Then she held out her hand in token of amity.
"Brave Constable, this is well spoken.

You have no cause to fear me.

You are not here by my will, it is true; for I have enough men with me to do the will of my Lord; but since you have come for love of the Dauphin, who soon must be crowned King, you are welcome indeed; and I know that you will live to serve him faithfully, though in the present you have foes at Court who turn his heart from you." So again she saw what lay beyond our ken, and which the future has brought to light.

Alas, that she never saw the day when the King threw off his supine fear and idleness, and played the man in the conquest of his kingdom, and when De Richemont fought like a lion at his side! Yet who dare say that she did not see and did not rejoice even then?
If the light came only in gleams and flashes, surely it came to her charged with an infinite joy! And now I must tell of the last exploit of this wonderful eight days' triumphal march through a hostile country--that battle of Patay, where, for the first time, the Maid met the foe in the open, and directed operations not against stone walls, as in every case before, but against an army drawn up in a plain.
There had been marching and counter-marching which only a map could make clear.

What matters it the route we pursued, so long only as our progress had been attended by victory, and the fortresses cleared of foes, so that the journey of the King could now be taken in safety?
Yet there was one more peril to face; for the army so long expected, under Sir John Fastolffe, was now heard of somewhere close at hand.