that
he would listen to her, and it was with a heavy heart that she found a
good reason for leaving home to visit Vaucouleurs. Joan had a cousin, a
niece of her mother's, who was married to one Durand Lassois, at Burey
en Vaux, a village near Vaucouleurs. This cousin invited Joan to visit
her for a week. At the end of that time she spoke to her cousin's
husband. There was an old saying, as we saw, that France would be
rescued by a Maid, and she, as she told Lassois, was that Maid. Lassois
listened, and, whatever he may have thought of her chances, he led her
to Robert de Baudricourt.

Joan came, on May 18, 1423, in her simple red dress, and walked straight
up to the captain among his men. She knew him, she said, by what her
Voices had told her, but she may also have heard him described by her
father. She told him that the Dauphin must keep quiet, and risk no
battle, for before the middle of Lent next year (1429) God would send
him succour. She added that the kingdom belonged, not to the Dauphin,
but to her Master, who willed that the Dauphin should be crowned, and
she herself would lead him to Reims, to be anointed with the holy oil.

[Illustration: Robert thinks Joan crazed]

'And who is your Master?' said Robert.

'The King of Heaven!'

Robert, very naturally, thought that Joan was crazed, and shrugged his
shoulders. He bluntly told Lassois to box her ears, and take her back to
her father. So she had to go home; but here new troubles awaited her.
The enemy came down on Domremy and burned it; Joan and her family fled
to Neufchateau, where they stayed for a few days. It was perhaps about
this time that a young man declared that Joan had promised to marry him,
and he actually brought her before a court of justice, to make her
fulfil her promise.

Joan was beautiful, well-shaped, dark-haired, and charming in her
manner.

We have a letter which two young knights, Andre and Guy de Laval, wrote
to their mother in the following year. 'The Maid was armed from neck to
heel,' they say, 'but unhelmeted; she carried a lance in her hand.
Afterwards, when we lighted down from our horses at Selles, I went to
her lodging to see her, and she called for wine for me, saying she would
soon make me drink wine in Paris' (then held by the English), 'and,
indeed, she seems a thing wholly divine, both to look on her and to hear
her sweet voice.'

It is no wonder that the young man of Domremy wanted to marry Joan; but
she had given n