The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

Sybille shook her head sadly and continued:

'"An old man stood by the King,An old man with long white beard,Whiter than is the wool on the bush of the heather;His robe was laced with gold from top to bottom.He spoke to the King in a low voice;And the latter, after he had heard what the old man said,Struck three times on the ground with his scepterTo order silence,And said to Alain:"'If you bring me the harp of Merlin,That hangs at the head of his bed from three chains of gold;Yes, if you can loosen that harp and bring it to me,You shall have my daughter,Perhaps.'"

"And where was that harp, god-mother?" asked Jeannette, more and more interested in the legend. "What must he do to get it?"

"'My poor grandmother,'Said Alain when he returned to the house,'If truly you love me you'll help and advise me.My heart is broken! My heart is broken!''Bad boy, had you but listened to me,Had you not gone to that feast,Your heart would not be broken.But come, do not cry. The harp shall be loosened.Here's a hammer of gold;Now go.'"Alain returned to the King's palace, saying:'Good luck and joy! Here am I,And I bring the harp of Merlin' – "

"Then he succeeded in getting the harp?" Jeannette asked in amazement. "But where and how did he do it, god-mother?"

Sybille, with a mysterious look, placed her finger to her lips in token of silence:

"'I bring here the harp of Merlin,' said Alain to the King;'Sire, your daughter, Linor, must now be mine.You promised me so.'When the King's son heard this, he made a wry faceAnd spoke to his father, the King, in a low voice.The King, having listened, then said to Alain:'If you fetch me the ringFrom the finger of Merlin's right hand,Then you shall have my daughter, Linor.'"

"Oh, god-mother, twice to fail in his promise! Oh, that was wrong on the part of the King! What is to become of poor Alain?"

"Alain returns all in tears,And seeks his grandmother in great haste.'Oh, grandmother, the King had said —And now he gainsays himself!''Do not grieve so, dear child!Take a twiglet you'll find in my chest,On which twelve leaves you'll see —Twelve leaves as yellow as gold,And that I looked for se'en nightsIn se'en woods, now se'en years agone.'"

"What were those gold leaves, god-mother? Did the angels or the saints give them to the grandmother?"

Sybille shook her head negatively and proceeded:

"When at midnight the chanticleer crowed,The black colt of Alain awaited his masterJust outside the door.'Fear not, my dear little grandson,Merlin will not awake;You have my twelve leaves of gold.Go quickly.'The chanticleer had not yet done with his chantWhen the black colt was galloping swiftly over the road.The chanticleer had not yet done with his chantWhen the ring of Merlin was taken away – "

"And this time Alain married the King's daughter, did he not, god-mother?"

"At break of dawn was Alain at the King's palace,Presenting him with Merlin's ring.Stupefied the King did stand;And all who stood near him declared:'Lo, how, after all, this young peasantWon the daughter of our Sire!''It is true,' the King to Alain did say,'But still there is one thing I now ask of you,And it will be the last. Do you that,And my daughter you'll have,And with her the glorious kingdom of Leon.''What must I do, Sire?''To my court bring Merlin,Your wedding to sing with my daughter Linor.'"

"My God!" interrupted the little shepherdess, more and more carried away with the marvelousness of the story, "how will it end?"

"While Alain was at the King's palace,His grandmother saw Merlin go by;Merlin the Enchanter went by her house.'Whence, Merlin, come you with your clothes all in ragsWhither thus bare-headed and bare-footed go you?Whither, old Merlin, with your holly staff go you?''Alack! Alack! I'm looking for my harp,My heart's only solace in all this broad world.I'm looking for my harp and also for my ring,Which both I lost, or they have been stolen from me.'"'Merlin, Merlin, do not grieve!Your harp is not lost, and neither is your ring.Walk in, Merlin, walk in,Take rest and food.''I shall neither eat nor rest in this worldTill I've recovered my harp and my ring.They have not been stolen, I've lost them, the two.''Merlin, walk in, your harp will be found. —Merlin, walk in, your ring will be found.'So hard the grandmother beggedThat Merlin entered her hut."When in the evening Alain returned to his house,He trembled with a great fear when,On casting his eyes towards the hearth,He there saw Merlin the Enchanter,Who was seated, his head on his breast reclining.Alain knew not whither to flee."'Fear not, my lad, fear not.Merlin sleeps a slumber profound.He has eaten three apples, three red ones,Which I in the embers have baked.Now he'll follow wherever we go.We'll lead him towards the palaceOf our Sire, the King!'"

