RISE OF THE LEGEND
It is always difficult to ascertain what happens in war. In those days
it was quite impossible to form any clear idea of how things came
about. At Orleans, doubtless, there were certain who were keen enough
to perceive that the numerous and ingenious engines of war, gathered
together by the magistrates, had been of great service; but folk
generally prefer to ascribe results to miraculous causes, and the
merit of their deliverance the people of Orleans attributed first to
their Blessed Patrons, Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, and after them
to Jeanne, the Divine Maid, believing that there was no easier,
simpler, or more natural explanation of the deeds they had
witnessed.[1550]
[Footnote 1550: _Journal du siege_, pp. 16, 88. _Chronique de
l'etablissement de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 296. Lottin,
_Recits historiques sur Orleans_, vol. i, p. 279.]
Guillaume Girault, former magistrate of the town and notary at the
Chatelet, wrote and signed, with his own hand, a brief account of the
deliverance of the city. Herein he states that on Wednesday, Ascension
Eve, the bastion of Saint-Loup was stormed and taken as if by miracle,
"there being present, and aiding in the fight, Jeanne the Maid, sent
of God;" and that, on the following Saturday, the siege laid by the
English to Les Tourelles at the end of the bridge was raised by the
most obvious miracle since the Passion. And Guillaume Girault
testifies that the Maid led the enterprise.[1551] When eye-witnesses,
participators in the deeds themselves, had no clear idea of events,
what could those more remote from the scene of action think of them?
[Footnote 1551: _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 282, 283.]
The tidings of the French victories flew with astonishing
rapidity.[1552] The brevity of authentic accounts was amply
supplemented by the eloquence of loquacious clerks and the popular
imagination. The Loire campaign and the coronation expedition were
scarcely known at first save by fabulous reports, and the people only
thought of them as supernatural events.
[Footnote 1552: Tidings of the Deliverance of Orleans sent from Bruges
to Venice the 10th of May (Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 23, 24).]
In the letters sent by royal secretaries to the towns of the realm and
the princes of Christendom, the name of Jeanne the Maid was associated
with all the deeds of prowess. Jeanne herself, by her monastic scribe,
made known to all the great deeds which, it was her firm belief, she
had accomplished.[1553]
[Footnote 1553: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 123, 139, 145, 147, 156, 159,
161.]
It was believed that everything had been done through her, that the
King had consulted her in all things, when in truth the King's
counsellors and the Captains rarely asked her advice, listened to it
but seldom, and brought her forth only at convenient seasons.
Everything was attributed to her alone. Her personality, associated
with deeds attested and seemingly marvellous, became buried in a vast
cycle of astonishing fables and disappeared in a forest of heroic
stories.[1554]
[Footnote 1554: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 60, 61.]
Contrite souls there were in those days, who, ascribing all the woes
of the kingdom to the sins of the people, looked for salvation to
humility, repentance, and penance.[1555] They expected the end of
iniquity and the kingdom of God on earth. Jeanne, at least in the
beginning, was one of those pious folk. Sometimes, speaking as a
mystic reformer, she would say that Jesus is King of the holy realm of
France, that King Charles is his lieutenant, and does but hold the
kingdom "in fief."[1556] She uttered words which would create the
impression that her mission was all charity, peace, and love,--these,
for example, "I am sent to comfort the poor and needy."[1557] Such
gentle penitents as dreamed of a world pure, faithful, and good, made
of Jeanne their saint and their prophetess. They ascribed to her
edifying words she had never uttered.
[Footnote 1555: Saint Vincent Ferrier; and Saint Bernardino of Siena.]
[Footnote 1556: See _ante_, p. 64.]
[Footnote 1557: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 88.]
"When the Maid came to the King," they said, "she caused him to make
three promises: the first was to resign his kingdom, to renounce it
and give it back to God, from whom he held it; the second, to pardon
all such as had turned against him and afflicted him; the third, to
humiliate himself so far as to receive into favour all such as should
come to him, poor and rich, friend and foe."[1558]
[Footnote 1558: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 52-53. See _ante_, p. 184.]
Or again, in apologues, simple and charming, like the following, they
represented her accomplishing her mission:
"One day, the Maid asked the King to bestow a present upon her; and
when he consented, she claimed as a gift the realm of France. Though
astonished, the King did not withdraw his promise. Having received
her present, the Maid required a deed of gift to be solemnly drawn up
by four of the King's notaries and read aloud. While the King listened
to the reading, she pointed him out to those that stood by, saying:
'Behold the poorest knight in the kingdom.' Then, after a short time,
disposing of the realm of France, she gave it back to God. Thereafter,
acting in God's name, she invested King Charles with it and commanded
that this solemn act of transmission should be recorded in
writing."[1559]
[Footnote 1559: L. Delisle, _Un nouveau temoignage relatif a la
mission de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_,
vol. xlvi, p. 649. Le P. Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'Eglise de son
temps_, pp. 57, 58.]
It was believed that Jeanne had prophesied that on Saint John the
Baptist's Day, 1429, not an Englishman should be left in France.[1560]
These simple folk expected their saint's promises to be fulfilled on
the day she had fixed. They maintained that on the 23rd of June she
had entered the city of Rouen, and that on the morrow, Saint John the
Baptist's day, the inhabitants of Paris had of their own accord,
opened their gates to the King of France. In the month of July these
stories were being told in Avignon.[1561] Reformers, numerous it would
seem in France and throughout Christendom, believed that the Maid
would organise the English and French on monastic lines and make of
them one nation of pious beggars, one brotherhood of penitents.
According to them, the following were the intentions of the two
parties and the clauses of the treaty:
[Footnote 1560: Letter written by the agents of a town or of a prince
of Germany, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 351.]
[Footnote 1561: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 38, 46, 61.]
"King Charles of Valois bestows universal pardon and is willing to
forget all wrongs. The English and French, having turned to
contrition and repentance, are endeavouring to conclude a good and
binding peace. The Maid herself has imposed conditions upon them.
Conforming to her will, the English and French for one year or for two
will wear a grey habit, with a little cross sewn upon it; on every
Friday they will live on bread and water; they will dwell in unity
with their wives and will seek no other women. They promise God not to
make war except for the defense of their country."[1562]
[Footnote 1562: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 64, 65.]
During the coronation campaign, nothing being known of the agreement
between the King's men and the people of Auxerre, towards the end of
July, it was related that the town having been taken by storm, four
thousand five hundred citizens had been killed and likewise fifteen
hundred men-at-arms, knights as well as squires belonging to the
parties of Burgundy and Savoy. Among the nobles slain were mentioned
Humbert Marechal, Lord of Varambon, and a very famous warrior, le Viau
de Bar. Stories were told of treasons and massacres, horrible
adventures in which the Maid was associated with that knave of hearts
who was already famous. She was said to have had twelve traitors
beheaded.[1563] Such tales were real romances of chivalry. Here is one
of them:
[Footnote 1563: _Ibid._, pp. 144 _et seq._]
About two thousand English surrounded the King's camp, watching to see
if they could do him some hurt. Then the Maid called Captain La Hire
and said to him: "Thou hast in thy time done great prowess, but to-day
God prepares for thee a deed greater than any thou hast yet performed.
Take thy men and go to such and such a wood two leagues herefrom, and
there shalt thou find two thousand English, all lance in hand; them
shalt thou take and slay."
La Hire went forth to the English and all were taken and slain as the
Maid had said.[1564]
[Footnote 1564: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 150, 153.]
Such were the fairy-stories told of Jeanne to the joy of simple
primitive folk, who delighted in the idea of a maid slayer of giants
and remover of mountains.
There was a rumour that after the sack of Auxerre, the Duke of
Burgundy had been defeated and taken in a great battle, that the
Regent was dead and that the Armagnacs had entered Paris.[1565]
Prodigies were said to have attended the capitulation of Troyes. On
the coming of the French, it was told how the townsfolk beheld from
their ramparts a vast multitude of men-at-arms, some five or six
thousand, each man holding a white pennon in his hand. On the
departure of the French, they beheld them again, ranged but a bow-shot
behind King Charles. These knights with white pennons vanished when
the King had gone; for they were as miraculous as those white-scarfed
knights, whom the Bretons had seen riding in the sky but shortly
before.[1566]
[Footnote 1565: _Ibid._, pp. 166, 167.]
[Footnote 1566: Fragment of a letter on the marvels in Poitou, in
_Trial_, vol. v, pp. 121, 122. _Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_,
_op. cit._, p. 343.]
All that the people of Orleans beheld when their siege was suddenly
raised, all that Armagnac mendicants and the Dauphin's clerks related
was greedily received, accredited, and amplified. Three months after
her coming to Chinon, Jeanne had her legend, which grew and increased
and extended into Italy, Flanders, and Germany.[1567] In the summer of
1429, this legend was already formed. All the scattered parts of what
may be described as the gospel of her childhood existed.
[Footnote 1567: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 78, note 1. Eberhard Windecke,
_passim_. Fauche-Prunelle, _Lettres tirees des archives de Grenoble_
in _Bull. Acad. delph._, vol. ii, 1847, 1849, pp. 459, 460. Letter
written by deputies, agents of a German town, in _Trial_, vol. v, p.
347. Letter from Jean Desch, Secretary of the town of Metz, _ibid._,
pp. 352, 355.]
At the age of seven Jeanne kept sheep; the wolves did not molest her
flock; the birds of the field, when she called them, came and ate
bread from her lap. The wicked had no power over her. No one beneath
her roof need fear man's fraud or ill-will.[1568]
[Footnote 1568: Letters from Perceval de Boulainvilliers to the Duke
of Milan, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 114, 116.]
When it is a Latin poet who is writing, the miracles attending
Jeanne's birth assume a Roman majesty and are clothed with the august
dignity of ancient myths. Thus it is curious to find a humanist of
1429 summoning the Italian muse to the cradle of Zabillet Romee's
daughter.
"The thunder rolled, the ocean shuddered, the earth shook, the heavens
were on fire, the universe rejoiced visibly; a strange transport
mingled with fear moved the enraptured nations. They sing sweet verses
and dance in harmonious motion at the sign of the salvation prepared
for the French people by this celestial birth."[1569]
[Footnote 1569: Anonymous poem on the coming of the Maid and the
Deliverance of Orleans, _Trial_, vol. v, p. 27, line 70 _et seq._]
Moreover an attempt was made to represent the wonders that had
heralded the nativity of Jesus as having been repeated on the birth of
Jeanne. It was imagined that she was born on the night of the
Epiphany. The shepherds of her village, moved by an indescribable joy,
the cause of which was unknown to them, hastened through the darkness
towards the marvellous mystery. The cocks, heralds of this new joy,
sing at an unusual season and, flapping their wings, seem to prophesy
for two hours. Thus the child in her cradle had her adoration of the
shepherds.[1570]
[Footnote 1570: "_In nocte Epiphaniarum_," says the letter from
Perceval de Boulainvilliers (_Trial_, vol. v, p. 116), that is, Jan.
6. For centuries, even after the fourth century, the birth of our Lord
was celebrated on that day. In France it was the Feast of Kings and
then was sung the anthem: _Magi videntes stellam_.]
Of her coming into France there was much to tell. It was related that
in the Chateau of Chinon she had recognised the King, whom she had
never seen before, and had gone straight to him, although he was but
poorly clad and surrounded by his baronage.[1571] It was said that she
had given the King a sign, that she had revealed a secret to him; and
that on the revelation of the secret, known to him alone, he had been
illuminated with a heavenly joy. Concerning this interview at Chinon,
while those present had little to say, the stories of many who were
not there were interminable.[1572]
[Footnote 1571: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 116, 192. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, p. 47. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, p. 67. _Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_, pp.
336, 337. Martial d'Auvergne, _Vigiles_, vol. i, p. 96.]
[Footnote 1572: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 103, 116, 209, _passim_.
_Journal du siege_, p. 48. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.
i, p. 68. _Mirouer des femmes vertueuses_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p.
271. Pierre Sala, _ibid._, p. 280. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 104.
Eberhard Windecke, p. 153.]
On the 7th of May, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a white dove
alighted on the Maid's standard; and on the same day, during the
assault, two white birds were seen to be flying over her head.[1573]
Saints were commonly visited by doves. One day when Saint Catherine
of Sienna was kneeling in the fuller's house, a dove as white as snow
perched on the child's head.[1574]
[Footnote 1573: _Journal du siege_, p. 294. _Chronique de
l'etablissement de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 294.]
[Footnote 1574: AA. SS., April 3rd. Didron, _Iconographie chretienne_,
pp. 438, 439. Alba Mignati, _Sainte Catherine de Sienne_, p. 16.]
A tale then in circulation is interesting as showing the idea which
prevailed concerning the relations of the King and the Maid; it
serves, likewise, as an example of the perversions to which the story
of an actual fact is subject as it passes from mouth to mouth. Here is
the tale as it was gathered by a German merchant.
On a day, in a certain town, the Maid, hearing that the English were
near, went into the field; and straightway all the men-at-arms, who
were in the town, leapt to their steeds and followed her. Meanwhile,
the King, who was at dinner, learning that all were going forth in
company with the Maid, had the gates of the town closed.
The Maid was told, and she replied without concern: "Before the hour
of nones, the King will have so great need of me, that he will follow
me immediately, spurless, and barely staying to throw on his cloak."
And thus it came to pass. For the men-at-arms shut up in the town
besought the King to open the gates forthwith or they would break them
down. The gates were opened and all the fighting men hastened to the
Maid, heedless of the King, who threw on his cloak and followed them.
On that day a great number of the English were slain.[1575]
[Footnote 1575: Eberhard Windecke, p. 103.]
Such is the story which gives a very inaccurate representation of what
happened at Orleans on the 6th of May. The citizens hastened in crowds
to the Burgundian Gate, resolved to cross the Loire and attack Les
Tourelles. Finding the gate closed, they threw themselves furiously on
the Sire de Gaucourt who was keeping it. The aged baron had the gate
opened wide and said to them, "Come, I will be your captain."[1576] In
the story the citizens have become men-at-arms, and it is not the Sire
de Gaucourt but the King who maliciously closes the gates. But the
King gained nothing by it; and it is astonishing to find that so early
there had grown up in the minds of the people the idea that, far from
aiding the Maid to drive out the English, the King had put obstacles
in her way and was always the last to follow her.
[Footnote 1576: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 116, 117.]
Seen through this chaos of stories more indistinct than the clouds in
a stormy sky, Jeanne appeared a wondrous marvel. She prophesied and
many of her prophecies had already been fulfilled. She had foretold
the deliverance of Orleans and Orleans had been delivered. She had
prophesied that she would be wounded, and an arrow had pierced her
above the right breast. She had prophesied that she would take the
King to Reims, and the King had been crowned in that city. Other
prophecies had she uttered touching the realm of France, to wit, the
deliverance of the Duke of Orleans, the entering into Paris, the
driving of the English from the holy kingdom, and their fulfilment was
expected.[1577]
[Footnote 1577: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 55, 84 _et seq._, 133, 174, 232,
251, 252, 254, 331; vol. iii, pp. 99, 205, 254, 257, _passim_.
_Journal du siege_, pp. 34, 44, 45, 48. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp.
212, 295. Perceval de Cagny, p. 141. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 320.
Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 143. The Clerk of the Chamber of
Accounts of Brabant, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 426. _Chronique de
Tournai_ (vol. iii, _du recueil des chroniques de Flandre_), p. 411.
Morosini, vol. iii, p. 121.]
Every day she prophesied and notably concerning divers persons who had
failed in respect towards her and had come to a bad end.[1578]
[Footnote 1578: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 57.]
At Chinon, when she was being taken to the King, a man-at-arms who was
riding near the chateau, thinking he recognised her, asked, "Is not
that the Maid? By God, an I had my way she should not be a maid long."
