Marie shrieked aloud. She clenched her fists. Her lips quivered. “Woman,” she at last exclaimed, “the devil has sent you to tempt me! Leave me. Go and report that I will suffer death rather than consent.”
“I must first do what I have been ordered, sister.” Thereupon the nun knelt before the crucifix and repeated aloud the prayers which were prescribed as a preparation for the vow. When she had finished she withdrew. What she had said came to pass. Marie first was locked in her cell and given only a scanty bit of bread. When that proved of no avail she was put into the prison. It was her loud laments which Jean had heard while praying in the church of Saint Ursula, for the prison was only separated from the church by a single wall.
Chapter IV
In Camp and Court
News of the siege of the City of Orleans by the English at last reached the village of Domremy. No one was more deeply affected by it than Joan, for she believed from what her confessor had told the villagers that with the fall of Orleans the King’s cause would be lost, that there was no hope for the raising of the siege, and that the wretchedness of the fatherland would then be complete.
Scarcely had Joan heard the news before she left the village to meditate upon this new situation in some one of her favorite solitudes. She was at this time about seventeen years of age, blooming and beautiful in person, but unchanged in nature and habits. She longed to abandon herself to her thoughts and impressions in solitude as she used to do when tending her father’s flocks. Deep down in her heart she felt the sorrows of others now as she did then, and was moved by the same irresistible desire to help them. She longed to prostrate herself before her saints, to look into the clouds with supernatural vision and see their figures and hear their voices as she used to do. Her communion with the spiritual world at this time had become so intimate that she could question her saints and hear their instant replies. The Fairy Tree, under which she fed the birds, the miraculous spring where the fawns frisked about her, and the chapel at the cross-road near the oak forest, in which she had most of her visions, were her favorite resorts. In this chapel she knelt before the image of Saint Catherine, unconscious of the outside world. The burden of her fervent prayer was the necessities of the country, the rescue of the City of Orleans, and the coronation of the King.
“O that I were a man! O that I were a commander!” she sighed. “I would rush to the rescue. Perhaps it is not impossible. Does not the wolf fly from me when my saints are near? Can I not hide my maiden’s figure in the garb of the soldier? Are not these limbs strong enough to wear armor? What if the dear saints should commission me to rescue the fatherland!”
Absorbed in such thoughts and longings, she lost herself in communion with the celestial world, and in a vision she saw her favorite saints in the glowing clouds.
“Why do you tarry, Joan?” said the voices. “Cities and villages are being destroyed every day. Daily the blood of the people is being shed. Arise! Execute the decree of Heaven.”
“But,” said Joan, “how may I know it is Heaven which sends me?”
“The signs of your mission will not fail.”