Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 28 Joan Foretells Her Doom .......................................................................................................2

Chapter 29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders .....................................................................................................4

Chapter 30 The Red Field of Patay .........................................................................................................7

Chapter 31 France Begins to Live Again ...............................................................................................10

Chapter 32 The Joyous News Flies Fast ................................................................................................11

Chapter 33 Joan's Five Great Deeds......................................................................................................11

Chapter 34 The Jests of the Burgundians..............................................................................................14

Chapter 35 The Heir of France is Crowned ...........................................................................................17

Chapter 36 Joan Hears News from Home ..............................................................................................22

Chapter 37 Again to Arms.....................................................................................................................26

Chapter 38 The King Cries "Forward!".................................................................................................28

Chapter 40 Treachery Conquers Joan ....................................................................................................34

Chapter 41 The Maid Will March No More..........................................................................................36

BOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM.........................................................................................................39

Chapter 1 The Maid in Chains ...............................................................................................................39

Chapter 2 Joan Sold to the English ........................................................................................................41

Chapter 3 Weaving the Net About Her ..................................................................................................43

Chapter 4 All Ready to Condemn ..........................................................................................................45

Chapter 5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice.............................................................................................47

Chapter 6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors........................................................................................49

Chapter 7 Craft That Was in Vain.........................................................................................................55

Chapter 8 Joan Tells of Her Visions ......................................................................................................58

Chapter 9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold ..............................................................................................63

Chapter 10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End......................................................................................70

Chapter 11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination ...........................................................................73

Chapter 12 Joan's MasterStroke Diverted...........................................................................................77

Chapter 13 The Third Trial Fails...........................................................................................................81

Chapter 14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies.................................................................................85

Chapter 15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning........................................................................................89

Chapter 16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack ..................................................................................91

Chapter 17 Supreme in Direst Peril.......................................................................................................94

Chapter 18 Condemned Yet Unafraid ....................................................................................................95

Chapter 19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail...........................................................................................96

Chapter 20 The Betrayal........................................................................................................................98

Chapter 21 Respited Only for Torture.................................................................................................103

Chapter 22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer .............................................................................................105

Chapter 23 The Time Is at Hand ..........................................................................................................108

Chapter 24 Joan the Martyr ..................................................................................................................112

The morning of the 14th I was writing from Joan's dictation in a small room which she sometimes used as a

private office when she wanted to get away from officials and their interruptions. Catherine Boucher came in

"This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you are running. The Paladin told me how you

made the duke stand out of the way when the cannonballs were flying all about, and so saved his life."

"Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like that? It seems such a wanton risk."

"It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in such a place. And you led an assault

again. Joan, it is tempting Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me that you

will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults, and that you will take better care of yourself in those

But Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it. Catherine sat troubled and discontented awhile,

"Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so longso long. They last forever and ever and

"This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of it in the next four days. The rest of it will be

gentleroh, far less bloody. Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the redemption of

Catherine started (and do did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one in a trance, murmuring "four

daysfour days," as if to herself and unconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had something of

"Yes," said Joan, dreamily, "I knowI know. I shall strikeand strike again. And before the fourth day is

finished I shall strike yet again." She became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was for a whole minute,

she looking at the floor and her lips moving but uttering nothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible:

"And in a thousand years the English power in France will not rise up from that blow."

It made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance againI could see itjust as she was that day

in the pastures of Domremy when she prophesied about us boys in the war and afterward did not know that

she had done it. She was not conscious now; but Catherine did not know that, and so she said, in a happy

"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come back and bide with us all your life long,

A scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the dreamy voice muttered:

I sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine did not scream. She was going to do thatI

saw it plainly. Then I whispered her to slip out of the place, and say nothing of what had happened. I said

"Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like prophecy." And she was gone.

Like prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as knowing we should lose her. Soon she

started, shivering slightly, and came to herself, and looked around and saw me crying there, and jumped out

of her chair and ran to me all in a whirl of sympathy and compassion, and put her hand on my head, and said:

I had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way. I picked up an old letter from my table,

written by Heaven knows who, about some matter Heaven knows what, and told her I had just gotten it from

P�re Fronte, and that in it it said the children's Fairy Tree had been chopped down by some miscreant or

other, and I got no further. She snatched the letter from my hand and searched it up and down and all over,

turning it this way and that, and sobbing great sobs, and the tears flowing down her cheeks, and ejaculating

all the time, "Oh, cruel, cruel! how could any be so heartless? Ah, poor Arbre F�e de Bourlemont goneand

And I, still lying, showed her the pretended fatal words on the pretended fatal page, and she gazed at them

through her tears, and said she could see herself that they were hateful, ugly wordsthey "had the very look

"His majesty's messengerwith despatches for her Excellency the CommanderinChief of the Armies of

I KNEW she had seen the wisdom of the Tree. But when? I could not know. Doubtless before she had lately

told the King to use her, for that she had but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to me at the time,

but the conviction came upon me now that at that time she had already seen the Tree. It had brought her a

welcome message; that was plain, otherwise she could not have been so joyous and lighthearted as she had

been these latter days. The deathwarning had nothing dismal about it for her; no, it was remission of exile, it

Yes, she had seen the Tree. No one had taken the prophecy to heart which she made to the King; and for a

good reason, no doubt; no one wanted to take it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and forget it. And all

had succeeded, and would go on to the end placid and comfortable. All but me alone. I must carry my awful

secret without any to help me. A heavy load, a bitter burden; and would cost me a daily heartbreak. She was

to die; and so soon. I had never dreamed of that. How could I, and she so strong and fresh and young, and

every day earning a new right to a peaceful and honored old age? For at that time I though old age valuable. I

do not know why, but I thought so. All young people think it, I believe, they being ignorant and full of

superstitions. She had seen the Tree. All that miserable night those ancient verses went floating back and

And when, in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!

But at dawn the bugles and the drums burst through the dreamy hush of the morning, and it was turn out all!

We marched to Meung without halting. There we carried the bridge by assault, and left a force to hold it, the

rest of the army marching away next morning toward Beaugency, where the lion Talbot, the terror of the

French, was in command. When we arrived at that place, the English retired into the castle and we sat down

Talbot was not at the moment present in person, for he had gone away to watch for and welcome Fastolfe and

Joan placed her batteries and bombarded the castle till night. Then some news came: Richemont, Constable

of France, this long time in disgrace with the King, largely because of the evil machinations of La Tremouille

and his party, was approaching with a large body of men to offer his services to Joanand very much she

needed them, now that Fastolfe was so close by. Richemont had wanted to join us before, when we first

marched on Orleans; but the foolish King, slave of those paltry advisers of his, warned him to keep his

I go into these details because they are important. Important because they lead up to the exhibition of a new

gift in Joan's extraordinary mental makeupstatesmanship. It is a sufficiently strange thing to find that

great quality in an ignorant countrygirl of seventeen and a half, but she had it.

Joan was for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire and the two young Lavals and other chiefs,

but the LieutenantGeneral, d'Alenon, strenuously and stubbornly opposed it. He said he had absolute orders

from the King to deny and defy Richemont, and that if they were overridden he would leave the army. This

would have been a heavy disaster, indeed. But Joan set herself the task of persuading him that the salvation of

France took precedence of all minor thingseven the commands of a sceptered ass; and she accomplished it.

She persuaded him to disobey the King in the interest of the nation, and to be reconciled to Count Richemont

and welcome him. That was statesmanship; and of the highest and soundest sort. Whatever thing men call

In the early morning, June 17th, the scouts reported the approach of Talbot and Fastolfe with Fastolfe's

succoring force. Then the drums beat to arms; and we set forth to meet the English, leaving Richemont and

his troops behind to watch the castle of Beaugency and keep its garrison at home. By and by we came in sight

of the enemy. Fastolfe had tried to convince Talbot that it would be wisest to retreat and not risk a battle with

Joan at this time, but distribute the new levies among the English strongholds of the Loire, thus securing them

against capture; then be patient and waitwait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her army with

fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon her in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a

wise old experienced general, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would hear of no delay. He was in a rage

over the punishment which the Maid had inflicted upon him at Orleans and since, and he swore by God and

Saint George that he would have it out with her if he had to fight her all alone. So Fastolfe yielded, though he

said they were now risking the loss of everything which the English had gained by so many years' work and

The enemy had taken up a strong position, and were waiting, in order of battle, with their archers to the front

Night was coming on. A messenger came from the English with a rude defiance and an offer of battle. But

Joan's dignity was not ruffled, her bearing was not discomposed. She said to the herald:

"Go back and say it is too late to meet tonight; but tomorrow, please God and our Lady, we will come to

The night fell dark and rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain which falls so softly and brings to one's

spirit such serenity and peace. About ten o'clock D'Alenon, the Bastard of Orleans, La Hire, Pothon of

Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came to our headquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters

with Joan. Some thought it was a pity that Joan had declined battle, some thought not. Then Pothon asked her

"There was more than one reason. These English are oursthey cannot get away from us. Wherefore there is

no need to take risks, as at other times. The day was far spent. It is good to have much time and the fair light

of day when one's force is in a weakened statenine hundred of us yonder keeping the bridge of Meung

under the Marshal de Rais, fifteen hundred with the Constable of France keeping the bridge and watching the

"I grieve for this decision, Excellency, but it cannot be helped. And the case will be the same the morrow, as

Joan was walking up and down just then. She laughed her affectionate, comrady laugh, and stopping before

that old wartiger she put her small hand above his head and touched one of his plumes, saying:

"Name of God, Bastard, Bastard! you cannot tell me this small thing, yet are bold to name a large

onetelling us what is in the stomach of the unborn morrow: that we shall not have those men. Now it is my

That made a stir. All wanted to know why she thought that. But La Hire took the word and said:

"There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the saying of your Excellency?"

"Yes. One was that we being weak and the day far gone, the battle might not be decisive. When it is fought it

"One otheryes." She hesitated a moment, then said: "This was not the day. Tomorrow is the day. It is so

They were going to assail her with eager questionings, but she put up her hand and prevented them. Then she

"It will be the most noble and beneficent victory that God has vouchsafed for France at any time. I pray you

question me not as to whence or how I know this thing, but be content that it is so."

There was pleasure in every face, and conviction and high confidence. A murmur of conversation broke out,

but that was interrupted by a messenger from the outposts who brought newsnamely, that for an hour there

had been stir and movement in the English camp of a sort unusual at such a time and with a resting army, he

said. Spies had been sent under cover of the rain and darkness to inquire into it. They had just come back and

reported that large bodies of men had been dimly made out who were slipping stealthily away in the direction

"It was not to be expected," said Louis de Bourbon, "but one can divine the purpose of it."

"Yes," responded Joan. "Talbot has reflected. His rash brain has cooled. He thinks to take the bridge of

Meung and escape to the other side of the river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of Beaugency at the

mercy of fortune, to escape our hands if it can; but there is no other course if he would avoid this battle, and

"Yes," said D'Alenon, "we must follow him, and take care of that matter. What of Beaugency?"

"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at no cost of blood."

"It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there and receive the surrender."

"Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the Constable and his fifteen hundred; and

"By the mass, yes!" cried La Hire. "He will join his Meung garrison to his army and break for Paris. Then we

shall have our bridge force with us again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be stronger for our great

day's work by fourandtwenty hundred able soldiers, as was here promised within the hour. Verily this

Englishman is doing our errands for us and saving us much blood and trouble. Orders, Excellencygive us

"They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one o'clock the advanceguard will march, under

our command, with Pothon of Saintrailles as second; the second division will follow at two under the

LieutenantGeneral. Keep well in the rear of the enemy, and see to it that you avoid an engagement. I will

ride under guard to Beaugency and make so quick work there that Ii and the Constable of France will join

She kept her word. Her guard mounted and we rode off through the puttering rain, taking with us a captured

English officer to confirm Joan's news. We soon covered the journey and summoned the castle. Richard

Gu�tin, Talbot's lieutenant, being convinced that he and his five hundred men were left helpless, conceded

that it would be useless to try to hold out. He could not expect easy terms, yet Joan granted them

nevertheless. His garrison could keep their horses and arms, and carry away property to the value of a silver

mark per man. They could go whither they pleased, but must not take arms against France again under ten

Before dawn we were with our army again, and with us the Constable and nearly all his men, for we left only

a small garrison in Beaugency castle. We heard the dull booming of cannon to the front, and knew that Talbot

was beginning his attack on the bridge. But some time before it was yet light the sound ceased and we heard

Gu�tin had sent a messenger through our lines under a safeconduct given by Joan, to tell Talbot of the

surrender. Of course this poursuivant had arrived ahead of us. Talbot had held it wisdom to turn now and

retreat upon Paris. When daylight came he had disappeared; and with him Lord Scales and the garrison of

What a harvest of English strongholds we had reaped in those three days!strongholds which had defied

WHEN THE morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June, thee was no enemy discoverable

anywhere, as I have said. But that did not trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that we should strike

him; strike him the promised blowthe one from which the English power in France would not rise up in a

The enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beaucea roadless waste covered with bushes, with here

and there bodies of forest treesa region where an army would be hidden from view in a very little while.

We found the trail in the soft wet earth and followed it. It indicated an orderly march; no confusion, no panic.

But we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could walk into an ambush without any trouble.

Therefore Joan sent bodies of cavalry ahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains, to feel the way. Some

of the other officers began to show uneasiness; this sort of hideandgoseek business troubled them and

made their confidence a little shaky. Joan divined their state of mind and cried out impetuously:

"Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English, and we will. They shall not escape us.

By and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away. Now at this time our reconnaissance, feeling

its way in the bush, frightened a deer, and it went bounding away and was out of sight in a moment. Then

hardly a minute later a dull great shout went up in the distance toward Patay. It was the English soldiery.

They had been shut up in a garrison so long on moldy food that they could not keep their delight to

themselves when this fine fresh meat came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it had wrought damage

to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew where the English were now, whereas the English had

La Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant with joy. The Duke d'Alenon said to

"Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are oursthey are lost. They will fly. Who overtakes them will need

By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered our presence. Talbot's force was

marching in three bodies. First his advanceguard; then his artillery; then his battlecorps a good way in the

rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his

advanceguard, and five hundred picked archers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to

pass, and hoped to hold this position till his battlecorps could come up. Sir John Fastolfe urged the

battlecorps into a gallop. Joan saw her opportunity and ordered La Hire to advancewhich La Hire

promptly did, launching his wild riders like a stormwind, his customary fashion.

So they waitedimpatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was readygazing straight before her,

measuring, weighing, calculatingby shades, minutes, fractions of minutes, secondswith all her great soul

present, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of bodybut patient, steady, master of herselfmaster of

And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and falling, streamed the thundering charge

of La Hire's godless crew, La Hire's great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a flagstaff.

"Oh, Satan andhis Hellions, see them go!" Somebody muttered it in deep admiration.

And now he struck itstruck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to

Fastolfe's harddriven battlecorps raged on like an avalanche toward the waiting advanceguard. Suddenly

these conceived the idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed

Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance with her sword. "Follow me!"

We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed.

Joan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost in thought. Presently she said:

"The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day." After a little she lifted her face, and

looking afar off, said, with the manner of one who is thinking aloud, "In a thousand yearsa thousand

yearsthe English power in France will not rise up from this blow." She stood again a time thinking, then

she turned toward her grouped generals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble light in her eye; and she

"Oh, friends, friends, do you know?do you comprehend? France is on the way to be free!"

"And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!" said La Hire, passing before her and bowing low, the other

following and doing likewise; he muttering as he went, "I will say it though I be damned for it." Then

battalion after battalion of our victorious army swung by, wildly cheering. And they shouted, "Live forever,

Maid of Orleans, live forever!" while Joan, smiling, stood at the salute with her sword.

This was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red field of Patay. Toward the end of the day I

came upon her where the dead and dying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows; our men had mortally

wounded an English prisoner who was too poor to pay a ransom, and from a distance she had seen that cruel

thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her dying

enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his sister might have done;

[1] Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: "Michelet discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of

Arc's page, Louis de Conte, who was probably an eyewitness of the scene." This is true. It was a part of the

testimony of the author of these "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc," given by him in the Rehabilitation

The war called the Hundred Years' War was very sick today. Sick on its English sidefor the very first

Shall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or shall we not rather judge them by the

results which flowed from them? Any one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to its

Judged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and imposing battles that have been fought

since the peoples of the world first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So judged, it is even

possible that Patay has no peer among that few just mentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic

conflicts. For when it began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life, her case wholly

hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when it ended, three hours later, she was convalescent.

Convalescent, and nothing requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to perfect health. The

Many deathsick nations have reached convalescence through a series of battles, a procession of battles, a

weary tale of wasting conflicts stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and by a

Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the stateliest fact in the long annals of your

country. There it stands, with its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on pilgrimage to the

field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence ofwhat? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes.

For all nations in all times have built monuments on their battlefields to keep green the memory of the

perishable deed that was wrought there and of the perishable name of him who wrought it; and will France

neglect Patay and Joan of Arc? Not for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their rank as compared

with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhapsif there be room for it under the arch of the sky.

But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and impressive facts. The Hundred Years' War

began in 1337. It raged on and on, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched France

prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled on, year after year, and at last again she

went down under another devastating blowPoitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once more, and the

war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year, decade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married,

diedthe war raged on; their children in turn grew up, married, diedthe war raged on; their children,

growing, saw France struck down again; this time under the incredible disaster of Agincourtand still the

France was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to England, with none to dispute or deny the

truth; the other half belonged to nobodyin three months would be flying the English flag; the French King

Now came the ignorant countrymaid out of her remote village and confronted this hoary war, this

allconsuming conflagration that had swept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest and most

amazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven weeks it was finished. In seven weeks she hopelessly

crippled that gigantic war that was ninetyone years old. At Orleans she struck it a staggering blow; on the

Think of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is another matter; none will ever be able to

Seven weekswith her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the most of it, in any single fight, at Patay,

where the English began six thousand strong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is said and believed

that in three battles aloneCrecy, Poitiers, and Agincourtnear a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell,

without counting the thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of that war make a mournful long

listan interminable list. Of men slain in the field the count goes by tens of thousands; of innocent women

and children slain by bitter hardship and hunger it goes by that appalling term, millions.

It was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred years, crunching men and dripping blood

from its jaws. And with her little hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder he lies stretched

THE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France in twenty hours, people said. I do not

know as to that; but one thing is sure, anyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting and glorifying God

and told his neighbor; and that neighbor flew with it to the next homestead; and so on and so on without

resting the word traveled; and when a man got it in the night, at what hour soever, he jumped out of his bed

and bore the blessed message along. And the joy that went with it was like the light that flows across the land

when an eclipse is receding from the face of the sun; and, indeed, you may say that France had lain in an

eclipse this long time; yes, buried in a black gloom which these beneficent tidings were sweeping away now

The news beat the flying enemy to Yeuville, and the town rose against its English masters and shut the gates

against their brethren. It flew to Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that, and the other English fortress;

and straightway the garrison applied the torch and took to the fields and the woods. A detachment of our

When we reached Orleans that tow was as much as fifty times insaner with joy than we had ever seen it

beforewhich is saying much. Night had just fallen, and the illuminations were on so wonderful a scale that

we seemed to plow through seas of fire; and as to the noisethe hoarse cheering of the multitude, the

thundering of cannon, the clash of bellsindeed, there was never anything like it. And everywhere rose a

new cry that burst upon us like a storm when the column entered the gates, and nevermore ceased: "Welcome

to Joan of Arcway for the SAVIOR OF FRANCE!" And there was another cry: "Crecy is avenged!

Mad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners were in the center of the column. When

that came along and the people caught sight of their masterful old enemy Talbot, that had made them dance

so long to his grim warmusic, you may imagine what the uproar was like if you can, for I can not describe

it. They were so glad to see him that presently they wanted to have him out and hang him; so Joan had him

YES, ORLEANS was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the King, and made sumptuous preparations to

receive him, buthe didn't come. He was simply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille was his master.

At Beaugency Joan had engaged to bring about a reconciliation between the Constable Richemont and the

We shall come to the Bloodless March presently (and the Coronation). It was the victorious long march

which Joan made through the enemy's country from Gien to Rheims, and thence to the gates of Paris,

capturing every English town and fortress that barred the road, from the beginning of the journey to the end

of it; and this by the mere force of her name, and without shedding a drop of bloodperhaps the most

extraordinary campaign in this regard in historythis is the most glorious of her military exploits.

The Reconciliation was one of Joan's most important achievements. No one else could have accomplished it;

and, in fact, no one else of high consequence had any disposition to try. In brains, in scientific warfare, and in

statesmanship the Constable Richemont was the ablest man in France. His loyalty was sincere; his probity

was above suspicion(and it made him sufficiently conspicuous in that trivial and conscienceless Court).

In restoring Richemont to France, Joan made thoroughly secure the successful completion of the great work

which she had begun. She had never seen Richemont until he came to her with his little army. Was it not

wonderful that at a glance she should know him for the one man who could finish and perfect her work and

establish it in perpetuity? How was it that that child was able to do this? It was because she had the "seeing

eye," as one of our knights had once said. Yes, she had that great giftalmost the highest and rarest that has

been granted to man. Nothing of an extraordinary sort was still to be done, yet the remaining work could not

safely be left to the King's idiots; for it would require wise statesmanship and long and patient though

desultory hammering of the enemy. Now and then, for a quarter of a century yet, there would be a little

fighting to do, and a handy man could carry that on with small disturbance to the rest of the country; and little

by little, and with progressive certainty, the English would disappear from France.

And that happened. Under the influence of Richemont the King became at a later time a mana man, a king,

a brave and capable and determined soldier. Within six years after Patay he was leading storming parties

himself; fighting in fortress ditches up to his waist in water, and climbing scalingladders under a furious fire

with a pluck that would have satisfied even Joan of Arc. In time he and Richemont cleared away all the

English; even from regions where the people had been under their mastership for three hundred years. In such

regions wise and careful work was necessary, for the English rule had been fair and kindly; and men who

Which of Joan's five chief deeds shall we call the chiefest? It is my thought that each in its turn was that. This

is saying that, taken as a whole, they equalized each other, and neither was then greater than its mate.

Do you perceive? Each was a stage in an ascent. To leave out one of them would defeat the journey; to

achieve one of them at the wrong time and in the wrong place would have the same effect.

Consider the Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can you find its superior in our history? Did

the King suspect its vast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford, representative of the

English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable importance was here under the eyes of the King and of

Bedford; the King could get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without an effort; but, being ignorant of

its value, neither of them put forth his hand. Of all the wise people in high office in France, only one knew

the priceless worth of this neglected prizethe untaught child of seventeen, Joan of Arcand she had

How did she know it? It was simple: she was a peasant. That tells the whole story. She was of the people and

knew the people; those others moved in a loftier sphere and knew nothing much about them. We make little

account of that vague, formless, inert mass, that mighty underlying force which we call "the people"an

epithet which carries contempt with it. It is a strange attitude; for at bottom we know that the throne which

the people support stands, and that when that support is removed nothing in this world can save it.

Now, then, consider this fact, and observe its importance. Whatever the parish priest believes his flock

believes; they love him, they revere him; he is their unfailing friend, their dauntless protector, their comforter

in sorrow, their helper in their day of need; he has their whole confidence; what he tells them to do, that they

will do, with a blind and affectionate obedience, let it cost what it may. Add these facts thoughtfully together,

and what is the sum? This: The parish priest governs the nation. What is the King, then, if the parish priest

withdraws his support and deny his authority? Merely a shadow and no King; let him resign.

