But after six days sightseeing we’ll hurry to another place, and here we are in Domremy. Here we’ll roam over the hills and think. See that cluster of trees? We must sit under them and upon that very stone. There on that grassy bank where the flowers are blooming, and at whose foot runs a gentle brook, we must spend an hour and think, think who sat upon that very spot nearly five hundred years ago and watched her father’s flock of sheep or listened to the singing birds or talked with God through the sweet roses she holds. Now she looks up at the great sun, now at a passing cloud; now a soft wind fans her face; a shepherd dog lies at her feet; just yonder some lambs are nestled together. She is but thirteen years old, but she loves to speak to God as though he were by her side—and is he not? Late one evening she comes leading the sheep home. Sitting alone looking out into the moonlight, Jeanne’s mother inquires: “My child, what keeps you so long in the field? You must come home earlier, my darling, or something will happen to you.” “But, mamma, I’ve heard voices in the fields, and they seem to come from the roses and the rocks and the robins and in every wind, and they tell me of my native land and my home and God, that I must love _ma belle France_, and save it out of the hands of all its enemies, and this is what keeps me so late, my sweet, dear mamma.” “Voices, child?” “Aye, mamma, voices from Heaven speaking in my heart. Your Jeanne hears them loud, in my heart, at least, and they say I must save my poor sad country.” Jeanne’s mother could say nothing, but wonder if the child was out of her mind, or if she had really had a vision of angels, as in olden times they came to the shepherds while they watched their flocks. So the years went by, Jeanne always saying that these heavenly voices were calling her to save her unhappy country, her friends and neighbors sometimes calling her crazy. She was now seventeen, a lovely pure girl, sorrowing much over the wars and troubles of her own beloved France. Ah! they were dark days indeed; this one wanted to be king, and that one said he must rule; armies met and fought, and some of the young men who went from Domremy, and with whom Jeanne had played, were brought back from the battle fields wounded and dying. Then came a great army over from England, and city after city of France fell before its awful march. The frightened King Charles the Seventh feared all was lost. He knew not whither to fly with his sad little army. But just when he was going to give up word came to him about the girl of Domremy, our sweet Jeanne. Quickly a messenger was dispatched to her plain little home, and out into the fields he hastened to find her feeding her flock. He urged her to come to her king with all speed. She knew what it meant; she knew her hour was now come to save her “_la belle France_.”