Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1 Read online

  She went now to the veteran Commandant of Vaucouleurs and demanded an escort of soldiers, saying she must march to the help of the King of France, since she was commissioned of God to win back his lost Kingdom for him and ^to^ set the crown upon his head. The Commandant said “What, you?—you are only a child.” And he ^He^ advised that she ^should^ be taken back to her village and have her ears boxed. But she said she must obey God, ^she said,^ and would come again and again and yet again, and finally she would get the soldiers. She said truly. In time he yielded, after months of delay and refusal, and gave her the soldiers; and ^an escort; he^ took off his ^own^ sword and gave ^it to^ her that, and said “Go—and let come what may.” She made her long journey, and spoke with the King and convinced him. Then she was ^then^ summoned before the University of Poitiers to prove that she was commissioned of God and not Satan, and daily during three weeks she sat before that learned congress unafraid, and capably answered ^answering^ their deep questions out of her ignorant but able ^clear^ head and her simple and honest heart, and again she won ^gained^ her case, and ^together^ with it the wondering admiration of all that august company.

  3. And now, aged seventeen, she was made Commander-in-Chief, with a royal prince and the veteran generals of France for ^as^ subordinates;and at the head of the first army she had ever seen, she marched to ^against^ Orleans, carried the commanding fortresses of the enemy by storm in three desperate assaults, and in ten days raised a siege which had defied the might of France for seven months.

  Rather unkind to French feelings—referring to Moscow.

  4. After a tedious and insane delay caused by the King’s instability of character and the treacherous counsels of his ministers, she got permission to take the field again. She took Jargeau by storm; then Meung; she forced Beaugency to surrender; then—in the open field—she won the memorable victory of Patay against Talbot the English lion, and broke ^so breaking^ the back of the Hundred Years’ War. It was a campaign which ^that^ cost but seven weeks of time ^effort^; yet the political results would have been cheap if the time expended had been fifty years. Patay, that unsung and long-forgotten battle, was the Moscow ^led directly to the downfall^ of the English power in France; from the blow struck that day it was destined never to recover. It was the beginning of the end of an alien dominion ^domination^ which had ridden France intermittently for three hundred years.

  5. Then followed the great campaign of the Loire, the capture of Troyes by assault, ^the surrendering of towns and fortresses^ and the triumphal march past surrendering towns and fortresses, to Rheims, where Joan ^in the Cathedral, Jeanne, put the crown upon her King’s head in the Cathedral, ^the head of her King^ amid wild public rejoicings, and with her old peasant father ^and brother^ there to see these things and believe his ^their^ eyes if he ^they^ could. She had restored the crown and the lost sovereignty: the King was grateful for once in his shabby poor life, and asked her to name her ^own^ reward and have ^take^ it. She asked for nothing for herself, but begged that the taxes of her native village might be remitted forever The prayer was granted, and the promise kept for three hundred and sixty years. Then it ^It^ was ^then^ broken, and ^it^ remains broken to-day. France was very poor then ^at that time^, she is very rich now; but she has been collecting those taxes for more than a hundred years.

  6. Joan ^Jeanne^ asked one other favour: that now that ^Now^ her mission was ^being^ fulfilled she might ^begged to^ be allowed to go back ^return^ to her village and take up her humble life again with her mother and the friends of her childhood; for she had no pleasure in the cruelties of war, and ^whereas^ the sight of blood and suffering wrung her heart. Sometimes in battle she did not draw her sword, lest in the splendid madness of the onset she might forget herself and take an enemy’s life with it. In the Rouen Trials, one of her quaintest speeches coming from the gentle and girlish source it did was her naive remark that she had “never killed any one.” Her prayer for leave to go back ^return^ to the rest and peace of her village home was^, however,^ not granted.