"And did Merlin go, god-mother?"

"'What has happened in town, that I hear such a noise?'Said the next day the Queen to the servant;'What has happened at court, that the crowdAre cheering so joyfully?''Madam, the whole town is having a feast.Merlin is entering the town with an old,A very old woman, dressed in white,The grandmother she of the lad who is your daughter to marry.Aye, Madam the Queen.'"And the wedding took place.Alain espoused Linor. Merlin chanted the nuptials.There were a hundred white robes for the priests,A hundred gold chains for the knights,A hundred festal blue mantles for the dames,And eight hundred hose for the poor.And all left satisfied.Alain left for the country of LeonWith his wife, his grandmother, and a numerous suite. —But Merlin alone disappeared. Merlin was lost.No one knows what of him is become.No one knows when Merlin will return."6

CHAPTER V

THE PROPHECY OF MERLIN

Jeannette had listened to Sybille in rapt attention, struck above all by the singular circumstance of a peasant marrying the daughter of a king. From that moment Jeannette pardoned herself for having so often, since the previous evening, permitted her thoughts to turn to that young Sire, so sweet, so beautiful, so brave and yet so unfortunate through his mother's misconduct and the cruelty of the English.

When Sybille's recital was ended, a short silence ensued which was broken by Jeannette:

"Oh, god-mother, what a beautiful legend! It would be still more beautiful if, the Sire of Leon having to fight so cruel an enemy as the English, Alain, the peasant, had saved the King before wedding his daughter! But what did become of Merlin, the great enchanter Merlin?"

"It is said that he must sleep a thousand years. But before he fell asleep he prophesied that the harm a woman would do to Gaul would be redressed by a young girl, a young girl of this region – "

"This region in which we live, god-mother?"

"Yes, of the borders of Lorraine; and that she would be born near a large oak forest."

Jeannette clasped her hands in astonishment and she looked at Sybille in silence, revolving in her mind the prophecy of Merlin that France was to be saved by a young girl of Lorraine, perchance of Domremy! Was not the emancipatrix to come from an old oak forest? Was not the village of Domremy situated close to a forest of centennarian oaks?7

"What! God-mother," Jeannette inquired, "can that be true – did Merlin make that prophecy?"

"Yes," answered Sybille, thinking that surely the time had come when the prophecy of the Gallic bard was to be fulfilled, "yes, more than a thousand years ago Merlin so prophesied."

"How did he do it, god-mother?"

Sybille leaned her forehead on her hand, collected herself, and in a low voice, speaking slowly, she imparted to her god-daughter the mysterious prophecy in the following words, to which the child listened with religious absorption:

"When down goes the sun and the moon shines, I sing.Young, I sang – become old still I sing.People look for me, but they find me not.People will cease looking for, and then will they find me.It matters little what may happen —What must be shall be!"I see Gaul lost by a woman. I see Gaul saved by a virginFrom the borders of Lorraine and a forest of oaks.I see at the borders of Lorraine a thick forest of oaksWhere, near a clear fountain, grows the divine druid herb,Which the druid cuts with a sickle of gold.I see an angel with wings of azure and dazzling with light.He holds in his hands a royal crown.I see a steed of battle as white as snow —I see an armor of battle as brilliant as silver. —For whom is that crown, that steed, that armor?Gaul, lost by a woman, will be saved by a virginFrom the borders of Lorraine and a forest of oaks. —For whom that crown, that steed, that armor?Oh, how much blood!It spouts up, it flows in torrents!It steams; its vapor rises – rises like an autumn mist to heaven,Where the thunder peals and where the lightning flashes.Athwart those peals of thunder, those flashes of lightning,That crimson mist, I see a martial virgin.She battles, she battles – she battles still in a forest of lances!She seems to be riding on the backs of the archers.8The white steed, as white as snow, was for the martial virgin!For her was the armor of battle as brilliant as silver.She is surrounded by an escort.But for whom the royal crown?Gaul, lost by a woman, will be saved by a virginFrom the borders of Lorraine and a forest of oaks.For the martial maid the steed and the armor!But for whom the royal crown?The angel with wings of azure holds it in his hands.The blood has ceased to run in torrents,The thunder to peal, and the lightning to flash.The warriors are at rest.I see a serene sky. The banners float;The clarions sound; the bells ring.Cries of joy! Chants of victory!The martial virgin receives the crownFrom the hands of the angel of light.A man on his knees, wearing a long mantle of ermine,Is crowned by the warrior virgin.Who is the virgin's elect?"It matters little what may happen.What must be shall be!Gaul, lost by a woman,Is saved by a virginFrom the borders of Lorraine and a forest of oaks.The prophecy is in the Book of Destiny."

