Autobiography of Mark Twain (50 page)

with,
none
_^
by whom
_^
to measure her
by;
for all others among the illustrious
grew
toward their high place in an atmosphere and surroundings
which
_^
that
_^
discovered their gift to them
and
_^
that
_^
nourished
it
and promoted it, intentionally or unconsciously. There have been other
young
_^
born
_^
generals, but they were not girls; young generals, but they had been soldiers before they
were generals
_^
earned the baton
_^
:
she
_^
Jeanne
_^
began
as a general; she commanded the first army she ever saw, she led it from victory to victory, and never lost a battle,
with it;
t
here have been young commanders-in-chief, but none so young as she: she is the only soldier in history who has held the supreme command of a nation’s armies at the age of seventeen.

V.

AS PROPHET
.

Her history has still another feature which sets her apart and leaves her without fellow or competitor: there have been many uninspired prophets, but she was the only one who ever ventured the daring detail of naming,
along
_^
in connection
_^
with a foretold event, the
event’s
precise nature
_^
of that event,
_^
the special time-limit
_^
and place
_^
within which it would occur,
and the place—
and scored
_^
and in every case realized the complete
_^
fulfilment
. At Vaucouleurs she said she must
go to
_^
see
_^
the King and be made
his
general
, and
_^
of his forces in order to
_^
break the English power, and crown her sovereign—“at Rheims.”
It all happened.
It was all to happen “next year”—and it did. She foretold her first wound
and
its character and date a month
in advance, and the
_^
beforehand; this
_^
prophecy was recorded in a public record-book three weeks in advance. She repeated it the morning of the
named
date
_^
named,
_^
and it was fulfilled before night. At Tours she foretold the limit of her military career
saying it would end in one year from the time of
this
_^
her
_^
utterance
and she was right. She foretold her martyrdom
using
that word
and naming a time three months
away
_^
distant
_^
—and again she was right. At a
time
_^
period
_^
when France seemed hopelessly and permanently in the hands of the English she twice asserted in her prison before her judges that within seven years
_^
’ time
_^
the English would meet with a mightier disaster than had been the fall of Orleans: it happened within five
—
the fall of Paris.