THE DELIVERANCE
It was eight o'clock on the evening of the eighth of May when the people
of Orleans gathered in dense masses at the bridgehead and along the
riverside to greet their rescuer. Dusk had fallen; they pressed forward
with lanterns and torches held aloft, all striving for a sight of the
Maid.
"By these flickering lights," says Jules Quicherat, "Joan seemed to them
beautiful as the angel conqueror of a demon."
Yet it was not the morning vision of snow and silver, fresh and dewy as
her own youth, that had ridden out at daybreak to battle. Weary now was
the white charger, drooping his gallant neck; weary was the Maid, faint
with the pain of her wound, her white armor dinted and stained. But the
people of Orleans saw nothing save their Angel of Deliverance. They
pressed round her, eager to touch her armor, her floating standard, the
horse which had borne her so bravely through the day. Weary and wounded
as she was, she smiled on one and all, and "in the sweetest feminine
voice, called them good Christians, and assured them that God would save
them."
So she rode on to the Cathedral, where she returned thanks humbly and
devoutly to God who had given the victory; then, still surrounded by the
shouting, rejoicing throng, home to the house of Boucher, where they
left her.
"There was not a man who, going home after this evening, did not feel in
him the strength of ten Englishmen."[42]
She had fasted since dawn, but she was too tired to eat the _alose_, nor
did she bring the promised "goddam" to share it with her. The goddams
were all dead save a few, who were jealously guarded for ransom. She
supped on a few bits of bread dipped in weak wine and water, and a
surgeon came and dressed her wound.
All night, we are told, the joy bells rang through the rescued city,
while the good Maid slept with the peace of Heaven in her heart.
It was not a long sleep. At daybreak came tidings that the English had
issued from their tents and arrayed themselves in order of battle.
Instantly Joan arose and dressed, putting on a light coat of chain mail,
as her wounded shoulder could not bear the weight of the heavy plate
armor. She rode out with Dunois and the rest, and the French order of
battle was formed, fronting the English; so the two armies remained for
the space of an hour. The French, full of the strong wine of yesterday's
victory, were eager to attack; but Joan held them back. "If they attack
us," she said, "fight bravely and we shall conquer them; but do not
begin the battle!"
Then she did a strange thing. She sent for a priest, and bade him
celebrate mass in front of the army; and that done, to celebrate it yet
again. Both services "she and all the soldiers heard with great
devotion."
"Now," said the Maid, "look well, and tell me; are their faces set
toward us?"
"No!" was the reply. "They have turned their backs on us, and their
faces are set toward Meung."
"In God's name, they are gone!" said Joan. "Let them go, and let us go
and praise God, and follow them no farther, since this is Sunday."
"Whereupon," says the chronicle, "the Maid with the other lords and
soldiers returned to Orleans with great joy, to the great triumph of all
the clergy and people, who with one accord returned to our Lord humble
thanks and praises well deserved for the victory he had given them over
the English, the ancient enemies of this realm."[43]
This service of thanksgiving ordered by Joan of Arc on the ninth of May,
1429, was the virtual foundation of the great festival which Orleans has
now celebrated with hardly a break for five hundred years.
After that first outbreak of thanksgiving, Dunois himself laid down the
rules for the annual keeping of the festival, which are given in the
"Chronicle of the establishment of the _fête_," written thirty years
after the siege.
