caretaker who explained to Pierre the pictures from the life of
the Maid with which the walls are decorated. They are stiff and
conventional, but the old man found them wonderful and told with
zest the story of _La Pucelle_--how she saw her first vision;
how she recognized the Dauphin in his palace at Chinon; how she
broke the siege of Orleans; how she saw Charles crowned in the
cathedral at Rheims; how she was burned at the stake in Rouen. But
they could not kill her soul. She saved France.

In the village church there was a priest from the border of Alsace,
also a pilgrim like Pierre, but one who knew the shrine better.
He showed the difference between the new and the old parts of the
building. Certain things the Maid herself had seen and touched.

"Here is the old holy-water basin, an antique, broken column hollowed
out on top. Here her fingers must have rested often. Before this
ancient statue of St. Michel she must have often knelt to say her
prayers. The cure of the parish was a friend of hers and loved to
talk with her. She was a good girl, devout and obedient, not learned,
but a holy and great soul. She saved France."

In the house where she was born and passed her childhood a crippled
old woman was custodian. It was a humble dwelling of plastered
stone standing between two tall fir-trees, with ivy growing over
the walls, lilies and hollyhocks blooming in the garden. Pierre
found it not half so good a house as _"L'Alouette."_ But to
the custodian it was more precious than a palace. In this upper
room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here,
in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess
Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping