 This time, as before, the king's last command to the generals was this. See to it that you do nothing without the sanction of the maid, and this time the command was obeyed, and would continue to be obeyed all through the coming great days of the Loire Campaign. That was a change. That was new. It broke the traditions. It shows you what sort of a reputation as a commander-in-chief the child had made for herself in ten days in the field. It was a conquering of men's doubts and suspicions, and a capturing and solidifying of men's belief and confidence, such as the grayest veteran on the grand staff had not been able to achieve in thirty years. Don't you remember that when at sixteen Joan conducted her own case in a grim court of law and won it, the old judge spoke of her as, this marvelous child? It was the right name, you see. These veterans were not going to branch out and do things without the sanction of the maid. That is true, and it was a great gain. But at the same time there were some among them who still trembled at her new and dashing war tactics and earnestly desired to modify them, and so, during the tenth, while Joan was slaving away at her plans and issuing order after order with tireless industry, the old-time consultations and arguings and speech-ifying were going on among certain of the generals. In the afternoon of that day they came in a body to hold one of these councils of war, and while they waited for Joan to join them they discussed the situation. Now this discussion is not set down in the histories, but I was there, and I will speak of it, as knowing you will trust me, I am not being given to beguiling you with lies. Gautier de Brussac was spokesman for the timid ones. Joan's side was resolutely upheld by de Lançon, the Bastard, Laïre, the Admiral of France, the Marshal de Brussac, and all the other really important chiefs. The Brussac argued that the situation was very grave, that Jargot, the first point of attack, was formidably strong, its imposing walls bristling with artillery, with seven thousand picked English veterans behind them, and, at their head, the great Earl of Suffolk and his two redoubtable brothers, the de la pause. It seemed to him that the proposal of Joan of Arc to try to take such a place by storm was a most rash and over-daring idea, and she ought to be persuaded to relinquish it in favour of the soberer and safer procedure of investment by regular siege. It seemed to him that this fiery and furious new fashion of hurling masses of men against impregnable walls of stone, in defiance of the established laws and usages of war, was—but he got no further. Laïre gave his plumed helm an impatient toss and burst out with, by God, she knows her trade, and none can teach at her! And before he could get out anything more, de Lançon was on his feet, and the Bastard of Orleans, and a half dozen others, all thundering at once, and pouring out their indignant displeasure upon any and all that might hold, secretly or publicly, distrust at the wisdom of the commander-in-chief. And when they had their say, Laïre took a chance again and said, There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change, but those people are never able to see that they have got to change, too, to meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten track that their fathers and grandfathers have followed, and that they themselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip the land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and into morasses, those people can't learn that they must strike out a new road. No, they will march stupidly along and follow the old one, to death and perdition. Men, there's a new state of things, and a surpassing military genius has perceived it with her clear eye, and a new road is required, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has marked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never will live that can improve upon it. The old state of things was defeat, defeat, defeat, and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart, no hope. Would you assault the stone walls with such? No. There was but one way with that kind. Sit down before a place and wait, wait, starve it out if you could. The new case is the very opposite. It is this, men all on fire with pluck and dash and vim and fury and energy, a restrained conflagration. What would you do with it? Hold it down and let it smolder and perish and go out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn it loose by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, and let it swallow up the foe in the whirlwind of its fires. Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom of her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out, no dilly-dallying and fooling around, no lazing, loafing, and going to sleep. No, it is storm, storm, storm, and still storm, storm, storm, and forever storm, storm, storm. Hunt the enemy to his hole, then turn her French hurricanes loose, and carry him by storm. And that is my sort. Jargo? What of Jargo with its battlements and towers and its devastating artillery, its seven thousand-picked veterans? Joan of Arc is to the fore, and by the splendor of God its fate is sealed. Oh, he carried them. There was not another word said about persuading Joan to change her tactics. They sat talking comfortably enough after that. By and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted with their swords, and she asked what their pleasure might be. Laire said, It is settled, my general. The matter concerns Jargo. There were some who thought we could not take the place. Joan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree laugh, the laugh that rippled so buoyantly from her lips and made old people feel young again to hear it, and she said to the company, Have no fears. Indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We will strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see. Then a faraway look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home drifted across the vision of her mind, for she said very gently and as one whom uses, But that I know God guides us and will give us success. I had leave her keep sheep and endure these perils. We had a home-like farewell supper that evening, just the personal staff and the family. Joan had to miss it, for the city had given a banquet in her honour, and she had gone there in state, with the grand staff, through a ride of joy-bells and a sparkling milky way of illuminations. After supper some lively young folk whom we knew came in, and we presently forgot that we were soldiers, and only remembered that we were boys and girls and full of animal spirits and long pent fun, and so there was dancing and games and romps and screams of