Overcome with fear, she fell on her knees in tears; but the angel continued to appear to her, accompanied with two female forms, and always urging her to go to the aid of her country. Fear gave place to ecstacy, and in the heart of this divine child awoke the audacious idea whose climax astounded the whole world.
At first she reasoned with the voices, telling them "she was but a poor girl, who knew nothing of men or war." But the voices replied, "Go and save France; God will be with you, and you have nothing to fear."
During three years she listened to these voices, which made themselves heard by her two or three times each week. She seemed consumed by an inward fever, and strange words escaped her. One day she said to a laborer, that "midway between Coussi and Vaucouleurs there lived a maid who should bring the dauphin to his throne."
These words were repeated to her father and they alarmed him; and we cannot wonder that they did. How could he think otherwise than that his little girl was losing her senses? How could he dream of the divine and superhuman powers that had descended upon her from a higher world? He told her brother that if Joan should attempt to follow the army, as he feared she might, "he would rather drown her with his own hands." Her parents set a watch upon her movements, and decided to marry her to a young man who was secretly enamored of her. They connived with this admirer to swear before an officer of the law that Joan had promised him her heart; but she so strenuously denied the assertion before the judge that she gained her case.
Just at this epoch the people of Domremy were obliged to fly before an invading troop of soldiers. When they returned to their village they found their church burned and their homes pillaged. Joan regarded this as a direct punishment for her hesitation in heeding the "voices." She would hesitate no longer, and after repeated delays and disheartening rebuffs, she succeeded in winning her way, with a few believers in her mission, to the king's castle.
When Charles finally consented to an interview, he disguised one of his courtiers as king, and he was disguised as a courtier; but Joan was not deceived by clothing; she fell at his feet, clasped his knees, and exclaimed, "Gentle king, God has taken pity on you and your people; the angels are on their knees praying for you and them."
The king was impressed with her lofty enthusiasm, and plied her with questions. Her responses astonished him. One reliable authority tells us that she revealed to him something known only to himself—and answered a question which he had that day demanded of God in the privacy of prayer—the question of his legitimate right to the throne. Joan told him that he had asked this question of God, and that she was able to reply to it in the affirmative.
The king was so astonished and overjoyed at this proof of the maiden's powers, that he expressed belief in her divine mission; but he quickly relapsed into doubt again, and Joan was obliged to endure a very critical examination before a parliament, where she confused and confounded the learned doctors by her simple words: "I know not A or B, but I am commanded by my voices to raise the siege of Orleans and crown the dauphin at Rheims." When one aggressive doctor, with a bad accent, asked sarcastically; "what language her voices spoke," she replied, "Better than yours, sir," which brought the laughter of the whole parliament upon him. A messenger sent to Domremy, to ascertain the early conduct of the maid, returned with accounts of her piety and benevolence. All this worked in her favor, together with the strong faith which the masses reposed in her; for the people remembered the old prophecy and believed that the maiden had come to deliver France.
Even the doctors of theology were affected by this prophecy, and the result was the final equipment of Joan for battle. When arrayed in a knight's armor she refused to accept a sword. "The voices told me," she said, "that in the church vault at Fierbois there lies a sword marked with five crosses which I must carry, and no other."
A messenger was sent, who found the sword exactly as she had described it. This naturally swelled the faith of the people in her divine mission. She ordered a white banner made, covered with the lilies of France, and with the inscription, "Jesus Maria," emblazoned upon it. At the end of two months she entered the town of Blois, where the army was stationed, seated upon a fine horse, her head bare, her dark curls streaming in the wind, an air of triumph and joy on her face. Six thousand soldiers were drawn up to receive her. But the pleasure-loving young dauphin, be it said to his shame, was enjoying himself in his castle and was not there to meet her. Nothing had yet been decided about the position Joan was to occupy, but the wild enthusiasm of the army at once made her its leader.