the plea, "I am a poor girl; I cannot even ride," of her first childlike
alarm had given place to a profound acquaintance with the voices and
their meaning. They were now her familiar friends guiding her at every
step; and what was the commonplace burly Seigneur, with his roar of
laughter, to Jeanne? She went to her audience with none of the alarm
of the peasant. A certain young man of Baudricourt's suite, Bertrand de
Poulengy, another young D'Artagnan seeking his fortune, was present
in the hall and witnessed the scene. The joke would seem to have been
exhausted by the time Jeanne appeared, or her perfect gravity and
simplicity, and beautiful manners--so unlike her rustic dress and
village coif--imposed upon the Seigneur and his little court. This is
how the story is told, twenty-five years after, by the witness, then an
elderly knight, recalling the story of his youth.

"She said that she came to Robert on the part of her Lord, that he
should send to the Dauphin, and tell him to hold out, and have no fear,
for the Lord would send him succour before the middle of Lent. She also
said that France did not belong to the Dauphin but to her Lord; but her
Lord willed that the Dauphin should be its King, and hold it in command,
and that in spite of his enemies she herself would conduct him to be
consecrated. Robert then asked her who was this Lord? She answered, 'The
King of Heaven.' This being done (the witness adds) she returned to her
father's house with her uncle, Durand Laxart of Burey le Petit."

This brief and sudden preface to her career passed over and had no
immediate effect; indeed but for Bertrand we should have been unable
to separate it from the confused narrative to which all these witnesses
brought what recollection they had, often without sequence or order,
Durand himself taking no notice of any interval between this first
visit to Vaucouleurs and the final one.(2) The episode of Ascension Day