A MODERN JOAN OF ARC

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3150, 31 July 1917, Page 2

A MODERN JOAN OF ARC

Mdlle. Perchaud, a twenty-year-old farmer's daughter, wlio has passed all her life in the tiny hamlet of Puy Saint Bonnet, near Oholet, claims to bo a. modern Joan of Arc, who has heard divine voices calling on her to take part in the great struggle to free France from her enemy (states a writer in an English exchange). Sinco her earliest years she has beon most pious, and has "attended a ohapel near her home every day. Hecently, she says, while ehe was walking across a field between tho farm and the chapel the Sacred Heart appeared to her, and a mysterious voice ordered her to deliver France. She told her parents, who laughed and forbade her to mention the subject to anyone else. The girl obeyel, but with her own hands sho built a small altar in the field where she heard the voice..

Shortly afterwards her slory became known,, and hundreds of people from neighbouring towns and villages came eacn Sunday to pray before the altar and deposit photographs of their men who were fighting at the front.

The girl's fame, writes a correspondent of the "Daily Express," became known to the Bishop of Poictiers, who sent for her to test her. He received her with a group of prelates, giving hie own robes to another priest to wear, but the »irl was not deceived. Looking the priest straight in the face, she said, "You are not tho bishop. I have never eeen, but I know you are not he." Then she walked straight to ttie bishop, knelt and kissed his hand.

The bishop wrote to Cardinal Ametto, Archbishop of Paris, who at the beginning of Lent sent for the girl to come to Paris, where she is staying at a convent in the Avenue Victor Hugo. "You cannot see her," said one of the sisters to mo to-day. "She is praying for victory at the Church of tho Sacred Heart at'Montmartre." There I found her. She is pale-faced, with extraordinary blue eyes, and very frai-looking. She speaks slowly, like a person in.a trance. "I can tell you no£hing;\ she said. "You are not a believer. I must fiay to- ' thins to you." Jf. Delaliaye, deputy for Maine et Loire, is greatly interested in the girl. He told tho writer tho girl had written (ho most marvellous work on theology ho had ever seen. Despite tho writing, •which is what one would expect of an illiterate farm girl, find most fantastic enellin" tho work, winch has been exaininwf'by noted theologians, hns caused a. great sensation.