"Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc vol 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Joan of Arc)

had rescued her King from his vagabondage, and set his crown
upon hi8s head, she was offered rewards and honors, but she
refused them all, and would take nothing. All she would take for
herself--if the King would grant it--was leave to go back to her
village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her mother's arms
about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The selfishness of this
unspoiled general of victorious armies, companion of princes, and
idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and
no farther.

The work wrought by Joan of Arc may fairly be regarded as
ranking any recorded in history, when one considers the conditions
under which it was undertaken, the obstacles in the way, and the
means at her disposal. Caesar carried conquests far, but he did it
with the trained and confident veterans of Rome, and was a trained
soldier himself; and Napoleon swept away the disciplined armies
of Europe, but he also was a trained soldier, and the began his
work with patriot battalions inflamed and inspired by the
miracle-working new breath of Liberty breathed upon them by the
Revolution--eager young apprentices to the splendid trade of war,
not old and broken men-at-arms, despairing survivors of an
age-long accumulation of monotonous defeats; but Joan of Arc, a
mere child in years, ignorant, unlettered, a poor village girl
unknown and without influence, found a great nation lying in
chains, helpless and hopeless under an alien domination, its