Herstory III: Jehanne de Lorraine

 ... 
Et Jeanne, la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglais brûlèrent à Rouen ;
Où sont-ils, où, Vierge souvraine ?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?
 ... 

I have labored sore and suffered death, 
And now I rest and draw my breath; 
But I shall come and call right soon 
Heaven and earth and hell to doom; 
And then shall know both devil and man 
What I was and what I am.

They call me Jenny in Lorraine. 
In France I am Joan.  
The soldiers call me The Maid.
When I was thirteen I saw a most strange thing, 
for I saw a white shadow come slowly gliding 
along the grass, and the whiteness of the shadow 
was not like any other whiteness that we 
know, except it be the whiteness of the lightnings.  
My breath grew faint with the terror and the awe.

And with the shadow came speech, several saints, 
and they spoke to me.  (They are very dear to me
-- my voices.)

And the voices told me that I, Joan, must go away, 
and that I must come to France and that 
my father must know nothing of my leaving, 
that I should find soldiers and that I should lift the 
siege on the city of Orléans, and that I should 
lead the Dauphin to crown him King of France 
in the city of Reims and that I should 
drive the English from French soil.

I was a child and I was afraid.  But St. Michael 
told me to come to the aid of the king.  And he 
told me the pity that was in the kingdom of France.

JOAN LA PUCELLE
Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defaced
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe.
As looks the mother on her lowly babe
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see the pining malady of France;
 ... 

La France nous appelle,                                
Sachons vaincre ou sachons périr;                     
Un Français doit vivre pour elle,                      
Pour elle un Français doit mourir.

I am a soldier. 
I will never take a husband. 
I do not want to be thought of as a woman. 
I will not dress as a woman. 
I do not care for the things women care for. 
They dream of lovers and money. 
I dream of leading a charge, and of placing the big guns. 
I am not a daredevil:  I am a servant of God. 
My sword is sacred and I may not strike a blow with it. 
My heart is full of courage, not of anger.

Gentle little Dauphin -- Come, come from behind: 
I know thee well, though never seen before. 
I have a message to thee from God. 
And thou must listen to it, though thy heart break with the terror of it.

I am sent to drive the English away from Orléans and from France 
and to crown thee king in the cathedral of Reims. 
One thousand like me can stop the English; 
Ten like me can stop them with God on our side.

Ask me what questions thou canst 
And I will answer unpremeditated. 
My courage try by combat if thou dar'st 
And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Now lift up thy head, give me men-at-arms, 
and let me get about my work.
You wish to have me examined first by 
theologians at Poitiers? 
I, who am come to be the English scourge?

Oh very well.  (to audience) 
They would know if my voices are God's or Satan's.

I willingly tell them anything, not all, that I 
know. But it is most tiresome. One Brother Séguin 
asked many nagging questions such as, "Did my 
voices speak good French?" Mon Dieu! I answered 
the sour little man speaking in his bastard Limousin 
tongue, "As to that, I believe I cannot say.  Still it 
was an improvement on yours."

Then they asked how St. Michael looked when he 
appeared to me.  I said I saw no crown and remember 
nothing of his clothes.  Pressed to say if he was naked, 
I retorted, "Do you think God cannot afford to 
clothe him?"

These wearisome questions!  And while the 
clerics ponder, Orléans starves and the English 
prevail.

The rats were devouring the house, 
but instead of examining the cat's teeth 
and the cat's claws, 
they only concerned themselves 
to find out if it was a holy cat, 
a pious cat, a moral cat...

 ... 

47 
N'appercevez-vous gent avugle, 
Que Dieu a ici la main mise ?
Et qui ne le voit, est bien bugle ; 
Car comment seroit en tel guise 
Geste Pucelle ça tramise,
Qui tous mors vous fait jus abattre?
Ne force n'avez qui souffise ! 
Voulez-vous contre Dieu combattre ? 

Sound, sound the alarm! we will rush on them.
Now for the honour of the forlorn French!
 ... 

 ... 

34
Hée ! quel honneur au féminin
Sexe ! Que Dieu l'ayme, il appert. 
Quant tout ce grant peuple chenin
Par qui tout le règne ert désert,
Par femme est sours et recouvert,
Ce que pas hommes fait n'eüssent,
Et les traittres mis à désert
A peine devant ne crussent. 

Ah, faith, we had many victories. In fourteen-hundred-and-twenty-nine
 [ ... ]

Five long months it lasted
 [ ... ]

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in mine heart, and in my thinking;
God be at my end, and in my departing.