Queen Yolande’s eldest son, Louis III., was meanwhile meeting with varying fortunes in Italy, but the slow progress of his campaign greatly chagrined his dauntless mother. She actually made up her mind to set out for Naples in person to try and turn the slow tide of victory into an overpowering flood; but Anjou was too closely invested by the English for the realization of her project. Here, however, the Queen had her militant opportunity, for at the bloody battle of Baugé,--between La Flèche and Saumur,--in 1421, the English were routed and so greatly disheartened that they evacuated all their strategic points within and around the duchy. That victory was gained directly by Queen Yolande, who commanded in person, sitting astride a great white charger, clothed in steel and silver mail. Some years later King René built an imposing castle upon the heights overlooking the field of battle in memory of his mother’s valour. The Queen’s warlike ardour, however, received a check, for Queen Marie, driven with King Charles before the all-conquering English, escaped to Bourges, and there begged her mother to hasten to her side. She needed, not a mailed woman’s fist, but the gentle hand of her good mother at her accouchement. Louis le Dauphin, her first-born, saw the light in the Archbishop’s Palace on July 3, 1423. Those days were dark indeed for France, but a brilliant star was about to rise above her eastern horizon. Towards the end of 1428 strange reports began to spread all over the stricken country concerning a simple village maiden in far-off Champagne, to whom, in the obscure village of Domremy, Divine visions had been vouchsafed. Her mission, it was stated, was nothing less than the deliverance of France and the coronation of King Charles at Reims.