f Joan should attempt to follow the army, as he
feared she might, "he would rather drown her with his own hands." Her
parents set a watch upon her movements, and decided to marry her to a
young man who was secretly enamored of her. They connived with this
admirer to swear before an officer of the law that Joan had promised him
her heart; but she so strenuously denied the assertion before the judge
that she gained her case.

Just at this epoch the people of Domremy were obliged to fly before an
invading troop of soldiers. When they returned to their village they
found their church burned and their homes pillaged. Joan regarded this
as a direct punishment for her hesitation in heeding the "voices." She
would hesitate no longer, and after repeated delays and disheartening
rebuffs, she succeeded in winning her way, with a few believers in her
mission, to the king's castle.

When Charles finally consented to an interview, he disguised one of his
courtiers as king, and he was disguised as a courtier; but Joan was not
deceived by clothing; she fell at his feet, clasped his knees, and
exclaimed, "Gentle king, God has taken pity on you and your people; the
angels are on their knees praying for you and them."

The king was impressed with her lofty enthusiasm, and plied her with
questions. Her responses astonished him. One reliable authority tells us
that she revealed to him something known only to himself--and answered a
question which he had that day demanded of God in the privacy of
prayer--the question of his legitimate right to the throne. Joan told
him that he had asked this question of God, and that she was able to
reply to it in the affirmative.

The king was so astonished and overjoyed at this proof of the maiden's
powers, that he expressed belief in her divine mission; but he quickly
relapsed into doubt again, and Joan was obliged to endure a very
critical examination before a parliament, where she confused and
confounded the learned doctors by her simple words: "I know not A or B,
but I am commanded by my voices to raise the siege of Orleans and crown
the dauphin at Rheims." When one aggressive doctor, with a bad accent,
asked sarcastically; "what language her voices spoke," she replied,
"Better than yours, sir," which brought the laughter of the whole
parliament upon him. A messenger sent to Domremy, to ascertain the early
conduct of the maid, returned with accounts of her piety and
benevolence. All this worked in