Читать книгу The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc - Эжен Сю - Страница 11

During her sojourn in the Castle of Ile Jeannette had been the prey of severe attacks of fever. At times during her delirium she invoked St. Catherine and St. Marguerite, her good saints, believing that she saw them near her, and beseeching them with her hands clasped to put an end to the atrocities of the English. At other times the shocking scene of the hamlet of St. Pierre would rise in her troubled brain and she would cry out aloud or would sob at the sight of the victims that rose before her, livid and blood-bespattered. At still other times, her eyes shooting fire and her cheeks aflame she spoke of a martial virgin clad in white armor and mounted on a milk white steed whom, she said, she saw falling upon and exterminating the English. At such times Jeannette repeated with a quivering voice the refrain of Merlin's prophecy —

Isabelle sat up night and day nursing her daughter, imputing the ravings of the poor child to the violence of the fever and to the recollections of the horrible spectacle at St. Pierre. Great dejection of spirit and extreme feebleness succeeded Jeannette's malady. Back in Domremy, she was compelled to remain in bed several weeks; but her dreams reflected the identical pictures of her delirium. Moreover a deep sorrow had fallen upon her, for, strangely, her god-mother was one of the few victims of the English raid into Domremy. Her corpse was found riddled with wounds; and Jeannette wept for Sybille as much on account of her tender affection for her god-mother as on account of her regret at being separated forever from her who told such marvelous legends.

Two months passed and Jeannette was now nearly fourteen. She seemed to have regained her normal health, but the symptoms of puberty had disappeared and she frequently suffered from intolerable headaches followed by severe attacks of vertigo.

Feeling all the more uneasy as she remembered the words of the physician, Isabelle once more consulted him and he answered that the violent emotion caused by the invasion of the English and the spectacle of their cruelty must have deeply disturbed the girl's organization and checked her sexual development; but that her ailments would cease and the laws of nature resume their course in her physical being as the mental effects of her deeply stirred emotion wore off.

The physician's answer allayed Isabelle's fears. Moreover Jeannette again busied herself with her wonted household and field labors and she redoubled her activity in the effort to conceal from public gaze the spells of sadness and absent mindedness that now no longer were wholly without cause since she had witnessed some of the disasters to which her country was subject. Jeannette reflected to herself that the horrors she had seen at St. Pierre stained with blood all other sections of the land and fell heaviest upon those of her own class, the peasants. In pitying them she pitied her own. Since that fatal day Jeannette felt perhaps sadder at and wept more over the ghastly ills, an example of which she had seen with her own eyes, than at or over the misfortunes of the young Dauphin whom she did not know. The girl looked with increasing impatience for the advent of the warrior maid who was to bring deliverance to Gaul by driving the stranger out of the country, and by restoring his crown to the King and peace and rest to France.

These thoughts ever absorbed Jeannette's mind when alone in the woods or the field grazing her herd. Then would she yield unrestrained to revery and to the recollections of the legends that had had so much to do in forming her mind.

The undefinable emotion produced in her by the chiming of the bells began to raise visions before her eyes. The distant tintinnabulations, expiring on her ears, seemed to her transformed into a murmur of celestial voices of inexpressible sweetness.11 At such moments Jeannette felt the blood rush to her head; her eyes were covered as with a mist; the visible world disappeared from her sight and she fell into a kind of ecstasy from which she recovered worn out as if awakened from some painful dream.

One day when Jeannette was grazing her herd while plying the distaff under the old beech tree near the Fountain of the Fairies a singular incident occurred that had a decisive influence over the fate of the young shepherdess. Reinforced by several bands of Burgundians, furnished by Marshall John of Luxemburg, the English had persisted in the siege of Vaucouleurs; which latter was defending itself heroically. The invasion by the English of that valley, otherwise so peaceful, incited a schism among its inhabitants. Many of them, especially the people of St. Pierre and of Maxey, who had been so cruelly dealt with by the invaders, were inclined to pass over to the English in order to save their property and lives. These formed, in the valley, the "English" or "Burgundian" party. Others, on the contrary, more irritated than frightened, preferred to resist the English. These poor people counted upon the support of their sovereign, the King of France, who, they said, would not longer leave them exposed to such miseries. The latter comprised the "Armagnac" or "Royalist" party. The children, ever the imitators of their parents, likewise became "Armagnacs" and "Burgundians" when they played war. In these games the two parties ever finished by taking their roles seriously; when imprecations and actual blows with sticks and stones exchanged by the two "armies" gave these affairs the actual semblance of war.

