yet he was but a poor creature withal, the eleventh of the miserable children born to the mad Charles VI and his prolific Bavarian Queen.[575] He had grown up among disasters, and had survived his four elder brethren.