laughter, just as extravagant and innocent and noisy a good time as ever I had in my life. Dear, dear, how long ago it was—and I was young then—and outside, all the while was the measured tramp of marching battalions, belated odds and ends of the French power, gathering for the morrow's tragedy on the grim stage of war. Yes, in those days we had those contrasts side by side, and as I passed along to bed there was another one, the big dwarf, in brave new armour, sat sentry at Joan's door. The stern spirit of war made flesh as it were, and on his ample shoulder was curled a kitten asleep. We made a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning gates of Orléans, with banners flying and Joan and the grand staff in the van of the long column. Those two young de la vase were come now, and were joined to the grand staff, which was well, war being their proper trade, for they were grandsons of that illustrious fighter Bertrand du Guestlin, constable of France in earlier days. Louis de Bourbon, the Marshal des Rés, and the Vidin de Chartres were added also. We had a right to feel a little uneasy, for we knew that a force of five thousand men was on its way under Sir John Fastolph to reinforce Jargo, but I think we were not uneasy nevertheless. In truth that force was not yet in our neighbourhood. Sir John was loitering, for some reason or other he was not hurrying. He was losing precious time, four days a détente, and four more a janville. We reached Jargo and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy force which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and gained a footing, and fought hard to keep it. But it presently began to fall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her battle cry, and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire. The paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her standard from his failing hand, and plunged on through the ruck of flying missiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries. And then, for a good time, one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion of struggling multitudes, and the horse bellowing of the guns, and then the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke, a firmament through which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then, giving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond. And all was at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white mail which was the centre and sole of our hope and trust, and whenever we saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that all was well. At last a great shout went up, a joyous roar of shoutings, in fact, and that was sign sufficient that the Foubours were ours. Yes, they were ours. The enemy had been driven back within the walls, on the ground which Joan had won we camped, for night was coming on. Joan sent a summons to the English, promising that if they surrendered, she would allow them to go in peace and take their horses with them. Nobody knew that she could take that strong place, but she knew it, knew it well. Yet she offered that grace, offered it in a time when such a thing was unknown in war, in a time when it was custom and usage to massacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without pity or compunction, as even to the harmless women and children sometimes. There are neighbours all about you who well remember the unspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and women and children of Dino, when he took that place some years ago. It was a unique and kindly grace which Joan offered that garrison, but that was her way. That was her loving and merciful nature. She always did her best to save her enemy's life and his soldierly pride when she had the mastery of him. The English asked fifteen days armistice to consider the proposal in, and fussed all of coming with five thousand men. Joan said no, but she offered another grace. They might take both their horses and their side arms, but they must go within the hour. Well, those bronzed English veterans were pretty hard-headed folk. They declined again. Then Joan gave command that her army be made ready to move to the assault at nine in the morning. Considering the deal of marching and fighting which the men had done that day, Delançon thought the hour rather early, but Joan said it was best so, and so must be obeyed. Then she burst out with one of those enthusiasm which were always burning in her when battle was imminent, and said, Work! Work! and God will work with us! Yes, one might say that her motto was, Work! Stick to it! Keep on working! For in war she never knew what indolence was, and whoever will take that motto and live by it will be likely to succeed. There's many a way to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good, hard work back of it. I think we should have lost our big standard bearer that day if our bigger dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the millet when he was wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death by our own horse, if the dwarf had not promptly rescued him and hailed him to the rear in safety. He recovered, and was himself again after two or three hours, and then he was happy and proud, and made the most of his wound, and went swaggering around in his bandages, showing off like an innocent big child, which was just what he was. He was prouder of being wounded than a really modest person would be of being killed. But there was no harm in his vanity, and nobody minded it. He said he was hit by a stone from a catapult, a stone the size of a man's head. But the stone grew, of course, before he got through with it. He was claiming that the enemy had flung a building at him. "'Let him alone,' said Noel Régisson. "'Don't interrupt his processes. Tomorrow it will be a cathedral.' He said that privately, and sure enough tomorrow it was a cathedral. I never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination.' Joan was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and yonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she considered the most effective positions for her artillery. And with such accurate judgment did she place her guns, that her Lieutenant-General's admiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was taken at the rehabilitation a quarter of a century later. In this testimony the Duc de Lançon said that, at Jargo that morning of the 12th of June, she made her dispositions not like a novice, but with the sure and clear judgment of a trained general of twenty or thirty years experience. The veteran captains of the armies of France said she was great in war in all ways, but greatest of all in her genius for posting and handling artillery. Who taught the shepherd girl to do these marvels? She