SAINT JOAN by
George Bernard Shaw
SCENE V
The ambulatory in the cathedral of Rheims, near the doors of the
vestry. A pillar bears one of the stations of the cross. The
organ is playing the people out of the nave after the coronation.
Joan is kneeling in prayer before the station. She is beautifully
dressed, but still in male attire. The organ ceases as Dunois,
also splendidly arrayed, comes into the ambulatory from the vestry.
DUNOIS. Come, Joan! you have had enough praying. After that fit
of crying you will catch a chill if you stay here any longer. It
is all over: the cathedral is empty; and the streets are full.
They are calling for The Maid. We have told them you are staying
here alone to pray; but they want to see you again.
JOAN. No: let the king have all the glory.
DUNOIS. He only spoils the show, poor devil. No, Joan: you have
crowned him; and you must go through with it. Joan shakes her head
reluctantly.
DUNOIS [raising her] Come come! it will be over in a couple of
hours. It's better than the bridge at Orleans: eh?
JOAN. Oh, dear Dunois, how I wish it were the bridge at Orleans
again! We lived at that bridge.
DUNOIS. Yes, faith, and died too: some of us.
JOAN. Isnt it strange, Jack? I am such a coward: I am frightened
beyond words before a battle; but it is so dull afterwards when
there is no danger: oh, so dull! dull! dull!
DUNOIS. You must learn to be abstemious in war, just as you are in
your food and drink, my little saint.
JOAN. Dear Jack: I think you like me as a soldier likes his
comrade.
DUNOIS. You need it, poor innocent child of God. You have not
many friends at court.
JOAN. Why do all these courtiers and knights and churchmen hate
me? What have I done to them? I have asked nothing for myself
except that my village shall not be taxed; for we cannot afford war
taxes. I have brought them luck and victory: I have set them right
when they were doing all sorts of stupid things: I have crowned
Charles and made him a real king; and all the honors he is handing
out have gone to them. Then why do they not love me?
DUNOIS [rallying her] Sim-ple-ton! Do you expect stupid people to
love you for shewing them up? Do blundering old military dug-outs
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? Why, I should be jealous of you myself if I were
ambitious enough.
JOAN. You are the pick of the basket here, Jack: the only friend I
have among all these nobles. I'll wager your mother was from the
country. I will go back to the farm when I have taken Paris.
DUNOIS. I am not so sure that they will let you take Paris.
JOAN [startled] What!
DUNOIS. I should have taken it myself before this if they had all
been sound about it. Some of them would rather Paris took you, I
think. So take care.
JOAN. Jack: the world is too wicked for me. If the goddams and
the Burgundians do not make an end of me, the French will. Only
for my voices I should lose all heart. That is why I had to steal
away to pray here alone after the coronation. I'll tell you
something, Jack. It is in the bells I hear my voices. Not today,
when they all rang: that was nothing but jangling. But here in
this corner, where the bells come down from heaven, and the echoes
linger, or in the fields, where they come from a distance through
the quiet of the countryside, my voices are in them. [The
cathedral clock chimes the quarter] Hark! [She becomes rapt] Do
you hear? 'Dear-child-of-God': just what you said. At the half-
hour they will say 'Be-brave-go-on'. At the three-quarters they
will say 'I-am-thy-Help'. But it is at the hour, when the great
bell goes after 'God-will-save-France': it is then that St Margaret
and St Catherine and sometimes even the blessed Michael will say
things that I cannot tell beforehand. Then, oh then--
DUNOIS [interrupting her kindly but, not sympathetically] Then,
Joan, we shall hear whatever we fancy in the booming of the bell.
You make me uneasy when you talk about your voices: I should think
you were a bit cracked if I hadnt noticed that you give me very
sensible reasons for what you do, though I hear you telling others
you are only obeying Madame Saint Catherine.
JOAN [crossly] Well, I have to find reasons for you, because you
do not believe in my voices. But the voices come first; and I find
the reasons after: whatever you may choose to believe.
DUNOIS. Are you angry, Joan?
JOAN. Yes. [Smiling] No: not with you. I wish you were one of
the village babies.
DUNOIS. Why?
JOAN. I could nurse you for awhile.
DUNOIS. You are a bit of a woman after all.
JOAN. No: not a bit: I am a soldier and nothing else. Soldiers
always nurse children when they get a chance.
DUNOIS. That is true. [He laughs].
King Charles, with Bluebeard on his left and La Hire on his right,
comes from the vestry, where he has been disrobing. Joan shrinks
away behind the pillar. Dunois is left between Charles and La
Hire.
DUNOIS. Well, your Majesty is an anointed king at last. How do
you like it?
