as a last resource he and the Dauphin agreed to be reconciled and to
unite in defence of their country against the enemy. They held a
personal interview, embraced each other, and signed a treaty by which
they promised each to love the other as a brother, and to offer a joint
resistance to the invaders. A further meeting was arranged to take place
about seven weeks later to complete matters and to consider their future
policy. France was delighted at the prospect of internal harmony and the
hope of deliverance from her enemies. But at the second interview an
event occurred which marred all her prospects once more. The meeting had
been appointed to take place at Montereau, where the river Yonne falls
into the Seine.
The Duke, remembering doubtless how he had perfidiously murdered the
Duke of Orleans, allowed the day originally appointed to pass by, and
came to the place at last after considerable misgivings, which appear to
have been overcome by the exhortations of treacherous friends.
When he arrived he found a place railed in with barriers for the
meeting. He nevertheless advanced, accompanied by ten attendants, and,
being told that the Dauphin waited for him, he came within the barriers,
which were immediately closed behind him. The Dauphin was accompanied by
one or two gentlemen, among whom was his devoted servant, Tannegui du
Châtel, who had saved him from the Parisian massacre. This Tannegui had
been formerly a servant of Louis, Duke of Orleans, whose murder he had
been eagerly seeking an opportunity to revenge; and as the Duke of
Burgundy knelt before the Dauphin, he struck him a violent blow on the
head with a battle-axe. The attack was immediately followed up by two or
three others, who, before the Duke was able to draw his sword, had
closed in around him and despatched him with a multitude of wounds.
The effect of this crime was what might have been anticipated. Nothing
could have been more favorable to the aggressive designs of Henry, or
more ruinous to the party of the Dauphin, with whose complicity it had
been too evidently committed. Philip, the son and heir of the murdered
Duke of Burgundy, at once sought means to revenge his father's death.
The people of Paris became more than ever enraged against the Armagnacs,
and entered into negotiations with the King of England. The new Duke
Philip and Queen Isabel did the same, the latter being no less eager
than the former for the punishment of her own son. Within less than
three months they made up their minds to waive every scruple as to the
acceptance of Henry's most exorbitant demands. He was to have the
princess Catharine in marriage, and, the Dauphin being disinherited, to
succeed to the crown of France on her father's death. He was also to be
regent during King Charles' life; and all who held honors or offices of
any kind in France were at once to swear allegiance to him as their
future sovereign. Henry, for his part, was to use his utmost power to
reduce to obedience those towns and places within the realm which
adhered to the Dauphin or the Armagnacs.
A treaty on this basis was at length concluded at Troyes in Champagne on
May 21, 1420, and on Trinity Sunday, June 2d, Henry was married to the
princess Catharine. Shortly afterward the treaty was formally registered
by the states of the realm at Paris, when the Dauphin was condemned and
attainted as guilty of the murder of the Duke of Burgundy and declared
incapable of succeeding to the crown. But the state of affairs left
Henry no time for honeymoon festivities. On the Tuesday after his
wedding he again put himself at the head of his army, and marched with
Philip of Burgundy to lay siege to Sens, which in a few days
capitulated. Montereau and Melun were next besieged in succession, and
each, after some resistance, was compelled to surrender. The latter
siege lasted nearly four months, and during its continuance Henry fought
a single combat with the governor in the mines, each combatant having
his vizor down and being unknown to the other. The governor's name was
Barbason, and he was one of those accused of complicity in the murder of
the Duke of Orleans; but in consequence of this incident, Henry saved
him from the capital punishment which he would otherwise have incurred
on his capture.
Toward the end of the year Henry entered Paris in triumph with the
French King and the Duke of Burgundy. He there kept Christmas, and
shortly afterward moved with his Queen into Normandy on his return into
England. He held a parliament at Rouen to confirm his authority in the
duchy, after which he passed through Picardy and Calais, and, crossing
the sea, came by Dover and Canterbury to London. By his own subjects,
and especially in the capital, he and his bride were received with
profuse demonstrations of joy. The Queen was crowned at Westminster with
great magnificence, and afterward Henry went a progress with her through
the country, making pilgrimages to several of the more famous shrines in
England.
But while he was thus employed, a great calamity befell the English
power in France, which, when the news arrived in England, made it
apparent that the King's presence was again much needed across the
Channel. His brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom he had left as his
lieutenant, was defeated and slain at Beaugé in Anjou by an army of
French and Scots, a number of English noblemen being also slain or taken
prisoners. This was the first important advantage the Dauphin had
gained, and the credit of the victory was mainly due to his Scotch
allies. For the Duke of Albany, who was regent of Scotland, though it is
commonly supposed that he was unwilling to give needless offence to
England lest Henry should terminate his power by setting the Scotch King
at liberty, had been compelled by the general sympathy of the Scots with
France to send a force under his son the Earl of Buchan to serve against
the English. The service which they did in that battle was so great that
the Earl of Buchan was created, by the Dauphin, constable of France.
