456; vol.iii, p.
3, _passim_.] She must obey them--but how?
If at that time there were not just at hand some devout adviser to direct her, one incident quite personal and unimportant, which then occurred in her father's house, may have sufficed to point out the way to the young saint.
Tenant-in-chief of the Castle on the island in 1419, and in 1423 elder of the community, Jacques d'Arc was one of the notables of Domremy.
The village folk held him in high esteem and readily entrusted him with difficult tasks.

Towards the end of March, 1427, they sent him to Vaucouleurs as their authorised proxy in a lawsuit they were conducting before Robert de Baudricourt.

It was a question of the payment of damages required at once from the lord and the inhabitants of Greux and Domremy by a certain Guyot Poignant, of Montigny-le-Roi.
These damages went back four years to when, as a return for his protection, the Damoiseau of Commercy had extorted from Greux and Domremy a sum amounting to two hundred and twenty golden crowns.
Guyot Poignant had become security for this sum which had not been paid by the time fixed.

The Damoiseau seized Poignant's wood, hay, and horses to the value of one hundred and twenty golden crowns, which amount the said Poignant reclaimed from the nobles and villeins of Greux and Domremy.

The suit was still pending in 1427, when the community nominated Jacques d'Arc its authorised proxy, and sent him to Vaucouleurs.