Part 9
JOAN. Our men will take them. I will lead them.
DUNOIS. Not a man will follow you.
JOAN. I will not look back to see whether anyone is following me.
DUNOIS [_recognizing her mettle, and clapping her heartily on the shoulder_] Good. You have the makings of a soldier in you. You are in love with war.
JOAN [_startled_] Oh! And the Archbishop said I was in love with religion.
DUNOIS. I, God forgive me, am a little in love with war myself, the ugly devil! I am like a man with two wives. Do you want to be like a woman with two husbands?
JOAN [_matter-of-factly_] I will never take a husband. A man in Toul took an action against me for breach of promise; but I never promised him. I am a soldier: I do not want to be thought of as a woman. I will not dress as a woman. I do not care for the things women care for. They dream of lovers, and of money. I dream of leading a charge, and of placing the big guns. You soldiers do not know how to use the big guns: you think you can win battles with a great noise and smoke.
DUNOIS [_with a shrug_] True. Half the time the artillery is more trouble than it is worth.
JOAN. Aye, lad; but you cannot fight stone walls with horses: you must have guns, and much bigger guns too.
DUNOIS [_grinning at her familiarity, and echoing it_] Aye, lass; but a good heart and a stout ladder will get over the stoniest wall.
JOAN. I will be first up the ladder when we reach the fort, Bastard. I dare you to follow me.
DUNOIS. You must not dare a staff officer, Joan: only company officers are allowed to indulge in displays of personal courage. Besides, you must know that I welcome you as a saint, not as a soldier. I have daredevils enough at my call, if they could help me.
JOAN. I am not a daredevil: I am a servant of God. My sword is sacred: I found it behind the altar in the church of St Catherine, where God hid it for me; and I may not strike a blow with it. My heart is full of courage, not of anger. I will lead; and your men will follow: that is all I can do. But I must do it: you shall not stop me.
DUNOIS. All in good time. Our men cannot take those forts by a sally across the bridge. They must come by water, and take the English in the rear on this side.
JOAN [_her military sense asserting itself_] Then make rafts and put big guns on them; and let your men cross to us.
DUNOIS. The rafts are ready; and the men are embarked. But they must wait for God.
JOAN. What do you mean? God is waiting for them.
DUNOIS. Let Him send us a wind then. My boats are downstream: they cannot come up against both wind and current. We must wait until God changes the wind. Come: let me take you to the church.
JOAN. No. I love church; but the English will not yield to prayers: they understand nothing but hard knocks and slashes. I will not go to church until we have beaten them.
DUNOIS. You must: I have business for you there.
JOAN. What business?
DUNOIS. To pray for a west wind. I have prayed; and I have given two silver candlesticks; but my prayers are not answered. Yours may be: you are young and innocent.
JOAN. Oh yes: you are right. I will pray: I will tell St Catherine: she will make God give me a west wind. Quick: shew me the way to the church.
THE PAGE [_sneezes violently_] At-cha!!!
JOAN. God bless you, child! Coom, Bastard.
_They go out. The page rises to follow. He picks up the shield, and is taking the spear as well when he notices the pennon, which is now streaming eastward._
THE PAGE [_dropping the shield and calling excitedly after them_] Seigneur! Seigneur! Mademoiselle!
DUNOIS [_running back_] What is it? The kingfisher? [_He looks eagerly for it up the river_].
JOAN [_joining them_] Oh, a kingfisher! Where?
THE PAGE. No: the wind, the wind, the wind [_pointing to the pennon_]: that is what made me sneeze.
DUNOIS [_looking at the pennon_] The wind has changed. [_He crosses himself_] God has spoken. [_Kneeling and handing his baton to Joan_] You command the king’s army. I am your soldier.
THE PAGE [_looking down the river_] The boats have put off. They are ripping upstream like anything.
DUNOIS [_rising_] Now for the forts. You dared me to follow. Dare you lead?
