1429.
"The eyes of all Europe were turned towards this scene; where, it
was reasonably supposed, the French were to make their last stand
for maintaining the independence of their monarchy and the rights
of their; sovereign"--HUME.
When, after their victory at Salamis, the generals of the various
Greek states voted the prizes for distinguished individual merit,
each assigned the first place of excellence to himself, but they all
concurred in giving their second votes to Themistocles. [Plutarch, Vit.
Them. 17.] This was looked on as a decisive proof that Themistocles
ought to be ranked first of all. If we were to endeavour, by a similar
test, to ascertain which European nation has contributed the most to
the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany,
England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming
France as clearly next in merit. It is impossible to deny her paramount
importance in history. Besides the formidable part that she has
for nearly three centuries played, as the Bellona of the European
commonwealth of states, her influence during all this period over the
arts, the literature, the manners and the feelings of mankind, has been
such as to make the crisis of her earlier fortunes a point of world-wide
interest; and it may be asserted without exaggeration, that the future
career of every nation was involved in the result of the struggle
by which the unconscious heroine of France, in the beginning of the
fifteenth century, rescued her country from becoming a second Ireland
under the yoke of the triumphant English.
Seldom has the extinction of a a nation's independence appeared more
inevitable than was the case in France, when the English invaders
completed their lines round Orleans, four hundred and twenty-three years
ago. A series of dreadful defeats had thinned the chivalry of France,
and daunted the spirits of her soldiers. A foreign King had been
proclaimed in her capital; and foreign armies of the bravest veterans,
and led by the ablest captains then known in the world, occupied the
fairest portions of her territory. Worse to her even than the fierceness
and the strength of her foes were the factions, the vices, and the
crimes of her own children. Her native prince was a dissolute trifler,
stained with the assassination of the most powerful noble of the land,
whose son, in revenge, had leagued himself with the enemy. Many more
of her nobility, many of her prelates, her magistrates, and rulers, had
sworn fealty to the English king. The condition of the peasantry amid
the general prevalence of anarchy and brigandage, which were added to
the customary devastations of contending armies, was wretched beyond the
power of language to describe. The sense of terror and suffering seemed
to have extended itself even to the brute creation.
"In sooth, the estate of France was then most miserable. There
appeared nothing but a horrible face, confusion, poverty, desolation,
solitarinesse, and feare. The lean and bare labourers in the country did
terrifie even theeves themselves, who had nothing left them to spoile
but the carkasses of these poore miserable creatures, wandering up
and down like ghostes drawne out of their graves. The least farmes and
hamlets were fortified by these robbers, English, Bourguegnons, and
French, every one striving to do his worst; all men-of-war were
well agreed to spoile the countryman and merchant. EVEN THE CATTELL,
ACCUSTOMED TO THE LARUME BELL, THE SIGNE OF THE ENEMY'S APPROACH, WOULD
RUN HOME OF THEMSELVES WITHOUT ANY GUIDE BY THIS ACCUSTOMED MISERY." [De
Serres, quoted in the notes to Southey's Joan of Arc.]
In the autumn of 1428, the English, who were already masters of all
France north of the Loire, prepared their forces for the conquest of the
southern provinces, which yet adhered to the cause of the Dauphin. The
city of Orleans, on the banks of that river, was looked upon as the
last stronghold of the French national party. If the English could once
obtain possession of it, their victorious progress through the residue
of the kingdom seemed free from any serious obstacle. Accordingly,
the Earl of Salisbury, one of the bravest and most experienced of the
English generals, who had been trained under Henry V., marched to the
attack of the all-important city; and, after reducing several places of
inferior consequence in the neighbourhood, appeared with his army before
its walls on the 12th of October, 1428.
The city of Orleans itself was on the north side of the Loire, but its
suburbs extended far on the southern side, and a strong bridge connected
them with the town. A fortification which in modern military phrase
would be termed a tete-du-pont, defended the bridge-head on the southern
side, and two towers, called the Tourelles, were built on the bridge
itself, where it rested on an island at a little distance from the
tete-du-pont. Indeed, the solid masonry of the bridge terminated at the
Tourelles; and the communication thence with the tete-du-pont on the
southern shore was by means of a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the
tete-du-pont formed together a strong fortified post, capable of
containing a garrison of considerable strength; and so long as this was
in possession of the Orleannais, they could communicate freely with
the southern provinces, the inhabitants of which, like the Orleannais
themselves, supported the cause of their Dauphin against the foreigners.
Lord Salisbury rightly judged the capture of the Tourelles to be the
most material step towards the reduction of the city itself. Accordingly
he directed his principal operations against this post, and after
some severe repulses, he carried the Tourelles by storm, on the 23d of
October. The French, however, broke down the part of the bridge which
was nearest to the north bank and thus rendered a direct assault from
the Tourelles upon the city impossible. But the possession of this post
enabled the English to distress the town greatly by a battery of cannon
which they planted there, and which commanded some of the principal
streets.
