turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything out; then it came:
“I didn’t know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I’ve been an idiot. I see it now—I’ve been an idiot. I met them this morning, and sung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn’t mean to be ill-mannered, but I didn’t know the half of this that you’ve been telling. I’ve been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it—I’ve been an ass.”
Noel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:
“Yes, that is likely enough; but I don’t see why you should seem surprised at it.”
“You don’t, don’t you? Well, why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t see any novelty about it. With some people it is a condition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which is present all the time, and the results of that condition will be uniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous; monotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition of intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by inert monotonousness is a—”
“Now that is enough, Noel Rainguesson; stop where you are, before you get yourself into trouble. And don’t bother me any more for some days or a week an it please you, for I cannot abide your clack.”
“Come, I like that! I didn’t want to talk. I tried to get out of talking. If you didn’t want to hear my clack, what did you keep intruding your conversation on me for?”
“I? I never dreamed of such a thing.”
“Well, you did it, anyway. And I have a right to feel hurt, and I do feel hurt, to have you treat me so. It seems to me that when a person goads, and crowds, and in a manner forces another person to talk, it is neither very fair nor very good-mannered to call what he says clack.”
“Oh, snuffle—do! and break your heart, you poor thing. Somebody fetch this sick doll a sugar-rag. Look you, Sir Jean de Metz, do you feel absolutely certain about that thing?”
“What thing?”
“Why, that Jean and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay noblesse hereabouts except the Duke d’Alencon?”
“I think there is not a doubt of it.”
The Standard-Bearer was deep in thoughts and dreams a few moments, then the silk-and-velvet expanse of his vast breast rose and fell with a sigh, and he said:
“Dear, dear, what a lift it is! It just shows what luck can do. Well, I don’t care. I shouldn’t care to be a painted accident—I shouldn’t value it. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural merit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to reflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up there out of somebody else’s catapult. To me, merit is everything—in fact, the only thing. All else is dross.”
Just then the bugles blew the assembly, and that cut our talk short.
Chapter 25.
At Last—Forward!
The days began to waste away—and nothing decided, nothing done. The army was full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury was getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure of privation it began to fall apart and disperse—which pleased the trifling court exceedingly. Joan’s distress was pitiful to see. She was obliged to stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until hardly the skeleton of it was left.
At last one day she went to the Castle of Loches, where the King was idling. She found him consulting with three of his councilors, Robert le Maton, a former Chancellor of France, Christophe d’Harcourt, and Gerard Machet. The Bastard of Orleans was present also, and it is through him that we know what happened. Joan threw herself at the King’s feet and embraced his knees, saying:
“Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous councils, but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown.”
Christophe d’Harcourt asked:
“Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?”
“Yes, and urgently.”
“Then will you not tell us in the King’s presence in what way the Voices communicate with you?”
It was another sly attempt to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and dangerous pretensions. But nothing came of it. Joan’s answer was simple and straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any fault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the truth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the distrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her ear saying, soft and low, “Go forward, Daughter of God, and I will help thee.” Then she added, “When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is insupportable!”
The Bastard said that when she said these words her face lit up as with a flame, and she was like one in an ecstasy.
Joan pleaded, persuaded, reasoned; gaining ground little by little, but opposed step by step by the council. She begged, she implored, leave to march. When they could answer nothing further, they granted that perhaps it had been a mistake to let the army waste away, but how could we help it now? how could we march without an army?
“Raise one!” said Joan.
“But it will take six weeks.”
“No matter—begin! let us begin!”
“It is too late. Without doubt the Duke of Bedford has been gathering troops to push to the succor of his strongholds on the Loire.”
“Yes, while we have been disbanding ours—and pity ‘tis. But we must throw away no more time; we must bestir ourselves.”
The King objected that he could not venture toward Rheims with those strong places on the Loire in his path. But Joan said:
“We will break them up. Then you can march.”
With that plan the King was willing to venture assent. He could sit around out of danger while the road was being cleared.
Joan came back in great spirits. Straightway everything was stirring. Proclamations were issued calling for men, a recruiting-camp was established at Selles in Berry, and the commons and the nobles began to flock to it with enthusiasm.
A deal of the month of May had been wasted; and yet by the 6th of June Joan had swept together a new army and was ready to march. She had eight thousand men. Think of that. Think of gathering together such a body as that in that little region. And these were veteran soldiers, too. In fact, most of the men in France were soldiers, when you came to that; for the wars had lasted generations now. Yes, most Frenchmen were soldiers; and admirable runners, too, both by practice and inheritance; they had done next to nothing but run for near a century. But