Then Jeanne prophesied and said "Ha, thou takest God's name in vain,
and thou art so near thy death!"
Less than an hour later the man fell into the water and was
drowned.[1579]
[Footnote 1579: Brother Pasquerel's evidence, in _Trial_, vol. iii, p.
102.]
Straightway this miracle was related in Latin verse. In the poem which
records this miraculous history of Jeanne up to the deliverance of
Orleans, the lewd blasphemer, who like all blasphemers, came to a bad
end, is noble and by name Furtivolus.[1580]
[Footnote 1580: Anonymous poem on the Maid, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 38,
lines 105 _et seq._]
_... generoso sanguine natus,
Nomine Furtivolus, veneris moderator iniquus._
Captain Glasdale called Jeanne strumpet and blasphemed his Maker.
Jeanne prophesied that he would die without shedding blood; and
Glasdale was drowned in the Loire.[1581]
[Footnote 1581: Evidence of J. Luillier and Brother Pasquerel, in
_Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 25, 108.]
Many of these tales were obvious imitations of incidents in the lives
of the saints, which were widely read in those days. A woman, who was
a heretic, pulled the cassock of Saint Ambrose, whereupon the blessed
bishop said to her, "Take heed lest one day thou be chastised of God."
On the morrow the woman died, and the Blessed Ambrose conducted her to
the grave.[1582]
[Footnote 1582: The _Golden Legend_. Life of Saint Ambrose.]
A nun, who was then alive and who was to die in an odour of sanctity,
Sister Colette of Corbie, had met her Furtivolus and had punished him,
but less severely. On a day when she was praying in a church of
Corbie, a stranger drew near and spoke to her libidinous words: "May
it please God," she said, "to bring home to you the hideousness of the
words you have just uttered." The stranger in shame went to the door.
But an invisible hand arrested him on the threshold. Then he realised
the gravity of his sin; he asked pardon of the saint and was free to
leave the church.[1583]
[Footnote 1583: Abbe J. Th. Bizouard, _Histoire de sainte Colette et
des clarisses en Franche-Comte, d'apres des documents inedits et des
traditions locales_, Paris, 1888, in 8vo.]
After the royal army had departed from Gien, the Maid was said to have
prophesied that a great battle would be fought between Auxerre and
Reims.[1584] When such predictions were not fulfilled they were
forgotten. Besides, it was admitted that true prophets might sometimes
utter false prophecies. A subtle theologian distinguished between
prophecies of predestination which are always fulfilled and those of
condemnation, which being conditioned, may not be fulfilled and that
without reflecting untruthfulness on the lips that uttered them.[1585]
Folk wondered that a peasant child should be able to forecast the
future, and with the Apostle they cried, "I praise thee, O Father,
because thou hast hidden those things from the wise and prudent and
revealed them unto babes."
[Footnote 1584: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 148, 156. Eberhard Windecke,
pp. 103, 105, 187. Noel Valois, _Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne
d'Arc_, p. 17.]
[Footnote 1585: Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et consultations_, pp. 220,
222. Theodore de Leliis, in _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 39, 42. Le P.
Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'Eglise de son temps_, p. 342. Abbe
Hyacinthe Chassagnon, _Les voix de Jeanne d'Arc_, Lyon 1896, in 8vo,
pp. 312, 313.]
The Maid's prophecies were speedily spread abroad throughout the whole
of Christendom.[1586] A clerk of Spiers wrote a treatise on her,
entitled _Sibylla Francica_, divided into two parts. The first part
was drawn up not later than July, 1429. The second is dated the 17th
of September, the same year. This clerk believes that the Maid
practised the art of divination by means of astrology. He had heard a
French monk of the order of the Premonstratensians[1587] say that
Jeanne delighted to study the heavens by night. He observes that all
her prophecies concerned the kingdom of France; and he gives the
following as having been uttered by the Maid: "After having ruled for
twenty years, the Dauphin will sleep with his fathers. After him, his
eldest son, now a child of six, will reign more gloriously, more
honourably, more powerfully than any King of France since
Charlemagne."[1588]
[Footnote 1586: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 138 _et seq._ Morosini, vol.
iii, pp. 62-63.]
[Footnote 1587: The monastery of the Premonstratensians, near Laon,
was founded in 1122, by St. Norbert (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1588: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 422 _et seq._, 433, 434, 465;
vol. v, pp. 475, 476.]
The Maid possessed the gift of beholding events which were taking
place far away.
At Vaucouleurs, on the very day of the Battle of the Herrings, she
knew the Dauphin's army had suffered grievous hurt.[1589]
[Footnote 1589: _Journal du siege_, p. 44. _Chronique de la Pucelle_,
p. 272.]
On a day when she was dining, seated near the King, she began to laugh
quietly. The King, perceiving, asked her: "My beloved, wherefore laugh
ye so merrily?"
She made answer that she would tell him when the repast was over. And,
when the ewer was brought her, "Sire," she said, "this day have been
drowned in the sea five hundred English, who were crossing to your
land to do you hurt. Therefore did I laugh. In three days you will
know that it is true."
And so it was.[1590]
[Footnote 1590: Eberhard Windecke, p. 117.]
Another time, when she was in a town some miles distant from the
chateau where the King was, as she prayed before going to sleep, it
was revealed to her that certain of the King's enemies wished to
poison him at dinner. Straightway she called her brothers and sent
them to the King to advise him to take no food until she came.
When she appeared before him, he was at table surrounded by eleven
persons.
"Sire," she said, "have the dishes brought."
She gave them to the dogs, who ate from them and died forthwith.
Then, pointing to a knight, who was near the King and to two other
guests: "Those persons," she said, "wished to poison you."
The knight straightway confessed that it was true; and he was dealt
with according to his deserts.[1591]
[Footnote 1591: _Ibid._, p. 97.]
It was borne in upon her that a certain priest kept a concubine;[1592]
and one day, meeting in the camp a woman dressed as a man, it was
revealed to her that the woman was pregnant and that having already
had one child she had made away with it.[1593]
[Footnote 1592: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 146.]
[Footnote 1593: Eberhard Windecke, p. 97.]
She was likewise said to possess the power of discovering things
hidden. She herself had claimed this power when she was at Tours. It
had been revealed to her that a sword was buried in the ground in the
chapel of Saint Catherine of Fierbois, and that was the sword she
wore. Some deemed it to be the sword with which Charles Martel had
defeated the Saracens. Others suspected it of being the sword of
Alexander the Great.[1594]
[Footnote 1594: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 76, 234. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 277. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 69, 70.
_Journal du siege_, pp. 49, 50. _Relation du greffier de La Rochelle_,
pp. 337, 338. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 108, 109. Abbe Bourasse, _Les
miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine_, Introduction.]
In like manner it was said that before the coronation Jeanne had known
of a precious crown, hidden from all eyes. And here is the story told
concerning it:
A bishop kept the crown of Saint Louis. No one knew which bishop it
was, but it was known that the Maid had sent him a messenger, bearing
a letter in which she asked him to give up the crown. The bishop
replied that the Maid was dreaming. A second time she demanded the
sacred treasure, and the bishop made the same reply. Then she wrote to
the citizens of the episcopal city, saying that if the crown were not
given up to the King, the Lord would punish the town, and straightway
there fell so heavy a storm of hail that all men marvelled. Wizards
commonly caused hail storms. But this time the hail was a plague sent
by the God who afflicted Egypt with ten plagues. After which the Maid
despatched to the citizens a third letter in which she described the
form and fashion of the crown the bishop was hiding, and warned them
that if it were not given up even worse things would happen to them.
The bishop, who believed that the wondrous circlet of gold was known
to him alone, marvelled that the form and fashion thereof should be
described in this letter. He repented of his wickedness, wept many
tears, and commanded the crown to be sent to the King and the
Maid.[1595]
[Footnote 1595: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 160, 163.]
It is not difficult to discern the origin of this story. The crown of
Charlemagne, which the kings of France wore at the coronation
ceremony, was at Saint-Denys in France, in the hands of the English.
Jeanne boasted of having given the Dauphin at Chinon a precious crown,
brought by angels. She said that this crown had been sent to Reims for
the coronation, but that it did not arrive in time.[1596] As for the
hiding of the crown by the bishop, that idea arose probably from the
well-known cupidity of my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of
Reims, who had appropriated the silver vase intended for the chapter
and placed by the King upon the high altar after the ceremony.[1597]
[Footnote 1596: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1597: Dom Marlot, _Histoire de l'Eglise de Reims_, vol. iv,
p. 175. H. Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, appendix xvii.]
There was likewise talk of gloves lost at Reims and of a cup that
Jeanne had found.[1598]
[Footnote 1598: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 104.]
Maiden, at once a warrior and a lover of peace, _beguine_, prophetess,
sorceress, angel of the Lord, ogress, every man beholds her according
to his own fashion, creates her according to his own image. Pious
souls clothe her with an invincible charm and the divine gift of
charity; simple souls make her simple too; men gross and violent
figure her a giantess, burlesque and terrible. Shall we ever discern
the true features of her countenance? Behold her, from the first and
perhaps for ever enclosed in a flowering thicket of legends!
END OF VOL. I.
* * * * *
THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC
BY ANATOLE FRANCE
A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS
IN TWO VOLS., VOL. II
[Illustration]
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX
_Copyright in U.S.A., 1908, by_
MANZI, JOYANT ET CIE
_Copyright in U.S.A., 1908, by_
JOHN LANE COMPANY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
[Illustration: The Duke of Bedford
from The Bedford Missal]
CONTENTS
VOL. II
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE ROYAL ARMY FROM SOISSONS TO COMPIEGNE.
POEM AND PROPHECY 1
II. THE MAID'S FIRST VISIT TO COMPIEGNE. THE
THREE POPES. SAINT-DENYS. TRUCES 34
III. THE ATTACK ON PARIS 54
IV. THE TAKING OF SAINT-PIERRE-LE-MOUSTIER.
FRIAR RICHARD'S SPIRITUAL DAUGHTERS. THE
SIEGE OF LA CHARITE 78
V. LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF REIMS. LETTER TO
THE HUSSITES. DEPARTURE FROM SULLY 103
VI. THE MAID IN THE TRENCHES OF MELUN. LE
SEIGNEUR DE L'OURS. THE CHILD OF LAGNY 122
VII. SOISSONS AND COMPIEGNE. CAPTURE OF THE MAID 138
VIII. THE MAID AT BEAULIEU. THE SHEPHERD OF GEVAUDAN 156
IX. THE MAID AT BEAUREVOIR. CATHERINE DE LA
ROCHELLE AT PARIS. EXECUTION OF LA PIERRONNE 170
X. BEAUREVOIR. ARRAS. ROUEN. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE 188
XI. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE (_continued_) 227
XII. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE (_continued_) 264
XIII. THE ABJURATION. THE FIRST SENTENCE 299
XIV. THE TRIAL FOR RELAPSE. SECOND SENTENCE.
DEATH OF THE MAID 323
XV. AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID. THE END OF
THE SHEPHERD. LA DAME DES ARMOISES 343
XVI. AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID (_continued_). THE
ROUEN JUDGES AT THE COUNCIL OF BALE AND
THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION. THE REHABILITATION
TRIAL. THE MAID OF SARMAIZE. THE MAID OF LE MANS 378
APPENDICES
I. LETTER FROM DOCTOR G. DUMAS 401
II. THE FARRIER OF SALON 407
III. MARTIN DE GALLARDON 413
IV. ICONOGRAPHICAL NOTE 420
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. II
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD _Frontispiece_
From the Bedford Missal.
_To face page_
PHILIP, DUKE OF BURGUNDY 140
HENRY VI 194
From a portrait in the "Election Chamber" at Eton,
reproduced by permission of the Provost.
THE BASTARD OF ORLEANS 388
From an old engraving.
JOAN OF ARC
CHAPTER I
THE ROYAL ARMY FROM SOISSONS TO COMPIEGNE--POEM AND PROPHECY
On the 22nd of July, King Charles, marching with his army down the
valley of the Aisne, in a place called Vailly, received the keys of
the town of Soissons.[1599]
[Footnote 1599: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 323, 324. Perceval de
Cagny, pp. 160, 161. _Journal du siege_, p. 115. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, p. 98. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 196.]
This town constituted a part of the Duchy of Valois, held jointly by
the Houses of Orleans and of Bar.[1600] Of its dukes, one was a prisoner
in the hands of the English; the other was connected with the French
party through his brother-in-law, King Charles, and with the
Burgundian party through his father-in-law, the Duke of Lorraine. No
wonder the fealty of the townsfolk was somewhat vacillating;
downtrodden by men-at-arms, forever taken and retaken, red caps and
white caps alternately ran the danger of being cast into the river.
The Burgundians set fire to the houses, pillaged the churches,
chastised the most notable burgesses; then came the Armagnacs, who
sacked everything, made great slaughter of men, women, and children,
ravished nuns, worthy wives, and honest maids. The Saracens could not
have done worse.[1601] City dames had been seen making sacks in which
Burgundians were to be sewn up and thrown into the Aisne.[1602]
[Footnote 1600: _Ordonnances des rois de France_, vol. ix, p. 71. H.
Martin and Lacroix, _Histoire de la ville de Soissons_, Soissons,
1837, in 8vo, ii, pp. 283 _et seq._]
[Footnote 1601: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 53, _passim_.]
[Footnote 1602: _Ibid._, p. 103.]
King Charles made his entry into the city on Saturday the 23rd, in the
morning.[1603] The red caps went into hiding. The bells pealed, the folk
cried "Noel," and the burgesses proffered the King two barbels, six
sheep and six gallons of "_bon suret_,"[1604] begging the King to forgive
its being so little, but the war had ruined them.[1605] They, like the
people of Troyes, refused to open their gates to the men-at-arms, by
virtue of their privileges, and because they had not food enough for
their support. The army encamped in the plain of Ambleny.[1606]
[Footnote 1603: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 323, 324. Perceval de
Cagny, p. 160. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 339.]
[Footnote 1604: _Suret_ is sour wine (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1605: C. Dormay, _Histoire de la ville de Soissons_, Soissons,
1664, vol. ii, pp. 382 _et seq._ H. Martin and Lacroix, _Histoire de
Soissons_, vol. ii, p. 319. Pecheur, _Annales du diocese de Soissons_,
vol. iv, p. 513. Felix Brun, _Jeanne d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons
en 1430_, Soissons, 1904, p. 34.]
[Footnote 1606: Berry, in _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 49, 50. Le P. Daniel,
_Histoire de la milice francaise_, vol. i, p. 356. Felix Brun, _Jeanne
d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons_, pp. 26, 39.]
It would seem that at that time the leaders of the royal army had the
intention of marching on Compiegne. Indeed it was important to capture
this town from Duke Philip, for it was the key to l'Ile-de-France and
ought to be taken before the Duke had time to bring up an army. But
throughout this campaign the King of France was resolved to recapture
his towns rather by diplomacy and persuasion than by force. Between
the 22nd and the 25th of July he three times summoned the inhabitants
of Compiegne to surrender. Being desirous to gain time and to have the
air of being constrained, they entered into negotiations.[1607]
[Footnote 1607: De l'Epinois, _Notes extraites des archives communales de
Compiegne_, in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. xxix, p.
483. Sorel, _Prise de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 101, 102.]
Having quitted Soissons, the royal army reached Chateau-Thierry on the
29th. All day it waited for the town to open its gates. In the evening
the King entered.[1608] Coulommiers, Crecy-en-Brie, and Provins
submitted.[1609]
[Footnote 1608: Perceval de Cagny, p. 160. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 340.]
[Footnote 1609: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 340. _Chronique de la Pucelle_,
p. 323. Felix Bourquelot, _Histoire de Provins_, Provins, vol. iv, pp.
