She forwarded to the
English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French, as
brothers, in a common crusade against infidels--thus opening the road
for a soldierly retreat. She interposed to protect the captive or the
wounded; she mourned over the excesses of her countrymen; she threw
herself off her horse to kneel by the dying English soldier, and to
comfort him with such ministrations, physical or spiritual, as his
situation allowed. "Nolebat," says the evidence, "uti ense suo, aut
quemquam interficere." She sheltered the English that invoked her aid
in her own quarters. She wept as she beheld, stretched on the field of
battle, so many brave enemies that had died without confession. And, as
regarded herself, her elation expressed itself thus: on the day when
she had finished her work, she wept; for she knew that, when her
_triumphal_ task was done, her end must be approaching. Her
aspirations pointed only to a place which seemed to her more than
usually full of natural piety, as one in which it would give her
pleasure to die. And she uttered, between smiles and tears, as a wish
that inexpressibly fascinated her heart, and yet was half fantastic, a
broken prayer that God would return her to the solitudes from which he
had drawn her, and suffer her to become a shepherdess once more. It was
a natural prayer, because nature has laid a necessity upon every human
heart to seek for rest and to shrink from torment.
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