Mrs. Oliphant

“ To call it a fairy tale is, however, disrespectful: it is an angelic revelation, a vision made into flesh and blood, the dream of a woman's fancy, more ethereal, more impossible than that of any man—even a poet:—for the man, even in his most uncontrolled imaginations, carries with him a certain practical limitation of what can be—whereas the woman at her highest is absolute, and disregards all bounds of possibility. The Maid of Orleans, the Virgin of France, is the sole being of her kind who has ever attained full expression in this world. ”

“ And Jeanne herself, the one strange figure that nobody understood; was she a witch? Was she an angelic messenger? Her answers so simple, so bold, so full of the spirit and sentiment of truth, must have been reported from one to another. This is what she said; does that look like a deceiver? could the devils inspire that steadfastness, that constancy and quiet? or was it not rather the angels, the saints as she said? Never, we may be sure, had there been in Rouen a time of so much interest, such a theme for conversations, such a subject for all thoughts. ”

“ Nothing can be more untrue. The English were not better than the French, but they had the excuse at least of being the enemy. France saved by a happy chance her blanches mains from the actual blood of the pure and spotless Maid; but with exultation she prepared the victim for the stake, sent her thither, played with her like a cat with a mouse and condemned her to the fire. This is not to free us from our share: but it is the height of hypocrisy to lay the blood of Jeanne, entirely to our door. ”

“ It is such a secret as a child, in that wavering between the real and unreal, the world not realised of childhood, would keep, in mingled shyness and awe, uncertain, rapt in the atmosphere of vision, within her own heart.
It is curious how often this wonderful scene has been repeated in France, never connected with so high a mission, but yet embracing the same circumstances, the same situation, the same semi-angelic nature of the woman-child. The little Bernadette of Lourdes is almost of our own day; she, too is one who puts the scorner to silence. ”

“ The folds of white and gold with the benign countenance of the Saviour, now visible, now lost in the changes of movement, floated over their heads on the breeze of the May day. "Jeanne," said the squire, "it touches!" "On!" cried the Maid, her voice ringing through the momentary quiet. "On! All is yours!" The troops rose as one man; they flung themselves against the wall, at the foot of which that white figure stood, the staff of her banner in her hand, shouting, "All is yours." Never had the French élan been so wildly inspired, so irresistible ”

“ For another fortnight Jeanne was sent back into the silence, and to her own thoughts, which must have grown heavier and heavier as the weary days went on, and no sound of approaching deliverance came, no rumour of help at hand. All was quiet and safe at Rouen; amid the babble of the courtyard which she might hear fitfully when her guardians were quieter than usual, there was not one word which brought the hope of a French army at hand, or of any movement to rescue her. All was silent in the world around, not a breath of hope, not the whisper of a friend. ”

“ The trial of Jeanne is indeed almost more miraculous than her fighting; a girl not yet nineteen, forsaken of all, without a friend! It is less wonderful that she should have developed the qualities of a general, of a gunner, every gift of war—than that in her humiliation and distress she should thus hold head against all the most subtle intellects in France, and bear, with but one moment of faltering, a continued cross-examination of three months, without losing her patience, her heart, or her courage. ”

“ She began to weep and to cry at the sudden stroke of fate. Notwithstanding the solemnity of her last declaration, that she would rather bear her punishment all at once than to endure the long punishment of her prison, her heart failed before the imminent stake, the immediate martyrdom. She cried out to heaven and earth: "My body, which has never been corrupted, must it be burned to ashes to-day!" No one but Jeanne knew at what cost she had kept her perfect purity; was it good for nothing but to be burned, that young body not nineteen years old? ”

“ It is more fatal still, on this principle, to judge an individual for death or for life. It will be abundantly proved, however, by all that is to follow, that in face of this tribunal, learned, able, powerful, and prejudiced, the peasant girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved by all their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom or never losing her head, or her temper, her modest steadfastness, or her high spirit. If they hoped to have an easy bargain of her, never were men more mistaken. ”

“ One of her assailants—a Burgundian knight, a Picard archer, the accounts differ—caught her by her mantle and dragged her from her horse; no Englishman let us be thankful, though no doubt all were equally eager and ready. Into the midst of that shouting mass of men, in the blinding cloud of dust, in the darkening of the night, the Maid of France disappeared for one terrible moment, and was lost to view. And then, and not till then, came a clamour of bells into the night, and all the steeples of Compiègne trembled with the call to arms, a sally to save the deliverer. ”

