A prudent answer to those letters reassured Gelu. In a new epistle he testified to the King his satisfaction at hearing that the damsel was regarded with suspicion and left in uncertainty as to whether she would or would not be believed. Then, with a return to his former misgivings, he added: "It behoves not that she should have frequent access to the King until such time as certainty be established concerning her manner of life and her morals."[702] [Footnote 702: M. Fornier, _Histoire des Alpes-Maritimes ou Cottiennes_, vol. ii, pp. 313, 314.] King Charles did indeed keep Jeanne in uncertainty as to what was believed of her. But he did not suspect her of craftiness and he received her willingly. She talked to him with the simplest familiarity. She called him gentle Dauphin, and by that term she implied nobility and royal magnificence.[703] She also called him her _oriflamme_, because he was her _oriflamme_, or, as in modern language she would have expressed it, her standard.[704] The _oriflamme_ was the royal banner. No one at Chinon had seen it, but marvellous things were told of it. The _oriflamme_ was in the form of a gonfanon with two wings, made of a costly silk, fine and light, called _sandal_,[705] and it was edged with tassels of green silk. It had come down from heaven; it was the banner of Clovis and of Saint Charlemagne. When the King went to war it was carried before him. So great was its virtue that the enemy at its approach became powerless and fled in terror. It was remembered how, when in 1304 Philippe le Bel defeated the Flemings, the knight who bore it was slain. The next day he was found dead, but still clasping the standard in his arms.[706] It had floated in front of King Charles VI before his misfortunes, and since then it had never been unfurled. [Footnote 703: Clerk of the Town Hall of Albi, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 300.] [Footnote 704: Thomassin, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 304.] [Footnote 705: _Sandal_ or _cendal_, a silk bearing some resemblance to taffetas. Cf. Godefroy, _Lexique de l'ancien francais_ (W.S.).] [Footnote 706: Du Cange, _Glossaire_, under the word _auriflamma_. Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, _Paris et ses historiens_, pp. 150, 251, 257, 259. [_Histoire generale de Paris._]]