AbbÉ Lantaigne, principal of the high seminary, and M. Bergeret, professor of literature, were seated in conversation on a bench on the Mall, according to their custom in summer. On every subject they were opposed in opinion; never were two men more different in mind and character. But they were the only people in the town who took an interest in general ideas. This fellow-feeling united them. While philosophising beneath the quincunxes when the weather was fine, they consoled each other, one for the loneliness of celibacy, the other for the vexations of domestic life; both for their professional cares and for the unpopularity each alike shared.

On this particular day they could see from the bench where they sat the monument of Jeanne d’Arc still shrouded in wrappings. The Maid having once slept a night in the town, at the house of an honest dame called la Gausse, in 189– the municipality, with the concurrence of the State, had caused a monument to be raised to commemorate this stay. This monument, the work of two artists, the one a sculptor and the other an architect, both natives of the district, displayed the Maid fully armed, standing, meditative, on a high pedestal.

The date of the unveiling was fixed for the following Sunday. The Minister of Education was expected, and it was reckoned that there would be a lavish distribution of crosses of honour and academic decorations. The townsfolk thronged the Mall to gaze at the linen which covered the bronze figure and the stone pedestal. Outsiders installed themselves on the ramparts. On the booths set up under the quincunxes the refreshment-sellers were nailing up bands of calico bearing the legends: VÉritable biÈre Jeanne d’Arc.—CafÉ de la Pucelle.

At sight of this, M. Bergeret remarked that one ought to rejoice in this concourse of citizens assembled to pay honour to the liberator of Orleans.

“The archivist of the department, M. Mazure,” added he, “stands out from the crowd. He has written a memoir to prove that the famous historical tapestry, representing the meeting at Chinon, was not made about 1430 in Germany, as was believed, but that it came at that period from some studio of Flemish France. He submitted the conclusions of his memoir to M. le prÉfet Worms-Clavelin, who called them eminently patriotic and approved of them. He expressed a hope that he would see the author of this discovery receiving the insignia of an officer of the Academy beneath Jeanne’s statue. It is also rumoured that in his speech at the unveiling M. le prÉfet will say, with his eyes turned towards the Vosges, that Jeanne was a daughter of Alsace-Lorraine.”

AbbÉ Lantaigne, caring but little for a joke, made no reply and kept a grave face. In principle he regarded these celebrations in honour of Jeanne d’Arc as praiseworthy. Two years before he had himself pronounced at Saint-ExupÈre a panegyric on the Maid, and had declared her the type of the good Frenchwoman and the good Christian. He found no subject for jest in a solemnity which was a glorification of faith and country. As a patriot and a Christian, he only regretted that the bishop and his clergy would not take the first place in it.

“The thing,” said he, “that ensures the continuity of the French nation, is neither kings nor presidents of the Republic, neither provincial governors nor prÉfets, neither officers of the crown nor officials of the present government; it is the episcopacy which, from the first apostles to the Gauls down to the present day, has continued, without break, change, or diminution, and forms, so to say, the solid web of the history of France. The power of the bishops is spiritual and stable. The power of the kings, legitimate but transitory, is decrepit from its birth. On its continuance that of the nation does not depend. The nation is a spiritual conception inseparable from the moral and religious idea. But, although absent in the body from the celebrations that are being arranged for here, the clergy will be present at them in spirit and in truth. Jeanne d’Arc is ours, and it is vain for unbelievers to try and steal her from us.”

M. BERGERET: “It is, however, very natural that this simple girl, having become a symbol of patriotism, should be claimed by all patriots.”

M. LANTAIGNE: “I cannot imagine—I have told you so before—nationality without religion. Every duty comes from God, the duty of the citizen no less than that of others. If God be ignored the call of duty is stilled. If it is a right and a duty to defend one’s native land against the foreigner, it is not in virtue of any pretended rights of man which never existed, but in conformity with the will of God. This conformity appears in the stories of Jael and Judith. It shines clearly in the book of the Maccabees. It can be read in the deeds of the Maid.”

M. BERGERET: “Then you believe, monsieur l’abbÉ, that Jeanne d’Arc received her mission from God Himself? That will land you in numberless difficulties. I will only submit to you one of these, because it is inherent in the nature of your beliefs. It relates to the voices and apparitions which manifested themselves to the peasant of Domremy. Those who grant that Saint Catherine really appeared to Jacquot d’Arc’s daughter, in company with Saint Michael and Saint Marguerite, will find themselves, I fancy, much embarrassed when it has been proved to them that this Saint Catherine of Alexandria never existed, and that her history is in reality only a rather poor Greek romance. Now this fact was proved as early as the seventeenth century, not by the freethinkers of the period, but by a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, Jean de Launoy, a man of piety and good life. The judicious Tillemont, although so submissive to the Church, rejected the biography of Saint Catherine as an absurd fable. Is not that a difficulty, monsieur l’abbÉ, for those who believe that the Voices of Jeanne d’Arc came from Heaven?”

