What is to be thought of _her_? What is to be thought of the poor
shepherd-girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that--like the
Hebrew shepherd-boy from the hills and forests of Judea--rose suddenly
out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration,
rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies,
and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The
Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an _act_, by a
victorious _act_, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of
Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her
nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender: but
so did they to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw
them _from a station of good will_, both were found true and loyal to
any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made
the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose--to a
splendor and a noonday prosperity both personal and public, that rang
through the records of his people, and became a by-word amongst his
posterity for a thousand years, until the scepter was departing from
Judah. The poor forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from
that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang
together with them the songs that rose in her native Domremy, as
echoes to the departing step of invaders. She mingled not in the
festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the
redemption of France. No! for her voice was then silent. No! for her
feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl! whom, from
earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice
this was amongst the strongest pledges for _thy_ side, that never
once--no, not for a moment of weakness--didst thou revel in the vision
of coronets and honors from man. Coronets for thee! Oh no! Honors, if
they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood.
Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou
wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but
she will not hear thee! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive
a robe of honor, but she will be found _en contumace_.
When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall
proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd-girl that gave up all for her
country--thy ear, young shepherd-girl, will have been deaf for five
centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life; to
_do_--never for thyself, always for others; to _suffer_--never in the
persons of generous champions, always in thy own: that was thy destiny;
and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. "Life," thou saidst,
"is short, and the sleep which is in the grave is long. Let me use that
life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to
comfort the sleep which is so long." This poor creature--pure from every
suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in
senses more obvious--never once did this holy child, as regarded
herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was traveling to
meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw
not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the
spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a
coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces
all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature
and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints; these
might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the
voice that called her to death, _that_ she heard forever.
Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he
that sat upon it; but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he
that sat upon it, was for _her_; but, on the contrary, that she was
for _them_; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the
dust. Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the
privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another
century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither them; but well
Joanna knew, early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth, that the
lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud,
bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her.
On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about
nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She
was conducted before midday, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a
platform of prodigious height, constructed of wood billets supported
by hollow spaces in every direction, for the creation of air-currents.
"The pile struck terror," says M. Michelet, "by its height." ... There
would be a certainty of calumny arising against her--some people would
impute to her a willingness to recant. No innocence could escape that.
Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it
would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature
shrinking from the instant approach of torment. And those will often
pity that weakness most, who in their own persons would yield to it
least. Meantime there never was a calumny uttered that drew less
support from the recorded circumstances. It rests upon no positive
testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem....
What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that
till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten
thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept; and
of these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted
together by cords of superstition." What else was it but her
constancy, united with her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic
English soldier--who had sworn to throw a fagot on her scaffold as his
tribute of abhorrence, that did so, that fulfilled his vow--suddenly
to turn away a penitent for life, saying everywhere that he had seen a
dove rising upon wings to heaven from the ashes where she had stood?
What else drove the executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to
his share in the tragedy? And if all this were insufficient, then I
cite the closing act of her life as valid on her behalf, were all
other testimonies against her. The executioner had been directed to
apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke rose up in
billowy columns. A Dominican monk was then standing almost at her
side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still
persisted in his prayers. Even then when the last enemy was racing up
the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this noblest of
girls think only for him, the one friend that would not forsake her,
and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to care for his
own preservation, but to leave her to God. That girl, whose latest
breath ascended in this sublime expression of self-oblivion, did not
utter the word recant either with her lips or in her heart. No, she
did not, tho one should rise from the dead to swear it.