Champagne of Champagne never, by any chance, flowed into the fountain of
Domrémy, from which only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a
_Champenoise_, and for no better reason than that she "took after her
father," who happened to be a _Champenoise_. I am sure she did _not_: for
her father was a filthy old fellow, whom I shall soon teach the judicious
reader to hate. But, (says M. Michelet, arguing the case physiologically)
"she had none of the Lorrainian asperity;" no, it seems she had only "the
gentleness of Champagne, its simplicity mingled with sense and acuteness,
as you find it in Joinville." All these things she had; and she was worth a
thousand Joinvilles, meaning either the prince so called, or the fine old
crusader. But still, though I love Joanna dearly, I cannot shut my eyes
entirely to the Lorraine element of "asperity" in her nature. No; really
now, she must have had a shade of _that_, though very slightly developed--a
mere soupçon, as French cooks express it in speaking of cayenne pepper,
when she caused so many of our English throats to be cut. But could she do
less? No; I always say so; but still you never saw a person kill even a
trout with a perfectly "Champagne" face of "gentleness and simplicity,"
though, often, no doubt, with considerable "acuteness." All your cooks and
butchers wear a _Lorraine_ cast of expression.

These disputes, however, turn on refinements too nice. Domrémy stood
upon the frontiers; and, like other frontiers, produced a _mixed_ race
representing the _cis_ and the _trans_. A river (it is true) formed the
boundary line at this point--the river Meuse; and _that_, in old days,
might have divided the populations; but in these days it did not--there
were bridges, there were ferries, and weddings crossed from the right bank
to the left. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travellers, that
were few, as for armies that were too many by half. These two roads, one of
which was the great high road between France and Germany, _decussated_ at
this very point; which is a learned way of saying that they formed a St.