Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/386

 MARK TWAIN

At last in a sortie against the enemy, from Com- piegne, on the 24th of May (when she was turned eighteen), she was herself captured, after a gallant fight. It was her last battle. She was to follow the drums no more.

Thus ended the briefest epoch-making military career known to history. It lasted only a year and a month, but it found France an English province, and furnishes the reason that France is France to-day and not an English province still. Thirteen months ! It was, indeed, a short career; but in the centuries that have since elapsed five hundred millions of Frenchmen have lived and died blest by the benefac tions it conferred ; and so long as France shall endure, the mighty debt must grow. And France is grateful ; we often hear her say it. Also thrifty: she collects the Domremy taxes.

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