Still less was she as other women are, fashioned for soft flatteries, ready to be wooed and won.  Ah, no!  With the Maid it was far otherwise.  Truly do I think that of herself she had no thought, save as she was the instrument appointed of her Lord to do the appointed work.  To that task her whole soul was bent.  It filled her to the full with an ecstasy of devotion which required no words in which to express itself.  And I can faithfully say that it was not the beauty of her face, the sweetness of her ringing voice, nor the grace and strength of her supple form which made of men her willing followers and servants.

No, it was a power stronger and more sacred than any such carnal admiration.  It came from the conviction, which none could fail to reach, that this Maid was indeed chosen and set apart of Heaven for a great and mighty work, and that in obeying her, one was obeying the will of God, and working out some purpose determined in the counsels of the heavenlies.

With her man’s garb and light armour, the Maid had assumed an air of unconscious command which sat with curious graceful dignity upon the serene calm of her ordinary demeanour.  Towards her followers of the humbler sort she ever showed herself full of consideration and kindliness.  She felt for their fatigues or privations in marching, was tenderly solicitous later on for the wounded.  Above all, she was insistent that the dying should receive the consolations of religion, and it was a terrible thought to her that either friend or foe should perish unshriven and unassoiled.

Her last act at Vaucouleurs, ere we started off in the early dawn of a late February day, was to attend Mass with all her following.

An hour later, after a hasty meal provided by De Baudricourt, we were all in the saddle, equipped and eager for the start.  The Maid sat her chestnut charger as to the manner born.  The pawings of the impatient animal caused her no anxiety.  She was looking with a keen eye over her little band of followers, taking in, as a practised leader of men might do, their equipment and general readiness for the road.  She pointed out to me several small defects which required adjusting and rectifying.

Already she seemed to have assumed without effort, and as a matter of course, the position of leader and general.  There was no abatement of her gentle sweetness of voice or aspect, but the air of command combined with it as though it came direct and without effort as a gift from heaven.  None resented it; all submitted to it, and submitted with a sense of lofty joy and satisfaction which I have never experienced since, and which is beyond my power to describe.

There was one change in the outward aspect of the Maid, for her beautiful hair had been cut off, and now her head was crowned only by its cluster of short curling locks, upon which today she wore a cloth cap, though soon she was to adopt the headpiece which belonged to the light armour provided.  She had been pleased by the dress of white and blue cut-cloth which I had humbly offered her, and right well did it become her.  The other suit provided by the townsfolk was carried by one of the squires, that she might have change of garment if (as was but too probable) we should encounter drenching rains or blustering snow storms.