Do you get that idea? Then let us proceed. A priest is consecrated to his office by the awful hand of God, laid

upon him by his appointed representative on earth. That consecration is final; nothing can undo it, nothing

can remove it. Neither the Pope nor any other power can strip the priest of his office; God gave it, and it is

forever sacred and secure. The dull parish knows all this. To priest and parish, whatsoever is anointed of God

bears an office whose authority can no longer be disputed or assailed. To the parish priest, and to his subjects

the nation, an uncrowned king is a similitude of a person who has been named for holy orders but has not

been consecrated; he has no office, he has not been ordained, another may be appointed to his place. In a

word, an uncrowned king is a doubtful king; but if God appoint him and His servant the Bishop anoint him,

the doubt is annihilated; the priest and the parish are his loyal subjects straightway, and while he lives they

To Joan of Arc, the peasantgirl, Charles VII. was no King until he was crowned; to her he was only the

Dauphin; that is to say, the heir. If I have ever made her call him King, it was a mistake; she called him the

Dauphin, and nothing else until after the Coronation. It shows you as in a mirrorfor Joan was a mirror in

which the lowly hosts of France were clearly reflectedthat to all that vast underlying force called "the

people," he was no King but only Dauphin before his crowning, and was indisputably and irrevocably King

Now you understand what a colossal move on the political chessboard the Coronation was. Bedford realized

this by and by, and tried to patch up his mistake by crowning his King; but what good could that do? None in

Speaking of chess, Joan's great acts may be likened to that game. Each move was made in its proper order,

and it as great and effective because it was made in its proper order and not out of it. Each, at the time made,

seemed the greatest move; but the final result made them all recognizable as equally essential and equally

2. Then moves the Reconciliationbut does not proclaim check, it being a move for position, and to take

5. Final move (after her death), the reconciled Constable Richemont to the French King's elbowcheckmate.

THE CAMPAIGN of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Rheims. There was no sufficient reason

now why the Coronation should not take place. The Coronation would complete the mission which Joan had

received from heaven, and then she would be forever done with war, and would fly home to her mother and

her sheep, and never stir from the hearthstone and happiness any more. That was her dream; and she could

not rest, she was so impatient to see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this matter that I began to lose

faith in her two prophecies of her early deathand, of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged

The King was afraid to start to Rheims, because the road was mileposted with English fortresses, so to

speak. Joan held them in light esteem and not things to be afraid of in the existing modified condition of

And she was right. As it turned out, the march to Rheims was nothing but a holiday excursion: Joan did not

even take any artillery along, she was so sure it would not be necessary. We marched from Gien twelve

thousand strong. This was the 29th of June. The Maid rode by the side of the King; on his other side was the

Duke d'Alenon. After the duke followed three other princes of the blood. After these followed the Bastard of

Orleans, the Marshal de Boussac, and the Admiral of France. After these came La Hire, Saintrailles,

We rested three days before Auxerre. The city provisioned the army, and a deputation waited upon the King,

On the 4th of July we reached SaintFal, and yonder lay Troyes before usa town which had a burning

interest for us boys; for we remembered how seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy, the Sunflower

came with his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of Troyesthat treaty which gave

France to England, and a daughter of our royal line in marriage to the Butcher of Agincourt. That poor town

was not to blame, of course; yet we flushed hot with that old memory, and hoped there would be a

misunderstanding here, for we dealry wanted to storm the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by

English and Burgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from Paris. Before night we camped

before its gates and made rough work with a sortie which marched out against us.

Joan summoned Troyes to surrender. Its commandant, seeing that she had no artillery, scoffed at the idea, and

sent her a grossly insulting reply. Five days we consulted and negotiated. No result. The King was about to

turn back now and give up. He was afraid to go on, leaving this strong place in his rear. Then La Hire put in a

"The Maid of Orleans undertook this expedition of her own motion; and it is my mind that it is her judgment

that should be followed here, and not that of any other, let him be of whatsoever breed and standing he may."

There was wisdom and righteousness in that. So the King sent for the Maid, and asked her how she thought

the prospect looked. She said, without any tone of doubt or question in her voice:

She worked hard that night, slaving away with her own hands like a common soldier. She ordered fascines

and fagots to be prepared and thrown into the fosse, thereby to bridge it; and in this rough labor she took a

At dawn she took her place at the head of the storming force and the bugles blew the assault. At that moment

a flag of truce was flung to the breeze from the walls, and Troyes surrendered without firing a shot.

The next day the King with Joan at his side and the Paladin bearing her banner entered the town in state at the

head of the army. And a goodly army it was now, for it had been growing ever bigger and bigger from the

And now a curious thing happened. By the terms of the treaty made with the town the garrison of English and

Burgundian soldiery were to be allowed to carry away their "goods" with them. This was well, for otherwise

how would they buy the wherewithal to live? Very well; these people were all to go out by the one gate, and

at the time set for them to depart we young fellows went to that gate, along with the Dwarf, to see the

marchout. Presently here they came in an interminable file, the footsoldiers in the lead. As they

approached one could see that each bore a burden of a bulk and weight to sorely tax his strength; and we said

among ourselves, truly these folk are well off for poor common soldiers. When they were come nearer, what

do you think? Every rascal of them had a French prisoner on his back! They were carrying away their

"goods," you seetheir propertystrictly according to the permission granted by the treaty.

Now think how clever that was, how ingenious. What could a body say? what could a body do? For certainly

these people were within their right. These prisoners were property; nobody could deny that. My dears, if

those had been English captives, conceive of the richness of that booty! For English prisoners had been

scarce and precious for a hundred years; whereas it was a different matter with French prisoners. They had

been overabundant for a century. The possessor of a French prisoner did not hold him long for ransom, as a

rule, but presently killed him to save the cost of his keep. This shows you how small was the value of such a

possession in those times. When we took Troyes a calf was worth thirty francs, a sheep sixteen, a French

prisoner eight. It was an enormous price for those other animalsa price which naturally seems incredible to

you. It was the war, you see. It worked two ways: it made meat dear and prisoners cheap.

Well, here were these poor Frenchmen being carried off. What could we do? Very little of a permanent sort,

but we did what we could. We sent a messenger flying to Joan, and we and the French guards halted the

procession for a parleyto gain time, you see. A big Burgundian lost his temper and swore a great oath that

none should stop him; he would go, and would take his prisoner with him. But we blocked him off, and he

saw that he was mistaken about goinghe couldn't do it. He exploded into the maddest cursings and

revilings, then, and, unlashing his prisoner from his back, stood him up, all bound and helpless; then drew his

"I may not carry him away, you sayyet he is mine, none will dispute it. Since I may not convey him hence,

this property of mine, there is another way. Yes, I can kill him; not even the dullest among you will question

That poor starved fellow begged us with his piteous eyes to save him; then spoke, and said he had a wife and

little children at home. Think how it wrung our heartstrings. But what could we do? The Burgundian was

within his right. We could only beg and plead for the prisoner. Which we did. And the Burgundian enjoyed it.

He stayed his hand to hear more of it, and laugh at it. That stung. Then the Dwarf said:

"Prithee, young sirs, let me beguile him; for when a matter requiring permission is to the fore, I have indeed a

gift in that sort, as any will tell you that know me well. You smile; and that is punishment for my vanity; and

fairly earned, I grant you. Still, if I may toy a little, just a little" saying which he stepped to the Burgundian

and began a fair soft speech, all of goodly and gentle tenor; and in the midst he mentioned the Maid; and was

going on to say how she out of her good heart would prize and praise this compassionate deed which he was

about to It was as far as he got. The Burgundian burst into his smooth oration with an insult leveled at Joan

of Arc. We sprang forward, but the Dwarf, his face all livid, brushed us aside and said, in a most grave and

And saying this he suddenly shot his right hand out and gripped the great Burgundian by the throat, and so

held him upright on his feet. "You have insulted the Maid," he said; "and the Maid is France. The tongue that

One heard the muffled cracking of bones. The Burgundian's eyes began to protrude from their sockets and

stare with a leaden dullness at vacancy. The color deepened in his face and became an opaque purple. His

hands hung down limp, his body collapsed with a shiver, every muscle relaxed its tension and ceased from its

function. The Dwarf took away his hand and the column of inert mortality sank mushily to the ground.

We struck the bonds from the prisoner and told him he was free. His crawling humbleness changed to frantic

joy in a moment, and his ghastly fear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and kicked it, spat in its

face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its mouth, laughing, jeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies

and bestialities like a drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected; soldiering makes few saints. Many of the

onlookers laughed, others were indifferent, none was surprised. But presently in his mad caperings the freed

man capered within reach of the waiting file, and another Burgundian promptly slipped a knife through his

neck, and down he went with a deathshriek, his brilliant artery blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright

as a ray of light. There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from friend and foe alike; and thus closed

And now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered the claim of the garrison, then said:

"You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word to put in the treaty, and covers too much.

But ye may not take these poor men away. They are French, and I will not have it. The King shall ransom

them, every one. Wait till I send you word from him; and hurt no hair of their heads; for I tell you, I who

That settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway. Then she rode back eagerly and required that

thing of the King, and would listen to no paltering and no excuses. So the King told her to have her way, and

she rode straight back and bought the captives free in his name and let them go.

IT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King's Household, in whose castle Joan was guest

when she tarried at Chinon in those first days of her coming out of her own country. She made him Bailiff of

And now we marched again; Ch�lons surrendered to us; and there by Ch�lons in a talk, Joan, being asked if

she had no fears for the future, said yes, onetreachery. Who would believe it? who could dream it? And yet

We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July, we came in sight of our goal, and

saw the great cathedraled towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from

van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy,

beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her

sublime mission was closingclosing in flawless triumph. Tomorrow she could say, "It is finishedlet me

We camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand preparations began. The Archbishop and a great

deputation arrived; and after these came flock after flock, crowd after crowd, of citizens and countryfolk,

hurrahing, in, with banners and music, and flowed over the camp, one rejoicing inundation after another,

everybody drunk with happiness. And all night long Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating

the town, building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral within and without in a glory of

We moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies would begin at nine and last five hours. We

were aware that the garrison of English and Burgundian soldiers had given up all thought of resisting the

Maid, and that we should find the gates standing hospitably open and the whole city ready to welcome us

It was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and fresh and inspiring. The army was in great

form, and fine to see, as it uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the final march of the

Joan, on her black horse, with the LieutenantGeneral and the personal staff grouped about her, took post for

a final review and a goodby; for she was not expecting to ever be a soldier again, or ever serve with these or

any other soldiers any more after this day. The army knew this, and believed it was looking for the last time

upon the girlish face of its invincible little Chief, its pet, its pride, its darling, whom it had ennobled in its

private heart with nobilities of its own creation, call her "Daughter of God," "Savior of France," "Victory's

Sweetheart," "The Page of Christ," together with still softer titles which were simply na�f and frank

endearments such as men are used to confer upon children whom they love. And so one saw a new thing

now; a thing bred of the emotion that was present there on both sides. Always before, in the marchpast, the

battalions had gone swinging by in a storm of cheers, heads up and eyes flashing, the drums rolling, the bands

braying p�ans of victory; but now there was nothing of that. But for one impressive sound, one could have

closed his eyes and imagined himself in a world of the dead. That one sound was all that visited the ear in the

summer stillnessjust that one soundthe muffled tread of the marching host. As the serried masses drifted

by, the men put their right hands up to their temples, palms to the front, in military salute, turning their eyes

upon Joan's face in mute Godblessyou and farewell, and keeping them there while they could. They still

kept their hands up in reverent salute many steps after they had passed by. Every time Joan put her

handkerchief to her eyes you could see a little quiver of emotion crinkle along the faces of the files.

The marchpast after a victory is a thing to drive the heart mad with jubilation; but this one was a thing to

We rode now to the King's lodgins, which was the Archbishop's country palace; and he was presently ready,

and we galloped off and took position at the head of the army. By this time the countrypeople were arriving

in multitudes from every direction and massing themselves on both sides of the road to get sight of

Joanjust as had been done every day since our first day's march began. Our march now lay through the

grassy plain, and those peasants made a dividing double border for that plain. They stretched right down

through it, a broad belt of bright colors on each side of the road; for every peasant girl and woman in it had a

white jacket on her body and a crimson skirt on the rest of her. Endless borders made of poppies and lilies

stretching away in front of usthat is what it looked like. And that is the kind of lane we had been marching

through all these days. Not a lane between multitudinous flowers standing upright on their stemsno, these

flowers were always kneeling; kneeling, these human flowers, with their hands and faces lifted toward Joan

of Arc, and the grateful tears streaming down. And all along, those closest to the road hugged her feet and

kissed them and laid their wet cheeks fondly against them. I never, during all those days, saw any of either

sex stand while she passed, nor any man keep his head covered. Afterward in the Great Trial these touching

scenes were used as a weapon against her. She had been made an object of adoration by the people, and this

As we drew near the city the curving long sweep of ramparts and towers was gay with fluttering flags and

black with masses of people; and all the air was vibrant with the crash of artillery and gloomed with drifting

clouds of smoke. We entered the gates in state and moved in procession through the city, with all the guilds

and industries in holiday costume marching in our rear with their banners; and all the route was hedged with a

huzzaing crush of people, and all the windows were full and all the roofs; and from the balconies hung costly

stuffs of rich colors; and the waving of handkerchiefs, seen in perspective through a long vista, was like a

Joan's name had been introduced into the prayers of the Churchan honor theretofore restricted to royalty.

But she had a dearer honor and an honor more to be proud of, from a humbler source: the common people

had had leaden medals struck which bore her effigy and her escutcheon, and these they wore as charms. One

From the Archbishop's Palace, where we halted, and where the King and Joan were to lodge, the King sent to

the Abbey Church of St. Remi, which was over toward the gate by which we had entered the city, for the

Sainte Ampoule, or flask of holy oil. This oil was not earthly oil; it was made in heaven; the flask also. The

flask, with the oil in it, was brought down from heaven by a dove. It was sent down to St. Remi just as he was

going to baptize King Clovis, who had become a Christian. I know this to be true. I had known it long before;

for P�re Fronte told me in Domremy. I cannot tell you how strange and awful it made me feel when I saw

that flask and knew I was looking with my own eyes upon a thing which had actually been in heave, a thing

which had been seen by angels, perhaps; and by God Himself of a certainty, for He sent it. And I was looking

upon itI. At one time I could have touched it. But I was afraid; for I could not know but that God had

From this flask Clovis had been anointed; and from it all the kings of France had been anointed since. Yes,

ever since the time of Clovis, and that was nine hundred years. And so, as I have said, that flask of holy oil

was sent for, while we waited. A coronation without that would not have been a coronation at all, in my

Now in order to get the flask, a most ancient ceremonial had to be gone through with; otherwise the Abbe of

St. Remi, hereditary guardian in perpetuity of the oil, would not deliver it. So, in accordance with custom, the

King deputed five great nobles to ride in solemn state and richly armed and accoutered, they and their steeds,

to the Abbey Church as a guard of honor to the Archbishop of Rheims and his canons, who were to bear the

King's demand for the oil. When the five great lords were ready to start, they knelt in a row and put up their

mailed hands before their faces, palm joined to palm, and swore upon their lives to conduct the sacred vessel

safely, and safely restore it again to the Church of St. Remi after the anointing of the King. The Archbishop

and his subordinates, thus nobly escorted, took their way to St. Remi. The Archbishop was in grand costume,

with his miter on his head and his cross in his hand. At the door of St. Remi they halted and formed, to

receive the holy vial. Soon one heard the deep tones of the organ and of chanting men; then one saw a long

file of lights approaching through the dim church. And so came the Abbot, in his sacerdotal panoply, bearing

the vial, with his people following after. He delivered it, with solemn ceremonies, to the Archbishop; then the

march back began, and it was most impressive; for it moved, the whole way, between two multitudes of men

and women who lay flat upon their faces and prayed in dumb silence and in dread while that awful thing went

This august company arrived at the great west door of the cathedral; and as the Archbishop entered a noble

anthem rose and filled the vast building. The cathedral was packed with peoplepeople in thousands. Only a

wide space down the center had been kept free. Down this space walked the Archbishop and his canons, and

after them followed those five stately figures in splendid harness, each bearing his feudal bannerand

Oh, that was a magnificent thing to see. Riding down the cavernous vastness of the building through the rich

lights streaming in long rays from the pictured windowsoh, there was never anything so grand!

They rode clear to the choiras much as four hundred feet from the door, it was said. Then the Archbishop

dismissed them, and they made deep obeisance till their plumes touched their horses' necks, then made those

proud prancing and mincing and dancing creatures go backward all the way to the doorwhich was pretty to

see, and graceful; then they stood them on their hindfeet and spun them around and plunged away and

For some minutes there was a deep hush, a waiting pause; a silence so profound that it was as if all those

packed thousands there were steeped in dreamless slumberwhy, you could even notice the faintest sounds,

like the drowsy buzzing of insects; then came a mighty flood of rich strains from four hundred silver

trumpets, and then, framed in the pointed archway of the great west door, appeared Joan and the King. They

advanced slowly, side by side, through a tempest of welcomeexplosion after explosion of cheers and cries,

mingled with the deep thunders of the organ and rolling tides of triumphant song from chanting choirs.

Behind Joan and the King came the Paladin and the Banner displayed; and a majestic figure he was, and most

proud and lofty in his bearing, for he knew that the people were marking him and taking note of the gorgeous

At his side was the Sire d'Albret, proxy for the Constable of France, bearing the Sword of State.

After these, in order of rank, came a body royally attired representing the lay peers of France; it consisted of

These were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical peersthe Archbishop of Rheims, and the

Behind these came the Grand Staff, all our great generals and famous names, and everybody was eager to get

a sight of them. Through all the din one could hear shouts all along that told you where two of them were:

The august procession reached its appointed place in time, and the solemnities of the Coronation began. They

were long and imposingwith prayers, and anthems, and sermons, and everything that is right for such

occasions; and Joan was at the King's side all these hours, with her Standard in her hand. But at last came the

grand act: the King took the oath, he was anointed with the sacred oil; a splendid personage, followed by

trainbearers and other attendants, approached, bearing the Crown of France upon a cushion, and kneeling

offered it. The King seemed to hesitatein fact, did hesitate; for he put out his hand and then stopped with it

there in the air over the crown, the fingers in the attitude of taking hold of it. But that was for only a

momentthough a moment is a notable something when it stops the heartbeat of twenty thousand people

and makes them catch their breath. Yes, only a moment; then he caught Joan's eye, and she gave him a look

with all the joy of her thankful great soul in it; then he smiled, and took the Crown of France in his hand, and

Then what a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the chanting of the choirs and groaning of the

organ; and outside the clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The fantastic dream, the

incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasantchild stood fulfilled; the English power was broken,

She was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her face as she sank to her knees at the

King's feet and looked up at him through her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and low

"Now, O gentle King, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to His command that you should come

to Rheims and receive the crown that belongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was

given me to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old, and

The King raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her great deeds in most noble terms; and

there he confirmed her nobility and titles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a

"You have saved the crown. Speakrequiredemand; and whatsoever grace you ask it shall be granted,

Now that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again straightway, and said:

"Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the word, I pray you give commandment that

my village, poor and hard pressed by reason of war, may have its taxes remitted."

"Indeed, I cannot, gentle King. Do not press me. I will not have aught else, but only this alone."

The King seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to comprehend and realize the full stature

"Whe has one a kingdom and crowned its King; and all she asks and all she will take is this poor graceand

even this is for others, not for herself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of one who

carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that any King could add, though he gave his all. She

shall have her way. Now, therefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village of Joan of

Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is freed from all taxation forever." Whereat the silver

There, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she was in a trance in the pastures of

Domremy and we asked her to name to boon she would demand of the King if he should ever chance to tell

her she might claim one. But whether she had the vision or not, this act showed that after all the dizzy

grandeurs that had come upon her, she was still the same simple, unselfish creature that she was that day.

Yes, Charles VII. remitted those taxes "forever." Often the gratitude of kings and nations fades and their

promises are forgotten or deliberately violated; but you, who are children of France, should remember with

pride that France has kept this one faithfully. Sixtythree years have gone by since that day. The taxes of the

region wherein Domremy lies have been collected sixtythree times since then, and all the villages of that

region have paid except that oneDomremy. The taxgatherer never visits Domremy. Domremy has long

ago forgotten what that dread sorrowsowing apparition is like. Sixtythree taxbooks have been filed

meantime, and they lie yonder with the other public records, and any may see them that desire it. At the top

of every page in the sixtythree books stands the name of a village, and below that5 name its weary burden

of taxation is figured out and displayed; in the case of all save one. It is true, just as I tell you. In each of the

sixtythree books there is a page headed "Domremi," but under that name not a figure appears. Where the

figures should be, there are three words written; and the same words have been written every year for all

these years; yes, it is a blank page, with always those grateful words lettered across the face of ita touching

|__________________________________| "NOTHINGTHE MAID OF ORLEANS." How brief it is; yet

how much it says! It is the nation speaking. You have the spectacle of that unsentimental thing, a

Government, making reverence to that name and saying to its agent, "Uncover, and pass on; it is France that

commands." Yes, the promise has been kept; it will be kept always; "forever" was the King's word. [1] At

two o'clock in the afternoon the ceremonies of the Coronation came at last to an end; then the procession

formed once more, with Joan and the King at its head, and took up its solemn march through the midst of the

church, all instruments and all people making such clamor of rejoicing noises as was, indeed, a marvel to

hear. An so ended the third of the great days of Joan's life. And how close together they standMay 8th,

[1] IT was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and more; then the overconfident

octogenarian's prophecy failed. During the tumult of the French Revolution the promise was forgotten and the

grace withdrawn. It has remained in disuse ever since. Joan never asked to be remembered, but France has

remembered her with an inextinguishable love and reverence; Joan never asked for a statue, but France has

lavished them upon her; Joan never asked for a church for Domremy, but France is building one; Joan never

asked for saintship, but even that is impending. Everything which Joan of Arc did not ask for has been given

her, and with a noble profusion; but the one humble little thing which she did ask for and get has been taken

away from her. There is something infinitely pathetic about this. France owes Domremy a hundred years of

taxes, and could hardly find a citizen within her borders who would vote against the payment of the debt.

WE MOUNTED and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble display of rich vestments and nodding

plumes, and as we moved between the banked multitudes they sank down all along abreast of us as we

advanced, like grain before the reaper, and kneeling hailed with a rousing welcome the consecrated King and

his companion the Deliverer of France. But by and by when we had paraded about the chief parts of the city

and were come near to the end of our course, we being now approaching the Archbishop's palace, one saw on

the right, hard by the inn that is called the Zebra, a strange ttwo men not kneeling but standing! Standing in

the front rank of the kneelers; unconscious, transfixed, staring. Yes, and clothed in the coarse garb of the

peasantry, these two. Two halberdiers sprang at them in a fury to teach them better manners; but just as they

seized them Joan cried out "Forbear!" and slid from her saddle and flung her arms about one of those

peasants, calling him by all manner of endearing names, and sobbing. For it was her father; and the other was

The news flew everywhere, and shouts of welcome were raised, and in just one little moment those two

despised and unknown plebeians were become famous and popular and envied, and everybody was in a fever

to get sight of them and be able to say, all their lives long, that they had seen the father of Joan of Arc and the

brother of her mother. How easy it was for her to do miracles like to this! She was like the sun; on

whatsoever dim and humble object her rays fell, that thing was straightway drowned in glory.

And she brought them; she radiant with happiness and affection, they trembling and scared, with their caps in

their shaking hands; and there before all the world the King gave them his hand to kiss, while the people

"Give God thanks for that you are father to this child, this dispenser of immortalities. You who bear a name

that will still live in the mouths of men when all the race of kings has been forgotten, it is not meet that you

bare your head before the fleeting fames and dignities of a daycover yourself!" And truly he looked right

fine and princely when he said that. Then he gave order that the Bailly of Rheims be brought; and when he

was come, and stood bent low and bare, the King said to him, "These two are guests of France;" and bade

I may as well say now as later, that Papa D'Arc and Laxart were stopping in that little Zebra inn, and that

there they remained. Finer quarters were offered them by the Bailly, also public distinctions and brave

entertainment; but they were frightened at these projects, they being only humble and ignorant peasants; so

they begged off, and had peace. They could not have enjoyed such things. Poor souls, they did not even know

what to do with their hands, and it took all their attention to keep from treading on them. The Bailly did the

best he could in the circumstances. He made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their disposal, and told him

to provide everything they might desire, and charge all to the city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece

and furnishings; which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and astonishment that they couldn't

speak a word; for in their lives they had never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at first, that

the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and blow away. They could not unglue their minds from

those grandeurs, and were always wrenching the conversation out of its groove and dragging the matter of

animals into it, so that they could say "my horse" here, and "my horse" there and yonder and all around, and

taste the words and lick their chops over them, and spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in their armpits,

and feel as the good God feels when He looks out on His fleets of constellations plowing the awful deeps of

space and reflects with satisfaction that they are Hisall His. Well, they were the happiest old children one

The city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in midafternoon, and to the Court and the Grand Staff;

and about the middle of it P�re D'Arc and Laxart were sent for, but would not venture until it was promised

that they might sit in a gallery and be all by themselves and see all that was to be seen and yet be unmolested.

