CHAPTER XXIV.----THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.--CHARLES VII. AND JOAN

OF ARC. 1422-1461.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JOAN OF ARC----85]

Whilst Charles VI. was dying at Paris, his son Charles, the _dauphin_,

was on his way back from Saintonge to Berry, where he usually resided.

On the 24th of October, 1422, at Mehun-sur-Yevre, he heard of his

father’s death. For six days longer, from the 24th to the 29th of

October, he took no style but that of regent, as if he were waiting to

see what was going to happen elsewhere in respect of the succession to

the throne. It was only when he knew that, on the 27th of October, the

parliament of Paris had, not without some little hesitation and

ambiguity, recognized “as King of England and of France, Henry VI., son

of Henry V. lately deceased,” that the _dauphin_ Charles assumed on the

30th of October, in his castle of Mehun-sur-Yevre, the title of king, and

repaired to Bourges to inaugurate in the cathedral of that city his reign

as Charles VII.

[Illustration: The Shepherdess of Domremy----90]

He was twenty years old, and had as yet done nothing to gain for himself,

not to say anything of glory, the confidence and hopes of the people. He

passed for an indolent and frivolous prince, abandoned to his pleasures

only; one whose capacity there was nothing to foreshadow, and of whom

France, outside of his own court, scarcely ever thought at all. Some

days before his accession he had all but lost his life at Rochelle by the

sudden breaking down of the room in the episcopal palace where he was

staying; and so little did the country know of what happened to him that,

a short time after the accident, messengers sent by some of his partisans

had arrived at Bourges to inquire if the prince were still living. At a

time when not only the crown of the kingdom, but the existence and

independence of the nation, were at stake, Charles had not given any

signs of being strongly moved by patriotic feelings. “He was, in person,

a handsome prince, and handsome in speech with all persons, and

compassionate towards poor folks,” says his contemporary Monstrelet; “but

he did not readily put on his harness, and he had no heart for war if he

could do without it.” On ascending the throne, this young prince, so

little of the politician and so little of the knight, encountered at the

head of his enemies the most able amongst the politicians and warriors of

the day in the Duke of Bedford, whom his brother Henry V. had appointed

regent of France, and had charged to defend on behalf of his nephew,

Henry VI., a child in the cradle, the crown of France, already more than

half won. Never did struggle appear more unequal or native king more

inferior to foreign pretender.

Sagacious observers, however, would have easily discerned in the cause

which appeared the stronger and the better supported many seeds of

weakness and danger. When Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, heard at

Arras, that Charles VI. was dead, it occurred to him immediately that if

he attended the obsequies of the English King of France he would be

obliged, French prince as he was, and cousin-german of Charles VI., to

yield precedence to John, Duke of Bedford, regent of France, and uncle of

the new king, Henry VI. He resolved to hold aloof, and contented himself

with sending to Paris chamberlains to make his excuses and supply his

place with the regent. On the 11th of November, 1422, the Duke of

Bedford followed alone at the funeral of the late king of France, and

alone made offering at the mass. Alone he went, but with the sword of

state borne before him as regent. The people of Paris cast down their

eyes with restrained wrath. “They wept,” says a contemporary, “and not

without cause, for they knew not whether for a long, long while they

would have any king in France.” But they did not for long confine

themselves to tears. Two poets, partly in Latin and partly in French,

Robert Blondel, and Alan Chartier, whilst deploring the public woes,

excited the popular feeling. Conspiracies soon followed the songs. One

was set on foot at Paris to deliver the city to king Charles VII., but it

was stifled ruthlessly; several burgesses were beheaded, and one woman

was burned. In several great provincial cities, at Troyes and at Rheims,

the same ferment showed itself, and drew down the same severity. William

Prieuse, superior of the Carmelites, was accused of propagating

sentiments favorable to the _dauphin_, as the English called Charles VII.

Being brought, in spite of the privileges of his gown, before John

Cauchon, lieutenant of the captain of Rheims [related probably to Peter

Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who nine years afterwards was to sentence

Joan of Arc to be burned], he stoutly replied, “Never was English king of

France, and never shall be.” The country had no mind to believe in the

conquest it was undergoing; and the Duke of Burgundy, the most puissant

ally of the English, sulkily went on eluding the consequences of the

anti-national alliance he had accepted.

Such being the disposition of conquerors and conquered, the war, though

still carried on with great spirit, could not, and in fact did not, bring

about any decisive result from 1422 to 1429. Towns were alternately

taken, lost, and retaken, at one time by the French, at another by the

English or Burgundians; petty encounters and even important engagements

took place with vicissitudes of success and reverses on both sides. At

Crevant-sur-Yonne, on the 31st of July, 1423, and at Verneuil, in

Normandy, on the 17th of August, 1424, the French were beaten, and their

faithful allies, the Scots, suffered considerable loss. In the latter

affair, however, several Norman lords deserted the English flag, refusing

to fight against the King of France. On the 26th of September, 1423, at

La Gravelle, in Maine, the French were victorious, and Du Guesclin was

commemorated in their victory. Anne de Laval, granddaughter of the great

Breton warrior, and mistress of a castle hard by the scene of action,

sent thither her son, Andrew de Laval, a child twelve years of age, and,

as she buckled with her own hands the sword which his ancestor had worn,

she said to him, “God make thee as valiant as he whose sword this was!”

The boy received the order of knighthood on the field of battle, and

became afterwards a marshal of France. Little bands, made up of

volunteers, attempted enterprises which the chiefs of the regular armies

considered impossible. Stephen de Vignolles, celebrated under the name

of La Hire, resolved to succor the town of Montargis, besieged by the

English; and young Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, joined him. On

arriving, September 5, 1427, beneath the walls of the place, a priest was

encountered in their road. La Hire asked him for absolution. The priest

told him to confess. “I have no time for that,” said La Hire; “I am in a

hurry; I have done in the way of sins all that men of war are in the

habit of doing.” Whereupon, says the chronicler, the chaplain gave him

absolution for what it was worth; and La Hire, putting his hands

together, said, “God, I pray Thee to do for La Hire this day as much as

Thou wouldst have La Hire do for Thee if he were God and Thou wert La

Hire.” And Montargis was rid of its besiegers. The English determined

to become masters of Mont St. Michel au peril de la mer, that abbey built

on a rock facing the western coast of Normandy and surrounded every day

by the waves of ocean. The thirty-second abbot, Robert Jolivet, promised

to give the place up to them, and went to Rouen with that design; but one

of his monks, John Enault, being elected vicar-general by the chapter,

and supported by some valiant Norman warriors, offered an obstinate

resistance for eight years, baffled all the attacks of the English, and

retained the abbey in the possession of the King of France. The

inhabitants of La Rochelle rendered the same service to the king and to

France in a more important case. On the 15th of August, 1427, an English

fleet of a hundred and twenty sail, it is said, appeared off their city

with invading troops aboard. The Rochellese immediately levied upon

themselves an extraordinary tax, and put themselves in a state of

defence; troops raised in the neighborhood went and occupied the heights

bordering on the coast; and a bold Breton sailor, Bernard de Kercabin,

put to sea to meet the enemy, with ships armed as privateers. The

attempt of the English seemed to them to offer more danger than chance of

success; and they withdrew. Thus Charles VII. kept possession of the

only seaport remaining to the crown. Almost everywhere in the midst of a

war as indecisive as it was obstinate local patriotism and the spirit of

chivalry successfully disputed against foreign supremacy the scattered

fragments of the fatherland and the throne.

In order to put an end to this doubtful condition of events and of minds,

the Duke of Bedford determined to aim a grand blow at the national party

in France and at her king. After Paris and Rouen, Orleans was the most

important city in the kingdom; it was as supreme on the banks of the

Loire as Paris and Rouen were on those of the Seine. After having

obtained from England considerable re-enforcements commanded by leaders

of experience, the English commenced, in October, 1428, the siege of

Orleans. The approaches to the place were occupied in force, and

bastilles closely connected one with another were constructed around the

walls. As a set-off, the most valiant warriors of France, La Hire,

Dunois, Xaintrailles, and the Marshal La Fayette threw themselves into

Orleans, the garrison of which amounted to scarcely twelve hundred men.

Several towns, Bourges, Poitiers, and La Rochelle, sent thither money,

munitions, and militia; the states-general, assembled at Chinon, voted an

extraordinary aid; and Charles VII. called out the regulars and the

reserves. Assaults on the one side and sorties on the other were begun

with ardor. Besiegers and besieged quite felt that they were engaged in

a decisive struggle. The first encounter was unfortunate for the

Orleannese. In a fight called the Herring affair, they were unsuccessful

in an attempt to carry off a supply of victuals and salt fish which Sir

John Falstolf was bringing to the besiegers. Being a little discouraged,

they offered the Duke of Burgundy to place their city in his hands, that

it might not fall into those of the English; and Philip the Good accepted

the offer, but the Duke of Bedford made a formal objection: “He didn’t

care,” he said, “to beat the bushes for another to get the birds.”

Philip in displeasure withdrew from the siege the small force of

Burgundians he had sent. The English remained alone before the place,

which was every day harder pressed and more strictly blockaded. The

besieged were far from foreseeing what succor was preparing for them.

This very year, on the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a little village

in the valley of the Meuse, between Neufchateau and Vaucouleurs, on the

edge of the frontier from Champagne to Lorraine, the young daughter of

simple tillers of the soil, “of good life and repute, herself a good,

simple, gentle girl, no idler, occupied hitherto in sewing or spinning

with her mother, or driving afield her parent’s sheep, and sometimes,

even, when her father’s turn came round, keeping for him the whole flock

of the commune,” was fulfilling her sixteenth year. It was Joan of Arc,

whom all her neighbors called Joannette. She was no recluse; she often

went with her companions to sing and eat cakes beside the fountain by the

gooseberry-bush, under an old beech, which was called the fairy-tree: but

dancing she did not like. She was constant at church, she delighted in

the sound of the bells, she went often to confession and communion, and

she blushed when her fair friends taxed her with being too religious. In

1421, when Joan was hardly nine, a band of Anglo-Burgundians penetrated

into her country, and transferred thither the ravages of war. The

village of Domremy and the little town of Vaucouleurs were French, and

faithful to the French king-ship; and Joan wept to see the lads of her

parish returning bruised and bleeding from encounters with the enemy.

