THE VISION.
The fast to which Jeannette's father had sentenced her was destined to
lead to grave consequences. Grieved at the reprovals he had heaped upon
her, the young shepherdess led her sheep to the fold and retired to bed
without sharing the family's evening meal.
At Jeannette's age hunger is peculiarly imperious. If the stomach is
empty the brain is doubly active, as appears from the hallucinations of
the anchorites who had long abstained from food. The poor child,
overcome by her father's severity, sought solace in the recollections of
the day's happenings and wept a great deal before she fell asleep from
sheer exhaustion. Never had her sleep been so troubled by bizarre
dreams, in which the marvelous legends that her god-mother Sybille had
told her reappeared in various grotesque shapes. In her dreams, Hena,
the virgin of the Isle of Sen, offered her blood as a sacrifice for the
deliverance of Gaul and, erect with her harp in her hand, expired amidst
the flames on the pyre. But, Oh, horror and surprise! Jeannette
recognized her own features in those of Hena.
Another moment, Merlin, followed by a black dog with flaming eyes, rose
before her, holding his knotted staff in his hand and with his long
white beard streaming in the wind, looking for the red egg of the
sea-serpent upon a desert beach and chanting his prophecy:
"Gaul, lost by a woman, will be saved by a virgin
From the borders of Lorraine and a forest of old oaks."
Then, again, it was the infantile combat of the day that surged
uppermost in her disordered mind and now assumed the gigantic
proportions of an immense battle. Thousands of cuirassed and casqued
soldiers, armed with lances and swords, pressing hard, undulating,
combing and breaking like the waves of the sea, were hurled against each
other and were cut to pieces--opposing floods of iron in mutual clash.
The clash of armors, the cries of the combatants, the neighing of
horses, the fanfare of trumpets, the discharges of artillery resounded
from afar. The red flag of England quartered with the gold fleur-de-lis
floated over the blood-stained embattled ranks. A martial maid, cased in
white armor and mounted on a white steed held the French flag--and once
more Jeannette recognized her own features in those of the martial maid.
St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hovered over her in the azure sky and
smiled down upon her while St. Michael, the archangel, with his wide
wings outspread and his face half turned toward her, pointed with his
flaming sword to a brilliant star-like golden crown held by two angels
in dazzling white.
The long dream, now and then interrupted by periods of semi-wakefulness
and feverish starts, during which it would melt into the realities of
her surroundings in the disordered mind of Jeannette, lasted until
morning. When it was again day Jeannette awoke exhausted, her face wet
with the tears that had flowed during her sleep. She made her customary
morning prayer and besought her two good saints to appease her father's
anger. She found him in the stable, whither she went to take her flock
to the field; but James Darc informed her with austere severity that she
was no longer to take the sheep to pasture, seeing that she paid so
little attention to them. Her younger brother was to lead them out and
she was to remain at the house to sew or spin.
This sentence was a severe punishment to Jeannette. It was to her a
grievous sorrow to renounce going every day to the clear fountain and
the shady spot where she derived so much pleasure from listening to the
chimes of the bells, the last vibrations of which had latterly reached
her ears as a celestial whisper of silvery voices. She submitted to the
paternal will, however, and occupied herself during the morning with
household duties.
More indulgent than her husband, Isabelle said to her daughter shortly
before noon, "Go and play in the garden until the meal hour."
The summer's sun darted its burning rays upon Jeannette's head.
Enfeebled by the fast of the previous night[13] and fatigued by her
distressing dreams, she sat down upon a bench with her forehead resting
on her hands and dropped into a revery, thinking of the prophecy of
Merlin. Presently, as the bells of Greux began to sound from afar, she
listened to their chimes with rapture, wholly forgetful of the fact that
the sun's rays beat down perpendicularly upon her head. As the sound of
the bells was gradually dying away the child suddenly saw a light, so
intense, so dazzling in its splendor, that the sunshine reflected from
the white wall of the church opposite seemed darkness in comparison.[14]
At the same moment it seemed to her that the dying vibrations of the
bells, instead of vanishing altogether, as usual, in an unintelligible
murmur, were now changed into a voice of infinite sweetness that
whispered to her:
"JOAN, BE WISE AND PIOUS--GOD HAS A MISSION FOR YOU--YOU SHALL CHASE THE
STRANGERS FROM GAUL."[15]
The voice stopped and the dazzling splendor disappeared. Distracted and
seized with an uncontrollable fear, Jeannette took a few steps in the
garden and, falling upon her knees, joined her hands in prayer, invoking
the aid of her good saints, St. Marguerite and St. Catherine, as she
believed herself possessed of the devil.[16]
That July day of the year 1425 decided the future of Joan Darc. The
brilliant light that had dazzled her eyes, the mysterious voice that had
sounded in her ear, were the first communications of the spirits that
protected Joan, or of _her saints_, as she expressed herself in later
years. Differently from most other visionaries, whose hallucinations,
disconnected and aimless, floated at the caprice of their disordered
minds, the communications to Joan from the invisible world were ever
connected with their original cause--her horror of the English and her
wish to drive them out of Gaul. Finally, her spirit, nursed by the
mysterious legends of her god-mother; her imagination struck by the
prophecy of Merlin; her heart filled with ineffable compassion for the
young King, whom she believed worthy of interest; above all deeply
affected by the shocking ills to which the rustics of her condition
were exposed by the acts of rapine and sanguinary violence of the
English; and, finally, feeling against the invaders the dauntless hatred
with which William of the Swallows and Grand-Ferre--obscure heroes, sons
of the Jacquerie and precursors of the shepherdess of Domremy--pursued
them, Joan was driven to look upon herself as called upon to thrust the
strangers out of France and restore to the King his throne.