Jeanne d'Albret

“ The only thing that ever made Jeanne really sorry for her naughty tricks was when Madame de Silly talked to her about her mother, whom the child loved deeply, though she saw her so seldom. To grow up like her was Jeanne's great wish, even when she was quite a baby; and as her mother loved the king, her uncle, so much, why, of course, she must love him too. Every now and then Francis I. sent for her to the palace of St. Germain, to play with her cousins, Princess Madeleine, who was afterwards to be queen of Scotland, and Marguérite, the future duchess of Savoy. ”

“ She was waited upon most of the time by an exceedingly diminutive maid servant, very shy at first, but very talkative afterwards, in broad Norfolk dialect, when she had grown a little accustomed to this very unusual lodger. Now and then Kate Caynsard, the only daughter of the house, appeared, but for the most time she was away, sailing a fishing boat or looking after the little farm. To Jeanne she represented a type wholly strange, but altogether interesting. She was little over twenty years of age, but she was strong and finely built. ”

“ On her first arrival in Paris, she felt at once that she had a great deal to learn, a great deal more to forget. She was humble and unobtrusive; the timidity of the young bride from the provinces who felt herself strange in an unknown country excused her silence, while the vivacious intelligence in her eyes precluded the possibility of belief in her dulness. She studied and prepared herself that her husband should never have cause to blush for an awkwardness on her part, nor for an ignorance innocently displayed. Jeanne had feminine tact in a high degree, and an almost morbid fear of ridicule. ”

“ By the king's orders the marriage festivities were to be on the grandest possible scale, and Marguérite had given special care to Jeanne's dress. The jewels on her long robe of cloth of gold dazzled the eyes of the spectators, and her velvet mantle was broidered with ermine. No wonder that on a hot July day the weight of these clothes felt enormous, and Jeanne had some show of reason on her side when she told her uncle, who came forward to lead her to the altar, that she really could not move from her chair. ”

“ Every one must know the truth at once."
"And how, may I ask, do you propose to live?" the Princess asked quietly.
"If there is nothing left at all of my money," Jeanne said, "I will work. If it is the worst which comes, I will go back to the convent and teach the children."
The Princess laughed softly.
"Jeanne," she said, "you are talking like a positive idiot. It is because you have had no time to think this thing out. Remember that after all you are not sailing under any false colours. You are your father's daughter, and you are also his heiress. ”

“ What do you do on the marshes there all the time? Do you talk with this Mr. Andrew?"
"I went with him in his boat this morning," Jeanne answered composedly. "It was very pleasant. We had a delightful sail."
The Princess shrugged her shoulders.
"Well," she said, "one must amuse oneself, and I suppose it is only reasonable that we should all choose different ways. I think I need not tell even such a child as you that men are the same all the world over, and that even a fisherman, if he is encouraged, may be guilty sometimes of an impertinence."
Jeanne raised her eyebrows. ”

“ She shrugged her shoulders.
"I am not afraid," she said. "I know De Brensault and his sort. If he feels that he has been duped, he will keep it to himself. He is too vain a man to allow the world to know it. Poor Jeanne! I am afraid, I am very much afraid that he will take it out of her."
"I do not quite see," Forrest said reflectively, "how you are going to make Jeanne marry any one, especially in this country."
"Jeanne is French, not English," the Princess remarked, "and she is not of age. A mother has considerable authority legally, as I dare say you are aware. ”

“ But that he should have been flouted in the presence of a whole roomful of people, that he should have been deliberately left for another man, was a different matter altogether. His first impulse when Jeanne left him, was to walk out of the house and have nothing more to say to the Princess or Jeanne herself. The world was full of girls perfectly willing to tumble into his arms, and mothers only too anxious to push them there. Why should he put himself in this position for Jeanne, great heiress though she might be? ”

“ For Paris is well dressed, both inside and out. French cooking is an art, as is everything that these art-loving people attempt.
[Pg 141] At the end of their happy day the little girls drove to the park. They sat upon a bench beneath shady trees and they watched a Guignol play.
They had chatted and laughed and now were the very best of friends. Margot was a happy little girl that day. She had learned from Jeanne how to play.
"Sit still, Pierrot," scolded Jeanne softly so that only Margot might hear.
"Pierrot, you shall never come again if you do not behave!" continued Jeanne. ”

“ In Jeanne, Madame Sand had first ventured to make a peasant-girl the central figure of her novel, though still so far deferring to the received notions of what was essential in order to interest the "gentle" reader as to surround her simple heroine with personages of rank and education. Jeanne herself, moreover, is an exceptional and a highly idealized type—as it were a sister to Joan of Arc, not the inspired warrior-maid, but the visionary shepherdess of the Vosges. Yet the creation is sufficiently real. ”

“ Her name is Jeanne d'Arc. She dwells in the village of Domremy over yonder. Her father is an honest prud'homme of the place. She has brothers and a sister. She is known in the village as a pious and gentle maid, ever ready to tend the sick, hold vigil for the dead, take charge of an ailing child, or do any such simple service for the neighbours. She is beloved of all, full of piety and good works, constant in attendance at church, regular in her confession and at mass. So much have I heard from her kinsman Laxart, though for mine own part I have not seen her again. ”

“ They pull very hard, and they always try to run away."
The Princess sighed. The man, after all, was really a little hopeless. She saw clearly that it was useless to try and impress Jeanne. The affair must take its course. Afterwards in the drawing-room the Count came and sat by Jeanne's side.
"Always," he declared, "in England it is bridge. One dines with one's friends, and one would like to talk for a little time, and it is bridge. It must be very dull for you little girls who are not old enough to play. There is no one left to talk to you." ”

