“You will, messire?” cried Jeanne joyfully.
“On my word of honour I promise it. When will you set forth?”
“This hour is better than to-morrow; to-morrow is better than after to-morrow,”
she told him, her face illumined with smiles. It was the first gleam of hope that had lightened the weary days of waiting.
“I will make preparations at once,” he said, moved by her zeal and by her strong sense of the necessity of immediate operations. Then as he started to leave her, he turned.
“Would you travel in that garb, pucelle? ”[7] he asked hesitatingly.
Jeanne smiled, divining the difficulties he foresaw were she to retain her woman’s garb in travelling. She had already given the matter thought, and perceived that if she were to live among soldiers she must change the dress she wore. So she answered promptly:
“I will willingly dress as a man. In truth, it would be more seemly.”
De Metz nodded approval, and went his way. After this, because joys like sorrows come not singly, one after another began to believe in her. In a few days another man-at-arms came to her. He was an older man than de Metz and a graver. At his salutation Jeanne looked at him intently.
“Have I not seen you somewhere, messire?” she asked.
“I think not,” he answered lightly. “Methinks I should not have forgotten it had we ever met. Yet stay!” bending a keen glance upon her. “Are not you the little maid who dressed my wounded arm at your father’s house in Domremy?”
“It may be, messire.”
“It is,” he affirmed. “The wound healed quickly, for the treatment was good. So you are that little maid? And now you have come here with a mission? Tell me
of it, pucelle. Can you in very truth do as you say: raise the siege of Orléans, and bring the King to his anointing?”
“Not I, messire; but my Lord, the King of Heaven, will do it through me. I am
but his humble instrument.”
“Tell me of it,” he said again. “I have talked with Jean de Metz, but I would hear of it from you.”
There was no need for reserve concerning her mission, so Jeanne talked of it freely to him. Indeed she did so to whomsoever wished to hear about it. And when she had made an end of the telling Bertrand de Poulengy placed his hands
in hers as de Metz had done, and pledged her fealty, knightly fashion.
But though the men-at-arms were willing to set forth at once there was still delay; for, being in service with Sire Robert, they could not leave without his consent. Jeanne became impatient, knowing that Orléans could not hold out forever. She was cast down, not through want of faith in her divine mission, but because of the obstacles which unbelieving men like Baudricourt were putting in her way.
“In God’s name, gentle Robert,” she cried one day, meeting him at the foot of the hill where his castle stood, “you are too slow about sending me. This day hath a great disaster happened to the Dauphin. Send me quickly lest a worse befall him.”
“A disaster hath befallen the Dauphin?” exclaimed Sire Robert. “How could you
know that a disaster hath befallen him to-day?”
“My Voices have told me,” she made answer. “A battle hath been lost near Orléans. Sire Robert, I must be sent to him.”
“I will see, I will see,” he said, looking troubled. “If this be true, as you have said, then shall you go to him. But is it by evil or by good spirits that you speak?”
Without waiting for a reply he left her abruptly. As Jeanne sat spinning with Catherine le Royer the next morning she was greatly surprised when the door opened suddenly, and the Governor himself, accompanied by Jean Fournier, the
parish priest, entered. At a sign from Sire Robert, Catherine quitted the room, and Jeanne was left with the two men. The priest immediately put on his stole,
and pronounced some Latin words:
“If thou be evil, away with thee; if thou be good, draw nigh.” With this he sprinkled holy water about the room, and upon her.
Jeanne was hurt when she heard the words, for it was the formula used for exorcism. It was believed that if the village maiden were possessed of evil spirits they would be driven away. Having recited the formula and sprinkled holy water
the priest expected, if the girl were possessed, to see her struggle and writhe in the effort to take flight. But there was nothing suspicious in Jeanne’s attitude.
There was no wild agitation or frenzy. She had fallen on her knees when the priest put on his stole, and now anxiously, entreatingly, she dragged herself to him. Messire Jean Fournier stretched forth his hand in benediction over her.
“Whatever be the spirit with which she is filled, it is naught of evil,” he said to
Robert de Baudricourt.
With this the two men left the cottage as abruptly as they had entered it. Jeanne burst into tears, and so Catherine found her.
“Messire Jean should not have used me so,” sobbed the maiden as she related the happening to her hostess. “I have confessed to him daily since I came to Vaucouleurs, and he should have known what manner of girl I was.”
“There, there, little one,” soothed Catherine, tenderly. “He but did it to please the Sire Captain. Perchance now that the gentle Robert knows that evil spirits do not possess thee, he will give thee aid.”
The exorcism did in truth help Jeanne’s cause with the Governor. If the young girl were not possessed of evil it followed naturally that the power in her must be good; therefore he was at last willing to aid her. Secretly he had already sent a messenger to the King telling of the maiden, her mission, her saintly way of living, and asking that he might send her to him. He but waited the consent of Charles before starting Jeanne on her journey. This she did not learn until later.
Meantime she was restless. She longed to be about her work, and there seemed
naught but hindrances. She felt that she must start, for she must be with the Dauphin by mid-Lent, and the time was short. One day Lassois came to see how