who could not read, and had had no opportunity to study the complex arts of war. I do not know any way to solve such a baffling riddle as that, there being no precedent for it, nothing in history to compare it with, and examine it by. For in history there is no great general, however gifted, who arrived at success otherwise than through able teaching and hardy study, and some experience. It is a riddle which will never be guessed. I think these vast powers and capacities were born in her, and that she applied them by an intuition which could not air. At eight o'clock all movement ceased, and with it all sounds, all noise. A mute expectancy reigned. The stillness was something awful, because it meant so much. There was no air stirring. The flags on the towers and ramparts hung straight down like tassels. Wherever one saw a person, that person had stopped what he was doing, and was in a waiting attitude, a listening attitude. We were on a commanding spot, clustered around Joan. Not far from us, on every hand, were the lanes and humble dwellings of these outlying suburbs. Many people were visible. All were listening. Not one was moving. A man had placed a nail. He was about to fasten something with it to the doorpost of his shop, but he had stopped. There was his hand reaching up holding the nail, and there was his other hand in the act of striking with a hammer, but he had forgotten everything. His head was turned aside. Listening. Even children unconsciously stopped in their play. I saw a little boy with his hoop-stick pointed slanting toward the ground in the act of steering the hoop around the corner, and so he had stopped and was listening. The hoop was rolling away doing its own steering. I saw a young girl prettily framed in an open window, a watering pot in her hand, and window-boxes of red flowers under its spout. But the water had ceased to flow. The girl was listening. Everywhere were these impressive, petrified forms, and everywhere was suspended movement and that awful stillness. Joan of Arc raised her sword in the air. At the signal the silence was torn to rags. Cannon after cannon vomited flames and smoke and delivered its quaking thunders, and we saw answering tongues of fire dart from the towers and walls of the city. Accompanied by answering deep thunders, and in a minute the walls and the towers disappeared, and in their place stood vast banks and pyramids of snowy smoke motionless in the dead air. The startled girl dropped her watering pot and clasped her hands together, and at that moment a stone cannon-ball crashed through her fairer body. The great artillery duel went on, each side hammering away with all its might, and it was splendid for smoke and noise and most exalting to one's spirits. The poor little town around about us suffered cruelly. The cannon-balls tore through its slight buildings, wrecking them as if they had been built of cards, and every moment or two one would see a huge rock coming, curving through the upper air, above the smoke clouds, and go plunging down through the roofs. Fire broke out, and columns of flame and smoke rose toward the sky. Presently the artillery concussions changed the weather, the sky became overcast, and a strong wind rose and blew away the smoke that hid the English fortresses. Then the spectacle was fine. Tourid had grey walls and towers, and streaming bright flags and jets of red fire and gushes of white smoke and long rows, all standing out with sharp vividness against the deep, leadden background of the sky. And then the whizzing missiles began to knock up the dirt all around us, and I felt no more interest in the scenery. There was one English gun that was getting our position down finer and finer all the time. Presently Joan pointed to it and said, Fair Duke, step out of your tracks, or that machine will kill you. The Duke de Lançon did as he was bid, but Monsieur de Lourde rashly took his place, and that cannon tore his head off in a moment. Joan was watching all along for the right time to order the assault. At last, about nine o'clock, she cried out, Now! to the assault! and the buglers blew the charge. Instantly we saw the body of men that had been appointed to this service move forward toward a point where the concentrated fire of our guns had crumbled the upper half of a broad stretch of wall to ruins. We saw this force descend into the ditch and begin to plant the scaling ladders. We were soon with them. The Lieutenant General thought the assault premature, but Joan said, Ah, gentle Duke, are you afraid? Do you not know that I have promised to send you home safe? It was warm work in the ditches. The walls were crowded with men, and they poured avalanches of stones down upon us. There was one gigantic Englishman who did us more hurt than any dozen of his brethren. He always dominated the place as easy as to assault, and flung down exceedingly troublesome big stones which smashed men and ladders both. Then he would near-burst himself with laughing over what he had done. But the Duke settled accounts with him. He went and found the famous canineer Jean-Laurent and said, Train your gun! Kill me, this demon! He did it with a first shot. He hit the Englishman fair in the breast and knocked him backward into the city. The enemy's resistance was so effective and so stubborn that our people began to show signs of doubt and dismay. Seeing this, Joan raised her inspiring battle cry and descended into the Foss herself, the dwarf helping her and the Paladins sticking bravely at her side with a standard. She started up a scaling ladder, but a great stone flung from above came crashing down upon her helmet and stretched her, wounded and stunned upon the ground. But only for a moment the dwarf stood her upon her feet and straight away she started up the ladder again, crying, To the assault, friends! To the assault! The English are ours! It is the appointed hour! There was a grand rush and a fierce roar of war cries, and we swarmed over the ramparts like ants. The garrison fled. We pursued. Jargo was ours. The Earl of Suffolk was hemmed in and surrounded, and the Duke de l'Ençon and the Bastard of Orléans demanded that he surrender himself. But he was a proud nobleman and came of a proud race. He refused to yield his sword to subordinates, saying, I will die, rather! I will surrender to the maid of Orléans alone and to no other! And so he did, and was courteously and honorably used by her. His two brothers retreated, fighting step by step toward the bridge, we pressing their despairing forces and cutting them down by scores. Arrived on the bridge, the slaughter still continued. Alexander de la Pôle was pushed overboard or fell over and was drowned. Eleven hundred men had fallen. John de la Pôle decided to give up the struggle. But