THE MAID AT TOURS
At Tours the Maid lodged in the house of a dame commonly called
Lapau.[799] She was Eleonore de Paul, a woman of Anjou, who had been
lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie of Anjou. Married to Jean du Puy, Lord
of La Roche-Saint-Quentin, Councillor of the Queen of Sicily, she had
remained in the service of the Queen of France.[800]
[Footnote 799: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 66.]
[Footnote 800: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes et
de manuscrits appartenant au British Museum de Londres_, in the
_Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, pp. 139, 140.]
The town of Tours belonged to the Queen of Sicily, who grew richer and
richer as her son-in-law grew poorer and poorer. She aided him with
money and with lands. In 1424, the duchy of Touraine with all its
dependencies, except the castellany of Chinon, had come into her
possession.[801] The burgesses and commonalty of Tours earnestly
desired peace. Meanwhile they made every effort to escape from pillage
at the hands of men-at-arms. Neither King Charles nor Queen Yolande
was able to defend them, so they must needs defend themselves.[802]
When the town watchmen announced the approach of one of those
marauding chiefs who were ravaging Touraine and Anjou, the citizens
shut their gates and saw to it that the culverins were in their
places. Then there was a parley: the captain from the brink of the
moat maintained that he was in the King's service and on his way to
fight the English; he asked for a night's rest in the town for himself
and his men. From the heights of the ramparts he was politely
requested to pass on; and, in case he should be tempted to force an
entry, a sum of money was offered him.[803] Thus the citizens fleeced
themselves for fear of being robbed. In like manner, only a few days
before Jeanne's coming, they had given the Scot, Kennedy, who was
ravaging the district, two hundred livres to go on. When they had got
rid of their defenders, their next care was to fortify themselves
against the English. On the 29th of February of this same year, 1429,
these citizens lent one hundred crowns to Captain La Hire, who was
then doing his best for Orleans. And even on the approach of the
English they consented to receive forty archers belonging to the
company of the Sire de Bueil, only on condition that Bueil should
lodge in the castle with twenty men, and that the others should be
quartered in the inns, where they were to have nothing without paying
for it. Thus it was or was not; and the Sire de Bueil went off to
defend Orleans.[804]
[Footnote 801: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p.
77.]
[Footnote 802: Vallet de Viriville, _Analyse et fragments tires des
Archives municipales de Tours_ in _Cabinet historique_, vol. v, pp.
102-121.]
[Footnote 803: Quicherat, _Rodrigue de Villandrando_, Paris, 1879, in
8vo, pp. 14 _et seq._]
[Footnote 804: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. i, Introduction, p. xxii, note 1.]
In Jean du Puy's house, Jeanne was visited by an Augustinian monk, one
Jean Pasquerel. He was returning from the town of Puy-en-Velay where
he had met Isabelle Romee and certain of those who had conducted
Jeanne to the King.[805]
[Footnote 805: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 101.]
In this town, in the sanctuary of Anis, was preserved an image of the
Mother of God, brought from Egypt by Saint Louis. It was of great
antiquity and highly venerated, for the prophet Jeremiah had with his
own hands carved it out of sycamore wood in the semblance of the
virgin yet to be born, whom he had seen in a vision.[806] In holy week,
pilgrims flocked from all parts of France and of Europe,--nobles,
clerks, men-at-arms, citizens and peasants; and many, for penance or
through poverty, came on foot, staff in hand, begging their bread from
door to door. Merchants of all kinds betook themselves thither; and it
was at once the most popular of pilgrimages and one of the richest
fairs in the world. All round the town the stream of travellers
overflowed from the road on to vineyards, meadows, and gardens. On the
day of the Festival, in the year 1407, two hundred persons perished,
crushed to death in the throng.[807]
[Footnote 806: Francisque Mandet, _Histoire du Velay_, Le Puy,
1860-1862 (7 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, pp. 590 _et seq._ S. Luce,
_Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. xii.]
