[Illustration] [Illustration] VII. Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans--Margaret de Attendoli, Sister of the great Sforza--Bona Lombardi and Onerata Rodiana, Female Condottieri--Marulla (Turks in Europe)--Margaret of Anjou--Jeanne Hachette--Doña Aldonza de Castillo, and Doña Maria Sarmiento (Civil Wars in Castile)--Isabel the Catholic--Caterina Sforza. AT the beginning of the fifteenth century there dwelt in the little village of Domremy, on the banks of the Meuse, Jacques d'Arc, or Darc, a peasant, and Isabeau Romie, his wife. Though comparatively poor, they had the respect of their neighbours as being a hard-working, honest couple. They had three sons and two daughters, all of whom were bred, like their parents, to humble occupations. Joan, Jeanne, or Jehanne was born, according to different writers, in 1402, 1410, or 1412. She was exceedingly beautiful, with fine expressive features, and jet black hair. She was about the middle height, with a delicately moulded frame. Her education was the same as that of most peasant-girls, French or English, in those days--spinning, sewing, and repeating her Paternoster and Ave Maria. From her infancy Jeanne was employed in various duties, the chief of which was driving the cattle to and from pasture. She was of a religious, imaginative disposition, and as early as her thirteenth year began to indulge those superstitious reveries which afterwards made her famous. Although her gentleness caused her to be universally beloved, she shunned girls of her own age, and took but little interest in the amusements of others. While her young friends were playing under the "Fairies' Tree" near the fountain of Domremy, Jeanne was dancing and singing by herself in pious fervour, or weaving garlands for the Holy Virgin in the small chapel of Notre Dame de Bellemont. The villagers of Domremy were, without exception, staunch Royalists, while those of the neighbouring hamlet were zealous Burgundians. A very bitter hostility prevailed between the rival parties. On one occasion a band of troopers invaded Domremy and drove all the people from their homes. The family of Jeanne found shelter for a few days at an inn; whence arose the mistake of the English chroniclers, who state that the maiden was in early life an innkeeper's servant. For a quarter of a century, France had been torn by civil war, and the death of Charles VI. in 1422 plunged the country into hopeless confusion and anarchy. According to the Treaty of Troyes (concluded in 1420), Henry VI. of England was proclaimed King of France, which his uncle, the Duke of Bedford, governed as regent. Queen Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy joined England; and the Dauphin, abandoned by his own mother, had a very small party indeed. The English army was commanded by several brave and talented warriors--the Earls of Salisbury, Somerset, Warwick, Suffolk, Shrewsbury, Arundel, and many gallant knights.