The misfortunes of the dauphin, the woes of her country, took
complete possession of her expanding mind. Her pure young soul yearned
toward the Infinite in one ceaseless prayer; and when any soul is so
lifted up above all thought of self, praying for the good of others, a
response never fails to come. It is only selfish prayers which remain
unanswered. Joan's beautiful nature was like the sensitive plate
prepared to receive the impression; and while she prayed the angels to
save France, the angels prepared her to become the saviour.

One summer day, when she was in her fourteenth year, she was running in
the fields with her companions, when, as she afterward declared, "she
felt herself lifted as by an invisible force and carried along as if she
possessed wings." Her companions gazed upon her with astonishment,
seeing her fly beyond their reach. Then she heard a voice, which
proceeded from a great light above her; and the voice said, "Joan, put
your trust in God, and go and save France."

This strange experience filled her with terror; but ere many days she
heard the voice again, and this time she saw the figure of a winged
angel. "I am the Archangel Michael," the voice said, "and the messenger
of God, who bids you to go to the aid of the dauphin and restore him to
his throne."

Overcome with fear, she fell on her knees in tears; but the angel
continued to appear to her, accompanied with two female forms, and
always urging her to go to the aid of her country. Fear gave place to
ecstacy, and in the heart of this divine child awoke the audacious idea
whose climax astounded the whole world.

At first she reasoned with the voices, telling them "she was but a poor
girl, who knew nothing of men or war." But the voices replied, "Go and
save France; God will be with you, and you have nothing to fear."

During three years she listened to these voices, which made themselves
heard by her two or three times each week. She seemed consumed by an
inward fever, and strange words escaped her. One day she said to a
laborer, that "midway between Coussi and Vaucouleurs there lived a maid
who should bring the dauphin to his throne."

These words were repeated to her father and they alarmed him; and we
cannot wonder that they did. How could he think otherwise than that his
little girl was losing her senses? How could he dream of the divine and
superhuman powers that had descended upon her from a higher world? He
told her brother that i