I was amazed, and said: 

“You, Joan?  You, a child, lead armies?”

“Yes.  For one little moment or two the thought crushed me; for it is as you say—­I am only a child; a child and ignorant—­ignorant of everything that pertains to war, and not fitted for the rough life of camps and the companionship of soldiers.  But those weak moments passed; they will not come again.  I am enlisted, I will not turn back, God helping me, till the English grip is loosed from the throat of France.  My Voices have never told me lies, they have not lied to-day.  They say I am to go to Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and he will give me men-at-arms for escort and send me to the King.  A year from now a blow will be struck which will be the beginning of the end, and the end will follow swiftly.”

“Where will it be struck?”

“My Voices have not said; nor what will happen this present year, before it is struck.  It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know; and follow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks England’s long years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon the Dauphin’s head—­for such is God’s will; my Voices have said it, and shall I doubt it?  No; it will be as they have said, for they say only that which is true.”

These were tremendous sayings.  They were impossibilities to my reason, but to my heart they rang true; and so, while my reason doubted, my heart believed—­believed, and held fast to the belief from that day.  Presently I said: 

“Joan, I believe the things which you have said, and now I am glad that I am to march with you to the great wars—­that is, if it is with you I am to march when I go.”

She looked surprised, and said: 

“It is true that you will be with me when I go to the wars, but how did you know?”

“I shall march with you, and so also will Jean and Pierre, but not Jacques.”

“All true—­it is so ordered, as was revealed to me lately, but I did not know until to-day that the marching would be with me, or that I should march at all.  How did you know these things?”

I told her when it was that she had said them.  But she did not remember about it.  So then I knew that she had been asleep, or in a trance or an ecstasy of some kind, at that time.  She bade me keep these and the other revelations to myself for the present, and I said I would, and kept the faith I promised.

None who met Joan that day failed to notice the change that had come over her.  She moved and spoke with energy and decision; there was a strange new fire in her eye, and also a something wholly new and remarkable in her carriage and in the set of her head.  This new light in the eye and this new bearing were born of the authority and leadership which had this day been vested in her by the decree of God, and they asserted that authority as plainly as speech could have done it, yet without ostentation or bravado.  This calm consciousness of command, and calm unconscious outward expression of it, remained with her thenceforth until her mission was accomplished.