Antoine Courcy was one of those who are fitted and trained by nature
for the cure of souls. If you had spoken to him of psychiatry he
would not have understood you. The long word would have been Greek
to him. But the thing itself he knew well. The preliminary penance
which he laid upon Pierre Duval was remedial. It belonged to the
true healing art which works first in the spirit.
When the broken soldier went down the hill, in the blaze of the
mid-morning sunlight, toward Domremy, there was much misgiving and
confusion in his thoughts. He did not comprehend why he was going,
except that he had promised. He was not sure that some one might
not know him, or perhaps out of mere curiosity stop him and question
him. It was a reluctant journey.
Yet it was in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort
that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are
saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne
d'Arc, simple and mysterious, humble and glorious, most human and
most heavenly, flows under that place like a hidden stream, rising
at every turn in springs and fountains. The poor little village
lives in and for her memory. Her presence haunts the ridges and
the woods, treads the green pastures, follows the white road beside
the river, and breathes in the never-resting valley-wind that
marries the flowers in June and spreads their seed in August.
At the small basilica built to her memory on the place where her
old beech-tree, “Fair May,” used to stand, there was an ancient
caretaker who explained to Pierre the pictures from the life of
the Maid with which the walls are decorated. They are stiff and
conventional, but the old man found them wonderful and told with
zest the story of _La Pucelle_--how she saw her first vision;
how she recognized the Dauphin in his palace at Chinon; how she
broke the siege of Orleans; how she saw Charles crowned in the
cathedral at Rheims; how she was burned at the stake in Rouen. But
they could not kill her soul. She saved France.
In the village church there was a priest from the border of Alsace,
also a pilgrim like Pierre, but one who knew the shrine better.
He showed the difference between the new and the old parts of the
building. Certain things the Maid herself had seen and touched.
“Here is the old holy-water basin, an antique, broken column hollowed
out on top. Here her fingers must have rested often. Before this
ancient statue of St. Michel she must have often knelt to say her
prayers. The cure of the parish was a friend of hers and loved to
talk with her. She was a good girl, devout and obedient, not learned,
but a holy and great soul. She saved France.”
In the house where she was born and passed her childhood a crippled
old woman was custodian. It was a humble dwelling of plastered
stone standing between two tall fir-trees, with ivy growing over
the walls, lilies and hollyhocks blooming in the garden. Pierre
found it not half so good a house as _“L'Alouette.”_ But to
the custodian it was more precious than a palace. In this upper
room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here,
in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess
Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping
roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed and worked.
“See, here is the bread-board between two timbers where she cut
the bread for the _croute au pot._ From this small window she
looked at night and saw the sanctuary light burning in the church.
Here, also, as well as in the garden and in the woods, her heavenly
voices spoke to her and told her what she must do for her king and
her country. She was not afraid or ashamed, though she lived in
so small a house. Here in this very room she braided her hair and
put on her red dress, and set forth on foot for her visit to Robert
de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. He was a rough man and at first he
received her roughly. But at last she convinced him. He gave her
a horse and arms and sent her to the king. She saved France.”
At the rustic inn Pierre ate thick slices of dark bread and drank
a stoup of thin red wine at noon. He sat at a bare table in the
corner of the room. Behind him, at a table covered with a white
cloth, two captains on furlough had already made their breakfast.
They also were pilgrims, drawn to Domremy by the love of Jeanne
d'Arc. They talked of nothing else but of her. Yet their points of
view were absolutely different.
One of them, the younger, was short and swarthy, a Savoyard, the
son of an Italian doctor at St. Jean de Maurienne. He was a sceptic;
he believed in Jeanne, but not in the legends about her.
“I tell you,” said he eagerly, “she was one of the greatest among
women. But all that about her 'voices' was illusion. The priests
suggested it. She had hallucinations. Remember her age when they
began--just thirteen. She was clever and strong; doubtless she was
pretty; certainly she was very courageous. She was only a girl.
But she had a big, brave idea which possessed her--the liberation
of her country. Pure? Yes. I am sure she was virtuous. Otherwise
the troops would not have followed and obeyed her as they did.
Soldiers are very quick about those things. They recognize and respect
an honest woman. Several men were in love with her, I think. But
she was _une nature froide._ The only thing that moved her
was her big, brave idea--to save France. The Maid was a mother, but
not of a mortal child. Her offspring was the patriotism of France.”
The other captain was a man of middle age, from Lyons, the son of
an architect. He was tall and pale and his large brown eyes had
the tranquillity of a devout faith in them. He argued with quiet
tenacity for his convictions.
“You are right to believe in her,” said he, “but I think you are
mistaken to deny her 'voices.' They were as real as anything in
her life. You credit her when she says that she was born here, that
she went to Chinon and saw the king, that delivered Orleans. Why
not credit her when she says she heard God and the saints speaking
to her? The proof of it was in what she did. Have you read the story
of her trial? How clear and steady her answers were! The judges
could not shake her. Yet at any moment she could have saved her
life by denying the 'voices.' It was because she knew, because
she was sure, that she could not deny. Her vision was a part of
her real life. She was the mother of French patriotism--yes. But
she was also the daughter of true faith. That was her power.”
“Well,” said the younger man, “she sacrificed herself and she
saved France. That was the great thing.”
