Well favoured by nature was the birthplace of Joan of Arc, with its woods of chestnut and of oak, then in their primeval abundance.  The vine of Greux, which was famous all over the country-side as far back as the fourteenth century, grew on the southern slopes of the hills about Joan’s birthplace.  Beneath these vineyards the fields were thickly clothed with rye and oats, and the meadow-lands washed by the waters of the Meuse were fragrant with hay that had no rival in the country.  It was in these rich fields that, after the hay-making was over, the peasants let out their cattle to graze, the number of each man’s kine corresponding with the number of fields which he owned and which he had reaped.

The little maid sometimes helped her father’s labourers, and the idea has become general that Joan of Arc was a shepherdess; in reality, it was only an occasional occupation, and probably undertaken by Joan out of mere good-nature, seeing that her parents were well-to-do people.  All that we gather of Joan’s early years proves her nature to have been a compound of love and goodness.  Every trait recorded of the little maid’s life at home which has come down to us reveals a mixture of amiability, unselfishness, and charity.  From her earliest years she loved to help the weak and poor:  she was known, when there was no room for the weary wayfarer to pass the night in her parents’ house, to give up her bed to them, and to sleep on the floor, by the hearth.

She loved her mother tenderly, and in her trial she bore witness before men to the good influence that she had derived from that parent.  Isabeau d’Arc appears to have been a devout woman, and to have brought up her children to love work and religion.  Joan loved to sit by her mother’s side for the hour together, spinning, and doubtless listening to the stories of wars with the hereditary enemy.  When she could be of use, Joan was ever ready to lend a hand to help her father or brothers in the rougher labours of coach-house, stable, or farmyard, to keep watch over the flocks as they browsed by the river-side along the meadow-lands.

Joan had not the defect of so many excellent but tedious women, who love talk for the mere sake of talking:  she seems to have been reserved; but, as she proved later on, she was never at a loss for a word in season, and with a few words could speak volumes.  From her childhood she showed an intense and ever-increasing devotion to things holy; her delight in prayer became almost a passion.  She never wearied of visiting the churches in and about her native village, and she passed many an hour in a kind of rapt trance before the crucifixes and saintly images in these churches.  Every morning saw her at her accustomed place at the early celebration of her Lord’s Sacrifice; and if in the afternoon the evening bells sounded across the fields, she would kneel devoutly, and commune in her heart with her divine Master and adored saints.  She loved above all things these evening bells, and, when it seemed to her the ringer grew negligent, would bribe him with some little gift—­the worked wool from one of her sheep or some other trifle—­to remind him in the future to be more instant in his office.  That this little trait in Joan is true, we have the testimony of the bell-ringer himself to attest.