Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois, about 19 miles from Chinon, was a center of pilgrimage for escaped prisoners and was festooned with fetters, shackles, and chains hung there as offerings. Joan dictated a letter to the king to tell him of her approach. When she reached Chinon on March 4, she was not immediately welcomed at the castle and had to obtain lodging at an inn. Representatives of the king came to her and insisted that she give them her message. She told them she had come to raise the siege of Orleans and to lead the dauphin to his coronation at Reims. She was finally admitted into the royal presence on March 6.
A standard motif in the retelling of Joan’s story is the scene in which the courtiers at Chinon try to trick her by placing another man on the king’s throne. Joan turns from the impostor and finds her way miraculously to the dauphin where he is hiding in the crowd. This scene is already present in the fifteenth-century miracle play The Siege of Orleans (1452). It may have evolved from this eyewitness account:
When the king knew that she was coming, he withdrew apart from the others. Joan, however, knew him at once and made him a reverence and spoke to him for some time.
As amazing as it sounds, it may have been relatively easy for someone in Joan’s position to see through the dauphin’s deception. Judging by his portrait and from contemporary descriptions, Charles VII was a very unattractive man. He had a bulbous red nose and squinty eyes, and he was a shabby dresser. Joan had just spent 11 days in the company of a royal herald, who could have described him to her in enough detail for her to pick him out of a crowd of well-dressed courtiers.
Whatever Joan said to Charles in private convinced him that she was no ordinary young woman. She was immediately provided with a suite of rooms and attendants to wait on her. Various noblemen made appointments to speak with her. She was permitted use of the royal grounds, where, while practicing her horsemanship, she was observed by the duke of Alenqon, the king’s cousin. Alenqon was so impressed with her ability to handle a lance that he gave her a better horse. Charles was ready to accept her help, but Joan’s claims had to be officially investigated. Like Baudricourt, the king and his advisers knew that supernatural voices didn’t always come from heaven. Joan was escorted to Poitiers, which had become a center for theologians and professors who had taught at the University of Paris before being driven out by the Anglo-Burgundian faction. Joan was lodged comfortably at the home of Jean Rabo-teau but was kept under strict observation. During that time, investigators went to Domremy and vicinity to check out her story. It is one of the great losses of history that the documentation collected during this time has been lost. In addition to being questioned on spiritual matters, Joan was given a physical examination by high-ranking women in order to verify that she was a woman and a virgin.
The interrogation at Poitiers went on for three weeks. Joan’s masculine attire troubled her interrogators, but the argument was made that the nature of her mission justified what ordinarily would be unacceptable behavior in a woman. The conclusion at Poitiers was favorable:
. . . in her has been found nothing evil; only good, humility, virginity, devotion, honesty, simplicity; and of her birth and of her life several marvellous things are told as true.
The king was advised to make use of her:
The king. . . must not prevent her from going to Orleans with her men-at-arms, but must have her led there in good faith, placing hoping in God. For doubting her or dismissing her without appearance of evil, would be to repel the Holy Spirit, and render one unworthy of the aid of God.
The way had been cleared for Joan to become a knight.
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