appeared the enthusiasm broke forth. They rode side by side, he a
great figure of brawn and muscle, she a little masterwork of
roundness and grace; he a fortress of rusty iron, she a shining
statuette of silver; and when the reformed raiders and bandits
caught sight of them they spoke out, with affection and welcome
in their voices, and said:
“There they come–Satan and the Page of Christ!”
All the three days that we were in Blois, Joan worked earnestly
and tirelessly to bring La Hire to God–to rescue him from the
bondage of sin–to breathe into his stormy hear the serenity and
peace of religion. She urged, she begged, she implored him to
pray. He stood out, three days of our stay, begging about piteously
to be let off–to be let off from just that one thing, that impossible
thing; he would do anything else–anything–command, and he
would obey–he would go through the fire for her if she said the
word–but spare him this, only this, for he couldn’t pray, had never
prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a prayer, he had no words
to put it in.
And yet–can any believe it?–she carried even that point, she won
that incredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think,
that nothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there
before her and put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it
was not borrowed, but was his very own; he had none to help him
frame it, he made it out of his own head–saying:
“Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if
you were La Hire and he were God.” [1]
Then he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan’s tent as
satisfied with himself as any one might be who had arranged a
perplexed and difficult business to the content and admiration of
all the parties concerned in the matter.
If I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood
why he was feeling so superior, but of course I could not know
that.
I was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out,
and saw him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was
fine and beautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped
and stepped back, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as
I mistakenly thought–crying as if she could not contain nor endure
the anguish of her soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not
so, she was laughing–laughing at La Hire’s prayer.
It was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out,
and then–oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free
mirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that
long-vanished time; for there had come a day between, when God’s
good gift of laughter had gone out from me to come again no more
in this life.
[1] This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in
the past four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La
Hire, and the fact is of official record in the National Archives of
France. We have the authority of Michelet for this. —
TRANSLATOR
Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise
WE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the
road toward Orleans. The initial part of Joan’s great dream was
realizing itself at last. It was the first time that any of us youngsters
had ever seen an army, and it was a most stately and imposing
spectacle to us. It was indeed an inspiring sight, that interminable
column, stretching away into the fading distances, and curving
itself in and out of the crookedness of the road like a mighty
serpent. Joan rode at the head of it with her personal staff; then
came a body of priests singing the Veni Creator, the banner of the
Cross rising out of their midst; after these the glinting forest of
spears. The several divisions were commanded by the great
Armagnac generals, La Hire, and Marshal de Boussac, the Sire de