ervants 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.

{Joan of Arc: p158.jpg}

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