ABOUT NOON I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all
was quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement,
and said:
“Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was doing in her chair in my room, when she
sprang up and cried out, ‘French blood is flowing!—my arms, give me my
arms!’ Her giant was on guard at the door, and he brought D’Aulon,
who began to arm her, and I and the giant have been warning the staff.
Fly!—and stay by her; and if there really is a battle, keep her out of
it—don’t let her risk herself—there is no need—if the men know she is
near and looking on, it is all that is necessary. Keep her out of the
fight—don’t fail of this!”
I started on a run, saying, sarcastically—for I was always fond of
sarcasm, and it was said that I had a most neat gift that way:
“Oh, yes, nothing easier than that—I’ll attend to it!”
At the furthest end of the house I met Joan, fully armed, hurrying
toward the door, and she said:
“Ah, French blood is being spilt, and you did not tell me.”
“Indeed I did not know it,” I said; “there are no sounds of war;
everything is quiet, your Excellency.”
“You will hear war-sounds enough in a moment,” she said, and was gone.
It was true. Before one could count five there broke upon the stillness
the swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and
horses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came
the muffled deep boom!—boom-boom!—boom! of cannon, and straightway that
rushing multitude was roaring by the house like a hurricane.
Our knights and all our staff came flying, armed, but with no horses
ready, and we burst out after Joan in a body, the Paladin in the lead
with the banner. The surging crowd was made up half of citizens and half
of soldiers, and had no recognized leader. When Joan was seen a huzza
went up, and she shouted:
“A horse—a horse!”
A dozen saddles were at her disposal in a moment. She mounted, a hundred
people shouting:
“Way, there—way for the MAID OF ORLEANS!” The first time that that
immortal name was ever uttered—and I, praise God, was there to hear it!
The mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down
this lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, “Forward, French
hearts—follow me!” and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the
borrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane
closing together in our rear.
This was a different thing from the ghastly march past the dismal
bastilles. No, we felt fine, now, and all awhirl with enthusiasm. The
explanation of this sudden uprising was this. The city and the little
garrison, so long hopeless and afraid, had gone wild over Joan’s coming,
and could no longer restrain their desire to get at the enemy; so,
without orders from anybody, a few hundred soldiers and citizens had
plunged out at the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge
on one of Lord Talbot’s most formidable fortresses—St. Loup—and were
getting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and
started this new crowd that we were with.
As we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from
the front. The sight moved Joan, and she said:
“Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!”
We were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was
seeing her first real battle, and so were we.
It was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had
sallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when
“witches” were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from
the “Paris” bastille, and when we approached the French were getting
whipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the
disorder with her banner displayed, crying “Forward, men—follow me!”
there was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a
solid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and
slashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to
see.
In the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not
under orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his
place for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her.
It was horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his
dreadful ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He
made a good road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the
rest of us followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had
the English behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to
face outward around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done
that was fine to see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being
right under Joan’s exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native
prudence, he forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot
what fear was, and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a
more tremendous way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck
there was an enemy the less.
We were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to
the rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the
English fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we
drove them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us all the time,
and their reserves on the walls raining showers of arrows, cross-bow
bolts, and stone cannon-balls upon us.
The bulk of the enemy got safely within the works and left us outside
with piles of French and English dead and wounded for company—a
sickening sight, an awful sight to us youngsters, for our little
ambush fights in February had been in the night, and the blood and the
mutilations and the dead faces were mercifully dim, whereas we saw these
things now for the first time in all their naked ghastliness.
Now arrived Dunois from the city, and plunged through the battle on
his foam-flecked horse and galloped up to Joan, saluting, and uttering
handsome compliments as he came. He waved his hand toward the distant
walls of the city, where a multitude of flags were flaunting gaily in
the wind, and said the populace were up there observing her fortunate
performance and rejoicing over it, and added that she and the forces
would have a great reception now.
“Now? Hardly now, Bastard. Not yet!”
“Why not yet? Is there more to be done?”
“More, Bastard? We have but begun! We will take this fortress.”
“Ah, you can’t be serious! We can’t take this place; let me urge you not
to make the attempt; it is too desperate. Let me order the forces back.”
Joan’s heart was overflowing with the joys and enthusiasms of war, and
it made her impatient to hear such talk. She cried out:
“Bastard, Bastard, will ye play always with these English? Now verily I
tell you we will not budge until this place is ours. We will carry it by
storm. Sound the charge!”
“Ah, my General—”
“Waste no more time, man—let the bugles sound the assault!” and we saw
that strange deep light in her eye which we named the battle-light, and
learned to know so well in later fields.
The martial notes pealed out, the troops answered with a yell, and down
they came against that formidable work, whose outlines were lost in its
own cannon-smoke, and whose sides were spouting flame and thunder.
We suffered repulse after repulse, but Joan was here and there and
everywhere encouraging the men, and she kept them to their work. During
three hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last
La Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the
bastille St. Loup was ours. We gutted it, taking all its stores and
artillery, and then destroyed it.
When all our host was shouting itself hoarse with rejoicings, and there
went up a cry for the General, for they wanted to praise her and glorify
her and do her homage for her victory, we had trouble to find her; and
when we did find her, she was off by herself, sitting among a ruck of
corpses, with her face in her hands, crying—for she was a young girl,
you know, and her hero heart was a young girl’s heart too, with the
pity and the tenderness that are natural to it. She was thinking of the
mothers of those dead friends and enemies.
Among the prisoners were a number of priests, and Joan took these under
her protection and saved their lives. It was urged that they were most
probably combatants in disguise, but she said:
“As to that, how can any tell? They wear the livery of God, and if even
one of these wears it rightfully, surely it were better that all the
guilty should escape than that we have upon our hands the blood of that
innocent man. I will lodge them where I lodge, and feed them, and sent
them away in safety.”
We marched back to the city with our crop of cannon and prisoners on
view and our banners displayed. Here was the first substantial bit of
war-work the imprisoned people had seen in the seven months that the
siege had endured, the first chance they had had to rejoice over a
French exploit. You may guess that they made good use of it. They and
the bells went mad. Joan was their darling now, and the press of people
struggling and shouldering each other to get a glimpse of her was so
great that we could hardly push our way through the streets at all. Her
new name had gone all about, and was on everybody’s lips. The Holy Maid
of Vaucouleurs was a forgotten title; the city had claimed her for its
own, and she was the MAID OF ORLEANS now. It is a happiness to me to
remember that I heard that name the first time it was ever uttered.
Between that first utterance and the last time it will be uttered on
this earth—ah, think how many moldering ages will lie in that gap!
The Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the
house, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided
her for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during
all those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her
warriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to
go right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn’t she got swept into
it by accident and the rush of the troops? They begged her to be more
careful another time. It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty
unfruitful soil.