Alice, La Pucelle d’Orleans
It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind was a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I think it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm and blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable.
Very well! How could the simple daughter of a laborer who had never left her village become a chief of staff in the army who was held in esteem by her companions at arms and feared by her enemies? She had three brothers who might have served the King, and there was no doubt many a stout clodhopper about, of that kind which in every country is the fittest material for fighting, and “food for powder,” but to none of these did the call come.
She pictured to herself how this same little sister of theirs would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
The woman who had nourished her children upon saintly legend and scripture story could scarcely have been hard upon the child, of whom she, better than any, knew the perfect purity and steadfast resolution.
Render to the maid who is sent by God the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. I knew that this was her trouble, but others attributed her abstraction to religious ecstasy, for she did not share her thinkings with the village at large, yet gave me glimpses of them, and so I knew, better than the rest, what was absorbing her interest.
“Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice cried with a merry laugh. “And curtsey while you’re thinking what to do, what to purr. It saves time, remember!” And she caught Kitty up and gave it one little kiss, “just in honor of having been a Red Queen.”
If they hoped to have an easy bargain of her, never were men more mistaken. Give up to the maid the keys of all the good towns you have taken by force. The hour? The histories say half past four, but it is not true, I heard the order given.
First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into hers; she could hear the very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that would always get into her eyes and still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive with the strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.
She was then required to take the oath on the scriptures to speak the truth, and to answer all questions addressed to her. She was then asked whether when she heard the “voices” in the presence of the King the light was also seen in that place.
“I know not upon what you wish to question me; perhaps you may ask me of things which I ought not to tell you.”
“Swear,” We did then say to her, “to speak truth on the things which shall be asked you concerning the Faith, and of which you know.”
“Of my father and my mother and of what I did after taking the road to France, willingly will I swear; but of the revelations which have come to me from God, to no one will I speak or reveal them, save only to Charles my King; and to you I will not reveal them, even if it cost me my head; because I have received them in visions and by secret counsel, and am forbidden to reveal them. Before eight days are gone, I shall know if I may reveal them to you.”
But even this plan failed: the “thing” went through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it. It is in her, I do truly believe, for what else could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her despise its dangers and fatigues? For her wholesome admonition and for the edification of the whole multitude, “If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.” This address ended, we, the Bishop, did once more admonish Alice to look to her salvation, to reflect on her misdeeds, to repent of them, to have a true contrition for them.
It always happened that people who began in jest with her ended by being in earnest. At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.
She then said that when she entered the chamber where he was, she knew him among all others, by the revelation of her “voices.” She told her King that she wished to make war against the English. She was then asked whether when she heard the “voices” in the presence of the King? The light was also seen in that place.
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked. She could fill her humblest places with titled folk, folk whose relationships would be a bulwark for her and a valuable support at all times. “Take my horse,” he said, “brave creature. Bear no malice.” Finally she said that she charged no man with giving her this advice. I thought it could not fail to be clear to her, and that she would say, herself, that there was no longer any ground for hope.
“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!’”
The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are seeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed their fingers. I found that country sterile, I fertilized it with blood. Hunger and plague, hand in hand, stalked through the dreadful streets.
“What do I owe you, I should like to know?”
“You owe me your life.” They believed the maid was a match for the council, and they were right. But in the towers not a man budged, not a shot was fired. Very well! How could the simple daughter of a laborer who had never left her village become a chief of staff in the army who was held in esteem by her companions at arms and feared by her enemies?
And then did We forbid Alice, without Our permission, to leave the prison which had been assigned to her in the Castle, under pain of the crime of heresy.
“I do not accept such a prohibition,” she answered; “if ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated my faith, not having given my word to any one, whosoever it may be.”
And as she complained that she had been fastened with chains and fetters of iron, We said to her:
“You have before, and many times, sought, We are told, to get out of the prison, where you are detained; and it is to keep you, more surely that it has been ordered to put you in irons.”
“It is true I wished to escape; and so I wish still; is not this lawful for all prisoners?”
“Truly if you were to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul from body, I will tell you nothing more; and, if I were to say anything else, I should always afterwards declare that you made me say it by force.” She paused and a curious confidence filled her.