JOAN [_bursting into tears and flinging her arms round Dunois, kissing him on both cheeks_] Dunois, dear comrade in arms, help me. My eyes are blinded with tears. Set my foot on the ladder, and say “Up, Joan.”
DUNOIS [_dragging her out_] Never mind the tears: make for the flash of the guns.
JOAN [_in a blaze of courage_] Ah!
DUNOIS [_dragging her along with him_] For God and Saint Dennis!
THE PAGE [_shrilly_] The Maid! The Maid! God and The Maid! Hurray-ay-ay! [_He snatches up the shield and lance, and capers out after them, mad with excitement_].
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SCENE IV
_A tent in the English camp. A bullnecked English chaplain of 50 is sitting on a stool at a table, hard at work writing. At the other side of the table an imposing nobleman, aged 46, is seated in a handsome chair turning over the leaves of an illuminated Book of Hours. The nobleman is enjoying himself: the chaplain is struggling with suppressed wrath. There is an unoccupied leather stool on the nobleman’s left. The table is on his right._
THE NOBLEMAN. Now this is what I call workmanship. There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran that you are scribbling.
THE CHAPLAIN. I must say, my lord, you take our situation very coolly. Very coolly indeed.
THE NOBLEMAN [_supercilious_] What is the matter?
THE CHAPLAIN. The matter, my lord, is that we English have been defeated.
THE NOBLEMAN. That happens, you know. It is only in history books and ballads that the enemy is always defeated.
THE CHAPLAIN. But we are being defeated over and over again. First, Orleans—
THE NOBLEMAN [_poohpoohing_] Oh, Orleans!
THE CHAPLAIN. I know what you are going to say, my lord: that was a clear case of witchcraft and sorcery. But we are still being defeated. Jargeau, Meung, Beugency, just like Orleans. And now we have been butchered at Patay, and Sir John Talbot taken prisoner. [_He throws down his pen, almost in tears_] I feel it, my lord: I feel it very deeply. I cannot bear to see my countrymen defeated by a parcel of foreigners.
THE NOBLEMAN. Oh! you are an Englishman, are you?
THE CHAPLAIN. Certainly not, my lord: I am a gentleman. Still, like your lordship, I was born in England; and it makes a difference.
THE NOBLEMAN. You are attached to the soil, eh?
THE CHAPLAIN. It pleases your lordship to be satirical at my expense: your greatness privileges you to be so with impunity. But your lordship knows very well that I am not attached to the soil in a vulgar manner, like a serf. Still, I have a feeling about it; [_with growing agitation_] and I am not ashamed of it; and [_rising wildly_] by God, if this goes on any longer I will fling my cassock to the devil, and take arms myself, and strangle the accursed witch with my own hands.
THE NOBLEMAN [_laughing at him goodnaturedly_] So you shall, chaplain: so you shall, if we can do nothing better. But not yet, not quite yet.
THE CHAPLAIN [_resumes his seat very sulkily_].
THE NOBLEMAN [_airily_] I should not care very much about the witch—you see, I have made my pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and the Heavenly Powers, for their own credit, can hardly allow me to be worsted by a village sorceress—but the Bastard of Orleans is a harder nut to crack; and as he has been to the Holy Land too, honors are easy between us as far as that goes.
THE CHAPLAIN. He is only a Frenchman, my lord.
THE NOBLEMAN. A Frenchman! Where did you pick up that expression? Are these Burgundians and Bretons and Picards and Gascons beginning to call themselves Frenchmen, just as our fellows are beginning to call themselves Englishmen? They actually talk of France and England as their countries. T h e i r s, if you please! What is to become of me and you if that way of thinking comes into fashion?
THE CHAPLAIN. Why, my lord? Can it hurt us?
THE NOBLEMAN. Men cannot serve two masters. If this cant of serving their country once takes hold of them, goodbye to the authority of their feudal lords, and goodbye to the authority of the Church. That is, goodbye to you and me.
