_The ambulatory in the cathedral of Rheims, near the door of the
vestry. A pillar bears one of the stations of the cross. The organ is
playing the people out of the nave after the coronation. Joan is
kneeling in prayer before the station. She is beautifully dressed, but
still in male attire. The organ ceases as Dunois, also splendidly
arrayed, comes into the ambulatory from the vestry._
DUNOIS. Come, Joan! you have had enough praying. After that fit of
crying you will catch a chill if you stay here any longer. It is all
over: the cathedral is empty; and the streets are full. They are calling
for The Maid. We have told them you are staying here alone to pray: but
they want to see you again.
JOAN. No: let the king have all the glory.
DUNOIS. He only spoils the show, poor devil. No, Joan: you have crowned
him; and you must go through with it.
JOAN [_shakes her head reluctantly_].
DUNOIS [_raising her_] Come come! it will be over in a couple of hours.
It’s better than the bridge at Orleans: eh?
JOAN. Oh, dear Dunois, how I wish it were the bridge at Orleans again!
We lived at that bridge.
DUNOIS. Yes, faith, and died too: some of us.
JOAN. Isnt it strange, Jack? I am such a coward: I am frightened beyond
words before a battle; but it is so dull afterwards when there is no
danger: oh, so dull! dull! dull!
DUNOIS. You must learn to be abstemious in war, just as you are in your
food and drink, my little saint.
JOAN. Dear Jack: I think you like me as a soldier likes his comrade.
DUNOIS. You need it, poor innocent child of God. You have not many
friends at court.
JOAN. Why do all these courtiers and knights and churchmen hate me? What
have I done to them? I have asked nothing for myself except that my
village shall not be taxed; for we cannot afford war taxes. I have
brought them luck and victory: I have set them right when they were
doing all sorts of stupid things: I have crowned Charles and made him a
real king; and all the honors he is handing out have gone to them. Then
why do they not love me?
DUNOIS [_rallying her_] Sim-ple-ton! Do you expect stupid people to love
you for shewing them up? Do blundering old military dug-outs love the
successful young captains who supersede them? Do ambitious politicians
love the climbers who take the front seats from them? Do archbishops
enjoy being played off their own altars, even by saints? Why, I should
be jealous of you myself if I were ambitious enough.
JOAN. You are the pick of the basket here, Jack: the only friend I have
among all these nobles. I’ll wager your mother was from the country. I
will go back to the farm when I have taken Paris.
DUNOIS. I am not so sure that they will let you take Paris.
JOAN [_startled_] What!
DUNOIS. I should have taken it myself before this if they had all been
sound about it. Some of them would rather Paris took you, I think. So
take care.
JOAN. Jack: the world is too wicked for me. If the goddams and the
Burgundians do not make an end of me, the French will. Only for my
voices I should lose all heart. That is why I had to steal away to pray
here alone after the coronation. I’ll tell you something, Jack. It is in
the bells I hear my voices. Not today, when they all rang: that was
nothing but jangling. But here in this corner, where the bells come down
from heaven, and the echoes linger, or in the fields, where they come
from a distance through the quiet of the countryside, my voices are in
them. [_The cathedral clock chimes the quarter_] Hark! [_She becomes
rapt_] Do you hear? “Dear-child-of-God”: just what you said. At the
half-hour they will say “Be-brave-go-on.” At the three-quarters they
will say “I-am-thy-Help.” But it is at the hour, when the great bell
goes after “God-will-save-France”: it is then that St Margaret and St
Catherine and sometimes even the blessed Michael will say things that I
cannot tell beforehand. Then, oh then—
DUNOIS [_interrupting her kindly but not sympathetically_] Then, Joan,
we shall hear whatever we fancy in the booming of the bell. You make me
uneasy when you talk about your voices: I should think you were a bit
cracked if I hadnt noticed that you give me very sensible reasons for
what you do, though I hear you telling others you are only obeying
Madame Saint Catherine.
JOAN [_crossly_] Well, I have to find reasons for you, because you do
not believe in my voices. But the voices come first; and I find the
reasons after: whatever you may choose to believe.
