"
This usurper is even crowned: "the jeweled crown shines on a menial's
head." But, really, that is "_un peu fort_"; and the mob of
spectators might raise a scruple whether our friend the jackdaw upon
the throne, and the dauphin himself, were not grazing the shins of
treason. For the dauphin could not lend more than belonged to him.
According to the popular notion, he had no crown for himself;
consequently none to lend, on any pretence whatever, until the
consecrated Maid should take him to Rheims. This was the _popular_
notion in France. But certainly it was the dauphin's interest to
support the popular notion, as he meant to use the services of Joanna.
For if he were king already, what was it that she could do for him
beyond Orleans? That is to say, what more than a merely _military_
service could she render him? And, above all, if he were king without a
coronation, and without the oil from the sacred ampulla, what advantage
was yet open to him by celerity above his competitor, the English boy?
Now was to be a race for a coronation: he that should win _that_
race carried the superstition of France along with him: he that should
first be drawn from the ovens of Rheims was under that superstition
baked into a king.
La Pucelle, before she could be allowed to practise as a warrior, was
put through her manual and platoon exercise, as a pupil in divinity, at
the bar of six eminent men in wigs.
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