“_Jeanne soit bonne et sage enfant_,” said one; and another went on: “_Va souvent à l’église_.” Surely the heavenly speakers were Jeanne’s holy guardians, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Jeanne was riveted to the spot, and moved not till the twilight brought her sister looking for her. Jeanne said nothing, but for seven days in succession she sat as at the first, and heard the same solemn words repeated; then on the seventh,--it was Saturday,--another wonder appeared to her: a very glorious holy one and a watcher,--the great St. Michael, God’s warring archangel, in shining armour,--stood before her under the great oak-tree, and bade her give heed to what he said. He told her eloquently and convincingly the story of the sad state of France--devoured by enemies, torn by factions, her King a fugitive uncrowned. When the heavenly visitant had finished his impassioned narrative, he bade Jeanne kneel, and, touching her shoulder with his flashing sword, said: “_Jeanne va toy aux secours du roy de France_.”
The girl swooned as soon as her ghostly visitor had vanished, and so was found, and borne to her couch by her brothers in alarm. In delirium for days and nights, she kept on repeating what the archangel had said, until, amid broken-hearted sobs, her grieving parents counted her as mad. All the gossips of the village and those from more distant homes shook their heads sadly, and said more fervently their _Ave Marias_. Jeanne was not mad, and after she had recovered her usual demeanour she related to her doubting father and mother and the good curé her mysterious story. The good priest proposed to exorcise the evil spirit which he was convinced was in her. Her father,--a matter-of-fact sort of man, and serious-minded, like all the peasant-folk of France,--thought a good thrashing was her deserts; her mother sided with her: she remembered the strange cry at her Jeanne’s birth. Jeanne heard all they had to say, and kept silence, her protestations only adding fuel to the fire of denunciation. She resumed her usual avocations, but daily sat to hear the “Voices,” as she called her ghostly visitants, and daily they repeated their strange instructions. She spent much time upon her knees in the church, and at last the curé, good man, gave heed to her infatuation. “If this be from God,” he said to himself, “no man may stay her.” He wondered, naturally, how this quiet and devout village girl could ever be the Divine instrument for the deliverance of France.