Autobiography of Mark Twain (40 page)

2.
In Joan of
_^
Jeanne d’
_^
Arc at the age of sixteen
there was
_^
gave
_^
no promise of a romance. She lived in a dull little village on the frontiers of civilization; she had been nowhere and had seen nothing; she knew none but simple shepherd folk; she had never seen a person of note; she hardly knew what a soldier looked like; she had never ridden a horse, nor had a warlike weapon in her hand; she could neither read nor write
;s
he could spin and sew, she knew her catechism
and
her prayers and
the
_^
some
_^
fabulous histories of the Saints,
and
this was all her learning
. That was Joan
at sixteen. What did she know of law? of evidence? of courts? of the Attorney’s trade? of legal procedure? Nothing. Less than nothing. Thus exhaustively equipped with ignorance she went before the court at Toul to contest a false charge of breach of promise of marriage; she conducted her cause herself, without any one’s help or advice or
_^
without
_^
any
one’s
friendly sympathy, and won it. She called no witnesses of her own, but vanquished the prosecution by using with deadly effectiveness its own testimony. The astonished judge threw the case out of court, and spoke of her as “this marvellous child.”

She went now to the veteran Commandant of Vaucouleurs and demanded an escort of soldiers, saying she must march to the help of the King of France, since she was commissioned of God to win back his lost Kingdom for him and
_^
to
_^
set the crown upon his head. The Commandant said
“What, you?—you are only a child.”
And he
_^
He
_^
advised that she
_^
should
_^
be taken back to her village
and have her ears boxed.
But she said s
he must obey God,
_^
she said,
_^
and would come again
and again
and yet again, and finally she would get the soldiers. She said truly. In time he yielded, after months of delay and refusal, and gave her
the soldiers; and
_^
an escort; he
_^
took off his
_^
own
_^
sword and gave
_^
it to
_^
her
that,
and said “Go—and let come what may.” She made her long journey,
and
spoke with the King and convinced him.
Then s
he was
_^
then
_^
summoned before the University of Poitiers to prove that she
was
commissioned of God and not Satan, and daily during three weeks she sat before that learned congress unafraid,
and
capably
answered
_^
answering
_^
their deep questions out of her ignorant but
able
_^
clear
_^
head
and
her simple and honest heart
, and a
gain she
won
_^
gained
_^
her case,
and
_^
together
_^
with
it
the wondering admiration of all that august company.