articles to darn for the navy?

The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D'Arc is this. There was
a story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule the
pauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rent
rolls, viz., that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was
overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, "_Chevalier, as-tu
donné au cochon à manger_!" Now, it is clearly made out by the surviving
evidence, that D'Arc would much have preferred continuing to say--"_Ma
fille as-tu donné au cochon à manger_?" to saying "_Pucelle d'Orléans,
as-tu sauvé les fleurs-de-lys_?" There is an old English copy of verses
which argues thus:--

"If the man, that turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies--
Then 'tis plain the man had rather
Have a turnip than his father."

I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever _entirely_ to my
satisfaction. I do not see my way through it as clearly as could be wished.
But I see my way most clearly through D'Arc; and the result is--that he
would greatly have preferred not merely a turnip to his father, but the
saving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France.

It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of Virgin, or
_Pucelle_, had in itself, and apart from the miraculous stones about her,
a secret power over the rude soldiery and partisan chiefs of that period;
for, in such a person, they saw a representative manifestation of the
Virgin Mary, who, in a course of centuries, had grown steadily upon the
popular heart.