"I don't see how you can talk like that, I'm sure I don't. I don't see

how you could have got such a notion. I don't dislike him, and I'm not

saying these things out of prejudice, for I don't allow myself to have

prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him

from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults,

and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true

enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they'll bear inspection--I have that

idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail

and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn't the saddle

hurt me? Pooh--I was as much at home in it as if I had been born there.

And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those old

soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything like

it. But him--why, they had to hold him on, all the time."

An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin

unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and

limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.

At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm in

him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and

it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If

this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness seemed

to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind it; and

besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work of Noel

Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and perfected

it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light heart had

to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the Paladin had only

needed development in order to meet its requirements, consequently the

development was taken in hand and diligently attended to and looked

after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect and damage of far

more important concerns. The result was an unqualified success. Noel

prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else's; the Paladin

preferred anybody's to Noel's. The big fellow was often seen with the

little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is often seen

with the gnat.

With the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to our

expedition, and said:

"It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel."

His eye twinkled, and he answered:

"Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn't all belong

to me; I had help."

"Who helped you?"

"The governor."

"How?"

"Well, I'll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the

crowds and the general show, for I hadn't ever had any experience of such

things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn't any

mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him have my

company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and said so; and

while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the governor's torches

they seized us and four more and added us to the escort, and that is

really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I wasn't sorry,

remembering how dull life would have been in the village without the

Paladin."

"How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?"

"I think he was glad."

"Why?"

"Because he said he wasn't. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is

not likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that he

would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he

would. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that he

could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie; besides,

his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against fooling with

new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad, because he said

he wasn't."

"Do you think he was very glad?"

"Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother.

He said his health was delicate, and he didn't know how to ride a horse,

and he knew he couldn't outlive the first march. But really he wasn't

looking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there, a

proper lift for four men. The governor's temper got afire, and he

delivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the

ground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to

cutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that

secured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further

debate."

"Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join--that is,

if your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the

march last night?"

"About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his

bulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame

to-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand."

Chapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy

WE WERE called to quarters and subjected to a searching inspection by

Joan. Then she made a short little talk in which she said that even the

rude business of war could be conducted better without profanity and

other brutalities of speech than with them, and that she should strictly

require us to remember and apply this admonition. She ordered half an

hour's horsemanship drill for the novices then, and appointed one of the

veterans to conduct it. It was a ridiculous exhibition, but we learned

something, and Joan was satisfied and complimented us. She did not take

any instruction herself or go through the evolutions and manoeuvres, but

merely sat her horse like a martial little statue and looked on. That was

sufficient for her, you see. She would not miss or forget a detail of the

lesson, she would take it all in with her eye and her mind, and apply it

afterward with as much certainty and confidence as if she had already

practised it.

We now made three night marches of twelve or thirteen leagues each,

riding in peace and undisturbed, being taken for a roving band of Free

Companions. Country-folk were glad to have that sort of people go by

without stopping. Still, they were very wearying marches, and not

comfortable, for the bridges were few and the streams many, and as we had

to ford them we found the water dismally cold, and afterward had to bed

ourselves, still wet, on the frosty or snowy ground, and get warm as we

might and sleep if we could, for it would not have been prudent to build

fires. Our energies languished under these hardships and deadly fatigues,

but Joan's did not. Her step kept its spring and firmness and her eye its

fire. We could only wonder at this, we could not explain it.

But if we had had hard times before, I know not what to call the five

nights that now followed, for the marches were as fatiguing, the baths as

cold, and we were ambuscaded seven times in addition, and lost two

novices and three veterans in the resulting fights. The news had leaked

out and gone abroad that the inspired Virgin of Vaucouleurs was making

for the King with an escort, and all the roads were being watched now.

These five nights disheartened the command a good deal. This was

aggravated by a discovery which Noel made, and which he promptly made

known at headquarters. Some of the men had been trying to understand why

Joan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest

men in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and

were become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have

eyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own

women-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields

while the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that

women have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men--but

what good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had taught

them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of seventeen bear

the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the army. Moreover,

they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great purpose, can make a

weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the greatest soul in the

universe; but how could they know that, those dumb creatures? No, they

knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece with their ignorance.

They argued and discussed among themselves, with Noel listening, and

arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and had her strange pluck

and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to watch for a safe

opportunity to take her life.

To have secret plottings of this sort going on in our midst was a very

serious business, of course, and the knights asked Joan's permission to

hang the plotters, but she refused without hesitancy. She said:

"Neither these men nor any others can take my life before my mission is

accomplished, therefore why should I have their blood upon my hands? I

will inform them of this, and also admonish them. Call them before me."

When the came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact

way, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one could

doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men were

evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in such a

sure and confident way, for prophecies boldly uttered never fall barren

on superstitious ears. Yes, this speech certainly impressed them, but her

closing remark impressed them still more. It was for the ringleader, and

Joan said it sorrowfully:

"It is a pity that you should plot another's death when you own is so

close at hand."

That man's horse stumbled and fell on him in the first ford which we

crossed that night, and he was drowned before we could help him. We had

no more conspiracies.

This night was harassed with ambuscades, but we got through without

having any men killed. One more night would carry us over the hostile

frontier if we had good luck, and we saw the night close down with a good

deal of solicitude. Always before, we had been more or less reluctant to

start out into the gloom and the silence to be frozen in the fords and

persecuted by the enemy, but this time we were impatient to get under way

and have it over, although there was promise of more and harder fighting

than any of the previous nights had furnished. Moreover, in front of us

about three leagues there was a deep stream with a frail wooden bridge

over it, and as a cold rain mixed with snow had been falling steadily all

day we were anxious to find out whether we were in a trap or not. If the

swollen stream had washed away the bridge, we might properly consider

ourselves trapped and cut off from escape.

As soon as it was dark we filed out from the depth of the forest where we

had been hidden and began the march. From the time that we had begun to

encounter ambushes Joan had ridden at the head of the column, and she

took this post now. By the time we had gone a league the rain and snow

had turned to sleet, and under the impulse of the storm-wind it lashed my

face like whips, and I envied Joan and the knights, who could close their

visors and shut up their heads in their helmets as in a box. Now, out of

the pitchy darkness and close at hand, came the sharp command:

"Halt!"

We obeyed. I made out a dim mass in front of us which might be a body of

horsemen, but one could not be sure. A man rode up and said to Joan in a

tone of reproof:

"Well, you have taken your time, truly. And what have you found out? Is

she still behind us, or in front?"

Joan answered in a level voice:

"She is still behind."

This news softened the stranger's tone. He said:

"If you know that to be true, you have not lost your time, Captain. But

are you sure? How do you know?"

"Because I have seen her."

"Seen her! Seen the Virgin herself?"

"Yes, I have been in her camp."

"Is it possible! Captain Raymond, I ask you to pardon me for speaking in

that tone just now. You have performed a daring and admirable service.

Where was she camped?"

"In the forest, not more than a league from here."

"Good! I was afraid we might be still behind her, but now that we know

she is behind us, everything is safe. She is our game. We will hang her.

You shall hang her yourself. No one has so well earned the privilege of

abolishing this pestilent limb of Satan."

"I do not know how to thank you sufficiently. If we catch her, I--"

"If! I will take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want is

just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to

make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men

has she?"

"I counted but eighteen, but she may have had two or three pickets out."

"Is that all? It won't be a mouthful for my force. Is it true that she is

only a girl?"

"Yes; she is not more than seventeen."

"It passes belief! Is she robust, or slender?"

"Slender."

The officer pondered a moment or two, then he said:

"Was she preparing to break camp?"

"Not when I had my last glimpse of her."

"What was she doing?"

"She was talking quietly with an officer."

"Quietly? Not giving orders?"

"No, talking as quietly as we are now."

"That is good. She is feeling a false security. She would have been

restless and fussy else--it is the way of her sex when danger is about.

As she was making no preparation to break camp--"

"She certainly was not when I saw her last."

"--and was chatting quietly and at her ease, it means that this weather

is not to her taste. Night-marching in sleet and wind is not for chits of

seventeen. No; she will stay where she is. She has my thanks. We will

camp, ourselves; here is as good a place as any. Let us get about it."

"If you command it--certainly. But she has two knights with her. They

might force her to march, particularly if the weather should improve."

I was scared, and impatient to be getting out of this peril, and it

distressed and worried me to have Joan apparently set herself to work to

make delay and increase the danger--still, I thought she probably knew

better than I what to do. The officer said:

"Well, in that case we are here to block the way."

"Yes, if they come this way. But if they should send out spies, and find

out enough to make them want to try for the bridge through the woods? Is

it best to allow the bridge to stand?"

It made me shiver to hear her.

The officer considered awhile, then said:

"It might be well enough to send a force to destroy the bridge. I was

intending to occupy it with the whole command, but that is not necessary

now."

Joan said, tranquilly:

"With your permission, I will go and destroy it myself."

Ah, now I saw her idea, and was glad she had had the cleverness to invent

it and the ability to keep her head cool and think of it in that tight

place. The officer replied:

"You have it, Captain, and my thanks. With you to do it, it will be well

done; I could send another in your place, but not a better."

They saluted, and we moved forward. I breathed freer. A dozen times I had

imagined I heard the hoofbeats of the real Captain Raymond's troop

arriving behind us, and had been sitting on pins and needles all the

while that that conversation was dragging along. I breathed freer, but

was still not comfortable, for Joan had given only the simple command,

"Forward!" Consequently we moved in a walk. Moved in a dead walk past a

dim and lengthening column of enemies at our side. The suspense was

exhausting, yet it lasted but a short while, for when the enemy's bugles

sang the "Dismount!" Joan gave the word to trot, and that was a great

relief to me. She was always at herself, you see. Before the command to

dismount had been given, somebody might have wanted the countersign

somewhere along that line if we came flying by at speed, but now wee

seemed to be on our way to our allotted camping position, so we were

allowed to pass unchallenged. The further we went the more formidable was

the strength revealed by the hostile force. Perhaps it was only a hundred

or two, but to me it seemed a thousand. When we passed the last of these

people I was thankful, and the deeper we plowed into the darkness beyond

them the better I felt. I came nearer and nearer to feeling good, for an

hour; then we found the bridge still standing, and I felt entirely good.

We crossed it and destroyed it, and then I felt--but I cannot describe

what I felt. One has to feel it himself in order to know what it is like.

We had expected to hear the rush of a pursuing force behind us, for we

thought that the real Captain Raymond would arrive and suggest that

perhaps the troop that had been mistaken for his belonged to the Virgin

of Vaucouleurs; but he must have been delayed seriously, for when we

resumed our march beyond the river there were no sounds behind us except

those which the storm was furnishing.

I said that Joan had harvested a good many compliments intended for

Captain Raymond, and that he would find nothing of a crop left but a dry

stubble of reprimands when he got back, and a commander just in the humor

to superintend the gathering of it in.

Joan said:

"It will be as you say, no doubt; for the commander took a troop for

granted, in the night and unchallenged, and would have camped without

sending a force to destroy the bridge if he had been left unadvised, and

none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things worthy

of blame themselves."