Hanging upon the lips of Sybille, Jeannette never once interrupted her as she listened to the mysterious prophecy with waxing emotion. Her active, impressionable imagination pictured to her mind's eye the virgin of Lorraine clad in her white armor, mounted on her white courser, battling in the midst of a forest of lances, and, in the words of the prophetic chant, "riding on the backs of the archers." And after that, the war being ended and the foreigner vanquished, the angel of light – no doubt St. Michael, thought the little shepherdess – passed the crown to the warrior maid; who, amidst the blare of trumpets, the ringing of bells and the chants of victory, rendered his crown back to the king. And that king, who else could he be but the lovely Dauphin whose mother had brought on the misfortunes of France? It never yet occurred to the little shepherdess that she, herself, might be the martial virgin prophesied of in the legend. But the heart of the naïve child beat with joy at the thought that the virgin who was to emancipate Gaul was to be a Lorrainian.

"Oh, thanks, god-mother, for having recited this beautiful legend to me!" said Jeannette, throwing herself, with tears in her eyes, on the neck of Sybille. "Morning and noon shall I pray to God and St. Michael soon to fulfil the prophecy of Merlin. The English will then finally be driven from France and our young Sire crowned, thanks to the courage of the young Lorrainian maid from the forest of old oaks! May God grant our prayers!"

"'It matters little what may happen. What must be shall be.' The prophecy will be fulfilled."

"And yet," replied the little shepherdess, after reflecting a moment, "think of a young maid riding to battle and commanding armed men like a captain! Is such a thing possible? But God will give her courage!"

"My father knew one time, in my country of Brittany, the wife of the Count of Montfort, who was vanquished and taken prisoner by the King of France. Her name was Jeannette, like yours. Long did she fight valiantly, both on land and on sea, with casque and cuirass. She wished to save the heritage of her son, a three-year-old boy. The sword weighed no more to the arm of the Countess Jeannette than does the distaff to the hands of a girl that spins."

"What a woman, god-mother! What a woman!"

"And there were a good many other martial women, hundreds and hundreds of years ago! They came in vessels from the countries of the North; and they were daring enough to row up the Seine as far even as Paris. They were called the Buckler Maidens. They did not fear the bravest soldier. And who wished to wed them had first to overcome them by force of arms."9

"You do not say so! What furious women they must have been!"

"And in still older days, the Breton women of Gaul followed their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers to battle. They assisted at the councils of war; and often fought unto death."

"God-mother, is not the story of Hena that you once told me, a legend of those days?"10

"Yes, my child."

"Oh, god-mother," replied the enraptured little shepherdess, caressingly, "tell me that legend once more. Hena proved herself as courageous as will be the young Lorrainian maid whose advent Merlin predicts."

"Very well," said Sybille, smiling, "I shall tell you this legend also and shall then return home. My hemp is retting. I shall return for it before evening."

CHAPTER VI

THE LEGEND OF HENA

With the enchanted Jeannette for her audience, Sybille proceeded to recite the legend of Hena:

"She was young, she was fair,And holy was she.To Hesus her blood gaveFor Gaul to be free.Hena her name!Hena, the Maid of the Island of Sen!"'Blessed be the gods, my sweet daughter,'Said her father Joel,The brenn of the tribe of Karnak.'Blessed be the gods, my sweet daughter,Since you are home this nightTo celebrate the day of your birth!'"'Blessed be the gods, my sweet girl,'Said Margarid, her mother.'Blessed be your coming!But why is your face so sad?'"'My face is sad, my good mother,My face is sad, my good father,Because Hena your daughterComes to bid you Adieu,Till we meet again.'"'And where are you going, my sweet daughter?Will your journey, then, be long?Whither thus are you going?'"'I go to those worldsSo mysterious, above,That no one yet knows,But that all will yet know.Where living ne'er traveled,Where all will yet travel,To live there againWith those we have loved.'"

"And those worlds," asked Jeannette, "are they the paradise where the angels and the saints of the good God are? Are they, god-mother?"

