Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And DeathOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And Death
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
France -- History; Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431
A great many questions followed as to her visions, but chiefly what had
been asked before. One thing only we may note, since it was one of the
special sayings all her own, which fell from the lips of Jeanne, during
this private and almost sympathetic examination. After being questioned
closely as to how she knew her first visitor to be St. Michael, etc.,
she was asked, how she would have known had he been "l'Anemy" himself
(a Norman must surely have used this word), taking the form of an angel:
and finally, what doctrine he taught her?
She answered; above all things he said that she was to be a good child
and that God would help her: and among other things that she was to go
to the succour of the King of France. But the greater part of what the
angel taught her, she continued, was already in their book; and THE
ANGEL SHOWED HER THE GREAT PITY THERE WAS OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE.
The pity of it! That which has always gone most to the tender heart: a
country torn in pieces, brother fighting against brother, the invader
seated at the native hearth, and blood and fire making the smiling land
a desert: "_la pitie qui estoit au royaume de France_."
Did the Inquisitor break down here? Could no one go on? or was it mere
human incompetence to feel the divine touch? Some one broke into a
foolish question about the height of the angel, and the sitting was
hurriedly concluded. Monseigneur might well be on his mettle; that
very pity, was it not stealing into the souls of his private committee
deputed for so different a use?
*****
Next day the questions about St. Michael's personal appearance were
resumed, as a little feint we can only suppose, for the great question
of the Church was again immediately introduced; but in the meantime
Jeanne had described her visitor in terms which it is pleasant to dwell
on. "He was in the form of a _très vrai prud' homme_." The term is
difficult to translate, as is the Galantuomo of Italy. The "King-Honest
Man," we used to say in English in the days of his late Majesty Victor
Emmanuel of Italy; but that is not all that is meant--_un vrai prud'
homme_, a man good, honest, brave, the best man, is more like it.
The girl's honest imagination thought of no paraphernalia of wings or
shining plumes. It was not the theatrical angel, not even the angel of
art whom she saw--whom it would have been so easy to invent, nay to take
quite truthfully from the first painted window, radiating colour and
brightness through the dim, low-roofed church. But even with such
material handy, Jeanne was not led into the conventional. She knew
nothing about wings or emblematic scales. He was in the form of a brave
and gentle man. She knew not anything greater, nor would she be seduced
into fable however sacred. Then once more the true assault began.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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