About the time when the child was having these visions, the defenders of Mont-Saint-Michel discomfited the English who were attacking the fortress by land and sea. The French attributed this victory to the all-powerful intercession of the archangel.[262] And why should he not have favoured the French who worshipped him with peculiar devoutness? Since my Lord St. Denys had permitted his abbey to be taken by the English, my Lord St. Michael, who carefully guarded his, was in a fair way to become the true patron saint of the kingdom.[263] In the year 1419 the Dauphin Charles had had escutcheons painted, representing St. Michael fully armed, holding a naked sword and in the act of slaying a serpent.[264] The maid of Domremy, however, knew but little of the miracles worked by my Lord St. Michael in Normandy. She recognised the angel by his weapons, his courtesy, and the noble words that fell from his lips.[265] [Footnote 262: Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 272 (opinion of Jean Bochard, called de Vaucelle, Bishop of Avranches). Dom. J. Huynes, _loc. cit._, ch. viii, p. 105.] [Footnote 263: Dom Felibien, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Saint-Denis...._ Paris, 1706, in folio, p. 341.] [Footnote 264: Richer, _Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle_, ms. fr. 10,448, fol. 13. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, proofs and illustrations, xxiv.] [Footnote 265: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 173, 248, 249.] One day he said to her: "Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret will come to thee. Act according to their advice; for they are appointed to guide thee and counsel thee in all thou hast to do, and thou mayest believe what they shall say unto thee." And these things came to pass as the Lord had ordained.[266] [Footnote 266: _Ibid._, p. 170.] This promise filled her with great joy, for she loved them both. Madame Sainte Marguerite was highly honoured in the kingdom of France, where she was a great benefactress. She helped women in labour,[267] and protected the peasant at work in the fields. She was the patron saint of flax-spinners, of procurers of wet-nurses, of vellum-dressers, and of bleachers of wool. Her precious relics in a reliquary, carried on a mule's back, were paraded by ecclesiastics through towns and villages. Plenteous alms[268] were showered upon the exhibitors in return for permission to touch the relics. Many times had Jeanne seen Madame Sainte Marguerite at church, painted life-size, a holy-water sprinkler in her hand, her foot on a dragon's head.[269] She was acquainted with her history as it was related in those days, somewhat on the lines of the following narrative. [Footnote 267: _La vierge Marguerite substituee a la Lucine antique_, analysis of an unpublished poem of the fifteenth century, Paris, 1885, in 8vo, p. 2. Rabelais, _Gargantua_, vol. i, ch. vi. L'Abbe J.B. Thiers, _Traite des superstitions qui regarde les sacrements selon l'Ecriture sainte_, Paris, 1697 (4 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, p. 109.]