CHARLES. I would not go through it again to be emperor of the sun
and moon. The weight of those robes! I thought I should have
dropped when they loaded that crown on to me. And the famous holy
oil they talked so much about was rancid: phew! The Archbishop
must be nearly dead: his robes must have weighed a ton: they are
stripping him still in the vestry.
DUNOIS [drily] Your majesty should wear armor oftener. That would
accustom you to heavy dressing.
CHARLES. Yes: the old jibe! Well, I am not going to wear armor:
fighting is not my job. Where is The Maid?
JOAN [coming forward between Charles and Bluebeard, and falling on
her knee] Sire: I have made you king: my work is done. I am going
back to my father's farm.
CHARLES [surprised, but relieved] Oh, are you? Well, that will be
very nice.
Joan rises, deeply discouraged.
CHARLES [continuing heedlessly] A healthy life, you know.
DUNOIS. But a dull one.
BLUEBEARD. You will find the petticoats tripping you up after
leaving them off for so long.
LA HIRE. You will miss the fighting. It's a bad habit, but a
grand one, and the hardest of all to break yourself of.
CHARLES [anxiously] Still, we dont want you to stay if you would
really rather go home.
JOAN [bitterly] I know well that none of you will be sorry to see
me go. [She turns her shoulder to Charles and walks past him to
the more congenial neighborhood of Dunois and La Hire].
LA HIRE. Well, I shall be able to swear when I want to. But I
shall miss you at times.
JOAN. La Hire: in spite of all your sins and swears we shall meet
in heaven; for I love you as I love Pitou, my old sheep dog. Pitou
could kill a wolf. You will kill the English wolves until they go
back to their country and become good dogs of God, will you not?
LA HIRE. You and I together: yes.
JOAN. No: I shall last only a year from the beginning.
ALL THE OTHERS. What!
JOAN. I know it somehow.
DUNOIS. Nonsense!
JOAN. Jack: do you think you will be able to drive them out?
DUNOIS [with quiet conviction] Yes: I shall drive them out. They
beat us because we thought battles were tournaments and ransom
markets. We played the fool while the goddams took war seriously.
But I have learnt my lesson, and taken their measure. They have no
roots here. I have beaten them before; and I shall beat them
again.
JOAN. You will not be cruel to them, Jack?
DUNOIS. The goddams will not yield to tender handling. We did not
begin it.
JOAN [suddenly] Jack: before I go home, let us take Paris.
CHARLES [terrified] Oh no no. We shall lose everything we have
gained. Oh dont let us have any more fighting. We can make a very
good treaty with the Duke of Burgundy.
JOAN. Treaty! [She stamps with impatience].
CHARLES. Well, why not, now that I am crowned and anointed? Oh,
that oil!
The Archbishop comes from the vestry, and joins the group between
Charles and Bluebeard.
CHARLES. Archbishop: The Maid wants to start fighting again.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Have we ceased fighting, then? Are we at peace?
CHARLES. No: I suppose not; but let us be content with what we
have done. Let us make a treaty. Our luck is too good to last;
and now is our chance to stop before it turns.
JOAN. Luck! God has fought for us; and you call it luck! And you
would stop while there are still Englishmen on this holy earth of
dear France!
THE ARCHBISHOP [sternly] Maid: the king addressed himself to me,
not to you. You forget yourself. You very often forget yourself.
JOAN [unabashed, and rather roughly] Then speak, you; and tell him
that it is not God's will that he should take his hand from the
plough.
THE ARCHBISHOP. If I am not so glib with the name of God as you
are, it is because I interpret His will with the authority of the
Church and of my sacred office. When you first came you respected
it, and would not have dared to speak as you are now speaking. You
came clothed with the virtue of humility; and because God blessed
your enterprises accordingly, you have stained yourself with the
sin of pride. The old Greek tragedy is rising among us. It is the
chastisement of hubris.
CHARLES. Yes: she thinks she knows better than everyone else.
JOAN [distressed, but naively incapable of seeing the effect she is
producing] But I do know better than any of you seem to. And I am
not proud: I never speak unless I know I am right.
BLUEBEARD, CHARLES} [exclaiming together] {Ha ha! Just so.}
THE ARCHBISHOP. How do you know you are right?
JOAN. I always know. My voices--
CHARLES. Oh, your voices, your voices. Why dont the voices come
to me? I am king, not you.
JOAN. They do come to you; but you do not hear them. You have not
sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the
angelus rings you cross yourself and have done with it; but if you
prayed from your heart, and listened to the thrilling of the bells
in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as
well as I do. [Turning brusquely from him] But what voices do you
need to tell you what the blacksmith can tell you: that you must
strike while the iron is hot? I tell you we must make a dash at
Compiegne and relieve it as we relieved Orleans. Then Paris will
open its gates; or if not, we will break through them. What is
your crown worth without your capital?