  7. Then she wanted ^wished^ to march at once upon Paris, ^to^ take it, and ^to^ drive the English out of France. She was hampered in all the ^every^ way that treachery and the King’s vacillation could devise, but she forced her way to Paris at last, and ^there^ fell badly wounded in a successful assault upon one of the gates. Of course her men lost heart at once—she was the only heart they had. They fell back. She begged to be allowed ^permission^ to remain at the front, saying victory was sure: “I will take Paris now or die!” she said ^cried^. But she was removed from the field by force, the King ordered a retreat, and actually disbanded his army. In accordance with a beautiful old military custom Joan ^Jeanne^ devoted her silver armour and hung it up in the Cathedral of St. Denis. Its ^Her^ great days were over.

  8. Then, by command, she followed the King and his frivolous Court and endured ^enduring^ a gilded captivity for a time, as well as her free spirit could; and whenever inaction became unbearable she gathered some men together and rode away and ^to^ assaulted ^and capture^ a stronghold and captured it. At last in a sortie against the enemy, from Compiègne on the 24th of May, (when she was turned ^now^ eighteen), she was herself, ^herself was^ captured after a gallant fight. ^struggle.^ It was her last battle ^fight^. She was to follow the drums no more.

  9. Thus ended the briefest epoch-making military career ^known^ in history. It lasted only a year and a month, but it found ^restored to^ France an English province, and furnishes the reason that France is France to-day and not an English ^no longer a^ province yet. ^of her rival.^ Thirteen months! It was indeed a short career; but in the ^ensuing^ centuries that have since elapsed five hundred millions of Frenchmen have lived and died blest by ^under^ the benefactions it conferred ; and so ^So^ long as France shall endure, the mighty debt must grow. And France is grateful; we often hear her say it. Also ^not ungrateful. She, however, is^ thrifty: she ^still continues to^ collect the Domremy taxes.

  II.

  IN CAPTIVITY.

  1. Joan ^Jeanne^ was fated to spend the rest ^remainder^ of her life behind bolts and bars. She was a prisoner of war, not a criminal, therefore hers was recognized as an honourable captivity. By the rules of war she must be ^should have been^ held to ransom, and a fair price could not be refused, if ^have been refused, had it been^ offered. John ^Jean^ of Luxemburg paid her the just compliment of requiring ^demanding^ a prince’s ransom for her. In that ^those^ day that phrase represented a definite sum—61,125 francs. It was of course supposable that either the King or grateful France or both would fly with the money and ^to^ set their fair young benefactor ^benefactress^ free. But this did not happen. In ^During^ five and a half months ^and more^ neither King nor country stirred a hand nor offered a penny ^sou^. Twice Joan ^Jeanne^ tried to escape. Once by a trick she succeeded for a moment, and locked her jailor in behind her; but she was discovered and caught; in ^In^ the other case she let herself down from a tower sixty feet high but her rope was too short and she got ^sustained^ a fall that ^wholly^ disabled her and she could not get away. ^so prevented her escape.^

  2. Finally Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, paid the ^blood-^money and bought Joan ostensibly for the Church to be tried for wearing male attire and for other impieties, but really ^in reality^ for the English, the enemy into whose hands the poor girl was so piteously anxious not ^never^ to fall. She was now shut up in the dungeons of the Castle of Rouen and kept in an iron cage, with her hands and feet and neck ^both^ chained to a ^wooden block and^ pillar; and from that time forth during all the months of her imprisonment till ^until^ the end, several rough English soldiers stood guard over her night and day—and not outside her room but in it. It was a dreary and hideous captivity, but it did not conquer her: nothing could break that invincible spirit. From first to last she was a prisoner ^for the whole^ year; and she spent the last three months of it ^which she passed^ on trial for her life before a formidable array of ecclesiastical judges, and disputing the ground with them foot by foot and inch by inch with
brilliant generalship ^fence^ and dauntless pluck. The spectacle of that solitary girl, forlorn ^stands alone in its pathos and ^in^ its sublimity. Forlorn^ and friendless, without advocate or adviser, and without ^even^ the help and guidance of any copy of the charges brought against her or rescript of the complex and voluminous daily proceedings of the court to modify ^by which to relieve^ the crushing strain upon her astonishing ^astounding^ memory, fighting that long battle serene and undismayed against these colossal odds,stands alone in its pathos and its sublimity; it ^It^ has nowhere its mate, ^match,^ either in the annals of fact or in the creations of fable. ^realms of fiction.^