The people of Domremy belonged mostly to the royalist, and those of St. Pierre and Maxey to the English party; and, of course, the children of these several localities shared, or rather aped, the political opinions of their respective families. It thus often happened that the lads of Maxey, while guarding their cattle, came to the borders of the commune of Domremy and flung insults at the little shepherds of the latter village. The dispute often became heated and hard words would be exchanged, when it would be decided to settle the difference of opinion by force of arms, that is with their fists and sticks accompanied by volleys of stones that figured as cross-bow bolts or cannon balls.12

Guarding her sheep, Jeannette spun her hemp under the trees of the forest of old oaks. In her revery she repeated in a low murmur the passage from Merlin's prophecy:

Suddenly Jeannette heard in the distance a noise, at first indistinct, but drawing nearer and nearer accompanied by clamorous cries of "Burgundy! England!" uttered by infantile voices and answered by the counter cries of "France and Armagnac!" Almost immediately a crowd of Domremy boys appeared at the turn of the forest's skirt, fleeing in disorder under a shower of stones fired at them by the boys of Maxey. The engagement had been lively and the victory hotly contested, to judge by the torn clothes, the bruised eyes and the bleeding noses of the more heroic ones of the urchins. But yielding to a panic, they were now in full flight and rout. Their adversaries, satisfied with their victory, out of breath with running, and no doubt afraid of drawing too close to Domremy, the stronghold of the retreating army, prudently stopped near the forest which now hid them and repeated three times the cry: "Burgundy and England!"

The cry of victory caused Jeannette to bound to her feet transported with anger and shame at the sight of the boys of her village who battled for Gaul and the King fleeing before the partisans of Burgundy and England. A lad of about fifteen years, named Urbain, who captained the fleeing troop, and who was personally a brave soldier, seeing that his scalp was cut by a stone and his cap remained in the hands of the enemy, ran past Jeannette.

"Are you running for safety, Urbain?"

"Sure! That's what I'm doing," answered the mimic captain, raising his head and wiping the blood from his forehead with a handful of grass. "We fought as long as we could – but those of Maxey are about twenty and we are only eleven!"

Jeannette stamped on the ground with her foot and replied: "You have strength to run – and yet you have no strength to fight!"

"But they have sticks, and that is not fair – we are the weaker side."

"Fall upon them and capture their sticks!"

"That is easy to say, Jeannette!"

"As easy to do as to say!" cried the shepherdess.

"You will see – Come! Come back with me!"

Without noticing whether she was followed or not, but yielding to an involuntary prompting, Jeannette walked toward the enemy, then masked by a clump of trees, and cried out in ringing tones, while brandishing her distaff in lieu of a banner: "France! France! Off with you Burgundians and English!"

With her feet and arms bare, in her short white sleeves and scarlet skirt, her little straw hat on her long black hair, her cheeks aflame, her eyes sparkling, her poise heroic, Jeannette was at that moment so inspiring that Urbain and his followers felt themselves all at once strengthened and exalted. They picked up stones and rushed after the young shepherdess, who in her rapid course now barely seemed to touch the sward with her feet, crying, with her, "France! Off with you Burgundians and English!"

In the security of their triumph, the soldiers of the hostile army, who never expected to see their adversaries rally, had stopped about a hundred yards away and were resting on their laurels; and stretching themselves on the flower-studded grass, picked wild strawberries and played with stones. Presently some of them climbed up in the trees looking for birds' nests, and the others scattered among the bushes picking and eating berries. The unexpected resumption of hostilities, the sudden cries hurled at them by the royalist army and by Jeannette, who now led it, greatly surprised the Burgundians, who, nevertheless, did not show the white feather. Their chief recalled his soldiers to arms. Immediately the plunderers of birds' nests slid down the trees, the berry pickers rushed up with crimson lips and those who had begun to fall asleep on the grass jumped up and rubbed their eyes. But before the line of battle could be formed the soldiers of Jeannette, anxious to avenge their former defeat, and carried away by the inspiring conduct of their present chief, fell valiantly upon the foe with redoubled cries of: "France! France!" Our heroes seized the Burgundians and English by the hair, boxed their ears and thumped them with such fury that the tables were completely turned; the erstwhile victors now became the vanquished, broke ranks and took to their heels.

