It is not so surprising, then, that Joan, after spending several years day after day alone in the fields, occasionally hearing about all the troubles and wars in France, and having hours and hours when she could do nothing but think, should have thought she was inspired with a mission to save her country from the English invaders, and that, once perfectly persuaded of this, she should have quickly had a lot of people running after her and spreading her fame abroad.
Another thing was not so unusual as it seems to-day. Joan, when she finally saw Charles VII. of France, and persuaded him that he was the real King of France, and that all they had to do was to march to Rheims and crown him--Joan wore a suit of man's armor. She was only eighteen years old, and a delicate girl of middle height. It was unusual, of course, for so young a girl to go to war, but in those days women led bodies of men, and some of them wore armor. Women, who by birth and the absence of male relatives had been left in charge of large feudal estates, had to keep little armies to protect their lands and fields from attack, and when such attacks did come they had to go out in many cases and lead their men themselves.
So that while her visions, her calm confidence, and her male dress were enough to attract attention, they did not seem so impossible to the people of her time by a great deal as they would to the people of to-day. And then, also, everybody was ready to follow any "inspired" person who foretold anything which really happened, or who carried out what he or she started to do. Joan, after going to the King and telling him that if he followed her he would become the crowned King of France, began to find everyone following her, believing in her just as calmly as she believed in herself. The Englishmen had invaded the north of France and held the city of Paris, and the great Duke of Burgundy was in league with them. They wanted to crown Henry VI. of England, King of France also, and they marched southward and captured Orleans, which practically opened southern France to them.
Joan told King Charles VII. that she could recapture Orleans, and crown him King at Rheims, and in a little while he gave her five or six thousand men. Mounted on her white horse, in full armor, she led these men on, and by her confidence and vigor and good common-sense, persuaded the generals to attack Orleans in a certain way. Half a dozen times the besiegers were practically defeated, and would have gone back, but Joan staid before the city gates, and no one could make her turn back. Such perfectly fearless conduct acted just as it has always acted, just as it acted a thousand times in the civil war, in the Revolution, and everywhere else. The men grew crazy with enthusiasm, and rushed again and again after Joan at the defences of the city, with the result that they finally captured it.