M. LANTAIGNE: “The martyrology, monsieur, worthy of all reverence as it is, is not an article of faith; and it is permissible, in imitation of Doctor de Launoy and Tillemont, to cast doubts on the existence of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. For my part, I am not inclined to go so far, and I hold such an absolute denial as rash. I recognise that the biography of this saint has come to us from the East overlaid everywhere with fabulous details, but I believe that these embellishments have been laid over a solid foundation. Neither Launoy nor Tillemont is infallible. It is not certain that Saint Catherine never existed, and if by chance historic proof of her non-existence were established, that would give way before the theological testimony to the contrary, furnished by the miraculous appearances of this saint authenticated by the Ordinary and solemnly recognised by the Pope. For, after all, good logic requires that truths of the scientific plane should yield to truths of a higher order. But we are not yet in a position to know the opinion of the Church as to the Maid’s apparitions. Jeanne d’Arc has not been canonised, and the miracles wrought for her or by her are open to discussion: I neither deny nor affirm them, and it is a purely human vision which makes me perceive in the history of this marvellous girl the hand of God stretched out over France. Truth to tell, though, that vision is powerful and penetrating.”

M. BERGERET: “If I have rightly understood you, monsieur l’abbÉ, you do not consider the strange event at Fierbois as an attested miracle, when Jeanne, as they say, pointed out a sword concealed in the wall. And you are not certain that the Maid, as she herself declared, brought back a child to life at Lagny. You know my opinions, and for my part I should give a natural interpretation to these two facts. I suppose that the sword was fastened to the wall of the Church as a votive offering, and was consequently visible. As for the child that the Maid raised from the dead for the time necessary for the administration of baptism, and who died again after having been brought to the font, I confine myself to reminding you that there was near Domremy a Notre-Dame-des-Aviots whose particular function it was to endow still-born children with a few hours of life. I suspect that the memory of Notre-Dame-des-Aviots had a good deal to do with the illusions that possessed Jeanne d’Arc when she believed, at Lagny, that she had raised a new-born child from the dead.”

M. LANTAIGNE: “There is much uncertainty in these explanations, monsieur. And rather than adopt them, I suspend my judgment, which inclines, I confess, towards the miraculous side, at least with respect to Saint Catherine’s sword. For the passage is precise: the sword was in the wall, and it was necessary to excavate to find it. Neither is it impossible, again, that God, upon the efficacious prayers of a virgin, should have given life back to a child that had died without having received baptism.”

M. BERGERET: “You speak, monsieur l’abbÉ, of ‘the efficacious prayers of a virgin.’ Do you then grant, in accordance with the belief of the Middle Ages, that there was some virtue, some peculiar power, in Jeanne d’Arc’s virginity?”

M. LANTAIGNE: “Clearly virginity is pleasing to God, and Jesus Christ rejoices in the triumph of His virgins. A young girl turned Attila and his Huns back from Lutetia; a young girl delivered Orleans and caused the lawful king to be crowned at Rheims.”

The priest having thus expressed himself, M. Bergeret seized on his words in a way of his own.

“Exactly,” said he. “Jeanne d’Arc was a mascotte.”

But AbbÉ Lantaigne did not hear. He rose and said:

“France’s destined rÔle in Christendom is not yet achieved. I foresee that ere long God will yet again work His will through the nation which has been the most faithful and the most faithless to Him.”

“And so it is,” answered M. Bergeret, “that, as in the profligate times of King Charles VII., we behold the rise of prophetesses. Our town indeed holds one of them, who is making a happier start than Jeanne, since Jacquot d’Arc’s daughter was regarded as mad by her parents, and Mademoiselle Deniseau finds a disciple in her own father. Still I do not believe that her good luck will be great and lasting. Our prÉfet, M. Worms-Clavelin, is somewhat wanting in good breeding, but he is less of a simpleton than Baudricourt, and it is no longer the custom for the heads of the State to give audience to prophetesses. M. FÉlix Faure will not be advised by his confessor to test Mademoiselle Deniseau. Here, perhaps, you may reply, monsieur l’abbÉ, that the influence of Bernadette of Lourdes is stronger in our days than that of Jeanne d’Arc ever was. The latter overthrew some hundreds of starving and panic-stricken English; Bernadette has set countless pilgrims on the march and drawn thousands of millions to a mountain in the Pyrenees. And my revered friend, M. Pierre Laffitte, assures me that we have entered on an era of positive philosophy.”

“As for what happens at Lourdes,” said AbbÉ Lantaigne, “without becoming latitudinarian or falling into excessive credulity, I reserve my opinion on a point upon which the Church has made no pronouncement. But henceforth I see a triumph for religion in this crowd of pilgrims, just as you yourself see in it a defeat for materialistic philosophy.”