Her relations and neighbors were one day obliged to take to flight, and

at their return they found their houses burned or devastated. Joan

wondered whether it could possibly be that God permitted such excesses

and disasters. In 1425, on a summer’s day, at noon, she was in her

father’s little garden. She heard a voice calling her, at her right

side, in the direction of the church, and a great brightness shone upon

her at the same time in the same spot. At first she was frightened, but

she recovered herself on finding that “it was a worthy voice;” and, at

the second call, she perceived that it was the voice of angels. “I saw

them with my bodily eyes,” she said, six years later, to her judges at

Rouen, “as plainly as I see you; when they departed from me I wept, and

would fain have had them take me with them.” The apparitions came again

and again, and exhorted her “to go to France for to deliver the kingdom.”

She became dreamy, rapt in constant meditation. “I could endure no

longer,” said she, at a later period, “and the time went heavily with me

as with a woman in travail.” She ended by telling everything to her

father, who listened to her words anxiously at first, and afterwards

wrathfully. He himself one night dreamed that his daughter had followed

the king’s men-at-arms to France, and from that moment he kept her under

strict superintendence. “If I knew of your sister’s going,” he said to

his sons, “I would bid you drown her; and, if you did not do it, I would

drown her myself.” Joan submitted: there was no leaven of pride in her

sublimation, and she did not suppose that her intercourse with celestial

voices relieved her from the duty of obeying her parents. Attempts were

made to distract her mind. A young man who had courted her was induced

to say that he had a promise of marriage from her, and to claim the

fulfilment of it. Joan went before the ecclesiastical judge, made

affirmation that she had given no promise, and without difficulty gained

her cause. Everybody believed and respected her.

[Illustration: Joan of Arc in her Father’s Garden----91]

In a village hard by Domremy she had an uncle whose wife was near her

confinement; she got herself invited to go and nurse her aunt, and

thereupon she opened her heart to her uncle, repeating to him a popular

saying, which had spread indeed throughout the country: “Is it not said

that a woman shall ruin France, and a young maid restore it?” She

pressed him to take her to Vaucouleurs to Sire Robert de Baudricourt,

captain of the bailiwick, for she wished to go to the _dauphin_ and carry

assistance to him. Her uncle gave way, and on the 13th of May, 1428, he

did take her to Vaucouleurs. “I come on behalf of my Lord,” said she to

Sire de Baudricourt, “to bid you send word to the _dauphin_ to keep

himself well in hand, and not give battle to his foes, for my Lord will

presently give him succor.” “Who is thy lord?” asked Baudricourt. “The

King of Heaven,” answered Joan. Baudricourt set her down for mad, and

urged her uncle to take her back to her parents “with a good slap o’ the

face.”

In July, 1428, a fresh invasion of Burgundians occurred at Domremy, and

redoubled the popular excitement there. Shortly afterwards, the report

touching the siege of Orleans arrived there. Joan, more and more

passionately possessed with her idea, returned to Vaucouleurs. “I must

go,” said she to Sire de Baudricourt, “for to raise the siege of Orleans.

I will go, should I have to wear off my legs to the knee.” She had

returned to Vaucouleurs without taking leave of her parents. “Had I

possessed,” said she, in 1431, to her judges at Rouen, “a hundred fathers

and a hundred mothers, and had I been a king’s daughter, I should have

gone.” Baudricourt, impressed without being convinced, did not oppose

her remaining at Vaucouleurs, and sent an account of this singular young

girl to Duke Charles of Lorraine, at Nancy, and perhaps even, according

to some chronicles, to the king’s court. Joan lodged at Vaucouleurs in a

wheelwright’s house, and passed three weeks there, spinning with her

hostess, and dividing her time between work and church. There was much

talk in Vaucouleurs of her, and her visions, and her purpose. John of

Metz [also called John of Novelompont], a knight serving with Sire de

Baudricourt, desired to see her, and went to the wheelwright’s. “What do

you here, my dear?” said he; “must the king be driven from his kingdom,

and we become English?” “I am come hither,” answered Joan, “to speak to

Robert de Baudricourt, that he may be pleased to take me or have me taken

to the king; but he pays no heed to me or my words. However, I must be

with the king before the middle of Lent, for none in the world, nor

kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the Scottish king can recover the

kingdom of France; there is no help but in me. Assuredly I would far

rather be spinning beside my poor mother, for this other is not my

condition; but I must go and do the work because my Lord wills that I

should do it.” “Who is your lord?” “The Lord God.” “By my faith,”

said the knight, seizing Joan’s hands, “I will take you to the king, God

helping. When will you set out?” “Rather now than to-morrow; rather

to-morrow than later.” Vaucouleurs was full of the fame and the sayings

of Joan. Another knight, Bertrand de Poulengy, offered, as John of Metz

had, to be her escort, Duke Charles of Lorraine wished to see her, and

sent for her to Nancy. Old and ill as he was, he had deserted the

duchess his wife, a virtuous lady, and was leading anything but a regular

life. He asked Joan’s advice about his health. “I have no power to cure

you,” said Joan, “but go back to your wife and help me in that for which

God ordains me.” The duke ordered her four golden crowns, and she

returned to Vaucouleurs, thinking of nothing but her departure. There

was no want of confidence and good will on the part of the inhabitants of

Vaucouleurs in forwarding her preparations. John of Metz, the knight

charged to accompany her, asked her if she intended to make the journey

in her poor red rustic petticoats. “I would like to don man’s clothes,”

answered Joan. Subscriptions were made to give her a suitable costume.

She was supplied with a horse, a coat of mail, a lance, a sword, the

complete equipment, indeed, of a man-at-arms; and a king’s messenger and

an archer formed her train. Baudricourt made them swear to escort her

safely, and on the 25th of February, 1429, he bade her farewell, and all

he said was, “Away then, Joan, and come what may.”

Charles VII. was at that time residing at Chinon, in Touraine. In order

to get there Joan had nearly a hundred and fifty leagues to go, in a

country occupied here and there by English and Burgundians, and

everywhere a theatre of war. She took eleven days to do this journey,

often marching by night, never giving up man’s dress, disquieted by no

difficulty and no danger, and testifying no desire for a halt save to

worship God. “Could we hear mass daily,” said she to her comrades, “we

should do well.” They only consented twice, first in the abbey of St.

Urban, and again in the principal church of Auxerre. As they were full

of respect, though at the same time also of doubt, towards Joan, she

never had to defend herself against their familiarities, but she had

constantly to dissipate their disquietude touching the reality or the

character of her mission. “Fear nothing,” she said to them; “God shows

me the way I should go; for thereto was I born.” On arriving at the

village of St. Catherine-de-Fierbois, near Chinon, she heard three masses

on the same day, and had a letter written thence to the king, to announce

her coming and to ask to see him; she had gone, she said, a hundred and

fifty leagues to come and tell him things which would be most useful to

him. Charles VII. and his councillors hesitated. The men of war did not

like to believe that a little peasant-girl of Lorraine was coming to

bring the king a more effectual support than their own. Nevertheless

some, and the most heroic amongst them,--Dunois, La Hire, and

Xaintrailles,--were moved by what was told of this young girl. The

letters of Sire de Baudricourt, though full of doubt, suffered a gleam of

something like a serious impression to peep out; and why should not the

king receive this young girl whom the captain of Vaucouleurs had thought

it a duty to send? It would soon be seen what she was and what she would

do. The politicians and courtiers, especially the most trusted of them,

George de la Tremoille, the king’s favorite, shrugged their shoulders.

What could be expected from the dreams of a young peasant-girl of

nineteen? Influences of a more private character and more disposed

towards sympathy--Yolande of Arragon, for instance, Queen of Sicily and

mother-in-law of Charles VII., and perhaps, also, her daughter, the young

queen, Mary of Anjou, were urgent for the king to reply to Joan that she

might go to Chinon. She was authorized to do so, and, on the 6th of

March, 1429, she with her comrades arrived at the royal residence.

At the very first moment two incidents occurred to still further increase

the curiosity of which she was the object. Quite close to Chinon some

vagabonds, it is said, had prepared an ambuscade for the purpose of

despoiling her, her and her train. She passed close by them without the

least obstacle. The rumor went that at her approach they were struck

motionless, and had been unable to attempt their wicked purpose. Joan

was rather tall, well shaped, dark, with a look of composure, animation,

and gentleness. A man-at-arms, who met her on her way, thought her

pretty, and with an impious oath expressed a coarse sentiment. “Alas!”

said Joan, “thou blasphemest thy God, and yet thou art so near thy

death!” He drowned himself, it is said, soon after. Already popular

feeling was surrounding her marvellous mission with a halo of

instantaneous miracles.

[Illustration: CHINON CASTLE----95]

On her arrival at Chinon she at first lodged with an honest family near

the castle. For three days longer there was a deliberation in the

council as to whether the king ought to receive her. But there was bad

news from Orleans. There were no more troops to send thither, and there

was no money forthcoming: the king’s treasurer, it was said, had but four

crowns in the chest. If Orleans were taken, the king would perhaps be

reduced to seeking a refuge in Spain or in Scotland. Joan promised to

set Orleans free. The Orleannese themselves were clamorous for her;

Dunois kept up their spirits with the expectation of this marvellous

assistance. It was decided that the king should receive her. She had

assigned to her for residence an apartment in the tower of the Coudray, a

block of quarters adjoining the royal mansion, and she was committed to

the charge of William Bellier, an officer of the king’s household, whose

wife was a woman of great piety and excellent fame. On the 9th of March,

1429, Joan was at last introduced into the king’s presence by the Count

of Vendome, high steward, in the great hall on the first story, a portion

of the wall and the fireplace being still visible in the present day. It

was evening, candle-light; and nearly three hundred knights were present.

