she implored him to pray. He stood out, three days
of our stay, begging about piteously to be let off--to be let off from
just that one thing, that impossible thing; he would do anything
else--anything--command, and he would obey--he would go through the fire
for her if she said the word--but spare him this, only this, for he
couldn't pray, had never prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a
prayer, he had no words to put it in.

And yet--can any believe it?--she carried even that point, she won that
incredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think, that
nothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there before her and
put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it was not borrowed, but
was his very own; he had none to help him frame it, he made it out of his
own head--saying:

"Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if you
were La Hire and he were God." [1]

Then he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan's tent as satisfied
with himself as any one might be who had arranged a perplexed and
difficult business to the content and admiration of all the parties
concerned in the matter.

If I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood why he
was feeling so superior, but of course I could not know that.

I was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out, and saw
him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was fine and
beautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped and stepped
back, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as I mistakenly
thought--crying as if she could not contain nor endure the anguish of her
soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not so, she was
laughing--laughing at La Hire's prayer.

It was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out,
and then--oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free
mirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that long-vanished
time; for there had come a day between, when God's good gift of laughter
had gone out from me to come again no more in this life.

[1] This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the
past four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and
the fact is of official record in the National Archives of France. We
have the authority of Michelet for this. --TRANSLATOR

Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise

WE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the