The Executioner's Knife Part 8

Public events, together with the geographic location of the valley, joined in meeting Joan's wishes. The borders of Lorraine were frequently crossed by the messengers to and from Germany. Anxious for news, as are all people living at a distance from the country's center, James Darc often extended the hospitality of his house to these riders. They gossiped on the English war, the only concern of those sad days. Always reserved before her parents, who were foreign to the vast designs fermenting within her brain, Joan silently worked away at her distaff, losing not a single word of the reports that she heard. At times, however, she would venture one question or another to the travelers, suggested by her secret thoughts, and gradually enlightened herself. Nor was that all. The heroic resistance of the inhabitants of Vaucouleurs several times forced the English to raise the siege; towards the approach of the bad season these took up their winter quarters in Champagne, always to return with the spring. During these marches and counter-marches the hostile army ravaged anew the valley of the Meuse.

James Darc and other peasants were more than once obliged to resort to the Castle of Ile for refuge, which, on such occasions, was frequently attacked and valiantly defended. When the danger was over the peasants returned to the village.

The frequent sojourns of the family of Darc at the Castle of Ile, which was well fortified and garrisoned with experienced soldiers; the military alarms, the watches, the a.s.saults that the garrison had to sustain--all this familiarized Joan with the profession of arms.

Concentrated within herself, yielding to her martial vocation, attentively observing all that pa.s.sed around her, explaining to herself the means and manoeuvres of defense, listening, meditating over the orders issued to the soldiers by their superiors, Joan learned or guessed at the elementary principles of the military art. The ideas thus conceived germinated, budded, matured in the quick and penetrating mind of the young girl. She mistrusted herself less when her voices said to her:

"The time approaches--You will drive the English out of Gaul--You are the virgin prophesied by Merlin."

Joan's grand uncle, Denis Laxart, lived in Vaucouleurs; he had long known Robert of Baudricourt, a renowned captain of the country, who abhorred the English and was ardently devoted to the royalist party.

Joan often interrogated her uncle about Captain Robert of Baudricourt, upon his nature, upon his affability, upon the manner in which he treated the poor. In his simplicity, the good Denis had no suspicion of the purpose of his niece's interrogatories; he attributed them to girlish curiosity, and answered that Robert of Baudricourt, as brave a soldier as he was brutal and violent, usually sent everybody to the devil, was a terrible man, much feared by himself, and finally, that he never approached the captain but in trembling.

"It is a pity that so good a captain should be of so intractable and so rough a nature," Joan would say with a sigh, to her uncle, and sad and discouraged she would drop the subject only to return to it again.

Grown to a handsome maid, Joan was approaching the end of her sixteenth year--the time predicted by her voices had arrived.

CHAPTER XIV.

"THE TIME HAS ARRIVED."

Towards the end of February of 1429, a small troop of soldiers, on their way back to their duke in Lorraine, and belonging to the party of the Armagnacs, halted at Domremy. The hospitable villagers cordially quartered the strangers at their houses. A sergeant fell to James Darc.

The family gave him a friendly reception; they helped him to ease himself of his casque, his buckler, his lance and his sword, and the brilliant weapons were deposited in a corner of the apartment where Joan and her mother were busy preparing the family meal. The sight of the arms that the soldier had laid aside caused the young girl to tremble.

She could not resist the desire of secretly touching them, and profiting by a moment when she was left alone, she even put the iron casque upon her young head and took in her virile hand the heavy sword which she drew from its scabbard and brandished, thrusting and cutting.

At seventeen Joan was tall and strong. The superb contours of her virginal bosom[27] filled and rounded her corsage, scarlet as her skirt.

Her large black eyes, pensive and mild, her ebony hair, her clear complexion, slightly tanned by the sun, her cherry lips, her white teeth, her chaste physiognomy, serious and candid, imparted an attractive aspect to her appearance; as she now donned the soldier's casque the young girl was resplendent with martial beauty. The sergeant and James Darc entered the room. The latter frowned with severity; the soldier, however, charmed at seeing his casque on the head of the beautiful peasant girl, addressed to her some complimentary words. The anger of James redoubled, but he controlled himself. Blushing at being thus surprised, Joan quickly took off the casque and returned the sword to its scabbard. The family sat down to table. Although the sergeant was still young, he claimed to have often been among the royal troops that had taken the field against the English. He dilated upon his own prowesses, caressed his moustache, and threw side glances at Joan.

To the great astonishment of her family, and despite the obviously increasing though still controlled anger of her father, Joan came out of her ordinary reserve. She drew her stool near that of the soldier, seemed greatly to admire the hero, and overwhelmed him with questions concerning the royal army--its strength, its tactics, its present location, the number of its pieces of artillery, the names of the captains who inspired their soldiers with confidence.

Greatly flattered by the curiosity of the beautiful young girl concerning his military feats, even imagining that she was perhaps more interested in the warrior than in the war, the sergeant answered gallantly all the questions put by Joan. On her part, she listened to him with such rapt attention, and seemed by the fire in her eyes and the animation on her face to take so profound an interest in the conversation, that James Darc felt indignant thinking that the military carriage of the soldier was turning Joan's head. The eyes of the indignant father shot daggers at the soldier. Joan, too much preoccupied with her own thoughts, did not notice the rising anger of her parent, but plied her questions. With secret sorrow she learned then that, driven back beyond the Loire after a recent battle called the "Battle of the Herrings," the royal army had fled in disorder; that the English were besieging Orleans; and that, once the city was taken and Touraine invaded, the fate of the King and of France would be sealed, all his domains would then be in the hands of the English.

"Is there then no help for Gaul?" cried Joan, a prey to inexpressible exaltation. "Is all lost?"

