‘For I alone,’ she added, ’and no other person, whether he be King, or Duke, or daughter of the King of Scots’ (alluding to the future wife of Charles VII.’s son, Louis XI.—­Margaret of Scotland) ’can recover the kingdom of France.’

As far as her own wishes were concerned, she said she would prefer to return to her home, and to spin again by the side of her beloved mother; for, she added:  ’I am not made to follow the career of a soldier; but I must go and carry out this my calling, for my Lord has appointed me to do so.’

‘And who,’ asked de Metz, ‘is your Lord?’

‘My Lord,’ answered the Maid, ‘is God Himself.’

The enthusiasm of Joan seems to have at once gained the soldier’s heart.  He took her by the hand, and swore that God willing he would accompany her to the King.  When asked how soon she would be ready to start, she said that she was ready.  ’Better to-day than to-morrow, and better to-morrow than later on.’

During her second visit to Vaucouleurs, Joan remained with the same friends as on her former visit; they appear to have been an honest couple, of the name of Le Royer.  One day while Joan was helping in the domestic work of her hosts, and seated by the side of Catherine Le Royer, Robert de Baudricourt suddenly entered the room, accompanied by a priest, one Jean Fournier, in full canonicals.  It appeared that the knight had conceived the brilliant idea of finding out, through the assistance of the holy man, whether Joan was under the influence of good or evil spirits, before allowing her to go to the King’s Court.

As may be imagined, Joan received the priest with all respect, kneeling before him; and the good father was soon able to reassure de Baudricourt that the evil spirits had no part or parcel in the heart of the maid who received him with so much humility.

[Illustration:  Chinon.]

For three weeks Joan was left in suspense at Vaucouleurs, and probably it was not until a messenger had been sent to Chinon and had returned with a favourable answer, that at length de Baudricourt gave a somewhat unwilling consent to Joan’s leaving Vaucouleurs on her mission to Chinon.  During those weary weeks of anxious waiting, Joan’s hostess bore witness in after days to the manner in which the time was passed:  of how she would help Catherine in her spinning and other homely work, but, as when at home, her chief delight was to attend the Church services, 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