[Footnote 807: Jean Juvenal des Ursins, 1407.]
In certain years the feast of the conception of Our Lord fell on the
same day as that of his death; and thus there coincided the promise
and the fulfilment of the promise of the greatest of mysteries. Then
Holy Friday became still holier. It was called Great Friday, and on
that day such as entered the sanctuary of Anis received plenary
indulgence. On that day the crowd of pilgrims was greater than usual.
Now, in the year 1429, Good Friday fell on the 25th of March, the day
of the Annunciation.[808]
[Footnote 808: Nicole de Savigni, _Notes sur les exploits de Jeanne
d'Arc et sur divers evenements de son temps_, in the _Bulletin de la
Societe de l'Histoire de Paris_, 1, 1874, p. 43. Chanoine Lucot,
_Jeanne d'Arc en Champagne_, Chalons, 1880, pp. 12, 13.]
There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary in Brother Pasquerel's
meeting Jeanne's relatives at Puy during Holy Week. That a peasant
woman should travel two hundred and fifty miles on foot, through a
country infested with soldiers and other robbers, in a season of snows
and mist, to obtain an indulgence, was an every-day matter if we
remember the surname which had for long been hers.[809] This was not
La Romee's first pilgrimage. As we do not know which members of the
Maid's escort the good Brother met, we are at liberty to conjecture
that Bertrand de Poulengy was among them. We know little about him,
but his speech would suggest that he was a devout person.[810]
[Footnote 809: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 191; vol. ii, p. 74, note. La Romee
may have received her surname for an entirely different reason. Most
of our knowledge of Jeanne's mother is derived from documents of very
doubtful authenticity.]
[Footnote 810: Francis C. Lowell considers the idea of La Romee's
pilgrimage to Puy as a "characteristic example of the madness" of
Simeon Luce (_Joan of Arc_, Boston, 1896, in 8vo, p. 72, note).
Nevertheless, after considerable hesitation, I, like Luce, have
rejected the corrections proposed by Lebrun de Charmettes and
Quicherat, and adopted unamended the text of the _Trial_.]
Jeanne's comrades, having made friends with Pasquerel, said to him:
"You must go with us to Jeanne. We will not leave you until you have
taken us to her." They travelled together. Brother Pasquerel went with
them to Chinon, which Jeanne had left; then he went on to Tours, where
his convent was.
The Augustinians, who claimed to have received their rule from St.
Francis himself, wore the grey habit of the Franciscans. It was from
their order that in the previous year the King had chosen a chaplain
for his young son, the Dauphin Louis. Brother Pasquerel held the
office of reader (_lector_) in his monastery.[811] He was in priest's
orders. Quite young doubtless and of a wandering disposition, like
many mendicant monks of those days, he had a taste for the miraculous,
and was excessively credulous.
[Footnote 811: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 101. For the meaning of _Lector_,
professor of theology, cf. Du Cange.]
Jeanne's comrades said to her: "Jeanne, we have brought you this good
father. You will like him well when you know him."
She replied: "The good father pleases me. I have already heard tell of
him, and even to-morrow will I confess to him." The next day the good
father heard her in confession, and chanted mass before her. He became
her chaplain, and never left her.[812]
[Footnote 812: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 101 _et seq._]
In the fifteenth century Tours was one of the chief manufacturing
towns of the kingdom. The inhabitants excelled in all kinds of trades.
They wove tissues of silk, of gold, and of silver. They manufactured
coats of mail; and, while not competing with the armourers of Milan,
of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, they were skilled in the forging and
hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the
master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished
was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time,
consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets,
armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces,
greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of
accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full
in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the
corselet, in its slender grace and curious slimness, always has the
air of a woman's armour, and seems made for Queen Penthesilea or for
the Roman Camilla. The Maid's armour was white and unadorned, if one
may judge from its modest price of one hundred _livres tournois_. The
two suits of mail, made at the same time by the same armourer for Jean
de Metz and his comrade, were together worth one hundred and
twenty-five _livres tournois_.[816] Possibly one of the skilful and
renowned drapers of Tours took the Maid's measure for a _houppelande_
or loose coat in silk or cloth of gold or silver, such as captains
wore over the cuirass. To look well, the coat, which was open in
front, must be cut in scallops that would float round the horseman as
he rode. Jeanne loved fine clothes but still more fine horses.[817]
[Footnote 813: E. Giraudet, _Histoire de la ville de Tours_, Tours,
1874, 2 vols. in 8vo, _passim_.]
