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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 5
THEY WERE peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly flowing days of
ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being remote from the seat
of war; but at intervals roving bands approached near enough for us to
see the flush in the sky at night which marked where they were burning
some farmstead or village, and we all knew, or at least felt, that some
day they would come yet nearer, and we should have our turn. This dull
dread lay upon our spirits like a physical weight. It was greatly
augmented a couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes.
It was truly a dismal year for France. One day we had been over to have
one of our occasional pitched battles with those hated Burgundian boys of
the village of Maxey, and had been whipped, and were arriving on our side
of the river after dark, bruised and weary, when we heard the bell
ringing the tocsin. We ran all the way, and when we got to the square we
found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by
smoking and flaring torches.
On the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest, who was
telling the people new which made them weep, and rave, and rage, and
curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we and
France and the crown were the property of an English baby lying in his
cradle in London. And he urged us to give that child our allegiance, and
be its faithful servants and well-wishers; and said we should now have a
strong and stable government at last, and that in a little time the
English armies would start on their last march, and it would be a brief
one, for all that it would need to do would be to conquer what odds and
ends of our country yet remained under that rare and almost forgotten
rag, the banner of France.
The people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of them
stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them
at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the
priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong
glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most
indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you
still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the
coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of our old
King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office over the
coffin of "Charles VI. and his dynasty," at the same time saying, in a
loud voice, "Good grant long life to Henry, King of France and England,
our sovereign lord!" and then he asked them to join him in a hearty Amen
to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied their tongues for
the moment, and they could not speak. But Joan was standing close by, and
she looked up in his face, and said in her sober, earnest way:
"I would I might see thy head struck from thy body!"--then, after a
pause, and crossing herself--"if it were the will of God."
This is worth remembering, and I will tell you why: it is the only harsh
speech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you
the storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you
will see that it was wonderful that she said but one bitter thing while
she lived.
From the day that that dreary news came we had one scare after another,
the marauders coming almost to our doors every now and then; so that we
lived in ever-increasing apprehension, and yet were somehow mercifully
spared from actual attack. But at last our turn did really come. This was
in the spring of '28. The Burgundians swarmed in with a great noise, in
the middle of a dark night, and we had to jump up and fly for our lives.
We took the road to Neufchateau, and rushed along in the wildest
disorder, everybody trying to get ahead, and thus the movements of all
were impeded; but Joan had a cool head--the only cool head there--and she
took command and brought order out of that chaos. She did her work
quickly and with decision and despatch, and soon turned the panic flight
into a quite steady-going march. You will grant that for so young a
person, and a girl at that, this was a good piece of work.
She was sixteen now, shapely and graceful, and of a beauty so
extraordinary that I might allow myself any extravagance of language in
describing it and yet have no fear of going beyond the truth. There was
in her face a sweetness and serenity and purity that justly reflected her
spiritual nature. She was deeply religious, and this is a thing which
sometimes gives a melancholy cast to a person's countenance, but it was
not so in her case. Her religion made her inwardly content and joyous;
and if she was troubled at times, and showed the pain of it in her face
and bearing, it came of distress for her country; no part of it was
chargeable to her religion.
A considerable part of our village was destroyed, and when it became safe
for us to venture back there we realized what other people had been
suffering in all the various quarters of France for many years--yes,
decades of years. For the first time we saw wrecked and smoke-blackened
homes, and in the lanes and alleys carcasses of dumb creatures that had
been slaughtered in pure wantonness--among them calves and lambs that had
been pets of the children; and it was pity to see the children lament
over them.
And then, the taxes, the taxes! Everybody thought of that. That burden
would fall heavy now in the commune's crippled condition, and all faces
grew long with the thought of it. Joan said:
"Paying taxes with naught to pay them with is what the rest of France has
been doing these many years, but we never knew the bitterness of that
before. We shall know it now."
And so she went on talking about it and growing more and more troubled
about it, until one could see that it was filling all her mind.
At last we came upon a dreadful object. It was the madman--hacked and
stabbed to death in his iron cage in the corner of the square. It was a
bloody and dreadful sight. Hardly any of us young people had ever seen a
man before who had lost his life by violence; so this cadaver had an
awful fascination for us; we could not take our eyes from it. I mean, it
had that sort of fascination for all of us but one. That one was Joan.
She turned away in horror, and could not be persuaded to go near it
again. There--it is a striking reminder that we are but creatures of use
and custom; yes, and it is a reminder, too, of how harshly and unfairly
fate deals with us sometimes. For it was so ordered that the very ones
among us who were most fascinated with mutilated and bloody death were to
live their lives in peace, while that other, who had a native and deep
horror of it, must presently go forth and have it as a familiar spectacle
every day on the field of battle.
You may well believe that we had plenty of matter for talk now, since the
raiding of our village seemed by long odds the greatest event that had
really ever occurred in the world; for although these dull peasants may
have thought they recognized the bigness of some of the previous
occurrences that had filtered from the world's history dimly into their
minds, the truth is that they hadn't. One biting little fact, visible to
their eyes of flesh and felt in their own personal vitals, became at once
more prodigious to them than the grandest remote episode in the world's
history which they had got at second hand and by hearsay. It amuses me
now when I recall how our elders talked then. The fumed and fretted in a
fine fashion.
"Ah, yes," said old Jacques d'Arc, "things are come to a pretty pass,
indeed! The King must be informed of this. It is time that he cease from
idleness and dreaming, and get at his proper business." He meant our
young disinherited King, the hunted refugee, Charles VII.
"You way well," said the maire. "He should be informed, and that at once.
It is an outrage that such things would be permitted. Why, we are not
safe in our beds, and he taking his ease yonder. It shall be made known,
indeed it shall--all France shall hear of it!"
