Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Mark Twain [ebook reader online .txt] 📗

they act, thinking as they think, saying as they say; wherefore they are cold to us, and turn aside and go another way when we appear. But we have spoken with the commissioners from Orleans. They said with heat:

“ ‘It is a marvel that any man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in this torpid way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to stay the disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is, shut up in this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his royal shelter this huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for upholstery and crippled furniture for use, a very house of desolation; in his treasure forty francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness! no army, nor any shadow of one; and by contrast with his hungry poverty you behold this crownless pauper and his shoals of fools and favorites tricked out in the gaudiest silks and velvets you shall find in any Court in Christendom. And look you, he knows that when our city falls⁠—as fall it surely will except succor come swiftly⁠—France falls; he knows that when that day comes he will be an outlaw and a fugitive, and that behind him the English flag will float unchallenged over every acre of his great heritage; he knows these things, he knows that our faithful city is fighting all solitary and alone against disease, starvation, and the sword to stay this awful calamity, yet he will not strike one blow to save her, he will not hear our prayers, he will not even look upon our faces.’

“That is what the commissioners said, and they are in despair.”

Joan said, gently:

“It is pity, but they must not despair. The Dauphin will hear them presently. Tell them so.”

She almost always called the King the Dauphin. To her mind he was not King yet, not being crowned.

“We will tell them so, and it will content them, for they believe you come from God. The Archbishop and his confederate have for backer that veteran soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Grand Master of the Palace, a worthy man, but simply a soldier, with no head for any greater matter. He cannot make out to see how a country-girl, ignorant of war, can take a sword in her small hand and win victories where the trained generals of France have looked for defeats only, for fifty years⁠—and always found them. And so he lifts his frosty mustache and scoffs.”

“When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His sword is big or little. He will perceive this in time. Is there none in that Castle of Chinon who favors us?”

“Yes, the King’s mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, who is wise and good. She spoke with the Sieur Bertrand.”

“She favors us, and she hates those others, the King’s beguilers,” said Bertrand. “She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all of which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over these replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no more. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she were talking to herself: ‘A child of seventeen⁠—a girl⁠—country-bred⁠—untaught⁠—ignorant of war, the use of arms, and the conduct of battles⁠—modest, gentle, shrinking⁠—yet throws away her shepherd’s crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way through a hundred and fifty leagues of fear, and comes⁠—she to whom a king must be a dread and awful presence⁠—and will stand up before such an one and say, Be not afraid, God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence could come a courage and conviction so sublime as this but from very God Himself!’ She was silent again awhile, thinking and making up her mind; then she said, ‘And whether she comes of God or no, there is that in her heart that raises her above men⁠—high above all men that breathe in France today⁠—for in her is that mysterious something that puts heart into soldiers, and turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that forget what fear is when they are in that presence⁠—fighters who go into battle with joy in their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over the field like a storm⁠—that is the spirit that can save France, and that alone, come it whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what else could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her despise its dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face⁠—and shall!’ She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise will be kept. They will delay her all they can⁠—those animals⁠—but she will not fail in the end.”

“Would she were King!” said the other knight, fervently. “For there is little hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He is wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything and flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a spell upon him that makes him hopeless⁠—yes, and that it is shut up in a mystery which they cannot fathom.”

“I know the mystery,” said Joan, with quiet confidence; “I know it, and he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a secret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head again.”

I was miserable with curiosity to know what it was that she would tell him, but she did not say, and I did not expect she would. She was but a child, it is true; but she was not a chatterer to tell great matters and make herself important to little people; no, she was reserved, and kept things to herself, as the truly great always do.

The next day Queen Yolande got