Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume I

by Mark Twain

She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great thoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions;

it seems strange that what I am saying is true; for it is as if a perishable paltry candle should speak of the eternal sun riding in the heavens and say, "He was gossip and housemate to me when we were candles together."

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.

where slaughter was a daily pastime and no man's life safe for a moment.

Find me some way out of this with your wise little head."

Who owns France?" "God and the King." "Not Satan?" "Satan, my child? This is the footstool of the Most High—Satan owns no handful of its soil."

"Poor little creatures!" she said. "What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a Christian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand times more needs it!"

all the outcast cats came and took up with her, and homeless or unlovable animals of other kinds heard about it and came, and these spread the matter to the other creatures, and they came also; and as the birds and the other timid wild things of the woods were not afraid of her, but always had an idea she was a friend when they came across her, and generally struck up an acquaintance with her to get invited to the house, she

his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what He was doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would be no sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation had been extended.

It was one of those ragged road-stragglers—the eternal wars kept the country full of them.

it is not right to punish one part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor stranger's head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that is hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is without blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if it was minded to it.

Responsibility makes a man responsible for only those things for which he is properly responsible"—and he waved his spoon around in a wide sweep to indicate the comprehensive nature of that class of responsibilities which render people responsible, and several exclaimed, admiringly, "He is right!—he has put that whole tangled thing into a nutshell—it

Can a man's stomach plan a murder? No. Can it plan a theft? No. Can it plan an incendiary fire? No.

"It's all right, Joan—give him the porridge!" She was embarrassed, and did not seem to know what to say, and so didn't say anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago and he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not waited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man's stomach was very hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could not tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful idea for a child.

we saw each detail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most adored and glorious day in French legendary history;

covering his face with idolatrous kisses.

But what?—that is the question." "It is a chance that he that bears it can answer as well as any that are here, if you contain yourself till he comes."

His ancestors had been Germans some centuries ago.

struck his flag-stick into the ground, saying: "There! Stand there and represent France while I get my breath. She needs no other flag now." All the giddy chatter stopped. It was as if one had announced a death.

"Is not this a lie? Marries the daughter of France to the Butcher of Agincourt? It is not to be believed. You have not heard aright." "If you cannot believe that, Jacques d'Arc, then you have a difficult task indeed before you, for worse is to come. Any child that is born of that marriage—if even a girl—is to inherit the thrones of both England and France, and this double ownership is to remain with its posterity forever!"

called the Paladin, because of the armies he was always going to eat up some day.

The color went out of his sister Joan's face. She dreaded the answer; and her instinct was right.

Noel Rainguesson said: "Oh, are we never going to be men! We do grow along so slowly, and France never needed soldiers as she needs them now, to wipe out this black insult." "I hate youth!" said Pierre Morel, called the Dragon-fly because his eyes stuck out so. "You've always got to wait, and wait, and wait—and here are the great wars wasting away for a hundred years, and you never get a chance. If I could only be a soldier now!"

Here's little Joan—next she'll be threatening to go for a soldier!" The idea was so funny, and got such a good laugh, that the Paladin gave it another trial, and said: "Why you can just see her!—see her plunge into battle like any old veteran. Yes, indeed; and not a poor shabby common soldier like us, but an officer—an officer, mind you, with armor on, and the bars of a steel helmet to blush behind and hide her embarrassment when she finds an army in front of her that she hasn't been introduced to. An officer? Why, she'll be a captain! A captain, I tell you, with a hundred men at her back—or maybe girls. Oh, no common-soldier business for her! And, dear me, when she starts for that other army, you'll think there's a hurricane blowing it away!"

to get relief from the embarrassment of those questionings. There I found Joan, but she was there to get relief from the embarrassment of glory.

"Didn't you feel afraid?" "No—at least not much—very little." "Why didn't you?" She thought a moment, then said, quite simply: "I don't know."

it is the only harsh speech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you the storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you will see that it was wonderful that she said but one bitter thing while she lived.

but Joan had a cool head—the only cool head there—and she took command and brought order out of that chaos. She did her work quickly and with decision and despatch, and soon turned the panic flight into a quite steady-going march. You will grant that for so young a person, and a girl at that, this was a good piece of work.

To hear them talk, one would have imagined that all the previous ten thousand sackings and burnings in France had been but fables, and this one the only fact. 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.

are forgotten," Joan muttered; "and at the eleventh hour Noel 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.

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.

She was carrying France upon her heart, and she found the burden not light.

For her sake I had always talked hopefully before, but that was mere lying, for really there was not anything to hang a rag of hope for France upon.

It is a most pleasant thing to find that what you thought would inflict a hurt upon one whom you honor, has not done it.

"Both will have happened before two years are sped." "Indeed? and who is going to perform all these sublime impossibilities?" "God." It was a reverent low note, but it rang clear.

For I had caught sight of Joan, and thought I would devise some sort of playful surprise for her. Think of it—that trivial conceit was neighbor, with but a scarcely measurable interval of time between, to an event destined to endure forever in histories and songs.

The shadow approached Joan slowly; the extremity of it reached her, flowed over her, clothed her in its awful splendor. In that immortal light her face, only humanly beautiful before, became divine; flooded with that transforming glory her mean peasant habit was become like to the raiment of the sun-clothed children of God as we see them thronging the terraces of the Throne in our dreams and imaginings. Presently she rose and stood, with her head still bowed a little, and with her arms down and the ends of her fingers lightly laced together in front of her; and standing so, all drenched with that wonderful light, and yet apparently not knowing it, she seemed to listen—but I heard nothing. After a little she raised her head, and looked up as one might look up toward the face of a giant, and then clasped her hands and lifted them high, imploringly, and began to plead.

"Ah, Joan, I've got such a wonderful thing to tell you about! You would never imagine it. I've had a dream, and in the dream I saw you right here where you are standing now, and—" But she put up her hand and said: "It was not a dream." It gave me a shock, and I began to feel afraid again. "Not a dream?" I said, "how can you know about it, Joan?" "Are you dreaming now?" "I—I suppose not. I think I am not." "Indeed you are not. I know you are not.

do not be disturbed; you are not in danger. It was the shadow of an archangel—Michael, the chief and lord of the armies of heaven." I could but cross myself and tremble for having polluted that ground with my feet.

"Indeed! And when will all this happen?" "Next year he will be crowned, and after that will remain master of France." There was a great and general burst of laughter, and when it had subsided the governor said: "Who has sent you with these extravagant messages?" "My Lord." "What Lord?" "The King of Heaven."

all the tongues were busy with the matter, and as bilious and bitter as they were busy; insomuch that if the tongues had been teeth she would not have survived her persecutions. Those persons who did not scold did what was worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her, and ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and laughter.

said that rather than see her unsex herself and go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her; and that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands.

The summer wasted along;

The winter set in, and wore tediously along;

"The wise change their minds when they perceive that they have been in error.

What is your hope and purpose?" "To rescue France. And it is appointed that I shall do it.

How often that happens; you think of a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and you not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the thing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people imagine.

"Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid in the clouds when the storm calls it." "That is the right talk. It sounds like you." That pleased him. "I'm glad you know me. Some don't. But they will, presently. They will know me well enough before I get done with this war."

"That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you will make yourself conspicuous." He was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder. He said: "If I know myself—and I think I do—my performances in this campaign will give you occasion more than once to remember those words."

He is sleeping yonder like a corpse.