Page images
PDF
EPUB

meat or drink. As she mounted her charger, clad in white armor from head to foot, with the great white banner studded with fleur-de-lis waving over her head, she seemed "a thing wholly divine, whether to see or hear." The ten thousand men at arms who followed her from Chinon, rough plunderers, whose only prayer was that of La Hire: "Sire Dieu, I pray you to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for you, were you captain at arms and he God," left off their oaths and foul living at her word, and gathered round the altars on their march. Her shrewd peasant humor helped her to manage the wild soldiery, and her followers laughed over their camp fires at the old warrior who had been so puzzled by her prohibition of oaths that she suffered him still to swear by his baton.

In the midst of her enthusiasm her good sense never left her. The people crowded round her as she rode along, praying her to work miracles, and bringing crosses and chaplets to be blessed by her touch. "Touch them yourself," she said to an old dame, "your touch will be just as good as mine." But her faith in her mission "The Maid prays and requires

remained as firm as ever. you," she wrote to Bedford, "to work no more distraction in France, but to come in her company to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the Turk." "I bring you," she told Dunois when he sallied out of Orleans to meet her, "the best aid ever sent to any one,― the aid of the King of Heaven."

The besiegers looked on overawed as she led her force unopposed through their lines into Orleans, and, riding round the walls, bade the people look fearlessly on the dreaded forts which surrounded them. Her enthusiasm drove the hesitating generals to engage the handful of

besiegers, and the enormous disproportion of forces at once made itself felt. Fort after fort was taken, till only the Tournelle remained, and then the council of war resolved to adjourn the attack. "You have taken your council," replied Jeanne, "and I take mine." Placing herself at the head of the men at arms, she ordered the gates to be thrown open, and led them against the fort. Few as they were, the English fought desperately, and the Maid, who had fallen wounded while endeavoring to scale its walls, was borne into a vineyard, while Dunois sounded the retreat. "Wait awhile!" the girl imperiously pleaded; "eat and drink! so soon as my standard touches the wall you shall enter the fort." It touched, and the assailants burst in.

On the next day the siege was abandoned, and the force which had conducted it withdrew in good order to the North. In the midst of her triumph, Jeanne still remained the pure, tender-hearted peasant girl of the Vosges. Her first visit as she entered Orleans was to the great church, and there, as she knelt at mass, she wept in such a passion of devotion that "all the people wept with her."

With the coronation of the Dauphin, the maid felt her errand to be over. "O gentle King, the pleasure of God is done," she cried, as she flung herself at the feet of Charles the Seventh and asked leave to go home. "Would it were His pleasure," she pleaded with the archbishop as he forced her to remain, "that I might go and keep sheep once more with my sisters and my brothers; they would be so glad to see me again."

The policy of the French Court detained her while the cities of the north of France opened their gates to the newly consecrated king. Bedford, however, who had been

left without money or men, had now received reënforcements, and Charles, after a repulse before the walls of Paris, fell back behind the Loire, while the towns on the Oise submitted again to the Duke of Burgundy. In this later struggle Jeanne fought with her usual bravery, but with the fatal consciousness that her mission was at an end; and soon she fell into the hands of the English.

To the English her triumphs were victories of sorcery, and after a year's imprisonment she was brought to trial on a charge of heresy, before an ecclesiastical court, with the Bishop of Beauvais at its head. Throughout the long process which followed, every art was employed to entangle her in her talk. But the simple shrewdness of the peasant girl foiled the efforts of her judges. Sick, however, and deprived of all religious aid, it was no wonder that, as the long trial dragged on, and question followed question, Jeanne's firmness wavered.

66

On the charge of sorcery and diabolical possession, she still appealed firmly to God. I hold to my Judge," she said, as her earthly judges gave sentence against her, "to the King of Heaven and Earth. God has always been my Lord in all that I have done. The devil has never had power over me."

A great pile was raised in the market place of Rouen, where her statue stands now. Even the brutal soldiers, who snatched the hated "witch" from the hands of the clergy and hurried her to her doom, were hushed as she reached the stake. One, indeed, passed to her a rough cross he had made from a stick he held, and she clasped it to her bosom. "Oh! Rouen, Rouen," she was heard to murmur, as her eyes ranged over the city from the lofty scaffold, "I have great fear lest you suffer from my death."

"Yes! my voices were of God!" she suddenly cried as the last moments came; "they have never deceived me!" Soon the flames reached her; the girl's head sunk on her breast; there was one cry of "Jesus!" "We are

lost," an English soldier muttered, as the crowd broke up; we have burned a Saint."

66

-From "A Short History of the English People."

NOTES. — It was during the Hundred Years' War, in 1429, between England and France, that Joan of Arc went to her task of achieving the coronation of the Dauphin (the name given in France to the royal heir apparent), afterward Charles VII. The crown of France was claimed for Henry VI., infant King of England, by the Duke of Bedford, Regent and Commander-in-chief. Jeannette d'Arc (Zhänet

Dark'), the earlier French name of Joan of Arc.

St. Michael. The name means "God's power." Milton makes this archangel the leader of the heavenly host in the war in heaven.

La Hire (Lah Heer'), a French commander, born 1390, died 1443.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

BY THEODORE O'HARA.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldiers' last tattoo :

No more on life's parade shall meet
The brave and daring few:
On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,

And glory guards with hallowed round
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance

Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts,
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust;
Their plumèd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner trailed in dust
Is now their martial shroud :

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,

And their proud forms, in battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing steed, the flashing blade,
The trumpet's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past.
No war's wild note, nor glory's peal,
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore shall feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane

That sweeps the broad plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.

Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,

Knew well the watchword of that day

Was, "Victory or death!"

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,

« PreviousContinue »