“ Could any one stand and answer like that hour after hour and day by day, inspired only by the devil? There was no popular enthusiasm for her even now. How should there have been in that partisan province, more English than French? But a chill doubt began to steal into many minds whether she was so bad as had been thought, whether indeed she might not after all be something quite different from what she had been thought? Nature had begun to work in the agitated place, and even in that black-robed, eager assembly. ”

“ But the Maid, flushed with victory, with the shouts of Orleans still ringing in her ears, the applause of her fellow-soldiers, the sound of the triumphant bells, was plunged all at once into the indolence, the intrigues, the busy nothingness of the Court, in which whispering favourites surrounded a foolish young prince, beguiling him into foolish amusements, alarming him with coward fears. Wise men and buffoons alike dragged him down into that paltry abyss, the one always counselling caution, the other inventing amusements. "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die." ”

“ Michael, but afterwards when he had instructed her and shown her many things, she believed firmly that it was he."
It was this warrior-angel who opened the matter to her, and disclosed her mission. "Jeanne," he said, "you must go to the help of the King of France; and it is you who shall give him back his kingdom." Like a still greater Maid, trembling, casting in her mind what this might mean, she replied, confused, as if that simple detail were all: "Messire, I am only a poor girl; I cannot ride or lead armed men." ”

“ It is difficult, indeed, to imagine any concatenation of affairs which could reduce a country now to the condition in which France was in the beginning of the fifteenth century. A strong and splendid kingdom, to which in early ages one great man had given the force and supremacy of a united nation, had fallen into a disintegration which seems almost incredible when regarded in the light of that warm flame of nationality which now illumines, almost above all others, the French nation. But Frenchmen were not Frenchmen, they were Burgundians, Armagnacs, Bretons, Provençaux five hundred years ago. ”

“ I would rather die than fall into the hands of the English," cried Jeanne in her petulance. The King of England is spoken of always, it is curious to note, as if he had been a great, severe ruler like his father, never as the child he really was. But Jeanne in her helplessness and impotence was impatient even with her saints. Day by day the news came in from Compiègne, all that was favourable to the Burgundians received with joy and thanksgiving by the ladies of Luxembourg, while the captive consumed her heart with vain indignation. ”

“ History itself, awe-stricken, would almost have us believe that alone with her own hand the Maid took the city, so entirely does every figure disappear but that one, and the perplexed and terrified spectator vainly urging her to give up so desperate an attempt. But no doubt the shouts of a voice so strange to every such scene, the vox infantile, the amazing and clear voice, silvery and womanly, assez femme, and the efforts of d'Aulon to bring back the retreating troops were successful, and Jeanne once more, triumphantly kept her word. ”

“ The Bishop of Beauvais had entertained no doubt as to what would happen. He knew exactly, with a perspicuity creditable to his perceptions at least, that, notwithstanding the effect which his theatrical mise en scène had produced upon the imagination of Jeanne, no power in heaven or earth would induce that young soul to content itself with a lie. He knew it, though lies were his daily bread; the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. He had bidden his English patrons to wait a little, and now his predictions were triumphantly fulfilled. ”

“ There is nothing in the landscape now to give even a moment's shelter to the progress of a marching army which must have been seen from afar, wherever it moved; or to veil the shining battlements, and piled up citadels rising here and there, concentrated points and centres of life. The great white Castle of Blois, the darker tower of Beaugency, still stand where they stood when Jeanne and her men drew near, as conspicuous in their elevation of walls and towers as if they had been planted on a mountain top. ”

“ To pack the little knapsack of a brother or a lover, and to convoy him weeping a little way on his road to the army, coming back to the silent church to pray there, with the soft natural tears which the uses of common life must soon dry—that is all that imagination could have demanded of Jeanne. She was even too young for any interposition of the lover, too undeveloped, the French historians tell us with their astonishing frankness, to the end of her short life, to have been moved by any such thought. ”

“ The entire campaign on the Loire was one of triumph for the French arms, and of disaster for the English. They—it is perhaps a point of national pride to admit it frankly—were as well beaten as heart of Frenchman could desire, beaten not only in the result, but in the conduct of the campaign, in heart and in courage, in skill and in genius. There is no reason in the world why it should not be admitted. But it was not the French generals, not even Dunois, who secured these victories. ”

