Jeanne loved the forest; its birds and beasts came lovingly to her at her childish call.

But at home men saw nothing in her but "a good girl, simple and pleasant in her ways," spinning and sewing by her mother's side while the other girls went to the fields, tender to the poor and sick, fond of church, and listening to the church-bell with a dreamy passion of delight which never left her.

This quiet life was broken by the storm of war as it at last came home to Domremy.

As the outcasts and wounded passed by the little village the young peasant girl gave them her bed and nursed them in their sickness.

Her whole nature summed itself up in one absorbing passion: she "had pity," to use the phrase for ever on her lip, "on the fair realm of France." As her passion grew she recalled old prophecies that a maid from the Lorraine border should save the land; she saw visions; St.Michael appeared to her in a flood of blinding light, and bade her go to the help of the king and restore to him his realm.
"Messire," answered the girl, "I am but a poor maiden; I know not how to ride to the wars, or to lead men-at-arms." The archangel returned to give her courage, and to tell her of "the pity" that there was in heaven for the fair realm of France.