liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy
abstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their
beloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it.
And so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied,
our country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood
before others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.

Sometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea
was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has
called our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a
right as she to that sublime title.

When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at
the head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles
and could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to
empty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a
sickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes;
and the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought--including the Paladin,
although I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me
and I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could
wince better when I saw what to wince at.

But Joan was at home--in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and
I could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing
was the silence; there wasn't a sound but the screaking of the saddles,
the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by
the smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze
myself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer
even a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to
myself.

I was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that
if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was
an ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in
that suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a
raised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most
uncommon jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out
of the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if
I had gone to the ground in my armor I could not have gotten up again by
myself. The English warders on the battlements laughed a coarse laugh,
forgetting that every one must begin, and that there had been a