this (she said), Saint Catherine and Saint
Margaret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and
had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. These visions had
returned sometimes; but the Voices very often; and 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; and 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 s