Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol. 2

by Mark Twain




PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC
by THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE
(her page and secretary)


In Two Volumes


Volume 2.




Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern English
from the original unpublished manuscript in the National Archives
of France


Contents

Book II -- IN COURT AND CAMP Continued

28 Joan Foretells Her Doom
29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders
30 The Red Field of Patay
31 France Begins to Live Again
32 The Joyous News Flies Fast
33 Joan's Five Great Deeds
34 The Jests of the Burgundians
35 The Heir of France is Crowned
36 Joan Hears News from Home
37 Again to Arms
38 The King Cries "Forward!"
39 We Win, but the King Balks
40 Treachery Conquers Joan
41 The Maid Will March No More

Book III -- TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM

1 The Maid in Chains
2 Joan Sold to the English
3 Weaving the Net About Her
4 All Ready to Condemn
5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice
6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors
7 Craft That Was in Vain
8 Joan Tells of Her Visions
9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold
10 The Inquisitors at Their Wit's End
11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination
12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted
13 The Third Trial Fails
14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies
15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning
16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack
17 Supreme in Direst Peril
18 Condemned Yet Unafraid
19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail
20 The Betrayal
21 Respited Only for Torture
22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer
23 The Time Is at Hand
24 Joan the Martyr
Conclusion



Chapter 28 Joan Foretells Her Doom

THE TROOPS must have a rest. Two days would be allowed for
this.

The morning of the 14th I was writing from Joan's dictation in a
small room which she sometimes used as a private office when she
wanted to get away from officials and their interruptions.
Catherine Boucher came in and sat down and said:

"Joan, dear, I want you to talk to me."

"Indeed, I am not sorry for that, but glad. What is in your mind?"

"This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you
are running. The Paladin told me how you made the duke stand out
of the way when the cannon-balls were flying all about, and so
saved his life."

"Well, that was right, wasn't it?"

"Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like
that? It seems such a wanton risk."

"Oh, no, it was not so. I was not in any danger."

"How can you say that, Joan, with those deadly things flying all
about you?"

Joan laughed, and tried to turn the subject, but Catherine persisted.
She said:

"It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in
such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting
Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to
promise me that you will let others lead the assaults, if there must
be assaults, and that you will take better care of yourself in those
dreadful battles. Will you?"

But Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it.
Catherine sat troubled and discontented awhile, then she said:

"Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so
long--so long. They last forever and ever and ever."

There was a glad flash in Joan's eye as she cried:

"This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of it
in the next four days. The rest of it will be gentler--oh, far less
bloody. Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the
redemption of Orleans and make her second long step toward
freedom!"

Catherine started (and do did I); then she gazed long at Joan like
one in a trance, murmuring "four days--four days," as if to herself
and unconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had
something of awe in it:

"Joan, tell me--how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I
think."

"Yes," said Joan, dreamily, "I know--I know. I shall strike--and
strike again. And before the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet
again." She became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was
for a whole minute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving
but uttering nothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible:
"And in a thousand years the English power in France will not rise
up from that blow."

It made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance
again--I could see it--just as she was that day in the pastures of
Domremy when she prophesied about us boys in the war and
afterward did not know that she had done it. She was not
conscious now; but Catherine did not know that, and so she said,
in a happy voice:

"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come
back and bide with us all your life long, and we will love you so,
and honor you!"

A scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the
dreamy voice muttered:

"Before two years are sped I shall die a cruel death!"

I sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine
did not scream. She was going to do that--I saw it plainly. Then I
whispered her to slip out of the place, and say nothing of what had
happened. I said Joan was asleep--asleep and dreaming. Catherine
whispered back, and said:

"Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like
prophecy." And she was gone.

Like prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as
knowing we should lose her. Soon she started, shivering slightly,
and came to herself, and looked around and saw me crying there,
and jumped out of her chair and ran to me all in a whirl of
sympathy and compassion, and put her hand on my head, and said:

"My poor boy! What is it? Look up and tell me."

I had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way.
I picked up an old letter from my table, written by Heaven knows
who, about some matter Heaven knows what, and told her I had
just gotten it from PŠre Fronte, and that in it it said the children's
Fairy Tree had been chopped down by some miscreant or other,
and-- I got no further. She snatched the letter from my hand and
searched it up and down and all over, turning it this way and that,
and sobbing great sobs, and the tears flowing down her cheeks,
and ejaculating all the time, "Oh, cruel, cruel! how could any be so
heartless? Ah, poor Arbre F‚e de Bourlemont gone--and we
children loved it so! Show me the place where it says it!"

And I, still lying, showed her the pretended fatal words on the
pretended fatal page, and she gazed at them through her tears, and
said she could see herself that they were hateful, ugly words--they
"had the very look of it."

Then we heard a strong voice down the corridor announcing:

"His majesty's messenger--with despatches for her Excellency the
Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of France!"

Chapter 29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders

I KNEW she had seen the wisdom of the Tree. But when? I could
not know. Doubtless before she had lately told the King to use her,
for that she had but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to
me at the time, but the conviction came upon me now that at that
time she had already seen the Tree. It had brought her a welcome
message; that was plain, otherwise she could not have been so
joyous and light-hearted as she had been these latter days. The
death-warning had nothing dismal about it for her; no, it was
remission of exile, it was leave to come home.

Yes, she had seen the Tree. No one had taken the prophecy to heart
which she made to the King; and for a good reason, no doubt; no
one wanted to take it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and
forget it. And all had succeeded, and would go on to the end placid
and comfortable. All but me alone. I must carry my awful secret
without any to help me. A heavy load, a bitter burden; and would
cost me a daily heartbreak. She was to die; and so soon. I had
never dreamed of that. How could I, and she so strong and fresh
and young, and every day earning a new right to a peaceful and
honored old age? For at that time I though old age valuable. I do
not know why, but I thought so. All young people think it, I
believe, they being ignorant and full of superstitions. She had seen
the Tree. All that miserable night those ancient verses went
floating back and forth through my brain:

And when, in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse
of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!

But at dawn the bugles and the drums burst through the dreamy
hush of the morning, and it was turn out all! mount and ride. For
there was red work to be done.

We marched to Meung without halting. There we carried the
bridge by assault, and left a force to hold it, the rest of the army
marching away next morning toward Beaugency, where the lion
Talbot, the terror of the French, was in command. When we
arrived at that place, the English retired into the castle and we sat
down in the abandoned town.

Talbot was not at the moment present in person, for he had gone
away to watch for and welcome Fastolfe and his reinforcement of
five thousand men.

Joan placed her batteries and bombarded the castle till night. Then
some news came: Richemont, Constable of France, this long time
in disgrace with the King, largely because of the evil machinations
of La Tremouille and his party, was approaching with a large body
of men to offer his services to Joan--and very much she needed
them, now that Fastolfe was so close by. Richemont had wanted to
join us before, when we first marched on Orleans; but the foolish
King, slave of those paltry advisers of his, warned him to keep his
distance and refused all reconciliation with him.

I go into these details because they are important. Important
because they lead up to the exhibition of a new gift in Joan's
extraordinary mental make-up--statesmanship. It is a sufficiently
strange thing to find that great quality in an ignorant country-girl
of seventeen and a half, but she had it.

Joan was for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire
and the two young Lavals and other chiefs, but the
Lieutenant-General, d'Alen‡on, strenuously and stubbornly
opposed it. He said he had absolute orders from the King to deny
and defy Richemont, and that if they were overridden he would
leave the army. This would have been a heavy disaster, indeed. But
Joan set herself the task of persuading him that the salvation of
France took precedence of all minor things--even the commands of
a sceptered ass; and she accomplished it. She persuaded him to
disobey the King in the interest of the nation, and to be reconciled
to Count Richemont and welcome him. That was statesmanship;
and of the highest and soundest sort. Whatever thing men call
great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.

In the early morning, June 17th, the scouts reported the approach
of Talbot and Fastolfe with Fastolfe's succoring force. Then the
drums beat to arms; and we set forth to meet the English, leaving
Richemont and his troops behind to watch the castle of Beaugency
and keep its garrison at home. By and by we came in sight of the
enemy. Fastolfe had tried to convince Talbot that it would be
wisest to retreat and not risk a battle with Joan at this time, but
distribute the new levies among the English strongholds of the
Loire, thus securing them against capture; then be patient and
wait--wait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her army
with fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon her
in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a wise old
experienced general, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would
hear of no delay. He was in a rage over the punishment which the
Maid had inflicted upon him at Orleans and since, and he swore by
God and Saint George that he would have it out with her if he had
to fight her all alone. So Fastolfe yielded, though he said they were
now risking the loss of everything which the English had gained by
so many years' work and so many hard knocks.

The enemy had taken up a strong position, and were waiting, in
order of battle, with their archers to the front and a stockade before
them.

Night was coming on. A messenger came from the English with a
rude defiance and an offer of battle. But Joan's dignity was not
ruffled, her bearing was not discomposed. She said to the herald:

"Go back and say it is too late to meet to-night; but to-morrow,
please God and our Lady, we will come to close quarters."

The night fell dark and rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain
which falls so softly and brings to one's spirit such serenity and
peace. About ten o'clock D'Alen‡on, the Bastard of Orleans, La
Hire, Pothon of Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came
to our headquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters with
Joan. Some thought it was a pity that Joan had declined battle,
some thought not. Then Pothon asked her why she had declined it.
She said:

"There was more than one reason. These English are ours--they
cannot get away from us. Wherefore there is no need to take risks,
as at other times. The day was far spent. It is good to have much
time and the fair light of day when one's force is in a weakened
state--nine hundred of us yonder keeping the bridge of Meung
under the Marshal de Rais, fifteen hundred with the Constable of
France keeping the bridge and watching the castle of Beaugency."

Dunois said:

"I grieve for this decision, Excellency, but it cannot be helped. And
the case will be the same the morrow, as to that."

Joan was walking up and down just then. She laughed her
affectionate, comrady laugh, and stopping before that old war-tiger
she put her small hand above his head and touched one of his
plumes, saying:

"Now tell me, wise man, which feather is it that I touch?"

"In sooth, Excellency, that I cannot."

"Name of God, Bastard, Bastard! you cannot tell me this small
thing, yet are bold to name a large one--telling us what is in the
stomach of the unborn morrow: that we shall not have those men.
Now it is my thought that they will be with us."

That made a stir. All wanted to know why she thought that. But La
Hire took the word and said:

"Let be. If she thinks it, that is enough. It will happen."

Then Pothon of Santrailles said:

"There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the
saying of your Excellency?"

"Yes. One was that we being weak and the day far gone, the battle
might not be decisive. When it is fought it must be decisive. And it
shall be."

"God grant it, and amen. There were still other reasons?"

"One other--yes." She hesitated a moment, then said: "This was not
the day. To-morrow is the day. It is so written."

They were going to assail her with eager questionings, but she put
up her hand and prevented them. Then she said:

"It will be the most noble and beneficent victory that God has
vouchsafed for France at any time. I pray you question me not as to
whence or how I know this thing, but be content that it is so."

There was pleasure in every face, and conviction and high
confidence. A murmur of conversation broke out, but that was
interrupted by a messenger from the outposts who brought
news--namely, that for an hour there had been stir and movement
in the English camp of a sort unusual at such a time and with a
resting army, he said. Spies had been sent under cover of the rain
and darkness to inquire into it. They had just come back and
reported that large bodies of men had been dimly made out who
were slipping stealthily away in the direction of Meung.

The generals were very much surprised, as any might tell from
their faces.

"It is a retreat," said Joan.

"It has that look," said D'Alen‡on.

"It certainly has," observed the Bastard and La Hire.

"It was not to be expected," said Louis de Bourbon, "but one can
divine the purpose of it."

"Yes," responded Joan. "Talbot has reflected. His rash brain has
cooled. He thinks to take the bridge of Meung and escape to the
other side of the river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of
Beaugency at the mercy of fortune, to escape our hands if it can;
but there is no other course if he would avoid this battle, and that
he also knows. But he shall not get the bridge. We will see to that."

"Yes," said D'Alen&ccecil;on, "we must follow him, and take care
of that matter. What of Beaugency?"

"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours,
and at no cost of blood."

"It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there
and receive the surrender."

"Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the
Constable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that
Beaugency has fallen it will have an effect upon him."

"By the mass, yes!" cried La Hire. "He will join his Meung garrison
to his army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge
force with us again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be
stronger for our great day's work by four-and-twenty hundred able
soldiers, as was here promised within the hour. Verily this
Englishman is doing our errands for us and saving us much blood
and trouble. Orders, Excellency--give us orders!"

"They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one
o'clock the advance-guard will march, under our command, with
Pothon of Saintrailles as second; the second division will follow at
two under the Lieutenant-General. Keep well in the rear of the
enemy, and see to it that you avoid an engagement. I will ride
under guard to Beaugency and make so quick work there that Ii
and the Constable of France will join you before dawn with his
men."

She kept her word. Her guard mounted and we rode off through
the puttering rain, taking with us a captured English officer to
confirm Joan's news. We soon covered the journey and summoned
the castle. Richard Gu‚tin, Talbot's lieutenant, being convinced
that he and his five hundred men were left helpless, conceded that
it would be useless to try to hold out. He could not expect easy
terms, yet Joan granted them nevertheless. His garrison could keep
their horses and arms, and carry away property to the value of a
silver mark per man. They could go whither they pleased, but must
not take arms against France again under ten days.

Before dawn we were with our army again, and with us the
Constable and nearly all his men, for we left only a small garrison
in Beaugency castle. We heard the dull booming of cannon to the
front, and knew that Talbot was beginning his attack on the bridge.
But some time before it was yet light the sound ceased and we
heard it no more.

Gu‚tin had sent a messenger through our lines under a
safe-conduct given by Joan, to tell Talbot of the surrender. Of
course this poursuivant had arrived ahead of us. Talbot had held it
wisdom to turn now and retreat upon Paris. When daylight came
he had disappeared; and with him Lord Scales and the garrison of
Meung.

What a harvest of English strongholds we had reaped in those
three days!--strongholds which had defied France with quite cool
confidence and plenty of it until we came.

Chapter 30  The Red Field of Patay

WHEN THE morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th
of June, thee was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said.
But that did not trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that
we should strike him; strike him the promised blow--the one from
which the English power in France would not rise up in a thousand
years, as Joan had said in her trance.

The enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beauce--a
roadless waste covered with bushes, with here and there bodies of
forest trees--a region where an army would be hidden from view in
a very little while. We found the trail in the soft wet earth and
followed it. It indicated an orderly march; no confusion, no panic.

But we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could
walk into an ambush without any trouble. Therefore Joan sent
bodies of cavalry ahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains,
to feel the way. Some of the other officers began to show
uneasiness; this sort of hide-and-go-seek business troubled them
and made their confidence a little shaky. Joan divined their state of
mind and cried out impetuously:

"Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English,
and we will. They shall not escape us. Though they were hung to
the clouds we would get them!"

By and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away.
Now at this time our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush,
frightened a deer, and it went bounding away and was out of sight
in a moment. Then hardly a minute later a dull great shout went up
in the distance toward Patay. It was the English soldiery. They had
been shut up in a garrison so long on moldy food that they could
not keep their delight to themselves when this fine fresh meat
came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it had wrought
damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew
where the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion
of where the French were.

La Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was
radiant with joy. The Duke d'Alen‡on said to her:

"Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?"

"Have you good spurs, prince?"

"Why? Will they make us run away?"

"Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours--they are lost.
They will fly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs.
Forward--close up!"

By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had
discovered our presence. Talbot's force was marching in three
bodies. First his advance-guard; then his artillery; then his
battle-corps a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush
and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his
advance-guard, and five hundred picked archers along some
hedges where the French would be obliged to pass, and hoped to
hold this position till his battle-corps could come up. Sir John
Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her
opportunity and ordered La Hire to advance--which La Hire
promptly did, launching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his
customary fashion.

The duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said:

"Not yet--wait."

So they waited--impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she
was ready--gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing,
calculating--by shades, minutes, fractions of minutes,
seconds--with all her great soul present, in eye, and set of head,
and noble pose of body--but patient, steady, master of
herself--master of herself and of the situation.

And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting
and falling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire's godless
crew, La Hire's great figure dominating it and his sword stretched
aloft like a flagstaff.

"Oh, Satan andhis Hellions, see them go!" Somebody muttered it
in deep admiration.

And now he was closing up--closing up on Fastolfe's rushing corps.

And now he struck it--struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted
the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned,
trembling with excitement, to Joan, saying:

"Now!"

But she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and
said again:

"Wait--not yet."

Fastolfe's hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche
toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the
idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it
broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot
storming and cursing after it.

Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved
the advance with her sword. "Follow me!" she cried, and bent her
head to her horse's neck and sped away like the wind!

We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three
long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang
"Halt!"

The Battle of Patay was won.

Joan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost
in thought. Presently she said:

"The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day."
After a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the
manner of one who is thinking aloud, "In a thousand years--a
thousand years--the English power in France will not rise up from
this blow." She stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward
her grouped generals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble
light in her eye; and she said:

"Oh, friends, friends, do you know?--do you comprehend? France
is on the way to be free!"

"And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!" said La Hire, passing
before her and bowing low, the other following and doing
likewise; he muttering as he went, "I will say it though I be
damned for it." Then battalion after battalion of our victorious
army swung by, wildly cheering. And they shouted, "Live forever,
Maid of Orleans, live forever!" while Joan, smiling, stood at the
salute with her sword.

This was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red
field of Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where
the dead and dying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows;
our men had mortally wounded an English prisoner who was too
poor to pay a ransom, and from a distance she had seen that cruel
thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and
now she was holding the head of her dying enemy in her lap, and
easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his
sister might have done; and the womanly tears running down her
face all the time. [1]

[1] Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: "Michelet
discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis
de Conte, who was probably an eye-witness of the scene." This is
true. It was a part of the testimony of the author of these "Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc," given by him in the Rehabilitation
proceedings of 1456. -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 31 France Begins to Live Again

JOAN HAD said true: France was on the way to be free.

The war called the Hundred Years' War was very sick to-day. Sick
on its English side--for the very first time since its birth,
ninety-one years gone by.

Shall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought?
Or shall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed
from them? Any one will say that a battle is only truly great or
small according to its results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is
the truth.

Judged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great
and imposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the
world first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So
judged, it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few
just mentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic
conflicts. For when it began France lay gasping out the remnant of
an exhausted life, her case wholly hopeless in the view of all
political physicians; when it ended, three hours later, she was
convalescent. Convalescent, and nothing requisite but time and
ordinary nursing to bring her back to perfect health. The dullest
physician of them all could see this, and there was none to deny it.

Many death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a
series of battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting
conflicts stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a
single day and by a single battle. That nation is France, and that
battle Patay.

Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the
stateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands,
with its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on
pilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the
presence of--what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes.
For all nations in all times have built monuments on their
battle-fields to keep green the memory of the perishable deed that
was wrought there and of the perishable name of him who wrought
it; and will France neglect Patay and Joan of Arc? Not for long.
And will she build a monument scaled to their rank as compared
with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhaps--if there be room
for it under the arch of the sky.

But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and
impressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged
on and on, year after year and year after year; and at last England
stretched France prone with that fearful blow at Cr‚cy. But she
rose and struggled on, year after year, and at last again she went
down under another devastating blow--Poitiers. She gathered her
crippled strength once more, and the war raged on, and on, and
still on, year after year, decade after decade. Children were born,
grew up, married, died--the war raged on; their children in turn
grew up, married, died--the war raged on; their children, growing,
saw France struck down again; this time under the incredible
disaster of Agincourt--and still the war raged on, year after year,
and in time these chldren married in their turn.

France was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to
England, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half
belonged to nobody--in three months would be flying the English
flag; the French King was making ready to throw away his crown
and flee beyond the seas.

Now came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and
confronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that
had swept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest
and most amazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven
weeks it was finished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that
gigantic war that was ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it
a staggering blow; on the field of Patay she broke its back.

Think of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is
another matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that
stupefying marvel.

Seven weeks--with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the
most of it, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began
six thousand strong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is
said and believed that in three battles alone--Cr‚cy, Poitiers, and
Agincourt--near a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without
counting the thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of
that war make a mournful long list--an interminable list. Of men
slain in the field the count goes by tens of thousands; of innocent
women and children slain by bitter hardship and hunger it goes by
that appalling term, millions.

It was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred
years, crunching men and dripping blood from its jaws. And with
her little hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder
he lies stretched on the field of Patay, and will not get up any more
while this old world lasts.

Chapter 32 The Joyous News Flies Fast

THE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France
in twenty hours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one
thing is sure, anyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting
and glorifying God and told his neighbor; and that neighbor flew
with it to the next homestead; and so on and so on without resting
the word traveled; and when a man got it in the night, at what hour
soever, he jumped out of his bed and bore the blessed message
along. And the joy that went with it was like the light that flows
across the land when an eclipse is receding from the face of the
sun; and, indeed, you may say that France had lain in an eclipse
this long time; yes, buried in a black gloom which these beneficent
tidings were sweeping away now before the onrush of their white
splendor.

The news beat the flying enemy to Yeuville, and the town rose
against its English masters and shut the gates against their
brethren. It flew to Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that,
and the other English fortress; and straightway the garrison applied
the torch and took to the fields and the woods. A detachment of
our army occupied Meung and pillaged it.

When we reached Orleans that tow was as much as fifty times
insaner with joy than we had ever seen it before--which is saying
much. Night had just fallen, and the illuminations were on so
wonderful a scale that we seemed to plow through seas of fire; and
as to the noise--the hoarse cheering of the multitude, the
thundering of cannon, the clash of bells--indeed, there was never
anything like it. And everywhere rose a new cry that burst upon us
like a storm when the column entered the gates, and nevermore
ceased: "Welcome to Joan of Arc--way for the SAVIOR OF
FRANCE!" And there was another cry: "Cr‚cy is avenged! Poitiers
is avenged! Agincourt is avenged!--Patay shall live forever!"

Mad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners
were in the center of the column. When that came along and the
people caught sight of their masterful old enemy Talbot, that had
made them dance so long to his grim war-music, you may imagine
what the uproar was like if you can, for I can not describe it. They
were so glad to see him that presently they wanted to have him out
and hang him; so Joan had him brought up to the front to ride in
her protection. They made a striking pair.

Chapter 33 Joan's Five Great Deeds

YES, ORLEANS was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the
King, and made sumptuous preparations to receive him, but--he
didn't come. He was simply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille
was his master. Master and serf were visiting together at the
master's castle of Sully-sur-Loire.

At Beaugency Joan had engaged to bring about a reconciliation
between the Constable Richemont and the King. She took
Richemont to Sully-sur-Loire and made her promise good.

The great deeds of Joan of Arc are five:

1. The Raising of the Siege.

2. The Victory of Patay.

3. The Reconciliation at Sully-sur-Loire.

4. The Coronation of the King.

5. The Bloodless March.

We shall come to the Bloodless March presently (and the
Coronation). It was the victorious long march which Joan made
through the enemy's country from Gien to Rheims, and thence to
the gates of Paris, capturing every English town and fortress that
barred the road, from the beginning of the journey to the end of it;
and this by the mere force of her name, and without shedding a
drop of blood--perhaps the most extraordinary campaign in this
regard in history--this is the most glorious of her military exploits.

The Reconciliation was one of Joan's most important
achievements. No one else could have accomplished it; and, in
fact, no one else of high consequence had any disposition to try. In
brains, in scientific warfare, and in statesmanship the Constable
Richemont was the ablest man in France. His loyalty was sincere;
his probity was above suspicion--(and it made him sufficiently
conspicuous in that trivial and conscienceless Court).

In restoring Richemont to France, Joan made thoroughly secure the
successful completion of the great work which she had begun. She
had never seen Richemont until he came to her with his little army.
Was it not wonderful that at a glance she should know him for the
one man who could finish and perfect her work and establish it in
perpetuity? How was it that that child was able to do this? It was
because she had the "seeing eye," as one of our knights had once
said. Yes, she had that great gift--almost the highest and rarest that
has been granted to man. Nothing of an extraordinary sort was still
to be done, yet the remaining work could not safely be left to the
King's idiots; for it would require wise statesmanship and long and
patient though desultory hammering of the enemy. Now and then,
for a quarter of a century yet, there would be a little fighting to do,
and a handy man could carry that on with small disturbance to the
rest of the country; and little by little, and with progressive
certainty, the English would disappear from France.

And that happened. Under the influence of Richemont the King
became at a later time a man--a man, a king, a brave and capable
and determined soldier. Within six years after Patay he was
leading storming parties himself; fighting in fortress ditches up to
his waist in water, and climbing scaling-ladders under a furious
fire with a pluck that would have satisfied even Joan of Arc. In
time he and Richemont cleared away all the English; even from
regions where the people had been under their mastership for three
hundred years. In such regions wise and careful work was
necessary, for the English rule had been fair and kindly; and men
who have been ruled in that way are not always anxious for a
change.

Which of Joan's five chief deeds shall we call the chiefest? It is my
thought that each in its turn was that. This is saying that, taken as a
whole, they equalized each other, and neither was then greater than
its mate.

Do you perceive? Each was a stage in an ascent. To leave out one
of them would defeat the journey; to achieve one of them at the
wrong time and in the wrong place would have the same effect.

Consider the Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where
can you find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its
vast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute
Bedford, representative of the English crown? No. An advantage
of incalculable importance was here under the eyes of the King
and of Bedford; the King could get it by a bold stroke, Bedford
could get it without an effort; but, being ignorant of its value,
neither of them put forth his hand. Of all the wise people in high
office in France, only one knew the priceless worth of this
neglected prize--the untaught child of seventeen, Joan of Arc--and
she had known it from the beginning as an essential detail of her
mission.

How did she know it? It was simple: she was a peasant. That tells
the whole story. She was of the people and knew the people; those
others moved in a loftier sphere and knew nothing much about
them. We make little account of that vague, formless, inert mass,
that mighty underlying force which we call "the people"--an
epithet which carries contempt with it. It is a strange attitude; for
at bottom we know that the throne which the people support
stands, and that when that support is removed nothing in this world
can save it.

Now, then, consider this fact, and observe its importance.
Whatever the parish priest believes his flock believes; they love
him, they revere him; he is their unfailing friend, their dauntless
protector, their comforter in sorrow, their helper in their day of
need; he has their whole confidence; what he tells them to do, that
they will do, with a blind and affectionate obedience, let it cost
what it may. Add these facts thoughtfully together, and what is the
sum? This: The parish priest governs the nation. What is the King,
then, if the parish priest withdraws his support and deny his
authority? Merely a shadow and no King; let him resign.

Do you get that idea? Then let us proceed. A priest is consecrated
to his office by the awful hand of God, laid upon him by his
appointed representative on earth. That consecration is final;
nothing can undo it, nothing can remove it. Neither the Pope nor
any other power can strip the priest of his office; God gave it, and
it is forever sacred and secure. The dull parish knows all this. To
priest and parish, whatsoever is anointed of God bears an office
whose authority can no longer be disputed or assailed. To the
parish priest, and to his subjects the nation, an uncrowned king is a
similitude of a person who has been named for holy orders but has
not been consecrated; he has no office, he has not been ordained,
another may be appointed to his place. In a word, an uncrowned
king is a doubtful king; but if God appoint him and His servant the
Bishop anoint him, the doubt is annihilated; the priest and the
parish are his loyal subjects straightway, and while he lives they
will recognize no king but him.

To Joan of Arc, the peasant-girl, Charles VII. was no King until he
was crowned; to her he was only the Dauphin; that is to say, the
heir. If I have ever made her call him King, it was a mistake; she
called him the Dauphin, and nothing else until after the
Coronation. It shows you as in a mirror--for Joan was a mirror in
which the lowly hosts of France were clearly reflected--that to all
that vast underlying force called "the people," he was no King but
only Dauphin before his crowning, and was indisputably and
irrevocably King after it.

Now you understand what a colossal move on the political
chess-board the Coronation was. Bedford realized this by and by,
and tried to patch up his mistake by crowning his King; but what
good could that do? None in the world.

Speaking of chess, Joan's great acts may be likened to that game.
Each move was made in its proper order, and it as great and
effective because it was made in its proper order and not out of it.
Each, at the time made, seemed the greatest move; but the final
result made them all recognizable as equally essential and equally
important. This is the game, as played:

1. Joan moves to Orleans and Patay--check.

2. Then moves the Reconciliation--but does not proclaim check, it
being a move for position, and to take effect later.

3. Next she moves the Coronation--check.

4. Next, the Bloodless March--check.

5. Final move (after her death), the reconciled Constable
Richemont to the French King's elbow--checkmate.

Chapter 34 The Jests of the Burgundians

THE CAMPAIGN of the Loire had as good as opened the road to
Rheims. There was no sufficient reason now why the Coronation
should not take place. The Coronation would complete the mission
which Joan had received from heaven, and then she would be
forever done with war, and would fly home to her mother and her
sheep, and never stir from the hearthstone and happiness any more.
That was her dream; and she could not rest, she was so impatient
to see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this matter that I
began to lose faith in her two prophecies of her early death--and,
of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged it to
waver all the more.

The King was afraid to start to Rheims, because the road was
mile-posted with English fortresses, so to speak. Joan held them in
light esteem and not things to be afraid of in the existing modified
condition of English confidence.

And she was right. As it turned out, the march to Rheims was
nothing but a holiday excursion: Joan did not even take any
artillery along, she was so sure it would not be necessary. We
marched from Gien twelve thousand strong. This was the 29th of
June. The Maid rode by the side of the King; on his other side was
the Duke d'Alen‡on. After the duke followed three other princes of
the blood. After these followed the Bastard of Orleans, the
Marshal de Boussac, and the Admiral of France. After these came
La Hire, Saintrailles, Tremouille, and a long procession of knights
and nobles.

We rested three days before Auxerre. The city provisioned the
army, and a deputation waited upon the King, but we did not enter
the place.

Saint-Florentin opened its gates to the King.

On the 4th of July we reached Saint-Fal, and yonder lay Troyes
before us--a town which had a burning interest for us boys; for we
remembered how seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy,
the Sunflower came with his black flag and brought us the
shameful news of the Treaty of Troyes--that treaty which gave
France to England, and a daughter of our royal line in marriage to
the Butcher of Agincourt. That poor town was not to blame, of
course; yet we flushed hot with that old memory, and hoped there
would be a misunderstanding here, for we dealry wanted to storm
the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by English and
Burgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from
Paris. Before night we camped before its gates and made rough
work with a sortie which marched out against us.

