statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean) D'Arc, was born at
Domrémy, a village on the marches of Lorraine and Champagne, and
dependent upon the town of Vaucoulcurs. Domrémy stood upon the
frontiers, and, like other frontiers, produced a _mixed_ race,
representing the _cis_ [Footnote: _This side_.] and the _trans_
[Footnote: _Across_; the other side.]. A river (it is true) formed the
boundary-line at this point--the river Meuse; and _that_, in old days,
might have divided the populations; but in these days it did not: there
were bridges, there were ferries, and weddings crossed from the right
bank to the left. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travelers
that were few, as for armies that were too many by half. These two
roads, one of which was the great highroad between France and Germany,
_decussated_ at this very point; which is a learned way of saying that
they formed a St. Andrew's Cross, or letter X. I hope the compositor
will choose a good large X; in which case the point of intersection, the
_locus_ [Footnote: _Point_ or _place_.] of conflux and intersection for
these four diverging arms, will finish the reader's geographical
education, by showing him to a hair's-breadth where it was that Domrémy
stood. That great four-headed road was a perpetual memento to patriotic
ardour. To say "This way lies the road to Paris, and that other way to
Aix-la-Chapelle; this to Prague, that to Vienna," nourished the warfare
of the heart by daily ministrations of sense. The eye that watched for
the gleams of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that
listened for the groaning of wheels, made the high-road itself, with
its relations to centres so remote, into a manual of patriotic duty.
The situation, therefore, _locally_, of Joanna was full of profound
suggestions to a heart that listened for the stealthy steps of change
and fear that too surely were in motion. But, if the place were grand,
the time, the burden of the time, was far more so. The air overhead in
its upper chambers was _hurtling_ with the obscure sound; was dark with
sullen fermenting of storms that had been gathering for a hundred and
thirty years. The battle of Agincourt in Joanna's childhood had reopened
the wounds of France. Crécy and Poictiers, those withering overthrows
for the chivalry of France, had, before Agincourt occurred, been
tranquilized by more than half-a-century; but this resurrection of their
trumpet wails made the whole series of battles and endless skirmishes
take their stations as parts in one drama. The graves that had closed
sixty years ago seemed to fly open in sympathy with a sorrow that echoed
their own. The monarchy of France laboured in extremity, rocked and
reeled like a ship fighting with the darkness of monsoons. The madness
of the poor king (Charles VI) falling in at such a crisis trebled the
awfulness of the time. Even the wild story of the incident which had
immediately occasioned the explosion of this madness--the case of a man
unknown, gloomy, and perhaps maniacal himself, coming out of a forest at
noonday, laying his hand upon the bridle of the king's horse, checking
him for a moment to say, "Oh, king, thou art betrayed," and then
vanishing, no man knew whither, as he had appeared for no man knew
what--fell in with the universal prostration of mind that laid France on
her knees, as before the slow unweaving of some ancient prophetic doom.
The famines, the extraordinary diseases, the insurrections of the
peasantry up and down Europe--these were chords struck from the same
mysterious harp; but these were transitory chords. There had been others
of deeper and more ominous sound. The termination of the Crusades, the
destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused
or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor--these were full
of a more permanent significance.
These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the skies that to the
scientific gazer first caught the colours of the new morning in
advance. But the whole vast range alike of sweeping glooms overhead
dwelt upon all meditative minds, even upon those that could not
distinguish the tendencies nor decipher the forms. It was, therefore,
not her own age alone as affected by its immediate calamities that lay
with such weight upon Joanna's mind, but her own age as one section in
a vast mysterious drama, unweaving through a century back, and drawing
nearer continually to some dreadful crisis. Cataracts and rapids were
heard roaring ahead; and signs were seen far back, by help of old men's
memories, which answered secretly to signs now coming forward on the
eye, even as locks answer to keys. It was not wonderful that in such a
haunted solitude, with such a haunted heart, Joanna should see angelic
visions, and hear angelic voices. These voices whispered to her for
ever the duty, self-imposed, of delivering France. Five years she
listened to these monitory voices with internal struggles. At length
she could resist no longer. Doubt gave way; and she left her home for
ever in order to present herself at the dauphin's court.
