THE EMPTY THRONE
Alez-vous en, alez, alez,
Soussi, Soing, et Mérencolie,
Me cuidez-vous toute ma vie
Gouverner, comme fait avez.
Je vous promet que non ferez;
Raison aura sur vous maistrie:
Alez-vous en, alez, alez,
Soussi, Soing et Mérencolie.
Se jamais plus vous retournez
Avecques vostre compaignie.
Je pri à Dieu qu'il vous maudie
Et ce par qui vous revendrez:
Alez-vous en, alez, alez.
--_Charles d'Orléans._
At the funeral of Charles VI. of France (November 11th, 1422) John, Duke
of Bedford, was the solitary mourner. Alone he walked, the sword of
state borne before him as Regent of France; alone he knelt at the
requiem mass: an alien and a stranger. The people of Paris looked on in
silence; they had nothing to say. "They wept," we are told by a
contemporary, "and not without cause, for they knew not whether for a
long, long while they would have any king in France."
A few days before this, on October thirtieth, Charles the Dauphin had
assumed the title of king, and at a high mass in the cathedral of
Bourges had made his first royal communion. "The king of Bourges," those
of the Anglo-Burgundian party called him; none of them thought he would
ever be anything else. He was twenty years old at this time. We shall
make his personal acquaintance later; our business now is with the
country over which he assumed sovereignty.
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, did not attend the funeral of his
late master; he had no idea of yielding precedence to John of Bedford.
He sent chamberlains and excuses; was England's faithful ally, he
protested, but was very busy at home.
The war meantime was going on as best it might. There were various
risings in Charles's favor: in Paris itself, in Troyes, in Rheims; all
put down with a strong hand. At Rheims, the superior of the Carmelite
friars was accused of favoring the banished prince; he did not deny it,
and declared stoutly, "Never was English king of France, and never shall
be!" In Paris, several citizens were beheaded, and one woman burned;
with little effect save on the sufferers themselves.
There was fighting in the field, too; here a skirmish, there an
ambuscade, here again something that might pass for a battle. At
Crevent-sur-Yonne, at Verneuil, the French (as we must now call
Charles's followers) were defeated; at La Gravelle they were victorious.
A pretty thing happened in connection with this last battle. In a castle
hard by the field lived Anne de Laval, granddaughter of Bertrand du
Guesclin. Hearing the clash of arms, seeing from her tower, it may be,
French and English set in battle array, the lady sent for her
twelve-year-old son, Andrew de Laval, and with trembling, yet eager
hands, buckled round him the sword of the great Breton captain.
"God make thee as valiant," she said, "as he whose sword this was!" and
sent him to the field. The boy did good service that day; was knighted
on the field of battle, and lived to carry out, as marshal of France,
the promise of his childhood.
Far north, perched like an eagle on a crag above the sea, stood _Mont
St. Michel au peril de la mer_, the virgin fortress-abbey; a sacred spot
even under the Druids; these many hundred years now one of the holy
places of France, under special patronage of St. Michael, the archangel
of Joan's vision. England greatly desired this coign of vantage; made
overtures thereanent to the abbot, Robert Jolivet, who listened and
finally promised to surrender the place to them. He went to Rouen to
conclude the bargain. No sooner was he safely out of the abbey than the
chapter of valiant monks elected one of their number, John Enault,
vicar-general, shut and barred the gate (there was but one), raised the
portcullis, and bade defiance to abbot and English. The latter found
that the friendly churchman had exaggerated his own powers, and theirs.
Surrounded by wide-spreading quicksands, its sheer walls buffeted day
and night by the Atlantic surges, Mont St. Michel could be taken only by
treachery, and the one traitor was now safely barred out. Aided by some
valiant Norman warriors who chanced to be in the abbey on pilgrimage or
other business, the monks of St. Michael, worthy of their warlike
patron, held their fortress for eight long years against all assaults,
preserving it inviolate for their rightful king.
Far to southward, La Rochelle, "proud city of the waters," made like
resistance to the invaders. The Rochellais knew the English of old. John
Lackland had landed there when he came in 1214 to try to recover certain
lands seized by Philip Augustus shortly before. It remained in English
hands till 1224, when it was captured by Louis VIII.; was restored by
treaty to the English in 1360; finally shook off the foreign yoke in Du
Guesclin's time. Now it was one of the great maritime cities of France,
its mariners sailing all seas, hardy and bold as Drake or Magellan.
