HURT
I have now shown wherefore the fighting, in this spring, was to be up and
down the water of Oise, whence the villagers had withdrawn themselves, of
necessity, into the good towns. For the desire of the Duke of Burgundy
was to hold the Oise, and so take Compiegne, the better to hold Paris.
And on our side the skill was to cut his army in two, so that from east
of the water of Oise neither men nor victual might come to him.
Having this subtle device of war in her mind, the Maid rode north from
Melun, by the King's good towns, till she came to Compiegne, that was not
yet beleaguered. There they did her all the honour that might be, and
thither came to her standard Messire Jacques de Chabennes, Messire
Rigault de Fontaines, Messire Poton de Xaintrailles, the best knight then
on ground, and many other gentlemen, some four hundred lances in all.
{33} With these lances the Maid consorted to attack Pont l'Eveque by a
night onfall. This is a small but very strong hold, on the Oise, some
six leagues from Compiegne, as you go up the river, and it lies near the
town of Noyon, which was held by the English. In Pont l'Eveque there was
a garrison of a hundred lances of the English, and our skill was to break
on them in the grey of dawn, when men least fear a surprise, and are most
easily taken. By this very device La Hire had seized Compiegne but six
years agone, wherefore our hope was the higher. About five of the clock
on an April day we rode out of Compiegne, a great company,--too great,
perchance, for that we had to do. For our army was nigh a league in
length as it went on the way, nor could we move swiftly, for there were
waggons with us and carts, drawing guns and couleuvrines and powder,
fascines wherewith to fill the fosses, and ladders and double ladders for
scaling the walls. So the captains ordered it to be, for ever since that
day by Melun fosse, when the Saints foretold her captivity, the Maid
submitted herself in all things to the captains, which was never her
manner before.
As we rode slowly, she was now at the head of the line, now in the midst,
now at the rear, wherever was need; and as I rode at her rein, I took
heart to say--
"Madame, it is not thus that we have taken great keeps and holds, in my
country, from our enemies of England."
"Nay," said she, checking her horse to a walk, and smiling on me in the
dusk with her kind eyes. "Then tell me how you order it in your
country."
"Madame," I said, "it was with a little force, and lightly moving, that
Messire Thomas Randolph scaled the Castle rock and took Edinburgh Castle
out of the hands of the English, a keep so strong, and set on a cliff so
perilous, that no man might deem to win it by sudden onfall. And in like
manner the good Messire James Douglas took his own castle, more than once
or twice, by crafty stratagem of war, so that the English named it Castle
Perilous. But in every such onfall few men fought for us, of such as
could move secretly and swiftly, not with long trains of waggons that
cover a league of road, and by their noise and number give warning to an
enemy."
"My mind is yours," she said, with a sigh, "and so I would have made this
onslaught. But I submitted me to the will of the captains."
Through the night we pushed our way slowly, for in such a march none may
go swifter than the slowest, namely, the carts and the waggons. Thus it
befell that the Maid and the captains were in more thoughts than one to
draw back to Compiegne, for the night was clear, and the dawn would be
bright. And, indeed, after stumbling and wandering long, and doubting of
the way, we did, at last, see the church towers and walls of Pont
l'Eveque stand out against the clear sky of morning, a light mist
girdling the basement of the walls. Had we been a smaller and swifter
company, we should have arrived an hour before the first greyness shows
the shapes of things. But now, alas! we no sooner saw the town than we
heard the bells and trumpets calling the townsfolk and men-at-arms to be
on their ward. The great guns of the keep roared at us so soon as we
were in reach of shot; nevertheless, Pothon and the Maid set companies to
carry the double ladders, for the walls were high, and others were told
off to bring up the fascines, and so, leaving our main battle to wait out
of shot, and come on as they were needed, the Maid and Pothon ran up the
first rampart, she waving her standard and crying that all was ours. As
we ran, for I must needs be by her side, the din of bells and guns was
worse than I had heard at Orleans, and on the top of the church towers
were men-at-arms waving flags, as if for a signal. Howbeit, we sprang
into the fosse, under shield, wary of stones cast from above, and
presently three ladders were set against the wall, and we went up, the
Maid leading the way.
Now of what befell I know but little, save that I had so climbed that I
looked down over the wall, when the ladder whereon I stood was wholly
overthrown by two great English knights, and one of them, by his coat
armour, was Messire de Montgomery himself, who commanded in Pont
l'Eveque. Of all that came after I remember no more than a flight
through air, and the dead stroke of a fall on earth with a stone above
me. For such is the fortune of war, whereof a man knows but his own
share for the most part, and even that dimly. The eyes are often blinded
with swift running to be at the wall, and, what with a helm that rings to
sword-blows, and what with smoke, and dust, and crying, and clamour, and
roar of guns, it is but little that many a man-at-arms can tell
concerning the frays wherein, may be, he has borne himself not unmanly.
