Part 4 (1/2)
Woman, sister--there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant--not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you _can_ create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not? Do not ask me to say otherwise; because if you do, you will lead me into temptation.
For I swore early in life never to utter a falsehood, and, above all, a sycophantic falsehood; and, in the false homage of the modern press towards women, there is horrible sycophancy. It is as hollow, most of it, and it is as fleeting as is the love that lurks in _uxoriousness_. Yet, if a woman asks me to tell a faleshood, I have long made up my mind--that on moral considerations I _will_, and _ought_ to do so, whether it be for any purpose of glory to _her_, or of screening her foibles (for she _does_ commit a few), or of humbly, as a va.s.sal, paying a peppercorn rent to her august privilege of caprice. Barring these cases, I must adhere to my resolution of telling no fibs. And I repeat, therefore, but not to be rude, I repeat in Latin--
Excudent alii melius spirantia signa, Credo equidem vivos ducent de marmore vultus: Altius ascendent: at tu caput, Eva, memento Sandalo ut infringas referenti oracula tanta.[6]
Yet, sister woman--though I cannot consent to find a Mozart or a Michael Angelo in your s.e.x, until that day when you claim my promise as to falsehood--cheerfully, and with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of us men--a greater thing than even Mozart is known to have done, or Michael Angelo--you can die grandly, and as G.o.ddesses would die were G.o.ddesses mortal. If any distant world (which _may_ be the case) are so far ahead of us Tellurians in optical resources as to see distinctly through their telescopes all that we do on earth, what is the grandest sight to which we ever treat them? St. Peter's at Rome, do you fancy, on Easter Sunday, or Luxor, or perhaps the Himalayas? Pooh! pooh! my friend: suggest something better; these are baubles to _them_; they see in other worlds, in their own, far better toys of the same kind. These, take my word for it, are nothing. Do you give it up? The finest thing, then, we have to show them is a scaffold on the morning of execution. I a.s.sure you there is a strong muster in those fair telescopic worlds, on any such morning, of those who happen to find themselves occupying the right hemisphere for a peep at _us_. Telescopes look up in the market on that morning, and bear a monstrous premium; for they cheat, probably, in those scientific worlds as well as we do. How, then, if it be announced in some such telescopic world by those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our newspapers, whose language they have long since deciphered, that the poor victim in the morning's sacrifice is a woman? How, if it be published on that distant world that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the eyes of many, the garlands of martyrdom? How, if it should be some Marie Antoinette, the widowed queen, coming forward on the scaffold, and presenting to the morning air her head, turned gray prematurely by sorrow, daughter of Caesars kneeling down humbly to kiss the guillotine, as one that wors.h.i.+ps death?
How, if it were the ”martyred wife of Roland,” uttering impa.s.sioned truth--truth odious to the rulers of her country--with her expiring breath?
How, if it were the n.o.ble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon her smiles wherever she turned her face to scatter them--homage that followed those smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring, follow the re-appearing sun and the racing of sunbeams over the hills--yet thought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals in comparison of deliverance from h.e.l.l for her dear suffering France? Ah!
these were spectacles indeed for those sympathizing people in distant worlds; and some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of martyrdom themselves, because they could not testify their wrath, could not bear witness to the strength of love, and to the fury of hatred, that burned within them at such scenes; could not gather into golden urns some of that glorious dust which rested in the catacombs of earth.
On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted before mid-day, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by occasional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow s.p.a.ces in every direction for the creation of air-currents. The pile ”struck terror,” says M. Michelet, ”by its height;” and, as usual, the English purpose in this is viewed as one of pure malignity. But there are two ways of explaining all that. It is probable that the purpose was merciful. On the circ.u.mstances of the execution I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity of M. Michelet in finding out whatever may injure the English name, at a moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personal appearance, it is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by which he draws into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon the high road, a very pleasing one. Both are from English pens. Grafton, a chronicler but little read, being a stiff-necked John Bull, thought fit to say, that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, since her ”foule face” was a satisfactory solution of that particular merit.
Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every way more important, and universally read, has given a very pleasing testimony to the interesting character of Joanna's person and engaging manners. Neither of these men lived till the following century, so that personally this evidence is none at all. Grafton sullenly and carelessly believed as he wished to believe; Holinshead took pains to inquire, and reports undoubtedly the general impression of France. But I cite the case as ill.u.s.trating M. Michelet's candor.[7]
The circ.u.mstantial incidents of the execution, unless with more s.p.a.ce than I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fear to injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so unspeakably grand. Yet for a purpose pointing, not at Joanna but at M.
Michelet,--viz., to convince him that an Englishman is capable of thinking more highly of _La Pucelle_ than even her admiring countryman, I shall, in parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanor on the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorize me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firmness. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna d'Arc was subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear of _personal_ rancor. The martyr was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Caesar; at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian faith and morals existed, with the enmity that arises spontaneously in the worldly against the spiritual. But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be, therefore, anti-national; and still less was _individually_ hateful. What was hated (if anything) belonged to his cla.s.s, not to himself separately.
Now Joanna, if hated at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national grounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against _her_, such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it would follow of necessity that some people would impute to her a willingness to recant. No innocence could escape _that_. Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most, who, in their own persons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circ.u.mstances. It rests upon no _positive_ testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem. And yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seems to admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer amongst her _friends_ who lends some countenance to this odious slander. His words are, that, if she did not utter this word _recant_ with her lips, she uttered it in her heart. ”Whether, she _said_ the word is uncertain: but I affirm that she _thought_ it.”