“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!”
The fifth day began with the usual dispute about the oath. Alice still retaining her reservation with the greatest firmness. It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes of silk. It comes from one of the parties which had been granted a safe-conduct to carry away the dead of the English and Burgundian side. Then the Dauphin took to holding long and weary councils, and she did not get another chance to fight the English till about nearly a month of her one year of time was wasted. Later, during the prosecution trial, the judges had a hard time with her.
“I know you are a friend,” the little voice went on; “a dear friend, and an old friend. And you won’t hurt me, though I am an insect.”
“You have very lightly believed in such things, you who have not turned to God in earnest prayer that He would grant you certainty; you who, to enlighten yourself, have not applied to a prelate or a learned ecclesiastic. This you ought to have done: it was your duty, considering your estate and the simplicity of your knowledge.”
In the evening of the same day, she went out on the bridge, and mounting on the barricades, called to Glasdale and his garrison, bidding them obey God and surrender, and promising to spare their lives if they would do so. The matter concerned Jargeau. She was placed upon a scaffold or platform. For her wholesome admonition and for the edification of the whole multitude, a solemn address was made by the renowned doctor, who took for his text those words of the Apostle in the first epistle to the Corinthians, “ if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.”
“How fond he is of finding morals in things!” Alice thought to herself.
Alice was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and yonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she considered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such accurate judgment did she place her guns that her lieutenant-general’s admiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was taken at the rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later.
“Somebody said,” Alice whispered, “that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!”
We know a traveler, of the calmest English temperament and sobriety of protestant fancy, to whom the midday angelus always brings, he says, “a touching reminder” which he never neglects wherever he may be, to uncover the head and lift up the heart; how much more the devout peasant girl softly startled in the midst of her dreaming by that call to prayer.
“And now, I admonish, I beseech, I exhort you, in the name of your devotion to the Passion of your Creator, and of the affection you should bear to the salvation of your body and soul, I admonish, I beseech you, amend yourself, return into the way of truth, obey the Church, submit to her judgment and decision.
“In thus acting you will save your soul; you will redeem — so I believe — your body from death. But if you do not, if you persist, know that your soul will be overwhelmed by damnation, and I fear for the destruction of your body.
“May Our Savior Jesus Christ preserve you from all these evils!”
After being thus admonished and exhorted, Alice did reply:
“As to my words and deeds, such as I have declared them in the Trial, I refer to them and will maintain them.”
Her case is at once separated from every other. Yet the reign of chivalry was at its height, and women were supposed to be the objects of a kind of worship, every knight being sworn to succour and help them in need and trouble. “I go first to Burey, to persuade my Uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that I go alone.”
Alice then said: “Father, he is hungry; I can see it.”
“Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home by his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep my word.”
Alice was very glad to find him in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made him so savage when they met in the kitchen. The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.
Two years later, after Alice was a prisoner of the English, the French priests and lawyers who took the English side asked her thousands of questions about everything that she had done in her life, and the answers were written down with a hook, word for word. In these circumstances would policy allow her to consider us? But because you have sinned rashly against God and Holy Church, We condemn thee, finally, definitely and for salutary penance, saving Our grace and moderation, to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, in order that you may bewail your faults, and that you may no more commit [these acts] which you shalt have to bewail hereafter.
So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug, and put the kitten and the Queen to look at each other. “Now, Kitty!” she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. “Confess that was what you turned into!”
Her banner we are told was borne into the cathedral, in order, as she proudly explained afterwards, that having been foremost in the danger it should share the honor. But we have no right to suppose that the maid took the position of the chief actor in the pageant and stood alone by the side of Charles, as the exigencies of the pictorial art have required her to do. “Margaret told me that I had done very wrong, when I said what I did to save my life, and that I was damning myself to save my life.”
“Then you believe that the voices were the voices of the Saints.”
“Yes, I believe that, and that the voices come from God;” and she said that she did not mean ever to have denied it. In the meantime there had been, we are told, various interruptions during the examination; and had been rudely silenced, and afterwards punished, as we have already heard. I never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination.
