Queens, Emperors and Empresses. The Austrian Empress, Eleanora de
Gonzague, founded two orders, which admitted only ladies as members.
The first was in commemoration of the miraculous preservation of a
particle of the true cross, which escaped the ravages of a fire which
nearly destroyed the imperial residence, in 1668. Besides this Order
of the Cross, the same Empress instituted the Order of the Slaves of
Virtue. This was hardly a complimentary title, for a slave necessarily
implies a compulsory and unwilling servant. The number of members were
limited to thirty, and these were required to be noble, and of the
Romish religion. The motto was, _Sole ubique triumphat_; which may have
implied that she only who best served virtue, was likely to profit by
it. This was not making a very exalted principle of virtue itself. It
was rather placing it in the point of view wherein it was considered by
Pamela, who was by far too calculating a young lady to deserve all the
eulogy that has been showered upon her.
Another Empress of Germany, Elizabeth Christiana, founded, in the early
part of the last century, at Vienna, an Order of Neighborly Love. It
consisted of persons of both sexes; but nobody was accounted a neighbor
who was not noble. With regard to numbers, it was unlimited. The motto
of the order was _Amor Proximi_; a motto which exactly characterized
the feelings of Queen Guinever for any handsome knight who happened
to be her neighbor for the nonce. “Proximus” at the meetings of the
order was, of course, of that convenient gender whereby all the members
of the order could profit by its application. They might have had a
particularly applicable song, if they had only possessed a Béranger to
sing as the French lyrist has done.
There was also in Germany an order for ladies only, that was of a very
sombre character. It was the Order of Death’s Head; and was founded
just two centuries ago, by a Duke of Wirtemburg, who decreed that a
princess of that house should always be at the head of it. The rules
bound ladies to an observance of conduct which they were not likely
to observe, if the rule of Christianity was not strong enough to bind
them; and probably many fair ladies who wore the double cross, with
the death’s head pending from the lower one, looked on the motto of
“Memento Mori,” as a reminder to daring lovers who dared to look on
_them_.
France had given us, in ladies’ orders, first, the Order of the
Cordelière, founded by that Anne of Brittany who brought her
independent duchy as a dower to Charles VIII. of France, and who did
for the French court what Queen Charlotte effected for that of England,
at a much later period. Another Anne, of Austria, wife of Louis XIII.,
and some say of Cardinal Mazarin also, founded, for ladies, the Order
of the Celestial Collar of the Holy Rosary. The members consisted of
fifty young ladies of the first families in France; and they all wore,
appended to other and very charming insignia hanging from the neck,
a portrait of St. Dominic, who found himself in the best possible
position for instilling all sorts of good principles into a maiden’s
bosom.
The Order of the Bee was founded a century and a half ago by Louisa de
Bourbon, Duchess of Maine. The ensign was a medal, with the portrait of
the duchess on one side, and the figure of a bee, with the motto, _Je
suis petite, mais mes piqueures sont profondes_, on the other.
In Russia, Peter the Great founded the Order of St. Catherine, in honor
of his wife, and gave as its device, _Pour l’amour et la fidélité
envers la patrie_. It was at first intended for men, but was ultimately
made a female order exclusively. A similar change was found necessary
in the Spanish Order of the Lady of Mercy, founded in the thirteenth
century by James, King of Aragon. There were other female orders in
Spain, and the whole of them had for their object the furtherance of
religion, order, and virtue. In some cases, membership was conferred
in acknowledgment of merit. Who forgets Miss Jane Porter in her
costume and insignia of a lady of one of the orders of Polish female
chivalry--and who is ignorant that Mrs. Otway has been recently
decorated by the Queen of Spain with the Order of Maria Louisa?