[Footnote 814: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210; vol. iv, pp. 3,
301, 363.]
[Footnote 815: J. Quicherat, _Histoire du costume en France_, Paris,
1875, large 8vo, pp. 270, 271.]
[Footnote 816: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210. _Relation du
greffier de La Rochelle_, p. 60. "The white armour of fifteenth
century soldiers, simple as it was, was expensive; it cost about ten
thousand francs of our present money. But the complete horse's armour
was included in this" (Maurice Maindron, _Pour l'histoire de
l'armure_, in _Le monde moderne_, 1896). According to the calculation
of P. Clement (_Jacques Coeur et Charles VII_, 1873, p. lxvi), 100
livres would be equal to 4000 francs of present money.]
[Footnote 817: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 76. Letter from Perceval de
Boulainvilliers, _ibid._, vol. v, p. 120. Greffier de la Chambre des
comptes of Brabant, _ibid._, vol. iv, p. 428. Le Fevre de Saint-Remy,
_ibid._, p. 439.]
The King invited her to choose a horse from his stables. If we may
believe a certain Latin poet, she selected an animal of illustrious
origin, but very old. It was a war horse, which Pierre de Beauvau,
Governor of Maine and Anjou, had given to one of the King's two
brothers; who had both been dead, the one thirteen years, the other
twelve.[818] This steed, or another, was brought to Lapau's house and
the Duke of Alencon went to see it. The horse must likewise be
accoutred, it must be furnished with a chanfrin to protect its head
and one of those wooden saddles with broad pommels which seemed to
encase the rider.[819] A shield was out of the question. Since
chain-armour, which was not proof against blows, had been succeeded by
that plate-armour, on which nothing could make an impression, they had
ceased to be used save in pageants. As for the sword,--the noblest
part of her accoutrement and the bright symbol of strength joined to
loyalty,--Jeanne refused to take that from the royal armourer; she was
resolved to receive it from the hand of Saint Catherine herself.
[Footnote 818: Anonymous poem in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 38 and note.]
[Footnote 819: Capitaine Champion, _Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere_, pp. 146 _et
seq._]
We know that on her coming into France she had stopped at Fierbois and
heard three masses in Saint Catherine's chapel.[820] Therein the
Virgin of Alexandria had many swords, without counting the one Charles
Martel was said to have given her, and which it would not have been
easy to find again. A good Touranian in Touraine, Saint Catherine was
an Armagnac ever on the side of those who fought for the Dauphin
Charles. When captains and soldiers of fortune stood in danger of
death, or were prisoners in the hands of their enemies, she was the
saint they most willingly invoked; for they knew she wished them
well. She did not save them all, but she aided many. They came to
render her thanks; and as a sign of gratitude they offered her their
armour, so that her chapel looked like an armoury.[821] The walls
bristled with swords; and, as gifts had been flowing in for half a
century, ever since the days of King Charles V, the sacristans were
probably in the habit of taking down the old weapons to make room for
the new, hoarding the old steel in some store-house until an
opportunity arrived for selling it.[822] Saint Catherine could not
refuse a sword to the damsel, whom she loved so dearly that every day
and every hour she came down from Paradise to see and talk with her on
earth,--a maiden who in return had shown her devotion by travelling to
Fierbois to do the Saint reverence. For we must not omit to state that
Saint Catherine in company with Saint Margaret had never ceased to
appear to Jeanne both at Chinon and at Tours. She was present at all
those secret assemblies, which the Maid called sometimes her Council
but oftener her Voices, doubtless because they appealed more to her
ears and her mind than to her eyes, despite the burst of light which
sometimes dazzled her, and notwithstanding the crowns she was able to
discern on the heads of the saints. The Voices indicated one sword
among the multitude of those in the Chapel at Fierbois. Messire
Richard Kyrthrizian and Brother Gille Lecourt, both of them priests,
were then custodians of the chapel. Such is the title they assumed
when they signed the accounts of miracles worked by their saint.