The triumph redoubled the ardor of the assailants, who were now animated with the desire to carry off a few bonnets as spoils and trophies. The French army rushed breathlessly upon the English, with Jeannette ever in the lead. She fought intrepidly and made havoc with her distaff, which was garnished with a thick bunch of hemp – a terrible weapon, as many discovered that day. In the meantime, the English, stupefied by the sudden apparition of the young shepherdess in scarlet, who emerged so strangely from the neighborhood of the Fountain of the Fairies, the mystic reputation of which place extended far over the valley, took Jeannette for a hobgoblin. Fear lent them wings and the French were again vanquished – but only in running. The swiftest ones of the army pushed forward in pursuit of the enemy, but were obliged to desist for want of breath. Urbain and two or three of the most resolute kept up the pursuit with Jeannette, who, now seized with heroic exaltation, no longer thought of her own soldiers or took cognizance at all of her surroundings, but kept her flashing eyes fixed upon a number of fleeing English whom she wished to capture. Could she accomplish this it seemed to her that her victory would be complete.

But the runaways had so much the lead and ran so fast that she was almost despairing of being able to come to close quarters with them, when, still running, she perceived a donkey peacefully grazing on the meadow, totally unconcerned as to the battle or its outcome. Agile and robust, as became a child of the field, she leaped with one bound upon the back of the ass, urged it with heels, distaff and voice, and forced it into a gallop. The animal yielded all the more readily to the desires of Jeannette, seeing that the direction whither it was going was that of its own stable. It pricked up its ears and kicked up its heels with great joy, without, however, throwing Jeannette, and ran toward the English, who, unfortunately for themselves, were also on the route to the ass's stable and who, still more unfortunately for themselves, in the heat of their flight had never thought to look behind. Suddenly, however, hearing the hoof beats of the animal galloping at their heels and the victorious cries of the young shepherdess, they thought themselves pursued by devils; and fearing to see some horrible apparition, they threw themselves upon their knees with their eyes shut, their hands joined as if in prayer and begging for mercy. The enemy was decidedly vanquished.

Jumping off the ass, Jeannette allowed it to continue its route; and threatening with her innocent distaff the soldiers, who surrendered at discretion, she shouted to them in a resonant voice:

"Wretches! Why do you call yourselves Burgundians and English, seeing that we are all of France? It is against the English that we must all take the field! Oh, they do us so much harm!"

Saying this, the young shepherdess, a prey to an undefinable emotion, broke into tears, her knees trembled and she fell to the ground beside the vanquished foe, who, rising in inexpressible terror, incontinently resumed their headlong flight, leaving Jeannette alone so confused in mind that she knew not whether she was awake or dreaming.

Nevertheless, her heart still palpitating from the effects of the recent struggle, vague but exhilarating aspirations began to ferment in her being. She had just experienced for the first time the martial ardor caused by a glorious victory, won to the orchestration of the cries of "France!" and "Armagnac!" Forgetting that this childish battle was but play, indignant at and aroused by the check suffered by her party, she had seen her boys cheered and re-encouraged by her voice and, carried away by her example, return to the fray and vanquish the hitherto victorious enemy.

These aspirations were vaguely mixed with the recollections of the horrible butchery in the village of St. Pierre and the prophecy of Merlin, and caused the young shepherdess to raise her thoughts to St. Catherine and St. Marguerite, her two good saints, to whom she now prayed fervently to chase the English from France and to take pity on the gentle Dauphin. The chaotic jangle of these apparently disconnected and aimless thoughts that clashed together in the burning brain of Jeannette immediately brought on one of those painful spells of dizziness to which she had been ever more subject since the profound perturbation of her health. She relapsed into a sort of ecstasy; again a misty curtain was drawn before her eyes; and when she regained consciousness the sun had gone down and it was dusk.

On arising Jeannette hastened back to the Fountain of the Fairies, near which she had left her lambs browsing. The walk was long, she lost much time in getting her scattered flock together, and it was dark night ere she reached Domremy, trembling at having incurred the anger of her father by her delay; and above all fearing the scolding that she expected for the part she had taken in the combat between the boys. Urbain, full of pride at his victory, might, upon his return to the village, have boasted of the battle. Thus the poor child felt her heart beat with dismay when, arriving near her house, she saw the uneasy and angry face of James Darc. The moment he caught sight of his daughter he went toward her with a threatening look, saying: "By the Savior, is it in the dark of night that you must gather the sheep?" And approaching her with increasing irritation and with his hand raised over her head, he continued: "Bad and shameless child! Have you not been battling with the boys of the village against the boys of Maxey?"

In his rage James was on the point of beating the guilty girl, when Isabelle ran to him and caught his arm, crying, "James, I beg of you to pardon her this time!"

"Very well – I will be indulgent this time; but let her never again take a notion to romp with the boys. If she does it again, as sure as I am her father, I shall punish her severely; but for this time she can go to bed without supper."