“The King of Heaven.”

Many murmured, “Ah, poor thing, poor thing!” and others, “Ah, her mind is but a wreck!” The governor hailed Laxart, and said: 

“Harkye!—­take this mad child home and whip her soundly.  That is the best cure for her ailment.”

As Joan was moving away she turned and said, with simplicity: 

“You refuse me the soldiers, I know not why, for it is my Lord that has commanded you.  Yes, it is He that has made the command; therefore I must come again, and yet again; then I shall have the men-at-arms.”

There was a great deal of wondering talk, after she was gone; and the guards and servants passed the talk to the town, the town passed it to the country; Domremy was already buzzing with it when we got back.

Chapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented

Human nature is the same everywhere:  it defies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat.  The village considered that Joan had disgraced it with her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure; so all the tongues were busy with the matter, and as bilious and bitter as they were busy; insomuch that if the tongues had been teeth she would not have survived her persecutions.  Those persons who did not scold did what was worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her, and ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and laughter.  Haumette and Little Mengette and I stood by her, but the storm was too strong for her other friends, and they avoided her, being ashamed to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and because of the sting of the taunts that assailed them on her account.  She shed tears in secret, but none in public.  In public she carried herself with serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment—­conduct which should have softened the feeling against her, but it did not.  Her father was so incensed that he could not talk in measured terms about her wild project of going to the wars like a man.  He had dreamed of her doing such a thing, some time before, and now he remembered that dream with apprehension and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex herself and go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her; and that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands.

But none of these things shook her purpose in the least.  Her parents kept a strict watch upon her to keep her from leaving the village, but she said her time was not yet; that when the time to go was come she should know it, and then the keepers would watch in vain.

The summer wasted along; and when it was seen that her purpose continued steadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered itself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage.  The Paladin had the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him several years before, and now he claimed a ratification of the engagement.