Jena

“ You, then, my poor Roger, must be the one to listen. Do you know what Jena looks like to-night? It is the most dazzling place in the world, radiant with promise, shining and dancing with all sorts of little lovely lights that I know are only the lamps being lit in people's rooms down the street, but that look to me extraordinarily like stars of hope come out, in defiance of nature and fog, to give me a glorious welcome. You see, I'm new, and they know it. I'm not the Rose-Marie they've twinkled down on from the day I was born till to-night. ”

“ Jena. A town of Germany, in the grand duchy Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, situated in a romantic valley at the confluence of the Leutra with the Saale. In this vicinity was fought the great battle of Jena, October 14, 1806, between the French and Prussian armies, in which the latter was totally defeated.
Jenizer-effendi. An appointment among the Turks, which in some degree resembles that of provost-marshal in European armies. The only functions which this officer is permitted to exercise are those of judge to the company. ”

“ We learned to wield the sword too in Jena, and I would gladly have crossed blades with the sturdy fencing-master Allertssohn, of whom you have just told me. Leonhard was older than I, and when he graduated with honor, I was still very weak in the pandects. But we were always one in heart and soul, so I went to Holland with him to attend his wedding. Ah, those were days! The theologians in Jena have actively disputed about the part of the earth, in which the little garden of Paradise should be sought. ”

“ People will talk at all times, and when news is wanting—what so easy as to invent? All the inhabitants of the town of Jena thought that they had a right to know and to talk of my private affairs, and seeing that I was of a reserved disposition and that they were not likely to extract much from me by pumping, it began to be rumoured abroad that I had certain grave reasons for maintaining secrecy, and in a very short time it was reported that I was a great "my lord," travelling in disguise for political purposes, and that I possessed a fortune of countless millions of pounds sterling. ”

“ We don't sin much in Jena, so generally they talk about sick people, or their neighbor's income and what he does with it. But yesterday they talked sin. You know because we are poor and Papa has no official position and I have come to be twenty-five without having found a husband, I am a quantité négligeable in our set, a being in whose presence everything can be said, and who is expected to sit in a draught if there is one. ”

“ The town of Jena is dominated by a height called the Landgrafenberg, at the foot of which runs the Saale River. The approaches to Jena are very precipitous, and at that time there was only one road, which ran to Wiemar via Muhlthal, a long and difficult pass, the outlet of which was covered by a small wood and guarded by Saxon troops, allies of the Prussians; a part of whose army was drawn up in line behind them at the distance of a cannon shot. ”

“ Reluctant as Fichte was at first to yield immediate assent to this call, he could not refuse the opportunity of entering once for all upon the career for which he appeared specially marked out, and after sending in his acceptance to Privy Councillor Voigt, he made arrangements for beginning his course at Jena in the Easter term of 1794.
The University at Jena was then at the very height of its renown. No other period, in all its brilliant history, rivals the first decades of the nineteenth century. ”

“ She had borne every burden, and was prematurely aged through her anxiety that he should attain the object which had shone so brightly in the future: namely, the family scholarship at the University of Jena, an endowment founded by a Frielinghausen of old for the benefit of his descendants.
Then came the catastrophe. Never in all his life would he forget the blank dismay of his mother when the head of the gymnasium interviewed her and told her of the inevitable expulsion. "Levity, carelessness, lack of industry, superficiality in almost every subject," thus ran the reports of his teachers. ”

“ They still continue in Jena, Wenigen-Jena, Jena-Priesnitz, and the surrounding localities, to moot the proposition, that a poet must, like a fly, travel along on transparent gauze-wings, and not on any heavily bedizened pinions of the bird of paradise. The reader, they continue without metaphor, cannot at once fly and carry ”

“ The Rescript was followed by a circular note, addressed to the neighbouring German Governments, praying them to take similar steps, and, in the case of the Saxe-Weimar Dukes, threatening to prohibit Saxon students from attendance at the Jena University if investigation were not instantly made into the conduct of the accused professors, and condign punishment inflicted were they found guilty of the charge laid against them. Fichte had thus a twofold charge to deal with,—the public accusation of atheism, and the private appeal to the supreme authorities of the university. ”

“ EMIL GRELIEU
All will end well, Jeanne. All will end well. I know. I also feel as you do. But all will end well, Jeanne!
JEANNE
Sobbing, but calming herself somewhat.
I cannot bear it!
EMIL GRELIEU
All will end well, Jeanne! Belgium will live! The sun will shine! I am suffering, but I know this, Jeanne!
MAURICE
Quicker! Quicker!
CHAUFFEUR
In a moment, in a moment. Now it is fixed, in a moment.
EMIL GRELIEU
Faintly.
Jeanne!
JEANNE
Yes, yes, I know.... Forgive me, forgive me, I will soon—
A loud, somewhat hoarse voice of a girl comes from the dark.
GIRL
Tell me how I can find my way to Lonua! ”

“ Seeking a dark corner, she closed her eyes. Allowing her head to drop forward, she stood like one in prayer. Did she pray, or did she but surrender her soul and body to the forces of nature all about her? Who can say but that these two are the same, or at least that their effect is the same? However that may be, it was a changed Jeanne who, three minutes later, took up her post of duty in the boxes, for hers was the air of a sentry. Her movements were firm and steady, the look upon her face as calm as the reflection of the moon upon a still pool at midnight. ”