"If the siege of Orleans is not raised within a month," answered the sergeant; "if the English are not driven back far from the Loire, then France will cease to exist! And this is as true as you are the most beautiful maid of Lorraine. Blood of Christ! When a little while ago you had my casque on your head, I thought I had before me the G.o.ddess of war. With a captain such as you, I would attack a whole army single-handed!"

At these words James Darc rose abruptly from the table; he told his guest that night was approaching, and country people, who rose with the sun, also retired with the sun. Cross at being thus bade to go, the sergeant slowly picked up his arms and sought to catch Joan's eyes. But the maid, wholly forgetful of the soldier, now sat on her stool steeped in painful meditations, thinking only of the fresh disasters of Gaul, at which her tears flowed freely.

"There can now be no doubt left," the peasant said to himself, "my daughter, so chaste and so pious until this day, has suddenly gone crazy over this braggart; she is weeping over his departure. Shame upon her and us! A curse upon the hospitality that I have extended to this stranger! May the devil take him!"

After the guest had gone, James Darc's face a.s.sumed an expression of intense severity. Barely repressing his indignation, he stepped up to his daughter, took her rudely by the arm, motioned her imperiously to the stairs, and cried:

"Go upstairs! There has been enough palavering to-day. I shall talk to you to-morrow!"

Still absorbed in her own racking thoughts, Joan obeyed her father mechanically. When she regained her own room, the latter proceeded, addressing his sons, both of whom were surprised at their father's rudeness towards their sister:

"May G.o.d help us! Did you notice the manner in which Joan looked at the sergeant? Oh, if she ever fell in love with a soldier, it would be your duty to drown her with your own hands; or, I swear it, I would sooner strangle her myself."[28]

The peasant uttered the words with such an explosion of rage that Joan heard him. She understood the mistake her father had fallen into, and wept. But soon "her voices" whispered to her:

"The time has arrived. Without you France and her King are lost--Go, daughter of G.o.d!--Save your King--Save France!--The Lord is with you--You are about to enter upon your mission."

CHAPTER XV.

CAPTAIN ROBERT OF BAUDRICOURT.

Robert of Baudricourt, the commander-in-chief of Vaucouleurs, a man in the prime of life, of military bearing and of a face whose harshness was relieved by intelligent and penetrating eyes, was walking in nervous excitement up and down a hall in the castle of the town. Instructed by a recent despatch of the desperate position of Charles VII and the danger Orleans ran from the close siege of the English, the captain walked at a rapid pace, grumbling, blaspheming and shaking the floor under the impatient beat of his spurred heels. Suddenly a leather curtain, that concealed the princ.i.p.al entrance to the hall, was pushed aside and revealed a part of the timid and frightened face of Denis Laxart, Joan's grand uncle. Robert of Baudricourt did not notice the good man; he stamped with his feet on the floor, struck the table a violent blow with his fist near where lay the fatal despatch he had just received, and cried:

"Death and fury! It is done for France and the King! All is lost, even honor!"

At this exclamation of exasperation, the courage of Denis Laxart failed him; he dared not approach the captain at such a moment, and he reclosed the curtain, behind which, however, he remained standing awaiting a more opportune moment. But the rage of Robert of Baudricourt redoubled. He again stamped on the floor and cried:

"Malediction! All is lost--all!"

"No, sir! No, all is not lost!" said the good Denis Laxart, resolutely overcoming his fear, but still remaining behind the shelter of the curtain. A second later he pushed his head through the portiere and repeated: "No, sir; all is not lost!"

Hearing the timid voice, the captain turned around; he recognized the old man, whom he rather esteemed, and asked in a rough voice:

"What are you doing at that door? Walk in--why do you not walk in?" But seeing that Denis hesitated, he added still more gruffly: "The devil take it! Will you come in!"

"Here I am, sir--Here I am," said Denis stepping in; "but for the love of G.o.d, do not fly off in such a temper; I bring you good news--news--that is unexpected--miraculous news. All is not lost, sir--on the contrary--all is saved. Both King and Gaul!"

"Denis!" replied the captain, casting a threatening look at Joan's uncle, "If your hair were not grey, I would have you whipped out of the castle with a sword's scabbard! Dare you joke! To speak of the safety of King and France under such circ.u.mstances as we find ourselves in!"

"Sir, I beseech you, listen without anger to what I have to tell you, however incredible it may seem! I do not look like a clown, and you know me long. Be good enough to listen to me patiently."

"I know you, and know you for a good and wise man; hence your incongruous words shock me all the more. Come on, speak!"

"Sir, as you see, my forehead is bathed in perspiration, my voice chokes me, I am trembling at every limb; and yet I have not even begun to inform you why I came here. If you interrupt me with outbursts of rage, I shall lose the thread of my thoughts--"

"By the bowels of G.o.d! Come on! What is it!"

Denis Laxart made a great effort over himself, and after having collected his thoughts he said to the captain in a hurried voice:

"I went yesterday to Domremy to see my niece, who is married to James Darc, an honest peasant from whom she has two sons and a daughter. The daughter is called Jeannette and is seventeen years--"

Noticing that the captain's ill restrained impatience was on the point of exploding at the exordium, Denis hastened to add:

"I am coming to the point, sir, which will seem surprising, prodigious to you. Last evening, my little niece Jeannette said to me: 'Good uncle, you know Captain Robert of Baudricourt; you must take me to him.'"

"What does your niece want of me?"

"She wants, sir, to reveal to you what she told me yesterday evening without the knowledge of her parents, without the knowledge even of Master Minet, the curate--that mysterious voices have long been announcing to her that she would drive the English from Gaul by placing herself at the head of the King's troops, and that she would restore to him his crown."