To hear them talk, one would have imagined that all the previous ten
thousand sackings and burnings in France had been but fables, and this
one the only fact. It is always the way; words will answer as long as it
is only a person's neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets
into trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something.
The big event filled us young people with talk, too. We let it flow in a
steady stream while we tended the flocks. We were beginning to feel
pretty important now, for I was eighteen and the other youths were from
one to four years older--young men, in fact. One day the Paladin was
arrogantly criticizing the patriot generals of France and said:
"Look at Dunois, Bastard of Orleans--call him a general! Just put me in
his place once--never mind what I would do, it is not for me to say, I
have no stomach for talk, my way is to act and let others do the
talking--but just put me in his place once, that's all! And look at
Saintrailles--pooh! and that blustering La Hire, now what a general that
is!"
It shocked everybody to hear these great names so flippantly handled, for
to us these renowned soldiers were almost gods. In their far-off splendor
they rose upon our imaginations dim and huge, shadowy and awful, and it
was a fearful thing to hear them spoken of as if they were mere men, and
their acts open to comment and criticism. The color rose in Joan's face,
and she said:
"I know not how any can be so hardy as to use such words regarding these
sublime men, who are the very pillars of the French state, supporting it
with their strength and preserving it at daily cost of their blood. As
for me, I could count myself honored past all deserving if I might be
allowed but the privilege of looking upon them once--at a distance, I
mean, for it would not become one of my degree to approach them too
near."
The Paladin was disconcerted for a moment, seeing by the faces around him
that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled his
complacency together and fell to fault-finding again. Joan's brother Jean
said:
"If you don't like what our generals do, why don't you go to the great
wars yourself and better their work? You are always talking about going
to the wars, but you don't go."
"Look you," said the Paladin, "it is easy to say that. Now I will tell
you why I remain chafing here in a bloodless tranquillity which my
reputation teaches you is repulsive to my nature. I do not go because I
am not a gentleman. That is the whole reason. What can one private
soldier do in a contest like this? Nothing. He is not permitted to rise
from the ranks. If I were a gentleman would I remain here? Not one
moment. I can save France--ah, you may laugh, but I know what is in me, I
know what is hid under this peasant cap. I can save France, and I stand
ready to do it, but not under these present conditions. If they want me,
let them send for me; otherwise, let them take the consequences; I shall
not budge but as an officer."
"Alas, poor France--France is lost!" said Pierre d'Arc.
"Since you sniff so at others, why don't you go to the wars yourself,
Pierre d'Arc?"
"Oh, I haven't been sent for, either. I am no more a gentleman than you.
Yet I will go; I promise to go. I promise to go as a private under your
orders--when you are sent for."
They all laughed, and the Dragon-fly said:
"So soon? Then you need to begin to get ready; you might be called for in
five years--who knows? Yes, in my opinion you'll march for the wars in
five years."
"He will go sooner," said Joan. She said it in a low voice and musingly,
but several heard it.
"How do you know that, Joan?" said the Dragon-fly, with a surprised look.
But Jean d'Arc broke in and said:
"I want to go myself, but as I am rather young yet, I also will wait, and
march when the Paladin is sent for."
"No," said Joan, "he will go with Pierre."
She said it as one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and
none heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles
were idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look in
it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be
occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no
sound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I set
my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I being
superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange and
unusual sort.
Noel Rainguesson said:
"There is one way to let France have a chance for her salvation. We've
got one gentleman in the commune, at any rate. Why can't the Scholar
change name and condition with the Paladin? Then he can be an officer.
France will send for him then, and he will sweep these English and
Burgundian armies into the sea like flies."
I was the Scholar. That was my nickname, because I could read and write.
There was a chorus of approval, and the Sunflower said:
"That is the very thing--it settles every difficulty. The Sieur de Conte
will easily agree to that. Yes, he will march at the back of Captain
Paladin and die early, covered with common-soldier glory."
"He will march with Jean and Pierre, and live till these wars are
forgotten," Joan muttered; "and at the eleventh hour Noel and the Paladin
will join these, but not of their own desire." The voice was so low that
I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but they seemed to
be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things.
"Come, now," Noel continued, "it's all arranged; there's nothing to do
but organize under the Paladin's banner and go forth and rescue France.
You'll all join?"
All said yes, except Jacques d'Arc, who said:
"I'll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with you
there, and I've always thought I should go soldiering about this time,
but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody madman
have taught me that I am not made for such work and such sights. I could
never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and death?
It isn't in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I'm the eldest son,
and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to carry
Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take care of
our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in peace and
tranquillity."
"He will stay at home, but not grow old," murmured Joan.
The talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to youth,
and we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight his battles and
win his victories and extinguish the English and put our King upon his
throne and set his crown upon his head. Then we asked him what he was
going to answer when the King should require him to name his reward. The
Paladin had it all arranged in his head, and brought it out promptly:
"He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make me Hereditary
Lord High Constable of France."
"And marry you to a princess--you're not going to leave that out, are
you?"
The Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely:
"He may keep his princesses--I can marry more to my taste."
Meaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had, the
Paladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There was no fit
mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would have said that.
In turn, each person present was required to say what reward he would
demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the
wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and
each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the
reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied
her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to
her what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had
heard none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a
serious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some moments, then
she said:
"If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me, 'Now
that I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and have,' I should
kneel and ask him to give command that our village should nevermore be
taxed."
It was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did not
laugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a day when
we remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and were glad that we
had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her words had been, and
seeing how faithfully she made them good when the time came, asking just
that boon of the King and refusing to take even any least thing for
herself.
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