Again Henry crossed the sea with a new army, having borrowed large sums
for the expenses of the expedition. Before he left England he made a
private treaty with his prisoner King James of Scotland, promising to
let him return to his country after the campaign in France on certain
specified conditions, among which it was agreed that he should take the
command of a body of troops in aid of the English. James had accompanied
him in his last campaign, and Henry had endeavored to make use of his
authority to forbid the Scots in France from taking part in the war, but
they had refused to acknowledge themselves bound to a king who was a
captive.
By this agreement, however, Henry obtained real assistance and
coöperation from his prisoner, whom he employed, in concert with the
Duke of Gloucester, in the siege of Dreux, which very soon surrendered.
He himself meanwhile marched toward the Loire to meet the Dauphin, and
took Beaugency; then, returning northward, first reduced Villeneuve on
the Yonne, and afterward laid siege to Meaux on the Marne. The latter
place held out for seven months, and while Henry lay before it he
received intelligence that his Queen had borne him a son at Windsor, who
was christened Henry.
The city of Meaux surrendered on May 10, 1422. The Governor, a man who
had been guilty of great cruelties, was beheaded, and his head and body
were suspended from a tree on which he himself had caused a number of
people to be hanged as adherents of the Duke of Burgundy. Henry was now
master of the greater part of the North of France, and his Queen came
over from England to join him, with reënforcements under his brother the
Duke of Bedford. But he was not permitted to rest; for the Dauphin,
having taken from his ally the Duke of Burgundy the town of La Charté on
the Loire, proceeded to lay siege to Côsne, and, Philip having applied
to Henry for assistance, he sent forward the Duke of Bedford with his
army, intending shortly to follow himself. This demonstration was
sufficient. The Dauphin felt that he was too weak to contend with the
united English and Burgundian forces, and he withdrew from the siege.
Henry, however, was disabled from joining the army by a severe attack of
dysentery; and though he had at first hoped that he might be carried in
a litter to head-quarters, he soon found that his illness was far too
serious to permit him to carry out his intention. He was accordingly
conveyed back to Vincennes, near Paris, where he grew so rapidly worse
that it was evident his end was near. In a few brief words to those
about him he declared his will touching the government of England and
France after his death, until his infant son should be of age. The
regency of France he committed to the Duke of Bedford, in case it
should be declined by the Duke of Burgundy. That of England he gave to
his other brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. To his two uncles,
Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of
Exeter, he intrusted the guardianship of his child. He besought all
parties to maintain the alliance with Burgundy, and never to release the
Duke of Orleans and the other prisoners of Agincourt during his son's
minority. Having given these instructions he expired, on the last day of
August, 1422.
His death was bewailed both in England and France with no ordinary
regret. The great achievements of his reign made him naturally a popular
hero; nor was the regard felt for his memory diminished when, under the
feeble reign of his son, all that he had gained was irrecoverably lost
again, so that nothing remained of all his conquests except the story of
how they had been won. Those past glories, indeed, must have seemed all
the brighter when contrasted with a present which knew but disaster
abroad and civil dissension at home. The early death of Henry also
contributed to the popular estimate of his greatness. It was seen that
in a very few years he had subdued a large part of the territory of
France. It was not seen that in the nature of things this advantage
could not be maintained, and that even the greatest military talents
would not have succeeded in preserving the English conquests.
Nor can it be said that Henry's success, extraordinary as it was, was
altogether owing to his own abilities. That he exhibited great qualities
as a general cannot be denied; but these would have availed him little
if the rival factions in France had not been far more bitterly opposed
to each other than to him. Indeed, it is difficult after all to justify,
even as a matter of policy, his interference in French affairs, except
as a means of diverting public attention from the fact that he inherited
from his father but an indifferent title even to the throne of England.
And though success attended his efforts beyond all expectation, he most
wilfully endangered the safety not only of himself, but of his gallant
army, when he determined to march with reduced forces through the
enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais. It was a rashness nothing less
than culpable, but in his own interests rashness was good policy.
Unless he could succeed in desperate enterprises against tremendous
odds and so make himself a military hero and a favorite of the
multitude, his throne was insecure. He succeeded; but it was only by
staking everything upon the venture--his own safety and that of his
army, which, if the French had exercised but a little more discretion,
would inevitably have been cut to pieces or made prisoners to a man.
JEANNE D'ARC'S VICTORY AT ORLEANS
A.D. 1429
Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
In the Hundred Years' War between England and France, a
critical period was reached when Henry V, in 1415, won the
battle of Agincourt, and five years later, by the treaty of
Troyes, secured the succession to the French throne on the
death of Charles VI. Both monarchs dying in 1422, Charles
VII was proclaimed King of France, and Henry's son--Henry
VI--succeeded to his father's throne.