DUNOIS. Are you angry, Joan?
JOAN. Yes. [_Smiling_] No: not with you. I wish you were one of the
village babies.
DUNOIS. Why?
JOAN. I could nurse you for awhile.
DUNOIS. You are a bit of a woman after all.
JOAN. No: not a bit: I am a soldier and nothing else. Soldiers always
nurse children when they get a chance.
DUNOIS. That is true. [_He laughs_].
_King Charles, with Bluebeard on his left and La Hire on his right,
comes from the vestry, where he has been disrobing. Joan shrinks away
behind the pillar. Dunois is left between Charles and La Hire._
DUNOIS. Well, your Majesty is an anointed king at last. How do you like
it?
CHARLES. I would not go through it again to be emperor of the sun and
moon. The weight of those robes! I thought I should have dropped when
they loaded that crown on to me. And the famous holy oil they talked so
much about was rancid: phew! The Archbishop must be nearly dead: his
robes must have weighed a ton: they are stripping him still in the
vestry.
DUNOIS [_drily_] Your Majesty should wear armor oftener. That would
accustom you to heavy dressing.
CHARLES. Yes: the old jibe! Well, I am not going to wear armor: fighting
is not my job. Where is The Maid?
JOAN [_coming forward between Charles and Bluebeard, and falling on her
knee_] Sire: I have made you king: my work is done. I am going back to
my father’s farm.
CHARLES [_surprised, but relieved_] Oh, are you? Well, that will be very
nice.
JOAN [_rises, deeply discouraged_] !
CHARLES [_continuing heedlessly_] A healthy life, you know.
DUNOIS. But a dull one.
BLUEBEARD. You will find the petticoats tripping you up after leaving
them off for so long.
LA HIRE. You will miss the fighting. It’s a bad habit, but a grand one,
and the hardest of all to break yourself of.
CHARLES [_anxiously_] Still, we dont want you to stay if you would
really rather go home.
JOAN [_bitterly_] I know well that none of you will be sorry to see me
go. [_She turns her shoulder to Charles and walks past him to the more
congenial neighborhood of Dunois and La Hire_].
LA HIRE. Well, I shall be able to swear when I want to. But I shall miss
you at times.
JOAN. La Hire: in spite of all your sins and swears we shall meet in
heaven; for I love you as I love Pitou, my old sheep dog. Pitou could
kill a wolf. You will kill the English wolves until they go back to
their country and become good dogs of God, will you not?
LA HIRE. You and I together: yes.
JOAN. No: I shall last only a year from the beginning.
ALL THE OTHERS. What!
JOAN. I know it somehow.
DUNOIS. Nonsense!
JOAN. Jack: do you think you will be able to drive them out?
DUNOIS [_with quiet conviction_] Yes: I shall drive them out. They beat
us because we thought battles were tournaments and ransom markets. We
played the fool while the goddams took war seriously. But I have learnt
my lesson, and taken their measure. They have no roots here. I have
beaten them before; and I shall beat them again.
JOAN. You will not be cruel to them, Jack?
DUNOIS. The goddams will not yield to tender handling. We did not begin
it.
JOAN [_suddenly_] Jack: before I go home, let us take Paris.
CHARLES [_terrified_] Oh no no. We shall lose everything we have gained.
Oh dont let us have any more fighting. We can make a very good treaty
with the Duke of Burgundy.
JOAN. Treaty! [_She stamps with impatience_].
CHARLES. Well, why not, now that I am crowned and anointed? Oh, that
oil!
_The Archbishop comes from the vestry, and joins the group between
Charles and Bluebeard._
CHARLES. Archbishop: The Maid wants to start fighting again.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Have we ceased fighting, then? Are we at peace?
CHARLES. No: I suppose not; but let us be content with what we have
done. Let us make a treaty. Our luck is too good to last; and now is our
chance to stop before it turns.
JOAN. Luck! God has fought for us; and you call it luck! And you would
stop while there are still Englishmen on this holy earth of dear France!
THE ARCHBISHOP [_sternly_] Maid: the king addressed himself to me, not
to you. You forget yourself. You very often forget yourself.