The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at this time of life.
When we add to these strange circumstances the facts that the French King, Charles VI., was mad, and incapable of any real share either in the internal government of his country or in resistance to its invader: that his only son, the Dauphin, was no more than a foolish boy, led by incompetent councilors, and even of doubtful legitimacy, regarded with hesitation and uncertainty by many, everybody being willing to believe the worst of his mother, especially after the Treaty of Troyes in which she virtually gave him up: that the King’s brothers or cousins at the head of their respective fiefs were all seeking their own advantage, and that some of them, especially the Duke of Burgundy, had cruel wrongs to avenge: it will be more easily understood that France had reached a period of depression and apparent despair which no principle of national elasticity or new spring of national impulse was present to amend.
Therefore these great works were necessary in face of a very strenuous resistance, and the possibility of provisioning the besieged, which their river secured. In these circumstances would policy allow her to consider this?
She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself “It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.”
“Since last Thursday [the day of her abjuration] have you heard your Voices at all?”
“Yes, I have heard them.”
“What did they say to you?”
“They said to me:….(In the margin, the Registrar has written against this answer : “Responsio mortifera.”) ‘God had sent me word by St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity it is, this treason to which I have consented, to abjure and recant in order to save my life! I have damned myself to save my life!’ Before last Thursday, my Voices did indeed tell me what I should do and what I did on that day. When I was on the scaffold on Thursday, my Voices said to me, while the preacher was speaking: ‘Answer him boldly, this preacher!’ And in truth he is a false preacher; he reproached me with many things I never did. If I said that God had not sent me, I should damn myself, for it is true that God has sent me; my Voices have said to me since Thursday: ‘You have done a great evil in declaring that what you have done was wrong.’ All I said and revoked, I said for fear of the fire.”
“Do you believe that your Voices are Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret ?”
“Yes, I believe it, and that they come from God.”
“Tell us the truth on the subject of this crown which is mentioned in your Trial.”
“In everything, I told you the truth about it in my Trial, as well as I know.”
“On the scaffold, at the moment of your abjuration, you did admit before us, your Judges, and before many others, in presence of all the people, that you had untruthfully boasted your Voices to be Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.”
“I did not intend so to do or say. I did not intend to deny my apparitions that is to say, that they were Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret; what I said was from fear of the fire: I revoked nothing that was not against the truth. I would rather do penance once for all — that is die — than endure any longer the suffering of a prison. I have done nothing against God or the Faith, in spite of all they have made me revoke. What was in the schedule of abjuration I did not understand. I did not intend to revoke anything except according to God’s good pleasure. If the Judges wish, I will resume a woman’s dress ; for the rest, I can do no more.”
Whatever the voices were, she said they were real, not fancied things. One day six hundred pigs were driven in, spite of cannon and mortar; another day two hundred, and forty beeves; but the day after they lost five hundred head of cattle and “the famous light field-piece of that master gunner, his jests flew as fast as his balls. Now and then he would drop beside his gun, and someone would be carried off apparently dead.
“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!”
She would merely laugh at the sunburned girl in her short red kirtle, a girl who, probably, had never spoken to royalty before. Fortunately it was rich, more rich probably than it is now, when the commonplace silver of the beginning of this century has replaced the ancient vials. Through the short summer night everyone was at work in these preparations; and by the dawn of day visitors began to flow into the city, great personages and small, to attend the great ceremonial and to pay their homage.
“The incurable cowards!” exclaimed Alice.
During the same siege she withstood a blow from a stone that hit her helmet while she was near the base of the town’s wall. First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came the King and Queen of Hearts.
Woman’s garments having been offered to her, she at once dressed herself in them, after having taken off the man’s dress she was wearing; and her hair, which up to this time had been cut “en ronde” above her ears, she desired and permitted them to shave and take away.
“I have but now resumed the dress of a man and put off the woman’s dress.”
“Why did you take it, and who made you take it?”
“I took it of my own free will, and with no constraint: I prefer a man’s dress to a woman’s dress.”
“You promised and swore not to resume a man’s dress.”
“I never meant to swear that I would not resume it.”
