But this limitation of the
interest grew, no doubt, from the constraint inseparably attached to
the law of epic unity. Joanna's history bisects into two opposite
hemispheres, and both could not have been presented to the eye in one
poem, unless by sacrificing all unity of theme, or else by involving
the earlier half, as a narrative episode, in the latter; which,
however, might have been done, for it might have been communicated to a
fellow-prisoner, or a confessor, by Joanna herself. It is sufficient,
as concerns _this_ section of Joanna's life, to say that she
fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the restoration of the
prostrate throne. France had become a province of England, and for the
ruin of both, if such a yoke could be maintained. Dreadful pecuniary
exhaustion caused the English energy to droop; and that critical
opening La Pucelle used with a corresponding felicity of audacity and
suddenness (that were in themselves portentous) for introducing the
wedge of French native resources, for rekindling the national pride,
and for planting the dauphin once more upon his feet. When Joanna
appeared, he had been on the point of giving up the struggle with the
English, distressed as they were, and of flying to the south of France.
She taught him to blush for such abject counsels. She liberated
Orleans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the issue of the
war, and then beleaguered by the English with an elaborate application
of engineering skill unprecedented in Europe.
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