Joan summoned Troyes to surrender. Its commandant, seeing that
she had no artillery, scoffed at the idea, and sent her a grossly
insulting reply. Five days we consulted and negotiated. No result.
The King was about to turn back now and give up. He was afraid
to go on, leaving this strong place in his rear. Then La Hire put in a
word, with a slap in it for some of his Majesty's advisers:

"The Maid of Orleans undertook this expedition of her own
motion; and it is my mind that it is her judgment that should be
followed here, and not that of any other, let him be of whatsoever
breed and standing he may."

There was wisdom and righteousness in that. So the King sent for
the Maid, and asked her how she thought the prospect looked. She
said, without any tone of doubt or question in her voice:

"In three days' time the place is ours."

The smug Chancellor put in a word now:

"If we were sure of it we would wait her six days."

"Six days, forsooth! Name of God, man, we will enter the gates
to-morrow!"

Then she mounted, and rode her lines, crying out:

"Make preparation--to your work, friends, to your work! We
assault at dawn!"

She worked hard that night, slaving away with her own hands like
a common soldier. She ordered fascines and fagots to be prepared
and thrown into the fosse, thereby to bridge it; and in this rough
labor she took a man's share.

At dawn she took her place at the head of the storming force and
the bugles blew the assault. At that moment a flag of truce was
flung to the breeze from the walls, and Troyes surrendered without
firing a shot.

The next day the King with Joan at his side and the Paladin
bearing her banner entered the town in state at the head of the
army. And a goodly army it was now, for it had been growing ever
bigger and bigger from the first.

And now a curious thing happened. By the terms of the treaty
made with the town the garrison of English and Burgundian
soldiery were to be allowed to carry away their "goods" with them.
This was well, for otherwise how would they buy the wherewithal
to live? Very well; these people were all to go out by the one gate,
and at the time set for them to depart we young fellows went to
that gate, along with the Dwarf, to see the march-out. Presently
here they came in an interminable file, the foot-soldiers in the
lead. As they approached one could see that each bore a burden of
a bulk and weight to sorely tax his strength; and we said among
ourselves, truly these folk are well off for poor common soldiers.
When they were come nearer, what do you think? Every rascal of
them had a French prisoner on his back! They were carrying away
their "goods," you see--their property--strictly according to the
permission granted by the treaty.

Now think how clever that was, how ingenious. What could a body
say? what could a body do? For certainly these people were within
their right. These prisoners were property; nobody could deny that.
My dears, if those had been English captives, conceive of the
richness of that booty! For English prisoners had been scarce and
precious for a hundred years; whereas it was a different matter
with French prisoners. They had been over-abundant for a century.
The possessor of a French prisoner did not hold him long for
ransom, as a rule, but presently killed him to save the cost of his
keep. This shows you how small was the value of such a
possession in those times. When we took Troyes a calf was worth
thirty francs, a sheep sixteen, a French prisoner eight. It was an
enormous price for those other animals--a price which naturally
seems incredible to you. It was the war, you see. It worked two
ways: it made meat dear and prisoners cheap.

Well, here were these poor Frenchmen being carried off. What
could we do? Very little of a permanent sort, but we did what we
could. We sent a messenger flying to Joan, and we and the French
guards halted the procession for a parley--to gain time, you see. A
big Burgundian lost his temper and swore a great oath that none
should stop him; he would go, and would take his prisoner with
him. But we blocked him off, and he saw that he was mistaken
about going--he couldn't do it. He exploded into the maddest
cursings and revilings, then, and, unlashing his prisoner from his
back, stood him up, all bound and helpless; then drew his knife,
and said to us with a light of sarcasting triumph in his eye:

"I may not carry him away, you say--yet he is mine, none will
dispute it. Since I may not convey him hence, this property of
mine, there is another way. Yes, I can kill him; not even the dullest
among you will question that right. Ah, you had not thought of
that--vermin!"

That poor starved fellow begged us with his piteous eyes to save
him; then spoke, and said he had a wife and little children at home.
Think how it wrung our heartstrings. But what could we do? The
Burgundian was within his right. We could only beg and plead for
the prisoner. Which we did. And the Burgundian enjoyed it. He
stayed his hand to hear more of it, and laugh at it. That stung. Then
the Dwarf said:

"Prithee, young sirs, let me beguile him; for when a matter
requiring permission is to the fore, I have indeed a gift in that sort,
as any will tell you that know me well. You smile; and that is
punishment for my vanity; and fairly earned, I grant you. Still, if I
may toy a little, just a little--" saying which he stepped to the
Burgundian and began a fair soft speech, all of goodly and gentle
tenor; and in the midst he mentioned the Maid; and was going on
to say how she out of her good heart would prize and praise this
compassionate deed which he was about to-- It was as far as he
got. The Burgundian burst into his smooth oration with an insult
leveled at Joan of Arc. We sprang forward, but the Dwarf, his face
all livid, brushed us aside and said, in a most grave and earnest
way:

"I crave your patience. Am not I her guard of honor? This is my
affair."

And saying this he suddenly shot his right hand out and gripped the
great Burgundian by the throat, and so held him upright on his feet.
"You have insulted the Maid," he said; "and the Maid is France.
The tongue that does that earns a long furlough."

One heard the muffled cracking of bones. The Burgundian's eyes
began to protrude from their sockets and stare with a leaden
dullness at vacancy. The color deepened in his face and became an
opaque purple. His hands hung down limp, his body collapsed with
a shiver, every muscle relaxed its tension and ceased from its
function. The Dwarf took away his hand and the column of inert
mortality sank mushily to the ground.

We struck the bonds from the prisoner and told him he was free.
His crawling humbleness changed to frantic joy in a moment, and
his ghastly fear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and
kicked it, spat in its face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its
mouth, laughing, jeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies
and bestialities like a drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected;
soldiering makes few saints. Many of the onlookers laughed,
others were indifferent, none was surprised. But presently in his
mad caperings the freed man capered within reach of the waiting
file, and another Burgundian promptly slipped a knife through his
neck, and down he went with a death-shriek, his brilliant artery
blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright as a ray of light.
There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from friend and
foe alike; and thus closed one of the pleasantest incidents of my
checkered military life.

And now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered
the claim of the garrison, then said:

"You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word
to put in the treaty, and covers too much. But ye may not take
these poor men away. They are French, and I will not have it. The
King shall ransom them, every one. Wait till I send you word from
him; and hurt no hair of their heads; for I tell you, I who speak,
that that would cost you very dear."

That settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway.
Then she rode back eagerly and required that thing of the King,
and would listen to no paltering and no excuses. So the King told
her to have her way, and she rode straight back and bought the
captives free in his name and let them go.

Chapter 35 The Heir of France is Crowned

IT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King's
Household, in whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at
Chinon in those first days of her coming out of her own country.
She made him Bailiff of Troyes now by the King's permission.

And now we marched again; Chƒlons surrendered to us; and there
by Chƒlons in a talk, Joan, being asked if she had no fears for the
future, said yes, one--treachery. Who would believe it? who could
dream it? And yet in a sense it was prophecy. Truly, man is a
pitiful animal.

We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th
of July, we came in sight of our goal, and saw the great
cathedraled towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after
huzza swept the army from van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc,
there where she sat her horse gazing, clothed all in white armor,
dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of
earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her sublime mission
was closing--closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could
say, "It is finished--let me go free."

We camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand
preparations began. The Archbishop and a great deputation
arrived; and after these came flock after flock, crowd after crowd,
of citizens and country-folk, hurrahing, in, with banners and
music, and flowed over the camp, one rejoicing inundation after
another, everybody drunk with happiness. And all night long
Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating the town,
building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral
within and without in a glory of opulent splendors.

We moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies
would begin at nine and last five hours. We were aware that the
garrison of English and Burgundian soldiers had given up all
thought of resisting the Maid, and that we should find the gates
standing hospitably open and the whole city ready to welcome us
with enthusiasm.

It was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and
fresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as
it uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the
final march of the peaceful Coronation Campaign.

Joan, on her black horse, with the Lieutenant-General and the
personal staff grouped about her, took post for a final review and a
good-by; for she was not expecting to ever be a soldier again, or
ever serve with these or any other soldiers any more after this day.
The army knew this, and believed it was looking for the last time
upon the girlish face of its invincible little Chief, its pet, its pride,
its darling, whom it had ennobled in its private heart with
nobilities of its own creation, call her "Daughter of God," "Savior
of France," "Victory's Sweetheart," "The Page of Christ," together
with still softer titles which were simply na‹f and frank
endearments such as men are used to confer upon children whom
they love. And so one saw a new thing now; a thing bred of the
emotion that was present there on both sides. Always before, in the
march-past, the battalions had gone swinging by in a storm of
cheers, heads up and eyes flashing, the drums rolling, the bands
braying p‘ans of victory; but now there was nothing of that. But
for one impressive sound, one could have closed his eyes and
imagined himself in a world of the dead. That one sound was all
that visited the ear in the summer stillness--just that one sound--the
muffled tread of the marching host. As the serried masses drifted
by, the men put their right hands up to their temples, palms to the
front, in military salute, turning their eyes upon Joan's face in mute
God-bless-you and farewell, and keeping them there while they
could. They still kept their hands up in reverent salute many steps
after they had passed by. Every time Joan put her handkerchief to
her eyes you could see a little quiver of emotion crinkle along the
faces of the files.

The march-past after a victory is a thing to drive the heart mad
with jubilation; but this one was a thing to break it.

We rode now to the King's lodgins, which was the Archbishop's
country palace; and he was presently ready, and we galloped off
and took position at the head of the army. By this time the
country-people were arriving in multitudes from every direction
and massing themselves on both sides of the road to get sight of
Joan--just as had been done every day since our first day's march
began. Our march now lay through the grassy plain, and those
peasants made a dividing double border for that plain. They
stretched right down through it, a broad belt of bright colors on
each side of the road; for every peasant girl and woman in it had a
white jacket on her body and a crimson skirt on the rest of her.
Endless borders made of poppies and lilies stretching away in front
of us--that is what it looked like. And that is the kind of lane we
had been marching through all these days. Not a lane between
multitudinous flowers standing upright on their stems--no, these
flowers were always kneeling; kneeling, these human flowers, with
their hands and faces lifted toward Joan of Arc, and the grateful
tears streaming down. And all along, those closest to the road
hugged her feet and kissed them and laid their wet cheeks fondly
against them. I never, during all those days, saw any of either sex
stand while she passed, nor any man keep his head covered.
Afterward in the Great Trial these touching scenes were used as a
weapon against her. She had been made an object of adoration by
the people, and this was proof that she was a heretic--so claimed
that unjust court.

As we drew near the city the curving long sweep of ramparts and
towers was gay with fluttering flags and black with masses of
people; and all the air was vibrant with the crash of artillery and
gloomed with drifting clouds of smoke. We entered the gates in
state and moved in procession through the city, with all the guilds
and industries in holiday costume marching in our rear with their
banners; and all the route was hedged with a huzzaing crush of
people, and all the windows were full and all the roofs; and from
the balconies hung costly stuffs of rich colors; and the waving of
handkerchiefs, seen in perspective through a long vista, was like a
snowstorm.

Joan's name had been introduced into the prayers of the
Church--an honor theretofore restricted to royalty. But she had a
dearer honor and an honor more to be proud of, from a humbler
source: the common people had had leaden medals struck which
bore her effigy and her escutcheon, and these they wore as charms.
One saw them everywhere.

From the Archbishop's Palace, where we halted, and where the
King and Joan were to lodge, the King sent to the Abbey Church of
St. Remi, which was over toward the gate by which we had entered
the city, for the Sainte Ampoule, or flask of holy oil. This oil was
not earthly oil; it was made in heaven; the flask also. The flask,
with the oil in it, was brought down from heaven by a dove. It was
sent down to St. Remi just as he was going to baptize King Clovis,
who had become a Christian. I know this to be true. I had known it
long before; for PŠre Fronte told me in Domremy. I cannot tell you
how strange and awful it made me feel when I saw that flask and
knew I was looking with my own eyes upon a thing which had
actually been in heave, a thing which had been seen by angels,
perhaps; and by God Himself of a certainty, for He sent it. And I
was looking upon it--I. At one time I could have touched it. But I
was afraid; for I could not know but that God had touched it. It is
most probable that He had.

From this flask Clovis had been anointed; and from it all the kings
of France had been anointed since. Yes, ever since the time of
Clovis, and that was nine hundred years. And so, as I have said,
that flask of holy oil was sent for, while we waited. A coronation
without that would not have been a coronation at all, in my belief.

Now in order to get the flask, a most ancient ceremonial had to be
gone through with; otherwise the Abb‚ of St. Remi, hereditary
guardian in perpetuity of the oil, would not deliver it. So, in
accordance with custom, the King deputed five great nobles to ride
in solemn state and richly armed and accoutered, they and their
steeds, to the Abbey Church as a guard of honor to the Archbishop
of Rheims and his canons, who were to bear the King's demand for
the oil. When the five great lords were ready to start, they knelt in
a row and put up their mailed hands before their faces, palm joined
to palm, and swore upon their lives to conduct the sacred vessel
safely, and safely restore it again to the Church of St. Remi after
the anointing of the King. The Archbishop and his subordinates,
thus nobly escorted, took their way to St. Remi. The Archbishop
was in grand costume, with his miter on his head and his cross in
his hand. At the door of St. Remi they halted and formed, to
receive the holy vial. Soon one heard the deep tones of the organ
and of chanting men; then one saw a long file of lights
approaching through the dim church. And so came the Abbot, in
his sacerdotal panoply, bearing the vial, with his people following
after. He delivered it, with solemn ceremonies, to the Archbishop;
then the march back began, and it was most impressive; for it
moved, the whole way, between two multitudes of men and
women who lay flat upon their faces and prayed in dumb silence
and in dread while that awful thing went by that had been in
heaven.

This august company arrived at the great west door of the
cathedral; and as the Archbishop entered a noble anthem rose and
filled the vast building. The cathedral was packed with
people--people in thousands. Only a wide space down the center
had been kept free. Down this space walked the Archbishop and
his canons, and after them followed those five stately figures in
splendid harness, each bearing his feudal banner--and riding!

Oh, that was a magnificent thing to see. Riding down the
cavernous vastness of the building through the rich lights
streaming in long rays from the pictured windows--oh, there was
never anything so grand!

They rode clear to the choir--as much as four hundred feet from
the door, it was said. Then the Archbishop dismissed them, and
they made deep obeisance till their plumes touched their horses'
necks, then made those proud prancing and mincing and dancing
creatures go backward all the way to the door--which was pretty to
see, and graceful; then they stood them on their hind-feet and spun
them around and plunged away and disappeared.

For some minutes there was a deep hush, a waiting pause; a silence
so profound that it was as if all those packed thousands there were
steeped in dreamless slumber--why, you could even notice the
faintest sounds, like the drowsy buzzing of insects; then came a
mighty flood of rich strains from four hundred silver trumpets, and
then, framed in the pointed archway of the great west door,
appeared Joan and the King. They advanced slowly, side by side,
through a tempest of welcome--explosion after explosion of cheers
and cries, mingled with the deep thunders of the organ and rolling
tides of triumphant song from chanting choirs. Behind Joan and
the King came the Paladin and the Banner displayed; and a
majestic figure he was, and most proud and lofty in his bearing, for
he knew that the people were marking him and taking note of the
gorgeous state dress which covered his armor.

At his side was the Sire d'Albret, proxy for the Constable of
France, bearing the Sword of State.

After these, in order of rank, came a body royally attired
representing the lay peers of France; it consisted of three princes of
the blood, and La Tremouille and the young De Laval brothers.

These were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical
peers--the Archbishop of Rheims, and the Bishops of Laon,
Chƒlons, Orleans, and one other.

Behind these came the Grand Staff, all our great generals and
famous names, and everybody was eager to get a sight of them.
Through all the din one could hear shouts all along that told you
where two of them were: "Live the Bastard of Orleans!" "Satan La
Hire forever!"

The august procession reached its appointed place in time, and the
solemnities of the Coronation began. They were long and
imposing--with prayers, and anthems, and sermons, and everything
that is right for such occasions; and Joan was at the King's side all
these hours, with her Standard in her hand. But at last came the
grand act: the King took the oath, he was anointed with the sacred
oil; a splendid personage, followed by train-bearers and other
attendants, approached, bearing the Crown of France upon a
cushion, and kneeling offered it. The King seemed to hesitate--in
fact, did hesitate; for he put out his hand and then stopped with it
there in the air over the crown, the fingers in the attitude of taking
hold of it. But that was for only a moment--though a moment is a
notable something when it stops the heartbeat of twenty thousand
people and makes them catch their breath. Yes, only a moment;
then he caught Joan's eye, and she gave him a look with all the joy
of her thankful great soul in it; then he smiled, and took the Crown
of France in his hand, and right finely and right royally lifted it up
and set it upon his head.

Then what a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the
chanting of the choirs and groaning of the organ; and outside the
clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The
fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the
peasant-child stood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the
Heir of France was crowned.

She was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in
her face as she sank to her knees at the King's feet and looked up at
him through her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words
came soft and low and broken:

"Now, O gentle King, is the pleasure of God accomplished
according to His command that you should come to Rheims and
receive the crown that belongeth of right to you, and unto none
other. My work which was given me to do is finished; give me
your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old,
and has need of me."

The King raised her up, and there before all that host he praised
her great deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her
nobility and titles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and
also appointed a household and officers for her according to her
dignity; and then he said:

"You have saved the crown. Speak--require--demand; and
whatsoever grace you ask it shall be granted, though it make the
kingdom poor to meet it."

Now that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again
straightway, and said:

"Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the
word, I pray you give commandment that my village, poor and
hard pressed by reason of war, may have its taxes remitted."

"It is so commanded. Say on."

"That is all."

"All? Nothing but that?"

"It is all. I have no other desire."

"But that is nothing--less than nothing. Ask--do not be afraid."

"Indeed, I cannot, gentle King. Do not press me. I will not have
aught else, but only this alone."

The King seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if
trying to comprehend and realize the full stature of this strange
unselfishness. Then he raised his head and said:

"Whe has one a kingdom and crowned its King; and all she asks
and all she will take is this poor grace--and even this is for others,
not for herself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the
dignity of one who carries in her head and heart riches which
outvalue any that any King could add, though he gave his all. She
shall have her way. Now, therefore, it is decreed that from this day
forth Domremy, natal village of Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France,
called the Maid of Orleans, is freed from all taxation forever."
Whereat the silver horns blew a jubilant blast.

There, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she
was in a trance in the pastures of Domremy and we asked her to
name to boon she would demand of the King if he should ever
chance to tell her she might claim one. But whether she had the
vision or not, this act showed that after all the dizzy grandeurs that
had come upon her, she was still the same simple, unselfish
creature that she was that day.

Yes, Charles VII. remitted those taxes "forever." Often the
gratitude of kings and nations fades and their promises are
forgotten or deliberately violated; but you, who are children of
France, should remember with pride that France has kept this one
faithfully. Sixty-three years have gone by since that day. The taxes
of the region wherein Domremy lies have been collected
sixty-three times since then, and all the villages of that region have
paid except that one--Domremy. The tax-gatherer never visits
Domremy. Domremy has long ago forgotten what that dread
sorrow-sowing apparition is like. Sixty-three tax-books have been
filed meantime, and they lie yonder with the other public records,
and any may see them that desire it. At the top of every page in the
sixty-three books stands the name of a village, and below that5
name its weary burden of taxation is figured out and displayed; in
the case of all save one. It is true, just as I tell you. In each of the
sixty-three books there is a page headed "Domremi," but under that
name not a figure appears. Where the figures should be, there are
three words written; and the same words have been written every
year for all these years; yes, it is a blank page, with always those
grateful words lettered across the face of it--a touching memorial.
Thus:

__________________________________ | | | DOMREMI | | | |
RIEN--LA FUCELLE | |__________________________________|
"NOTHING--THE MAID OF ORLEANS." How brief it is; yet how
much it says! It is the nation speaking. You have the spectacle of
that unsentimental thing, a Government, making reverence to that
name and saying to its agent, "Uncover, and pass on; it is France
that commands." Yes, the promise has been kept; it will be kept
always; "forever" was the King's word. [1] At two o'clock in the
afternoon the ceremonies of the Coronation came at last to an end;
then the procession formed once more, with Joan and the King at
its head, and took up its solemn march through the midst of the
church, all instruments and all people making such clamor of
rejoicing noises as was, indeed, a marvel to hear. An so ended the
third of the great days of Joan's life. And how close together they
stand--May 8th, June 18th, July 17th!

[1] IT was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and
more; then the over-confident octogenarian's prophecy failed.
During the tumult of the French Revolution the promise was
forgotten and the grace withdrawn. It has remained in disuse ever
since. Joan never asked to be remembered, but France has
remembered her with an inextinguishable love and reverence; Joan
never asked for a statue, but France has lavished them upon her;
Joan never asked for a church for Domremy, but France is building
one; Joan never asked for saintship, but even that is impending.
Everything which Joan of Arc did not ask for has been given her,
and with a noble profusion; but the one humble little thing which
she did ask for and get has been taken away from her. There is
something infinitely pathetic about this. France owes Domremy a
hundred years of taxes, and could hardly find a citizen within her
borders who would vote against the payment of the debt. -- NOTE
BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 36 Joan Hears News from Home

WE MOUNTED and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble
display of rich vestments and nodding plumes, and as we moved
between the banked multitudes they sank down all along abreast of
us as we advanced, like grain before the reaper, and kneeling
hailed with a rousing welcome the consecrated King and his
companion the Deliverer of France. But by and by when we had
paraded about the chief parts of the city and were come near to the
end of our course, we being now approaching the Archbishop's
palace, one saw on the right, hard by the inn that is called the
Zebra, a strange t--two men not kneeling but standing! Standing in
the front rank of the kneelers; unconscious, transfixed, staring.
Yes, and clothed in the coarse garb of the peasantry, these two.
Two halberdiers sprang at them in a fury to teach them better
manners; but just as they seized them Joan cried out "Forbear!"
and slid from her saddle and flung her arms about one of those
peasants, calling him by all manner of endearing names, and
sobbing. For it was her father; and the other was her uncle, Laxart.

The news flew everywhere, and shouts of welcome were raised,
and in just one little moment those two despised and unknown
plebeians were become famous and popular and envied, and
everybody was in a fever to get sight of them and be able to say, all
their lives long, that they had seen the father of Joan of Arc and the
brother of her mother. How easy it was for her to do miracles like
to this! She was like the sun; on whatsoever dim and humble
object her rays fell, that thing was straightway drowned in glory.

All graciously the King said:

"Bring them to me."

And she brought them; she radiant with happiness and affection,
they trembling and scared, with their caps in their shaking hands;
and there before all the world the King gave them his hand to kiss,
while the people gazed in envy and admiration; and he said to old
D'Arc:

"Give God thanks for that you are father to this child, this
dispenser of immortalities. You who bear a name that will still live
in the mouths of men when all the race of kings has been
forgotten, it is not meet that you bare your head before the fleeting
fames and dignities of a day--cover yourself!" And truly he looked
right fine and princely when he said that. Then he gave order that
the Bailly of Rheims be brought; and when he was come, and
stood bent low and bare, the King said to him, "These two are
guests of France;" and bade him use them hospitably.

I may as well say now as later, that Papa D'Arc and Laxart were
stopping in that little Zebra inn, and that there they remained.
Finer quarters were offered them by the Bailly, also public
distinctions and brave entertainment; but they were frightened at
these projects, they being only humble and ignorant peasants; so
they begged off, and had peace. They could not have enjoyed such
things. Poor souls, they did not even know what to do with their
hands, and it took all their attention to keep from treading on
them. The Bailly did the best he could in the circumstances. He
made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their disposal, and told
him to provide everything they might desire, and charge all to the
city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece and furnishings;
which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and
astonishment that they couldn't speak a word; for in their lives they
had never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at
first, that the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and
blow away. They could not unglue their minds from those
grandeurs, and were always wrenching the conversation out of its
groove and dragging the matter of animals into it, so that they
could say "my horse" here, and "my horse" there and yonder and
all around, and taste the words and lick their chops over them, and
spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in their armpits, and feel
as the good God feels when He looks out on His fleets of
constellations plowing the awful deeps of space and reflects with
satisfaction that they are His--all His. Well, they were the happiest
old children one ever saw, and the simplest.

The city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in
mid-afternoon, and to the Court and the Grand Staff; and about the
middle of it PŠre D'Arc and Laxart were sent for, but would not
venture until it was promised that they might sit in a gallery and be
all by themselves and see all that was to be seen and yet be
unmolested. And so they sat there and looked down upon the
splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears ran down their
cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to their small
darling, and how na‹vely serene and unafraid she sat there with
those consuming glories beating upon her.

But at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of
the King's gracious speech; and of D'Alen‡on's praiseful words,
and the Bastard's; and even La Hire's thunder-blast, which took the
place by storm; but at last, as I have said, they brought a force to
bear which was too strong for her. For at the close the King put up
his hand to command silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till
every sound was dead and it was as if one could almost  the
stillness, so profound it was. Then out of some remote corner of
that vast place there rose a plaintive voice, and in tones most
tender and sweet and rich came floating through that enchanted
hush our poor old simple song "L'Arbre F‚e le Bourlemont!" and
then Joan broke down and put her face in her hands and cried. Yes,
you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs dissolved away
and she was a little child again herding her sheep with the tranquil
pastures stretched about her, and war and wounds and blood and
death and the mad frenzy and turmoil of battle a dream. Ah, that
shows you the power of music, that magician of magicians, who
lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass
away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in
flesh.

That was the King's invention, that sweet and dear surprise.
Indeed, he had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one
seldom got a glimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and
those others always standing in the light, and he so indolently
content to save himself fuss and argument and let them have their
way.

At the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal
staff were with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private
parlor, brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely
talk about Domremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel
arrived from Joan to be kept till she came; and soon she came
herself and sent her guard away, saying she would take one of her
father's rooms and sleep under his roof, and so be at home again.
We of the staff rose and stood, as was meet, until she made us sit.
Then she turned and saw that the two old men had gotten up too,
and were standing in an embarrassed and unmilitary way; which
made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as not wishing to hurt
them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down between
them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled
her own hands in them, and said:

"Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates
as in other times; for I am done with the great wars now, and you
two will take me home with you, and I shall see--" She stopped,
and for a moment her happy face sobered, as if a doubt or a
presentiment had flitted through her mind; then it cleared again,
and she said, with a passionate yearning, "Oh, if the day were but
come and we could start!"

The old father was surprised, and said:

"Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these
wonders that make you to be praised by everybody while there is
still so much glory to be won; and would you go out from this
grand comradeship with princes and generals to be a drudging
villager again and a nobody? It is not rational."

"No," said the uncle, Laxart, "it is amazing to hear, and indeed not
understandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop
the soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I
who speak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest
word that ever I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could
be explained."

"It is not difficult," said Joan. "I was not ever fond of wounds and
suffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings
did always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my
liking, my disposition being toward peace and quietness, and love
for all things that have life; and being made like this, how could I
bear to think of wars and blood, and the pain that goes with them,
and the sorrow and mourning that follow after? But by his angels
God laid His great commands upon me, and could I disobey? I did
as I was bid. Did He command me to do many things? No; only
two: to raise the siege of Orleans, and crown the King at Rheims.
The task is finished, and I am free. Has ever a poor soldier fallen
in my sight, whether friend or foe, and I not felt the pain in my
own body, and the grief of his home-mates in my own heart? No,
not one; and, oh, it is such bliss to know that my release is won,
and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or suffer these
tortures of the mind again! Then why should I not go to my village
and be as I was before? It is heaven! and ye wonder that I desire it.
Ah, ye are men--just men! My mother would understand."

They didn't quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile,
looking pretty vacant. Then old D'Arc said:

"Yes, your mother--that is true. I never saw such a woman. She
worries, and worries, and worries; and wakes nights, and lies so,
thinking--that is, worrying; worrying about you. And when the
night storms go raging along, she moans and says, 'Ah, God pity
her, she is out in this with her poor wet sodliers.' And when the
lightning glares and the thunder crashes she wrings her hands and
trembles, saying, 'It is like the awful cannon and the flash, and
yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the spouting guns and I
not there to protect her."

"Ah, poor mother, it is pity, it is pity!"

"Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times.
When there is news of a victory and all the village goes mad with
pride and joy, she rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till
she finds out the one only thing she cares to know--that you are
safe; then down she goes on her knees in the dirt and praises God
as long as there is any breath left in her body; and all on your
account, for she never mentions the battle once. And always she
says, 'Now it is over--now France is saved--now she will come
home'--and always is disappointed and goes about mourning."

"Don't, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I
get home. I will do her work for her, and be her comfort, and she
shall not suffer any more through me."

There was some more talk of this sort, then Uncle Laxart said:

"You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and
none may deny it; but what of the King? You are his best soldier;
what if he command you to stay?"

That was a crusher--and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to
recover from the shock of it; then she said, quite simply and
resignedly:

"The King is my Lord; I am his servant." She was silent and
thoughtful a little while, then she brightened up and said, cheerily,
"But let us drive such thoughts away--this is no time for them. Tell
me about home."

So the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything
and everybody in the village; and it was good to hear. Joan out of
her kindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of
course. She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her
name was the mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she
was the comrade of princes and heroes, we of the humble and
obscure; she held rank above all Personages and all Puissances
whatsoever in the whole earth, by right of baring her commission
direct from God. To put it in one word, she was JOAN OF
ARC--and when that is said, all is said. To us she was divine.
Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word
implies. We could not be familiar with her. No, you can see
yourselves that that would have been impossible.

And yet she was so human, too, and so good and kind and dear and
loving and cheery and charming and unspoiled and unaffected!
Those are all the words I think of now, but they are not enough;
no, they are too few and colorless and meager to tell it all, or tell
the half. Those simple old men didn't realize her; they couldn't;
they had never known any people but human beings, and so they
had no other standard to measure her by. To them, after their first
little shyness had worn off, she was just a girl--that was all. It was
amazing. It made one shiver, sometimes, to see how calm and easy
and comfortable they were in her presence, and hear them talk to
her exactly as they would have talked to any other girl in France.

Why, that simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most
tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa
D'Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or
ever suspected that that foolish tale was anything but dignified and
valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst
they thought it distressing and pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic
at all, but actually ridiculous. At least it seemed so to me, and it
seems so yet. Indeed, I know it was, because it made Joan laugh;
and the more sorrowful it got the more it made her laugh; and the
Paladin said that he could have laughed himself if she had not
been there, and No‰l Rainguesson said the same. It was about old
Laxart going to a funeral there at Domremy two or three weeks
back. He had spots all over his face and hands, and he got Joan to
rub some healing ointment on them, and while she was doing it,
and comforting him, and trying to say pitying things to him, he told
her how it happened. And first he asked her if she remembered
that black bull calf that she left behind when she came away, and
she said indeed she did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so,
and was he well?--and just drowned him in questions about that
creature. And he said it was a young bull now, and very frisky; and
he was to bear a principal hand at a funeral; and she said, "The
bull?" and he said, "No, myself"; but said the bull did take a hand,
but not because of his being invited, for he wasn't; but anyway he
was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell asleep on the grass
with his Sunday funeral clothes on, and a long black rag on his hat
and hanging down his back; and when he woke he saw by the sun
how late it was, and not a moment to lose; and jumped up terribly
worried, and saw the young bull grazing there, and thought maybe
he could ride part way on him and gain time; so he tied a rope
around the bull's body to hold on by, and put a halter on him to
steer with, and jumped on and started; but it was all new to the
bull, and he was discontented with it, and scurried around and
bellowed and reared and pranced, and Uncle Laxart was satisfied,
and wanted to get off and go by the next bull or some other way
that was quieter, but he didn't dare try; and it was getting very
warm for him, too, and disturbing and wearisome, and not proper
for Sunday; but by and by the bull lost all his temper, and went
tearing down the slope with his tail in the air and blowing in the
most awful way; and just in the edge of the village he knocked
down some beehives, and the bees turned out and joined the
excursion, and soared along in a black cloud that nearly hid those
other two from sight, and prodded them both, and jabbed them and
speared them and spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek,
and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the
village like a hurricane, and took the funeral procession right in
the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over
it, and the rest scattered apart and fled screeching in every
direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag
of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the
river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle Laxart out he was
nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding with raisins in
it. And then he turned around, this old simpleton, and looked a
long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a
cushion, dying, apparently, and says:

"What do you reckon she is laughing at?"

And old D'Arc stood looking at her the same way, sort of absently
scratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn't
know--"must have been something that happened when we weren't
noticing."

Yes, both of those old people thought that that tale was pathetic;
whereas to my mind it was purely ridiculous, and not in any way
valuable to any one. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so to me
yet. And as for history, it does not resemble history; for the office
of history is to furnish serious and important facts that teach;
whereas this strange and useless event teaches nothing; nothing
that I can see, except not to ride a bull to a funeral; and surely no
reflecting person needs to be taught that.

Chapter 37 Again to Arms

NOW THESE were nobles, you know, by decree of the
King!--these precious old infants. But they did not realize it; they
could not be called conscious of it; it was an abstraction, a
phantom; to them it had no substance; their minds could not take
hold of it. No, they did not bother about their nobility; they lived in
their horses. The horses were solid; they were visible facts, and
would make a mighty stir in Domremy. Presently something was
said about the Coronation, and old D'Arc said it was going to be a
grand thing to be able to say, when they got home, that they were
present in the very town itself when it happened. Joan looked
troubled, and said:

"Ah, that reminds me. You were here and you didn't send me word.
In the town, indeed! Why, you could have sat with the other
nobles, and ben welcome; and could have looked upon the
crowning itself, and carried that home to tell. Ah, why did you use
me so, and send me no word?"

The old father was embarrassed, now, quite visibly embarrassed,
and had the air of one who does not quite know what to say. But
Joan was looking up in his face, her hands upon his
shoulders--waiting. He had to speak; so presently he drew her to
his breast, which was heaving with emotion; and he said, getting
out his words with difficulty:

"There, hide your face, child, and let your old father humble
himself and make his confession. I--I--don't you see, don't you
understand?--I could not know that these grandeurs would not turn
your young head--it would be only natural. I might shame you
before these great per--"

"Father!"

"And then I was afraid, as remembering that cruel thing I said once
in my sinful anger. Oh, appointed of God to be a soldier, and the
greatest in the land! and in my ignorant anger I said I would drown
you with my own hands if you unsexed yourself and brought
shame to your name and family. Ah, how could I ever have said it,
and you so good and dear and innocent! I was afraid; for I was
guilty. You understand it now, my child, and you forgive?"

Do you see? Even that poor groping old land-crab, with his skull
full of pulp, had pride. Isn't it wonderful? And more--he had
conscience; he had a sense of right and wrong, such as it was; he
was able to find remorse. It looks impossible, it looks incredible,
but it is not. I believe that some day it will be found out that
peasants are people. Yes, beings in a great many respects like
ourselves. And I believe that some day they will find this out,
too--and then! Well, then I think they will rise up and demand to
be regarded as part of the race, and that by consequence there will
be trouble. Whenever one sees in a book or in a king's
proclamation those words "the nation," they bring before us the
upper classes; only those; we know no other "nation"; for us and
the kings no other "nation" exists. But from the day that I saw old
D'Arc the peasant acting and feeling just as I should have acted
and felt myself, I have carried the conviction in my heart that our
peasants are not merely animals, beasts of burden put here by the
good God to produce food and comfort for the "nation," but
something more and better. You look incredulous. Well, that is
your training; it is the training of everybody; but as for me, I thank
that incident for giving me a better light, and I have never
forgotten it.

Let me see--where was I? One's mind wanders around here and
there and yonder, when one is old. I think I said Joan comforted
him. Certainly, that is what she would do--there was no need to say
that. She coaxed him and petted him and caressed him, and laid
the memory of that old hard speech of his to rest. Laid it to rest
until she should be dead. Then he would remember it again--yes,
yes! Lord, how those things sting, and burn, and gnaw--the things
which we did against the innocent dead! And we say in our
anguish, "If they could only come back!" Which is all very well to
say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my
opinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I
am not alone in this; I have heard our two knights say the same
thing; and a man there in Orleans--no, I believe it was at
Beaugency, or one of those places--it seems more as if it was at
Beaugency than the others--this man said the same thing exactly;
almost the same words; a dark man with a cast in his eye and one
leg shorter than the other. His name was--was--it is singular that I
can't call that man's name; I had it in my mind only a moment ago,
and I know it begins with--no, I don't remember what it begins
with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of it presently, and then
I will tell you.

Well, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt
when she was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades
hacking and flashing all around her, and the blows rapping and
slatting on her shield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven
ghastly face and broken teeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the
perilous sudden back surge of massed horses upon a person when
the front ranks give way before a heavy rush of the enemy, and
men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles all around, and
battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's face and
hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling and swaying
and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft substances
and shrieks of pain respond, and presently--panic! rush! swarm!
flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow got
ever so much excited; and strode up and down, his tongue going
like a mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an
answer; and finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and
stepped off and scanned her critically, and said:

"No--I don't understand it. You are so little. So little and slender.
When you had your armor on, to-day, it gave one a sort of notion
of it; but in these pretty silks and velvets, you are only a dainty
page, not a league-striding war-colossus, moving in clouds and
darkness and breathing smoke and thunder. I would God I might
see you at it and go tell your mother! That would help her sleep,
poor thing! Here--teach me the arts of the soldier, that I may
explain them to her."

And she did it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the
manual of arms; and made him do the steps, too. His marching was
incredibly awkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the
pike; but he didn't know it, and was wonderfully pleased with
himself, and mightily excited and charmed with the ringing, crisp
words of command. I am obliged to say that if looking proud and
happy when one is marching were sufficient, he would have been
the perfect soldier.

And he wanted a lesson in sword-play, and got it. But of course
that was beyond him; he was too old. It was beautiful to see Joan
handle the foils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid
of the things, and skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a
woman who has lost her mind on account of the arrival of a bat.
He was of no good as an exhibition. But if La Hire had only come
in, that would have been another matter. Those two fenced often; I
saw them many times. True, Joan was easily his master, but it
made a good show for all that, for La Hire was a grand swordsman.
What a swift creature Joan was! You would see her standing erect
with her ankle-bones together and her foil arched over her head,
the hilt in one hand and the button in the other--the old general
opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his foil
advanced, slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye
boring straight into hers--and all of a sudden she would give a
spring forward, and back again; and there she was, with the foil
arched over her head as before. La Hire had been hit, but all that
the spectator saw of it was a something like a thin flash of light in
the air, but nothing distinct, nothing definite.

We kept the drinkables moving, for that would please the Bailly
and the landlord; and old Laxart and D'Arc got to feeling quite
comfortable, but without being what you could call tipsy. They got
out the presents which they had been buying to carry
home--humble things and cheap, but they would be fine there, and
welcome. And they gave to Joan a present from PŠre Fronte and
one from her mother--the one a little leaden image of the Holy
Virgin, the other half a yard of blue silk ribbon; and she was as
pleased as a child; and touched, too, as one could see plainly
enough. Yes, she kissed those poor things over and over again, as
if they had been something costly and wonderful; and she pinned
the Virgin on her doublet, and sent for her helmet and tied the
ribbon on that; first one way, then another; then a new way, then
another new way; and with each effort perching the helmet on her
hand and holding it off this way and that, and canting her head to
one side and then the other, examining the effect, as a bird does
when it has got a new bug. And she said she could almost wish she
was going to the wars again; for then she would fight with the
better courage, as having always with her something which her
mother's touch had blessed.

Old Laxart said he hoped she would go to the wars again, but
home first, for that all the people there were cruel anxious to see
her--and so he went on:

"They are proud of you, dear. Yes, prouder than any village ever
was of anybody before. And indeed it is right and rational; for it is
the first time a village has ever had anybody like you to be proud
of and call its own. And it is strange and beautiful how they try to
give your name to every creature that has a sex that is convenient.
It is but half a year since you began to be spoken of and left us, and
so it is surprising to see how many babies there are already in that
region that are named for you. First it was just Joan; then it was
Joan-Orleans; then Joan-Orleans-Beaugency-Patay; and now the
next ones will have a lot of towns and the Coronation added, of
course. Yes, and the animals the same. They know how you love
animals, and so they try to do you honor and show their love for
you by naming all those creatures after you; insomuch that if a
body should step out and call ''Joan of Arc--come!' 'there would be
a landslide of cats and all such things, each supposing it was the
one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt,
anyway, for the sake of the food that might be on delivery. The
kitten you left behind--the last estray you fetched home--bears you
name, now, and belongs to PŠre Fronte, and is the pet nad pride of
the village; and people have come miles to look at it and pet it and
stare at it and wonder over it because it was Joan of Arc's cat.
Everybody will tell you that; and one day when a stranger threw a
stone at it, not knowing it was your cat, the village rose against
him as one man and hanged him! And but for PŠre Fronte--"

There was an interruption. It was a messenger from the King,
bearing a note for Joan, which I read to her, saying he had
reflected, and had consulted his other generals, and was obliged to
ask her to remain at the head of the army and withdraw her
resignation. Also, would she come immediately and attend a
council of war? Straightway, at a little distance, military
commands and the rumble of drums broke on the still night, and
we knew that her guard was approaching.

Deep disappointment clouded her face for just one moment and no
more--it passed, and with it the homesick girl, and she was Joan of
Arc, Commander-in-Chief again, and ready for duty.

Chapter 38 The King Cries "Forward!"

IN MY double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the
council. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved
goddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was
enchanted with a ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the
distress of a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the back
of a bee-stung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and
had left no sign. She moved straight to the council-table, and
stood. Her glance swept from face to face there, and where it fell,
these lit it as with a torch, those it scorched as with a brand. She
knew where to strike. She indicated the generals with a nod, and
said:

"My business is not with you. You have not craved a council of
war." Then she turned toward the King's privy council, and
continued: "No; it is with you. A council of war! It is amazing.
There is but one thing to do, and only one, and lo, ye call a council
of war! Councils of war have no value but to decide between two
or several doubtful courses. But a council of war when there is
only one course? Conceive of a man in a boat and his family in the
water, and he goes out among his friends to ask what he would
better do? A council of war, name of God! To determine what?"

She stopped, and turned till her eyes rested upon the face of La
Tremouille; and so she stood, silent, measuring him, the
excitement in all faces burning steadily higher and higher, and all
pulses beating faster and faster; then she said, with deliberation:

"Every sane man--whose loyalty is to his King and not a show and
a pretense--knows that there is but one rational thing before us--the
march upon Paris!"

Down came the fist of La Hire with an approving crash upon the
table. La Tremouille turned white with anger, but he pulled
himself firmly together and held his peace. The King's lazy blood
was stirred and his eye kindled finely, for the spirit of war was
away down in him somewhere, and a frank, bold speech always
found it and made it tingle gladsomely. Joan waited to see if the
chief minister might wish to defend his position; but he was
experienced and wise, and not a man to waste his forces where the
current was against him. He would wait; the King's private ear
would be at his disposal by and by.

That pious fox the Chancellor of France took the word now. He
washed his soft hands together, smiling persuasively, and said to
Joan:

"Would it be courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from
here without waiting for an answer from the Duke of Burgundy?
You may not know that we are negotiating with his Highness, and
that there is likely to be a fortnight's truce between us; and on his
part a pledge to deliver Paris into our hands without the cost of a
blow or the fatigue of a march thither."

Joan turned to him and said, gravely:

"This is not a confessional, my lord. You were not obliged to
expose that shame here."

The Chancellor's face reddened, and he retorted:

"Shame? What is there shameful about it?"

Joan answered in level, passionless tones:

"One may describe it without hunting far for words. I knew of this
poor comedy, my lord, although it was not intended that I should
know. It is to the credit of the devisers of it that they tried to
conceal it--this comedy whose text and impulse are describable in
two words."

The Chancellor spoke up with a fine irony in his manner:

"Indeed? And will your Excellency be good enough to utter them?"

"Cowardice and treachery!"

The fists of all the generals came down this time, and again the
King's eye sparkled with pleasure. The Chancellor sprang to his
feet and appealed to his Majesty:

"Sire, I claim your protection."

But the King waved him to his seat again, saying:

"Peace. She had a right to be consulted before that thing was
undertaken, since it concerned war as well as politics. It is but just
that she be heard upon it now."

The Chancellor sat down trembling with indignation, and
remarked to Joan:

"Out of charity I will consider that you did not know who devised
this measure which you condemn in so candid language."

"Save your charity for another occasion, my lord," said Joan, as
calmly as before. "Whenever anything is done to injure the
interests and degrade the honor of France, all but the dead know
how to name the two conspirators-in-chief--"

"Sir, sire! this insinuation--"

"It is not an insinuation, my lord," said Joan, placidly, "it is a
charge. I bring it against the King's chief minister and his
Chancellor."

Both men were on their feet now, insisting that the King modify
Joan's frankness; but he was not minded to do it. His ordinary
councils were stale water--his spirit was drinking wine, now, and
the taste of it was good. He said:

"Sit--and be patient. What is fair for one must in fairness be
allowed the other. Consider--and be just. When have you two
spared her? What dark charges and harsh names have you withheld
when you spoke of her?" Then he added, with a veiled twinkle in
his eyes, "If these are offenses I see no particular difference
between them, except that she says her hard things to your faces,
whereas you say yours behind her back."

He was pleased with that neat shot and the way it shriveled those
two people up, and made La Hire laugh out loud and the other
generals softly quake and chuckle. Joan tranquilly resumed:

"From the first, we have been hindered by this policy of
shilly-hally; this fashion of counseling and counseling and
counseling where no counseling is needed, but only fighting. We
took Orleans on the 8th of May, and could have cleared the region
round about in three days and saved the slaughter of Patay. We
could have been in Rheims six weeks ago, and in Paris now; and
would see the last Englishman pass out of France in half a year.
But we struck no blow after Orleans, but went off into the
country--what for? Ostensibly to hold councils; really to give
Bedford time to send reinforcements to Talbot--which he did; and
Patay had to be fought. After Patay, more counseling, more waste
of precious time. Oh, my King, I would that you would be
persuaded!" She began to warm up, now. "Once more we have our
opportunity. If we rise and strike, all is well. Bid me march upon
Paris. In twenty days it shall be yours, and in six months all
France! Here is half a year's work before us; if this chance be
wasted, I give you twenty years to do it in. Speak the word, O
gentle King--speak but the one--"

"I cry you mercy!" interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a
dangerous enthusiasm rising in the King's face. "March upon
Paris? Does your Excellency forget that the way bristles with
English strongholds?"

"That for your English strongholds!" and Joan snapped her fingers
scornfully. "Whence have we marched in these last days? From
Gien. And whither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English
strongholds. What are they now? French ones--and they never cost
a blow!" Here applause broke out from the group of generals, and
Joan had to pause a moment to let it subside. "Yes, English
strongholds bristled before us; now French ones bristle behind us.
What is the argument? A child can read it. The strongholds
between us and Paris are garrisoned by no new breed of English,
but by the same breed as those others--with the same fears, the
same questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to
see the heavy hand of God descending upon them. We have but to
march!--on the instant--and they are ours, Paris is ours, France is
ours! Give the word, O my King, command your servant to--"

"Stay!" cried the Chancellor. "It would be madness to put our
affront upon his Highness the Duke of Burgundy. By the treaty
which we have every hope to make with him--"

"Oh, the treaty which we hope to make with him! He has scorned
you for years, and defied you. Is it your subtle persuasions that
have softened his manners and beguiled him to listen to proposals?
No; it was blows!--the blows which we gave him! That is the only
teaching that that sturdy rebel can understand. What does he care
for wind? The treaty which we hope to make with him--alack! He
deliver Paris! There is no pauper in the land that is less able to do
it. He deliver Paris! Ah, but that would make great Bedford smile!
Oh, the pitiful pretext! the blind can see that this thin pour-parler
with its fifteen-day truce has no purpose but to give Bedford time
to hurry forward his forces against us. More treachery--always
treachery! We call a council of war--with nothing to council about;
but Bedford calls no council to teach him what our course is. He
knows what he would do in our place. He would hang his traitors
and march upon Paris! O gentle King, rouse! The way is open,
Paris beckons, France implores, Speak and we--"

"Sire, it is madness, sheer madness! Your Excellency, we cannot,
we must not go back from what we have done; we have proposed
to treat, we must treat with the Duke of Burgundy."

"And we will!" said Joan.

"Ah? How?"

"At the point of the lance!"

The house rose, to a man--all that had French hearts--and let go a
crach of applause--and kept it up; and in the midst of it one heard
La Hire growl out: "At the point of the lance! By God, that is
music!" The King was up, too, and drew his sword, and took it by
the blade and strode to Joan and delivered the hilt of it into her
hand, saying:

"There, the King surrenders. Carry it to Paris."

And so the applause burst out again, and the historical co9uncil of
war that has bred so many legends was over.

Chapte 39 We Win, but the King Balks

IT WAS away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in
the matter of excitement and fatigue, but that was no matter to
Joan when there was business on hand. She did not think of bed.
The generals followed her to her official quarters, and she
delivered her orders to them as fast as she could talk, and they sent
them off to their different commands as fast as delivered;
wherefore the messengers galloping hither and thither raised a
world of clatter and racket in the still streets; and soon were added
to this the music of distant bugles and the roll of drums--notes of
preparation; for the vanguard would break camp at dawn.

The generals were soon dismissed, but I wasn't; nor Joan; for it
was my turn to work, now. Joan walked the floor and dictated a
summons to the Duke of Burgundy to lay down his arms and make
peace and exchange pardons with the King; or, if he must fight, go
fight the Saracens. "Pardonnez-vous l'un … l'autre de bon
cœur, entiŠrement, ainsi que doivent faire loyaux chr‚tiens,
et, s'il vous plait de guerroyer, allez contre les Sarrasins." It was
long, but it was good, and had the sterling ring to it. It is my
opinion that it was as fine and simple and straightforward and
eloquent a state paper as she ever uttered.

It was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away
with it. The Joan dismissed me, and told me to go to the inn and
stay, and in the morning give to her father the parcel which she
had left there. It contained presents for the Domremy relatives and
friends and a peasant dress which she had bought for herself. She
said she would say good-by to her father and uncle in the morning
if it should still be their purpose to go, instead of tarrying awhile to
see the city.

I didn't say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild
horses couldn't keep those men in that town half a day. They waste
the glory of being the first to carry the great news to
Domremy--the taxes remitted forever!--and hear the bells clang
and clatter, and the people cheer and shout? Oh, not they. Patay
and Orleans and the Coronation were events which in a vague way
these men understood to be colossal; but they were colossal mists,
films, abstractions; this was a gigantic reality!

When I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the
reverse. They and the rest were as mellow as mellow could be; and
the Paladin was doing his battles in great style, and the old
peasants were endangering the building with their applause. He
was doing Patay now; and was bending his big frame forward and
laying out the positions and movements with a rake here and a
rake there of his formidable sword on the floor, and the peasants
were stooped over with their hands on their spread knees observing
with excited eyes and ripping out ejaculations of wonder and
admiration all along:

"Yes, here we were, waiting--waiting for the word; our horses
fidgeting and snorting and dancing to get away, we lying back on
the bridles till our bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang
out at last--'Go!' and we went!

"Went? There was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by
squads of scampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid
them flat in piles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of
Fastolfe's frantic battle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane,
leaving a causeway of the dead stretching far behind; no tarrying,
no slacking rein, but on! on! on! far yonder in the distance lay our
prey--Talbot and his host looming vast and dark like a storm-cloud
brooding on the sea! Down we swooped upon them, glooming all
the air with a quivering pall of dead leaves flung up by the
whirlwind of our flight. In another moment we should have struck
them as world strikes world when disorbited constellations crash
into the Milky way, but by misfortune and the inscrutable
dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white, and
shouting, 'Save yourselves, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of
Arc!' drove his spurs home till they met in the middle of his horse's
entrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his
back! I could have cursed myself for not putting on a disguise. I
saw reproach in the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly
ashamed. I had caused what seemed an irreparable disaster.
Another might have gone aside to grieve, as not seeing any way to
mend it; but I thank God I am not of those. Great occasions only
summon as with a trumpet-call the slumbering reserves of my
intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instant--in the next I was
away! Through the woods I vanished--fst!--like an extinguished
light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped, as if on
wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my
design. Minute after minute passed, on and on I flew; on, and still
on; and at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze
and burst out in front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That
weltering chaos of distracted men whirled and surged backward
like a tidal wave which has struck a continent, and the day was
ours! Poor helpless creatures, they were in a trap; they were
surrounded; they could not escape to the rear, for there was our
army; they could not escape to the front, for there was I. Their
hearts shriveled in their bodies, their hands fell listless at their
sides. They stood still, and at our leisure we slaughtered them to a
man; all except Talbot and Fastolfe, whom I saved and brought
away, one under each arm."

Well, there is no denying it, the Paladin was in great form that
night. Such style! such noble grace of gesture, such grandeur of
attitude, such energy when he got going! such steady rise, on such
sure wing, such nicely graduated expenditures of voice according
to the weight of the matter, such skilfully calculated approaches to
his surprises and explosions, such belief-compelling sincerity of
tone and manner, such a climaxing peal from his brazen lungs, and
such a lightning-vivid picture of his mailed form and flaunting
banner when he burst out before that despairing army! And oh, the
gentle art of the last half of his last sentence--delivered in the
careless and indolent tone of one who has finished his real story,
and only adds a colorless and inconsequential detil because it has
happened to occur to him in a lazy way.

It was a marvel to see those innocent peasants. Why, they went all
to pieces with enthusiasm, and roared out applauses fit to raise the
roof and wake the dead. When they had cooled down at last and
there was silence but for the heaving and panting, old Laxart said,
admiringly:

"As it seems to me, you are an army in your single person."

"Yes, that is what he is," said No‰l Rainguesson, convincingly. "He
is a terror; and not just in this vicinity. His mere name carries a
shudder with it to distant lands--just he mere name; and when he
frowns, the shadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go
to roost an hour before schedule time. Yes; and some say--"

"No‰l Rainguesson, you are preparing yourself for trouble. I will
say just one word to you, and it will be to your advantage to--"

I saw that the usual thing had got a start. No man could prophesy
when it would end. So I delivered Joan's message and went off to
bed.

Joan made her good-byes to those old fellows in the morning, with
loving embraces and many tears, and with a packed multitude for
sympathizers, and they rode proudly away on their precious horses
to carry their great news home. I had seen better riders, some will
say that; for horsemanship was a new art to them.

The vanguard moved out at dawn and took the road, with bands
braying and banners flying; the second division followed at eight.
Then came the Burgundian ambassadors, and lost us the rest of
that day and the whole of the next. But Joan was on hand, and so
they had their journey for their pains. The rest of us took the road
at dawn, next morning, July 20th. And got how far? Six leagues.
Tremouille was getting in his sly work with the vacillating King,
you see. The King stopped at St. Marcoul and prayed three days.
Precious time lost--for us; precious time gained for Bedford. He
would know how to use it.

We could not go on without the King; that would be to leave him
in the conspirators' camp. Joan argued, reasoned, implored; and at
last we got under way again.

Joan's prediction was verified. It was not a campaign, it was only
another holiday excursion. English strongholds lined our route;
they surrendered without a blow; we garrisoned them with
Frenchmen and passed on. Bedford was on the march against us
with his new army by this time, and on the 25th of July the hostile
forces faced each other and made preparation for battle; but
Bedford's good judgment prevailed, and he turned and retreated
toward Paris. Now was our chance. Our men were in great spirits.

Will you believe it? Our poor stick of a King allowed his worthless
advisers to persuade him to start back for Gien, whence he had set
out when we first marched for Rheims and the Coronation! And
we actually did start back. The fifteen-day truce had just been
concluded with the Duke of Burgundy, and we would go and tarry
at Gien until he should deliver Paris to us without a fight.

We marched to Bray; then the King changed his mind once more,
and with it his face toward Paris. Joan dictated a letter to the
citizens of Rheims to encourage them to keep heart in spite of the
truce, and promising to stand by them. She furnished them the
news herself that the Kin had made this truce; and in speaking of it
she was her usual frank self. She said she was not satisfied with it,
and didn't know whether she would keep it or not; that if she kept
it, it would be solely out of tenderness for the King's honor. All
French children know those famous words. How na‹ve they are!
"De cette trŠve qui a ‚t‚ faite, je ne suis pas contente, et je ne sais
si je la tiendrai. Si je la tiens, ce sera seulement pour garder
l'honneur du roi." But in any case, she said, she would not allow
the blood royal to be abused, and would keep the army in good
order and ready for work at the end of the truce.

Poor child, to have to fight England, Burgundy, and a French
conspiracy all at the same time--it was too bad. She was a match
for the others, but a conspiracy--ah, nobody is a match for that,
when the victim that is to be injured is weak and willing. It grieved
her, these troubled days, to be so hindered and delayed and
baffled, and at times she was sad and the tears lay near the surface.
Once, talking with her good old faithful friend and servant, the
Bastard of Orleans, she said:

"Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment
and go back to my father and my mother, and tend my sheep again
with my sister and my brothers, who would be so glad to see me!"

By the 12th of August we were camped near Dampmartin. Later
we had a brush with Bedford's rear-guard, and had hopes of a big
battle on the morrow, but Bedford and all his force got away in the
night and went on toward Paris.

Charles sent heralds and received the submission of Beauvais. The
Bishop Pierre Cauchon, that faithful friend and slave of the
English, was not able to prevent it, though he did his best. He was
obscure then, but his name was to travel round the globe presently,
and live forever in the curses of France! Bear with me now, while I
spit in fancy upon his grave.

CompiŠgne surrendered, and hauled down the English flag. On the
14th we camped two leagues from Senlis. Bedford turned and
approached, and took up a strong position. We went against him,
but all our efforts to beguile him out from his intrenchments failed,
though he had promised us a duel in the open field. Night shut
down. Let him look our for the morning! But in the morning he
was gone again.

We enterd CompiŠgne the 18th of August, turning out the English
garrison and hoisting our own flag.

On the 23d Joan gave command to move upon Paris. The King and
the clique were not satisfied with this, and retired sulking to
Senlis, which had just surrendered. Within a few days many strong
places submitted--Creil, Pont-Saint-Maxence, Choisy,
Gournay-sur-Aronde, Remy, Le Neufville-en-Hez, Moguay,
Chantilly, Saintines. The English power was tumbling, crash after
crash! And still the King sulked and disapproved, and was afraid
of our movement against the capital.

On the 26th of August, 1429, Joan camped at St. Denis; in effect,
under the walls of Paris.

And still the King hung back and was afraid. If we could but have
had him there to back us with his authority! Bedford had lost heart
and decided to waive resistance and go an concentrate his strength
in the best and loyalest province remaining to him--Normandy. Ah,
if we could only have persuaded the King to come and
countenance us with his presence and approval at this supreme
moment!

Chapter 40 Treachery Conquers Joan

COURIER after courier was despatched to the King, and he
promised to come, but didn't. The Duke d'Alen‡on went to him and
got his promise again, which he broke again. Nine days were lost
thus; then he came, arriving at St. Denis September 7th.

Meantime the enemy had begun to take heart: the spiritless
conduct of the King could have no other result. Preparations had
now been made to defend the city. Joan's chances had been
diminished, but she and her generals considered them plenty good
enough yet. Joan ordered the attack for eight o'clock next morning,
and at that hour it began.

Joan placed her artillery and began to pound a strong work which
protected the gate St. Honor‚. When it was sufficiently crippled
the assault was sounded at noon, and it was carried by storm. Then
we moved forward to storm the gate itself, and hurled ourselves
against it again and again, Joan in the le3ad with her standard at
her side, the smoke enveloping us in choking clouds, and the
missiles flying over us and through us as thick as hail.

In the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate
sure and given us Paris and in effect France, Joan was struck down
by a crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a
panic--for what were they without her? She was the army, herself.

Although disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new
assault be made, say8ing it must win; and adding, with the
battle-light rising in her eyes, "I will take Paris now or die!" She
had to be carried away by force, and this was done by Gaucourt
and the Duke d'Alen‡on.

But her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming
with enthusiasm. She said she would be carried before the gate in
the morning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any
question. She could have kept her word. About this there was no
doubt. But she forgot one factor--the King, shadow of that
substance named La Tremouille. The King forbade the attempt!

You see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of
Burgundy, and another sham private trade of some sort was on
foot.