THE CHAPLAIN. I hope I am a faithful servant of the Church; and there are only six cousins between me and the barony of Stogumber, which was created by the Conqueror. But is that any reason why I should stand by and see Englishmen beaten by a French bastard and a witch from Lousy Champagne?
THE NOBLEMAN. Easy, man, easy: we shall burn the witch and beat the bastard all in good time. Indeed I am waiting at present for the Bishop of Beauvais, to arrange the burning with him. He has been turned out of his diocese by her faction.
THE CHAPLAIN. You have first to catch her, my lord.
THE NOBLEMAN. Or buy her. I will offer a king’s ransom.
THE CHAPLAIN. A king’s ransom! For that slut!
THE NOBLEMAN. One has to leave a margin. Some of Charles’s people will sell her to the Burgundians; the Burgundians will sell her to us; and there will probably be three or four middlemen who will expect their little commissions.
THE CHAPLAIN. Monstrous. It is all those scoundrels of Jews: they get in every time money changes hands. I would not leave a Jew alive in Christendom if I had my way.
THE NOBLEMAN. Why not? The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods. In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.
_A page appears._
THE PAGE. The Right Reverend the Bishop of Beauvais: Monseigneur Cauchon.
_Cauchon, aged about 60, comes in. The page withdraws. The two Englishmen rise._
THE NOBLEMAN [_with effusive courtesy_] My dear Bishop, how good of you to come! Allow me to introduce myself: Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, at your service.
CAUCHON. Your lordship’s fame is well known to me.
WARWICK. This reverend cleric is Master John de Stogumber.
THE CHAPLAIN [_glibly_] John Bowyer Spenser Neville de Stogumber, at your service, my lord: Bachelor of Theology, and Keeper of the Private Seal to His Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester.
WARWICK [_to Cauchon_] You call him the Cardinal of England, I believe. Our king’s uncle.
CAUCHON. Messire John de Stogumber: I am always the very good friend of His Eminence. [_He extends his hand to the chaplain, who kisses his ring_].
WARWICK. Do me the honor to be seated. [_He gives Cauchon his chair, placing it at the head of the table_].
_Cauchon accepts the place of honor with a grave inclination. Warwick fetches the leather stool carelessly, and sits in his former place. The chaplain goes back to his chair._
_Though Warwick has taken second place in calculated deference to the Bishop, he assumes the lead in opening the proceedings as a matter of course. He is still cordial and expansive; but there is a new note in his voice which means that he is coming to business._
WARWICK. Well, my Lord Bishop, you find us in one of our unlucky moments. Charles is to be crowned at Rheims, practically by the young woman from Lorraine; and—I must not deceive you, nor flatter your hopes—we cannot prevent it. I suppose it will make a great difference to Charles’s position.
CAUCHON. Undoubtedly. It is a masterstroke of The Maid’s.
THE CHAPLAIN [_again agitated_] We were not fairly beaten, my lord. No Englishman is ever fairly beaten.
CAUCHON [_raises his eyebrow slightly, then quickly composes his face_].
WARWICK. Our friend here takes the view that the young woman is a sorceress. It would, I presume, be the duty of your reverend lordship to denounce her to the Inquisition, and have her burnt for that offence.
CAUCHON. If she were captured in my diocese: yes.
WARWICK [_feeling that they are getting on capitally_] Just so. Now I suppose there can be no reasonable doubt that she is a sorceress.
THE CHAPLAIN. Not the least. An arrant witch.
WARWICK [_gently reproving the interruption_] We are asking for the Bishop’s opinion, Messire John.
CAUCHON. We shall have to consider not merely our own opinions here, but the opinions—the prejudices, if you like—of a French court.
WARWICK [_correcting_] A Catholic court, my lord.
CAUCHON. Catholic courts are composed of mortal men, like other courts, however sacred their function and inspiration may be. And if the men are Frenchmen, as the modern fashion calls them, I am afraid the bare fact that an English army has been defeated by a French one will not convince them that there is any sorcery in the matter.
THE CHAPLAIN. What! Not when the famous Sir John Talbot himself has been defeated and actually taken prisoner by a drab from the ditches of Lorraine!