And so they sat there and looked down upon the splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears ran down

their cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to their small darling, and how na�vely serene and

But at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of the King's gracious speech; and of

D'Alenon's praiseful words, and the Bastard's; and even La Hire's thunderblast, which took the place by

storm; but at last, as I have said, they brought a force to bear which was too strong for her. For at the close the

King put up his hand to command silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was dead and it

was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it was. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place

there rose a plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came floating through that enchanted

hush our poor old simple song "L'Arbre Fee le Bourlemont!" and then Joan broke down and put her face in

her hands and cried. Yes, you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs dissolved away and she was a

little child again herding her sheep with the tranquil pastures stretched about her, and war and wounds and

blood and death and the mad frenzy and turmoil of battle a dream. Ah, that shows you the power of music,

that magician of magicians, who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away

That was the King's invention, that sweet and dear surprise. Indeed, he had fine things hidden away in his

nature, though one seldom got a glimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and those others always

standing in the light, and he so indolently content to save himself fuss and argument and let them have their

At the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff were with the father and uncle at the inn,

in their private parlor, brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about Domremy and

the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be kept till she came; and soon she came herself and

sent her guard away, saying she would take one of her father's rooms and sleep under his roof, and so be at

home again. We of the staff rose and stood, as was meet, until she made us sit. Then she turned and saw that

the two old men had gotten up too, and were standing in an embarrassed and unmilitary way; which made her

want to laugh, but she kept it in, as not wishing to hurt them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down

between them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled her own hands in them, and said:

"Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates as in other times; for I am done with the

great wars now, and you two will take me home with you, and I shall see" She stopped, and for a moment

her happy face sobered, as if a doubt or a presentiment had flitted through her mind; then it cleared again, and

she said, with a passionate yearning, "Oh, if the day were but come and we could start!"

"Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these wonders that make you to be praised by

everybody while there is still so much glory to be won; and would you go out from this grand comradeship

with princes and generals to be a drudging villager again and a nobody? It is not rational."

"No," said the uncle, Laxart, "it is amazing to hear, and indeed not understandable. It is a stranger thing to

hear her say she will stop the soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I who speak to you

can say in all truth that that was the strangest word that ever I had heard till this day and hour. I would it

"It is not difficult," said Joan. "I was not ever fond of wounds and suffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict

them; and quarrelings did always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my liking, my disposition

being toward peace and quietness, and love for all things that have life; and being made like this, how could I

bear to think of wars and blood, and the pain that goes with them, and the sorrow and mourning that follow

after? But by his angels God laid His great commands upon me, and could I disobey? I did as I was bid. Did

He command me to do many things? No; only two: to raise the siege of Orleans, and crown the King at

Rheims. The task is finished, and I am free. Has ever a poor soldier fallen in my sight, whether friend or foe,

and I not felt the pain in my own body, and the grief of his homemates in my own heart? No, not one; and,

oh, it is such bliss to know that my release is won, and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or

suffer these tortures of the mind again Then why should I not go to my village and be as I was before? It is

heaven and ye wonder that I desire it. Ah, ye are menjust men My mother would understand."

They didn't quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile, looking pretty vacant. Then old D'Arc said:

"Yes, your motherthat is true. I never saw such a woman. She worries, and worries, and worries; and

wakes nights, and lies so, thinkingthat is, worrying; worrying about you. And when the night storms go

raging along, she moans and says, 'Ah, God pity her, she is out in this with her poor wet sodliers.' And when

the lightning glares and the thunder crashes she wrings her hands and trembles, saying, 'It is like the awful

cannon and the flash, and yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the spouting guns and I not there to

"Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times. When there is news of a victory and all the

village goes mad with pride and joy, she rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till she finds out the one

only thing she cares to knowthat you are safe; then down she goes on her knees in the dirt and praises God

as long as there is any breath left in her body; and all on your account, for she never mentions the battle once.

And always she says, 'Now it is overnow France is savednow she will come home'and always is

"Don't, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I get home. I will do her work for her, and be

"You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and none may deny it; but what of the King?

That was a crusherand sudden It took Joan a moment or two to recover from the shock of it; then she said,

"The King is my Lord; I am his servant." She was silent and thoughtful a little while, then she brightened up

and said, cheerily, "But let us drive such thoughts awaythis is no time for them. Tell me about home."

So the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything and everybody in the village; and it was

good to hear. Joan out of her kindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of course. She was

the CommanderinChief, we were nobodies; her name was the mightiest in France, we were invisible

atoms; she was the comrade of princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above all

Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by right of baring her commission direct from

God. To put it in one word, she was JOAN OF ARCand when that is said, all is said. To us she was divine.

Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word implies. We could not be familiar with her. No,

And yet she was so human, too, and so good and kind and dear and loving and cheery and charming and

unspoiled and unaffected! Those are all the words I think of now, but they are not enough; no, they are too

few and colorless and meager to tell it all, or tell the half. Those simple old men didn't realize her; they

couldn't; they had never known any people but human beings, and so they had no other standard to measure

her by. To them, after their first little shyness had worn off, she was just a girlthat was all. It was amazing.

It made one shiver, sometimes, to see how calm and easy and comfortable they were in her presence, and

hear them talk to her exactly as they would have talked to any other girl in France.

Why, that simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and

neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that that

foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst

they thought it distressing and pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic at all, but actually ridiculous. At least it

seemed so to me, and it seems so yet. Indeed, I know it was, because it made Joan laugh; and the more

sorrowful it got the more it made her laugh; and the Paladin said that he could have laughed himself if she

had not been there, and Noel Rainguesson said the same. It was about old Laxart going to a funeral there at

Domremy two or three weeks back. He had spots all over his face and hands, and he got Joan to rub some

healing ointment on them, and while she was doing it, and comforting him, and trying to say pitying things to

him, he told her how it happened. And first he asked her if she remembered that black bull calf that she left

behind when she came away, and she said indeed she did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so, and was

he well?and just drowned him in questions about that creature. And he said it was a young bull now, and

very frisky; and he was to bear a principal hand at a funeral; and she said, "The bull?" and he said, "No,

myself"; but said the bull did take a hand, but not because of his being invited, for he wasn't; but anyway he

was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell asleep on the grass with his Sunday funeral clothes on, and a

long black rag on his hat and hanging down his back; and when he woke he saw by the sun how late it was,

and not a moment to lose; and jumped up terribly worried, and saw the young bull grazing there, and thought

maybe he could ride part way on him and gain time; so he tied a rope around the bull's body to hold on by,

and put a halter on him to steer with, and jumped on and started; but it was all new to the bull, and he was

discontented with it, and scurried around and bellowed and reared and pranced, and Uncle Laxart was

satisfied, and wanted to get off and go by the next bull or some other way that was quieter, but he didn't dare

try; and it was getting very warm for him, too, and disturbing and wearisome, and not proper for Sunday; but

by and by the bull lost all his temper, and went tearing down the slope with his tail in the air and blowing in

the most awful way; and just in the edge of the village he knocked down some beehives, and the bees turned

out and joined the excursion, and soared along in a black cloud that nearly hid those other two from sight, and

prodded them both, and jabbed them and speared them and spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek,

and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and took the funeral

procession right in the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered

apart and fled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag of that

funeral left but the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle

Laxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding with raisins in it. And then he turned

around, this old simpleton, and looked a long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a

And old D'Arc stood looking at her the same way, sort of absently scratching his head; but had to give it up,

and said he didn't know"must have been something that happened when we weren't noticing."

Yes, both of those old people thought that that tale was pathetic; whereas to my mind it was purely

ridiculous, and not in any way valuable to any one. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so to me yet. And as

for history, it does not resemble history; for the office of history is to furnish serious and important facts that

teach; whereas this strange and useless event teaches nothing; nothing that I can see, except not to ride a bull

NOW THESE were nobles, you know, by decree of the King!these precious old infants. But they did not

realize it; they could not be called conscious of it; it was an abstraction, a phantom; to them it had no

substance; their minds could not take hold of it. No, they did not bother about their nobility; they lived in

their horses. The horses were solid; they were visible facts, and would make a mighty stir in Domremy.

Presently something was said about the Coronation, and old D'Arc said it was going to be a grand thing to be

able to say, when they got home, that they were present in the very town itself when it happened. Joan looked

"Ah, that reminds me. You were here and you didn't send me word. In the town, indeed! Why, you could

have sat with the other nobles, and ben welcome; and could have looked upon the crowning itself, and carried

The old father was embarrassed, now, quite visibly embarrassed, and had the air of one who does not quite

know what to say. But Joan was looking up in his face, her hands upon his shoulderswaiting. He had to

speak; so presently he drew her to his breast, which was heaving with emotion; and he said, getting out his

"There, hide your face, child, and let your old father humble himself and make his confession. IIdon't

you see, don't you understand?I could not know that these grandeurs would not turn your young headit

"And then I was afraid, as remembering that cruel thing I said once in my sinful anger. Oh, appointed of God

to be a soldier, and the greatest in the land! and in my ignorant anger I said I would drown you with my own

hands if you unsexed yourself and brought shame to your name and family. Ah, how could I ever have said it,

and you so good and dear and innocent! I was afraid; for I was guilty. You understand it now, my child, and

Do you see? Even that poor groping old landcrab, with his skull full of pulp, had pride. Isn't it wonderful?

And morehe had conscience; he had a sense of right and wrong, such as it was; he was able to find

remorse. It looks impossible, it looks incredible, but it is not. I believe that some day it will be found out that

peasants are people. Yes, beings in a great many respects like ourselves. And I believe that some day they

will find this out, tooand then Well, then I think they will rise up and demand to be regarded as part of the

race, and that by consequence there will be trouble. Whenever one sees in a book or in a king's proclamation

those words "the nation," they bring before us the upper classes; only those; we know no other "nation"; for

us and the kings no other "nation" exists. But from the day that I saw old D'Arc the peasant acting and feeling

just as I should have acted and felt myself, I have carried the conviction in my heart that our peasants are not

merely animals, beasts of burden put here by the good God to produce food and comfort for the "nation," but

something more and better. You look incredulous. Well, that is your training; it is the training of everybody;

but as for me, I thank that incident for giving me a better light, and I have never forgotten it.

Let me seewhere was I? One's mind wanders around here and there and yonder, when one is old. I think I

said Joan comforted him. Certainly, that is what she would dothere was no need to say that. She coaxed

him and petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard speech of his to rest. Laid it to

rest until she should be dead. Then he would remember it againyes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and

burn, and gnawthe things which we did against the innocent dead! And we say in our anguish, "If they

could only come back!" Which is all very well to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my

opinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I am not alone in this; I have heard our two

knights say the same thing; and a man there in Orleansno, I believe it was at Beaugency, or one of those

placesit seems more as if it was at Beaugency than the othersthis man said the same thing exactly;

almost the same words; a dark man with a cast in his eye and one leg shorter than the other. His name

waswasit is singular that I can't call that man's name; I had it in my mind only a moment ago, and I

know it begins withno, I don't remember what it begins with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of it

Well, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when she was in the thick of a battle, with the

bright blades hacking and flashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her shield, and blood

gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken teeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous

sudden back surge of massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a heavy rush of the

enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles all around, and battleflags falling from dead hands

wipe across one's face and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling and swaying and laboring

jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft substances and shrieks of pain respond, and presentlypanic! rush!

swarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow got ever so much excited; and strode up

and down, his tongue going like a mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an answer; and

finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and stepped off and scanned her critically, and said:

"NoI don't understand it. You are so little. So little and slender. When you had your armor on, today, it

gave one a sort of notion of it; but in these pretty silks and velvets, you are only a dainty page, not a

leaguestriding warcolossus, moving in clouds and darkness and breathing smoke and thunder. I would God

I might see you at it and go tell your mother! That would help her sleep, poor thing! Hereteach me the arts

And she did it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the manual of arms; and made him do the steps,

too. His marching was incredibly awkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the pike; but he didn't

know it, and was wonderfully pleased with himself, and mightily excited and charmed with the ringing, crisp

words of command. I am obliged to say that if looking proud and happy when one is marching were

And he wanted a lesson in swordplay, and got it. But of course that was beyond him; he was too old. It was

beautiful to see Joan handle the foils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid of the things, and

skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a woman who has lost her mind on account of the arrival of a

bat. He was of no good as an exhibition. But if La Hire had only come in, that would have been another

matter. Those two fenced often; I saw them many times. True, Joan was easily his master, but it made a good

show for all that, for La Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift creature Joan was! You would see her

standing erect with her anklebones together and her foil arched over her head, the hilt in one hand and the

button in the otherthe old general opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his foil advanced,

slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye boring straight into hersand all of a sudden she would

give a spring forward, and back again; and there she was, with the foil arched over her head as before. La

Hire had been hit, but all that the spectator saw of it was a something like a thin flash of light in the air, but

We kept the drinkables moving, for that would please the Bailly and the landlord; and old Laxart and D'Arc

got to feeling quite comfortable, but without being what you could call tipsy. They got out the presents which

they had been buying to carry homehumble things and cheap, but they would be fine there, and welcome.

And they gave to Joan a present from P�re Fronte and one from her motherthe one a little leaden image of

the Holy Virgin, the other half a yard of blue silk ribbon; and she was as pleased as a child; and touched, too,

as one could see plainly enough. Yes, she kissed those poor things over and over again, as if they had been

something costly and wonderful; and she pinned the Virgin on her doublet, and sent for her helmet and tied

the ribbon on that; first one way, then another; then a new way, then another new way; and with each effort

perching the helmet on her hand and holding it off this way and that, and canting her head to one side and

then the other, examining the effect, as a bird does when it has got a new bug. And she said she could almost

wish she was going to the wars again; for then she would fight with the better courage, as having always with

Old Laxart said he hoped she would go to the wars again, but home first, for that all the people there were

"They are proud of you, dear. Yes, prouder than any village ever was of anybody before. And indeed it is

right and rational; for it is the first time a village has ever had anybody like you to be proud of and call its

own. And it is strange and beautiful how they try to give your name to every creature that has a sex that is

convenient. It is but half a year since you began to be spoken of and left us, and so it is surprising to see how

many babies there are already in that region that are named for you. First it was just Joan; then it was

JoanOrleans; then JoanOrleansBeaugencyPatay; and now the next ones will have a lot of towns and the

Coronation added, of course. Yes, and the animals the same. They know how you love animals, and so they

try to do you honor and show their love for you by naming all those creatures after you; insomuch that if a

body should step out and call ''Joan of Arccome!' 'there would be a landslide of cats and all such things,

each supposing it was the one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt, anyway, for the sake of

the food that might be on delivery. The kitten you left behindthe last estray you fetched homebears you

name, now, and belongs to P�re Fronte, and is the pet nad pride of the village; and people have come miles to

look at it and pet it and stare at it and wonder over it because it was Joan of Arc's cat. Everybody will tell you

that; and one day when a stranger threw a stone at it, not knowing it was your cat, the village rose against him

There was an interruption. It was a messenger from the King, bearing a note for Joan, which I read to her,

saying he had reflected, and had consulted his other generals, and was obliged to ask her to remain at the

head of the army and withdraw her resignation. Also, would she come immediately and attend a council of

war? Straightway, at a little distance, military commands and the rumble of drums broke on the still night,

Deep disappointment clouded her face for just one moment and no moreit passed, and with it the homesick

IN MY double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the council. She entered that presence with

the bearing of a grieved goddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was enchanted with a

ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the distress of a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the

back of a beestung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and had left no sign. She moved straight to

the counciltable, and stood. Her glance swept from face to face there, and where it fell, these lit it as with a

torch, those it scorched as with a brand. She knew where to strike. She indicated the generals with a nod, and

"My business is not with you. You have not craved a council of war." Then she turned toward the King's

privy council, and continued: "No; it is with you. A council of war! It is amazing. There is but one thing to

do, and only one, and lo, ye call a council of war! Councils of war have no value but to decide between two

or several doubtful courses. But a council of war when there is only one course? Conceive of a man in a boat

and his family in the water, and he goes out among his friends to ask what he would better do? A council of

She stopped, and turned till her eyes rested upon the face of La Tremouille; and so she stood, silent,

measuring him, the excitement in all faces burning steadily higher and higher, and all pulses beating faster

"Every sane manwhose loyalty is to his King and not a show and a pretenseknows that there is but one

Down came the fist of La Hire with an approving crash upon the table. La Tremouille turned white with

anger, but he pulled himself firmly together and held his peace. The King's lazy blood was stirred and his eye

kindled finely, for the spirit of war was away down in him somewhere, and a frank, bold speech always found

it and made it tingle gladsomely. Joan waited to see if the chief minister might wish to defend his position;

but he was experienced and wise, and not a man to waste his forces where the current was against him. He

That pious fox the Chancellor of France took the word now. He washed his soft hands together, smiling

"Would it be courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from here without waiting for an answer from the

Duke of Burgundy? You may not know that we are negotiating with his Highness, and that there is likely to

be a fortnight's truce between us; and on his part a pledge to deliver Paris into our hands without the cost of a

"This is not a confessional, my lord. You were not obliged to expose that shame here."

"One may describe it without hunting far for words. I knew of this poor comedy, my lord, although it was not

intended that I should know. It is to the credit of the devisers of it that they tried to conceal itthis comedy

The fists of all the generals came down this time, and again the King's eye sparkled with pleasure. The

"Peace. She had a right to be consulted before that thing was undertaken, since it concerned war as well as

"Out of charity I will consider that you did not know who devised this measure which you condemn in so

"Save your charity for another occasion, my lord," said Joan, as calmly as before. "Whenever anything is

done to injure the interests and degrade the honor of France, all but the dead know how to name the two

"It is not an insinuation, my lord," said Joan, placidly, "it is a charge. I bring it against the King's chief

Both men were on their feet now, insisting that the King modify Joan's frankness; but he was not minded to

do it. His ordinary councils were stale waterhis spirit was drinking wine, now, and the taste of it was good.

"Sitand be patient. What is fair for one must in fairness be allowed the other. Considerand be just. When

have you two spared her? What dark charges and harsh names have you withheld when you spoke of her?"

Then he added, with a veiled twinkle in his eyes, "If these are offenses I see no particular difference between

them, except that she says her hard things to your faces, whereas you say yours behind her back."

He was pleased with that neat shot and the way it shriveled those two people up, and made La Hire laugh out

"From the first, we have been hindered by this policy of shillyhally; this fashion of counseling and

counseling and counseling where no counseling is needed, but only fighting. We took Orleans on the 8th of

May, and could have cleared the region round about in three days and saved the slaughter of Patay. We could

have been in Rheims six weeks ago, and in Paris now; and would see the last Englishman pass out of France

in half a year. But we struck no blow after Orleans, but went off into the countrywhat for? Ostensibly to

hold councils; really to give Bedford time to send reinforcements to Talbotwhich he did; and Patay had to

be fought. After Patay, more counseling, more waste of precious time. Oh, my King, I would that you would

be persuaded!" She began to warm up, now. "Once more we have our opportunity. If we rise and strike, all is

well. Bid me march upon Paris. In twenty days it shall be yours, and in six months all France! Here is half a

year's work before us; if this chance be wasted, I give you twenty years to do it in. Speak the word, O gentle

"I cry you mercy!" interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a dangerous enthusiasm rising in the King's face.

"March upon Paris? Does your Excellency forget that the way bristles with English strongholds?"

"That for your English strongholds!" and Joan snapped her fingers scornfully. "Whence have we marched in

these last days? From Gien. And whither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English strongholds. What are

they now? French onesand they never cost a blow!" Here applause broke out from the group of generals,

and Joan had to pause a moment to let it subside. "Yes, English strongholds bristled before us; now French

ones bristle behind us. What is the argument? A child can read it. The strongholds between us and Paris are

garrisoned by no new breed of English, but by the same breed as those otherswith the same fears, the same

questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to see the heavy hand of God descending upon

them. We have but to march!on the instantand they are ours, Paris is ours, France is ours! Give the

"Stay!" cried the Chancellor. "It would be madness to put our affront upon his Highness the Duke of

"Oh, the treaty which we hope to make with him! He has scorned you for years, and defied you. Is it your

subtle persuasions that have softened his manners and beguiled him to listen to proposals? No; it was

blows!the blows which we gave him! That is the only teaching that that sturdy rebel can understand. What

does he care for wind? The treaty which we hope to make with himalack! He deliver Paris! There is no

pauper in the land that is less able to do it. He deliver Paris! Ah, but that would make great Bedford smile!

Oh, the pitiful pretext! the blind can see that this thin pourparler with its fifteenday truce has no purpose

but to give Bedford time to hurry forward his forces against us. More treacheryalways treachery! We call a

council of warwith nothing to council about; but Bedford calls no council to teach him what our course is.

He knows what he would do in our place. He would hang his traitors and march upon Paris! O gentle King,

"Sire, it is madness, sheer madness! Your Excellency, we cannot, we must not go back from what we have

The house rose, to a manall that had French heartsand let go a crach of applauseand kept it up; and in

the midst of it one heard La Hire growl out: "At the point of the lance! By God, that is music!" The King was

up, too, and drew his sword, and took it by the blade and strode to Joan and delivered the hilt of it into her

And so the applause burst out again, and the historical co9uncil of war that has bred so many legends was

IT WAS away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in the matter of excitement and fatigue, but that

was no matter to Joan when there was business on hand. She did not think of bed. The generals followed her

to her official quarters, and she delivered her orders to them as fast as she could talk, and they sent them off

to their different commands as fast as delivered; wherefore the messengers galloping hither and thither raised

a world of clatter and racket in the still streets; and soon were added to this the music of distant bugles and

the roll of drumsnotes of preparation; for the vanguard would break camp at dawn.

The generals were soon dismissed, but I wasn't; nor Joan; for it was my turn to work, now. Joan walked the

floor and dictated a summons to the Duke of Burgundy to lay down his arms and make peace and exchange

pardons with the King; or, if he must fight, go fight the Saracens. "Pardonnezvous l'un � l'autre de bon cur,

enti�rement, ainsi que doivent faire loyaux chretiens, et, s'il vous plait de guerroyer, allez contre les

Sarrasins." It was long, but it was good, and had the sterling ring to it. It is my opinion that it was as fine and

It was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away with it. The Joan dismissed me, and told

me to go to the inn and stay, and in the morning give to her father the parcel which she had left there. It

contained presents for the Domremy relatives and friends and a peasant dress which she had bought for

herself. She said she would say goodby to her father and uncle in the morning if it should still be their

I didn't say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild horses couldn't keep those men in that town

half a day. They waste the glory of being the first to carry the great news to Domremythe taxes remitted

forever!and hear the bells clang and clatter, and the people cheer and shout? Oh, not they. Patay and

Orleans and the Coronation were events which in a vague way these men understood to be colossal; but they

When I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the reverse. They and the rest were as mellow as

mellow could be; and the Paladin was doing his battles in great style, and the old peasants were endangering

the building with their applause. He was doing Patay now; and was bending his big frame forward and laying

out the positions and movements with a rake here and a rake there of his formidable sword on the floor, and

the peasants were stooped over with their hands on their spread knees observing with excited eyes and

"Yes, here we were, waitingwaiting for the word; our horses fidgeting and snorting and dancing to get

away, we lying back on the bridles till our bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang out at last'Go!'

"Went? There was nothing like it ever seen Where we swept by squads of scampering English, the mere wind

of our passage laid them flat in piles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of Fastolfe's frantic

battlecorps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of the dead stretching far behind; no

tarrying, no slacking rein, but on on on far yonder in the distance lay our preyTalbot and his host looming

vast and dark like a stormcloud brooding on the sea! Down we swooped upon them, glooming all the air

with a quivering pall of dead leaves flung up by the whirlwind of our flight. In another moment we should

have struck them as world strikes world when disorbited constellations crash into the Milky way, but by

misfortune and the inscrutable dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white, and shouting,

'Save yourselves, it is the StandardBearer of Joan of Arc!' drove his spurs home till they met in the middle

of his horse's entrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his back! I could have cursed myself

for not putting on a disguise. I saw reproach in the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly ashamed. I had

caused what seemed an irreparable disaster. Another might have gone aside to grieve, as not seeing any way

to mend it; but I thank God I am not of those. Great occasions only summon as with a trumpetcall the

slumbering reserves of my intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instantin the next I was away! Through the

woods I vanishedfst!like an extinguished light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped, as if

on wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my design. Minute after minute passed, on

and on I flew; on, and still on; and at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze and burst out in

front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That weltering chaos of distracted men whirled and surged

backward like a tidal wave which has struck a continent, and the day was ours! Poor helpless creatures, they

were in a trap; they were surrounded; they could not escape to the rear, for there was our army; they could not

escape to the front, for there was I. Their hearts shriveled in their bodies, their hands fell listless at their sides.

