NOEL and I went back together—silent at first, and impressed.
Finally Noel came up out of his thinkings and said:
“The first shall be last and the last first—there’s authority for this
surprise. But at the same time wasn’t it a lofty hoist for our big
bull!”
“It truly was; I am not over being stunned yet. It was the greatest
place in her gift.”
“Yes, it was. There are many generals, and she can create more; but
there is only one Standard-Bearer.”
“True. It is the most conspicuous place in the army, after her own.”
“And the most coveted and honorable. Sons of two dukes tried to get
it, as we know. And of all people in the world, this majestic windmill
carries it off. Well, isn’t it a gigantic promotion, when you come to
look at it!”
“There’s no doubt about it. It’s a kind of copy of Joan’s own in
miniature.”
“I don’t know how to account for it—do you?”
“Yes—without any trouble at all—that is, I think I do.”
Noel was surprised at that, and glanced up quickly, as if to see if I
was in earnest. He said:
“I thought you couldn’t be in earnest, but I see you are. If you can
make me understand this puzzle, do it. Tell me what the explanation is.”
“I believe I can. You have noticed that our chief knight says a good
many wise things and has a thoughtful head on his shoulders. One day,
riding along, we were talking about Joan’s great talents, and he said,
‘But, greatest of all her gifts, she has the seeing eye.’ I said, like
an unthinking fool, ‘The seeing eye?—I shouldn’t count on that for
much—I suppose we all have it.’ ‘No,’ he said; ‘very few have it.’ Then
he explained, and made his meaning clear. He said the common eye sees
only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye
pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there
capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the
other kind of eye couldn’t detect. He said the mightiest military genius
must fail and come to nothing if it have not the seeing eye—that is
to say, if it cannot read men and select its subordinates with an
infallible judgment. It sees as by intuition that this man is good for
strategy, that one for dash and daredevil assault, the other for patient
bulldog persistence, and it appoints each to his right place and wins,
while the commander without the seeing eye would give to each the
other’s place and lose. He was right about Joan, and I saw it. When she
was a child and the tramp came one night, her father and all of us took
him for a rascal, but she saw the honest man through the rags. When I
dined with the governor of Vaucouleurs so long ago, I saw nothing in our
two knights, though I sat with them and talked with them two hours;
Joan was there five minutes, and neither spoke with them nor heard them
speak, yet she marked them for men of worth and fidelity, and they have
confirmed her judgment. Whom has she sent for to take charge of this
thundering rabble of new recruits at Blois, made up of old disbanded
Armagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions, every one? Why, she has sent
for Satan himself—that is to say, La Hire—that military hurricane,
that godless swashbuckler, that lurid conflagration of blasphemy, that
Vesuvius of profanity, forever in eruption. Does he know how to deal
with that mob of roaring devils? Better than any man that lives; for
he is the head devil of this world his own self, he is the match of the
whole of them combined, and probably the father of most of them. She
places him in temporary command until she can get to Blois herself—and
then! Why, then she will certainly take them in hand personally, or I
don’t know her as well as I ought to, after all these years of intimacy.
That will be a sight to see—that fair spirit in her white armor,
delivering her will to that muck-heap, that rag-pile, that abandoned
refuse of perdition.”
“La Hire!” cried Noel, “our hero of all these years—I do want to see
that man!”
“I too. His name stirs me just as it did when I was a little boy.”
“I want to hear him swear.”
“Of course, I would rather hear him swear than another man pray. He is
the frankest man there is, and the naivest. Once when he was rebuked
for pillaging on his raids, he said it was nothing. Said he, ‘If God
the Father were a soldier, He would rob.’ I judge he is the right man to
take temporary charge there at Blois. Joan has cast the seeing eye upon
him, you see.”
“Which brings us back to where we started. I have an honest affection
for the Paladin, and not merely because he is a good fellow, but because
he is my child—I made him what he is, the windiest blusterer and most
catholic liar in the kingdom. I’m glad of his luck, but I hadn’t the
seeing eye. I shouldn’t have chosen him for the most dangerous post in
the army. I should have placed him in the rear to kill the wounded and
violate the dead.”
“Well, we shall see. Joan probably knows what is in him better than
we do. And I’ll give you another idea. When a person in Joan of Arc’s
position tells a man he is brave, he believes it; and believing it is
enough; in fact, to believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one
only essential thing.”
“Now you’ve hit it!” cried Noel. “She’s got the creating mouth as well
as the seeing eye! Ah, yes, that is the thing. France was cowed and a
coward; Joan of Arc has spoken, and France is marching, with her head
up!”
I was summoned now to write a letter from Joan’s dictation. During the
next day and night our several uniforms were made by the tailors, and
our new armor provided. We were beautiful to look upon now, whether
clothed for peace or war. Clothed for peace, in costly stuffs and rich
colors, the Paladin was a tower dyed with the glories of the sunset;
plumed and sashed and iron-clad for war, he was a still statelier thing
to look at.
Orders had been issued for the march toward Blois. It was a clear,
sharp, beautiful morning. As our showy great company trotted out in
column, riding two and two, Joan and the Duke of Alencon in the lead,
D’Aulon and the big standard-bearer next, and so on, we made a handsome
spectacle, as you may well imagine; and as we plowed through the
cheering crowds, with Joan bowing her plumed head to left and right and
the sun glinting from her silver mail, the spectators realized that
the curtain was rolling up before their eyes upon the first act of a
prodigious drama, and their rising hopes were expressed in an enthusiasm
that increased with each moment, until at last one seemed to even
physically feel the concussion of the huzzas as well as hear them. Far
down the street we heard the softened strains of wind-blown music, and
saw a cloud of lancers moving, the sun glowing with a subdued light upon
the massed armor, but striking bright upon the soaring lance-heads—a
vaguely luminous nebula, so to speak, with a constellation twinkling
above it—and that was our guard of honor. It joined us, the procession
was complete, the first war-march of Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain
was up.