The Sieur Bertrand was amused at Joan's naive way of referring to her

advice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was

saved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission, and then he

went on to admire how ingeniously she had deceived that man and yet had

not told him anything that was not the truth. This troubled Joan, and she

said:

"I thought he was deceiving himself. I forbore to tell him lies, for that

would have been wrong; but if my truths deceived him, perhaps that made

them lies, and I am to blame. I would God I knew if I have done wrong."

She was assured that she had done right, and that in the perils and

necessities of war deceptions that help one's own cause and hurt the

enemy's were always permissible; but she was not quite satisfied with

that, and thought that even when a great cause was in danger one ought to

have the privilege of trying honorable ways first. Jean said:

"Joan, you told us yourself that you were going to Uncle Laxart's to

nurse his wife, but you didn't say you were going further, yet you did go

on to Vaucouleurs. There!"

"I see now," said Joan, sorrowfully. "I told no lie, yet I deceived. I

had tried all other ways first, but I could not get away, and I had to

get away. My mission required it. I did wrong, I think, and am to blame."

She was silent a moment, turning the matter over in her mind, then she

added, with quiet decision, "But the thing itself was right, and I would

do it again."

It seemed an over-nice distinction, but nobody said anything. I few had

known her as well as she knew herself, and as her later history revealed

her to us, we should have perceived that she had a clear meaning there,

and that her position was not identical with ours, as we were supposing,

but occupied a higher plane. She would sacrifice herself--and her best

self; that is, her truthfulness--to save her cause; but only that; she

would not buy her life at that cost; whereas our war-ethics permitted the

purchase of our lives, or any mere military advantage, small or great, by

deception. Her saying seemed a commonplace at the time, the essence of

its meaning escaping us; but one sees now that it contained a principle

which lifted it above that and made it great and fine.

Presently the wind died down, the sleet stopped falling, and the cold was

less severe. The road was become a bog, and the horses labored through it

at a walk--they could do no better. As the heavy time wore on, exhaustion

overcame us, and we slept in our saddles. Not even the dangers that

threatened us could keep us awake.

This tenth night seemed longer than any of the others, and of course it

was the hardest, because we had been accumulating fatigue from the

beginning, and had more of it on hand now than at any previous time. But

we were not molested again. When the dull dawn came at last we saw a

river before us and we knew it was the Loire; we entered the town of

Gien, and knew we were in a friendly land, with the hostiles all behind

us. That was a glad morning for us.

We were a worn and bedraggled and shabby-looking troop; and still, as

always, Joan was the freshest of us all, in both body and spirits. We had

averaged above thirteen leagues a night, by tortuous and wretched roads.

It was a remarkable march, and shows what men can do when they have a

leader with a determined purpose and a resolution that never flags.

Chapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades

WE RESTED and otherwise refreshed ourselves two or three hours at Gien,

but by that time the news was abroad that the young girl commissioned of

God to deliver France was come; wherefore, such a press of people flocked

to our quarters to get sight of her that it seemed best to seek a quieter

place; so we pushed on and halted at a small village called Fierbois.

We were now within six leagues of the King, who was a the Castle of

Chinon. Joan dictated a letter to him at once, and I wrote it. In it she

said she had come a hundred and fifty leagues to bring him good news, and

begged the privilege of delivering it in person. She added that although

she had never seen him she would know him in any disguise and would point

him out.

The two knights rode away at once with the letter. The troop slept all

the afternoon, and after supper we felt pretty fresh and fine, especially

our little group of young Domremians. We had the comfortable tap-room of

the village inn to ourselves, and for the first time in ten unspeakably

long days were exempt from bodings and terrors and hardships and

fatiguing labors. The Paladin was suddenly become his ancient self again,

and was swaggering up and down, a very monument of self-complacency. Noel

Rainguesson said:

"I think it is wonderful, the way he has brought us through."

"Who?" asked Jean.

"Why, the Paladin."

The Paladin seemed not to hear.

"What had he to do with it?" asked Pierre d'Arc.

"Everything. It was nothing but Joan's confidence in his discretion that

enabled her to keep up her heart. She could depend on us and on herself

for valor, but discretion is the winning thing in war, after all;

discretion is the rarest and loftiest of qualities, and he has got more

of it than any other man in France--more of it, perhaps, than any other

sixty men in France."

"Now you are getting ready to make a fool of yourself, Noel Rainguesson,"

said the Paladin, "and you want to coil some of that long tongue of yours

around your neck and stick the end of it in your ear, then you'll be the

less likely to get into trouble."

"I didn't know he had more discretion than other people," said Pierre,

"for discretion argues brains, and he hasn't any more brains than the

rest of us, in my opinion."

"No, you are wrong there. Discretion hasn't anything to do with brains;

brains are an obstruction to it, for it does not reason, it feels.

Perfect discretion means absence of brains. Discretion is a quality of

the heart--solely a quality of the heart; it acts upon us through

feeling. We know this because if it were an intellectual quality it would

only perceive a danger, for instance, where a danger exists; whereas--"

"Hear him twaddle--the damned idiot!" muttered the Paladin.

"--whereas, it being purely a quality of the heart, and proceeding by

feeling, not reason, its reach is correspondingly wider and sublimer,

enabling it to perceive and avoid dangers that haven't any existence at

all; as, for instance, that night in the fog, when the Paladin took his

horse's ears for hostile lances and got off and climbed a tree--"

"It's a lie! a lie without shadow of foundation, and I call upon you all

to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this

ramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my

character for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you next.

I got off to tighten my saddle-girth--I wish I may die in my tracks if it

isn't so--and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don't can let

it alone."

"There, that is the way with him, you see; he never can discuss a theme

temperately, but always flies off the handle and becomes disagreeable.

And you notice his defect of memory. He remembers getting off his horse,

but forgets all the rest, even the tree. But that is natural; he would

remember getting off the horse because he was so used to doing it. He

always did it when there was an alarm and the clash of arms at the

front."

"Why did he choose that time for it?" asked Jean.

"I don't know. To tighten up his girth, he thinks, to climb a tree, I

think; I saw him climb nine trees in a single night."

"You saw nothing of the kind! A person that can lie like that deserves no

one's respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this

reptile has said?"

All seemed embarrassed, and only Pierre replied. He said, hesitatingly:

"I--well, I hardly know what to say. It is a delicate situation. It seems

offensive to me to refuse to believe a person when he makes so direct a

statement, and yet I am obliged to say, rude as it may appear, that I am

not able to believe the whole of it--no, I am not able to believe that

you climbed nine trees."

"There!" cried the Paladin; "now what do you think of yourself, Noel

Rainguesson? How many do you believe I climbed, Pierre?"

"Only eight."

The laughter that followed inflamed the Paladin's anger to white heat,

and he said:

"I bide my time--I bide my time. I will reckon with you all, I promise

you that!"

"Don't get him started," Noel pleaded; "he is a perfect lion when he gets

started. I saw enough to teach me that, after the third skirmish. After

it was over I saw him come out of the bushes and attack a dead man

single-handed."

"It is another lie; and I give you fair warning that you are going too

far. You will see me attack a live one if you are not careful."

"Meaning me, of course. This wounds me more than any number of injurious

and unkind speeches could do. In gratitude to one's benefactor--"

"Benefactor? What do I owe you, I should like to know?"

"You owe me your life. I stood between the trees and the foe, and kept

hundreds and thousands of the enemy at bay when they were thirsting for

your blood. And I did not do it to display my daring. I did it because I

loved you and could not live without you."

"There--you have said enough! I will not stay here to listen to these

infamies. I can endure your lies, but not your love. Keep that corruption

for somebody with a stronger stomach than mine. And I want to say this,

before I go. That you people's small performances might appear the better

and win you the more glory, I hid my own deeds through all the march. I

went always to the front, where the fighting was thickest, to be remote

from you in order that you might not see and be discouraged by the things

I did to the enemy. It was my purpose to keep this a secret in my own

breast, but you force me to reveal it. If you ask for my witnesses,

yonder they lie, on the road we have come. I found that road mud, I paved

it with corpses. I found that country sterile, I fertilized it with

blood. Time and again I was urged to go to the rear because the command

could not proceed on account of my dead. And yet you, you miscreant,

accuse me of climbing trees! Pah!"

And he strode out, with a lofty air, for the recital of his imaginary

deeds had already set him up again and made him feel good.

Next day we mounted and faced toward Chinon. Orleans was at our back now,

and close by, lying in the strangling grip of the English; soon, please

God, we would face about and go to their relief. From Gien the news had

spread to Orleans that the peasant Maid of Vaucouleurs was on her way,

divinely commissioned to raise the siege. The news made a great

excitement and raised a great hope--the first breath of hope those poor

souls had breathed in five months. They sent commissioners at once to the

King to beg him to consider this matter, and not throw this help lightly

away. These commissioners were already at Chinon by this time.

When we were half-way to Chinon we happened upon yet one more squad of

enemies. They burst suddenly out of the woods, and in considerable force,

too; but we were not the apprentices we were ten or twelve days before;

no, we were seasoned to this kind of adventure now; our hearts did not

jump into our throats and our weapons tremble in our hands. We had

learned to be always in battle array, always alert, and always ready to

deal with any emergency that might turn up. We were no more dismayed by

the sight of those people than our commander was. Before they could form,

Joan had delivered the order, "Forward!" and we were down upon them with

a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered, we plowing

through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our last

ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous rascal,

the King's own minister and favorite, De la Tremouille.

We housed ourselves in an inn, and soon the town came flocking to get a

glimpse of the Maid.

Ah, the tedious King and his tedious people! Our two good knights came

presently, their patience well wearied, and reported. They and we

reverently stood--as becomes persons who are in the presence of kings and

the superiors of kings--until Joan, troubled by this mark of homage and

respect, and not content with it nor yet used to it, although we had not

permitted ourselves to do otherwise since the day she prophesied that

wretched traitor's death and he was straightway drowned, thus confirming

many previous signs that she was indeed an ambassador commissioned of

God, commanded us to sit; then the Sieur de Metz said to Joan:

"The King has got the letter, but they will not let us have speech with

him."

"Who is it that forbids?"

"None forbids, but there be three or four that are nearest his

person--schemers and traitors every one--that put obstructions in the

way, and seek all ways, by lies and pretexts, to make delay. Chiefest of

these are Georges de la Tremouille and that plotting fox, the Archbishop

of Rheims. While they keep the King idle and in bondage to his sports and

follies, they are great and their importance grows; whereas if ever he

assert himself and rise and strike for crown and country like a man,

their reign is done. So they but thrive, they care not if the crown go to

destruction and the King with it."

"You have spoken with others besides these?"

"Not of the Court, no--the Court are the meek slaves of those reptiles,

and watch their mouths and their actions, acting as they act, thinking as

they think, saying as they say; wherefore they are cold to us, and turn

aside and go another way when we appear. But we have spoken with the

commissioners from Orleans. They said with heat: 'It is a marvel that any

man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in this torpid

way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to stay the

disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is, shut up in

this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his royal shelter this

huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for upholstery and crippled

furniture for use, a very house of desolation; in his treasure forty

francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness! no army, nor any shadow

of one; and by contrast with his hungry poverty you behold this crownless

pauper and his shoals of fools and favorites tricked out in the gaudiest

silks and velvets you shall find in any Court in Christendom. And look

you, he knows that when our city falls--as fall it surely will except

succor come swiftly--France falls; he knows that when that day comes he

will be an outlaw and a fugitive, and that behind him the English flag

will float unchallenged over every acre of his great heritage; he knows

these things, he knows that our faithful city is fighting all solitary

and alone against disease, starvation, and the sword to stay this awful

calamity, yet he will not strike one blow to save her, he will not hear

our prayers, he will not even look upon our faces.' That is what the

commissioners said, and they are in despair."

