Whilst terrified France looked for nothing but the blow which was to consummate its ruin, that Invincible Power which sometimes seems to attach the greatest events to the most apparently weak causes, prepared her an avenger. A girl, of about seventeen years of age, was strongly persuaded that God destined her to be the preserver of her country. Our readers will please to observe we speak of La Pucelle according to the opinion entertained of her by the French of her own day, because it was that opinion which produced the revolution which astonishes us: if the majority of the French nation had not had faith in the mission of Joan of Arc, the miracle would not have been effected. Born near the banks of the Meuse, at Dom-Remy, a village of Lorraine, her poor but honest parents had given her an education conformable to the simplicity of her situation. Jeanne d’Arc, or, as we call her, Joan of Arc, had from her childhood been brought up with a horror for the English; she constantly made it the subject of her prayers that the monarchy should be delivered from the eternal enemies who tyrannized over it. Her zeal becoming more ardent with her years, at thirteen she had trances, in which she declared she had conversed with St. Michael, St. Marguerite, and St. Catherine, who told her that God had appointed her to drive out the English and bring about the coronation of the dauphin. With this enthusiasm she possessed all the virtues of which a simple mind is susceptible: innocence, piety, candour, generosity, and courage. Her rustic life had strengthened her naturally robust frame; she had the exterior, and even the natural graces of her sex, without experiencing the infirmities which characterize the weakness of it.