and nothing could have been less propitious. A soldier named Bertrand
de Poulangy, who was one of the garrison of Vaucouleurs, was an
eye-witness of the meeting. He accompanied Joan of Arc later on to
Chinon, and left a record of the almost brutal manner with which
Baudricourt received the Maid. From this soldier's narrative we
possess one of the rare glimpses which have come down to us of the
appearance of the heroine: not indeed a description of what would be
of such intense interest as to make known to us the appearance and
features of her face; but he describes her dress, which was that then
worn by the better-to-do agricultural class of Lorraine peasant women,
made of rough red serge, the cap such as is still worn by the
peasantry of her native place.

It is much to be regretted that no portrait of Joan of Arc exists
either in sculpture or painting. A life-size bronze statue which
portrayed the Maid kneeling on one side of a crucifix, with Charles
VII. opposite, forming part of a group near the old bridge of Orleans,
was destroyed by the Huguenots; and all the portraits of Joan painted
in oils are spurious. None are earlier than the sixteenth century, and
all are mere imaginary daubs. In most of these Joan figures in a hat
and feathers, of the style worn in the Court of Francis I. From
various contemporary notices, it appears that her hair was dark in
colour, as in Bastien Lepage's celebrated picture, which supplies as
good an idea of what Joan may have been as any pictured representation
of her form and face. Would that the frescoes which Montaigne
describes as being painted on the front of the house upon the site of
which Joan was born could have come down to us. They might have given
some conception of her appearance. Montaigne saw those frescoes on his
way to Italy, and says that all the front of the house was painted
with representations of her deeds, but even in his day they were much