Joan said, gently:

"It is pity, but they must not despair. The Dauphin will hear them

presently. Tell them so."

She almost always called the King the Dauphin. To her mind he was not

King yet, not being crowned.

"We will tell them so, and it will content them, for they believe you

come from God. The Archbishop and his confederate have for backer that

veteran soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Grand Master of the Palace, a worthy

man, but simply a soldier, with no head for any greater matter. He cannot

make out to see how a country-girl, ignorant of war, can take a sword in

her small hand and win victories where the trained generals of France

have looked for defeats only, for fifty years--and always found them. And

so he lifts his frosty mustache and scoffs."

"When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His

sword is big or little. He will perceive this in time. Is there none in

that Castle of Chinon who favors us?"

"Yes, the King's mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, who is wise and

good. She spoke with the Sieur Bertrand."

"She favors us, and she hates those others, the King's beguilers," said

Bertrand. "She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all

of which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over

these replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no

more. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she were

talking to herself: 'A child of seventeen--a girl--country-bred

--untaught--ignorant of war, the use of arms, and the conduct of battles

--modest, gentle, shrinking--yet throws away her shepherd's crook and

clothes herself in steel, and fights her way through a hundred and fifty

leagues of fear, and comes--she to whom a king must be a dread and awful

presence--and will stand up before such an one and say, Be not afraid,

God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence could come a courage and

conviction so sublime as this but from very God Himself!' She was silent

again awhile, thinking and making up her mind; then she said, 'And

whether she comes of God or no, there is that in her heart that raises

her above men--high above all men that breathe in France to-day--for in

her is that mysterious something that puts heart into soldiers, and

turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that forget what fear is

when they are in that presence --fighters who go into battle with joy in

their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over the field like a

storm --that is the spirit that can save France, and that alone, come it

whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what else could

have borne up that child on that great march, and made her despise its

dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face--and shall!'

She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise will be

kept. They will delay her all they can--those animals--but she will not

fail in the end."

"Would she were King!" said the other knight, fervently. "For there is

little hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He

is wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything

and flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a spell

upon him that makes him hopeless--yes, and that it is shut up in a

mystery which they cannot fathom."

"I know the mystery," said Joan, with quiet confidence; "I know it, and

he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a

secret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head

again."

I was miserable with curiosity to know what it was that she would tell

him, but she did not say, and I did not expect she would. She was but a

child, it is true; but she was not a chatterer to tell great matters and

make herself important to little people; no, she was reserved, and kept

things to herself, as the truly great always do.

The next day Queen Yolande got one victory over the King's keepers, for,

in spite of their protestations and obstructions, she procured an

audience for our two knights, and they made the most they could out of

their opportunity. They told the King what a spotless and beautiful

character Joan was, and how great and noble a spirit animated her, and

they implored him to trust in her, believe in her, and have faith that

she was sent to save France. They begged him to consent to see her. He

was strongly moved to do this, and promised that he would not drop the

matter out of his mind, but would consult with his council about it. This

began to look encouraging. Two hours later there was a great stir below,

and the innkeeper came flying up to say a commission of illustrious

ecclesiastics was come from the King--from the King his very self,

understand!--think of this vast honor to his humble little hostelry!--and

he was so overcome with the glory of it that he could hardly find breath

enough in his excited body to put the facts into words. They were come

from the King to speak with the Maid of Vaucouleurs. Then he flew

downstairs, and presently appeared again, backing into the room, and

bowing to the ground with every step, in front of four imposing and

austere bishops and their train of servants.

Joan rose, and we all stood. The bishops took seats, and for a while no

word was said, for it was their prerogative to speak first, and they were

so astonished to see what a child it was that was making such a noise in

the world and degrading personages of their dignity to the base function

of ambassadors to her in her plebeian tavern, that they could not find

any words to say at first. Then presently their spokesman told Joan they

were aware that she had a message for the King, wherefore she was now

commanded to put it into words, briefly and without waste of time or

embroideries of speech.

As for me, I could hardly contain my joy--our message was to reach the

King at last! And there was the same joy and pride and exultation in the

faces of our knights, too, and in those of Joan's brothers. And I knew

that they were all praying--as I was--that the awe which we felt in the

presence of these great dignitaries, and which would have tied our

tongues and locked our jaws, would not affect her in the like degree, but

that she would be enabled to word her message well, and with little

stumbling, and so make a favorable impression here, where it would be so

valuable and so important.

Ah, dear, how little we were expecting what happened then! We were aghast

to hear her say what she said. She was standing in a reverent attitude,

with her head down and her hands clasped in front of her; for she was

always reverent toward the consecrated servants of God. When the

spokesman had finished, she raised her head and set her calm eye on those

faces, not any more disturbed by their state and grandeur than a princess

would have been, and said, with all her ordinary simplicity and modesty

of voice and manner:

"Ye will forgive me, reverend sirs, but I have no message save for the

King's ear alone."

Those surprised men were dumb for a moment, and their faces flushed

darkly; then the spokesman said:

"Hark ye, to you fling the King's command in his face and refuse to

deliver this message of yours to his servants appointed to receive it?"

"God has appointed me to receive it, and another's commandment may not

take precedence of that. I pray you let me have speech for his grace the

Dauphin."

"Forbear this folly, and come at your message! Deliver it, and waste no

more time about it."

"You err indeed, most reverend fathers in God, and it is not well. I am

not come hither to talk, but to deliver Orleans, and lead the Dauphin to

his good city of Rheims, and set the crown upon his head."

"Is that the message you send to the King?"

But Joan only said, in the simple fashion which was her wont:

"Ye will pardon me for reminding you again--but I have no message to send

to any one."

The King's messengers rose in deep anger and swept out of the place

without further words, we and Joan kneeling as they passed.

Our countenances were vacant, our hearts full of a sense of disaster. Our

precious opportunity was thrown away; we could not understand Joan's

conduct, she who had ben so wise until this fatal hour. At last the Sieur

Bertrand found courage to ask her why she had let this great chance to

get her message to the King go by.

"Who sent them here?" she asked.

"The King."

"Who moved the King to send them?" She waited for an answer; none came,

for we began to see what was in her mind--so she answered herself: "The

Dauphin's council moved him to it. Are they enemies to me and to the

Dauphin's weal, or are they friends?"

"Enemies," answered the Sieur Bertrand.

"If one would have a message go sound and ungarbled, does one choose

traitors and tricksters to send it by?"

I saw that we had been fools, and she wise. They saw it too, so none

found anything to say. Then she went on:

"They had but small wit that contrived this trap. They thought to get my

message and seem to deliver it straight, yet deftly twist it from its

purpose. You know that one part of my message is but this--to move the

Dauphin by argument and reasonings to give me men-at-arms and send me to

the siege. If an enemy carried these in the right words, the exact words,

and no word missing, yet left out the persuasions of gesture and

supplicating tone and beseeching looks that inform the words and make

them live, where were the value of that argument--whom could it convince?

Be patient, the Dauphin will hear me presently; have no fear."

The Sieur de Metz nodded his head several times, and muttered as to

himself:

"She was right and wise, and we are but dull fools, when all is said."

It was just my thought; I could have said it myself; and indeed it was

the thought of all there present. A sort of awe crept over us, to think

how that untaught girl, taken suddenly and unprepared, was yet able to

penetrate the cunning devices of a King's trained advisers and defeat

them. Marveling over this, and astonished at it, we fell silent and spoke

no more. We had come to know that she was great in courage, fortitude,

endurance, patience, conviction, fidelity to all duties--in all things,

indeed, that make a good and trusty soldier and perfect him for his post;

now we were beginning to feel that maybe there were greatnesses in her

brain that were even greater than these great qualities of the heart. It

set us thinking.

What Joan did that day bore fruit the very day after. The King was

obliged to respect the spirit of a young girl who could hold her own and

stand her ground like that, and he asserted himself sufficiently to put

his respect into an act instead of into polite and empty words. He moved

Joan out of that poor inn, and housed her, with us her servants, in the

Castle of Courdray, personally confiding her to the care of Madame de

Bellier, wife of old Raoul de Gaucourt, Master of the Palace. Of course,

this royal attention had an immediate result: all the great lords and

ladies of the Court began to flock there to see and listen to the

wonderful girl-soldier that all the world was talking about, and who had

answered the King's mandate with a bland refusal to obey. Joan charmed

them every one with her sweetness and simplicity and unconscious

eloquence, and all the best and capablest among them recognized that

there was an indefinable something about her that testified that she was

not made of common clay, that she was built on a grander plan than the

mass of mankind, and moved on a loftier plane. These spread her fame. She

always made friends and advocates that way; neither the high nor the low

could come within the sound of her voice and the sight of her face and go

out from her presence indifferent.

Chapter 6 Joan Convinces the King

WELL, anything to make delay. The King's council advised him against

arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a

decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests--always

priests--into Lorraine to inquire into Joan's character and history--a

matter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how

fastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the fire

when a man's house was burning down, and they waited till they could send

into another country to find out if he had always kept the Sabbath or

not, before letting him try.

So the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but not

in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had never

seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious spectacle to

see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we were on the

lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The others were

doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day great news

came--the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights, had at

last turned the council's position and persuaded the King to see Joan.

Joan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head,

but with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any

rational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days

our pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan's

account, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that

Joan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files of

torches, the solemn pomps and ceremonies, the great concourse of renowned

personages, the brilliant costumes, and the other splendors of the Court,

that she, a simple country-maid, and all unused to such things, would be

overcome by these terrors and make a piteous failure.

No doubt I could have comforted them, but I was not free to speak. Would

Joan be disturbed by this cheap spectacle, this tinsel show, with its

small King and his butterfly dukelets?--she who had spoken face to face

with the princes of heaven, the familiars of God, and seen their retinue

of angels stretching back into the remoteness of the sky, myriads upon

myriads, like a measureless fan of light, a glory like the glory of the

sun streaming from each of those innumerable heads, the massed radiance

filling the deeps of space with a blinding splendor? I thought not.

Queen Yolande wanted Joan to make the best possible impression upon the

King and the Court, so she was strenuous to have her clothed in the

richest stuffs, wrought upon the princeliest pattern, and set off with

jewels; but in that she had to be disappointed, of course, Joan not being

persuadable to it, but begging to be simply and sincerely dressed, as

became a servant of God, and one sent upon a mission of a serious sort

and grave political import. So then the gracious Queen imagined and

contrived that simple and witching costume which I have described to you

so many times, and which I cannot think of even now in my dull age

without being moved just as rhythmical and exquisite music moves one; for

that was music, that dress--that is what it was--music that one saw with

a the eyes and felt in the heart. Yes, she was a poem, she was a dream,

she was a spirit when she was clothed in that.