You would know, without my telling you, that Joan's heart was
nearly broken. Because of the pain of her wound and the pain at
her heart she slept little that night. Several times the watchers
heard muffled sobs from the dark room where she lay at St. Denis,
and many times the grieving words, "It could have been taken!--it
could have been taken!" which were the only ones she said.

She dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope.
D'Alen‡on had thrown a bridge across the Seine near St. Denis.
Might she not cross by that and assault Paris at another point? But
the King got wind of it and broke the bridge down! And more--he
declared the campaign ended! And more still--he had made a new
truce and a long one, in which he had agreed to leave Paris
unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the Loire whence he
had come!

Joan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was
defeated by her own King. She had said once that all she feared for
her cause was treachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung
up her white armor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and
asked the King to relieve her of her functions and let her go home.
As usual, she was wise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great
military moves were at an end, now; for the future, when the truce
should end, the war would be merely a war of random and idle
skirmishes, apparently; work suitable for subalterns, and not
requiring the supervision of a sublime military genius. But the
King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all France;
there were French strongholds to be watched and preserved; he
would need her. Really, you see, Tremouille wanted to keep her
where he could balk and hinder her.

Now came her Voices again. They said, "Remain at St. Denis."
There was no explanation. They did not say why. That was the
voice of God; it took precedence of the command of the King;
Joan resolved to stay. But that filled La Tremouille with dread. She
was too tremendous a force to be left to herself; she would surely
defeat all his plans. He beguiled the King to use compulsion. Joan
had to submit--because she was wounded and helpless. In the
Great Trial she said she was carried away against her will; and that
if she had not been wounded it could not have been accomplished.
Ah, she had a spirit, that slender girl! a spirit to brave all earthly
powers and defy them. We shall never know why the Voices
ordered her to stay. We only know this; that if she could have
obeyed, the history of France would not be as it now stands written
in the books. Yes, well we know that.

On the 13th of September the army, sad and spiritless, turned its
face toward the Loire, and marched--without music! Yes, one
noted that detail. It was a funeral march; that is what it was. A
long, dreary funeral march, with never a shout or a cheer; friends
looking on in tears, all the way, enemies laughing. We reached
Gien at last--that place whence we had set out on our splendid
march toward Rheims less than three months before, with flags
flying, bands playing, the victory-flush of Patay glowing in our
faces, and the massed multitudes shouting and praising and giving
us godspeed. There was a dull rain falling now, the day was dark,
the heavens mourned, the spectators were few, we had no welcome
but the welcome of silence, and pity, and tears.

Then the King disbanded that noble army of heroes; it furled its
flags, it stored its arms: the disgrace of France was complete. La
Tremouille wore the victor's crown; Joan of Arc, the
unconquerable, was conquered.

Chapter 41 The Maid Will March No More

YES, IT was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her
grip,and the Hundred Years' War under her heel, and the King
made her open her fist and take away her foot.

Now followed about eight months of drifting about with the King
and his council, and his gay and showy and dancing and flirting
and hawking and frolicking and serenading and dissipating
court--drifting from town to town and from castle to castle--a life
which was pleasant to us of the personal staff, but not to Joan.
However, she only saw it, she didn't live it. The King did his
sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a most kind and
constant anxiety in this matter.

All others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court
etiquette, but she was free, she was privileged. So that she paid her
duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing
further was required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a
hermit, and grieved the weary days through in her own apartments,
with her thoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of
now forever unrealizable military combinations for entertainment.
In fancy she moved bodies of men from this and that and the other
point, so calculating the distances to be covered, the time required
for each body, and the nature of the country to be traversed, as to
have them appear in sight of each other on a given day or at a
given hour and concentrate for battle. It was her only game, her
only relief from her burden of sorrow and inaction. She played it
hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost herself in it, and so
got repose for her mind and healing for her heart.

She never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the
sort that endure in silence.

But--she was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air
and the alpine heights and the fierce joys of the storm.

France was full of rovers--disbanded soldiers ready for anything
that might turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan's dull
captivity grew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop
of cavalry and make a health-restoring dash against the enemy.
These things were a bath to her spirits.

It was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her
lead assault after assault, be driven back again and again, but
always rsally and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and
delight; till at last the tempest of missiles rained so intolerably
thick that old D'Aulon, who was wounded, sounded the retreat (for
the King had charged him on his head to let no harm come to
Joan); and away everybody rushed after him--as he supposed; but
when he turned and looked, there were we of the staff still
hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to come,
saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye
danced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:

"A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty thousand, and will never
budge till this place is taken!

Sound the charge!"

Which he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was
ours. Old D'Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she
meant was, that she felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in
her heart. It was a fanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer
word was never said.

Then there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the
intrenched Burgundians through the open field four times, the last
time victoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the
free-booter and pitiless scourge of the region roundabout.

Now and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end
of May, 1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegrave;gne,
and Joan resolved to go to the help of that place, which was being
besieged by the Duke of Burgundy.

I had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help;
but the good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him
and was safe enough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour
of warm rain, and went slowly and softly and in dead silence, for
we had to slip through the enemy's lines. We were challenged only
once; we made no answer, but held our breath and crept steadily
and stealthily along, and got through without any accident. About
three or half past we reached CompiŠgne, just as the gray dawn
was breaking in the east.

Joan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de
Flavy, captain of the city--a plan for a sortie toward evening
against the enemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other
side of the Oise, in the level plain. From our side one of the city
gates communicated with a bridge. The end of this bridge was
defended on the other side of the river by one of those fortresses
called a boulevard; and this boulevard also commanded a raised
road, which stretched from its front across the plain to the village
of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy; another was
camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road; and a
body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A
kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the
arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb,
Venette at one end of the bow, Clairoix at the other.

Joan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry
it by assault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and
capture that camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be
ready for heavy work, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind
Clairoix with a reserve. Flavy's lieutenant, with archers and the
artillery of the boulevard, was to keep the English troops from
coming up from below and seizing the causeway and cutting off
Joan's retreat in case she should have to make one. Also, a fleet of
covered boats was to be stationed near the boulevard as an
additional help in case a retreat should become necessary.

It was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at
the head of six hundred cavalry--on her last march in this life!

It breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and
from there I saw much that happened, the rest was told me long
afterward by our two knights and other eye-witnesses. Joan crossed
the bridge, and soon left the boulevard behind her and went
skimming away over the raised road with her horsemen clattering
at her heels. She had on a brilliant silver-gilt cape over her armor,
and I could see it flap and flare and rise and fall like a little patch
of white flame.

It was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain.
Soon we saw the English force advancing, swiftly and in
handsome order, the sunlight flashing from its arms.

Joan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed.
Then she saw the other Burgundians moving down from Clairoix.
Joan rallied her men and charged again, and was again rolled back.
Two assaults occupy a good deal of time--and time was precious
here. The English were approaching the road now from Venette,
but the boulevard opened fire on them and they were checked.
Joan heartened her men with inspiring words and led them to the
charge again in great style. This time she carried Marguy with a
hurrah. Then she turned at once to the right and plunged into the
plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving; then
there was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each
other backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to
the one, then to the other. Now all of a sudden thee was a panic on
our side. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say
the cannonade made our front ranks think retreat was being cut off
by the English, some say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was
killed. Anyway our men broke, and went flying in a wild rout for
the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face them around,
crying to them that victory was sure, but it did no good, they
divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D'Aulon begged her to
retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so
he seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with the wreck and
ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came
swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses--and the
artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and
Burgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter
behind their prey. Clear to the boulevard the French were washed
in this enveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle
formed by the flank of the boulevard and the slope of the
causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank down one
by one.

Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed
and the drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out.

The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our
good knights went down disabled; Joan's two brothers fell
wounded; then No‰l Rainguesson--all wounded while loyally
sheltering Joan from blows aimed at her. When only the Dwarf
and the Paladin were left, they would not give up, but stood their
ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked and splashed with
blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of the other, an
enemy gasped and died.

And so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple
souls, they came to their honorable end. Peace to their memories!
they were very dear to me.

Then there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still
laying about her with her sword, was seized by her cape and
dragged from her horse. She was borne away a prisoner to the
Duke of Burgundy's camp, and after her followed the victorious
army roaring its joy.

The awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it
flew; and wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of
paralysis; and they murmured over and over again, as if they were
talking to themselves, or in their sleep, "The Maid of Orleans
taken! . . . Joan of Arc a prisoner! . . . the savior of France lost to
us!"--and would keep saying that over, as if they couldn't
understand how it could be, or how God could permit it, poor
creatures!

You know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to
pavement with rustling black? Then you know what Rouse was
like, and some other cities. But can any man tell you what the
mourning in the hearts of the peasantry of France was like? No,
nobody can tell you that, and, poor dumb things, they could not
have told you themselves, but it was there--indeed, yes. Why, it
was the spirit of a whole nation hung with crape!

The 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the
most strange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has
been played upon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march
no more.

BOOK III  TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM

Chapter 1 The Maid in Chains

I CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history
of the summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was
not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan
had been put to ransom, and that the King--no, not the King, but
grateful France--had come eagerly forward to pay it. By the laws of
war she could not be denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a
rebel; she was a legitimately constituted soldier, head of the
armies of France by her King's appointment, and guilty of no crime
known to military law; therefore she could not be detained upon
any pretext, if ransom were proffered.

But day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems
incredible, but it is true. Was that reptile Tremouille busy at the
King's ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no
offer and no effort in behalf of this poor girl who had done so
much for him.

But, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The
news of the capture reached Paris the day after it happened, and
the glad English and Burgundians deafened the world all the day
and all the night with the clamor of their joy-bells and the thankful
thunder of their artillery, and the next day the Vicar-General of the
Inquisition sent a message to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the
delivery of the prisoner into the hands of the Church to be tried as
an idolater.

The English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English
power that was really acting, not the Church. The Church was
being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the
Church was not only able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to
blight her influence and the valor-breeding inspiration of her
name, whereas the English power could but kill her body; that
would not diminish or destroy the influence of her name; it would
magnify it and make it permanent. Joan of Arc was the only power
in France that the English did not despise, the only power in
France that they considered formidable. If the Church could be
brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a heretic, a
witch, sent from Satan, not from heaven, it was believed that the
English supremacy could be at once reinstated.

The Duke of Burgundy listened--but waited. He could not doubt
that the French King or the French people would come forward
presently and pay a higher price than the English. He kept Joan a
close prisoner in a strong fortress, and continued to wait, week
after week. He was a French prince, and was at heart ashamed to
sell her to the English. Yet with all his waiting no offer came to
him from the French side.

One day Joan played a cunning truck on her jailer, and not only
slipped out of her prison, but locked him up in it. But as she fled
away she was seen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back.

Then she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early
in August, and she had been in captivity more than two months
now. Here she was shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty
feet high. She ate her heart there for another long stretch--about
three months and a half. And she was aware, all these weary five
months of captivity, that the English, under cover of the Church,
were dickering for her as one would dicker for a horse or a slave,
and that France was silent, the King silent, all her friends the same.
Yes, it was pitiful.

And yet when she heard at last that CompiŠgne was being closely
besieged and likely to be captured, and that the enemy had
declared that no inhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even
children of seven years of age, she was in a fever at once to fly to
our rescue. So she tore her bedclothes to strips and tied them
together and descended this frail rope in the night, and it broke,
and she fell and was badly bruised, and remained three days
insensible, meantime neither eating nor drinking.

And now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vend“me, and
CompiŠgne was saved and the siege raised. This was a disaster to
the Duke of Burgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good
time for a new bid to be made for Joan of Arc. The English at once
sent a French bishop--that forever infamous Pierre Cauchon of
Beauvais. He was partly promised the Archbishopric of Rouen,
which was vacant, if he should succeed. He claimed the right to
preside over Joan's ecclesiastical trial because the battle-ground
where she was taken was within his diocese. By the military usage
of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000 livres of gold,
which is 61,125 francs--a fixed sum, you see. It must be accepted
when offered; it could not be refused.

Cauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English--a
royal prince's ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy.
It shows in a striking way the English idea of her formidable
importance. It was accepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior
of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her
country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and
trounced France for a century and made holiday sport of it;
enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a
Frenchman's face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing but
his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed,
whom she had taught to respect French valor, new-born in her
nation by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her
life as being the only puissance able to stand between English
triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a
French prince, with the French King and the French nation
standing thankless by and saying nothing.

And she--what did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her
lips. She was too great for that--she was Joan of Arc; and when
that is said, all is said.

As a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to
account for anything under that head. A subterfuge must be found,
and, as we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for
crimes against religion. If none could be discovered, some must be
invented. Let the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive those.

Rouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of
the English power; its population had been under English
dominion so many generations that they were hardly French now,
save in language. The place was strongly garrisoned. Joan was
taken there near the end of December, 1430, and flung into a
dungeon. Yes, and clothed in chains, that free spirit!

Still France made no move. How do I account for this? I think
there is only one way. You will remember that whenever Joan was
not at the front, the French held back and ventured nothing; that
whenever she led, they swept everything before them, so long as
they could see her white armor or her banner; that every time she
fell wounded or was reported killed--as at CompiŠgne--they broke
in panic and fled like sheep. I argue from this that they had
undergone no real transformation as yet; that at bottom they were
still under the spell of a timorousness born of generations of
unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in their
leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries
of all sorts--for their kings had been treacherous to their great
vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to
the head of the state and to each other. The soldiery found that
they could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her
gone, everything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen
torrents and set them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze
again, and the army and all France became what they had been
before, mere dead corpses--that and nothing more; incapable of
thought, hope, ambition, or motion.

Chapter 2 Joan Sold to the English

MY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first
part of October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and
strength. All this time there were reports drifting about that the
King was going to ransom Joan. I believed these, for I was young
and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our poor
human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is
better and higher than the other animals.

In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the
second one, on the 23d, I was wounded again. My luck had turned,
you see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in
the disorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got
safe into CompiŠgne, and hobble into my room as pallid and
pathetic an object as you would wish to see.

"What? Alive? No‰l Rainguesson!"

It was indeed he. It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily
know; and also as sad as it was joyful. We could not speak Joan's
name. One's voice would have broken down. We knew who was
meant when she was mentioned; we could say "she" and "her," but
we could not speak the name.

We talked of the personal staff. Old D'Aulon, wounded and a
prisoner, was still with Joan and serving her, by permission of the
Duke of Burgundy. Joan was being treated with respect due to her
rank and to her character as a prisoner of war taken in honorable
conflict. And this was continued--as we learned later--until she fell
into the hands of that bastard of Satan, Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of
Beauvais.

No‰l was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreaciations
of our old boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever,
his real and imaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life
honorably closed and completed.

"And think of his luck!" burst out No‰l, with his eyes full of tears.
"Always the pet child of luck!

See how it followed him and stayed by him, from his first step all
through, in the field or out of it; always a splendid figure in the
public eye, courted and envied everywhere; always having a
chance to do fine things and always doing them; in the beginning
called the Paladin in joke, and called it afterward in earnest
because he magnificently made the title good; and at
last--supremest luck of all--died in the field! died with his harness
on; died faithful to his charg, the Standard in his hand; died--oh,
think of it--with the approving eye of Joan of Arc upon him!

He drained the cup of glory to the last drop, and went jubilant to
his peace, blessedly spared all part in the disaster which was to
follow. What luck, what luck! And we? What was our sin that we
are still here, we who have also earned our place with the happy
dead?"

And presently he said:

"They tore the sacred Standard from his dead hand and carried it
away, their most precious prize after its captured owner. But they
haven't it now. A month ago we put our lives upon the risk--our
two good knights, my fellow-prisoners, and I--and stole it, and got
it smuggled by trusty hands to Orleans, and there it is now, safe for
all time in the Treasury."

I was glad and grateful to learn that. I have seen it often since,
when I have gone to Orleans on the 8th of May to be the petted old
guest of the city and hold the first place of honor at the banquets
and in the processions--I mean since Joan's brothers passed from
this life. It will still be there, sacredly guarded by French love, a
thousand years from now--yes, as long as any shred of it hangs
together. [1] Two or three weeks after this talk came tehe
tremendous news like a thunder-clap, and we were aghast--Joan of
Arc sold to the English!

Not for a moment had we ever dreamed of such a thing. We were
young, you see, and did not know the human race, as I have said
before. We had been so proud of our country, so sure of her
nobleness, her magnanimity, her gratitude. We had expected little
of the King, but of France we had expected everything. Everybody
knew that in various towns patriot priests had been marching in
procession urging the people to sacrifice money, property,
everything, and buy the freedom of their heaven-sent deliverer.
That the money would be raised we had not thought of doubting.

But it was all over now, all over. It was a bitter time for us. The
heavens seemed hung with black; all cheer went out from our
hearts. Was this comrade here at my bedside really No‰l
Rainguesson, that light-hearted creature whose whole life was but
one long joke, and who used up more breath in laughter than in
keeping his body alive? No, no; that No‰l I was to see no more.
This one's heart was broken. He moved grieving about, and
absently, like one in a dream; the stream of his laughter was dried
at its source.

Well, that was best. It was my own mood. We were company for
each other. He nursed me patiently through the dull long weeks,
and at last, in January, I was strong enough to go about again.
Then he said:

"Shall we go now?"

"Yes."

There was no need to explain. Our hearts were in Rouen; we
would carry our bodies there. All that we cared for in this life was
shut up in that fortress. We could not help her, but it would be
some solace to us to be near her, to breathe the air that she
breathed, and look daily upon the stone walls that hid her. What if
we should be made prisoners there? Well, we could but do our
best, and let luck and fate decide what should happen.

And so we started. We could not realize the change which had
come upon the country. We seemed able to choose our own route
and go whenever we pleased, unchallenged and unmolested. When
Joan of Arc was in the field there was a sort of panic of fear
everywhere; but now that she was out of the way, fear had
vanished. Nobody was troubled about you or afraid of you, nobody
was curious about you or your business, everybody was indifferent.

We presently saw that we could take to the Seine, and not weary
ourselves out with land travel.

So we did it, and were carried in a boat to within a league of
Rouen. Then we got ashore; not on the hilly side, but on the other,
where it is as level as a floor. Nobody could enter or leave the city
without explaining himself. It was because they feared attempts at
a rescue of Joan.

We had no trouble. We stopped in the plain with a family of
peasants and stayed a wekk, helping them with their work for
board and lodging, and making friends of them. We got clothes
like theirs, and wore them. When we had worked our way through
their reserves and gotten their confidence, we found that they
secretly harbored French hearts in their bodies. Then we came out
frankly and told them everythng, and found them ready to do
anything they could to help us.

Our plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help
them drive a flock of sheep to the market of the city. One morning
early we made the venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and
passed through the frowning gates unmolested. Our friends had
friends living over a humble wine shop in a quaint tall building
situated in one of the narrow lanes that run down from the
cathedral to the river, and with these they bestowed us; and the
next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and other
belongings to us. The family that lodged us--the Pieroons--were
French in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them.

[1] It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was
destroyed in a public bonfire, together with two swords, a plumed
cap, several suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by
a mob in the time of the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of
Joan of Arc is known to have touched now remains in existence
except a few preciously guarded military and state papers which
she signed, her pen being guided by a clek or her secretary, Louis
de Conte. A boulder exists from which she is known to have
mounted her horse when she was once setting out upon a
campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single hair
from her head still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of a
seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was
surreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal
relic-hunter, and carried off. Doubtless it still exists, but only the
thief knows where. -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 3 Weaving the Net About Her

IT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for No‰l
and myself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write,
the applied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for
me with a good priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief
recorder in the Great Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching. It was
a strange position for me--clerk to the recorder--and dangerous if
my sympathies and the late employment should be found out. But
there was not much danger. Manchon was at bottom friendly to
Joan and would not betray me; and my name would not, for I had
discarded my surname and retained only my given one, like a
person of low degree.

I attended Manchon constantly straight along, out of January and
into February, and was often in the citadel with him--in the very
fortress where Joan was imprisoned, though not in the dungeon
where she was confined, and so did not see her, of course.

Manchon told me everything that had been happening before my
coming. Ever since the purchase of Joan, Cauchon had been busy
packing his jury for the destruction of the Maid--weeks and weeks
he had spent in this bad industry. The University of Paris had sent
him a number of learned and able and trusty ecclesiastics of the
stripe he wanted; and he had scraped together a clergyman of like
stripe and great fame here and there and yonder, until he was able
to construct a formidable court numbering half a hundred
distinguished names. French names they were, but their interests
and sympathies were English.

A great officer of the Inquisition was also sent from Paris for the
accused must be tried by the forms of the Inquisition; but this was
a brave and righteous man, and he said squarely that this court had
no power to try the case, wherefore he refused to act; and the same
honest talk was uttered by two or three others.

The Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan
had already been tried long ago at Poitiers, and decided in her
favor. Yes, and by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of
it was an Archbishop--he of Rheims--Cauchon's own metropolitan.
So here, you see, a lower court was impudently preparing to try
and redecide a cause which had already been decided by its
superior, a court of higher authority. Imagine it! No, the case could
not properly be tried again. Cauchon could not properly preside in
this new court, for more than one reason:

Rouen was not in his diocese; Joan had not been arrested in her
domicile, which was still Domremy; and finally this proposed
judge was the prisoner's outspoken enemy, and therefore he was
incompetent to try her. Yet all these large difficulties were gotten
rid of. The territorial Chapter of Rouen finally granted territorial
letters to Cauchon--though only after a struggle and under
compulsion. Force was also applied to the Inquisitor, and he was
obliged to submit.

So then, the little English King, by his representative, formally
delivered Joan into the hands of the court, but with this
reservation: if the court failed to condemn her, he was to have her
back again!  Ah, dear, what chance was there for that forsaken and
friendless child? Friendless, indeed--it is the right word. For she
was in a black dungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers
keeping guard night and day in the room where her cage was--for
she was in a cage; an iron cage, and chained to her bed by neck
and hands and feet. Never a person near her whom she had ever
seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this was, indeed,
friendlessness.

Now it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan
and CompiŠgne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of
Burgundy. Yet this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to
go and show his face to Joan in her cage. He came with two
English earls, Warwick and Stafford. He was a poor reptile. He
told her he would get her set free if she would promise not to fight
the English any more. She had been in that cage a long time now,
but not long enough to break her spirit. She retorted scornfully:

"Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the
power nor the will to do it."

He insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan,
and she lifted her chained hands and let them fall with a clash,
saying:

"See these! They know more than you, an can prophesy better. I
know that the English are going to kill me, for they think that
when I am dead they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so.

Though there were a hundred thousand of them they would never
get it."

This defiance infuriated Stafford, and he--now think of it--he a
free, strong man, she a chained and helpless girl--he drew his
dagger and flung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized
him and held him back. Warwick was wise. Take her life in that
way? Send her to Heaven stainless and undisgraced? It would
make her the idol of France, and the whole nation would rise and
march to victory and emancipation under the inspiration of her
spirit. No, she must be saved for another fate than that.

Well, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than
two months Cauchon had been raking and scraping everywhere for
any odds and ends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that
might be usable against Joan, and carefully suppressing all
evidence that came to hand in her favor. He had limitless ways and
means and powers at his disposal for preparing and strengthening
the case for the prosecution, and he used them all.

But Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut
up in those stone walls and had no friend to appeal to for help.
And as for witnesses, she could not call a single one in her
defense; they were all far away, under the French flag, and this
was an English court; they would have been seized and hanged if
they had shown their faces at the gates of Rouen. No, the prisoner
must be the sole witness--witness for the prosecution, witness for
the defense; and with a verdict of death resolved upon before the
doors were opened for the court's first sitting.

When she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in
the interest of the English, she begged that in fairness an equal
number of priests of the French party should be added to these.

Cauchon scoffed at her message, and would not even deign to
answer it.

By the law of the Church--she being a minor under twenty-one--it
was her right to have counsel to conduct her case, advise her how
to answer when questioned, and protect her from falling into traps
set by cunning devices of the prosecution. She probably did not
know that this was her right, and that she could demand it and
require it, for there was none to tell her that; but she begged for
this help, at any rate. Cauchon refused it. She urged and implored,
pleading her youth and her ignorance of the complexities and
intricacies of the law and of legal procedure. Cauchon refused
again, and said she must get along with her case as best she might
by herself. Ah, his heart was a stone.

Cauchon prepared the procŠs verbal. I will simplify that by calling
it the Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed list of the charges against
her, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of
suspicions and public rumors--those were the words used. It was
merely charged that she was suspected of having been guilty of
heresies, witchcraft, and other such offenses against religion.

Now by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be
begun until a searching inquiry had been made into the history and
character of the accused, and it was essential that the result of this
inquiry be added to the procŠs verbal and form a part of it. You
remember that that was the first thing they did before the trial at
Poitiers. They did it again now. An ecclesiastic was sent to
Domremy. There and all about the neighborhood he made an
exhaustive search into Joan's history and character, and came back
with his verdict. It was very clear. The searcher reported that he
found Joan's character to be in every way what he "would like his
own sister's character to be." Just about the same report that was
brought back to Poitiers, you see. Joan's was a character which
could endure the minutest examination.

This verdict was a strong point for Joan, you will say. Yes, it
would have been if it could have seen the light; but Cauchon was
awake, and it disappeared from the procŠs verbal before the trial.
People were prudent enough not to inquire what became of it.

One would imagine that Cauchon was ready to begin the trial by
this time. But no, he devised one more scheme for poor Joan's
destruction, and it promised to be a deadly one.

One of the great personages picked out and sent down by the
University of Paris was an ecclesiastic named Nicolas Loyseleur.
He was tall, handsome, grave, of smooth, soft speech and
courteous and winning manners. There was no seeming of
treachery or hypocrisy about him, yet he was full of both. He was
admitted to Joan's prison by night, disguised as a cobbler; he
pretended to be from her own country; he professed to be secretly
a patriot; he revealed the fact that he was a priest. She was filled
with gladness to see one from the hills and plains that were so dear
to her; happier still to look upon a priest and disburden her heart in
confession, for the offices of the Church were the bread of life, the
breath of her nostrils to her, and she had been long forced to pine
for them in vain. She opened her whole innocent heart to this
creature, and in return he gave her advice concerning her trial
which could have destroyed her if her deep native wisdom had not
protected her against following it.

You will ask, what value could this scheme have, since the secrets
of the confessional are sacred and cannot be revealed? True--but
suppose another person should overhear them? That person is not
bound to keep the secret. Well, that is what happened. Cauchon
had previously caused a hole to be bored through the wall; and he
stood with his ear to that hole and heard all. It is pitiful to think of
these things. One wonders how they could treat that poor child so.
She had not done them any harm.

Chapter 4 All Ready to Condemn

ON TUESDAY, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master's
work in the evening, he came in, looking sad, and said it had been
decided to begin the trial at eight o'clock the next morning, and I
must get ready to assist him.

Of course I had been expecting such news every day for many
days; but no matter, the shock of it almost took my breath away
and set me trembling like a leaf. I suppose that without knowing it
I had been half imagining that at the last moment something would
happen, something that would stop this fatal trial; maybe that La
Hire would burst in at the gates with his hellions at his back;
maybe that God would have pity and stretch forth His mighty
hand. But now--now there was no hope.

The trial was to begin in the chapel of the fortress and would be
public. So I went sorrowing away and told No‰l, so that he might
be there early and secure a place. It would give him a chance to
look again upon the face which we so revered and which was so
precious to us. All the way, both going and coming, I plowed
through chattering and rejoicing multitudes of English soldiery and
English-hearted French citizens. There was no talk but of the
coming event. Many times I heard the remark, accompanied by a
pitiless laugh:

"The fat Bishop has got things as he wants them at last, and says he
will lead the vile witch a merry dance and a short one."

But here and there I glimpsed compassion and distress in a face,
and it was not always a French one. English soldiers feared Joan,
but they admired her for her great deeds and her unconquerable
spirit.

In the morning Manchon and I went early, yet as we approached
the vast fortress we found crowds of men already there and still
others gathering. The chapel was already full and the way barred
against further admissions of unofficial persons. We took our
appointed places. Throned on high sat the president, Cauchon,
Bishop of Beauvais, in his grand robes, and before him in rows sat
his robed court--fifty distinguished ecclesiastics, men of high
degree in the Church, of clear-cut intellectual faces, men of deep
learning, veteran adepts in strategy and casuistry, practised
settersof traps for ignorant minds and unwary feet. When I looked
around upon this army of masters of legal fence, gathered here to
find just one verdict and no other, and remembered that Joan must
fight for her good name and her life single-handed against them, I
asked myself what chance an ignorant poor country-girl of
nineteen could have in such an unequal conflict; and my heart sank
down low, very low. When I looked again at that obese president,
puffing and wheezing there, his great belly distending and receding
with each breath, and noted his three chins, fold above fold, and
his knobby and knotty face, and his purple and splotchy
complexion, and his repulsive cauliflower nose, and his cold and
malignant eyes--a brute, every detail of him--my heart sank lower
still. And when I noted that all were afraid of this man, and shrank
and fidgeted in their seats when his eye smote theirs, my last poor
ray of hope dissolved away and wholly disappeared.

There was one unoccupied seat in this place, and only one. It was
over against the wall, in view of every one. It was a little wooden
bench without a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of
dais. Tall men-at-arms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets
stood as stiff as their own halberds on each side of this dais, but no
other creature was near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was,
for I knew whom it was for; and the sight of it carried my mind
back to the great court at Poitiers, where Joan sat upon one like it
and calmly fought her cunning fight with the astonished doctors of
the Church and Parliament, and rose from it victorious and
applauded by all, and went forth to fill the world with the glory of
her name.

What a dainty little figure she was, and how gentle and innocent,
how winning and beautiful in the fresh bloom of her seventeen
years! Those were grand days. And so recent--for she was just
nineteen now--and how much she had seen since, and what
wonders she had accomplished!

But now--oh, all was changed now. She had been languishing in
dungeons, away from light and air and the cheer of friendly faces,
for nearly three-quarters of a year--she, born child of the sun,
natural comrade of the birds and of all happy free creatures. She
would be weary now, and worn with this long captivity, her forces
impaired; despondent, perhaps, as knowing there was no hope.
Yes, all was changed.

All this time there had been a muffled hum of conversation, and
rustling of robes and scraping of feet on the floor, a combination
of dull noises which filled all the place. Suddenly:

"Produce the accused!"