JOAN [_unabashed, and rather roughly_] Then speak, you; and tell him
that it is not God’s will that he should take his hand from the plough.
THE ARCHBISHOP. If I am not so glib with the name of God as you are, it
is because I interpret His will with the authority of the Church and of
my sacred office. When you first came you respected it, and would not
have dared to speak as you are now speaking. You came clothed with the
virtue of humility; and because God blessed your enterprises
accordingly, you have stained yourself with the sin of pride. The old
Greek tragedy is rising among us. It is the chastisement of hubris.
CHARLES. Yes: she thinks she knows better than everyone else.
JOAN [_distressed, but naïvely incapable of seeing the effect she is
producing_] But I do know better than any of you seem to. And I am not
proud: I never speak unless I know I am right.
BLUEBEARD } [_exclaiming { Ha ha!
CHARLES } together_] { Just so.
THE ARCHBISHOP. How do you know you are right?
JOAN. I always know. My voices—
CHARLES. Oh, your voices, your voices. Why dont the voices come to me?
I am king, not you.
JOAN. They do come to you; but you do not hear them. You have not sat in
the field in the evening listening for them. When the angelus rings you
cross yourself and have done with it; but if you prayed from your heart,
and listened to the thrilling of the bells in the air after they stop
ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do. [_Turning brusquely
from him_] But what voices do you need to tell you what the blacksmith
can tell you: that you must strike while the iron is hot? I tell you we
must make a dash at Compiègne and relieve it as we relieved Orleans.
Then Paris will open its gates; or if not, we will break through them.
What is your crown worth without your capital?
LA HIRE. That is what I say too. We shall go through them like a red hot
shot through a pound of butter. What do you say, Bastard?
DUNOIS. If our cannon balls were all as hot as your head, and we had
enough of them, we should conquer the earth, no doubt. Pluck and
impetuosity are good servants in war, but bad masters; they have
delivered us into the hands of the English every time we have trusted to
them. We never know when we are beaten: that is our great fault.
JOAN. You never know when you are victorious: that is a worse fault. I
shall have to make you carry looking-glasses in battle to convince you
that the English have not cut off all your noses. You would have been
besieged in Orleans still, you and your councils of war, if I had not
made you attack. You should always attack; and if you only hold on long
enough the enemy will stop first. You dont know how to begin a battle;
and you dont know how to use your cannons. And I do.
_She squats down on the flags with crossed ankles, pouting._
DUNOIS. I know what you think of us, General Joan.
JOAN. Never mind that, Jack. Tell them what you think of me.
DUNOIS. I think that God was on your side; for I have not forgotten how
the wind changed, and how our hearts changed when you came; and by my
faith I shall never deny that it was in your sign that we conquered. But
I tell you as a soldier that God is no man’s daily drudge, and no maid’s
either. If you are worthy of it he will sometimes snatch you out of the
jaws of death and set you on your feet again; but that is all: once on
your feet you must fight with all your might and all your craft. For he
has to be fair to your enemy too: dont forget that. Well, he set us on
our feet through you at Orleans; and the glory of it has carried us
through a few good battles here to the coronation. But if we presume on
it further, and trust to God to do the work we should do ourselves, we
shall be defeated; and serve us right!
JOAN. But—
DUNOIS. Sh! I have not finished. Do not think, any of you, that these
victories of ours were won without generalship. King Charles: you have
said no word in your proclamations of my part in this campaign; and I
make no complaint of that; for the people will run after The Maid and
her miracles and not after the Bastard’s hard work finding troops for
her and feeding them. But I know exactly how much God did for us through
The Maid, and how much He left me to do by my own wits; and I tell you
that your little hour of miracles is over, and that from this time on he
who plays the war game best will win—if the luck is on his side.
JOAN. Ah! if, if, if, if! If ifs and ans were pots and pans there’d be
no need of tinkers. [_Rising impetuously_] I tell you, Bastard, your art
of war is no use, because your knights are no good for real fighting.