Now, I affirm that she did not; not in any sense of the word ”_thought_”
applicable to the case. Here is France calumniating _La Pucelle_: here is England defending her. M. Michelet can only mean, that, on _a priori_ principles, every woman must be presumed liable to such a weakness; that Joanna was a woman; _ergo_, that she was liable to such a weakness. That is, he only supposes her to have uttered the word by an argument which presumes it impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. I, on the contrary, throw the _onus_ of the argument not on presumable tendencies of nature, but on the known facts of that morning's execution, as recorded by mult.i.tudes. What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute n.o.bility of deportment, broke the vast line of battle then arrayed against her? What else but her meek, saintly demeanor, won from the enemies, that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? ”Ten thousand men,” says M. Michelet himself, ”ten thousand men wept;” and of these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by cords of superst.i.tion. What else was it but her constancy, united with her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier--who had sworn to throw a f.a.ggot on her scaffold, as _his_ tribute of abhorrence, that _did_ so, that fulfilled his vow--suddenly to turn away a penitent for life, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven from the ashes where she had stood? What else drove the executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to _his_ share in the tragedy? And, if all this were insufficient, then I cite the closing act of her life as valid on her behalf, were all other testimonies against her. The executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke rose upwards in billowing volumes. A Dominican monk was then standing almost at her side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this n.o.blest of girls think only for _him_, the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave _her_ to G.o.d. That girl, whose latest breath ascended in this sublime expression of self-oblivion, did not utter the word _recant_ either with her lips or in her heart. No; she did not, though one should rise from the dead to swear it.
Bishop of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold--thou upon a down bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike.
At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; together both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast upon you two, Bishop and Shepherd girl--when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains about you--let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features of your separate visions.
The shepherd girl that had delivered France--she, from her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as she entered her last dream--saw Domremy, saw the fountain of Domremy, saw the pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival, which man had denied to her languis.h.i.+ng heart--that resurrection of spring-time, which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from _her_, hungering after the glorious liberty of forests--were by G.o.d given back into her hands, as jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps, (for the minutes of dreams can stretch into ages,) was given back to her by G.o.d the bliss of childhood. By special privilege, for _her_ might be created, in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not, like _that_, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was weathered, the skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing off. The blood, that she was to reckon for, had been exacted; the tears, that she was to shed in secret, had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had been suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings of death. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she had died--died, amidst the tears of ten thousand enemies--died, amidst the drums and trumpets of armies--died, amidst peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs.
Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burthened man is in dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mirror--rising (like the mocking mirrors of _mirage_ in Arabian deserts) from the fens of death--most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, Bishop, that you, also, entering your final dream, saw Domremy. That fountain, of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your eyes in pure morning dews; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, Bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But as _you_ draw near, the woman raises her wasted features. Would Domremy know them again for the features of her child? Ah, but _you_ know them, Bishop, well! Oh, mercy!
what a groan was _that_ which the servants, waiting outside the Bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find a respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there! In glades, where only wild deer should run, armies and nations are a.s.sembling; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There is the great English Prince, Regent of France. There is my Lord of Winchester, the princely Cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that which hands so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of Domremy a second time? No: it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds; and two nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hours for the innocent? Ah! no: he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all is waiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the Court is hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge is going to take his place. Oh! but this is sudden. My lord, have you no counsel? ”Counsel I have none: in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counsellor there is none now that would take a brief from _me_: all are silent.” Is it, indeed, come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity, but yet I will search in it for somebody to take your brief: I know of somebody that will be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domremy? Who is she that cometh in b.l.o.o.d.y coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the furnaces of Rouen? This is she, the shepherd girl, counsellor that had none for herself, whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, Bishop, that would plead for you: yes, Bishop, SHE--when heaven and earth are silent.
NOTES.
[NOTE 1.
_Arc_:--Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself, insists that the name is not d'Arc, _i.e._ of Arc, but _Darc_. Now it happens sometimes, that if a person, whose position guarantees his access to the best information, will content himself with gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice--”It is so; and there's an end of it,”--one bows deferentially; and submits. But if, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism; he would have entrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But coming down to base reasons, he lets in light, and one sees where to plant the blows. Now, the wors.h.i.+pful reason of modern France for disturbing the old received spelling, is--that Jean Hordal, a descendant of _La Pucelle's_ brother, spelled the name _Darc_, in 1612. But what of that?
Beside the chances that M. Hordal might be a gigantic blockhead, it is notorious that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit to disburse amongst man in the seventeenth century, was all monopolized by printers: in France, much more so.]
[NOTE 2.
_Those that share thy blood_:--a collateral relative of Joanna's was subsequently enn.o.bled by the t.i.tle of _du Lys_.]
[NOTE 3.
”_Jean_.”--M. Michelet a.s.serts that there was a mystical meaning at that era in calling a child _Jean_; it implied a secret commendation of a child, if not a dedication, to St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, the apostle of love and mysterious visions. But, really, as the name was so exceedingly common, few people will detect a mystery in calling a _boy_ by the name of Jack, though it _does_ seem mysterious to call a girl Jack. It may be less so in France, where a beautiful practice has always prevailed of giving to a boy his mother's name--preceded and strengthened by a male name, as _Charles Anne_, _Victor Victoire_. In cases where a mother's memory has been unusually dear to a son, this vocal memento of her, locked into the circle of his own name, gives to it the tenderness of a testamentary relique, or a funeral ring. I presume, therefore, that _La Pacelle_ must have borne the baptismal names of Jeanne Jean; the latter with no reference to so sublime a person as St. John, but simply to some relative.]
[NOTE 4.