France now realized that her condition was wellnigh
hopeless, for the greater part of her territory was in the
hands of her enemies. When the English began the siege of
Orleans the extinction of French independence seemed to be
inevitable. The chivalry of France had been wasted in
terrible wars, and the spirits of her soldiers were daunted
by repeated disaster. The English king had been proclaimed
in Paris, and the "native prince was a dissolute trifler,
stained with the assassination of the most powerful noble of
the land."[77] Anarchy and brigandage everywhere prevailed,
and the condition of the peasantry was too wretched to be
described.
"Such," says Lamartine, "was the state of the nation when
Providence showed it a savior in a child." This child was
Jeanne d'Arc, called _La Pucelle_ ("the Maid"--more fully,
"the Maid of Orleans"), whose character and services to her
country made her, perhaps, the most illustrious heroine of
history. She was born at Domremy, in the northeast part of
France, January 6, 1412. All that is essential concerning
her personality and life prior to the great achievement
recorded here will be found in Creasy's own introduction to
his spirited account of the victory at Orleans.
Orleans was looked upon as the last stronghold of the French national
party. If the English could once obtain possession of it, their
victorious progress through the residue of the kingdom seemed free from
any serious obstacle. Accordingly, the Earl of Salisbury, one of the
bravest and most experienced of the English generals, who had been
trained under Henry V, marched to the attack of the all-important city;
and, after reducing several places of inferior consequence in the
neighborhood, appeared with his army before its walls on the 12th of
October, 1428.
The city of Orleans itself was on the north side of the Loire, but its
suburbs extended far on the southern side, and a strong bridge connected
them with the town. A fortification, which in modern military phrase
would be termed a _tête-du-pont_, defended the bridge head on the
southern side, and two towers, called the _Tourelles_, were built on the
bridge itself, at a little distance from the tête-du-pont. Indeed, the
solid masonry of the bridge terminated at the Tourelles; and the
communication thence with the tête-du-pont and the southern shore was by
means of a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the tête-du-pont formed
together a strong-fortified post, capable of containing a garrison of
considerable strength; and so long as this was in possession of the
Orleannais, they could communicate freely with the southern provinces,
the inhabitants of which, like the Orleannais themselves, supported the
cause of their dauphin against the foreigners.
Lord Salisbury rightly judged the capture of the Tourelles to be the
most material step toward the reduction of the city itself. Accordingly,
he directed his principal operations against this post, and after some
severe repulses he carried the Tourelles by storm on the 23d of October.
The French, however, broke down the arches of the bridge that were
nearest to the north bank, and thus rendered a direct assault from the
Tourelles upon the city impossible. But the possession of this post
enabled the English to distress the town greatly by a battery of cannon
which they planted there, and which commanded some of the principal
streets.
It has been observed by Hume that this is the first siege in which any
important use appears to have been made of artillery. And even at
Orleans both besiegers and besieged seem to have employed their cannons
merely as instruments of destruction against their enemy's _men_, and
not to have trusted to them as engines of demolition against their
enemy's walls and works. The efficacy of cannon in breaching solid
masonry was taught Europe by the Turks a few years afterward, at the
memorable siege of Constantinople.
In our French wars, as in the wars of the classic nations, famine was
looked on as the surest weapon to compel the submission of a well-walled
town; and the great object of the besiegers was to effect a complete
circumvallation. The great ambit of the walls of Orleans, and the
facilities which the river gave for obtaining succors and supplies,
rendered the capture of the town by this process a matter of great
difficulty. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Suffolk, who
succeeded him in command of the English after his death by a
cannon-ball, carried on the necessary works with great skill and
resolution. Six strongly-fortified posts, called _bastilles_, were
formed at certain intervals round the town, and the purpose of the
English engineers was to draw strong lines between them. During the
winter, little progress was made with the intrenchments, but when the
spring of 1429 came, the English resumed their work with activity; the
communications between the city and the country became more difficult,
and the approach of want began already to be felt in Orleans.
The besieging force also fared hardly for stores and provisions, until
relieved by the effects of a brilliant victory which Sir John Fastolf,
one of the best English generals, gained at Rouvrai, near Orleans, a few
days after Ash Wednesday, 1429. With only sixteen hundred fighting men,
Sir John completely defeated an army of French and Scots, four thousand
strong, which had been collected for the purpose of aiding the
Orleannais and harassing the besiegers. After this encounter, which
seemed decisively to confirm the superiority of the English in battle
over their adversaries, Fastolf escorted large supplies of stores and
food to Suffolk's camp, and the spirits of the English rose to the
highest pitch at the prospect of the speedy capture of the city before
them, and the consequent subjection of all France beneath their arms.