It made me catch my breath. My heart began to thump like a
hammer. But there was silence now--silence absolute. All those
noises ceased, and it was as if they had never been. Not a sound;
the stillness grew oppressive; it was like a weight upon one. All
faces were turned toward the door; and one could properly expect
that, for most of the people there suddenly realized, no doubt, that
they were about to see, in actual flesh and blood, what had been to
them before only an embodied prodigy, a word, a phrase, a
world-girdling Name.

The stillness continued. Then, far down the stone-paved corridors,
one heard a vague slow sound approaching: clank . . . clink . . .
clank--Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, in chains!

My head swam; all things whirled and spun about me. Ah, I was
realizing, too.

Chapter 5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice

I GIVE you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor
the facts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you
honestly, detail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down
daily in the official record of the court, and just as one may read
them in the printed histories.

There will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with
you shall use my right to comment upon the proceedings and
explain them as I go along, so that you can understand them better;
also, I shall throw in trifles which came under our eyes and have a
certain interest for you and me, but were not important enough to
go into the official record. [1] To take up my story now where I
left off. We heard the clanking of Joan's chains down the corridors;
she was approaching.

Presently she appeared; a thrill swept the house, and one heard
deep breaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short
distance to the rear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved
slowly, she being weak and her irons heavy. She had on men's
attire--all black; a soft woolen stuff, intensely black, funereally
black, not a speck of relieving color in it from ther throat to the
floor. A wide collar of this same black stuff lay in radiating folds
upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves of her doublet were full,
down to the elbows, and tight thence to her manacled wrists;
below the doublet, tight black hose down to the chains on her
ankles.

Half-way to her bench she stopped, just where a wide shaft of light
fell slanting from a window, and slowly lifted her face. Another
thrill!--it was totally colorless, white as snow; a face of gleaming
snow set in vivid contrast upon that slender statue of somber
unmitigated black. It was smooth and pure and girlish, beautiful
beyond belief, infinitely sad and sweet. But, dear, dear!

when the challenge of those untamed eyes fell upon that judge, and
the droop vanished from her form and it straightened up soldierly
and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I said, all is well, all is
well--they have not broken her, they have not conquered her, she is
Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now that there was one
spirit there which this dreaded judge could not quell nor make
afraid.

She moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself
upon her bench, gathering her chains into her lap and nestling her
little white hands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the
only person there who seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed
and brawny English soldier, standing at martial ease in the front
rank of the citizen spectators, did now most gallantly and
respectfully put up his great hand and give her the military salute;
and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and returned it; whereat
there was a sympathetic little break of applause, which the judge
sternly silence.

Now the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial
began. Fifty experts against a novice, and no one to help the
novice!

The judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the
public reports and suspicions upon which it was based; then he
required Joan to kneel and make oath that she would answer with
exact truthfulness to all questions asked her.

Joan's mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous
possibilities might lie hidden under this apparently fair and
reasonable demand. She answered with the simplicity which so
often spoiled the enemy's best-laid plans in the trial at Poitiers, and
said:

"No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might
ask of me things which I would not tell you."

This incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry
exclamations. Joan was not disturbed. Cauchon raised his voice
and began to speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry
that he could hardly get his words out. He said:

"With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite
these proceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with
your hands upon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the
questions which shall be asked you!" and he brought down his fat
hand with a crash upon his official table.

Joan said, with composure:

"As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what
things I have done since my coming into France, I will gladly
answer; but as regards the revelations which I have received from
God, my Voices have forbidden me to confide them to any save
my King--"

Here there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives,
and much movement and confusion; so she had to stop, and wait
for the noise to subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and
she straightened up and fixed her eye on the judge, and finished
her sentence in a voice that had the old ring to it:

--"and I will never reveal these things though you cut my head
off!"

Well, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is
like. The judge and half the court were on their feet in a moment,
and all shaking their fists at the prisoner, and all storming and
vituperating at once, so that you could hardly hear yourself think.
They kept this up several minutes; and because Joan sat untroubled
and indifferent they grew madder and noisier all the time. Once
she said, with a fleeting trace of the old-time mischief in her eye
and manner:

"Prithee, speak one at a time, fair lords, then I will answer all of
you."

At the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath,
the situation had not changed a jot. The Bishop was still requiring
an unmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to
take any except the one which she had herself proposed. There was
a physical change apparent, but it was confined to the court and
judge; they were hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy,
and had a sort of haggard look in their faces, poor men, whereas
Joan was still placid and reposeful and did not seem noticeably
tired.

The noise quieted down; there was a waiting pause of some
moments' duration. Then the judge surrendered to the prisoner, and
with bitterness in his voice told her to take the oath after her own
fashion. Joan sunk at once to her knees; and as she laid her hands
upon the Gospels, that big English soldier set free his mind:

"By God, if she were but English, she were not in this place
another half a second!"

It was the soldier in him responding to the soldier in her. But what
a stinging rebuke it was, what an arraignment of French character
and French royalty! Would that he could have uttered just that one
phrase in the hearing of Orleans! I know that that grateful city, that
adoring city, would have risen to the last man and the last woman,
and marched upon Rouen. Some speeches--speeches that shame a
man and humble him--burn themselves into the memory and
remain there. That one is burned into mine.

After Joan had made oath, Cauchon asked her her name, and
where she was born, and some questions about her family; also
what her age was. She answered these. Then he asked her how
much education she had.

"I have learned from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria,
and the Belief. All that I know was taught me by my mother."

Questions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable
time. Everybody was tired out by now, except Joan. The tribunal
prepared to rise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to
escape from prison, upon pain of being held guilty of the crime of
heresy--singular logic! She answered simply:

"I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not
reproach myself, for I have given no promise, and I shall not."

Then she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that
they might be removed, for she was strongly guarded in that
dungeon and there was no need of them. But the Bishop refused,
and reminded her that she had broken out of prison twice before.
Joan of Arc was too proud to insist. She only said, as she rose to go
with the guard:

"It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape." Then
she added, in a way that would touch the pity of anybody, I think,
"It is the right of every prisoner."

And so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive
stillness, which made the sharper and more distressful to me the
clank of those pathetic chains.

What presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out
of it. She saw No‰l and me there when she first took her seat on
the bench, and we flushed to the forehead with excitement and
emotion, but her face showed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes
sought us fifty times that day, but they passed on and there was
never any ray of recognition in them. Another would have started
upon seeing us, and then--why, then there could have been trouble
for us, of course.

We walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief
and saying not a word.

[1] He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found
to be in strict and detailed accordance with the sworn facts of
history. Qq TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors

THAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day's
proceedings Cauchon had had some clerks concealed in the
embrasure of a window who were to make a special report
garbling Joan's answers and twisting them from their right
meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the most
shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed.
Those clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work
revolted them, and they turned to and boldly made a straight
report, whereupon Cauchon curse them and ordered them out of
his presence with a threat of drowning, which was his favorite and
most frequent menace. The matter had gotten abroad and was
making great and unpleasant talk, and Cauchon would not try to
repeat this shabby game right away. It comforted me to hear that.

When we arrived at the citadel next morning, we found that a
change had been made. The chapel had been found too small. The
court had now removed to a noble chamber situated at the end of
the great hall of the castle. The number of judges was increased to
sixty-two--one ignorant girl against such odds, and none to help
her.

The prisoner was brought in. She was as white as ever, but she was
looking no whit worse than she looked when she had first appeared
the day before. Isn't it a strange thing? Yesterday she had sat five
hours on that backless bench with her chains in her lap, baited,
badgered, persecuted by that unholy crew, without even the
refreshment of a cup of water--for she was never offered anything,
and if I have made you know her by this time you will know
without my telling you that she was not a person likely to ask
favors of those people. And she had spent the night caged in her
wintry dungeon with her chains upon her; yet here she was, as I
say, collected, unworn, and ready for the conflict; yes, and the only
person there who showed no signs of the wear and worry of
yesterday. And her eyes--ah, you should have seen them and
broken your hearts. Have you seen that veiled deep glow, that
pathetic hurt dignity, that unsubdued and unsubduable spirit that
burns and smolders in the eye of a caged eagle and makes you feel
mean and shabby under the burden of its mute reproach? Her eyes
were like that. How capable they were, and how wonderful! Yes,
at all times and in all circumstances they could express as by print
every shade of the wide range of her moods. In them were hidden
floods of gay sunshine, the softest and peacefulest twilights, and
devastating storms and lightnings. Not in this world have there
been others that were comparable to them. Such is my opinion,
and none that had the privilege to see them would say otherwise
than this which I have said concerning them.

The s‚ance began. And how did it begin, should you think?
Exactly as it began before--with that same tedious thing which had
been settled once, after so much wrangling. The Bishop opened
thus:

"You are required now, to take the oath pure and simple, to answer
truly all questions asked you."

Joan replied placidly:

"I have made oath yesterday, my lord; let that suffice."

The Bishop insisted and insisted, with rising temper; Joan but
shook her head and remained silent. At last she said:

"I made oath yesterday; it is sufficient." Then she sighed and said,
"Of a truth, you do burden me too much."

The Bishop still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move
her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest
to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive
plausibilities--Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form
of this sleek strategist's first remark--flung out in an easy, offhand
way that would have thrown any unwatchful person off his guard:

"Now, Joan, the matter is very simple; just speak up and frankly
and truly answer the questions which I am going to ask you, as you
have sworn to do."

It was a failure. Joan was not asleep. She saw the artifice. She said:

"No. You could ask me things which I could not tell you--and
would not." Then, reflecting upon how profane and out of
character it was for these ministers of God to be prying into
matters which had proceeded from His hands under the awful seal
of His secrecy, she added, with a warning note in her tone, "If you
were well informed concerning me you would wish me out of your
hands. I have done nothing but by revelation."

Beaupere changed his attack, and began an approach from another
quarter. He would slip upon her, you see, under cover of innocent
and unimportant questions.

"Did you learn any trade at home?"

"Yes, to sew and to spin." Then the invincible soldier, victor of
Patay, conquerer of the lion Talbot, deliverer of Orleans, restorer
of a king's crown, commander-in-chief of a nation's armies,
straightened herself proudly up, gave her head a little toss, and said
with na‹ve complacency, "And when it comes to that, I am not
afraid to be matched against any woman in Rouen!"

The crowd of spectators broke out with applause--which pleased
Joan--and there was many a friendly and petting smile to be seen.
But Cauchon stormed at the people and warned them to keep still
and mind their manners.

Beaupere asked other questions. Then:

"Had you other occupations at home?"

"Yes. I helped my mother in the household work and went to the
pastures with the sheep and the cattle."

Her voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for
me, it brought those old enchanted days flooding back to me, and I
could not see what I was writing for a little while.

Beaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward
the forbidden ground, and finally repeated a question which she
had refused to answer a little while back--as to whether she had
received the Eucharist in those days at other festivals than that of
Easter. Joan merely said:

"Passez outre." Or, as one might say, "Pass on to matters which
you are privileged to pry into."

I heard a member of the court say to a neighbor:

"As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy prey--yes,
and easily embarrassed, easily frightened--but truly one can neither
scare this child nor find her dozing."

Presently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly,
for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of
consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to
trick her into heedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices
had sometimes given her evil advice--hence that they had come
from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devil--well, that
would send her to the stake in brief order, and that was the
deliberate end and aim of this trial.

"When did you first hear these Voices?"

"I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help
me to live well. I was frightened. It came at midday, in my father's
garden in the summer."

"Had you been fasting?"

"Yes."

"The day before?"

"No."

"From what direction did it come?"

"From the right--from toward the church."

"Did it come with a bright light?"

"Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often
heard the Voices very loud."

"What did the Voice sound like?"

"It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God.
The third time I heard it I recognized it as being an angel's."

"You could understand it?"

"Quite easily. It was always clear."

"What advice did it give you as to the salvation of your soul?"

"It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the
services of the Church. And it told me that I must go to France."

"In what species of form did the Voice appear?"

Joan looked suspiciously at he priest a moment, then said,
tranquilly:

"As to that, I will not tell you."

"Did the Voice seek you often?"

"Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, 'Leave your village and
go to France.'"

"Did you father know about your departure?"

"No. The Voice said, 'Go to France'; therefore I could not abide at
home any longer."

"What else did it say?"

"That I should raise the siege of Orleans."

"Was that all?"

"No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would
give me soldiers to go with me to France; and I answered, saying
that I was a poor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to
fight."

Then she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs,
but finally got her soldiers, and began her march.

"How were you dressed?"

The court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as
God had appointed her to do a man's work, it was meet and no
scandal to religion that she should dress as a man; but no matter,
this court was ready to use any and all weapons against Joan, even
broken and discredited ones, and much was going to be made of
this one before this trial should end.

"I wore a man's dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt
gave me, but no other weapon."

"Who was it that advised you to wear the dress of a man?"

Joan was suspicious again. She would not answer.

The question was repeated.

She refused again.

"Answer. It is a command!"

"Passez outre," was all she said.

So Beaupere gave up the matter for the present.

"What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?"

"He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of
me, and to me he said, 'Go, and let happen what may!'" (Advienne
que pourra!) After a good deal of questioning upon other matters
she was asked again about her attire. She said it was necessary for
her to dress as a man.

"Did your Voice advise it?"

Joan merely answered placidly:

"I believe my Voice gave me good advice."

It was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to
other matters, and finally to her first meeting with the King at
Chinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her,
by the revelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was
gone over. Finally:

"Do you still hear those Voices?"

"They come to me every day."

"What do you ask of them?"

"I have never asked of them any recompense but the salvation of
my soul."

"Did the Voice always urge you to follow the army?"

He is creeping upon her again. She answered:

"It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed
if I had been free, but I was helpless by my wound, and the knights
carried me away by force."

"When were you wounded?"

"I was wounded in the moat before Paris, in the assault."

The next question reveals what Beaupere had been leading up to:

"Was it a feast-day?"

You see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would
hardly advise or permit the violation, by war and bloodshed, of a
sacred day.

Joan was troubled a moment, then she answered yes, it was a
feast-day.

"Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on
such a day?"

This was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which
had suffered no damage thus far. There was immediate silence in
the court and intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan
disappointed the house. She merely made a slight little motion
with her hand, as when one brushes away a fly, and said with
reposeful indifference:

"Passez outre."

Smiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there,
and several men even laughed outright. The trap had been long and
laboriously prepared; it fell, and was empty.

The court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most
of the time had been taken up with apparently idle and purposeless
inquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans,
Joan's first proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random
stuff had really been sown thick with hidden traps. But Joan had
fortunately escaped them all, some by the protecting luck which
attends upon ignorance and innocence, some by happy accident,
the others by force of her best and surest helper, the clear vision
and lightning intuitions of her extraordinary mind.

Now, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a
captive in chains, was to continue a long, long time--dignified
sport, a kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a
kitten!--and I may as well tell you, upon sworn testimony, what it
was like from the first day to the last. When poor Joan had been in
her grave a quarter of a century, the Pope called together that great
court which was to re-examine her history, and whose just verdict
cleared her illustrious name from every spot and stain, and laid
upon the verdict and conduct of our Rouen tribunal the blight of its
everlasting execrations. Manchon and several of the judges who
had been members of our court were among the witnesses who
appeared before that Tribunal of Rehabilitation. Recalling these
miserable proceedings which I have been telling you about,
Manchon testified thus:--here you have it, all in fair print in the
unofficial history:

When Joan spoke of her apparitions she was interrupted at almost
every word. They wearied her with long and multiplied
interrogatories upon all sorts of things. Almost every day the
interrogatories of the morning lasted three or four hours; then from
these morning interrogatories they extracted the particularly
difficult and subtle points, and these served as material for the
afternoon interrogatories, which lasted two or three hours.
Moment by moment they skipped from one subject to another; yet
in spite of this she always responded with an astonishing wisdom
and memory. She often corrected the judges, saying, "But I have
already answered that once before--ask the recorder," referring
them to me.

And here is the testimony of one of Joan's judges. Remember,
these witnesses are not talking about two or three days, they are
talking about a tedious long procession of days:

They asked her profound questions, but she extricated herself quite
well. Sometimes the questioners changed suddenly and passed on
to another subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They
burdened her with long interrogatories of two or three hours, from
which the judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the snares
with which she was beset the expertest man in the world could not
have extricated himself but with difficulty. She gave her responses
with great prudence; indeed to such a degree that during three
weeks I believed she was inspired.

Ah, had she a mind such as I have described? You see what these
priests say under oath--picked men, men chosen for their places in
that terrible court on account of their learning, their experience,
their keen and practised intellects, and their strong bias against the
prisoner. They make that poor country-girl out the match, and
more than the match, of the sixty-two trained adepts. Isn't it so?
They from the University of Paris, she from the sheepfold and the
cow-stable!

Ah, yes, she was great, she was wonderful. It took six thousand
years to produce her; her like will not be seen in the earth again in
fifty thousand. Such is my opinion.

Chapter 7 Craft That Was in Vain

THE THIRD meeting of the court was in that same spacious
chamber, next day, 24th of February.

How did it begin? In just the same old way. When the preparations
were ended, the robed sixty-two massed in their chairs and the
guards and order-keepers distributed to their stations, Cauchon
spoke from his throne and commanded Joan to lay her hands upon
the Gospels and swear to tell the truth concerning everything asked
her!

Joan's eyes kindled, and she rose; rose and stood, fine and noble,
and faced toward the Bishop and said:

"Take care what you do, my lord, you who are my judge, for you
take a terrible responsibility on yourself and you presume too far."

It made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful
threat--the threat of instant condemnation unless she obeyed. That
made the very bones of my body turn cold, and I saw cheeks about
me blanch--for it meant fire and the stake! But Joan, still standing,
answered him back, proud and undismayed:

"Not all the clergy in Paris and Rouen could condemn me, lacking
the right!"

This made a great tumult, and part of it was applause from the
spectators. Joan resumed her seat.

The Bishop still insisted. Joan said:

"I have already made oath. It is enough."

The Bishop shouted:

"In refusing to swear, you place yourself under suspicion!"

"Let be. I have sword already. It is enough."

The Bishop continued to insist. Joan answered that "she would tell
what she knew--but not all that she knew."

The Bishop plagued her straight along, till at last she said, in a
weary tone:

"I came from God; I have nothing more to do here. Return me to
God, from whom I came."

It was piteous to hear; it was the same as saying, "You only want
my life; take it and let me be at peace."

The Bishop stormed out again:

"Once more I command you to--"

Joan cut in with a nonchalant "Passez outre," and Cauchon retired
from the struggle; but he retired with some credit this time, for he
offered a compromise, and Joan, always clear-headed, saw
protection for herself in it and promptly and willingly accepted it.
She was to swear to tell the truth "as touching the matters et down
in the procŠs verbal." They could not sail her outside of definite
limits, now; her course was over a charted sea, henceforth. The
Bishop had granted more than he had intended, and more than he
would honestly try to abide by.

By command, Beaupere resumed his examination of the accused.
It being Lent, there might be a chance to catch her neglecting some
detail of her religious duties. I could have told him he would fail
there. Why, religion was her life!

"Since when have you eaten or drunk?"

If the least thing had passed her lips in the nature of sustenance,
neither her youth nor the fact that she was being half starved in her
prison could save her from dangerous suspicion of contempt for
the commandments of the Church.

"I have done neither since yesterday at noon."

The priest shifted to the Voices again.

"When have you heard your Voice?"

"Yesterday and to-day."

"At what time?"

"Yesterday it was in the morning."

"What were you doing then?"

"I was asleep and it woke me."

"By touching your arm?"

"No, without touching me."

"Did you thank it? Did you kneel?"

He had Satan in his mind, you see; and was hoping, perhaps, that
by and by it could be shown that she had rendered homage to the
arch enemy of God and man.

"Yes, I thanked it; and knelt in my bed where I was chained, and
joined my hands and begged it to implore God's help for me so that
I might have light and instruction as touching the answers I should
give here."

"Then what did the Voice say?"

"It told me to answer boldly, and God would help me." Then she
turned toward Cauchon and said, "You say that you are my judge;
now I tell you again, take care what you do, for in truth I am sent
of God and you are putting yourself in great danger."

Beaupere asked her if the Voice's counsels were not fickle and
variable.

"No. It never contradicts itself. This very day it has told me again
to answer boldly."

"Has it forbidden you to answer only part of what is asked you?"

"I will tell you nothing as to that. I have revelations touching the
King my master, and those I will not tell you." Then she was
stirred by a great emotion, and the tears sprang to her eyes and she
spoke out as with strong conviction, saying:

"I believe wholly--as wholly as I believe the Christian faith and
that God has redeemed us from the fires of hell, that God speaks to
me by that Voice!"

Being questioned further concerning the Voice, she said she was
not at liberty to tell all she knew.

"Do you think God would be displeased at your telling the whole
truth?"

"The Voice has commanded me to tell the King certain things, and
not you--and some very lately--even last night; things which I
would he knew. He would be more easy at his dinner."

"Why doesn't the Voice speak to the King itself, as it did when you
were with him? Would it not if you asked it?"

"I do not know if it be the wish of God." She was pensive a
moment or two, busy with her thoughts and far away, no doubt;
then she added a remark in which Beaupere, always watchful,
always alert, detected a possible opening--a chance to set a trap.
Do you think he jumped at it instantly, betraying the joy he had in
his mind, as a young hand at craft and artifice would do?

No, oh, no, you could not tell that he had noticed the remark at all.
He slid indifferently away from it at once, and began to ask idle
questions about other things, so as to slip around and spring on it
from behind, so to speak: tedious and empty questions as to
whether the Voice had told her she would escape from this prison;
and if it had furnished answers to be used by her in to-day's s‚ance;
if it was accompanied with a glory of light; if it had eyes, etc. That
risky remark of Joan's was this:

"Without the Grace of God I could do nothing."

The court saw the priest's game, and watched his play with a cruel
eagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy and absent; possibly she
was tired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect
it. The time was ripe now, and Beaupere quietly and stealthily
sprang his trap:

"Are you in a state of Grace?"

Ah, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of
judges; and Jean Lefevre was one of them. He sprang to his feet
and cried out:

"It is a terrible question! The accused is not obliged to answer it!"

Cauchon's face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to
the perishing child, and he shouted:

"Silence! and take your seat. The accused will answer the
question!"

There was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she
said yes or whether she said no, it would be all the same--a
disastrous answer, for the Scriptures had said one cannot know this
thing. Think what hard hearts they were to set this fatal snare for
that ignorant young girl and be proud of such work and happy in it.
It was a miserable moment for me while we waited; it seemed a
year. All the house showed excitement; and mainly it was glad
excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering faces with
innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she brought
out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare
away as it had been but a cobweb:

"If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in
it, I pray God keep me so."

Ah, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live.
For a space there was the silence of the grave. Men looked
wondering into each other's faces, and some were awed and
crossed themselves; and I heard Lefevre mutter:

"It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence
comes this child's amazing inspirations?"

Beaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of
his defeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and
dreary business of it, he not being able to put any heart in it.

He asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about
the oak wood, and the fairies, and the children's games and romps
under our dear Arbre f‚e de Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old
memories broke her voice and made her cry a little, but she bore
up as well as she could, and answered everything.

Then the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her
apparel--a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this
still-hunt for this innocent creature's life, but kept always hanging
over her, a menace charged with mournful possibilities:

"Would you like a woman's dress?"

"Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison--but here, no."

Chapter 8 Joan Tells of Her Visions

THE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it?
The Bishop ignored the contract limiting the examination to
matters set down in the procŠs verbal and again commanded Joan
to take the oath without reservations. She said:

"You should be content I have sworn enough."

She stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield.

The examination was resumed, concerning Joan's Voices.

"You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of
angels the third time that you heard them. What angels were they?"

"St. Catherine and St. Marguerite."

"How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you
tell the one from the other?"

"I know it was they; and I know how to distinguish them."

"By what sign?"

"By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years
under their direction, and I knew who they were because they told
me."

"Whose was the first Voice that came to you when you were
thirteen years old?"

"It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he
was not alone, but attended by a cloud of angels."

"Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or
in the spirit?"

"I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when
they went away I cried because they did not take me with them."

It made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white
upon her that day under l'Arbre F&eeacute;e de Bourlemont, and it
made me shiver again, though it was so long ago. It was really not
very long gone by, but it seemed so, because so much had
happened since.

"In what shape and form did St. Michael appear?"

"As to that, I have not received permission to speak."

"What did the archangel say to you that first time?"

"I cannot answer you to-day."

Meaning, I think, that she would have to get permission of her
Voices first.

Presently, after some more questions as to the revelations which
had been conveyed through her to the King, she complained of the
unnecessity of all this, and said:

"I will say again, as I have said before many times in these sittings,
that I answered all questions of this sort before the court at
Poitiers, and I would hat you wold bring here the record of that
court and read from that. Prithee, send for that book."

There was no answer. It was a subject that had to be got around
and put aside. That book had wisely been gotten out of the way, for
it contained things which would be very awkward here.

Among them was a decision that Joan's mission was from God,
whereas it was the intention of this inferior court to show that it
was from the devil; also a decision permitting Joan to wear male
attire, whereas it was the purpose of this court to make the male
attire do hurtful work against her.

"How was it that you were moved to come into France--by your
own desire?"

"Yes, and by command of God. But that it was His will I would
note have come. I would sooner have had my body torn in sunder
by horses than come, lacking that."

Beaupere shifted once more to the matter of the male attire, now,
and proceeded to make a solemn talk about it. That tried Joan's
patience; and presently she interrupted and said:

"It is a trifling thing and of no consequence. And I did not put it on
by counsel of any man, but by command of God."

"Robert de Baudricourt did not order you to wear it?"

"No."

"Did you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?"

"I did well to do whatsoever thing God commanded me to do."

"But in this particular case do you think you did well in taking the
dress of a man?"

"I have done nothing but by command of God."

Beaupere made various attempts to lead her into contradictions of
herself; also to put her words and acts in disaccord with the
Scriptures. But it was lost time. He did not succeed. He returned to
her visions, the light which shone about them, her relations with
the King, and so on.

"Was there an angel above the King's head the first time you saw
him?"

"By the Blessed Mary!--"

She forced her impatience down, and finished her sentence with
tranquillity: "If there was one I did not see it."

"Was there light?"

"There were more than three thousand soldiers there, and five
hundred torches, without taking account of spiritual light."

"What made the King believe in the revelations which you brought
him?"

"He had signs; also the counsel of the clergy."

"What revelations were made to the King?"

"You will not get that out of me this year."

Presently she added: "During three weeks I was questioned by the
clergy at Chinon and Poitiers.

The King had a sign before he would believe; and the clergy were
of opinion that my acts were good and not evil."

The subject was dropped now for a while, and Beaupere took up
the matter of the miraculous sword of Fierbois to see if he could
not find a chance there to fix the crime of sorcery upon Joan.

"How did you know that there was an ancient sword buried in the
ground under the rear of the altar of the church of St. Catherine of
Fierbois?"

Joan had no concealments to make as to this:

"I knew the sword was there because my Voices told me so; and I
sent to ask that it be given to me to carry in the wars. It seemed to
me that it was not very deep in the ground. The clergy of the
church caused it to be sought for and dug up; and they polished it,
and the rust fell easily off from it."

"Were you wearing it when you were taken in battle at
CompiŠgne?"

"No. But I wore it constantly until I left St. Denis after the attack
upon Paris."

This sword, so mysteriously discovered and so long and so
constantly victorious, was suspected of being under the protection
of enchantment.

"Was that sword blest? What blessing had been invoked upon it?"

"None. I loved it because it was found in the church of St.
Catherine, for I loved that church very dearly."

She loved it because it had been built in honor of one of her
angels.

"Didn't you lay it upon the altar, to the end that it might be lucky?"
(The altar of St. Denis.) "No."

"Didn't you pray that it might be made lucky?"

"Truly it were no harm to wish that my harness might be
fortunate."

"Then it was not that sword which you wore in the field of
CompiŠgne? What sword did you wear there?"

"The sword of the Burgundian Franquet d'Arras, whom I took
prisoner in the engagement at Lagny. I kept it because it was a
good war-sword--good to lay on stout thumps and blows with."

She said that quite simply; and the contrast between her delicate
little self and the grim soldier words which she dropped with such
easy familiarity from her lips made many spectators smile.

"What is become of the other sword? Where is it now?"

"Is that in the procŠs verbal?"

Beaupere did not answer.

"Which do you love best, your banner or your sword?"

Her eye lighted gladly at the mention of her banner, and she cried
out:

"I love my banner best--oh, forty times more than the sword!
Sometimes I carried it myself when I charged the enemy, to avoid
killing any one." Then she added, na‹vely, and with again that
curious contrast between her girlish little personality and her
subject, "I have never killed anyone."

It made a great many smile; and no wonder, when you consider
what a gentle and innocent little thing she looked. One could
hardly believe she had ever even seen men slaughtered, she look so
little fitted for such things.

"In the final assault at Orleans did you tell your soldiers that the
arrows shot by the enemy and the stones discharged from their
catapults would not strike any one but you?"

"No. And the proof its, that more than a hundred of my men were
struck. I told them to have no doubts and no fears; that they would
raise the siege. I was wounded in the neck by an arrow in the
assault upon the bastille that commanded the bridge, but St.
Catherine comforted me and I was cured in fifteen days without
having to quit the saddle and leave my work."

"Did you know that you were going to be wounded?"

"Yes; and I had told it to the King beforehand. I had it from my
Voices."

"When you took Jargeau, why did you not put its commandant to
ransom?"

"I offered him leave to go out unhurt from the place, with all his
garrison; and if he would not I would take it by storm."

"And you did, I believe."

"Yes."

"Had your Voices counseled you to take it by storm?"

"As to that, I do not remember."

Thus closed a weary long sitting, without result. Every device that
could be contrived to trap Joan into wrong thinking, wrong doing,
or disloyalty to the Church, or sinfulness as a little child at home
or later, had been tried, and none of them had succeeded. She had
come unscathed through the ordeal.

Was the court discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much
surprised, very much astonished, to find its work baffling and
difficult instead of simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in
the shape of hunger, cold, fatigue, persecution, deception, and
treachery; and opposed to this array nothing but a defenseless and
ignorant girl who must some time or other surrender to bodily and
mental exhaustion or get caught in one of the thousand traps set
for her.