LA HIRE. That is what I say too. We shall go through them like a
red hot shot through a pound of butter. What do you say, Bastard?
DUNOIS. If our cannon balls were all as hot as your head, and we
had enough of them, we should conquer the earth, no doubt. 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.
JOAN. 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. You should always attack; and
if you only hold on long enough the enemy will stop first. You
dont know how to begin a battle; and you dont know how to use your
cannons. And I do.
She squats down on the flags with crossed ankles, pouting.
DUNOIS. I know what you think of us, General Joan.
JOAN. Never mind that, Jack. Tell them what you think of me.
DUNOIS. I think that God was on your side; 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. For He has to be
fair to your enemy too: dont forget that. Well, He set us on our
feet through you at Orleans; and the glory of it has carried us
through a few good battles here to the coronation. But if we
presume on it further, and trust to God to do the work we should do
ourselves, we shall be defeated; and serve us right!
JOAN. But--
DUNOIS. Sh! I have not finished. Do not think, any of you, that
these victories of ours were won without generalship. King
Charles: you have said no word in your proclamations of my part in
this campaign; and I make no complaint of that; for the people will
run after The Maid and her miracles and not after the Bastard's
hard work finding troops for her and feeding them. But I know
exactly how much God did for us through The Maid, and how much He
left me to do by my own wits; and I tell you that your little hour
of miracles is over, and that from this time on he who plays the
war game best will win--if the luck is on his side.
JOAN. Ah! if, if, if, if! If ifs and ans were pots and pans
there'd be no need of tinkers. [Rising impetuously] I tell you,
Bastard, your art of war is no use, because your knights are no
good for real fighting. War is only a game to them, like tennis
and all their other games: they make rules as to what is fair and
what is not fair, and heap armor on themselves and on their poor
horses to keep out the arrows; and when they fall they cant get up,
and have to wait for their squires to come and lift them to arrange
about the ransom with the man that has poked them off their horse.
Cant you see that all the like of that is gone by and done with?
What use is armor against gunpowder? And if it was, do you think
men that are fighting for France and for God will stop to bargain
about ransoms, as half your knights live by doing? No: they will
fight to win; and they will give up their lives out of their own
hand into the hand of God when they go into battle, as I do.
Common folks understand this. They cannot afford armor and cannot
pay ransoms; but they followed me half naked into the moat and up
the ladder and over the wall. With them it is my life or thine,
and God defend the right! You may shake your head, Jack; and
Bluebeard may twirl his billygoat's beard and cock his nose at me;
but remember the day your knights and captains refused to follow me
to attack the English at Orleans! You locked the gates to keep me
in; and it was the townsfolk and the common people that followed
me, and forced the gate, and shewed you the way to fight in
earnest.
BLUEBEARD [offended] Not content with being Pope Joan, you must be
Caesar and Alexander as well.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Pride will have a fall, Joan.
JOAN. Oh, never mind whether it is pride or not: is it true? is it
commonsense?
LA HIRE. It is true. Half of us are afraid of having our handsome
noses broken; and the other half are out for paying off their
mortgages. Let her have her way, Dunois: she does not know
everything; but she has got hold of the right end of the stick.
Fighting is not what it was; and those who know least about it
often make the best job of it.
DUNOIS. I know all that. I do not fight in the old way: I have
learnt the lesson of Agincourt, of Poitiers and Crecy. I know how
many lives any move of mine will cost; and if the move is worth the
cost I make it and pay the cost. But Joan never counts the cost at
all: she goes ahead and trusts to God: she thinks she has God in
her pocket. Up to now she has had the numbers on her side; and she
has won. But I know Joan; and I see that some day she will go
ahead when she has only ten men to do the work of a hundred. And
then she will find that God is on the side of the big battalions.
She will be taken by the enemy. And the lucky man that makes the
capture will receive sixteen thousand pounds from the Earl of
Ouareek.
JOAN [flattered] Sixteen thousand pounds! Eh, laddie, have they
offered that for me? There cannot be so much money in the world.
DUNOIS. There is, in England. And now tell me, all of you, which
of you will lift a finger to save Joan once the English have got
her? I speak first, for the army. The day after she has been
dragged from her horse by a goddam or a Burgundian, and he is not
struck dead: the day after she is locked in a dungeon, and the bars
and bolts do not fly open at the touch of St Peter's angel: the day
when the enemy finds out that she is as vulnerable as I am and not
a bit more invincible, she will not be worth the life of a single
soldier to us; and I will not risk that life, much as I cherish her
as a companion-in-arms.
JOAN. I dont blame you, Jack: you are right. I am not worth one
soldier's life if God lets me be beaten; but France may think me
worth my ransom after what God has done for her through me.