Charles kept himself a little aloof, amidst a group of warriors and

courtiers more richly dressed than he. According to some chroniclers,

Joan had demanded that “she should not be deceived, and should have

pointed out to her him to whom she was to speak;” others affirm that she

went straight to the king, whom she had never seen, “accosting him humbly

and simply, like a poor little shepherdess,” says an eye-witness, and,

according to another account, “making the usual bends and reverences as

if she had been brought up at court.” Whatever may have been her outward

behavior, “Gentle _dauphin_,” she said to the king (for she did not think

it right to call him king so long as he was not crowned), “my name is Joan

the maid; the King of Heaven sendeth you word by me that you shall be

anointed and crowned in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of

the King of Heaven, who is King of France. It is God’s pleasure that our

enemies the English should depart to their own country; if they depart no

evil will come to them, and the kingdom is sure to continue yours.”

Charles was impressed without being convinced, as so many others had been

before, or were, as he was, on that very day. He saw Joan again several

times. She did not delude herself as to the doubts he still entertained.

“Gentle _dauphin_,” she said to him one day, “why do you not believe me?

I say unto you that God hath compassion on you, your kingdom, and your

people; St. Louis and Charlemagne are kneeling before Him, making prayer

for you, and I will say unto you, so please you, a thing which will give

you to understand that you ought to believe me.” Charles gave her

audience on this occasion in the presence, according to some accounts, of

four witnesses, the most trusted of his intimates, who swore to reveal

nothing, and, according to others, completely alone. “What she said to

him there is none who knows,” wrote Alan Chartier, a short time after [in

July, 1429], “but it is quite certain that he was all radiant with joy

thereat as at a revelation from the Holy Spirit.” M. Wallop, after a

scrupulous sifting of evidence, has given the following exposition of

this mysterious interview. “Sire de Boisy,” he says, “who was in his

youth one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber on the most familiar terms

with Charles VII., told Peter Sala, giving the king himself as his

authority for the story, that one day, at the period of his greatest

adversity, the prince, vainly looking for a remedy against so many

troubles, entered in the morning, alone, into his oratory, and there,

without uttering a word aloud, made prayer to God from the depths of his

heart that if he were the true heir, issue of the house of France (and a

doubt was possible with such a queen as Isabel of Bavaria), and the

kingdom ought justly to be his, God would be pleased to keep and defend

it for him; if not, to give him grace to escape without death or

imprisonment, and find safety in Spain or in Scotland, where he intended

in the last resort to seek a refuge. This prayer, known to God alone,

the Maid recalled to the mind of Charles VII.; and thus is explained the

joy which, as the witnesses say, he testified, whilst none at that time

knew the cause. Joan by this revelation not only caused the king to

believe in her; she caused him to believe in himself and his right and

title: though she never spoke in that way as of her own motion to the

king, it was always a superior power speaking by her voice, ‘I tell thee

on behalf of my Lord that thou art true heir of France, and son of the

king.’” (Jeanne d’Arc, by M. Wallon, t. i. p. 32.)

Whether Charles VII. were or were not convinced by this interview of

Joan’s divine mission, he clearly saw that many of those about him had

little or no faith in it, and that other proofs were required to upset

their doubts. He resolved to go to Poitiers, where his council, the

parliament, and several learned members of the University of Paris were

in session, and have Joan put to the strictest examination. When she

learned her destination, she said, “In the name of God, I know that I

shall have tough work there, but my Lord will help me. Let us go, then,

for God’s sake.” On her arrival at Poitiers, on the 11th of March, 1429,

she was placed in one of the most respectable families in the town, that

of John Rabuteau, advocate-general in parliament. The Archbishop of

Rheims, Reginald de Chartres, Chancellor of France, five bishops, the

king’s councillors, several learned doctors, and amongst others Father

Seguin, an austere and harsh Dominican, repaired thither to question her.

When she saw them come in, she went and sat down at the end of the bench,

and asked them what they wanted with her. For two hours they set

themselves to the task of showing her, “by fair and gentle arguments,”

that she was not entitled to belief. “Joan,” said William Aimery,

professor of theology, “you ask for men-at-arms, and you say that it is

God’s pleasure that the English should leave the kingdom of France, and

depart to their own land; if so, there is no need of men-at-arms, for

God’s pleasure alone can discomfit them, and force them to return to

their homes.” “In the name of God,” answered Joan, “the men-at-arms will

do battle, and God will give them victory.” Master William did not urge

his point. The Dominican, Seguin, “a very sour man,” says the chronicle,

asked Joan what language the voices spoke to her. “Better than yours,”

answered Joan. The doctor spoke the Limousine dialect. “Do you believe

in God?” he asked, ill-humoredly. “More than you do,” retorted Joan,

offended. “Well,” rejoined the monk, “God forbids belief in you without

some sign tending thereto: I shall not give the king advice to trust

men-at-arms to you, and put them in peril on your simple word.” “In the

name of God,” said Joan, “I am not come to Poitiers to show signs; take

me to Orleans, and I will give you signs of what I am sent for. Let me

have ever so few men-at-arms given me, and I will go to Orleans;” then,

addressing another of the examiners, Master Peter of Versailles, who was

afterwards Bishop of Meaux, she said, “I know nor A nor B; but in our

Lord’s book there is more than in your books; I come on behalf of the

King of Heaven to cause the siege of Orleans to be raised, and to take

the king to Rheims, that he may be crowned and anointed there.” The

examination was prolonged for a fortnight, not without symptoms of

impatience on the part of Joan. At the end of it, she said to one of the

doctors, John Erault, “Have you paper and ink? Write what I shall say to

you.” And she dictated a form of letter which became, some weeks later,

the manifesto addressed in a more developed shape by her from Orleans to

the English, calling upon them to raise the siege and put a stop to the

war. The chief of those piously and patriotically heroic phrases were as

follows:--

“Jesu Maria,

“King of England, account to the King of Heaven for His blood royal.

Give up to the Maid the keys of all the good towns you have taken by

force. She is come from God to avenge the blood royal, and quite

ready to make peace, if you will render proper account. If you do

not so I am a war-chief; in whatsoever place I shall fall in with

your folks in France, if they be not willing to obey, I shall make

them get thence, whether they will or not; and if they be willing to

obey, I will receive them to mercy. . . . The Maid cometh from

the King of Heaven as His representative, to thrust you out of

France; she doth promise and certify you that she will make therein

such mighty _haha_ [great tumult], that for a thousand years

hitherto in France was never the like. . . . Duke of Bedford,

who call yourself regent of France, the Maid doth pray you and

request you not to bring destruction on yourself; if you do not

justice towards her, she will do the finest deed ever done in

Christendom.

“Writ on Tuesday in the great week.” [Easter week, March, 1429].

Subscribed: “Hearken to the news from God and the

Maid.”

At the end of their examination, the doctors decided in Joan’s favor.

Two of them, the Bishop of Castres, Gerard Machet, the king’s confessor,

and Master John Erault, recognized the divine nature of her mission. She

was, they said, the virgin foretold in the ancient prophecies, notably in

those of Merlin; and the most exacting amongst them approved of the

king’s having neither accepted nor rejected, with levity, the promises

made by Joan; “after a grave inquiry there had been discovered in her,”

they said, “nought but goodness, humility, devotion, honesty, simplicity.

Before Orleans she professes to be going to show her sign; so she must be

taken to Orleans, for to give her up without any appearance on her part

of evil would be to fight against the Holy Spirit, and to become unworthy

of aid from God.” After the doctors’ examination came that of the women.

Three of the greatest ladies in France, Yolande of Arragon, Queen of

Sicily; the Countess of Gaucourt, wife of the Governor of Orleans; and

Joan de Mortemer, wife of Robert le Macon, Baron of Troves, were charged

to examine Joan as to her life as a woman. They found therein nothing

but truth, virtue, and modesty; “she spoke to them with such sweetness

and grace,” says the chronicle, “that she drew tears from their eyes;”

and she excused herself to them for the dress she wore, and for which the

sternest doctors had not dreamed of reproaching her. “It is more

decent,” said the Archbishop of Embrun, “to do such things in man’s

dress, since they must be done along with men.” The men of intelligence

at court bowed down before this village-saint, who was coming to bring to

the king in his peril assistance from God; the most valiant men of war

were moved by the confident outbursts of her patriotic courage; and the

people everywhere welcomed her with faith and enthusiasm. Joan had as

yet only just appeared, and already she was the heaven-sent interpretress

of the nation’s feeling, the hope of the people of France.

Charles no longer hesitated. Joan was treated, according to her own

expression in her letter to the English, “as a war-chief;” there were

assigned to her a squire, a page, two heralds, a chaplain, Brother

Pasquerel, of the order of the hermit-brotherhood of St. Augustin,

varlets, and serving-folks. A complete suit of armor was made to fit

her. Her two guides, John of Metz and Bertrand of Poulengy, had not

quitted her; and the king continued them in her train. Her sword he

wished to be supplied by himself; she asked for one marked with five

crosses; it would be found, she said, behind the altar in the chapel of

St. Catherine-de-Fierbois, where she had halted on her arrival at

Chinon; and there, indeed, it was found. She had a white banner made,

studded with lilies, bearing the representation of God seated upon the

clouds, and holding in His hand the globe of the world. Above were the

words “Jesu Maria,” and below were two angels, on their knees in

adoration. Joan was fond of her sword, as she said two years afterwards

at her trial, but she was forty times more fond of her banner, which was,

in her eyes, the sign of her commission and the pledge of victory. On

the completion of the preparations she demanded the immediate departure

of the expedition. Orleans was crying for succor; Dunois was sending

messenger after messenger; and Joan was in a greater hurry than anybody

else.

