Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, vol 2 | Page 4

which she
sometimes used as a private office when she wanted to get away from officials and their
interruptions. Catherine Boucher came in and sat down and said:
"Joan, dear, I want you to talk to me."
"Indeed, I am not sorry for that, but glad. What is in your mind?"
"This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you are running. The Paladin
told me how you made the duke stand out of the way when the cannon-balls were flying
all about, and so saved his life."
"Well, that was right, wasn't it?"
"Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like that? It seems such a
wanton risk."
"Oh, no, it was not so. I was not in any danger."
"How can you say that, Joan, with those deadly things flying all about you?"
Joan laughed, and tried to turn the subject, but Catherine persisted. She said:
"It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in such a place. And you
led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I
want you to promise me that you will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults,
and that you will take better care of yourself in those dreadful battles. Will you?"
But Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it. Catherine sat troubled and
discontented awhile, then she said:
"Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so long--so long. They last

forever and ever and ever."
There was a glad flash in Joan's eye as she cried:
"This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of it in the next four days.
The rest of it will be gentler--oh, far less bloody. Yes, in four days France will gather
another trophy like the redemption of Orleans and make her second long step toward
freedom!"
Catherine started (and do did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one in a trance,
murmuring "four days--four days," as if to herself and unconsciously. Finally she asked,
in a low voice that had something of awe in it:
"Joan, tell me--how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I think."
"Yes," said Joan, dreamily, "I know--I know. I shall strike--and strike again. And before
the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet again." She became silent. We sat wondering
and still. This was for a whole minute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving but
uttering nothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible: "And in a thousand years
the English power in France will not rise up from that blow."
It made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance again--I could see it--just as
she was that day in the pastures of Domremy when she prophesied about us boys in the
war and afterward did not know that she had done it. She was not conscious now; but
Catherine did not know that, and so she said, in a happy voice:
"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come back and bide with us
all your life long, and we will love you so, and honor you!"
A scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the dreamy voice muttered:
"Before two years are sped I shall die a cruel death!"
I sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine did not scream. She was
going to do that--I saw it plainly. Then I whispered her to slip out of the place, and say
nothing of what had happened. I said Joan was asleep--asleep and dreaming. Catherine
whispered back, and said:
"Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like prophecy." And she was
gone.
Like prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as knowing we should
lose her. Soon she started, shivering slightly, and came to herself, and looked around and
saw me crying there, and jumped out of her chair and ran to me all in a whirl of sympathy
and compassion, and put her hand on my head, and said:
"My poor boy! What is it? Look up and tell me."
I had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way. I picked up an old
letter from my table, written by Heaven knows who, about some matter Heaven knows
what, and told her I had just gotten it from PŠre Fronte, and that in it it said the children's
Fairy Tree had been chopped down by some miscreant or other, and-- I got no