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
Asked, what she had to say about the woman's dress that had been offered
to her, to hear mass in: she answered, that she would not take it yet,
not until the Lord pleased; but that if it were necessary to lead her
out to be executed, and if she should then have to be undressed, she
required of the Lords of the Church that they would give her the grace
to have a long chemise, and a kerchief for her head; that she would
prefer to die rather than to alter what our Lord had directed her to do,
and that she firmly believed our Lord would not let her descend so low,
but that she should soon be helped by God and by a miracle. She was then
asked, if what she did in respect to the man's costume was by command of
God, why she asked for a woman's chemise in case of death? answered, _It
is enough that it should be long_.
The effect of these words in which so much was implied, must have made
a supreme sensation among the handful of men gathered round the helpless
girl in her prison, bringing the stake in all its horror before the
eyes of the judges as before her own. No other thing could have been
suggested by that piteous prayer. The stake, the scaffold, the fire--and
the shrinking figure all maidenly, helpless, exposed to every evil gaze,
must have showed themselves at least for a moment against that dark
background of prison wall. It was enough that it should be long--to hide
her as much as was possible from those dreadful staring eyes.
The interrogatory goes on wildly after this about the age and the dress
of the saints. But a tone of fate had come into it, and Jeanne herself,
it was evident, was very serious; her mind turned to more weighty
thoughts. Presently they asked if the saints hated the English, to which
she replied that they hated what God hated and loved what He loved. She
was then asked if God hated the English. She replied that of the love or
hate that God had for the English, or what God did for their souls,
she knew nothing; but she knew well that they should be driven out of
France, except those who died there; and that God would send victory
to the French against the English. Asked, if God was for the English so
long as they were prosperous in France: she answered, that she knew not
whether God hated the French, but believed He had allowed them to be
beaten because of their sins.
Jeanne was then brought to a test which, had she been a great statesman
or a learned doctor, would have been as dangerous, as the question
concerning John the Baptist was to the priests and scribes. "If we shall
say: From heaven, he will say, Why then believed ye him not? but if we
shall say of men we fear the people." And she was only a peasant girl
and the event of which they spoke had been before her little time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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