"My lord the bishop of Orleans, and my lord Dunois (the Bastard),
brother of my lord the duke of Orleans, with the duke's advice, as well
as the burghers and inhabitants of the said Orleans, ordered that on
the eighth of May there should be a procession of people carrying
candles, which procession should march as far as the Augustines, and,
wherever the fight had raged, there a halt should be made and a suitable
service should be had in each place with prayer. We cannot give too much
praise to God and the Saints, since all that was done by God's grace,
and so, with great devotion, we ought to take part in the said
procession. Even the men of Bourges and of certain other cities
celebrate the day, because if Orleans had fallen into the hands of the
English, the rest of the kingdom would have taken great harm. Always
remembering, therefore, the great mercy which God has shown to the said
city of Orleans, we ought always to maintain and never to abandon this
holy procession, lest we fall into ingratitude, whereby much evil may
come upon us. Every one is obliged to join the said procession, carrying
a lighted candle in his hand. It passes round about the town in front of
the church of our Lady of Saint Paul, at which place they sing praises
to our Lady; and it goes thence to the cathedral, where the sermon is
preached, and thereafter a mass is sung. There are also vigils at Saint
Aignan, and, on the morrow, a mass for the dead. All men, therefore,
should be bidden to praise God and to thank Him; for at the present time
there are youths who can hardly believe that the thing came about in
this wise; you, however, should believe that this is a true thing, and
is verily the great grace of God."[44]
Walls and boulevard have long since been outgrown by the city of the
Loire: dynasties have risen and fallen, wars have swept and harried
France after their fashion. Still, in the early May time, when Nature is
fair and young and sweet as the Maid herself, Orleans rises up to do
reverence to her rescuer. The priests walk in holiday vestments, the
bells ring out, the censers swing, the people throng the streets and
fill the churches.
During her brief stay in Orleans after its deliverance, Joan bore
herself with her own quiet modesty. She loved solitude, and rather
shunned than sought company. She took no credit to herself; the glory
was God's and God's alone, she repeatedly told the people, who flocked
about her in adoration.
"Never were seen such deeds as you have wrought!" they told her. "No
book tells of such marvels!"
"My Lord," replied the Maid, "has a book in which no clerk ever read,
were he ever so clerkly."[45]
What next was for the Maid to do?
Orleans was delivered, but France was still under English rule. John of
Bedford, "brave soldier, prudent captain, skilful diplomatist, having
experience of camps and courts," was startled, but not discouraged by
the rescue of Orleans. He meant to rule France for his child-king, and
to rule it well; as a matter of fact, he did rule it for thirteen years,
striving always "in a degree superior to his century," to bring order
out of chaos, to convert the bloodstained wilderness of the conquered
country into a decent and well-ordered realm.
Nor was John Talbot himself one whit disheartened. He had lost some of
his best men on the bloody day of the Tourelles, but he had plenty
more. He had lost Orleans, but the river towns on either side of it were
still his, Meung, Beaugency, Jargeau; all strongly fortified, all
guarding river and high road so that no man might pass without their
leave.
He had retreated in excellent order from that field where his offered
battle had been--strangely, he may have thought--refused by the Maid and
her victorious army; he now established himself at Meung, with strong
outposts at Beaugency and Jargeau, and awaited the next move on the
enemy's part.
Bedford, meantime, assembled in all haste another army at Paris,
prepared to go to Talbot's assistance whenever need should arise.
Joan knew better than to follow the orderly retreat of the English. Her
own men, with all their superb courage, even with the flame of victory
in their hearts, had not the training necessary for a long campaign in
the open; neither was there money for it, nor provisions.
Besides, her Voices had but one message for her now; she was to go to
the Dauphin; he was to be crowned king, as soon as might be; then--to
Paris!
Leaving Dunois in charge of Orleans, Joan, with several of her
followers, rode out once more, this time to Tours, whither Charles came
from Chinon to meet her.
It was a strange meeting. The conquering Maid, she beside whom, as she
and all her followers believed, the angels of God had fought for France,
rode forward, bareheaded, her glorious banner drooping in her hand, and
bent humbly to her saddle-bow in obeisance. Charles bade her sit
erect;[46] an eyewitness thinks that in his joy he fain would have
kissed her. He might better have alighted and held her stirrup, but this
would naturally not occur to him; certainly not to the Maid, who had but
one thought in her loyal heart.
"Gentle Dauphin," she said, "let us make haste and be gone to Rheims,
where you shall be crowned king!" Now, she pleaded, was the time, while
their enemies still "fled, so to speak, from themselves."[46]
She added some words which well had it been for Charles if he had
heeded. "I shall hardly last more than a year!" she said. "We must think
about working right well this year, for there is much to do."
From the beginning, she had known that her time was short. The how and
why were mercifully hidden from her, but she knew right well that
whatever she was to do must be done soon.