War is only a game to them, like tennis and all their other games: they
make rules as to what is fair and what is not fair, and heap armor on
themselves and on their poor horses to keep out the arrows; and when
they fall they cant get up, and have to wait for their squires to come
and lift them to arrange about the ransom with the man that has poked
them off their horse. Cant you see that all the like of that is gone by
and done with? What use is armor against gunpowder? And if it was, do
you think men that are fighting for France and for God will stop to
bargain about ransoms, as half your knights live by doing? No: they will
fight to win; and they will give up their lives out of their own hand
into the hand of God when they go into battle, as I do. Common folks
understand this. They cannot afford armor and cannot pay ransoms; but
they follow me half naked into the moat and up the ladder and over the
wall. With them it is my life or thine, and God defend the right! You
may shake your head, Jack; and Bluebeard may twirl his billygoat’s beard
and cock his nose at me; but remember the day your knights and captains
refused to follow me to attack the English at Orleans! You locked the
gates to keep me in; and it was the townsfolk and the common people that
followed me and forced the gate, and shewed you the way to fight in
earnest.
BLUEBEARD [_offended_] Not content with being Pope Joan, you must be
Caesar and Alexander as well.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Pride will have a fall, Joan.
JOAN. Oh, never mind whether it is pride or not: is it true? is it
commonsense?
LA HIRE. It is true. Half of us are afraid of having our handsome noses
broken; and the other half are out for paying off their mortgages. Let
her have her way, Dunois: she does not know everything; but she has got
hold of the right end of the stick. Fighting is not what it was; and
those who know least about it often make the best job of it.
DUNOIS. I know all that. I do not fight in the old way: I have learnt
the lesson of Agincourt, of Poitiers and Crecy. I know how many lives
any move of mine will cost; and if the move is worth the cost I make it
and pay the cost. But Joan never counts the cost at all: she goes ahead
and trusts to God: she thinks she has God in her pocket. Up to now she
has had the numbers on her side; and she has won. But I know Joan; and I
see that some day she will go ahead when she has only ten men to do the
work of a hundred. And then she will find that God is on the side of the
big battalions. She will be taken by the enemy. And the lucky man that
makes the capture will receive sixteen thousand pounds from the Earl of
Ouareek.
JOAN [_flattered_] Sixteen thousand pounds! Eh, laddie, have they
offered that for me? There cannot be so much money in the world.
DUNOIS. There is, in England. And now tell me, all of you, which of you
will lift a finger to save Joan once the English have got her? I speak
first, for the army. The day after she has been dragged from her horse
by a goddam or a Burgundian, and he is not struck dead: the day after
she is locked in a dungeon, and the bars and bolts do not fly open at
the touch of St Peter’s angel: the day when the enemy finds out that she
is as vulnerable as I am and not a bit more invincible, she will not be
worth the life of a single soldier to us; and I will not risk that life,
much as I cherish her as a companion-in-arms.
JOAN. I dont blame you, Jack: you are right. I am not worth one
soldier’s life if God lets me be beaten; but France may think me worth
my ransom after what God has done for her through me.
CHARLES. I tell you I have no money; and this coronation, which is all
your fault, has cost me the last farthing I can borrow.
JOAN. The Church is richer than you. I put my trust in the Church.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Woman: they will drag you through the streets, and burn
you as a witch.
JOAN [_running to him_] Oh, my lord, do not say that. It is impossible.
I a witch!
THE ARCHBISHOP. Peter Cauchon knows his business. The University of
Paris has burnt a woman for saying that what you have done was well
done, and according to God.
JOAN [_bewildered_] But why? What sense is there in it? What I have done
is according to God. They could not burn a woman for speaking the truth.
THE ARCHBISHOP. They did.
JOAN. But you know that she was speaking the truth. You would not let
them burn me.
THE ARCHBISHOP. How could I prevent them?
JOAN. You would speak in the name of the Church. You are a great prince
of the Church. I would go anywhere with your blessing to protect me.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I have no blessing for you while you are proud and
disobedient.
JOAN. Oh, why will you go on saying things like that? I am not proud and
disobedient. I am a poor girl, and so ignorant that I do not know A from
B. How could I be proud? And how can you say that I am disobedient when
I always obey my voices, because they come from God.