The Order of St. Ulrica, in Sweden, was founded in 1734, in honor
of a lady, the reigning Queen, and to commemorate the liberty which
Sweden had acquired and enjoyed from the period of her accession. Two
especial qualities were necessary in the candidates for knighthood in
this order. It was necessary that a public tribunal should declare
that they were men of pure public spirit; and it was further required
of them to prove that in serving the country, they had never been
swayed by motives of private interest. When the order was about to
be founded, not less than five hundred candidates appeared to claim
chivalric honor. Of these, only fifty were chosen, and decree was
made that the number of knights should never exceed that amount. It
was an unnecessary decree, if the qualifications required were to be
stringently demanded. But, in the conferring of honors generally, there
has often been little connection between cause and effect; as, for
instance, after Major-General Simpson had failed to secure the victory
which the gallantry of our troops had put in his power at the Redan,
the home government was so delighted, that they made field-marshals of
two very old gentlemen. The example was not lost on the King of the
Belgians. He, too, commemorated the fall of Sebastopol by enlarging the
number of his knights. He could not well scatter decorations among his
army, for that has been merely a military police, but he made selection
of an equally destructive body, and named eighteen doctors--Knights of
St. Leopold.
These orders of later institution appear to have forgotten one of the
leading principles of knighthood--love for the ladies--but perhaps this
is quite as well. When Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, instituted the Order
of the Golden Shield, he was by no means so forgetful. He enjoined his
knights to honor the ladies above all, and never permit any one to
slander them with impunity; “because,” said the good duke, “after God,
we owe everything to the labors of the ladies, and all the honor that
man can acquire.” One portion of which assertion may certainly defy
contradiction.
The most illustrious of female knights, however, is, without dispute,
the Maid of Orleans. Poor Jeanne Darc seems to me to have been an
illustrious dupe and an innocent victim. Like Charlotte Corday, the
calamities of her country weighed heavily upon her spirits, and her
consequent eager desire to relieve them, caused her to be marked
as a fitting instrument for a desired end. Poor Charlotte Corday
commissioned herself for the execution of the heroic deed which
embellishes her name--Jeanne Darc was evidently commissioned by others.
The first step taken by Jeanne to obtain access to the Dauphin, was to
solicit the assistance of the proud De Baudricourt, who resided not far
from the maid’s native place, Domremy. However pious the young girl
may have been, De Baudricourt was not the man to give her a public
reception, had not some foregone conclusion accompanied it. She needed
his help to enable her to proceed to Chinon. The answer of the great
chief was that she should not be permitted to go there. The reply of
the maid, who was always uncommonly “smart” in her answers, was that
she _would_ go to Chinon, although she were forced to crawl the whole
way on her knees. She _did_ go, and the circumstances of a mere young
girl, who was in the habit of holding intercourse with angels and
archangels, thus overcoming, as it were, the most powerful personage
in the district, was proof enough to the common mind, as to whence
she derived her strength and authority. The corps of priests by whom
she was followed, as soon as her divine mission was acknowledged or
invented by the court, lent her additional influence, and sanctified in
her own mind, her doubtless honest enthusiasm. The young girl did all
to which she pledged herself, and in return, was barbarously treated
by both friend and foe, and was most hellishly betrayed by the Church,
under whose benediction she had raised her banner. She engaged to
relieve Orleans from the terrible English army which held it in close
siege, and she nobly kept her engagement. It may be noticed that the
first person slain in this siege, was a young lady named Belle, and
the fair sex thus furnished the first victim, as well as the great
conqueror, in this remarkable conflict.
I pass over general details, in order to have the more space to notice
particular illustrative circumstances touching our female warrior.
Jeanne, it must be allowed, was extremely bold of assertion as well
as smart in reply. She would have delighted a Swedenborgian by the
alacrity with which she protested that she held intercourse with
spirits from Heaven and prophets of old. Nothing was so easy as to make
her believe so; and she was quite as ready to deny the alleged fact
when her clerical accusers, in the day of her adversity, declared that
such belief was a suggestion of the devil. I think there was some humor
and a little reproach in the reply by Jeanne, that she would maintain
or deny nothing but as she was directed by the Church.
Meanwhile, during her short but glorious career, she manifested true
chivalrous spirit. She feared no man, not even the brave Dunois.
“Bastard, bastard!” said she to him on one occasion, “in the name of
God, hear me; I command you to let me know of the arrival of Fastolf
as soon as it takes place; for, hark ye, if he passes without my
knowledge, I give you my word, you shall lose your head.” And thereon
she turned to her dinner of dry bread and wine-and-water--half a pint
of the first to two pints of the last, with the quiet air of a person
able and determined to realize every menace.
