dress: and how after pleading that she might be allowed that privilege
as she was, in her male costume, and with a pathetic statement that she
would have yielded if she could, but that it was impossible--she
finally refused; and was so left in her prison to pass that sacred day
unsuccoured and alone. The historian Michelet, in the wonderful sketch
in which he rises superior to himself, and which amidst all after
writings remains the most beautiful and touching memorial of Jeanne
d'Arc, has made this day a central point in his tale, using with the
skill of genius the service of the Church appropriate to the day, in
heart-rending contrast with those doors of the prison which did not
open, and the help of God which did not come to the young and solitary
captive. _Le beau jour fleuri_ passed over her in darkness and
desertion: her agony and passion lay before her like those of the
Divine Sufferer, to whom every day of the succeeding week is specially
consecrated. There is almost indeed a painful following of the Saviour's
steps in these dark days, the circumstances lending themselves in a
wonderful way to the comparison which French writers love to make, but
which many of us must always feel, however spotless the sufferer, to
have a certain irreverence in them. But if ever martyr were worthy of
being called a partaker of the sufferings of Christ it was surely this
girl, free, if ever human creature was, from self-seeking, or thought
of reward, or ambitious hope, in whose heart there had never been any
motive but the service of God and the deliverance of her country, who
had neither looked before nor after, nor put her own interests into
consideration in any way. Silently the feast passed with no holy
privileges of religion, no blessed token of the spring, no remembrance
of the waving palms and scattered blossoms over which her Lord rode into
Jerusalem to die. She had not that sweet fallacious triumph; but the
darker ordeal remained for her to follow.