Harper's Round Table, October 15, 1895

by Various

Every one knows the story of Joan of Arc, and it never fails to be interesting from whatever point you look at it or study it. But a good many boys and girls think of the story, as they do of many another read in school histories, as being nothing more than one of many lessons learned and to be learned. There is a great deal in the history of Joan's short life that is interesting as a practical story, to say nothing of any other interest.

The little Joan of Arc was born in the southern central part of France, in a little village called Domremy, partly in Lorraine and partly in Champagne, 484 years ago, and though she led armies in some of the most famous battles ever fought in France, and crowned a king, she never reached the age of twenty, and never learned to read or write. Her father and mother were peasants in Domremy and were poor, as peasants in France always have been—so poor that little Joan had to begin early to do her part of the work, which meant three meals a day to the family.

When she was old enough her father used to send her to watch over the sheep all day long in the fields and woods near their home, and all through these long hours, in the heat of summer or the cold of fall or spring, she had nothing to do but think and watch sheep grazing. It was a strange age in France four centuries and a half ago. People generally believed in visions, in miracles, in supernatural powers, and were easily influenced by fanaticism and enthusiasm in religious and every-day matters. A huge crowd of men, women, and children would become possessed with some idea, and would leave their daily work, their shops, their house-keeping, and their games, and rush to market-place or field to carry out this idea. In many towns the whole inhabitants would give their labor to build an enormous cathedral. Hundreds of people would catch hold of a long rope, and drag one of the big blocks of stone through a city's streets to be placed on the cathedral walls, and hundreds of unfortunate people and children were killed by different kinds of accidents while working in this fanatical way.

Then it was common, too, for some one to say that he or she was inspired by visions and voices to do or say one thing or another, and the people would rush after the inspired one to hear or to do whatever was ordered, or to try and be healed by touching the inspired person. Some were rank fakirs, who every now and then grew rich before they were discovered. Others really believed in all they said and did, and their confidence in themselves made hundreds of people follow them.

It is a mistake to think this is all gone by nowadays, for as a matter of fact it is not. Only a few years ago hundreds of people in all the stages of consumption travelled to Berlin to be treated by Dr. Koch, because he gave out, and no doubt, believed, that he had found a cure for it. At Lourdes, a city in France, there is to-day a grotto where people go for miles and miles around to be cured of all sorts of incurable diseases. And if these things attract people to-day, when nobody really believes much in such matters, you can begin to realize what fearful enthusiasm there must have been in a day when every one was only too glad to believe such things, and when most persons felt more or less strongly that they were some day going to have visions or missions of some kind.

It is not so surprising, then, that Joan, after spending several years day after day alone in the fields, occasionally hearing about all the troubles and wars in France, and having hours and hours when she could do nothing but think, should have thought she was inspired with a mission to save her country from the English invaders, and that, once perfectly persuaded of this, she should have quickly had a lot of people running after her and spreading her fame abroad.

Another thing was not so unusual as it seems to-day. Joan, when she finally saw Charles VII. of France, and persuaded him that he was the real King of France, and that all they had to do was to march to Rheims and crown him—Joan wore a suit of man's armor. She was only eighteen years old, and a delicate girl of middle height. It was unusual, of course, for so young a girl to go to war, but in those days women led bodies of men, and some of them wore armor. Women, who by birth and the absence of male relatives had been left in charge of large feudal estates, had to keep little armies to protect their lands and fields from attack, and when such attacks did come they had to go out in many cases and lead their men themselves.

So that while her visions, her calm confidence, and her male dress were enough to attract attention, they did not seem so impossible to the people of her time by a great deal as they would to the people of to-day. And then, also, everybody was ready to follow any "inspired" person who foretold anything which really happened, or who carried out what he or she started to do. Joan, after going to the King and telling him that if he followed her he would become the crowned King of France, began to find everyone following her, believing in her just as calmly as she believed in herself. The Englishmen had invaded the north of France and held the city of Paris, and the great Duke of Burgundy was in league with them. They wanted to crown Henry VI. of England, King of France also, and they marched southward and captured Orleans, which practically opened southern France to them.

Joan told King Charles VII. that she could recapture Orleans, and crown him King at Rheims, and in a little while he gave her five or six thousand men. Mounted on her white horse, in full armor, she led these men on, and by her confidence and vigor and good common-sense, persuaded the generals to attack Orleans in a certain way. Half a dozen times the besiegers were practically defeated, and would have gone back, but Joan staid before the city gates, and no one could make her turn back. Such perfectly fearless conduct acted just as it has always acted, just as it acted a thousand times in the civil war, in the Revolution, and everywhere else. The men grew crazy with enthusiasm, and rushed again and again after Joan at the defences of the city, with the result that they finally captured it.

Then any one was ready to follow the young girl, except her enemies at court; and when she ordered King, court, army, and all to go quickly northward into the part of France within the English control, they followed. The result was that Charles VII. was crowned King, and the first man crowned meant a great deal then. It was all done by a combination of shrewd common-sense, and the extraordinary willingness to believe absolutely in inspired people and follow them with religious enthusiasm, which always has been in history an irresistible force.