The Car That Went Abroad Part 20

It had become reality--perhaps in that old day it even _seemed_ reality--but now, after five hundred years, it has become once more a dream--to-day _our_ dream--and in the filmy picture we see the shepherd girl on her knees, saying to the crowned king:

"My work which was given me to do is finished; give me your peace and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old and has need of me."

But the king raises her up and praises her and confers upon her n.o.bility and t.i.tles, and asks her to name a reward for her service, and in the old dream we hear her ask favor for her village--that Domremy, "poor and hard pressed by reason of the war," may have its taxes remitted.

Nothing for herself--no more than that, and in the presence of all the great a.s.semblage Charles VII p.r.o.nounces the decree that, by grace of Joan of Arc, Domremy shall be free from taxes forever.

Here within these walls it was all reality five hundred years ago. We do not study this interior to discover special art values or to distinguish in what manner it differs from others we have seen. For us the light from its great rose window and upper arches is glorified because once it fell upon Joan of Arc in that supreme moment when she saw her labor finished and asked only that she might return to Domremy and her flocks.

The statuary in the niches are holy because they looked upon that scene, the altar paving is sanctified because it felt the pressure of her feet.

We wandered about the great place, but we came back again and again to the altar, and, looking through the railing, dreamed once more of that great moment when a frail shepherd girl began anew the history of France.

Back of the altar was a statue of Joan unlike any we have seen elsewhere, and to us more beautiful. It was not Joan with her banner aloft, her eyes upward. It was Joan with her eyes lowered, looking at no outward thing, her face pa.s.sive--the saddest face and the saddest eyes in the world. It was Joan the sacrifice--of her people and her king.

Chapter x.x.xI

ALONG THE MARNE

It may have been two miles out of Rheims that we met the flood. There had been a heavy shower as we entered the city, but presently the sun broke out, bright and hot, too bright and too hot for permanence. Now suddenly all was black again, there was a roar of thunder, and then such an opening of the water gates of the sky as would have disturbed Noah.

There was no thought of driving through such a torrent. I pulled over to the side of the road, but the tall high-trimmed trees afforded no protection. Our top was a shelter, but not a complete one--the wind drove the water in, and in a moment our umbrellas were sticking out in every direction, and we had huddled together like chickens. The water seemed to fall solidly. The world was blotted out. I had the feeling at moments that we were being swept down some great submarine current.

I don't know how long the inundation lasted. It may have been five minutes--it may have been thirty. Then suddenly it stopped--it was over--the sun was out!

There was then no mud in France--not in the high-roads--and a moment or two later we had revived, our engine was going, and we were gliding between fair fields--fresh shining fields where scarlet poppy patches were as pools of blood. There is no lovelier land than the Marne district, from Rheims to Chalons and to Vitry-le-Francois. It had often been a war district--a battle ground, fought over time and again since the ancient allies defeated Attila and his Huns there, checking the purpose of the "Scourge of G.o.d," as he styled himself, to found a new dynasty upon the wreck of Rome. It could never be a battle ground again, we thought--the great nations were too advanced for war. Ah me! Within two months from that day men were lying dead across that very road, sh.e.l.ls were tearing at the lovely fields, and another stain had mingled with the trampled poppies.

Chalons-sur-Marne, like Rheims and epernay, is a champagne center and prosperous. There were some churches there, but they did not seem of great importance. We stopped for water at Vitry-le-Francois, a hot, uninteresting-looking place, though it had played a part in much history, and would presently play a part in much more. It was always an outpost against vandal incursions from the north, and Francis I rebuilt and strengthened it.

At Vitry we left the Marne and kept the wide road eastward, for we were bound now for the Vosges, for Domremy on the Meuse, Joan's starting place. The sun burned again, the road got hot, and suddenly during the afternoon one of our tires went off like a gun.

One of our old shoes had blown out at the rim, and there was a doubtful look about the others. Narcissa and I labored in the hot sun--for there was no shade from those slim roadside poplars--and with inside patches and outside patches managed to get in traveling order again, though personally we were pretty limp by the time we were ready to move, and a good deal disheartened. The prospect of reaching Vevey, our base of supplies, without laying up somewhere to order new tires was not bright, and it became even less so that evening, when in front of the hotel at St. Dizier another tire pushed out at the rim, and in the gathering dusk, surrounded by an audience, I had to make further repairs before I could get into the garage.

Early next morning I gave those tires all a pretty general overhauling.

I put in blow-out patches wherever there seemed to be a weak place and doubled them at the broken spots. By the time I got done we were carrying in our tires all the extra rubber and leather and general aid-to-the-injured stuff that had formerly been under the back seat, and I was obliged to make a trip around to the supply garages for more.

