His crawling humbleness changed to frantic joy in a moment, and
his ghastly fear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and
kicked it, spat in its face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its
mouth, laughing, jeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies
and bestialities like a drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected;
soldiering makes few saints. Many of the onlookers laughed,
others were indifferent, none was surprised. But presently in his
mad caperings the freed man capered within reach of the waiting
file, and another Burgundian promptly slipped a knife through his
neck, and down he went with a death-shriek, his brilliant artery
blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright as a ray of light.
There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from friend and
foe alike; and thus closed one of the pleasantest incidents of my
checkered military life.
And now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered
the claim of the garrison, then said:
“You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word
to put in the treaty, and covers too much. But ye may not take
these poor men away. They are French, and I will not have it. The
King shall ransom them, every one. Wait till I send you word from
him; and hurt no hair of their heads; for I tell you, I who speak,
that that would cost you very dear.”
That settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway.
Then she rode back eagerly and required that thing of the King,
and would listen to no paltering and no excuses. So the King told
her to have her way, and she rode straight back and bought the
captives free in his name and let them go.
Chapter 35 The Heir of France is Crowned
IT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King’s
Household, in whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at
Chinon in those first days of her coming out of her own country.
She made him Bailiff of Troyes now by the King’s permission.
And now we marched again; Chѓlons surrendered to us; and there
by Chѓlons in a talk, Joan, being asked if she had no fears for the
future, said yes, one–treachery. Who would believe it? who could
dream it? And yet in a sense it was prophecy. Truly, man is a
pitiful animal.
We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th
of July, we came in sight of our goal, and saw the great
cathedraled towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after
huzza swept the army from van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc,
there where she sat her horse gazing, clothed all in white armor,
dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of
earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her sublime mission
was closing–closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could
say, “It is finished–let me go free.”
We camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand
preparations began. The Archbishop and a great deputation
arrived; and after these came flock after flock, crowd after crowd,
of citizens and country-folk, hurrahing, in, with banners and
music, and flowed over the camp, one rejoicing inundation after
another, everybody drunk with happiness. And all night long
Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating the town,
building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral
within and without in a glory of opulent splendors.
We moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies
would begin at nine and last five hours. We were aware that the
garrison of English and Burgundian soldiers had given up all
thought of resisting the Maid, and that we should find the gates
standing hospitably open and the whole city ready to welcome us
with enthusiasm.
It was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and
fresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as
it uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the
final march of the peaceful Coronation Campaign.