20,887, original documents 693, Clairambault, _deeds_, _seals_, vol.29.] [Footnote 625: F.Duchesne, _Histoire des chanceliers et garde des sceaux de France_, p.

487.] After eleven days' journey, Jeanne reached Chinon on the 6th of March.[626] It was the fourth Sunday in Lent, that very Sunday on which the lads and lasses of Domremy went forth in bands, into the country still grey and leafless, to eat their nuts and hard-boiled eggs, with the rolls their mothers had kneaded.

That was what they called their well-dressing.

But Jeanne was not to recollect past well-dressings nor the home she had left without a word of farewell.[627] Ignoring those rustic, well-nigh pagan festivals which poor Christians introduced into the penance of the holy forty days, the Church had named this Sunday _Laetare_ Sunday, from the first word in the introit for the day: _Laetare, Jerusalem_.

On that Sunday the priest, ascending the altar steps, says low mass; and at high mass the choir sings the following words from Scripture: "_Laetare, Jerusalem; et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam ..._: Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her all ye that mourn for her: That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; ..."[628] That day priests, monks, and clerks versed in holy Scripture, as in the churches with the people assembled they sang _Laetare, Jerusalem_, had present before their minds the virgin announced by prophecy, raised up for the deliverance of the kingdom, marked with a sign, who was then making her humble entrance into the town.