And had the court made no progress during these seemingly
resultless sittings? Yes. It had been feeling its way, groping here,
groping there, and had found one or two vague trails which might
freshen by and by and lead to something. The male attire, for
instance, and the visions and Voices. Of course no one doubted
that she had seen supernatural beings and been spoken to and
advised by them. And of course no one doubted that by
supernatural help miracles had been done by Joan, such as
choosing out the King in a crowd when she had never seen him
before, and her discovery of the sword buried under the altar. It
would have been foolish to doubt these things, for we all know that
the air is full of devils and angels that are visible to traffickers in
magic on the one hand and to the stainlessly holy on the other; but
what many and perhaps most did doubt was, that Joan's visions,
Voices, and miracles came from God. It was hoped that in time
they could be proven to have been of satanic origin. Therefore, as
you see, the court's persistent fashion of coming back to that
subject every little while and spooking around it and prying into it
was not to pass the time--it had a strictly business end in view.

Chapter 9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold

THE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March.
Fifty-eight judges present--the others resting.

As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations.
She showed no temper this time. She considered herself well
buttressed by the procŠs verbal compromise which Cauchon was
so anxious to repudiate and creep out of; so she merely refused,
distinctly and decidedly; and added, in a spirit of fairness and
candor:

"But as to matters set down in the procŠs verbal, I will freely tell
the whole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the
Pope."

Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of
them could be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously
shirked the question of which was the true Pope and refrained
from naming him, it being clearly dangerous to go into particulars
in this matter. Here was an opportunity to trick an unadvised girl
into bringing herself into peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in
taking advantage of it. He asked, in a plausibly indolent and absent
way:

"Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?"

The house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear
the answer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the
answer came it covered the judge with confusion, and you could
see many people covertly chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and
manner which almost deceived even me, so innocent it seemed:

"Are there two?"

One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers
there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:

"By God, it was a master stroke!"

As soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came
back to the charge, but was prudent and passed by Joan's question:

"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac
asking you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?"

"Yes, and answered it."

Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers
had not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the
Count's letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:

"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer
him from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest."

She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.

"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one
he ought to obey"; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which
sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and
shufflers, "but as for me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord
the Pope who is at Rome."

The matter was dropped. They they produced and read a copy of
Joan's first effort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the
English to retire from the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly
a great and fine production for an unpractised girl of seventeen.

"Do you acknowledge as your own the document which has just
been read?"

"Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give
myself too much importance." I saw what was coming; I was
troubled and ashamed. "For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to
the Maid' (rendez … la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King'
(rendez au Roi); and I did not call myself 'Commander-in-Chief'
(chef de guerre). All those are words which my secretary
substituted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot what I said."

She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that
embarrassment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten. I
changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief
and entitled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper,
too; and who was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that
time a stick, a cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to
the noble Maid of Vaucouleurs, already famed and formidable
though she had not yet struck a blow.

Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for
me) there, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very
scribbler of that piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was
present--and not only present, but helping build the record; and not
only that, but destined at a far distant day to testify against lies and
perversions smuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to
eternal infamy!

"Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?"

"I do."

"Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?"

Ah, then she was indignant!

"No! Not even these chains"--and she shook them--"not even these
chains can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!"--she
rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in
her face, then her words burst forth as in a flood--"I warn you now
that before seven years a disaster will smite the English, oh, many
fold greater than the fall of Orleans! and--"

"Silence! Sit down!"

"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!"

Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed.
The French cause was standing still, our King was standing still,
there was no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would
come forward and take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish
it. In face of all this, Joan made that prophecy--made it with
perfect confidence--and it came true.  For within five years Paris
fell--1436--and our King marched into it flying the victor's flag. So
the first part of the prophecy was then fulfilled--in fact, almost the
entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our hands, the fulfilment of the
rest of it was assured.

Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single
town--Calais.

Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the
time that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease
if our King had but consented, she said that that was the golden
time; that, with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months.
But if this golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said
she, "I give you twenty years to do it in."

She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to
be done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to
finish it.

Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she
stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and
incredible prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's
prophecy turns up correct, but when you come to look into it there
is sure to be considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was
made after the fact. But here the matter is different. There in that
court Joan's prophecy was set down in the official record at the
hour and moment of its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and
there you may read it to this day.

Twenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in
the great Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by
Manchon and me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the
exactness of the record in their testimony.

Joan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March
stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted
down again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a
grisly and awful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or
comes down from heaven.

All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it
was genuine and puissant.

They would have given their right hands to know the source of it.

At last the questions began again.

"How do you know that those things are going to happen?"

"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you
sit here before me."

This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading
uneasiness. Therefore, after some further dallying the judge got the
subject out of the way and took up one which he could enjoy more.

"What languages do your Voices speak?"

"French."

"St. Marguerite, too?"

"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!"

Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a
grave affront. They could not be brought into court and punished
for contempt, but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's
remark and remember it against her; which they did. It might be
useful by and by.

"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings,
earrings?"

To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not
worthy of serious notice; she answered indifferently. But the
question brought to her mind another matter, and she turned upon
Cauchon and said:

"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my
captivity. You have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give
it back to me. If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the
Church."

The judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the
working of enchantments.

Perhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.

"Where is the other ring?"

"The Burgundians have it."

"Where did you get it?"

"My father and mother gave it to me."

"Describe it."

"It is plain and simple and has 'Jesus and Mary' engraved upon it."

Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do
devil's rok with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to
make sure, one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick
people by touching them with the ring. She said no.

"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by
Domremy whereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said
that your godmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night
dancing under the tree called l"Arbre F‚e de Bourlemont. Is it not
possible that your pretended saints and angles are but those
fairies?"

"Is that in your procŠs?"

She made no other answer.

"Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine
under that tree?"

"I do not know."

"Or by the fountain near the tree?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"What promises did they make you?"

"None but such as they had God's warrant for."

"But what promises did they make?"

"That is not in your procŠs; yet I will say this much: they told me
that the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his
enemies."

"And what else?"

There was a pause; then she said humbly:

"They promised to lead me to Paradise."

If faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear
came upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a
chosen servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her
death. The interest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased:
the stillness became almost painful.

Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the
questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the
questioner very often already knew his fact before he asked his
question? Have you noticed that somehow or other the questioners
usually knew just how and were to search for Joan's secrets; that
they really knew the bulk of her privacies--a fact not suspected by
her--and that they had no task before them but to trick her into
exposing those secrets?

Do you rememberLoyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest,
tool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of
the confessional joan freely and trustingly revealed ot him
everything concerning her history save only a few things regarding
her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden her to
tell to any one--and that the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden
listener all the time?

Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that
long array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety
and ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to
remember Loyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah,
Bishop of Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity
these many years in hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your
help. There is but one among the redeemed that would do it; and it
is futile to hope that that one has not already done it--Joan of Arc.

We will return to the questionings.

"Did they make you still another promise?"

"Yes, but that is not in your procŠs. I will not tell it now, but
before three months I will tell it you."

The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already;
one gets this idea from his next question.

"Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three
months?"

Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of
the judges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror
to find my mind (which Icould not control) criticizing the Voices
and saying, "They counsel her to speak boldly--a thing which she
would do without any suggestion from them or anybody else--but
when it comes to telling her any useful thing, such as how these
conspirators manage to guess their way so skilfully into her affairs,
they are always off attending to some other business."

I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my
head they made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and
thunder at the time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty
abide at my post and do my work.

Joan answered:

"That is not in your procŠs. I do not know when I shall be set free,
but some who wish me out of this world will go from it before
me."

It made some of them shiver.

"Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this
prison?"

Without a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked
the question.

"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you." She said it with
such a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And No‰l
Rainguesson, drooping yonder?--why, the floods of joy went
streaming through us from crown to sole! It was all that we could
do to hold still and keep from making fatal exposure of our
feelings.

She was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant;
we saw it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true--true to the
very day--May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully
hidden from her how she was to be set free, but left her in
ignorance. Home again!

That day was our understanding of it--No‰l's and mine; that was
our dream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the
minutes. They would fly lightly along; they would soon be over.

Yes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps
and tumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again
and live it out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine,
with the friendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and
the grace and charm of the meadows, the woods, and the river
always before our eyes and their deep peace in our hearts. Yes,
that was our dream, the dream that carried us bravely through that
three months to an exact and awful fulfilment, the though of which
would have killed us, I think, if we had foreknown it and been
obliged to bear the burden of it upon our hearts the half of those
weary days.

Our reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul
was going to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately
plan a rescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alen‡on and the
Bastard and La Hire, and that this rescue woud take place at the
end of the three months. So we made up our minds to be ready and
take a hand in it.

In the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the
exact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not
the permission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves
did not name the precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the
prophecy, I have believed that Joan had the idea that her
deliverance was going to dome in the form of death. But not that
death! Divine as she was, dauntless as she was in battle, she was
human also. She was not solely a saint, an angel, she was a
clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in the world, and full of
a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and elicacies. And so,
that death! No, she could not have lived the three months with that
one before her, I think. You remember that the first time she was
wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other girl of
seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen
days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she
was not afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was
what she believed the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for
her face showed happiness, not horror, when she uttered it.

Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was
captured in the battle of CompiŠgne, her Voices told her what was
coming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she
would be taken prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St.
John. She begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate,
and the captivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the
confinement. The Voices made no promise, but only told her to
bear whatever came. Now as they did not refuse the swift death, a
hopeful young thing like Joan would naturally cherish that fact and
make the most of it, allowing it to grow and establish itself in her
mind. And so now that she was told she was to be "delivered" in
three onths, I think she believed it meant that she would die in her
bed in the prison, and that that was why she looked happy and
content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her, the time so
short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward so close
at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make
her patient and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier.
Save herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that
was the way she was made; but die with her face to the front if die
she must.

Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with
a poisoned fish, her notion that she was to be "delivered" by death
in the prison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally
be greatly strengthened, you see.

But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitelyk
name the time that she would be delivered from prison.

"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything.
I am to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell
you the day. That is why I wish for delay."

"Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?"

"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of
France? I tell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I
know it as well as I know that you sit here before me in this
tribunal." She sighed and, after a little pause, added: "I should be
dead but for this revelation, which comforts me always."

Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress
and appearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that
they gave her pain. After a little she said:

"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the
feeling that I am not in mortal sin."

She added, "Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have
allowed me to confess myself to them."

Here was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her
innocence.

"When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?"

But her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more
to the revelations made to the King--secrets which the court had
tried again and again to force out of Joan, but without success.

"Now as to the sign given to the King--"

"I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it."

"Do you know what the sign was?"

"As to that, you will not find out from me."

All this refers to Joan's secret interview with the King--held apart,
though two or three others were present. It was known--through
Loyseleur, of course--that this sign was a crown and was a pledge
of the verity of Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this
day--the nature of the crown, I mean--and will remain a mystery to
the end of time. We can never know whether a real crown
descended upon the King's head, or only a symbol, the mystic
fabric of a vision.

"Did you see a crown upon the King's head when he received the
revelation?"

"I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury."

"Did the King have that crown at Rheims?"

"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there;
but a much richer one was brought him afterward."

"Have you seen that one?"

"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or
not, I have heard say that it was rich and magnificent."

They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious
crown, but they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A
long, hard day for all of us.

Chapter 10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End

THE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday,
the third of March.

This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of
patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished
churchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left
important posts where their supervision was needed, to journey
hither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and
easy matter--condemn and send to death a country-lass of nineteen
who could neither read nor write, knew nothing of the wiles and
perplexities of legal procedure, could not call a single witness in
her defense, was allowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct
her case by herself against a hostile judge and a packed jury. In
two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated,
convicted. Nothing could be more certain that this--so they
thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into
days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege;
the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be surprisingly
difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed away like a
feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all this, if
anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass and not the
court.

She was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were
doing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court
knew it, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not
hide their annoyance.

And so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see
that these men had made up their minds to force words from Joan
to-day which should shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt
conclusion. It shows that after all their experience with her they
did not know her yet.

They went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the
questioning to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They
volleyed questions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes
so many were talking at once that she had to ask them to deliver
their fire one at a time and not by platoons. The beginning was as
usual:

"You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple."

"I will answer to what is in the procŠs verbal. When I do more, I
will choose the occasion for myself."

That old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with
great bitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and
the questionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was
spent over Joan's apparitions--their dress, hair, general appearance,
and so on--in the hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out
of the replies; but with no result.

Next, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many
well-worn questions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were
put forward.

"Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male
dress?"

"That is not in your procŠs."

"Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of
your sex?"

"I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and
Master."

After a while the matter of Joan's Standard was taken up, in the
hope of connecting magic and witchcraft with it.

"Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?"

"The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from
the rest of the forces. It was their own idea."

"Were they often renewed?"

"Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed."

The purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one.

"Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner
would be lucky?"

The soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew
herself up, and said with dignity and fire: "What I said to them
was, 'Ride those English down!' and I did it myself."

Whenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French
menials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is
what happened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even
thirty of them on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner
minute after minute, but Joan was not disturbed.

By and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed.

It was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors
which had been done her when she was raising France out of the
dirt and shame of a century of slavery and castigation.

"Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?"

"No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before
the King and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to
be made."

"Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?"

"If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for
me I think it was no harm."

"Did the French people believe you were sent of God?"

"As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was
not the less sent of God."

"If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well
thought?"

"If they believed it, their trust was not abused."

"What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss
your hands, your feet, and your vestments?"

"They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I
could not have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor
people came lovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt,
but had done the best I could for them according to my strength."

See what modest little words she uses to describe that touching
specatcle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the
adoring multitudes: "They were glad to see me." Glad?

Why they were transported with joy to see her. When they could
not kiss her hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the
hoof-prints of her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what
these priests were trying to prove. It was nothing to them that she
was not to blame for what other people did. No, if she was
worshiped, it was enough; she was guilty of mortal sin.

Curious logic, one must say.

"Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?"

"At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in
honor of the King, and the girls I named Joan."

"Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?"

"Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it."

"At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you
stand at the altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?"

"Yes."

"In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the
Churches and receive the sacrament?"

"Yes."

"In the dress of a man?"

"Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor."

It was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the
permission granted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man.
The wily court shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this
time might call Joan's attention to her small mistake, and by her
native cleverness she might recover her lost ground. The
tempestuous session had worn her and drowsed her alertness.

"It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at
Lagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?"

"As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying
for the child, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more
than they."

"Continue."

"While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three
days, and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized,
then it passed from life again and was buried in holy ground."

"Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try
to escape?"

"I would go to the succor of CompiŠgne."

It was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep
crime of suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English.

"Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into
the power of the English?"

Joan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap:

"Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned
unto God than that I should fall into the hands of the English."

It was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from
the tower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and
that she did it again when she heard of the defection of the
Commandant of Soissons. She was hurt and indignant at this, and
said:

"It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear."

Chapter 11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination

A HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in
the fight, Joan was gaining it.

There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being
softened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her
fortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her
manifest purity, the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence,
and the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and alone,
against unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this
softening process would spread further and presently bring
Cauchon's plans in danger.

Something must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not
distinguished for compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it
in his character. He thought it pity to subject so many judges to the
prostrating fatigues of this trial when it could be conducted plenty
well enough by a handful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not
remember to modify the fatigues for the little captive.

He would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select
the handful himself, and he did.

He chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not
intention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered.

He called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the
huge bulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed
it of all chaff, all useless matter--that is, all matter favorable to
Joan; they saved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt,
and out of this they constructed a basis for a new trial which
should have the semblance of a continuation of the old one.
Another change. It was plain that the public trial had wrought
damage: its proceedings had been discussed all over the town and
had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There should be no
more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and no
spectators admitted. So No‰l could come no more. I sent this news
to him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain
a chance to modify before I should see him in the evening.

On the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed
since I had seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She
looked tired and weak. She was listless and far away, and her
answers showed that she was dazed and not able to keep perfect
run of all that was done and said. Another court would not have
taken advantage of her state, seeing that her life was at stake here,
but would have adjourned and spared her. Did this one? No; it
worried her for hours, and with a glad and eager ferocity, making
all it could out of this great chance, the first one it had had.

She was tortured into confusing herself concerning the "sign"
which had been given the King, and the next day this was
continued hour after hour. As a result, she made partial
revealments of particulars forbidden by her Voice3s; and seemed
to me to state as facts things which were but allegories and visions
mixed with facts.

The third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was
almost her normal self again, and did her work well. Many
attempts were made to beguile her into saying indiscreet things,
but she saw the purpose in view and answered with tact and
wisdom.

"Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the
English?"

"They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates."

"Does God hate the English?"

"Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know
nothing." Then she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice
and the old audacity in her words, and added, "But I know
this--that God will send victory to the French, and that all the
English will be flung out of France but the dead ones!"

"Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in
France?"

"I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed
them to be chastised for their sins."

It was a sufficiently na‹ve way to account for a chastisement which
had now strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault
with it. There was nobody there who would not punish a sinner
ninety-six years if he could, nor anybody there who would ever
dream of such a thing as the Lord's being any shade less stringent
than men.

"Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?"

"Yes, both of them."

The evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that.

"When you hung garlands upon L'Arbre F‚e de Bourlemont, did
you do it in honor of your apparitions?"

"No."

Satisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted
that she hung them there out of sinful love for the fairies.

"When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make
reverence, did you kneel?"

"Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could."

A good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear
that these were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but
devils in disguise.

Now there was the matter of Joan's keeping her supernatural
commerce a secret from her parents. Much might be made of that.
In fact, particular emphasis had been given to it in a private remark
written in the margin of the procŠs: "She concealed her visions
from her parents and from every one." Possibly this disloyalty to
her parents might itself be the sign of the satanic source of her
mission.

"Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting
your parents' leave? It is written one must honor his father and his
mother."

"I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have
begged their forgiveness in a letter and gotten it."

"Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin
in going without their leave!"

Joan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:

"I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a
hundred fathers and mothers and been a king's daughter to boot I
would have gone."

"Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?"

"They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for
anything have given my parents that pain."

Tgo the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored
of pride. That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious
adorations.

"Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?"

Joan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously:

"Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several
times called me Daughter of God."

Further indications of pride and vanity were sought.

"What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave
it you?"

"The King."

"You had other things--riches--of the King?"

"For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in
my household."

"Had you not a treasury?"

"Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns." Then she said with na‹vet‚,
"It was not a great sum to carry on a war with."

"You have it yet?"

"No. It is the King's money. My brothers hold it for him."

"What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of
St. Denis?"

"My suit of silver mail and a sword."

"Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?"

"No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of
war who have been wounded to make such offering there. I had
been wounded before Paris."

Nothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull
imaginations--not even this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the
wounded girl-soldier hanging her toy harness there in curious
companionship with the grim and dusty iron mail of the historic
defenders of France. No, there was nothing in it for them; nothing,
unless evil and injury for that innocent creature could be gotten out
of it somehow.

"Which aided most--you the Standard, or the Standard you?"

"Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing--the
victories came from God."

"But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your
Standard?"

"In neither. In God, and not otherwise."

"Was not your Standard waved around the King's head at the
Coronation?"

"No. It was not."

"Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the
King in the Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other
captains?"

Then, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as
long as language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all
gentle hearts wheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:

"It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor." [1] How simple
it is, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence
of the masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of
Arc; it came from her lips without effort and without preparation.
Her words were as sublime as her deeds, as sublime as her
character; they had their source in a great heart and were coined in
a great brain.

[1] What she said has been many times translated, but never with
success. There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes
all efforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor,
and escapes in the transmission. Her words were these:

"Il avait ‚t‚ a la peine, c'etait bien raison qu'il fut a l'honneur."

Monseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of
Aix, finely speaks of it (Jeanne d'Arc la V‚n‚rable, page 197) as
"that sublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings
like the cry of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in
its patriotism and its faith." -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted

NOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did
a thing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to
speak of it with patience.

In the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at
Domremy, the child Joan solemnly devoted her life to God,
vowing her pure body and her pure soul to His service. You will
remember that her parents tried to stop her from going to the wars
by haling her to the court at Toul to compel her to make a
marriage which she had never promised to make--a marriage with
our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear and
lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable
battle and sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes!
And you will remember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in
that venerable court and conducted her case all by herself, and tore
the poor Paladin's case to rags and blew it away with a breath; and
how the astonished old judge on the bench spoke of her as "this
marvelous child."

You remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false
priests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone
fight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around
and try to make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and
pretended that he had promised to marry her, and was bent on
making him do it.

Certainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to
stoop to in their hunt for that friendless girl's life. What they
wanted to show was this--that she had committed the sin of
relapsing from her vow and trying to violate it.

Joan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she
went along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he
remembers yet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he
belongs in or has swindled his way into the other.

The rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the
old theme--the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men
to be engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for
clinging to the male dress was, that soldiers of the guard were
always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and
that the male dress was a better parotection for her modesty than
the other.

The court knew that one of Joan's purposes had been the
deliverance of the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious
to know how she had intended to manage it. Her plan was
characteristically businesslike, and her statement of it as
characteristically simple and straightforward:

"I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his
ransom; and failing that, I would have invaded England and
brought him out by force."

That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first,
and hammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between.
She added with a little sigh:

"If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him."

"Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison
whenever you can?"

"I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it."

I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death,
and within the prison walls, before the three months should expire.

"Would you escape if you saw the doors open?"

She spoke up frankly and said:

"Yes--for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God
helps who help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought
I had permission, I would not go."

Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me,
every time I think of it--and it struck me so at the time--that for a
moment, at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her
mind the same notion about her deliverance which No‰l and I had
settled upon--a rescue by her old soldiers. I think the idea of the
rescue did occur to her, but only as a passing thought, and that it
quickly passed away.

Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him
once more that he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside
there, and that he was putting himself in great danger.

"What danger?" he asked.

"I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not
know the form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered
from this prison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there
will happen a trouble by which I shall be set free. Without much
thought as to this matter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or
the other." After a pause she added these words, memorable
forever--words whose meaning she may have miscaught,
misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she
may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never know;
but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago
and revealed their meaning to all the world:

"But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered
by a great victory." She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to
me that great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old
soldiers with the war-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and
the carrying off of Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought
had such a short life! For now she raised her head and finished,
with those solemn words which men still so often quote and dwell
upon--words which filled me with fear, they sounded so like a
prediction. "And always they say 'Submit to whatever comes; do
not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend into the
Kingdom of Paradise."

Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it
myself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel
martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom
was the right name for it.

It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was
silling to make the most he could out of what she had said:

"As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel
certain that that will happen and that you will not be damned in
hell. Is that so?"

"I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved."

"It is a weighty answer."

"To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure."

"Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to
commit mortal sin?"

"As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast
to my oath to keep by body and my soul pure."

"Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to
go to confession?"

The snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan's simple and humble
answer left it empty:

"One cannot keep his conscience too clean."

We were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had
come through the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome
struggle for all concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the
accused, and all had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were
thoroughly vexed and dissatisfied.

However, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more
day's work. This was done--March 17th. Early in the sitting a
notable trap was set for Joan:

"Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your
words and deeds, whether good or bad?"

That was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she
should heedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon
trial, and one would know how to decide its source and character
promptly. If she should say no, she would render herself
chargeable with the crime of heresy.

But she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of
separation between the Church's authority over her as a subject
member, and the matter of her mission. She said she loved the
Church and was ready to support the Christian faith with all her
strength; but as to the works done under her mission, those must
be judged by God alone, who had commanded them to be done.

The judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the
Church. She said:

"I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me
that He and His Church are one, and that there should be no
difficulty about this matter." Then she turned upon the judge and
said, "Why do you make a difficulty when there is no room for
any?"

Then Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but
one Church. There were two--the Church Triumphant, which is
God, the saints, the angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in
heave; and the Church Militant, which is our Holy Father the Pope,
Vicar of God, the prelates, the clergy and all good Christians and
Catholics, the which Church has its seat in the earth, is governed
by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err. "Will you not submit those
matters to the Church Militant?"

"I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on
high by its commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those
things which I have done. For the Church Militant I have no other
answer now."

The court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope
to get profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present,
and a long chase was then made over the old hunting-ground--the
fairies, the visions, the male attire, and all that.

In the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and
presided over the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the
finish, this question was asked by one of the judges:

"You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him
as you would answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet
there are several questions which you continually refuse to answer.
Would you not answer the Pope more fully than you have
answered before my lord of Beauvais? Would you not feel obliged
to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God, more fully?"

Now a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky:

"Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to."

It made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation.
If Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a
mine under this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's
schemes to the four winds of heaven, and she didn't know it. She
had made that speech by mere instinct, not suspecting what
tremendous forces were hidden in it, and there was none to tell her
what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew; and if she had
known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the
knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and
none was allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there
she sat, once more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious
of it. She was miserably worn and tired, by the long day's struggle
and by illness, or she must have noticed the effect of that speech
and divined the reason of it.

She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke.
It was an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had
persisted in it Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears
like a house of cards, and he would have gone from that place the
worst-beaten man of the century. He was daring, but he was not
daring enough to stand up against that demand if Joan had urged it.
But no, she was ignorant, poor thing, and did not know what a
blow she had struck for life and liberty.

France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the
destruction of this messenger of God.

Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her
cause needed. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and
honored, and blessed.

But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to
other matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.

As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned
and dazed, and kept saying to myself, "Such a little while ago she
said the saving word and could have gone free; and now, there she
goes to her death; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They
will double the guards; they will never let any come near her now
between this and her condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak
that word again. This is the bitterest day that has come to me in all
this miserable time."

Chapter 13 The Third Trial Fails

SO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no
definite result. The character of it I have described to you. It was
baser in one particular than the previous one; for this time the
charges had not been communicated to Joan, therefore she had
been obliged to fight in the dark.

There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was
no foreseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for
them. Truly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as
this one was. One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of
Normandy, MaŒtre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and I will
give you his opinion of that trial, so that you may see that I have
been honest with you, and that my partisanship has not made me
deceive you as to its unfair and illegal character. Cauchon showed
Lohier the procŠs and asked his opinion about the trial. Now this
was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said that the whole
thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the trial was
secret, and full freedom of speech and action on the part of those
present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the
King of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor
any one appointed to represent him; 3, because the charges against
the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because the
accused, although young and simple, had been forced to defend
her cause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so
much at stake.

Did that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon
Lohier with the most savage cursings, and swore he would have
him drowned. Lohier escaped from Rouen and got out of France
with all speed, and so saved his life.

Well, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite
result. But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another.
And still another and another, if necessary. He had the
half-promise of an enormous prize--the Archbishopric of Rouen--if
he should succeed in burning the body and damning to hell the
soul of this young girl who had never done him any harm; and
such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of Beauvais, was
worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let alone
one.

So he set to work again straight off next day; and with high
confidence, too, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should
succeed this time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days
to dig matter enough out of Joan's testimony and their own
inventions to build up the new mass of charges. And it was a
formidable mass indeed, for it numbered sixty-six articles.

This huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March
27th; and there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new
trial was begun.

Opinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should
hear the articles read this time.

Maybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or
maybe it was hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with
fatigue--for, as it turned out, this reading occupied several days. It
was also decided that Joan should be required to answer squarely
to every article, and that if she refused she should be considered
convicted. You see, Cauchon was managing to narrow her chances
more and more all the time; he was drawing the toils closer and
closer.

Joan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a
speech to her which ought to have made even himself blush, so
laden it was with hypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was
composed of holy and pious churchmen whose hearts were full of
benevolence and compassion toward her, and that they had no
wish to hurt her body, but only a desire to instruct her and lead her
into the way of truth and salvation.

Why, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing
himself and those hardened slaves of his in such language as that.

And yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of
Lohier's h8ints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a
proposition which, I think, will surprise you when you hear it. He
said that this court, recognizing her untaught estate and her
inability to deal with the complex and difficult matters which were
about to be considered, had determined, out of their pity and their
mercifulness, to allow her to choose one or more persons out of
their own number to help her with counsel and advice!

Think of that--a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of
reptiles. It was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan
looked up to see if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at
least pretending to be, she declined, of course.

The Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a
show of fairness and could have it entered on the minutes,
therefore he was satisfied.

Then he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation;
and threatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do
that or delayed her answers beyond a given length of time.

Yes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step.

Thomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable
document, article by article. Joan answered to each article in its
turn; sometimes merely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her
answer would be found in the records of the previous trials.

What a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and
exposure of the heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast
that he is made in the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to
know one who was wholly noble, pure, truthful, brave,
compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish, modest, blameless as
the very flowers in the fields--a nature fine and beautiful, a
character supremely great. To know her from that document would
be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she
was appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in
detail.

Consider some of the things it charges against her, and remember
who it is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet,
an invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a
person ignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is
sacrilegious, an idolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His
saints, scandalous, seditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites
men to war, and to the spilling of human blood; she discards the
decencies and proprieties of her sex, irreverently assuming the
dress of a man and the vocation of a soldier; she beguiles both
princes and people; she usurps divine honors, and has caused
herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands and her
vestments to be kissed.

There it is--every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As
a child she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for
them when they were banished from their home, she had played
under their tree and around their fountain--hence she was a
comrade of evil spirits.

She had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for
freedom, and led her to victory after victory--hence she was a
disturber of the peace--as indeed she was, and a provoker of
war--as indeed she was again! and France will be proud of it and
grateful for it for many a century to come. And she had been
adored--as if she could help that, poor thing, or was in any way to
blame for it. The cowed veteran and the wavering recruit had
drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched her sword with
theirs and moved forward invincible--hence she was a sorceress.

And so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these
waters of life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble
and beautiful life to evidences of a foul and odious one.

Of course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things
which had come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will
touch upon this new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little
into detail herself, usually merely saying, "That is not true--passez
outre"; or, "I have answered that before--let the clerk read it in his
record," or saying some other brief thing.

She refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly
Church. The refusal was taken note of.

She denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought
men's homage. She said:

"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire,
and I did what I could to prevent it."

She had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not
know the fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing
to say, but it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth
when she spoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such
things. Note was taken of her remark.

She refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the
male attire if she were given permission to commune. And she
added this:

"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a
small thing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord."

She was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male
dress that she would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege
of hearing mass. She spoke out with spirit and said:

"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God."

She was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus
deserting the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with
some little touch of soldierly disdain:

"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it."

It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in
her. While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able
to look trouble and fate in the face.

"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had
from God, was to make war and pour out human blood."

Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that
war was not her first move, but her second:

"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was
refused, then I would fight."

The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in
speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon.
But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act
and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled
to less brusque treatment than the English. She said:

As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and
by his ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the
English, the only peace for them was that they leave the country
and go home."

Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific
disposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation
before attacking them.

