Saint Joan quotes

… of Sweden two centuries later, to say nothing of the Chevalier D’Eon and innumerable obscure heroines who have disguised themselves as men to serve as soldiers and sailors, she refused to accept the specific woman’s lot, and dressed and fought and lived as men did.

As she contrived to assert herself in all these ways with such force that she was famous throughout western Europe before she was out of her teens (indeed she never got out of them), it is hardly surprising that she was judicially burnt

, ostensibly for a number of capital crimes which we no longer punish as such, but essentially for what we call unwomanly and insufferable presumption. At eighteen Joan’s pretensions were beyond those of the proudest Pope or the haughtiest emperor.

Had she been a sage and monarch in whom the most venerable hierarchy and the most illustrious dynasty converged, her pretensions and proceedings would have been as trying to the official mind as the pretensions of Caesar were to Cassius.

As her actual condition was pure upstart, there were only two opinions about her. One was that she was miraculous: the other that she was unbearable.

If Joan had been malicious, selfish, cowardly or stupid, she would have been one of the most odious persons known to history instead of one of the most attractive.

… who neither hate nor intend to injure their fellows to realize that nevertheless their fellows hate mental giants and would like to destroy them, not only enviously because the juxtaposition of a superior wounds their vanity, but quite humbly and honestly because it frightens them.

Fear will drive men to any extreme; and the fear inspired by a superior being is a mystery which cannot be reasoned away.

Being immeasurable it is unbearable when there is no presumption or guarantee of its benevolence and moral responsibility: in other words, when it has no official status. The legal and conventional superiority of Herod and Pilate, and of Annas and Caiphas, inspires fear;

that I dispense with further evidence, and challenge those who disagree with me to prove a negative. It is a wonderful face, but quite neutral from the point of view of the operatic beauty fancier.

Such a fancier may perhaps be finally chilled by the prosaic fact that Joan was the defendant in a suit for breach of promise of marriage, and that she conducted her own case and won it.

By class Joan was the daughter of a working farmer who was one of the headmen of his village, and transacted its feudal business for it with the neighboring squires and their lawyers.

Such an illusion would have invalidated neither the theory of gravitation nor Newton’s general sanity. What is more, the visionary method of making the discovery would not be a whit more miraculous than the normal method.

The test of sanity is not the normality of the method but the reasonableness of the discovery.

If Newton had been informed by Pythagoras that the moon was made of green cheese, then Newton would have been locked up.

What is more, the visionary method of making the discovery would not be a whit more miraculous than the normal method. The test of sanity is not the normality of the method but the reasonableness of the discovery.

If Newton had been informed by Pythagoras that the moon was made of green cheese, then Newton would have been locked up.

Gravitation, being a reasoned hypothesis which fitted remarkably well into the Copernican version of the observed physical facts of the universe, established Newton’s reputation for extraordinary intelligence, and would have done so no matter how fantastically he had arrived at it.

If Joan was mad, all Christendom was mad too; for people who believe devoutly in the existence of celestial personages are every whit as mad in that sense as the people who think they see them.

Luther, when he threw his inkhorn at the devil, was no more mad than any other Augustinian monk: he had a more vivid imagination, and had perhaps eaten and slept less: that was all.

All the popular religions in the world are made apprehensible by an array of legendary personages, with an Almighty Father, and sometimes a mother and divine child, as the central figures. These are presented to the mind’s eye in childhood;

She could coax and she could hustle, her tongue having a soft side and a sharp edge.

She was very capable: a born boss.

All this, however, must be taken with one heavy qualification. She was only a girl in her teens. If we could think of her as a managing woman of fifty we should seize her type at once;

But she, being only a lass when all is said, lacked their knowledge of men’s vanities and of the weight and proportion of social forces.

She knew nothing of iron hands in velvet gloves: she just used her fists.

She thought political changes much easier than they are, and, like Muhammad in his innocence of any world but the tribal world, wrote letters to kings calling on them to make millennial rearrangements.

Therefore the Church will probably not canonize Galileo yet awhile, though it might do worse. But it has been able to canonize Joan without any compromise at all.

She never doubted that the sun went round the earth: she had seen it do so too often.

