We were slowing down.  I opened my eyes lazily.  No, we weren’t stopping—­only going through a village.  What a quaint grey village it was—­worth looking at if I wasn’t so tired.  I was on the point of drowsing off again when I caught sight of a word written on a sign-board, Domremy.  My brain cleared.  I sat up with a jerk.  It was magic that I should find myself here without warning—­at Domremy, the Bethlehem of warrior-woman’s mercy.  I had dreamed from boyhood of this place as a legend—­a memory of white chivalry to be found on no map, a record of beauty as utterly submerged as the lost land of Lyonesse.  Hauntingly the words came back, “Who is this that cometh from Domremy?  Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims?  Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking in the furnaces of Rouen?  This is she, the shepherd girl....”  All about me on the little hills were the woodlands through which she must have led her sheep and wandered with her heavenly visions.

We had come to a bend in the village street.  Where the road took a turn stood an aged church; nestling beside it in a little garden was a grey, semi-fortified mediaeval dwelling.  The garden was surrounded by high spiked railings, planted on a low stone wall.  Sitting on the wall beside the entrance was an American soldier.  He had a small French child on either knee—­one arm about each of them; thus embarrassed he was doing his patient best to roll a Bull Durham cigarette.  The children were vividly interested; they laughed up into the soldier’s face.  One of them was a boy, the other a girl.  The long golden curls of the girl brushed against the soldier’s cheek.  The three heads bent together, almost touching.  The scene was timelessly human, despite the modernity of the khaki.  Joan of Arc might have been that little girl.

I stopped the driver, got out and approached the group.  The soldier jumped to attention and saluted.  In answer to my question, he said, “Yes, this is where she lived.  That’s her house—­that grey cottage with scarcely any windows.  Bastien le Page could never have seen it; it isn’t a bit like his picture in the Metropolitan Gallery.”

He spoke in a curiously intimate way as if he had known Joan of Arc and had spoken with her there—­as if she had only just departed.  It was odd to reflect that America had still lain hidden behind the Atlantic when Joan walked the world.

We entered the gate into the garden, the American soldier, the children and I together.  The little girl, with that wistful confidence that all French children show for men in khaki, slipped her grubby little paw into my hand.  I expect Joan was often grubby like that.