“Why have you resumed it?”
“Because it is more lawful and suitable for me to resume it and to wear man’s dress, being with men, than to have a woman’s dress. I have resumed it because the promise made to me has not been kept; that is to say, that I should go to Mass and should receive my Savior and that I should be taken out of irons.”
“Did you not abjure and promise not to resume this dress?”
“I would rather die than be in irons! but if I am allowed to go to Mass, and am taken out of irons and put into a gracious prison, I will be good, and do as the Church wills.”
So far we have been, and we are still, much honored, and our coming has greatly pleased the King and all his people, and they make us better cheer than you could imagine. “Now has he shown that you are true King, and that the Kingdom of France truly belongs to you alone.” Those broken words, her tears, the cry of that profound satisfaction which is almost anguish, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,” which is so suitable to the lips of the old, so poignant from those of the young, pierced all hearts. In face of these facts, doubt of it is impossible.
The fifth day began with the usual dispute about the oath, Alice still retaining her reservation with the greatest firmness.
“Please, then,” said Alice, “how am I to get in?”
The town lies in the midst of the plain of the Loire, with not so much as a hillock to offer any advantage to the besiegers. Therefore these great works were necessary in face of a very strenuous resistance, and the possibility of provisioning the besieged, which their river secured.
Next we see it, every child knows how. Surrounded by wide-spreading quicksands, its sheer walls buffeted day and night by the Atlantic surges, “Take my horse,” he said, “brave creature. Render to the maid who is sent by god the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France.”
“Fighting for the crown?”
She is sent hither by God, to restore the blood royal.
For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood (she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish), and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen. When Alice was a little girl she did not see very much of the cruelty of the soldiers; the village was only visited once or twice by enemies.
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
It is in her, I do truly believe, for what else could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her despise its dangers and fatigues? Alice, given leave to travel to Orleans with the French army and in full battle gear, seemed every inch the fulfilment of the prophecy.
This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, “I really must be getting home; the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!” and a Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
She was ready to be sent for by any poor woman that needed help or nursing, she was always industrious at her needle.
“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!”
Therefore these great works were necessary in face of a very strenuous resistance, and the possibility of provisioning the besieged, which their river secured.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
She said that for that very reason people ought to pity them, and do every humane and loving thing they could to make them forget the hard fate that had been put upon them by accident of birth and no fault of their own. But nothing came of it.
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece, all round.
Alice’s answer was simple and straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any fault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the truth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the distrust of these, and then the comforting voices were heard at her ear saying, soft and low, “go forward, daughter of God, and I will help thee.”
Then she added, “When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is insupportable!” The Bishop said that when she said these words her face lit up as with a flame, and she was like one in an ecstasy. Alice pleaded, persuaded, reasoned; gaining ground little by little, but opposed step by step by the council. The fact that she was a teenage girl also led to her advice being disregarded.
“Do you call that a whisper?” cried the poor King, jumping up and shaking himself. “If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you buttered! It went through and through my head like an earthquake!”
There is something that breathes of supreme satisfaction and content in her repetition of those words. She had to drink of the cup of which our Lord drank, and to be baptised with the baptism with which he was baptised. “Is a sin a sin, anyway, even if one did not intend to commit it?”
“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did you speak?”
Alice was addressed sternly by Cauchon, in an exhortation which it is sad to think was not in Latin, as it appears in the process.
She was then required to take the oath on the scriptures to speak the truth, and to answer all questions addressed to her. Alice had already held that conversation with l’Oyseleur in the prison which Cauchon and Warwick had listened to in secret with greedy ears, but which Manchon, the honest reporter, had refused to take down.
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank; the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. At all events it is a very distinct fact that during the whole period of her trial, five months of misery, except on the one occasion already referred to, no woman came to console the unfortunate maid. She had never before during all her vicissitudes been without their constant ministrations.
Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice, almost in a whisper. “And can all the flowers talk?”
At a later period, her accusers attempted to make out that she had been a devotee of these nameless woodland spirits, but in vain. No doubt she was one of the procession on the holy day once a year, when the cure of the parish went out through the wood to the fairies’ well to say his mass, and exorcise what evil enchantment might be there.
