Personal Recollection of Joan of Arc BOOK I IN DOMREMY Chapter 1-When Wolves Ran Free in Paris I, THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE, was born in Neufchateau, on the 6th of January, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was born in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions from the neighborhood of Paris in the first years of the century. In politics they were Armagnacs--patriots; they were for our own French King, crazy and impotent as he was. The Burgundian party, who were for the English, had stripped them, and done it well. They took everything but my father's small nobility, and when he reached Neufchateau he reached it in poverty and with a broken spirit. But the political atmosphere there was the sort he liked, and that was something. He came to a region of comparative quiet; he left behind him a region peopled with furies, madmen, devils, where slaughter was a daily pastime and no man's life safe for a moment. In Paris, mobs roared through the streets nightly, sacking, burning, killing, unmolested, uninterrupted. The sun rose upon wrecked and smoking buildings, and upon mutilated corpses lying here, there, and yonder about the streets, just as they fell, and stripped naked by thieves, the unholy gleaners after the mob. None had the courage to gather these dead for burial; they were left there to rot and create plagues. And plagues they did create. Epidemics swept away the people like flies, and the burials were conducted secretly and by night, for public funerals were not allowed, lest the revelation of the magnitude of the plague's work unman the people and plunge them into despair. Then came, finally, the bitterest winter which had visited France in five hundred years. Famine, pestilence, slaughter, ice, snow--Paris had all these at once. The dead lay in heaps about the streets, and wolves entered the city in daylight and devoured them. Ah, France had fallen low--so low! For more than three quarters of a century the English fangs had been bedded in her flesh, and so cowed had her armies become by ceaseless rout and defeat that it was said and accepted that the mere sight of an English army was sufficient to put a French one to flight. When I was five years old the prodigious disaster of Agincourt fell upon France; and although the English King went home to enjoy his glory, he left the country prostrate and a prey to roving bands of Free Companions in the service of the Burgundian party, and one of these bands came raiding through Neufchateau one night, and by the light of our burning roof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder brother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while they begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and mimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When the savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the burning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company of the dead and the wounded, for the rest had taken flight and hidden themselves. I was sent to Domremy, to the priest, whose housekeeper became a loving mother to me. The priest, in the course of time, taught me to read and write, and he and I were the only persons in the village who possessed this learning. At the time that the house of this good priest, Guillaume Fronte, became my home, I was six years old. We lived close by the village church, and the small garden of Joan's parents was behind the church. As to that family there were Jacques d'Arc the father, his wife Isabel Romee; three sons--Jacques, ten years old, Pierre, eight, and Jean, seven; Joan, four, and her baby sister Catherine, about a year old. I had these children for playmates from the beginning. I had some other playmates besides--particularly four boys: Pierre Morel, Etienne Roze, Noel Rainguesson, and Edmond Aubrey, whose father was maire at that time; also two girls, about Joan's age, who by and by became her favorites; one was named Haumetter, the other was called Little Mengette. These girls were common peasant children, like Joan herself. When they grew up, both married common laborers. Their estate was lowly enough, you see; yet a time came, many years after, when no passing stranger, howsoever great he might be, failed to go and pay his reverence to those to humble old women who had been honored in their youth by the friendship of Joan of Arc. These were all good children, just of the ordinary peasant type; not bright, of course--you would not expect that--but good-hearted and companionable, obedient to their parents and the priest; and as they grew up they became properly stocked with narrowness and prejudices got at second hand from their elders, and