[1] Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: "Michelet discovered
this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Conte, who
was probably an eye-witness of the scene." This is true. It was a part of
the testimony of the author of these "Personal Recollections of Joan of
Arc," given by him in the Rehabilitation proceedings of 1456.
--TRANSLATOR.



31 France Begins to Live Again

JOAN HAD said true: France was on the way to be free.

The war called the Hundred Years' War was very sick to-day. Sick on its
English side--for the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years
gone by.

Shall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or
shall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed from them? Any
one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to its
results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is the truth.

Judged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and
imposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world
first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So judged,
it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few just mentioned,
but stand alone, as the supremest of historic conflicts. For when it
began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life, her case
wholly hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when it ended,