Saint Joan

not be worth the life of a single soldier to us; and I will not risk that life, much as I cherish her as a companion-in-arms. Joan I don’t blame you, Jack: you are right. I am not worth one soldier’s life if God lets me be beaten; but France may think me worth my ransom after what God has done for her through me. Charles I tell you I have no money; and this coronation, which is all your fault, has cost me the last farthing I can borrow. Joan The Church is richer than you. I put my trust in the Church. The Archbishop Woman: they will drag you through the streets, and burn you as a witch. Joan Running to him. Oh, my lord, do not say that. It is impossible. I a witch! The Archbishop Peter Cauchon knows his business. The University of Paris has burnt a woman for saying that what you have done was well done, and according to God. Joan Bewildered. But why? What sense is there in it? What I have done is according to God. They could not burn a woman for speaking the truth. The Archbishop They did. Joan But you know that she was speaking the truth. You would not let them burn me. The Archbishop How could I prevent them? Joan You would speak in the name of the Church. You are a great prince of the Church. I would go anywhere with your blessing to protect me. The Archbishop I have no blessing for you while you are proud and disobedient. Joan Oh, why will you go on saying things like that? I am not proud and disobedient. I am a poor girl, and so ignorant that I do not know A from B. How could I be proud? And how can you say that I am disobedient when I always obey my voices, because they come from God. The Archbishop The voice of God on earth is the voice of the Church Militant; and all the voices that come to you are the echoes of your own wilfulness. Joan It is not true. The Archbishop Flushing angrily. You tell the Archbishop in his cathedral that he lies; and yet you say you are not proud and disobedient. Joan I never said you lied. It was you that as good as said my voices lied. When have they ever lied? If you will not believe in them: even if they are only the echoes of my own common sense, are they not always right? and are not your earthly counsels always wrong? The Archbishop Indignantly. It is waste of time admonishing you. Charles It always comes back to the same thing. She is right, and everyone else is wrong. The Archbishop Take this as your last warning. If you perish through setting your private judgment above the instructions of your spiritual directors, the Church disowns you, and leaves you to whatever fate your presumption may bring upon you. The Bastard has told you that if you persist in setting up your military conceit above the counsels of your commanders⁠— Dunois Interposing. To put it quite exactly, if you attempt to relieve the garrison in Compiègne without the same superiority in numbers you had at Orleans⁠— The Archbishop The army will disown you, and will not rescue you. And His Majesty the King has told you that the throne has not the means of ransoming you. Charles Not a penny. The Archbishop You stand alone: absolutely alone, trusting to your own conceit, your own ignorance, your own headstrong presumption, your own impiety in hiding all these sins under the cloak of a trust in God. When you pass through these doors into the sunlight, the crowd will cheer you. They will bring you their little children and their invalids to heal: they will kiss your hands and feet, and do what they can, poor simple souls, to turn your head, and madden you with the self-confidence that is leading you to your destruction. But you will be none the less alone: they cannot save you. We and we only can stand between you and the stake at which our enemies have burnt that wretched woman in Paris. Joan Her eyes skyward. I have better friends and better counsel than yours. The Archbishop I see that I am speaking in vain to a hardened heart. You reject our protection, and are determined to turn us all against you. In future, then, fend for yourself; and if you fail, God have mercy on your soul. Dunois That is the truth, Joan. Heed it. Joan Where would you all have been now if I had heeded that sort of truth? There is no help, no counsel, in any of you. Yes: I am alone on earth: I have always been alone. My father told my brothers to drown me if I would not stay to mind his sheep while France was bleeding to death: France might perish if only our lambs were safe. I thought France would have friends at the court of the king of France; and I find only wolves fighting for pieces of her poor torn body. I thought God would have friends everywhere, because He is the friend of everyone; and in my innocence I believed that you who now cast me out would be like strong towers to keep harm from me. But I am wiser now; and nobody is any the worse for being wiser. Do not think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone; and God is alone; and what is my loneliness before the loneliness of my country and my God? I see now that the loneliness of God is His strength: what would He be if He listened to your jealous little counsels? Well, my loneliness shall be my strength too: it is better to be alone with God: His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength I will dare, and dare, and dare, until I die. I will go