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.