WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

The only foundation for the story told by the Burgundian partisan, Monstrelet, and adopted by Hume, of Joan having been brought up as a servant, Is the circumstance of her having been once, with the rest of her family, obliged to take refuge in an auberge in Neufchateau for fifteen days, when a party of Burgundian cavalry made an incursion into Domremy.

The 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 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 clearer. At last the tidings of the siege of Orleans reached Domremy. Joan heard her parents and neighbors talk of the suffering 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. 

Joan'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 the English from that city, and for taking the dauphin to be anointed king of the Rheims.

At length she informed her parents of her divine mission, and told them that she must go to the Sire de Baudricourt, who commanded at Vaucouleurs, and who was the appointed person to bring her into the presence of the king, whom she was to save.

Neither the anger nor the grief of her parents, who said they would rather see her drowned than exposed to the contamination of the camp, could move her from her purpose. One of her uncles consented to take her to Vaucouleurs, where De Baudricourt at first thought her mad, and derided her, but by degrees he was led to believe, if not in her inspiration, at least in her enthusiasm, and in its possible utility to the dauphin’s cause.

                The inhabitants of Vaucouleurs were completely won over to her side by the piety and devoutness which she displayed, and by her firm assurance in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that she should go to the king, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with her poor mother, and spin; but the Lord had ordered her forth.

The fame of "The Maid", as she was termed, the renown of her holiness, and of her mission, spread far and wide. Baudricourt sent her with an escort to Chinon, where the Dauphin Charles was dallying away his time. Her Voices had bidden her assume the arms and the apparel of a knight; and the wealthiest inhabitant of Vaucouleurs had vied with each other in equipping her with war-horse, armor, and sword.

On reaching Chinon, she was, after some delay, admitted into the presence of the dauphin. Charles designedly dressed himself far less richly than many of his courtiers were appareled, and mingled with | them, when Joan was introduced in order to see if the Holy Maid would address her exhortations to the wrong person.

But she instantly singled him out, and kneeling before him, said, "Most noble dauphin, the King of Heaven announces to you by me that you shall be anointed and crowned king in the city of Rheims, and that you shall be his vice-regent in France."