Her reply, if favourably interpreted, would
testify to the ardour of her faith. Did Brother Seguin so understand
it? His contemporaries represented him as being of a somewhat bitter
disposition. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that he was
good-natured.[767]

[Footnote 767: It seems to have been the fate of the inhabitants of
Limousin to be jeered at by the French of Champagne and of l'Ile de
France. After Brother Seguin we have the student from Limousin to whom
Pantagruel says: "Thou art Limousin to the bone and yet here thou wilt
pass thyself off as a Parisian." It is the lot of M. de Pourceaugnac.
La Fontaine, in 1663, writes from Limoges to his wife that the people
of Limousin are by no means afflicted; neither do they labour under
Heaven's displeasure "as the folk of our provinces imagine." But he
adds that he does not like their habits. It would seem that at first
Brother Seguin was annoyed by Jeanne's mocking vivacious repartees.
But he cherished no ill-will against her. "The Limousin's good nature
does not permit the endurance of any unfriendly feeling," says Abel
Hugo in _La France pittoresque: Haute-Vienne_. Cf. A. Precicou,
_Rabelais et les Limousins_, Limoges, 1906, in 8vo.]

"But after all," he said, "it cannot be God's will that you should be
believed unless some sign appear to make us believe in you. On your
word alone we cannot counsel the King to run the risk of granting you
men-at-arms."

"In God's name," she answered, "it was not to give a sign that I came
to Poitiers. But take me to Orleans and I will show you the signs
wherefore I am sent. Let me be given men, it matters not how many, and
I will go to Orleans."

And she repeated what she was continually saying: "The English shall
all be driven out and destroyed. The siege of Orleans shall be raised
and the city delivered from its enemies, after I shall have summoned
it to surrender in the name of the King of Heaven. The Dauphin shall
be anointed at Reims, the town of Paris shall return to its allegiance
to the King, and the Duke of Orleans shall come back from
England."[768]

[Footnote 768: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 205.]

Long did the doctors and masters, following the example of Brother
Seguin of Seguin, urge her to show a sign of her mission. They thought
that if God had chosen her to deliver the French nation he would not
fail to make his choice manifest by a sign, as he had done for Gideon,
the son of Joash. When Israel was sore