he was nearly as proud and particular as his brother of Suffolk as to whom he would surrender to. The French officer nearest at hand was Guillaume Renaud, who was pressing him closely. Sir John said to him, Are you a gentleman? Yes. And a knight? No. Then Sir John knighted him himself, there on the bridge, giving him the accolade with English coolness and tranquillity in the midst of that stormy slaughter and mutilation, and then bowing with high courtesy took the sword by the blade and laid the hilt of it in the man's hand in token of surrender. Ah, yes, a proud tribe, those de la Pôle. It was a grand day, a memorable day, a most splendid victory. We had a crowd of prisoners, but John would not allow them to be hurt. We took them with us and marched into Orléans next day through the usual tempest of welcome and joy. And this time there was a new tribute to our leader. From everywhere in the packed streets the new recruits squeezed their way to her side to touch the sword of Joan of Arc and draw from it somewhat of that mysterious quality which made it invincible. End of Chapter 27 and end of Volume 1 Book 2 of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc This is Chapter 28 of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain Volume 2 Book 2 Chapter 28 Joan Fortells 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 cannonballs 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 let 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 so 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 Dom Remy 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 honour 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 Père Front, 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 Arplefée 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 dispatches for her Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of France! I knew she had seen the vision 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 honoured old age. For at that time I thought old age was 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 wandering, 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 Myeong 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 Beaujancy, 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 Fastolve 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 Latrimui 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 Fastolve was so close by. Richemont had wanted to join us before, when we first marched on Orclean, 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 makeup, 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 Laïre and the two young Laval and the other chiefs, but the Lieutenant General de l'Encent 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 septored 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 Fastov with Fastov'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 Bourgeoisie and keep its garrison at home. By and by we came in sight of the enemy. Fastov 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 Fastov, 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 Orléans and Sintz, 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 Fastov 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, Dalonçon, the bastard of Orléans, Laïre, Poton or Cetré, 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 Poton 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 Miong under the Marschel de Ré, fifteen hundred with the Constable of France keeping the bridge and watching the castle of Beaujant-Sies. 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 comrade 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? And sooth, Excellency, that I cannot! Name of God, bastard! Bastard! You cannot tell me this small thing, yet our 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 Laïre took the word and said, Let be! If she thinks it, that is enough. It will happen. Then Potot of Saint-Ré said, There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the saying of your Excellency? Yes. One was that, we being weak in 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. Tomorrow 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 Myeong. The generals were very much surprised, as any might tell from their faces. It is a retreat, said Joan. It has that look, said Delonçon. It certainly has, observed the bastard and la ire. 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 Myeong and escape to the other side of the river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of Beaujancy 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 Delonçon. We must follow him and take care of that matter. What of Beaujancy? Leave Beaujancy 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 Myeong with the dawn, fetching the constable and his fifteen hundred. And when Talbot knows that Beaujancy has fallen, it will have an effect upon him. By the mass, yes, cried la ire. He will join his Myeong garrison to his army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge-force with us again, along with our Beaujancy watchers, and be stronger for our great days 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 Potron of Saint-Ré 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 Beaujancy and make so quick work there that I 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 Guittain, 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 Beaujancy 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. Guittain had sent a messenger through our lines under a safe conduct, given by Joan, to tell Talbot of the surrender. Of course this poursrivant 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 Myeong. 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. When the morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June there 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 Bosse, 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 l'Ire, Poton 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 Pate. 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 Pate. 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. Laïr halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant with joy. The Duke de l'Encent 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? Many! Oh, no, did you! These English are ours! They are lost! They will fly! Whoever takes them will need good spurs. Forward! Close up! By the time we had come up with Laïr, the English had discovered our presence. Talbot's force was marching in three bodies—first his advance guard, then his artillery, then his battle-core, a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He had 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-core could come up. Sir John Fastolve urged the battle-core into a gallop. Joan saw her opportunity and ordered Laïr to advance, which Laïr promptly did, launching his wild riders like a stormy 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 Laïr's godless crew, Laïr's great figure dominating it, and his sword stretched aloft like a flagstaff. Oh Satan, and his hellions, see them go! somebody muttered in a deep admiration. And now he was closing up, closing up on Fastolve's rushing core. 