Angelo in your sex, until that day when you claim my promise as to
falsehood--cheerfully, and with the love that burns in depths of
admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of
us men--a greater thing than even Mozart is known to have done, or Michael
Angelo--you can die grandly, and as goddesses would die were goddesses
mortal. If any distant world (which _may_ be the case) are so far ahead
of us Tellurians in optical resources as to see distinctly through their
telescopes all that we do on earth, what is the grandest sight to which we
ever treat them? St. Peter's at Rome, do you fancy, on Easter Sunday, or
Luxor, or perhaps the Himalayas? Pooh! pooh! my friend: suggest something
better; these are baubles to _them_; they see in other worlds, in their
own, far better toys of the same kind. These, take my word for it, are
nothing. Do you give it up? The finest thing, then, we have to show them
is a scaffold on the morning of execution. I assure you there is a strong
muster in those fair telescopic worlds, on any such morning, of those who
happen to find themselves occupying the right hemisphere for a peep
at _us_. Telescopes look up in the market on that morning, and bear a
monstrous premium; for they cheat, probably, in those scientific worlds as
well as we do. How, then, if it be announced in some such telescopic world
by those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our newspapers,
whose language they have long since deciphered, that the poor victim in the
morning's sacrifice is a woman? How, if it be published on that distant
world that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the eyes of many, the
garlands of martyrdom? How, if it should be some Marie Antoinette, the
widowed queen, coming forward on the scaffold, and presenting to the
morning air her head, turned gray prematurely by sorrow, daughter of Cæsars
kneeling down humbly to kiss the guillotine, as one that worships death?
How, if it were the "martyred wife of Roland," uttering impassioned
truth--truth odious to the rulers of her country--with her expiring breath?
How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth,
that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon her
smiles wherever she turned her face to scatter them--homage that followed
those smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring,
follow the re-appearing sun and the racing of sunbeams over the hills--yet
thought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals in
comparison of deliverance from hell for her dear suffering France? Ah!
these were spectacles indeed for those sympathizing people in distant
worlds; and some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of martyrdom themselves,
because they could not testify their wrath, could not bear witness to the
strength of love, and to the fury of hatred, that burned within them at
such scenes; could not gather into golden urns some of that glorious dust
which rested in the catacombs of earth.
On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about nineteen
years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted
before mid-day, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform of
prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by occasional
walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every
direction for the creation of air-currents. The pile "struck terror," says
M. Michelet, "by its height;" and, as usual, the English purpose in this is
viewed as one of pure malignity. But there are two ways of explaining all
that. It is probable that the purpose was merciful. On the circumstances of
the execution I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity
of M. Michelet in finding out whatever may injure the English name, at
a moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personal
appearance, it is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by which he draws
into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects,
though lying upon the high road, a very pleasing one. Both are from English
pens. Grafton, a chronicler but little read, being a stiff-necked John
Bull, thought fit to say, that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, since
her "foule face" was a satisfactory solution of that particular merit.
Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every way more
important, and universally read, has given a very pleasing testimony to the
interesting character of Joanna's person and engaging manners. Neither
of these men lived till the following century, so that personally this
evidence is none at all. Grafton sullenly and carelessly believed as
he wished to believe; Holinshead took pains to inquire, and reports
undoubtedly the general impression of France. But I cite the case as
illustrating M. Michelet's candor.[7]
The circumstantial incidents of the execution, unless with more space
than I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fear
to injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so
unspeakably grand. Yet for a purpose pointing, not at Joanna but at M.
Michelet,--viz., to convince him that an Englishman is capable of thinking
more highly of _La Pucelle_ than even her admiring countryman, I shall, in
parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanor on the scaffold,
and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorize me in
questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firmness. The reader ought
to be reminded that Joanna d'Arc was subjected to an unusually unfair trial
of opinion. Any of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear of
_personal_ rancor. The martyr was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Cæsar;
at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian faith and morals
existed, with the enmity that arises spontaneously in the worldly against
the spiritual. But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be,
therefore, anti-national; and still less was _individually_ hateful. What
was hated (if anything) belonged to his class, not to himself separately.
Now Joanna, if hated at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national
grounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against _her_,
such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it would
follow of necessity that some people would impute to her a willingness to
recant. No innocence could escape _that_. Now, had she really testified
this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all but
the weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant approach of
torment. And those will often pity that weakness most, who, in their own
persons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a calumny
uttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It rests
upon no _positive_ testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting
testimony to stem. And yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seems
to admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer amongst
her _friends_ who lends some countenance to this odious slander. His words
are, that, if she did not utter this word _recant_ with her lips, she
uttered it in her heart. "Whether, she _said_ the word is uncertain: but I
affirm that she _thought_ it."
