"If I were to depart from this world," she used to say to him, "I should like the King to build chantries, where prayers should be offered to Messire for the salvation of the souls of those who died in war or for the defence of the realm."[1173]
Such a wish was common to all devout souls. What Christian in those days did not hold the practice of saying masses for the dead to be good and salutary? Thus, in the matter of devotion, the Maid was in accord with Duke Charles of Orléans, who, in one of his complaints, recommends the saying and singing of masses for the souls of those who had suffered violent death in the service of the realm.[1174]
She said one day to the good brother: "There is succour that I am appointed to bring."
And Pasquerel, albeit he had studied the Bible, cried out in amazement: "Such a history as yours there hath never been before in the world. Nought like unto it can be read in any book."
Jeanne answered him even more boldly than the doctors at Poitiers: "Messire has a book in which no clerk, however perfect his learning, has ever read."[1175]
She had received her mission from God alone, and she read in a book sealed against all the doctors of the Church.
On the reverse of her standard, sprinkled by mendicants with holy water, she had had a dove painted, holding in its beak a scroll, whereon were written the words "in the name of the King of Heaven."[1176] These were the armorial bearings she had received from her Council. The emblem and the device seemed appropriate to her, since she proclaimed that God had sent her, and since at Orléans she had given the sign promised at Poitiers. The King, notwithstanding, changed this shield for arms representing a crown supported upon a sword between two flowers-de-luce and indicating clearly what was the aid that the Maid of God was bringing to the realm of France. It is said that she regretted having to abandon the arms communicated to her by divine revelation.[1177]
She prophesied, and, as happens to all prophets, she did not always foretell what was to come to pass. It was the fate of the prophet Jonah himself. And doctors explain how the prophecies of true prophets cannot be all fulfilled.
She had said: "Before Saint John the Baptist's Day, in 1429, there shall not be one Englishman, howsoever strong and valiant, to be seen throughout France, either in battle or in the open field."[1178]