Troyes heard, but kept its gates shut. Anxious council was held in the Dauphin's camp; La Trémoïlle advised retreat; had he not said all along, etc., etc.
The archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France and a tool of La Trémoïlle, drew lurid pictures of the strength of Troyes and the contumaciousness of its people. They never would yield; the supplies of the army were running low. Best retire while they could do so with safety. The councillors were called on in turn for their opinion; some advised retreating, some passing by the obstinate town in hope of faring better elsewhere; hardly one favored an attack on the city.
When the turn came of Robert de Maçon, sometime chancellor (of Charles VI.), he said bluntly, "This march was begun not because we were rich in money or strong in men, but because Joan the Maid said it was the will of God. Let the Maid be summoned, and let the Council hear what she has to say on the matter!"
Joan was sent for, and was told the sense of the meeting; the lions in the path; the necessity of retreat.
To the Archbishop, who addressed her, she made no reply, but turned to her prince.
"Do you believe all this, gentle Dauphin?" she asked.
Charles was not sure, perhaps, what La Trémoïlle would allow him to believe. He made cautious answer; if the Maid had anything profitable and reasonable to say, she would be trusted.
"Good Dauphin," said the Maid in her clear thrilling voice, "command your people to advance to the siege, and waste no more time in councils; in God's name, before three days pass I will bring you into Troyes, by favor or force or valor, and false Burgundy shall be greatly amazed."
Even the Archbishop seems to have been impressed by these words.
"Joan," he said, "we could wait for six days were we sure of having the town, but can we be sure?"
"Have no doubt of it!" replied the Maid. Thereupon she mounted her horse and rode through the camp, banner in hand, exhorting, encouraging, ordering preparations for the assault.
Following the example of the English at Meung, she collected doors, tables, screens, to shelter the advance, bundles of fagots to fill in the ditches.
"Immediately," says Dunois (_quorum pars magna_, we may well believe), "she crossed the river with the royal army and pitched tents close by the wall, laboring with a diligence that not two or three most experienced and renowned captains could have shown."