340 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. loyalty which had been lost in faction, bringing religion as a stim- ulus to patriotism, and replacing despair with eager confidence and hopefulness. It has been given to few in the world's history thus to influence the destiny of a nation, and perhaps to none so obscure and apparently so unfitted.* Born January 6, 1484, in the little hamlet of Domremy, on the border line of Lorraine, she had but completed her seventeenth vear when she confidentlv assumed the function of the saviour of her native land.f Her parents, honest peasants, had given her such training as comported with her station ; she could, of course, neither read nor write, but she could recite her Pater Xoster, Ave Maria, and Credo ; she had herded the kine, and was a notable sempstress — on her trial she boasted that no maid or matron of Rouen could teach her anything with the needle. Thanks to her rustic employment she was tall and strong-limbed, active and en- during. It was said of her that she could pass six days and nights without taking off her harness, and marvellous stories were told of her abstinence from food while undergoing the most exhausting labor in battle and assault. Thus a strong physical constitution was dominated bv a still stronger and excitable nervous organiza- tion. Her resolute self-reliance was shown when she was sought in marriage by an honest citizen of Toul, whose suit her parents favored. Finding her obdurate, he had recourse, it would seem with her parents' consent, to the law, and cited her before the Official of Toul to fulfil the marriage promise which he alleged she had made to him. Not withstanding her youth, Joan appeared undaunted before the court, swore that she had given no pledges, and was released from the too-ardent suitor. At the age of thir- teen she commenced to have ecstasies and visions. The Archang-el ■ ° Michael appeared to her first, and he was followed by St. Catha- rine and St. Margaret, whom God had specially commissioned to watch over and guide her. Even the Archangel Gabriel sonie-
- Though the name Joan of Arc has been naturalized in English, Jeanne's
patronymic was Dare, not D'Arc. — Vallet de Viriville, Charles du Lis, pp. xii.- xiii. * t So close to the border was Joan's birthplace that a new delimitation of the frontier, made in 1571, transferred to Lorraine the group of houses including the Dare cottage, and left a neighboring group in Fiance. — Yallet de Viriville, ubi sup. pp. 24-5.
