She seized her standard; the whole army followed her to the ditch, and they threw into it all they could lay their hands on, fagots, doors, tables, rafters, with such rapidity that the townspeople thought the ditches would very soon disappear altogether. The English began to be dazzled and bewildered as at Orleans, and fancied they saw a cloud of white butterflies fluttering round the magic standard. The citizens on their part were in great dread, recollecting that it was in Troyes the treaty had been concluded which disinherited Charles VII, and fearing that an example would be made of their town. Already they were taking refuge in the churches, and crying out that the town must surrender. The fighting men, who desired nothing better, parleyed and obtained leave to depart with what they had. What they had was chiefly prisoners, Frenchmen. Charles VII’s councillors, who had drawn up the capitulation, had stipulated nothing with respect to those unfortunate persons. The Maid alone thought of them. When the English marched out with their prisoners in irons, she stood at the gates and cried out, “In God’s name, they shall not carry them off!” She stopped them, in fact, and the king paid their ransom.[c] Charles simply passed through Troyes, neither did he stop at Châlons, which opened its gates with alacrity; and, on July 13th, he arrived before Rheims. Two Burgundian nobles, the sires of Châtillon and of Saveuse, were in command, but they had no men. They assembled the townsmen, and asked them to hold out for six weeks only; at the end of that time they guaranteed that the dukes of Burgundy and of Bedford would arrive with so powerful an army that it would easily raise the siege. The townsfolk refused to run the risk, persuaded the two captains to retire, and sent a deputation to the chancellor of France who was at the same time archbishop of Rheims, begging him to enter his episcopal town. On July 17th Charles was at last crowned in accordance with the usual ritual, anointed with oil from the holy ampulla of Saint-Rémy and lifted up to his seat by the ecclesiastical peers. _Joan defeated at Paris (1429 A.D.)_ Joan had done the two great things which her ‘voices’ told her to do: she had delivered Orleans, and had caused the king to be crowned; she now wished to return to her village. “On her entrance into Rheims,” says the _Chronique de la Pucelle_[h] “seeing how all the poor people of the country cried ‘Noel!’ and wept from joy and gladness, and how they came to the king singing _Te Deum laudamus_ without response or anthem, she said to the chancellor of France and to Dunois: ‘In God’s name this is a good and pious people, and when it shall be my time to die, I should like it to be in this country.’