THE ARCHBISHOP. The voice of God on earth is the voice of the Church
Militant; and all the voices that come to you are the echoes of your own
wilfulness.
JOAN. It is not true.
THE ARCHBISHOP [_flushing angrily_] You tell the Archbishop in his
cathedral that he lies; and yet you say you are not proud and
disobedient.
JOAN. I never said you lied. It was you that as good as said my voices
lied. When have they ever lied? If you will not believe in them: even if
they are only the echoes of my own commonsense, are they not always
right? and are not your earthly counsels always wrong?
THE ARCHBISHOP [_indignantly_] It is waste of time admonishing you.
CHARLES. It always comes back to the same thing. She is right, and
everyone else is wrong.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Take this as your last warning. If you perish through
setting your private judgment above the instructions of your spiritual
directors, the Church disowns you, and leaves you to whatever fate your
presumption may bring upon you. The Bastard has told you that if you
persist in setting up your military conceit above the counsels of your
commanders—
DUNOIS [_interposing_] To put it quite exactly, if you attempt to
relieve the garrison in Compiègne without the same superiority in
numbers you had at Orleans—
THE ARCHBISHOP. The army will disown you, and will not rescue you. And
His Majesty the King has told you that the throne has not the means of
ransoming you.
CHARLES. Not a penny.
THE ARCHBISHOP. You stand alone: absolutely alone, trusting to your own
conceit, your own ignorance, your own headstrong presumption, your own
impiety in hiding all these sins under the cloak of a trust in God. When
you pass through these doors into the sunlight, the crowd will cheer
you. They will bring you their little children and their invalids to
heal: they will kiss your hands and feet, and do what they can, poor
simple souls, to turn your head, and madden you with the self-confidence
that is leading you to your destruction. But you will be none the less
alone: they cannot save you. We and we only can stand between you and
the stake at which our enemies have burnt that wretched woman in Paris.
JOAN [_her eyes skyward_] I have better friends and better counsel than
yours.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I see that I am speaking in vain to a hardened heart.
You reject our protection, and are determined to turn us all against
you. In future, then, fend for yourself; and if you fail, God have mercy
on your soul.
DUNOIS. That is the truth, Joan. Heed it.
JOAN. Where would you all have been now if I had heeded that sort of
truth? There is no help, no counsel, in any of you. Yes: I am alone on
earth: I have always been alone. My father told my brothers to drown me
if I would not stay to mind his sheep while France was bleeding to
death: France might perish if only our lambs were safe. I thought France
would have friends at the court of the king of France; and I find only
wolves fighting for pieces of her poor torn body. I thought God would
have friends everywhere, because He is the friend of everyone; and in my
innocence I believed that you who now cast me out would be like strong
towers to keep harm from me. But I am wiser now; and nobody is any the
worse for being wiser. Do not think you can frighten me by telling me
that I am alone. France is alone; and God is alone; and what is my
loneliness before the loneliness of my country and my God? I see now
that the loneliness of God is His strength: what would He be if He
listened to your jealous little counsels? Well, my loneliness shall be
my strength too: it is better to be alone with God: His friendship will
not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength I will dare,
and dare, and dare, until I die. I will go out now to the common people,
and let the love in their eyes comfort me for the hate in yours. You
will all be glad to see me burnt; but if I go through the fire I shall
go through it to their hearts for ever and ever. And so, God be with me!
_She goes from them. They stare after her in glum silence for a moment.
Then Gilles de Rais twirls his beard._
BLUEBEARD. You know, the woman is quite impossible. I dont dislike her,
really; but what are you to do with such a character?
DUNOIS. As God is my judge, if she fell into the Loire I would jump in
in full armor to fish her out. But if she plays the fool at Compiègne,
and gets caught, I must leave her to her doom.
LA HIRE. Then you had better chain me up; for I could follow her to hell
when the spirit rises in her like that.
THE ARCHBISHOP. She disturbs my judgment too: there is a dangerous power
in her outbursts. But the pit is open at her feet; and for good or evil
we cannot turn her from it.
CHARLES. If only she would keep quiet, or go home!
_They follow her dispiritedly._
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