Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1, Mark Twain [best novels of all time .txt] 📗

because I am not a gentleman. That is the whole reason. What can one private soldier do in a contest like this? Nothing. He is not permitted to rise from the ranks. If I were a gentleman would I remain here? Not one moment. I can save France—ah, you may laugh, but I know what is in me, I know what is hid under this peasant cap. I can save France, and I stand ready to do it, but not under these present conditions. If they want me, let them send for me; otherwise, let them take the consequences; I shall not budge but as an officer.”

“Alas, poor France—France is lost!” said Pierre d’Arc.

“Since you sniff so at others, why don’t you go to the wars yourself, Pierre d’Arc?”

“Oh, I haven’t been sent for, either. I am no more a gentleman than you. Yet I will go; I promise to go. I promise to go as a private under your orders—when you are sent for.”

They all laughed, and the Dragon-fly said:

“So soon? Then you need to begin to get ready; you might be called for in five years—who knows? Yes, in my opinion you’ll march for the wars in five years.”

“He will go sooner,” said Joan. She said it in a low voice and musingly, but several heard it.

“How do you know that, Joan?” said the Dragon-fly, with a surprised look. But Jean d’Arc broke in and said:

“I want to go myself, but as I am rather young yet, I also will wait, and march when the Paladin is sent for.”

“No,” said Joan, “he will go with Pierre.”

She said it as one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and none heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles were idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look in it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no sound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I set my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I being superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange and unusual sort.

Noel Rainguesson said:

“There is one way to let France have a chance for her salvation. We’ve got one gentleman in the commune, at any rate. Why can’t the Scholar change name and condition with the Paladin? Then he can be an officer. France will send for him then, and he will sweep these English and Burgundian armies into the sea like flies.”

I was the Scholar. That was my nickname, because I could read and write. There was a chorus of approval, and the Sunflower said:

“That is the very thing—it settles every difficulty. The Sieur de Conte will easily agree to that. Yes, he will march at the back of Captain Paladin and die early, covered with common-soldier glory.”

“He will march with Jean and Pierre, and live till these wars are forgotten,” Joan muttered; “and at the eleventh hour Noel and the Paladin will join these, but not of their own desire.” The voice was so low that I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but they seemed to be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things.

“Come, now,” Noel continued, “it’s all arranged; there’s nothing to do but organize under the Paladin’s banner and go forth and rescue France. You’ll all join?”

All said yes, except Jacques d’Arc, who said:

“I’ll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with you there, and I’ve always thought I should go soldiering about this time, but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody madman have taught me that I am not made for such work and such sights. I could never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and death? It isn’t in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I’m the eldest son, and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to carry Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take care of our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in peace and tranquillity.”

“He will stay at home, but not grow old,” murmured Joan.

The talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to youth, and we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight his battles and win his victories and extinguish the English and put our King upon his throne and set his crown upon his head. Then we asked him what he was going to answer when the King should require him to name his reward. The Paladin had it all arranged in his head, and brought it out promptly:

“He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make me Hereditary Lord High Constable of France.”

“And marry you to a princess—you’re not going to leave that out, are you?”

The Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely:

“He may keep his princesses—I can marry more to my taste.”

Meaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had, the Paladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There was no fit mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would have said that.

In turn, each person present was required to say what reward he would demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan’s turn, and they rallied her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had heard none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a serious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some moments, then she said:

“If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me, ‘Now that I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and have,’ I should kneel and ask him to give command that our village should nevermore be taxed.”

It was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did not laugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a day when we remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and were glad that we had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her words had been, and seeing how faithfully she made them good when the time came, asking just that boon of the King and refusing to take even any least thing for herself.