On August 15th, 1427, an English fleet of one hundred and twenty sail
appeared off the port, bringing troops for an invasion. La Rochelle
promptly strengthened her defences, laid a heavy tax on herself to meet
expenses, and sent out a fleet of armed privateers to meet the invaders,
who, after some deliberation, withdrew without attempting to land.
Tired of this war of wasps--a sting, a flight, a sting again--John of
Bedford resolved to strike a decisive blow, one which should bring the
wasps' nest down once and for all. The blow fell upon Orleans.
Royal Orleans (several kings were consecrated in its cathedral and
lodged in its palaces) lies on the right bank of the Loire, one of the
sacred cities of France. It had been besieged before, in 451, by Attila,
the Hun of the period, who failed to gain entrance. Forty-odd years
later, Clovis got possession of the city, and held there the first
Council of France. Philip of Valois made it a separate duchy; Charles
VI. gave it to his brother Louis, and the House of Orleans came into
existence.
The city stretched along the river bank some nine hundred yards, and
back to a depth of six hundred yards; was protected by a wall from
twenty to thirty feet high, with parapet, machicolations, and
twenty-four towers; and on all sides--except that of the river--by a
ditch forty feet wide and twenty feet deep. The river was spanned by a
bridge three hundred and fifty yards long, the centre resting on an
island, its further end protected by a small fortress called _Les
Tourelles_, which in its turn was covered by a strong earthwork known as
the _boulevard_.
Now, in the autumn of 1428, all eyes were turned on the city, and on the
ring of "bastilles" (palisaded earthworks) surrounding it, commanding
every approach. In these bastilles and in the camps stretching beyond
them on every side, the English commanders were gathered: Salisbury,
Suffolk, Talbot, Scales, Fastolf. Inside the city walls were Dunois, La
Hire, Xaintrailles, La Fayette--beside these the citizens fought with
desperate courage. On both sides captains and soldiers girded themselves
for a struggle which all felt must be a decisive one. Assault on one
side, sortie on the other, began and continued briskly. Salisbury with
his curious copper cannon (throwing stone balls of one hundred and fifty
pounds' weight a distance of seven hundred yards) battered the walls and
rained shot into the city: the besieged replied with boiling oil, lime,
and the like, with which the women of Orleans kept them supplied. The
fight raged with greatest violence round the Tourelles, which English
and French were equally determined to take and to keep. After being
battered almost to pieces, it was finally captured by the besiegers, but
at terrible cost. On the eighth day of the siege (October) Salisbury,
standing by an embrasure in one of its towers, was struck on the head by
a stone ball from a French cannon, and died soon after. This was a heavy
loss to the English. On the other hand, Sir John Fastolf, convoying
provisions for the English, completely routed a party of French, who
sallied out to intercept him. Lent was near, and prudent Sir John had
procured a large supply of salt herrings; these, scattered over the
field in every direction, gave the skirmish its name, the Battle of the
Herrings. Most of the provender was brought safely into camp, rejoicing
greatly the hearts of the English. But the city managed to get victualed
too. One day six hundred pigs were driven in, spite of cannon and
mortar; another day two hundred, and forty beeves; but the day after
they lost five hundred head of cattle and "the famous light field-piece
of that master gunner, Jean the Lorrainer."[20] A merry wag, this John
of Lorraine: his jests flew as fast as his balls. Now and then he would
drop beside his gun, and be carried off apparently dead. Shouts of joy
would go up from the English: in the midst of which, John would "bob up
serenely" bowing and smiling, and would go to work again.
So, back and forth, the tide ebbed and flowed, while the winter dragged
on. A leisurely, almost a cheerful siege; Andrew Lang thinks the
fighting was "not much more serious than the combats with apples and
cheeses, in the pleasant land of Torelore, as described in the old
romance of _Aucassin and Nicolete_."[21] He quotes the Monk of
Dunfermline, "a mysterious Scots chronicler,"[21] as saying that the
English camp was like a great fair, with booths for the sale of all
sorts of commodities, and with sunk ways leading from one fort to
another.
All this time, under cover of the desultory shooting, the English were
drawing the ring of fortifications closer and closer yet about the city.
