struck which will be the beginning of the end, and the end will
follow swiftly.”
“Where will it be struck?”
“My Voices have not said; nor what will happen this present year,
before it is struck. It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know;
and follow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks
England’s long years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon
the Dauphin’s head–for such is God’s will; my Voices have said it,
and shall I doubt it? No; it will be as they have said, for they say
only that which is true.”
These were tremendous sayings. They were impossibilities to my
reason, but to my heart they rang true; and so, while my reason
doubted, my heart believed–believed, and held fast to the belief
from that day. Presently I said:
“Joan, I believe the things which you have said, and now I am glad
that I am to march with you to the great wars–that is, if it is with
you I am to march when I go.”
She looked surprised, and said:
“It is true that you will be with me when I go to the wars, but how
did you know?”
“I shall march with you, and so also will Jean and Pierre, but not
Jacques.”
“All true–it is so ordered, as was revealed to me lately, but I did
not know until to-day that the marching would be with me, or that
I should march at all. How did you know these things?”
I told her when it was that she had said them. But she did not
remember about it. So then I knew that she had been asleep, or in a
trance or an ecstasy of some kind, at that time. She bade me keep
these and the other revelations to myself for the present, and I said
I would, and kept the faith I promised.
None who met Joan that day failed to notice the change that had
come over her. She moved and spoke with energy and decision;
there was a strange new fire in her eye, and also a something
wholly new and remarkable in her carriage and in the set of her
head. This new light in the eye and this new bearing were born of
the authority and leadership which had this day been vested in her
by the decree of God, and they asserted that authority as plainly as
speech could have done it, yet without ostentation or bravado. This
calm consciousness of command, and calm unconscious outward
expression of it, remained with her thenceforth until her mission
was accomplished.
Like the other villagers, she had always accorded me the deference
due my rank; but now, without word said on either side, she and I
changed places; she gave orders, not suggestions. I received them
with the deference due a superior, and obeyed them without
comment. In the evening she said to me:
“I leave before dawn. No one will know it but you. I go to speak
with the governor of Vaucouleurs as commanded, who will
despise me and treat me rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at
this time. I go first to Burey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go
with me, it not being meet that I go alone. I may need you in
Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not receive me I will dictate
a letter to him, and so must have some one by me who knows the
art of how to write and spell the words. You will go from here
to-morrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until I
need you.”
I said I would obey, and she went her way. You see how clear a
head she had, and what a just and level judgment. She did not
order me to go with her; no, she would not subject her good name
to gossiping remark. She knew that the governor, being a noble,
would grant me, another noble, audience; but no, you see, she
would not have that, either. A poor peasant-girl presenting a
petition through a young nobleman–how would that look? She
always protected her modesty from hurt; and so, for reward, she