It has been observed by Hume, that this is the first siege in which
any important use appears to have been made of artillery. And even at
Orleans both besiegers and besieged seem to have employed their cannons
more as instruments of destruction against their enemy's men, than
as engines of demolition against their enemy's walls and works. The
efficacy of cannon in breaching solid masonry was taught Europe by
the Turks, a few years after wards, at the memorable siege of
Constantinople. In our French wars, as in the wars of the classic
nations, famine was looked on as the surest weapon to compel the
submission of a well-walled town and the great object of the besiegers
was to effect a complete circumvallation. The great ambit of the walls
of Orleans, and the facilities which the river gave for obtaining
succour and supplies, rendered the capture of the place by this process
a matter of great difficulty. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury, and Lord
Suffolk, who succeeded him in command of the English after his death
by a cannon-ball, carried on the necessary works with great skill and
resolution. Six strongly fortified posts, called bastillos, were formed
at certain intervals round the town and the purpose of the English
engineers was to draw strong lines between them. During the winter
little progress was made with the entrenchments, but when the spring
of 1429 came, the English resumed their works with activity; the
communications between the city and the country became more difficult,
and the approach of want began already to be felt in Orleans.
The besieging force also fared hardly for stores and provisions, until
relieved by the effects of a brilliant victory which Sir John Fastolfe,
one of the best English generals, gained at Rouvrai, near Orleans, a few
days after Ash Wednesday, 1429. With only sixteen hundred fighting men,
Sir John completely defeated an army of French and Scots, four
thousand strong, which had been collected for the purpose of aiding the
Orleannais, and harassing the besiegers. After this encounter, which
seemed decisively to confirm the superiority of the English in battle
over their adversaries, Fastolfe escorted large supplies of stores
and food to Suffolk's camp, and the spirits of the English rose to the
highest pitch at the prospect of the speedy capture of the city before
them, and the consequent subjection of all France beneath their arms.
The Orleannais now in their distress offered to surrender the city into
the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who, though the ally of the English,
was yet one of their native princes. The Regent Bedford refused these
terms, and the speedy submission of the city to the English seemed
inevitable. The Dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant
of a court, despaired of maintaining any longer the struggle for his
crown; and was only prevented from abandoning the country by the more
masculine spirits of his mistress and his queen. Yet neither they, nor
the boldest of Charles's captains, could have shown him where to find
resources for prolonging the war; and least of all could any human skill
have predicted the quarter whence rescue was to come to Orleans and to
France.
In the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, there was a poor
peasant of the name of Jacques d'Arc, respected in his station of life,
and who had reared a family in virtuous habits and in the practice of
the strictest devotion. His eldest daughter was named by her parents
Jeannette, but she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinised
into Johanna, and anglicised into Joan. ["Respondit quod in partibus
suis vocabatur Johanneta, et postquam venit in Franciam vocata est
Johanna."--PROCES DE JEANNE D'ARC, vol i. p. 46.]
At the time when Joan first attracted attention, she was about eighteen
years of age. She was naturally of a susceptible disposition, which
diligent attention to the legends of saints, and tales of fairies, aided
by the dreamy loneliness of her life while tending her father's flocks,
had made peculiarly prone to enthusiastic fervour. At the same time
she was eminent for piety and purity of soul, and for her compassionate
gentleness to the sick and the distressed.
[Southey, in one of the speeches which he puts in the mouth of his Joan
of Arc, has made her beautifully describe the effect; on her mind of the
scenery in which she dwelt:--
"Here in solitude and peace
My soul was nurst, amid the loveliest scenes
Of-unpolluted nature. Sweet it was,
As the white mists of morning roll'd away,
To see the mountain's wooded heights appear
Dark in the early dawn, and mark its slope
With gorse-flowers glowing, as the rising sun
On the golden ripeness pour'd a deepening light.
Pleasant at noon beside the vocal brook
To lay me down, and watch the the floating clouds,
And shape to Fancy's wild similitudes
Their ever-varying forms; and oh, how sweet,
To drive my flock at evening to the fold,
And hasten to our little hut, and hear
The voice of kindness bid me welcome home!"
The only foundation for the story told by the Burgundian partisan
Monstrelet, and adopted by Hume, of Joan having been brought up as
servant at an inn, is the circumstance of her having been once, with the
rest of her family, obliged to take refuge in an AUBERGE in Neufchateau
for fifteen days, when a party of Burgundian cavalry made an incursion
into Domremy. (See the Quarterly Review, No. 138.)]
The district where she dwelt had escaped comparatively free from the
ravages of war, but the approach of roving bands of Burgundian or
English troops frequently spread terror through Domremy. Once the
village had been plundered by some of these marauders, and Joan and her
family had been driven from their home, and forced to seek refuge for a
time at Neufchateau. The peasantry in Domremy were principally attached
to the House of Orleans and the Dauphin; and all the miseries which
France endured, were there imputed to the Burgundian faction and their
allies, the English, who were seeking to enslave unhappy France.
