"It is now seven years ago," so spoke, before her judges, the simple, but high-minded Joan of Arc—"the beginning of the year 1431; it was a summer day, towards the middle hour, I was about thirteen years old, and was in my father's garden, that I heard for the first time, on my right hand towards the church, a voice, and there stood a figure in a bright radiance before my eyes. It had the appearance and look of a right good and virtuous man, bore wings, was surrounded with light on all sides, and by the angels of Heaven. It was the Archangel Michael. The voice seemed to me to command respect; but I was yet a child, and was frightened at the figure, and doubted very much whether it was the archangel! I saw him and the angels as distinctly before my eyes as I now see you, my judges." With words of encouragement the archangel answered to her, that God had taken pity upon France, and that she must hasten to the assistance of the king. At the same time he promised her that St Catherine and St Margaret would shortly visit her; he told her that she should do what they commanded her, because they were sent by God to guide and conduct her. "Upon this," continued Joan, "St Catherine and St Margaret appeared to me, as the angel had foretold. They ordered me to get ready to go to Robert de Beaudricourt, the king's captain. He would several times refuse me, but at last would consent, and give me people, who would conduct me to the king. Then should I raise the siege of Orleans. I replied to them that I was a poor child, who understood nothing about riding on horseback and making war. They said I should carry my banner with courage; God would help me, and win back for my king his entire kingdom. As soon as I knew," continued Joan, "that I was to proceed on this errand, I avoided, as much as I could, afterwards taking part in the sports and amusements of my young companions."——"So have the Saints conducted me during seven years, and have given me support and assistance in all my need and labours; and now at present," said she to her judges, "no day goes by, but they come to me."——"I seldom see the Saints that they are not surrounded with a halo of light; they wear rich and precious crowns, as it is reasonable they should. I see them always under the same forms, and have never found in their discourse any discrepancies. I know how to distinguish one from the other, and distinguish them as well by the sound of their voices as by their salutation. They come often without my calling upon them. But when they do not come, I pray to the Lord that he will send them to me; and never have I needed them but they have visited me."
Such is part of the defence of the high-spirited Joan of Arc, who was taken prisoner by the Duke of Burgundy on the 23d of May 1430—sold by him for a large sum to the English, and by them put on her trial as a heretic, idolatress, and magician—condemned, and finally burned alive, the 30th of May 1431. Ill-fated heroine! I seem to be thinking of writing her epitaph, but I am considering only that there is more to come out of her evidence. For although her heavenly visitants were simply sensorial illusions, there yet remains something unexplained. How came she to foresee the path she was destined to follow? The inquiry would launch us on a broad and wild sea of conjecture, for the navigation of which we have not yet the requisite charts on board, and it grows late—so good-night, dear Archy.
"Suadentque cadentia sidera somnum."
"Cras ingens iterabimus æquor."
A NEW SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.
THE BATHS OF MONT DOR.
There is a tremendous valley opening all the way down, from the central summits of the ridge of the Monts Dor, quite into the undulating, and thence into the flat country, lying westward of this mountain chain. Where the valley commences, it is nothing more than a combination of mountain gullies, and is like a wild and precipitous ravine; but by degrees it widens out into spacious amphitheatres, and at times contracts itself again so as barely to allow of a struggling river to make its way betwixt the rocky sides. In some places, the valley makes a straight reach four or five miles in extent, but in others, winds and turns about in abrupt and varied curves; its descent is now gradual, and now rapid, where the stream dashes over ledges of rock or cuts its way through some rough and stubborn pass. Nearly all the ravines and smaller valleys that open into it bring down their contributions of mountain torrents; and the whole collection of waters, thus wending their way to the ocean, form what is called the Dor. This river meets with the Dogne lower down in its course; and, under the joint name of the two waters, the flood rushes broad and strong through Guienne into the Gironde. The high and bare mountain whence the Dor derives its principal source is the Pic de Sancy, the loftiest hill in the middle of France; it is the king of all the volcanoes of this vast igneous chain, and has its sides deeply furrowed and excavated into immense craters or volcanic vents. From it proceed numerous branches or arms, composed of basaltic currents congealed into columnar masses in the early days of the world. These stretch out league after league, away from their parent head, and present on their tops vast plateaux of green and moory pasture-land; while their sides are either abrupt precipices of basaltic columns, or else are clothed with primeval forests, which have sprung up and still flourish on the rich materials of their decomposing slopes. The valley of the Dor is therefore shut in either by precipitous volcanic walls, or is guarded by sombre woods. Once on the tops of the plateaux, and you may ride a whole day on unbroken turf; or, if you penetrate within the forest lands, you may wander for any time you please, days or weeks, without seeing either their beginning or their end. On the summits of the mountains around, snow is to be found in patches, even in the hottest days of summer; and as the Pic de Sancy is more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea, almost every gradation of climate is to be found amongst these lonely hills. In the dog-days, the valleys are so hot that you gladly escape to the upper lands for air and coolness; but the winter sets in, in October, and the valley of the Dor is then covered deep with snow for many a long month. The Dor itself is a pleasant lively stream: it can boast of some picturesque falls here and there, but it is commonly a "brawling brook," winding about at its pleasure; allowing itself to be forded every now and then; and producing plenty of small trout for those who like to waste their time in fishing.
The urchins of the peasant tribe know how to get these finny creatures more cannily than the professed angler; you may see them on a summer's morning wading up the stream, and hunting under every stone, and in each little pool, for the objects of their search. As soon as they see a trout, they drive it into little convenient nooks that they know of, and there—how they manage it nobody knows, but the result is certain—they catch them with their hands or knock them on the head with their sticks; and will always produce you a respectable dish at a few hours' notice.
About a couple of leagues below the Pic de Sancy, towards the west, one of the plateaux on the northern side of the valley assumes an exceedingly bold and regular appearance; it is called the Plateau de l'Angle—perhaps from its making, by an abrupt termination, the corner of two valleys; and it towers out like a promontory at sea, soaring some four or five hundred feet above the bed of the river. Not very far from where this plateau is cut off—a mile or so—there is a bold cascade dashing over its side, and carrying off the superfluous waters of a pool and morass higher up in the bosom of the mountains. Here the basaltic precipice is hollowed out into a circling chasm, and over its black face rushes the impetuous stream upon a huge chaos of rocks and debris below, foaming and roaring until it finds its way into the Dor far down in the valley at its foot. A few hundred feet to the westward of this cascade, and at the lowest part of the precipitous columnar cliff, burst forth several copious fountains of hot mineral waters, half-way to boiling heat when they leave their rocky cells, and ever keeping up the same degree both of heat and quantity. These are the springs which give celebrity to the place, and constitute the baths of Mont Dor.