She kept that raiment always, and wore it several times upon occasions of

state, and it is preserved to this day in the Treasury of Orleans, with

two of her swords, and her banner, and other things now sacred because

they had belonged to her.

At the appointed time the Count of Vendome, a great lord of the court,

came richly clothed, with his train of servants and assistants, to

conduct Joan to the King, and the two knights and I went with her, being

entitled to this privilege by reason of our official positions near her

person.

When we entered the great audience-hall, there it all was just as I have

already painted it. Here were ranks of guards in shining armor and with

polished halberds; two sides of the hall were like flower-gardens for

variety of color and the magnificence of the costumes; light streamed

upon these masses of color from two hundred and fifty flambeaux. There

was a wide free space down the middle of the hall, and at the end of it

was a throne royally canopied, and upon it sat a crowned and sceptered

figure nobly clothed and blazing with jewels.

It is true that Joan had been hindered and put off a good while, but now

that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with

honors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door

stood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender

silver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending

from them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count

passed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and as

we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this was

repeated at every fifty feet of our progress--six times in all. It made

our good knights proud and happy, and they held themselves erect, and

stiffened their stride, and looked fine and soldierly. They were not

expecting this beautiful and honorable tribute to our little

country-maid.

Joan walked two yards behind the Count, we three walked two yards behind

Joan. Our solemn march ended when we were as yet some eight or ten steps

from the throne. The Count made a deep obeisance, pronounced Joan's name,

then bowed again and moved to his place among a group of officials near

the throne. I was devouring the crowned personage with all my eyes, and

my heart almost stood still with awe.

The eyes of all others were fixed upon Joan in a gaze of wonder which was

half worship, and which seemed to say, "How sweet--how lovely--how

divine!" All lips were parted and motionless, which was a sure sign that

those people, who seldom forget themselves, had forgotten themselves now,

and were not conscious of anything but the one object they were gazing

upon. They had the look of people who are under the enchantment of a

vision.

Then they presently began to come to life again, rousing themselves out

of the spell and shaking it off as one drives away little by little a

clinging drowsiness or intoxication. Now they fixed their attention upon

Joan with a strong new interest of another sort; they were full of

curiosity to see what she would do--they having a secret and particular

reason for this curiosity. So they watched. This is what they saw:

She made no obeisance, nor even any slight inclination of her head, but

stood looking toward the throne in silence. That was all there was to see

at present.

I glanced up at De Metz, and was shocked at the paleness of his face. I

whispered and said:

"What is it, man, what is it?"

His answering whisper was so weak I could hardly catch it:

"They have taken advantage of the hint in her letter to play a trick upon

her! She will err, and they will laugh at her. That is not the King that

sits there."

Then I glanced at Joan. She was still gazing steadfastly toward the

throne, and I had the curious fancy that even her shoulders and the back

of her head expressed bewilderment. Now she turned her head slowly, and

her eye wandered along the lines of standing courtiers till it fell upon

a young man who was very quietly dressed; then her face lighted joyously,

and she ran and threw herself at his feet, and clasped his knees,

exclaiming in that soft melodious voice which was her birthright and was

now charged with deep and tender feeling:

"God of his grace give you long life, O dear and gentle Dauphin!"

In his astonishment and exultation De Metz cried out:

"By the shadow of God, it is an amazing thing!" Then he mashed all the

bones of my hand in his grateful grip, and added, with a proud shake of

his mane, "Now, what have these painted infidels to say!"

Meantime the young person in the plain clothes was saying to Joan:

"Ah, you mistake, my child, I am not the King. There he is," and he

pointed to the throne.

The knight's face clouded, and he muttered in grief and indignation:

"Ah, it is a shame to use her so. But for this lie she had gone through

safe. I will go and proclaim to all the house what--"

"Stay where you are!" whispered I and the Sieur Bertrand in a breath, and

made him stop in his place.

Joan did not stir from her knees, but still lifted her happy face toward

the King, and said:

"No, gracious liege, you are he, and none other."

De Metz's troubles vanished away, and he said:

"Verily, she was not guessing, she knew. Now, how could she know? It is a

miracle. I am content, and will meddle no more, for I perceive that she

is equal to her occasions, having that in her head that cannot profitably

be helped by the vacancy that is in mine."

This interruption of his lost me a remark or two of the other talk;

however, I caught the King's next question:

"But tell me who you are, and what would you?"

"I am called Joan the Maid, and am sent to say that the King of Heaven

wills that you be crowned and consecrated in your good city of Rheims,

and be thereafter Lieutenant of the Lord of Heaven, who is King of

France. And He willeth also that you set me at my appointed work and give

me men-at-arms." After a slight pause she added, her eye lighting at the

sound of her words, "For then will I raise the siege of Orleans and break

the English power!"

The young monarch's amused face sobered a little when this martial speech

fell upon that sick air like a breath blown from embattled camps and

fields of war, and this trifling smile presently faded wholly away and

disappeared. He was grave now, and thoughtful. After a little he waved

his hand lightly, and all the people fell away and left those two by

themselves in a vacant space. The knights and I moved to the opposite

side of the hall and stood there. We saw Joan rise at a sign, then she

and the King talked privately together.

All that host had been consumed with curiosity to see what Joan would do.

Well, they had seen, and now they were full of astonishment to see that

she had really performed that strange miracle according to the promise in

her letter; and they were fully as much astonished to find that she was

not overcome by the pomps and splendors about her, but was even more

tranquil and at her ease in holding speech with a monarch than ever they

themselves had been, with all their practice and experience.

As for our two knights, they were inflated beyond measure with pride in

Joan, but nearly dumb, as to speech, they not being able to think out any

way to account for her managing to carry herself through this imposing

ordeal without ever a mistake or an awkwardness of any kind to mar the

grace and credit of her great performance.

The talk between Joan and the King was long and earnest, and held in low

voices. We could not hear, but we had our eyes and could note effects;

and presently we and all the house noted one effect which was memorable

and striking, and has been set down in memoirs and histories and in

testimony at the Process of Rehabilitation by some who witnessed it; for

all knew it was big with meaning, though none knew what that meaning was

at that time, of course. For suddenly we saw the King shake off his

indolent attitude and straighten up like a man, and at the same time look

immeasurably astonished. It was as if Joan had told him something almost

too wonderful for belief, and yet of a most uplifting and welcome nature.

It was long before we found out the secret of this conversation, but we

know it now, and all the world knows it. That part of the talk was like

this--as one may read in all histories. The perplexed King asked Joan for

a sign. He wanted to believe in her and her mission, and that her Voices

were supernatural and endowed with knowledge hidden from mortals, but how

could he do this unless these Voices could prove their claim in some

absolutely unassailable way? It was then that Joan said:

"I will give you a sign, and you shall no more doubt. There is a secret

trouble in your heart which you speak of to none--a doubt which wastes

away your courage, and makes you dream of throwing all away and fleeing

from your realm. Within this little while you have been praying, in your

own breast, that God of his grace would resolve that doubt, even if the

doing of it must show you that no kingly right is lodged in you."

It was that that amazed the King, for it was as she had said: his prayer

was the secret of his own breast, and none but God could know about it.

So he said:

"The sign is sufficient. I know now that these Voices are of God. They

have said true in this matter; if they have said more, tell it me--I will

believe."

"They have resolved that doubt, and I bring their very words, which are

these: Thou art lawful heir to the King thy father, and true heir of

France. God has spoken it. Now lift up they head, and doubt no more, but

give me men-at-arms and let me get about my work."

Telling him he was of lawful birth was what straightened him up and made

a man of him for a moment, removing his doubts upon that head and

convincing him of his royal right; and if any could have hanged his

hindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have

answered Joan's prayer and set her in the field. But no, those creatures

were only checked, not checkmated; they could invent some more delays.

We had been made proud by the honors which had so distinguished Joan's

entrance into that place--honors restricted to personages of very high

rank and worth--but that pride was as nothing compared with the pride we

had in the honor done her upon leaving it. For whereas those first honors

were shown only to the great, these last, up to this time, had been shown

only to the royal. The King himself led Joan by the hand down the great

hall to the door, the glittering multitude standing and making reverence

as they passed, and the silver trumpets sounding those rich notes of

theirs. Then he dismissed her with gracious words, bending low over her

hand and kissing it. Always--from all companies, high or low--she went

forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came.

And the King did another handsome thing by Joan, for he sent us back to

Courdray Castle torch-lighted and in state, under escort of his own

troop--his guard of honor--the only soldiers he had; and finely equipped

and bedizened they were, too, though they hadn't seen the color of their

wages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which

Joan had been performing before the King had been carried all around by

this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get a

sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking

together, we couldn't, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm of

shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept

abreast of us like a wave the whole way.

Chapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory

WE WERE doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled

ourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting

the slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should

please to send it. The Paladin was the only exception--that is to say, he

was the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly

owing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at

second hand--a Spanish cavalier's complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with

flowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks,

short cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier,

and all that--a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin's great

frame was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off

duty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his

rapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped

to look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately

contrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the

trivial French costume of the time.

He was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter of

the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged

lord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got a

hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and

wondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world--all of

it that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate--and that was a wide

stretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been in

battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and

surprised, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk,

hero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was the

pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were his

obliged and willing servants.

Most people who have the narrative gift--that great and rare

endowment--have with it the defect of telling their choice things over

the same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound

stale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with the

Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and

interesting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it was

the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but always

made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties on the

enemy's side each time, and more general wreck and disaster all around,

and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood where it

happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except by their

names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had grown so

that there wasn't room enough in France for it any more, but was lapping

over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not allow him to

substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were the best, and

sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so, instead of

saying to him as they would have said to another, "Give us something

fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing," they would say, with one

voice and with a strong interest, "Tell about the surprise at Beaulieu

again--tell in three or four times!" That is a compliment which few

narrative experts have heard in their lifetime.

At first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal

Audience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it;

next, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there;

and within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His

mill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its

affair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a rest,

for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with the

great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else, and

so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they could

not have gotten it.

Noel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and

after that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us

have her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in

the door and see and hear.

The tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting

little tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor,

and its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a

comfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights as

these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping

their wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly

way while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and their

pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the tables

and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was about forty

feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of it had been kept

vacant and reserved for the Paladin's needs. At the end of it was a

platform ten or twelve feet wide, with a big chair and a small table on

it, and three steps leading up to it.

Among the wine-sippers were many familiar faces: the cobbler, the

farrier, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the armorer, the maltster, the

weaver, the backer, the miller's man with his dusty coat, and so on; and

conscious and important, as a matter of course, was the barber-surgeon,

for he is that in all villages. As he has to pull everybody's teeth and

purge and bleed all the grown people once a month to keep their health

sound, he knows everybody, and by constant contact with all sorts of folk

becomes a master of etiquette and manners and a conversationalist of

large facility. There were plenty of carriers, drovers, and their sort,

and journeymen artisans.

