Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene 'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near, Sweet Vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best, crystal exquisite enchantment reflected JOAN OF ARC. Thomas De Quincey, (1785–1859) one of the greatest masters of English prose, superior even to Macaulay in the extraordinary compass of his diction, which, says an able critic, "accommodates itself without efforts to the highest flights of imagination, to the minutest subtleties of reasoning, and to the gayest vagaries of humor." He has written many essays and literary criticisms; but it is rather to his unique style, which will always be studied as a marvel of our literature, than to the intrinsic value of his works, that his fame is to be attributed. WHAT is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that, like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea, rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first act. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose to a splendor and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a byword amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judea. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang the songs that rose in her native Domremy, as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances of Vaucouleurs, which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for her voice was then silent. No! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl! whom from earliest youth ever I believed in, as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for thy side, that never once — no, not for a moment of weakness didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honor from man. Coronets for thee? Oh, no! Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, king of France, but she will not hear thee! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found in contempt. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life: to do-never for thyself, always for others; to suffer never in the persons of generous champions, always in thy own; that was thy destiny, and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. "Life," thou saidst, "is short, and the sleep which is in the grave is long. Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long." Pure from every suspicion of even a visionary selfinterest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious, never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end, on every road, pouring into Rouen as to a coronation. the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints-these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future; but the voice that called her to death, that she heard for ever. Great was the throne of France, even in those days. and great was he that sat upon it; but well Joan knew that not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her; but, on the contrary, that she was for them: not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust. Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had they been spreading their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither them; but well Joan knew-early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her. Having placed the king on his throne, it was her fortune thenceforward to be thwarted. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve. Too well she felt the end to be nigh at hand. Still she continued to jeopard her person in battle as before; severe wounds had not taught her caution; and at length she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and finally given up to the English. The object now was to vitiate the coronation of Charles the Seventh as the work of a witch, and for this end Joan was tried for sorcery. She resolutely defended herself from this absurd accusation. Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defence and all its malignity of attack. O child of France! shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by all around thee, I honor thy flashing intellect, quick as the lightning and as true to its mark, that ran before France and laggard Europe by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the oracles of falsehood! "Would you examine me as a witness against myself?" was the question by which many times she defied their arts. The result of this trial was the condemnation of Joan to be burnt alive. Never was a fairer victim doomed to death by baser means. Woman, sister! there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man - no, nor ever you will. Yet, sister, woman, cheerfully and with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of men can die grandly! On the 20th of May, 1131, being then about nineteen years of age, Joan of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was taken, before midday, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets, supported by occasional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every direction for the creation of air currents. With an undaunted soul, but a meek and saintly demeanor, the maiden encountered her terrible fate. Upon her head was placed a mitre bearing the inscription, "Relapsed heretic, apostate, idolatress." Her piety displayed itself in the most touching manner to the last, and her angelic forgetfulness of self was manifested in a remarkable degree. The executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke rose upward in billowing volumes. A monk was then standing at Joan's side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for him the one friend that would not forsake her- and not for herself, bidding him with her last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave her to God. "Go down," she said, "lift up the cross before me, that I may see it in dying, and speak to me pious words to the end." Then, protesting her innocence and recommending her soul to heaven, she continued to pray as the flames leaped and walled her in. Her last audible word was the name of Jesus. Sustained by faith in him |