Jeanne had not long to wait in her inn. Two days after her arrival, what she had so ardently desired came to pass: she was taken to the King.[659] In the last century near the Grand-Carroy, opposite a wooden-fronted house, there was shown a well on the edge of which, according to tradition, Jeanne set foot when she alighted from her horse, before climbing the steep ascent leading to the Castle. Through La Vieille Porte,[660] she was already crossing the moat when the King was still hesitating as to whether he would receive her. Many of his familiar advisers, and those not the least important, counselled him to beware of a strange woman whose designs might be evil. There were others who put it before him that this shepherdess was introduced by letters from Robert de Baudricourt carried through hostile provinces; that in journeying to the King she had forded many rivers in a manner almost miraculous. On these considerations the King consented to receive her.[661] [Footnote 659: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 143.] [Footnote 660: The kerb was removed during the Second Empire. Moreover it is admitted that no faith should be put in such traditions. G. de Cougny, _Charles VII et Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon_, Tours, 1877, in 8vo.] [Footnote 661: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 75; vol. iii, p. 115. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, pp. 46, 47. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 68.] The great hall was crowded. As at every audience given by the King the room was close with the breath of the assembled multitude. The vast chamber presented that aspect of a market-house or of a rout which was so familiar to courtiers. It was evening; fifty torches flamed beneath the painted beams of the roof.[662] Men of middle age in robes and furs, young, smooth-faced nobles, thin and narrow shouldered, of slender build, their lean legs in tight hose, their feet in long, pointed shoes; barons fully armed to the number of three hundred, according to Aulic custom, pushed, crowded and elbowed each other while the usher was here and there striking the courtiers on the head with his rod.[663] [Footnote 662: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75, 141.] [Footnote 663: Le Curial, in _Les oeuvres de Maistre Alain Chartier_, ed. Du Chesne, Paris, 1642, in 4to, p. 398.]