“ And as she spoke the great French actress seemed to be Jeanne herself. The American soldiers forgot her middle age, her quiet half-mourning costume, and saw that wonderful young peasant girl, first in her peasant’s dress in the woods near her father’s home, listening to her voice. She was only a dreaming girl then, with her short hair, her bare feet and peasant’s smock and those great wide-open gray eyes.
Then Jeanne as a soldier in a suit of armor on her wonderful white horse, riding always in front of her troops to the glory and salvation of France. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A shadow came into Jeanne's eyes. She motioned him to a seat beside her in front of the fire. Her nearness, the touch of her dress, the sweet perfume of her presence, thrilled him. He felt that the moment was near when the whole world as he knew it was to slip away from him, leaving him in a paradise, or a chaos of despair. Jeanne looked up at the dueling pistols. The firelight trembled in the soft folds of lace over her bosom; it glistened in her hair, and lighted her face with a gentle glow. ”

“ Time marched on, as time has a way of doing. A week passed, another and yet another. Each night of opera found Jeanne, still masquerading as Pierre, at her post among the boxes. Never forgetting that a priceless necklace had been stolen from those boxes and that she had run away, ever conscious of the searching eyes of Jaeger and of the inscrutable shadow that was the lady in black, Jeanne performed her tasks as one who walks beneath a shadow that in a moment may be turned into impenetrable darkness. ”

“ Then Jeanne came running to us in tears, vowing that she would never marry Suirot, or be wife to any one but you, my dear Jean, and that she would rather go into a convent.
I enclose a letter which she has written to you, in which she lets you know what you ought to do. She is of age, and very level-headed. Do exactly as she tells you, and write by return of post to your uncle, as she bids you. You will come back to us in ten months’ time, my dear son. If you behave well till you obtain your discharge, and pray constantly to the good God, without doubt everything will come right. ”

“ One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.
Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into France: "I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to make war." ”

“ Many Catholics, as yet unauthorised, I conceive, by the Church, accept the theory of Jeanne herself; her saints were true saints from Paradise. On the other hand it is manifest that visions of a bright light and ‘auditions’ of voices are common enough phenomena in madness, and in the experiences of very uninspired sane men and women. From the sensations of these people Jeanne’s phenomena are only differentiated by their number, by their persistence through seven years of an almost abnormally healthy life, by their importance, orderliness, and veracity, as well as by their heroic character. ”

“ Aimée looked at her keenly for some moments with a curious expression on her tightly-folded lips.
"You would have me believe that Marie went into the ravine when she knew the spirits were about, and went on the arm of Geoffroi?"
"I tell you, Grandmère, that she did so. It was Jeanne that compelled her. For Jeanne knows when a man is in league with Them, and she said to Marie, 'Thou wilt wed Antoine, but thou knowest not what he is; go to the Black Stone to-night, and thou shalt see.' H'ch! Jeanne knows nothing, does she? But Marie went, for she knew that Jeanne was wise. ”

“ Jeanne heard all they had to say, and kept silence, her protestations only adding fuel to the fire of denunciation. She resumed her usual avocations, but daily sat to hear the “Voices,” as she called her ghostly visitants, and daily they repeated their strange instructions. She spent much time upon her knees in the church, and at last the curé, good man, gave heed to her infatuation. “If this be from God,” he said to himself, “no man may stay her.” He wondered, naturally, how this quiet and devout village girl could ever be the Divine instrument for the deliverance of France. ”

“ It was a Saturday, the Holy Virgin’s day, and the girl set forth on her weekly pilgrimage to the chapel of Bermont, where there was a statue of the Virgin Mother with her divine child in her arms. Jeanne passed through Greux, then climbed the hill at the foot of which the village nestled. The path was overgrown with grass, vines, and fruit-trees, through which she could glimpse the green valley and the blue hills on the east. Deeply embedded in the forest the chapel stood on the brow of the hill, and she found herself the only votary. She was glad of this, for to-day Jeanne wished to be alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On their very first visit the young peasant maid vowed to them to preserve her virginity as long as it should please God. [278] If there were any meaning in such a promise, Jeanne, however old she may then have been, could not have been quite a child. And it seems probable that the angel and the saints appeared to her first when she was on the threshold of womanhood, that is, if she ever became a woman. ”

“ Jeanne shed bitter tears over the delay. She believed so implicitly in her Voices that she could not understand why others did not have the same faith. And the fame of her grew and spread, going out into the country even beyond the valley.
One day, as she was on her way to mass, a young man-at-arms pushed his way through the crowd which had gathered to see her to have a word with the wonderful peasant maid.
“Well, ma mie,” he said banteringly, “what are you doing here? Must the King be driven from his Kingdom, and we all turn English?” ”

“ Jeanne the Maid.
And below: I should have sent to you with more ceremony. But you keep my heralds. You kept my herald Guyenne. If you will send him back to me, I will send you some of your men taken at the bastion Saint-Loup; they are not all dead. [1034]
Jeanne went to La Belle Croix, took an arrow, and tied her letter to it with a string, then told an archer to shoot it to the English, crying: "Read! This is the message." ”