It was not triumph which I read there, though there was joy and rapture and peace, beyond all power of understanding.
It was the face of one who sees heaven open, and in the wonder and awe of the beatific vision forgets all else, and feels not the fetters of the flesh, heeds not those things which must needs intervene ere the spirit can finally be loosed to enter upon blessedness and rest, but soars upwards at once into heavenly regions.
The town of Rheims lay before us.

The inhabitants were pouring forth to meet us.

We saw them coming over the plain, as we watched the walls and buildings, glowing in the mystic radiance of the summer's evening, loom up larger and grander and sharper before us.
It was no dream! And yet who would have thought it possible three months ago?
In mid-April the iron grip of the English lay all over the land north of the Loire, and the south lay supine and helpless, stricken with the terror of the victorious conqueror.

Orleans was at its last gasp, and with its fall the last bulwark would be swept away; all France must own the sway of the conqueror.

The King was powerless, indolent, ready to fly at the first approach of peril, with no hope and no desire for rule, doubtful even if he had the right to take upon himself the title of King, careless in his despair and his difficulties.