Still, there was a great wrong done to Joan and to the conscience of the world by her burning. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner, which is the Devil’s sentimentality, cannot excuse it.

We may prate of toleration as we will; but society must always draw a line somewhere between allowable conduct and insanity or crime, in spite of the risk of mistaking sages for lunatics and saviors for blasphemers.

We must persecute, even to the death; and all we can do to mitigate the danger of persecution is, first, to be very careful what we persecute

, and second, to bear in mind that unless there is a large liberty to shock conventional people, and a well informed sense of the value of originality, individuality, and eccentricity, the result will be apparent stagnation covering a repression of evolutionary forces which will …

… in her case burning up to our own day (you can see plenty of the burnt houses still in Ireland), with the result that Joan has remained the subject of anti-Clerical lies, of specifically Protestant lies, and of Roman Catholic evasions of her unconscious Protestantism.

The truth sticks in our throats with all the sauces it is served with: it will never go down until we take it without any sauce at all.

But even in its simplicity, the faith demanded by Joan is one which the anti-metaphysical temper of nineteenth century civilization, which remains powerful in England and America, and is tyrannical in France, contemptuously refuses her.

The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy. But why the men who believe in electrons should regard themselves as less credulous than the men who believed in angels is not apparent to me.

If they refuse to believe, with the Rouen assessors of 1431, that Joan was a witch, it is not because that explanation is too marvellous, but because it is not marvellous enough.

For the story of Joan I refer the reader to the play which follows. It contains all that need be known about her;

all more terrible in their dramatic force than any of the little mortal figures clanking about in plate armor or moving silently in the frocks and hoods of the order of St. Dominic.

There are no villains in the piece.

Crime, like disease, is not interesting: it is something to be done away with by general consent, and that is all about it.

and if Joan had not been burnt by normally innocent people in the energy of their righteousness her death at their hands would have no more significance than the Tokyo earthquake, which burnt a great many maidens.

The tragedy of such murders is that they are not committed by murderers.

They are judicial murders, pious murders; and this contradiction at once brings an element of comedy into the tragedy: the angels may weep at the murder, but the gods laugh at the murderers.

There are no villains in the piece.

Crime, like disease, is not interesting: it is something to be done away with by general consent, and that is all about it.

It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.

Blasphemy. You tell me there are no eggs; and you blame your Maker for it.

Sir: what can I do? I cannot lay eggs.

Sarcastic. Ha! You jest about it.

Oh! You think the girl can work miracles, do you?

I think the girl herself is a bit of a miracle. Anyhow, she is the last card left in our hand. Better play her than throw up the game.

He wanders to the turret.

Obstinately.

We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!

His irresoluteness now openly swamping his affected decisiveness. I shall feel like a precious fool. Still, if you feel sure—?

I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God.

They come from your imagination.

Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.

They come from your imagination.

Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.

No fear! To Joan. So God says you are to raise the siege of Orleans?

Well, come; what is a miracle?

A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith.

That is the purpose and nature of miracles. They may seem very wonderful to the people who witness them, and very simple to those who perform them. That does not matter: if they confirm or create faith they are true miracles.

You would be wrong, my friend.

Parables are not lies because they describe events that have never happened.

Miracles are not frauds because they are often—I do not say always—very simple and innocent contrivances by which the priest fortifies the faith of his flock.

Rising, with a sunflush of reckless happiness irradiating her face.

There is always danger, except in heaven.

Oh, my lord, you have given me such strength, such courage. It must be a most wonderful thing to be Archbishop.

Again contemptuous.

Minding your own business is like minding your own body: it’s the shortest way to make yourself sick.

What is my business? Helping mother at home. What is thine? Petting lapdogs and sucking sugarsticks. I call that muck. I tell thee it is God’s business we are here to do: not our own. I have a message to thee from God;

Tempted at last. Oh, if I only dare!

I shall dare, dare, and dare again, in God’s name! Art for or against me?

Excited. I’ll risk it. I warn you I shan’t be able to keep it up; but I’ll risk it. You shall see. Running to the main door and shouting. Hallo! Come back, everybody. To Joan, as he runs back to the arch opposite.

