At dawn of day the town began to fill with visitors, great personages and small ones, to attend the rites, and to render homage. All France seemed to pour into the place; for the people were to have their rightful king, and French hearts were joyful. It mattered not after this who should be crowned--Henry of England, or another--there would be but one King of France, Charles the Seventh, he who was anointed with the sacred oil in the city of Reims, where all kings of France had been crowned since the time of Clovis. Charles had been crowned after a fashion at Bourges, but in the eyes of the nation he was not King until the oil from the mystic ampoule brought down from Heaven by a dove to Saint Remi was poured upon his brow. Jeanne, a daughter of the people, understood this better than the politicians who tried to thwart her design of leading Charles to his sacring, deeming it a piece of childish folly. After the crowning, when the increased prestige and loyalty which it brought to Charles was seen, its significance was understood not only by the politicians but by the Regent Bedford. It was a decided advantage which this girl of the people gained over the English claimant by her quickness in taking the Dauphin to be crowned. The ceremonies were to begin at nine o'clock, Sunday morning, July the seventeenth, and long before that hour the ancient cathedral was filled to overflowing with nobles and men-at-arms, and dignitaries both civic and ecclesiastic, richly and gayly attired in gorgeous stuffs: cloth of gold, cloth of silver, brocades of crimson and azure, and silks dyed in all the colors of the rainbow, mingled with sheen of glittering spears and shining armour: a brilliant gathering. Charles the Dauphin waited at the foot of the high altar, garbed in a robe of cerulean blue over which was scattered the golden fleur-de-lis. Outside the cathedral the streets were thronged with people in holiday attire, wearing leaden medals which bore an effigy of Jeanne. After the coronation the King too had thirteen gold medals struck in honour of the Maid, which bore her device, a hand holding a sword, and the inscription, Consilio firmata Dei. (Strong in the Counsel of God.) These and a vase of silver were among the gifts which he bestowed on the Chapter of Reims.