Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, vol 1 by Mark Twain (life books to read TXT) đ
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- Author: Mark Twain
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He made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so casually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made. He spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the governor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle the governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did not seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they dropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his first nightâs account the governor merely attached him to the Maidâs military escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his uncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear guard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command, Maid and all, in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke of his as a youth without name or ancestry, but âdestined to achieve bothâ; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the latest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of his as the lineal descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted the Count of Vendïżœme from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then brother-in-law.
At the Kingâs Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four silver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and byk that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to lengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate them. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large way.
The first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and exaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third night he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his own high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court watched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment, expecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept permanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would follow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever of excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the barber, he said:
âBut mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that shamâs villain face as I now gaze upon yourseâthis being her noble and simple attitude, just as I stand nowâthen turned sheâthusâto me, and stretching her arm outâsoâand pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, âPluck me this false knave from the throne!â I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloftâthusâas it he had been but a child.â (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this magnificent exhibition of strengthâand there was not the shadow of a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) âThen I set him down upon his feetâthusâ being minded to get him by a better hold and heave him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he escaped with his life.
âThen she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of hers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom looketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the kernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon a young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he truly was, saying, âI am thy servantâthou art the King!â Then all were astonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in it, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it.â
He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience, augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities; then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made his conclusionâthus:
âThen the King dismissed the Maid most graciouslyâas indeed was her desertâand, turning to me, said, âTake this signet-ring, son of the Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,â said he, touching my temple, âpreserve this brain, France has use for it; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be hooped with a ducal coronet one day.â I took the ring, and knelt and kissed his hand, saying, âSire, where glory calls, there will I be found; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when France and the throne need helpâwell, I say nothing, for I am not of the talking sortâlet my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.â âSo ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future weal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise! Fill you flagons! Nowâto France and the Kingâdrink!â
They emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and kept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease the while and smiling benignantly from his platform.
WHEN JOAN told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his heart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God, and if he had been let alone he would have set her upon her great mission at once. But he was not let alone. Tremouille and the holy fox of Rheims knew their man. All they needed to say was thisâand they said it:
âYour Highness says her Voices have revealed to you, by her mouth, a secret known only to yourself and God. How can you know that her Voices are not of Satan, and she his mouthpiece?âfor does not Satan know the secrets of men and use his knowledge for the destruction of their souls? It is a dangerous business, and your Highness will do well not to proceed in it without probing the matter to the bottom.â
That was enough. It shriveled up the Kingâs little soul like a raisin, with terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a commission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should find out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell.
The Kingâs relative, the Duke of Alenïżœon, three years prisoner of war to the English, was in these days released from captivity through promise of a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached himâfor the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all partsâhe came to Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she might be. The King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She said, in her simple fashion:
âYou are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this cause, the better for the cause and it.â
Then the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when they departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate.
Joan attended the Kingâs mass the next day, and afterward dined with the King and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value her conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he was used to getting nothing out of peopleâs talk but guarded phrases, colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and bores, and is wearisome; but Joanâs talk was fresh and free, sincere and honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain, straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain.
After dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance practice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King also had come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black war-steed.
Every day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her Voices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report. These pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she considered advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and trickeries were wasted upon her. She did not care for the threats, and the traps caught nothing. She was perfectly frank and childlike about these things. She knew the bishops were sent by the King, that their questions were the Kingâs questions, and that by all law and custom a Kingâs questions must be answered; yet she told the King in her naïżœve way at his own table one day that she answered only such of those questions as suited her.
The bishops finally concluded that they couldnât tell whether Joan was sent by God or not. They were cautious, you see. There were two powerful parties at Court; therefore to make a decision either way would infallibly embroil them with one of those parties; so it seemed to them wisest to roost on the fence and shift the burden to other shoulders. And that is what they did. They made final report that Joanâs case was beyond their powers, and recommended that it be put into the hands of the learned and illustrious doctors of the University of Poitiers. Then they retired from the field, leaving behind them this little item of testimony, wrung from them by Joanâs wise reticence: they said she was a âgentle and simple little shepherdess, very candid, but not given to talking.â
It was quite trueâin their case. But if they could have looked back and seen her with us in the happy pastures of Domremy, they would have perceived that she had a tongue that could go fast enough when no harm could come of her words.
So we traveled to Poitiers, to endure there three weeks of tedious delay while this poor child was being daily questioned and badgered before a great bench ofâwhat? Military experts?âsince what she had come to apply for was an army and the privilege of leading it to battle against the enemies of France. Oh no; it was a great bench of priests and monksâprofoundly leaned and astute casuistsârenowned professors of theology! Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this valorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy hair-splitters and phrase-mongers to work to find out if the soldier was sound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring the house, but
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