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! Fastolve's hard-driven battle-core 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 route, and for three long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugle sang, Halt! The battle of Pate 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 looked 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 at 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 Laïre, passing before her and bowing low, the others 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 Orléans! Live forever! While Joan, smiling, stood at the salute with her sword. This was not the last time I saw the maid of Orléans 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. Footnote 1 Lord Ronald Gower, Joan of Arc Page 82, says, Michelet discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Comte, who was probably an eyewitness of the seam. 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. This is Chapter 31 of Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain Volume 2, Book 2, Chapter 31, France Begins to Live Again Joan had said true. France was on the way to be free. The war called a hundred years' war was very sick today, 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? Anyone will say that a battle is only truly great, or small, according to its results. Yes, anyone will grant that, for it is the truth. Judged by results, Paté'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 Paté has no peer among that few just mentioned, but stands alone, as the supremist 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, Paté. 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 Paté 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 battlefields 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 Paté 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 Cressy. 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 children 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 countrymaid 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 pâté 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 here and there a little bloodshed, perhaps the most of it in any single fight at pâté, 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, Cressy, pâté, 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 pâté and will not get up any more, while this old world lasts. CHAPTER XXXII The great news of pâté 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 so ever, 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 Yoaville, and the town rose against its English masters and shut the gates against their brethren. It flew to Mont-Pippo, 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 mung and pillaged it. When we reached Aut-Lion, that town was as much as fifty times insaneer 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 horse 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 never more ceased. Welcome to Joan of Arc, way for the saviour of France! And there was another cry. Cressy is avenged! Poitiers is avenged! Agincourt is avenged! Pate shall live for ever!" Mad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners were in the centre 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 cannot 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. END OF CHAPTER XXXII She invited the king and made sumptuous preparations to receive him, but he didn't come. He was simply a surf at that time, and La Tromouie was his master. Master and surf were visiting together at the master's castle of Sully-sur-Loire. At Beaujancy 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. One, the raising of the siege. Two, the victory of Pâté. Three, the reconciliation at Sully-sur-Loire. Four, the coronation of the king. Five, 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 Jean to Reims 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 had made him sufficiently conspicuous in that trivial and conscious-less 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 her 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 handyman 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 Pate 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, and what he tells them to do, that they will do, with a blind and affectionate obedience, that 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 denies 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 Seventh 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 chessboard 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 was 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. One, Joan moves to Orléans and Petet, check. Two, then moves the reconciliation, but does not proclaim check, it being a move for position and to take effect later. Three, next she moves the coronation, check. Four, next the bloodless march, check. Five, final move, after her death. The reconciled Constable Richemont to the French king's elbow, checkmate. CHAPTER XXXIV The campaign of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Reims. 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 in 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 Reims, because the road was mild-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 Reims 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 Géant, twelve thousand strong. This was the twenty-ninth of June. The maid rode by the side of the king. On his other side was the Duke de l'Ençon. 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 L'Aire, Saint Très, Trmoui, and a long procession of knights and nobles. We rested three days before Occer, the city provisioned the army, and a deputation waited upon the king. But we did not enter the place. Saint Florentine opened its gates to the king. On the 4th of July we reached Saint Falle, and yonder lay Troy before us, a town which had a burning interest for us boys, for we remembered how seven years before, in the pastures of Dom Rémy, the sunflower came with his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of Troy, 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 dearly 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 Troy 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 Laïr put in a word, with a slap in it for some of his majesty's advisers. The maid of Orléans 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 what so ever 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, her 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 for sooth. 