Now, I affirm that she did not; not in any sense of the word "_thought_"
applicable to the case. Here is France calumniating _La Pucelle_: here
is England defending her. M. Michelet can only mean, that, on _a priori_
principles, every woman must be presumed liable to such a weakness; that
Joanna was a woman; _ergo_, that she was liable to such a weakness. That
is, he only supposes her to have uttered the word by an argument which
presumes it impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. I, on the
contrary, throw the _onus_ of the argument not on presumable tendencies of
nature, but on the known facts of that morning's execution, as recorded
by multitudes. What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute
nobility of deportment, broke the vast line of battle then arrayed against
her? What else but her meek, saintly demeanor, won from the enemies, that
till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten
thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept;" and of
these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by
cords of superstition. What else was it but her constancy, united with her
angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier--who had sworn
to throw a faggot on her scaffold, as _his_ tribute of abhorrence, that
_did_ so, that fulfilled his vow--suddenly to turn away a penitent for
life, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven
from the ashes where she had stood? What else drove the executioner to
kneel at every shrine for pardon to _his_ share in the tragedy? And, if all
this were insufficient, then I cite the closing act of her life as valid
on her behalf, were all other testimonies against her. The executioner had
been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke
rose upwards in billowing volumes. A Dominican monk was then standing
almost at her side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger,
but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was
racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this
noblest of girls think only for _him_, the one friend that would not
forsake her, and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to care
for his own preservation, but to leave _her_ to God. That girl, whose
latest breath ascended in this sublime expression of self-oblivion, did not
utter the word _recant_ either with her lips or in her heart. No; she did
not, though one should rise from the dead to swear it.
* * * * *
Bishop of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold--thou upon a
down bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike.
At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is
resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have
the same truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; together
both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering
fast upon you two, Bishop and Shepherd girl--when the pavilions of life
were closing up their shadowy curtains about you--let us try, through the
gigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features of your separate visions.
The shepherd girl that had delivered France--she, from her dungeon, she,
from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as she entered
her last dream--saw Domrémy, saw the fountain of Domrémy, saw the pomp of
forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival, which
man had denied to her languishing heart--that resurrection of spring-time,
which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from _her_, hungering after
the glorious liberty of forests--were by God given back into her hands, as
jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps, (for
the minutes of dreams can stretch into ages,) was given back to her by God
the bliss of childhood. By special privilege, for _her_ might be created,
in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not,
like _that_, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. This
mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was weathered, the skirts even of
that mighty storm were drawing off. The blood, that she was to reckon for,
had been exacted; the tears, that she was to shed in secret, had been paid
to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had
been suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold
she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings of
death. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she had
died--died, amidst the tears of ten thousand enemies--died, amidst the
drums and trumpets of armies--died, amidst peals redoubling upon peals,
volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs.
Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burthened man is in dreams haunted
and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon that
fluctuating mirror--rising (like the mocking mirrors of _mirage_ in Arabian
deserts) from the fens of death--most of all are reflected the sweet
countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, Bishop,
that you, also, entering your final dream, saw Domrémy. That fountain,
of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your eyes in pure
morning dews; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away the
bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, Bishop,
you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But as _you_ draw near, the
woman raises her wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for the
features of her child? Ah, but _you_ know them, Bishop, well! Oh, mercy!
what a groan was _that_ which the servants, waiting outside the Bishop's
dream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this moment he
turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests
afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold
before he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find a
respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there! In glades, where
only wild deer should run, armies and nations are assembling; towering in
the fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There is
the great English Prince, Regent of France. There is my Lord of Winchester,
the princely Cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop of
Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that which
hands so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn the
child of Domrémy a second time? No: it is a tribunal that rises to the
clouds; and two nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord
of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hours
for the innocent? Ah! no: he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all is
waiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the Court is hurrying to their
seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge
is going to take his place. Oh! but this is sudden. My lord, have you
no counsel? "Counsel I have none: in heaven above, or on earth beneath,
counsellor there is none now that would take a brief from _me_: all are
silent." Is it, indeed, come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumult
is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity, but yet I will search
in it for somebody to take your brief: I know of somebody that will be your
counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domrémy? Who is she that cometh in
bloody coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she that cometh with blackened
flesh from walking the furnaces of Rouen? This is she, the shepherd girl,
counsellor that had none for herself, whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. She
it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, Bishop, that
would plead for you: yes, Bishop, SHE--when heaven and earth are silent.
