Page:The Dial vol. 15 (July 1 - December 16, 1893).djvu/81

1893.] courage is as well established as anything can be. Lord Ronald loves to dwell on it. Wounded at the siege of Orleans, she pulled out the arrow with her own hands, and then (having piously made her confession) returned to the fray and inspired the wavering soldiers. At Jargeau,—

At Troyes, the king, considering attack of so strongly fortified a place hopeless, would have abandoned the expedition to Rheims (since he dared not leave such a hornets' nest in his rear); but Joan pushed on the preparations for attack with such ingenious and overwhelming energy that the citizens of Troyes surrendered without a blow. Thus Charles advanced to Rheims, and was crowned King of France. No wonder her biographer exclaims enthusiastically:

And he adds that the professional soldiers about her could only explain her victories by the belief "that in Joan of Arc was united not only the soul of patriotism and a faith to move mountains, but the qualities of a great captain as well."

All testimony agrees that Joan was more than a narrow zealot. She had nothing of the furious, almost venomous, partisanship that sometimes darkens her sex's devotion to a cause. Because she was a French patriot she was not therefore a hater of the English. Memoirs of her are full of her compassion for the foe. She ministered to the English wounded after the fight; "as far as she could, she prevented pillage"; even in the fury of battle she restrained her followers. Indeed, as Lord Ronald says, "she may be considered the precursor of all the noble hearts who in modern warfare follow armies in order to alleviate and help the sick and wounded." This were enough, had Joan no other claim on our reverence, to win it. The peasant from Domremy was the first of the Red Cross knights.

Even at this distant time, it is a painful task to follow the cruel ending of the story. The intrigues of jealous courtiers and of unsuccessful and envious captains on the French side helped the open enmity of the English. Their motives are clear enough: to discredit Charles's title, their only hope was to show that the Maid was a witch, thus putting the king in the odious position of being in collusion with the powers of evil. Joan was wounded, captured, sold to the English; and the ensuing drama was inevitable. She was tried as a sorceress. Lord Ronald quotes very fully from the notes of the proces-verbal, and it is interesting to see, even in this record of her enemies, how clearly the large sense and elevation of mind of this wonderful girl appear. When asked in what language her voices conversed,—"They speak to me in soft and beautiful French voices," said she. "Does not Saint Margaret speak in English?" was the instant inquiry. "How should she," was her answer, "when she is not on the English side?"

She disclaimed anything miraculous in the revival of an apparently dead infant because of her prayers; she said, as she had said at the time when the populace besought her to cure sickness by the touch of her rings, that she could not cure the sick. She refused steadily to betray anything that might harm the king, who had made no effort to save her. Once Beaupère asked her the usual mediæval test question, whether she was in a state of grace. She avoided the presumption of confidence and the danger of denial in much the same manner that an English martyr did later, answering: "If I am not, may God place me in it; if I am already, may He keep me in it." When asked what she thought of the murder of the Duke of Orleans, she answered out of a pure and merciful heart; and no statesman could have spoken more wisely, since she neither inculpates Charles nor approves the infamous act. She said: "It was a great misfortune for the kingdom of France."

But where the victim is condemned beforehand, what avails defence? There is no need to repeat the brutal and treacherous devices of Beauvais. He was paid his price and earned his wages. Baffled by Joan's constancy, her enemies did not scruple to resort to torture as a persuader of confession. They brought Joan to the rack; and there are few nobler answers than the words spoken by this lonely girl, deserted by all except her dauntless soul, sick and feeble, and exhausted by a most cruel