And thus it is extraordinary that such a person should appear in that
chivalric age as Joan of Arc, who rose from the humblest class, who
could neither read nor write,--a peasant girl without friends or
influence, living among the Vosges mountains on the borders of Champagne
and Lorraine. She was born in 1412, in the little obscure village of
Domremy on the Meuse, on land belonging to the French crown. She lived
in a fair and fertile valley on the line of the river, on the other side
of which were the Burgundian territories. The Lorraine of the Vosges was
a mountainous district covered with forests, which served for royal
hunting parties. The village of Domremy itself was once a dependency of
the abbey of St. Remy at Rheims. This district had suffered cruelly
from the wars between the Burgundians and the adherents of the
Armagnacs, one of the great feudal families of France in the
Middle Ages.

Joan, or Jeanne, was the third daughter of one of the peasant laborers
of Domremy. She was employed by her mother in spinning and sewing, while
her sisters and brothers were set to watch cattle. Her mother could
teach her neither to read nor write, but early imbued her mind with the
sense of duty. Joan was naturally devout, and faultless in her morals;
simple, natural, gentle, fond of attending the village church; devoting
herself, when not wanted at home, to nursing the sick,--the best girl in
the village; strong, healthy, and beautiful; a spirit lowly but poetic,
superstitious but humane, and fond of romantic adventures. But her piety
was one of her most marked peculiarities, and somehow or other she knew
more than we can explain of Scripture heroes and heroines.

One of the legends of that age and place was that the marches of
Lorraine were to give birth to a maid who was to save the