Jeanne in a letter caused them to be asked for the sword, which had
been revealed to her. In the letter she said that it would be found
underground, not very deep down, and behind the altar. At least these
were all the directions she was able to give afterwards, and then she
could not quite remember whether it was behind the altar or in front.
Was she able to give the custodians of the chapel any signs by which
to recognise the sword? She never explained this point, and her letter
is lost.[823]
[Footnote 820: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 56, 75, 76, 77.]
[Footnote 821: Abbe Bourasse, _Les miracles de madame sainte Katerine
de Fierboys en Touraine_ (1375-1446), Tours, 1858, in 8vo, _passim_.]
[Footnote 822: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 277. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, p. 69.]
[Footnote 823: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 77. _Les miracles de madame sainte
Katerine_, _passim_.]
It is certain, however, that she believed the sword had been shown to
her in a vision and in no other manner. An armourer of Touraine, whom
she did not know (afterwards she maintained that she had never seen
him), was appointed to carry the letter to Fierbois. The custodians of
the chapel gave him a sword marked with five crosses, or with five
little swords on the blade, not far from the hilt. In what part of the
chapel had they found it? No one knows. A contemporary says it was in
a coffer with some old iron. If it had been buried and hidden it was
not very long before, because the rust could easily be removed by
rubbing. The priests were careful to offer it to the Maid with great
ceremony[824] before giving it to the armourer who had come for it.
They enclosed it in a sheath of red velvet, embroidered with the royal
flowers de luce. When Jeanne received it she recognised it to be the
one revealed to her in a celestial vision and promised her by her
Voices, and she failed not to let the little company of monks and
soldiers who surrounded her know that it was so. This they took to be
a good omen and a sign of victory.[825] To protect Saint Catherine's
sword the priests of the town gave her a second sheath; this one was
of black cloth. Jeanne had a third made of very tough leather.[826]
[Footnote 824: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 76, 234, 236. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 277. _Journal du siege_, p. 49. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 69, 70. Guerneri Berni, in the _Trial_, vol.
iv, p. 519. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 267. Morosini, vol.
iii, p. 109. _Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_, pp. 337, 338.
_Chronique Messine_, edition Bouteiller, 1878, Orleans, in 8vo, 26
pages.]
[Footnote 825: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75, 235.]
[Footnote 826: _Ibid._, p. 76.]
The story of the sword spread far and wide and was elaborated by many
a curious fable. It was said to be the sword of the great Charles
Martel, long buried and forgotten. Many believed it had belonged to
Alexander and the knights of those ancient days. Every one thought
well of it and esteemed it likely to bring good fortune. When the
English and the Burgundians heard tell of the matter, there soon
occurred to them the idea that the Maid had discovered what was hidden
beneath the earth by taking counsel of demons; or they suspected her
of having herself craftily hidden the sword in the place she had
indicated in order to deceive princes, clergy, and people. They
wondered anxiously whether those five crosses were not signs of the
devil.[827] Thus there began to arise conflicting illusions, according
to which Jeanne appeared either saint or sorceress.[828]
[Footnote 827: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 108, 109. _Chronique de
Lorraine_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 332. Eberhard Windecke, p. 101.
Cf. _Journal du siege_, p. 49.]
[Footnote 828: Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 122.]