It is very clear that her brother knights, while they profited by her
services, and obeyed (with some reluctance) her orders, neither thought
nor spoke over-well of her. Their comments were not complimentary to
a virgin reputation, which a jury of princesses, with a queen for a
forewoman, had pronounced unblemished. She even risked her _prestige_
over the common rank and file, but generally by measures which resulted
in strengthening it. Thus, on taking the Fort of the Augustins from
the English, she destroyed all the rich things and lusty wine she
found there, lest the men should be corrupted by indulgence therein.
It may be remembered that Gustavus Vasa highly disgusted his valiant
Dalecarlians by a similar exhibition of healthy discipline.
The Maid undoubtedly placed the work of fighting before the pleasure of
feasting. When she was about to issue from her lodgings, to head the
attack against the bastion of the Tourelles, where she prophesied she
would be wounded, her host politely begged of her to remain and partake
of a dish of freshly-caught shad. It was the 7th of May, and shad was
just in season; the Germans call it distinctively “the May-fish.”
Jeanne resisted the temptation for the moment. “Keep the fish till
to-night,” said she, “till I have come back from the fray; for I shall
bring a Goden [a ‘God d--n,’ or Englishman] with me to partake of my
supper.”
She was not more ready of tongue than she was quick of eye. An instance
of the latter may be found in an incident before Jargeau. She was
reconnoitring the place at a considerable distance. The period was
more than a century and a half before Hans Lippershey, the Middleburg
spectacle-maker, had invented, and still more before Galileo had
improved, the telescope. The Duke d’Alençon was with Jeanne, and she
bade him step aside, as the enemy were pointing a gun at him. The Duke
obeyed, for he knew her acuteness of vision; the gun was fired, and
De Lude, a gentleman of Anjou, standing in a line with the spot which
had been occupied by the Duke, was slain--which must have been very
satisfactory to the Duke!
I have said that some of the knights had but a scanty respect for the
gallant Maid. A few, no doubt, objected to the assumption of heavenly
inspiration on her part. One, at least, was not so particular. I
allude to the Baron De Richemond, who had been exiled from court for
the little misdemeanor of having assassinated Cannes de Beaulieu. The
Baron had recovered his good name by an actively religious exercise,
manifested by his hunting after wizards and witches, and burning
them alive, to the delight and edification of dull villagers. This
pious personage paid a visit to Jeanne, hoping to obtain, by her
intercession, the royal permission to have a share in the war. The
disgraced knight, who brought with him a couple of thousand men, when
these were most wanted, was not likely to meet with a refusal of
service, and the permission sought for was speedily granted. Jeanne
playfully alluded to her own supernatural inspiration and the Baron’s
vocation as “witch-finder.” “Ah well,” said De Richemond, “with regard
to yourself, I have only this to say, that it is difficult to say
anything; but if you are from Heaven, it is not I who shall be afraid
of you; and if you come from the devil, I do not fear even him, who, in
such case, sends you.” Thereupon, they laughed merrily, and began to
talk of the next day’s battle.
That battle was fought upon the field of Patay, where the gallant
Talbot was made prisoner by the equally gallant Saintrailles. When the
great English commander was brought into the presence of Jeanne, he was
good-humoredly asked if he had expected such a result the day before.
“It is the fortune of war,” philosophically exclaimed the inimitable
John; and thereby he made a soldier’s comment, which has often since
been in the mouths of the valiant descendants of the French knights who
heard it uttered, and which is frequently quoted as being of Gallic
origin. But, again, I think that “fortuna belli” was not an uncommon
phrase, perhaps, in old days before the French language was yet spoken.
And here, talking of origin, let me notice a circumstance of some
interest. Jeanne Darc is commonly described as Jeanne D’Arc, as though
she had been ennobled. This, indeed, she was, by the King, but not
by that name. To the old family name was added that of _du Lys_, in
allusion to the Lily of France, which that family had served so well.
The brothers of Jeanne, now Darc du Lys, entered the army. When Guise
sent a French force into Scotland, some gallant gentlemen of this name
of Lys were among them. They probably settled in Caledonia, for the
name is not an uncommon one there; and there is a gallant major in
the 48th who bears it, and who, perhaps, may owe his descent to the
ennobled brothers of “The Maid of Orleans.”