They stood still, and at our leisure we slaughtered them to a man; all except Talbot and Fastolfe, whom I

Well, there is no denying it, the Paladin was in great form that night. Such style! such noble grace of gesture,

such grandeur of attitude, such energy when he got going! such steady rise, on such sure wing, such nicely

graduated expenditures of voice according to the weight of the matter, such skilfully calculated approaches to

his surprises and explosions, such beliefcompelling sincerity of tone and manner, such a climaxing peal

from his brazen lungs, and such a lightningvivid picture of his mailed form and flaunting banner when he

burst out before that despairing army! And oh, the gentle art of the last half of his last sentencedelivered in

the careless and indolent tone of one who has finished his real story, and only adds a colorless and

It was a marvel to see those innocent peasants. Why, they went all to pieces with enthusiasm, and roared out

applauses fit to raise the roof and wake the dead. When they had cooled down at last and there was silence

"Yes, that is what he is," said Noel Rainguesson, convincingly. "He is a terror; and not just in this vicinity.

His mere name carries a shudder with it to distant landsjust he mere name; and when he frowns, the

shadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go to roost an hour before schedule time. Yes; and some

"Noel Rainguesson, you are preparing yourself for trouble. I will say just one word to you, and it will be to

I saw that the usual thing had got a start. No man could prophesy when it would end. So I delivered Joan's

Joan made her goodbyes to those old fellows in the morning, with loving embraces and many tears, and

with a packed multitude for sympathizers, and they rode proudly away on their precious horses to carry their

great news home. I had seen better riders, some will say that; for horsemanship was a new art to them.

The vanguard moved out at dawn and took the road, with bands braying and banners flying; the second

division followed at eight. Then came the Burgundian ambassadors, and lost us the rest of that day and the

whole of the next. But Joan was on hand, and so they had their journey for their pains. The rest of us took the

road at dawn, next morning, July 20th. And got how far? Six leagues. Tremouille was getting in his sly work

with the vacillating King, you see. The King stopped at St. Marcoul and prayed three days. Precious time

We could not go on without the King; that would be to leave him in the conspirators' camp. Joan argued,

Joan's prediction was verified. It was not a campaign, it was only another holiday excursion. English

strongholds lined our route; they surrendered without a blow; we garrisoned them with Frenchmen and

passed on. Bedford was on the march against us with his new army by this time, and on the 25th of July the

hostile forces faced each other and made preparation for battle; but Bedford's good judgment prevailed, and

he turned and retreated toward Paris. Now was our chance. Our men were in great spirits.

Will you believe it? Our poor stick of a King allowed his worthless advisers to persuade him to start back for

Gien, whence he had set out when we first marched for Rheims and the Coronation And we actually did start

back. The fifteenday truce had just been concluded with the Duke of Burgundy, and we would go and tarry

We marched to Bray; then the King changed his mind once more, and with it his face toward Paris. Joan

dictated a letter to the citizens of Rheims to encourage them to keep heart in spite of the truce, and promising

to stand by them. She furnished them the news herself that the Kin had made this truce; and in speaking of it

she was her usual frank self. She said she was not satisfied with it, and didn't know whether she would keep it

or not; that if she kept it, it would be solely out of tenderness for the King's honor. All French children know

those famous words. How na�ve they are! "De cette tr�ve qui a ete faite, je ne suis pas contente, et je ne sais

si je la tiendrai. Si je la tiens, ce sera seulement pour garder l'honneur du roi." But in any case, she said, she

would not allow the blood royal to be abused, and would keep the army in good order and ready for work at

Poor child, to have to fight England, Burgundy, and a French conspiracy all at the same timeit was too

bad. She was a match for the others, but a conspiracyah, nobody is a match for that, when the victim that is

to be injured is weak and willing. It grieved her, these troubled days, to be so hindered and delayed and

baffled, and at times she was sad and the tears lay near the surface. Once, talking with her good old faithful

"Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment and go back to my father and my mother,

and tend my sheep again with my sister and my brothers, who would be so glad to see me!"

By the 12th of August we were camped near Dampmartin. Later we had a brush with Bedford's rearguard,

and had hopes of a big battle on the morrow, but Bedford and all his force got away in the night and went on

Charles sent heralds and received the submission of Beauvais. The Bishop Pierre Cauchon, that faithful friend

and slave of the English, was not able to prevent it, though he did his best. He was obscure then, but his name

was to travel round the globe presently, and live forever in the curses of France! Bear with me now, while I

Compi�gne surrendered, and hauled down the English flag. On the 14th we camped two leagues from Senlis.

Bedford turned and approached, and took up a strong position. We went against him, but all our efforts to

beguile him out from his intrenchments failed, though he had promised us a duel in the open field. Night shut

We enterd Compi�gne the 18th of August, turning out the English garrison and hoisting our own flag.

On the 23d Joan gave command to move upon Paris. The King and the clique were not satisfied with this, and

retired sulking to Senlis, which had just surrendered. Within a few days many strong places

submittedCreil, PontSaintMaxence, Choisy, GournaysurAronde, Remy, Le NeufvilleenHez,

Moguay, Chantilly, Saintines. The English power was tumbling, crash after crash! And still the King sulked

On the 26th of August, 1429, Joan camped at St. Denis; in effect, under the walls of Paris.

And still the King hung back and was afraid. If we could but have had him there to back us with his

authority! Bedford had lost heart and decided to waive resistance and go an concentrate his strength in the

best and loyalest province remaining to himNormandy. Ah, if we could only have persuaded the King to

COURIER after courier was despatched to the King, and he promised to come, but didn't. The Duke d'Alenon

went to him and got his promise again, which he broke again. Nine days were lost thus; then he came,

Meantime the enemy had begun to take heart: the spiritless conduct of the King could have no other result.

Preparations had now been made to defend the city. Joan's chances had been diminished, but she and her

generals considered them plenty good enough yet. Joan ordered the attack for eight o'clock next morning, and

Joan placed her artillery and began to pound a strong work which protected the gate St. Honore. When it was

sufficiently crippled the assault was sounded at noon, and it was carried by storm. Then we moved forward to

storm the gate itself, and hurled ourselves against it again and again, Joan in the le3ad with her standard at

her side, the smoke enveloping us in choking clouds, and the missiles flying over us and through us as thick

In the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate sure and given us Paris and in effect

France, Joan was struck down by a crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a panicfor

Although disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new assault be made, say8ing it must win; and

adding, with the battlelight rising in her eyes, "I will take Paris now or die!" She had to be carried away by

But her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming with enthusiasm. She said she would be

carried before the gate in the morning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any question. She

could have kept her word. About this there was no doubt. But she forgot one factorthe King, shadow of

You see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of Burgundy, and another sham private trade of some

You would know, without my telling you, that Joan's heart was nearly broken. Because of the pain of her

wound and the pain at her heart she slept little that night. Several times the watchers heard muffled sobs from

the dark room where she lay at St. Denis, and many times the grieving words, "It could have been takenit

She dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope. D'Alenon had thrown a bridge across the Seine

near St. Denis. Might she not cross by that and assault Paris at another point? But the King got wind of it and

broke the bridge down And morehe declared the campaign ended! And more stillhe had made a new

truce and a long one, in which he had agreed to leave Paris unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the

Joan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by her own King. She had said once

that all she feared for her cause was treachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white armor

in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King to relieve her of her functions and let her go

home. As usual, she was wise. Grand combinations, farreaching great military moves were at an end, now;

for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be merely a war of random and idle skirmishes,

apparently; work suitable for subalterns, and not requiring the supervision of a sublime military genius. But

the King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all France; there were French strongholds to be

watched and preserved; he would need her. Really, you see, Tremouille wanted to keep her where he could

Now came her Voices again. They said, "Remain at St. Denis." There was no explanation. They did not say

why. That was the voice of God; it took precedence of the command of the King; Joan resolved to stay. But

that filled La Tremouille with dread. She was too tremendous a force to be left to herself; she would surely

defeat all his plans. He beguiled the King to use compulsion. Joan had to submitbecause she was wounded

and helpless. In the Great Trial she said she was carried away against her will; and that if she had not been

wounded it could not have been accomplished. Ah, she had a spirit, that slender girl! a spirit to brave all

earthly powers and defy them. We shall never know why the Voices ordered her to stay. We only know this;

that if she could have obeyed, the history of France would not be as it now stands written in the books. Yes,

On the 13th of September the army, sad and spiritless, turned its face toward the Loire, and

marchedwithout music! Yes, one noted that detail. It was a funeral march; that is what it was. A long,

dreary funeral march, with never a shout or a cheer; friends looking on in tears, all the way, enemies

laughing. We reached Gien at lastthat place whence we had set out on our splendid march toward Rheims

less than three months before, with flags flying, bands playing, the victoryflush of Patay glowing in our

faces, and the massed multitudes shouting and praising and giving us godspeed. There was a dull rain falling

now, the day was dark, the heavens mourned, the spectators were few, we had no welcome but the welcome

Then the King disbanded that noble army of heroes; it furled its flags, it stored its arms: the disgrace of

France was complete. La Tremouille wore the victor's crown; Joan of Arc, the unconquerable, was

YES, IT was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her grip,and the Hundred Years' War under her

Now followed about eight months of drifting about with the King and his council, and his gay and showy and

dancing and flirting and hawking and frolicking and serenading and dissipating courtdrifting from town to

town and from castle to castlea life which was pleasant to us of the personal staff, but not to Joan.

However, she only saw it, she didn't live it. The King did his sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a

All others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court etiquette, but she was free, she was

privileged. So that she paid her duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing further was

required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a hermit, and grieved the weary days through in her own

apartments, with her thoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of now forever unrealizable

military combinations for entertainment. In fancy she moved bodies of men from this and that and the other

point, so calculating the distances to be covered, the time required for each body, and the nature of the

country to be traversed, as to have them appear in sight of each other on a given day or at a given hour and

concentrate for battle. It was her only game, her only relief from her burden of sorrow and inaction. She

played it hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost herself in it, and so got repose for her mind and

She never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the sort that endure in silence.

Butshe was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air and the alpine heights and the fierce joys

France was full of roversdisbanded soldiers ready for anything that might turn up. Several times, at

intervals, when Joan's dull captivity grew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and

make a healthrestoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath to her spirits.

It was like old times, there at SaintPierreleMoutier, to see her lead assault after assault, be driven back

again and again, but always rsally and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last the

tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon, who was wounded, sounded the retreat (for

the King had charged him on his head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after

himas he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of the staff still hammering away;

wherefore he rode back and urged her to come, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her

"A dozen men name of God, I have fifty thousand, and will never budge till this place is taken

Which he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old D'Aulon thought her mind was

wandering; but all she meant was, that she felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a

Then there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched Burgundians through the open field

four times, the last time victoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the freebooter and pitiless scourge

Now and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of May, 1430, we were in the neighborhood

of Compiegrave;gne, and Joan resolved to go to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke

I had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but the good Dwarf took me on behind him,

and I held on to him and was safe enough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and

went slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through the enemy's lines. We were challenged

only once; we made no answer, but held our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through

without any accident. About three or half past we reached Compi�gne, just as the gray dawn was breaking in

Joan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy, captain of the citya plan for a

sortie toward evening against the enemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in the

level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with a bridge. The end of this bridge was

defended on the other side of the river by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard also

commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the plain to the village of Marguy. A force of

Burgundians occupied Marguy; another was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road; and

a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bowandarrow arrangement,

you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the featherend of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one

Joan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by assault, then turn swiftly upon

Clairoix, up to the right, and capture that camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy

work, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve. Flavy's lieutenant, with archers and the

artillery of the boulevard, was to keep the English troops from coming up from below and seizing the

causeway and cutting off Joan's retreat in case she should have to make one. Also, a fleet of covered boats

was to be stationed near the boulevard as an additional help in case a retreat should become necessary.

It was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at the head of six hundred cavalryon her

It breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and from there I saw much that happened, the

rest was told me long afterward by our two knights and other eyewitnesses. Joan crossed the bridge, and

soon left the boulevard behind her and went skimming away over the raised road with her horsemen

clattering at her heels. She had on a brilliant silvergilt cape over her armor, and I could see it flap and flare

It was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain. Soon we saw the English force advancing,

Joan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed. Then she saw the other Burgundians moving

down from Clairoix. Joan rallied her men and charged again, and was again rolled back. Two assaults occupy

a good deal of timeand time was precious here. The English were approaching the road now from Venette,

but the boulevard opened fire on them and they were checked. Joan heartened her men with inspiring words

and led them to the charge again in great style. This time she carried Marguy with a hurrah. Then she turned

at once to the right and plunged into the plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving; then there

was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each other backward turn about and about, and

victory inclining first to the one, then to the other. Now all of a sudden thee was a panic on our side. Some

say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade made our front ranks think retreat was being

cut off by the English, some say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our men broke, and

went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face them around, crying to them that

victory was sure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D'Aulon begged her to

retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so he seized her horse's bridle and bore her

along with the wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came swarming, that wild

confusion of frenzied men and horsesand the artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the

English and Burgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind their prey. Clear to the

boulevard the French were washed in this enveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by

the flank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank down

Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and the drawbridge raised. This shut Joan

The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good knights went down disabled; Joan's

two brothers fell wounded; then Noel Rainguessonall wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows

aimed at her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not give up, but stood their ground

stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked and splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of

And so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls, they came to their honorable end. Peace

Then there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying about her with her sword, was seized by

her cape and dragged from her horse. She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy's camp, and

The awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew; and wherever it came it struck the people

as with a sort of paralysis; and they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to themselves, or

in their sleep, "The Maid of Orleans taken . . . Joan of Arc a prisoner! . . . the savior of France lost to

us!"and would keep saying that over, as if they couldn't understand how it could be, or how God could

You know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement with rustling black? Then you know

what Rouse was like, and some other cities. But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the

peasantry of France was like? No, nobody can tell you that, and, poor dumb things, they could not have told

you themselves, but it was thereindeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with crape!

The 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most strange, and pathetic, and wonderful

military drama that has been played upon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more.

I CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of the summer and winter following the

capture. For a while I was not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put to

ransom, and that the Kingno, not the King, but grateful Francehad come eagerly forward to pay it. By

the laws of war she could not be denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a legitimately

constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by her King's appointment, and guilty of no crime known to

military law; therefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were proffered.

But day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems incredible, but it is true. Was that reptile

Tremouille busy at the King's ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no offer and no effort

But, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The news of the capture reached Paris the day

after it happened, and the glad English and Burgundians deafened the world all the day and all the night with

the clamor of their joybells and the thankful thunder of their artillery, and the next day the VicarGeneral of

the Inquisition sent a message to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the delivery of the prisoner into the hands

The English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English power that was really acting, not the Church.

The Church was being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only able to

take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and the valorbreeding inspiration of her name,

whereas the English power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the influence of her

name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. Joan of Arc was the only power in France that the English

did not despise, the only power in France that they considered formidable. If the Church could be brought to

take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a heretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from heaven, it was

The Duke of Burgundy listenedbut waited. He could not doubt that the French King or the French people

would come forward presently and pay a higher price than the English. He kept Joan a close prisoner in a

strong fortress, and continued to wait, week after week. He was a French prince, and was at heart ashamed to

sell her to the English. Yet with all his waiting no offer came to him from the French side.

One day Joan played a cunning truck on her jailer, and not only slipped out of her prison, but locked him up

in it. But as she fled away she was seen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back.

Then she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early in August, and she had been in captivity

more than two months now. Here she was shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty feet high. She ate her

heart there for another long stretchabout three months and a half. And she was aware, all these weary five

months of captivity, that the English, under cover of the Church, were dickering for her as one would dicker

for a horse or a slave, and that France was silent, the King silent, all her friends the same. Yes, it was pitiful.

And yet when she heard at last that Compi�gne was being closely besieged and likely to be captured, and that

the enemy had declared that no inhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even children of seven years of

age, she was in a fever at once to fly to our rescue. So she tore her bedclothes to strips and tied them together

and descended this frail rope in the night, and it broke, and she fell and was badly bruised, and remained three

And now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vend�me, and Compi�gne was saved and the siege raised.

This was a disaster to the Duke of Burgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good time for a new bid to

be made for Joan of Arc. The English at once sent a French bishopthat forever infamous Pierre Cauchon of

Beauvais. He was partly promised the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was vacant, if he should succeed. He

claimed the right to preside over Joan's ecclesiastical trial because the battleground where she was taken

was within his diocese. By the military usage of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000 livres of

gold, which is 61,125 francsa fixed sum, you see. It must be accepted when offered; it could not be

Cauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the Englisha royal prince's ransom for the poor little

peasantgirl of Domremy. It shows in a striking way the English idea of her formidable importance. It was

accepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her

country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made

holiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a Frenchman's face was like, so

used were they to seeing nothing but his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom

she had taught to respect French valor, newborn in her nation by the breath of her spirit; enemies who

hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French

degradation. Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing

And shewhat did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her lips. She was too great for thatshe was

As a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to account for anything under that head. A

subterfuge must be found, and, as we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for crimes against

religion. If none could be discovered, some must be invented. Let the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive

Rouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of the English power; its population had been

under English dominion so many generations that they were hardly French now, save in language. The place

was strongly garrisoned. Joan was taken there near the end of December, 1430, and flung into a dungeon.

Still France made no move. How do I account for this? I think there is only one way. You will remember that

whenever Joan was not at the front, the French held back and ventured nothing; that whenever she led, they

swept everything before them, so long as they could see her white armor or her banner; that every time she

fell wounded or was reported killedas at Compi�gnethey broke in panic and fled like sheep. I argue

from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet; that at bottom they were still under the spell

of a timorousness born of generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in their leaders

born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries of all sortsfor their kings had been treacherous

to their great vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to the head of the state and to

each other. The soldiery found that they could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone,

everything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and set them boiling; with that sun

removed, they froze again, and the army and all France became what they had been before, mere dead

MY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of October; then the fresher weather

renewed my life and strength. All this time there were reports drifting about that the King was going to

ransom Joan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our

poor human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.

In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the second one, on the 23d, I was wounded

again. My luck had turned, you see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the disorder and

confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into Compi�gne, and hobble into my room as pallid and

It was indeed he. It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily know; and also as sad as it was joyful. We

could not speak Joan's name. One's voice would have broken down. We knew who was meant when she was

We talked of the personal staff. Old D'Aulon, wounded and a prisoner, was still with Joan and serving her, by

permission of the Duke of Burgundy. Joan was being treated with respect due to her rank and to her character

as a prisoner of war taken in honorable conflict. And this was continuedas we learned lateruntil she fell

Noel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreaciations of our old boastful big StandardBearer,

now gone silent forever, his real and imaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably closed

"And think of his luck!" burst out Noel, with his eyes full of tears. "Always the pet child of luck!

See how it followed him and stayed by him, from his first step all through, in the field or out of it; always a

splendid figure in the public eye, courted and envied everywhere; always having a chance to do fine things

and always doing them; in the beginning called the Paladin in joke, and called it afterward in earnest because

he magnificently made the title good; and at lastsupremest luck of alldied in the field! died with his

harness on; died faithful to his charg, the Standard in his hand; diedoh, think of itwith the approving eye

He drained the cup of glory to the last drop, and went jubilant to his peace, blessedly spared all part in the

disaster which was to follow. What luck, what luck! And we? What was our sin that we are still here, we who

"They tore the sacred Standard from his dead hand and carried it away, their most precious prize after its

captured owner. But they haven't it now. A month ago we put our lives upon the riskour two good knights,

my fellowprisoners, and Iand stole it, and got it smuggled by trusty hands to Orleans, and there it is now,

I was glad and grateful to learn that. I have seen it often since, when I have gone to Orleans on the 8th of May

to be the petted old guest of the city and hold the first place of honor at the banquets and in the

processionsI mean since Joan's brothers passed from this life. It will still be there, sacredly guarded by

French love, a thousand years from nowyes, as long as any shred of it hangs together. [1] Two or three

weeks after this talk came tehe tremendous news like a thunderclap, and we were aghastJoan of Arc sold

Not for a moment had we ever dreamed of such a thing. We were young, you see, and did not know the

human race, as I have said before. We had been so proud of our country, so sure of her nobleness, her

magnanimity, her gratitude. We had expected little of the King, but of France we had expected everything.

Everybody knew that in various towns patriot priests had been marching in procession urging the people to

sacrifice money, property, everything, and buy the freedom of their heavensent deliverer. That the money

But it was all over now, all over. It was a bitter time for us. The heavens seemed hung with black; all cheer

went out from our hearts. Was this comrade here at my bedside really Noel Rainguesson, that lighthearted

creature whose whole life was but one long joke, and who used up more breath in laughter than in keeping his

body alive? No, no; that Noel I was to see no more. This one's heart was broken. He moved grieving about,

and absently, like one in a dream; the stream of his laughter was dried at its source.

Well, that was best. It was my own mood. We were company for each other. He nursed me patiently through

the dull long weeks, and at last, in January, I was strong enough to go about again. Then he said:

There was no need to explain. Our hearts were in Rouen; we would carry our bodies there. All that we cared

for in this life was shut up in that fortress. We could not help her, but it would be some solace to us to be near

her, to breathe the air that she breathed, and look daily upon the stone walls that hid her. What if we should

be made prisoners there? Well, we could but do our best, and let luck and fate decide what should happen.

And so we started. We could not realize the change which had come upon the country. We seemed able to

choose our own route and go whenever we pleased, unchallenged and unmolested. When Joan of Arc was in

the field there was a sort of panic of fear everywhere; but now that she was out of the way, fear had vanished.

Nobody was troubled about you or afraid of you, nobody was curious about you or your business, everybody

We presently saw that we could take to the Seine, and not weary ourselves out with land travel.

So we did it, and were carried in a boat to within a league of Rouen. Then we got ashore; not on the hilly

side, but on the other, where it is as level as a floor. Nobody could enter or leave the city without explaining

We had no trouble. We stopped in the plain with a family of peasants and stayed a wekk, helping them with

their work for board and lodging, and making friends of them. We got clothes like theirs, and wore them.

When we had worked our way through their reserves and gotten their confidence, we found that they secretly

harbored French hearts in their bodies. Then we came out frankly and told them everythng, and found them

Our plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help them drive a flock of sheep to the market of the

city. One morning early we made the venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and passed through the

frowning gates unmolested. Our friends had friends living over a humble wine shop in a quaint tall building

situated in one of the narrow lanes that run down from the cathedral to the river, and with these they

bestowed us; and the next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and other belongings to us. The family

that lodged usthe Pieroonswere French in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them.

[1] It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was destroyed in a public bonfire, together with

two swords, a plumed cap, several suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by a mob in the time of

the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of Joan of Arc is known to have touched now remains in existence

except a few preciously guarded military and state papers which she signed, her pen being guided by a clek or

her secretary, Louis de Conte. A boulder exists from which she is known to have mounted her horse when she

was once setting out upon a campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single hair from her head

still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of a seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was

surreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal relichunter, and carried off. Doubtless it still exists,

IT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noel and myself; and when the Pierrons found

that I knew how to write, the applied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me with a good

priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief recorder in the Great Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching.

It was a strange position for meclerk to the recorderand dangerous if my sympathies and the late

employment should be found out. But there was not much danger. Manchon was at bottom friendly to Joan

and would not betray me; and my name would not, for I had discarded my surname and retained only my

I attended Manchon constantly straight along, out of January and into February, and was often in the citadel

with himin the very fortress where Joan was imprisoned, though not in the dungeon where she was

Manchon told me everything that had been happening before my coming. Ever since the purchase of Joan,

Cauchon had been busy packing his jury for the destruction of the Maidweeks and weeks he had spent in

this bad industry. The University of Paris had sent him a number of learned and able and trusty ecclesiastics

of the stripe he wanted; and he had scraped together a clergyman of like stripe and great fame here and there

and yonder, until he was able to construct a formidable court numbering half a hundred distinguished names.

A great officer of the Inquisition was also sent from Paris for the accused must be tried by the forms of the

Inquisition; but this was a brave and righteous man, and he said squarely that this court had no power to try

the case, wherefore he refused to act; and the same honest talk was uttered by two or three others.

The Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan had already been tried long ago at Poitiers,

and decided in her favor. Yes, and by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of it was an

Archbishophe of RheimsCauchon's own metropolitan. So here, you see, a lower court was impudently

preparing to try and redecide a cause which had already been decided by its superior, a court of higher

authority. Imagine it! No, the case could not properly be tried again. Cauchon could not properly preside in

Rouen was not in his diocese; Joan had not been arrested in her domicile, which was still Domremy; and

finally this proposed judge was the prisoner's outspoken enemy, and therefore he was incompetent to try her.

Yet all these large difficulties were gotten rid of. The territorial Chapter of Rouen finally granted territorial

letters to Cauchonthough only after a struggle and under compulsion. Force was also applied to the

So then, the little English King, by his representative, formally delivered Joan into the hands of the court, but

with this reservation: if the court failed to condemn her, he was to have her back again Ah, dear, what chance

was there for that forsaken and friendless child? Friendless, indeedit is the right word. For she was in a

black dungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers keeping guard night and day in the room where her

cage wasfor she was in a cage; an iron cage, and chained to her bed by neck and hands and feet. Never a

person near her whom she had ever seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this was, indeed, friendlessness.

