three hours later, she was convalescent. Convalescent, and nothing
requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to perfect
health. The dullest physician of them all could see this, and there was
none to deny it.

Many death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series of
battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts
stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and by
a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay.

Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the
stateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands, with
its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on pilgrimage to
the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence of--what? A
monument with its head in the clouds? Yes. For all nations in all times
have built monuments on their battle-fields to keep green the memory of
the perishable deed that was wrought there and of the perishable name of
him who wrought it; and will France neglect Patay and Joan of Arc? Not
for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their rank as compared
with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhaps--if there be room for
it under the arch of the sky.

But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and
impressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged on and
on, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched
France prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled
on, year after year, and at last again she went down under another
devastating blow--Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once more,
and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year, decade after
decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died--the war raged on;