"If they had listened to me," said she, "they would have done
wisely." At this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with
emphasis, "Before seven years they will see it themselves."

Then they presently began to pester her again about her male
costume, and tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to
discard it. I was never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was
puzzled by their persistency in what seemed a thing of no
consequence, and could not make out what their reason could be.
But we all know now. We all know now that it was another of their
treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting her
to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which
would quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil work until at
last she broke out and said:

"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though
you cut off my head!"

At one point she corrected the procŠs verbal, saying:

"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by
the counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said 'all which I have
well done.'"

Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the
ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at
that. She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is
no respecter of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes
even oftener than he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she
phrased her rebuke in simpler terms:

"It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where
He will."

She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel
from on high. She said the form was brief and simple; then she
lifted her pallid face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:

"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if
you love me, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to
these churchmen. As concerns my dress, I know by what command
I have put it on, but I know not in what manner I am to lay it off. I
pray you tell me what to do."

She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God
and His saints, to assume empire over men and make herself
Commander-in-Chief. That touched the soldier in her. She had a
deep reverence for priests, but the soldier in her had but small
reverence for a priest's opinions about war; so, in her answer to
this charge she did not condescend to go into any explanations or
excuses, but delivered herself with bland indifference and military
brevity.

"If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English."

Death was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter;
she dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm,
and whenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her
sting into it. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes.
Her days were a desert; these were the oases in it.

Her being in the wars with men was charged against her as an
indelicacy. She said:

"I had a woman with me when I could--in towns and lodgings. In
the field I always slept in my armor."

That she and her family had been ennobled by the King was
charged against her as evidence that the source of her deeds were
sordid self-seeking. She answered that she had not asked this grace
of the King; it was his own act.

This third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no
definite result.

Possibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently
unconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to
plan it.

He appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the
sixty-six articles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new
attempt. This was done. It took several days.

Meantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and
two of the judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to
see if he could not manage somehow to beguile Joan into
submitting her mission to the examination and decision of the
Church Militant--that is to say, to that part of the Church Militant
which was represented by himself and his creatures.

Joan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a
heart in his body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he
ventured to do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be
willing to have her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it
contained as many priests of her party as of the English party.

Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed
a tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word
Cauchon turned savagely upon him and exclaimed:

"Shut up, in the devil's name!"

Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it
in great fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter
Joan's submission to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.

"No! It is not necessary."

"Ah," said poor Joan, reproachfully, "you set down everything that
is against me, but you will not set down what is for me."

It was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But
Cauchon was more than that.

Chapter 14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies

WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had
fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third
trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just
described occurred in her cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there
and try to get some advantage out of her weakened state.

Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment--the
Twelve Lies.

Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her
salvation. She never said anything of the kind. It also says she
refuses to submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing
to submit all her acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by
the command of God in fulfilment of her mission. Those she
reserved for the judgment of God. She refused to recognize
Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was willing to go before
the Pope or the Council of Basel.

A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having
threatened with death those who would not obey her. Distinctly
false. Another clause says she declares that all she has done has
been done by command of God. What she really said was, all that
she had done well--a correction made by herself as you have
already seen.

Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never
committed any sin. She never made any such claim.

Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she
had high Catholic authority for committing it--that of the
Archbishop of Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.

The Tenth Article was resentful against her for "pretending" that
St. Catherine and St.

Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their
politics.

The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of
theology of the University of Paris for approval. They were copied
out and ready by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another
bold thing: he wrote in the margin that many of the Twelve put
statements in Joan's mouth which were the exact opposite of what
she had said. That fact would not be considered important by the
University of Paris, and would not influence its decision or stir its
humanity, in case it had any--which it hadn't when acting in a
political capacity, as at present--but it was a brave thing for that
good Manchon to do, all the same.

The Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon
there was a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were
flocking through all the chief streets, chattering and seeking for
news; for a report had gone abroad that Joan of Arc was sick unti
death. In truth, these long s‚ances had worn her out, and she was
ill indeed. The heads of the English party were in a state of
consternation; for if Joan should die uncondemned by the Church
and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and the love of the people
would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death into a holy
martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France
dead than she had been when alive.

The Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester)
hurried to the castle and sent messengers flying for physicians.
Warwick was a hard man, a rude, coarse man, a man without
compassion. There lay the sick girl stretched in her chains in her
iron cage--not an object to move man to ungentle speech, one
would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her hearing and said
to the physicians:

"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no
mind to have her die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he
bought her dear, and he does not want her to die, save at the stake.
Now then, mind you cure her."

The doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop
of Beauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that.

Then Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and
abused her. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with
poisoning her, you see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he
was one of Cauchon's most loving and conscienceless slaves, and
it outraged him to have Joan injure his master in the eyes of these
great English chiefs, these being men who could ruin Cauchon and
would promptly do it if they got the conviction that he was capable
of saving Joan from the stake by poisoning her and thus cheating
the English out of all the real value gainable by her purchase from
the Duke of Burgundy.

Joan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her.
Warwick said:

"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing
herself."

He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and
let herself bleed to death.

But the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.

Not for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so
worried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan
had hinted at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her
till he brought the fever all back again.

When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be
sure, for here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all
through the over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave
D'Estivet a quite admirable cursing--admirable as to strength, I
mean, for it was said by persons of culture that the art of it was not
good--and after that the meddler kept still.

Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She
was still very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now
without much danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time
to furnish it. So he called together some of his doctors of theology
and went to her dungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep the
record--that is, to set down what might be useful to Cauchon, and
leave out the rest.

The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It
was difficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the
sad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so
often seen, all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of
death and the lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her
battalions. It wrung my heart to see her looking like this.

But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those
conscienceless speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and
guile. He told Joan that among her answers had been some which
had seemed to endanger religion; and as she was ignorant and
without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had brought some good
and wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said he, "We are
churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well as by our
vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your
body, in every way in our power, just as we would do the like for
our nearest kin or for ourselves. In this we but follow the example
of Holy Church, who never closes the refuge of her bosom against
any that are willing to return."

Joan thanked him for these sayings and said:

"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the
pleasure of God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in
confession and also receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried
in consecrated ground."

Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened
body had the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of
hell to follow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he
spoke out and said:

"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good
Catholics do, and submit to the Church."

He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no
surrender in it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head
away and said wearily:

"I have nothing more to say."

Cauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly
and said that the more she was in danger of death the more she
ought to amend her life; and again he refused the things she
begged for unless she would submit to the Church. Joan said:

"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holdy ground;
if you will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour."

There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon
demanded again, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all
her deeds to the Church. His threatening and storming went for
nothing. That body was weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of
Joan of Arc; and out of that came the steadfast answer which these
people were already so familiar with and detested so sincerely:

"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I
have said already in your tribunals."

Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with
reasonings and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the
lure of the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe
her with them to surrender her mission to the Church's
judgment--that is to their judgment--as if they were the Church!
But it availed nothing. I could have told them that beforehand, if
they had asked me. But they never asked me anything; I was too
humble a creature for their notice.

Then the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import;
a threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the
ground were sinking from under him:

"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will
abandon you as if you were a pagan!"

Think of being abandoned by the Church!--that august Power in
whose hands is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter
stretches beyond the furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky;
whose authority is over millions that live and over the billions that
wait trembling in purgatory for ransom or doom; whose smile
opens the gates of heaven to you, whose frown delivers you to the
fires of everlasting hell; a Power whose dominion overshadows
and belittles the pomps and shows of a village. To be abandoned
by one's King--yes, that is death, and death is much; but to be
agandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the Church! Ah, death is
nothing to that, for that is consignment to endless life--and such a
life!

I could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I
could see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and
struggle and sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing
what I saw, while she paused musing; and I believed that she must
yield now, and in truth I hoped she would, for these men were able
to make the threat good and deliver her over to eternal suffering,
and I knew that it was in their natures to do it.

But I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of
Arc was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity
to truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her
flesh--they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not
cast them out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was
Steadfastness incarnated. Where she had taken her stand and
planted her foot, there she would abide; hell itself could not move
her from that place.

Her Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of
submission that was required, therefore she would stand fast. She
would wait, in perfect obedience, let come what might.

My heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that
dungeon; but she--she was serene, she was not troubled. She had
done what she believed to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the
consequences were not her affair. The last thing she said that time
was full of this serenity, full of contented repose:

"I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I
will die."

Chapter 15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning

TWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill
was departed out of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the
glades and glens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature
was brilliant with sunshine, all spirits were renewed and refreshed,
all hearts glad, the world was alive with hope and cheer, the plain
beyond the Seine stretched away soft and rich and green, the river
was limpid and lovely, the leafy islands were dainty to see, and
flung still daintier reflections of themselves upon the shining
water; and from the tall bluffs above the bridge Rouen was
become again a delight to the eye, the most exquisite and
satisfying picture of a town that nestles under the arch of heaven
anywhere.

When I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a
general sense. There were exceptions--we who were the friends of
Joan of Arc, also Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in
that frowning stretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in
darkness, so close to the flooding downpour of sunshine yet so
impossibly far away from it; so longing for any little glimpse of it,
yet so implacably denied it by those wolves in the black gowns
who were plotting her death and the blackening of her good name.

Cauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a
new scheme to try now. He would see what persuasion could
do--argument, eloquence, poured out upon the incorrigible captive
from the mouth of a trained expert. That was his plan. But the
reading of the Twelve Articles to her was not a part of it. No, even
Cauchon was ashamed to lay that monstrosity before her; even he
had a remnant of shame in him, away down deep, a million
fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and prevailed.

On this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered
itself together in the spacious chamber at the end of the great hall
of the castle--the Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixty-two
minor judges massed before him, with the guards and recorders at
their stations and the orator at his desk.

Then we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered
with her keepers and took her seat upon her isolated bench. She
was looking well now, and most fair and beautiful after her
fortnight's rest from wordy persecution.

She glanced about and noted the orator. Doubtless she divined the
situation.

The orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand,
though he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it
resembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery
period his memory failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance
at his manuscript--which much injured the effect. Again this
happened, and then a third time. The poor man's face was red with
embarrassment, the whole great house was pitying him, which
made the matter worse; then Joan dropped in a remark which
completed the trouble. She said:

"Read your book--and then I will answer you!"

Why, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed;
and as for the orator, he looked so flustered and helpless that
almost anybody would have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep
from doing it myself. Yes, Joan was feeling very well after her
rest, and the native mischief that was in her lay near the surface. It
did not show when she made the remark, but I knew it was close in
there back of the words.

When the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise
thing; for he followed Joan's advice: he made no more attempts at
sham impromptu oratory, but read his speech straight from his
"book." In the speech he compressed the Twelve Articles into six,
and made these his text.

Every now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan
replied. The nature of the Church Militant was explained, and once
more Joan was asked to submit herself to it.

She gave her usual answer.

Then she was asked:

"Do you believe the Church can err?"

"I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine
which were done and uttered by command of God, I will answer to
Him alone."

"Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy
Father the Pope your judge?"

"I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord,
and to Him I will submit all."

Then came these terrible words:

"If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a
heretic by these judges here present and burned at the stake!"

Ah, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only
roused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and in her answer rang that
martial note which had used to stir her soldiers like a bugle-call:

"I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the
fire before me I would say it again!"

It was uplifting to hear her battle-voice once more and see the
battle-light burn in her eye. Many there were stirred; every man
that was a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon
risked his life again, good soul, for he wrote in the margin of the
record in good plain letters these brave words: "Superba
responsio!" and there they have remained these sixty years, and
there you may read them to this day.

"Superba responsio!" Yes, it was just that. For this "superb answer"
came from the lips of a girl of nineteen with death and hell staring
her in the face.

Of course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and
as usual at wearisome length; also, as usual, the customary bribe
was offered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would
let her hear mass. But she answered as she had often answered
before:

"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may
be permitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my
cell."

They set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say,
they placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly
tried to commit her to one end of the propositions without
committing themselves to the other. But she always saw the game
and spoiled it. The trap was in this form:

"Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you
leave?"

Her answer was always in this form or to this effect:

"When you give me leave, then you will know."

Yes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits
about her, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long,
long session, and all the old ground was fought over again, foot by
foot, and the orator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his
eloquence; but the result was the familiar one--a drawn battle, the
sixty-two retiring upon their base, the solitary enemy holding her
original position within her original lines.

Chapter 16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack

THE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching
weather made everybody's heart to sing, as I have told you; yes,
Rouen was feeling light-hearted and gay, and most willing and
ready to break out and laugh upon the least occasion; and so when
the news went around that the young girl in the tower had scored
another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there was abundant
laughter--abundant laughter among the citizens of both parties, for
they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted majority of
the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them from
laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for
anybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of
Cauchon's assistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D'Estivet
and Loyseleur was safe--nobody would report it.

The difference between Cauchon and cochon [1] was not
noticeable in speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for
puns; the opportunities were not thrown away.

Some of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three
months, from repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new
trial the folk said "The sow has littered [2] again"; and every time
the trial failed they said it over again, with its other meaning, "The
hog has made a mess of it."

And so, on the third of May, No‰l and I, drifting about the town,
heard many a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and
then move tot he next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it
off again:

"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has
made a mess of it!"

And now and then one was bold enough to say--but he said it
softly:

"Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she
camps on the field five times!"

Cauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was
guarded by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark
night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had
been there with his paint and brush. Yes, he had been thee, and had
smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes
except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and
wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently cocked on the side of their
heads.

Cauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence
during seven says; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see
what it was; for you have not cruel hearts, and you would never
guess it.

On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got
out materials together and started. But this time we were to go to
one of the other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It
was round and grim and massive, and built of the plainest and
thickest and solidest masonry--a dismal and forbidding structure.
[3] We entered the circular room on the ground floor, and I saw
what turned me sick--the instruments of torture and the
executioners standing ready! Here you have the black heart of
Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his nature
there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his
mother or ever had a sister.

Cauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St.
Corneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The
guards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the
executioner and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet
color for their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me
stretched upon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to
the other, and those red giants turning the windlass and pulling her
limbs out of their sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the
bones snap and the flesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body
of anointed servants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and look
so placid and indifferent.

After a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack,
she saw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been
seeing must have risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed,
do you think she shuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She
straightened herself up, and there was a slight curl of scorn about
her lip; but as for fear, she showed not a vestige of it.

This was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all
the list. When Joan had taken her seat a r‚sum‚ of her "crimes"
was read to her. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said
that in the course of her several trials Joan had refused to answer
some of the questions and had answered others with lies, but that
now he was going to have the truth out of her, and the whole of it.

Her manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had
found a way at last to break this child's stubborn spirit and make
her beg and cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the
mouths of the jokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man
after all, and couldn't stand ridicule any better than other people.
He talked high, and his splotchy face lighted itself up with all the
shifting tints and signs of evil pleasure and promised
triumph--purple, yellow, red, green--they were all there, with
sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned man, the
uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great passion
and said:

"There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all
now or be put to the torture.

Speak."

Then she made that great answer which will live forever; made it
without fuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound
of it:

"I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if
you tear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say
something otherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the
torture that spoke and not I."

There was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon.
Defeated again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it
said the next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all
written out, in his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not
know that that was true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at
the bottom of a confession would be the kind of evidence (for
effect with the public) which Cauchon and his people were
particularly value, you know.

No, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear
mind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from
an ignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who
had ever reflected that words forced out of a person by horrible
tortures were not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this
unlettered peasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an
unerring instinct. I had always supposed that torture brought out
the truth--everybody supposed it; and when Joan came out with
those simple common-sense words they seemed to flood the place
with light. It was like a lightning-flash at midnight which suddenly
reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with silver streams and
gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an impenetrable
world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at me,
and his face was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen
in other faces there. Consider--they were old, and deeply cultured,
yet here was a village maid able to teach them something which
they had not known before. I heard one of them mutter:

"Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an
accepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to
dust and rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that
marvelous insight?"

The judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was
plain, from chance words which one caught now and then, that
Cauchon and Loyseleur were insisting upon the application of the
torture, and that most of the others were urgently objecting.

Finally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice
and ordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise
for me. I was not expecting that the Bishop would yield.

When Manchon came home that night he said he had found out
why the torture was not applied.

There were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under
the torture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was,
that the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back
everything she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a
confession, it was believed that not even the rack would ever make
her do that.

So all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying:

"The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it."

And the palace walls got a new decoration--a mitered hog
carryinga discarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur
weeping in its wake. Many rewards were offered for the capture of
these painters, but nobody applied. Even the English guard feigned
blindness and would not see the artists at work.

The Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile
himself to the idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest
idea he had invented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called
in some of his satellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again.
But it was a failure.

With some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she
might die under torture; others did not believe that any amount of
suffering could make her put her mark to a lying confession. There
were fourteen men present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them
voted dead against the torture, and stood their ground in spite of
Cauchon's abuse. Two voted with the Bishop and insisted upon the
torture. These two were Loyseleur and the orator--the man whom
Joan had bidden to "read his book"--Thomas de Courcelles, the
renowned pleader and master of eloquence.

Age has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think
of those three names--Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur.

[1] Hog, pig.

[2] Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, "to make a mess of"!

[3] The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the
upper half is of a later date. -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter 17 Supreme in Direst Peril

ANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of
all valuable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris,
were still weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve
Lies.

I had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in
walks about the town with No‰l. But there was no pleasure in
them, our spirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for
Joan growing steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we
naturally contrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom and
sunshine, with her darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her
lonely estate; our alleviations of one sort and another, with her
destitution in all. She was used to liberty, but now she had none;
she was an out-of-door creature by nature and habit, but now she
was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an animal; she was
used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom where all
objects about her were dim and spectral; she was used to the
thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy
life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry
pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but
now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it
was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and
blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here
were only dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and
brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and
night and day round and round in the same circle, and wear the
brain and break the heart with weariness. It was death in life; yes,
death in life, that is what it must have been. And there was another
hard thing about it all. A young girl in trouble needs the soothing
solace and support and sympathy of persons of her own sex, and
the delicate offices and gentle ministries which only these can
furnish; yet in all these months of gloomy captivity in her dungeon
Joan never saw the face of a girl or a woman. Think how her heart
would have leaped to see such a face.

Consider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was,
remember that it was out of such a place and such circumstances
that she came week after week and month after month and
confronted the master intellects of France single-handed, and
baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated their ablest plans,
detected and avoided their secretest traps and pitfalls, broke their
lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the field after every
engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and her ideals;
defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats of eternal
death and the pains of hell with a simple "Let come what may,
here I take my stand and will abide."

Yes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound
the wisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you
must study her there, where she fought out that long fight all
alone--and not merely against the subtlest brains and deepest
learning of France, but against the ignoble deceits, the meanest
treacheries, and the hardest hearts to be found in any land, pagan
or Christian.

She was great in battle--we all know that; great in foresight; great
in loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs
and reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the
ability to discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in
picturesque and eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of
firing the hearts of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of
turning hares into heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that
march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting
activities; they keep hand and heart and brain keyed up to their
work; there is the joy of achievement, the inspiration of stir and
movement, the applause which hails success; the soul is
overflowing with life and energy, the faculties are at white heat;
weariness, despondency, inertia--these do not exist.

Yes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was
greatest in the Rouen trials.

There she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human
nature, and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and
hopeless conditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and
intellectual forces could have accomplished if they had been
supplemented by the mighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the
presence of friendly faces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great
world looking on and wondering.

Chapter 18 Condemned Yet Unafraid

TOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of
Paris rendered its decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this
finding, Joan was guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her
errors and make satisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm
for punishment.

The University's mind was probably already made up before the
Articles were laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the
eighteenth to produce its verdict. I think the delay may have been
caused by temporary difficulties concerning two points:

1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's
Voices; 2. As to whether her saints spoke French only.

You understand, the University decided emphatically that it was
fiends who spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and
it did. It found out who those fiends were, and named them in the
verdict: Belial, Satan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a
doubtful thing to me, and not entitled to much credit. I think so for
this reason: if the University had actually known it was those three,
it would for very consistency's sake have told how it knew it, and
not stopped with the mere assertion, since it had made joan explain
how she knew they were not fiends. Does not that seem
reasonable? To my mind the University's position was weak, and I
will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's angels were devils in
disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise themselves as
angels; up to that point the University's position was strong; but
you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns around
and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while
denying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her
shoulders as the best one the University could produce.

The doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to
know; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their
turn could also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were
surely not clearer than hers.

As to the other point which I have thought may have proved a
difficulty and cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment
upon that, and pass on. The University decided that it was
blasphemy for Joan to say that her saints spoke French and not
English, and were on the French side in political sympathies. I
think that the thing which troubled the doctors of theology was
this: they had decided that the three Voices were Satan and two
other devils; but they had also decided that these Voices were not
on the French side--thereby tacitly asserting that they were on the
English side; and if on the English side, then they must be angels
and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You
see, the University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite
body in the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the
sake of its reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and
days, trying to find some good common-sense reason for proving
the Voices to be devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be
angels in Article No. 10. However, they had to give it up. They
found no way out; and so, to this day, the University's verdict
remains just so--devils in No. 1, angels in No. 10; and no way to
reconcile the discrepancy.

The envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for
Cauchon which was full of fervid praise. The University
complimented him on his zeal in hunting down this woman
"whose venom had infected the faithful of the whole West," and as
recompense it as good as promised him "a crown of imperishable
glory in heaven." Only that!--a crown in heaven; a promissory note
and no indorser; always something away off yonder; not a word
about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing Cauchon
was destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have
sounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What
should he do in heaven? he did not know anybody there.

On the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the
archiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few wanted her
delivered over to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the
rest insisted that she be once more "charitably admonished" first.

So the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan
was brought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a
speech to Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her
soul by renouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He
finished with a stern threat: if she remained obstinate the
damnation of her soul was certain, the destruction of her body
probable. But Joan was immovable. She said:

"If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the
executioner ready to light it--more, if I were in the fire itself, I
would say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and
I would abide by them till I died."

A deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay
upon me like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon,
grave and solemn, turned to Pierre Maurice:

"Have you anything further to say?"

The priest bowed low, and said:

"Nothing, my lord."

"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?"

"Nothing."

"Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be
pronounced. Remove the prisoner."

She seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not
know; my sight was dim with tears.

To-morrow--twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her
go speeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver
helmet shining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white
plumes flowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the
Burgundian camp three times, and carry it; saw her wheel to the
right and spur for the duke's reserves; saws her fling herself against
it in the last assault she was ever to make. And now that fatal day
was come again--and see what it was bringing!

Chapter 19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail

JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the
other terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life
was in Cauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at
once. His work was finished now, you think? He was satisfied?
Not at all. What would his Archbishopric be worth if the people
should get the idea into their heads that this faction of interested
priests, slaving under the English lash, had wrongly condemned
and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France? That would be to
make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit would rise from her
body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep the English
domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No, the
victory was not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by
evidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence
to be found? There was only one person in the world who could
furnish it--Joan of Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in
public--at least she must seem to do it.

But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in
trying to get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to
persuade her now? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been
threatened; what was left? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of
the fire, the presence of the fire! That was left.

Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and,
under illness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.

Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that
under the bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a
false confession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it
was remembered.

She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the
pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was
also remembered.

She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must
wear out her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second,
while the fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.

But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not
venture to refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that
during the reading her courage should return?--she would refuse to
sign then. Very well, even that difficulty could be got over. They
could read a short paper of no importance, then slip a long and
deadly one into its place and trick her into signing that.

Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to
abjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could
keep her in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.

That would not answer; for only her death would content the
English. Alive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had
escaped from two prisons already.

But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make
promises to her; in return she would promise to leave off the male
dress. He would violate his promises, and that would so situate her
that she would not be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn
her to the stake, and the stake would be ready.

These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make
them, each in its order, and the game was won. One might almost
name the day that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in
France and the noblest, would go to her pitiful death.

The world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched
it to you, but the world did not know it at that time. There are
sufficient indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs
except the highest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let
into the secret, also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the
French side, knew the scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even
Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the whole of it at first. However, if
any did, it was these two.

It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in
peace, but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the
rumors of the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and
in the character of priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and
hater of England, he spent some hours in beseeching her to do "the
only right an righteous thing"--submit to the Church, as a good
Christian should; and that then she would straightway get out of
the clutches of the dreaded English and be transferred to the
Church's prison, where she would be honorably used and have
women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He knew
how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane
English guards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised
something which she interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of
some sort, and the chance to burst upon France once more and
victoriously complete the great work which she had been
commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that other thing: if
her failing body could be further weakened by loss of rest and
sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the
morrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions,
threats, and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and
snares which it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.

I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night.
Nor for No‰l. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall,
with a hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of
Joan's Voices which seemed to promise a rescue by force at the
last moment. The immense news had flown swiftly far and wide
that at last Joan of Arc was condemned, and would be sentenced
and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of people were
flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused
admission by the soldiery; these being people who brought
doubtful passes or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly,
but thee was nothing about them to indicate that they were our old
war-comrades in disguise, and certainly there were no familiar
faces among them. And so, when the gate was closed at last, we
turned away grieved, and more disappointed than we cared to
admit, either in speech or thought.

The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to
make one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to
the neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all
was bustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and
people; and through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers
were carrying planks and timbers and disappearing with them
through the gate of the churchyard. We asked what was going
forward; the answer was:

"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is
to be burned in the morning?"

Then we went away. We had no heart for that place.

At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope
which our wearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a
large probability. We had heard a report that the Abbot of
JumiŠges with all his monks was coming to witness the burning.
Our desire, abetted by our imagination, turned those nine hundred
monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their Abbot into La Hire or
the Bastard or D'Alen‡on; and we watched them file in,
unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering
while they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes
swimming with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried
to catch glimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared
to give signal to any recognized face that we were Joan's men and
ready and eager to kill and be killed in the good cause. How
foolish we were!

But we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things,
believeth all things.

Chapter 20 The Betrayal

IN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform
raised the height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of
St. Ouen. On this same platform was a crowd of priests and
important citizens, and several lawyers. Abreast it, with a small
space between, was another and larger platform, handsomely
canopied against sun and rain, and richly carpeted; also it was
furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two which were more
sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general level. One
of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of
England, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by
Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three
bishops, the Vice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars
and lawyers who had sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.

Twenty steps in front of the platforms was another--a table-topped
pyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps.
Out of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles
of fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the
pyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his
assistants. At their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands,
but was now a smokeless nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from
this was a supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into
a pile shoulder-high and containing as much as six packhorse
loads. Think of that. We seem so delicately made, so destructible,
so insubstantial; yet it is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes
than it is to do that with a man's body.

The sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves
of my body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming
back t it, such fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.

The space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open
by a wall of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and
stalwart figures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from
behind them on every hand str4etched far away a level plain of
human heads; and there was no window and no housetop within
our view, howsoever distant, but was black with patches and
masses of people.

But there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead.
The impressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by
a leaden twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging
storm-clouds; and above the remote horizon faint winkings of
heat-lightning played, and now and then one caught the dull
mutterings and complainings of distant thunder.

At last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an
indistinct sound, but familiar--court, crisp phrases of command;
next I saw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a
marching host was glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a
moment. Was it La Hire and his hellions? No--that was not their
gait. No, it was the prisoner and her escort; it was Joan of Arc,
under guard, that was coming; my spirits sank as low as they had
been before. Weak as she was they made her walk; they would
increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not
great--it was but a few hundred yards--but short as it was it was a
heavy tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for
months, and whose feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes,
and for a year Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon,
and now she was dragging herself through this sultry summer heat,
this airless and suffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping
with exhaustion, there was that creature Loyseleur at her side with
his head bent to her ear. We knew afterward that he had been with
her again this morning in the prison wearying her with his
persuasions and enticing her with false promises, and that he was
now still at the same work at the gate, imploring her to yield
everything that would be required of her, and assuring her that if
she would do this all would be well with her: she would be rid of
the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful shelter and
protection of the Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted man!

The moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes
and allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in
her lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And
she was so white again--white as alabaster.

How the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with
interest, and with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile
girl! And how natural it was; for these people realized that at last
they were looking upon that person whom they had so long
hungered to see; a person whose name and fame filled all Europe,
and made all other names and all other renowns insignificant by
comparions; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the time, and destined to
be the wonder of all times!

And I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the
words that were drifting through their minds: "Can it be true, is it
believable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with the
good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny
face, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of
victorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with
a breath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against
the massed brains and learning of France--and had won it if the
fight had been fair!"

Evidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his
pretty apparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in
the chief place here, which left my master and me nothing to do
but sit idle and look on.

Well, I suppose that everything had been done which could be
thought of to tire Joan's body and mind, but it was a mistake; one
more device had been invented. This was to preach a long sermon
to her in that oppressive heat.

When the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and
disappointed look, then dropped her head again. This preacher was
Guillaume Erard, an oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the
Twelve Lies. He emptied upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that
had been bottled up in that mass of venom, and called her all the
brutal names that the Twelve were labeled with, working himself
into a whirlwind of fury as he went on; but his labors were wasted,
she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign, she did not seem to
hear. At last he launched this apostrophe:

"O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the
home of Christianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King
and governor, indorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is,
the words and deeds of a worthless and infamous woman!" Joan
raised her head, and her eyes began to burn and flash. The
preacher turned to her: "It is to you, Joan, that I speak, and I tell
you that your King is schismatic and a heretic!"

Ah, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure
that; but to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a
word against that ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose
proper place was here, at this moment, sword in hand, routing
these reptiles and saving this most noble servant that ever King
had in this world--and he would have been there if he had not been
what I have called him. Joan's loyal soul was outraged, and she
turned upon the preacher and flung out a few words with a spirit
which the crowd recognized as being in accordance with the Joan
of Arc traditions:

"By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death,
that he is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best
lover of the faith and the Church!"

There was an explosion of applause from the crowd--which
angered the preacher, for he had been aching long to hear an
expression like this, and now that it was come at last it had fallen
to the wrong person: he had done all the work; the other had
carried off all the spoil. He stamped his foot and shouted to the
sheriff:

"Make her shut up!"

That made the crowd laugh.

A mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a
sheriff to protect him from a sick girl.

Joan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence
than he had helped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and
had trouble to get a good start again. But he needn't have bothered;
thee was no occasion. It was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had
but obeyed a law of our nature--an irresistible law--to enjoy and
applaud a spirited and promptly delivered retort, no matter who
makes it. The mob was with the preacher; it had been beguiled for
a moment, but only that; it would soon return. It was there to see
this girl burnt; so that it got that satisfaction--without too much
delay--it would be content.