The education of this poor girl was mean according to the present
standard: was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic
standard: and only not good for our age because for us it would be
unattainable. She read nothing, for she could not read; but she had
heard others read parts of the Roman martyrology. She wept in sympathy
with the sad _Misereres_ [Footnote: The penitential psalm which, set to
music, is one of the most impressive Roman Catholic chants.] of the
Romish Church; she rose to heaven with the glad triumphant _Te Deums_
[Footnote: _Te Deum laudamus_ means "We praise thee, O God" Grand
anthems of triumph and thanksgiving are here called "Te Deums" from the
first words of an ancient Latin hymn.] of Rome; she drew her comfort and
her vital strength from the rites of the same Church. But, next after
these spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages of her
situation. The fountain of Domrémy was on the brink of a boundless
forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies that the parish
priest (_curé_) was obliged to read mass there once a year, in order to
keep them in any decent bounds. Fairies are important, even in a
statistical view: certain weeds mark poverty in the soil; fairies mark
its solitude. As surely as the wolf retires before cities does the fairy
sequester herself from the haunts of the licensed victualer. A village
is too much for her nervous delicacy: at most, she can tolerate a
distant view of a hamlet. We may judge, therefore, by the uneasiness and
extra trouble which they gave to the parson, in what strength the
fairies mustered at Domrémy, and, by a satisfactory consequence, how
thinly sown with men and women must have been that region even in its
inhabited spots. But the forests of Domrémy--those were the glories of
the land: for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that
towered into tragic strength. "Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,"--
"like Moorish temples of the Hindoos,"--that exercised even princely
power both in Lorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet
bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers,
and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were
these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the
region; yet many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian
sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness. This
sort of religious talisman being secured, a man the most afraid of
ghosts (like myself, suppose, or the reader) becomes armed into courage
to wander for days in their sylvan recesses. About six hundred years
before Joanna's childhood, Charlemagne was known to have hunted there.
That, of itself, was a grand incident in the traditions of a forest or a
chase. In these vast forests, also, were to be found (if anywhere to be
found) those mysterious fawns that tempted solitary hunters into
visionary and perilous pursuits. Here was seen (if anywhere seen) that
ancient stag who was already nine hundred years old, but possibly a
hundred or two more, when met by Charlemagne; and the thing was put
beyond doubt by the inscription upon his golden collar. I believe
Charlemagne knighted the stag; and, if ever he is met again by a king,
he ought to be made an earl, or, being upon the marches of France, a
marquis. Observe, I don't absolutely vouch for all these things; my own
opinion varies. On a fine breezy forenoon I am audaciously sceptical;
but as twilight sets in my credulity grows steadily, till it becomes
equal to anything that could be desired.
Such traditions, or any others that (like the stag) connect distant
generations with each other, are, for that cause, sublime; and the
sense of the shadowy, connected with such appearances that reveal
themselves or not according to circumstances, leaves a colouring of
sanctity over ancient forests, even in those minds that utterly reject
the legend as a fact.
But, apart from all distinct stories of that order, in any solitary
frontier between two great empires--as here, for instance, or in the
desert between Syria and the Euphrates--there is an inevitable
tendency, in minds of any deep sensibility, to people the solitudes
with phantom images of powers that were of old so vast. Joanna,
therefore, in her quiet occupation of a shepherdess, would be led
continually to brood over the political condition of her country by the
traditions of the past no less than by the mementos of the local
present.
It is not requisite for the honour of Joanna, nor is there in this
place room, to pursue her brief career of _action_. That, though
wonderful, forms the earthly part of her story; the spiritual part is
the saintly passion of her imprisonment, trial, and execution. It is
sufficient, as concerns the former section of Joanna's life, to say
that she fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the restoration of
the prostrate throne. France had become--a province of England, and for
the ruin of both, if such a yoke could be maintained. Dreadful
pecuniary exhaustion caused the English energy to droop; and that
critical opening _La Pucelle_ used with a corresponding felicity
of audacity and suddenness (that were in themselves portentous) for
introducing the wedge of French native resources, for rekindling the
national pride, and for planting the dauphin once more upon his feet.
When Joanna appeared, he had been on the point of giving up the
struggle with the English, distressed as they were, and of flying to
the south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject counsels.
