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 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 thy 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.