79 _et seq._ Th. Robillard, _Histoire pittoresque topographique et
archeologique de Crecy-en-Brie_, 1852, p. 42. L'Abbe C. Poquet,
_Histoire de Chateau-Thierry_, 1839, vol. i, pp. 290 _et seq._]
On Monday, the 1st of August, the King crossed the Marne, over the
Chateau-Thierry Bridge, and that same day took up his quarters at
Montmirail. On the morrow he gained Provins and came within a short
distance of the passage of the Seine and the high-roads of central
France.[1610] The army was sore anhungered, finding nought to eat in
these ravaged fields and pillaged cities. Through lack of victuals
preparations were being made for retreat into Poitou. But this design
was thwarted by the English. While ungarrisoned towns were being
reduced, the English Regent had been gathering an army. It was now
advancing on Corbeil and Melun. On its approach the French gained La
Motte-Nangis, some twelve miles from Provins, where they took up their
position on ground flat and level, such as was convenient for the
fighting of a battle, as battles were fought in those days. For one
whole day they remained in battle array. There was no sign of the
English coming to attack them.[1611]
[Footnote 1610: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 160, 161.]
[Footnote 1611: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 324, 325. _Journal du
siege_, p. 115. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 98, 99.
Perceval de Cagny, p. 161. Rymer, _Foedera_, June to July, 1429.
_Proceedings_, vol. iii, pp. 322 _et seq._ Morosini, vol. iv, appendix
xvii.]
Meanwhile the people of Reims received tidings that King Charles was
leaving Chateau-Thierry and was about to cross the Seine. Believing
that they had been abandoned, they were afraid lest the English and
Burgundians should make them pay dearly for the coronation of the King
of the Armagnacs; and in truth they stood in great danger. On the 3rd
of August, they resolved to send a message to King Charles to entreat
him not to forsake those cities which had submitted to him. The city's
herald set out forthwith. On the morrow they sent word to their good
friends of Chalons and of Laon, how they had heard that King Charles
was wending towards Orleans and Bourges, and how they had sent him a
message.[1612]
[Footnote 1612: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 98. Varin,
_Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims_, Statuts, vol. i (annot.
according to doc. no. xxi), p. 741. H. Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_,
original doc. no. 19, p. 118.]
On the 5th of August, while the King is still at Provins[1613] or in the
neighbourhood, Jeanne addresses to the townsfolk of Reims a letter
dated from the camp, on the road to Paris. Herein she promises not to
desert her friends faithful and beloved. She appears to have no
suspicion of the projected retreat on the Loire. Wherefore it is clear
that the magistrates of Reims have not written to her and that she is
not admitted to the royal counsels. She has been instructed, however,
that the King has concluded a fifteen days' truce with the Duke of
Burgundy, and thereof she informs the citizens of Reims. This truce is
displeasing to her; and she doubts whether she will observe it. If she
does observe it, it will be solely on account of the King's honour;
and even then she must be persuaded that there is no trickery in it.
She will therefore keep the royal army together and in readiness to
march at the end of the fifteen days. She closes her letter with a
recommendation to the townsfolk to keep good guard and to send her
word if they have need of her.
[Footnote 1613: Perceval de Cagny, p. 160.]
Here is the letter:
"Good friends and beloved, ye good and loyal French of the
city of Rains, Jehanne the Maid lets you wit of her tidings
and prays and requires you not to doubt the good cause she
maintains for the Blood Royal; and I promise and assure you
that I will never forsake you as long as I shall live. It is
true that the King has made truce with the Duke of Burgundy
for the space of fifteen days, by which he is to surrender
peaceably the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days.
Notwithstanding, marvel ye not if I do not straightway enter
into it, for truces thus made are not pleasing unto me, and
I know not whether I shall keep them; but if I keep them it
will be solely to maintain the King's honour; and further
they shall not ensnare the Royal Blood, for I will keep and
maintain together the King's army that it be ready at the
end of fifteen days, if they make not peace. Wherefore my
beloved and perfect friends, I pray ye to be in no
disquietude as long as I shall live; but I require you to
keep good watch and to defend well the good city of the
King; and to make known unto me if there be any traitors who
would do you hurt, and, as speedily as I may, I will take
them out from among you; and send me of your tidings. To
God I commend you. May he have you in his keeping."
Written this Friday, 5th day of August, near Provins,[1614] a
camp in the country or on the Paris road. Addressed to: the
loyal French of the town of Rains.[1615]
[Footnote 1614: This place name is not to be found in Rogier's copy.]
[Footnote 1615: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 139, 140, and Varin, _loc. cit._
_Statuts_, vol. i, p. 603, according to Rogier's copy. H. Jadart,
_Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, proofs and illustrations, vol. xiv, pp. 104,
105, and facsimile of the original copy formerly in the Reims
municipal archives, now in the possession of M. le Comte de
Maleissye.]
It cannot be doubted that the monk who acted as scribe wrote down
faithfully what was dictated to him, and reproduced the Maid's very
words, even her Lorraine dialect. She had then attained to the very
highest degree of heroic saintliness. Here, in this letter, she takes
to herself a supernatural power, to which the King, his Councillors
and his Captains must submit. She ascribes to herself alone the right
of recognising or denouncing treaties; she disposes entirely of the
army. And, because she commands in the name of the King of Heaven, her
commands are absolute. There is happening to her what necessarily
happens to all those who believe themselves entrusted with a divine
mission; they constitute themselves a spiritual and temporal power
superior to the established powers and inevitably hostile to them. A
dangerous illusion and productive of shocks in which the illuminated
are generally the worst sufferers! Every day of her life living and
holding converse with saints and angels, moving in the splendour of
the Church Triumphant, this young peasant girl came to believe that in
her resided all strength, all prudence, all wisdom and all counsel.
This does not mean that she was lacking in intelligence; on the
contrary she rightly perceived that the Duke of Burgundy, with his
embassies, was but playing with the King and that Charles was being
tricked by a Prince, who knew how to disguise his craft in
magnificence. Not that Duke Philip was an enemy of peace; on the
contrary he desired it, but he was desirous not to come to an open
quarrel with the English. Jeanne knew little of the affairs of
Burgundy and of France, but her judgment was none the less sound.
Concerning the relative positions of the Kings of France and England,
between whom there could be no agreement, since the matter in dispute
was the possession of the kingdom, her ideas were very simple but very
correct. Equally accurate were her views of the position of the King
of France with regard to his great vassal, the Duke of Burgundy, with
whom an understanding was not only possible and desirable, but
necessary. She pronounced thereupon in a perfectly straightforward
fashion: On the one hand there is peace with the Burgundians and on
the other peace with the English; concerning the peace with the Duke
of Burgundy, by letters and by ambassadors have I required him to come
to terms with the King; as for the English, the only way of making
peace with them is for them to go back to their country, to
England.[1616]
[Footnote 1616: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 233, 234.]
This truce that so highly displeased her we know not when it was
concluded, whether at Soissons or Chateau-Thierry, on the 30th or 31st
of July, or at Provins between the 2nd and 5th of August.[1617] It would
appear that it was to last fifteen days, at the end of which time the
Duke was to undertake to surrender Paris to the King of France. The
Maid had good reason for her mistrust.
[Footnote 1617: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 202, 203, note 2.]
When the Regent withdrew before him, King Charles eagerly returned to
his plan of retreating into Poitou. From La Motte-Nangis he sent his
quartermasters to Bray-sur-Seine, which had just submitted. Situated
above Montereau and ten miles south of Provins, this town had a bridge
over the river, across which the royal army was to pass on the 5th of
August or in the morning of the 6th; but the English came by night,
overcame the quartermasters and took possession of the bridge; with
its retreat cut off, the royal army had to retrace its march.[1618]
[Footnote 1618: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 325. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 99, 100. _Journal du siege_, pp. 119, 120.
Gilles de Roye, p. 207.]
Within this army, which had not fought and which was being devoured by
hunger, there existed a party of zealots, led by those whom Jeanne
fondly called the Royal Blood.[1619] They were the Duke of Alencon, the
Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome, and likewise the Duke of Bar,
who had just come from the War of the Apple Baskets.[1620] Before he
took to painting pictures and writing moralities in rhyme, this young
son of the Lady Yolande had been a warrior. Duke of Bar and heir of
Lorraine, he had been forced to join the English and Burgundians.
Brother-in-law of King Charles, he must needs rejoice when the latter
was victorious, because, but for that victory, he would never have
been able to range himself on the side of the Queen, his sister, for
which he would have been very sorry.[1621] Jeanne knew him; not long
before, she had asked the Duke of Lorraine to send him with her into
France.[1622] He was said to have been one of those who of their own
free will followed her to Paris. Among the others were the two sons of
the Lady of Laval, Gui, the eldest to whom she had offered wine at
Selles-en-Berry, promising soon to give him to drink at Paris, and
Andre, who afterwards became Marshal of Loheac.[1623] This was the army
of the Maid: a band of youths, scarcely more than children, who ranged
their banners side by side with the banner of a girl younger than
they, but more innocent and better.
[Footnote 1619: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 91.]
[Footnote 1620: _Guerre de la Hottee de Pommes_, cf. vol. i, p. 92.
(W.S.)]
[Footnote 1621: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaut de Metz_ in D.
Calmet. _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. v, orig. docs., cols, xli-xlvii.
Villeneuve-Bargemont, _Precis historique de la vie du roi Rene_, Aix,
1820, in 8vo. Lecoy de la Marche, _Le roi Rene_, Paris, 1875, 2 vols.
in 8vo. Vallet de Viriville, in _Nouvelle biographie generale_, 1866,
xli, pp. 1009-1015.]
[Footnote 1622: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 444. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a
Domremy_, p. cxcix. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 156, note 3.]
[Footnote 1623: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 105-111.]
On learning that the retreat had been cut off, it is said that these
youthful princes were well content and glad.[1624] This was valour and
zeal; but it was a curious position and a false when the knighthood
wished for war while the royal council was desiring to treat, and when
the knighthood actually rejoiced at the campaign being prolonged by
the enemy and at the royal army being cornered by the _Godons_.
Unhappily this war party could boast of no very able adherents; and
the favourable opportunity had been lost, the Regent had been allowed
time to collect his forces and to cope with the most pressing
dangers.[1625]
[Footnote 1624: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, Jean Chartier. _Journal du
siege_, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 1625: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 340, 344.]
Its retreat cut off, the royal army fell back on Brie. On the morning
of Sunday, the 7th, it was at Coulommiers; it recrossed the Marne at
Chateau-Thierry.[1626] King Charles received a message from the
inhabitants of Reims, entreating him to draw nearer to them.[1627] He
was at La Ferte on the 10th, on the 11th at Crepy in Valois.[1628]
[Footnote 1626: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_,
vol. i, p. 100. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 325.]
[Footnote 1627: Varin, _Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims_,
Statuts, vol. i, p. 742.]
[Footnote 1628: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161.]
At one stage of the march on La Ferte and Crepy, the Maid was riding
in company with the King, between the Archbishop of Reims and my Lord
the Bastard. Beholding the people hastening to come before the King
and crying "Noel!" she exclaimed: "Good people! Never have I seen folk
so glad at the coming of the fair King...."[1629]
[Footnote 1629: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 14, 15. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 326.]
These peasants of Valois and of l'Ile de France, who cried "Noel!" on
the coming of King Charles, in like manner hailed the Regent and the
Duke of Burgundy when they passed. Doubtless they were not so glad as
they seemed to Jeanne, and if the little Saint had listened at the
doors of their poor homes, this is about what she would have heard:
"What shall we do? Let us surrender our all to the devil. It matters
not what shall become of us, for, through treason and bad government,
we must needs forsake our wives and children and flee into the woods,
like wild beasts. And it is not one year or two but fourteen or
fifteen since we have been led this unhappy dance. And most of the
great nobles of France have died by the sword, or unconfessed have
fallen victims to poison or to treachery, or in short have perished by
some manner of violent death. Better for us would it have been to
serve Saracens than Christians. Whether one lives badly or well it
comes to the same thing. Let us do all the evil that lieth in our
power. No worse can happen to us than to be slain or taken."[1630]
[Footnote 1630: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 164.]
It was only in the neighbourhood of towns or close to fortresses and
castles, within sight of the watchman's eye as he looked from the top
of tower or belfry, that land was cultivated. On the approach of
men-at-arms, the watchman rang his bell or sounded his horn to warn
the vine-dressers or the ploughmen to flee to a place of safety. In
many districts the alarm bell was so frequent that oxen, sheep, and
pigs, of their own accord went into hiding, as soon as they heard
it.[1631]
[Footnote 1631: Thomas Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII_, chap. vi. A.
Tuetey, _Les ecorcheurs sous Charles VII_, Montbeliard, 1874, 2 vols.
in 8vo, _passim_. H. Lepage, _Episodes de l'histoire des routiers en
Lorraine_ (1362-1446), in _Journal d'archeologie lorraine_, vol. xv,
pp. 161 _et seq._ Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises_,
_passim_. H. Martin et Lacroix, _Histoire de Soissons_, p. 318,
_passim_. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _Episodes de l'invasion anglaise. La
guerre de partisans dans la Haute Normandie_ (1424-1429), in
_Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. liv, pp. 475-521; vol. lv,
pp. 258-305; vol. lvi, pp. 432-508.]
In the plains especially, which were easy of access, the Armagnacs and
the English had destroyed everything. For some distance from Beauvais,
from Senlis, from Soissons, from Laon, they had caused the fields to
lie fallow, and here and there shrubs and underwood were springing up
over land once cultivated.--"Noel! Noel!"
Throughout the duchy of Valois, the peasants were abandoning the open
country and hiding in woods, rocks, and quarries.[1632]
[Footnote 1632: Pardon issued by King Henry VI to an inhabitant of
Noyant, in Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. i, pp. 23, 31. F.
Brun, _Jeanne d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons_, note iii, p. 41.]
Many, in order to gain a livelihood, did like Jean de Bonval, the
tailor of Noyant near Soissons, who, despite wife and children, joined
a Burgundian band, which went up and down the country thieving,
pillaging, and, when occasion offered, smoking out the folk who had
taken refuge in churches. On one day Jean and his comrades took two
hogsheads of corn, on another six or seven cows; on another a goat and
a cow, on another a silver belt, a pair of gloves and a pair of shoes;
on another a bale of eighteen ells of cloth to make cloaks withal. And
Jean de Bonval said that within his knowledge many a man of worship
did as much.[1633]--"Noel! Noel!"
[Footnote 1633: Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. i, pp. 23, 31.]
The Armagnacs and Burgundians had torn the coats off the peasants'
backs and seized even their pots and pans. It was not far from Crepy
to Meaux. Every one in that country had heard of the Tree of Vauru.
At one of the gates of the town of Meaux was a great elm, whereon the
Bastard of Vauru, a Gascon noble of the Dauphin's party, used to hang
the peasants he had taken, when they could not pay their ransom. When
he had no executioner at hand he used to hang them himself. With him
there lived a kinsman, my Lord Denis de Vauru, who was called his
cousin, not that he was so in fact, but just to show that one was no
better than the other.[1634] In the month of March, in the year 1420, my
Lord Denis, on one of his expeditions, came across a peasant tilling
the ground. He took him prisoner, held him to ransom, and, tying him
to his horse's tail, dragged him back to Meaux, where, by threats and
torture, he exacted from him a promise to pay three times as much as
he possessed. Dragged half dead from his dungeon, the villein sent to
the wife he had married that year to ask her to bring the sum demanded
by the lord. She was with child, and near the time of her delivery;
notwithstanding, she came because she loved her husband and hoped to
soften the heart of the Lord of Vauru. She failed; and Messire Denis
told her that if by a certain day he did not receive the ransom, he
would hang the man from the elm-tree. The poor woman went away in
tears, fondly commending her husband to God's keeping. And her husband
wept for pity of her. By a great effort, she succeeded in obtaining
the sum demanded, but not by the day appointed. When she returned, her
husband had been hanged from the Vauru Tree without respite or mercy.