adopted without reserve; and without examination also--which goes without saying. Their religion was inherited, their politics the same. John Huss and his sort might find fault with the Church, in Domremy it disturbed nobody's faith; and when the split came, when I was fourteen, and we had three Popes at once, nobody in Domremy was worried about how to choose among them--the Pope of Rome was the right one, a Pope outside of Rome was no Pope at all. Every human creature in the village was an Armagnac--a patriot--and if we children hotly hated nothing else in the world, we did certainly hate the English and Burgundian name and polity in that way. Chapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy OUR DOMREMY was like any other humble little hamlet of that remote time and region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes and alleys shaded and sheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of the barnlike houses. The houses were dimly lighted by wooden-shuttered windows--that is, holes in the walls which served for windows. The floors were dirt, and there was very little furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry; all the young folks tended flocks. The situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery plain extended in a wide sweep to the river--the Meuse; from the rear edge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top was the great oak forest--a forest that was deep and gloomy and dense, and full of interest for us children, for many murders had been done in it by outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times prodigious dragons that spouted fire and poisonous vapors from their nostrils had their homes in there. In fact, one was still living in there in our own time. It was as long as a tree, and had a body as big around as a tierce, and scales like overlapping great tiles, and deep ruby eyes as large as a cavalier's hat, and an anchor-fluke on its tail as big as I don't know what, but very big, even unusually so for a dragon, as everybody said who knew about dragons. It was thought that this dragon was of a brilliant blue color, with gold mottlings, but no one had ever seen it, therefore this was not known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was not my opinion; I think there is no sense in forming an opinion when there is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any bones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber and cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an opinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another time, and try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that dragon, I always held the belief that its color was gold and without blue, for that has always been the color of dragons. That this dragon lay but a little way within the wood at one time is shown by the fact that Pierre Morel was in there one day and smelt it, and recognized it by the smell. It gives one a horrid idea of how near to us the deadliest danger can be and we not suspect it. In the earliest times a hundred knights from many remote places in the earth would have gone in there one after another, to kill the dragon and get the reward, but in our time that method had gone out, and the priest had become the one that abolished dragons. Pere Guillaume Fronte did it in this case. He had a procession, with candles and incense and banners, and marched around the edge of the wood and exorcised the dragon, and it was never heard of again, although it was the opinion of many that the smell never wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell again, for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other--and lacked bones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the exorcism, but whether it was there afterward or not is a thing which I cannot be so positive about. In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward Vaucouleurs stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on summer days the children went there--oh, every summer for more than five hundred years--went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours together, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures, as all fairies are, and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild flowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the fairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as keeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away serpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness between the fairies and the children during more than five hundred years--tradition said a thousand--but only the warmest affection and the most perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies