Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field/Mark Thought Joan of Arc Was Slandered

by Henry William Fischer

MARK THOUGHT JOAN OF ARC WAS SLANDERED

I was telling Mark about some frolic at the Berlin Court, when the sprightly "Lottchen," Princess of Meiningen, William*s sister, proposed a riddle that puzzled the exalted, but not too quick-witted company—

"Even to the utmost—I know what you want to say. They tell me they are having the charade-fever at the Schloss, is that it?"

"Precisely,*' I answered, and went on to tell of the silly rebus competitions in which the Kaiser took special delight. I had my story from the Baroness Von Larisch, a witness, who enjoyed a photographic memory.

"A movie memory," corrected Mark, "but go on."

Well, I reported, H.R.H. quoted nine or ten descriptions of the party to be guessed at, and neither the Majesties, nor the Highnesses, nor the Graces, nor the Disgraces came anywhere near the solution. Whereupon Lottchen startled the company by announcing the answer: "Joan of Arc."

Twain took the cigar out of his mouth and sat up straight, which, as everybody knows, he did only on rare occasions.

"Blasphemy most horrible!" he thundered, "making a joke of Joan of Arc, my Joan of Arc!"

"Your book isn't out yet," I said by way of pouring oil on troubled waters. "And until It sees the light of print people will puzzle whether your Joan was saint, witch, man, maid or something else."

Mark had replaced his cigar and was now chewing it viciously.

"Let's have the story," he said. While he read Joan of Arc's ephemeral epitaph, quoted by Lottchen, the stern lines of his face gradually softened and coming to the end, he laughed outright. "Tiptop," he chuckled, "I wish I had done these verses myself. But, of course, if I had thought of them fifteen or more years ago, I would never have taken Joan seriously."

The verses that amused the great humorist, read as follows:

                "Here lies Joan of Arc: the which
                Some count man, and something more;
                Some count maid, and some a bore.
                Her life's in question, wrong or right;
                Her death's in doubt by laws or might.
                Oh, innocence! take heed of it.
                How thou, too, near to guilt doth sit.
                (Meantime, France a wonder saw:
                A woman rule, 'gainst Salic law!)
                But, reader, be content to stay
                Thy censure till the judgment-day;
                Then shalt thou know, and not before.
                Whether saint, witch, man, maid, or bore."