Now it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and Compi�gne, and it was Jean who sold

her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to

Joan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford. He was a poor reptile. He told her

he would get her set free if she would promise not to fight the English any more. She had been in that cage a

long time now, but not long enough to break her spirit. She retorted scornfully:

"Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the power nor the will to do it."

He insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan, and she lifted her chained hands and let

"See these! They know more than you, an can prophesy better. I know that the English are going to kill me,

for they think that when I am dead they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so.

This defiance infuriated Stafford, and henow think of ithe a free, strong man, she a chained and helpless

girlhe drew his dagger and flung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized him and held him back.

Warwick was wise. Take her life in that way? Send her to Heaven stainless and undisgraced? It would make

her the idol of France, and the whole nation would rise and march to victory and emancipation under the

Well, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than two months Cauchon had been raking and

scraping everywhere for any odds and ends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that might be usable

against Joan, and carefully suppressing all evidence that came to hand in her favor. He had limitless ways and

means and powers at his disposal for preparing and strengthening the case for the prosecution, and he used

But Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut up in those stone walls and had no friend to

appeal to for help. And as for witnesses, she could not call a single one in her defense; they were all far away,

under the French flag, and this was an English court; they would have been seized and hanged if they had

shown their faces at the gates of Rouen. No, the prisoner must be the sole witnesswitness for the

prosecution, witness for the defense; and with a verdict of death resolved upon before the doors were opened

When she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in the interest of the English, she begged that in

fairness an equal number of priests of the French party should be added to these.

By the law of the Churchshe being a minor under twentyoneit was her right to have counsel to conduct

her case, advise her how to answer when questioned, and protect her from falling into traps set by cunning

devices of the prosecution. She probably did not know that this was her right, and that she could demand it

and require it, for there was none to tell her that; but she begged for this help, at any rate. Cauchon refused it.

She urged and implored, pleading her youth and her ignorance of the complexities and intricacies of the law

and of legal procedure. Cauchon refused again, and said she must get along with her case as best she might

Cauchon prepared the proc�s verbal. I will simplify that by calling it the Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed

list of the charges against her, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of suspicions and public

rumorsthose were the words used. It was merely charged that she was suspected of having been guilty of

Now by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be begun until a searching inquiry had been made

into the history and character of the accused, and it was essential that the result of this inquiry be added to the

proc�s verbal and form a part of it. You remember that that was the first thing they did before the trial at

Poitiers. They did it again now. An ecclesiastic was sent to Domremy. There and all about the neighborhood

he made an exhaustive search into Joan's history and character, and came back with his verdict. It was very

clear. The searcher reported that he found Joan's character to be in every way what he "would like his own

sister's character to be." Just about the same report that was brought back to Poitiers, you see. Joan's was a

This verdict was a strong point for Joan, you will say. Yes, it would have been if it could have seen the light;

but Cauchon was awake, and it disappeared from the proc�s verbal before the trial. People were prudent

One would imagine that Cauchon was ready to begin the trial by this time. But no, he devised one more

One of the great personages picked out and sent down by the University of Paris was an ecclesiastic named

Nicolas Loyseleur. He was tall, handsome, grave, of smooth, soft speech and courteous and winning manners.

There was no seeming of treachery or hypocrisy about him, yet he was full of both. He was admitted to Joan's

prison by night, disguised as a cobbler; he pretended to be from her own country; he professed to be secretly

a patriot; he revealed the fact that he was a priest. She was filled with gladness to see one from the hills and

plains that were so dear to her; happier still to look upon a priest and disburden her heart in confession, for

the offices of the Church were the bread of life, the breath of her nostrils to her, and she had been long forced

to pine for them in vain. She opened her whole innocent heart to this creature, and in return he gave her

advice concerning her trial which could have destroyed her if her deep native wisdom had not protected her

You will ask, what value could this scheme have, since the secrets of the confessional are sacred and cannot

be revealed? Truebut suppose another person should overhear them? That person is not bound to keep the

secret. Well, that is what happened. Cauchon had previously caused a hole to be bored through the wall; and

he stood with his ear to that hole and heard all. It is pitiful to think of these things. One wonders how they

ON TUESDAY, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master's work in the evening, he came in, looking

sad, and said it had been decided to begin the trial at eight o'clock the next morning, and I must get ready to

Of course I had been expecting such news every day for many days; but no matter, the shock of it almost took

my breath away and set me trembling like a leaf. I suppose that without knowing it I had been half imagining

that at the last moment something would happen, something that would stop this fatal trial; maybe that La

Hire would burst in at the gates with his hellions at his back; maybe that God would have pity and stretch

The trial was to begin in the chapel of the fortress and would be public. So I went sorrowing away and told

Noel, so that he might be there early and secure a place. It would give him a chance to look again upon the

face which we so revered and which was so precious to us. All the way, both going and coming, I plowed

through chattering and rejoicing multitudes of English soldiery and Englishhearted French citizens. There

was no talk but of the coming event. Many times I heard the remark, accompanied by a pitiless laugh:

"The fat Bishop has got things as he wants them at last, and says he will lead the vile witch a merry dance and

But here and there I glimpsed compassion and distress in a face, and it was not always a French one. English

soldiers feared Joan, but they admired her for her great deeds and her unconquerable spirit.

In the morning Manchon and I went early, yet as we approached the vast fortress we found crowds of men

already there and still others gathering. The chapel was already full and the way barred against further

admissions of unofficial persons. We took our appointed places. Throned on high sat the president, Cauchon,

Bishop of Beauvais, in his grand robes, and before him in rows sat his robed courtfifty distinguished

ecclesiastics, men of high degree in the Church, of clearcut intellectual faces, men of deep learning, veteran

adepts in strategy and casuistry, practised settersof traps for ignorant minds and unwary feet. When I looked

around upon this army of masters of legal fence, gathered here to find just one verdict and no other, and

remembered that Joan must fight for her good name and her life singlehanded against them, I asked myself

what chance an ignorant poor countrygirl of nineteen could have in such an unequal conflict; and my heart

sank down low, very low. When I looked again at that obese president, puffing and wheezing there, his great

belly distending and receding with each breath, and noted his three chins, fold above fold, and his knobby and

knotty face, and his purple and splotchy complexion, and his repulsive cauliflower nose, and his cold and

malignant eyesa brute, every detail of himmy heart sank lower still. And when I noted that all were

afraid of this man, and shrank and fidgeted in their seats when his eye smote theirs, my last poor ray of hope

There was one unoccupied seat in this place, and only one. It was over against the wall, in view of every one.

It was a little wooden bench without a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of dais. Tall

menatarms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets stood as stiff as their own halberds on each side of

this dais, but no other creature was near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was, for I knew whom it was

for; and the sight of it carried my mind back to the great court at Poitiers, where Joan sat upon one like it and

calmly fought her cunning fight with the astonished doctors of the Church and Parliament, and rose from it

victorious and applauded by all, and went forth to fill the world with the glory of her name.

What a dainty little figure she was, and how gentle and innocent, how winning and beautiful in the fresh

bloom of her seventeen years! Those were grand days. And so recentfor she was just nineteen nowand

But nowoh, all was changed now. She had been languishing in dungeons, away from light and air and the

cheer of friendly faces, for nearly threequarters of a yearshe, born child of the sun, natural comrade of the

birds and of all happy free creatures. She would be weary now, and worn with this long captivity, her forces

impaired; despondent, perhaps, as knowing there was no hope. Yes, all was changed.

All this time there had been a muffled hum of conversation, and rustling of robes and scraping of feet on the

It made me catch my breath. My heart began to thump like a hammer. But there was silence nowsilence

absolute. All those noises ceased, and it was as if they had never been. Not a sound; the stillness grew

oppressive; it was like a weight upon one. All faces were turned toward the door; and one could properly

expect that, for most of the people there suddenly realized, no doubt, that they were about to see, in actual

flesh and blood, what had been to them before only an embodied prodigy, a word, a phrase, a worldgirdling

The stillness continued. Then, far down the stonepaved corridors, one heard a vague slow sound

approaching: clank . . . clink . . . clankJoan of Arc, Deliverer of France, in chains!

I GIVE you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the facts of this miserable trial. No, I will

give them to you honestly, detail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily in the official record

There will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with you shall use my right to comment upon the

proceedings and explain them as I go along, so that you can understand them better; also, I shall throw in

trifles which came under our eyes and have a certain interest for you and me, but were not important enough

to go into the official record. [1] To take up my story now where I left off. We heard the clanking of Joan's

Presently she appeared; a thrill swept the house, and one heard deep breaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed

her at a short distance to the rear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak and her

irons heavy. She had on men's attireall black; a soft woolen stuff, intensely black, funereally black, not a

speck of relieving color in it from ther throat to the floor. A wide collar of this same black stuff lay in

radiating folds upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves of her doublet were full, down to the elbows, and

tight thence to her manacled wrists; below the doublet, tight black hose down to the chains on her ankles.

Halfway to her bench she stopped, just where a wide shaft of light fell slanting from a window, and slowly

lifted her face. Another thrill!it was totally colorless, white as snow; a face of gleaming snow set in vivid

contrast upon that slender statue of somber unmitigated black. It was smooth and pure and girlish, beautiful

when the challenge of those untamed eyes fell upon that judge, and the droop vanished from her form and it

straightened up soldierly and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I said, all is well, all is wellthey have not

broken her, they have not conquered her, she is Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now that there was

She moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself upon her bench, gathering her chains into her

lap and nestling her little white hands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the only person there who

seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed and brawny English soldier, standing at martial ease in the front

rank of the citizen spectators, did now most gallantly and respectfully put up his great hand and give her the

military salute; and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and returned it; whereat there was a sympathetic little

Now the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial began. Fifty experts against a novice, and no

The judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the public reports and suspicions upon which it was

based; then he required Joan to kneel and make oath that she would answer with exact truthfulness to all

Joan's mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous possibilities might lie hidden under this apparently

fair and reasonable demand. She answered with the simplicity which so often spoiled the enemy's bestlaid

"No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might ask of me things which I would not tell

This incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry exclamations. Joan was not disturbed.

Cauchon raised his voice and began to speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry that he could

"With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite these proceedings for the welfare of your

conscience. Swear, with your hands upon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the questions which shall

be asked you!" and he brought down his fat hand with a crash upon his official table.

"As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what things I have done since my coming into

France, I will gladly answer; but as regards the revelations which I have received from God, my Voices have

Here there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives, and much movement and confusion; so she

had to stop, and wait for the noise to subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and she straightened up and

fixed her eye on the judge, and finished her sentence in a voice that had the old ring to it:

Well, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is like. The judge and half the court were on

their feet in a moment, and all shaking their fists at the prisoner, and all storming and vituperating at once, so

that you could hardly hear yourself think. They kept this up several minutes; and because Joan sat untroubled

and indifferent they grew madder and noisier all the time. Once she said, with a fleeting trace of the oldtime

At the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath, the situation had not changed a jot. The

Bishop was still requiring an unmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to take any except the

one which she had herself proposed. There was a physical change apparent, but it was confined to the court

and judge; they were hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy, and had a sort of haggard look in their

faces, poor men, whereas Joan was still placid and reposeful and did not seem noticeably tired.

The noise quieted down; there was a waiting pause of some moments' duration. Then the judge surrendered to

the prisoner, and with bitterness in his voice told her to take the oath after her own fashion. Joan sunk at once

to her knees; and as she laid her hands upon the Gospels, that big English soldier set free his mind:

"By God, if she were but English, she were not in this place another half a second!"

It was the soldier in him responding to the soldier in her. But what a stinging rebuke it was, what an

arraignment of French character and French royalty! Would that he could have uttered just that one phrase in

the hearing of Orleans! I know that that grateful city, that adoring city, would have risen to the last man and

the last woman, and marched upon Rouen. Some speechesspeeches that shame a man and humble

himburn themselves into the memory and remain there. That one is burned into mine.

After Joan had made oath, Cauchon asked her her name, and where she was born, and some questions about

her family; also what her age was. She answered these. Then he asked her how much education she had.

"I have learned from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Belief. All that I know was taught

Questions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable time. Everybody was tired out by now,

except Joan. The tribunal prepared to rise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to escape from prison,

upon pain of being held guilty of the crime of heresysingular logic! She answered simply:

"I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not reproach myself, for I have given no

Then she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that they might be removed, for she was strongly

guarded in that dungeon and there was no need of them. But the Bishop refused, and reminded her that she

had broken out of prison twice before. Joan of Arc was too proud to insist. She only said, as she rose to go

"It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape." Then she added, in a way that would touch the

And so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive stillness, which made the sharper and more

What presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out of it. She saw Noel and me there when she

first took her seat on the bench, and we flushed to the forehead with excitement and emotion, but her face

showed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes sought us fifty times that day, but they passed on and there was

never any ray of recognition in them. Another would have started upon seeing us, and thenwhy, then there

We walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief and saying not a word.

[1] He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found to be in strict and detailed accordance with

THAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day's proceedings Cauchon had had some clerks

concealed in the embrasure of a window who were to make a special report garbling Joan's answers and

twisting them from their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the most shameless that has

lived in this world. But his scheme failed. Those clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work

revolted them, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report, whereupon Cauchon curse them and

ordered them out of his presence with a threat of drowning, which was his favorite and most frequent

menace. The matter had gotten abroad and was making great and unpleasant talk, and Cauchon would not try

When we arrived at the citadel next morning, we found that a change had been made. The chapel had been

found too small. The court had now removed to a noble chamber situated at the end of the great hall of the

castle. The number of judges was increased to sixtytwoone ignorant girl against such odds, and none to

The prisoner was brought in. She was as white as ever, but she was looking no whit worse than she looked

when she had first appeared the day before. Isn't it a strange thing? Yesterday she had sat five hours on that

backless bench with her chains in her lap, baited, badgered, persecuted by that unholy crew, without even the

refreshment of a cup of waterfor she was never offered anything, and if I have made you know her by this

time you will know without my telling you that she was not a person likely to ask favors of those people. And

she had spent the night caged in her wintry dungeon with her chains upon her; yet here she was, as I say,

collected, unworn, and ready for the conflict; yes, and the only person there who showed no signs of the wear

and worry of yesterday. And her eyesah, you should have seen them and broken your hearts. Have you

seen that veiled deep glow, that pathetic hurt dignity, that unsubdued and unsubduable spirit that burns and

smolders in the eye of a caged eagle and makes you feel mean and shabby under the burden of its mute

reproach? Her eyes were like that. How capable they were, and how wonderful! Yes, at all times and in all

circumstances they could express as by print every shade of the wide range of her moods. In them were

hidden floods of gay sunshine, the softest and peacefulest twilights, and devastating storms and lightnings.

Not in this world have there been others that were comparable to them. Such is my opinion, and none that had

the privilege to see them would say otherwise than this which I have said concerning them.

The seance began. And how did it begin, should you think? Exactly as it began beforewith that same

tedious thing which had been settled once, after so much wrangling. The Bishop opened thus:

"You are required now, to take the oath pure and simple, to answer truly all questions asked you."

The Bishop insisted and insisted, with rising temper; Joan but shook her head and remained silent. At last she

"I made oath yesterday; it is sufficient." Then she sighed and said, "Of a truth, you do burden me too much."

The Bishop still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her

over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilitiesBeaupere, a doctor

of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remarkflung out in an easy, offhand way

"Now, Joan, the matter is very simple; just speak up and frankly and truly answer the questions which I am

"No. You could ask me things which I could not tell youand would not." Then, reflecting upon how

profane and out of character it was for these ministers of God to be prying into matters which had proceeded

from His hands under the awful seal of His secrecy, she added, with a warning note in her tone, "If you were

well informed concerning me you would wish me out of your hands. I have done nothing but by revelation."

Beaupere changed his attack, and began an approach from another quarter. He would slip upon her, you see,

"Yes, to sew and to spin." Then the invincible soldier, victor of Patay, conquerer of the lion Talbot, deliverer

of Orleans, restorer of a king's crown, commanderinchief of a nation's armies, straightened herself proudly

up, gave her head a little toss, and said with na�ve complacency, "And when it comes to that, I am not afraid

The crowd of spectators broke out with applausewhich pleased Joanand there was many a friendly and

petting smile to be seen. But Cauchon stormed at the people and warned them to keep still and mind their

"Yes. I helped my mother in the household work and went to the pastures with the sheep and the cattle."

Her voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for me, it brought those old enchanted days

Beaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward the forbidden ground, and finally repeated a

question which she had refused to answer a little while backas to whether she had received the Eucharist in

"Passez outre." Or, as one might say, "Pass on to matters which you are privileged to pry into."

"As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy preyyes, and easily embarrassed, easily

Presently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly, for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's

Voices, a matter of consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into heedless

sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given her evil advicehence that they had come

from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devilwell, that would send her to the stake in brief order,

"I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help me to live well. I was frightened. It came

"Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often heard the Voices very loud."

"It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God. The third time I heard it I recognized it as

"It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the services of the Church. And it told me that I

"Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, 'Leave your village and go to France.'"

"No. The Voice said, 'Go to France'; therefore I could not abide at home any longer."

"No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would give me soldiers to go with me to France;

and I answered, saying that I was a poor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight."

Then she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs, but finally got her soldiers, and began her

The court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as God had appointed her to do a man's work, it

was meet and no scandal to religion that she should dress as a man; but no matter, this court was ready to use

any and all weapons against Joan, even broken and discredited ones, and much was going to be made of this

"I wore a man's dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt gave me, but no other weapon."

"He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of me, and to me he said, 'Go, and let happen

what may!'" (Advienne que pourra!) After a good deal of questioning upon other matters she was asked again

It was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to other matters, and finally to her first

meeting with the King at Chinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her, by the

revelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was gone over. Finally:

"It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed if I had been free, but I was helpless by

You see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would hardly advise or permit the violation, by war

"Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on such a day?"

This was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which had suffered no damage thus far. There

was immediate silence in the court and intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan disappointed the

house. She merely made a slight little motion with her hand, as when one brushes away a fly, and said with

Smiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there, and several men even laughed outright. The

The court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most of the time had been taken up with

apparently idle and purposeless inquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans, Joan's first

proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random stuff had really been sown thick with hidden traps.

But Joan had fortunately escaped them all, some by the protecting luck which attends upon ignorance and

innocence, some by happy accident, the others by force of her best and surest helper, the clear vision and

Now, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a captive in chains, was to continue a long,

long timedignified sport, a kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a kittenand I may as well tell

you, upon sworn testimony, what it was like from the first day to the last. When poor Joan had been in her

grave a quarter of a century, the Pope called together that great court which was to reexamine her history,

and whose just verdict cleared her illustrious name from every spot and stain, and laid upon the verdict and

conduct of our Rouen tribunal the blight of its everlasting execrations. Manchon and several of the judges

who had been members of our court were among the witnesses who appeared before that Tribunal of

Rehabilitation. Recalling these miserable proceedings which I have been telling you about, Manchon testified

When Joan spoke of her apparitions she was interrupted at almost every word. They wearied her with long

and multiplied interrogatories upon all sorts of things. Almost every day the interrogatories of the morning

lasted three or four hours; then from these morning interrogatories they extracted the particularly difficult and

subtle points, and these served as material for the afternoon interrogatories, which lasted two or three hours.

Moment by moment they skipped from one subject to another; yet in spite of this she always responded with

an astonishing wisdom and memory. She often corrected the judges, saying, "But I have already answered

And here is the testimony of one of Joan's judges. Remember, these witnesses are not talking about two or

They asked her profound questions, but she extricated herself quite well. Sometimes the questioners changed

suddenly and passed on to another subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They burdened her with

long interrogatories of two or three hours, from which the judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the

snares with which she was beset the expertest man in the world could not have extricated himself but with

difficulty. She gave her responses with great prudence; indeed to such a degree that during three weeks I

Ah, had she a mind such as I have described? You see what these priests say under oathpicked men, men

chosen for their places in that terrible court on account of their learning, their experience, their keen and

practised intellects, and their strong bias against the prisoner. They make that poor countrygirl out the

match, and more than the match, of the sixtytwo trained adepts. Isn't it so? They from the University of

Ah, yes, she was great, she was wonderful. It took six thousand years to produce her; her like will not be seen

THE THIRD meeting of the court was in that same spacious chamber, next day, 24th of February.

How did it begin? In just the same old way. When the preparations were ended, the robed sixtytwo massed

in their chairs and the guards and orderkeepers distributed to their stations, Cauchon spoke from his throne

and commanded Joan to lay her hands upon the Gospels and swear to tell the truth concerning everything

Joan's eyes kindled, and she rose; rose and stood, fine and noble, and faced toward the Bishop and said:

"Take care what you do, my lord, you who are my judge, for you take a terrible responsibility on yourself and

It made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful threatthe threat of instant condemnation

unless she obeyed. That made the very bones of my body turn cold, and I saw cheeks about me blanchfor it

meant fire and the stake! But Joan, still standing, answered him back, proud and undismayed:

This made a great tumult, and part of it was applause from the spectators. Joan resumed her seat.

The Bishop continued to insist. Joan answered that "she would tell what she knewbut not all that she

"I came from God; I have nothing more to do here. Return me to God, from whom I came."

It was piteous to hear; it was the same as saying, "You only want my life; take it and let me be at peace."

Joan cut in with a nonchalant "Passez outre," and Cauchon retired from the struggle; but he retired with some

credit this time, for he offered a compromise, and Joan, always clearheaded, saw protection for herself in it

and promptly and willingly accepted it. She was to swear to tell the truth "as touching the matters et down in

the proc�s verbal." They could not sail her outside of definite limits, now; her course was over a charted sea,

henceforth. The Bishop had granted more than he had intended, and more than he would honestly try to abide

By command, Beaupere resumed his examination of the accused. It being Lent, there might be a chance to

catch her neglecting some detail of her religious duties. I could have told him he would fail there. Why,

If the least thing had passed her lips in the nature of sustenance, neither her youth nor the fact that she was

being half starved in her prison could save her from dangerous suspicion of contempt for the commandments

He had Satan in his mind, you see; and was hoping, perhaps, that by and by it could be shown that she had

"Yes, I thanked it; and knelt in my bed where I was chained, and joined my hands and begged it to implore

God's help for me so that I might have light and instruction as touching the answers I should give here."

"It told me to answer boldly, and God would help me." Then she turned toward Cauchon and said, "You say

that you are my judge; now I tell you again, take care what you do, for in truth I am sent of God and you are

"No. It never contradicts itself. This very day it has told me again to answer boldly."

"I will tell you nothing as to that. I have revelations touching the King my master, and those I will not tell

you." Then she was stirred by a great emotion, and the tears sprang to her eyes and she spoke out as with

"I believe whollyas wholly as I believe the Christian faith and that God has redeemed us from the fires of

Being questioned further concerning the Voice, she said she was not at liberty to tell all she knew.

"The Voice has commanded me to tell the King certain things, and not youand some very latelyeven

"Why doesn't the Voice speak to the King itself, as it did when you were with him? Would it not if you asked

"I do not know if it be the wish of God." She was pensive a moment or two, busy with her thoughts and far

away, no doubt; then she added a remark in which Beaupere, always watchful, always alert, detected a

possible openinga chance to set a trap. Do you think he jumped at it instantly, betraying the joy he had in

No, oh, no, you could not tell that he had noticed the remark at all. He slid indifferently away from it at once,

and began to ask idle questions about other things, so as to slip around and spring on it from behind, so to

speak: tedious and empty questions as to whether the Voice had told her she would escape from this prison;

and if it had furnished answers to be used by her in today's seance; if it was accompanied with a glory of

The court saw the priest's game, and watched his play with a cruel eagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy

and absent; possibly she was tired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect it. The time was

Ah, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of judges; and Jean Lefevre was one of them. He

Cauchon's face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to the perishing child, and he shouted:

There was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she said yes or whether she said no, it would be

all the samea disastrous answer, for the Scriptures had said one cannot know this thing. Think what hard

hearts they were to set this fatal snare for that ignorant young girl and be proud of such work and happy in it.

It was a miserable moment for me while we waited; it seemed a year. All the house showed excitement; and

mainly it was glad excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering faces with innocent, untroubled eyes,

and then humbly and gently she brought out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare away

"If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so."

Ah, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live. For a space there was the silence of the

grave. Men looked wondering into each other's faces, and some were awed and crossed themselves; and I

"It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence comes this child's amazing inspirations?"

Beaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of his defeat weighed upon him, and he made

but a rambling and dreary business of it, he not being able to put any heart in it.

He asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about the oak wood, and the fairies, and the

children's games and romps under our dear Arbre fee de Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old memories

broke her voice and made her cry a little, but she bore up as well as she could, and answered everything.

Then the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her apparela matter which was never to be

lost sight of in this stillhunt for this innocent creature's life, but kept always hanging over her, a menace

THE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop ignored the contract limiting

the examination to matters set down in the proc�s verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath without

"You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of angels the third time that you heard them.

"How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you tell the one from the other?"

"By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years under their direction, and I knew who they

"It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he was not alone, but attended by a cloud of

"Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or in the spirit?"

"I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when they went away I cried because they did

It made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white upon her that day under l'Arbre Fe de

Bourlemont, and it made me shiver again, though it was so long ago. It was really not very long gone by, but

Presently, after some more questions as to the revelations which had been conveyed through her to the King,

"I will say again, as I have said before many times in these sittings, that I answered all questions of this sort

before the court at Poitiers, and I would hat you wold bring here the record of that court and read from that.

There was no answer. It was a subject that had to be got around and put aside. That book had wisely been

gotten out of the way, for it contained things which would be very awkward here.

Among them was a decision that Joan's mission was from God, whereas it was the intention of this inferior

court to show that it was from the devil; also a decision permitting Joan to wear male attire, whereas it was

"Yes, and by command of God. But that it was His will I would note have come. I would sooner have had my

Beaupere shifted once more to the matter of the male attire, now, and proceeded to make a solemn talk about

"It is a trifling thing and of no consequence. And I did not put it on by counsel of any man, but by command

"But in this particular case do you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?"

Beaupere made various attempts to lead her into contradictions of herself; also to put her words and acts in

disaccord with the Scriptures. But it was lost time. He did not succeed. He returned to her visions, the light

She forced her impatience down, and finished her sentence with tranquillity: "If there was one I did not see

"There were more than three thousand soldiers there, and five hundred torches, without taking account of

Presently she added: "During three weeks I was questioned by the clergy at Chinon and Poitiers.

The King had a sign before he would believe; and the clergy were of opinion that my acts were good and not

The subject was dropped now for a while, and Beaupere took up the matter of the miraculous sword of

Fierbois to see if he could not find a chance there to fix the crime of sorcery upon Joan.

"How did you know that there was an ancient sword buried in the ground under the rear of the altar of the

"I knew the sword was there because my Voices told me so; and I sent to ask that it be given to me to carry in

the wars. It seemed to me that it was not very deep in the ground. The clergy of the church caused it to be

sought for and dug up; and they polished it, and the rust fell easily off from it."

"No. But I wore it constantly until I left St. Denis after the attack upon Paris."

This sword, so mysteriously discovered and so long and so constantly victorious, was suspected of being

"None. I loved it because it was found in the church of St. Catherine, for I loved that church very dearly."

"Didn't you lay it upon the altar, to the end that it might be lucky?" (The altar of St. Denis.) "No."

"Then it was not that sword which you wore in the field of Compi�gne? What sword did you wear there?"

"The sword of the Burgundian Franquet d'Arras, whom I took prisoner in the engagement at Lagny. I kept it

She said that quite simply; and the contrast between her delicate little self and the grim soldier words which

she dropped with such easy familiarity from her lips made many spectators smile.

"I love my banner bestoh, forty times more than the sword! Sometimes I carried it myself when I charged

the enemy, to avoid killing any one." Then she added, na�vely, and with again that curious contrast between

It made a great many smile; and no wonder, when you consider what a gentle and innocent little thing she

looked. One could hardly believe she had ever even seen men slaughtered, she look so little fitted for such

"In the final assault at Orleans did you tell your soldiers that the arrows shot by the enemy and the stones

"No. And the proof its, that more than a hundred of my men were struck. I told them to have no doubts and

no fears; that they would raise the siege. I was wounded in the neck by an arrow in the assault upon the

bastille that commanded the bridge, but St. Catherine comforted me and I was cured in fifteen days without

"I offered him leave to go out unhurt from the place, with all his garrison; and if he would not I would take it

Thus closed a weary long sitting, without result. Every device that could be contrived to trap Joan into wrong

thinking, wrong doing, or disloyalty to the Church, or sinfulness as a little child at home or later, had been

tried, and none of them had succeeded. She had come unscathed through the ordeal.

Was the court discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much surprised, very much astonished, to find its work

baffling and difficult instead of simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in the shape of hunger, cold,

fatigue, persecution, deception, and treachery; and opposed to this array nothing but a defenseless and

ignorant girl who must some time or other surrender to bodily and mental exhaustion or get caught in one of

And had the court made no progress during these seemingly resultless sittings? Yes. It had been feeling its

way, groping here, groping there, and had found one or two vague trails which might freshen by and by and

lead to something. The male attire, for instance, and the visions and Voices. Of course no one doubted that

she had seen supernatural beings and been spoken to and advised by them. And of course no one doubted that

by supernatural help miracles had been done by Joan, such as choosing out the King in a crowd when she had

never seen him before, and her discovery of the sword buried under the altar. It would have been foolish to

doubt these things, for we all know that the air is full of devils and angels that are visible to traffickers in

magic on the one hand and to the stainlessly holy on the other; but what many and perhaps most did doubt

was, that Joan's visions, Voices, and miracles came from God. It was hoped that in time they could be proven

to have been of satanic origin. Therefore, as you see, the court's persistent fashion of coming back to that

subject every little while and spooking around it and prying into it was not to pass the timeit had a strictly

THE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fiftyeight judges presentthe others resting.

As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She showed no temper this time. She

considered herself well buttressed by the proc�s verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to

repudiate and creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and added, in a spirit of fairness

"But as to matters set down in the proc�s verbal, I will freely tell the whole truthyes, as freely and fully as

Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them could be the true Pope, of course.

Everybody judiciously shirked the question of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it

being clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was an opportunity to trick an unadvised

girl into bringing herself into peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He asked, in a

The house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the answer and see the prey walk into the

trap. But when the answer came it covered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly

chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived even me, so innocent it seemed:

One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers there, spoke right out so that half the house

As soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the charge, but was prudent and passed

"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking you which of the three Popes he

Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had not been quite strictly copied. She said

she had received the Count's letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:

"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him from Paris or somewhere where I

"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he ought to obey"; then she added, with a

frank fearlessness which sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, "but as for me, I

The matter was dropped. They they produced and read a copy of Joan's first effort at dictatingher

proclamation summoning the English to retire from the siege of Orleans and vacate Francetruly a great and

"Yes, except that there are errors in itwords which make me give myself too much importance." I saw

what was coming; I was troubled and ashamed. "For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez

� la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I did not call myself

'CommanderinChief' (chef de guerre). All those are words which my secretary substituted; or mayhap he

She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that embarrassment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and

hadn't forgotten. I changed her language purposely, for she was CommanderinChief and entitled to call

herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and who was going to surrender anything to the King?at

that time a stick, a cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the noble Maid of Vaucouleurs,

Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me) there, if that pitiless court had discovered

that the very scribbler of that piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was presentand not only present,

but helping build the record; and not only that, but destined at a far distant day to testify against lies and

perversions smuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!

"No! Not even these chains"and she shook them"not even these chains can chill the hopes that I uttered

there. And more!"she rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her

words burst forth as in a flood"I warn you now that before seven years a disaster will smite the English,

Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The French cause was standing still, our

King was standing still, there was no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and

take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this, Joan made that prophecymade it with

perfect confidenceand it came true. For within five years Paris fell1436and our King marched into it

flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then fulfilledin fact, almost the entire

prophecy; for, with Paris in our hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured.

Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time that she wanted to take Paris and could

have done it with ease if our King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that, with Paris

ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this golden opportunity to recover France was wasted,

She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be done city by city, castle by castle, and it

Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she stood in the view of everybody and

uttered that strange and incredible prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns up

correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be considerable room for suspicion that the

prophecy was made after the fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's prophecy was set

down in the official record at the hour and moment of its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you

Twentyfive years after Joan's death the record was produced in the great Court of the Rehabilitation and

verified under oath by Manchon and me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the

Joan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some

time before it quieted down again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and awful

All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it was genuine and puissant.

"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit here before me."

This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness. Therefore, after some further dallying the

Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave affront. They could not be brought into

court and punished for contempt, but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it

To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of serious notice; she answered

indifferently. But the question brought to her mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:

"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity. You have one of them. It is the

gift of my brother. Give it back to me. If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church."

The judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the working of enchantments.

Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil's rok with. So that trail was not worth

following. Still, to make sure, one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by touching

"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy whereof there are many reports

and traditions. It is said that your godmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night dancing under the

tree called l"Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your pretended saints and angles are but those

"That is not in your proc�s; yet I will say this much: they told me that the King would become master of his

If faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear came upon many in that house, at this time,

that maybe, after all, a chosen servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The interest

deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness became almost painful.

Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the questions asked Joan showed that in some

way or other the questioner very often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you noticed

that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and were to search for Joan's secrets; that they

really knew the bulk of her privaciesa fact not suspected by herand that they had no task before them

Do you rememberLoyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of Cauchon? Do you remember that

under the sacred seal of the confessional joan freely and trustingly revealed ot him everything concerning her

history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden her to

tell to any oneand that the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?

Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long array of minutely prying questions;

questions whose subtlety and ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember

Loyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of Beauvais, you are now lamenting this

cruel iniquity these many years in hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one among

the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that one has not already done itJoan of Arc.

"Yes, but that is not in your proc�s. I will not tell it now, but before three months I will tell it you."

The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets this idea from his next question.

Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the judges, and she showed one this time. I

was frequently in terror to find my mind (which Icould not control) criticizing the Voices and saying, "They

counsel her to speak boldlya thing which she would do without any suggestion from them or anybody

elsebut when it comes to telling her any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess their

way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending to some other business."

I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head they made me cold with fear, and if

there was a storm and thunder at the time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and do

"That is not in your proc�s. I do not know when I shall be set free, but some who wish me out of this world

"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you." She said it with such a happy look, the tired prisoner! And

I? And Noel Rainguesson, drooping yonder?why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from crown

to sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from making fatal exposure of our feelings.

She was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we saw it. The Voices had told her so, and

told her truetrue to the very dayMay 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her

That day was our understanding of itNoel's and mine; that was our dream; and now we would count the

days, the hours, the minutes. They would fly lightly along; they would soon be over.

Yes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and tumults of the world, we would take

up our happy life again and live it out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the friendly

sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and charm of the meadows, the woods, and the

river always before our eyes and their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream that

carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful fulfilment, the though of which would

have killed us, I think, if we had foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our hearts the

Our reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul was going to be smitten with remorse; and

that he would privately plan a rescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alenon and the Bastard and La Hire, and

that this rescue woud take place at the end of the three months. So we made up our minds to be ready and

In the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the exact day of her deliverance; but she could

not do that. She had not the permission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name the

precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have believed that Joan had the idea that her

deliverance was going to dome in the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless as she

was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint, an angel, she was a claymade girl alsoas

human a girl as any in the world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and elicacies. And

so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three months with that one before her, I think. You remember

that the first time she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other girl of seventeen would

have done, although she had known for eighteen days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No,

she was not afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she believed the prophecy of

deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed happiness, not horror, when she uttered it.

Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was captured in the battle of Compi�gne, her

Voices told her what was coming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would be taken

prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John. She begged that death, certain and swift, should be

her fate, and the captivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement. The Voices made no

promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now as they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young

thing like Joan would naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it to grow and establish

itself in her mind. And so now that she was told she was to be "delivered" in three onths, I think she believed

it meant that she would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she looked happy and contentthe

gates of Paradise standing open for her, the time so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward

so close at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make her patient and bold, and able to

fight her fight out like a soldier. Save herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that was the way

Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a poisoned fish, her notion that she was to

be "delivered" by death in the prisonif she had it, and I believe she hadwould naturally be greatly

But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitelyk name the time that she would be delivered

"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I am to be set free, and I desire to ask

"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I tell you again that he will regain his

kingdom, and that I know it as well as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal." She sighed and,

after a little pause, added: "I should be dead but for this revelation, which comforts me always."

Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress and appearance. She answered them with

"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling that I am not in mortal sin."

She added, "Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me to confess myself to them."

But her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more to the revelations made to the

Kingsecrets which the court had tried again and again to force out of Joan, but without success.

All this refers to Joan's secret interview with the Kingheld apart, though two or three others were present.

It was knownthrough Loyseleur, of coursethat this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the verity of

Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this daythe nature of the crown, I meanand will remain a

mystery to the end of time. We can never know whether a real crown descended upon the King's head, or

"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a much richer one was brought him

"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not, I have heard say that it was rich and

They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown, but they got nothing more out of

THE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of March.

This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of patience; and with good reason. These

threescore distinguished churchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left important posts

where their supervision was needed, to journey hither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and

easy mattercondemn and send to death a countrylass of nineteen who could neither read nor write, knew

nothing of the wiles and perplexities of legal procedure, could not call a single witness in her defense, was

allowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct her case by herself against a hostile judge and a packed

jury. In two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more

certain that thisso they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into days; what

promised to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be

surprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed away like a feather remained planted like

a rock; and on top of all this, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the countrylass and not the court.

She was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were doing it. The whole town was laughing in

its sleeve, and the court knew it, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their

And so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that these men had made up their minds to

force words from Joan today which should shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows

They went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the questioning to a particular member; no,

everybody helped. They volleyed questions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were

talking at once that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a time and not by platoons. The beginning

"I will answer to what is in the proc�s verbal. When I do more, I will choose the occasion for myself."

That old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great bitterness and many threats. But Joan

remained steadfast, and the questionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over Joan's

apparitionstheir dress, hair, general appearance, and so onin the hope of fishing something of a

Next, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many wellworn questions had been reasked, one or

After a while the matter of Joan's Standard was taken up, in the hope of connecting magic and witchcraft with

"The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the rest of the forces. It was their own idea."

"Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be lucky?"

The soldierspirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew herself up, and said with dignity and fire:

Whenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French menials in English livery it lashed them

into a rage; and that is what happened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of them on

their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after minute, but Joan was not disturbed.

It was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which had been done her when she was

raising France out of the dirt and shame of a century of slavery and castigation.

"No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the King and delivering him a letter; but I

"If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I think it was no harm."

"As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not the less sent of God."

"What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your hands, your feet, and your vestments?"

"They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could not have prevented them if I had had the

heart. Those poor people came lovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the best I

See what modest little words she uses to describe that touching specatcle, her marches about France walled in

Why they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss her hands or her feet, they knelt in

the mire and kissed the hoofprints of her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were

trying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for what other people did. No, if she was

"At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in honor of the King, and the girls I named

"At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at the altar with it in your hand at the

"In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches and receive the sacrament?"

It was almost a concession almost a halfsurrender of the permission granted her by the Church at Poitiers to

dress as a man. The wily court shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call Joan's

attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she might recover her lost ground. The

"It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at Lagny. Was that in answer to your

"As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the child, and I joined them and prayed

"While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three days, and was as black as my doublet. It

was straight way baptized, then it passed from life again and was buried in holy ground."

It was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of suicide to avoid falling into the hands

"Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the power of the English?"

"Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto God than that I should fall into the

It was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the tower, she was angry and blasphemed

the name of God; and that she did it again when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons.

A HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight, Joan was gaining it.

There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being softened toward Joan by her courage, her

presence of mind, her fortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her manifest purity, the

nobility of her character, her fine intelligence, and the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and

alone, against unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this softening process would spread further

Something must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished for compassion, but he now gave

proof that he had it in his character. He thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues of

this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a handful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did

He would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the handful himself, and he did.

He chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not intention; and he knew what to do with

He called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge bulk of answers thus far gathered

from Joan. They winnowed it of all chaff, all useless matterthat is, all matter favorable to Joan; they saved

up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this they constructed a basis for a new trial which

should have the semblance of a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the public trial

had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed all over the town and had moved many to pity the

abused prisoner. There should be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and no spectators

admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news to him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would

On the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I had seen Joan. Her appearance gave

me a great shock. She looked tired and weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that she

was dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and said. Another court would not have taken

advantage of her state, seeing that her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared her. Did

this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and eager ferocity, making all it could out of this great

She was tortured into confusing herself concerning the "sign" which had been given the King, and the next

day this was continued hour after hour. As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden by

her Voice3s; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but allegories and visions mixed with

The third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost her normal self again, and did her work

well. Many attempts were made to beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in view

"Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing." Then she spoke up with the old martial

ring in her voice and the old audacity in her words, and added, "But I know thisthat God will send victory

to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of France but the dead ones!"

"I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them to be chastised for their sins."

It was a sufficiently na�ve way to account for a chastisement which had now strung out for ninetysix years.

But nobody found fault with it. There was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninetysix years if he

could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the Lord's being any shade less stringent

"When you hung garlands upon L'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont, did you do it in honor of your apparitions?"

Satisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she hung them there out of sinful love for

"When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence, did you kneel?"

A good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that these were no saints to whom she had

Now there was the matter of Joan's keeping her supernatural commerce a secret from her parents. Much

might be made of that. In fact, particular emphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the

margin of the proc�s: "She concealed her visions from her parents and from every one." Possibly this

disloyalty to her parents might itself be the sign of the satanic source of her mission.

"Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your parents' leave? It is written one must

"I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged their forgiveness in a letter and gotten

"Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going without their leave!"

"I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred fathers and mothers and been a

"They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything have given my parents that pain."

Tgo the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of pride. That sort of pride would move one

"Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times called me Daughter of God."

"For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my household."

"Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns." Then she said with na�vete, "It was not a great sum to carry on a war

"No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war who have been wounded to make such

Nothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginationsnot even this pretty picture, so simply

drawn, of the wounded girlsoldier hanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim

and dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there was nothing in it for them; nothing, unless

"Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothingthe victories came from God."

"Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Rheims, rather than

Then, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long as language lives, and pass into all

tongues, and move all gentle hearts wheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:

"It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor." [1] How simple it is, and how beautiful. And how it

beggars the studies eloquence of the masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came

from her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as sublime as her deeds, as sublime as

her character; they had their source in a great heart and were coined in a great brain.

[1] What she said has been many times translated, but never with success. There is a haunting pathos about

the original which eludes all efforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and escapes in the

Monseigneur Ricard, Honorary VicarGeneral to the Archbishop of Aix, finely speaks of it (Jeanne d'Arc la

Venerable, page 197) as "that sublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the cry of a

French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism and its faith." TRANSLATOR.

NOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a thing so base that even at this day, in my

In the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the child Joan solemnly devoted her

life to God, vowing her pure body and her pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried

to stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul to compel her to make a marriage which

she had never promised to makea marriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hardfighting, and most dear

and lamented comrade, the StandardBearer, who fell in honorable battle and sleeps with God these sixty

years, peace to his ashes! And you will remember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable

court and conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin's case to rags and blew it away with a

breath; and how the astonished old judge on the bench spoke of her as "this marvelous child."

You remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false priests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had

fought a fourth lone fight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around and try to make out that

Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended that he had promised to marry her, and was bent on making

Certainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop to in their hunt for that friendless

girl's life. What they wanted to show was thisthat she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow and

Joan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she went along, and finished with some words

for Cauchon which he remembers yet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has

The rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the old themethe male attire. It was shabby

work for those grave men to be engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for clinging to the male

dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and

The court knew that one of Joan's purposes had been the deliverance of the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they

were curious to know how she had intended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and

"I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom; and failing that, I would have

That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and hammer and tongs to follow; but no

"Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever you can?"

I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and within the prison walls, before the three

"Yesfor I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps who help themselves, the proverb says.

Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every time I think of itand it struck me

so at the timethat for a moment, at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same

notion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upona rescue by her old soldiers. I think the idea

of the rescue did occur to her, but only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away.

Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more that he was an unfair judge, and

"I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know the form of it. I do not know whether I

am to be delivered from this prison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a trouble

by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this matter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or

the other." After a pause she added these words, memorable foreverwords whose meaning she may have

miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she may have rightly understood, as to

that, also, we can never know; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and revealed

"But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by a great victory." She paused, my heart

was beating fast, for to me that great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the

warcry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that

thought had such a short life! For now she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men

still so often quote and dwell uponwords which filled me with fear, they sounded so like a prediction.

"And always they say 'Submit to whatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend

Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it myself, but I believe she was only thinking

of this slow and cruel martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the right name

It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was silling to make the most he could out of

"As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain that that will happen and that you

"Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit mortal sin?"

"As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to my oath to keep by body and my soul

"Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to confession?"

The snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan's simple and humble answer left it empty:

We were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come through the ordeal well. It had been a

long and wearisome struggle for all concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and all had

However, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day's work. This was doneMarch 17th.

"Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and deeds, whether good or bad?"

That was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should heedlessly say yes, it would put her

mission itself upon trial, and one would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she should

But she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of separation between the Church's authority over

her as a subject member, and the matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was ready to

support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to the works done under her mission, those must be

The judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the Church. She said:

"I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that He and His Church are one, and that

there should be no difficulty about this matter." Then she turned upon the judge and said, "Why do you make

Then Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one Church. There were twothe Church

Triumphant, which is God, the saints, the angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heave; and the Church

Militant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates, the clergy and all good Christians and

Catholics, the which Church has its seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err. "Will you

"I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by its commandant, and to that

Church I will submit all those things which I have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer

The court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to get profit out of it; but the matter was

dropped for the present, and a long chase was then made over the old huntinggroundthe fairies, the

In the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided over the closing scenes of the trial.

"You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you would answer before our Holy

Father the Pope, and yet there are several questions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not

answer the Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais? Would you not feel obliged

It made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If Joan had only known, if she had only

know! She had lodged a mine under this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's schemes to the four

winds of heaven, and she didn't know it. She had made that speech by mere instinct, not suspecting what

tremendous forces were hidden in it, and there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon

knew; and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the knowledge to her somehow;

but speech was the only way, and none was allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat,

once more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was miserably worn and tired, by the

long day's struggle and by illness, or she must have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason of

She had made many masterstrokes, but this was the masterstroke. It was an appeal to Rome. It was her

clear right; and if she had persisted in it Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of

cards, and he would have gone from that place the worstbeaten man of the century. He was daring, but he

was not daring enough to stand up against that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor

France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of this messenger of God.

Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause needed. From that trial she would have

But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other matters and hurried the trial quickly

As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and dazed, and kept saying to myself, "Such

a little while ago she said the saving word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her death;

yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They will double the guards; they will never let any come near her

now between this and her condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak that word again. This is the bitterest

SO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite result. The character of it I have

described to you. It was baser in one particular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been

There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no foreseeing what traps might be set,

and no way to prepare for them. Truly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this one was.

One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy, Ma�tre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and

I will give you his opinion of that trial, so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and that my

partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair and illegal character. Cauchon showed Lohier the

proc�s and asked his opinion about the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said

that the whole thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the trial was secret, and full freedom of

speech and action on the part of those present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the King

of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor any one appointed to represent him; 3, because

the charges against the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because the accused, although young and

simple, had been forced to defend her cause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so much at

Did that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier with the most savage cursings, and

swore he would have him drowned. Lohier escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so

Well, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite result. But Cauchon did not give up. He could

trump up another. And still another and another, if necessary. He had the halfpromise of an enormous

prizethe Archbishopric of Rouenif he should succeed in burning the body and damning to hell the soul

of this young girl who had never done him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of

Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let alone one.

So he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence, too, intimating with brutal

cheerfulness that he should succeed this time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter

enough out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build up the new mass of charges. And it was a

This huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th; and there, before a dozen carefully

Opinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the articles read this time.

Maybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or maybe it was hoped that the reading would

kill the prisoner with fatiguefor, as it turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided

that Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and that if she refused she should be

considered convicted. You see, Cauchon was managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he

Joan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to her which ought to have made even

himself blush, so laden it was with hypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and pious

churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion toward her, and that they had no wish to

hurt her body, but only a desire to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation.

Why, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and those hardened slaves of his in such

And yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lohier's h8ints, he had the cold effrontery to

make to Joan a proposition which, I think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court,

recognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the complex and difficult matters which were

about to be considered, had determined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to choose one or

Think of thata court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles. It was granting leave to a lamb to ask

help of a wolf. Joan looked up to see if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to be,

The Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of fairness and could have it entered on

Then he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and threatened to cut her off from the

Church if she failed to do that or delayed her answers beyond a given length of time.

Thomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document, article by article. Joan answered to

each article in its turn; sometimes merely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found

What a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of the heart of man, the one creature

authorized to boast that he is made in the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was

wholly noble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish, modest, blameless as the very

flowers in the fieldsa nature fine and beautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that

document would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she was appears in it, everything

Consider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who it is it is speaking of. It calls her a

sorceress, a false prophet, an invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person ignorant of

the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an idolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His

saints, scandalous, seditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the spilling of human

blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of her sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the

vocation of a soldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors, and has caused herself

There it isevery fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a child she had loved the fairies, she had

spoken a pitying word for them when they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree

She had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for freedom, and led her to victory after

victoryhence she was a disturber of the peaceas indeed she was, and a provoker of waras indeed she

was again and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many a century to come. And she had been

adoredas if she could help that, poor thing, or was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the

wavering recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched her sword with theirs and moved

And so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters of life to poison, this gold to dross, these

Of course, the sixtysix articles were just a rehash of the things which had come up in the course of the

previous trials, so I will touch upon this new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail herself,

usually merely saying, "That is not truepassez outre"; or, "I have answered that beforelet the clerk read

She refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly Church. The refusal was taken note of.

She denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men's homage. She said:

"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I did what I could to prevent it."

She had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know the fairies to be evil beings. She knew it

was a perilous thing to say, but it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she spoke at all.

She refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male attire if she were given permission to

"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small thing and of no value in the eyes of Our

She was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that she would not lay it off even to get

She was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting the industries proper to her sex.

It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her. While that remained in her she would be

"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God, was to make war and pour out

Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war was not her first move, but her second:

"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused, then I would fight."

The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to

make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians

being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the English. She said:

As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by his ambassadors, that he make peace

with the King. As to the English, the only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home."

Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific disposition, since she had warned them

"If they had listened to me," said she, "they would have done wisely." At this point she uttered her prophecy

Then they presently began to pester her again about her male costume, and tried to persuade her to voluntarily

promise to discard it. I was never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their persistency in what

seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make out what their reason could be. But we all know now.

We all know now that it was another of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting

her to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which would quickly destroy her. So they kept at

"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you cut off my head!"

"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I

Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the ignorance and simplicity of the messenger

chosen. Joan smiled at that. She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter of

persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener than he had chosen bishops and cardinals;

She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on high. She said the form was brief

and simple; then she lifted her pallid face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:

"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love me, that you will reveal to me what

I am to answer to these churchmen. As concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I

She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His saints, to assume empire over men

and make herself CommanderinChief. That touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for

priests, but the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions about war; so, in her answer to

this charge she did not condescend to go into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland

Death was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter; she dearly loved to make these

Englishhearted Frenchmen squirm, and whenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting

into it. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days were a desert; these were the oases in

Her being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy. She said:

"I had a woman with me when I couldin towns and lodgings. In the field I always slept in my armor."

That she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged against her as evidence that the source

of her deeds were sordid selfseeking. She answered that she had not asked this grace of the King; it was his

This third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite result.

Possibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently unconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop

He appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixtysix articles to twelve compact lies, as a basis

Meantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and two of the judges, Isambard de la Pierre

and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he could not manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to

the examination and decision of the Church Militantthat is to say, to that part of the Church Militant which

Joan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in his body, and he so pitied this

persecuted poor girl that he ventured to do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to

have her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many priests of her party as of the

Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed a tribunal as that; but before Isambard

Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in great fear for his life. He asked Cauchon

"Ah," said poor Joan, reproachfully, "you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down

It was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon was more than that.

WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the

close of the third trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her

cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage out of her weakened state.

Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation. She never said anything of the kind. It

also says she refuses to submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all her acts to this

Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved

for the judgment of God. She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was willing to go

A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with death those who would not obey

her. Distinctly false. Another clause says she declares that all she has done has been done by command of

God. What she really said was, all that she had done wella correction made by herself as you have already

Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any sin. She never made any such claim.

Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had high Catholic authority for committing

The Tenth Article was resentful against her for "pretending" that St. Catherine and St.

The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology of the University of Paris for

approval. They were copied out and ready by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he

wrote in the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan's mouth which were the exact opposite of

what she had said. That fact would not be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not

influence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had anywhich it hadn't when acting in a political

capacity, as at presentbut it was a brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same.

The Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there was a great tumult in Rouen, and

excited crowds were flocking through all the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had

gone abroad that Joan of Arc was sick unti death. In truth, these long seances had worn her out, and she was

ill indeed. The heads of the English party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die

uncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and the love of the people would turn

her wrongs and sufferings and death into a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in

The Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to the castle and sent messengers flying

for physicians. Warwick was a hard man, a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick

girl stretched in her chains in her iron cagenot an object to move man to ungentle speech, one would think;

"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have her die a natural death. She is

dear to him, for he bought her dear, and he does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you

The doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of Beauvais had sent her a fish and she

Then Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused her. He understood Joan to be charging

the Bishop with poisoning her, you see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's most

loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan injure his master in the eyes of these great

English chiefs, these being men who could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got the conviction

that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by poisoning her and thus cheating the English out of all

He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let herself bleed to death.

Not for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so worried and angry about the suspicion of

poisoning which Joan had hinted at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought the

When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure, for here was his prey threatening to

escape again, and all through the overzeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite admirable

cursingadmirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by persons of culture that the art of it was not

Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was still very weak, but she could bear a

little persecution now without much danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it. So he

called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her dungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep

the recordthat is, to set down what might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.

The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was difficult for me to realize that this

frail little creature with the sad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often seen, all

fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and the lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of

But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless speeches of his, all dripping with

hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan that among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger

religion; and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had brought some good and

wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said he, "We are churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well

as by our vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your body, in every way in our power,

just as we would do the like for our nearest kin or for ourselves. In this we but follow the example of Holy

Church, who never closes the refuge of her bosom against any that are willing to return."

"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure of God that I die here, I beg that I may

be heard in confession and also receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground."

Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body had the fear of an unblessed death before

it and the pains of hell to follow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and said:

"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do, and submit to the Church."

He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender in it, she still stood to her guns. She

Cauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly and said that the more she was in danger

of death the more she ought to amend her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless she

"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holdy ground; if you will not, I cast myself upon my

There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded again, and imperiously, that she

submit herself and all her deeds to the Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body was

weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out of that came the steadfast answer which these

"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have said already in your tribunals."

Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with reasonings and arguments and Scriptures;

and always they held the lure of the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with them to

surrender her mission to the Church's judgmentthat is to their judgmentas if they were the Church! But

it availed nothing. I could have told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never asked me

Then the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import; a threat calculated to make a Catholic

"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you as if you were a pagan"

Think of being abandoned by the Church!that august Power in whose hands is lodged the fate of the

human race; whose scepter stretches beyond the furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose

authority is over millions that live and over the billions that wait trembling in purgatory for ransom or doom;

whose smile opens the gates of heaven to you, whose frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting hell; a

Power whose dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and shows of a village. To be abandoned by

one's Kingyes, that is death, and death is much; but to be agandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the

Church! Ah, death is nothing to that, for that is consignment to endless lifeand such a life!

I could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I could see the black myriads of the damned

rise out of them and struggle and sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw, while she

paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in truth I hoped she would, for these men were

able to make the threat good and deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in their natures

But I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of Arc was not made as others are made.

Fidelity to principle, fidelity to truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her fleshthey

were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast them out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she

was Steadfastness incarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there she would abide; hell

Her Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission that was required, therefore she

My heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon; but sheshe was serene, she was not

troubled. She had done what she believed to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences were not

her affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this serenity, full of contented repose:

TWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed out of the air, the wild flowers

were springing in the glades and glens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilliant with

sunshine, all spirits were renewed and refreshed, all hearts glad, the world was alive with hope and cheer, the

plain beyond the Seine stretched away soft and rich and green, the river was limpid and lovely, the leafy

islands were dainty to see, and flung still daintier reflections of themselves upon the shining water; and from

the tall bluffs above the bridge Rouen was become again a delight to the eye, the most exquisite and

When I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a general sense. There were exceptionswe

who were the friends of Joan of Arc, also Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in that frowning

stretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in darkness, so close to the flooding downpour of sunshine yet

so impossibly far away from it; so longing for any little glimpse of it, yet so implacably denied it by those

wolves in the black gowns who were plotting her death and the blackening of her good name.

Cauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme to try now. He would see what

persuasion could doargument, eloquence, poured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a

trained expert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to her was not a part of it. No, even

Cauchon was ashamed to lay that monstrosity before her; even he had a remnant of shame in him, away down

deep, a million fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and prevailed.

On this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered itself together in the spacious chamber at the

end of the great hall of the castlethe Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixtytwo minor judges massed

before him, with the guards and recorders at their stations and the orator at his desk.

Then we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered with her keepers and took her seat upon her

isolated bench. She was looking well now, and most fair and beautiful after her fortnight's rest from wordy

The orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand, though he held it back of him out of sight. It

was so thick that it resembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period his memory

failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his manuscriptwhich much injured the effect. Again this

happened, and then a third time. The poor man's face was red with embarrassment, the whole great house was

pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan dropped in a remark which completed the trouble. She

Why, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed; and as for the orator, he looked so flustered

and helpless that almost anybody would have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep from doing it myself.

Yes, Joan was feeling very well after her rest, and the native mischief that was in her lay near the surface. It

did not show when she made the remark, but I knew it was close in there back of the words.

When the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise thing; for he followed Joan's advice: he made

no more attempts at sham impromptu oratory, but read his speech straight from his "book." In the speech he

Every now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan replied. The nature of the Church Militant was

"I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine which were done and uttered by command of

"Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy Father the Pope your judge?"

"I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord, and to Him I will submit all."

"If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a heretic by these judges here present and burned

Ah, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only roused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and

in her answer rang that martial note which had used to stir her soldiers like a buglecall:

"I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the fire before me I would say it again"

It was uplifting to hear her battlevoice once more and see the battlelight burn in her eye. Many there were

stirred; every man that was a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon risked his life again, good

soul, for he wrote in the margin of the record in good plain letters these brave words: "Superba responsio!"

and there they have remained these sixty years, and there you may read them to this day.

"Superba responsio!" Yes, it was just that. For this "superb answer" came from the lips of a girl of nineteen

Of course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and as usual at wearisome length; also, as usual,

the customary bribe was offered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would let her hear mass. But

"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may be permitted, but I will resume the other

They set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say, they placed suppositious propositions before

her and cunningly tried to commit her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves to the

Yes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about her, and they could not catch her

anywhere. It was a long, long session, and all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the

oratorexpert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the result was the familiar onea drawn

battle, the sixtytwo retiring upon their base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her

THE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made everybody's heart to sing, as

I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling lighthearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and

laugh upon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young girl in the tower had scored

another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there was abundant laughterabundant laughter among the citizens

of both parties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the Englishhearted majority of the people wanted

Joan burned, but that did not keep them from laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for

anybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon's assistant judges, but to laugh at

The difference between Cauchon and cochon [1] was not noticeable in speech, and so there was plenty of

Some of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months, from repeated use; for every time

Cauchon started a new trial the folk said "The sow has littered [2] again"; and every time the trial failed they

And so, on the third of May, Noel and I, drifting about the town, heard many a widemouthed lout let go his

joke and his laugh, and then move tot he next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again:

"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a mess of it!"

"Sixtythree and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on the field five times!"

Cauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded by English soldiery; but no matter,

there was never a dark night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his

paint and brush. Yes, he had been thee, and had smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes

except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently cocked

Cauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven says; then he conceived a new

scheme. You shall see what it was; for you have not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it.

On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out materials together and started. But this

time we were to go to one of the other towersnot the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and grim

and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest masonrya dismal and forbidding structure.

[3] We entered the circular room on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sickthe instruments of

torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black heart of Cauchon at the blackest, here

you have the proof that in his nature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his mother

Cauchon was there, and the ViceInquisitor and the Abbot of St. Corneille; also six others, among them that

false Loyseleur. The guards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the executioner and his

aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color for their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me

stretched upon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other, and those red giants turning the

windlass and pulling her limbs out of their sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the

flesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed servants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and

After a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she saw the attendants, and the same picture

which I had been seeing must have risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she

shuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself up, and there was a slight curl of scorn

This was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the list. When Joan had taken her seat a

resume of her "crimes" was read to her. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course

of her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions and had answered others with lies, but

Her manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a way at last to break this child's

stubborn spirit and make her beg and cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the

jokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn't stand ridicule any better than other

people. He talked high, and his splotchy face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs of evil

pleasure and promised triumphpurple, yellow, red, greenthey were all there, with sometimes the dull

and spongy blue of a drowned man, the uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great passion and

"There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now or be put to the torture.

Then she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without fuss or bravado, and yet how fine

"I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you tear the limbs from my body. And even

if in my pain I did say something otherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that spoke

There was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon. Defeated again, and he had not dreamed of

such a thing. I heard it said the next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written out, in his

pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that that was true, but it probably was, for her mark

signed at the bottom of a confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public) which

No, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear mind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of

that answer, coming from an ignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever reflected

that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures were not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this

unlettered peasantgirl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct. I had always supposed that

torture brought out the trutheverybody supposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple

commonsense words they seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightningflash at midnight

which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with silver streams and gleaming villages and farmsteads

where was only an impenetrable world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at me, and his face

was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen in other faces there. Considerthey were old, and

deeply cultured, yet here was a village maid able to teach them something which they had not known before.

"Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an accepted truth that is as old as the world, and

it has crumbled to dust and rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?"

The judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was plain, from chance words which one caught

now and then, that Cauchon and Loyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that most of

Finally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and ordered Joan back to her dungeon.

That was a happy surprise for me. I was not expecting that the Bishop would yield.

When Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the torture was not applied.

There were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the torture, which would not suit the

English at all; the other was, that the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back everything

she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a confession, it was believed that not even the rack

And the palace walls got a new decorationa mitered hog carryinga discarded rack home on its shoulder,

and Loyseleur weeping in its wake. Many rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody

applied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the artists at work.

The Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to the idea of giving up the torture. It

was the pleasantest idea he had invented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his satellites

With some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might die under torture; others did not

believe that any amount of suffering could make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen

men present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the torture, and stood their ground in

spite of Cauchon's abuse. Two voted with the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur

and the oratorthe man whom Joan had bidden to "read his book"Thomas de Courcelles, the renowned

Age has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of those three namesCauchon,

[3] The lower half of it remains today just as it was then; the upper half is of a later date.

ANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all valuable knowledge and all wisdom,

the University of Paris, were still weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies.

I had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in walks about the town with Noel. But there

was no pleasure in them, our spirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan growing steadily

darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally contrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom

and sunshine, with her darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our alleviations of one

sort and another, with her destitution in all. She was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an

outofdoor creature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an

animal; she was used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom where all objects about her were dim

and spectral; she was used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy life, but

now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with

her mates, but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she had

been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only

dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and

night and night and day round and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the heart with

weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is what it must have been. And there was another hard

thing about it all. A young girl in trouble needs the soothing solace and support and sympathy of persons of

her own sex, and the delicate offices and gentle ministries which only these can furnish; yet in all these

months of gloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the face of a girl or a woman. Think how her

Consider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that it was out of such a place and such

circumstances that she came week after week and month after month and confronted the master intellects of

France singlehanded, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated their ablest plans, detected and avoided

their secretest traps and pitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the field after every

engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and her ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and

answering threats of eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple "Let come what may, here I take my

Yes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the wisdom, and how luminous the intellect

of Joan of Arc, you must study her there, where she fought out that long fight all aloneand not merely

against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but against the ignoble deceits, the meanest

treacheries, and the hardest hearts to be found in any land, pagan or Christian.

She was great in battlewe all know that; great in foresight; great in loyalty and patriotism; great in

persuading discontented chiefs and reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to

discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque and eloquent speech; supremely great

in the gift of firing the hearts of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into heroes,

slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting

activities; they keep hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of achievement, the

inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and

energy, the faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertiathese do not exist.

Yes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was greatest in the Rouen trials.

There she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human nature, and accomplished under blighting

and unnerving and hopeless conditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual forces could

have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the mighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the

presence of friendly faces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great world looking on and wondering.

TOWARD THE END of the tenday interval the University of Paris rendered its decision concerning the

Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan was guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make

The University's mind was probably already made up before the Articles were laid before it; yet it took it

from the fifth to the eighteenth to produce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary

1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's Voices; 2. As to whether her saints spoke French

You understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends who spoke in those Voices; it would

need to prove that, and it did. It found out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial,

Satan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me, and not entitled to much credit. I think

so for this reason: if the University had actually known it was those three, it would for very consistency's sake

have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the mere assertion, since it had made joan explain how she

knew they were not fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University's position was weak,

and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's angels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils

do disguise themselves as angels; up to that point the University's position was strong; but you see yourself

that it eats its own argument when it turns around and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while

denying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her shoulders as the best one the University could

The doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to know; and if Joan was deceived, it is

argument that they in their turn could also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not clearer

As to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty and cost the University delay, I will

touch but a moment upon that, and pass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say that

her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French side in political sympathies. I think that the

thing which troubled the doctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices were Satan and

two other devils; but they had also decided that these Voices were not on the French sidethereby tacitly

asserting that they were on the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be angels and not

devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You see, the University being the wisest and deepest and

most erudite body in the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake of its reputation; therefore it

would study and study, days and days, trying to find some good commonsense reason for proving the

Voices to be devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No. 10. However, they had to

give it up. They found no way out; and so, to this day, the University's verdict remains just sodevils in No.

The envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for Cauchon which was full of fervid praise. The

University complimented him on his zeal in hunting down this woman "whose venom had infected the

faithful of the whole West," and as recompense it as good as promised him "a crown of imperishable glory in

heaven." Only that!a crown in heaven; a promissory note and no indorser; always something away off

yonder; not a word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing Cauchon was destroying his soul

for. A crown in heaven; it must have sounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he

On the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the archiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few

wanted her delivered over to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted that she be once

So the same court met in the castle on the twentythird, and Joan was brought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a

canon of Rouen, made a speech to Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by

renouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with a stern threat: if she remained

obstinate the damnation of her soul was certain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was

"If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the executioner ready to light itmore, if I were

in the fire itself, I would say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I would abide by them

A deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me like a weight. I knew it for an

"Then the debate is closed. Tomorrow, sentence will be pronounced. Remove the prisoner."

She seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my sight was dim with tears.

Tomorrowtwentyfourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go speeding across the plain at the head

of her troops, her silver helmet shining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes flowing, her

sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three times, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right

and spur for the duke's reserves; saws her fling herself against it in the last assault she was ever to make. And

JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve

Articles, and her life was in Cauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His work was

finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What would his Archbishopric be worth if the people

should get the idea into their heads that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the English lash, had

wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France? That would be to make of her a holy

martyr. Then her spirit would rise from her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep the English

domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No, the victory was not complete yet. Joan's guilt must

be established by evidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be found? There was

only one person in the world who could furnish itJoan of Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in

But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying to get her to surrendertime

wholly wasted; what was to persuade her now? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened;

what was left? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence of the fire! That was left.

Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under illness and exhaustion, subject to a

Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under the bitter pains of the rack they would be

able to extort a false confession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was remembered.

She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the pains were gone, she would retract the

She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear out her strength, then frighten her with

the fire. Second, while the fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.

But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture to refuse this, with the public there to

hear. Suppose that during the reading her courage should return?she would refuse to sign then. Very well,

even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short paper of no importance, then slip a long and

Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to abjure, that would free her from the

deathpenalty. They could keep her in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.

That would not answer; for only her death would content the English. Alive she was a terror, in a prison or

But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises to her; in return she would

promise to leave off the male dress. He would violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she

would not be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and the stake would be ready.

These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them, each in its order, and the game was

won. One might almost name the day that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the

The world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to you, but the world did not know it at

that time. There are sufficient indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the highest

onethe Cardinal of Winchesterwere not let into the secret, also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on

the French side, knew the scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the

It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace, but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if

one may credit the rumors of the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character of

priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England, he spent some hours in beseeching her to do

"the only right an righteous thing"submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then she

would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and be transferred to the Church's prison,

where she would be honorably used and have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He

knew how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English guards; he knew that her Voices

had vaguely promised something which she interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the

chance to burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work which she had been

commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that other thing: if her failing body could be further weakened

by loss of rest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the morrow, and in ill condition

to stand out against persuasions, threats, and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares

I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor for Noel. We went to the main gate of

the city before nightfall, with a hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which

seemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news had flown swiftly far and wide

that at last Joan of Arc was condemned, and would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so

crowds of people were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused admission by the soldiery;

these being people who brought doubtful passes or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but thee

was nothing about them to indicate that they were our old warcomrades in disguise, and certainly there were

no familiar faces among them. And so, when the gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more

The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to make one's way. Toward midnight our

aimless tramp brought us to the neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was bustle

and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people; and through a guarded passage dividing the

pack, laborers were carrying planks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the

"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be burned in the morning?"

At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our wearied bodies and fevered minds

magnified into a large probability. We had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumi�ges with all his monks was

coming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination, turned those nine hundred monks into

Joan's old campaigners, and their Abbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alenon; and we watched them file

in, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering while they passed, with our hearts in our

throats and our eyes swimming with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch glimpses of

the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal to any recognized face that we were Joan's men

and ready and eager to kill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!

IN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised the height of a man, in the

churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On this same platform was a crowd of priests and important

citizens, and several lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and larger platform,

handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly carpeted; also it was furnished with comfortable chairs,

and with two which were more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general level. One of these

two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of England, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the

other by Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the ViceInquisitor, eight

abbots, and the sixtytwo friars and lawyers who had sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.

Twenty steps in front of the platforms was anothera tabletopped pyramid of stone, built up in retreating

courses, thus forming steps. Out of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles of fagots and

firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the pyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner

and his assistants. At their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now a smokeless nest of

ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was a supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into a pile

shoulderhigh and containing as much as six packhorse loads. Think of that. We seem so delicately made, so

destructible, so insubstantial; yet it is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes than it is to do that with a

The sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of my body; and yet, turn as I would, my

eyes would keep coming back t it, such fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.

The space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a wall of English soldiery, standing

elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart figures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind them on

every hand str4etched far away a level plain of human heads; and there was no window and no housetop

within our view, howsoever distant, but was black with patches and masses of people.

But there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The impressiveness of this silence and

solemnity was deepened by a leaden twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of lowhanging stormclouds;

and above the remote horizon faint winkings of heatlightning played, and now and then one caught the dull

At last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an indistinct sound, but familiarcourt, crisp

phrases of command; next I saw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host was

glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and his hellions? Nothat was not their

gait. No, it was the prisoner and her escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits sank

as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk; they would increase her weakness all

they could. The distance was not greatit was but a few hundred yardsbut short as it was it was a heavy

tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months, and whose feet had lost their powers from

inaction. Yes, and for a year Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was dragging

herself through this sultry summer heat, this airless and suffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping

with exhaustion, there was that creature Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her ear. We knew

afterward that he had been with her again this morning in the prison wearying her with his persuasions and

enticing her with false promises, and that he was now still at the same work at the gate, imploring her to yield

everything that would be required of her, and assuring her that if she would do this all would be well with

her: she would be rid of the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful shelter and protection of the

The moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and allowed her chin to fall; and so sat,

with her hands nestling in her lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was so white

How the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest, and with what intensity all eyes

gazed upon this fragile girl! And how natural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking

upon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose name and fame filled all Europe,

and made all other names and all other renowns insignificant by comparions; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the

And I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the words that were drifting through their

minds: "Can it be true, is it believable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with the good face, the

sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny face, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the

head of victorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a breath, and fought a long

campaign, solitary and alone, against the massed brains and learning of Franceand had won it if the fight

Evidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty apparent leanings toward Joan, for

another recorder was in the chief place here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and look

Well, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of to tire Joan's body and mind, but it

was a mistake; one more device had been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that

When the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed look, then dropped her head again.

This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied

upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that mass of venom, and called her all the

brutal names that the Twelve were labeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on; but

his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign, she did not seem to hear. At last he

"O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of Christianity; but now, Charles,

who calls himself thy King and governor, indorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and

deeds of a worthless and infamous woman" Joan raised her head, and her eyes began to burn and flash. The

preacher turned to her: "It is to you, Joan, that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a

Ah, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure that; but to her dying moment she could never

hear in patience a word against that ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was here, at

this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving this most noble servant that ever King had in

this worldand he would have been there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan's loyal soul was

outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few words with a spirit which the crowd

"By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that he is the most noble Christian of all

There was an explosion of applause from the crowdwhich angered the preacher, for he had been aching

long to hear an expression like this, and now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person: he had

done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He stamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff:

A mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to protect him from a sick girl.