The Orleannais now, in their distress, offered to surrender the city
into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who, though the ally of the
English, was yet one of their native princes. The regent Bedford refused
these terms, and the speedy submission of the city to the English seemed
inevitable. The dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant
of a court, despaired of continuing any longer the struggle for his
crown, and was only prevented from abandoning the country by the more
masculine spirits of his mistress and his Queen. Yet neither they nor
the boldest of Charles' captains could have shown him where to find
resources for prolonging war; and least of all could any human skill
have predicted the quarter whence rescue was to come to Orleans and to
France.
In the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, there was a poor
peasant of the name of Jacques d'Arc, respected in his station of life,
and who had reared a family in virtuous habits and in the practice of
the strictest devotion. His eldest daughter was named by her parents
Jeannette, but she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinized
into Johanna, and Anglicized into Joan.
At the time when Jeanne first attracted attention, she was about
eighteen years of age. She was naturally of a susceptible disposition,
which diligent attention to the legends of saints and tales of fairies,
aided by the dreamy loneliness of her life while tending her father's
flocks, had made peculiarly prone to enthusiastic fervor. At the same
time, she was eminent for piety and purity of soul, and for her
compassionate gentleness to the sick and the distressed.
The district where she dwelt had escaped comparatively free from the
ravages of war, but the approach of roving bands of Burgundian or
English troops frequently spread terror through Domremy. Once the
village had been plundered by some of these marauders, and Jeanne and
her family had been driven from their home, and forced to seek refuge
for a time at Neufchâteau. The peasantry in Domremy were principally
attached to the house of Orleans and the Dauphin, and all the miseries
which France endured were there imputed to the Burgundian faction and
their allies, the English, who were seeking to enslave unhappy France.
Thus, from infancy to girlhood, Jeanne had heard continually of the woes
of the war, and had herself witnessed some of the wretchedness that it
caused. A feeling of intense patriotism grew in her with her growth. The
deliverance of France from the English was the subject of her reveries
by day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were
recollections of the miraculous interpositions of heaven in favor of
the oppressed, which she had learned from the legends of her Church.
Her faith was undoubting; her prayers were fervent. "She feared no
danger, for she felt no sin," and at length she believed herself to have
received the supernatural inspiration which she sought.
According to her own narrative, delivered by her to her merciless
inquisitors in the time of her captivity and approaching death, she was
about thirteen years old when her revelations commenced. Her own words
describe them best. "At the age of thirteen, a voice from God came to
her to help her in ruling herself, and that voice came to her about the
hour of noon, in summer-time, while she was in her father's garden. And
she had fasted the day before. And she heard the voice on her right, in
the direction of the church; and when she heard the voice, she saw also
a bright light."
Afterward St. Michael and St. Margaret and St. Catharine appeared to
her. They were always in a halo of glory; she could see that their heads
were crowned with jewels; and she heard their voices, which were sweet
and mild. She did not distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them
more frequently than she saw them; and the usual time when she heard
them was when the church bells were sounding for prayer. And if she was
in the woods when she heard them, she could plainly distinguish their
voices drawing near to her. When she thought that she discerned the
heavenly voices, she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their
presence gladdened her even to tears, and after they departed she wept
because they had not taken her with them back to paradise. They always
spoke soothingly to her. They told her that France would be saved, and
that she was to save it.
Such were the visions and the voices that moved the spirit of the girl
of thirteen; and as she grew older, they became more frequent and more
clear. At last the tidings of the siege of Orleans reached Domremy.
Jeanne heard her parents and neighbors talk of the sufferings of its
population, of the ruin which its capture would bring on their lawful
sovereign, and of the distress of the Dauphin and his court. Jeanne's
heart was sorely troubled at the thought of the fate of Orleans; and her
"voices" now ordered her to leave her home, and warned her that she was
the instrument chosen by heaven for driving away the English from that
city, and for taking the Dauphin to be anointed king at Rheims. At
length she informed her parents of her divine mission, and told them
that she must go to the Sire de Baudricourt, who commanded at
Vaucouleurs, and who was the appointed person to bring her into the
presence of the King, whom she was to save.
Neither the anger nor the grief of her parents, who said that they would
rather see her drowned than exposed to the contamination of the camp,
could move her from her purpose. One of her uncles consented to take her
to Vaucouleurs, where De Baudricourt at first thought her mad, and
derided her, but by degrees was led to believe, if not in her
inspiration, at least in her enthusiasm, and in its possible utility to
the Dauphin's cause.
The inhabitants of Vaucouleurs were completely won over to her side by
the piety and devoutness which she displayed, and by her firm assurance
in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that
she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the
kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with
her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered her forth.