One day when the Maid and the King were talking together, the Duke of Alencon entered the hall. When he was a child, the English had taken him prisoner at Verneuil and kept him five years in the Crotoy Tower.[707] Only recently set at liberty, he had been shooting quails near Saint-Florent-les-Saumur, when a messenger had brought the tidings that God had sent a damsel to the King to turn the English out of France.[708] This news interested him as much as any one because he had married the Duke of Orleans' daughter; and straightway he had come to Chinon to see for himself. In the days of his graceful youth the Duke of Alencon appeared to advantage, but he was never renowned for his wisdom. He was weak-minded, violent, vain, jealous, and extremely credulous. He believed that ladies find favour by means of a certain herb, the mountain-heath; and later he thought himself bewitched. He had a disagreeable, harsh voice; he knew it, and the knowledge annoyed him.[709] As soon as she saw him approaching, Jeanne asked who this noble was. When the King replied that it was his cousin Alencon, she curtsied to the Duke and said: "Be welcome. The more representatives of the blood royal are here the better."[710] In this she was completely mistaken. The Dauphin smiled bitterly at her words. Not much of the royal blood of France ran in the Duke's veins. [Footnote 707: Perceval de Cagny, p. 136. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 224, 249.] [Footnote 708: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 91.] [Footnote 709: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp. 408, 409. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. vi, pp. 43, 44.] [Footnote 710: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 91.] On the next day Jeanne went to the King's mass. When she approached her Dauphin she bowed before him. The King took her into a room and sent every one away except the Sire de la Tremouille and the Duke of Alencon. Then Jeanne addressed to him several requests. More especially did she ask him to give his kingdom to the King of Heaven. "And afterwards," she added, "the King of Heaven will do for you what he has done for your predecessors and will restore you to the condition of your fathers."[711] [Footnote 711: _Ibid._, pp. 91, 92. Eberhard Windecke, pp. 152 _et seq._] In discoursing thus of things spiritual, in giving utterance to those precepts of reformation and of a new life, she was repeating what the clerks had taught her. Nevertheless she was by no means imbued with this doctrine. It was too subtle for her, and it was shortly to fade from her mind and give place to an ardour less monastic but more chivalrous. That same day she rode out with the King and threw a lance in the meadow with so fine a grace that the Duke of Alencon, marvelling, made her a present of a horse.[712] [Footnote 712: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 92.]