CAUCHON. Sir John Talbot, we all know, is a fierce and formidable soldier, Messire; but I have yet to learn that he is an able general. And though it pleases you to say that he has been defeated by this girl, some of us may be disposed to give a little of the credit to Dunois.
THE CHAPLAIN [_contemptuously_] The Bastard of Orleans!
CAUCHON. Let me remind—
WARWICK [_interposing_] I know what you are going to say, my lord. Dunois defeated me at Montargis.
CAUCHON [_bowing_] I take that as evidence that the Seigneur Dunois is a very able commander indeed.
WARWICK. Your lordship is the flower of courtesy. I admit, on our side, that Talbot is a mere fighting animal, and that it probably served him right to be taken at Patay.
THE CHAPLAIN [_chafing_] My lord: at Orleans this woman had her throat pierced by an English arrow, and was seen to cry like a child from the pain of it. It was a death wound; yet she fought all day; and when our men had repulsed all her attacks like true Englishmen, she walked alone to the wall of our fort with a white banner in her hand; and our men were paralyzed, and could neither shoot nor strike whilst the French fell on them and drove them on to the bridge, which immediately burst into flames and crumbled under them, letting them down into the river, where they were drowned in heaps. Was this your bastard’s generalship? or were those flames the flames of hell, conjured up by witchcraft?
WARWICK. You will forgive Messire John’s vehemence, my lord; but he has put our case. Dunois is a great captain, we admit; but why could he do nothing until the witch came?
CAUCHON. I do not say that there were no supernatural powers on her side. But the names on that white banner were not the names of Satan and Beelzebub, but the blessed names of our Lord and His holy mother. And your commander who was drowned—Clahz-da I think you call him—
WARWICK. Glasdale. Sir William Glasdale.
CAUCHON. Glass-dell, thank you. He was no saint; and many of our people think that he was drowned for his blasphemies against The Maid.
WARWICK [_beginning to look very dubious_] Well, what are we to infer from all this, my lord? Has The Maid converted you?
CAUCHON. If she had, my lord, I should have known better than to have trusted myself here within your grasp.
WARWICK [_blandly deprecating_] Oh! oh! My lord!
CAUCHON. If the devil is making use of this girl—and I believe he is—
WARWICK [_reassured_] Ah! You hear, Messire John? I knew your lordship would not fail us. Pardon my interruption. Proceed.
CAUCHON. If it be so, the devil has longer views than you give him credit for.
WARWICK. Indeed? In what way? Listen to this, Messire John.
CAUCHON. If the devil wanted to damn a country girl, do you think so easy a task would cost him the winning of half a dozen battles? No, my lord: any trumpery imp could do that much if the girl could be damned at all. The Prince of Darkness does not condescend to such cheap drudgery. When he strikes, he strikes at the Catholic Church, whose realm is the whole spiritual world. When he damns, he damns the souls of the entire human race. Against that dreadful design The Church stands ever on guard. And it is as one of the instruments of that design that I see this girl. She is inspired, but diabolically inspired.
THE CHAPLAIN. I told you she was a witch.
CAUCHON [_fiercely_] She is not a witch. She is a heretic.
THE CHAPLAIN. What difference does that make?
CAUCHON. You, a priest, ask me that! You English are strangely blunt in the mind. All these things that you call witchcraft are capable of a natural explanation. The woman’s miracles would not impose on a rabbit: she does not claim them as miracles herself. What do her victories prove but that she has a better head on her shoulders than your swearing Glass-dells and mad bull Talbots, and that the courage of faith, even though it be a false faith, will always outstay the courage of wrath?
THE CHAPLAIN [_hardly able to believe his ears_] Does your lordship compare Sir John Talbot, the heir to the earldom of Shrewsbury, to a mad bull?!!!
WARWICK. It would not be seemly for you to do so, Messire John, as you are still six removes from a barony. But as I am an earl, and Talbot is only a knight, I may make bold to accept the comparison. [_To the Bishop_] My lord: I wipe the slate as far as the witchcraft goes. None the less, we must burn the woman.