  3. And how ^How^ fine and great were the things she daily said, how fresh and crisp—and she so worn in body, ^words she spoke day by day, her ready answers, her bright demeanour, and crisp criticisms, and she so worn in body,^ so starved, and ^so^ tired, and ^so^ harried They ^Her utterances^ run through the whole gamut of feeling and expression from scorn and defiance, uttered ^spoken^ with soldierly fire and frankness, all down the scale to wounded dignity clothed in words of noble pathos;as, when her patience was exhausted by the pestering attempts of her persecutors to find out ^discover^ what kind of devil’s-witchcraft she had employed to rouse the war-spirit in her soldiers she burst ^cried^ out with “What I said was, ‘Ride these English down’—and I did it myself!” and as, w hen insultingly asked why it was that her standard had place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Rheims rather than the standards ^those^ of the other captains, she uttered that touching speech, “It had borne the burden, it had earned the honour” a phrase which fell from her lips without preparation, but whose ^premeditation, the^ moving beauty and simple grace it ^of which^ would bankrupt the art of language to surpass.

  4. Although she was on trial for her life, she was the only witness called on either side; the only witness summoned to testify before a packed jury commissioned with a definite task—to find her guilty, whether she was ^were^ guilty or not. She must be convicted out of her own mouth, there being no other way to accomplish it. Every advantage that learning has over ignorance, age over youth, experience over inexperience, chicane over artlessness every trick and trap and gin devisable by malice and the cunning of sharp intellects practised in ^the^ setting ^of^ snares for the unwary all these were employed against her without shame; and when these arts were one by one defeated by the marvellous intuitions of her alert and penetrating mind, Bishop Cauchon stooped to a final baseness which it degrades human speech to describe :a priest who pretended to come from the region of her own home and to be a pitying friend and anxious to help her in her sore need, was smuggled into her cell; he misused his sacred office to steal her confidence; and ^so that^ she confided to him the things ^facts^ sealed from revealment by her Voices which her prosecutors had tried so long in vain to trick her into betraying. A concealed confederate set it all down and delivered it to Cauchon, who used Joan’s ^Jeanne’s^ secrets, thus obtained, for her ruin.

  Throughout the Trial, whatever the ^the testimony of the^ foredoomed witness said was twisted from its true meaning, when possible, and made to tell against her; and whenever an answer of hers was beyond the reach of twisting ^garbling,^ it was not allowed to go upon the record. It was upon ^On^ one of these latter occasions that she uttered that pathetic reproach to Cauchon: “Ah, ^“you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down what is for me.” ^nothing that is in my favour.”^

  (easier translation)

  5. That this ^her^ untrained young creature’s genius for war was wonderful ^marvelous^, and that her generalship suggested an old and educated ^was that of a tried and trained^ military experience, we have the sworn testimony of two of her veteran subordinates one the Duc d’Alençon, ^brother to the King of France;^ the other the greatest of the French generals of the time, Dunois, Bastard of Orleans;that her genius was as great—possibly even greater—^power was equally great if not greater^ in the subtle warfare ^strife^ of the forum, we have for witness the records of the Rouen Trial, that protracted exhibition of intellectual fence maintained with credit against the masterminds of France; that her moral greatness was peer to her intellect we call the Rouen Trial again to witness, with their ^its^ testimony to a fortitude which patiently and steadfastly endured during twelve weeks the wasting forces of captivity, chains, loneliness, sickness, darkness, hunger, thirst, cold, shame, insult, abuse, broken sleep, treachery, ingratitude, exhausting sieges of cross-examination, ^and^ the threat of torture with the rack before ^facing^ her and the executioner standing ready: yet never surrendering, never asking quarter, the frail wreck of her as unconquerable the last day as was her invincible spirit the first.

  6. Great as she was in so many ways, she was perhaps even greatest of all in the lofty things just named her patient endurance, her steadfastness, her granite fortitude. We may not ^never^ hope to easily ^to^ find her mate and twin ^equal^ in these majestic qualities; where we lift our eyes highest we find only a strange and curious contrast—there in the captive eagle beating his broken wings on ^upon^ the Rock of St. Helena.

