One day he met the damsel and said to her: "Well, _ma mie_, what are you doing here? Must the King be driven from his kingdom and we all turn English?"[402] [Footnote 402: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 435-457. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. xxvi, xxvii.] Such words from a young Lorraine warrior are worthy of notice. The Treaty of Troyes did not subject France to England; it united the two kingdoms. If war continued after as before, it was merely to decide between the two claimants, Charles de Valois and Henry of Lancaster. Whoever gained the victory, nothing would be changed in the laws and customs of France. Yet this poor freebooter of the German Marches imagined none the less that under an English king he would be an Englishman. Many French of all ranks believed the same and could not suffer the thought of being Anglicised; in their minds their own fates depended on the fate of the kingdom and of the Dauphin Charles. Jeanne answered Jean de Metz: "I came hither to the King's territory to speak with Sire Robert, that he may take me or command me to be taken to the Dauphin; but he heeds neither me nor my words." Then, with the fixed idea welling up in her heart that her mission must be begun before the middle of Lent: "Notwithstanding, ere mid Lent, I must be before the Dauphin, were I in going to wear my legs to the knees."[403] [Footnote 403: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 396 _et seq._] A report ran through the towns and villages. It was said that the son of the King of France, the Dauphin Louis, who had just entered his fifth year, had been recently betrothed to the daughter of the King of Scotland, the three-year-old Madame Margaret, and the common people celebrated this royal union with such rejoicings as were possible in a desolated country.[404] Jeanne, when she heard these tidings, said to the man-at-arms: "I must go to the Dauphin, for no one in the world, no king or duke or daughter of the King of Scotland, can restore the realm of France." [Footnote 404: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. cxci.] Then straightway she added: "In me alone is help, albeit for my part, I would far rather be spinning by my poor mother's side, for this life is not to my liking. But I must go; and so I will, for it is Messire's command that I should go." She said what she thought. But she did not know herself; she did not know that her Voices were the cries of her own heart, and that she longed to quit the distaff for the sword. Jean de Metz asked, as Sire Robert had done: "Who is Messire?" "He is God," she replied. Then straightway, as if he believed in her, he said with a sudden impulse: "I promise you, and I give you my word of honour, that God helping me I will take you to the King." He gave her his hand as a sign that he pledged his word and asked: "When will you set forth?"