d put to it to protect themselves against fierce
knights and noblemen who rode at the head of marauding bands to steal
and plunder at will. The peasants had to look on sadly, with no hope of
redress, when brutal men at arms drove off their sheep, or tossed the
torch into their cottages--and as there was little to choose between
friend and foe, the villagers stood guard in the tower of a nearby
monastery, and gave the alarm when any soldiers approached the town.

Domremy, however, was no worse off in these respects than other towns
and villages in that far time. And it must not be thought that the
village folk were wholly without pleasures. Roses grew along the walls
of their cottages, wine flowed from their vineyards, and there were
village festivals and dances in which they loved to take part. Although
they could not read or write, their priests instructed them in the
history of the Church and its mighty power, and in the lives of the
Saints and Martyrs and their teachings--how those that obeyed the
Church and its priests were blessed, while those that broke its laws
must surely enter the dismal fires of Hell. There were also bands of
players who acted the religious stories taught by the priests in so
vivid a manner that the peasants were thrilled and delighted; and while
their cottages were bare and poor, their church was glorious with gold,
rich with embroidery and bright with candle light that gleamed upon the
carven, painted figures of the Saints that they adored.

It had been prophesied in France that from a forest near Domremy there
would come a maid who would deliver the country from the perils that
beset it--and when Jeanne d'Arc was a little girl the times seemed ripe
indeed for the appearance of such deliverer. A great war had been
raging between France and England; the English had captured many French
towns and laid claim to the crown itself; the French King, Charles the
Sixth, was quite mad; his Queen had leagued herself with the enemies of
France, and her son, Prince Charles, who was called the Dauphin, had
been compelled to flee to escape the English and the Burgundians.

Perhaps Jeanne d'Arc had heard the prophesy about the maid,--certainly
she had listened to many beautiful tales about the lives of the Saints.
In those days the Saints were believed to take sides in war with the
countries that were dearest to them. The English believed in St.
George, who slew the dragon; but the patron Saint of France w