Presently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the
Church. He made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten
the idea from Loyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the
bone, exhausted, and would not be able to put forth any more
resistance; and, indeed, to look at her it seemed that they must be
right. Nevertheless, she made one more effort to hold her ground,
and said, wearily:

"As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told
them to report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the
Pope--to whom, and to God first, I appeal."

Again, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of
tremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could
have availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and
these thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every
churchman there blench, and the preacher changed the subject
with all haste. Well might those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal
of her case to the Pope stripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction
over it, and annulled all that he and his judges had already done in
the matter and all that they should do in it henceforth.

Joan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she
had acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then,
when an attempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of
hers and his, she stopped that. She said:

"I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King
nor any other. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no
other."

She was asked if she would not recant those of her words and
deeds which had been pronounced evil by her judges. Here answer
made confusion and damage again:

"I submit them to God and the Pope."

The Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person
who was asked to submit her case to the Church, and who frankly
consents--offers to submit it to the very head of it. What more
could any one require? How was one to answer such a formidably
unanswerable answer as that?

The worried judges put their heads together and whispered and
planned and discussed. Then they brought forth this sufficiently
shambling conclusion--but it was the best they could do, in so
close a place: they said the Pope was so far away; and it was not
necessary to go to him anyway, because the present judges had
sufficient power and authority to deal with the present case, and
were in effect "the Church" to that extent. At another time they
could have smiled at this conceit, but not now; they were not
comfortable enough now.

The mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a
threatening aspect; it was tired of standing, tired of the scorching
heat; and the thunder was coming nearer, the lightning was
flashing brighter. It was necessary to hurry this matter to a close.
Erard showed Joan a written form, which had been prepared and
made all ready beforehand, and asked her to abjure.

"Abjure? What is abjure?"

She did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu.
She tried to understand, but she was breaking, under exhaustion,
and she could not gather the meaning. It was all a jumble and
confusion of strange words. In her despair she sent out this
beseeching cry:

"I appeal to the Church universal whether I ought to abjure or not!"

Erard exclaimed:

"You shall abjure instantly, or instantly be burnt!"

She glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she
saw the stake and the mass of red coals--redder and angrier than
ever now under the constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped
and staggered up out of her seat muttering and mumbling
incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon the people and the scene
about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he dreams, and does not
know where he is.

The priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper,
there were many voices beseeching and urging her at once, there
was great turmoil and shouting and excitement among the
populace and everywhere.

"Sign! sign!" from the priests; "sign--sign and be saved!" And
Loyseleur was urging at her ear, "Do as I told you--do not destroy
yourself!"

Joan said plaintively to these people:

"Ah, you do not do well to seduce me."

The judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in
their hearts melted, and they said:

"O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we
must deliver you up to punishment."

And now there was another voice--it was from the other
platform--pealing solemnly above the din: Cauchon's--reading the
sentence of death!

Joan's strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a
bewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and
bowed her head and said:

"I submit."

They gave her no time to reconsider--they knew the peril of that.
The moment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was
reading to her the abjuration, and she was repeating the words after
him mechanically, unconsciously--and smiling; for her wandering
mind was far away in some happier world.

Then this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one
of many pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting
nothing, put her mark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she
did not know how to write. But a secretary of the King of England
was there to take care of that defect; he guided her hand with his
own, and wrote her name--Jehanne.

The great crime was accomplished. She had signed--what? She did
not know--but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing
herself a sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphermer of
God and His angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel,
wicked, commissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound
her to resume the dress of a woman.

There were other promises, but that one would answer, without the
others; and that one could be made to destroy her.

Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done "such a
good day's work."

But she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.

Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the
excommunication and and restored her to her beloved Church,
with all the dear privileges of worship. Ah, she heard that! You
could see it in the deep gratitude that rose in her face and
transfigured it with joy.

But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a
tremor of pity in his voice, added these crushing words:

"And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more,
she is sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of
affliction and the water of anguish!"

Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that--such a
thing had never been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other.
Loyseleur had distinctly said and promised that "all would be well
with her." And the very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that
very platform, when he was urging her to abjure, was a straight,
unqualified promised--that if she would do it she should go free
from captivity.

She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she
remembered, with such solacement as the thought could furnish,
that by another clear promise made by Cauchon himself--she
would at least be the Church's captive, and have women about her
in place of a brutal foreign soldiery. So she turned to the body of
priests and said, with a sad resignation:

"Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave
me no longer in the hands of the English"; and she gathered up her
chains and prepared to move.

But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon--and with
them a mocking laugh:

"Take her to the prison whence she came!"

Poor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was
pitiful to see. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it
all now.

The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one
moment she thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her
Voices--I read it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what
it was--her prison escort--and that light faded, never to revive
again. And now her head began a piteous rocking motion, swaying
slowly, this way and that, as is the way when one is suffering
unwordable pain, or when one's heart is broken; then drearily she
went from us, with her face in her hands, and sobbing bitterly.

Chapter 21 Respited Only for Torture

THERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret
of the deep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal
of Winchester. Then you can imagine the astonishment and
stupefaction of that vast mob gathered there and those crowds of
churchmen assembled on the two platforms, when they saw Joan
of Arc moving away, alive and whole--slipping out of their grip at
last, after all this tedious waiting, all this tantalizing expectancy.

Nobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the
universal astonishment, so unbelievable the fact that the stake was
actually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone.

Then suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions
and charges of treachery began to fly freely; yes, and even stones:
a stone came near killing the Cardinal of Winchester--it just
missed his head. But the man who threw it was not to blame, for
he was excited, and a person who is excited never can throw
straight.

The tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it a
chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the proprieties so far as to
oppobriously assail the august Bishop of Beauvais himself,
shaking his fist in his face and shouting:

"By God, you are a traitor!"

"You lie!" responded the Bishop.

He a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman
that any Briton had a right to bring that charge against.

The Early of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty
soldier, but when it came to the intellectuals--when it came to
delicate chicane, and scheming, and trickery--he couldn't see any
further through a millstone than another. So he burst out in his
frank warrior fashion, and swore that the King of England was
being treacherously used, and that Joan of Arc was going to be
allowed to cheat the stake. But they whispered comfort into his
ear:

"Give yourself no uneasiness, my lord; we shall soon have her
again."

Perhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news
travels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently
quieted down, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and
disappeared. And thus we reached the noon of that fearful
Thursday.

We two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell--for
we were not in the secret any more than the rest. Joan's life was
saved. We knew that, and that was enough. France would hear of
this day's infamous work--and then! Why, then her gallant sons
would flock to her standard by thousands and thousands,
multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath would be like the
wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and they would
hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it like the
resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march again!

In six days--seven days--one short week--noble France, grateful
France, indignant France, would be thundering at these gates--let
us count the hours, let us count the minutes, let us count the
seconds! O happy day, O day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in
our bosoms!

For we were young then, yes, we were very young.

Do you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep
after she had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging
her tired body back to the dungeon?

No, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her
track. Cauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair
straightway; they found her dazed and dull, her mental and
physical forces in a state of prostration. They told her she had
abjured; that she had made certain promises--among them, to
resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she relapsed, the Church
would cast her out for good and all. She heard the words, but they
had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has taken a
narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging, dying
to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the
persecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but
dully recording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown
which Cauchon and his people had brought; and would come to
herself by and by, and have at first but a dim idea as to when and
how the change had come about.

Cauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed
woman's dress without protest; also she had been formally warned
against relapsing. He had witnesses to these facts. How could
matters be better?

But suppose she should not relapse?

Why, then she must be forced to do it.

Did Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they
chose to make their prisoner's captivity crueler and bitterer than
ever, no official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the
guards did begin that policy at once, and no official notice was
taken of it. Yes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was
made almost unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will
not do it.

Chapter 22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer

FRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for No‰l and me. Our
minds were full of our splendid dream of France aroused--France
shaking her mane--France on the march--France at the
gates--Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our imagination was on fire;
we were delirious with pride and joy. For we were very young, as I
have said.

We knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon
in the yester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and
been taken back into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was
being gently used now, and her captivity made as pleasant and
comfortable for her as the circumstances would allow. So, in high
contentment, we planned out our share in the great rescue, and
fought our part of the fight over and over again during those two
happy days--as happy days as ever I have known.

Sunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy
weather, and thinking. Thinking of the rescue--what else? I had no
other thought now. I was absorbed in that, drunk with the
happiness of it.

I heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came
nearer, and I caught the words:

"Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch's time has come!"

It stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than
sixty years ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my
memory to-day as it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer
morning. We are so strangely made; the memories that could make
us happy pass away; it is the memories that break our hearts that
abide.

Soon other voices took up that cry--tens, scores, hundreds of
voices; all the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And
there were other clamors--the clatter of rushing feet, merry
congratulations, bursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the
boom and crash of distant bands profaning the sacred day with the
music of victory and thanksgiving.

About the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon
and me to go to Joan's dungeon--a summons from Cauchon. But by
that time distrust had already taken possession of the English and
their soldiery again, and all Rouen was in an angry and threatening
mood. We could see plenty of evidences of this from our own
windows--fist-shaking, black looks, tumultuous tides of furious
men billowing by along the street.

And we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly,
indeed; that there was a great mob gathered there who considered
the relapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many
half-drunk English soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone
beyond words. They had laid hands upon a number of churchmen
who were trying to enter the castle, and it had been difficult work
to rescue them and save their lives.

And so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step
without a safeguard from Warwick. So next morning Warwick sent
an escort of soldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown
peacefuler meantime, but worse. The soldiers protected us from
bodily damage, but as we passed through the great mob at the
castle we were assailed with insults and shameful epithets. I bore it
well enough, though, and said to myself, with secret satisfaction,
"In three or four short days, my lads, you will be employing your
tongues in a different sort from this--and I shall be there to hear."

To my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them
would still be alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more
than enough to amuse the executioner a short half-hour, certainly.

It turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was
sitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire.

She accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character
to hold a servant to account for what his master had made him do,
and her mind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage
which had been taken of her the previous morning had its origin,
not in the subordinate but in the master--Cauchon.

Here is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning
of Sunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her
male attire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other
dress, but the guards refused to give it back. She protested, and
said she was forbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued
to refuse. She had to have clothing, for modesty's sake; moreover,
she saw that she could not save her life if she must fight for it
against treacheries like this; so she put on the forbidden garments,
knowing what the end would be. She was weary of the struggle,
poor thing.

We had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and
the others--six or eight--and when I saw Joan sitting there,
despondent, forlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to
find her situation so different, I did not know what to make of it.
The shock was very great. I had doubted the relapse perhaps;
possibly I had believed in it, but had not realized it.

Cauchon's victory was complete. He had had a harassed and
irritated and disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone
now, and contentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple
face was full of tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing
his robes and stood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart,
and remained so more than a minute, gloating over her and
enjoying the sight of this poor ruined creature, who had won so
lofty a place for him in the service of the meek and merciful Jesus,
Saviour of the World, Lord of the Universe--in case England kept
her promise to him, who kept no promises himself.

Presently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named
Marguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence,
remarked upon Joan's change of clothing, and said:

"There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come
about without connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even
something worse?"

"Thousand devils!" screamed Cauchon, in a fury. "Will you shut
your mouth?"

"Armagnac! Traitor!" shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a
rush for Marguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the
greatest difficulty that he was saved from being run through the
body. He made no more attempts to help the inquiry, poor man.
The other judges proceeded with the questionings.

"Why have you resumed this male habit?"

I did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier's halberd
slipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash;
but I thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of
her own motion.

"But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to
it."

I was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when
it came it was just what I was expecting. She said--quiet quietly:

"I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I
would not resume it."

There--I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she
was doing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of
hers was proof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to
add this:

"But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me
have not been kept--promises that I should be allowed to go to
mass and receive the communion, and that I should be freed from
the bondage of these chains--but they are still upon me, as you
see."

"Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to
return no more to the dress of a man."

Then Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these
unfeeling men and said:

"I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off,
and if I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and
have a woman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall
seem good to you that I do."

Cauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he
and his had made with her?

Fulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a
good thing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they
have served their turn--let something of a fresher sort and of more
consequence be considered. The resumption of the male dress was
sufficient for all practical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led
to add something to that fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her
Voices had spoken to her since Thursday--and he reminded her of
her abjuration.

"Yes," she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had
talked with her about the abjuration--told her about it, I suppose.
She guilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and
did it with the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that
she had ever knowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once
more that she had had no notion of what she was doing that
Thursday morning on the platform. Finally she said, "My Voices
told me I did very wrong to confess that what I had done was not
well." Then she sighed, and said with simplicity, "But it was the
fear of the fire that made me do so."

That is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents
she had not understood then, but understood now by revelation of
her Voices and by testimony of her persecutors.

She was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back,
and with it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and
serenely speaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body
up to that very fire which had such terrors for her.

That answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from
concealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was
pronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon.
And he wrote in the margin abreast of it:

"RESPONSIO MORTIFERA."

Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was, indeed, a fatal
answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a sick-room when
the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say softly one to
another, "All is over."

Here, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon,
wishing to clinch this matter and make it final, put this question:

"Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St.
Catherine?"

"Yes--and that they come from God."

"Yet you denied them on the scaffold?"

Then she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had
any intention to deny them; and that if--I noted the if--"if she had
made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from
fear of the fire, and it was a violation of the truth."

There it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was
she had done on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by
these people and by her Voices.

And now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and
there was a weary note in them that was pathetic:

"I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot
endure captivity any longer."

The spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it
would take it in any form, even that.

Several among the company of judges went from the place
troubled and sorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of
the castle we found the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting,
impatient for news. As soon as Cauchon saw them he
shouted--laughing--think of a man destroying a friendless poor girl
and then having the heart to laugh at it:

"Make yourselves comfortable--it's all over with her!"

Chapter 23 The Time Is at Hand

THE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so
with No‰l and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to
rise again, and it was so with ours. We called back that vague
promise of the Voices, and said the one to the other that the
glorious release was to happen at "the last moment"--"that other
time was not the last moment, but this is; it will happen now; the
King will come, La Hire will come, and with them our veterans,
and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again,
and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of
steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see
our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.

But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at
night, when Manchon came in, he said:

"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from
that poor child."

A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have
discovered me--discovered that my indifference concerning the
prisoner was a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so
moved and so exalted to be so honored by her that I must have
shown my feeling in my face and manner.

"A message for me, your reverence?"

"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the
young man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I
think he would do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and
asked her what it was, and she said a letter--would you write a
letter to her mother?

And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly;
but she said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the
young man would not mind the doing of this service for one not
able to do it for herself, she not knowing how to write. Then I
would have sent for you, and at that the sadness vanished out of
her face. Why, it was as if she was going to see a friend, poor
friendless thing. But I was not permitted. I did my best, but the
orders remain as strict as ever, the doors are closed against all but
officials; as before, none but officials may speak to her. So I went
back and told her, and she sighed, and was sad again. Now this is
what she begs you to write to her mother. It is partly a strange
message, and to me means nothing, but she said her mother would
understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her family and
her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for that this
night--and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is final--she
has seen the Vision of the Tree.'"

"How strange!"

"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents
would understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and
thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these
lines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to
bring peace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they
might have some connection with her letter and be useful; but it
was not so; they were a mere memory, floating idly in a tired
mind, and they have no meaning, at least no relevancy."

I took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:

And when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse
of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!

There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's
letter was a message to No‰l and me, as well as to her family, and
that its object was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us
from her own mouth of the blow that was going to fall upon us, so
that we, being her soldiers, would know it for a command to bear
it as became us and her, and so submit to the will of God; and in
thus obeying, find assuagement of our grief. It was like her, for she
was always thinking of others, not of herself. Yes, her heart was
sore for us; she could find time to think of us, the humblest of her
servants, and try to soften our pain, lighten the burden of our
troubles--she that was drinking of the bitter waters; she that was
walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

I wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my
telling you. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put
upon parchment the first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc--that
high summons to the English to vacate France, two years past,
when she was a lass of seventeen; it had now set down the last
ones which she was ever to dictate. Then I broke it. For the pen
that had served Joan of Arc could not serve any that would come
after her in this earth without abasement.

The next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and
forty-two responded. It is charitable to believe that the other
twenty were ashamed to come. The forty-two pronounced her a
relapsed heretic, and condemned her to be delivered over to the
secular arm. Cauchon thanked them.

Then he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning
to the place known as the Old Market; and that she be then
delivered to the civil judge, and by the civil judge to the
executioner. That meant she would be burnt.

All the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was
flying, and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see
the tragedy--all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies
and count upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in
the streets, the excitement grew higher and higher. And now a
thing was noticeable again which had been noticeable more than
once before--that there was pity for Joan in the hearts of many of
these people. Whenever she had been in great danger it had
manifested itself, and now it was apparent again--manifest in a
pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many faces.

Early the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another
friat were sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I
went with them--a hard service for me. We tramped through the
dim corridors, winding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper
and deeper into that vast heart of stone, and at last we stood before
Joan. But she did not know it. She sat with her hands in her lap
and her head bowed, thinking, and her face was very sad. One
might not know what she was thinking of. Of her home, and the
peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more to see? Of her
wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which had been
put upon her? Or was it of death--the death which she had longed
for, and which was now so close?

Or was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she
feared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors.
I believed she so feared that one that with her strong will she
would shut the thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and
believe that God would take pity on her and grant her an easier
one; and so it might chance that the awful news which we were
bringing might come as a surprise to her at last.

We stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still
deep in her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said,
softly:

"Joan."

She looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:

"Speak. Have you a message for me?"

"Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?"

"Yes"--very softly, and her head drooped again.

"I am come to prepare you for death."

A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a
pause. In the stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said,
still in that low voice:

"When will it be?"

The muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the
distance.

"Now. The time is at hand."

That slight shiver passed again.

"It is so soon--ah, it is so soon!"

There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed
through it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was
broken at last:

"What death is it?"

"By fire!"

"oh, I knew it, I knew it!" She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound
her hands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so
piteously, and mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one
and then another of us, and search our faces beseechingly, as
hoping she might find help and friendliness there, poor thing--she
that had never denied these to any creature, even her wounded
enemy on the battle-field.

"Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never
been defiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner
would I that my head were cut off seven times than suffer this
woeful death. I had the promise of the Church's prison when I
submitted, and if I had but been there, and not left here in the
hands of my enemies, this miserable fate had not befallen me.

Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which
has been done me."

There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with
the tears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees
at her feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and
whispered in my hear: "Up!--do not peril yourself, good heart.
There--God bless you always!" and I felt the quick clasp of her
hand. Mine was the last hand she touched with hers in life. None
saw it; history does not know of it or tell of it, yet it is true, just as
I have told it. The next moment she saw Cauchon coming, and she
went and stood before him and reproached him, saying:

"Bishop, it is by you that I die!"

He was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:

"Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your
promise, but have returned to your sins."

"Alas," she said, "if you had put me in the Church's prison, and
given me right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not
have happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!"

Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than
before, and he turned him about and went away.

Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she
wiped her eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their
violence was modifying now, and the intervals between them were
growing longer. Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice,
who had come in with the Bishop, and she said to him:

"Master Peter, where shall I be this night?"

"Have you not good hope in God?"

"Yes--and by His grace I shall be in Paradise."

Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for
the sacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been
publicly cut off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to
its privileges than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do
this, but he sent to Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws,
human and divine, were alike to that man--he respected none of
them. He sent back orders to grant Joan whatever she wished. Her
last speech to him had reached his fears, perhaps; it could not
reach his heart, for he had none.

The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned
for it with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It
was a solemn moment. While we had been in the deeps of the
prison, the public courts of the castle had been filling up with
crowds of the humbler sort of men and women, who had learned
what was going on in Joan's cell, and had come with softened
hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew not what. We
knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And there
were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in masses
outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other
accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in
the prison, all those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray
for her, and many wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the
communion began in Joan's cell, out of the distance a moving
sound was borne moaning to our ears--it was those invisible
multitudes chanting the litany for a departing soul.

The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to
come again no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would
pass, and serenity and courage would take its place and abide till
the end.

Chapter 24 Joan the Martyr

AT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went
forth in the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her
life for the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King
that had abandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for
felons. In one respect she was treated worse than a felon; for
whereas she was on her way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she
already bore her judgment inscribed in advance upon a
miter-shaped cap which she wore:

HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with
her sat the friar Martin Ladvenu and MaŒtre Jean Massieu. She
looked girlishly fair and sweet and saintly in her long white robe,
and when a gush of sunlight flooded her as she emerged from the
gloom of the prison and was yet for a moment still framed in the
arch of the somber gate, the massed multitudes of poor folk
murmured "A vision! a vision!" and sank to their knees praying,
and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation for
the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a
majestic wave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing
and blessing her, all the sorrowful way to the place of death.
"Christ have pity! Saint Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye
saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and
angels intercede for her! From thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O
Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech Thee, good
Lord!"

It is just and true what one of the histories has said: "The poor and
the helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but
these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more
pathetic events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless,
praying crowd, holding their lighted candles and kneeling on the
pavement beneath the prison walls of the old fortress."

And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon
their knees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with
the faint yellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden
flowers.

But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English
soldiers. They stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan's road,
and walled it in all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the
multitudes.

By and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and
lamenting, and tore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers
and flung himself on his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands
in supplication, crying out:

"O forgive, forgive!"

It was Loyseleur!

And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew
nothing but forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity
for all that suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had
no word of reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and
night with deceits and treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to
her death.

The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved
his life. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from
the world somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.

In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the
stake that had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The
platforms were occupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges,
the other by great dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the
English Cardinal--Winchester. The square was packed with
people, the windows and roofs of the blocks of buildings
surrounding it were black with them.

When the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement
gradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was
solemn and impressive.

And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas
Midi preached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch
of the vine--which is the Church--becomes diseased and corrupt, it
must be cut away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He
made it appear that Joan, through her wicknedness, was a menace
and a peril to the Church's purity and holiness, and her death
therefore necessary. When he was come to the end of his discourse
he turned toward her and paused a moment, then he said:

"Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!"

Joan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the
Church's abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness,
waiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed
her now. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to
her, and had brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing
that she would proclaim the truth--that she had never knowingly
abjured--and so bring shame upon him and eternal infamy. He
contented himself with admonishing her to keep in mind her
wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of her salvation. Then
he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off from the
body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to the
secular arm for judgment and sentence.

Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh,
no--for the King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and
penetrated all hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought
of his treacheries to her, she never thought of his desertion of her,
she never remembered that it was because he was an ingrate that
she was here to die a miserable death; she remembered only that
he was her King, that she was his loyal and loving subject, and that
his enemies had undermined his cause with evil reports and false
charges, and he not by to defend himself. And so, in the very
presence of death, she forgot her own troubles to implore all in her
hearing to be just to him; to believe that he was good and noble
and sincere, and not in any way to blame for any acts of hers,
neither advising them nor urging them, but being wholly clear and
free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she begged in
humble and touching words that all here present would pray for
her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might
look friendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts.

There was hardly one heart there that was not touched--even the
English, even the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that
trembled and many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even
the English Cardinal's--that man with a political heart of stone but
a human heart of flesh.

The secular judge who should have delivered judgment and
pronounced sentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his
duty, and Joan went to her death unsentenced--thus completing
with an illegality what had begun illegally and had so continued to
the end. He only said--to the guards:

"Take her"; and to the executioner, "Do your duty."

Joan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an
English soldier broke a stick in two and crossed the pieces and tied
them together, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good
heart that was in him; and she kissed it and put it in her bosom.
Then Isambard de la Pierre went to the church near by and brought
her a consecrated one; and this one also she kissed, and pressed it
to her bosom with rapture, and then kissed it again and again,
covering it with tears and pouring out her gratitude to God and the
saints.

And so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the
cruel steps to the face of the stake, with the friar Isambard at her
side. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that
was built around the lower third of the stake and stood upon it with
her back against the stake, and the world gazing up at her
breathless. The executioner ascended to her side and wound chains
around her slender body, and so fastened her to the stake. Then he
descended to finish his dreadful office; and there she remained
alone--she that had had so many friends in the days when she was
free, and had been so loved and so dear.

All these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I
could bear no more. I continued in my place, but what I shall
deliver to you now I got by others' eyes and others' mouths. Tragic
sounds there were that pierced my ears and wounded my heart as I
sat there, but it is as I tell you:

the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour was
Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and
that image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all
my days. Now I will go on.

If any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors
repent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her
great deeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their
source, they erred. No such thought was in her blameless mind.
She was not thinking of herself and her troubles, but of others, and
of woes that might befall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes
about her, where rose the towers and spires of that fair city, she
said:

"Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb?
Ah, Rouen, Rouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my
death."

A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment
terror seized her and she cried out, "Water! Give me holy water!"
but the next moment her fears were gone, and they came no more
to torture her.

She heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately
distress for a fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of
her. It was the friar Isambard. She had given him her cross and
begged him to raise it toward her face and let her eyes rest in hope
and consolation upon it till she was entered into the peace of God.
She made him go out from the danger of the fire. Then she was
satisfied, and said:

"Now keep it always in my sight until the end."

Not even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to
let her die in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and
sins as he was, and cried out:

"I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek
the pardon of God."

"I die through you," she said, and these were the last words she
spoke to any upon earth.

Then the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame,
rolled up in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the
heart of this darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer,
and when by moments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke
aside, there were veiled glimpses of an upturned face and moving
lips. At last a mercifully swift tide of flame burst upward, and
none saw that face any more nor that form, and the voice was still.

Yes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they
are, to tell of a rich world made empty and poor!

CONCLUSION

JOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great
Trial at Rouen. This was sccording to the prophecy which Joan
made that day in the pastures the time that she said the rest of us
would go to the great wars.

When her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his
heart, and he died.

The mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon
this she lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years
after her illustrious child's death she traveled all the way to Paris in
the winter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in
the Cathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the
Rehabilitation. Paris was crowded with people, from all about
France, who came to get sight of the venerable dame, and it was a
touching spectacle when she moved through these reverent
wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand honors awaiting her
at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no longer the
light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs, but
war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost.

After the martyrdom No‰l and I went back to Domremy, but
presently when the Constable Richemont superseded La
Tremouille as the King's chief adviser and began the completion of
Joan's great work, we put on our harness and returned to the field
and fought for the King all through the wars and skirmishes until
France was freed of the English. It was what Joan would have
desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was law for us. All the
survivors of the personal staff were faithful to her memory and
fought for the King to the end. Mainly we were well scattered, but
when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a great day and
a joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because Joan was
not there to march into the captured capital with us.

No‰l and I remained always together, and I was by his side when
death claimed him. It was in the last great battle of the war. In that
battle fell also Joan's sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eighty-five
years old, and had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he
was, with his flowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and
his indestructible energy as well; for he fought as knighly and
vigorous a fight that day as the best man there.

La Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always
fighting, of course, for that was all he enjoyed in life. I did not see
him in all that time, for we were far apart, but one was always
hearing of him.

The Bastard of Orleans and D'Alen‡on and D'Aulon lived to see
France free, and to testify with Jean and Pierre d'Arc and Pasquerel
and me at the Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these
many years. I alone am left of those who fought at the side of Joan
of Arc in the great wars.

She said I would live until those wars were forgotten--a prophecy
which failed. If I should live a thousand years it would still fail.
For whatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal.

Members of Joan's family married, and they have left descendants.
Their descendants are of the nobility, but their family name and
blood bring them honors which no other nobles receive or may
hope for. You have seen how everybody along the way uncovered
when those children came yesterday to pay their duty to me. It was
not because they are noble, it is because they are grandchildren of
the brothers of Joan of Arc.

Now as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims.
For reward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without
making one effort to save her. During the next twenty-three years
he remained indifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that
her good name was under a damning blot put there by the priest
because of the deeds which she had done in saving him and his
scepter; indifferent to the fact that France was ashamed, and
longed to have the Deliverer's fair fame restored. Indifferent all
that time. Then he suddenly changed and was anxious to have
justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become grateful at
last? Had remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a better
reason--a better one for his sort of man. This better reason was
that, now that the English had been finally expelled from the
country, they were beginning to call attention to the fact that this
King had gotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the
priests to have been in league with Satan and burned for it by them
as a sorceress--therefore, of what value or authority was such a
Kingship as that? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to
allow such a king to remain on the throne.

It was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how
Charles VII. came to be smitten with anxiety to have justice done
the memory of his benefactress.

He appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great
commission of churchmen to examine into the facts of Joan's life
and award judgment. The Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at
Rouen, at Orleans, and at several other places, and continued its
work during several months. It examined the records of Joan's
trials, it examined the Bastard of Orleans, and the Duke d'Alen‡on,
and D'Aulon, and Pasquerel, and Courcelles, and Isambard de la
Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many others whose names I
have made familiar to you; also they examined more than a
hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to you--the
friends of Joan in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other
places, and a number of judges and other people who had assisted
at the Rouen trials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of
this exhaustive examination Joan's character and history came
spotless and perfect, and this verdict was placed upon record, to
remain forever.

I was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many
faces which I have not seen for a quarter of a century; among them
some well-beloved faces--those of our generals and that of
Catherine Boucher (married, alas!), and also among them certain
other faces that filled me with bitterness--those of Beaupere and
Courcelles and a number of their fellow-fiends. I saw Haumette
and Little Mengette--edging along toward fifty now, and mothers
of many children. I saw No‰l's father, and the parents of the
Paladin and the Sunflower.

It was beautiful to hear the Duke d'Alen‡on praise Joan's splendid
capacities as a general, and to hear the Bastard indorse these
praises with his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet
and good Joan was, and how full of pluck and fire and
impetuosity, and mischief, and mirthfulness, and tenderness, and
compassion, and everything that was pure and fine and noble and
lovely. He made her live again before me, and wrung my heart.

I have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that
sublime personality, that spirit which in one regard has had no peer
and will have none--this: its purity from all alloy of self-seeking,
self-interest, personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can
be found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other
person whose name appears in profane history.

With Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment--it
was a passion. She was the Genius of Patriotism--she was
Patriotism embodied, concreted, made flesh, and palpable to the
touch and visible to the eye.

Love, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music--these
may be symbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and
of any age; but a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the
martyr's crown upon her head, and in her hand the sword that
severed her country's bonds--shall not this, and no other, stand for
PATRIOTISM through all the ages until time shall end?