Thus from infancy to girlhood Joan had heard continually of the woes of
the war, and she had herself witnessed some of the wretchedness that it
caused. A feeling of intense patriotism grew in her with her growth. The
deliverance of France from the English was the subject of her reveries
by day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were
recollections of the miraculous interpositions of Heaven in favour of
the oppressed, which she had learned from the legends of her Church. Her
faith was undoubting; her prayers were fervent. "She feared no danger,
for she felt no sin;" and at length she believed herself to have
received the supernatural inspiration which, she sought.
According to her own narrative, delivered by her to her merciless
inquisitors in the time of her captivity and approaching death, she was
about thirteen years old when her revelations commenced. Her own words
describe them best: [Proces de Jeanne d'Arc, vol. i. p. 52.] "At the
age of thirteen, a voice from God came near to her to help her in ruling
herself, and that voice came to her about the hour of noon, in summer
time, while she was in her father's garden. And she had fasted the day
before. And she heard the voice on her right, in the direction of
the church; and when she heard the voice she also saw a bright light.
Afterwards, St. Michael and St. Margaret and St. Catherine appeared to
her. They were always in a halo of glory; she could see that their heads
were crowned with jewels: and she heard their voices, which were sweet
and mild. She did not distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them
more frequently than she saw them; and the usual time when she heard
them was when the church bells were sounding for prayer. And if she was
in the woods when she heard them, she could plainly distinguish their
voices drawing near to her. When she thought that she discerned the
Heavenly Voices, she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their
presence gladdened her even to tears; and after they departed she wept
because they had not taken her with them back to Paradise. They always
spoke soothingly to her. They told her that France would be saved, and
that she was to save it." Such were the visions and the Voices that
moved the spirit of the girl of thirteen; and as she grew older they
became more frequent and more clear. At last the tidings of the siege of
Orleans reached Domremy, Joan heard her parents and neighbours talk of
the sufferings of its population, of the ruin which its capture would
bring on their lawful sovereign, and of the distress of the Dauphin and
his court. Joan's heart was sorely troubled at the thought of the fate
of Orleans; and her Voices now ordered her to leave her home; and warned
her that she was the instrument chosen by Heaven for driving away the
English from that city, and for taking the Dauphin to be anointed king
at Rheims. At length she informed her parents of her divine mission, and
told them that she must go to the Sire de Baudricourt, who commanded
at Vaucouleurs, and who was the appointed person to bring her into the
presence of the king, whom she was to save. Neither the anger nor the
grief of her parents, who said that they would rather see her drowned
than exposed to the contamination of the camp, could move her from her
purpose. One of her uncles consented to take her to Vaucouleurs, where
De Baudricourt at first thought her mad, and derided her; but by
degrees was led to believe, if not in her inspiration, at least in her
enthusiasm and in its possible utility to the Dauphin's cause.
The inhabitants of Vaucouleurs were completely won over to her side, by
the piety and devoutness which she displayed and by her firm assurance
in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will
that she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the
kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with
her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered her forth. The fame
of "The Maid," as she was termed, the renown of her holiness, and of
her mission, spread far and wide. Baudricourt sent her with an escort to
Chinon, where the Dauphin Charles was dallying away his time. Her Voices
had bidden her assume the arms and the apparel of a knight; and the
wealthiest inhabitants of Vaucouleurs had vied with each other in
equipping her with warhorse, armour, and sword. On reaching Chinon,
she was, after some delay, admitted into the presence of the Dauphin.
Charles designedly dressed himself far less richly than many of
his courtiers were apparelled, and mingled with them, when Jean
was introduced, in order to see if the Holy Maid would address her
exhortations to the wrong person. But she instantly singled him out,
and kneeling before him, said, "Most noble Dauphin, the King of Heaven
announces to you by me, that you shall be anointed and crowned king in
the city of Rheims, and that you shall be His viceregent in France." His
features may probably have been seen by her previously in portraits, or
have been described to her by others; but she herself believed that
her Voices inspired her when she addressed the King; [Proces de Jeanne
d'Arc, vol. i. p. 56.] and the report soon spread abroad that the Holy
Maid had found the King by a miracle; and this, with many other similar
rumours, augmented the renown and influence that she now rapidly
acquired.
The state of public feeling in France was not favourable to an
enthusiastic belief in Divine interposition in favour of the party that
had hitherto been unsuccessful and oppressed. The humiliations which had
befallen the French royal family and nobility were looked on as the just
judgments of God upon them for their vice and impiety. The misfortunes
that had come upon France as a nation, were believed to have been drawn
down by national sins. The English, who had been the instruments of
Heaven's wrath against France, seemed now by their pride and cruelty to
be fitting objects of it themselves. France in that age was a profoundly
religious country. There was ignorance, there was superstition there was
bigotry; but there was Faith--a Faith that itself worked true miracles,
even while it believed in unreal ones. At this time, also, one of those
devotional movements began among the clergy in France, which from time
to time occur in national Churches, without it being possible for the
historian to assign any adequate human cause for their immediate date or
extension. Numberless friars and priests traversed the rural districts
and towns of France, preaching to the people that they must seek
from Heaven a deliverance from the pillages of the soldiery, and the
insolence of the foreign oppressors. [See, Sismondi vol. xiii. p. 114;
Michelet, vol. v. Livre x.] The idea of a Providence that works only
by general laws was wholly alien to the feelings of the age. Every
political event, as well as every natural phenomenon, was believed to be
the immediate result of a special mandate of God. This led to the belief
that His holy angels and saints were constantly employed in executing
His commands and mingling in the affairs of men. The Church encouraged
these feelings; and at the same time sanctioned; the concurrent popular
belief that hosts of evil spirits were also ever actively interposing
in the current of earthly events, with whom sorcerers and wizards could
league themselves, and thereby obtain the exercise of supernatural
power.
