introduction.]

We shall not be tempted to recognise him in Messire Guillaume
Frontey, priest of Domremy. The successor of Messire Jean Minet, if we
may judge from his conversation which has been preserved, was as
simple as his flock.[297] Jeanne saw many priests and monks. She was
in the habit of visiting her uncle, the priest of Sermaize, and of
seeing in the Abbey of Cheminon,[298] her cousin, a young ecclesiastic
in minor orders, who was soon to follow her into France. She was in
touch with a number of priests who would be very quick to recognise
her exceptional piety, and her gift of beholding things invisible to
the majority of Christians. They engaged her in conversations, which,
had they been preserved, would doubtless present to us one of the
sources whence she derived inspiration for her marvellous vocation.
One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic
deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.

[Footnote 297: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 298: These two persons, however, are only known to us
through somewhat doubtful genealogical documents. _Trial_, vol. v, p.
252. Boucher de Molandon, _La famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 127. G. de
Braux and E. de Bouteiller, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. 7 _et seq._]

Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the
influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the
echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she
responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into
France: "I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to
make war."[299]

[Footnote 299: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

As soon as she began to receive these revelations she gave up her
games and her excursions. Henceforth she seldom danced round the
fairies' tree, and then only in play with the children.[300] It would
seem that she also took a dislike to working in the fields, and
especially to herding the flocks. From early childhood she had shown
signs of piety. Now she gave herself up to extreme devoutness; she
confessed frequently, and communicated with ecstatic fervour; she
heard mass in her parish church every day. At all hours she was to be
found in church, sometimes prostrate on the ground, sometimes with her
hands clasped, and her face turned towards the image of Our Lord or of
Our Lady. She did not always wait for Saturday to visit the chapel at
Bermont. Sometimes, when her par