With bitter sobs she asked for him, and then fell exhausted by the
side of that road, which, on the point of her delivery, she had
traversed on foot. Having regained consciousness, a second time she
asked for her husband. She was told that she would not see him till
the ransom had been paid.
[Footnote 1634: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 170, 171.
Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 96. _Livre des trahisons_, pp. 167, 168.]
While she was before the Gascon, there in sight of her were brought
forth several craftsmen, held to ransom, who, unable to pay, were
straightway despatched to be hanged or drowned. At this spectacle a
great fear for her husband came over her; nevertheless, her love for
him gave her heart of courage and she paid the ransom. As soon as the
Duke's men had counted the coins, they dismissed her saying that her
husband had died like the other villeins.
At those cruel words, wild with sorrow and despair, she broke forth
into curses and railing. When she refused to be silent, the Bastard
of Vauru had her beaten and taken to the Elm-tree.
There she was stripped to the waist and tied to the Tree, whence hung
forty to fifty men, some from the higher, some from the lower
branches, so that, when the wind blew, their bodies touched her head.
At nightfall she uttered shrieks so piercing that they were heard in
the town. But whosoever had dared to go and unloose her would have
been a dead man. Fright, fatigue, and exertion brought on her
delivery. The wolves, attracted by her cries, came and consumed the
fruit of her womb, and then devoured alive the body of the wretched
creature.
In 1422, the town of Meaux was taken by the Burgundians. Then were the
Bastard of Vauru and his cousin hanged from that Tree on which they
had caused so many innocent folk to die so shameful a death.[1635]
[Footnote 1635: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 170. According to
Monstrelet (vol. iv, p. 96), Denis de Vauru, the Bastard's cousin, was
beheaded in the Market of Paris.]
For the poor peasants of these unhappy lands, whether Armagnac or
Burgundian, it was all of a piece; they had nothing to gain by
changing masters. Nevertheless, it is possible that, on beholding the
King, the descendant of Saint Louis and Charles the Wise, they may
have taken heart of courage and of hope, so great was the fame for
justice and for mercy of the illustrious house of France.
Thus, riding by the side of the Archbishop of Reims, the Maid looked
with a friendly eye on the peasants crying "Noel!" After saying that
she had nowhere seen folk so joyful at the coming of the fair King,
she sighed: "Would to God I were so fortunate as, when I die, to find
burial in this land."[1636]
[Footnote 1636: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 14, 15. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 326.]
Peradventure the Lord Archbishop was curious to know whether from her
Voices she had received any revelation concerning her approaching
death. She often said that she would not last long. Doubtless he was
acquainted with a prophecy widely known at that time, that the maid
would die in the Holy Land, after having reconquered with King Charles
the sepulchre of our Lord. There were those who attributed this
prophecy to the Maid herself; for she had told her Confessor that she
would die in battle with the Infidel, and that after her God would
send a Maid of Rome who would take her place.[1637] And it is obvious
that Messire Regnault knew what store to set on such things. At any
rate, for that reason or for another, he asked: "Jeanne, in what place
look you for to die?"
[Footnote 1637: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 108, 109, 188, 189.]
To which she made answer: "Where it shall please God. For I am sure
neither of the time nor of the place, and I know no more thereof than
you."
No answer could have been more devout. My Lord the Bastard, who was
present at this conversation, many years later thought he remembered
that Jeanne had added: "But I would it were now God's pleasure for me
to retire, leaving my arms, and to go and serve my father and mother,
keeping sheep with my brethren and sister."[1638]
[Footnote 1638: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 14, 15. It is Dunois who is
giving evidence, and the text runs: _In custodiendo oves ipsorum, cum
sorore et fratribus meis, qui multum gauderent videre me_. But there
is reason to believe she had only one sister, whom she had lost before
coming into France. As for her brothers, two of them were with her.
Dunois' evidence appears to have been written down by a clerk
unacquainted with events. The hagiographical character of the passage
is obvious.]
If she really spoke thus, it was doubtless because she was haunted by
dark forebodings. For some time she had believed herself betrayed.[1639]
Possibly she suspected the Lord Archbishop of Reims of wishing her
ill. But it is hard to believe that he can have thought of getting rid
of her now when he had employed her with such signal success; rather
his intention was to make further use of her. Nevertheless he did not
like her, and she felt it. He never consulted her and never told her
what had been decided in council. And she suffered cruelly from the
small account made of the revelations she was always receiving so
abundantly. May we not interpret as a subtle and delicate reproach the
utterance in his presence of this wish, this complaint? Doubtless she
longed for her absent mother. And yet she was mistaken when she
thought that henceforth she could endure the tranquil life of a
village maiden. In her childhood at Domremy she seldom went to tend
the flocks in the field; she preferred to occupy herself in household
affairs;[1640] but if, after having waged war beside the King and the
nobles, she had had to return to her country and keep sheep, she would
not have stayed there six months. Henceforth it was impossible for her
to live save with that knighthood, to whose company she believed God
had called her. All her heart was there, and she had finished with the
distaff.
[Footnote 1639: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 423.]
[Footnote 1640: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 51, 66.]
During the march on La Ferte and Crepy, King Charles received a
challenge from the Regent, then at Montereau with his baronage,
calling upon him to fix a meeting at whatsoever place he should
appoint.[1641] "We, who with all our hearts," said the Duke of Bedford,
"desire the end of the war, summon and require you, if you have pity
and compassion on the poor folk, who in your cause have so long time
been cruelly treated, downtrodden, and oppressed, to appoint a place
suitable either in this land of Brie, where we both are, or in
l'Ile-de-France. There will we meet. And if you have any proposal of
peace to make unto us, we will listen to it and as beseemeth a good
Catholic prince we will take counsel thereon."[1642]
[Footnote 1641: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 340, 344.]
[Footnote 1642: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 342.]
This arrogant and insulting letter had not been penned by the Regent
in any desire or hope of peace, but rather, against all reason, to
throw on King Charles's shoulders the responsibility for the miseries
and suffering the war was causing the commonalty.
Writing to the King crowned in Reims Cathedral, from the beginning he
addresses him in this disdainful manner: "You who were accustomed to
call yourself Dauphin of Viennois and who now without reason take unto
yourself the title of King." He declares that he wants peace and then
adds forthwith: "Not a peace hollow, corrupt, feigned, violated,
perjured, like that of Montereau, on which, by your fault and your
consent, there followed that terrible and detestable murder, committed
contrary to all law and honour of knighthood, on the person of our
late dear and greatly loved Father, Jean, Duke of Burgundy."[1643]
[Footnote 1643: _Ibid._, pp. 342, 343.]
My Lord of Bedford had married one of the daughters of that Duke Jean,
who had been treacherously murdered in revenge for the assassination
of the Duke of Orleans. But indeed it was not wisely to prepare the
way of peace to cast the crime of Montereau in the face of Charles of
Valois, who had been dragged there as a child and with whom there had
remained ever after a physical trembling and a haunting fear of
crossing bridges.[1644]
[Footnote 1644: Georges Chastellain, fragments published by J. Quicherat
in _La Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, 1st series, vol. iv, p.
78.]
For the moment the Duke of Bedford's most serious grievance against
Charles was that he was accompanied by the Maid and Friar Richard.
"You cause the ignorant folk to be seduced and deceived," he said,
"for you are supported by superstitious and reprobate persons, such as
this woman of ill fame and disorderly life, wearing man's attire and
dissolute in manners, and likewise by that apostate and seditious
mendicant friar, they both alike being, according to Holy Scripture,
abominable in the sight of God."
To strike still greater shame into the heart of the enemy, the Duke of
Bedford proceeds to a second attack on the maiden and the monk. And in
the most eloquent passage of the letter, when he is citing Charles of
Valois to appear before him, he says ironically that he expects to see
him come led by this woman of ill fame and this apostate monk.[1645]
[Footnote 1645: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 341, 342.]
Thus wrote the Regent of England; albeit he had a mind, subtle,
moderate, and graceful, he was moreover a good Catholic and a believer
in all manner of devilry and witchcraft.
His horror at the army of Charles of Valois being commanded by a witch
and a heretic monk was certainly sincere, and he deemed it wise to
publish the scandal. There were doubtless only too many, who, like
him, were ready to believe that the Maid of the Armagnacs was a
heretic, a worshipper of idols and given to the practice of magic. In
the opinion of many worthy and wise Burgundians a prince must forfeit
his honour by keeping such company. And if Jeanne were in very deed a
witch, what a disgrace! What an abomination! The Flowers de Luce
reinstated by the devil! The Dauphin's whole camp was tainted by it.
And yet when my Lord of Bedford spread abroad those ideas he was not
so adroit as he thought.
Jeanne, as we know, was good-hearted and in energy untiring. By
inspiring the men of her party with the idea that she brought them
good luck, she gave them courage.[1646] Nevertheless King Charles's
counsellors knew what she could do for them and avoided consulting
her. She herself felt that she would not last long.[1647] Then who
represented her as a great war leader? Who exalted her as a
supernatural power? The enemy.
[Footnote 1646: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 324; vol. iii, p. 130. Monstrelet,
vol. iv, p. 388.]
[Footnote 1647: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 99.]
This letter shows how the English had transformed an innocent child
into a being unnatural, terrible, redoubtable, into a spectre of hell
causing the bravest to grow pale. In a voice of lamentation the Regent
cries: The devil! the witch! And then he marvels that his fighting men
tremble before the Maid, and desert rather than face her.[1648]
[Footnote 1648: _Ibid._, vol. iv, pp. 206, 406, 444, 470, 472. Rymer,
_Foedera_, vol. iv, p. 141. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La panique
anglaise_.]
From Montereau, the English army had fallen back on Paris. Now it once
again came forth to meet the French. On Saturday, the 13th of August,
King Charles held the country between Crepy and Paris. Now the Maid
from the heights of Dammartin could espy the summit of Montmartre
with its windmills, and the light mists from the Seine veiling that
great city of Paris, promised to her by those Voices which alas! she
had heeded too well.[1649] On the morrow, Sunday, the King and his army
encamped in a village, by name Barron, on the River Nonnette on which,
five miles lower down, stands Senlis.[1650]
[Footnote 1649: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 246, 298. Letter from Alain
Chartier in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 131 _et seq._]
[Footnote 1650: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 344, 345. Perceval de Cagny,
pp. 161, 162.]
Senlis was subject to the English.[1651] It was said that the Regent was
approaching with a great company of men-at-arms, commanded by the Earl
of Suffolk, the Lord Talbot and the Bastard Saint Pol. With him were
the crusaders of the Cardinal of Winchester, the late King's uncle,
between three thousand five hundred and four thousand men, paid with
the Pope's money to go and fight against the Hussites in Bohemia. The
Cardinal judged it well to use them against the King of France, a very
Christian King forsooth, but one whose hosts were commanded by a witch
and an apostate.[1652] It was reported that, in the English camp, was a
captain with fifteen hundred men-at-arms, clothed in white, bearing a
white standard, on which was embroidered a distaff whence was
suspended a spindle; and on the streamer of the banner was worked in
fine letters of gold: "_Ores, vienne la Belle!_"[1653] By these words
the men-at-arms wished to proclaim that if they were to meet the Maid
of the Armagnacs she would find her work cut out.
[Footnote 1651: Flammermont, _Histoire de Senlis pendant la seconds
partie de la guerre de cent ans_ (1405-1441), in _Memoires de la
Societe de l'Histoire de Paris_.]
[Footnote 1652: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 101, 102.
_Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 328. _Journal du siege_, p. 118.
Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 453. Morosini, vol. iii, pp.
188, 189; vol. iv, appendix xvii. Rymer, _Foedera_, July, 1429.
Raynaldi, _Annales ecclesiastici_, pp. 77, 88. S. Bougenot, _Notices
et extraits de manuscrits interessant l'histoire de France conserves a
la Bibliotheque imperial de Vienne_, p. 62.]
[Footnote 1653: Now, come forth Beauty (W.S.). _Le Livre des trahisons
de France_, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, in _La collection des chroniques
belges_, 1873, p. 198.]
Captain Jean de Saintrailles, the Brother of Poton, observed the
English first when, marching towards Senlis, they were crossing La
Nonnette by a ford so narrow that two horses could barely pass
abreast. But King Charles's army, which was coming down the Nonnette
valley, did not arrive in time to surprise them.[1654] It passed the
night opposite them, near Montepilloy.
[Footnote 1654: Perceval de Cagny, p. 162. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_,
vol. i, p. 102. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 329. _Journal du siege_,
pp. 119, 120.]
On the morrow, Monday, the 15th of August, at daybreak, the
men-at-arms heard mass in camp and, as far as might be, cleared their
consciences; for great plunderers and whoremongers as they were, they
had not given up hope of winning Paradise when this life should be
over. That day was a solemn feast, when the Church, on the authority
of St. Gregoire de Tours, commemorates the physical and spiritual
exaltation to heaven of the Virgin Mary. Churchmen taught that it
behoves men to keep the feasts of Our Lord and the Holy Virgin, and
that to wage battle on days consecrated to them is to sin grievously
against the glorious Mother of God. No one in King Charles's camp
could maintain a contrary opinion, since all were Christians as they
were in the camp of the Regent. And yet, immediately after the _Deo
Gratias_, every man took up his post ready for battle.[1655]
[Footnote 1655: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161.]
According to the established rule, the army was in several divisions:
the van-guard, the archers, the main body, the rear-guard and the
three wings.[1656] Further, and according to the same rule, there had
been formed a skirmishing company, destined if need were to succour
and reinforce the other divisions. It was commanded by Captain La
Hire, my Lord the Bastard, and the Sire d'Albret, La Tremouille's
half-brother. With this company was the Maid. At the Battle of Patay,
despite her entreaties, she had been forced to keep with the
rear-guard; now she rode with the bravest and ablest, with those
skirmishers or scouts, whose duty it was, says Jean de Bueil,[1657] to
repulse the scouts of the opposite party and to observe the number and
the ordering of the enemy.[1658] At length justice was done her; at
length she was assigned the place which her skill in horsemanship and
her courage in battle merited; and yet she hesitated to follow her
comrades. According to the report of a Burgundian knight chronicler,
there she was, "swayed to and fro, at one moment wishing to fight, at
another not."[1659]
[Footnote 1656: _Le Jouvencel_, _passim_.]
[Footnote 1657: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 329. _Journal du siege_,
p. 121.]
[Footnote 1658: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. ii, p. 35.]
[Footnote 1659: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 346.]
Her perplexity is easily comprehensible. The little Saint could not
bring herself to decide whether to ride forth to battle on the day of
our Lady's Feast or to fold her arms while fighting was going on
around her. Her Voices intensified her indecision. They never
instructed her what to do save when she knew herself. In the end she
went with the men-at-arms, not one of whom appears to have shared her
scruples. The two armies were but the space of a culverin shot
apart.[1660] She, with certain of her company, went right up to the
dykes and to the carts, behind which the English were entrenched.
Sundry _Godons_ and men of Picardy came forth from their camp and
fought, some on foot, others on horseback against an equal number of
French. On both sides there were wounded, and prisoners were taken.
This hand to hand fighting continued the whole day; at sunset the most
serious skirmish happened, and so much dust was raised that it was
impossible to see anything.[1661] On that day there befell what had
happened on the 17th of June, between Beaugency and Meung. With the
armaments and the customs of warfare of those days, it was very
difficult to force an army to come out of its entrenched camp.
Generally, if a battle was to be fought, it was necessary for the two
sides to be in accord, and, after the pledge of battle had been sent
and accepted, for each to level his own half of the field where the
engagement was to take place.
[Footnote 1660: Perceval de Cagny, p. 162.]
