,
against the cruelty and wrong. But for her fate in itself let us not
mourn over-much. Had the Maid become a great and honoured lady should
not we all have said as Satan says in the Book of Job: Did Jeanne serve
God for nought? We should say: See what she made by it. Honour and fame
and love and happiness. She did nobly, but nobly has she been rewarded.

But that is not God's way. The highest saint is born to martyrdom. To
serve God for nought is the greatest distinction which He reserves
for His chosen. And this was the fate to which the Maid of France was
consecrated from the moment she set out upon her mission. She had the
supreme glory of accomplishing that which she believed herself to be
sent to do, and which I also believe she was sent to do, miraculously,
by means undreamed of, and in which no one beforehand could have
believed. But when that was done a higher consecration awaited her. She
had to drink of the cup of which our Lord drank, and to be baptised with
the baptism with which He was baptised. It was involved in every step
of the progress that it should be so. And she was herself aware of it,
vaguely, at heart, as soon as the object of her mission was attained.
What else could have put the thought of dying into the mind of a girl of
eighteen in the midst of the adoring crowd, to whom to see her, to touch
her, was a benediction? When she went forth from those gates she was
going to her execution, though the end was not to be yet. There was
still a long struggle before her, lingering and slow, more bitter than
death, the preface of discouragement, of disappointment, of failure when
she had most hoped to succeed.

She was on the threshold of this second period when she rode out of
Rheims all brilliant in the summer weather, her banner faded now,
but glorious, her shining armour bearing signs of warfare, her end
achieved--yet all the while her heart troubled, uncertain, and full of
unrest. And it is impossible not to note that from this time her plans
were less defined than before. Up to the coronation she had known
exactly what she meant to do, and in spite of all obstructions had done
it, keeping her genial humour and her patience, steering her simple way
through all the intrigues of the Court, without bitterness and without
fear. But now a vague mist seems to fall about the path which was so
open and so clear. Paris! Yes, the best policy, the true generalship
would have been to march straight upon Paris,