Thus all things favoured the influence which Joan obtained both over
friends and foes. The French nation, as well as the English and the
Burgundians, readily admitted that superhuman beings inspired her:
the only question was, whether these beings were good or evil angels;
whether she brought with her "airs from heaven, or blasts from hell."
This question seemed to her countrymen to be decisively settled in her
favour, by the austere sanctity of her life, by the holiness of her
conversation, but, still more, by her exemplary attention to all the
services and rites of the Church. The dauphin at first feared the injury
that might be done to his cause if he had laid himself open to the
charge of having leagued himself with a sorceress. Every imaginable
test, therefore, was resorted to in order to set Joan's orthodoxy and
purity beyond suspicion. At last Charles and his advisers felt safe in
accepting her services as those of a true and virtuous daughter of the
Holy Church.
It is indeed probable that Charles himself, and some of his counsellors,
may have suspected Joan of being a mere enthusiast; and it is certain
that Dunois, and others of the best generals, took considerable latitude
in obeying or deviating from the military orders that she gave. But over
the mass of the people and the soldiery, her influence was unbounded.
While Charles and his doctors of theology, and court ladies, had been
deliberating as to recognising or dismissing the Maid, a considerable
period had passed away, during which a small army, the last gleanings,
as it seemed, of the English sword, had been assembled at Blois, under
Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and other chiefs, who to their natural
valour were now beginning to unite the wisdom that is taught by
misfortune. It was resolved to send Joan with this force and a convoy of
provisions to Orleans. The distress of that city had now become urgent.
But the communication with the open country was not entirely cut off:
the Orleannais had heard of the Holy Maid whom Providence had raised
up for their deliverance, and their messengers urgently implored the
dauphin to send her to them without delay.
Joan appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of brilliant
white armour, mounted on a stately black war-horse, and with a lance
in her right hand, which she had learned to wield with skill and grace.
[See the description of her by Gui de Laval, quoted in the note to
Michelet, p. 69; and see the account of the banner at Orleans, which is
believed to bear an authentic portrait of the Maid, in Murray's Handbook
for France, p. 175.] Her head was unhelmeted; so that all could behold
her fair and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her
long black hair, which was parted across her forehead, and bound by a
ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe, and the
consecrated sword, marked on the blade with five crosses, which had
at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St. Catherine at
Fierbois. A page carried her banner, which she had caused to be made and
embroidered as her Voices enjoined. It was white satin [Proces de Jeanne
d'Arc, vol. i. p. 238.] strewn with fleur-de-lis; and on it were the
words "JHESUS MARIA," and the representation of the Saviour in His
glory. Joan afterwards generally bore her banner herself in battle; she
said that though she loved her sword much, she loved her banner forty
times as much; and she loved to carry it because it could not kill any
one.
Thus accoutred, she came to lead the troops of France, who looked with
soldierly admiration on her well-proportioned and upright figure, the
skill with which she managed her war-horse, and the easy grace with
which she handled her weapons. Her military education had been short,
but she had availed herself of it well. She had also the good sense to
interfere little with the manoeuvres of the troops, leaving those things
to Dunois, and others whom she had the discernment to recognise as the
best officers in the camp. Her tactics in action were simple enough. As
she herself described it--"I used to say to them, 'Go boldly in among
the English,' and then I used to go boldly in myself." [Ibid.] Such, as
she told her inquisitors, was the only spell she used; and it was one of
power. But while interfering little with the military discipline of the
troops, in all matters of moral discipline she was inflexibly strict.
All the abandoned followers of the camp were driven away. She compelled
both generals and soldiers to attend regularly at confessional. Her
chaplain and other priests marched with the army under her orders; and
at every halt, an altar was set up and the sacrament administered. No
oath or foul language passed without punishment or censure. Even the
roughest and most hardened veterans obeyed her. They put off for a
time the bestial coarseness which had grown on them during a life of
bloodshed and rapine; they felt that they must go forth in a new spirit
to a new career, and acknowledged the beauty of the holiness in which
the heaven-sent Maid was leading them to certain victory.
