this turbulent backdrop the members of the Darc family continued to farm their 50-some acres of land near the Meuse. According to the Domrmy villagers who later testified to Jehanne's childhood upbringing, she was a dutiful child who helped her parents with the chores along with her other siblings: her three older brothers Jacquemin, Jean, and Pierre, and her little sister Catherine. One of her godfathers, a farmer named Jean Moreau from the nearby village of Greux, later recalled that "she was such a good girl that almost everyone in Domrmy loved her".5 Her friends, such as Hauviette, Mengette, Simonin Musnier, Colin, and Michel Lebuin, remembered her as a "good, simple, sweet-natured girl" who "worked gladly" and "went to church gladly and often", especially to a forest chapel called Notre Dame de Bermont, to which she and her sister Catherine would bring candles in honor of the Virgin Mary. "She was deeply devoted to God and the Blessed Virgin," said Colin, "so much so that some other lads and I - for I was young then - used to tease her for being so pious."6 Simonin Musnier remembered that "she tended the sick, and gave alms to the poor. I have seen her do so, for I was ill myself when I was a child, and Jehanne came to comfort me."7 Later, Jehanne would say: "It was from my mother that I learned the Our Father (Pater Noster), the Hail Mary (Ave Maria), and the Apostles Creed (Credo)"8, and "to sew linen fabrics and to spin wool, and when it comes to spinning and sewing I fear no woman...". 9 Catherine le Royer remembered that "she loved to spin wool, and spun well".10 She also loved to listen to the ringing of the church bells: Dominique Jacob, a priest of a nearby parish, remembered that "sometimes when complines were rung in the village church, she would go down on her knees; and I used to think that she said her prayers most devoutly."11 Jean Waterin, a childhood playmate, recalled that "w...
