152.] Lying at the extreme south of the castellany of Vaucouleurs, the village of Domremy was between Bar and Champagne on the east, and Lorraine on the west.[221] They were terrible neighbours, always warring against each other, those dukes of Lorraine and Bar, that Count of Vaudemont, that Damoiseau of Commercy, those Lord Bishops of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.

But theirs were the quarrels of princes.

The villagers observed them just as the frog in the old fable looked on at the bulls fighting in the meadow.

Pale and trembling, poor Jacques saw himself trodden underfoot by these fierce warriors.

At a time when the whole of Christendom was given up to pillage, the men-at-arms of the Lorraine Marches were renowned as the greatest plunderers in the world.