第83章 ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH(2)

There is no doubt,now,that Joan believed she saw and heard these things.It is very well known that such delusions are a disease which is not by any means uncommon.It is probable enough that there were figures of Saint Michael,and Saint Catherine,and Saint Margaret,in the little chapel (where they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon their heads),and that they first gave Joan the idea of those three personages.She had long been a moping,fanciful girl,and,though she was a very good girl,I dare say she was a little vain,and wishful for notoriety.

Her father,something wiser than his neighbours,said,'I tell thee,Joan,it is thy fancy.Thou hadst better have a kind husband to take care of thee,girl,and work to employ thy mind!'But Joan told him in reply,that she had taken a vow never to have a husband,and that she must go as Heaven directed her,to help the Dauphin.

It happened,unfortunately for her father's persuasions,and most unfortunately for the poor girl,too,that a party of the Dauphin's enemies found their way into the village while Joan's disorder was at this point,and burnt the chapel,and drove out the inhabitants.

The cruelties she saw committed,touched Joan's heart and made her worse.She said that the voices and the figures were now continually with her;that they told her she was the girl who,according to an old prophecy,was to deliver France;and she must go and help the Dauphin,and must remain with him until he should be crowned at Rheims:and that she must travel a long way to a certain lord named BAUDRICOURT,who could and would,bring her into the Dauphin's presence.

As her father still said,'I tell thee,Joan,it is thy fancy,'she set off to find out this lord,accompanied by an uncle,a poor village wheelwright and cart-maker,who believed in the reality of her visions.They travelled a long way and went on and on,over a rough country,full of the Duke of Burgundy's men,and of all kinds of robbers and marauders,until they came to where this lord was.

When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant girl named Joan of Arc,accompanied by nobody but an old village wheelwright and cart-maker,who wished to see him because she was commanded to help the Dauphin and save France,Baudricourt burst out a-laughing,and bade them send the girl away.But,he soon heard so much about her lingering in the town,and praying in the churches,and seeing visions,and doing harm to no one,that he sent for her,and questioned her.As she said the same things after she had been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said before the sprinkling,Baudricourt began to think there might be something in it.At all events,he thought it worth while to send her on to the town of Chinon,where the Dauphin was.So,he bought her a horse,and a sword,and gave her two squires to conduct her.As the Voices had told Joan that she was to wear a man's dress,now,she put one on,and girded her sword to her side,and bound spurs to her heels,and mounted her horse and rode away with her two squires.As to her uncle the wheelwright,he stood staring at his niece in wonder until she was out of sight-as well he might-and then went home again.The best place,too.

Joan and her two squires rode on and on,until they came to Chinon,where she was,after some doubt,admitted into the Dauphin's presence.Picking him out immediately from all his court,she told him that she came commanded by Heaven to subdue his enemies and conduct him to his coronation at Rheims.She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards,to make the greater impression upon his soldiers)a number of his secrets known only to himself,and,furthermore,she said there was an old,old sword in the cathedral of Saint Catherine at Fierbois,marked with five old crosses on the blade,which Saint Catherine had ordered her to wear.

Now,nobody knew anything about this old,old sword,but when the cathedral came to be examined-which was immediately done-there,sure enough,the sword was found!The Dauphin then required a number of grave priests and bishops to give him their opinion whether the girl derived her power from good spirits or from evil spirits,which they held prodigiously long debates about,in the course of which several learned men fell fast asleep and snored loudly.At last,when one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan,'What language do your Voices speak?'and when Joan had replied to the gruff old gentleman,'A pleasanter language than yours,'they agreed that it was all correct,and that Joan of Arc was inspired from Heaven.This wonderful circumstance put new heart into the Dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it,and dispirited the English army,who took Joan for a witch.

So Joan mounted horse again,and again rode on and on,until she came to Orleans.But she rode now,as never peasant girl had ridden yet.She rode upon a white war-horse,in a suit of glittering armour;with the old,old sword from the cathedral,newly burnished,in her belt;with a white flag carried before her,upon which were a picture of God,and the words JESUS MARIA.In this splendid state,at the head of a great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for the starving inhabitants of Orleans,she appeared before that beleaguered city.

When the people on the walls beheld her,they cried out 'The Maid is come!The Maid of the Prophecy is come to deliver us!'And this,and the sight of the Maid fighting at the head of their men,made the French so bold,and made the English so fearful,that the English line of forts was soon broken,the troops and provisions were got into the town,and Orleans was saved.