It was her last
act ere she donned her white armour, and passed forth from her
chamber to take part in the ceremony of the coronation. In some
sort it was the last of her acts performed whilst she was yet the
deliverer of her people.
When I looked upon those words, long after they had been penned, I
felt the tears rising in mine eyes. I could have wept tears of
blood to think of the fate which had befallen one whose thoughts
were ever of peace and mercy, even in the hour of her supremest
triumph.
How can my poor pen describe the wonders of the great scene, of
which I was a spectator upon that day? Nay, rather will I only seek
to speak of the Maid, and how she bore herself upon that great
occasion. She would have been content with a very humble place in
the vast Cathedral today; she had no desire to bear a part in the
pageant which had filled the city and packed the great edifice from
end to end.
But the King and the people willed it otherwise. The thing which
was about to be done was the work of the Maid, and she must be
there to see all, and the people should see her, too--see her close
to the King himself, who owed to her dauntless courage and devotion
the crown he was about to assume, the realm he had begun to
conquer.
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