the voices always said, "Joan, thou art
appointed by Heaven to go and help the
Dauphin!" She almost always heard them
while the chapel bells were ringing.

There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed
she saw and heard these things. It is very
well known that such delusions are a disease
which is not by any means uncommon. It is
probable enough that there were figures of
Saint Michael, and Saint Catherine, and
Saint Margaret, in the little chapel (where
they would be very likely to have shining
crowns upon their heads), and that they first
gave Joan the idea of those three personages.
She had long been a moping, fanciful girl,
and, though she was a very good girl, I
dare say she was a little vain, and wishful for
notoriety.

Her father, something wiser than his
neighbours, said, "I tell thee, Joan, it is thy
fancy. Thou hadst better have a kind
husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to
employ thy mind!" But Joan told him in
reply, that she had taken a vow never to
have a husband, and that she must go as
Heaven directed her, to help the Dauphin.
It happened, unfortunately for her father's
persuasions, and most unfortunately for the
poor girl, too, that a party of the Dauphin's
enemies found their way into the village
while Joan's disorder was at this point,
and burnt the chapel, and drove out the
inhabitants. The cruelties she saw
committed, touched Joan's heart and made her
worse. She said that the voices and the
figures were now continually with her; that
they told her she was the girl who, according
to an old prophecy, was to deliver France;
that she must go and help the Dauphin, and
must remain with him until he should be
crowned at Rheims; and that she must travel
a long way to a certain lord named BAUDRICOURT,
who could and would, bring her into
the Dauphin's presence. As her father still
said, "I tell thee Joan, it is thy fancy," she
set off to find out this lord, accompanied by
an uncle, a poor village wheelwright and
cart-maker, who believed in the reality of her
visions. They travelled a long way and went
on and on, over a rough country, full of the
Duke of Burgundy's men, and of all kinds of
robbers and marauders, until they came to
where this lord was.

When his servants told him that there was
a poor peasant girl named Joan of Arc,
accompanied by nobody but an old village
wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to
see him, because she was commanded to help
the Dauphin and save France, Baudricourt
burst out a laughing and bade them send
the girl away. But, he soon heard so much
about her lingering in the town, and praying
in the churches, and seeing visions, and
doing harm to no one, that he sent for her, and
questioned her. As she said the same things
after she had been well sprinkled with holy
water as she had said before the sprinkling,
Baudricourt began to think there might be
something in it. At all events, he thought it
worth while to send her on to the town of
Chinon, where the Dauphin was. So, he
bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave
her two squires to conduct her. As the
Voices had told Joan that she was to wear a
man's dress, now, she put one on, and girded
her sword to her side, and bound spurs to
her heels, and mounted her horse and rode
away with her two squires. As to her
uncle the wheelwright, he stood staring at his
niece in wonder until she was out of sight—
as well he might—and then went home again.
The best place, too.

Joan and her two squires rode on and on,
until they came to Chinon, where she was,
after some doubt, admitted into the Dauphin's
presence. Picking him out immediately
from all his court, she told him that she came
commanded by Heaven to subdue his enemies
and conduct him to his coronation at Rheims.
She also told him (or he pretended so
afterwards to make the greater impression upon
his soldiers) a number of his secrets known
only to himself, and, furthermore, she said
there was an old, old sword in the cathedral of
Saint Catherine at Fierbois, marked with five
old crosses on the blade, which Saint Catherine
had ordered her to wear. Now, nobody
knew anything about this old, old sword, but
when the cathedral came to be examined—
which was immediately done—there, sure
enough, the sword was found! The Dauphin
then required a number of grave priests and
bishops to give him their opinion whether
the girl derived her power from good spirits
or from evil spirits, which they held
prodigiously long debates about, in the course of
which several learned men fell fast asleep
and snored loudly. At last, when one gruff
old gentleman had said to Joan, "What
language do your Voices speak?" and when
Joan had replied to the gruff old gentleman
"A pleasanter language than yours," they
agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan
of Arc was inspired from Heaven. This
wonderful circumstance put new heart into
the Dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it,
and dispirited the English army, who took
Joan for a witch.

So Joan mounted horse again, and again
rode on and on, until she came to Orleans.
But, she rode now, as never peasant girl had
ridden yet. She rode upon a white war-horse,
in a suit of glittering armour; with the old, old
sword from the cathedral, newly burnished, in
her belt; with a white flag carried before her,
upon which were a picture of God, and the
words JESUS MARIA. In this splendid state,
at the head of a great body of troops escorting
provisions of all kinds for the starving
inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared before
that beleaguered city. When the people on
the walls beheld her, they cried out "The
Maid is come! The Maid of the Prophecy is
come to deliver us!" And this, and the