Joan marched from Blois on the 26th of April with a convoy of provisions
for Orleans, accompanied by Dunois, La Hire, and the other chief
captains of the French; and on the evening of the 28th they approached
the town. In the words of the old chronicler Hall: [Hall, f. 127.] "The
Englishmen, perceiving that they within could not long continue for
faute of vitaile and pouder, kepte not their watche so diligently as
thei were accustomed, nor scoured now the countrey environed as thei
before had ordained. Whiche negligence the citizens shut in perceiving,
sente worde thereof to the French captaines, which with Pucelle in the
dedde tyme of the nighte, and in a greats rayne and thunders, with all
their vitaile and artillery entered into the citie."
When it was day, the Maid rode in solemn procession through the city,
clad in complete armour, and mounted on a white horse. Dunois was by
her side, and all the bravest knights of her army and of the garrison
followed in her train. The whole population thronged around her; and
men, women, and children strove to touch her garments, or her banner,
or her charger. They poured forth blessings on her, whom they already
considered their deliverer. In the words used by two of them afterwards
before the tribunal, which reversed the sentence, but could not restore
the life of the Virgin-martyr of France, "the people of Orleans, when
they first saw her in their city, thought that it was an angel from
heaven that had come down to save them." Joan spoke gently in reply to
their acclamations and addresses. She told them to fear God, and trust
in Him for safety from the fury of their enemies. She first went to the
principal church, where TE DEUM was chaunted; and then she took up her
abode in the house of Jacques Bourgier, one of the principal citizens,
and whose wife was a matron of good repute. She refused to attend a
splendid banquet which had been provided for her, and passed nearly all
her time in prayer.
When it was known by the English that the Maid was in Orleans, their
minds were not less occupied about her than were the minds of those in
the city; but it was in a very different spirit. The English believed in
her supernatural mission as firmly as the French did; but they thought
her a sorceress who had come to overthrow them by her enchantments. An
old prophecy, which told that a damsel from Lorraine was to save
France, had long been current; and it was known and applied to Joan by
foreigners as well as by the natives. For months the English had heard
of the coming Maid; and the tales of miracles which she was said to have
wrought, had been listened to by the rough yeomen of the English camp
with anxious curiosity and secret awe. She had sent a herald to the
English generals before she marched for Orleans; and he had summoned the
English generals in the name of the Most High to give up to the Maid
who was sent by Heaven, the keys of the French cities which they had
wrongfully taken: and he also solemnly adjured the English troops,
whether archers, or men of the companies of war, or gentlemen, or
others, who were before the city of Orleans, to depart thence to their
homes, under peril of being visited by the judgment of God. On her
arrival in Orleans, Joan sent another similar message; but the English
scoffed at her from their towers, and threatened to burn her heralds.
She determined before she shed the blood of the besiegers, to repeat
the warning with her own voice; and accordingly she mounted one of the
boulevards of the town, which was within hearing of the Tourelles; and
thence she spoke to the English, and bade them depart, otherwise they
would meet with shame and woe. Sir William Gladsdale (whom the French
call GLACIDAS) commanded the English post at the Tourelles, and he and
another English officer replied by bidding her go home and keep her
cows, and by ribald jests, that brought tears of shame and indignation
into her eyes. But though the English leaders vaunted aloud, the effect
produced on their army by Joan's presence in Orleans, was proved four
days after her arrival; when, on the approach of reinforcements and
stores to the town, Joan and La Hire marched out to meet them, and
escorted the long train of provision waggons safely into Orleans,
between the bastilles of the English, who cowered behind their walls,
instead of charging fiercely and fearlessly, as had been their wont, on
any French band that dared to show itself within reach.
Thus far she had prevailed without striking a blow; but the time was now
come to test her courage amid the horrors of actual slaughter. On the
afternoon of the day on which she had escorted the reinforcements into
the city, while she was resting fatigued at home, Dunois had seized an
advantageous opportunity of attacking the English bastille of St. Loup:
and a fierce assault of the Orleannais had been made on it, which the
English garrison of the fort stubbornly resisted. Joan was roused by a
sound which she believed to be that of Her Heavenly Voices; she called
for her arms and horse, and quickly equipping herself she mounted to
ride off to where the fight was raging. In her haste she had forgotten
her banner; she rode back, and, without dismounting, had it given to her
from the window, and then she galloped to the gate, whence the sally had
been made. On her way she met some of the wounded French who had been
carried back from the fight. "Ha," she exclaimed, "I never can see
French blood flow, without my hair standing on end." She rode out of the
gate, and met the tide of her countrymen, who had been repulsed from the
English fort, and were flying back to Orleans in confusion. At the sight
of the Holy Maid and her banner they rallied and renewed the assault.
Joan rode forward at their head, waving her banner and cheering them on.
The English quailed at what they believed to be the charge of hell; St.
Loup was stormed, and its defenders put to the sword, except some few,
whom Jean succeeded in saving. All her woman's gentleness returned when
the combat was over. It was the first time that she had ever seen a
battle-field. She wept at the sight of so many blood-stained and mangled
corpses; and her tears flowed doubly when she reflected that they were
the bodies of Christian men who had died without confession.
