"Two beautiful eyes looking upon you and seeming to say: 'March upon the enemy!' are enough to set one's heart on fire! And if, besides, a sweet voice says to you: 'Courage--forward!' that would be enough to turn the biggest coward into a hero!" "Above all if the voice is inspired by God, my brave archer." "Whether she be inspired by God, by the devil or by her own bravery, I care as little as for a broken arrow. If one were but alone against a thousand, he must have the cowardice of a hare not to follow a beautiful girl, who, sword in hand, rushes upon the enemy." "I can not help thinking of the pain it must give Joan's family to have her depart, however glorious the Maid's destiny may be. Her mother must feel very sad." "I have it from Dame Laxart that James Darc, a very strict and rough man, after having twice had his daughter written to, ordering her return home, and objecting to her riding away with men-at-arms, has invoked a curse upon her. Furthermore, he forbade his wife and his two sons ever again to see Joan. She wept all the tears in her poor body upon learning of her father's curse. 'My heart bleeds to leave my family,' said the poor child to Dame Laxart, 'but I must go whither God bids me.[44] I have a glorious mission to fill.'" "The Maid's father is a brute! He must have a bad heart! The idea of cursing his daughter--who is going to deliver Gaul." "She will do so--Merlin foretold it." "It will be a beautiful day for us all when the English are thrust out of our poor country which they have been ravaging for so many years!" "The fault lies with the knighthood," put in a civilian; "why did it prove so cowardly at Poitiers? This nobility is a costly luxury." "And on top of all, oppressed and persecuted, Jacques Bonhomme has had to pay the ransom for the cowardly seigneurs with gilded spurs!" "But Jacques Bonhomme got tired and kicked in his desperation. Oh, once at least did the scythe and fork get the better of the lance and sword! The Jacquerie revenged the serfs! Death to the nobles!" "But what a carnage was not thereupon made of the Jacques! The day of reprisals will come!" "Well, the Jacques had their turn; that is some consolation!"[45] "Now it will be the turn of the English, thanks to Joan the Maid--the envoy of God! She will throw them out!" "Aye, aye! Let her alone--she promised that within a month there will not be one of these foreigners left in France."[46] "Glory to her! The shepherdess of Domremy will have done what neither King, dukes, knights nor captains were capable of accomplishing!" "Good luck to you, Joan, born like ourselves of the common people! A blessing on her from all the poor serfs who have been suffering death and all the agonies of death at the hands of the English!" "They are letting down the drawbridge of the castle!" "There she is! That's she!" "How well shaped and beautiful she is in her man's clothes! Prosperity to Joan the Maid!"