The memory of Joan of Arc's fate must always be a bitter one to France, and the generations have never ceased to make atonement. Her martyrdom has seemed so unnecessary—such a reproach upon the nation she saved.
Yet perhaps it was necessary. Joan in half a year had accomplished what the French armies, without her, had been unable to do in three quarters of a century—she had crippled the English power in France. Her work was not finished—though defeated, the enemy still remained on French soil, and unless relentlessly assailed would recover. After the coronation at Rheims there would seem to have fallen, even upon Joan's loyal followers, a reaction, a period of indifference and indolence. Joan's fearful death at the stake awoke her people as nothing else could have done.
By a lonely roadside far up in Normandy we passed, one day, a small stone column which recorded how upon this spot was delivered the battle of Formigny, April 15th, in the year 1450, under the reign of Charles VII, and how the French were victorious and the English armies forced to abandon Norman soil. Joan of Arc had been dead nineteen years when that final battle was fought, but it was her spirit that gave the victory.
Chapter XXXIII
STRASSBURG AND THE BLACK FOREST
Our tires were distressingly bad now. I had to do some quick repairing at Domremy, also between Domremy and Vaucouleurs, where we spent the night. Then next morning at Vaucouleurs, in an unfrequented back street behind our ancient inn, I established a general overhauling plant, and patched and relined and trepanned during almost an entire forenoon, while the rest of the family scoured the town for the materials. We put in most of our time at Vaucouleurs in this way. However, there was really little to see in the old town. Our inn was as ancient as anything, and our landlord assured us that Joan's knights probably stopped there, and even Uncle Laxart, but he could not produce his register to prove it. There are the remains of the château where Joan is said to have met the governor, and a monument to the Maid's memory has been begun, but remains unfinished through lack of funds. The real interest in Vaucouleurs, to-day, is that it was the starting point of Joan's great march. One could reflect upon that and repair tires simultaneously.
We got away in time to have luncheon in the beautiful country below Toul, and then kept on to Nancy. At both places there seemed to be nothing but soldiers and barracks, and one did not have to get out of the car to see those. Not that Nancy is not a fine big town, but its cathedral and its Arch of Triumph are both of the eighteenth century. Such things seemed rather raw and new, while museums did not interest us any more.
Lorraine itself is beautiful. It seemed especially fair where we crossed the line into Germany, and we did not wonder that France could not forget her loss of that fertile land. There was no difficulty at the customs. We were politely O. K.'d by the French officials and courteously passed by the Germans, with no examination beyond our triptyques. Then another stretch of fine road and fair fields, and we were in a village of cobbled streets and soldiers—German soldiers—and were told that it was Dieuze; also that there was an inn—a very good inn—a little way down the street. So there was—an inn where they spoke French and German and even a variety of English, and had plenty of good food and good beds for a very modest sum indeed. Dieuze was soon to become a war town, but beyond a few soldiers—nothing unusual—we saw no signs of it that first week in July.