The next day was ascension-day, and it was passed by Joan in prayer. But
on the following morrow it was resolved by the chiefs of the garrison
to attack the English forts on the south of the river. For this purpose
they crossed the river in boats, and after some severe fighting, in
which the Maid was wounded in the heel, both the English bastilles of
the Augustins and St. Jean de Blanc were captured. The Tourelles were
now the only post which the besiegers held on the south of the river.
But that post was formidably strong, and by its command of the bridge,
it was the key to the deliverance of Orleans. It was known that a fresh
English army was approaching under Falstolfe to reinforce the besiegers,
and should that army arrive, while the Tourelles were yet in the
possession of their comrades, there was great peril of all the
advantages which the French had gained being nullified, and of the siege
being again actively carried on.
It was resolved, therefore, by the French, to assail the Tourelles at
once, while the enthusiasm which the presence and the heroic valour
of the Maid had created was at its height. But the enterprise was
difficult. The rampart of the tete-du-pont, or landward bulwark, of
the Tourelles was steep and high; and Sir John Gladsdale occupied this
all-important fort with five hundred archers and men-at-arms, who were
the very flower of the English army.
Early in the morning of the 7th of May, some thousands of the best
French troops in Orleans heard mass and attended the confessional by
Joan's orders; and then crossing the river in boats, as on the preceding
day they assailed the bulwark of the Tourelles, "with light hearts and
heavy hands." But Gladsdale's men, encouraged by their bold and skilful
leader, made a resolute and able defence. The Maid planted her banner
on the edge of the fosse, and then springing down into the ditch, she
placed the first ladder against the wall, and began to mount. An English
archer sent an arrow at her, which pierced her corslet and wounded
her severely between the neck and shoulder. She fell bleeding from the
ladder; and the English were leaping down from the wall to capture her,
but her followers bore her off. She was carried to the rear, and laid
upon the grass; her armour was taken off, and the anguish of her wound
and the sight of her blood, made her at first tremble and weep. But her
confidence in her celestial mission soon returned: her patron saints
seemed to stand before her and reassure her. She sate up and drew the
arrow out with her own hands. Some of the soldiers who stood by wished
to stanch the blood, by saying a charm over the wound; but she forbade
them, saying, that she did not wish to be cured by unhallowed means. She
had the wound dressed with a little oil, and then bidding her confessor
come to her, she betook herself to prayer.
In the meanwhile, the English in the bulwark of the Tourelles, had
repulsed the oft-renewed efforts of the French to scale the wall.
Dunois, who commanded the assailants, was at first discouraged, and
gave orders for a retreat to be sounded, Joan sent for him and the other
generals, and implored them not to despair. "By my God" she said to
them, "you shall soon enter in there. Do not doubt it. When you see my
banner wave again up to the wall, to your arms again! the fort is yours.
For the present rest a little, and take some food and drink. They did
so," says the old chronicler of the siege, [Journal du Siege d'Orleans,
p. 87.] "for they obeyed her marvellously." The faintness caused by
her wound had now passed off, and she headed the French in another
rush against the bulwark. The English, who had thought her slain, were
alarmed at her reappearance; while the French pressed furiously and
fanatically forward. A Biscayan soldier was carrying Joan's banner.
She had told the troops that directly the banner touched the wall they
should enter. The Biscayan waved the banner forward from the edge of
the fosse, and touched the wall with it; and then all the French host
swarmed madly up the ladders that now were raised in all directions
against the English fort. At this crisis, the efforts of the English
garrison were distracted by an attach from another quarter. The French
troops who had been left in Orleans, had placed some planks over the
broken part of the bridge, and advanced across them to the assault of
the Tourelles on the northern side. Gladsdale resolved to withdraw his
men from the landward bulwark, and concentrate his whole force in
the Tourelles themselves. He was passing for this purpose across the
drawbridge that connected the Tourelles and the tete-du-pont, when Joan,
who by this time had scaled the wall of the bulwark, called out to him,
"Surrender, surrender to the King of Heaven. Ah, Glacidas, you have
foully wronged me with your words, but I have great pity on your soul
and the souls of your men." The Englishman, disdainful of her summons,
was striding on across the drawbridge, when a cannon-shot from the town
carried it away, and Gladsdale perished in the water that ran beneath.
After his fall, the remnant of the English abandoned all further
resistance. Three hundred of them had been killed in the battle, and two
hundred were made prisoners.
The broken arch was speedily repaired by the exulting Orleannais; and
Joan made her triumphal re-entry into the city by the bridge that had so
long been closed. Every church in Orleans rang out its gratulating
peal; and throughout the night the sounds of rejoicing echoed, and the
bonfires blazed up from the city. But in the lines and forts which the
besiegers yet retained on the northern shore, there was anxious watching
of the generals, and there was desponding gloom among the soldiery. Even
Talbot now counselled retreat. On the following morning, the Orleannais,
from their walls, saw the great forts called "London" and "St.
