While all these preparations were being made Jeanne made a visit of a few days to Alençon's wife and mother at St. Florent near Saumur. Jeanne of Orléans made Jeanne of D'Arc warmly welcome. She was but a young girl herself, daughter of Charles Duke of Orléans, then nearly fifteen years a prisoner in England, whose city the English were besieging, and therefore had a peculiar interest in the purpose of Jeanne D'Arc. She feared, though, for her husband's safety, remembering the three years that he too had been a prisoner to the English, and she told these fears to Jeanne just as the latter was starting to return to Tours. "Fear nothing, madame," comforted Jeanne. "I will bring him back to you as well as he is now, or even better." While Jeanne was at St. Florent the two knights, Poulengy and Metz, had gone with many others from Tours on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Puy en Velay; for this year of our Lord, 1429, was the year of Jubilee, as any year was called when Good Friday and the Annunciation fell upon the same day. The years in which this occurred were always marked by strange and great events, and crowds flocked to the church which was the oldest dedicated to Our Lady. The morning that the knights were to return Jeanne sat in an upper room of the house of Jean du Puy, whose wife had charge of her. It was the room where she received people, and was connected with the portal by a flight of stairs. There were many in the chamber, for she was now the commissioned Maid of War, with much to attend to. Presently her attention was caught by a commotion in the street below, and there came shouts and cries, and then the sound of footsteps. Wondering at the tumult, for,--though many people were always waiting in the street below to see her come and go; sometimes striving to get close enough to kiss her hands or any part of her garments and hailing her as a messenger of hope,--there was seldom any disturbance inside the portal. Her amaze grew as footsteps were heard ascending the stairs. Presently there came a quick rush of men in haste. As the door was flung wide a young voice cried: "Jeanne, Jeanne! where are you? We have come to you, Jeanne." Jeanne uttered a cry of joy as Pierre and Jean, her brothers, came into the room, followed by the two knights and Father Pasquerel, her confessor. "Oh, boys!" she cried, trying to clasp both of them in her arms at once. "When did you come? How did you get here?" "We came with the knights and Father Pasquerel from Puy en Velay, where we went with mother on a pilgrimage. Then we came on here," Pierre told her, giving her a bearlike hug. "With mother?" exclaimed Jeanne in surprise. "Did mother go on a pilgrimage to Puy en Velay?" "Yes; she sends her love and blessing to you. She made offerings for you there," spoke Jean. "And father?" questioned she anxiously. "How is father?" "He grieves over your absence, Jeanne, but he sends his blessing and love also."