[Footnote 1661: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de la Pucelle_. _Journal du
siege._ Monstrelet, _loc. cit._]
At nightfall the skirmishing ceased, and the two armies slept at a
crossbow-shot from each other. Then King Charles went off to Crepy,
leaving the English free to go and relieve the town of Evreux, which
had agreed to surrender on the 27th of August. With this town the
Regent made sure of Normandy.[1662]
[Footnote 1662: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 332. Perceval de Cagny, p.
165. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. Cochon, p. 457. G.
Lefevre-Pontalis, _La panique anglaise_, Paris, 1894, in 8vo, pp. 10,
11. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 215, note 3. Ch. de Beaurepaire, _De
l'administration de la Normandie sous la domination anglaise aux
annees 1424, 1425, 1429_, p. 62 (_Memoires de la Societe des
Antiquaires de Normandie_, vol. xxiv).]
Their loss of the opportunity of conquering Normandy was the price the
French had to pay for the royal coronation procession, for that march
to Reims, which was at once military, civil and religious. If, after
the victory of Patay, they had hastened at once to Rouen, Normandy
would have been reconquered and the English cast into the sea; if,
from Patay they had pushed on to Paris they would have entered the
city without resistance. Yet we must not too hastily condemn that
ceremonious promenading of the Lilies through Champagne. By the march
to Reims the French party, those Armagnacs reviled for their cruelty
and felony, that little King of Bourges compromised in an infamous
ambuscade, may have won advantages greater and more solid than the
conquest of the county of Maine and the duchy of Normandy and than a
victorious assault on the first city of the realm. By retaking his
towns of Champagne and of France without bloodshed, King Charles
appeared to advantage as a good and pacific lord, as a prince wise and
debonair, as the friend of the townsfolk, as the true king of cities.
In short, by concluding that campaign of honest and successful
negotiations and by the august ceremonial of the coronation, he came
forth at once as the lawful and very holy King of France.
An illustrious lady, a descendant of Bolognese nobles and the widow of
a knight of Picardy, well versed in the liberal arts, was the author
of a number of lays, virelays,[1663] and ballads. Christine de Pisan,
noble and high-minded, wrote with distinction in prose and verse.
Loyal to France and a champion of her sex, there was nothing she more
fervently desired than to see the French prosperous and their ladies
honoured. In her old age she was cloistered in the Abbey of Poissy,
where her daughter was a nun. There, on the 31st of July, 1429, she
completed a poem of sixty-one stanzas, each containing eight lines of
eight syllables, in praise of the Maid. In halting measures and
affected language, these verses expressed the thoughts of the finest,
the most cultured and the most pious souls touching the angel of war
sent of God to the Dauphin Charles.[1664]
[Footnote 1663: A virelay was a later variation of the lay, differing
from it chiefly in the arrangement of the rhymes (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1664: Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, _Paris et ses
historiens_, pp. 426 _et seq._]
In this work she begins by saying that for eleven years she has spent
her cloistered life in weeping. And in very truth, this noble-hearted
woman wept over the misfortunes of the realm, into which she had been
born, wherein she had grown up, where kings and princes had received
her and learned poets had done her honour, and the language of which
she spoke with the precision of a purist. After eleven years of
mourning, the victories of the Dauphin were her first joy.
"At length," she says, "the sun begins to shine once more and the fine
days to bloom again. That royal child so long despised and offended,
behold him coming, wearing on his head a crown and accoutred with
spurs of gold. Let us cry: 'Noel! Charles, the seventh of that great
name, King of the French, thou hast recovered thy kingdom, with the
help of a Maid.'"
Christine recalls a prophecy concerning a King, Charles, son of
Charles, surnamed The Flying Hart,[1665] who was to be emperor. Of this
prophecy we know nothing save that the escutcheon of King Charles VII
was borne by two winged stags and that a letter to an Italian
merchant, written in 1429, contains an obscure announcement of the
coronation of the Dauphin at Rome.[1666]
[Footnote 1665: A winged stag (_le cerf-volant_) is the symbol of a
king. Froissart thus explains its origin. Before setting out for
Flanders, in 1382, Charles VI dreamed that his falcon had flown away.
"Th[=e] [Transcriber's Note: e with macron] apered sodenly before hym
a great hart with wynges whereof he had great joye." And the hart bore
him to his lost bird. Froissart, Bk. II, ch. clxiv. [The Chronycle of
Syr John Froissart translated by Lord Berners, vol. iii, p. 339, Tudor
Translation, 1901.] (W.S.) According to Juvenal des Ursins, Charles
VI, in 1380, met in the Forest of Senlis a stag with a golden collar
bearing this inscription: _Hoc me Caesar donavit_ (Paillot, _Parfaite
science des armoiries_, Paris, 1660, in fo., p. 595). In the works of
Eustache Deschamps this same allegory is frequently employed to
designate the king. (Eustache Deschamps, _OEuvres_, ed. G. Raynaud,
vol. ii, p. 57.)]
[Footnote 1666: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 66, 67.]
"I pray God," continued Christine, "that thou mayest be that one, that
God will grant thee life to see thy children grow up, that through
thee and through them, France may have joy, that serving God, thou
wage not war to the utterance. My hope is that thou shalt be good,
upright, a friend of justice, greater than any other, that pride sully
not thy prowess, that thou be gentle, favourable to thy people and
fearing God who hath chosen thee to serve him.
"And thou, Maid most happy, most honoured of God, thou hast loosened
the cord with which France was bound. Canst thou be praised enough,
thou who hast brought peace to this land laid low by war?
"Jeanne, born in a propitious hour, blessed be thy creator! Maid, sent
of God, in whom the Holy Ghost shed abroad a ray of his grace, who
hast from him received and dost keep gifts in abundance; never did he
refuse thy request. Who can ever be thankful enough unto thee?"
The Maid, saviour of the realm, Dame Christine compares to Moses who
delivered Israel out of the Land of Egypt.
"That a Maid should proffer her breast, whence France may suck the
sweet milk of peace, behold a matter which is above nature!
"Joshua was a mighty conqueror. What is there strange in that, since
he was a strong man? But now behold, a woman, a shepherdess doth
appear, of greater worship than any man. But with God all things are
easy.
"By Esther, Judith and Deborah, women of high esteem, he delivered his
oppressed people. And well I know there have been women of great
worship. But Jeanne is above all. Through her God hath worked many
miracles.
"By a miracle was she sent; the angel of the Lord led her to the
King."
"Before she could be believed, to clerks and to scholars was she taken
and thoroughly examined. She said she was come from God, and history
proved her saying to be true, for Merlin, the Sibyl and Bede had seen
her in the spirit. In their books they point to her as the saviour of
France, and in their prophecies they let wit of her, saying: 'In the
French wars she shall bear the banner.' And indeed they relate all the
manner of her history."
We are not astonished that Dame Christine should have been acquainted
with the Sibylline poems; for it is known that she was well versed in
the writings of the ancients. But we perceive that the obviously
mutilated prophecy of Merlin the Magician and the apocryphal
chronogram of the Venerable Bede had come under her notice. The
predictions and verses of the Armagnac ecclesiastics were spread
abroad everywhere with amazing rapidity.[1667]
[Footnote 1667: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 133, 338, 340 _et seq._; vol. iv,
pp. 305, 480; vol. v, p. 12.]
Dame Christine's views concerning the Maid accord with those of the
doctors of the French party; and the poem she wrote in her convent in
many passages bears resemblance to the treatise of the Archbishop of
Embrun.
There it is said:
"The goodness of her life proves that Jeanne possesses the grace of
God.
"It was made manifest, when at the siege of Orleans her might revealed
itself. Never was miracle plainer. God did so succour his own people,
that the strength of the enemy was but as that of a dead dog. They
were taken or slain.
"Honour to the feminine sex, God loves it. A damsel of sixteen, who is
not weighed down by armour and weapons, even though she be bred to
endure hardness, is not that a matter beyond nature? The enemy flees
before her. Many eyes behold it.
"She goeth forth capturing towns and castles. She is the first captain
of our host. Such power had not Hector or Achilles. But God, who leads
her, does all.
"And you, ye men-at-arms, who suffer durance vile and risk your lives
for the right, be ye faithful: in heaven shall ye have reward and
glory, for whosoever fighteth for the just cause, winneth Paradise.
"Know ye that by her the English shall be cast down, for it is the
will of God, who inclineth his ear to the voice of the good folk, whom
they desired to overthrow. The blood of the slain crieth against
them."
In the shadow of her convent Dame Christine shares the hope common to
every noble soul; from the Maid she expects all the good things she
longs for. She believes that Jeanne will restore concord to the
Christian Church. The gentlest spirits of those days looked to fire
and sword for the bringing in of unity and obedience; they never
dreamed that Christian charity could mean charity towards the whole
human race. Wherefore, on the strength of prophecy, the poetess
expects the Maid to destroy the infidel and the heretic, or in other
words the Turk and the Hussite.
"In her conquest of the Holy Land, she will tear up the Saracens like
weeds. Thither will she lead King Charles, whom God defend! Before he
dies he shall make that journey. He it is who shall conquer the land.
There shall she end her life. There shall the thing come to pass."
The good Christine would appear to have brought her poem to this
conclusion when she received tidings of the King's coronation. She
then added thirteen stanzas to celebrate the mystery of Reims and to
foretell the taking of Paris.[1668]
[Footnote 1668: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 3 _et seq._ R. Thomassy, _Essai sur
les ecrits politiques de Christine de Pisan, suivi d'une notice
litteraire et de pieces inedites_, Paris, 1838, in 8vo.]
Thus in the gloom and silence of one of those convents where even the
hushed noises of the world penetrated but seldom, this virtuous lady
collected and expressed in rhyme all those dreams of church and state
which centred round a child.
In a fairly good ballad written at the time of the coronation, in love
and honour "of the beautiful garden of the noble flowers de luce,"[1669]
and for the elevation of the white cross, King Charles VII is
described by that mysterious name "the noble stag," which we have
first discovered in Christine's poem. The unknown author of the ballad
says that the Sibyl, daughter of King Priam, prophesied the
misfortunes of this royal stag; but such a prediction need not
surprise us, when we remember that Charles of Valois was of Priam's
royal line, wherefore Cassandra, when she revealed the destiny of the
Flying Hart, did but prolong down the centuries the vicissitudes of
her own family.[1670]
[Footnote 1669: _Du beau jardin des nobles fleurs de lis._]
[Footnote 1670: M. Pierre Champion has kindly communicated to me the
text of this unpublished ballad, which he discovered in a French MS.
at Stockholm, LIII, fol. 238. This is the title which the copyist
affixed to it about 1472: _Ballade faicte quant le Roy Charles
VII'eme fut couronne a Rains du temps de Jehanne daiz dicte la
Pucelle_.]
Rhymers on the French side celebrated the unexpected victories of
Charles and the Maid as best they knew how, in a commonplace fashion,
by some stiff poem but scantily clothing a thin and meagre muse.
Nevertheless there is a ballad,[1671] by a Dauphinois poet, beginning
with this line; "Back, English _coues_, back!"[1672] which is powerful
through the genuine religious spirit which prevails throughout. The
author, some poor ecclesiastic, points piously to the English banner
cast down, "by the will of King Jesus and of Jeanne the sweet
Maid."[1673]
[Footnote 1671: P. Meyer, _Ballade contre les Anglais_ (1429), in
_Romania_, xxi (1892), pp. 50, 52.]
[Footnote 1672: _Arriere, Englois coues, arriere!_ For Coues see vol. i,
p. 22, note 2.]
[Footnote 1673:
_Par le vouloir dou roy Jesus
Et Jeanne la douce Pucelle._]
The Maid had derived her influence over the common folk from the
prophecies of Merlin the Magician and the Venerable Bede.[1674] As
Jeanne's deeds became known, predictions foretelling them came to be
discovered. For example it was found that Engelide, daughter of an old
King of Hungary,[1675] had known long before of the coronation at Reims.
Indeed to this royal virgin was attributed a prophecy recorded in
Latin, of which the following is a literal translation:
[Footnote 1674: For the legend cf. _Merlin, roman en prose du XIII'e
siecle_, ed. G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 1886, 2 vols. in 8vo,
introduction. _Premier volume de Merlin_, Paris, Verard, 1498, in fol.
Hersart de la Villemarque, _Myrdhin ou l'enchanteur Merlin, son
histoire, ses oeuvres, son influence_, Paris, 1862, in 12mo. La
Borderie, _Les veritables propheties de Merlin; examen des poemes
bretons attribues a ce barde_, in _Revue de Bretagne_, vol. liii
(1883). D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Merlin est il un personnage reel ou
les origines de la legende de Merlin_, in _Revue des questions
historiques_, vol. v (1868), pp. 559, 568.]
[Footnote 1675: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 340. Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et
consultations_, p. 402.]
"O Lily illustrious, watered by princes, by the sower planted in the
open, in an orchard delectable, by flowers and sweet-smelling roses
surrounded. But, alas! dismay of the Lily, terror of the orchard!
Sundry beasts, some coming from without, others nourished within the
orchard, hurtling horns against horns, have well nigh crushed the
Lily, which fades for lack of water. Long do they trample upon it,
destroying nearly all its roots and assaying to wither it with their
poisoned breath.
"But the beasts shall be driven forth in shame from the orchard, by a
virgin coming from the land whence flows the cruel venom. Behind her
right ear the Virgin bears a little scarlet sign; she speaks softly,
and her neck is short. To the Lily shall she give fountains of living
water, and shall drive out the serpent, to all men revealing its
venom. With a laurel wreath woven by no mortal hand shall she at Reims
engarland happily the gardener of the Lily, named Charles, son of
Charles. All around the turbulent neighbours shall submit, the waters
shall surge, the folk shall cry: 'Long live the Lily! Away with the
beast! Let the orchard flower!' He shall approach the fields of the
Island, adding fleet to fleet, and there a multitude of beasts shall
perish in the rout. Peace for many shall be established. The keys of a
great number shall recognise the hand that had forged them. The
citizens of a noble city shall be punished for perjury by defeat,
groaning with many groans, and at the entrance [of Charles?] high
walls shall fall low. Then the orchard of the Lily shall be ... (?)
and long shall it flower."[1676]
[Footnote 1676: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 344, 345.]
This prophecy attributed to the unknown daughter of a distant king
would seem to us to proceed from a French ecclesiastic and an
Armagnac. French royalty is portrayed in the figure of the delectable
orchard, around which contend beasts nourished in the orchard as well
as foreign beasts, that is Burgundians and English. King Charles of
Valois is mentioned by his own name and that of his father, and the
name of the coronation town occurs in full.
The reduction of certain towns by their liege lord is stated most
clearly. Doubtless the prediction was made at the very time of the
coronation. It explicitly mentions deeds already accomplished and
dimly hints at events looked for, fulfilment of which was delayed, or
happened in a manner other than what was expected, or never happened
at all, such as the taking of Paris after a terrible assault, the
invasion of England by the French, the conclusion of peace.
It is highly probable that when announcing that the deliverer of the
orchard might be recognised by her short neck, her sweet voice and a
little scarlet mark, the pseudo Engelide was carefully depicting
characteristics noticeable in Jeanne herself. Moreover we know that
Isabelle Romee's daughter had a sweet woman's voice.[1677] That her neck
was broad and firmly set on her shoulders accords with what is known
concerning her robust appearance.[1678] And doubtless the so-called
daughter of the King of Hungary did not imagine the birth-mark behind
her right ear.[1679]
[Footnote 1677: Philippe de Bergame, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 523; vol.
v, pp. 108, 120.]
[Footnote 1678: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 100. Philippe de Bergame, _De
claris mulieribus_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 323. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, p. 271. Perceval de Boulainvilliers, _Lettre au duc de
Milan_, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 119, 120.]
[Footnote 1679: J. Brehal, in _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 345.]
