No, it was a power stronger and more sacred than any such carnal
admiration. It came from the conviction, which none could fail to
reach, that this Maid was indeed chosen and set apart of Heaven for
a great and mighty work, and that in obeying her, one was obeying
the will of God, and working out some purpose determined in the
counsels of the heavenlies.
With her man's garb and light armour, the Maid had assumed an air
of unconscious command which sat with curious graceful dignity upon
the serene calm of her ordinary demeanour. Towards her followers of
the humbler sort she ever showed herself full of consideration and
kindliness. She felt for their fatigues or privations in marching,
was tenderly solicitous later on for the wounded. Above all, she
was insistent that the dying should receive the consolations of
religion, and it was a terrible thought to her that either friend
or foe should perish unshriven and unassoiled.
Her last act at Vaucouleurs, ere we started off in the early dawn
of a late February day, was to attend Mass with all her following.
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