Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Vols. I-II) Chapter 30 The Red Field of Patay
by Mark Twain
When the morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th
of June, thee was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said.
But that did not trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that
we should strike him; strike him the promised blow--the one from
which the English power in France would not rise up in a thousand
years, as Joan had said in her trance.
The enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beauce--a
roadless waste covered with bushes, with here and there bodies of
forest trees--a region where an army would be hidden from view in
a very little while. We found the trail in the soft wet earth and
followed it. It indicated an orderly march; no confusion, no panic.
But we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could
walk into an ambush without any trouble. Therefore Joan sent
bodies of cavalry ahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains,
to feel the way. Some of the other officers began to show
uneasiness; this sort of hide-and-go-seek business troubled them
and made their confidence a little shaky. Joan divined their state of
mind and cried out impetuously:
"Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English,
and we will. They shall not escape us. Though they were hung to
the clouds we would get them!"
By and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away.
Now at this time our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush,
frightened a deer, and it went bounding away and was out of sight
in a moment. Then hardly a minute later a dull great shout went up
in the distance toward Patay. It was the English soldiery. They had
been shut up in a garrison so long on moldy food that they could
not keep their delight to themselves when this fine fresh meat
came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it had wrought
damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew
where the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion
of where the French were.
La Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was
radiant with joy. The Duke d'Alençon said to her:
"Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?"
"Have you good spurs, prince?"
"Why? Will they make us run away?"
"Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours--they are lost.
They will fly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs.
Forward--close up!"
By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had
discovered our presence. Talbot's force was marching in three
bodies. First his advance-guard; then his artillery; then his
battle-corps a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush
and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his
advance-guard, and five hundred picked archers along some
hedges where the French would be obliged to pass, and hoped to
hold this position till his battle-corps could come up. Sir John
Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her
opportunity and ordered La Hire to advance--which La Hire
promptly did, launching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his
customary fashion.
The duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said:
"Not yet--wait."
So they waited--impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she
was ready--gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing,
calculating--by shades, minutes, fractions of minutes,
seconds--with all her great soul present, in eye, and set of head,
and noble pose of body--but patient, steady, master of
herself--master of herself and of the situation.
And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting
and falling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire's godless
crew, La Hire's great figure dominating it and his sword stretched
aloft like a flagstaff.
"Oh, Satan andhis Hellions, see them go!" Somebody muttered it
in deep admiration.
And now he was closing up--closing up on Fastolfe's rushing corps.
And now he struck it--struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted
the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned,
trembling with excitement, to Joan, saying:
"Now!"
But she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and
said again:
"Wait--not yet."
Fastolfe's hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche
toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the
idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it
broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot
storming and cursing after it.
Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved
the advance with her sword. "Follow me!" she cried, and bent her
head to her horse's neck and sped away like the wind!
We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three
long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang
"Halt!"
The Battle of Patay was won.
Joan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost
in thought. Presently she said:
"The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day."
After a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the
manner of one who is thinking aloud, "In a thousand years--a
thousand years--the English power in France will not rise up from
this blow." She stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward
her grouped generals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble
light in her eye; and she said:
"Oh, friends, friends, do you know?--do you comprehend? France
is on the way to be free!"
"And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!" said La Hire, passing
before her and bowing low, the other following and doing
likewise; he muttering as he went, "I will say it though I be
damned for it." Then battalion after battalion of our victorious
army swung by, wildly cheering. And they shouted, "Live forever,
Maid of Orleans, live forever!" while Joan, smiling, stood at the
salute with her sword.
This was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red
field of Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where
the dead and dying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows;
our men had mortally wounded an English prisoner who was too
poor to pay a ransom, and from a distance she had seen that cruel
thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and
now she was holding the head of her dying enemy in her lap, and
easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his
sister might have done; and the womanly tears running down her
face all the time. [1]
[1] Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: "Michelet
discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis
de Conte, who was probably an eye-witness of the scene." This is
true. It was a part of the testimony of the author of these "Personal
Recollections of Joan of Arc," given by him in the Rehabilitation
proceedings of 1456. -- TRANSLATOR.