NOTES.
[NOTE 1.
_Arc_:--Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself,
insists that the name is not d'Arc, _i.e._ of Arc, but _Darc_. Now it
happens sometimes, that if a person, whose position guarantees his access
to the best information, will content himself with gloomy dogmatism,
striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice--"It is
so; and there's an end of it,"--one bows deferentially; and submits. But
if, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably
into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him
that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish,
perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism; he would have
entrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable
points. But coming down to base reasons, he lets in light, and one sees
where to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for
disturbing the old received spelling, is--that Jean Hordal, a descendant of
_La Pucelle's_ brother, spelled the name _Darc_, in 1612. But what of that?
Beside the chances that M. Hordal might be a gigantic blockhead, it is
notorious that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit to
disburse amongst man in the seventeenth century, was all monopolized by
printers: in France, much more so.]
[NOTE 2.
_Those that share thy blood_:--a collateral relative of Joanna's was
subsequently ennobled by the title of _du Lys_.]
[NOTE 3.
"_Jean_."--M. Michelet asserts that there was a mystical meaning at that
era in calling a child _Jean_; it implied a secret commendation of a child,
if not a dedication, to St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, the
apostle of love and mysterious visions. But, really, as the name was so
exceedingly common, few people will detect a mystery in calling a _boy_ by
the name of Jack, though it _does_ seem mysterious to call a girl Jack. It
may be less so in France, where a beautiful practice has always prevailed
of giving to a boy his mother's name--preceded and strengthened by a male
name, as _Charles Anne_, _Victor Victoire_. In cases where a mother's
memory has been unusually dear to a son, this vocal memento of her,
locked into the circle of his own name, gives to it the tenderness of a
testamentary relique, or a funeral ring. I presume, therefore, that _La
Pacelle_ must have borne the baptismal names of Jeanne Jean; the latter
with no reference to so sublime a person as St. John, but simply to some
relative.]
[NOTE 4.
And reminding one of that inscription, so justly admired by Paul Richtor,
which a Russian Czarina placed on a guide-post near Moscow--_This is the
road that leads to Constantinople_.]
[NOTE 5.
Yes, old--very old phrase: not as ignoramuses fancy, a phrase recently
minted by a Repealer in Ireland.]
[NOTE 6.
Our sisters are always rather uneasy when we say anything of them in Latin
or Greek. It is like giving sealed orders to a sea captain, which he is not
to open for his life till he comes into a certain latitude, which latitude,
perhaps, he never _will_ come into, and thus may miss the secret till he is
going to the bottom. Generally I acknowledge that it is not polite before
our female friends to cite a single word of Latin without instantly
translating it. But in this particular case, where I am only iterating a
disagreeable truth, they will please to recollect that the politeness lies
in _not_ translating. However, if they insist absolutely on knowing this
very night, before going to bed, what it is that those ill-looking lines
contain, I refer them to Dryden's Virgil, somewhere in the 6th Book of the
Æneid, except as to the closing line and a half, which contain a private
suggestion of my own to discontented nymphs anxious to see the equilibrium
of advantages re-established between the two sexes.]
[NOTE 7.
Amongst the many ebullitions of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English,
are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the more
conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and
the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us.
1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He
pronounces it "fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, "sceptical, Judaic,
Satanic--in a word, Anti-Christian." That Lord Byron should figure as a
member of this diabolical corporation, will not surprise men. It _will_
surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many are
the generous and eloquent Frenchmen, beside Chateaubriand, who have, in
the course of the last thirty years, nobly suspended their own burning
nationality, in order to render a more rapturous homage at the feet of
Milton; and some of them have raised Milton almost to a level with angelic
natures. Not one of them has thought of looking for him _below_ the earth.
As to Shakspeare, M. Michelet detects in him a most extraordinary mare's
nest. It is this: he does "not recollect to have seen the name of God" in
any part of his works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub one's
eyes, and suspect that all one has ever seen in this world may have been
a pure ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to suspect that the
word "_la gloire_" never occurs in any Parisian journal. "The great English
nation," says M. Michelet, "has one immense profound vice," to wit,
"pride." Why, really, that may be true; but we have a neighbor not
absolutely clear of an "immense profound vice," as like ours in color and
shape as cherry to cherry. In short, M. Michelet thinks us, by fits and
starts, admirable, only that we are detestable; and he would adore some of
our authors, were it not that so intensely he could have wished to kick
them.