More than a month elapsed before her anxieties were satisfied. During

this interval we find Charles VII. and Joan of Arc at Chatelherault, at

Poitiers, at Tours, at Florent-les-Saumur, at Chinon, and at Blois, going

to and fro through all that country to push forward the expedition

resolved upon, and to remove the obstacles it encountered. Through a

haze of vague indications a glimpse is caught of the struggle which was

commencing between the partisans and the adversaries of Joan, and in

favor of or in opposition to the impulse she was communicating to the war

of nationality. Charles VII.’s mother-in-law, Yolande of Arragon, Queen

of Sicily, and the young Duke of Alencon, whose father had been killed at

the battle of Agincourt, were at the head of Joan’s partisans. Yolande

gave money and took a great deal of trouble in order to promote the

expedition which was to go and succor Orleans. The Duke of Alencon,

hardly twenty years of age, was the only one amongst the princes of the

house of Valois who had given Joan a kind reception on her arrival, and

who, together with the brave La Hire, said that he would follow her

whithersoever she pleased to lead him. Joan, in her gratitude, called

him the handsome duke, and exhibited towards him amity and confidence.

But, side by side with these friends, she had an adversary in the king’s

favorite, George de la Tremoille, an ambitious courtier, jealous of any

one who seemed within the range of the king’s favor, and opposed to a

vigorous prosecution of the war, since it hampered him in the policy he

wished to keep up towards the Duke of Burgundy. To the ill will of La

Tremoille was added that of the majority of courtiers enlisted in the

following of the powerful favorite, and that of warriors irritated at the

importance acquired at their expense by a rustic and fantastic little

adventuress. Here was the source of the enmities and intrigues which

stood in the way of all Joan’s demands, rendered her successes more

tardy, difficult, and incomplete, and were one day to cost her more

dearly still.

At the end of about five weeks the expedition was in readiness. It was a

heavy convoy of revictualment, protected by a body of ten or twelve

thousand men, commanded by Marshal de Boussac, and numbering amongst them

Xaintrailles and La Hire. The march began on the 27th of April, 1429.

Joan had caused the removal of all women of bad character, and had

recommended her comrades to confess. She took the communion in the open

air, before their eyes; and a company of priests, headed by her chaplain,

Pasquerel, led the way whilst chanting sacred hymns. Great was the

surprise amongst the men-at-arms, many had words of mockery on their

lips. It was the time when La Hire used to say, “If God were a soldier,

He would turn robber.” Nevertheless, respect got the better of habit;

the most honorable were really touched; the coarsest considered

themselves bound to show restraint. On the 29th of April they arrived

before Orleans. But, in consequence of the road they had followed, the

Loire was between the army and the town; the expeditionary corps had to

be split in two; the troops were obliged to go and feel for the bridge of

Blois in order to ‘cross the river; and Joan was vexed and surprised.

Dunois, arrived from Orleans in a little boat, urged her to enter the

town that same evening. “Are you the bastard of Orleans?” asked she,

when he accosted her. “Yes; and I am rejoiced at your coming.” “Was it

you who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river,

and not the direct way, over yonder where Talbot and the English were?”

“Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains.” “In the name of God,

the counsel of my Lord is wiser than yours; you thought to deceive me,

and you have deceived yourselves, for I am bringing you the best succor

that ever had knight, or town, or city, and that is the good will of God,

and succor from the King of Heaven; not assuredly for love of me, it is

from God only that it proceeds.” It was a great trial for Joan to

separate from her comrades, “so well prepared, penitent, and well

disposed; in their company,” said she, “I should not fear the whole power

of the English.” She was afraid that disorder might set in amongst the

troops, and that they might break up, instead of fulfilling her mission.

Dunois was urgent for her to go herself at once into Orleans, with such

portion of the convoy as boats might be able to transport thither without

delay. “Orleans,” said he, “would count it for nought, if they received

the victuals without the Maid.” Joan decided to go: the captains of her

division promised to rejoin her at Orleans; she left them her chaplain,

Pasquerel, the priests who accompanied him, and the banner around which

she was accustomed to muster them; and she herself, with Dunois, La Hire,

and two hundred men-at-arms, crossed the river at the same time with a

part of the supplies.

[Illustration: JOAN ENTERING ORLEANS----104]

The same day, at eight P. M., she entered the city, on horseback,

completely armed, preceded by her own banner, and having beside her

Dunois, and behind her the captains of the garrison and several of the

most distinguished burgesses of Orleans who had gone out to meet her.

The population, one and all, rushed thronging round her, carrying

torches, and greeting her arrival “with joy as great as if they had seen

God come down amongst them. They felt,” says the Journal of the Siege,

“all of them recomforted and as it were disbesieged by the divine virtue

which they had been told existed in this simple maid.” In their anxiety

to approach her, to touch her, one of their lighted torches set fire to

her banner. Joan disengaged herself with her horse as cleverly as it

could have been done by the most skilful horseman, and herself

extinguished the flame. The crowd attended her to the church whither she

desired to go first of all to render thanks to God, and then to the house

of John Boucher, the Duke of Orleans’s treasurer, where she was received

together with her two brothers and the two gentlemen who had been her

guides from Vaucouleurs. The treasurer’s wife was one of the most

virtuous city dames in Orleans, and from this night forth her daughter

Charlotte had Joan for her bedfellow. A splendid supper had been

prepared for her; but she would merely dip some slices of bread in wine

and water. Neither her enthusiasm nor her success, the two greatest

tempters to pride in mankind, made any change in her modesty and

simplicity.

The very day after her arrival she would have liked to go and attack the

English in their bastilles, within which they kept themselves shut up.

La Hire was pretty much of her opinion; but Dunois and the captains of

the garrison thought they ought to await the coming of the troops which

had gone to cross the Loire at Blois, and the supports which several

French garrisons in the neighborhood had received orders to forward to

Orleans. Joan insisted. Sire de Gamaches, one of the officers present,

could not contain himself. “Since ear is given,” said he, “to the advice

of a wench of low degree rather than to that of a knight like me, I will

not bandy more words; when the time comes, it shall be my sword that

will speak; I shall fall, perhaps, but the king and my own honor demand

it; henceforth I give up my banner and am nothing more than a poor

esquire. I prefer to have for master a noble man rather than a girl who

has heretofore been, perhaps, I know not what.” He furled his banner

and handed it to Dunois. Dunois, as sensible as he was brave, would not

give heed either to the choler of Gamaches or to the insistence of Joan;

and, thanks to his intervention, they were reconciled on being induced

to think better, respectively, of giving up the banner and ordering an

immediate attack. Dunois went to Blois to hurry the movements of the

division which had repaired thither; and his presence there was highly

necessary, since Joan’s enemies, especially the chancellor Regnault,

were nearly carrying a decision that no such re-enforcement should be

sent to Orleans. Dunois frustrated this purpose, and led back to

Orleans, by way of Beauce, the troops concentrated at Blois. On the 4th

of May, as soon as it was known that he was coming, Joan, La Hire, and

the principal leaders of the city as well as of the garrison, went to

meet him, and re-entered Orleans with him and his troops, passing

between the bastilles of the English, who made not even an attempt to

oppose them. “That is the sorceress yonder,” said some of the

besiegers; others asked if it were quite so clear that her power, did

not come to her from on high; and their commander, the Earl of Suffolk,

being himself, perhaps, uncertain, did not like to risk it: doubt

produced terror, and terror inactivity. The convoy from Blois entered

Orleans, preceded by Brother Pasquerel and the priests.

Joan, whilst she was awaiting it, sent the English captains a fresh

summons to withdraw conformably with the letter which she had already

addressed to them from Blois, and the principal clauses of which were

just now quoted here. They replied with coarse insults, calling her

strumpet and cow-girl, and threatening to burn her when they caught her.

She was very much moved by their insults, insomuch as to weep; but

calling God to witness her innocence, she found herself comforted, and

expressed it by saying, “I have had news from my Lord.” The English had

detained the first herald she had sent them; and when she would have sent

them a second to demand his comrade back, he was afraid. “In the name of

God,” said Joan, “they will do no harm nor to thee nor to him; thou shalt

tell Talbot to arm, and I too will arm; let him show himself in front of

the city; if he can take me, let him burn me; if I discomfit him, let him

raise the siege, and let the English get them gone to their own country.”

The second herald appeared to be far from reassured; but Dunois charged

him to say that the English prisoners should answer for what was done to

the heralds from the Maid. The two heralds were sent back. Joan made up

her mind to iterate in person to the English the warnings she had given

them in her letter. She mounted upon one of the bastions of Orleans,

opposite the English bastille called Tournelles, and there, at the top of

her voice, she repeated her counsel to them to be gone; else, woe and

shame would come upon them. The commandant of the bastille, Sir William

Gladesdale [called by Joan and the French chroniclers _Glacidas_],

answered with the usual insults, telling her to go back and mind her

cows, and alluding to the French as miscreants. “You lie,” cried Joan,

“and in spite of you soon shall ye depart hence; many of your people

shall be slain; but as for you, you shall not see it.”

Dunois, the very day of his return to Orleans, after dinner, went to call

upon Joan, and told her that he had heard on his way that Sir John

Falstolf, the same who on the 12th of the previous February had beaten

the French in the Herring affair, was about to arrive with

re-enforcements and supplies for the besiegers. “Bastard, bastard,” said

Joan, “in the name of God I command thee, as soon as thou shalt know of

this Pascot’s coming, to have me warned of it, for, should he pass

without my knowing of it, I promise thee that I will have thy head cut

off.” Dunois assured her that she should be warned. Joan was tired with

the day’s excitement; she threw herself upon her bed to sleep, but

unsuccessfully; all at once she said to Sire Daulon, her esquire, “My

counsel doth tell me to go against the English; but I know not whether

against their bastilles or against this Fascot. I must arm.” Her

esquire was beginning to arm her when she heard it shouted in the street

that the enemy were at that moment doing great damage to the French. “My

God,” said she, “the blood of our people is running on the ground; why

was I not awakened sooner? Ah! it was ill done! . . . My arms! My

arms! my horse!” Leaving behind her esquire, who was not yet armed, she

went down. Her page was playing at the door: “Ah! naughty boy,” said

she, “not to come and tell me that the blood of France was being shed!

