Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain (fiction book recommendations txt) 📕
Description
The essential facts regarding Joan of Arc are well known. A young teenage girl hears voices that tell her she will deliver France from England’s oppression during the Hundred Years War. She manages to take her message to the dauphin, who after some persuasion places her at the head of his army. That army promptly lifts the siege of Orléans, throws the English out of the Loire valley, hands them another significant defeat at Patay, and marches all the way to Reims, where the dauphin is crowned King Charles VII. After an ill-advised and short-lived truce, Joan is captured by the Burgundians—French nobility who have aligned themselves with the English—and they try her for heresy and burn her at the stake.
Twain first became fascinated with Joan as a teenager. When he finally decided to write a book about her, he researched it for a dozen years and spent two more years writing it. It was, in his words, “the best of all my books,” and became his last finished novel. Although a work of fiction, Twain’s research was time well spent: the known facts of Joan’s life, and especially the trial, are very accurate in their depiction. To tell Joan’s story, Twain invented a memoirist, Louis de Conte, a fictionalized version of her real-life page, Louis de Contes. Twain has the fictional de Conte grow up with Joan, and so he is able to tell her story from her early childhood all the way through the trial and execution. The result is the story of one of the great women in history told by one of history’s great storytellers.
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- Author: Mark Twain
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Like the other villagers, she had always accorded me the deference due my rank; but now, without word said on either side, she and I changed places; she gave orders, not suggestions. I received them with the deference due a superior, and obeyed them without comment. In the evening she said to me:
“I leave before dawn. No one will know it but you. I go to speak with the governor of Vaucouleurs as commanded, who will despise me and treat me rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at this time. I go first to Burey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that I go alone. I may need you in Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not receive me I will dictate a letter to him, and so must have someone by me who knows the art of how to write and spell the words. You will go from here tomorrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until I need you.”
I said I would obey, and she went her way. You see how clear a head she had, and what a just and level judgment. She did not order me to go with her; no, she would not subject her good name to gossiping remark. She knew that the governor, being a noble, would grant me, another noble, audience; but no, you see, she would not have that, either. A poor peasant-girl presenting a petition through a young nobleman—how would that look? She always protected her modesty from hurt; and so, for reward, she carried her good name unsmirched to the end. I knew what I must do now, if I would have her approval: go to Vaucouleurs, keep out of her sight, and be ready when wanted.
I went the next afternoon, and took an obscure lodging; the next day I called at the castle and paid my respects to the governor, who invited me to dine with him at noon of the following day. He was an ideal soldier of the time; tall, brawny, gray-headed, rough, full of strange oaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if they were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to his notion war was God’s best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on, and wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge sword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous oaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked for in this quarter, I hoped the little peasant-girl would not get the privilege of confronting this battery, but would have to content herself with the dictated letter.
I came again to the castle the next day at noon, and was conducted to the great dining-hall and seated by the side of the governor at a small table which was raised a couple of steps higher than the general table. At the small table sat several other guests besides myself, and at the general table sat the chief officers of the garrison. At the entrance door stood a guard of halberdiers, in morion and breastplate.
As for talk, there was but one topic, of course—the desperate situation of France. There was a rumor, someone said, that Salisbury was making preparations to march against Orleans. It raised a turmoil of excited conversation, and opinions fell thick and fast. Some believed he would march at once, others that he could not accomplish the investment before fall, others that the siege would be long, and bravely contested; but upon one thing all voices agreed: that Orleans must eventually fall, and with it France. With that, the prolonged discussion ended, and there was silence. Every man seemed to sink himself in his own thoughts, and to forget where he was. This sudden and profound stillness, where before had been so much animation, was impressive and solemn. Now came a servant and whispered something to the governor, who said:
“Would talk with me?”
“Yes, your Excellency.”
“H’m! A strange idea, certainly. Bring them in.”
It was Joan and her uncle Laxart. At the spectacle of the great people the courage oozed out of the poor old peasant and he stopped midway and would come no further, but remained there with his red nightcap crushed in his hands and bowing humbly here, there, and everywhere, stupefied with embarrassment and fear. But Joan came steadily forward, erect and self-possessed, and stood before the governor. She recognized me, but in no way indicated it. There was a buzz of admiration, even the governor contributing to it, for I heard him mutter, “By God’s grace, it is a beautiful creature!” He inspected her critically a moment or two, then said:
“Well, what is your errand, my child?”
“My message is to you, Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and it is this: that you will send and tell the Dauphin to wait and not give battle to his enemies, for God will presently send him help.”
This strange speech amazed the company, and many murmured, “The poor young thing is demented.” The governor scowled, and said:
“What nonsense is this? The King—or the Dauphin, as you call him—needs no message of that sort. He will wait, give yourself no uneasiness as to that. What further do you desire to say to me?”
“This. To beg that you will give me an escort of men-at-arms and send me to the Dauphin.”
“What for?”
“That he may make me his general, for it is appointed that I shall drive the
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