After prayer, Louis opened to them his mind.

Pale from much fasting and nightly communing with God, his face was lit again with that light which had shone in it when on the Friday after Pentecost the year before he had received at St.Denis the pilgrim's scarf and the oriflamme of France.
"God's hand is in this, my masters," he said.

"Is it not written that many shall come from the east and from the west to sit down with Abraham in his kingdom?
I have a duty towards those poor folk, and I dare not fail." There was no man present bold enough to argue with the white fire in the King's eyes.

One alone cavilled.

He was a Scot, Sir Patrick, the Count of Dunbar, who already shook with the fever which was to be his death.
"This Khakan is far away, sire," he said.