2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd remark
upon Thomas à Kempis: which is, that a man of any conceivable European
blood--a Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote--might have written Tom; only
not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom, must remain
a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problem
was intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacture
himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than M. Michelet, that this very
point of Kempis _having_ manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly
litigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged his work for him,
the shocking old doubt will raise its snaky head once more--whether this
forger, who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of English
blood. Tom, it may be feared, is known to modern English literature chiefly
by an irreverent mention of his name in a line of Peter Pindar's (Dr.
Wolcot) fifty years back, where he is described as
"Kempis Tom,
Who clearly shows the way to Kingdom Come."
Few in these days can have read him, unless in the Methodist version of
John Wesley. Amongst those few, however, happens to be myself; which arose
from the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received a copy of the
_De Imitatione Christi_, as a bequest from a relation, who died very young;
from which cause, and from the external prettiness of the book, being a
Glasgow reprint, by the celebrated Foulis, and gaily bound, I was induced
to look into it; and finally read it many times over, partly out of
some sympathy which, even in those days, I had with its simplicity and
devotional fervor; but much more from the savage delight I found in
laughing at Tom's Latinity. _That_, I freely grant to M. Michelet, is
inimitable; else, as regards substance, it strikes me that I could forge a
better _De Imitatione_ myself. But there is no knowing till one tries. Yet,
after all, it is not certain whether the original _was_ Latin. But, however
_that_ may have been, if it is possible that M. Michelet[A] can be accurate
in saying that there are no less than _sixty_ French versions (not
editions, observe, but separate versions) existing of the _De Imitatione_,
how prodigious must have been the adaptation of the book to the religious
heart of the fifteenth century! Excepting the Bible, but excepting
that only in Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the same
distinction. It is the most marvellous bibliographical fact on record.
[Footnote A: "If M. Michelet can be accurate." However, on consideration,
this statement does not depend on Michelet. The bibliographer, Barbier,
has absolutely _specified_ sixty in a separate dissertation, _soixante
traductions_, amongst those even that have not escaped the search. The
Italian translations are said to be thirty. As to mere _editions_, not
counting the early MSS. for half a century before printing was introduced,
those in Latin amount to two thousand, and those in French to one thousand.
Meantime, it is very clear to me that this astonishing popularity, so
entirely unparalleled in literature, could not have existed except in Roman
Catholic times, nor subsequently have lingered in any Protestant land. It
was the denial of Scripture fountains to thirsty lands which made this
slender rill of Scripture truth so passionately welcome.]
3. Our English girls, it seems, are as faulty in one way as we English
males in another. None of us lads could have written the _Opera Omnia_ of
Mr. à Kempis; neither could any of our lasses have assumed male attire like
_La Pucelle_. But why? Because, says Michelet, English girls and German
think so much of an indecorum. Well, that is a good fault, generally
speaking. But M. Michelet ought to have remembered a fact in the
martyrologies which justifies both parties,--the French heroine for doing,
and the general choir of English girls for _not_ doing. A female saint,
specially renowned in France, had, for a reason as weighty as Joanna's,
viz., expressly to shield her modesty amongst men, wore a male military
harness. That reason and that example authorized _La Pucelle_; but our
English girls, as a body, have seldom any such reason, and certainly no
such saintly example, to plead. This excuses _them_. Yet, still, if it is
indispensable to the national character that our young women should now and
then trespass over the frontier of decorum, it then becomes a patriotic
duty in me to assure M. Michelet that we have such ardent females amongst
us, and in a long series--some detected in naval hospitals, when too sick
to remember their disguise; some on fields of battle; multitudes never
detected at all; some only suspected; and others discharged without noise
by war offices and other absurd people. In our navy, both royal and
commercial, and generally from deep remembrances of slighted love, women
have sometimes served in disguise for many years, taking contentedly their
daily allowance of burgoo, biscuit, or cannon balls--anything, in short,
digestible or indigestible, that it might please Providence to send. One
thing, at least, is to their credit: never any of these poor masks, with
their deep silent remembrances, have been detected through murmuring, or
what is nautically understood by "skulking." So, for once, M. Michelet has
an _erratum_ to enter upon the fly-leaf of his book in presentation copies.