Death shall reap the braver harvest,’ said the solemn-sounding drum.”
And death did reap a brave harvest amid the vineyards of France. Not a human harvest alone, but one composed of cherished memories—memories composed of all the French nation holds dear in its glorious, shadowy past. Memories of every figure in the magnificent procession of France’s kings and queens, of her saints, her statesmen, her warriors—especially of Joan of Arc, the beloved warrior-maid. The Cathedral of Rheims was not only the most perfect building of its kind in Europe—it was the Westminster Abbey of France, respected by her enemies for a thousand years.
Rheims has been sung by many poets, but perhaps the most beautiful lines on the cathedral were written by James Russell Lowell:
“I stood before the triple northern port,
Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings,
Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch,
Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say,
Ye come and go incessant; we remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past;
Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot,