dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were
recollections of the miraculous interpositions of heaven in favor of
the oppressed, which she had learned from the legends of her Church.
Her faith was undoubting; her prayers were fervent. "She feared no
danger, for she felt no sin," and at length she believed herself to have
received the supernatural inspiration which she sought.

According to her own narrative, delivered by her to her merciless
inquisitors in the time of her captivity and approaching death, she was
about thirteen years old when her revelations commenced. Her own words
describe them best. "At the age of thirteen, a voice from God came to
her to help her in ruling herself, and that voice came to her about the
hour of noon, in summer-time, while she was in her father's garden. And
she had fasted the day before. And she heard the voice on her right, in
the direction of the church; and when she heard the voice, she saw also
a bright light."

Afterward St. Michael and St. Margaret and St. Catharine appeared to
her. They were always in a halo of glory; she could see that their heads
were crowned with jewels; and she heard their voices, which were sweet
and mild. She did not distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them
more frequently than she saw them; and the usual time when she heard
them was when the church bells were sounding for prayer. And if she was
in the woods when she heard them, she could plainly distinguish their
voices drawing near to her. When she thought that she discerned the
heavenly voices, she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their
presence gladdened her even to tears, and after they departed she wept
because they had not taken her with them back to paradise. They always
spoke soothingly to her. They told her that France would be saved, and
that she was to save it.

Such were the visions and the voices that moved the spirit of the girl
of thirteen; and as she grew older, they became more frequent and more
clear. At last the tidings of the siege of Orleans reached Domremy.
Jeanne heard her parents and neighbors talk of the sufferings of its
population, of the ruin which its capture would bring on their lawful
sovereign, and of the distress of the Dauphin and his court. Jeanne's
heart was sorely troubled at the thought of the fate of Orleans; and her
"voices" now ordered her to leave her home, and warned her that she was
the instrument chosen by heaven for driving away t