The matter, my lord, is that we English have been defeated.

That happens, you know. It is only in history books and ballads that the enemy is always defeated.

But we are being defeated over and over again. First, Orleans—

Why not? The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods.

In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.

The Right Reverend the Bishop of Beauvais: Monseigneur Cauchon.

Let me tell you that the writing of such letters was the practice of the accursed Muhammad, the antichrist. Has she ever in all her utterances said one word of The Church? Never.

It is always God and herself.

What can you expect? A beggar on horseback! Her head is turned.

Displeased. I have noticed this before. Men go to the East to convert the infidels. And the infidels pervert them.

The Crusader comes back more than half a Saracen.

Not to mention that all Englishmen are born heretics.

Looking hard at him. You understand it wonderfully well, my lord.

Scratch an Englishman, and find a Protestant.

Playing the pink of courtesy. I think you are not entirely void of sympathy with The Maid’s secular heresy, my lord. I leave you to find a name for it.

Rallying her. Sim‑ple‑ton!

Do you expect stupid people to love you for showing them up?

Do blundering old military dugouts love the successful young captains who supersede them? Do ambitious politicians love the climbers who take the front seats from them? Do archbishops enjoy being played off their own altars, even by saints?

No: not a bit:

I am a soldier and nothing else. Soldiers always nurse children when they get a chance.

That is true. He laughs.

Pluck and impetuosity are good servants in war, but bad masters; they have delivered us into the hands of the English every time we have trusted to them. We never know when we are beaten: that is our great fault.

You never know when you are victorious: that is a worse fault.

I shall have to make you carry looking-glasses in battle to convince you that the English have not cut off all your noses. You would have been besieged in Orleans still, you and your councils of war, if I had not made you attack.

for I have not forgotten how the wind changed, and how our hearts changed when you came; and by my faith I shall never deny that it was in your sign that we conquered. But I tell you as a soldier that

God is no man’s daily drudge, and no maid’s either.

If you are worthy of it he will sometimes snatch you out of the jaws of death and set you on your feet again; but that is all: once on your feet you must fight with all your might and all your craft.

what would He be if He listened to your jealous little counsels? Well, my loneliness shall be my strength too: it is better to be alone with God: His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love.

In His strength I will dare, and dare, and dare, until I die.

I will go out now to the common people, and let the love in their eyes comfort me for the hate in yours. You will all be glad to see me burnt;

But I am wiser now; and nobody is any the worse for being wiser. Do not think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone.

France is alone; and God is alone; and what is my loneliness before the loneliness of my country and my God?

I see now that the loneliness of God is His strength: what would He be if He listened to your jealous little counsels? Well, my loneliness shall be my strength too: it is better to be alone with God:

and nobody is any the worse for being wiser. Do not think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone; and God is alone; and what is my loneliness before the loneliness of my country and my God?

I see now that the loneliness of God is His strength: what would He be if He listened to your jealous little counsels?

Well, my loneliness shall be my strength too: it is better to be alone with God: His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength I will dare, and dare, and dare, until I die.

And yet they say Englishmen are hypocrites! You play for your side, my lord, even at the peril of your soul. I cannot but admire such devotion; but I dare not go so far myself. I fear damnation.

If we feared anything we could never govern England, my lord.

Shall I send your people in to you?

Taking the other judicial chair on Cauchon’s left.

All secular power makes men scoundrels. They are not trained for the work; and they have not the Apostolic Succession.

Our own nobles are just as bad.

When you were left unchained, did you not try to escape by jumping from a tower sixty feet high? If you cannot fly like a witch, how is it that you are still alive?

I suppose because the tower was not so high then. It has grown higher every day since you began asking me questions about it.

Why did you jump from the tower?

Of course I did; and not for the first time either.

If you leave the door of the cage open the bird will fly out.

Rising. That is a confession of heresy. I call the attention of the court to it.

If you tear me limb from limb until you separate my soul from my body you will get nothing out of me beyond what I have told you. What more is there to tell that you could understand?

Besides, I cannot bear to be hurt; and if you hurt me I will say anything you like to stop the pain. But I will take it all back afterwards; so what is the use of it?

