she hesitated, and then spoke abruptly, “there is a change though, Jeanne. You are not so lively as you were. You never dance, or race with us, or play as you were wont to do. What is the matter?”
“I know,” cried Mengette. “She goes to church too much. And she prays too often. My! how she does pray! Perrin le Drapier told me that when he forgot to
ring the bells for compline she reproached him for not doing his duty, because she loved to pray then.”
“Don’t you, Mengette?” asked Jeanne quickly.
“Oh, yes. Why, of course,” answered Mengette. “But I don’t give the sexton cakes to ring the bells when he forgets them. You are getting ready to be a saint, aren’t you?”
Jeanne blushed scarlet at this, and did not speak.
“She is that already,” broke in Hauviette. “Perhaps she does not feel like playing or dancing.”
“That’s it,” spoke Jeanne suddenly, giving her friend a grateful glance. “I don’t feel like it any more.”
“Then we shan’t ask you to do it any more,” declared Hauviette, who loved her
dearly. “And you shan’t be teased about it, either. So there now, Mengette!”
“Oh, if she doesn’t feel like it, that’s different,” exclaimed Mengette, who was fond too of Jeanne in her own fashion. “But I do wish you did, Jeanne. There’s
not half the fun in the games now as there was when you played. But I won’t say anything more about it. You’ll feel better about it by and by.”
So the matter was not referred to again by the two girls, though the change in Jeanne became more and more marked, as the days went by. Winter was nearing
its close when at last she was told what her mission was to be. It was Saint Michael who unfolded it to her.
It was a cold morning, and the little maid had been to early mass. There had not
been many present, and the house was cold, but the Curé smiled tenderly when he saw the small figure in its accustomed place, and Jeanne’s heart glowed in the sunshine of his approval. So she did not mind the chill of the church, but started on her return home in an uplifted and exalted frame of mind. To the child, nourished on sacred things, religion was as bread and meat. And then, all at once, the Light came.
It was of unusual splendor, and glowed with hues that stained the snow covered
earth with roseate tints like those of the roses of Paradise. From the dazzling effulgence emerged the form of Saint Michael, clothed in grandeur ineffable. In his hand he held a flaming sword, and around him were myriads of angels, the
hosts of Heaven whose leader he was. The old fear fell upon Jeanne at sight of
his majesty, and she sank tremblingly upon her knees, covering her face with her hands. But when the tender, familiar:
“Be good, Jeanne, and God will help thee,” fell from his lips, she ceased a little to tremble.
Then with infinite gentleness the archangel began to speak to her of France, and the “pity there was for it.” He told her the story of her suffering country: how the invader was master in the capital; how he was all powerful in the country north of the Loire; how internally France was torn and bleeding by the blood feud between the Duke of Burgundy and the disinherited Dauphin; how great nobles
robbed the country which they should have defended, and how bands of mercenaries roved and plundered. The rightful king soon must go into exile, or
beg his bread, and France would be no more.
The young girl’s heart already yearned over the woes of her distressed country, but now it swelled almost to bursting as she heard the recital from angelic lips.
The “great pity that there was for France” communicated itself to her, and she felt it in every chord of her sensitive nature. The great angel concluded abruptly:
“Daughter of God, it is thou who must go to the help of the King of France, and it is thou who wilt give him back his kingdom.”
But at this Jeanne sprang to her feet, astounded.
“I, Messire? I?”
“Even thou, Jeanne. It is thou who must fare forth into France to do this. Hast thou not heard that France ruined by a woman shall by a virgin be restored?
Thou art the Maid.”
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But terrified and weeping the girl fell prostrate before him.
“Not I, Messire. Oh, not I. It cannot be.”
“Thou art the Maid,” was all he said.
With this Jeanne found herself alone.
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CHAPTER IX
THE CHARGE IS ACCEPTED
“I, too, could be content to dwell in peace,
