to bring to our Lord his temporal vicar of Christ. Henceforth Jeanne knew what great deeds she was to bring to pass.” Madame Renane told the entire story, from Jeanne’s first vision at Domremy, her meeting with King Charles at Rheims and her instant recognition of him, disguised in shabby clothes and hid from her among his courtiers. She told of Jeanne’s victories, of her triumphs and of her martyr’s death. [169]And as she spoke the great French actress seemed to be Jeanne herself. The American soldiers forgot her middle age, her quiet half-mourning costume, and saw that wonderful young peasant girl, first in her peasant’s dress in the woods near her father’s home, listening to her voice. She was only a dreaming girl then, with her short hair, her bare feet and peasant’s smock and those great wide-open gray eyes. [169] Then Jeanne as a soldier in a suit of armor on her wonderful white horse, riding always in front of her troops to the glory and salvation of France. At the last she is again a frightened girl, torn from her friends, betrayed and forsaken. The room was perfectly still for a moment after Madame Renane had finished. For she had created an impression too vivid to be lost immediately. The American boys and their French companions were seeing not the modern battlefield, which was ever before their thoughts, but the older one the great actress had intended them to see. However, Madame Renane stood waiting, perhaps expecting the applause with which[170] she was familiar. Then she recognized the silence as the finer tribute. For she put out her hands in a beautiful gesture and added: [170] “May I say one of Jeanne’s own prayers to you tonight, before my farewell? “‘Oh, Jesus Christ, who hast surrounded the heavens with light and kindled the sun and the moon, command, if it be thy will, the martyrs, not one only, but all, to clasp their hands and on bended knee to remove the great sorrow from France, and by that holy and august merit ordain that they may have a righteous peace.’” Then Madame Renane with a little nod of appreciation and thanks quickly left the stage. She came back later to receive the smaller laurel wreath, which Lieutenant Kelley presented her in the name of the American camp. But, like the
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