I should fear
to injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so
unspeakably grand. Yet, for a purpose, pointing not at Joanna, but at
M. Michelet--viz, to convince him that an Englishman is capable of
thinking more highly of La Pucelle than even her admiring countrymen--I
shall, in parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanour on
the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which
authorise me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's
firmness. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was
subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder
Christian martyrs had not much to fear of _personal_ rancour. The
martyr was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Caesar; at times, also,
where any knowledge of the Christian faith and morals existed, with the
enmity that arises spontaneously in the worldly against the spiritual.
But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be therefore anti-
national; and still less was _individually_ hateful. What was hated
(if anything) belonged to his class, not to himself separately. Now,
Joanna, if hated at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national
grounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against
_her_ such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the
case, it would follow of necessity that some people would impute to her
a willingness to recant.
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