Jeanne was not so affected as to believe that nobility was above the
desert of her deeds. When her relatives, including her brothers,
Peter and John, congratulated her and themselves on all that she
had accomplished, her remark was: “My deeds are in truth those of a
ministry; but in as great truth never were greater read of by cleric,
however profound he may be in all clerical learning.” The degree of
nobility allowed to the deserving girl was that of a countess. Her
household consisted of a steward, almoner, squire, pages, “hand, foot,
and chamber men,” independently of the noble maidens who tended her,
and who seem to have been equally served by three “valets de main, de
pied, et de chambre.”
But short-lived was the glory; no, I will not say _that_, let me rather
remark that short-lived was the worldly splendor of the chivalrous
my-lady countess. She had rendered all the service she could, when she
fell wounded before Paris, and was basely abandoned for a while by her
own party. She was rescued, ultimately, by D’Alençon, but only to be
more disgracefully abandoned on the one side, and evilly treated on
the other. When as a bleeding captive she was rudely dragged from the
field at Compiègne; church, court, and chivalry, ignobly abandoned the
poor and brave girl who had served all three in turn. By all three she
was now as fiercely persecuted; and it may safely be said, that if the
English were glad to burn her as a witch, to account for the defeat of
the English and their allies, the French were equally eager to furnish
testimony against her.
Her indecision and vacillation after falling into the hands of her
enemies, would seem to show that apart from the promptings of those
who had guided her, she was but an ordinary personage. She, however,
never lost heart, and her natural wit did not abandon her. “Was St.
Michael naked when he appeared to you?” was a question asked by one of
the examining commissioners. To which Jeanne replied, “Do you think
heaven has not wherewith to dress him?” “Had he any hair on his head?”
was the next sensible question. Jeanne answered it by another query,
“Have the goodness to tell me,” said she, “why Michael’s head should
have been shaved?” It was easy, of course, to convict a prejudged and
predoomed person, of desertion of her parents, of leading a vagabond
and disreputable life, of sorcery, and finally, of heresy. She was
entrapped into answers which tended to prove her culpability; but
disregarding at last the complicated web woven tightly around her, and
aware that nothing could save her, the heart of the knightly maiden
beat firmly again, and as a summary reply to all questions, she briefly
and emphatically declared: “All that I have done, all that I do, I
have done well, and do well to do it.” In her own words, “Tout ce que
j’ai fait, tout ce que je fais, j’ai bien fait, et fais bien de le
faire;” and it was a simply-dignified _resume_ in presence of high-born
ecclesiastics, who did not scruple to give the lie to each other like
common ploughmen.
She was sentenced to death, and suffered the penalty, as being guilty
of infamy, socially, morally, religiously, and politically. Not a
finger was stretched to save her who had saved so many. Her murder is
an indelible stain on two nations and one church; not the less so that
the two nations unite in honoring her memory, and that the church has
pronounced her innocent. Never did gallant champion meet with such
base ingratitude from the party raised by her means from abject slavery
to triumph; never was noble enemy so ignobly treated by a foe with
whom, to acknowledge and admire valor, is next to the practice of it;
and never was staff selected by the church for its support, so readily
broken and thrown into the fire when it had served its purpose. All the
sorrow in the world can not wash out these terrible facts, but it is
fitting that this sorrow should always accompany our admiration. And
so, honored be the memory of the young girl of Orleans!
After all, it is a question whether our sympathies be not thrown away
when we affect to feel for Jeanne Darc. M. Delepierre, the Belgian
Secretary of Legation, has printed, for private circulation, his “Doute
Historique.” This work consists chiefly of official documents, showing
that the “Maid” never suffered at all, but that some criminal having
been executed in her place, she survived to be a pensioner of the
government, a married lady, and the mother of a family! The work in
which these documents are produced, is not to be easily procured, but
they who have any curiosity in the matter will find the subject largely
treated in the _Athenæum_. This “Historical Doubt” brings us so closely
in connection with romance, that we, perhaps, can not do better in
illustrating our subject, than turn to a purely romantic subject, and
see of what metal the champions of Christendom were made, with respect
to chivalry.
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM GENERALLY AND HE OF ENGLAND IN PARTICULAR.
“Are these things true?
