although France would be lost by a woman, a maiden should save it. Any
hope to the people in those distressful days was eagerly seized on;
and although the first prophecy dated from the mythical times of
Merlin, it stirred the people, especially when, later on, Joan of Arc
appeared among them, and her story became known.

These prophecies appear to have struck deeply into Joan's soul; they,
and her voices aiding, made her believe she was the maiden by whom her
country would be delivered from the presence of the enemy. But how was
she to make her parents understand that it was their child who was
appointed by Heaven to fulfil this great deliverance? Her father seems
to have been a somewhat harsh, at any rate a practical, parent. When
told of her intention to join the army, he said he would rather throw
her into the river than allow her to do so. An attempt was made by her
parents to induce her to marry. They tried their best, but Joan would
none of it; and bringing the case before the lawyers at Toul, where
she proved that she had never thought of marrying a youth whom her
parents required her to wed, she gained her cause and her freedom.

In order to take the first step in her mission, Joan felt it necessary
to rely on some one outside her immediate family. A distant relation
of her mother's, one Durand Laxart, who with his wife lived in a
little village then named Burey-le-Petit (now called Burey-en-Vaux),
near Vaucouleurs, was the relation in whose care she placed her fate.
With him and his wife Joan remained eight days; and it might have been
then that the plan was arranged to hold an interview with Baudricourt
at Vaucouleurs, in order to see whether that knight would interest
himself in Joan's mission.

The interview took place about the middle of the month of May (1428),