While inhumane by today’s standards, the view of insanity at the time likened the mentally ill to animals (i.e., animalism) who did not have the capacity to reason, could not control themselves, were capable of violence without provocation, did not have the same physical sensitivity to pain or temperature, and could live in miserable conditions without complaint.
Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.
The mother and wife of the Duke received her with open arms, and “God knows,” says the family chronicler, “the cheer they made her during the three or four days she spent in the place.” The young duchess was Alice of Orleans, daughter of the captive poet-duke: it was her own city that this wondrous maid was come to save. A girl herself, generous, ardent, small wonder that she opened her arms.
At Orleans, in the very field as well as in the council chamber and the presence, everything was done to balk her, and to cross her plans, but in vain; she triumphed over every contrivance against her, and broke through the plots, and overcame the plotters. But after Rheims the combination of dangers became ever greater and greater, and we may say that no merely human general would have had a chance in face of the many and bewildering influences of evil. Then the army was gone.
“Things flow about so here!” she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. “And this one is the most provoking of all; but I’ll tell you what!” she added, as a sudden thought struck her, “I’ll follow it up to the very top shelf of all. It’ll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect!”
She also said that she knew well that God loved the Duke of Orleans, concerning whom she had more revelations than about any other living man, except him whom she called her King. These intrigues had been in her way since her very first beginning, as has been seen.
She drove the English from Orleans in the month of May. Then the Dauphin took to holding long and weary councils, and she did not get another chance to fight the English till about the month of June, so nearly a month of her one year of time was wasted.
“That was a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!”
“Is a sin a sin, anyway, even if one did not intend to commit it?”
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
She was visited by every curious person, man or woman, in the neighborhood, and plied with endless questions, so that her simple personal story, and that of her revelations mes voix, as she called them became familiarly known from her own report, to the whole country round about.
“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; but I must be kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.”
I never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination. Alice was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and yonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she considered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such accurate judgment did she place her guns that her Lieutenant-General’s admiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was taken at the rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later. When Alice was a little girl she did not see very much of the cruelty of the soldiers; her village was only visited once or twice by enemies.
I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for I have seen the vision of the tree. This dull dread lay upon our spirits like a physical weight. After these assertions had been thus shown to her. We know this because if it were an intellectual quality it would only perceive a danger, for instance, where a danger exists.
“Hear him twaddle, the damned idiot!” muttered the paladin.
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. Finally she said that she charged no man with giving her this advice.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
Once across the river, Alice mounted again, with her banner of Our Lord and the lilies in her hand, and with Dunois at her side, and rode to the town. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
It was an ill-omened place for a French King and the camp was torn with dissensions. Slowly but surely the net of suspicion was drawn, closer, closer yet. Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think.” For, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over. “Yes, that’s about the right distance, but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?”
It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes of silk. It will be abundantly proved, however, by all that is to follow, that in face of this tribunal, learned, able, powerful, and prejudiced, the peasant girl of nineteen stood like a rock, unmoved by all their cleverness, undaunted by their severity, seldom or never losing her head, or her temper, her modest steadfastness, or her high spirit. For her wholesome admonition and for the edification of the whole multitude, a solemn address was made by the renowned doctor. The Bishop, did once more admonish Alice to look to her salvation, to reflect on her misdeeds, to repent of them, to have a true contrition for them.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”
Sometimes, too, they had many doubts, perhaps as to their reception at Chinon, perhaps even whether their mission might not expose them to the ridicule of their kind, if not to unknown dangers of magic and contact with the evil one, should this wonderful girl turn out no inspired virgin but a pretender or sorceress. At the time of her death, she was about 19 years old.
Once she was in the fire, she cried out more than six times “Jesus!” And especially, with her last breath, she cried out in a loud voice “Jesus!” Her cry was so loud that all those present could hear her; almost all were moved to tears.
“Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should not go on licking your paw like that, as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course; but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know, Oh, Kitty, do help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the question.
Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.
“What do I owe you, I should like to know?”
“Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?” Alice began. “You’d have guessed if you’d been up in the window with me; only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire; and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.”
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