Joan of Arc

by Mark Twain

To de Conte and Joan authority is primarily a matter of legitimacy rather than merit. For example, both de Conte and Joan know that the Dauphin is the legitimate heir of the kingdom of France, even though both know that as a man the Dauphin has little self-confidence and less courage. Even after Joan’s military victories on his behalf and her testimony to him regarding the inevitability of France’s triumph over the English invaders, even after she made it possible for him to be crowned King, he was too weak-willed to offer the ransom to free Joan, a ransom which her Burgundian captors were required by the conventions of war to accept. Even though de Conte and Joan knew that the King’s hesitancy to act in a kingly way made him responsible in part for Joan’s martyrdom, they never once doubted his right to rule, nor did they secretly desire that someone more virtuous and talented—but someone other than God’s chosen ruler—were King. They may have wished that the King were a better man, but they never questioned his authority.

in the religious realm,

the bishop who presided over Joan’s trial, was personally ambitious and self-serving and that in his capacity as judge he deliberately ignored some and misused other technical procedures required by law in conducting a trial for witchcraft. De Conte also knew that Cauchon did not...

In Cauchon Twain embodied that aspect of Catholicism to which he always objected. Being a sectarian in matters of government, economics, and religion, Twain believed that the lack of internal checks and balances within the Catholic Church restricted unnecessarily the freedom of its...

In spite of Cauchon’s grave personal failings, de Conte and Joan never doubted h...

For Twain the one person documented in the record of history whose actions were genuinely free, innocent, and devoid of selfishness was Joan of Arc.

“She is the lone example that history affords of an actual, real embodiment of all the virtues demonstrated by Huck and Jim and of all that he felt to be noble in man, Joan is the ideal toward which mankind strives. Twain had to tell her story because she is the sole concrete argument against the pessimistic doctrines of his deterministic philosophy.”10 For Twain Joan represented at least the possibility that other human beings could be free, even if in fact they seldom were.

When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil.

As the years and the decades drifted by, and the spectacle of the marvellous child’s meteor-flight across the war-firmament of France and its extinction in the smoke-clouds of the stake receded deeper and deeper into the past and grew ever more strange and wonderful and divine and pathetic,

I came to comprehend and recognize her at last for what she was—the most noble life that was ever born into this world save only One.

It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind was a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I think it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm and blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable. And we were. We had a roaring fire, and the pleasant spit-spit of the snow and sleet falling in it down the chimney, and the yarning and laughing and singing went on at a noble rate till about ten o’clock, and then we had a supper of hot porridge and beans, and meal cakes with butter, and appetites to match.

It is always the way: words will answer as long as it is only a person’s neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets into trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something.

The common people flocked in crowds to look at her and speak with her, and her fair young loveliness won the half of their belief, and her deep earnestness and transparent sincerity won the other half.

The well-to-do remained away and scoffed, but that is their way.

and so from Vaucouleurs wave after wave of this inspiring enthusiasm flowed out over the land, far and wide, invading all the villages and refreshing and revivifying the perishing children of France; and from these villages came people who wanted to see for themselves, hear for themselves; and they did see and hear, and believe. They filled the town; they more than filled it; inns and lodgings were packed, and yet half of the inflow had to go without shelter. And still they came, winter as it was, for when a man’s soul is starving, what does he care for meat and roof so he can but get that nobler hunger fed?

Domremy was dazed, amazed, stupefied, and said to itself, “Was this world-wonder in our familiar midst all these years and we too dull to see it?”

“I must still come to you until I get the men-at-arms; for so it is commanded, and I may not disobey. I must go to the Dauphin, though I go on my knees.”

“I am come to bid Robert de Baudricourt take or send me to the King, but he does not heed my words.”

“It is not a wish, it is a purpose. He will grant it. I can wait.”

“He will grant it. He must. It is not matter of choice.”

“Before Mid-Lent, even though I wear away my legs to the knees!”

“To rescue France. And it is appointed that I shall do it. For no one else in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, nor any other, can recover the kingdom of France, and there is no help but in me.”

Joan dropped her voice a little, and said:

“But indeed I would rather spin with my poor mother, for this is not my calling; but I must go and do it, for it is my Lord’s will.”

“He is God.”

And happen it did. The governor rode in state, attended by his guards, and the news of it went everywhere, and made a great sensation, and modified the scoffings of the people of quality and raised Joan’s credit higher than ever.

Joan was either a witch or a saint, and he meant to find out which it was.

Then Joan went to the castle and said—

“In God’s name, Robert de Baudricourt, you are too slow about sending me, and have caused damage thereby, for this day the Dauphin’s cause has lost a battle near Orleans, and will suffer yet greater injury if you do not send me to him soon.”

“My Voices have brought the word to me, and it is true. A battle was lost to-day, and you are in fault to delay me so.

“Now God be thanked, these waiting days are almost done. In nine days you will fetch me the letter.”

On the 20th Joan called her small army together—the two knights and her two brothers and me—for a private council of war.

She mapped out the course she would travel toward the King, and did it like a person perfectly versed in geography;

yet she had never had a day’s schooling, of course, and was without education.

I perceived that she had been diligently questioning those crowds of visiting strangers, and that out of them she had patiently dug all this mass of invaluable knowledge. The two knights were filled with wonder at her good sense and sagacity.

“Nothing remains, now, but that I confide to you the date of our departure, so that you may make all needful preparation in time, leaving nothing to be done in haste and badly at the last moment. We march the 23d, at eleven of the clock at night.”

“It was to be so, no doubt; no doubt it was so ordered; I must bear it, and will.”

“To what good end? We start at eleven to-night.”

That is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such a thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time and all we needed was something to turn up that would call for it.

“There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change, but those people are never able to see that they have got to change too, to meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten track that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they themselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip the land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and into morasses, those people can’t learn that they must strike out a new road—no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one to death and perdition.

“If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so.”

We are so strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is the memories that break our hearts that abide.