Come! quick! my horse!” It was brought to her; she bade them hand down to

her by the window her banner, which she had left behind, and, without any

further waiting, she departed and went to the Burgundy gate, whence the

noise seemed to come. Seeing on her way one of the townsmen passing who

was being carried off wounded, she said, “Alas! I never see a Frenchman’s

blood but my hair stands up on my head!” It was some of the Orleannese

themselves who, without consulting their chiefs, had made a sortie and

attacked the Bastille St. Loup, the strongest held by the English on this

side. The French had been repulsed, and were falling back in flight when

Joan came up, and soon after her Dunois and a throng of men-at-arms who

had been warned of the danger. The fugitives returned to the assault;

the battle was renewed with ardor; the bastille of St. Loup,

notwithstanding energetic resistance on the part of the English who

manned it, was taken; and all its defenders were put to the sword before

Talbot and the main body of the besiegers could come up to their

assistance. Joan showed sorrow that so many people should have died

unconfessed; and she herself was the means of saving some who had

disguised themselves as priests in gowns which they had taken from the

church of St. Loup. Great was the joy in Orleans, and the enthusiasm for

Joan was more lively than ever. “Her voices had warned her,” they said,

“and apprised her that there was a battle; and then she had found by

herself alone and without any guide the way to the Burgundy gate.”

Men-at-arms and burgesses all demanded that the attack upon the English

hastilles should be resumed; but the next day, the 5th of May, was

Ascension-day. Joan advocated lions repose on this holy festival, and

the general feeling was in accord with her own. She recommended her

comrades to fulfil their religious duties, and she herself received the

communion. The chiefs of the besieged resolved to begin on the morrow a

combined attack upon the English bastilles which surrounded the palace;

but Joan was not in their counsels. “Tell me what you have resolved,”

she said to them; “I can keep this and greater secrets.” Dunois made her

acquainted with the plan adopted, of which she fully approved; and on the

morrow, the 6th of May, a fierce struggle began again all round Orleans.

For two days the bastilles erected by the besiegers against the place

were repeatedly attacked by the besieged. On the first day Joan was

slightly wounded in the foot. Some disagreement arose between her and

Sire de Gaucourt, governor of Orleans, as to continuing the struggle; and

John Boucher, her host, tried to keep her back the second day. “Stay and

dine with us,” said he, “to eat that shad which has just been brought.”

“Keep it for supper,” said Joan; “I will come back this evening and bring

you some goddamns (Englishman) or other to eat his share;” and she

sallied forth, eager to return to the assault. On arriving at the

Burgundy gate she found it closed; the governor would not allow any

sortie thereby to attack on that side. “Ah! naughty man,” said Joan,

“you are wrong; whether you will or no, our men-at-arms shall go and win

on this day as they have already won.” The gate was forced; and

men-at-arms and burgesses rushed out from all quarters to attack the

bastille of Tournelles, the strongest of the English works. It was ten

o’clock in the morning; the passive and active powers of both parties

were concentrated on this point; and for a moment the French appeared

weary and downcast. Joan took a scaling-ladder, set it against the

rampart, and was the first to mount. There came an arrow and struck her

between neck and shoulder, and she fell. Sire de Gamaches, who had but

lately displayed so much temper towards her, found her where she lay.

“Take my horse,” said he, “and bear no malice: I was wrong; I had formed

a false idea of you.” “Yes,” said Joan, “and bear no malice: I never saw

a more accomplished knight.” She was taken away and had her armor

removed. The arrow, it is said, stood out almost half-a-foot behind.

There was an instant of faintness and tears; but she prayed and felt her

strength renewed, and pulled out the arrow with her own hand.

[Illustration: Herself drew out the Arrow----109]

Some one proposed to her to charm the wound by means of cabalistic words;

but “I would rather die,” she said, “than so sin against the will of God.

I know full well that I must die some day; but I know nor where nor when

nor how. If, without sin, my wound may be healed, I am right willing.”

A dressing of oil and lard was applied to the wound; and she retired

apart into a vineyard, and was continually in prayer. Fatigue and

discouragement were overcoming the French; and the captains ordered the

retreat to be sounded. Joan begged Dunois to wait a while. “My God,”

said she, “we shall soon be inside. Give your people a little rest; eat

and drink.” She resumed her arms and remounted her horse; her banner

floated in the air; the French took fresh courage; the English, who

thought Joan half dead, were seized with surprise and fear; and one of

their principal leaders, Sir William Gladesdale, made up his mind to

abandon the outwork which he had hitherto so well kept, and retire within

the bastille itself. Joan perceived his movement. “Yield thee,” she

shouted to him from afar; “yield thee to the King of Heaven! Ah!

Glacidas, thou hast basely insulted me; but I have great pity on the

souls of thee and thine.” The Englishman continued his retreat. Whilst

he was passing over the drawbridge which reached from the out-work to the

bastille, a shot from the side of Orleans broke down the bridge;

Gladesdale fell into the water and was drowned, together with many of his

comrades; the French got into the bastille without any fresh fighting;

and Joan re-entered Orleans amidst the joy and acclamations of the

people. The bells rang all through the night, and the Te Deum was

chanted. The day of combat was about to be succeeded by the day of

deliverance.

On the morrow, the 8th of May, 1429, at daybreak, the English leaders

drew up their troops close to the very moats of the city, and seemed to

offer battle to the French. Many of the Orleannese leaders would have

liked to accept this challenge; but Joan got up from her bed, where she

was resting because of her wound, put on a light suit of armor, and ran

to the city gates. “For the love and honor of holy Sunday,” said she to

the assembled warriors, “do not be the first to attack, and make to them

no demand; it is God’s good will and pleasure that they be allowed to get

them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend

yourselves boldly; you will be the masters.” She caused an altar to be

raised; thanksgivings were sung, and mass was celebrated. “See!” said

Joan; “are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their

backs?” They had commenced their retreat in good order, with standards

flying. “Let them go: my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting

to-day; you shall have them another time.” The good words spoken by Joan

were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English,

and cut off stragglers and baggage. Their bastilles were found to be

full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many

of their prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised.

The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the

king, and prosecute her work at his side. She fell in with him on the

13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her

hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger’s neck,

made him a deep obeisance. Charles took off his cap, held out his hand

to her, and, “as it seemed to many,” says a contemporary chronicler, “he

would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt.” But the king’s

joy was not enough for Joan. She urged him to march with her against

enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start

without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned. “I shall hardly

last more than a year,” said she; “we must think about working right well

this year, for there is much to do.” Hesitation was natural to Charles,

even in the hour of victory. His favorite, La Tremoille, and his

chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan’s entreaties with all

the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill

will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey;

and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing.

Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice,

and tapped softly at the door of the king’s privy chamber (chambre de re-

trait). He bade her enter. She fell upon her knees, saying, “Gentle

_dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to

Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you

thither.” “Joan,” said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d’Harcourt,

the king’s confessor, “cannot you tell the king what pricketh you?”

“Ah! I see,” replied Joan, with some embarrassment: “well, I will tell

you. I had set me to prayer, according to my wont, and I was making

complaint for that you would not believe what I said; then the voice came

and said unto me, ‘Go, go, my daughter; I will be a help to thee; go.’

When this voice comes to me, I feel marvellously rejoiced; I would that

it might endure forever.” She was eager and overcome.

Joan and her voices were not alone in urging the king to shake off his

doubts and his indolence. In church, and court, and army, allies were

not wanting to the pious and valiant maid. In a written document dated

the 14th of May, six days after the siege of Orleans was raised, the most

Christian doctor of the age, as Gerson was called, sifted the question

whether it were possible, whether it were a duty, to believe in the Maid.

“Even if (which God forbid),” said he, “she should be mistaken in her

hope and ours, it would not necessarily follow that what she does comes

of the evil spirit, and not of God, but that rather our ingratitude was

to blame. Let the party which hath a just cause take care how, by

incredulity or injustice, it rendereth useless the divine succor so

miraculously manifested, for God, without any change of counsel, changeth

the upshot according to deserts.” Great lords and simple gentlemen, old

and young warriors, were eager to go and join Joan for the salvation of

the king and of France. The constable, De Richemont, banished from the

court through the jealous hatred of George la Tremoille, made a pressing

application there, followed by a body of men-at-arms; and, when the king

refused to see him, he resolved, though continuing in disgrace, to take

an active part in the war. The young Duke of Alencon, who had been a

prisoner with the English since the battle of Agincourt, hurried on the

payment of his ransom in order to accompany Joan as lieutenant-general of

the king in the little army which was forming. His wife, the duchess,

was in grief about it. “We have just spent great sums,” said she, “in

buying him back from the English; if he would take my advice, he would

stay at home.” “Madame,” said Joan, “I will bring him back to you safe

and sound, nay, even in better contentment than at present; be not

afraid.” And on this promise the duchess took heart. Du Guesciin’s

widow, Joan de Laval, was still living; and she had two grandsons, Guy

and Andrew de Laval, who were amongst the most zealous of those taking

service in the army destined to march on Rheims. The king, to all

appearance, desired to keep them near his person. “God forbid that I

should do so,” wrote Guy de Laval, on the 8th of June, 1429, to those

most dread dames, his grandmother and his mother; “my brother says, as

also my lord the Duke d’Alencon, that a good riddance of bad rubbish

would he be who should stay at home.” And he describes his first

interview with the Maid as follows: “The king had sent for her to come

and meet him at Selles-en-Berry. Some say that it was for my sake, in

order that I might see her. She gave right good cheer (a kind reception)

to my brother and myself; and after we had dismounted at Selles I went to

see her in her quarters. She ordered wine, and told me that she would

soon have me drinking some at Paris. It seems a thing divine to look on

her and listen to her. I saw her mount on horseback, armed all in white

armor, save her head, and with a little axe in her hand, on a great black

charger, which, at the door of her quarters, was very restive, and would

not let her mount. Then said she, ‘Lead him to the cross,’ which was in

front of the neighboring church, on the road. There she mounted him

without his moving, and as if he were tied up; and turning towards the

door of the church, which was very nigh at hand, she said, in quite a

womanly voice, ‘You, priests and church-men, make procession and prayers

to God.’ Then she resumed her road, saying, ‘Push forward, push

forward.’ She told me that three days before my arrival she had sent

you, dear grand-mother, a little golden ring, but that it was a very

small matter, and she would have liked to send you something better,

having regard to your estimation.”

