conflicts stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a
single day and by a single battle. That nation is France, and that
battle Patay.
Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the
stateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands,
with its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on
pilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the
presence of–what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes.
For all nations in all times have built monuments on their
battle-fields to keep green the memory of the perishable deed that
was wrought there and of the perishable name of him who wrought
it; and will France neglect Patay and Joan of Arc? Not for long.
And will she build a monument scaled to their rank as compared
with the world’s other fields and heroes? Perhaps–if there be room
for it under the arch of the sky.
But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and
impressive facts. The Hundred Years’ War began in 1337. It raged
on and on, year after year and year after year; and at last England
stretched France prone with that fearful blow at Cr‚cy. But she
rose and struggled on, year after year, and at last again she went
down under another devastating blow–Poitiers. She gathered her
crippled strength once more, and the war raged on, and on, and
still on, year after year, decade after decade. Children were born,
grew up, married, died–the war raged on; their children in turn
grew up, married, died–the war raged on; their children, growing,
saw France struck down again; this time under the incredible
disaster of Agincourt–and still the war raged on, year after year,
and in time these chldren married in their turn.
France was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to
England, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half
belonged to nobody–in three months would be flying the English
flag; the French King was making ready to throw away his crown
and flee beyond the seas.
Now came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and
confronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that
had swept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest
and most amazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven
weeks it was finished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that
gigantic war that was ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it
a staggering blow; on the field of Patay she broke its back.
Think of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is
another matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that
stupefying marvel.
Seven weeks–with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the
most of it, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began
six thousand strong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is
said and believed that in three battles alone–Cr‚cy, Poitiers, and
Agincourt–near a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without
counting the thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of
that war make a mournful long list–an interminable list. Of men
slain in the field the count goes by tens of thousands; of innocent
women and children slain by bitter hardship and hunger it goes by
that appalling term, millions.
It was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred
years, crunching men and dripping blood from its jaws. And with
her little hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder
he lies stretched on the field of Patay, and will not get up any more
while this old world lasts.
Chapter 32 The Joyous News Flies Fast
THE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France
in twenty hours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one
thing is sure, anyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting
and glorifying God and told his neighbor; and that neighbor flew
with it to the next homestead; and so on and so on without resting