Now misfortune agitates the conscience and raises scruples; and he might well doubt the justice of his cause since God was forsaking him.

But if he were indeed assailed by painful doubts, how can he have been relieved from them by the words of a damsel who, as far as he then knew, might be mad or sent to him by his enemies?
It is hard to reconcile such credulity with what we know of his suspicious nature.

The first thought that occurred to him must have been that ecclesiastics had instructed the damsel.
A few moments after he had dismissed her, he assembled the Sire de Gaucourt and certain other members of his Council and repeated to them what he had just heard: "She told me that God had sent her to aid me to recover my kingdom."[679] He did not add that she had revealed to him a secret known to himself alone.[680] [Footnote 679: _Trial_, vol.iii, pp.

17, 209.

As early as April the promised deliverance of Orleans and coronation at Reims had been heard of at Lyons (_Trial_, vol.iv, p.