528 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE in favor of France. Saintly voices and visions, Jeanne d'Arc, or Joan of Arc, believed, bade her leave her home on the Jeanne border of Lorraine and go to the help of her kinj d ' Arc and her country. Her father had little sympathy with what he regarded as idle fancies; but she persuaded ai uncle to take her to a royal captain in the neighborhood. After this captain had refused her once, she finally inducec him in turn to supply her with an escort so that she mighl ride through the intervening hostile territory to the royal headquarters at Chinon. Here, strange to say, she per- suaded Charles to give her a few troops and let her try to save Orleans. But many other soldiers joined her as she marched through Blois toward Orleans. She brought pro- visions into the starving town by boats on the river, and then, by capturing one English fortification after another, forced the English within a few days to abandon the siege. Then she led the army of the dauphin, as she called him un- til his formal coronation, northeast in a victorious march through the enemy's country to Rheims where he could be duly crowned king in the great cathedral. Joan's marvelous success was due chiefly to the fact that all the French needed at this time to defeat and drive Reasons out ^e English was confidence and leadership, for Joan's She supplied both. She believed firmly in her "Voices" and the age was still ready to accept the miraculous. Consequently many of her followers be- lieved her to be a saint divinely inspired, and found in that belief assurance of victory. Even the English had to admit that there was something supernatural about her, but they preferred to insist that she was a witch and an instrument of the Devil. Joan also loved her country and her king. She wanted to relieve her suffering land and to drive the English home where they belonged. That there were plenty of other Frenchmen who felt as she did is evidenced by the strong backing she at once received and by the way she set her sol- diers' hearts on fire. The idea of one France in contrast to feudal states and local interests had now come into being, and devotion to the king was a sentiment that burned in