But Charles of Valois would not willingly do anything one year that
might be put off till the next. He hesitated; dawdled; consulted La
Trémoïlle, his favorite and master; consulted Jean Gerson, the _most
Christian doctor_, whom men called the wisest Frenchman of his age. The
latter gave full honor and credence to the Maid. "Even if (which God
forbid) she should be mistaken," he wrote, "in her hopes and ours, it
would not necessarily follow that what she does comes of the evil spirit
and not of God, but that rather our ingratitude was to blame. Let the
party which hath a just cause take care how by incredulity or injustice
it rendereth useless the divine succor so miraculously manifested, for
God, without any change of counsel, changeth the upshot according to
desert."[47]
Thus Gerson, the learned and saintly. La Trémoïlle, the ignorant and
unscrupulous, was of another mind, and La Trémoïlle was master of the
Dauphin and of such part of France as the Dauphin ruled. This greedy
parasite had been willing that Orleans should be rescued; that alone
boded him no special danger. Any general awakening of the country,
however, any dawn of hope, freedom, tranquillity, for the unhappy
people, might be disastrous for him. While the strength of the realm was
expended on petty squabbles among Charles's various adherents, while the
splitting of hairs with Burgundy filled the time safely and agreeably,
La Trémoïlle could rob and squeeze the people at his pleasure. But now
affairs began to take on a new aspect. This Maid, having saved Orleans,
might well have busied herself with matters of personal glory and
profit. Instead of this, she talked of nothing but a united France, a
France at peace, with honor; of Charles a king indeed, with all good and
true men serving him honestly and joyfully. Moreover, his, La
Trémoïlle's, chief rival and former patron, Arthur of Brittany, Count of
Richemont, was an admirer of this troublesome young woman.
Altogether it seemed to La Trémoïlle that the Maid was not a person to
be encouraged. Fair and softly, though; no haste, no outward show of
enmity; judicious procrastination could do much.
Procrastination suited Charles admirably; he asked nothing better. He
dawdled two precious weeks away at Tours; then he went to Loches, and
dawdled there. (His son, Louis XI. did _not_ dawdle at Loches, though he
spent much time there, making cages for unruly cardinals, worshipping
our Lady of Embrun, hanging men like apples on his orchard trees, and
otherwise disporting himself in his own fashion! But that was thirty
years later.)
Poor Joan, bewildered at this strange way of following up a great
victory, followed Charles to Loches, and with Dunois at her side sought
the Dauphin in his apartments, where he was talking with his confessor
and two other members of his council, Robert le Maçon and Christopher of
Harcourt.
Entering the room, with a modest but determined mien she knelt before
Charles and clasped his knees.
"Noble Dauphin," she said, "do not hold so many and such lengthy
councils, but come at once to Rheims and take the crown that is yours!"
Upon this, Harcourt asked her if this advice came from her "_conseil_,"
as she called her heavenly advisers. "Yes!" she replied. "They greatly
insist thereupon."
"Will you not tell us, in the presence of the king, what is the nature
and manner of this counsel that you receive?"
Joan blushed; it was great pain to her to unveil things so sacred; but
she answered bravely: "I understand well enough what it is you wish to
know, and I will tell you freely.
"When men do not believe in those things which come to me from God, it
grieves me sore. Then I go apart and pray, making my plaint to my Lord
for that they are so hard of belief: and after I have prayed I hear a
Voice saying to me, 'Child of God, go, go, go! I will be thy helper;
go![48] When I hear that Voice I am joyful, and wish it might always be
thus with me."
While she spoke, she raised her eyes to heaven, and seemed indeed in an
ecstasy of joy.
Charles listened, was impressed, and doubtless went to tell La
Trémoïlle about it.
But there were others, who cared nothing for La Trémoïlle and much for
the Maid.
The young Duke of Alençon was, we know, her sworn brother-in-arms. He
had no mind to let the glory of Orleans evaporate in trailing mists of
negotiation and dispute. He got together a little army, and demanded the
presence and help of the Maid in a campaign against the English. La
Trémoïlle could not well prevent this; he could only so manage that a
whole month was wasted before permission was given. This was a hard
month for the Maid. To her eyes it was clear as the sun in heaven that
"when once the Dauphin was crowned and consecrated, the power of his
adversaries would continually dwindle."
"All," says Dunois, "came to share her opinion!" By which he meant all
true and knightly persons like himself.
