abeau is said to have had some property in
her native village. The family of Jacques d'Arc and Isabella or
Isabeau consisted of five children: three sons, Jacquemin, Jean, and
Pierre, and two daughters, the elder Catherine, the younger Jeanne, or
Jennette, as she was generally called in her family, whose name was to
go through the ages as one of the most glorious in any land.

Well favoured by nature was the birthplace of Joan of Arc, with its
woods of chestnut and of oak, then in their primeval abundance. The
vine of Greux, which was famous all over the country-side as far back
as the fourteenth century, grew on the southern slopes of the hills
about Joan's birthplace. Beneath these vineyards the fields were
thickly clothed with rye and oats, and the meadow-lands washed by the
waters of the Meuse were fragrant with hay that had no rival in the
country. It was in these rich fields that, after the hay-making was
over, the peasants let out their cattle to graze, the number of each
man's kine corresponding with the number of fields which he owned and
which he had reaped.

The little maid sometimes helped her father's labourers, and the idea
has become general that Joan of Arc was a shepherdess; in reality, it
was only an occasional occupation, and probably undertaken by Joan out
of mere good-nature, seeing that her parents were well-to-do people.
All that we gather of Joan's early years proves her nature to have
been a compound of love and goodness. Every trait recorded of the
little maid's life at home which has come down to us reveals a mixture
of amiability, unselfishness, and charity. From her earliest years she
loved to help the weak and poor: she was known, when there was no room
for the weary wayfarer to pass the night in her parents' house, to
give up her bed to them, and to sleep on the floor, by the hearth.

She loved her mother tenderly, and in her trial she bore witness
before men to the good influence that she had derived from that
parent. Isabeau d'Arc appears to have been a devout woman, and to
have brought up her children to love work and religion. Joan loved to
sit by her mother's side for the hour together, spinning, and
doubtless listening to the stories of wars with the hereditary enemy.
When she could be of use, Joan was ever ready to lend a hand to help
her father or brothers in the rougher labours of coach-house, stable,
or farmyard, to keep watch over the flocks as they browsed by the
river-side