“ How could they keep still outside, Dunois, Alençon, La Hire, the mighty men of valour, while they knew that she was being racked and tortured within? She who could not bear to be out of the conflict to serve her friends at Compiègne, even when succour from on high had been promised, how was it possible that these gallant knights could live and let her die, their gentle comrade, their dauntless leader? In those long hours, amid the noise of the guards within and the garrison around, how she must have thought, over and over again, where were they? ”

“ There must have been some, even among those rude companions, who would be sorry, who would feel that she was no witch, yet be helpless to do anything for her, any more than Massieu could, or Frère Isambard: and if it was all for the sake of certain words to be said, was the wench mad? would it not be better to say anything, to give up anything rather than be burned at the stake? Jeanne, notwithstanding the wonderful courage of her last speech, must have returned to her cell with small illusion possible to her intelligent spirit. ”

“ Some of the leaders wearied with inaction had pushed on to Normandy where four great fortresses—greatest of all the immense and mysterious stronghold on the high cliffs of the Seine, that imposing Château Gaillard which Richard Coeur-de-lion had built, the ruins of which, white and mystic, still dominate, like some Titanic ghost, above the course of the river—had yielded to them. So great was the danger of Normandy, the most securely English of all French provinces, that Bedford had again been drawn out of Paris to defend it. ”

“ Imagine a cross-examination going on for months, like those—only more cruel than those—to which we sometimes see an unfortunate witness exposed in our own courts of law. There is nothing more usual than to see people break down entirely after a day or two of such a tremendous ordeal, in which their hearts and lives are turned inside out, their minds so bewildered that they know not what they are saying, and everything they have done in their lives exhibited in the worst, often in an entirely fictitious, light, to the curiosity and amusement of the world. ”

“ How did she come out of that stolid peasant race, out of that distracted and ignoble age, out of riot and license and the fierce thirst for gain, and failure of every noble faculty? Who can tell? By the grace of God, by the inspiration of heaven, the only origins in which the student of nature, which is over nature, can put any trust. No evolution, no system of development, can explain Jeanne. ”

“ These are things to which a writer ignorant of war is quite unable to do justice. What was almost more wonderful still was the manner in which the Maid held her place among the captains, most of whom would have thwarted her if they could, with a consciousness of her own superior place, in which there is never the slightest token of presumption or self-esteem. She guarded and guided Alençon with a good-natured and affectionate disdain; and when there was risk of a great quarrel and a splitting of forces she held the balance like an old and experienced guide of men. ”

“ Half a hundred war cries rending the air, shrieks from the walls of "Witch, Devil, Ribaude," and names still more insulting to her purity, could not silence that treble shout, the most wonderful, surely, that ever ran through such an infernal clamour, so prodigious, the chronicler says, that it was a marvel to hear it. De par Dieu, Rendez vous, rendez vous, au roy de France. If as we believe she never struck a blow, the aspect of that wonderful figure becomes more extraordinary still. ”

“ Jeanne, always straightforward and simple, speaks to him, not with the downcast eyes of her humility, but as an equal, as if the great Dunois had been a prud' homme of her own degree. There is no appearance indeed that the Maid allowed herself to be overborne now by any shyness or undue humility. She speaks loudly, so as to be heard by those fighting men, taking something of their own brief and decisive tone, often even impatient, as one who would not be put aside either by cunning or force. ”

“ Jeanne of France is the very flower of this passion of the imagination. She is altogether impossible from beginning to end of her, inexplicable, alone, with neither rival nor even second in the one sole ineffable path: yet all true as one of the oaks in her wood, as one of the flowers in her garden, simple, actual, made of the flesh and blood which are common to us all. ”

“ Had the Maid become a great and honoured lady should not we all have said as Satan says in the Book of Job: Did Jeanne serve God for nought? We should say: See what she made by it. Honour and fame and love and happiness. She did nobly, but nobly has she been rewarded.
But that is not God's way. The highest saint is born to martyrdom. To serve God for nought is the greatest distinction which He reserves for His chosen. And this was the fate to which the Maid of France was consecrated from the moment she set out upon her mission. ”