ORLEANS
There is some sight-seeing to be done in Meung, but we were too anxious
to get to Orleans to stop for it. Yet we did not hurry through our last
summer morning along the Loire. I do not know what could be more lovely
than our leisurely hour--the distance was fifteen miles--under cool,
outspreading branches, with glimpses of the bright river and vistas of
happy fields.
We did not even try to imagine, as we approached the outskirts, that the
Orleans of Joan's time presented anything of its appearance to-day.
Orleans is a modern, or modernized, city, and, except the river, there
could hardly be anything in the present prospect that Joan saw. That it
is the scene of her first military conquest and added its name to the
title by which she belongs to history is, however, enough to make it one
of the holy places of France.
It has been always a military city, a place of battles. Caesar burned it,
Attila attacked it, Clovis captured it--there was nearly always war of
one sort or another going on there. The English and Burgundians would
have had it in 1429 but for the arrival of Joan's army. Since then war
has visited Orleans less frequently. Its latest experience was with the
Germans who invested it in 1870-71.
Joan was misled by her generals, whose faith in her was not complete.
Orleans lies on the north bank of the Loire; they brought her down on
the south bank, fearing the prowess of the enemy's forces. Discovering
the deception, the Maid promptly sent the main body of her troops back
some thirty-five miles to a safe crossing, and, taking a thousand men,
passed over the Loire and entered the city by a gate still held by the
French. That the city was not completely surrounded made it possible to
attack the enemy simultaneously from within and without, while her
presence among the Orleanese would inspire them with new hope and valor.
Mark Twain in his _Recollections_ pictures the great moment of her
entry.
It was eight in the evening when she and her troops rode in
at the Burgundy gate.... She was riding a white horse, and
she carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You
should have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such
black seas of people, such a starry firmament of torches,
such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells
and thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to
an end. Everywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank
upon rank of upturned white faces, the mouths wide open,
shouting, and the unchecked tears running down; Joan forged
her slow way through the solid masses, her mailed form
projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver statue.
The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her
through their tears with the rapt look of men and women who
believe they are seeing one who is divine; and always her
feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as failed
of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed their
fingers.
This was the 29th of April. Nine days later, May 8, 1429, after some
fierce fighting during which Joan was severely wounded, the besiegers
were scattered, Orleans was free. Mark Twain writes:
No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit
of glory as Joan of Arc reached that day.... Orleans will
never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it.
It is Joan of Arc's day--and holy.
Two days, May 7th and 8th, are given each year to the celebration, and
Orleans in other ways has honored the memory of her deliverer. A wide
street bears her name, and there are noble statues, and a museum, and
holy church offerings. The Boucher home which sheltered Joan during her
sojourn in Orleans has been preserved; at least a house is still shown
as the Boucher house, though how much of the original structure remains
no one at this day seems willing to decide.
We drove there first, for it is the only spot in Orleans that can claim
even a possibility of having known Joan's actual impress. It is a house
of the old cross-timber and brick architecture, and if these are not the
veritable walls that Joan saw they must at least bear a close
resemblance to those of the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the
Duke of Orleans, where Joan was made welcome. The interior is less
convincing. It is ecclesiastical, and there is an air of general newness
and reconstruction about it that suggests nothing of that long-ago
occupancy. It was rather painful to linger, and we were inclined now to
hesitate at the thought of visiting the ancient home of Agnes Sorel,
where the Joan of Arc Museum is located.
It would have been a mistake not to do so, however. It is only a few
doors away on the same street, rue du Tabour, and it is a fine old
mansion, genuinely old, and fairly overflowing with objects of every
conceivable sort relating to Joan of Arc. Books, statuary, paintings,
armor, banners, offerings, coins, medals, ornaments, engravings,
letters--thousands upon thousands of articles gathered there in the
Maid's memory. I think there is not one of them that her hand ever
touched, or that she ever saw, but in their entirety they convey, as
nothing else could, the reverence that Joan's memory has inspired during
the centuries that have gone since her presence made this sacred ground.
Until the revolution Orleans preserved Joan's banner, some of her
clothing, and other genuine relics; but then the mob burned them,
probably because Joan delivered France to royalty. One finds it rather
easy to forgive the revolutionary mob almost anything--certainly
anything more easily than such insane vandalism. We were shown an
ancient copy of the banner, still borne, I believe, in the annual
festivals. Baedeker speaks of arms and armor worn at the siege of
Orleans, but the guardian of the place was not willing to guarantee
their genuineness. I wish he had not thought it necessary to be so
honest. He did show us a photograph of Joan's signature, the original of
which belongs to one of her collateral descendants. She wrote it
"Jehanne," and her pen must have been guided by her secretary, Louis de
Conte, for Joan could neither read nor write.
We drove to the Place Martroi to see the large equestrienne statue of
Joan by Foyatier, with reliefs by Vital Dubray. It is very imposing,
and the reliefs showing the great moments in Joan's career are really
fine. We did not care to hunt for other memorials. It was enough to
drive about the city trying to pick out a house here and there that
looked as if it might have been standing five hundred years, but if
there were any of that age--any that had looked upon the wild joy of
Joan's entrance and upon her triumphal departure, they were very few
indeed.