Thousands are getting at them in the streets.”
_Sejanus His Fall._
I can hardly express the delight I feel as a biographer in the present
instance, in the very welcome fact that no one knows anything about the
parentage of St. George. If there had been a genealogical tree of the
great champion’s race, the odds, are that I should have got bewildered
among the branches. As there is only much conjecture with a liberal
allowance of assertion, the task is doubly easy, particularly as the
matter itself is of the very smallest importance.
The first proof that our national patron ever existed at all, according
to Mr. Alban Butler, is that the Greeks reverenced him by the name of
“the Great Martyr.” Further proof of a somewhat similar quality, is
adduced in the circumstance that in Greece and in various parts of the
Levant, there are or were dozens of churches erected in honor of the
chivalrous saint; that Georgia took the holy knight for its especial
patron; and that St. George, in full panoply, won innumerable battles
for the Christians, by leading forward the reserves when the vanguard
had been repulsed by the infidels, and the Christian generals were of
themselves too indolent, sick, or incompetent, to do what they expected
St. George to do for them.
From the East, veneration for this name, and some imaginary person who
once bore it, extended itself throughout the West. It is a curious
fact, that long before England placed herself under the shield of this
religious soldier, France had made selection of him, at least as a
useful adjutant or aide-de-camp to St. Denis. Indeed, our saint was
at one time nearly monopolized by France. St. Clotilde, the wife of
the first Christian king of France, raised many altars in his honor--a
fact which has not been forgotten in the decorations and illustrative
adornments of that splendid church which has just been completed in
the Faubourg St. Germain, and which is at once the pride and glory of
Paris. That city once possessed relics which were said to be those
of St. George; but of their whereabouts, no man now knows anything.
We do, however, know that the Normans brought over the name of the
saint with them, as that of one in whose arm of power they trusted,
whether in the lists or in battle. In this respect _we_, as Saxons,
if we choose to consider ourselves as such, have no particular reason
to be grateful to the saint, for his presence among us is a symbol of
national defeat if not of national humiliation. Not above six centuries
have, however, elapsed since the great council of Oxford appointed his
feast to be kept as a holyday of lesser rank throughout England; and
it is about five hundred years since Edward III. established the Order
of the Garter, under the patronage of this saint. This order is far
more ancient than that of St. Michael, instituted by Louis XI.; of the
Golden Fleece, invented by that ‘good’ Duke Philip of Burgundy, who
fleeced all who were luckless enough to come within reach of his ducal
shears; and of the Scottish Order of St. Andrew, which is nearly two
centuries younger than that of St. George. Venice, Genoa, and Germany,
have also instituted orders of chivalry in honor of this unknown
cavalier.
These honors, however, and a very general devotion prove nothing
touching his birth, parentage, and education. Indeed, it is probably
because nothing is known of either, that his more serious biographers
begin with his decease, and write his history, which, like one of
Zschokke’s tales, might be inscribed “Alles Verkerht.” They tell us
that he suffered under Diocletian, in Nicomedia, and on the 23d of
April. We are further informed that he was a Cappadocian--a descendant
of those savagely servile people, who once told the Romans that they
would neither accept liberty at the hands of Rome, nor tolerate it
of their own accord. He was, it is said, of noble birth, and after
the death of his father, resided with his mother in Palestine, on an
estate which finally became his own. The young squire was a handsome
and stalwart youth, and, like many of _that_ profession, fond of a
military life. His promotion must have been pretty rapid, for we find
him, according to tradition, a tribune or colonel in the army at a
very early age, and a man of much higher rank before he prematurely
died. His ideas of discipline were good, for when the pagan emperor
persecuted the Christians, George of Cappadocia resigned his commission
and appointments, and not till then, when he was a private man,
did he stoutly remonstrate with his imperial ex-commander-in-chief
against that sovereign’s bloody edicts and fiercer cruelty against the
Christians. This righteous boldness was barbarously avenged; and on
the day after the remonstrance the gallant soldier lost his head. Some
authors add to this account that he was the “illustrious young man”
who tore down the anti-Christian edicts, when they were first posted
up in Nicomedia, a conjecture which, by the hagiographers is called
“plausible,” but which has no shadow of proof to give warrant for its
substantiality.