In those days the saintly, both men and women, were consulted in all the difficulties of life. The more they were deemed simple and innocent the more counsel was asked of them. For if of themselves they knew nothing then all the surer was it that the voice of God was to be heard in their words. The Maid was believed to have no intelligence of her own, wherefore she was held capable of solving the most difficult questions with infallible wisdom. It was observed that knowing nought of the arts of war, she waged war better than captains, whence it was concluded that everything, which in her holy ignorance she undertook, she would worthily accomplish. Thus at Toulouse it occurred to a _capitoul_ to consult her on a financial question. In that city the indignation of the townsfolk had been aroused because the guardians of the mint had been ordered to issue coins greatly inferior to those which had been previously in circulation. From April till June the _capitouls_ had been endeavouring to get this order revoked. On the 2nd of June, the _capitoul_, Pierre Flamenc, proposed that the Maid should be written to concerning the evils resulting from the corruption of the coinage and that she should be asked to suggest a remedy. Pierre Flamenc made this proposal at the Capitole because he thought that a saint was a good counsellor in all matters, especially in anything which concerned the coinage, particularly when, like the Maid, she was the friend of the King.[1154] [Footnote 1154: A. Thomas, _Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse_, in _Annales du Midi_, 1889, pp. 235, 236.] From Loches Jeanne sent a little gold ring to the Dame de Laval, who had doubtless asked for some object she had touched.[1155] Fifty-four years previously Jeanne Dame de Laval had married Sire Bertrand Du Guesclin whose memory the French venerated and who in the House of Orleans was known as the tenth of _Les Preux_. Dame Jeanne's renown, however, fell short of that of Tiphaine Raguenel, astrologer and fairy,[1156] who had been Sire Bertrand's first wife. Jeanne was a choleric person and a miser. Driven out of her domain of Laval by the English, she lived in retirement at Vitre with her daughter Anne. Thirteen years before, the latter had incurred her mother's displeasure by secretly marrying a landless younger son of a noble house. When Dame Jeanne discovered it she imprisoned her daughter in a dungeon and welcomed the younger son by shooting at him with a cross-bow. After which the two ladies dwelt together in peace.[1157] [Footnote 1155: Letter from the Lavals, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 109. Bertrand de Broussillon, _La maison de Laval, les Montfort-Laval_, Paris, 1900, in 8vo, vol. iii, p. 75. Quicherat is mistaken when (_Trial_, vol. v, p. 105) he gives the name of Anne to Du Guesclin's widow and calls the mother of Guy and of Andre Jeanne.] [Footnote 1156: Cuvelier, _Poeme de Duguesclin_, line 2325 _et seq._]