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 for scenes and faggots to be prepared and thrown into the fos, 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 Troy surrendered without firing a shot. The next day the king, with Joan at his side and the paladin bearing her banner, entered the town and 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 overabundant 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 how small was the value of such a possession in those times. When we took Troy, 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, deer, 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 from her 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 the light of sarcastic 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. And 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 rung 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, "'Pretty 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 honour? 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 leadened dullness at vacancy. The colour 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 indecent seas and bestialities like a drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected. Soldering makes few saints. Many of the onlookers laughed. Others were indifferent. None was surprised. But presently in his mad caperings the freedman 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 pultering 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 XXXIV It was here that we saw again the grand master of the King's household, in whose castle Joan was guest, when she tarried at Chignol in those first days of her coming out of her own country. She made him bailiff of trois now, by the King's permission, and now we marched again. Chalon surrendered to us, and thereby Chalon, 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 a 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 cathedral towers of Reims rise out of the distance. Haza after Haza swept the army from van to rear, and as for Joan of Arc, there, where she sat her horse, gazing, closed 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. Tomorrow 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, hurrying in with banners and music, and flowed over the camp, one rejoicing inundation after another, everybody drunk with happiness. And all night long Reims 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 goodbye, 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, Saviour of France, Victory's Sweetheart, the Page of Christ, together with still softer titles, which were simply naive 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 peons 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 lodgings, 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 hazying 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, therefore, 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 Saint-Rémy, which was over toward the gate by which we had entered the city, for the Saint-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 Saint-Rémy just as he was going to baptize King Clovis, who had become a Christian. I know this to be true. I had known it along before, for Père Front told me in Dormis. 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 heaven, 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 abbey of Saint-Rémy, 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 acutered they and their steeds, to the abbey church as a guard of honour to the Archbishop of Reims and his cannons, 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 safe safely, and safely restore it again to the Church of Saint-Rémy after the anointing of the King. The Archbishop and his subordinates, thus nobly escorted, took their way to Saint-Rémy. The Archbishop was in grand costume, with his miter on his head and his cross in his hand. At the door of Saint-Rémy 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 cannons, 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'Albre 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 Tramouie, and the Young de Noval Brothers. These were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical peers, the Archbishop of Reims, and the bishops of Laon, Chalon, Orléans, 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 Orléans! Satan la here 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 finally 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 air 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, oh gentle king, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to his command that you should come to Reims 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 account in rank, and also appointed a household and officers 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, oh 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. Do not be afraid. Indeed, I cannot, gentle king. Do not press me. I will not have ought else, but only this done. 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, Who has won 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, Dom Rémy, natal village of Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orléans, is freed from all taxation for ever, were at the silver horns blue a jubilant blast. There, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she was in abtrance in the pastures of Dom Rémy, and we asked her to name the 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 for ever. 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 Dom Rémy lies have been collected sixty-three times since then, and all the villages of that region have paid, except that one, Dom Rémy. The tax-gatherer never visits Dom Rémy. Dom Rémy 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 then that desire it. At the top of every page in the sixty-three books stands the name of a village, and below that 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 Dom Rémy, 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. Dom Rémy. Rien, la pucelle. Nothing. The maid of Orléans. 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. Note one. It was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and more. Then the overconfident 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 Dom Rémy, 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 Dom Rémy 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. End of note one. 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 myths of the church, all instruments and all people making such clamour of rejoicing noises as was indeed a marvel to hear. And so ended the third of the great days of Joan's life, and how close together they stand. May 8th, June 18th, July 17th. End of chapters.