When the Paladin presently came sauntering indolently in, he was received

with a cheer, and the barber hustled forward and greeted him with several

low and most graceful and courtly bows, also taking his hand an touching

his lips to it. Then he called in a loud voice for a stoup of wine for

the Paladin, and when the host's daughter brought it up on the platform

and dropped her courtesy and departed, the barber called after her, and

told her to add the wine to his score. This won him ejaculations of

approval, which pleased him very much and made his little rat-eyes shine;

and such applause is right and proper, for when we do a liberal and

gallant thing it is but natural that we should wish to see notice taken

of it.

The barber called upon the people to rise and drink the Paladin's health,

and they did it with alacrity and affectionate heartiness, clashing their

metal flagons together with a simultaneous crash, and heightening the

effect with a resounding cheer. It was a fine thing to see how that young

swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange land in so little a

while, and without other helps to his advancement than just his tongue

and the talent to use it given him by God--a talent which was but one

talent in the beginning, but was now become ten through husbandry and the

increment and usufruct that do naturally follow that and reward it as by

a law.

The people sat down and began to hammer on the tables with their flagons

and call for "the King's Audience!--the King's Audience! --the King's

Audience!" The Paladin stood there in one of his best attitudes, with his

plumed great hat tipped over to the left, the folds of his short cloak

drooping from his shoulder, and the one hand resting upon the hilt of his

rapier and the other lifting his beaker. As the noise died down he made a

stately sort of a bow, which he had picked up somewhere, then fetched his

beaker with a sweep to his lips and tilted his head back and rained it to

the bottom. The barber jumped for it and set it upon the Paladin's table.

Then the Paladin began to walk up and down his platform with a great deal

of dignity and quite at his ease; and as he walked he talked, and every

little while stopped and stood facing his house and so standing continued

his talk.

We went three nights in succession. It was plain that there was a charm

about the performance that was apart from the mere interest which

attaches to lying. It was presently discoverable that this charm lay in

the Paladin's sincerity. He was not lying consciously; he believed what

he was saying. To him, his initial statements were facts, and whenever he

enlarged a statement, the enlargement became a fact too. He put his heart

into his extravagant narrative, just as a poet puts his heart into a

heroic fiction, and his earnestness disarmed criticism--disarmed it as

far as he himself was concerned. Nobody believed his narrative, but all

believed that he believed it.

He made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so

casually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made. He

spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the

governor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle

the governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did

not seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they

dropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his first

night's account the governor merely attached him to the Maid's military

escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his uncle the

governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear guard; the

third night his father the governor put the whole command, Maid and all,

in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke of his as a

youth without name or ancestry, but "destined to achieve both"; the

second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the latest and

worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of the Twelve

Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of his as the lineal

descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted the Count of

Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then

brother-in-law.

At the King's Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four

silver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and by

that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to

lengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate

them. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large way.

The first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and

exaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third

night he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his

own high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court

watched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment,

expecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept

permanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would

follow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever

of excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the

barber, he said:

"But mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that sham's

villain face as I now gaze upon yours--this being her noble and simple

attitude, just as I stand now--then turned she--thus--to me, and

stretching her arm out--so--and pointing with her finger, she said, in

that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct

of a battle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding

forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held

him aloft--thus--as it he had been but a child." (The house rose,

shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad

over this magnificent exhibition of strength--and there was not the

shadow of a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud

barber hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its

neck was a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) "Then I set him

down upon his feet--thus--being minded to get him by a better hold and

heave him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he

escaped with his life.

"Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of hers,

which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom looketh

out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the kernel of

truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon a young man

modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he truly was, saying,

'I am thy servant--thou art the King!' Then all were astonished, and a

great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in it, so that the

walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it."

He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience,

augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities;

then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head

which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made

his conclusion--thus:

"Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously--as indeed was her

desert--and, turning to me, said, 'Take this signet-ring, son of the

Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,' said

he, touching my temple, 'preserve this brain, France has use for it; and

look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be hooped with a

ducal coronet one day.' I took the ring, and knelt and kissed his hand,

saying, 'Sire, where glory calls, there will I be found; where danger and

death are thickest, that is my native air; when France and the throne

need help--well, I say nothing, for I am not of the talking sort--let my

deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.'

"So ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future

weal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise! Fill

you flagons! Now--to France and the King--drink!"

They emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and

kept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease

the while and smiling benignantly from his platform.

Chapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors

WHEN JOAN told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his

heart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God, and

if he had been let alone he would have set her upon her great mission at

once. But he was not let alone. Tremouille and the holy fox of Rheims

knew their man. All they needed to say was this--and they said it:

"Your Highness says her Voices have revealed to you, by her mouth, a

secret known only to yourself and God. How can you know that her Voices

are not of Satan, and she his mouthpiece?--for does not Satan know the

secrets of men and use his knowledge for the destruction of their souls?

It is a dangerous business, and your Highness will do well not to proceed

in it without probing the matter to the bottom."

That was enough. It shriveled up the King's little soul like a raisin,

with terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a

commission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should

find out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell.

The King's relative, the Duke of Alencon, three years prisoner of war to

the English, was in these days released from captivity through promise of

a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached him--for

the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all parts--he came to

Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she might be. The

King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She said, in her

simple fashion:

"You are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this

cause, the better for the cause and it."

Then the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when

they departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate.

Joan attended the King's mass the next day, and afterward dined with the

King and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value

her conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he was

used to getting nothing out of people's talk but guarded phrases,

colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color

of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and

bores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and

honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said

the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain,

straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been

like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the

water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain.

After dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance

practice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King also had

come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black war-steed.

Every day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her

Voices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report.

These pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she considered

advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and trickeries were

wasted upon her. She did not care for the threats, and the traps caught

nothing. She was perfectly frank and childlike about these things. She

knew the bishops were sent by the King, that their questions were the

King's questions, and that by all law and custom a King's questions must

be answered; yet she told the King in her naive way at his own table one

day that she answered only such of those questions as suited her.

The bishops finally concluded that they couldn't tell whether Joan was

sent by God or not. They were cautious, you see. There were two powerful

parties at Court; therefore to make a decision either way would

infallibly embroil them with one of those parties; so it seemed to them

wisest to roost on the fence and shift the burden to other shoulders. And

that is what they did. They made final report that Joan's case was beyond

their powers, and recommended that it be put into the hands of the

learned and illustrious doctors of the University of Poitiers. Then they

retired from the field, leaving behind them this little item of

testimony, wrung from them by Joan's wise reticence: they said she was a

"gentle and simple little shepherdess, very candid, but not given to

talking."

It was quite true--in their case. But if they could have looked back and

seen her with us in the happy pastures of Domremy, they would have

perceived that she had a tongue that could go fast enough when no harm

could come of her words.

So we traveled to Poitiers, to endure there three weeks of tedious delay

while this poor child was being daily questioned and badgered before a

great bench of--what? Military experts?--since what she had come to apply

for was an army and the privilege of leading it to battle against the

enemies of France. Oh no; it was a great bench of priests and

monks--profoundly leaned and astute casuists--renowned professors of

theology! Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this

valorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy

hair-splitters and phrase-mongers to work to find out if the soldier was

sound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring

the house, but instead of examining the cat's teeth and claws, they only

concerned themselves to find out if it was a holy cat. If it was a pious

cat, a moral cat, all right, never mind about the other capacities, they

were of no consequence.

Joan was as sweetly self-possessed and tranquil before this grim

tribunal, with its robed celebrities, its solemn state and imposing

ceremonials, as if she were but a spectator and not herself on trial. She

sat there, solitary on her bench, untroubled, and disconcerted the

science of the sages with her sublime ignorance--an ignorance which was a

fortress; arts, wiles, the learning drawn from books, and all like

missiles rebounded from its unconscious masonry and fell to the ground

harmless; they could not dislodge the garrison which was within--Joan's

serene great heart and spirit, the guards and keepers of her mission.

She answered all questions frankly, and she told all the story of her

visions and of her experiences with the angels and what they said to her;

and the manner of the telling was so unaffected, and so earnest and

sincere, and made it all seem so lifelike and real, that even that hard

practical court forgot itself and sat motionless and mute, listening with

a charmed and wondering interest to the end. And if you would have other

testimony than mine, look in the histories and you will find where an

eyewitness, giving sworn testimony in the Rehabilitation process, says

that she told that tale "with a noble dignity and simplicity," and as to

its effect, says in substance what I have said. Seventeen, she

was--seventeen, and all alone on her bench by herself; yet was not

afraid, but faced that great company of erudite doctors of law ant

theology, and by the help of no art learned in the schools, but using

only the enchantments which were hers by nature, of youth, sincerity, a

voice soft and musical, and an eloquence whose source was the heart, not

the head, she laid that spell upon them. Now was not that a beautiful

thing to see? If I could, I would put it before you just as I saw it;

then I know what you would say.

As I have told you, she could not read. "One day they harried and

pestered her with arguments, reasonings, objections, and other windy and

wordy trivialities, gathered out of the works of this and that and the

other great theological authority, until at last her patience vanished,

and she turned upon them sharply and said:

"I don't know A from B; but I know this: that I am come by command of the

Lord of Heaven to deliver Orleans from the English power and crown the

King of Rheims, and the matters ye are puttering over are of no

consequence!"

Necessarily those were trying days for her, and wearing for everybody

that took part; but her share was the hardest, for she had no holidays,

but must be always on hand and stay the long hours through, whereas this,

that, and the other inquisitor could absent himself and rest up from his

fatigues when he got worn out. And yet she showed no wear, no weariness,

and but seldom let fly her temper. As a rule she put her day through

calm, alert, patient, fencing with those veteran masters of scholarly

sword-play and coming out always without a scratch.

One day a Dominican sprung upon her a question which made everybody cock

up his ears with interest; as for me, I trembled, and said to myself she

is done this time, poor Joan, for there is no way of answering this. The

sly Dominican began in this way--in a sort of indolent fashion, as if the

thing he was about was a matter of no moment:

"You assert that God has willed to deliver France from this English

bondage?"

"Yes, He has willed it."

"You wish for men-at-arms, so that you may go to the relief of Orleans, I

believe?"

"Yes--and the sooner the better."

"God is all-powerful, and able to do whatsoever thing He wills to do, is

it not so?"

"Most surely. None doubts it."

The Dominican lifted his head suddenly, and sprung that question I have

spoken of, with exultation:

"Then answer me this. If He has willed to deliver France, and is able to

do whatsoever He wills, where is the need for men-at-arms?"

There was a fine stir and commotion when he said that, and a sudden

thrusting forward of heads and putting up of hands to ears to catch the

answer; and the Dominican wagged his head with satisfaction, and looked

about him collecting his applause, for it shone in every face. But Joan

was not disturbed. There was no note of disquiet in her voice when she

answered:

"He helps who help themselves. The sons of France will fight the battles,

but He will give the victory!"

You could see a light of admiration sweep the house from face to face

like a ray from the sun. Even the Dominican himself looked pleased, to

see his master-stroke so neatly parried, and I heard a venerable bishop

mutter, in the phrasing common to priest and people in that robust time,

"By God, the child has said true. He willed that Goliath should be slain,

and He sent a child like this to do it!"