mourned just as that child's playmates did, and the sign of it was there to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little immortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it was known that the fairies did it was this--that it was made all of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere. | Recordações Pessoais de Joana D’Arc LIVRO PRIMEIRO, EM DOMREMY Capítulo 1-Quando os Lobos corriam livres em Paris EU, Sieur Louis de Conte, nasci em Neufchâteau, no dia 6 de janeiro de 1410, o que corresponde a exatos dois anos antes do nascimento de Joana D’Arc E a peste esses corpos disseminaram. Epidemias varreram a população tal qual moscas e os enterros eram secretos e noturnos, pois os funerais públicos não eram permitidos com medo de que a revelação da gravidade da peste abatesse as pessoas e as arrastasse para/ as sucumbisse ao desespero. Chegou, por fim, o inverno mais rigoroso que a França conhecera em quinhentos anos. Fome, pestilência, massacre, gelo, neve – assolaram Paris de uma só vez. Os mortos jaziam aos montes nas ruas e lobos durante o dia entravam na cidade e os devoravam. Ah, a França havia decaído – decaído tanto! Ao longo de mais de três quartos de século as garras da Inglaterra lhe cravavam a carne e tão acovardados ficaram os exércitos franceses com as sucessivas humilhações e derrotas que, como todos sabiam, a mera vista de forças inglesas bastava para afugentá-los. Tinha eu cinco anos de idade quando uma enorme calamidade recaiu sobre a França; embora o rei da Inglaterra tivesse retornado à pátria para gozar da vitória, deixara para trás uma França prostrada e vulnerável aos bandos nômades dos Camaradas Livres a serviço do partido Borgonhês. Um desses bandos, certa noite, invadiu Neufchâteau e, à luz de nossos telhados de sapé em chamas, vi todos aqueles que me eram caros neste mundo serem massacrados enquanto imploravam por misericórdia e ouvi os algozes rirem de suas orações e arremedarem as súplicas. Passei despercebido, e escapei ileso. Quando os bárbaros partiram, saí furtivamente e chorei noite adentro olhando as casas em chamas, completamente só, exceto pela companhia dos mortos e feridos, pois os demais haviam fugido e se escondido. Enviaram-me para Domremy a um sacerdote, cuja governanta se tornara para mim uma mãe carinhosa. O sacerdote, ao longo do tempo, ensinou-me a ler e a escrever; nós dois éramos as únicas pessoas na aldeia que possuíam esse saber. Eu havia completado seis anos quando a casa desse bom sacerdote, Guillaume Fronte, tornara-se minha. Vivíamos junto da igreja da aldeia e, atrás dela, ficava o pequeno jardim da casa dos pais de Joana. A família compreendia Jacques d’Arc, o pai, Isabel Romee, a mãe; três meninos, Jacques completara dez anos, Pierre, oito e Jean, sete, e ainda, Joana de quatro anos e sua irmãzinha Catherine com cerca de doze meses. Desde o início era com essas crianças que eu brincava, embora brincasse também com outros amiguinhos, em especial quatro garotos: Pierre Morel, Etienne Roze, Noel Rainguesson e Edmond Aubrey, cujo pai era então o alcaide; e também duas meninas, quase da idade de Joana, as quais aos poucos se tornaram suas amigas preferidas: Haumetter e a Pequena Mengette, filhas de camponeses, assim como Joana. Quando adultas, casaram-se com trabalhadores braçais que, apesar de sua baixa extração social, época houve, muitos anos depois, em que nenhum forasteiro, por mais importante que fosse, deixasse de homenagear aquelas humildes senhoras que tiveram a honra de privar da amizade de Joana D’Arc. Eram crianças boas, todas elas, gente comum do campo, embora por certo não fossem brilhantes – pretensão descabida – porém benevolentes e cordiais, obedientes aos pais e ao sacerdote; e a medida em que cresciam se tornavam mais intolerantes e preconceituosas, características adquiridas dos mais velhos as quais adotavam sem ressalvas e sem critérios, claro. Herdavam não só religião, como também política. É provável que John Huss e seus adeptos condenassem a Igreja, o que em Domremy não abalava a fé de ninguém; quando houve a cisão, aos meus quatorze anos nos vimos simultaneamente com três papas, não houve quem em Domremy se afligisse com a escolha - o de Roma era o autêntico, pois fora dela papa nenhum era tido como tal. Todas as criaturas da aldeia eram Armagnacs – patriotas – e não nutríamos ódio ardente a nada mais neste mundo, decerto o dedicávamos às palavras inglês, borgonhês e política. Capítulo 2 A Árvore Encantada de Domremy Nossa Domremy assemelhava-se a qualquer outra aldeiazinha humilde daquela época e região remotas. Compunha-se de um labirinto de vielas estreitas e tortuosas e alamedas escuras abrigadas por inclinados telhados de