Fortunately the weather had changed overnight, and it was cool. Old tires and even new ones hold better on cool roads.

It turned still cooler as we proceeded--it became chilly--for the Fourth of July it was winterish. At Chalons we had expended three whole francs for a bottle of champagne for celebration purposes, and when we made our luncheon camp in a sheltered cover of a pretty meadow where there was a clear, racing brook, we were too cold to sit down, and drank standing a toast to our national independence, and would have liked more of that delicious liquid warmth, regardless of cost. There could hardly have been a more beautiful spot than that, but I do not remember any place where we were less inclined to linger.

Yet how quickly weather can change. Within an hour it was warm again--not hot, but mildly pleasant, even delightful.

Chapter x.x.xII

DOMREMY

We were well down in the Vosges now and beginning to inquire for Domremy. How strange it seemed to be actually making inquiries for a place that always before had been just a part of an old legend--a half-mythical story of a little girl who, tending her sheep, had heard the voices of angels. One had the feeling that there could never really be such a place at all, that, even had it once existed, it must have vanished long ago; that to ask the way to it now would be like those who in some old fairy tale come back after ages of enchantment and inquire for places and people long forgotten. Domremy! No, it was not possible.

We should meet puzzled, blank looks, pitying smiles, in answer to our queries. We should never find one able to point a way and say, "That is the road to Domremy." One could as easily say "the road to Camelot."

Yet there came a time when we must ask. We had been pa.s.sing through miles of wonderful forest, with regularly cut roads leading away at intervals, suggesting a vast preserved estate, when we came out to an open hill land, evidently a grazing country, with dividing roads and no definite markings. So we stopped a humble-looking old man and hesitatingly, rather falteringly, asked him the road to Domremy. He regarded us a moment, then said very gently, pointing, "It is down there just a little way."

So we were near--quite near--perhaps even now pa.s.sing a spot where Joan had tended her sheep. Our informant turned to watch us pa.s.s. He knew why we were going to Domremy. He could have been a descendant of those who had played with Joan.

Even now it was hard to believe that Domremy would be just an old village, such a village as Joan had known, where humble folk led humble lives tending their flocks and small acres. Very likely it had become a tourist resort--a mere locality, with a hotel. It was only when we were actually in the streets of a decaying, time-beaten little hamlet and were told that this was indeed Domremy, the home of Joan of Arc, that we awoke to the actuality of the place and to the realization that in character at least it had not greatly changed.

We drove to the church--an ancient, weatherworn little edifice. The invaders destroyed it the same year that Joan set out on her march, but when Joan had given safety to France the fragments were gathered and rebuilt, so if it is not in its entirety the identical chapel where Joan worshiped, it contains, at least, portions of the original structure and stands upon the same ground. In front of the church is a bronze statue of the Maid, and above the entrance a painting of Joan listening to the voices. But these are modern. Inside are more precious things.

It is a plain, humble interior, rather too fresh and new looking for its antiquity, perhaps because of the whitened walls. But near the altar there is an object that does not disappoint. It is an ancient baptismal font--the original font of the little ruined chapel--the vessel in which Joan of Arc was baptized. I think there can be no question of its authenticity. It would be a holy object to the people of Domremy; to them Joan was already a saint at the time of her death, and any object that had served her was sacred. The relic dug from the ruined chapel would be faithfully guarded, and there would be many still alive to identify it when the church's restoration was complete and the ancient vessel set in place.

It seems a marvelous thing to be able to look upon an object that may be regarded as the ceremonial starting point of a grace that was to redeem a nation. Surely, if ever angels stood by to observe the rites of men they gathered with those humble shepherd folk about the little basin where a tiny soul was being consecrated to their special service.

In the church also is the headstone from the grave of Joan's G.o.dmother, with an ancient inscription which one may study out, and travel back a long way. Near it is another object--one that ranks in honor with the baptismal font--the statuette of St. Marguerite, before which Joan prayed. Like the font this would be a holy thing, even in Joan's lifetime, and would be preserved and handed down. To me it seems almost too precious to remain in that ancient, perishing church. It is something that Joan of Arc not only saw and touched, but to which she gave spiritual adoration. To me it seems the most precious, the most sacred relic in France. The old church appears so poor a protection for it. Yet I should be sorry to see it taken elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRTHPLACE OF JOAN OF ARC]

Joan's house is only a step away--a remnant of a house, for, though it was not demolished like the church, it has suffered from alterations, and portions of it were destroyed. Whatever remained at the time of Louis XI would seem to have been preserved about as it was then, though of course restored; the royal arms of France, with those accorded by Charles VII to Joan and her family, were combined ornamentally above the door with the date, 1481, and the inscription, in old French, "_Vive labeur; vive le roy Loys._" The son of Joan's king must have felt that it was proper to preserve the birthplace of the girl who had saved his throne.

