The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D'Arc is this: There was a story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule the pauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rent rolls: viz., that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, "_Chevalier, as-tu donné au cochon à manger_?" Now, it is clearly made out by the surviving evidence that D'Arc would much have preferred continuing to say, "_Ma fille, as-tu donné au cochon à manger_?" to saying, "_Pucelle d'Orléans, as-tu sauvé les fleurs-de-lys_?" There is an old English copy of verses which argues thus: "If the man that turnips cries Cry not when his father dies, Then 'tis plain the man had rather Have a turnip than his father." I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever _entirely_ to my satisfaction. I do not see my way through it as clearly as could be wished. But I see my way most clearly through D'Arc; and the result is--that he would greatly have preferred not merely a turnip to his father, but the saving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France. It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of Virgin or Pucelle had in itself, and apart from the miraculous stories about her, a secret power over the rude soldiery and partisan chiefs of that period; for in such a person they saw a representative manifestation of the Virgin Mary, who, in a course of centuries, had grown steadily upon the popular heart.