sapê sobre casas semelhantes a estábulos, escassamente iluminadas por janelas de madeira, ou melhor, por buracos nas paredes à guisa de janelas. O chão era de terra e a mobília, parca. A criação de gado e de carneiro constituía a principal atividade econômica e o pastoreio ficava a cargo de todos os jovens. O lugar era lindo. De uma extremidade da aldeia, estendia-se uma planície florida em ampla curva até o rio Meuse, de outra, bem ao fundo, erguia-se suavemente uma colina relvada e, em cujo cume, havia a magnífica floresta de carvalho – uma floresta profunda, sombria, densa, que instigava a curiosidade das crianças, por terem ocorrido ali vários assassinatos cometidos por criminosos de outrora e, também, por ter abrigado, em tempos ainda mais remotos, prodigiosos dragões que jorravam fogo e vapores venenosos pelas narinas. Com efeito um deles continuava a viver por lá em nossos dias. Tinha a altura de uma árvore, a circunferência de um barril, escamas quais grandes telhas sobrepostas, olhos vermelho-vivos tão largos quanto o chapéu dos cavaleiros, cauda terminava em um arpão tão grande como eu não sei o que, mas muito grande, descomunal até mesmo para os padrões de um dragão, segundo os conhecedores desses animais. Imaginava-se que ele ostentasse uma cor azul brilhante, mosqueada com dourado, mas como ninguém jamais o vira, não se sabia ao certo e, portanto, tratava-se apenas de uma opinião, das quais eu não compartilhava. Acredito não haver lógica em se formar uma opinião quando não há provas para embasá-la. Quando se cria alguém sem ossos é possível que se convença os olhos, porém, esse corpo será trôpego e despencará; acredito que as evidências constituam os ossos de uma opinião. Estender-me-ei sobre esse assunto oportunamente quando tentarei demonstrar o acerto de meu ponto de vista. Quanto àquele dragão, sempre acreditei ser o dourado, e não o azul, a cor dele, pois tem sido essa, sempre, a cor desses animais. É fato que ele morava nas imediações da beira da floresta, pois certo dia Pierre Morel ali esteve e sentiu-lhe o cheiro e, por meio desse odor, o reconhecera, o que nos dá uma horrenda ideia do quão próximo podemos estar do mais mortal dos perigos sem nem sequer suspeitá-lo. Em tempos remotos, vários cavaleiros de lugares distantes do mundo teriam se arriscado, um após outro, para matar o dragão e receber a recompensa, mas na nossa época, esse método já caíra em desuso, e o sacerdote tornara-se o responsável por eliminar essas criaturas, e nesse caso, Père Guillaume Fronte desincumbiu-se da tarefa. Organizou uma procissão, com velas, incensos e pendões, marchou ao redor da margem da floresta e exorcizou o dragão, sobre o qual nunca mais se ouvira falar, no entanto, era da opinião de muitos, que o tal cheiro jamais desaparecera por completo. Não que alguém o tivesse sentido novamente, o que não ocorreu; tratava-se de uma opinião, como aquela outra – sem ossos, é claro. Sei que a criatura lá se encontrava antes do exorcismo, mas se esteve ali depois, ou não, é algo que não posso assegurar. Em uma nobre campanha relvada, situada em um planalto para os lados de Vancouleurs ficava a majestosíssima faia, com amplos galhos e frondosa copa junto da qual corria um límpido riacho de águas frias; nos dias de verão as crianças iam até lá – ah, em todos os verões, por mais de quinhentos anos – e ao seu redor passavam horas dançando e cantando, refrescando-se na nascente de tempos em tempos; eram momentos dos mais agradáveis e divertidos. As crianças faziam coroas de flores e as penduravam na árvore e perto da nascente para agradar as fadas que ali viviam, gesto que aprazia essas criaturinhas languidas e inocentes, como o são todas as fadas, apreciadoras de mimos delicado e belo, tais como arranjos de flores silvestres. Como retribuição a essa atenção, elas cumulavam as crianças de todas as gentilezas possíveis, tais como, manter a nascente sempre abundante, límpida e fresca e afugentar serpentes e insetos picadores; de maneira que, nunca houve nenhuma indelicadeza entre fadas e crianças por mais de quinhentos anos – mil, rezava a tradição – mas tão somente a mais tenra afeição e a mais perfeita fé e confiança; e sempre da morte de uma criança, as fadas juntamente com seus amiguinhos lamentavam, e ali estava a prova, no dia do funeral, antes do alvorecer, elas depositavam uma pequena cora de perpétua onde aquela criança costumava se sentar sob a árvore. Eu vi com meus próprios olhos e não por ouvir dizer. E sabia-se que ela fora confeccionada pelas fadas por esta razão – era inteirinha de flores negras, de uma espécie desconhecida em toda a França. |
quarta-feira, 9 de novembro de 2011
Mark Twain
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