CHAPTER II
THE MAID'S FIRST VISIT TO COMPIEGNE--THE THREE POPES--SAINT
DENYS--TRUCES
After the English army had departed for Normandy, King Charles sent
from Crepy to Senlis the Count of Vendome, the Marechal de Rais and
the Marechal de Boussac with their men-at-arms. The inhabitants gave
them to wit that they inclined to favour the Flowers de Luce.[1680]
Henceforth the submission of Compiegne was sure. The King summoned the
citizens to receive him; on Wednesday the 18th, the keys of the town
were brought to him; on the next day he entered.[1681] The Attorneys[1682]
(for by that name the aldermen of the town were called) presented to
him Messire Guillaume de Flavy, whom they had elected governor of
their town, as being their most experienced and most faithful citizen.
On his being presented they asked the King, according to their
privilege, to confirm and ratify his appointment. But the sire de la
Tremouille took for himself the governorship of Compiegne and
appointed as his lieutenant Messire Guillaume de Flavy, whom,
notwithstanding, the inhabitants regarded as their captain.[1683]
[Footnote 1680: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 328. _Journal du siege_,
p. 18. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. Perceval de Cagny,
pp. 163, 164. Morosini, pp. 212, 213. Flammermont, _Senlis pendant la
seconde periode de la guerre cent ans_, in _Memoires de la Societe de
l'Histoire de Paris_, vol. v, 1878, p. 241.]
[Footnote 1681: Perceval de Cagny, p. 164. Monstrelet, p. 352. De
l'Epinois, _Notes extraites des archives communales de Compiegne_, pp.
483, 484. A. Sorel, _Sejours de Jeanne d'Arc a Compiegne, maisons ou
elle a loge en 1429 et 1430_, Paris, 1889, in 8vo, 20 pages.]
[Footnote 1682: French _attournes_, cf. La Curne, _attournes_, Godefroi,
_atornes_, magistrates at Compiegne, elected on St. John the Baptist's
Day for three years (W.S.). _Proces_, vol. v, p. 174.]
[Footnote 1683: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 331. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. A. Sorel, _La prise de Jeanne d'Arc
devant Compiegne_, Paris, 1889, in 8vo, pp. 117, 118. Duc de la
Tremoille, _Les La Tremoille pendant cinq siecles_, Nantes, 1890, in
4to, vol. i, pp. 185, 212. P. Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy, capitaine
de Compiegne_, Paris, 1906, in 8vo, proofs and illustrations, vol.
xiii, p. 137.]
One by one, the King was recovering his good towns. He charged the
folk of Beauvais to acknowledge him as their lord. When they saw the
flowers-de-luce borne by the heralds, the citizens cried: "Long live
Charles of France!" The clergy chanted a _Te Deum_ and there was great
rejoicing. Those who refused fealty to King Charles were put out of
the town with permission to take away their possessions.[1684] The
Bishop and Vidame of Beauvais, Messire Pierre Cauchon, who was Grand
Almoner of France to King Henry, and a negotiator of important
ecclesiastical business, grieved to see his city returning to the
French;[1685] it was to the city's hurt, but he could not help it. He
failed not to realise that part of this disgrace he owed to the Maid
of the Armagnacs, who was influential with her party and had the
reputation of being all powerful. As he was a good theologian he must
have suspected that the devil was leading her and he wished her all
possible harm.
[Footnote 1684: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 327. _Journal du siege_,
p. 118. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. Monstrelet, vol.
iv, pp. 353, 354. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 214, 215.]
[Footnote 1685: A. Sarrazin, _Pierre Cauchon, juge de Jeanne d'Arc_,
Paris, 1901, in 8vo, pp. 49 _et seq._]
At this time Artois, Picardy, all the Burgundian territory in the
north, was slipping away from Burgundy. Had King Charles gone there
the majority of the dwellers in the strong towers and castles of
Picardy would have received him as their sovereign.[1686] But meanwhile
his enemies would have recaptured what he had just won in Valois and
the Ile de France.
[Footnote 1686: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 354.]
Having entered Compiegne with the King, Jeanne lodged at the Hotel du
Boeuf, the house of the King's proctor. She slept with the proctor's
wife, Marie Le Boucher, who was a kinswoman of Jacques Boucher,
Treasurer of Orleans.[1687]
[Footnote 1687: A. Sorel, _Sejours de Jeanne d'Arc a Compiegne_, p. 6.]
She longed to march on Paris, which she was sure of taking since her
Voices had promised it to her. It is related that at the end of two or
three days she grew impatient, and, calling the Duke of Alencon, said
to him: "My fair Duke, command your men and likewise those of the
other captains to equip themselves," then she is said to have cried:
"By my staff! I must to Paris."[1688] But this could not have happened:
the Maid never gave orders to the men-at-arms. The truth of the matter
is that the Duke of Alencon, with a goodly company of fighting men,
took his leave of the King and that Jeanne was to accompany him. She
was ready to mount her horse when on Monday the 22nd of August, a
messenger from the Count of Armagnac brought her a letter which she
caused to be read to her.[1689] The following are the contents of the
missive:
[Footnote 1688: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 164, 165. _Chronique de Tournai_,
vol. iii, in the _Recueil des chroniques de Flandre_, ed. Smedt, p.
414.]
[Footnote 1689: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 82, 83.]
"My very dear Lady, I commend myself humbly to you, and I
entreat you, for God's sake, that seeing the divisions which
are at present in the holy Church Universal, concerning the
question of the popes (for there are three contending for
the papacy: one dwells at Rome and calls himself Martin V,
whom all Christian kings obey: the other dwells at
Peniscola, in the kingdom of Valentia, and calls himself
Clement VIII; the third dwells no man knows where, unless it
be the Cardinal de Saint-Estienne and a few folk with him,
and calls himself Pope Benedict XIV; the first, who is
called Pope Martin, was elected at Constance by consent of
all Christian nations; he who is called Clement was elected
at Peniscola, after the death of Pope Benedict XIII, by
three of his cardinals; the third who is called Pope
Benedict XIV was elected secretly at Peniscola, by that same
Cardinal Saint-Estienne himself): I pray you beseech Our
Lord Jesus Christ that in his infinite mercy, he declare
unto us through you, which of the three aforesaid is the
true pope and whom it shall be his pleasure that henceforth
we obey, him who is called Martin, or him who is called
Clement or him who is called Benedict; and in whom we should
believe, either in secret or under reservation or by public
pronouncement: for we shall all be ready to work the will
and the pleasure of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yours in all things,
COUNT D'ARMAGNAC."[1690]
[Footnote 1690: _Ibid._, pp. 245, 246.]
He who wrote thus, calling Jeanne his very dear lady, recommending
himself humbly to her, not in self-abasement, but merely, as we should
say to-day, out of courtesy, was one of the greater vassals of the
crown.
She had never seen this baron, and doubtless she had never heard of
him. Jean IV, son of that Constable of France who had been killed in
1418, was the cruellest man in the kingdom. At that time he was
between thirty-three and thirty-four years of age. He held both
Armagnacs, the Black and the White, the country of the Four Valleys,
the counties of Pardiac, of Fesenzac, Astarac, La Lomagne, and
l'Ile-Jourdain. After the Count of Foix he was the most powerful noble
of Gascony.[1691]
[Footnote 1691: A. Longnon, _Les limites de la France et l'etendue de la
domination anglaise a l'epoque de la mission de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris,
1875, in 8vo. Vallet de Viriville, in _Nouvelle biographie generale_,
iii, col. 255, 257.]
While his name was among those of the adherents of the King and while
it was used to designate those who were hostile to the English and
Burgundians, Jean IV himself was neither French nor English, but
simply Gascon. He called himself count by the grace of God, but he was
ever ready to acknowledge himself the King's vassal when it was a
question of receiving gifts from that suzerain, who might not always
be able to afford himself new gaiters, but who must perforce spend
large sums on his great vassals. Meanwhile Jean IV showed
consideration to the English, protected an adventurer in the Regent's
pay, and gave appointments in his household to men wearing the red
cross. He was as violent and treacherous as any of his retainers.
Having unlawfully seized the Marshal de Severac, he exacted from him
the cession of all his goods and then had him strangled.[1692]
[Footnote 1692: _Chronique de Mathieu d'Escouchy_, vol. i, p. 68, and
proofs and illustrations, pp. 126, 128, 139, 140. Dom Vaissette,
_Histoire generale du Languedoc_, vol. iv, pp. 469, 470. De Beaucourt,
_Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 151. Vallet de Viriville, in
_Nouvelle biographie generale_, 1861, vol. iii, pp. 255-257. Le P.
Ayroles, _La vierge guerriere_, p. 66.]
This murder was quite recent. And now we have the docile son of Holy
Church appearing eager to discover who is his true spiritual father.
It would seem, however, that his mind was already made up on the
subject and that he already knew the answer to his question. In verity
the long schism, which had rent Christendom asunder, had terminated
twelve years earlier. It had ended when the Conclave, which had
assembled at Constance in the House of the Merchants on the 8th of
November, 1417, on the 11th of that month, Saint Martin's Day,
proclaimed Pope, the Cardinal Deacon Otto Colonna, who assumed the
title of Martin V. In the Eternal City Martin V wore that tiara which
Lorenzo Ghiberti had adorned with eight figures in gold;[1693] and the
wily Roman had contrived to obtain his recognition by England and even
by France, who thenceforward renounced all hope of a French pontiff.
While Charles VII's advisers may not have agreed with Martin V on the
question of a General Council, all the rights of the Pope of Rome in
the Kingdom of France had been restored to him by an edict, in 1425.
Martin V was the one and only pope. Nevertheless, Alphonso of Aragon,
highly incensed because Martin V supported against him the rights of
Louis d'Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples, determined to oppose to the
Pope of Rome a pontiff of his own making. And just ready to hand he
had a canon who called himself pope, and on the following grounds:
the Anti-pope, Benedict XIII, having fled to Peniscola, had on his
death-bed nominated four cardinals, three of whom appointed to succeed
him a canon of Barcelona, one Gil Munoz, who assumed the title of
Clement VIII. Imprisoned in the chateau of Peniscola on a barren neck
of land on three sides washed by the sea, this was the Clement whom
the King of Aragon had chosen to be the rival of Martin V.[1694]
[Footnote 1693: _Annales juris pontificis_ (1872-1875), vii, 385. E.
Muntz, _La tiare pontificale du VIII'e au XVI'e siecle_ in _Mem.
Acad. Inscript. et Belles Lettres_, vol. xxvi, I, pp. 235-324, fig.
_Les arts a la cour des papes pendant les XV'e et XVI'e siecles_,
in _Bibl. des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et Rome_, vol. iv.]
[Footnote 1694: Baluze, _Vitae paparum Avenionensium_, 1693, I, pp. 1182
_et seq._ Fabricius, _Bibliotheca medii aevi_, 1734, I, p. 1109.]
The Pope excommunicated the King of Aragon and then opened
negotiations with him. The Count of Armagnac joined the King's party.
For the baptism of his children the Count had holy water blessed by
Benedict XIII brought from Peniscola. He likewise was excommunicated.
The blow had fallen upon him in this very year, 1429. Thus for some
months he had been deprived of the sacraments and excluded from public
worship. Hence arose all manner of secular difficulties, in addition
to which he was probably afraid of the devil.
Moreover his position was becoming impossible. His powerful ally, King
Alfonso, gave in, and himself called upon Clement VIII to resign. When
he addressed his inquiry to the Maid of France, the Armagnac was
evidently meditating the withdrawal of his allegiance from an
unfortunate anti-pope, who was himself renouncing or about to renounce
the tiara; for Clement VIII abdicated at Peniscola on the 26th of
July. The dictation of the Count's letter cannot have occurred long
before that date and may have been after. At any rate whenever he
dictated it he must have been aware of the position of the Sovereign
Pontiff Clement VIII.
As for the third Pope mentioned in his missive, Benedict XIV, he had
no tidings of him, and indeed he was keeping very quiet. His election
to the Holy See had been singular in that it had been made by one
cardinal alone. Benedict XIV's right to the papacy had been
communicated to him by a cardinal created by the Anti-pope, Benedict
XIII, at the time of his promotion in 1409. That Cardinal was Jean
Barrere, a Frenchman, Bachelor of laws, priest and Cardinal of
Saint-Etienne _in Coelio monte_. It was not to Benedict XIV that the
Armagnac was thinking of giving his allegiance; obviously he was eager
to submit to Martin V.
It is not easy therefore to discover why he should have asked Jeanne
to indicate the true pope. Doubtless it was customary in those days to
consult on all manner of questions those holy maids to whom God
vouchsafed illumination. Such an one the Maid appeared, and her fame
as a prophetess had been spread abroad in a very short time. She
revealed hidden things, she drew the curtain from the future. We are
reminded of that _capitoul_[1695] of Toulouse, who about three weeks
after the deliverance of Orleans, advised her being consulted as to a
remedy for the corruption of the coinage. Bona of Milan, married to a
poor gentleman in the train of her cousin, Queen Ysabeau, besought the
Maid's help in her endeavour to regain the duchy which she claimed
through her descent from the Visconti.[1696] It was just as appropriate
to question the Maid concerning the Pope and the Anti-pope. But the
most difficult point in this question is to discover what were the
Count of Armagnac's reasons for consulting the Holy Maid on a matter
concerning which he appears to have been sufficiently informed. The
following seems the most probable.
[Footnote 1695: Cf. vol. i, p. 337 (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1696: According to Le Maire, _Histoire et antiquites de la
ville et duche d'Orleans_, p. 197, this request is addressed to
"Jeanne the Maid, greatly to be honoured and most devout, sent by the
King of Heaven for the restoration, and for the extirpation of the
English who tyrannize over France." _Trial_, vol. v, p. 253. Vallet de
Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 131.]
Jean IV was prepared to recognise Martin V as Pope; but he desired his
submission to appear honourable and reasonable. Wherefore he conceived
the idea of ascribing his conduct to the command of Jesus Christ,
speaking through the Holy Maid. But it was necessary for the command
to be in accordance with his wishes. The letter provides for that. He
is careful to indicate to Jeanne, and consequently to God, what reply
would be suitable. He lays stress on the fact that Martin V, who had
recently excommunicated him, was elected at Constance by the consent
of all Christian nations, that he dwells at Rome and that he is obeyed
by all Christian kings. He points out on the other hand the
circumstances which invalidate the election of Clement VIII by only
three cardinals, and the still more ridiculous election of that
Benedict, who was chosen by a conclave consisting of only one
cardinal.[1697]
[Footnote 1697: Noel Valois, _La France et le grand schisme d'Occident_,
vol. iv (1902), in 8vo, _passim_.]
After such a setting forth could there possibly remain a single doubt
as to whether Pope Martin was the true pope? But such guile was lost
on Jeanne; it escaped her entirely. The Count of Armagnac's letter,
which she had read to her as she was mounting her horse, must have
struck her as very obscure.[1698] The names of Benedict, of Clement and
of Martin she had never heard. The Saints, Catherine and Margaret,
with whom she was constantly holding converse, revealed to her nothing
concerning the Pope. They spoke to her of nought save of the realm of
France; and Jeanne's prudence generally led her to confine her
prophecies to the subject of the war. This circumstance was pointed
out by a German clerk as a matter extraordinary and worthy of
note.[1699] But for this once she consented to reply to Jean IV, in
order to maintain her reputation as a prophet and because the title of
Armagnac strongly appealed to her. She told him that at that moment
she was unable to instruct him concerning the true pope, but that
later she would inform him in which of the three he must believe,
according as God should reveal it unto her. In short, she in a measure
followed the example of such soothsayers as postpone the announcement
of the oracle to a future day.
[Footnote 1698: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 82.]
[Footnote 1699: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 466, 467.]
Jhesus [cross symbol] Maria
Count of Armagnac, my good friend and beloved, Jehanne the
Maid lets you to wit that your message hath come before me,
the which hath told me that you have sent from where you are
to know from me in which of the three popes, whom you
mention in your memorial, you ought to believe. This thing
in sooth I cannot tell you truly for the present, until I be
in Paris or at rest elsewhere, because for the present I am
too much hindered by affairs of war; but when you hear that
I am in Paris send a message to me, and I will give you to
understand what you shall rightfully believe, and what I
shall know by the counsel of my Righteous and Sovereign
Lord, the King of all the world, and what you should do, as
far as I may. To God I commend you; God keep you. Written at
Compiengne, the 22nd day of August.[1700]
[Footnote 1700: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 245, 246.]
Jeanne before she made this reply can have consulted neither the good
Brother Pasquerel nor the good Friar Richard nor indeed any of the
churchmen of her company. They would have told her that the true pope
was the Pope of Rome, Martin V. They might also have represented to
her that she was belittling the authority of the Church by appealing
to a revelation from God concerning popes and anti-popes. Sometimes,
they would have told her, God confides the secrets of his Church to
holy persons. But it would be rash to count upon so rare a privilege.
Jeanne exchanged a few words with the messenger who had brought her
the missive; but the interview was brief. The messenger was not safe
in the town, not that the soldiers would have made him pay for his
master's crimes and treasons; but the Sire de la Tremouille was at
Compiegne; and he knew that Count Jean, who for the nonce was in
alliance with the Constable De Richemont, was meditating something
against him. La Tremouille was not so malevolent as the Count of
Armagnac: and yet the poor messenger only narrowly escaped being
thrown into the Oise.[1701]
[Footnote 1701: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 83.]
On the morrow, Tuesday the 23rd of August, the Maid and the Duke of
Alencon took leave of the King and set out from Compiegne with a
goodly company of fighting men. Before marching on Saint-Denys in
France, they went to Senlis to collect a company of men-at-arms whom
the King had sent there.[1702] As was her custom, the Maid rode
surrounded by monks. Friar Richard, who predicted the approaching end
of the world, had joined the procession. It would seem that he had
superseded the others, even Brother Pasquerel, the chaplain. It was to
him that the Maid confessed beneath the walls of Senlis. In that same
spot, with the Dukes of Clermont and Alencon,[1703] she took the
communion on two consecutive days. She must have been in the hands of
monks who were in the habit of making a very frequent use of the
Eucharist.
[Footnote 1702: Perceval de Cagny, p. 165. _Chronique de la Pucelle_,
p. 331. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. Morosini, vol.
iii, pp. 212, 213. The accounts of Hemon Raguier, in the _Trial_, vol.
iv, p. 24.]
[Footnote 1703: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 450.]
The Lord Bishop of Senlis was Jean Fouquerel. Hitherto, he had been on
the side of the English and entirely devoted to the Lord Bishop of
Beauvais. On the approach of the royal army, Jean Fouquerel, who was a
cautious person, had gone off to Paris to hide a large sum of money.
He was careful of his possessions. Some one in the army took his nag
and gave it to the Maid. By means of a draft on the receiver of taxes
and the _gabelle_ officer of the town, two hundred golden
_saluts_[1704] were paid for it. The Lord Bishop did not approve of
this transaction and demanded his hackney. Hearing of his displeasure,
the Maid caused a letter to be written to him, saying that he might
have back his nag if he liked; she did not want it for she found it
not sufficiently hardy for men-at-arms. The horse was sent to the Sire
de La Tremouille with a request that he would deliver it to the Lord
Bishop, who never received it.[1705]
[Footnote 1704: So called because stamped with the picture of the
Annunciation and bearing the inscription: _Salus populi suprema lex
est_; the coin was worth about L1 of our money (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1705: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 104. Extracts from the 13th account
of Hemon Raguier, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 267. E. Dupuis, _Jean
Fouquerel, eveque de Senlis_, in _Memoires du comite archeologique de
Senlis_, 1875, vol. i, p. 93. Vatin, _Combat sous Senlis entre Charles
VII et les Anglais_, in _Comite archeologique de Senlis, Comptes
rendus et memoires_, 1866, pp. 41, 54.]
As for the bill on the tax receiver and _gabelle_ officer, it may
have been worthless; and probably the Reverend Father in God, Jean
Fouquerel, never had either horse or money. Jeanne was not at fault,
and yet the Lord Bishop of Beauvais and the clerks of the university
were shortly to bring home to her the gravity of the sacrilege of
laying hands on an ecclesiastical hackney.[1706]
[Footnote 1706: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 264.]
To the north of Paris, about five miles distant from the great city,
there rose the towers of Saint-Denys. On the 26th of August, the army
of the Duke of Alencon arrived there, and entered without resistance,
albeit the town was strongly fortified.[1707] The place was famous for
its illustrious abbey very rich and very ancient. The following is the
story of its foundation.
[Footnote 1707: Perceval de Cagny, p. 165. The 25th according to _Le
journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 243.]
Dagobert, King of the French, had from childhood been a devout
worshipper of Saint Denys. And whenever he trembled before the ire of
King Clotaire his father, he would take refuge in the church of the
holy martyr. When he died, a pious man dreamed that he saw Dagobert
summoned before the tribunal of God; a great number of saints accused
him of having despoiled their churches; and the demons were about to
drag him into hell when Saint Denys appeared; and by his intercession,
the soul of the King was delivered and escaped punishment. The story
was held to be true, and it was thought that the King's soul returned
to animate his body and that he did penance.[1708]
[Footnote 1708: J. Doublet, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys en
France, contenant les antiquites d'icelle, les fondations,
prerogatives et privileges_, Paris, 1625, 2 vol. in 4to, vol. i, ch.
xx and xxiv. Des Rues, _Les antiquites, fondations et singularites des
plus celebres villes_, pp. 84, 85.]
When the Maid with the army occupied Saint-Denys, the three porches,
the embattled parapets, the tower of the Abbey Church, erected by the
Abbot Suger, were already three centuries old. There were buried the
kings of France; and thither they came to take the _oriflamme_.
Fourteen years earlier the late King Charles had fetched it forth, but
since then none had borne it.[1709]
[Footnote 1709: J. Doublet, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys_, vol.
i, ch. xxxi, xxxiv.]
Many were the wonders told touching this royal standard. And with some
of those marvels the Maid must needs have been acquainted, since on
her coming into France, she was said to have given the Dauphin Charles
the surname of _oriflamme_,[1710] as a pledge and promise of
victory.[1711] At Saint-Denys was preserved the heart of the Constable
Du Guesclin.[1712] Jeanne had heard of his high renown; she had
proffered wine to Madame de Laval's eldest son; and to his
grandmother, who had been Sire Bertrand's second wife, she had sent a
little ring of gold, out of respect for the widow of so valiant a
man,[1713] asking her to forgive the poverty of the gift.
[Footnote 1710: Cf. vol. i, p. 182 (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1711: Thomassin, _Registre Delphinal_, in _Trial_, vol. iv,
p. 304. See Du Cange, _Glossaire_ under the word _Auriflamme_.]
[Footnote 1712: J. Doublet, _Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys_, vol.
i, ch. xxii. D. Michel Felibien, _Histoire de l'abbaye royale de
Saint-Denys en France_, Paris, in folio, 1706, pp. 229, 320. Vallet de
Viriville, _Notice du manuscrit de P. Cochon_, at the end of _La
chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 360. _Chronique de Du Guesclin_, ed.
Francisque-Michel, pp. 452 _et seq._]
[Footnote 1713: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 107, 109.]
The monks of Saint-Denys preserved precious relics, notably a piece of
the wood of the true cross, the linen in which the Child Jesus had
been wrapped, a fragment of the pitcher wherein the water had been
changed to wine at the Cana marriage feast, a bar of Saint Lawrence's
gridiron, the chin of Saint Mary Magdalen, a cup of tamarisk wood used
by Saint Louis as a charm against the spleen. There likewise was to be
seen the head of Saint Denys. True, at the same time one was being
shown in the Cathedral church of Paris. The Chancellor, Jean Gerson,
treating of Jeanne the Maid, a few days before his death, wrote that
of her it might be said as of the head of Saint Denys, that belief in
her was a matter of edification and not of faith, albeit in both
places alike the head ought to be worshipped in order that edification
should not be turned into scandal.[1714]
[Footnote 1714: D. M. Felibien, _op. cit._, ch. ii, pp. 528 _et seq._
Illustrations. J. Doublet, _op. cit._, vol. i, ch. xliii, xlvi.
_Trial_, vol. iii, p. 301. _Gallia Christiana_, vol. vii, col. 142.]
In this abbey everything proclaimed the dignity, the prerogatives and
the high worship of the house of France. Jeanne must joyously have
wondered at the insignia, the symbols and signs of the royalty of the
Lilies gathered together in this spot,[1715] if indeed those eyes,
occupied with celestial visions, had leisure to perceive the things of
earth, and if her Voices, endlessly whispering in her ear, left her
one moment's respite.
[Footnote 1715: _Religieux de Saint-Denis_, pp. 154, 156, 226.]
Saint Denys was a great saint, since there was no doubt of his being
in very deed the Areopagite himself.[1716] But since he had permitted
his abbey to be taken he was no longer invoked as the patron saint of
the Kings of France. The Dauphin's followers had replaced him by the
Blessed Archangel Michael, whose abbey, near the city of Avranches,
had victoriously held out against the English. It was Saint Michael
not Saint Denys who had appeared to Jeanne in the garden at Domremy;
but she knew that Saint Denys was the war cry of France.[1717]
[Footnote 1716: Estienne Binet, _La vie apostolique de saint Denys
l'Areopagite, patron et apostre de la France_, Paris, 1624, in 12mo.
J. Doublet, _Histoire chronologique pour la verite de Saint Denys
l'Areopagite, apotre de France et premier eveque de Paris_, Paris,
1646, in 4to, and _Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys en France_, p.
95. J. Havet, _Les origines de Saint-Denis_, in _Les Questions
merovingiennes_.]
[Footnote 1717: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 179.]
The monks of that rich abbey wasted by war lived there in poverty and
in disorder.[1718] Armagnacs and Burgundians in turn descended upon the
neighbouring fields and villages, plundering and ravaging, leaving
nought that it was possible to carry off. At Saint-Denys was held the
Fair of Le Lendit, one of the greatest in Christendom. But now
Merchants had ceased to attend it. At the Lendit of 1418, there were
but three booths, and those for the selling of shoes from Brabant, in
the high street of Saint-Denys, near the Convent of Les Filles-Dieu.
Since 1426, there had been no fair at all.[1719]
[Footnote 1718: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 179, note 5.]
[Footnote 1719: _Ibid._, pp. 101, 209, note 1.]
At the tidings that the Armagnacs were approaching Troyes, the
peasants had cut their corn before it was ripe and brought it into
Paris. On entering Saint-Denys, the Duke of Alencon's men-at-arms
found the town deserted. The chief burgesses had taken refuge in
Paris.[1720] Only a few of the poorer families were left. The Maid
held two newly born infants over the baptismal font.[1721]
[Footnote 1720: _Ibid._, pp. 241, 242. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 354.]
[Footnote 1721: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 103.]
Hearing of these Saint-Denys baptisms, her enemies accused her of
having lit candles and held them inclined over the infant's heads, in
order that she might read their destinies in the melted wax. It was
not the first time, it appeared, that she indulged in such practices.
When she entered a town, little children were said to offer her
candles kneeling, and she received them as an agreeable sacrifice.
Then upon the heads of these innocents she would let fall three drops
of burning wax, proclaiming that by virtue of this ceremony they could
not fail to be good. In such acts Burgundian ecclesiastics discerned
idolatry and witchcraft, in which was likewise involved heresy.[1722]
[Footnote 1722: _Ibid._, p. 304. Noel Valois, _Un nouveau temoignage
sur Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Annuaire-bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire
de France_, Paris, 1907, in 8vo, separate issue, pp. 17, 18.]
Here again, at Saint-Denys, she distributed banners to the
men-at-arms. Churchmen on the English side strongly suspected her of
charming those banners. And as everyone in those days believed in
magic, such a suspicion was not without its danger.[1723]
[Footnote 1723: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 236.]
The Maid and the Duke of Alencon lost no time. Immediately after their
arrival at Saint-Denys they went forth to skirmish before the gates of
Paris. Two or three times a day they engaged in this desultory
warfare, notably by the wind-mill at the Saint-Denys Gate and in the
village of La Chapelle. "Every day there was booty taken," says
Messire Jean de Bueil.[1724] It seems hardly credible that in a country
which had been plundered and ravaged over and over again, there
should have been anything left to be taken; and yet the statement is
made and attested by one of the nobles in the army.
[Footnote 1724: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. ii, p. 281.]
Out of respect for the seventh commandment, the Maid forbade the men
of her company to commit any theft whatsoever. And she always refused
victuals offered her when she knew they had been stolen. In reality
she, like the others, lived on pillage, but she did not know it. One
day when a Scotsman gave her to wit that she had just partaken of some
stolen veal, she flew into a fury and would have beaten him: saintly
women are subject to such fits of passion.[1725]
[Footnote 1725: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 81.]
Jeanne is said to have observed the walls of Paris carefully, seeking
the spot most favourable for attack.[1726] The truth is that in this
matter as in all others she depended on her Voices. For the rest she
was far superior to all the men-at-arms in courage and in good will.
From Saint-Denys she sent the King message after message, urging him
to come and take Paris.[1727] But at Compiegne the King and his Council
were negotiating with the ambassadors of the Duke of Burgundy, to wit:
Jean de Luxembourg, Lord of Beaurevoir, Hugues de Cayeux, Bishop of
Arras, David de Brimeu and my Lord of Charny.[1728]
[Footnote 1726: Perceval de Cagny, p. 166.]
[Footnote 1727: _Ibid._, p. 166.]
[Footnote 1728: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.
ii, p. 112. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 404,
408. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 192; vol. iv, appendix xviii.]
The fifteen days' truce had expired. Our only information concerning
it is contained in Jeanne's letter to the citizens of Reims. According
to Jeanne, the Duke of Burgundy had undertaken to surrender the city
to the King of France on the fifteenth day.[1729] If he had so agreed
it was on conditions of which we know nothing; we are not therefore in
a position to say whether or no those conditions had been carried out.
The Maid placed no trust in this promise, and she was quite right; but
she did not know everything; and on the very day when she was
complaining of the truce to the citizens of Reims, Duke Philip was
receiving the command of Paris at the hands of the Regent, and was
henceforth in a position to dispose of the city as he liked.[1730] Duke
Philip could not bear the sight of Charles of Valois, who had been
present at the murder on the Bridge of Montereau, but he detested the
English and wished they would go to the devil or return to their
island. The vineyards and the cloth looms of his dominions were too
numerous and too important for him not to wish for peace. He had no
desire to be King of France; therefore he could be treated with,
despite his avarice and dissimulation. Nevertheless the fifteenth day
had gone by and the city of Paris remained in the hands of the English
and the Burgundians, who were not friends but allies.
[Footnote 1729: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 140.]
[Footnote 1730: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 332. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, vol. i, p. 106. P. Cochon, p. 457. Perceval de Cagny, p.
165.]
On the 28th of August a truce was concluded. It was to last till
Christmas and was to extend over the whole country north of the Seine,
from Nogent to Harfleur, with the exception of such towns as were
situated where there was a passage over the river. Concerning the city
of Paris it was expressly stated that "Our Cousin of Burgundy, he and
his men, may engage in the defence of the town and in resisting such
as shall make war upon it or do it hurt."[1731] The Chancellor
Regnault de Chartres, the Sire de la Tremouille, Christophe
d'Harcourt, the Bastard of Orleans, the Bishop of Seez, and likewise
certain young nobles very eager for war, such as the Counts of
Clermont and of Vendome and the Duke of Bar, in short all the
Counsellors of the King and the Princes of the Blood who signed this
article, were apparently giving the enemy a weapon against them and
renouncing any attempt upon Paris. But they were not all fools; the
Bastard of Orleans was keen witted and the Lord Archbishop of Reims
was anything but an Olibrius.[1732] They doubtless knew what they were
about when they recognised the Duke of Burgundy's rights over Paris.
