About that time, on the pavement of the cathedral of Reims a labyrinth had been traced with compass and with square.[1127] Pilgrims who were patient and painstaking followed all its winding ways. The Archbishop of Embrun's treatise is likewise a carefully planned scholastic labyrinth. Herein one advances only to retreat and retreats only to advance, but without entirely losing one's way provided one walks with sufficient patience and attention. Like all scholastics, Gelu begins by giving the reasons against his own opinion and it is not until he has followed his opponent at some length that he returns to his own argument. Into all the intricacies of his labyrinth it would take too long to follow him. But since those who were round the King consulted this theological treatise, since it was addressed to the King and since the King and his Council may have based on it their opinion of Jeanne and their conduct towards her, one is curious to know what, on so singular an occasion, they found taught and recommended therein. [Footnote 1127: L. Paris, _Notice sur le dedale ou labyrinthe de l'eglise de Reims_, in _Ann. des Inst. provinc._, 1857, vol. ix, p. 233.] Treating first of the Church's weal, Jacques Gelu holds that God raised up the Maid to confound the heretics, the number of whom, according to him, is by no means small. "To turn to confusion those who believe in God as if they believed not," he writes, "the Almighty, who hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, _King of Kings and Lord of Lords_, was pleased to succour the King of France by the hand of a child of low estate." The Archbishop of Embrun discerns five reasons why the divine succour was granted to the King; to wit: the justice of his cause, the striking merits of his predecessors, the prayers of devout souls and the sighs of the oppressed, the injustice of the enemies of the kingdom and the insatiable cruelty of the English nation. That God should have chosen a maid to destroy armies in no way surprises him. "He created insects, such as flies and fleas, with which to humble man's pride." So persistently do these tiny creatures worry and weary us that they prevent our studying or acting. However strong his self-control, a man may not rest in a room infested with fleas. By the hand of a young peasant, born of poor and lowly parents, subject to menial labour, ignorant and simple beyond saying, it hath pleased Him to strike down the proud, to humble them and make His Majesty manifest unto them by the deliverance of the perishing.