Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Mark Twain (motivational books for students txt) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
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âName of God, what would you? We must smite these English, and we will. They shall not escape us. Though they were hung to the clouds we would get them!â
By and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away. Now at this time our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush, frightened a deer, and it went bounding away and was out of sight in a moment. Then hardly a minute later a dull great shout went up in the distance toward Patay. It was the English soldiery. They had been shut up in a garrison so long on moldy food that they could not keep their delight to themselves when this fine fresh meat came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it had wrought damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew where the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion of where the French were.
La Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant with joy. The Duke dâAlençon said to her:
âVery well, we have found them; shall we fight them?â
âHave you good spurs, prince?â
âWhy? Will they make us run away?â
âNenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are oursâ âthey are lost. They will fly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs. Forwardâ âclose up!â
By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered our presence. Talbotâs force was marching in three bodies. First his advance-guard; then his artillery; then his battle-corps a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his advance-guard, and five hundred picked archers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to pass, and hoped to hold this position till his battle-corps could come up. Sir John Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her opportunity and ordered La Hire to advanceâ âwhich La Hire promptly did, launching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his customary fashion.
The duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said:
âNot yetâ âwait.â
So they waitedâ âimpatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was readyâ âgazing straight before her, measuring, weighing, calculatingâ âby shades, minutes, fractions of minutes, secondsâ âwith all her great soul present, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of bodyâ âbut patient, steady, master of herselfâ âmaster of herself and of the situation.
And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and falling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hireâs godless crew, La Hireâs great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a flagstaff.
âOh, Satan and his Hellions, see them go!â Somebody muttered it in deep admiration.
And now he was closing upâ âclosing up on Fastolfeâs rushing corps.
And now he struck itâ âstruck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned, trembling with excitement, to Joan, saying:
âNow!â
But she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and said again:
âWaitâ ânot yet.â
Fastolfeâs hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming and cursing after it.
Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance with her sword. âFollow me!â she cried, and bent her head to her horseâs neck and sped away like the wind!
We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang âHalt!â
The Battle of Patay was won.
Joan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost in thought. Presently she said:
âThe praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day.â After a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the manner of one who is thinking aloud, âIn a thousand yearsâ âa thousand yearsâ âthe English power in France will not rise up from this blow.â She stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward her grouped generals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble light in her eye; and she said:
âOh, friends, friends, do you know?â âdo you comprehend? France is on the way to be free!â
âAnd had never been, but for Joan of Arc!â said La Hire, passing before her and bowing low, the others following and doing likewise; he muttering as he went, âI will say it though I be damned for it.â Then battalion after battalion of our victorious army swung by, wildly cheering. And they shouted, âLive forever, Maid of Orleans, live forever!â while Joan, smiling, stood at the salute with her sword.
This was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red field of Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where the dead and dying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows; our men had mortally wounded an English prisoner who was too poor to pay a ransom, and from a distance she had seen that cruel thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her dying enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his sister might have done; and the womanly tears running down her face all the time.3
XXXI France Begins to Live AgainJoan had said true: France was on the way to be free.
The war called the Hundred Yearsâ War was very sick today. Sick on its English sideâ âfor the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years gone by.
Shall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or shall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed from them? Anyone will say that a battle is
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