The truth is Jacques d’Arc has done well for himself. He’s not a native of Domrémy but moved here to marry her mother, a woman of property, whose uncle was the prior of a monastery—this impressed him. His house, which he owns, is the only one built of stone in the entire village. It is whitewashed and square, with a sloping roof, and located next to the church, which may be an accident or may be intentional; she can imagine her father saying, See my house, it is second only to God’s in importance. He owns nearly fifty acres altogether: cropland, pastureland, land in the woods known as the Bois Chenu, where he charges others in the village a hefty price for allowing their pigs to forage. In every delegation sent to speak with town officials from nearby Vaucouleurs, he is at the head and ready with his speech. Though he can’t read or write or properly hold a pen, he is a natural negotiator, an easy talker. He’s not like some who bow their heads and direct their words at their shoes. He will look his betters in the eye. He has a brain for figures, a cleverness with money, which has caused many to speculate how much he has saved over the years. Most say it must be at least two or three hundred livres, possibly four, though his friends, of whom he has several, claim it is nearly a thousand. He is an expert at what he knows and has an instinct for his work: the crops, their rotation, the quality of soil, how to use the earth without exhausting it, how to portion out acres for pasture so that one’s oxen don’t keel over from hunger in the wintertime. It is impossible to cheat him. Try, and he will give you a fist of reasons not to do it again.

He is a hard father to his sons and demands that they—Jacquemin, Jean, and Pierre—work as much and with the same vigor as he does. But he is harder still on Joan. There is a rumor that in the month before she was born, Jacques d’Arc lost his wits in a way that was unusual for him. Drinking with friends and neighbors, he boasted the child to come would be another son. Catherine, though pretty, was a fluke, he claimed. He could have only sons, and this next one would be strong as Saint Christopher. Someone, whose name is now lost in the telling, took him up on the promise, and, at her father’s insistence, a not-insignificant sum of money was laid down as a wager. A pledge was made that, upon the child’s birth, Jacques would bring it, whatever it was, to be shown to everyone.