“Yes,” said the elder man, stretching his hand across the table
to clasp the hand of his companion, “there is nothing greater than
that. If we do that, God will forgive us all.”
They put on their caps to go. Pierre rose and stood at attention.
They returned his salute with a friendly smile and passed out.
After a few moments he finished his bread and wine, paid his score,
and followed them. He watched them going down the village street
toward the railway station. Then he turned and walked slowly back
to the spring in the dell.
The afternoon was hot, in spite of the steady breeze which came out
of the north. The air felt as if it had passed through a furnace.
The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun,
with now and then a sharper clap from St. Mihiel.
Pierre was very tired. His head was heavy, his heart troubled. He
lay down among the ferns, looking idly at the foxglove spires above
him and turning over in his mind the things he had heard and seen
at Domremy. Presently he fell into a profound sleep.
How long it was he could not tell, but suddenly he became aware
of some one near him. He sprang up. A girl was standing beside the
spring.
She wore a bright-red dress and her feet were bare. Her black hair
hung down her back. Her eyes were the color of a topaz. Her form was
tall and straight. She carried a distaff under her arm and looked
as if she had just come from following the sheep.
“Good day, shepherdess,” said Pierre. Then a strange thought struck
him, and he fell on his knees. “Pardon, lady,” he stammered.
“Forgive my rudeness. You are of the high society of heaven, a
saint. You are called Jeanne d'Arc?”
She nodded and smiled. “That is my name,” said she. “Sometimes
they call me _La Pucelle_, or the Maid of France. But you were
right, I am a shepherdess, too. I have kept my father's sheep in
the fields down there, and spun from the distaff while I watched
them. I know how to sew and spin as well as any girl in the Barrois
or Lorraine. Will you not stand up and talk with me?”
Pierre rose, still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand
how to take this strange experience--too simple for a heavenly
apparition, too real for a common dream. “Well, then,” said he, “if
you are a shepherdess, why are you here? There are no sheep here.”
“But yes. You are one of mine. I have come here to seek you.”
“Do you know me, then? How can I be one of yours?”
“Because you are a soldier of France and you are in trouble.”
Pierre's head drooped. “A broken soldier,” he muttered, “not fit
to speak to you. I am running away because I am afraid of fear.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “You speak very bad French.
There is no such thing as being afraid of fear. For if you are
afraid of it, you hate it. If you hate it, you will have nothing
to do with it. And if you have nothing to do with it, it cannot
touch you; it is nothing.”
“But for you, a saint, it is easy to say that. You had no fear when
you fought. You knew you would not be killed.”
“I was no more sure of that than the other soldiers. Besides, when
they bound me to the stake at Rouen and kindled the fire around me
I knew very well that I should be killed. But there was no fear in
it. Only peace.”
“Ah, you were strong, a warrior born. You were not wounded and
broken.”
“Four times I was wounded,” she answered gravely. “At Orleans a
bolt went through my right shoulder. At Paris a lance tore my thigh.
I never saw the blood of Frenchmen flow without feeling my heart
stand still. I was not a warrior born. I knew not how to ride or
fight. But I did it. What we must needs do that we can do. Soldier,
do not look on the ground. Look up.”
Then a strange thing took place before his eyes. A wondrous
radiance, a mist of light, enveloped and hid the shepherdess. When
it melted she was clad in shining armor, sitting on a white horse,
and lifting a bare sword in her left hand.
“God commands you,” she cried. “It is for France. Be of good cheer.
Do not retreat. The fort will soon be yours!”
How should Pierre know that this was the cry with which the Maid
had rallied her broken men at Orleans when the fort of _Les
Tourelles_ fell? What he did know was that something seemed to
spring up within him to answer that call. He felt that he would
rather die than desert such a leader.
The figure on the horse turned away as if to go.
“Do not leave me,” he cried, stretching out his hands to her. “Stay
with me. I will obey you joyfully.”
She turned again and looked at him very earnestly. Her eyes shone
deep into his heart. “Here I cannot stay,” answered a low, sweet,
womanly voice. “It is late, and my other children need me.”
“But forgiveness? Can you give that to me--a coward?”
“You are no coward. Your only fault was to doubt a brave man.”
“And my wife? May I go back and tell her?”
“No, surely. Would you make her hear slander of the man she loves?
Be what she believes you and she will be satisfied.”
“And the absolution, the word of peace? Will you speak that to me?”
Her eyes shone more clearly; the voice sounded sweeter and steadier
than ever. “After the penance comes the absolution. You will find
peace only at the lance's point. Son of France, go, go, go! I will
help you. Go hardily to Verdun.”
Pierre sprang forward after the receding figure, tried to clasp
the knee, the foot of the Maid. As he fell to the ground something
sharp pierced his hand. It must be her spur, thought he.
Then he was aware that his eyes were shut. He opened them and looked
at his hand carefully. There was only a scratch on it, and a tiny
drop of blood. He had torn it on the thorns of the wild gooseberry-bushes.
His head lay close to the clear pool of the spring. He buried his
face in it and drank deep. Then he sprang up, shaking the drops
from his mustache, found his cap and pistol, and hurried up the
glen toward the old Roman road.
“No more of that damned foolishness about Switzerland,” he said,
aloud. “I belong to France. I am going with the other boys to save
her. I was born for that.” He took off his cap and stood still for
a moment. He spoke as if he were taking an oath. “By Jeanne d'Arc!”