The Childhood of the Influential Women from the Past. Rupert Sargent Holland

here one of the ancestors of the noble lord had met a fairy and often talked with her. On feast days the lord and his family made merry in the shade of this beech, and the village children often went there also, hung wreaths of flowers on the limbs of the fairy tree, danced about it, ate their bread and cheese and cakes under its shade, and drank the waters of a near-by fountain which were supposed to heal any one who was sick. Here the children picnicked one summer day not long after Joan had seen the vision of Saint Michael, and here Philippe brought Joan a half-dozen willow wands and cut them into pipes and whistles for her. The boys and girls ran races against each other, and Joan was so fleet-footed she could beat many of the boys, and after that they danced and then had supper and made a visit to the miraculous fountain to taste its water. By sundown they were tired and ready to go home. They all went together to the village and then scattered on their several ways. Joan, weary but happy, entered the little garden back of her father's house and sat down on a bench built against the wall. She gave a little sigh of content; the evening was beautiful and a warm wind blew across the valley from the west.

      As she sat there resting she thought she caught the sound of voices. They did not come from the house, but seemed to be borne to her on the soft breeze. Much surprised she sat up straight. Then came into shape again before her eyes the faint but clear image of Saint Michael, only a little distance from her in the garden. His eyes seemed to rest fixedly on hers. He grew so distinct she could see the joints in his silver armor and that his lips moved. She slid from the bench to her knees and bent her head. Some power outside herself made her look up. Two figures stood with Saint Michael now, one on each side, and she knew they were Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.

      Again Joan heard the voice, but now she knew it was Saint Michael who was speaking to her. He told her the kingdom of France lay in his care, that the king of France and all his people were in danger, and that she must prepare herself to go to her king's aid, for it was through her that France was to be delivered. He bade her be not afraid but prepare herself for the great work she was to do, and told her that the two saints there with him would be near her always and would direct and strengthen her. He ceased speaking, and slowly the three figures faded into air, and she heard only the whisper of the west wind in the trees.

      She rose from the grass and slowly went indoors. All that evening she moved about her home in a trance, feeling she had a great secret she could share with no one, yet one which she could never forget.

      A night or two later the village priest came for a chat with James of Arc. The two men talked of the war, and of the French and English kings. Joan sat by the window listening. Finally she heard her father say, "These be bad days; what with a weak king and the greedy English we French folk are like so many cattle waiting for the slaughter."

      "Jesu have pity on us!" said the priest. "There is a prophecy made long syne by some holy man that our France shall be ruined by a woman and then be safe restored by a maid from the borders of Lorraine. We know the woman, King Charles' mother, Madame Isabeau of Bavaria herself; but where is the maid? God grant she come soon!"

      There seemed to be silence in the room, but Joan heard a voice speaking to her. "Thou art the maid," said the voice. "Thou wast born to save this land of France."

      The summer passed and winter came to Lorraine. Outwardly Joan of Arc was like the other girls of Domremy. She helped her mother indoors and her father in the fields, she went to mass and confession and she learned as much as her friends did of the troubles of her country. But more and more often the voices spoke to her, when she was watching the cattle in the pasture, or visiting the little chapel on the hillside, or sewing in her room at home. They would come to her without warning, but always when she was alone, and they told her again and again that she was to save France, but they did not yet tell her how she was to do it. Sometimes she saw the visions of the saints themselves, but more often only heard their voices, and in time they grew so familiar to her that she no longer trembled at the sound.

      In the summer when Joan was sixteen the English and the soldiers of Burgundy swept down on Lorraine, and the people of Domremy, peasant folk who were always at the mercy of the troopers, left their homes and drove their cattle seven miles southward to the walled town of Neufchâteau. Joan, now a tall strong girl, pretty with her black hair and eyes and sunburned cheeks, went with her family and found a home in the walled city with a woman named La Rousse. Here, safe within the walls, she helped the other girls in tending the animals and caring for the housework. She heard wild tales of the terrible things the enemy's soldiers were doing in the country, and she prayed that her family and friends might not fall into their hands. Again Saint Michael appeared to her, and now he told her that the time was not far distant when she must set forth on her sacred mission.

      The enemy's soldiers soon left that part of the country and James of Arc and his neighbors were able to return to Domremy. They found the village burned, the church a pile of ruins, only the stone walls of their houses standing, the crops destroyed, their goods carried away. They still had their cattle, and they set to work to build new roofs for their homes and go on with their work. For the first time the children saw what war meant. Joan found the orchard where she had seen her first vision laid waste, and beyond it the blackened stones of what had been the church. She understood that what had happened there was happening all over France and began to realize that God had called her to the wonderful work of saving her countrymen. The voices spoke again, and now they began to tell her exactly what it was that she must do.

      Joan was now nearly seventeen, and Philippe, her old friend, was much in love with her and asked her to marry him. She was very fond of him, and liked him much better than she did any of the other youths of Domremy, but the voices told her that she must not marry, but must give all her thoughts to the great work which had been set her. Philippe entreated her to change her mind, but she would not. Little by little now she spoke to him and to her other friends of the messages Saint Michael and the other saints had sent her.

      In the autumn of 1428 the fate of France seemed trembling in the balance, bound up with the fate of the city of Orleans. The English army had just laid siege to that city, and if Orleans fell France was lost. The sovereign of France, Charles VII, was a weakling, and in the eyes of many French people not really their king, but only the heir to the throne, or Dauphin as he was called, because he had not yet been crowned and consecrated as king at the old city of Rheims. Rheims was in the hands of the English, but it must be taken from them, and Charles the Dauphin must be crowned and anointed there if he was to be King of France. One autumn day in 1428 the voices spoke again to the peasant maid of Domremy and gave her two commands; first to save Orleans from the English, and second to lead the Dauphin to Rheims and have him crowned king there.

      Naturally the tasks seemed impossible to Joan; she pleaded that she could not ride, knew nothing of war, and had never been out of the valley of the Meuse. The voices told her that she would be guided safely, and that first she must go to the village of Vaucouleurs and ask the captain, Robert of Baudricourt, for an escort to take her to the Dauphin. Moreover, she must not delay; she must save the city of Orleans.

      Her chance to start came almost at once. A cousin of hers who lived near Vaucouleurs fell sick, and Joan offered to nurse her. At the cousin's house Joan told the husband that she was commanded to raise the siege of Orleans and asked him to take her to Robert of Baudricourt. The simple peasant was amazed and at first would not believe her, but she was so earnest and spoke so positively of the commands given her that finally he yielded and agreed to take her to the captain in Vaucouleurs.

      A little later Joan and the peasant appeared before Robert of Baudricourt. The captain saw a common farmer and a strong, dark, pretty girl dressed in coarse red stuff like any ordinary peasant maid. Joan told him he must send her with an escort to the Dauphin. The captain laughed loudly and bade her go home and tend the cattle. She protested, but he only scoffed at her talk of her mission.

      Joan, however, did not go home, but stayed in the town, and told those she met that she must go to the Dauphin because she was the maid who was to save France. She seemed an honest, gentle girl, and one by one people began to take an interest in her story and wonder if it could be true. One day a roystering soldier named John of Metz stopped at the house where she lived, and asked for her, thinking to make fun of her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded when she came to the door. "I have come," said Joan, "to