Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Vols. I-II) Chapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief
by Mark Twain
It was indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see.
She had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other
ill-wishers to let her hold court those nights.
The commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire
into Joan's character--in fact to weary her with delays and wear out
her purpose and make her give it up--arrived back and reported her
character perfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see.
The verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to
life, wherever the great news traveled. Whereas before, the
spiritless and cowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one
mentioned war to them, now they came clamoring to be enlisted
under the banner of the Maid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of
war-songs and the thundering of the drums filled all the air. I
remembered now what she had said, that time there in our village
when I proved by facts and statistics that France's case was
hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from their
lethargy:
"They will hear the drums--and they will answer, they will march!"
It has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a
body. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a
start, it came flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of
this sort. There had been grave doubts among the priests as to
whether the Church ought to permit a female soldier to dress like a
man. But now came a verdict on that head. Two of the greatest
scholars and theologians of the time--one of whom had been
Chancellor of the University of Paris--rendered it. They decided
that since Joan "must do the work of a man and a soldier, it is just
and legitimate that her apparel should conform to the situation."
It was a great point gained, the Church's authority to dress as a
man. Oh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in.
Never mind about the smaller waves, let us come to the largest one
of all, the wave that swept us small fry quite off our feet and
almost drowned us with joy. The day of the great verdict, couriers
had been despatched to the King with it, and the next morning
bright and early the clear notes of a bugle came floating to us on
the crisp air, and we pricked up our ears and began to count them.
One--two--three; pause; one--two; pause; one--two--three,
again--and out we skipped and went flying; for that formula was
used only when the King's herald-at-arms would deliver a
proclamation to the people. As we hurried along, people came
racing out of every street and house and alley, men, women, and
children, all flushed, excited, and throwing lacking articles of
clothing on as they ran; still those clear notes pealed out, and still
the rush of people increased till the whole town was abroad and
streaming along the principal street. At last we reached the square,
which was now packed with citizens, and there, high on the
pedestal of the great cross, we saw the herald in his brilliant
costume, with his servitors about him. The next moment he began
his delivery in the powerful voice proper to his office:
"Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the
most illustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath
been pleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc,
called the Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of
General-in-Chief of the Armies of France--"
Here a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a
hurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it
would never come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went
on and finished:
--"and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a
prince of his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alençon!"
That was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up
into innumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all
the lanes and streets of the town.
General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for
subordinate! Yesterday she was nothing--to-day she was this.
Yesterday she was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not
even a private--to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday
she was less than nobody to the newest recruit--to-day her
command was law to La Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans,
and all those others, veterans of old renown, illustrious masters of
the trade of war. These were the thoughts I was thinking; I was
trying to realize this strange and wonderful thing that had
happened, you see.
My mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a
picture--a picture which was still so new and fresh in my memory
that it seemed a matter of only yesterday--and indeed its date was
no further back than the first days of January. This is what it was.
A peasant-girl in a far-off village, her seventeenth year not yet
quite completed, and herself and her village as unknown as if they
had been on the other side of the globe. She had picked up a
friendless wanderer somewhere and brought it home--a small gray
kitten in a forlorn and starving condition--and had fed it and
comforted it and got its confidence and made it believe in her, and
now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and she was knitting a
coarse stocking and thinking--dreaming--about what, one may
never know. And now--the kitten had hardly had time to become a
cat, and yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France,
with a prince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village
obscurity her name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from
all corners of the land! It made me dizzy to think of these things,
they were so out of the common order, and seemed so impossible.