She liberated Orleans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the
issue of the war, and then beleaguered by the English with an elaborate
application of engineering skill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the
city after sunset on the 29th of April, she sang mass on Sunday, May 8,
for the entire disappearance of the besieging force. On the 29th of
June she fought and gained over the English the decisive battle of
Patay; on the 9th of July she took Troyes by a coup-de-main [Footnote:
An unexpected and powerful attack] from a mixed garrison of English and
Burgundians; on the 15th of that month she carried the dauphin into
Rheims; on Sunday the 17th she crowned him; and there she rested from
her labour of triumph. All that was to be _done_ she had now
accomplished: what remained was--to _suffer_.
But she, the child that, at nineteen, had wrought wonders so great for
France, was she not elated? Did she not lose, as men so often
_have_ lost, all sobriety of mind when standing upon the pinnacle
of success so giddy? Let her enemies declare. During the progress of
her movement, and in the centre of ferocious struggles, she had
manifested the temper of her feelings by the pity which she had
everywhere expressed for the suffering enemy. She forwarded to the
English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French as
brothers, in a common crusade against infidels--thus opening the road
for a soldierly retreat. She interposed to protect the captive or the
wounded; she mourned over the excesses of her countrymen; she threw
herself off her horse to kneel by the dying English soldier, and to
comfort him with such ministrations, physical or spiritual, as his
situation allowed. "_Nolebat_," says the evidence, "_uti ense suo, aut
quemquam interficere_." [Footnote: She wished not to kill anyone with
her sword] She sheltered the English that invoked her aid in her own
quarters. She wept as she beheld, stretched on the field of battle, so
many brave enemies that had died without confession. And, as regarded
herself, her elation expressed itself thus:--On the day when, she had
finished her work, she wept; for she knew that, when her _triumphal_
task was done, her end must be approaching. Her aspirations pointed only
to a place which seemed to her more than usually full of natural piety,
as one in which it would give her pleasure to die. And she uttered,
between smiles and tears, as a wish that inexpressibly fascinated her
heart, and yet was half-fantastic, a broken prayer that God would return
her to the solitudes from which he had drawn her, and suffer her to
become a shepherdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because nature
has laid a necessity upon every human heart to seek for rest and to
shrink from torment. Yet, again, it was a half-fantastic prayer,
because, from childhood upwards, visions that she had no power to
mistrust, and the voices which sounded in her ear for ever, had long
since persuaded her mind that for _her_ no such prayer could be granted.
Too well she felt that her mission must be worked out to the end, and
that the end was now at hand. All went wrong from this time. She herself
had created the _funds_ out of which the French restoration should grow:
but she was not suffered to witness their development, or their
prosperous application. More than one military plan was entered upon
which she did not approve. But she still continued to expose her person
as before. Severe wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in a
sortie from Compiègne (whether through treacherous collusion on the part
of her own friends is doubtful to this day), she was made prisoner by
the Burgundians; and finally surrendered to the English.
Now came her trial. This trial, moving of course under English
influence, was conducted in chief by the Bishop of Beauvais. He was a
Frenchman, sold to English interests, and hoping, by favour of the
English leaders, to reach the highest preferment.
Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a trial as this,
if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence, and all its
bullishness of attack. Oh, child of France! shepherdess; peasant girl!
trodden under foot by all around thee, how I honour thy flashing
intellect, quick as God's lightning, and true as God's lightning to its
mark, that ran before France and laggard Europe by many a century,
confounding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the oracles of
falsehood!
On Easter Sunday, when the trial had been long proceeding, the poor
girl fell so ill as to cause a belief that she had been poisoned. It
was not poison. Nobody had any interest in hastening a death so
certain. M. Michelet, whose sympathies with all feelings are so quick
that one would gladly see them always as justly directed, reads the
case most truly. Joanna had a twofold malady. She was visited by a
paroxysm of the complaint called _home-sickness_. The cruel nature
of her imprisonment, and its length, could not but point her solitary
thoughts, in darkness and in chains (for chained she was), to Domrémy.
