Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/399

 SAINT JOAN OF ARC

in her prison before her judges that within seven years the English would meet with a mightier dis aster than had been the fall of Orleans : it happened within five the fall of Paris. Other prophecies of hers came true, both as to the event named and the time-limit prescribed.

She was deeply religious, and believed that she had daily speech with angels; that she saw them face to face, and that they counseled her, comforted and heartened her, and brought commands to her direct from God. She had a childlike faith in the heavenly origin of her apparitions and her Voices, and not any threat of any form of death was able to frighten it out of her loyal heart. She was a beautiful and simple and lovable character. In the records of the Trials this comes out in clear and shining detail. She w r as gentle and winning and affectionate; she loved her home and friends and her village life; she was miserable in the presence of pain and suffering; she was full of compassion : on the field of her most vsplendid victory she forgot her triumphs to hold in her lap the head of a dying enemy and comfort his passing spirit with pitying words; in an age when it was common to slaughter prisoners she stood daunt less between hers and harm, and saved them alive; she was forgiving, generous, unselfish, magnanimous; she was pure from all spot or stain of baseness. And always she w r as a girl; and dear and worshipful, as is meet for that estate : when she fell wounded, the first time, she was frightened, and cried when she saw her blood gushing from her breast ; but she was Joan of Arc ! and when presently she found that her

�� �