forgotten,” Joan muttered; “and at the eleventh hour No‰l and the
Paladin will join these, but not of their own desire.” The voice was
so low that I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but
they seemed to be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things.
“Come, now,” No‰l continued, “it’s all arranged; there’s nothing to
do but organize under the Paladin’s banner and go forth and rescue
France. You’ll all join?”
All said yes, except Jacques d’Arc, who said:
“I’ll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with
you there, and I’ve always thought I should go soldiering about this
time, but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and
bloody madman have taught me that I am not made for such work
and such sights. I could never be at home in that trade. Face
swords and the big guns and death? It isn’t in me. No, no; count me
out. And besides, I’m the eldest son, and deputy prop and protector
of the family. Since you are going to carry Jean and Pierre to the
wars, somebody must be left behind to take care of our Joan and
her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in peace and
tranquillity.”
“He will stay at home, but not grow old,” murmured Joan.
The talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to
youth, and we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight
his battles and win his victories and extinguish the English and put
our King upon his throne and set his crown upon his head. Then
we asked him what he was going to answer when the King should
require him to name his reward. The Paladin had it all arranged in
his head, and brought it out promptly:
“He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make
me Hereditary Lord High Constable of France.”
“And marry you to a princess–you’re not going to leave that out,
are you?”
The Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely:
“He may keep his princesses–I can marry more to my taste.”
Meaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had,
the Paladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There
was no fit mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would
have said that.
In turn, each person present was required to say what reward he
would demand of the King if he could change places with the
Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The
answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his
predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim;
but when it came to Joan’s turn, and they rallied her out of her
dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the
question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had heard
none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a
serious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some
moments, then she said:
“If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me,
‘Now that I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and
have,’ I should kneel and ask him to give command that our village
should nevermore be taxed.”
It was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did
not laugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a
day when we remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and
were glad that we had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her
words had been, and seeing how faithfully she made them good
when the time came, asking just that boon of the King and refusing
to take even any least thing for herself.
Chapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael
ALL THROUGH her childhood and up to the middle of her
fourteenth year, Joan had been the most light-hearted creature and
the merriest in the village, with a hop-skip-and-jump gait and a
happy and catching laugh; and this disposition, supplemented by