This was my lot at Pont l'Eveque, and I knew but little of what passed
till I found myself in very great anguish. For I had been laid in one of
the carts, and so was borne along the way we had come, and at every turn
of the wheels a new pang ran through me. For my life I could not choose
but groan, as others groaned that were in the same cart with me. For my
right leg was broken, also my right arm, and my head was stounding as if
it would burst. It was late and nigh sunset or ever we won the gates of
Compiegne, having lost, indeed, but thirty men slain, but having wholly
failed in our onfall. For I heard in the monastery whither I was borne
that, when the Maid and Xaintrailles and their men had won their way
within the walls, and had slain certain of the English, and were pushing
the others hard, behold our main battle was fallen upon in the rear by
the English from Noyon, some two miles distant from Pont l'Eveque.
Therefore there was no help for it but retreat we must, driving back the
English to Noyon, while our wounded and all our munitions of war were
carried orderly away.
As to the pains I bore in that monastery of the Jacobins, when my broken
bones were set by a very good surgeon, there is no need that I should
write. My fortune in war was like that of most men-at-arms, or better
than that of many who are slain outright in their first skirmish. Some
good fortune I had, as at St. Pierre, and again, bad fortune, of which
this was the worst, that I could not be with the Maid: nay, never again
did I ride under her banner.
She, for her part, was not idle, but, after tarrying certain days in
Compiegne with Guillaume de Flavy, she rode to Lagny, "for there," she
said, "were men that warred well against the English," namely, a company
of our Scots. And among them, as later I heard in my bed, was Randal
Rutherford, who had ransomed himself out of the hands of the French in
Paris, whereat I was right glad. At Lagny, with her own men and the
Scots, the Maid fought and took one Franquet d'Arras, a Burgundian
"routier," or knight of the road, who plundered that country without
mercy. Him the Maid would have exchanged for an Armagnac of Paris, the
host of the Bear Inn, then held in duresse by the English, for his share
in a plot to yield Paris to the King. But this burgess died in the hands
of the English, and the echevins {34} of Lagny, claiming Franquet d'Arras
as a common thief, traitor, and murderer, tried him, and, on his
confession, put him to death. This was counted a crime in the Maid by
the English and Burgundian robbers, nay, even by French and Scots. "For,"
said they, "if a gentleman is to be judged like a manant, or a fat
burgess by burgesses, there is no more profit or glory in war." Nay, I
have heard gentlemen of France cry out that, as the Maid gave up Franquet
to such judges as would surely condemn him, so she was rightly punished
when Jean de Luxembourg sold her into the hands of unjust judges. But I
answer that the Maid did not sell Franquet d'Arras, as I say De
Luxembourg sold her: not a livre did she take from the folk of Lagny. And
as for the slaying of robbers, this very Jean de Luxembourg had but just
slain many English of his own party, for that they burned and pillaged in
the Beauvais country.
Yet men murmured against the Maid not only in their hearts, but openly,
and many men-at-arms ceased to love her cause, both for the slaying of
Franquet d'Arras, and because she was for putting away the
leaguer-lasses, and, when she might, would suffer no plundering. Whether
she was right or wrong, it behoves me not to judge, but this I know, that
the King's men fought best when she was best obeyed. And, like Him who
sent her, she was ever of the part of the poor and the oppressed, against
strong knights who rob and ravish and burn and torture, and hold to
ransom. Therefore the Archbishop of Reims, who was never a friend of the
Maid, said openly in a letter to the Reims folk that "she did her own
will, rather than obeyed the commandments of God." But that God commands
knights and gentlemen to rob the poor and needy (though indeed He has set
a great gulf between a manant and a gentleman born) I can in nowise
believe. For my part, when I have been where gentlemen and captains
lamented the slaying of Franquet d'Arras, and justified the dealings of
the English with the Maid, I have seemed to hear the clamour of the cruel
Jews: "Tolle hunc, et dimitte nobis Barabbam." {35} For Barabbas was a
robber. Howbeit on this matter, as on all, I humbly submit me to the
judgment of my superiors and to Holy Church.
Meantime the Maid rode from Lagny, now to Soissons, now to Senlis, now to
Crepy-en-Valois, and in Crepy she was when that befell which I am about
to relate.