“ She speaks at length and with a self-disclosure which seems to have little that was painful in it, like one matured into a kind of age by long weariness and trouble, who regards the panorama of her life passing before her with almost a pensive pleasure. And it is clear that Jeanne's ear, still so young and keen, notwithstanding that attitude of mind, was still intent upon sounds from without, and that Jeanne's heart still expected a sudden assault, a great victory for France, which should open her prison doors—or even a rising in the very judgment hall to deliver her. ”

“ My love, darling.—Roger." Belcourt glanced at the telegram and saw that it was unintelligible, but a kind of alphabet on the table showed him that it had been written by signs agreed upon.
He stood as though thunderstruck. Suddenly Jeanne put on a hat and threw a long brown cloak over her stage dress.
"What are you going to do?" he exclaimed.
"I am going to Roger!"
"But, in Heaven's name, Jeanne, stay a little while. The curtain will be going up. Think what you are doing. You will be ruined—you will spoil your whole life. Wait till to-morrow!"
"Listen," said Jeanne, in a clear, decided tone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Forrest said to the Princess. "You will do no good at all by speaking to him just now. Ena, it is absolutely necessary that you make Jeanne understand the state of affairs."
"I think," the Princess said thoughtfully, "that it will be best to take her away from London. Lately I have noticed a development in Jeanne which I do not altogether understand. She has begun to think for herself most unpleasantly. She plays at being a child with De Brensault, but that is simply because it is the easiest way to repulse him." ”

“ And he believed firmly that Jeanne was the maiden of whom Marie d’Avignon thus spoke.
All the soldiers held her as sacred. So well did she bear herself in warfare, in words and in deeds, as a follower of God, that no evil could be said of her. I heard Maître Pierre de Versailles say that he was once in the town of Loches in company with Jeanne, when the people, throwing themselves before the feet of her horse, kissed her hands and feet; and he said to Jeanne that she did wrong to allow what was not due to her, and that she ought to protect herself from it lest men should become idolatrous ”

“ Jeanne answered calmly. "I should at least be sure that I was not any longer an article of merchandise. I could lead my own life, and marry whom I pleased."
The Princess laughed scornfully.
"Men do not take to themselves penniless brides nowadays," she remarked.
"Some men—" Jeanne began.
The Princess interrupted her.
"Bah!" she said. "You are thinking of your island fisherman again. I see by the papers that he has gone away. He is very wise. He may be a very excellent person, but the whole world could not hold a less suitable husband for you." ”

“ Soft-voiced and deft, Jeanne moved incessantly to and fro on those small, neatly-shod feet, which she sometimes compared not uncomplacently with those of her mistress, until, at last, at the latter end of all conceivable fancies there came one for repose,—the rosy curtains were drawn, and Jeanne was free.
Half an hour later a deftly-cloaked figure stood before a table at which a dark-faced man wrote busily—a paper was handed over, a password asked and given.
"Is it enough now?" asked Jeanne the waiting-maid. And the dark-faced man answered, without looking up, "It is enough—the cup is full." ”

“ To all appearance life in the house of Jacques D’Arc went as peacefully, as serenely, as that of his neighbors, and in no wise differently. There was not one who suspected that Jeanne visited with saints and angels; that she walked with ever listening ear for the Voices to tell her what her divine mission was to be. No one suspected it, for even her youthful friendships continued, and she visited and was visited in turn by Mengette 86 and Hauviette; often passing the night with one or the other of them as has been the fashion of girls since the beginning of time. ”

“ Jeanne had been the prominent, the only important figure in the history of France for some months past. Now that shining figure was jostled aside, and the ordinary laws of life, with all the counter changes of negotiation, the ineffectual comings and goings, the meaner half-seen persons, the fierce contending personal interests—in which there was no love of either God or man, or any elevated notion of patriotism—came again into play.
Jeanne would seem to have already foreseen and felt this change even before she left Rheims; there is a new tone of sadness in some of her recorded words ”

“ When Margot left Jeanne at the door of Auntie Sue's Shop, she wanted to know when they should be together again. She asked when they should play more of Jeanne's stories with Pierrot.
[Pg 147] Jeanne did not tell Margot that she would not be able to play again for many days. Work would interfere. Work was always there to stop play. ”

“ Jeanne remarked, "is that I do not like the Count de Brensault. I think that he is a noisy, forward, and offensive young man."
"His income is nearly fifty thousand a year," the Princess remarked, "so he must be forgiven a few eccentricities of manner."
"His income," Jeanne said, "scarcely matters, does it? If my money is ever to do anything for me, it should at least enable me to choose a husband for myself."
"That's where you girls always make such absurd mistakes," the Princess remarked. "You get an idea or a liking into your mind, and you hold on to it like wax. ”

“ Jeanne said, "that people don't know that I am not a great heiress?"
"Certainly not," the Princess replied, "or we should scarcely be here."
"The Count de Brensault?" Jeanne asked.
"He does not know, of course," the Princess answered. "He is a rich man. He can afford quite well to marry a girl without a DOT."
Jeanne's head fell slowly between her hands. The suddenness of this blow had staggered her. It was not the loss of her fortune so much which affected her as the other contingencies with which she was surrounded. ”

“ The Guignol plays are over for the day. The men who make them are packing to go.
Now everyone is gone but Jeanne. Jeanne and the Pierrot are alone. The little girl goes up to the puppet.
"They have forgotten you, Pierrot," she says softly, "but maybe they do not care."
Then Jeanne sits down on a bench with Pierrot in her arms.
"But come, come. You must not mind, Pierrot, if they do not love you. You must not mind if they throw you aside and clap for Guignol. See! I love you very much. And even if you do wear shabby clothes and your paint is dull, that does not matter." ”