While she herself was being subjected to the interrogatories of doctors and the examination of matrons, certain clerics who had been despatched to her native province were there prosecuting an inquiry concerning her birth, her life, and her morals.[786] The ecclesiastics had been chosen from those mendicant Friars[787] who could pass freely along the highways and byways of the enemy's country without exciting the suspicion of English and Burgundians. And, indeed, they were in no way molested. From Domremy and from Vaucouleurs they brought back sure testimony to the humility, the devotion, the honesty, and the simplicity of Jeanne. But, most important, they had found no difficulty in gleaning certain pious tales, such as commonly adorned the childhood of saints. To these monks we must attribute an important share in the development of those legends of Jeanne's early years, which were so soon to become popular. From this time, apparently, dates the story that when Jeanne was in her seventh year, wolves spared her sheep, and birds of the woods came at her call and ate crumbs from her lap.[788] Such saintly flowers suggest a Franciscan origin; among them are the wolf of Gubbio and the birds preached to by Saint Francis. These mendicants may also have furnished examples of the Maid's prophetic gift. They may have spread abroad the story that, when she was at Vaucouleurs, on the day of the Battle of the Herrings, she knew of the great hurt inflicted on the French at Rouvray.[789] The success of such little stories was immediate and complete. [Footnote 786: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 82.] [Footnote 787: Simeon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. cxliii. _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 397.] [Footnote 788: Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers to the Duke of Milan, in the _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 115, 121. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 237.] [Footnote 789: _Journal du siege_, p. 48. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 275.]