Then they went on to Rheims, and the Archbishop and all the people came out to meet them, with shouts of joy. On 17th July the Dauphin, with Joan and all his nobles, went to the Cathedral, and there he was crowned and anointed, and made King in earnest, Joan standing beside him with her banner in her hand. This was her happiest day, perhaps, and the last of her great days. She had done so much! In the beginning of May there was every chance that the English would take Orleans, and sweep across the Loire, and seize all France, and drive the Dauphin into Spain, or across the sea to Scotland, and France would have been under the English for who knows how long. But in two months Joan had driven the English behind the walls of Paris, and her Dauphin was King in deed. Then the Maid knelt at the King’s feet and wept for joy, in the great Cathedral, among the splendid nobles, and the lights, and the bright-coloured coats-of-arms, and the sweet smoke of incense. “Gentle King,” she said, calling him “King” for the first time, “now is the will of God fulfilled!” and the knights themselves wept for joy. Somewhere in the crowd was an elderly countryman in his best clothes. Joan’s father, whom now she saw for the first time since she left her village, and for the last time in her life. The King asked her to choose a gift and reward, and she asked that the people of her village, Domremy, should be free from paying taxes, and they were made free, and never paid taxes again, for three hundred years. On the books of the accounts of money paid by every town and village of France is written, after the names of Domremy and the village nearest it, Greux, _Nothing. For the Sake of the Maid._ The paper in which the King ordered that they should pay nothing may still be seen, dated the last of July 1429. How glad the people at Domremy must have been when Joan’s father came home with the good news! This was the last glad day of the Maid. As she rode to Rheims, some people from Domremy met her and asked her if she was afraid of nothing. “Of nothing but treachery,” she said, and, from this day, she met treachery among the King’s advisers, who held long councils, and did not fight. As she rode from Rheims towards Paris, the people shouted round her, and she said that they were kind people, and she would like to be buried in their cathedral--she, who was never to be buried in the earth. “Joan,” said the Archbishop, “in what place do you expect to die?” “Where God pleases, for of that hour and that place I know nothing more than you do. But would to God that now I might take off my armour, and go home to my father and mother,” for, as she had seen her father, she was longing for her mother more than ever. After this, the people about the King-, and the King himself, did not obey Joan, and all went wrong. CHAPTER XI. HOW THE MAID WAS BETRAYED AT PARIS