uys!_' was a
popular cry throughout France in 1480; for Labeur in those days meant
what it means now in the _Terra di Lavoro_--the tilling of the fields.
One of the three shields above this doorway has a similar significance.
It is a bearing of three ploughshares. With it are emblazoned on the
house of the Pucelle two other shields, one bearing the three royal
fleurs-de-lys of France, and the other the arms granted to the family of
the heroine--_azure_, a sword _argent_ pommelled and hilted _or_, and
above a crown supported by two fleurs-de-lys. With these arms, as
we know, the family took the name of De Lys. The name, the arms, and the
inscription over the doorway were a perpetual witness to the peasants of
Champagne and Lorraine of the unity of interests established by King
Louis between the spade and the sceptre. With the help of an inspired
daughter of the people, King Charles had driven the English into the
sea, and delivered the land. With the help of the people, King Louis had
broken the power of Burgundy, and put the barons under his foot. '_Vive
Labeur, Vive le Roy Louys!_' I do not wonder this skilful craftsman 'of
the empire and the rule' lamented on his death-bed in 1483, at
Plessis-les-Tours, that he could not live to crown the edifice he had so
well begun. We in England and America know him only in the magic mirror
of the Wizard of the North. But France owes him a great debt. He was
cruel, but in comparison with the cruelty of Lebon, of Barere, of
Billaud-Varennes, his cruelty was tender mercy, He was a hypocrite, but
his hypocrisy shows like candour beside the perfidy and the cant of
Petion and of Robespierre, while in the great 'art and mystery' of
government he was a master where these modern apes of despotism were
clumsy apprentices.

The interior of the house of Jeanne is probably in the main what it was
when Jeanne dwelt here with her parents, her sister and her brothers.
The ground floor contains a general living-room, the large chimney-place
of which may perhaps be of the time of Jeanne, and three bedrooms, one
of which, a chamber measuring three metres by four, and lighted only by
a small dormer window looking out upon the garden, tradition assigns to
Jeanne and to her sister. Here, the people of Domremy believe, the
maiden sate almost within the shadow of the old church-tower, and heard
the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, and Michael the Archangel,
patron and defender of France, minglin