And the season, which was the most heavenly period of the spring, added
stings to this yearning. That was one of her maladies--_nostalgia_, as
medicine calls it; the other was weariness and exhaustion from daily
combats with malice. She saw that everybody hated her, and thirsted for
her blood; nay, many kind-hearted creatures that would have pitied her
profoundly, as regarded all political charges, had their natural
feelings warped by the belief that she had dealings with fiendish
powers. She knew she was to die; that was _not_ the misery; the misery
was that this consummation could not be reached without so much
intermediate strife, as if she were contending for some chance (where
chance was none) of happiness, or were dreaming for a moment of escaping
the inevitable. Why, then, _did_ she contend? Knowing that she would
reap nothing from answering her persecutors, why did she not retire by
silence from the superfluous contest? It was because her quick and eager
loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds which
_she_ could expose, but others, even of candid listeners, perhaps, could
not; it was through that imperishable grandeur of soul which taught her
to submit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught
her _not_ to submit--no, not for a moment--to calumny as to facts, or to
misconstruction as to motives. Besides, there were secretaries all
around the court taking down her words. That was meant for no good to
_her_. But the end does not always correspond to the meaning. And
Joanna might say to herself, "These words that will be used against me
tomorrow and the next day perhaps in some nobler generation may rise
again for my justification."
On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about
nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was
conducted before mid-day, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a
platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported
by occasional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces
in every direction for the creation of air-currents. The pile "struck
terror," says M. Michelet, "by its height;" and, as usual, the English
purpose in this is viewed as one of pure malignity. But there are two
ways of explaining all that. It is probable that the purpose was
merciful.
The circumstantial incidents of the execution, unless with more space
than I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fear
to injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so
unspeakably grand. Yet I shall, in parting, allude to one or two traits
in Joanna's demeanour on the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the
bystanders. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was
subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder
Christian martyrs had not much to fear of _personal_ rancour. The martyr
was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Caesar; at times, also, where any
knowledge of the Christian faith and morals existed, with the enmity
that arises spontaneously in the worldly against the spiritual. But the
martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be therefore anti-national;
and still less was _individually_ hateful. What was hated (if anything)
belonged to his class, not to himself separately. Now, Joanna, if hated
at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national grounds. Hence
there would be a certainty of calumny arising against _her_ such as
would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it would
follow of necessity that some people would impute to her a willingness
to recant. No innocence could escape _that_. Now, had she really
testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing
at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant
approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most who,
in their own persons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was
a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded
circumstances. It rests upon no _positive_ testimony, and it has a
weight of contradicting testimony to stem.
Now, I affirm that she did not recant. I throw the _onus_ [Footnote:
Burden.] of the argument not on presumable tendencies of nature, but on
the known facts of that morning's execution, as recorded by multitudes.
What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute nobility of
deportment, broke the vast line of battle then arrayed against her? What
else but her meek, saintly demeanour won, from the enemies that till now
had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand
men," says M. Michelet himself--"ten thousand men wept"; and of these
ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by
cords of superstition. What else was it but her constancy, united with
her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier--who had
sworn to throw a faggot on her scaffold, as _his_ tribute of abhorrence,
that _did_ so, that fulfilled his vow--suddenly to turn away a penitent
for life, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to
heaven from the ashes where she had stood? What else drove the
executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to _his_ share in the
tragedy? And, if all this were insufficient, then I cite the closing act
of her life as valid on her behalf, were all other testimonies against
her. The executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He
did so. The fiery smoke rose upwards in billowing volumes. A Dominican
monk was then standing almost at her side. Wrapped up in his sublime
office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even
then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her,
even at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for _him_, the
one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself; bidding him
with her last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave
_her_ to God. That girl, whose latest breath ascended in this sublime
expression of self-oblivion, did not utter the word _recant_ either with
her lips or in her heart. No, she did not, though one should rise from
the dead to swear it.
* * * * *
The shepherd girl that had delivered France--she, from her dungeon,
she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as
she entered her last dream--saw Domrémy, saw the fountain of Domrémy,
saw the pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That
Easter festival which man had denied to her languishing heart--that
resurrection of springtime, which the darkness of dungeons had
intercepted from _her_, hungering after the glorious liberty of
forests--were by God given back into her hands, as jewels that had been
stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of
dreams can stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss
of childhood. By special privilege for _her_ might be created, in
this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but
not, like _that_, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the
rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was weathered; the
skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing off. The blood that she
was to reckon for had been exacted; the tears that she was to shed in
secret had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had
been faced steadily, had been suffered, had been survived. And in her
last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously
she had tasted the stings of death. For all, except this comfort from
her farewell dream, she had died--died, amidst the tears of ten
thousand enemies died, amidst the drums and trumpets of armies--died,
amidst peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the
saluting clarions of martyrs.