It was amidst this burst of patriotism, and with all these valiant

comrades, that Joan recommenced the campaign on the 10th of June, 1429,

quite resolved to bring the king to Rheims. To complete the deliverance

of Orleans, an attack was begun upon the neighboring places, Jargeau,

Meung, and Beaugency. Before Jargeau, on the 12th of June, although it

was Sunday, Joan had the trumpets sounded for the assault. The Duke

d’Alencon thought it was too soon. “Ah!” said Joan, “be not doubtful; it

is the hour pleasing to God; work ye, and God will work.” And she added,

familiarly, “Art thou afeard, gentle duke? Knowest thou not that I have

promised thy wife to take thee back safe and sound?” The assault began;

and Joan soon had occasion to keep her promise. The Duke d’Alencon was

watching the assault from an exposed spot, and Joan remarked a piece

pointed at this spot. “Get you hence,” said she to the duke; “yonder is

a piece which will slay you.” The Duke moved, and a moment afterwards

Sire de Lude was killed at the self-same place by a shot from the said

piece. Jargeau was taken. Before Beaugency a serious incident took

place. The constable, De Richemont, came up with a force of twelve

hundred men. When he was crossing to Loudun, Charles VII., swayed as

ever by the jealous La Tremoille, had word sent to him to withdraw, and

that if he advanced he would be attacked. “What I am doing in the

matter,” said the constable, “is for the good of the king and the realm;

if anybody comes to attack me, we shall see.” When he had joined the

army before Beaugency, the Duke d’Alencon was much troubled. The king’s

orders were precise, and Joan herself hesitated. But news came that

Talbot and the English were approaching. “Now,” said Joan, “we must

think no more of anything but helping one another.” She rode forward to

meet the constable, and saluted him courteously. “Joan,” said he, “I was

told that you meant to attack me; I know not whether you come from God or

not; if you are from God, I fear you not at all, for God knows my good

will; if you are from the devil, I fear you still less.” He remained,

and Beaugency was taken. The English army came up. Sir John Falstolf

had joined Talbot. Some disquietude showed itself amongst the French, so

roughly handled for some time past in pitched battles. “Ah! fair

constable,” said Joan to Richemont, “you are not come by my orders, but

you are right welcome.” The Duke d’Alencon consulted Joan as to what was

to be done. “It will be well to have horses,” was suggested by those

about her. She asked her neighbors, “Have you good spurs?” “Ha!” cried

they, “must we fly, then?”

“No, surely,” replied Joan: “but there will be need to ride boldly; we

shall give a good account of the English, and our spurs will serve us

famously in pursuing them.” The battle began on the 18th of June, at

Patay, between Orleans and Chateaudun. By Joan’s advice, the French

attacked. “In the name of God,” said she, “we must fight. Though the

English were suspended from the clouds, we should have them, for God hath

sent us to punish them. The gentle king shall have to-day the greatest

victory he has ever had; my counsel hath told me they are ours.” The

English lost heart, in their turn; the battle was short, and the victory

brilliant; Lord Talbot and the most part of the English captains remained

prisoners. “Lord Talbot,” said the Duke d’Alencon to him, “this is not

what you expected this morning.” “It is the fortune of war,” answered

Talbot, with the cool dignity of an old warrior. Joan’s immediate return

to Orleans was a triumph; but even triumph has its embarrassments and

perils. She demanded the speedy march of the army upon Rheims, that the

king might be crowned there without delay; but objections were raised on

all sides, the objections of the timid and those of the jealous. “By

reason of Joan the Maid,” says a contemporary chronicler, “so many folks

came from all parts unto the king for to serve him at their own expense,

that La Tremoille and others of the council were much wroth thereat,

through anxiety for their own persons.” Joan, impatient and irritated at

so much hesitation and intrigue, took upon herself to act as if the

decision belonged to her. On the 25th of June she wrote to the

inhabitants of Tournai, “Loyal Frenchmen, I do pray and require you to be

all ready to come to the coronation of the gentle King Charles, at

Rheims, where we shall shortly be, and to come and meet us when ye shall

learn that we are approaching.” Two days afterwards, on the 27th of

June, she left Gien, where the court was, and went to take up her

quarters in the open country with the troops. There was nothing for it

but to follow her. On the 29th of June, the king, the court (including

La Tremoille), and the army, about twelve thousand strong, set out on the

march for Rheims. Other obstacles were encountered on the road. In most

of the towns the inhabitants, even the royalists, feared to compromise

themselves by openly pronouncing against the English and the Duke of

Burgundy. Those of Auxerre demanded a truce, offering provisions, and

promising to do as those of Troyes, Chalons, and Rheims should do. At

Troyes the difficulty was greater still. There was in it a garrison of

five or six hundred English and Burgundians, who had the burgesses under

their thumbs. All attempts at accommodation failed. There was great

perplexity in the royal camp; there were neither provisions enough for a

long stay before Troyes, nor batteries and siege trains to carry it by

force. There was talk of turning back. One of the king’s councillors,

Robert le Macon, proposed that Joan should be summoned to the council.

It was at her instance that the expedition had been undertaken; she had

great influence amongst the army and the populace; the idea ought not to

be given up without consulting her. Whilst he was speaking, Joan came

knocking at the door; she was told to come in; and the chancellor, the

Archbishop of Rheims, put the question to her. Joan, turning to the

king, asked him if he would believe her. “Speak,” said the king; “if you

say what is reasonable and tends to profit, readily will you be

believed.” “Gentle king of France,” said Joan, “if you be willing to

abide here before your town of Troyes, it shall be at your disposal

within two days, by love or by force; make no doubt of it.” “Joan,”

replied the chancellor, “whoever could be certain of having it within six

days might well wait for it; but say you true?” Joan repeated her

assertion; and it was decided to wait. Joan mounted her horse, and, with

her banner in her hand, she went through the camp, giving orders

everywhere to prepare for the assault. She had her own tent pitched

close to the ditch, “doing more,” says a contemporary, “than two of the

ablest captains would have done.” On the next day, July 10, all was

ready. Joan had the fascines thrown into the ditches, and was shouting

out, “Assault!” when the inhabitants of Troyes, burgesses and

men-at-arms, came demanding permission to capitulate. The conditions

were easy. The inhabitants obtained for themselves and their property

such guarantees as they desired; and the strangers were allowed to go out

with what belonged to them. On the morrow, July 11, the king entered

Troyes with all his captains, and at his side the Maid carrying her

banner. All the difficulties of the journey were surmounted. On the

15th of July the Bishop of Chalons brought the keys of his town to the

king, who took up his quarters there. Joan found there four or five of

her own villagers, who had hastened up to see the young girl of Domremy

in all her glory. She received them with a satisfaction in which

familiarity was blended with gravity. To one of them, her godfather, she

gave a red cap which she had worn; to another, who had been a Burgundian,

she said, “I fear but one thing--treachery.” In the Duke d’Alencon’s

presence she repeated to the king, “Make good use of my time, for I shall

hardly last longer than a year.” On the 16th of July King Charles

entered Rheims, and the ceremony of his coronation was fixed for the

morrow.

It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which

recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the

Archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with the

Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. “In God’s name,”

said Joan to Dunois, “here is a good people and a devout when I die, I

should much like it to be in these parts.” “Joan,” inquired Dunois,

“know you when you will die, and in what place?” “I know not,” said she,

“for I am at the will of God.” Then she added, “I have accomplished that

which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the

gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it should please him to

send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their

cattle, and do that which was my wont.” “When the said lords,” says the

chronicler, an eye-witness, “heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes

towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed that it was

somewhat sent from God, and not otherwise.”

Historians, and even contemporaries, have given much discussion to the

question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really

limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the

coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She had said so herself several

times, just as she had to Dunois at Rheims on the 17th of July, 1429; but

she sometimes also spoke of more vast and varied projects, as, for

instance, driving the English completely out of France, and withdrawing

from his long captivity Charles, Duke of Orleans. He had been a prisoner

in London ever since the battle of Agincourt, and was popular in his day,

as he has continued to be in French history, on the double ground of

having been the father of Louis XII. and one of the most charming poets

in the ancient literature of France. The Duke d’Alencon, who was so high

in the regard of Joan, attributed to her more expressly this quadruple

design: “She said,” according to him, “that she had four duties; to get

rid of the English, to have the king anointed and crowned, to deliver

Duke Charles of Orleans, and to raise the siege laid by the English to

Orleans.” One is inclined to believe that Joan’s language to Dunois at

Rheims in the hour of Charles VII.’s coronation more accurately expressed

her first idea; the two other notions occurred to her naturally in

proportion as her hopes as well as her power kept growing greater with

success. But however lofty and daring her soul may have been, she had a

simple and not at all a fantastic mind. She may have foreseen the

complete expulsion of the English, and may have desired the deliverance

of the Duke of Orleans, without having in the first instance premeditated

anything more than she said to Dunois during the king’s coronation at

Rheims, which was looked upon by her as the triumph of the national

cause.

