body, suffering more in mind, but still resolute. "The city would have been taken!" she insisted. "It would have been taken!" Joan spent four weary months--how weary we conjecture chiefly from what we know of her character and her aspirations. Occasionally she rode with a few followers to visit some town where she was known, but generally she was with the Court, a sad and unwilling spectator of its festivities. Sad only because of her unfulfilled mission: had she been suffered to work it out, to see France delivered, she would doubtless have taken pleasure in show and gaiety. She was at home and happy with knights and ladies, and took a frank delight in rich garments and fine armour. She was no bigot, her sanctity was altogether wholesome: it was an exalted love for God, for France and the King, unsoured by any contempt for the common life of humanity. Wherever she went she visited the sick, she gave all she could in alms, she was devoted to the services of the church and to prayer. The people, who knew of her greatness and saw her goodness, treated her with a reverence that was akin to superstition. They brought rings and crosses for her to touch, and so turn into amulets. "Touch them yourselves," she would say, laughing, "they will be just as good." Some believed that she had a charmed life, and need never fear going into battle. Joan grew desperate. Sad voices from beyond the Loire were calling her. She was greatly wanted there, and the King--her King whom she had crowned--did not want her, cared nothing for her nor for his people's trouble. She asked counsel of her other voices, of her saints, and they neither bade her go nor stay; they told her only one certain thing, that before St. John's day she would be taken. If so--if indeed, as she herself had said, she was to last only a year--then the more need to hasten with her work. One day at the end of March she left Sully with a small company, as if going for one of her usual rides. She did not bid farewell to the King, and she never saw him again. It was a time of sad forebodings for her. A story goes, that one morning, after hearing mass in the church of St. Jacques, she went apart and leaned dejectedly against a pillar. Some grown people and a crowd of children came about her--she was always gentle to children--and she said to them: "My children and dear friends, I tell you that I am sold and betrayed, and that I shall soon be given up to death. Therefore I entreat you to pray for me, for never again shall I have any power to serve the King or the Kingdom of France." She was not "sold and betrayed" yet; that was to come.