Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Jeanne d'Arc, patroness of soldiers

Today is the feast day of Joan of Arc, burned at the stake in 1431.



In the spring of 1920, with the fields of Europe still blasted and blood-sticky, the Catholic Church declared the warrior maiden to be a saint.  A century later the Continent is a melange of irreligion, sterility, and sentimental pacifism.

Here are the concluding paragraphs of Mark Twain’s book on Saint Joan:
"With Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment—it was a passion. She was the Genius of Patriotism—she was Patriotism embodied, concreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the eye.

"Love, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music—these may be symbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and of any age; but a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr's crown upon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country's bonds—shall not this, and no other, stand for PATRIOTISM through all the ages until time shall end?"

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