Doubtless the main walls of the old house of Jacques d'Arc are the same that Joan knew. Joan's mother lived there until 1438, and it was less than fifty years later that Louis XI gave orders for the restoration.

The old walls were solidly built. It is not likely that they could have fallen to complete ruin in that time. The rest is mainly new.

What the inside of the old house was in Joan's time we can only imagine.

The entrance room was the general room, I suppose, and it was here, we are told, that Joan was born. Mark Twain has imagined a scene in the house of Jacques d'Arc where a hungry straggler comes one night and knocks at the door and is admitted to the firelit room. He tells us how Joan gave the wanderer her porridge--against her father's argument, for those were times of sore stress--and how the stranger rewarded them all with the great Song of Roland. The general room would be the setting of that scene.

Behind it is a little dungeon-like apartment which is shown as Joan's chamber. The walls and ceiling of this poor place are very old; possibly they are of Joan's time--no one can really say. In one wall there is a recess, now protected by a heavy wire screen, which means that Joan set up her shrine there, the St. Marguerite and her other holy things. She would pray to them night and morning, but oftener I think she would leave this dim prison for the consolation of the little church across the way.

The whole house is a kind of museum now, and the upper floor is especially fitted with cases for books and souvenirs.

In the grounds there is a fine statue by Mercie, and the whole place is leafy and beautiful. It is not easy, however, to imagine there the presence of Joan. That is easier in the crooked streets of the village, and still easier along the river and the fields. The Fairy Tree--_l'Arbre Fee de Bourlement_--where Joan and her comrades played, and where later she heard the voices, is long since gone, and the spot is marked by a church which we cared to view only from a distance. It seems too bad that any church should be there, and especially that one.

The spot itself, marked by a mere tablet, or another tree, would be enough.

It was in January, 1429, that Joan and her uncle Laxart left Domremy for Vaucouleurs to ask the governor to give her a military escort to the uncrowned king at Chinon. She never came back. Less than half a year later she had raised the siege at Orleans, fought Patay, and conducted the king to his coronation at Rheims. She would have returned then, but the king was afraid to let her go. Neither did he have the courage to follow or support her brilliant leadership. He was weak and paltry.

When, as the result of his dalliance, she was captured at Compiegne, he allowed her to suffer a year of wretched imprisonment, making no attempt at rescue or ransom, and in the end to be burned at Rouen as a witch.

I have read in an old French book an attempt to excuse the king, to show that he did not have armed force enough to go to Joan's rescue, but I failed to find there any evidence that he even contemplated such an attempt. I do find that when Joan had been dead thirteen years and France, strong and united, was safe for excursions, he made a trip to Lorraine, accompanied by Dunois, Robert de Baudricourt, and others of Joan's favorite generals. They visited Domremy, and Baudricourt pointed out to the king that there seemed to be a sadness in the landscape. It is said that this visit caused Charles to hasten the process of Joan's rehabilitation--to reverse the verdict of heresy and idolatry and witchcraft under which she had died. But as the new hearing did not begin until eleven years after the king's visit to Domremy, nearly twenty-five years after Joan's martyrdom, the word "hasten" does not seem to apply. If Charles VII finally bestirred himself in that process, it was rather to show before he died that he held his crown not by the favor of Satan but of saints.

The memory of Joan of Arc's fate must always be a bitter one to France, and the generations have never ceased to make atonement. Her martyrdom has seemed so unnecessary--such a reproach upon the nation she saved.

Yet perhaps it was necessary. Joan in half a year had accomplished what the French armies, without her, had been unable to do in three quarters of a century--she had crippled the English power in France. Her work was not finished--though defeated, the enemy still remained on French soil, and unless relentlessly a.s.sailed would recover. After the coronation at Rheims there would seem to have fallen, even upon Joan's loyal followers, a reaction, a period of indifference and indolence. Joan's fearful death at the stake awoke her people as nothing else could have done.

By a lonely roadside far up in Normandy we pa.s.sed, one day, a small stone column which recorded how upon this spot was delivered the battle of Formigny, April 15th, in the year 1450, under the reign of Charles VII, and how the French were victorious and the English armies forced to abandon Norman soil. Joan of Arc had been dead nineteen years when that final battle was fought, but it was her spirit that gave the victory.