There is a passage in Francis Thompson of which Chesterton remarked that it alone proved that Thompson was a great poet because, he said, it contained as many inner meanings as outer ones; that is to say, that not only did it contain meaning after meaning, as in a Chinese box one box opens into another inwards, but at the same time, as from a stone dropped into still water, it gave rise to ever-widening rings of thou ght spreading outwards to infinity. To read the life of St Joan is to be reminded very forcibly of Chesterton’s observation. For never was there life so fraught both with inner significance and with world-wide implications. For the wider sphere it is enough to say that she created a nation; or as Michelet puts it: ‘Elle aima tant la France! Et la France, touchée, se mit à s’aimer elle-même’ The outward-spreading consequences of that single decisive act are still perceptible today. The inner significance of her life is to be found in her unique relationship to God. Flere is a mystery indeed! Not as regards the facts. There is no mystery there. We know them all; from her earliest childhood until her death, no tiling is hidden. Moreover, what is even more remarkable, all this comes down to us in the form, not of hearsay and legend, but of attested statements, for, as one of her biographers has pointed out, hers is the only story of a human life which comes to us under oath. No, it is not the facts which are in question, but rather what lies behind the facts. We know that from the age of twelve she was accompanied by three Saints—St Michael, St Catherine of Alexandria and St Margaret of Antioch; but of the peculiar significance of those particular three we remain ignorant. She referred to them as her ‘Voices’, although in fact they were much more than mere voices. They were presences whom she had frequently seen and touched and to whom on at least one occasion she had made her confession.