Another day, when the inquisition had dragged along until everybody

looked drowsy and tired but Joan, Brother Seguin, professor of theology

at the University of Poitiers, who was a sour and sarcastic man, fell to

plying Joan with all sorts of nagging questions in his bastard Limousin

French--for he was from Limoges. Finally he said:

"How is it that you understand those angels? What language did they

speak?"

"French."

"In-deed! How pleasant to know that our language is so honored! Good

French?"

"Yes--perfect."

"Perfect, eh? Well, certainly you ought to know. It was even better than

your own, eh?"

"As to that, I--I believe I cannot say," said she, and was going on, but

stopped. Then she added, almost as if she were saying it to herself,

"Still, it was an improvement on yours!"

I knew there was a chuckle back of her eyes, for all their innocence.

Everybody shouted. Brother Seguin was nettled, and asked brusquely:

"Do you believe in God?"

Joan answered with an irritating nonchalance:

"Oh, well, yes--better than you, it is likely."

Brother Seguin lost his patience, and heaped sarcasm after sarcasm upon

her, and finally burst out in angry earnest, exclaiming:

"Very well, I can tell you this, you whose believe in God is so great:

God has not willed that any shall believe in you without a sign. Where is

your sign?--show it!"

This roused Joan, and she was on her feet in a moment, and flung out her

retort with spirit:

"I have not come to Poitiers to show signs and do miracles. Send me to

Orleans and you shall have signs enough. Give me men-at-arms--few or

many--and let me go!"

The fire was leaping from her eyes--ah, the heroic little figure! can't

you see her? There was a great burst of acclamations, and she sat down

blushing, for it was not in her delicate nature to like being

conspicuous.

This speech and that episode about the French language scored two points

against Brother Seguin, while he scored nothing against Joan; yet, sour

man as he was, he was a manly man, and honest, as you can see by the

histories; for at the Rehabilitation he could have hidden those unlucky

incidents if he had chosen, but he didn't do it, but spoke them right out

in his evidence.

On one of the latter days of that three-weeks session the gowned scholars

and professors made one grand assault all along the line, fairly

overwhelming Joan with objections and arguments culled from the writings

of every ancient and illustrious authority of the Roman Church. She was

well-nigh smothered; but at last she shook herself free and struck back,

crying out:

"Listen! The Book of God is worth more than all these ye cite, and I

stand upon it. And I tell ye there are things in that Book that not one

among ye can read, with all your learning!"

From the first she was the guest, by invitation, of the dame De Rabateau,

wife of a councilor of the Parliament of Poitiers; and to that house the

great ladies of the city came nightly to see Joan and talk with her; and

not these only, but the old lawyers, councilors and scholars of the

Parliament and the University. And these grave men, accustomed to weigh

every strange and questionable thing, and cautiously consider it, and

turn it about this way and that and still doubt it, came night after

night, and night after night, falling ever deeper and deeper under the

influence of that mysterious something, that spell, that elusive and

unwordable fascination, which was the supremest endowment of Joan of Arc,

that winning and persuasive and convincing something which high and low

alike recognized and felt, but which neither high nor low could explain

or describe, and one by one they all surrendered, saying, "This child is

sent of God."

All day long Joan, in the great court and subject to its rigid rules of

procedure, was at a disadvantage; her judges had things their own way;

but at night she held court herself, and matters were reversed, she

presiding, with her tongue free and her same judges there before her.

There could not be but one result: all the objections and hindrances they

could build around her with their hard labors of the day she would charm

away at night. In the end, she carried her judges with her in a mass, and

got her great verdict without a dissenting voice.

The court was a sight to see when the president of it read it from his

throne, for all the great people of the town were there who could get

admission and find room. First there were some solemn ceremonies, proper

and usual at such times; then, when there was silence again, the reading

followed, penetrating the deep hush so that every word was heard in even

the remotest parts of the house:

"It is found, and is hereby declared, that Joan of Arc, called the Maid,

is a good Christian and a good Catholic; that there is nothing in her

person or her words contrary to the faith; and that the King may and

ought to accept the succor she offers; for to repel it would be to offend

the Holy Spirit, and render him unworthy of the air of God."

The court rose, and then the storm of plaudits burst forth unrebuked,

dying down and bursting forth again and again, and I lost sight of Joan,

for she was swallowed up in a great tide of people who rushed to

congratulate her and pour out benedictions upon her and upon the cause of

France, now solemnly and irrevocably delivered into her little hands.

Chapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief

IT WAS indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see.

She had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to

let her hold court those nights.

The commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire into

Joan's character--in fact to weary her with delays and wear out her

purpose and make her give it up--arrived back and reported her character

perfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see.

The verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to life,

wherever the great news traveled. Whereas before, the spiritless and

cowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to

them, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the Maid

of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of the

drums filled all the air. I remembered now what she had said, that time

there in our village when I proved by facts and statistics that France's

case was hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from their

lethargy:

"They will hear the drums--and they will answer, they will march!"

It has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a

body. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a start, it

came flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of this sort.

There had been grave doubts among the priests as to whether the Church

ought to permit a female soldier to dress like a man. But now came a

verdict on that head. Two of the greatest scholars and theologians of the

time--one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of

Paris--rendered it. They decided that since Joan "must do the work of a

man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should

conform to the situation."

It was a great point gained, the Church's authority to dress as a man.

Oh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in. Never mind about

the smaller waves, let us come to the largest one of all, the wave that

swept us small fry quite off our feet and almost drowned us with joy. The

day of the great verdict, couriers had been despatched to the King with

it, and the next morning bright and early the clear notes of a bugle came

floating to us on the crisp air, and we pricked up our ears and began to

count them. One--two--three; pause; one--two; pause; one--two--three,

again--and out we skipped and went flying; for that formula was used only

when the King's herald-at-arms would deliver a proclamation to the

people. As we hurried along, people came racing out of every street and

house and alley, men, women, and children, all flushed, excited, and

throwing lacking articles of clothing on as they ran; still those clear

notes pealed out, and still the rush of people increased till the whole

town was abroad and streaming along the principal street. At last we

reached the square, which was now packed with citizens, and there, high

on the pedestal of the great cross, we saw the herald in his brilliant

costume, with his servitors about him. The next moment he began his

delivery in the powerful voice proper to his office:

"Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the most

illustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been

pleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called the

Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of General-in-Chief

of the Armies of France--"

Here a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a

hurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it would

never come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went on and

finished:

--"and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a prince of

his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alencon!"

That was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up into

innumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all the lanes

and streets of the town.

General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for

subordinate! Yesterday she was nothing--to-day she was this. Yesterday

she was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a

private--to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was

less than nobody to the newest recruit--to-day her command was law to La

Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans, and all those others,

veterans of old renown, illustrious masters of the trade of war. These

were the thoughts I was thinking; I was trying to realize this strange

and wonderful thing that had happened, you see.

My mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a picture--a

picture which was still so new and fresh in my memory that it seemed a

matter of only yesterday--and indeed its date was no further back than

the first days of January. This is what it was. A peasant-girl in a

far-off village, her seventeenth year not yet quite completed, and

herself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other side

of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere and

brought it home--a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving

condition--and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and

made it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and

she was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking--dreaming--about what,

one may never know. And now--the kitten had hardly had time to become a

cat, and yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France, with a

prince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village obscurity

her name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from all corners of

the land! It made me dizzy to think of these things, they were so out of

the common order, and seemed so impossible.

Chapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner

JOAN'S first official act was to dictate a letter to the English

commanders at Orleans, summoning them to deliver up all strongholds in

their possession and depart out of France. She must have been thinking it

all out before and arranging it in her mind, it flowed from her lips so

smoothly, and framed itself into such vivacious and forcible language.

Still, it might not have been so; she always had a quick mind and a

capable tongue, and her faculties were constantly developing in these

latter weeks. This letter was to be forwarded presently from Blois. Men,

provisions, and money were offering in plenty now, and Joan appointed

Blois as a recruiting-station and depot of supplies, and ordered up La

Hire from the front to take charge.

The Great Bastard--him of the ducal house, and governor of Orleans--had

been clamoring for weeks for Joan to be sent to him, and now came another

messenger, old D'Aulon, a veteran officer, a trusty man and fine and

honest. The King kept him, and gave him to Joan to be chief of her

household, and commanded her to appoint the rest of her people herself,

making their number and dignity accord with the greatness of her office;

and at the same time he gave order that they should be properly equipped

with arms, clothing, and horses.

Meantime the King was having a complete suit of armor made for her at

Tours. It was of the finest steel, heavily plated with silver, richly

ornamented with engraved designs, and polished like a mirror.

Joan's Voices had told her that there was an ancient sword hidden

somewhere behind the altar of St. Catherine's at Fierbois, and she sent

De Metz to get it. The priests knew of no such sword, but a search was

made, and sure enough it was found in that place, buried a little way

under the ground. It had no sheath and was very rusty, but the priests

polished it up and sent it to Tours, whither we were now to come. They

also had a sheath of crimson velvet made for it, and the people of Tours

equipped it with another, made of cloth-of-gold. But Joan meant to carry

this sword always in battle; so she laid the showy sheaths away and got

one made of leather. It was generally believed that his sword had

belonged to Charlemagne, but that was only a matter of opinion. I wanted

to sharpen that old blade, but she said it was not necessary, as she

should never kill anybody, and should carry it only as a symbol of

authority.

At Tours she designed her Standard, and a Scotch painter named James

Power made it. It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes

of silk. For device it bore the image of God the Father throned in the

clouds and holding the world in His hand; two angels knelt at His feet,

presenting lilies; inscription, JESUS, MARIA; on the reverse the crown of

France supported by two angels.

She also caused a smaller standard or pennon to be made, whereon was

represented an angel offering a lily to the Holy Virgin.

Everything was humming there at Tours. Every now and then one heard the

bray and crash of military music, every little while one heard the

measured tramp of marching men--squads of recruits leaving for Blois;

songs and shoutings and huzzas filled the air night and day, the town was

full of strangers, the streets and inns were thronged, the bustle of

preparation was everywhere, and everybody carried a glad and cheerful

face. Around Joan's headquarters a crowd of people was always massed,

hoping for a glimpse of the new General, and when they got it, they went

wild; but they seldom got it, for she was busy planning her campaign,

receiving reports, giving orders, despatching couriers, and giving what

odd moments she could spare to the companies of great folk waiting in the

drawing-rooms. As for us boys, we hardly saw her at all, she was so

occupied.

We were in a mixed state of mind--sometimes hopeful, sometimes not;

mostly not. She had not appointed her household yet--that was our

trouble. We knew she was being overrun with applications for places in

it, and that these applications were backed by great names and weighty

influence, whereas we had nothing of the sort to recommend us. She could

fill her humblest places with titled folk--folk whose relationships would

be a bulwark for her and a valuable support at all times. In these

circumstances would policy allow her to consider us? We were not as

cheerful as the rest of the town, but were inclined to be depressed and

worried. Sometimes we discussed our slim chances and gave them as good an

appearance as we could. But the very mention of the subject was anguish

to the Paladin; for whereas we had some little hope, he had none at all.

As a rule Noel Rainguesson was quite with Hireing to let the dismal

matter alone; but not when the Paladin was present. Once we were talking

the thing over, when Noel said:

"Cheer up, Paladin, I had a dream last night, and you were the only one

among us that got an appointment. It wasn't a high one, but it was an

appointment, anyway--some kind of a lackey or body-servant, or something

of that kind."

