spirits, but in vain. No doubt she was one of the procession on the holy
day once a year, when the curé of the parish went out through the wood
to the Fairies' Well to say his mass, and exorcise what evil enchantment
might be there. But Jeanne's imagination was not of the kind to require
such stimulus. The saints were enough for her; and indeed they supplied
to a great extent the fairy tales of the age, though it was not of love
and fame and living happy ever after, but of sacrifice and suffering and
valorous martyrdom that their glory was made up.

We hear of the woods, the fields, the cottages, the little church and
its bells, the garden where she sat and sewed, the mother's stories,
the morning mass, in this quiet preface of the little maiden's life; but
nothing of the highroad with its wayfarers, the convoys of provisions
for the war, the fighting men that were coming and going. Yet these,
too, must have filled a large part in the village life, and it
is evident that a strong impression of the pity of it all, of the
distraction of the country and all the cruelties and miseries of which
she could not but hear, must have early begun to work in Jeanne's being,
and that while she kept silence the fire burned in her heart. The love
of God, and that love of country which has nothing to say to political
patriotism but translates itself in an ardent longing and desire to do
"some excelling thing" for the benefit and glory of that country, and
to heal its wounds--were the two principles of her life. We have not the
slightest indication how much or how little of this latter sentiment was
shared by the simple community about her; unless from the fact that
the Domremy children fought with those of Maxey, their disaffected
neighbours, to the occasional effusion of blood. We do not know even
of any volunteer from the village, or enthusiasm for the King.(3) The
district was voiceless, the little clusters of cottages fully occupied
in getting their own bread, and probably like most other village