Finally the matter was decided. A rendezvous was appointed at Selles,
not far from Loches; thither, in the first days of June, the Maid
repaired, and there gathered about her all the chivalry of France,
eager to follow her to fresh conquests.
Alençon was in command; he was, we might say, the temporal chief; Joan
the spiritual one. Dunois was there; La Hire, Vendôme, and the rest;
among them Guy de Laval and his brother Andrew. A letter from the
former, written in his name and his brother's to his mother and
grandmother, has been preserved, and gives us so clear and life-like a
picture of the occasion and of Joan herself that I cannot resist giving
it in full. _Mutatis mutandis_, it is not so unlike certain letters that
come over the sea to-day.[49] Reading it, we can thrill with the two
women, one of whom, remember, the grandmother, was the widow of Bertrand
Du Guesclin.
My Reverend Ladies and Mothers: After I wrote you on Friday last
from St. Catherine of Fierbois, I reached Loches on Saturday, and
went to see my lord Dauphin[50] in the castle, after vespers in the
collegiate church. He is a very fair and gracious lord, very well
made and active, and ought to be about seven years old. Sunday I
came to St. Aignan, where the king was, and I sent for my lord of
Treves to come to my quarters; and my uncle went up with him to the
castle to tell the king I was come, and to find out when he would
be pleased to have me wait on him. I got the answer that I should
go as soon as I wished, and he greeted me kindly and said many
pleasant things to me.
On Monday I left the king to go to Selles, four leagues from St.
Aignan, and the king sent for the Maid, who was then at Selles.
Some people said that this was done for my sake, so that I could
see her; at any rate she was very pleasant to my brother and me,
being fully armed, except for her head, and holding her lance in
her hand. Afterwards, when we had dismounted at Selles, I went to
her quarters to see her, and she had wine brought, and told me she
would soon serve it to me in Paris; and what she did seemed at
times quite divine, both to look at her and to hear her. Monday at
vespers she left Selles to go to Romorantin, three leagues in
advance, the marshal of Boussac and a great many soldiers and
common people being with her. I saw her get on horseback, armed all
in white, except her head, with a little battle-axe in her hand,
riding a great black courser, which was very restive at the door of
her lodgings, and would not let her mount. So she said, "Lead him
to the cross," which was in front of the church near by, in the
road. There she mounted without his budging, just as if he had been
tied, and then she turned toward the church door which was close
by, and said, "You priests and churchmen, make a procession and
pray to God." She then set out on the road, calling "Forward,
forward," with her little battle-axe in her hand, and her waving
banner carried by a pretty page.
On Monday my lord duke of Alençon came to Selles with a great
company, and to-day I won a match from him at tennis. I found here
a gentleman sent from my brother Chauvigny, because he had heard
that I had reached St. Catherine. The man said that he had summoned
his vassals and expected soon to be here, and that he still loved
my sister dearly, and that she was stouter than she used to be. It
is said here that my lord constable is coming with six hundred men
at arms and four hundred archers, and that the king never had so
great a force as they hope to gather. But there is no money at
court, or so little that for the present I can expect no help nor
maintenance; so since you have my seal, my lady mother, do not
hesitate to sell or mortgage my lands, or else make some other
provision by which we may be saved; otherwise through our own fault
we shall be dishonored, and perhaps come near perishing, since if
we do not do something of the kind, as there is no pay, we shall be
left quite alone. So far we have been, and we are still, much
honored, and our coming has greatly pleased the king and all his
people, and they make us better cheer than you could imagine.
The Maid told me in her lodgings, when I went there to see her,
that three days before my coming she had sent to you, my
grandmother, a little gold ring, but she said that it was a very
little thing and that she would willingly have sent you something
better considering your rank.
To-day my lord of Alençon, the Bastard of Orleans, and Gaucourt
should leave this place of Selles, and go after the Maid, and you
have sent I don't know what letters to my cousin La Trémoïlle and
to my lord of Treves, so that the king wants to keep me with him
until the Maid has been before the English places around Orleans to
which they are going to lay siege, and the artillery is already
prepared, and the Maid makes no doubt that she will soon be with
the king, saying that when he starts to advance towards Rheims I
shall go with him; but God forbid that I should do this, and not go
with her at once; and my brother says so, too, and so does my lord
of Alençon--such a good-for-nothing will a fellow be who stay
behind. They think that the king will leave here to-day, to draw
nearer to the army, and men are coming in from all directions every
day. They hope that before ten days are out affairs will be nearly
settled one way or the other, but all have so good hope in God that
I believe He will help us.
