Descending the plain, we entered the city, crossed a bridge, and made our way to the cathedral square. Then presently we were at the doorway where Joan and her king had entered--the portal which has been called the most beautiful this side of paradise. How little we dreamed that destruction and disfigurement lay only a few weeks ahead! It is not required any more that one should write descriptively of the now vanished glories of the church of Rheims, it has been done so thoroughly and so numerously by those so highly qualified for the undertaking. Fergusson, who must have been an authority, for the guide-book quotes him, calls it, "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages." The cathedral was already two hundred years old when Joan arrived in 1429. But it must have looked quite fresh and new, then, for nearly five centuries later it seemed to have suffered little. Some of the five hundred and thirty statues of its wonderful portal were weatherworn and scarred, to be sure, but the general effect of beauty and completeness was not disturbed. Many kings had preceded Joan and her sovereign through the sacred entrance. Long before the cathedral was built, French sovereigns had come to Rheims for their coronation. Here Clovis had been baptized nearly a thousand years before. It was a mighty assemblage that gathered for the crowning of Joan's king. France, overrun by an invader, had known no real king for years--had, indeed, well nigh surrendered her nationality. Now victory, in the person of a young girl from an obscure village, had crowned their arms and brought redemption to their throne. No wonder the vast church was packed, and that crowds were massed outside. From all directions had come pilgrims to the great event--persons of every rank, among them two shepherds, Joan's aged father and uncle, who had walked from Domremy, one hundred and twenty miles, to verify with their own eyes what their ears could not credit. We are told that the abbot, attended by the archbishop, his canons, and a deputation of nobles, entered the crowded church, followed by the five mounted knights who rode down the great central aisle, clear to the choir, and then at a signal backed their prancing steeds all the distance to the great doors. Very likely the cathedral at Rheims had never known such a throng until that day, nor heard such a mighty shout as went up when Joan and the king, side by side and followed by a splendid train, appeared at the great side entrance and moved slowly to the altar.