The epic so brief,so exciting,so full of wonder had now reached its climax.Whatever we may think on the question as to whether Jeanne had now reached the limit of her commission,it is at least evident that she had reached the highest point of her triumph,and that her short day of glory and success came to an end in the great act which she had always spoken of as her chief object.She had crowned her King;she had recovered for him one of the richest of his provinces,and established a strong base for further action on his part.She had taught Frenchmen how not to fly before the English,and she had filled those stout-hearted English,who for a time had the Frenchmen in their powerful steel-clad grip,with terror and panic,and taught them how to fly in their turn.This was,from the first,what she had said she was appointed to do,and not one of her promises had been broken.Her career had been a short one,begun in April,ending in July,one brief continuous course of glory.But this triumphant career had come to its conclusion.The messenger of God had done her work;the servant must not desire to be greater than his Lord.There have been heroes in this world whose career has continued a glorious and a happy one to the end.Our hearts follow them in their noble career,but when the strain and pain are over they come into their kingdom and reap their reward the interest fails.We are glad,very glad,that they should live happy ever after,but their happiness does not attract us like their struggle.
It is different with those whose work and whose motives are not those of this world.When they step out of the brilliant lights of triumph into sorrow and suffering,all that is most human in us rises to follow the bleeding feet,our hearts swell with indignation,with sorrow and love,and that instinctive admiration for the noble and pure,which proves that our birthright too is of Heaven,however we may tarnish or even deny that highest pedigree.The chivalrous romance of that age would have made of Jeanne d'Arc the heroine of human story.She would have had a noble lover,say our young Guy de Laval,or some other generous and brilliant Seigneur of France,and after her achievements she would have laid by her sword,and clothed herself with the beautiful garments of the age,and would have grown to be a noble lady in some half regal chateau,to which her name would have given new lustre.The young reader will probably long that it should be so;he will feel it an injustice,a wrong to humanity that so generous a soul should have no reward;it will seem to him almost a personal injury that there should not be a noble chevalier at hand to snatch that devoted Maid out of the danger that threatened her,out of the horrible fate that befell her;and we can imagine a generous boy,and enthusiastic girl,ready to gnash their teeth at the terrible and dishonouring thought that it was by English hands that this noble creature was tied to the stake and perished in the flames.For the last it becomes us[1]to repent,for it was to our everlasting shame;but not more to us than to France who condemned her,who lifted no finger to help her,who raised not even a cry,a protest,against the cruelty and wrong.But for her fate in itself let us not mourn over-much.Had the Maid become a great and honoured lady should not we all have said as Satan says in the Book of Job:Did Jeanne serve God for nought?We should say:See what she made by it.Honour and fame and love and happiness.She did nobly,but nobly has she been rewarded.
But that is not God's way.The highest saint is born to martyrdom.To serve God for nought is the greatest distinction which He reserves for His chosen.And this was the fate to which the Maid of France was consecrated from the moment she set out upon her mission.She had the supreme glory of accomplishing that which she believed herself to be sent to do,and which I also believe she was sent to do,miraculously,by means undreamed of,and in which no one beforehand could have believed.But when that was done a higher consecration awaited her.
She had to drink of the cup of which our Lord drank,and to be baptised with the baptism with which He was baptised.It was involved in every step of the progress that it should be so.And she was herself aware of it,vaguely,at heart,as soon as the object of her mission was attained.What else could have put the thought of dying into the mind of a girl of eighteen in the midst of the adoring crowd,to whom to see her,to touch her,was a benediction?When she went forth from those gates she was going to her execution,though the end was not to be yet.There was still a long struggle before her,lingering and slow,more bitter than death,the preface of discouragement,of disappointment,of failure when she had most hoped to succeed.