In the gloomy days of February, the citizens began to lose heart. No
more provisions came in. Dunois, now their leader, a natural son of
Louis of Orleans, and the bravest heart in France save one, was
wounded. People began to leave the city, stealthily, under cover of
night. The bishop left; Clermont, who had lost the Battle of the
Herrings, stole away, taking two thousand men with him: the admiral and
chancellor of France "thought it would be a pity to have the great
officers of the crown taken by the English, and went too."[22]
Dunois sent La Hire to the Dauphin at Chinon, begging for men, money,
food. The receiver-general, he was told, had not four crowns in his
chest. Charles kept the messenger to dinner, and regaled him with a fowl
and a sheep's tail. La Hire returning empty-handed, Dunois in
desperation sent to Philip of Burgundy, begging him to take the city
under his protection. Philip of Burgundy, always distracted between his
hatred of the Dauphin and his fear of the growing power of the English,
sent a message asking the Duke of Bedford to raise the siege; but this
John of Bedford was in nowise minded to do.
"We are not here to champ the morsels for Burgundy to swallow!" said one
of his advisers.
"Nay! nay!" assented Duke John. "We will not beat the bushes for
another to take the birds!"
High words ensued, and Philip withdrew his men from the siege. John
cared little, had plenty without them. English and French, all thought
the city was doomed: through all France men sighed and wept over its
approaching fall; and across the Channel, in the White Tower, the
captive lord of Orleans wept with them, and tuned his harp to songs of
grief.
L'un ou l'autre desconfira
De mon cueur et Mérencolie;
Auquel que fortune s'alye,
L'autre "je me rens" lui dira.
D'estre juge me suffira
Pour mettre fin en leur folye;
L'un ou l'autre desconfira
De mon cueur et Mérencolie.
Dieu scet comment mon cueur rira
Se gaigne, menant chière lye;
Contre ceste saison jolye,
On verra comment en yra:
L'un ou l'autre desconfira.
--_Charles d'Orléans._
April was come, and the end seemed near, when whispers began to creep
about. A bird of the air carried the matter, a wind of the forest
breathed it. Help was coming. A marvel had come to light: a holy Maid
(or an accursed witch: it depended on which camp you were in!) had
arisen, had visited the Dauphin at Chinon: was coming to rescue Orleans
from its besiegers. Like wildfire the rumor spread. Brave Dunois
listened, and his heart beat faster, recalling the prophecy. "France
lost by a woman shall be saved by a woman!" Could it be? Was Heaven,
after all, on the side of France?
The English listened too; not the King, for he was, we will hope,
sleeping comfortably in his cradle at Windsor; but John of Bedford in
Paris (not in that haunted Palace of St. Paul, but in the more cheerful
one of Les Tourelles across the way); and before Orleans, his
lieutenants, Suffolk, Talbot, Scales, and the rest. These gentlemen were
amused. The Dauphin must be fallen low indeed to avail himself of such
aid. They made merry in the English camp, and laugh and jest went round
at the expense of their sorry adversary, clinging to the red petticoat
of a peasant girl (for so rumor described her) for succor and relief.
Suddenly, one April day, the laughter ceased. A letter was brought into
the camp: a message brief and sharp as a sword-thrust greeted the
astonished captains.
"_Jesu Maria_," thus it began:
"King of England, account to the King of Heaven for His blood royal.
Give up to the Maid the keys of all the good towns you have taken by
force. She is come from God to avenge the blood royal, and quite ready
to make peace, if you will render proper account. If you do not so, I am
a war-chief; in whatsoever place I shall fall in with your folk in
France, if they be not willing to obey, I shall make them get thence,
whether they will or not; and if they be willing to obey, I will receive
them to mercy.... The Maid cometh from the King of Heaven as His
representative, to thrust you out of France; she doth promise and
certify you that she will make therein such mighty _haha_ (great
tumult), that for a thousand years hitherto in France was never the
like.... Duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of France, the Maid
doth pray you and request you not to bring destruction on yourself; if
you do not justice towards her, she will do the finest deed ever done in
Christendom.
"Writ on Tuesday in the great week" (Easter week, March, 1429).
Subscribed: _"Hearken to the news from God and the Maid."_[23]
The hour was come, and the Maid. Let us go back a little, and see the
manner of her coming.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] A. Lang, "Maid of France," p. 63.
[21] Andrew Lang. "Maid of France," p. 63.
[22] Michelet. "Histoire de France."
[23] Guizot. "History of France."