The Paladin roused up and looked almost cheerful; for he was a believer

in dreams, and in anything and everything of a superstitious sort, in

fact. He said, with a rising hopefulness:

"I wish it might come true. Do you think it will come true?"

"Certainly; I might almost say I know it will, for my dreams hardly ever

fail."

"Noel, I could hug you if that dream could come true, I could, indeed! To

be servant of the first General of France and have all the world hear of

it, and the news go back to the village and make those gawks stare that

always said I wouldn't ever amount to anything--wouldn't it be great! Do

you think it will come true, Noel? Don't you believe it will?"

"I do. There's my hand on it."

"Noel, if it comes true I'll never forget you--shake again! I should be

dressed in a noble livery, and the news would go to the village, and

those animals would say, 'Him, lackey to the General-in-Chief, with the

eyes of the whole world on him, admiring--well, he has shot up into the

sky now, hasn't he!"

He began to walk the floor and pile castles in the air so fast and so

high that we could hardly keep up with him. Then all of a sudden all the

joy went out of his face and misery took its place, and he said:

"Oh, dear, it is all a mistake, it will never come true. I forgot that

foolish business at Toul. I have kept out of her sight as much as I

could, all these weeks, hoping she would forget that and forgive it --but

I know she never will. She can't, of course. And, after all, I wasn't to

blame. I did say she promised to marry me, but they put me up to it and

persuaded me. I swear they did!" The vast creature was almost crying.

Then he pulled himself together and said, remorsefully, "It was the only

lie I've ever told, and--"

He was drowned out with a chorus of groans and outraged exclamations; and

before he could begin again, one of D'Aulon's liveried servants appeared

and said we were required at headquarters. We rose, and Noel said:

"There--what did I tell you? I have a presentiment--the spirit of

prophecy is upon me. She is going to appoint him, and we are to go there

and do him homage. Come along!"

But the Paladin was afraid to go, so we left him.

When we presently stood in the presence, in front of a crowd of

glittering officers of the army, Joan greeted us with a winning smile,

and said she appointed all of us to places in her household, for she

wanted her old friends by her. It was a beautiful surprise to have

ourselves honored like this when she could have had people of birth and

consequence instead, but we couldn't find our tongues to say so, she was

become so great and so high above us now. One at a time we stepped

forward and each received his warrant from the hand of our chief,

D'Aulon. All of us had honorable places; the two knights stood highest;

then Joan's two brothers; I was first page and secretary, a young

gentleman named Raimond was second page; Noel was her messenger; she had

two heralds, and also a chaplain and almoner, whose name was Jean

Pasquerel. She had previously appointed a maitre d'hotel and a number of

domestics. Now she looked around and said:

"But where is the Paladin?"

The Sieur Bertrand said:

"He thought he was not sent for, your Excellency."

"Now that is not well. Let him be called."

The Paladin entered humbly enough. He ventured no farther than just

within the door. He stopped there, looking embarrassed and afraid. Then

Joan spoke pleasantly, and said:

"I watched you on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you

were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it

out." It was fine to see the Paladin's face light up when she said that.

"Will you follow where I lead?"

"Into the fire!" he said; and I said to myself, "By the ring of that, I

think she has turned this braggart into a hero. It is another of her

miracles, I make no doubt of it."

"I believe you," said Joan. "Here--take my banner. You will ride with me

in every field, and when France is saved, you will give it me back."

He took the banner, which is now the most precious of the memorials that

remain of Joan of Arc, and his voice was unsteady with emotion when he

said:

"If I ever disgrace this trust, my comrades here will know how to do a

friend's office upon my body, and this charge I lay upon them, as knowing

they will not fail me."

Chapter 11 The War March Is Begun

NO L and I went back together--silent at first, and impressed.

Finally Noel came up out of his thinkings and said:

"The first shall be last and the last first--there's authority for this

surprise. But at the same time wasn't it a lofty hoist for our big bull!"

"It truly was; I am not over being stunned yet. It was the greatest place

in her gift."

"Yes, it was. There are many generals, and she can create more; but there

is only one Standard-Bearer."

"True. It is the most conspicuous place in the army, after her own."

"And the most coveted and honorable. Sons of two dukes tried to get it,

as we know. And of all people in the world, this majestic windmill

carries it off. Well, isn't it a gigantic promotion, when you come to

look at it!"

"There's no doubt about it. It's a kind of copy of Joan's own in

miniature."

"I don't know how to account for it--do you?"

"Yes--without any trouble at all--that is, I think I do."

Noel was surprised at that, and glanced up quickly, as if to see if I was

in earnest. He said:

"I thought you couldn't be in earnest, but I see you are. If you can make

me understand this puzzle, do it. Tell me what the explanation is."

"I believe I can. You have noticed that our chief knight says a good many

wise things and has a thoughtful head on his shoulders. One day, riding

along, we were talking about Joan's great talents, and he said, 'But,

greatest of all her gifts, she has the seeing eye.' I said, like an

unthinking fool, 'The seeing eye?--I shouldn't count on that for much--I

suppose we all have it.' 'No,' he said; 'very few have it.' Then he

explained, and made his meaning clear. He said the common eye sees only

the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces

through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which

the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye

couldn't detect. He said the mightiest military genius must fail and come

to nothing if it have not the seeing eye--that is to say, if it cannot

read men and select its subordinates with an infallible judgment. It sees

as by intuition that this man is good for strategy, that one for dash and

daredevil assault, the other for patient bulldog persistence, and it

appoints each to his right place and wins, while the commander without

the seeing eye would give to each the other's place and lose. He was

right about Joan, and I saw it. When she was a child and the tramp came

one night, her father and all of us took him for a rascal, but she saw

the honest man through the rags. When I dined with the governor of

Vaucouleurs so long ago, I saw nothing in our two knights, though I sat

with them and talked with them two hours; Joan was there five minutes,

and neither spoke with them nor heard them speak, yet she marked them for

men of worth and fidelity, and they have confirmed her judgment. Whom has

she sent for to take charge of this thundering rabble of new recruits at

Blois, made up of old disbanded Armagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions,

every one? Why, she has sent for Satan himself--that is to say, La

Hire--that military hurricane, that godless swashbuckler, that lurid

conflagration of blasphemy, that Vesuvius of profanity, forever in

eruption. Does he know how to deal with that mob of roaring devils?

Better than any man that lives; for he is the head devil of this world

his own self, he is the match of the whole of them combined, and probably

the father of most of them. She places him in temporary command until she

can get to Blois herself--and then! Why, then she will certainly take

them in hand personally, or I don't know her as well as I ought to, after

all these years of intimacy. That will be a sight to see--that fair

spirit in her white armor, delivering her will to that muck-heap, that

rag-pile, that abandoned refuse of perdition."

"La Hire!" cried Noel, "our hero of all these years--I do want to see

that man!"

"I too. His name stirs me just as it did when I was a little boy."

"I want to hear him swear."

"Of course, I would rather hear him swear than another man pray. He is

the frankest man there is, and the naivest. Once when he was rebuked for

pillaging on his raids, he said it was nothing. Said he, 'If God the

Father were a soldier, He would rob.' I judge he is the right man to take

temporary charge there at Blois. Joan has cast the seeing eye upon him,

you see."

"Which brings us back to where we started. I have an honest affection for

the Paladin, and not merely because he is a good fellow, but because he

is my child--I made him what he is, the windiest blusterer and most

catholic liar in the kingdom. I'm glad of his luck, but I hadn't the

seeing eye. I shouldn't have chosen him for the most dangerous post in

the army. I should have placed him in the rear to kill the wounded and

violate the dead."

"Well, we shall see. Joan probably knows what is in him better than we

do. And I'll give you another idea. When a person in Joan of Arc's

position tells a man he is brave, he believes it; and believing it is

enough; in fact, to believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one

only essential thing."

"Now you've hit it!" cried Noel. "She's got the creating mouth as well as

the seeing eye! Ah, yes, that is the thing. France was cowed and a

coward; Joan of Arc has spoken, and France is marching, with her head

up!"

I was summoned now to write a letter from Joan's dictation. During the

next day and night our several uniforms were made by the tailors, and our

new armor provided. We were beautiful to look upon now, whether clothed

for peace or war. Clothed for peace, in costly stuffs and rich colors,

the Paladin was a tower dyed with the glories of the sunset; plumed and

sashed and iron-clad for war, he was a still statelier thing to look at.

Orders had been issued for the march toward Blois. It was a clear, sharp,

beautiful morning. As our showy great company trotted out in column,

riding two and two, Joan and the Duke of Alencon in the lead, D'Aulon and

the big standard-bearer next, and so on, we made a handsome spectacle, as

you may well imagine; and as we plowed through the cheering crowds, with

Joan bowing her plumed head to left and right and the sun glinting from

her silver mail, the spectators realized that the curtain was rolling up

before their eyes upon the first act of a prodigious drama, and their

rising hopes were expressed in an enthusiasm that increased with each

moment, until at last one seemed to even physically feel the concussion

of the huzzas as well as hear them. Far down the street we heard the

softened strains of wind-blown music, and saw a cloud of lancers moving,

the sun glowing with a subdued light upon the massed armor, but striking

bright upon the soaring lance-heads--a vaguely luminous nebula, so to

speak, with a constellation twinkling above it--and that was our guard of

honor. It joined us, the procession was complete, the first war-march of

Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain was up.

Chapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army

WE WERE at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures of

my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than there

is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roaring and drinking about,

whooping, shouting, swearing, and entertaining themselves with all manner

of rude and riotous horse-play; and the place was full of loud and lewd

women, and they were no whit behind the men for romps and noise and

fantastics.

It was in the midst of this wild mob that Noel and I had our first

glimpse of La Hire. He answered to our dearest dreams. He was of great

size and of martial bearing, he was cased in mail from head to heel, with

a bushel of swishing plumes on his helmet, and at his side the vast sword

of the time.

He was on his way to pay his respects in state to Joan, and as he passed

through the camp he was restoring order, and proclaiming that the Maid

had come, and he would have no such spectacle as this exposed to the head

of the army. His way of creating order was his own, not borrowed. He did

it with his great fists. As he moved along swearing and admonishing, he

let drive this way, that way, and the other, and wherever his blow

landed, a man went down.

"Damn you!" he said, "staggering and cursing around like this, and the

Commander-in-Chief in the camp! Straighten up!" and he laid the man flat.

What his idea of straightening up was, was his own secret.

We followed the veteran to headquarters, listening, observing,

admiring--yes, devouring, you may say, the pet hero of the boys of France

from our cradles up to that happy day, and their idol and ours. I called

to mind how Joan had once rebuked the Paladin, there in the pastures of

Domremy, for uttering lightly those mighty names, La Hire and the Bastard

of Orleans, and how she said that if she could but be permitted to stand

afar off and let her eyes rest once upon those great men, she would hold

it a privilege. They were to her and the other girls just what they were

to the boys. Well, here was one of them at last--and what was his errand?

It was hard to realize it, and yet it was true; he was coming to uncover

his head before her and take her orders.

