The siege of Orleans shall be raised and the city delivered from its enemies, after I shall have summoned it to surrender in the name of the King of Heaven.

The Dauphin shall be anointed at Reims, the town of Paris shall return to its allegiance to the King, and the Duke of Orleans shall come back from England."[768] [Footnote 768: _Trial_, vol.iii, p.

205.] Long did the doctors and masters, following the example of Brother Seguin of Seguin, urge her to show a sign of her mission.

They thought that if God had chosen her to deliver the French nation he would not fail to make his choice manifest by a sign, as he had done for Gideon, the son of Joash.

When Israel was sore pressed by the Midianites, and when God's chosen people hid from their enemies in the caves of the mountains, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon under an oak, and said unto him: "Surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." To which Gideon made answer: "If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me." And Gideon made ready a kid and kneaded unleavened cakes; the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot and brought the pot and the basket beneath the oak.