CAUCHON. I cannot burn her. The Church cannot take life. And my first duty is to seek this girl’s salvation.
WARWICK. No doubt. But you do burn people occasionally.
CAUCHON. No. When the Church cuts off an obstinate heretic as a dead branch from the tree of life, the heretic is handed over to the secular arm. The church has no part in what the secular arm may see fit to do.
WARWICK. Precisely. And I shall be the secular arm in this case. Well, my lord, hand over your dead branch; and I will see that the fire is ready for it. If you will answer for the Church’s part, I will answer for the secular part.
CAUCHON [_with smouldering anger_] I can answer for nothing. You great lords are too prone to treat the Church as a mere political convenience.
WARWICK [_smiling and propitiatory_] Not in England, I assure you.
CAUCHON. In England more than anywhere else. No, my lord: the soul of this village girl is of equal value with yours or your king’s before the throne of God; and my first duty is to save it. I will not suffer your lordship to smile at me as if I were repeating a meaningless form of words, and it were well understood between us that I should betray the girl to you. I am no mere political bishop: my faith is to me what your honor is to you; and if there be a loophole through which this baptized child of God can creep to her salvation, I shall guide her to it.
THE CHAPLAIN [_rising in a fury_] You are a traitor.
CAUCHON [_springing up_] You lie, priest. [_Trembling with rage_] If you dare do what this woman has done—set your country above the holy Catholic Church—you shall go to the fire with her.
THE CHAPLAIN. My lord: I—I went too far. I—[_he sits down with a submissive gesture_].
WARWICK [_who has risen apprehensively_] My lord: I apologize to you for the word used by Messire John de Stogumber. It does not mean in England what it does in France. In your language traitor means betrayer: one who is perfidious, treacherous, unfaithful, disloyal. In our country it means simply one who is not wholly devoted to our English interests.
CAUCHON. I am sorry: I did not understand. [_He subsides into his chair with dignity._]
WARWICK [_resuming his seat, much relieved_] I must apologize on my own account if I have seemed to take the burning of this poor girl too lightly. When one has seen whole countrysides burnt over and over again as mere items in military routine, one has to grow a very thick skin. Otherwise one might go mad: at all events, I should. May I venture to assume that your lordship also, having to see so many heretics burnt from time to time, is compelled to take—shall I say a professional view of what would otherwise be a very horrible incident?
CAUCHON. Yes: it is a painful duty: even, as you say, a horrible one. But in comparison with the horror of heresy it is less than nothing. I am not thinking of this girl’s body, which will suffer for a few moments only, and which must in any event die in some more or less painful manner, but of her soul, which may suffer to all eternity.
WARWICK. Just so; and God grant that her soul may be saved! But the practical problem would seem to be how to save her soul without saving her body. For we must face it, my lord: if this cult of The Maid goes on, our cause is lost.
THE CHAPLAIN [_his voice broken like that of a man who has been crying_] May I speak, my lord?
WARWICK. Really, Messire John, I had rather you did not, unless you can keep your temper.
THE CHAPLAIN. It is only this. I speak under correction; but The Maid is full of deceit: she pretends to be devout. Her prayers and confessions are endless. How can she be accused of heresy when she neglects no observance of a faithful daughter of The Church?
CAUCHON [_flaming up_] A faithful daughter of The Church! The Pope himself at his proudest dare not presume as this woman presumes. She acts as if she herself were The Church. She brings the message of God to Charles; and The Church must stand aside. She will crown him in the cathedral of Rheims: she, not The Church! She sends letters to the king of England giving him God’s command through her to return to his island on pain of God’s vengeance, which she will execute. Let me tell you that the writing of such letters was the practice of the accursed Mahomet, the anti-Christ. Has she ever in all her utterances said one word of The Church? Never. It is always God and herself.
WARWICK. What can you expect? A beggar on horseback! Her head is turned.