Sybille shook her head doubtfully, without answering, and continued the recital of her legend:

"Hearing Hena speak these words,Sadly gazed upon her her father,And her mother, aye, all the family,Even the little children,For Hena loved them very dearly."'But why, dear daughter,Why now quit this world,And travel away beyondWithout the Angel of Death having called you?'"'Good father, good mother,Hesus is angry.The stranger now threatens our Gaul, so beloved.The innocent blood of a virginOffered by her to the godsMay their anger well soften.Adieu then, till we meet again,Good father, good mother."'Adieu till we meet again,All, my dear ones and friends.These collars preserve, and these rings,As mementoes of me.Let me kiss for the last time your blonde heads,Dear little ones. Good-bye till we meet.Remember your Hena, she waits for you yonder,In the worlds yet unknown.'"Bright is the moon, high is the pyreWhich rises near the sacred stones of Karnak;Vast is the gathering of the tribesWhich presses 'round the funeral pile."Behold her, it is she, it is Hena!She mounts the pyre, her golden harp in hand,And singeth thus:"'Take my blood, O Hesus,And deliver my land from the stranger.Take my blood, O Hesus.Pity for Gaul! Victory to our arms!'"So it flowed, the blood of Hena.O, holy Virgin, in vain 'twill not have been,The shedding of your innocent and generous blood.To arms! To arms!Let us chase away the stranger!Victory to our arms!"

The eyes of Jeannette filled anew with tears; and she said to Sybille, when the latter had finished her recital:

"Oh, god-mother, if the good God, his saints and his archangels should ask me: 'Jeannette, which would you prefer to be, Hena or the martial maid of Lorraine who is to drive the wicked English from France and restore his crown to our gentle Dauphin?' – "

"Which would you prefer?"

"I would prefer to be Hena, who, in order to deliver her country, offered her blood to the good God without shedding the blood of any other people! To be obliged to kill so many people before vanquishing the enemy and before crowning our poor young Sire! Oh, god-mother," added Jeannette, shivering, "Merlin said that he saw blood flowing in torrents and steaming like a fog!"

Jeannette broke off and rose precipitately upon hearing, a few steps off in the copse, a great noise mixed with plaintive bleatings. Just then one of her lambs leaped madly out of the bush pursued silently by a large black dog which was snapping viciously at its legs. To drop her distaff, pick up two stones that she armed herself with and throw herself upon the dog was the work of an instant for the child, thoroughly aroused by the danger to one of her pets, while Sybille cried in frightened tones:

"Take care! Take care! The dog that does not bark is mad!"

But the little shepherdess, with eyes afire and face animated, and paying no heed to her god-mother's warning, instead of throwing her stones at the dog from a safe distance, attacked him with them in her hands, striking him with one and the other alternately until he dropped his prey and fled, howling with pain and with great tufts of wool hanging from his jaws, while Jeannette pursued him, picking up more stones and throwing them with unerring aim until the dog had disappeared in the thicket.

When Jeannette returned to Sybille the latter was struck by the intrepid mien of the child. The ribbons on her head having become untied, her hair was left free to tumble down upon her shoulders in long black tresses. Still out of breath from running, she leaned for a moment against the moss-grown rocks near the fountain with her arms hanging down upon her scarlet skirt, when, noticing the lamb that lay bleeding on the ground, still palpitating with fear, the little shepherdess fell to crying. Her anger gave place to intense pity. She dipped up some water at the spring in the hollow of her hands, knelt down beside the lamb, washed its wounds and said in a low voice:

"Our gentle Dauphin is innocent as you, poor lambkin; and those wicked English dogs seek to tear him up."

In the distance the bells of the church of Domremy began their measured chimes. At the sound, of which she was so passionately fond, the little shepherdess cried delightedly:

"Oh, god-mother, the bells, the bells!"

And in a sort of ecstasy, with her lamb pressed to her breast, Jeannette listened to the sonorous vibrations that the morning breeze wafted to the forest of oaks.

CHAPTER VII

GERMINATION

Several weeks went by. The prophecy of Merlin, the remembrance of the King's misfortunes and of the disasters of France, ravaged by the English, obstinately crowded upon Jeannette's mind, before whom her parents frequently conversed upon the sad plight of the country. Thus, often during the hours she spent in solitary musings with her flock in the fields or the woods, she repeated in a low voice the passage from the prophecy of the Gallic bard:

"Gaul, lost by a woman, shall be saved by a virginFrom the borders of Lorraine and a forest of old oaks."

Or that other:

"Oh, how much blood!It spouts up, it flows in torrents!It steams and, like a mist, it rises heavenwardWhere the thunder peals, where the lightning flashes!Athwart those peals of thunder, those flashes of lightning,I see a martial virgin.White is her steed, white is her armor;She battles, she battles still in the midst of a forest of lances,And seems to be riding on the backs of the archers."