  7. The Trial ended with her condemnation. But as ^As^ she had conceded nothing, confessed nothing, this was victory for her, defeat for Cauchon. But his evil resources were not yet exhausted. She was persuaded to agree to sign a paper of slight import, then by treachery a paper ^another^ was substituted which contained a recantation and ^together with^ a detailed confession of everything which ^that^ had been charged against her during the Trial and denied and repudiated by her persistently during the three months; and this ^throughout. This^ false paper she ignorantly signed. This ^it^ was victory for Cauchon. He followed it eagerly and pitilessly up by at once setting a trap for her which ^that^ she could not escape. When she realised this she gave up the long ^fruitless^ struggle, denounced the treason which ^that^ had been practised against her, repudiated the false confession, reasserted the truth of the testimony which she had given in ^at^ the Trial, and went to her martyrdom with the peace of God in her tired heart, and on her lips endearing words and loving prayers for the cur she had crowned and the nation of ingrates she had saved.

  8. When the fires rose about her and ^flames leapt up and enveloped her frail form^ and she begged for a cross for her dying ^parched^ lips to kiss, it was not a friend but an enemy, not a Frenchman but an alien, not a comrade in arms but an English soldier that answered that ^her^ pathetic prayer. He broke a stick across his knee, bound the pieces together in the form of the symbol she so loved, and gave it ^to^ her ; and his ^This^ gentle deed is not forgotten, nor ^ever^ will be.

  III.

  THE REHABILITATION.

  Twenty-five years afterwards ^later^ the Process of Rehabilitation was instituted, there being ^in consequence of^ a growing doubt as to the validity of a sovereignty that had been rescued and set upon its feet by a person ^one^ who had been proven ^declared^ by the Church to be a witch and a familiar of evil spirits. Joan’s ^Jeanne’s^ old generals her secretary several aged relations and other villagers of Domremy surviving judges and secretaries of the Rouen and Poitiers Processes—a cloud of witnesses, some of whom had been her enemies and persecutorscame and made oath and testified; and what they said was written down.^ Their statements were taken down as evidence.^ In that sworn testimony the moving and beautiful history of Joan of ^Jeanne d’^Arc is laid bare from her childhood to her martyrdom. From the verdict she rises stainlessly pure, in mind and heart, in speech and deed and spirit and will so endure to the end of time.

  IV.

  THE RIDDLE OF ALL TIME. ^An Eternal Enigma.^

  “Riddle”—Anglice?

  1. She is the Wonder of the Ages. And when we consider her origin, her early circumstances, ^environment,^ her sex, and that she did all the things upon which her renown rests while she was still a young girl, we recognize that while ^so long as^ our race continues she will be also the Riddle of the Ages. When wc set about ^endures, the circumstances of her career will remain an insoluble problem. When we try
to^ accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakspeare or a Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or ^for^ other extraordinary person, we understand that the measure of his ^individual^ talent will not explain the whole result, nor even the largest ^greater^ part of it; no, it is ^The explanation must be sought in^ the atmosphere in ^amid^ which the talent was cradled that explains; it is ^When we know, the training which it received while it grew, ^young,^ the nurture it got ^derived^ from reading, study ^and^ example, the encouragement it gathered from self-recognition and recognition from the outside ^approval from its environment^ at each stage of its development: when we know all these details, then we know why the man was ready when his opportunity came. ^details, we can understand how the genius was ^created and^ evolved and thus was ready to seize his by steady and congenial growth.^ We should expect Edison’s surroundings ^environment^ and atmosphere to have the largest share in discovering him to himself and to the world; and we should expect him to live and die undiscovered in a land where an inventor could find no comradeship, no sympathy, no ambition-rousing atmosphere of recognition and ^or^ applause—Dahomey, for instance. Dahomey^, for instance,^ could not find ^produce^ an Edison out; in Dahomey an Edison could not find himself out. Broadly speaking, genius is not born with ^out^ sight but blind; and it is not itself that opens its eyes, but the subtle ^Its eyes are opened by the subtle^ influences of a myriad of stimulating exterior circumstances.