Joan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence than he had helped it with a hundred; so he

was much put out, and had trouble to get a good start again. But he needn't have bothered; thee was no

occasion. It was mainly an Englishfeeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of our naturean irresistible

lawto enjoy and applaud a spirited and promptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was

with the preacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would soon return. It was there to see

this girl burnt; so that it got that satisfactionwithout too much delayit would be content.

Presently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church. He made the demand with

confidence, for he had gotten the idea from Loyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone,

exhausted, and would not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look at her it seemed that

they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one more effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily:

"As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them to report all that I have said and done

Again, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of tremendous import, but was ignorant of

their value. But they could have availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these

thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there blench, and the preacher changed the

subject with all haste. Well might those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope stripped

Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all that he and his judges had already done in the matter

Joan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she had acted by command of God in her

deeds and utterances; then, when an attempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she

"I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any other. If there is any fault in them,

She was asked if she would not recant those of her words and deeds which had been pronounced evil by her

The Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person who was asked to submit her case to the

Church, and who frankly consentsoffers to submit it to the very head of it. What more could any one

The worried judges put their heads together and whispered and planned and discussed. Then they brought

forth this sufficiently shambling conclusionbut it was the best they could do, in so close a place: they said

the Pope was so far away; and it was not necessary to go to him anyway, because the present judges had

sufficient power and authority to deal with the present case, and were in effect "the Church" to that extent. At

another time they could have smiled at this conceit, but not now; they were not comfortable enough now.

The mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a threatening aspect; it was tired of standing, tired

of the scorching heat; and the thunder was coming nearer, the lightning was flashing brighter. It was

necessary to hurry this matter to a close. Erard showed Joan a written form, which had been prepared and

She did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu. She tried to understand, but she was

breaking, under exhaustion, and she could not gather the meaning. It was all a jumble and confusion of

She glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the stake and the mass of red

coalsredder and angrier than ever now under the constantly deepening stormgloom. She gasped and

staggered up out of her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon the people and

the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he dreams, and does not know where he is.

The priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper, there were many voices beseeching and urging

her at once, there was great turmoil and shouting and excitement among the populace and everywhere.

"Sign sign" from the priests; "signsign and be saved!" And Loyseleur was urging at her ear, "Do as I told

The judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in their hearts melted, and they said:

"O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we must deliver you up to punishment."

And now there was another voiceit was from the other platformpealing solemnly above the din:

Joan's strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a bewildered way a moment, then slowly she

They gave her no time to reconsiderthey knew the peril of that. The moment the words were out of her

mouth Massieu was reading to her the abjuration, and she was repeating the words after him mechanically,

unconsciouslyand smiling; for her wandering mind was far away in some happier world.

Then this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one of many pages was smuggled into its

place, and she, noting nothing, put her mark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she did not know how to

write. But a secretary of the King of England was there to take care of that defect; he guided her hand with

The great crime was accomplished. She had signedwhat? She did not knowbut the others knew. She had

signed a paper confessing herself a sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphermer of God and His

angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel, wicked, commissioned of Satan; and this signature of

There were other promises, but that one would answer, without the others; and that one could be made to

Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done "such a good day's work."

Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication and and restored her to her

beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of worship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep

But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of pity in his voice, added these

"And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is sentenced to perpetual imprisonment,

Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of thatsuch a thing had never been hinted to her by

Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had distinctly said and promised that "all would be well with her." And

the very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he was urging her to abjure, was a

straight, unqualified promisedthat if she would do it she should go free from captivity.

She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with such solacement as the thought

could furnish, that by another clear promise made by Cauchon himselfshe would at least be the Church's

captive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery. So she turned to the body of priests

"Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no longer in the hands of the English";

But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchonand with them a mocking laugh:

Poor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was pitiful to see. She had been beguiled, lied to,

The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment she thought of the glorious

deliverance promised by her VoicesI read it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it washer

prison escortand that light faded, never to revive again. And now her head began a piteous rocking motion,

swaying slowly, this way and that, as is the way when one is suffering unwordable pain, or when one's heart

is broken; then drearily she went from us, with her face in her hands, and sobbing bitterly.

THERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the deep game which Cauchon was

playing except the Cardinal of Winchester. Then you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that

vast mob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the two platforms, when they saw

Joan of Arc moving away, alive and wholeslipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious waiting, all

Nobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the universal astonishment, so unbelievable

the fact that the stake was actually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone.

Then suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions and charges of treachery began to fly freely;

yes, and even stones: a stone came near killing the Cardinal of Winchesterit just missed his head. But the

man who threw it was not to blame, for he was excited, and a person who is excited never can throw straight.

The tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it a chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the

proprieties so far as to oppobriously assail the august Bishop of Beauvais himself, shaking his fist in his face

He a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman that any Briton had a right to bring that

The Early of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty soldier, but when it came to the

intellectualswhen it came to delicate chicane, and scheming, and trickeryhe couldn't see any further

through a millstone than another. So he burst out in his frank warrior fashion, and swore that the King of

England was being treacherously used, and that Joan of Arc was going to be allowed to cheat the stake. But

Perhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news travels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the

ragings presently quieted down, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we

We two youths were happy; happier than any words can tellfor we were not in the secret any more than the

rest. Joan's life was saved. We knew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day's infamous

workand then Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard by thousands and thousands,

multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath would be like the wrath of the ocean when the stormwinds

sweep it; and they would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it like the resistless tides

In six daysseven daysone short weeknoble France, grateful France, indignant France, would be

thundering at these gateslet us count the hours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy

Do you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after she had spent the small remnant of

No, there was no rest for her, with those sleuthhounds on her track. Cauchon and some of his people

followed her to her lair straightway; they found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state

of prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain promisesamong them, to resume

the apparel of her sex; and that if she relapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the

words, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has taken a narcotic and is dying for sleep,

dying for rest from nagging, dying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the persecutor asks,

taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully recording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the

gown which Cauchon and his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and have at first but

Cauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman's dress without protest; also she had been

formally warned against relapsing. He had witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better?

Did Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose to make their prisoner's captivity

crueler and bitterer than ever, no official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did begin

that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it. Yes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon

was made almost unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it.

FRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full of our splendid dream of

France arousedFrance shaking her maneFrance on the marchFrance at the gatesRouen in ashes,

and Joan free! Our imagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we were very young, as

We knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the yesterafternoon. We supposed that

as Joan had abjured and been taken back into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used

now, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the circumstances would allow. So, in

high contentment, we planned out our share in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and over

Sunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and thinking. Thinking of the

rescuewhat else? I had no other thought now. I was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it.

I heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer, and I caught the words:

It stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty years ago, but that triumphant note

rings as clear in my memory today as it rang in my ear that longvanished summer morning. We are so

strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is the memories that break our hearts

Soon other voices took up that crytens, scores, hundreds of voices; all the world seemed filled with the

brutal joy of it. And there were other clamorsthe clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations, bursts of

coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of distant bands profaning the sacred day with the

About the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me to go to Joan's dungeona

summons from Cauchon. But by that time distrust had already taken possession of the English and their

soldiery again, and all Rouen was in an angry and threatening mood. We could see plenty of evidences of this

from our own windowsfistshaking, black looks, tumultuous tides of furious men billowing by along the

And we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly, indeed; that there was a great mob

gathered there who considered the relapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many halfdrunk

English soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone beyond words. They had laid hands upon a number of

churchmen who were trying to enter the castle, and it had been difficult work to rescue them and save their

And so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step without a safeguard from Warwick. So next

morning Warwick sent an escort of soldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown peacefuler meantime,

but worse. The soldiers protected us from bodily damage, but as we passed through the great mob at the

castle we were assailed with insults and shameful epithets. I bore it well enough, though, and said to myself,

with secret satisfaction, "In three or four short days, my lads, you will be employing your tongues in a

To my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them would still be alive after the rescue that was

coming? Not more than enough to amuse the executioner a short halfhour, certainly.

It turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was sitting there in her chains, clothed again in

She accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character to hold a servant to account for what his

master had made him do, and her mind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage which had been

taken of her the previous morning had its origin, not in the subordinate but in the masterCauchon.

Here is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning of Sunday, one of the guards stole her

female apparel and put her male attire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other dress, but the

guards refused to give it back. She protested, and said she was forbidden to wear the male dress. But they

continued to refuse. She had to have clothing, for modesty's sake; moreover, she saw that she could not save

her life if she must fight for it against treacheries like this; so she put on the forbidden garments, knowing

We had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the ViceInquisitor, and the otherssix or eightand when I

saw Joan sitting there, despondent, forlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to find her situation so

different, I did not know what to make of it. The shock was very great. I had doubted the relapse perhaps;

Cauchon's victory was complete. He had had a harassed and irritated and disgusted look for a long time, but

that was all gone now, and contentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple face was full of tranquil

and malicious happiness. He went trailing his robes and stood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart,

and remained so more than a minute, gloating over her and enjoying the sight of this poor ruined creature,

who had won so lofty a place for him in the service of the meek and merciful Jesus, Saviour of the World,

Lord of the Universein case England kept her promise to him, who kept no promises himself.

Presently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named Marguerie, who was a man with more

"There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come about without connivance on the part of

"Armagnac! Traitor!" shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a rush for Marguerie with their lances leveled.

It was with the greatest difficulty that he was saved from being run through the body. He made no more

attempts to help the inquiry, poor man. The other judges proceeded with the questionings.

I did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier's halberd slipped from his fingers and fell on the stone

floor with a crash; but I thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of her own motion.

I was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when it came it was just what I was expecting.

"I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I would not resume it."

ThereI had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she was doing and saying on the platform

Thursday, and this answer of hers was proof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to add this:

"But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me have not been keptpromises that I should

be allowed to go to mass and receive the communion, and that I should be freed from the bondage of these

"Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to return no more to the dress of a man."

Then Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these unfeeling men and said:

"I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and if I may hear mass, and be removed to

a penitential prison, and have a woman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you

Cauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his had made with her?

Fulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good thing to concede, temporarily, and for

advantage; but they have served their turnlet something of a fresher sort and of more consequence be

considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all practical purposes, but perhaps Joan could

be led to add something to that fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her since

"Yes," she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked with her about the abjurationtold her

about it, I suppose. She guilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it with the

untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever knowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced

once more that she had had no notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform. Finally

she said, "My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess that what I had done was not well." Then she

sighed, and said with simplicity, "But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so."

That is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she had not understood then, but

She was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and with it her inborn loyalty to the truth.

She was bravely and serenely speaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that very fire

That answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from concealments or palliations. It made me

shudder; I knew she was pronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he wrote in

Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was, indeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls

in a sickroom when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say softly one to another, "All is

Here, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to clinch this matter and make it

Then she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that ifI

noted the if"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire,

There it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had done on the scaffold until she was

And now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there was a weary note in them that was

"I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure captivity any longer."

The spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it would take it in any form, even that.

Several among the company of judges went from the place troubled and sorrowful, the others in another

mood. In the court of the castle we found the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for news.

As soon as Cauchon saw them he shoutedlaughingthink of a man destroying a friendless poor girl and

THE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel and me now; but the hopes of

the young are quick to rise again, and it was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices,

and said the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at "the last moment""that other time

was not the last moment, but this is; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with

them our veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear,

in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the warcries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see

But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night, when Manchon came in, he said:

"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor child."

A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have discovered mediscovered that my

indifference concerning the prisoner was a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so

exalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my face and manner.

"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the young man who helps me, and that he

had a good face; and did I think he would do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what

And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but she said no, that my labors were heavy,

and she thought the young man would not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for herself,

she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you, and at that the sadness vanished out of her

face. Why, it was as if she was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not permitted. I did my

best, but the orders remain as strict as ever, the doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but

officials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed, and was sad again. Now this is what

she begs you to write to her mother. It is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said her

mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her family and her village friends, and say

there will be no rescue, for that this nightand it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is finalshe has

"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents would understand. And for a little time she

was lost in dreams and thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these lines, which she

said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring peace and contentment to her. I set them down,

thinking they might have some connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they were a mere

memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no meaning, at least no relevancy."

And when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!

There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was a message to Noel and me, as well

as to her family, and that its object was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth

of the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her soldiers, would know it for a command to

bear it as became us and her, and so submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement of our

grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others, not of herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she

could find time to think of us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain, lighten the burden of

our troublesshe that was drinking of the bitter waters; she that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of

I wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling you. I wrote it with the same wooden

stylus which had put upon parchment the first words ever dictated by Joan of Arcthat high summons to the

English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of seventeen; it had now set down the last ones

which she was ever to dictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could not serve any

The next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and fortytwo responded. It is charitable to believe

that the other twenty were ashamed to come. The fortytwo pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and

Then he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to the place known as the Old Market;

and that she be then delivered to the civil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she

All the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was flying, and the people of the countryside

flocking to Rouen to see the tragedyall, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and count upon

admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets, the excitement grew higher and higher. And now

a thing was noticeable again which had been noticeable more than once beforethat there was pity for Joan

in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had been in great danger it had manifested itself, and

now it was apparent againmanifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many faces.

Early the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friat were sent to Joan to prepare her for

death; and Manchon and I went with thema hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors,

winding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that vast heart of stone, and at last we

stood before Joan. But she did not know it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking,

and her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of. Of her home, and the peaceful

pastures, and the friends she was no more to see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties

which had been put upon her? Or was it of deaththe death which she had longed for, and which was now

Or was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she feared only one kind, and that one had for

her unspeakable terrors. I believed she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut the thought

of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that God would take pity on her and grant her an easier

one; and so it might chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a surprise to her at

We stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep in her sad musings and far away. Then

A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In the stillness we could hear our

There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed through it, and we stood motionless and

"oh, I knew it, I knew it!" She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her hands in her hair, and began to writhe

and sob, oh, so piteously, and mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of us, and

search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and friendliness there, poor thingshe that had

"Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been defiled, be consumed today and

turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that my head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I

had the promise of the Church's prison when I submitted, and if I had but been there, and not left here in the

Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has been done me."

There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the tears running down their faces. In a

moment I was on my knees at her feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in my

hear: "Up!do not peril yourself, good heart. ThereGod bless you always!" and I felt the quick clasp of

her hand. Mine was the last hand she touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it or tell

of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment she saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood

"Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise, but have returned to your sins."

"Alas," she said, "if you had put me in the Church's prison, and given me right and proper keepers, as you

promised, this would not have happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!"

Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and he turned him about and went away.

Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped her eyes, and now and then sobs

shook her body; but their violence was modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer.

Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the Bishop, and she said to him:

Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the sacrament. But how grant the

communion to one who had been publicly cut off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its

privileges than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent to Cauchon to inquire what he

must do. All laws, human and divine, were alike to that manhe respected none of them. He sent back

orders to grant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his fears, perhaps; it could not

The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it with such unutterable longing all

these desolate months. It was a solemn moment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public

courts of the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of men and women, who had learned

what was going on in Joan's cell, and had come with softened hearts to dothey knew not what; to

hearthey knew not what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And there were other

great crowds of the like caste gathered in masses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other

accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison, all those multitudes kneeled down

and began to pray for her, and many wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's

cell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our earsit was those invisible multitudes

The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come again no more, except for one fleeting

instantthen it would pass, and serenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.

AT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in the grace of her innocence and her

youth to lay down her life for the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had abandoned

her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one respect she was treated worse than a felon; for

whereas she was on her way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment inscribed in

HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with her sat the friar Martin Ladvenu and

Ma�tre Jean Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and sweet and saintly in her long white robe, and when a

gush of sunlight flooded her as she emerged from the gloom of the prison and was yet for a moment still

framed in the arch of the somber gate, the massed multitudes of poor folk murmured "A vision a vision" and

sank to their knees praying, and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation for the dying arose

again, and was taken up and borne along, a majestic wave of sound, which accompanied the doomed,

solacing and blessing her, all the sorrowful way to the place of death. "Christ have pity! Saint Margaret have

pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for

her! From thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech Thee,

It is just and true what one of the histories has said: "The poor and the helpless had nothing but their prayers

to give Joan of Arc; but these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more pathetic events

recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd, holding their lighted candles and kneeling on

And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their knees and stretching far down the

distances, thicksown with the faint yellow candleflames, like a field starred with golden flowers.

But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers. They stood elbow to elbow, on each

side of Joan's road, and walled it in all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes.

By and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and lamenting, and tore through the crowd and the

barriers of soldiers and flung himself on his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying

And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing but forgiveness, nothing but

compassion, nothing but pity for all that suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of

reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits and treacheries and hypocrisies to

The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his life. What became of him is not

known. He hid himself from the world somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.

In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake that had stood before in the churchyard

of St. Ouen. The platforms were occupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges, the other by great

dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the English CardinalWinchester. The square was packed with

people, the windows and roofs of the blocks of buildings surrounding it were black with them.

When the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement gradually ceased, and a waiting stillness

And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi preached a sermon, wherein he

explained that when a branch of the vinewhich is the Churchbecomes diseased and corrupt, it must be

cut away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He made it appear that Joan, through her wicknedness,

was a menace and a peril to the Church's purity and holiness, and her death therefore necessary. When he was

come to the end of his discourse he turned toward her and paused a moment, then he said:

Joan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the Church's abandonment of her, and she sat

there in her loneliness, waiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed her now. He had

been advised to read the form of her abjuration to her, and had brought it with him; but he changed his mind,

fearing that she would proclaim the truththat she had never knowingly abjuredand so bring shame upon

him and eternal infamy. He contented himself with admonishing her to keep in mind her wickednesses, and

repent of them, and think of her salvation. Then he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off

from the body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to the secular arm for judgment and

Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, nofor the King of France. Her voice rose

sweet and clear, and penetrated all hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries to

her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered that it was because he was an ingrate

that she was here to die a miserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was his loyal

and loving subject, and that his enemies had undermined his cause with evil reports and false charges, and he

not by to defend himself. And so, in the very presence of death, she forgot her own troubles to implore all in

her hearing to be just to him; to believe that he was good and noble and sincere, and not in any way to blame

for any acts of hers, neither advising them nor urging them, but being wholly clear and free of all

responsibility for them. Then, closing, she begged in humble and touching words that all here present would

pray for her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might look friendly upon her and feel pity

There was hardly one heart there that was not touchedeven the English, even the judges showed it, and

there was many a lip that trembled and many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even the English

The secular judge who should have delivered judgment and pronounced sentence was himself so disturbed

that he forgot his duty, and Joan went to her death unsentencedthus completing with an illegality what had

Joan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an English soldier broke a stick in two and crossed

the pieces and tied them together, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good heart that was in him;

and she kissed it and put it in her bosom. Then Isambard de la Pierre went to the church near by and brought

her a consecrated one; and this one also she kissed, and pressed it to her bosom with rapture, and then kissed

it again and again, covering it with tears and pouring out her gratitude to God and the saints.

And so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the cruel steps to the face of the stake, with

the friar Isambard at her side. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that was built around the

lower third of the stake and stood upon it with her back against the stake, and the world gazing up at her

breathless. The executioner ascended to her side and wound chains around her slender body, and so fastened

her to the stake. Then he descended to finish his dreadful office; and there she remained aloneshe that had

had so many friends in the days when she was free, and had been so loved and so dear.

All these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I could bear no more. I continued in my place,

but what I shall deliver to you now I got by others' eyes and others' mouths. Tragic sounds there were that

the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour was Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely

youth still unmarred; and that image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my days. Now I

If any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors repent and confess, she would revoke her

revocation and say her great deeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they erred. No

such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking of herself and her troubles, but of others, and

of woes that might befall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the towers and spires

"Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen, Rouen, I have great fear that you

A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror seized her and she cried out,

"Water! Give me holy water!" but the next moment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture

She heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for a fellowcreature who was in danger

took possession of her. It was the friar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it

toward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it till she was entered into the peace of

God. She made him go out from the danger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said:

Not even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her die in peace, but went toward her, all

"I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the pardon of God."

"I die through you," she said, and these were the last words she spoke to any upon earth.

Then the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled up in a thick volume and hid her from

sight; and from the heart of this darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by moments

the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled glimpses of an upturned face and moving

lips. At last a mercifully swift tide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that form, and

Yes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to tell of a rich world made empty

JOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen. This was sccording to the

prophecy which Joan made that day in the pastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to the great

When her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his heart, and he died.

The mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this she lived out her days, which were

many. Twentyfour years after her illustrious child's death she traveled all the way to Paris in the

wintertime and was present at the opening of the discussion in the Cathedral of Notre Dame which was the

first step in the Rehabilitation. Paris was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get sight

of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she moved through these reverent weteyed

multitudes on her way to the grand honors awaiting her at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no

longer the lighthearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs, but wartorn veterans with hair

After the martyrdom Noel and I went back to Domremy, but presently when the Constable Richemont

superseded La Tremouille as the King's chief adviser and began the completion of Joan's great work, we put

on our harness and returned to the field and fought for the King all through the wars and skirmishes until

France was freed of the English. It was what Joan would have desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was

law for us. All the survivors of the personal staff were faithful to her memory and fought for the King to the

end. Mainly we were well scattered, but when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a great day and a

joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because Joan was not there to march into the captured capital

Noel and I remained always together, and I was by his side when death claimed him. It was in the last great

battle of the war. In that battle fell also Joan's sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eightyfive years old, and

had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he was, with his flowing white mane and his tameless spirit;

yes, and his indestructible energy as well; for he fought as knighly and vigorous a fight that day as the best

La Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always fighting, of course, for that was all he enjoyed in

life. I did not see him in all that time, for we were far apart, but one was always hearing of him.

The Bastard of Orleans and D'Alenon and D'Aulon lived to see France free, and to testify with Jean and

Pierre d'Arc and Pasquerel and me at the Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these many years. I

She said I would live until those wars were forgottena prophecy which failed. If I should live a thousand

years it would still fail. For whatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal.

Members of Joan's family married, and they have left descendants. Their descendants are of the nobility, but

their family name and blood bring them honors which no other nobles receive or may hope for. You have

seen how everybody along the way uncovered when those children came yesterday to pay their duty to me. It

was not because they are noble, it is because they are grandchildren of the brothers of Joan of Arc.

Now as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims. For reward he allowed her to be hunted to

her death without making one effort to save her. During the next twentythree years he remained indifferent

to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name was under a damning blot put there by the priest

because of the deeds which she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the fact that France was

ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer's fair fame restored. Indifferent all that time. Then he suddenly

changed and was anxious to have justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become grateful at last? Had

remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a better reasona better one for his sort of man. This better

reason was that, now that the English had been finally expelled from the country, they were beginning to call

attention to the fact that this King had gotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the priests to have

been in league with Satan and burned for it by them as a sorceresstherefore, of what value or authority was

such a Kingship as that? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to allow such a king to remain on the

It was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how Charles VII. came to be smitten with anxiety to

He appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great commission of churchmen to examine into the facts

of Joan's life and award judgment. The Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at Rouen, at Orleans, and at

several other places, and continued its work during several months. It examined the records of Joan's trials, it

examined the Bastard of Orleans, and the Duke d'Alenon, and D'Aulon, and Pasquerel, and Courcelles, and

Isambard de la Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many others whose names I have made familiar to you;

also they examined more than a hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to youthe friends of Joan

in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other places, and a number of judges and other people who had

assisted at the Rouen trials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of this exhaustive examination Joan's

character and history came spotless and perfect, and this verdict was placed upon record, to remain forever.

I was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many faces which I have not seen for a quarter of

a century; among them some wellbeloved facesthose of our generals and that of Catherine Boucher

(married, alas!), and also among them certain other faces that filled me with bitternessthose of Beaupere

and Courcelles and a number of their fellowfiends. I saw Haumette and Little Mengetteedging along

toward fifty now, and mothers of many children. I saw Noel's father, and the parents of the Paladin and the

It was beautiful to hear the Duke d'Alenon praise Joan's splendid capacities as a general, and to hear the

Bastard indorse these praises with his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet and good Joan was,

and how full of pluck and fire and impetuosity, and mischief, and mirthfulness, and tenderness, and

compassion, and everything that was pure and fine and noble and lovely. He made her live again before me,

I have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that sublime personality, that spirit which in

one regard has had no peer and will have nonethis: its purity from all alloy of selfseeking, selfinterest,

personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can be found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of

With Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentimentit was a passion. She was the Genius of

Patriotismshe was Patriotism embodied, concreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the

Love, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Musicthese may be symbolized as any shall prefer:

by figures of either sex and of any age; but a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr's crown

upon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country's bondsshall not this, and no other, stand