There is much in that. We should proceed mercifully.

If you are so clever at woman’s work why do you not stay at home and do it?

There are plenty of other women to do it; but there is nobody to do my work.

Come! we are wasting time on trifles. Joan: I am going to put a most solemn question to you. Take care how you answer; for your life and salvation are at stake on it.

And you, and not the Church, are to be the judge?

What other judgment can I judge by but my own?

Scandalized. Oh! They cannot find words.

we have opened the door to you again and again; and you have shut it in our faces and in the face of God. Dare you pretend, after what you have said, that you are in a state of grace?

If I am not, may God bring me to it: if I am, may God keep me in it!

That is a very good reply, my lord.

How do you know that the spirit which appears to you is an archangel? Does he not appear to you as a naked man?

Do you think God cannot afford clothes for him?

The assessors cannot help smiling, especially as the joke is against Courcelles.

My lord: what she says is, God knows, very wrong and shocking; but there is a grain of worldly sense in it such as might impose on a simple village maiden.

If we were as simple in the village as you are in your courts and palaces, there would soon be no wheat to make bread for you.

That is the thanks you get for trying to save her, Brother Martin.

It is not enough to be simple. It is not enough even to be what simple people call good. The simplicity of a darkened mind is no better than the simplicity of a beast.

There is great wisdom in the simplicity of a beast, let me tell you; and sometimes great foolishness in the wisdom of scholars.

We know that, Joan: we are not so foolish as you think us. Try to resist the temptation to make pert replies to us. Do you see that man who stands behind you? He indicates the Executioner.

Yes: they told me you were fools the word gives great offence, and that I was not to listen to your fine words nor trust to your charity. You promised me my life; but you lied. Indignant exclamations.

You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead.

It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread: when have I asked for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread has no sorrow for me, and water no affliction.

One gets used to it. Habit is everything. I am accustomed to the fire: it is soon over. But it is a terrible thing to see a young and innocent creature crushed between these mighty forces, the Church and the Law.

Oh, quite innocent. What does she know of the Church and the Law? She did not understand a word we were saying. It is the ignorant who suffer.

Come, or we shall be late for the end.

Did what hurt much?

Oh, that! I cannot remember very well. I think it did at first; but then it all got mixed up; and I was not in my right mind until I was free of the body.

But do not thou go handling fire and thinking it will not hurt thee. How hast been ever since?

The sentence on you is broken, annihilated, annulled: null, nonexistent, without value or effect.

I was burnt all the same. Can they unburn me?

If they could, they would think twice before they did it. But they have decreed that a beautiful cross be placed where the stake stood, for your perpetual memory and for your salvation.

If they could, they would think twice before they did it. But they have decreed that a beautiful cross be placed where the stake stood, for your perpetual memory and for your salvation.

It is the memory and the salvation that sanctify the cross, not the cross that sanctifies the memory and the salvation.

She turns away, forgetting him. I shall outlast that cross. I shall be remembered when men will have forgotten where Rouen stood.

It is the memory and the salvation that sanctify the cross, not the cross that sanctifies the memory and the salvation. She turns away, forgetting him.

I shall outlast that cross. I shall be remembered when men will have forgotten where Rouen stood.

There you go with your self-conceit, the same as ever! I think you might say a word of thanks to me for having had justice done at last.

I am not Charles the Good, nor Charles the Wise, nor Charles the Bold. Joan’s worshippers may even call me Charles the Coward because I did not pull her out of the fire. But I have done less harm than any of you.

You people with your heads in the sky spend all your time trying to turn the world upside down; but I take the world as it is, and say that top-side-up is right-side-up; and I keep my nose pretty close to the ground.

And I ask you, what king of France has done better, or been a better fellow in his little way?

Excusing his unsoldierly conduct. Well, she asked for it; and they were going to burn her. She had as good a right to a cross as they had; and they had dozens of them.

It was her funeral, not theirs. Where was the harm in it?

Man: I am not reproaching you. But I cannot bear to think of you in torment.

Fifteen years’ service in the French wars.

Hell was a treat after that.

Joan throws up her arms, and takes refuge from despair of humanity before the picture of the Virgin.