Whereupon the angel of dazzling light would place the royal crown in the hands of the martial virgin, who crowned her King in the midst of shouts of joy and chants of victory!

Every day, looking with her mind's eyes towards the borders of Lorraine and failing to see the emancipating virgin, Jeannette beseeched her two good saints – St. Marguerite and St. Catherine – to intercede with the Lord in behalf of the safety of the gentle Dauphin, who had been deprived of his throne. Vainly did she beseech them to obtain the deliverance of poor France, for so many years a prey to the English; and she also fervently implored heaven for the fulfilment of the prophecy of Merlin, a prophecy that seemed plausible to Jeannette's mind after Sybille had told her of the exploits of the martial virgins who came in their ships from the distant seas of the North and besieged Paris; or the prowess of Jeannette of Montfort, battling like a lioness defending her whelps; or, finally, the heroic deeds of the Gallic women of olden days who accompanied their husbands, their brothers and their fathers to battle.

Jeannette was approaching her fourteenth year, an age at which robust and healthy natures, well developed by the invigorating labors of a rustic life, ordinarily enter their period of puberty. In that period of their lives, on the point, so grave for their sex, of becoming maids, they are assailed by unaccountable fears, by a vague sense of sadness, by an imperious demand for solitude where to give a loose rein to languorous reveries, novel sensations at which their chaste instincts take alarm, symptoms of the awakening of the virginal heart, first and shadowy aspirations of the maid for the sweet pleasures and austere duties of the wife and mother – the sacred destinies of woman.

It was not thus with Jeannette. She experienced these mysterious symptoms; but her simplicity misled her as to their cause. Her imagination filled with the marvelous legends of her god-mother, whom she continued to meet almost daily at the Fountain of the Fairies, her spirit ever more impressed by the prophecies of Merlin, although she never identified herself with them, Jeannette imputed, in the chaste ignorance of her soul, the vague sense of sadness that assailed her, her involuntary tears, her confused aspirations – all precursory symptoms of puberty – to the painful and tender compassion that the misfortunes of Gaul and of her young King inspired her with.

Jeannette Darc was to know but one love, the sacred love of her mother-land.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ENGLISH!

"Isabelle," one evening James Darc said to his wife, with a severe air, she and he being left alone near the hearth, "I am not at all satisfied with Jeannette. In a few months she will be fourteen; large and strong though she is for her age, she is becoming lazy. Yesterday I ordered her to draw water from the well to water the vegetables in the garden and I saw her stop a score of times with her hands on the rope and her nose in the air gaping at the eaves of the house. I shall have to shake her rudely out of the sin of laziness."

"James, listen to me. Have you not noticed that for some time our Jeannette is rather pale, has hardly any appetite, is often absent minded; and, moreover, she is more reserved than formerly?"

"I do not complain of her talking little. I do not love gabblers. I complain of her laziness. I wish her to become again industrious as she once was, and active as of old."

"The change that we notice in the girl does not, my friend, proceed from bad will."

"Whence then?"

"Only yesterday, feeling truly alarmed for her health, I questioned Jeannette. She suffered, she said, with violent headaches for some time; her limbs grew stiff without her having done hardly any walking; she could hardly sleep and was at times so dizzy that everything turned around her.

"This morning, as I went to Neufchateau with butter and poultry, I consulted Brother Arsene, the surgeon, on Jeannette's condition."

"And what did Brother Arsene say?"

"Having been told what her ailments were, he asked her age. 'Thirteen and a half, near fourteen,' I answered him. 'Is she strong and otherwise of good health?' 'Yes, brother, she is strong and was always well until these changes came that so much alarm me.' 'Be easy,' was Brother Arsene's final remark, 'be easy, good woman, your "little" daughter will surely soon be a "big" daughter. In a word, she will have "developed." At the approach of that crisis, always grave, young girls grow languishing and dreamy. They experience aches. They become taciturn and seek solitude. Even the most robust become feeble, the most industrious indolent, the gayest sad. That lasts a few months and then they become themselves again. But,' added Brother Arsene, 'you must be careful, under pain of provoking serious accidents, not to cross or scold your daughter at such a period of her life. Strong emotions have been known to check and suppress forever the salutary crisis that nature brings on. In such cases serious, often irreparable harm may follow. There are young girls who, in that manner, have gone wholly insane.' So you see, James, how we shall have to humor Jeannette."