Duke Philip, as we know, had been governor of the great town since the
13th of August. The Regent had ceded it with the idea that Burgundy
would keep the Parisians in order better than England, for the English
were few in number and were disliked as foreigners. What did it profit
King Charles to recognise his cousin's rights over Paris? We fail to
see precisely; but after all this truce was no better and no worse
than others. In sooth it did not give Paris to the King, but neither
did it prevent the King from taking it. Did truces ever hinder
Armagnacs and Burgundians from fighting when they had a mind to fight?
Was one of those frequent truces ever kept?[1733] After having signed
this one, the King advanced to Senlis. The Duke of Alencon came to him
there twice. Charles reached Saint-Denys on Wednesday the 7th of
September.[1734]
[Footnote 1731: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 352, 353. _Journal d'un
bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 247, 248. D. Felibien, _Histoire de Paris_,
vol. ii, p. 813, and proofs and illustrations, vol. iv, p. 591.
Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 208, 209, 224, note 2; vol. iv, appendix
xviii, pp. 343, 344.]
[Footnote 1732: Cf. vol. i, p. 34, note 3 (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1733: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, ch.
vii. _La diplomatie de Charles VII jusqu'au traite d'Arras_.]
[Footnote 1734: Perceval de Cagny, p. 166.]
CHAPTER III
THE ATTACK ON PARIS
In the days when King John was a prisoner in the hands of the English,
the townsfolk of Paris, beholding the enemy in the heart of the land,
feared lest their city should be besieged. In all haste therefore they
proceeded to put it in a state of defence; they surrounded it with
trenches and counter trenches. On the side of the University the
suburbs were left defenceless; small and remote, they were burned
down. But on the right bank the more extensive suburbs well nigh
touched the city. One part of them was enclosed by the trenches. When
peace was concluded, Charles, Regent of the Realm, undertook to
surround the town on the north with an embattled wall, flanked with
square towers, with terraces and parapets, with a road round and steps
leading up to the ramparts.
In certain places the trench was single, in others double. The work
was superintended by Hugues Aubriot, Provost of Paris, to whom was
entrusted also the building of the Saint-Antoine bastion, completed
under King Charles VI.[1735] This new fortification began on the east,
near the river, on the rising ground of Les Celestins. Within its
circle it enclosed the district of Saint Paul, the Culture
Sainte-Catherine, the Temple, Saint-Martin, Les Filles-Dieu, Saint
Sauveur, Saint Honore, Les Quinze Vingts, which hitherto had been in
the suburbs and undefended; and it reached the river below the Louvre,
which was thus united to the town. There were six gates in the
circumvallation, to wit: beginning on the east, the Baudet Gate or
Saint-Antoine Gate, the Saint-Avoye or Temple Gate, the Gate of the
Painters or of Saint-Denis, the Saint-Martin or Montmartre Gate, the
Saint-Honore Gate and the Gate of the Seine.[1736]
[Footnote 1735: Le Roux de Lincy, _Hugues Aubriot, prevot de Paris sous
Charles V_, Paris, 1862, in 8vo, _passim_. _Paris et ses historiens au
XIV'e et XV'e siecle_ by Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, Paris, in
fol. [_Histoire generale de Paris._]]
[Footnote 1736: Delamare, _Traite de la police_, Paris, 1710, in folio,
vol. i, p. 79. A. Bonnardot, _Dissertation archeologique sur les
enceintes de Paris, suivie de recherches sur les portes fortifiees qui
dependaient des enceintes de Paris_, 1851, in 4to, with plan. _Etudes
archeologiques sur les anciens plans de Paris_, 1853, in 4to.
_Appendice aux etudes archeologiques sur les anciens plans de Paris et
aux dissertations sur les enceintes de Paris_, Paris, 1877, in 4to.
_Etude sur Gilles Corrozet, suivie d'une notice sur un manuscrit de la
Bibliotheque des ducs de Bourgogne, contenant une description de
Paris, en 1432_, par Guillebert de Metz, Paris, 1846, in 8vo, 56
pages. Kausler, _Atlas des plus memorables batailles_, Carlsruhe,
1831, pl. 34. H. Legrand, _Paris en 1380_, with plan conjecturally
reconstructed, Paris in fol. 1868, p. 58. A. Guilaumot, _Les Portes de
l'enceinte de Paris sous Charles V_, Paris, 1879. Rigaud, _Chronique
de la Pucelle, campagne de Paris, cartes et plans_, Bergerac, 1886, in
8vo.]
The Parisians did not like the English and were sorely grieved by
their occupation of the city. The folk murmured when, after the
funeral of the late King, Charles VI, the Duke of Bedford had the
sword of the King of France borne before him.[1737] But what cannot be
helped must be endured. The Parisians may have disliked the English;
they admired Duke Philip, a prince of comely countenance and the
richest potentate of Christendom. As for the little King of Bourges,
mean-looking and sad-faced, strongly suspected of treason at
Montereau, there was nothing pleasing in him; he was despised and his
followers were regarded with fear and horror. For ten years they had
been ranging round the town, pillaging, taking prisoners and holding
them to ransom. The English and Burgundians indeed did likewise. When,
in the August of 1423, Duke Philip came to Paris, his men ravaged all
the neighbouring fields, albeit they belonged to friends and allies.
But they were only passing through,[1738] while the Armagnacs were for
ever raiding, eternally stealing all they could lay hands on, setting
fire to barns and churches, killing women and children, ravishing
maids and nuns, hanging men by the thumbs. In 1420, like devils let
loose, they descended upon the village of Champigny and burned at once
oats, wheat, sheep, cows, oxen, women and children. Likewise did they
and worse still at Croissy.[1739] One ecclesiastic said they had caused
more Christians to suffer martyrdom than Maximian and Diocletian.[1740]
[Footnote 1737: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 180.]
[Footnote 1738: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 189.]
[Footnote 1739: _Ibid._, pp. 136, 137.]
[Footnote 1740: _Ibid._, p. 107. _Document inedit relatif a l'etat de
Paris en 1430_, in _Revue des societes savantes_, 1863, p. 203.]
And yet, in the year 1429, there might have been discovered in the
city of Paris not a few followers of the Dauphin. Christine de Pisan,
who was very loyal to the House of Valois, said: "In Paris there are
many wicked. Good are there also and faithful to their King. But they
dare not lift up their voices."[1741]
[Footnote 1741: Christine de Pisan, in _Trial_, vol. v, stanza 56, p.
20. Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, _Paris et ses historiens_, p.
426.]
It was common knowledge that in the Parlement and even in the Chapter
of Notre-Dame were to be found those who had dealings with the
Armagnacs.[1742]
[Footnote 1742: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 251. A. Longnon,
_Paris pendant la domination anglaise (1420-1436), documents extraits
des registres de la chancellerie de France_, Paris, 1877, in 8vo,
introduction, p. xiij. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_,
vol. ii, p. 116, note 1.]
On the morrow of their victory at Patay, those terrible Armagnacs had
only to march straight on the town to take it. They were expected to
enter it one day or the other. In the mind of the Regent it was as if
they had already taken it. He went off and shut himself in the Castle
of Vincennes with the few men who remained to him.[1743] Three days
after the discomfiture of the English there was a panic in the town.
"The Armagnacs are coming to-night," they said. Meanwhile the
Armagnacs were at Orleans awaiting orders to assemble at Gien and to
march on Auxerre. At these tidings the Duke of Bedford must have
sighed a deep sigh of relief; and straightway he set to work to
provide for the defence of Paris and the safety of Normandy.[1744]
[Footnote 1743: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 248. _Chronique
de la Pucelle_, p. 297. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 79, note.]
[Footnote 1744: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 257.
Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 453. Morosini, vol. iii, p.
198.]
When the panic was past, the heart of the great town returned to its
allegiance, not to the English cause--it had never been English--but
to the Burgundian. Its Provost, Messire Simon Morhier, who had made
great slaughter of the French at the Battle of the Herrings, remained
loyal to the Leopard.[1745] The aldermen on the contrary were suspected
of inclining a favourable ear to King Charles's proposals. On the
12th of July, the Parisians elected a new town council composed of the
most zealous Burgundians they could find in commerce and on change. To
be provost of the merchants they appointed the treasurer, Guillaume
Sanguin, to whom the Duke of Burgundy owed more then seven thousand
_livres tournois_[1746] and who had the Regent's jewels in his
keeping.[1747] Such an alteration was greatly to the detriment of King
Charles, who preferred to win back his good towns by peaceful means
rather than by force, and who relied more on negotiations with the
citizens than on cannon balls and stones.
[Footnote 1745: _Journal du siege_, p. 38. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_,
vol. i, pp. 106, 107. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 454.]
[Footnote 1746: See vol. i, p. 222, note 2 (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1747: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 239, note 2. Le
Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, _Paris et ses historiens_, pp. 340 _et
seq._]
Just in the nick of time the Regent surrendered the town to Duke
Philip, not, we may be sure, without many regrets for having recently
refused him Orleans. He realised that thus, by returning to its French
allegiance, the chief city of the realm would make a more energetic
defense against the Dauphin's men. The Parisians' old liking for the
magnificent Duke would revive, and so would their old hatred of the
disinherited son of Madame Ysabeau. In the Palais de Justice the Duke
read the story of his father's death, punctuated with complaints of
Armagnac treason and violated treaties; he caused the blood of
Montereau[1748] to cry to heaven; those who were present swore to be
right loyal to him and to the Regent. On the following days the same
oath was taken by the regular and secular clergy.[1749]
[Footnote 1748: 14th July, 1429, _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp.
240, 241. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 240. Morosini, vol.
iii, p. 186.]
[Footnote 1749: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 241.]
But the citizens were strengthened in their resistance more by their
remembrance of Armagnac cruelty than by their affection for the fair
Duke. A rumour ran and was believed by them that Messire Charles of
Valois had abandoned to his mercenaries the city and the citizens of
all ranks, high and low, men and women, and that he intended to plough
up the very ground on which Paris stood. Such a rumour represented him
very falsely; on all occasions he was pitiful and debonair; his
Council had prudently converted the coronation campaign into an armed
and peaceful procession. But the Parisians were incapable of judging
sanely when the intentions of the King of France were concerned; and
they knew only too well that once their town was taken there would be
nothing to prevent the Armagnacs from laying it waste with fire and
sword.[1750]
[Footnote 1750: Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 356.]
One other circumstance intensified their fear and their dislike. When
they heard that Friar Richard, to whose sermons they had once listened
so devoutly, was riding with the Dauphin's men and with his nimble
tongue winning such good towns as Troyes in Champagne, they called
down upon him the malediction of God and his Saints. They tore from
their caps the pewter medals engraved with the holy name of Jesus,
which the good Brother had given them, and in their bitter hatred
towards him they returned straightway to the dice, bowls and draughts
which they had renounced at his exhortation. With no less horror did
the Maid inspire them. It was said that she was acting the prophetess
and uttering such words as: "In very deed this or that shall come to
pass." "With the Armagnacs is a creature in woman's form. What it is
God only knows," they cried. They spoke of her as a woman of ill
fame.[1751] Among these enemies, there were those who filled them with
even greater horror than pagans and Saracens--to wit: a monk and a
maid. They all took the cross of Saint Andrew.[1752]
[Footnote 1751: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 242.]
[Footnote 1752: _Ibid._, p. 243.]
While the Dauphin had been away at his coronation an army had come
from England into France. The Regent intended it to overrun Normandy.
In its march on Rouen he commanded it in person. The defence and ward
of Paris he left to Louis of Luxembourg, Bishop of Therouanne,
Chancellor of France for the English, to the Sire de l'Isle-Adam,
Marshal of France, Captain of Paris, to two thousand men-at-arms and
to the Parisian train-bands. To the last were entrusted the defence of
the ramparts and the management of the artillery. They were commanded
by twenty-four burgesses, called _quarteniers_ because they
represented the twenty-four quarters of the city. From the end of July
all danger of a surprise had been guarded against.[1753]
[Footnote 1753: Rymer, _Foedera_, May. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p.
332. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 355. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i,
pp. 106, 107. Wallon, _Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. i, p. 290, note 1. G.
Lefevre-Pontalis, _La panique anglaise_, p. 9. Morosini, vol. iii, p.
216, note 5; vol. iv, appendix xviii.]
On the 10th of August, on Saint-Laurence's Eve, while the Armagnacs
were encamped at La Ferte-Milon, the Saint-Martin Gate, flanked by
four towers and a double drawbridge, was closed; and all men were
forbidden to go to Saint-Laurent, either to the procession or to the
fair, as in previous years.[1754]
[Footnote 1754: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 243.]
On the 28th of the same month, the royal army occupied Saint-Denys.
Henceforth no one dared leave the city, neither for the vintage nor
for the gathering of anything in the kitchen gardens, which covered
the plain north of the town. Prices immediately went up.[1755]
[Footnote 1755: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 243. Perceval de
Cagny, p. 166. _Chronique des cordeliers_, folio, 486 verso.]
In the early days of September, the _quarteniers_, each one in his own
district, had the trenches set in order and the cannons mounted on
walls, gates, and towers. At the command of the aldermen, the hewers
of stone for the cannon made thousands of balls.[1756]
[Footnote 1756: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 243.]
From My Lord, the Duke of Alencon, the magistrates received letters
beginning thus: "To you, Provost of Paris and Provost of the Merchants
and Aldermen...." He named them by name and greeted them in eloquent
language. These letters were regarded as an artifice intended to
render the townsfolk suspicious of the aldermen and to incite one
class of the populace against the other. The only answer sent to the
Duke was a request that he would not spoil any more paper with such
malicious endeavours.[1757]
[Footnote 1757: _Ibid._, pp. 243, 244.]
The chapter of Notre-Dame ordered masses to be said for the salvation
of the people. On the 5th of September, three canons were authorised
to make arrangements for the defence of the monastery. Those in charge
of the sacristy took measures to hide the relics and the treasure of
the cathedral from the Armagnac soldiers. For two hundred golden
_saluts_[1758] they sold the body of Saint Denys; but they kept the
foot, which was of silver, the head and the crown.[1759]
[Footnote 1758: Cf. _ante_, p. 45, note 2 (W.S.).]
[Footnote 1759: Register of the Deliberations of the Chapter of Notre
Dame (Arch. Nat., LL, 716, pp. 173, 174), in _Le journal d'un
bourgeois de Paris_, _loc. cit._ Le P. Ayroles, _La vraie Jeanne
d'Arc_, vol. iii, pp. 530, 531, proofs and illustrations, J, p. 639.
Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et
l'universite de Paris_, Nogent-le-Rotrou, 1898, in 8vo.]
On Wednesday, the 7th of September, the Eve of the Virgin's Nativity,
there was a procession to Sainte-Genevieve-du-Mont with the object of
counteracting the evil of the times and allaying the animosity of the
enemy. In it walked the canons of the Palace, bearing the True
Cross.[1760]
[Footnote 1760: Register of the Deliberations of the Chapter of Notre
Dame, in Tuetey, notes to _Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p.
241, note 1. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 456. Le P. Ayroles,
_La vraie Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. iii, proofs and illustrations, p. 640.]
That very day the army of the Duke of Alencon and of the Maid was
skirmishing beneath the walls. It retreated in the evening; and on
that night the townsfolk slept in peace, for on the morrow Christians
celebrated the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.[1761]