The Orleannais now in their distress offered to surrender the city into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who, though the ally of the English, was yet one of their native princes. The Regent Bedford refused these terms, and the speedy submission of the city to the English seemed inevitable. The Dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant of a court, despaired of maintaining any longer the struggle for his crown; and was only prevented from abandoning the country by the more masculine spirits of his mistress and his queen. Yet neither they, nor the boldest of Charles's captains, could have shown him where to find resources for prolonging the war; and least of all could any human skill have predicted the quarter whence rescue was to come to Orleans and to France. In the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, there was a poor peasant of the name of Jacques d'Arc, respected in his station of life, and who had reared a family in virtuous habits and in the practice of the strictest devotion. His eldest daughter was named by her parents Jeannette, but she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinised into Johanna, and anglicised into Joan. ["Respondit quod in partibus suis vocabatur Johanneta, et postquam venit in Franciam vocata est Johanna."--PROCES DE JEANNE D'ARC, vol i. p. 46.] At the time when Joan first attracted attention, she was about eighteen years of age. She was naturally of a susceptible disposition, which diligent attention to the legends of saints, and tales of fairies, aided by the dreamy loneliness of her life while tending her father's flocks, had made peculiarly prone to enthusiastic fervour. At the same time she was eminent for piety and purity of soul, and for her compassionate gentleness to the sick and the distressed. [Southey, in one of the speeches which he puts in the mouth of his Joan of Arc, has made her beautifully describe the effect; on her mind of the scenery in which she dwelt:-- "Here in solitude and peace My soul was nurst, amid the loveliest scenes Of-unpolluted nature. Sweet it was, As the white mists of morning roll'd away, To see the mountain's wooded heights appear Dark in the early dawn, and mark its slope With gorse-flowers glowing, as the rising sun On the golden ripeness pour'd a deepening light. Pleasant at noon beside the vocal brook To lay me down, and watch the the floating clouds, And shape to Fancy's wild similitudes Their ever-varying forms; and oh, how sweet, To drive my flock at evening to the fold, And hasten to our little hut, and hear The voice of kindness bid me welcome home!"