First, a company of knights and nobles in full armor, headed by the Maréchal de Boursac, rode out to meet the Abbot of St. Rémy, who came from his abbey bringing the holy phial (_ampoule_). Then they all rode into the cathedral, and alighted at the choir-gate. There met them Charles the Dauphin, and presently received his consecration at the hands of the Archbishop, and was anointed and crowned king of France. The people shouted "_Noël!_" and blessed God for the auspicious day. "And the trumpets sounded so that you might think the roofs would be rent. And always during that mystery the Maid stood next the King, her standard in her hand. A right fair thing it was to see the goodly manners of the King and the Maid."[59] D'Albert carried the Sword of State; Alençon gave the accolade. Guy de Laval was there, and La Trémoïlle, and many others whose names we know; all in their brightest armor, we may be sure, with much clanking of swords and waving of banners. We hardly see them; all our eyes are for the Maid (she also in full armor, as becomes a good soldier), as she kneels before the King she has made, embracing his knees and weeping for joy. "Gentle King," she says, "now is accomplished the Will of God, who decreed that I should raise the siege of Orleans and bring you to this city of Rheims to receive your solemn sacring, thereby showing that you are the true king, and that France shall be yours." The chronicle adds, "And right great pity came upon all who saw her, and many wept." If this might have been the end! if she might have turned now, in the hour of her triumph, her task accomplished, and the bidding of her Voices done--have turned away from the warfare and the pomp, the cabals and the intrigues, and gone back to Domrémy, to tend her sheep and mind her spinning-wheel, and dream over "the great days done!" Tradition has long held that this was the wish of her heart, and that after the coronation she begged Charles to let her depart in peace, now that her mission was ended. This legend seems to have no foundation in fact; it probably sprang from the universal feeling; "Might it have been!" We shall see, however, that somewhat later she expressed to others her desire to depart. The relief of Orleans and the coronation of the king were all, says Dunois, that she actually claimed as her mission; beyond this all was vague. Still, the Voices said that the English must be driven from French soil, and Joan was the last one to take her hand from the plough while work was still to do. Forward then, in God's name, since thus it must be! I have never seen Rheims Cathedral, and now I shall never see it with my bodily eyes; yet to me, as to all of this day and generation, it is intimately familiar in both its aspects. First we see it the crown and glory of Gothic architecture, the "frozen music," the "rugged lacework" whose praises men have sung for seven hundred years, yet whose beauty has never been expressed in words.