However that may be, when Orleans was relieved, and Charles VII.

crowned, the situation, posture, and part of Joan underwent a change.

She no longer manifested the same confidence in herself and her designs.

She no longer exercised over those in whose midst she lived the same

authority. She continued to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, sometimes

with and sometimes without success, just like La Hire and Dunois; never

discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking upon her-self as

triumphant. After the coronation, her advice was to march at once upon

Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, as being the political

centre of the realm of which Rheims was the religious. Nothing of the

sort was done. Charles and La Tremoille once more began their course of

hesitation, tergiversation, and changes of tactics and residence without

doing anything of a public and decisive character. They negotiated with

the Duke of Burgundy, in the hope of detaching him from the English

cause; and they even concluded with him a secret, local, and temporary

truce. From the 20th of July to the 23d of August Joan followed the king

whithersoever he went, to Chateau-Thierry, to Senlis, to Blois, to

Provins, and to Compigne, as devoted as ever, but without having her

former power. She was still active, but not from inspiration and to obey

her voices, simply to promote the royal policy. She wrote the Duke of

Burgundy a letter full of dignity and patriotism, which had no more

effect than the negotiations of La Tremoille. During this fruitless

labor amongst the French the Duke of Bedford sent for five thousand men

from England, who came and settled themselves at Paris. One division of

this army had a white standard, in the middle of which was depicted a

distaff full of cotton; a half-filled spindle was hanging to the distaff;

and the field, studded with empty spindles, bore this inscription: “Now,

fair one, come!” Insult to Joan was accompanied by redoubled war against

France. Joan, saddened and wearied by the position of things, attempted

to escape from it by a bold stroke. On the 23d of August, 1429, she set

out from Compiegne with the Duke d’Alencon and “a fair company of

men-at-arms;” and suddenly went and occupied St. Denis, with the view of

attacking Paris. Charles VII. felt himself obliged to quit Compiegne

likewise, “and went, greatly against the grain,” says a contemporary

chronicler, “as far as into the town of Senlis.” The attack on Paris

began vigorously. Joan, with the Duke d’Alencon, pitched her camp at La

Chapelle. Charles took up his abode in the abbey of St. Denis. The

municipal corporation of Paris received letters with the arms of the Duke

d’Alencon, which called upon them to recognize the king’s authority, and

promised a general amnesty. The assault was delivered on the 8th of

September. Joan was severely wounded, but she insisted upon remaining

where she was. Night came, and the troops had not entered the breach

which had been opened in the morning. Joan was still calling out to

persevere. The Duke d’Alencon himself begged her, but in vain, to

retire. La Tremoille gave orders to retreat; and some knights came up,

set Joan on horse-back, and led her back, against her will, to La

Chapelle. “By my martin” (staff of command), said she, “the place would

have been taken.” One hope still remained. In concert with the Duke

d’Alencon she had caused a flying bridge to be thrown across the Seine

opposite St. Denis. The next day but one she sent her vanguard in this

direction; she intended to return thereby to the siege; but, by the

king’s order, the bridge had been cut adrift. St. Denis fell once more

into the hands of the English. Before leaving, Joan left there, on the

tomb of St. Denis, her complete suit of armor and a sword she had lately

obtained possession of at the St. Honore gate of Paris, as trophy of war.

From the 13th of September, 1429, to the 24th of May, 1430, she continued

to lead the same life of efforts ever equally valiant and equally

ineffectual. She failed in an attempt upon Laemir. Charite-sur-Loire,

undertaken, for all that appears, with the sole design of recovering an

important town in the possession of the enemy. The English evacuated

Paris, and left the keeping of it to the Duke of Burgundy, no doubt to

test his fidelity. On the 13th of Aprils 1430, at the expiration of the

truce he had concluded, Philip the Good resumed hostilities against

Charles VII. Joan of Arc once more plunged into them with her wonted

zeal. Ile-de-France and Picardy became the theatre of war. Compiegne

was regarded as the gate of the road between these two provinces; and the

Duke of Burgundy attached much importance to holding the key of it. The

authority of Charles VII. was recognized there; and a young knight of

Compiegne, William de Flavy, held the command there as lieutenant of La

Tremoille, who had got himself appointed captain of the town. La

Tremoille attempted to treat with the Duke of Burgundy for the cession of

Compiegne; but the inhabitants were strenuously opposed to it. “They

were,” they said, “the king’s most humble subjects, and they desired to

serve him with body and substance; but as for trusting themselves to the

lord Duke of Burgundy, they could not do it; they were resolved to suffer

destruction, themselves and their wives and children, rather than be

exposed to the tender mercies of the said duke.” Meanwhile Joan of Arc,

after several warlike expeditions in the neighborhood, re-entered

Compiegne, and was received there with a popular expression of

satisfaction. “She was presented,” says a local chronicler, with three

hogsheads of wine, a present which was large and exceeding costly, and

which showed the estimate formed of this maiden’s worth.” Joan

manifested the profound distrust with which she was inspired of the Duke

of Burgundy. There is no peace possible with him,” she said, “save at

the point of the lance.” She had quarters at the house of the king’s

attorney, Le Boucher, and shared the bed of his wife, Mary. “She often

made the said Mary rise from her bed to go and warn the said attorney to

be on his guard against several acts of Burgundian treachery.” At this

period, again, she said she was often warned by her voices of what must

happen to her; she expected to be taken prisoner before St. John’s or

Midsummer-day (June 24); on what day and hour she did not know; she had

received no instructions as to sorties from the place; but she had

constantly been told that she would be taken, and she was distrustful of

the captains who were in command there. She was, nevertheless, not the

less bold and enterprising. On the 20th of May, 1430, the Duke of

Burgundy came and laid siege to Compiegne. Joan was away on an

expedition to Crepy in Valois, with a small band of three or four hundred

brave comrades. On the 24th of May, the eve of Ascension-day, she

learned that Compiegne was being besieged, and she resolved to re-enter

it. She was reminded that her force was a very weak one to cut its way

through the besiegers’ camp. “By my martin,” said she, “we are enough; I

will go see my friends in Compiegne.” She arrived about daybreak without

hinderance, and penetrated into the town; and repaired immediately to the

parish church of St. Jacques to perform her devotions on the eve of so

great a festival. Many persons, attracted by her presence, and amongst

others “from a hundred to six-score children,” thronged to the church.

After hearing mass, and herself taking the communion, Joan said to those

who surrounded her, “My children and dear friends, I notify you that I am

sold and betrayed, and that I shall shortly be delivered over to death; I

beseech you, pray God for me.” When evening came, she was not the less

eager to take part in a sortie with her usual comrades and a troop of

about five hundred men. William de Flavy, commandant of the place, got

ready some boats on the Oise to assist the return of the troops. All the

town-gates were closed, save the bridge-gate. The sortie was

unsuccessful. Being severely repulsed and all but hemmed in, the

majority of the soldiers shouted to Joan, “Try to quickly regain the

town, or we are lost.” “Silence,” said Joan; “it only rests with you to

throw the enemy into confusion; think only of striking at them.” Her

words and her bravery were in vain; the infantry flung themselves into

the boats, and regained the town, and Joan and her brave comrades covered

their retreat. The Burgundians were coming up in mass upon Compiegne,

and Flavy gave orders to pull up the draw-bridge and let down the

portcullis. Joan and some of her following lingered outside, still

fighting. She wore a rich surcoat and a red sash, and all the efforts of

the Burgundians were directed against her. Twenty men thronged round her

horse; and a Picard archer, “a tough fellow and mighty sour,” seized her

by her dress, and flung her on the ground. All, at once, called on her

to surrender. “Yield you to me,” said one of them; “pledge your faith to

me; I am a gentleman.” It was an archer of the bastard of Wandonne, one

of the lieutenants of John of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny. “I have

pledged my faith to one other than you,” said Joan, “and to Him I will

keep my oath.” The archer took her and conducted her to Count John,

whose prisoner she became.

Was she betrayed and delivered up, as she had predicted? Did William de

Flavy purposely have the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered

before she could get back into Compiegne? He was suspected of it at the

time, and many historians have indorsed the suspicion. But there is

nothing to prove it. That La Tremoille, prime minister of Charles VII.,

and Reginald de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, had an antipathy to Joan

of Arc, and did all they could on every occasion to compromise her and

destroy her influence, and that they were glad to see her a prisoner, is

as certain as anything can be. On announcing her capture to the

inhabitants of Rheims, the arch-bishop said, “She would not listen to

counsel, and did everything according to her pleasure.” But there is a

long distance between such expressions and a premeditated plot to deliver

to the enemy the young heroine who had just raised the siege of Orleans

and brought the king to be crowned at Rheims. History must not, without

proof, impute crimes so odious and so shameful to even the most depraved

of men.

