We are not well acquainted with the intrigues that divided the little court of Charles. The divisions in it had naturally augmented in this its extreme distress. The old Armagnac advisers, whom Richemont and the king’s mother-in-law had for a while removed, were in the way to regain their credit. That southern party would have been well pleased to have a king of the south holding his court at Grenoble. The duchess of Anjou, the king’s mother-in-law, on the contrary, could not preserve Anjou if the English definitively passed the Loire. So far there was a community of interests between her and the house of Orleans. But the house of Anjou had so many other interests, so various and divergent, that she thought it expedient always to keep on fair terms with the English, and to negotiate perpetually. When the defence of Orleans appeared to be desperate (May, 1429), the old cardinal De Bar hastened to treat with Bedford, in the name of his nephew, René of Anjou, lest he should lose the inheritance of Lorraine, calculating that René could disavow his proceedings, should the affairs of Charles VII at any future time assume another aspect. The impending ruin of Orleans had frightened the other towns of the Loire. The nearest, Angers, Tours, and Bourges, sent provisions to the besieged; Poitiers and La Rochelle, money; then, when the alarm increased, the Bourbonnais, Auvergne, and even Languedoc sent the Orléanais saltpetre, sulphur, and steel. Gradually all France became interested in the fate of one town, and moved with sympathy for the brave resistance of the men of Orleans and their fidelity to their lord. Orleans was pitied; so too was its duke. The captive Charles of Orleans could not defend his town.[40] The English had one thing in their favour, namely, that their young king, Henry VI, was certainly a Frenchman by the mother’s side, and grandson of Charles VI, whom he resembled but too much as regarded the weakness of his mind. The legitimacy of Charles VII, on the other hand, was very doubtful; he was born in 1403, in the high tide of his mother’s intimacy with the duke of Orleans; and she herself had acquiesced in the acts in which he was called _soi-disant_ dauphin. Henry VI had not yet been crowned at Rheims, but neither had Charles VII. The people in those days recognised a king but by two things, royal birth and the crown placed on his head with the church’s solemn sanction. Charles VII was not king according to religion, nor was he sure that he was so according to nature. This question, of no moment for politicians of that class who decide after their own interests, was everything for the people, who are willing to obey only the right. A woman had obscured this great question of right, and by a woman it was cleared up. This second woman bore the name Jeanne Darc. She was soon to be famous as the Maid of Orleans. THE MAID OF ORLEANS (_LA PUCELLE_) (1429 A.D.)