Lawrence," in flames; and witnessed their invaders busy in destroying
the stores and munitions which had been relied on for the destruction of
Orleans. Slowly and sullenly the English army retired; but not before
it had drawn up in battle array opposite to the city, as if to challenge
the garrison to an encounter. The French troops were eager to go out and
attack, but Joan forbade it. The day was Sunday. "In the name of God,"
she said, "let them depart, and let us return thanks to God." She led
the soldiers and citizens forth from Orleans, but not for the shedding
of blood. They passed in solemn procession round the city walls; and
then, while their retiring enemies were yet in sight, they knelt in
thanksgiving to God for the deliverance which he had vouchsafed them.
Within three months from the time of her first interview with the
Dauphin, Joan had fulfilled the first part of her promise, the raising
of the siege of Orleans. Within three months more she fulfilled the
second part also; and she stood with her banner in her hand by the high
altar at Rheims while he was anointed and crowned as King Charles VII.
of France. In the interval she had taken Jargeau, Troyes, and other
strong places; and she had defeated an English army in a fair field
at Patay. The enthusiasm of her countrymen knew no bounds; but the
importance of her services, and especially of her primary achievement
at Orleans, may perhaps be best proved by the testimony of her enemies.
There is extant a fragment of a letter from the Regent Bedford to his
royal nephew, Henry VI., in which he bewails the turn that the war
had taken, and especially attributes it to the raising of the siege
of Orleans by Joan. Bedford's own words, which are preserved in Rymer,
[Vol. x. p. 403.] are as follows:--
"AND ALLE THING THERE PROSPERED FOR YOU TIL THE TYME OF THE SIEGE OF
ORLEANS, TAKEN IN HAND, GOD KNOWETH BY WHAT ADVIS.
"AT THE WHICHE TYME, AFTER THE ADVENTURE FALLEN TO THE PERSONE OF MY
COUSIN OF SALISBURY, WHOM GOD ASSOILLE, THERE FELLE, BY THE HAND OF GOD
AS IT SEEMETH, A GREAT STROOK UPON YOUR PEUPLE THAT WAS ASSEMBLED THERE
IN GRETE NOMBRE, CAUSED IN GRETE PARTIE, AS Y TROWE, OF LAKKE OF SADDE
BELEVE, AND OF UNLEVEFULLE DOUBTE, THAT THEI HADDE OF A DISCIPLE AND
LYME OF THE FEENDE, CALLED THE PUCELLE, THAT USED FALS ENCHANTMENTS AND
SORCERIE.
"THE WHICHE STROOKE AND DISCOMFITURE NOT OONLY LESSED IN GRETE PARTIE
THE NOMBRE OF YOUR PEUPLE THERE, BUT AS WELL WITHDREWE THE COURAGE OF
THE REMENANT IN MERVEILLOUS WYSE, AND COURAIGED YOUR ADVERSE PARTIE AND
ENNEMYS TO ASSEMBLE THEM FORTHWITH IN GRETE NOMBRE."
When Charles had been anointed King of France, Joan believed that her
mission was accomplished. And in truth the deliverance of France from
the English, though not completed for many years afterwards, was then
insured. The ceremony of a royal coronation and anointment was not
in those days regarded as a mere costly formality. It was believed to
confer the sanction and the grace of heaven upon the prince, who had
previously ruled with mere human authority. Thenceforth he was the
Lord's Anointed. Moreover, one of the difficulties that had previously
lain in the way of many Frenchman when called on to support Charles
VII. was now removed. He had been publicly stigmatised, even by his own
parents, as no true son of the royal race of France. The queen-mother,
the English, and the partisans of Burgundy, called him the "Pretender
to the title of Dauphin;" but those who had been led to doubt his
legitimacy, were cured of their scepticism by the victories of the Holy
Maid, and by the fulfilment of her pledges. They thought that heaven had
now declared itself in favour of Charles as the true heir of the crown
of St. Louis; and the tales about his being spurious were thenceforth
regarded as mere English calumnies. With this strong tide of national
feeling in his favour, with victorious generals and soldiers round him,
and a dispirited and divided enemy before him, he could not fail to
conquer; though his own imprudence and misconduct, and the stubborn
valour which some of the English still displayed, prolonged the war in
France nearly to the time when the civil war of the Roses broke out in
England, and insured for France peace and repose.
Joan knelt before the new-crowned king in the cathedral of Rheims, and
shed tears of joy. She said that she had then fulfilled the work which
the Lord had commanded her. The young girl now asked for her dismissal.
