CHRISTINE DE PISAN
of each a good heart, it is not necessary for them to go to Mass every day; then to the wife of the labourer, bidding her to guard well her master's flocks and to encourage her husband to work; and, finally, she has a word of sympathy for the poor, holding out to them hope of recompense in heaven for misery endured here, and exhorting them to have patience meanwhile. From this patriotic and practical advice to women she turns to men, and in Le Livre de la Paix sets forth the duties of princes and of those in power to the people, importuning them to exercise clemency, liberality, and justice.
But it is too late. The sand in the hourglass is running low. Disaster follows disaster, until the final blow is struck at Agincourt (1415), where the flower of the French nation is cut off, and princes of the blood are carried away into exile. Christine, with bleeding heart, and worn with trouble and disappointment, retires to the convent of Poissy, "un très doux paradis," perchance to find peace and consolation within its tranquil walls, and to implore Heaven's aid for her sore-stricken country. For fourteen years no sound from her reaches the outside world. Then, inspired by the glorious advent and deeds of Joan of Arc, with all her old passion she pours forth a final hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the woman who has at last aroused France to patriotism, and so dies in peace at the solemn moment of Charles the Seventh's consecration at Rheims.
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