The King had given her no command. Acting according to the counsel of
the doctors, he did not hinder her from going to Orleans with
men-at-arms. He even had her taken there in state in order that she
might give the promised sign. He granted her men to conduct her, not
for her to conduct. How could she have conducted them since she did
not know the way? Meanwhile she had a standard made according to the
command of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who had said: "Take the
standard in the name of the King of Heaven!" It was of a coarse white
cloth, or buckram, edged with silk fringe. At the bidding of her
Voices, Jeanne caused a painter of the town to represent on it what
she called "the World,"[829] that is, Our Lord seated upon his throne,
blessing with his right hand, and in his left holding the globe of the
world. On his right and on his left were angels, both painted as they
were in churches, and presenting Our Lord with flowers de luce. Above
or on one side were the names Jhesus--Maria, and the background was
strewn with the royal lilies in gold.[830] She also had a coat-of-arms
painted: on an azure shield a silver dove, holding in its beak a
scroll on which was written: "_De par le Roi du Ciel_."[831] This
coat-of-arms she had painted on the reverse of the standard bearing on
the front the picture of Our Lord. A servant of the Duke of Alencon,
Perceval de Cagny, says that she ordered to be made another and a
smaller standard, a banner, on which was the picture of Our Lady
receiving the angel's salutation. The Tours painter Jeanne employed
came from Scotland and was called Hamish Power. He provided the
material and executed the paintings of the two escutcheons, of the
small one as well as of the large. For this he received from the
keeper of the war treasury twenty-five _livres tournois_.[832] Hamish
Power had a daughter, Heliote by name, who was about to be married and
to whom Jeanne afterwards showed kindness.[833]
[Footnote 829: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 77, 179, 236; vol. iii, p. 103.]
[Footnote 830: _Ibid._, pp. 78, 117.]
[Footnote 831: _Ibid._, pp. 78, 117, 181, 300. _Relation du greffier
de La Rochelle_, p. 338. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 110; vol. iv,
supplement, xv, pp. 313, 315.]
[Footnote 832: Perceval de Cagny, p. 150. _Journal du siege_, p. 76.
_Relation du greffier d'Albi_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 301.
_Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_, p. 338. _Chronique du doyen de
Saint-Thibaud de Metz_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 322. Extract from
the thirteenth account of Hemon Raguier, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.
258.]
[Footnote 833: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.
ii, p. 65; _Un episode de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de
l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. iv, first series, p. 488.]
The standard was the signal for rallying. For long only kings,
emperors, and leaders in war had had the right of raising it. The
feudal suzerain had it carried before him; vassals ranged themselves
beneath their lord's banners. But in 1429 banners had ceased to be
used save in corporations, guilds, and parishes, borne only before the
armies of peace. In war they were no longer needed. The meanest
captain, the poorest knight had his own standard. When fifty French
men-at-arms went forth from Orleans against a handful of English
marauders, a crowd of banners like a swarm of butterflies waved over
the fields. "To raise one's standard" came to be a figure of speech
for "to be puffed up."[834] So indeed it was permissible for a
freebooter to raise his standard when he commanded scarce a score of
men-at-arms and half-naked bowmen. Even if Jeanne, as she may have
done, held her standard to be a sign of sovereign command, and if,
having received it from the King of Heaven, she thought to raise it
above all others, was there a soul in the realm to say her nay? What
had become of all those feudal banners which for eighty years had been
in the vanguard of defeat; sown over the fields of Crecy; collected
beneath bushes and hedges by Welsh and Cornish swordsmen; lost in the
vineyards of Maupertuis, trampled underfoot by English archers on the
soft earth into which sank the corpses of Azincourt; gathered in
handfuls under the walls of Verneuil by Bedford's marauders? It was
because all these banners had miserably fallen, it was because at
Rouvray a prince of the blood royal had shamefully trailed his nobles'
banners in flight, that the peasant now raised her banner.
[Footnote 834: In Beaudouin de Sebourg (xx, 249) is the passage:
_Il est cousin au conte
Il en fait estandart_
quoted by Godefroy. Cf. La Curne and Littre.]