There were three castles merging before her into one long mass of embattled walls, of keeps, towers, turrets, curtains, barbicans, ramparts, and watch-towers; three castles separated one from the other by dykes, barriers, posterns, and portcullis. On her left, towards sunset, crowded, one behind the other, the eight towers of Coudray, one of which had been built for a king of England, while the newest were more than two hundred years old. On the right could be plainly seen the middle castle, with its ancient walls and its towers crowned with machicolated battlements. There was the chamber of Saint Louis, the King's chamber, the apartment of him whom Jeanne called the Gentle Dauphin. And there also, close to the rush-strewn room, was the great hall in which she was to be received. Towards the town the site of the hall was indicated by an adjoining tower, square and very old. On the right extended a vast bailey or stronghold, intended as a lodging for the garrison, and a defence of the middle part of the castle. Near by a large chapel raised its roof, in the form of an inverted keel, above the ramparts. This chapel, built by Henry II of England, was under the patronage of Saint George, and from it the bailey received its name of Fort Saint George.[633] In those days every one knew the story of Saint George the valiant knight, who with his lance transfixed a dragon and delivered a King's daughter, and then suffered martyrdom confessing his faith. Like Saint Catherine he had been bound to a wheel with sharp spikes, and the wheel had been miraculously broken like that on which the executioners had bound the Virgin of Alexandria. And like her Saint George had suffered death by means of an axe, thus proving that he was a great saint.[634] In one thing, however, he was wrong; he was of the party of the _Godons_, who for more than three hundred years had kept his feast as that of all the English. They held him to be their patron saint and invoked him before all other saints. Thus his name was pronounced as constantly by the vilest Welsh archer as by a knight of the Garter. In truth no one knew what he thought and whether he did not condemn all these marauders who were fighting for a bad cause; but there was reason to fear that such great honours would affect him. The saints of Paradise are generally ready to take the side of those who invoke them most devoutly. And Saint George, after all, was just as English as Saint Michael was French. That glorious archangel had appeared as the most vigilant protector of the Lilies ever since my Lord Saint Denys, the patron saint of the kingdom, had permitted his abbey to be taken. And Jeanne knew it. [Footnote 633: G. de Cougny, _Notice archeologique et historique sur le chateau de Chinon_, Chinon, 1860, in 8vo.] [Footnote 634: _La legende doree_, translated by Gustave Brunet, 1846, pp. 259, 264. Douhet, _Dictionnaire des legendes_, pp. 426, 436.]