Joanna, as we in England should call her, but, according to her own statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean[3]) d'Arc, was born at Domrémy, a village on the marshes of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependent upon the town of Vaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, not simply because the word is prettier, but because Champagne too odiously reminds us English of what are for _us_ imaginary wines, which, undoubtedly, _La Pucelle_ tasted as rarely as we English; we English, because the Champagne of London is chiefly grown in Devonshire; _La Pucelle_, because the Champagne of Champagne never, by any chance, flowed into the fountain of Domrémy, from which only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a _Champenoise_, and for no better reason than that she "took after her father," who happened to be a _Champenoise_. I am sure she did _not_: for her father was a filthy old fellow, whom I shall soon teach the judicious reader to hate. But, (says M. Michelet, arguing the case physiologically) "she had none of the Lorrainian asperity;" no, it seems she had only "the gentleness of Champagne, its simplicity mingled with sense and acuteness, as you find it in Joinville." All these things she had; and she was worth a thousand Joinvilles, meaning either the prince so called, or the fine old crusader. But still, though I love Joanna dearly, I cannot shut my eyes entirely to the Lorraine element of "asperity" in her nature. No; really now, she must have had a shade of _that_, though very slightly developed--a mere soupçon, as French cooks express it in speaking of cayenne pepper, when she caused so many of our English throats to be cut. But could she do less? No; I always say so; but still you never saw a person kill even a trout with a perfectly "Champagne" face of "gentleness and simplicity," though, often, no doubt, with considerable "acuteness." All your cooks and butchers wear a _Lorraine_ cast of expression.