from them?
Any one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to
its results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is the truth.

Judged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and
imposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world
first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So
judged, it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few just
mentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic conflicts. For
when it began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life,
her case wholly hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when
it ended, three hours later, she was convalescent. Convalescent, and
nothing requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to
perfect health. The dullest physician of them all could see this, and
there was none to deny it.

Many death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series
of battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts
stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and
by a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay.

Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the
stateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands,
with its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on
pilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence
of--what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes. For all nations
in all times have built monuments on their battle-fields to keep green
the memory of the perishable deed that was wrought there and of the
perishable name of him who wrought it; and will France neglect Patay and
Joan of Arc? Not for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their
rank as compared with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhaps--if
there be room for it under the arch of the sky.

But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and
impressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged on and
on, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched
France prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled
on, year after year, and at last again she went down under another
devastating blow--Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once
more, and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year,
decade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died--the war
raged on