With the crowning of the king at Rheims Joan seemed to feel that her mission was at an end. She was homesick when she saw her father and those who had come from Domrémy to witness her miraculous elevation. She prayed Charles to release her, to send her back to her spinning and her flocks, her mother and her friends. But she was too precious at the moment. The king and his counselors would have more of her aid; but they wanted it without admitting her to their councils and without heeding the orders she gave as coming from her Voices. She was severe and outspoken about this treatment. "Truces have been made," she wrote once to the people of Rheims, "that are not pleasing to me, and I know not whether I shall keep them; but if I keep them, it will be solely to maintain the king's honor." [Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS In the lower right corner may be seen the equestrian statue of Joan of Arc] After Rheims there followed campaigns in which she had little or no support, treaties of which she did not approve, intrigues which, though she frequently divined and frustrated them, slowly produced their effect on king and people. She failed in September to take Paris; though she had been as confident that it would fall as that Orléans would. She scandalized the church by attacking it on the anniversary of the birth of the Virgin Mary. She was sorely wounded too in this attack and had to be carried from the field. It hurt her prestige. In the winter following the failure to take Paris Joan wrought many marvels in the Loire country to which the king had retreated. The greatest was that, among doubters and flatterers, and in spite of intrigue and discouragement, she kept her purpose clear, her confidence unshaken. She was still Joan, the Maid sent by God to drive the English from all France. But she was no longer a Maid with full power over the king. [Illustration: JOAN OF ARC Equestrian statue by Anna V. Hyatt] She stood it until spring; then the certainty that there was danger of losing all Champagne led her to set out with a band of perhaps a hundred horse and still fewer archers, her objective Compiègne (cong-pyen) which the Duke of Burgundy was threatening. It was the thirteenth of May when she reached Compiègne. The aid she rendered seems futile enough at this distance. The truth was Joan had no knowledge of the situation, and could have no plans for relief. She was not admitted into the counsels of those who defended the town. For her attack on Orléans and her march on Rheims she had had the knowledge which during three years of devout belief in her mission she had collected unconsciously no doubt; but at Compiègne she had nothing but her Voices. She had almost full command from Orléans to Rheims: now she was little more in the minds of the commanding officers than a painted saint, a bejeweled reliquary, to be used on their sallies and in their attacks.