While he was quieting a considerable group of his brigands in his

soothing way, near headquarters, we stepped on ahead and got a glimpse of

Joan's military family, the great chiefs of the army, for they had all

arrived now. There they were, six officers of wide renown, handsome men

in beautiful armor, but the Lord High Admiral of France was the

handsomest of them all and had the most gallant bearing.

When La Hire entered, one could see the surprise in his face at Joan's

beauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan's glad smile,

that it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at

last. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and made

a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and one

could see that those two took to each other on the spot.

The visit of ceremony was soon over, and the others went away; but La

Hire stayed, and he and Joan sat there, and he sipped her wine, and they

talked and laughed together like old friends. And presently she gave him

some instructions, in his quality as master of the camp, which made his

breath stand still. For, to begin with, she said that all those loose

women must pack out of the place at once, she wouldn't allow one of them

to remain. Next, the rough carousing must stop, drinking must be brought

within proper and strictly defined limits, and discipline must take the

place of disorder. And finally she climaxed the list of surprises with

this--which nearly lifted him out of his armor:

"Every man who joins my standard must confess before the priest and

absolve himself from sin; and all accepted recruits must be present at

divine service twice a day."

La Hire could not say a word for a good part of a minute, then he said,

in deep dejection:

"Oh, sweet child, they were littered in hell, these poor darlings of

mine! Attend mass? Why, dear heart, they'll see us both damned first!"

And he went on, pouring out a most pathetic stream of arguments and

blasphemy, which broke Joan all up, and made her laugh as she had not

laughed since she played in the Domremy pastures. It was good to hear.

But she stuck to her point; so the soldier yielded, and said all right,

if such were the orders he must obey, and would do the best that was in

him; then he refreshed himself with a lurid explosion of oaths, and said

that if any man in the camp refused to renounce sin and lead a pious

life, he would knock his head off. That started Joan off again; she was

really having a good time, you see. But she would not consent to that

form of conversions. She said they must be voluntary.

La Hire said that that was all right, he wasn't going to kill the

voluntary ones, but only the others.

No matter, none of them must be killed--Joan couldn't have it. She said

that to give a man a chance to volunteer, on pain of death if he didn't,

left him more or less trammeled, and she wanted him to be entirely free.

So the soldier sighed and said he would advertise the mass, but said he

doubted if there was a man in camp that was any more likely to go to it

than he was himself. Then there was another surprise for him, for Joan

said:

"But, dear man, you are going!"

"I? Impossible! Oh, this is lunacy!"

"Oh, no, it isn't. You are going to the service--twice a day."

"Oh, am I dreaming? Am I drunk--or is my hearing playing me false? Why, I

would rather go to--"

"Never mind where. In the morning you are going to begin, and after that

it will come easy. Now don't look downhearted like that. Soon you won't

mind it."

La Hire tried to cheer up, but he was not able to do it. He sighed like a

zephyr, and presently said:

"Well, I'll do it for you, but before I would do it for another, I swear

I--"

"But don't swear. Break it off."

"Break it off? It is impossible! I beg you to--to-- Why--oh, my General,

it is my native speech!"

He begged so hard for grace for his impediment, that Joan left him one

fragment of it; she said he might swear by his bfton, the symbol of his

generalship.

He promised that he would swear only by his bfton when in her presence,

and would try to modify himself elsewhere, but doubted he could manage

it, now that it was so old and stubborn a habit, and such a solace and

support to his declining years.

That tough old lion went away from there a good deal tamed and

civilized--not to say softened and sweetened, for perhaps those

expressions would hardly fit him. Noel and I believed that when he was

away from Joan's influence his old aversions would come up so strong in

him that he could not master them, and so wouldn't go to mass. But we got

up early in the morning to see.

Satan was converted, you see. Well, the rest followed. Joan rode up and

down that camp, and wherever that fair young form appeared in its shining

armor, with that sweet face to grace the vision and perfect it, the rude

host seemed to think they saw the god of war in person, descended out of

the clouds; and first they wondered, then they worshiped. After that, she

could do with them what she would.

In three days it was a clean camp and orderly, and those barbarians were

herding to divine service twice a day like good children. The women were

gone. La Hire was stunned by these marvels; he could not understand them.

He went outside the camp when he wanted to swear. He was that sort of a

man--sinful by nature and habit, but full of superstitious respect for

holy places.

The enthusiasm of the reformed army for Joan, its devotion to her, and

the hot desire had aroused in it to be led against the enemy, exceeded

any manifestations of this sort which La Hire had ever seen before in his

long career. His admiration of it all, and his wonder over the mystery

and miracle of it, were beyond his power to put into words. He had held

this army cheap before, but his pride and confidence in it knew no limits

now. He said:

"Two or three days ago it was afraid of a hen-roost; one could storm the

gates of hell with it now."

Joan and he were inseparable, and a quaint and pleasant contrast they

made. He was so big, she so little; he was so gray and so far along in

his pilgrimage of life, she so youthful; his face was so bronzed and

scarred, hers so fair and pink, so fresh and smooth; she was so gracious,

and he so stern; she was so pure, so innocent, he such a cyclopedia of

sin. In her eye was stored all charity and compassion, in his lightnings;

when her glance fell upon you it seemed to bring benediction and the

peace of God, but with his it was different, generally.

They rode through the camp a dozen times a day, visiting every corner of

it, observing, inspecting, perfecting; and wherever they appeared the

enthusiasm broke forth. They rode side by side, he a great figure of

brawn and muscle, she a little masterwork of roundness and grace; he a

fortress of rusty iron, she a shining statuette of silver; and when the

reformed raiders and bandits caught sight of them they spoke out, with

affection and welcome in their voices, and said:

"There they come--Satan and the Page of Christ!"

All the three days that we were in Blois, Joan worked earnestly and

tirelessly to bring La Hire to God--to rescue him from the bondage of

sin--to breathe into his stormy hear the serenity and peace of religion.

She urged, she begged, she implored him to pray. He stood out, three days

of our stay, begging about piteously to be let off--to be let off from

just that one thing, that impossible thing; he would do anything

else--anything--command, and he would obey--he would go through the fire

for her if she said the word--but spare him this, only this, for he

couldn't pray, had never prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a

prayer, he had no words to put it in.

And yet--can any believe it?--she carried even that point, she won that

incredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think, that

nothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there before her and

put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it was not borrowed, but

was his very own; he had none to help him frame it, he made it out of his

own head--saying:

"Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if you

were La Hire and he were God." [1]

Then he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan's tent as satisfied

with himself as any one might be who had arranged a perplexed and

difficult business to the content and admiration of all the parties

concerned in the matter.

If I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood why he

was feeling so superior, but of course I could not know that.

I was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out, and saw

him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was fine and

beautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped and stepped

back, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as I mistakenly

thought--crying as if she could not contain nor endure the anguish of her

soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not so, she was

laughing--laughing at La Hire's prayer.

It was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out,

and then--oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free

mirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that long-vanished

time; for there had come a day between, when God's good gift of laughter

had gone out from me to come again no more in this life.

[1] This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the

past four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and

the fact is of official record in the National Archives of France. We

have the authority of Michelet for this. --TRANSLATOR

Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise

WE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the road toward

Orleans. The initial part of Joan's great dream was realizing itself at

last. It was the first time that any of us youngsters had ever seen an

army, and it was a most stately and imposing spectacle to us. It was

indeed an inspiring sight, that interminable column, stretching away into

the fading distances, and curving itself in and out of the crookedness of

the road like a mighty serpent. Joan rode at the head of it with her

personal staff; then came a body of priests singing the Veni Creator, the

banner of the Cross rising out of their midst; after these the glinting

forest of spears. The several divisions were commanded by the great

Armagnac generals, La Hire, and Marshal de Boussac, the Sire de Retz,

Florent d'Illiers, and Poton de Saintrailles.

Each in his degree was tough, and there were three degrees--tough,

tougher, toughest--and La Hire was the last by a shade, but only a shade.

They were just illustrious official brigands, the whole party; and by

long habits of lawlessness they had lost all acquaintanceship with

obedience, if they had ever had any.

But what was the good of saying that? These independent birds knew no

law. They seldom obeyed the King; they never obeyed him when it didn't

suit them to do it. Would they obey the Maid? In the first place they

wouldn't know how to obey her or anybody else, and in the second place it

was of course not possible for them to take her military character

seriously--that country-girl of seventeen who had been trained for the

complex and terrible business of war--how? By tending sheep.

They had no idea of obeying her except in cases where their veteran

military knowledge and experience showed them that the thing she required

was sound and right when gauged by the regular military standards. Were

they to blame for this attitude? I should think not. Old war-worn

captains are hard-headed, practical men. They do not easily believe in

the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns and command armies. No

general that ever lived could have taken Joan seriously (militarily)

before she raised the siege of Orleans and followed it with the great

campaign of the Loire.

Did they consider Joan valueless? Far from it. They valued her as the

fruitful earth values the sun--they fully believed she could produce the

crop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take it

off. They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her as being endowed

with a mysterious supernatural something that was able to do a mighty

thing which they were powerless to do--blow the breath of life and valor

into the dead corpses of cowed armies and turn them into heroes.

To their minds they were everything with her, but nothing without her.

She could inspire the soldiers and fit them for battle--but fight the

battle herself? Oh, nonsense--that was their function. They, the

generals, would fight the battles, Joan would give the victory. That was

their idea--an unconscious paraphrase of Joan's reply to the Dominican.

So they began by playing a deception upon her. She had a clear idea of

how she meant to proceed. It was her purpose to march boldly upon Orleans

by the north bank of the Loire. She gave that order to her generals. They

said to themselves, "The idea is insane--it is blunder No. 1; it is what

might have been expected of this child who is ignorant of war." They

privately sent the word to the Bastard of Orleans. He also recognized the

insanity of it--at least he though he did--and privately advised the

generals to get around the order in some way.

They did it by deceiving Joan. She trusted those people, she was not

expecting this sort of treatment, and was not on the lookout for it. It

was a lesson to her; she saw to it that the game was not played a second

time.

Why was Joan's idea insane, from the generals' point of view, but not

from hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by

fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out

by closing their communications--a plan which would require months in the

consummation.

The English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles

around Orleans--fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but

one. To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past

those fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they

believed that the result would be the army's destruction. One may not

doubt that their opinion was militarily sound--no, would have been, but

for one circumstance which they overlooked. That was this: the English

soldiers were in a demoralized condition of superstitious terror; they

had become satisfied that the Maid was in league with Satan. By reason of

this a good deal of their courage had oozed out and vanished. On the

other hand, the Maid'' soldiers were full of courage, enthusiasm, and

zeal.

Joan could have marched by the English forts. However, it was not to be.

She had been cheated out of her first chance to strike a heavy blow for

her country.

In camp that night she slept in her armor on the ground. It was a cold

night, and she was nearly as stiff as her armor itself when we resumed

the march in the morning, for iron is not good material for a blanket.

However, her joy in being now so far on her way to the theater of her

mission was fire enough to warm her, and it soon did it.

Her enthusiasm and impatience rose higher and higher with every mile of

progress; but at last we reached Olivet, and down it went, and

indignation took its place. For she saw the trick that had been played

upon her--the river lay between us and Orleans.