My very respected ladies and mothers, we send our remembrances, my
brother and I, to you, as humbly as we can; and please also write
us at once news of yourselves, and do you, my lady mother, tell me
how you find yourself after the medicines you have taken, for I am
much troubled about you.
My very respected ladies and mothers, I pray the blessed son of God
to give you a good life and a long one, and we both of us also send
our remembrances to our brother Louis. Written at Selles this
Wednesday the 8th of June.
And this vespers there came here my lord of Vendôme, my lord of
Boussac, and others, and La Hire is close to the army, and soon
they will get to work. God grant that we get our wish.
Your humble sons,
GUY and ANDREW OF LAVAL.[51]
On June 9th, Alençon and the Maid entered Orleans with their army, about
two thousand strong. The people flocked about her with joyous greetings
and offers of provisions and munitions; they could not do enough to show
their enduring gratitude to the saviour of their beloved city. Beside
this, it must be confessed that they felt the proverbial "lively sense
of future favors." Jargeau, Meung, Beaugency, were still in English
hands; from these sentinel towns up and down the Loire the enemy kept
strict watch over Orleans, and there could be no freedom of coming or
going. These towns, it appeared, must be taken before the cry 'To
Paris!' could be raised in good earnest.
Very well! let them be taken, said the Maid; Jargeau first, then the
others. On June 11th[52] she and Alençon set forth, with about three
thousand troops and a large following of citizens and country people.
All were eager to follow her banner, to share in her labors and her
victory.
Before telling the story of the "Week of Victories," let us see what her
brothers-in-arms, the knightly captains of France, thought of the Maid
of Domrémy. They had fought at her side through an arduous campaign;
they were entering, with joyful ardor, on another. Andrew Lang has
carefully selected three passages from the mass of contemporaneous
evidence; the judgment of three notable military experts, De Termes,
Dunois, and Alençon. De Termes speaks first.
"At the assaults before Orleans, Jeanne showed valor and conduct which
no man could excel in war. All the captains were amazed by her courage
and energy, and her endurance.... In leading and arraying, and in
encouraging men, she bore herself like the most skilled captain in the
world, who all his life had been trained to war."
Then comes Alençon, her "gentle Duke," with: "She was most expert in
war, as much in carrying the lance as in mustering a force and ordering
the ranks, and in laying the guns. All marveled how cautiously and with
what foresight she went to work, as if she had been a captain with
twenty or thirty years of experience."
Finally Dunois says: "She displayed (at Troyes) marvelous energy, doing
more work than two or three of the most famous and practised men of the
sword could have done."
Lang, summing these things up, concludes that[53] "her skill is a
marvel, like that of the untutored Clive, but nobody knows the limits
of the resources of nature."
It is easier to begin upon quotations than to cease from them. I may
fitly close this chapter with a passage from Boucher de Molandon:
"All those to whom it has been given to kindle the nations, have cared
much less to be in advance of their time than to make use of the
exciting elements of the time itself. Such is Jeanne d'Arc, whose merit
and power alike it was not to innovate upon, but to draw from her epoch
the best that it contained. Skilful above all others in finding happy
expressions, the ringing note that roused to action, when she speaks of
the blood of France, it is because the word has a meaning for all; she
wakes a great echo. She sounds the ancient trumpet blast, and the
illustrious dead, from Clovis to Du Guesclin, stir in their tombs, and
cause the soil of France to tremble under their discouraged
descendants."
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Quicherat.
[43] Translated by F. C. Lowell.
[44] Translated by F. C. Lowell.
[45] Pasquerel, translated by F. C. Lowell.
[46] Guizot.
[47] Guizot.
[48] _Fille Dé, va, va, va! je serai à ton aide; va!_
[49] 1918.
[50] Afterward Louis XI.
[51] Lowell, pp. 120-123.
[52] Lowell. Lang calls it June 9th.
[53] Lang, pp. 136 and 137.