However that may be, Joan remained for six months the prisoner of John of

Luxembourg, who, to make his possession of her secure, sent her, under

good escort, successively to his two castles of Beaulieu and Beaurevoir,

one in the Vermandois and the other in the Cambresis. Twice, in July and

in October, 1430, Joan attempted, unsuccessfully, to escape. The second

time she carried despair and hardihood so far as to throw herself down

from the platform of her prison. She was picked up cruelly bruised, but

without any fracture or wound of importance. Her fame, her youth, her

virtue, her courage, made her, even in her prison and in the very family

of her custodian, two warm and powerful friends. John of Luxembourg had

with him his wife, Joan of Bethune, and his aunt, Joan of Luxembourg,

godmother of Charles VII. They both of them took a tender interest in

the prisoner; and they often went to see her, and left nothing undone to

mitigate the annoyances of a prison. One thing only shocked them about

her--her man’s clothes. “They offered her,” as Joan herself said, when

questioned upon this subject at a later period during her trial, “a

woman’s dress, or stuff to make it to her liking, and requested her to

wear it; but she answered that she had not leave from our Lord, and that

it was not yet time for it.” John of Luxembourg’s aunt was full of years

and reverenced as a saint. Hearing that the English were tempting her

nephew by the offer of a sum of money to give up his prisoner to them,

she conjured him in her will, dated September 10, 1430, not to sully by

such an act the honor of his name. But Count John was neither rich nor

scrupulous; and pretexts were not wanting to aid his cupidity and his

weakness. Joan had been taken at Compiegne on the 23d of May, in the

evening; and the news arrived in Paris on the 25th of May, in the

morning. On the morrow, the 26th, the registrar of the University, in

the name and under the seal of the inquisition of France, wrote a

citation to the Duke of Burgundy “to the end that the Maid should be

delivered up to appear before the said inquisitor, and to respond to the

good counsel, favor, and aid of the good doctors and masters of the

University of Paris.” Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, had been the

prime mover in this step. Some weeks later, on the 14th of July, seeing

that no reply arrived from the Duke of Burgundy, he caused a renewal of

the same demands to be made on the part of the University in more urgent

terms, and he added, in his own name, that Joan, having been taken at

Compiegne, in his own diocese, belonged to him as judge spiritual. He

further asserted that “according to the law, usage, and custom of France,

every prisoner of war, even were it king, _dauphin_, or other prince,

might be redeemed in the name of the King of England in consideration of

an indemnity of ten thousand livres granted to the capturer.” Nothing

was more opposed to the common law of nations and to the feudal spirit,

often grasping, but noble at bottom. For four months still, John of

Luxembourg hesitated; but his aunt, Joan, died at Boulogne, on the 13th

of November, and Joan of Arc had no longer near him this powerful

intercessor. The King of England transmitted to the keeping of his

coffers at Rouen, in golden coin, English money, the sum of ten thousand

livres. John of Luxembourg yielded to the temptation. On the 21st of

November, 1430, Joan of Arc was handed over to the King of England, and

the same day the University of Paris, through its rector, Hebert,

besought that sovereign, as King of France, “to order that this woman be

brought to their city for to be shortly placed in the hands of the

justice of the Church, that is, of our honored lord, the Bishop and Count

of Beauvais, and also of the ordained inquisitor in France, in order that

her trial may be conducted officially and securely.”

It was not to Paris, but to Rouen, the real capital of the English in

France, that Joan was taken. She arrived there on the 23d of December,

1430. On the 3d of January, 1431, an order from Henry VI., King of

England, placed her in the hands of the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter

Cauchon. Some days afterwards, Count John of Luxembourg, accompanied by

his brother, the English chancellor, by his esquire, and by two English

lords, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Humphrey, Earl of

Stafford, the King of England’s constable in France, entered the prison.

Had John of Luxembourg come out of sheer curiosity, or to relieve himself

of certain scruples by offering Joan a chance for her life? “Joan,” said

he, “I am come hither to put you to ransom, and to treat for the price of

your deliverance; only give us your promise here to no more bear arms

against us.” “In God’s name,” answered Joan, “are you making a mock of

me, captain? Ransom me! You have neither the will nor the power; no,

you have neither.” The count persisted. “I know well,” said Joan, “that

these English will put me to death; but were they a hundred thousand more

Goddams than have already been in France, they shall never have the

kingdom.”

At this patriotic burst on the heroine’s part, the Earl of Stafford half

drew his dagger from the sheath as if to strike Joan, but the Earl of

Warwick held him back. The visitors went out from the prison and handed

over Joan to the judges.

The court of Rouen was promptly formed, but not without opposition and

difficulty. Though Joan had lost somewhat of her greatness and

importance by going beyond her main object, and by showing recklessness,

unattended by success, on small occasions, she still remained the true,

heroic representative of the feelings and wishes of the nation. When she

was removed from Beaurevoir to Rouen, all the places at which she stopped

were like so many luminous points for the illustration of her popularity.

At Arras, a Scot showed her a portrait of her which he wore, an outward

sign of the devoted worship of her lieges. At Amiens, the chancellor of

the cathedral gave her audience at confession and administered to her the

eucharist. At Abbeville, ladies of distinction went five leagues to pay

her a visit; they were glad to have had the happiness of seeing her so

firm and resigned to the will of Our Lord; they wished her all the favors

of heaven, and then wept affectionately on taking leave of her. Joan,

touched by their sympathy and open heartedness, said, “Ah! what a good

people is this! Would to God I might be so happy, when my days are

ended, as to be buried in these parts!”

When the Bishop of Beauvais, installed at Rouen, set about forming his

court of justice, the majority of the members he appointed amongst the

clergy or the University of Paris obeyed the summons without hesitation.

Some few would have refused; but their wishes were overruled. The Abbot

of Jumieges, Nicholas de Houppeville, maintained that the trial was not

legal. The Bishop of Beauvais, he said, belonged to the party which

declared itself hostile to the Maid; and, besides, he made himself judge

in a case already decided by his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Rheims,

of whom Beauvais was holden, and who had approved of Joan’s conduct. The

bishop summoned before him the recalcitrant, who refused to appear,

saying that he was under no official jurisdiction but that of Rouen. He

was arrested and thrown into prison, by order of the bishop, whose

authority he denied. There was some talk of banishing him, and even of

throwing him into the river; but the influence of his brethren saved him.

The sub-inquisitor himself allowed the trial in which he was to be one of

the judges to begin without him; and he only put in an appearance at the

express order of the inquisitor-general, and on a confidential hint that

he would be in danger of his life if he persisted in his refusal. The

court being thus constituted, Joan, after it had been put in possession

of the evidence already collected, was cited, on the 20th of February,

1431, to appear on the morrow, the 21st, before her judges assembled in

the chapel of Rouen Castle.

The trial lasted from the 21st of February to the 30th of May, 1431. The

court held forty sittings, mostly in the chapel of the castle, some in

Joan’s very prison. On her arrival there, she had been put in an iron

cage; afterwards she was kept no longer in the cage, but in a dark room

in a tower of the castle, wearing irons upon her feet, fastened by a

chain to a large piece of wood, and guarded night and day by four or five

“soldiers of low grade.” She complained of being thus chained; but the

bishop told her that her former attempts at escape demanded this

precaution. “It is true,” said Joan, as truthful as heroic, “I did wish

and I still wish to escape from prison, as is the right of every

prisoner.” At her examination, the bishop required her to take an oath

to tell the truth about everything as to which she should be questioned.”

“I know not what you mean to question me about; perchance you may ask me

things I would not tell you; touching my revelations, for instance, you

might ask me to tell something I have sworn not to tell; thus I should be

perjured, which you ought not to desire.” The bishop insisted upon an

oath absolute and with-out condition. “You are too hard on me,” said

Joan; I do not like to take an oath to tell the truth save as to matters

which concern the faith.” The bishop called upon her to swear on pain of

being held guilty of the things imputed to her.

[Illustration: Joan examined in Prison----128]

“Go on to something else,” said she. And this was the answer she made to

all questions which seemed to her to be a violation of her right to be

silent. Wearied and hurt at these imperious demands, she one day said,

“I come on God’s business, and I have nought to do here; send me back to

God, from whom I come.” “Are you sure you are in God’s grace?” asked the

bishop. “If I be not,” answered Joan, “please God to bring me to it; and

if I be, please God to keep me in it!” The bishop himself remained

dumbfounded.

There is no object in following through all its sittings and all its

twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges’ prejudiced

servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear

out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of

nineteen, who refused at one time to lie, and at another to enter into

discussion with them, and made no defence beyond holding her tongue or

appealing to God who had spoken to her and dictated to her that which she

had done. In order to force her from her silence or bring her to submit

to the Church instead of appealing from it to God, it was proposed to

employ the last means of all, torture. On the 9th of May the bishop had

Joan brought into the great tower of Rouen Castle; the instruments of

torture were displayed before her eyes; and the executioners were ready

to fulfil their office, “for to bring her back,” said the bishop, “into

the ways of truth, in order to insure the salvation of her soul and body,

so gravely endangered by erroneous inventions.” “Verily,” answered Joan,

“if you should have to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul from

body, I should not tell you aught else; and if I were to tell you aught

else, I should afterwards still tell you that you had made me tell it by

force.” The idea of torture was given up. It was resolved to display

all the armory of science in order to subdue the mind of this young girl,

whose conscience was not to be subjugated. The chapter of Rouen declared

that in consequence of her public refusal to submit herself to the

decision of the Church as to her deeds and her statements, Joan deserved

to be declared a heretic. The University of Paris, to which had been

handed in the twelve heads of accusation resulting from Joan’s statements

and examinations, replied that “if, having been charitably admonished,

she would not make reparation and return to union with the Catholic

faith, she must be left to the secular judges to undergo punishment for

her crime.” Armed with these documents the Bishop of Beauvais had Joan

brought up, on the 23d of May, in a hall adjoining her prison, and, after

having addressed to her a long exhortation, “Joan,” said he, “if in the

dominions of your king, when you were at large in them, a knight or any

other, born under his rule and allegiance to him, had risen up, saying,

‘I will not obey the king or submit to his officers,’ would you not have

said that he ought to be condemned? What then will you say of yourself,

you who were born in the faith of Christ and became by baptism a daughter

of the Church and spouse of Jesus Christ, if you obey not the officers of

Christ, that is, the prelates of the Church?” Joan listened modestly to

this admonition, and confined herself to answering, “As to my deeds and

sayings, what I said of them at the trial I do hold to and mean to abide

by.” “Think you that you are not bound to submit your sayings and deeds

to the Church militant or to any other than God?” “The course that I

always mentioned and pursued at the trial I mean to maintain as to that.

If I were at the stake, and saw the torch lighted, and the executioner

ready to set fire to the fagots, even if I were in the midst of the

flames, I should not say aught else, and I should uphold that which I

said at the trial even unto death.”