CHARLES. I tell you I have no money; and this coronation, which is
all your fault, has cost me the last farthing I can borrow.
JOAN. The Church is richer than you. I put my trust in the
Church.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Woman: they will drag you through the streets, and
burn you as a witch.
JOAN [running to him] Oh, my lord, do not say that. It is
impossible. I a witch!
THE ARCHBISHOP. Peter Cauchon knows his business. The University
of Paris has burnt a woman for saying that what you have done was
well done, and according to God.
JOAN [bewildered] But why? What sense is there in it? What I
have done is according to God. They could not burn a woman for
speaking the truth.
THE ARCHBISHOP. They did.
JOAN. But you know that she was speaking the truth. You would not
let them burn me.
THE ARCHBISHOP. How could I prevent them?
JOAN. You would speak in the name of the Church. You are a great
prince of the Church. I would go anywhere with your blessing to
protect me.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I have no blessing for you while you are proud and
disobedient.
JOAN. Oh, why will you go on saying things like that? I am not
proud and disobedient. I am a poor girl, and so ignorant that I do
not know A from B. How could I be proud? And how can you say that
I am disobedient when I always obey my voices, because they come
from God.
THE ARCHBISHOP. The voice of God on earth is the voice of the
Church Militant; and all the voices that come to you are the echoes
of your own wilfulness.
JOAN. It is not true.
THE ARCHBISHOP [flushing angrily] You tell the Archbishop in his
cathedral that he lies; and yet you say you are not proud and
disobedient.
JOAN. I never said you lied. It was you that as good as said my
voices lied. When have they ever lied? If you will not believe in
them: even if they are only the echoes of my own commonsense, are
they not always right? and are not your earthly counsels always
wrong?
THE ARCHBISHOP [indignantly] It is waste of time admonishing you.
CHARLES. It always comes back to the same thing. She is right;
and everyone else is wrong.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Take this as your last warning. If you perish
through setting your private judgment above the instructions of
your spiritual directors, the Church disowns you, and leaves you to
whatever fate your presumption may bring upon you. The Bastard has
told you that if you persist in setting up your military conceit
above the counsels of your commanders--
DUNOIS [interposing] To put it quite exactly, if you attempt to
relieve the garrison in Compiegne without the same superiority in
numbers you had at Orleans--
THE ARCHBISHOP. The army will disown you, and will not rescue you.
And His Majesty the King has told you that the throne has not the
means of ransoming you.
CHARLES. Not a penny.
THE ARCHBISHOP. You stand alone: absolutely alone, trusting to your
own conceit, your own ignorance, your own headstrong presumption,
your own impiety in hiding all these sins under the cloak of a
trust in God. When you pass through these doors into the sunlight,
the crowd will cheer you. They will bring you their little
children and their invalids to heal: they will kiss your hands and
feet, and do what they can, poor simple souls, to turn your head,
and madden you with the self-confidence that is leading you to your
destruction. But you will be none the less alone: they cannot save
you. We and we only can stand between you and the stake at which
our enemies have burnt that wretched woman in Paris.
JOAN [her eyes skyward] I have better friends and better counsel
than yours.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I see that I am speaking in vain to a hardened
heart. You reject our protection, and are determined to turn us
all against you. In future, then, fend for yourself; and if you
fail, God have mercy on your soul.
DUNOIS. That is the truth, Joan. Heed it.
JOAN. Where would you all have been now if I had heeded that sort
of truth? There is no help, no counsel, in any of you. Yes: I am
alone on earth: I have always been alone. My father told my
brothers to drown me if I would not stay to mind his sheep while
France was bleeding to death: France might perish if only our lambs
were safe. I thought France would have friends at the court of the
king of France; and I find only wolves fighting for pieces of her
poor torn body. I thought God would have friends everywhere,
because He is the friend of everyone; and in my innocence I
believed that you who now cast me out would be like strong towers
to keep harm from me. 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; 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 if I go through the fire I shall go through it
to their hearts for ever and ever. And so, God be with me!
She goes from them. They stare after her in glum silence for a
moment. Then Gilles de Rais twirls his beard.
BLUEBEARD. You know, the woman is quite impossible. I dont
dislike her, really; but what are you to do with such a character?
DUNOIS. As God is my judge, if she fell into the Loire I would
jump in in full armor to fish her out. But if she plays the fool
at Compiegne, and gets caught, I must leave her to her doom.
LA HIRE. Then you had better chain me up; for I could follow her to
hell when the spirit rises in her like that.
THE ARCHBISHOP. She disturbs my judgment too: there is a dangerous
power in her outbursts. But the pit is open at her feet; and for
good or evil we cannot turn her from it.
CHARLES. If only she would keep quiet, or go home! They follow
her dispiritedly.
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