She wished to return to her peasant home, to tend her parent's flocks
again, and to live at her own will in her native village. ["Je voudrais
bien qu'il voulut me faire ramener aupres mes pere et mere, et garder
leurs brebis et betail, et faire ce que je voudrois faire."] She had
always believed that her career would be a short one. But Charles and
his captains were loth to lose the presence of one who had such an
influence upon the soldiery and the people. They persuaded her to stay
with the army. She still showed the same bravery and zeal for the cause
of France. She was as fervent as before in her prayers, and as exemplary
in all religious duties. She still heard her Heavenly Voices, but; she
now no longer thought herself the appointed minister of heaven to lead
her countrymen to certain victory. Our admiration for her courage
and patriotism ought to be increased a hundred-fold by her conduct
throughout the latter part of her career, amid dangers, against which
she no longer believed herself to be divinely secured. Indeed she
believed herself doomed to perish in little more than a year; ["Des le
commencement elle avait dit, 'Il me faut employer: je ne durerai qu'un
an, ou guere plus."--MICHELAIT v. p. 101.] but she still fought on as
resolutely, if not as exultingly as ever.
As in the case of Arminius, the interest attached to individual heroism
and virtue makes us trace the fate of Joan of Arc after she had saved
her country. She served well with Charles's army in the capture of
Laon, Soissons, Compeigne, Beauvais, and other strong places; but in a
premature attack on Paris, in September 1429, the French were repulsed,
and Joan was severely wounded in the winter she was again in the field
with some of the French troops; and in the following spring she threw
herself into the fortress of Compeigne, which she had herself won for
the French king in the preceding autumn, and which was now besieged by a
strong Burgundian force.
She was taken prisoner in a sally from Compeigne, on the 24th of May,
and was imprisoned by the Burgundians first at Arras, and then at a
place called Crotoy, on the Flemish coast, until November, when for
payment of a large sum of money, she was given up to the English, and
taken to Rouen, which was then their main stronghold in France.
"Sorrow it were, and shame to tell,
The butchery that there befell:"
And the revolting details of the cruelties practised upon this young
girl may be left to those, whose duty as avowed biographers, it is
to describe them. [The whole of the "Proces de Condamnation at de
Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc" has been published in five volumes, by
the Societe de l'Histoire de France. All the passages from contemporary
chroniclers and poets are added; and the most ample materials are
thus given for acquiring full information on a subject which is, to an
Englishman, one of painful interest. There is an admirable essay on Joan
of Arc, in the 138th number of the QUARTERLY.] She was tried before an
ecclesiastical tribunal on the charge of witchcraft, and on the 30th of
May, 1431, she was burnt alive in the market-place at Rouen.
I will add but one remark on the character of the truest heroine that
the world has ever seen.
If any person can be found in the present age who would join in the
scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and the Heavenly Voices
by which she believed herself inspired, let him read the life of the
wisest and best man that the heathen nations ever produced. Let him
read of the Heavenly Voice, by which Socrates believed himself to be
constantly attended; which cautioned him on his way from the field of
battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death
visited him with unearthly warnings. [See Cicero, de Divinatione, lib.
i. sec. 41; and see the words of Socrates himself, in Plato, Apol. Soc.]
Let the modern reader reflect upon this; and then, unless he is prepared
to term Socrates either fool or impostor, let him not dare to deride or
vilify Joan of Arc.
SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN JOAN OF ARC'S VICTORY AT ORLEANS, A.D. 1429,
AND THE DEFEAT OP THE SPANISH ARMADA, A.D. 1588.
A.D. 1452. Final expulsion of the English from France.
1453. Constantinople taken, and the Roman empire of the East destroyed
by the Turkish Sultan Mahomet II.
1455. Commencement of the civil wars in England between the Houses of
York and Lancaster.
1479. Union of the Christian kingdoms of Spain under Ferdinand and
Isabella.
1492. Capture of Grenada by Ferdinand and Isabella, and end of the
Moorish dominion in Spain.
1492. Columbus discovers the New World.
1494. Charles VIII. of France invades Italy.
1497. Expedition of Vasco di Gama to the East Indies round the Cape of
Good Hope.
1503. Naples conquered from the French by the great Spanish general,
Gonsalvo of Cordova.
1508. League of Cambray, by the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of
France, against Venice.
1509. Albuquerque establishes the empire of the Portuguese in the East
Indies.
1516. Death of Ferdinand of Spain; he is succeeded by his grandson
Charles, afterwards the Emperor Charles V.
1517. Dispute between Luther and Tetzel respecting the sale of
indulgences, which is the immediate cause of the Reformation.
1519. Charles V. is elected Emperor of Germany.
1520. Cortez conquers Mexico.
1525. Francis I. of France defeated and taken prisoner by the imperial
army at Pavia.
1529. League of Smalcald formed by the Protestant princes of Germany.
1533. Henry VIII. renounces the Papal supremacy.
1533. Pizarro conquers Peru.
1556. Abdication of the Emperor Charles V. Philip II. becomes King of
Spain, and Ferdinand I. Emperor of Germany.
1557.[sic] Elizabeth becomes Queen of England.
1557. The Spaniards defeat the French at the battle of St. Quentin.
1571. Don John of Austria at the head of the Spanish fleet, aided by the
Venetian and the Papal squadrons, defeats the Turks at Lepanto.
1572. Massacre of the Protestants in France on St. Bartholomew's day.
1579. The Netherlands revolt against Spain.
1580. Philip II. conquers Portugal.