Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/233

Rh its priests. Obedience there must be, but not a blind obedience. In that case, a man knows not whether he obeys a God or an idol.

There is one feature of inner life in France, which I cannot avoid mentioning,—this is, the newly awakened enthusiasm for its female heroine and martyr, Joan of Arc. Michelet's excellent narrative of her history, after a most conscientiously careful examination of all sources of information, has brought forward, as it were, her figure, in its peculiar purity and beauty, as superior to the poet's Maid of Orleans, in Schiller's tragedy, as a noble reality is above even the noblest poem. This description seems to have turned anew the heart and mind, to this young, heroic saviour of France. Artists call forth again her form, both by pencil and chisel. I saw various of these representations, one of which had been lately executed for the church of Domremy; but not one of them comes near, in expression and truth, to the statue which the noble daughter of a king, herself an artist,—the young Princess Clementine, of Orleans,—executed of her, even before Michelet had perfected with the pen his masterly picture. Love and sympathy inspired the young royal sculptor in her work. This statue stands in the gallery of the Louvre. Its beauty and power consists in the expression of the head, and the clasped hands. It is simply Joan, the girl of Orleans, who sees nothing but her bleeding native land, listens to no other voices than those in her inner being, which command her to go and save it,—Joan, when she left her father's house; Joan, as she stood last on the pile at Rouen; when she,