Joan of Arc | Page 7

and she would often remain to confession,
after the early communion in the church. The chapel in which she
worshipped was not the parochial church of Vaucouleurs, but was
attached to the castle, and it still exists. In that castle chapel, and in a
subterranean crypt beneath the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame de
Vaucouleurs, Joan passed much of her time. Seven and twenty years
after these events, one Jean le Fumeux, at that time a chorister of the
chapel, a lad of eleven, bore witness, at the trial in which the memory
of Joan was vindicated, to having often seen her kneeling before an
image of the Virgin. This image, a battered and rude one, still exists.
Nothing less artistic can be imagined; but no one, be his religious views
what they may, be his abhorrence of Mariolatry as strong as that of a
Calvinist, if he have a grain of sympathy in his nature for what is
glorious in patriotism and sublime in devotion, can look on that
battered and broken figure without a feeling deeper than one of
ordinary curiosity.
A short time before leaving Vaucouleurs, Joan made a visit into
Lorraine--a visit which proved how early her fame had spread abroad.
The then reigning Duke of that province, Charles II. of Lorraine, an
aged and superstitious prince, had heard of the mystic Maid of
Domremy, and he had expressed his wish to see her, probably thinking
that she might afford him relief from the infirmities from which he
suffered. Whatever the reason may have been, he sent her an urgent
request to visit him, a message with which Joan at once complied.
Accompanied by Jean de Metz, Joan went to Toul, and thence with her

cousin, Durand Laxart, she proceeded to Nancy. Little is known of her
deeds while there. She visited Duke Charles, and gave him some advice
as to how he should regain his character more than his health, over
which she said she had no control. The old Duke appears to have been
rather a reprobate, but whether he profited by Joan's advice does not
appear.
Possibly this rather vague visit of the Maid's to Nancy was undertaken
as a kind of test as to how she would comport herself among dukes and
princes. That she showed most perfect modesty of bearing under
somewhat difficult circumstances seems to have struck those who were
with her at Nancy. She also showed practical sagacity; for she advised
Duke Charles to give active support to the French King, and persuaded
him to allow his son-in-law, young René of Anjou, Duke of Bar, to
enter the ranks of the King's army, and even to allow him to accompany
her to the Court at Chinon. By this she bound the more than lukewarm
Duke of Lorraine to exert all his influence on the side of King Charles.
Before leaving Nancy on her return to Vaucouleurs, Joan visited a
famous shrine, not far from the capital, dedicated to St. Nicolas, after
which she hastened back to Vaucouleurs to make ready for an
immediate start for Chinon.
Joan's equipment for her journey to Chinon was subscribed for by the
people of Vaucouleurs; for among the common folk there, as wherever
she was known, her popularity was great. She seems to have won in
every instance the hearts of the good simple peasantry, the poorer
classes in general, called by a saintly King of France the 'common
people of our Lord,' who believed in her long before others of the
higher classes and the patricians were persuaded to put any faith in her.
To the peasantry Joan was already the maiden pointed out in the old
prophecy then known all over France, which said that the country
would be first lost by a woman and then recovered by a maiden hailing
from Lorraine. The former was believed to be the Queen-mother, who
had sided with the English; Joan, the Maid out of Lorraine who should
save France, and by whose arm the English would be driven out of the
country.

Clad in a semi-male attire, composed of a tight-fitting doublet of dark
cloth and tunic reaching to the knees, high leggings and spurred boots,
with a black cap on her head, and a hauberk, the Maid was armed with
lance and sword, the latter the gift of de Baudricourt. Her good friends
of Vaucouleurs had also subscribed for a horse. Thus completely
equipped, she prepared for war, ready for her eventful voyage. Her
escort consisted of a knight named Colet de Vienne, accompanied by
his squire, one Richard l'Archer, two men-at-arms from Vaucouleurs,
and the two knights Bertrand de Poulangy and Jean de Metz--eight men
in all, well armed and well mounted, and thoroughly prepared to defend
their charge should the occasion arise.