RHEIMS
Things began to look worse and worse for La Trémoïlle. "By reason of
Joan the Maid," says the old chronicle, "so many folks came from all
parts unto the king for to serve him at their own charges, that La
Trémoïlle and others of the council were full wroth thereat, through
anxiety for their own persons."
That figure of a united France, which shone so bright and gracious
before the eyes of the Maid, was to La Trémoïlle and his minions a
spectre of doom. They put forth all their forces of inertia and
procrastination--mighty forces indeed when skilfully handled--and spun
their cobwebs of intrigue close and closer about the foolish Dauphin.
Rejoicing Orleans thought her prince would come to share her triumph,
and through her gates would ride forth to that coronation which was to
consummate and render stable the glorious victories of the past weeks.
They adorned their streets, hung out their richest tapestries for the
royal visitor; but Charles was visiting La Trémoïlle at the latter's
castle of Sully, and made no movement. Joan waited a day or two, and
then took horse and rode to Sully. She had no time to waste, however it
might be with others. Earnestly and reverently she besought Charles to
make no more delay, but ride with her at once to Rheims for his
coronation.
Charles regretted the severity of the Maid's labors; was very pleased at
the victories; thought she ought to take a holiday; shortly, no one
knows why, left Sully and went to Châteauneuf, fifteen miles down the
river. Joan followed him, and again made her prayer. She wept as she
knelt before him. The cruel toil, the bloodshed and the glory--was all
to be for naught? The days were flying, every day bringing her nearer
the end. The Dauphin, moved by her tears, bade her dry her eyes, all
would be well.
But while Charles dawdled and La Trémoïlle shuffled his cards and spun
his webs, France was rising. The news of Orleans and Patay flew on the
wings of the wind, birds of the air carried it.
In La Rochelle the bells were rung; Te Deum was sung; bonfires blazed,
and every child was given a cake to run and shout "_Noël!_" before the
triumphal procession. The name of the Maid was on every lip, every heart
beat high for her. Knowing this, as she must have known it, small wonder
that she chafed and wept at the delay.
She rode to Gien, where long and weary councils were held, and ten more
precious days wasted. Here people came flocking from all parts of the
realm, to join her standard, for love of her and of France. The royal
treasury was empty; no matter for that! Gentlemen who were too poor to
equip themselves properly came armed with bows and arrows, with hunting
knives, with anything that could cut or pierce. One gallant soldier,
"Bueil, one of the French leaders," stole linen from the drying-lines of
a neighboring castle to make himself decent to appear at court.
"Each one of them," says the old chronicle, "had firm belief that
through Joan much good would come to the land of France, and so they
longed greatly to serve her, and learned of her deeds as if they were
God's own."
Miracle and portent sprang up to aid the cause. In Poitou knights in
blazing armor were seen riding down the sky, and it was clear that they
threatened ruin to the Duke of Brittany, who still favored the English.
The joints of the favorite were loosened, and his knees smote together;
yet at this time none dared speak openly against him, though all knew
that it was he who blocked the way. But for him, men said, the French
might now be strong enough to sweep the English finally and completely
from their soil.
John of Bedford, in Paris, trying his best to rule France, since that
was the task that had been set him, wrote to his young master in
England:
"All things here prospered for you till the time of the siege of
Orleans, undertaken by whose advice God only knows. Since the death of
my cousin of Salisbury, whom God absolve, who fell by the hand of God,
as it seemeth, your people, who were assembled in great number at this
siege, have received a terrible check. This has been caused in part, as
we trow, by the confidence our enemies have in a disciple and limb of
the devil, called Pucelle, that used false enchantments and sorcery. The
which stroke and discomfiture has not only lessened the number of your
people here, but also sunk the courage of the remainder in a wonderful
manner, and encouraged your enemies to assemble themselves forthwith in
great numbers."[57]
The enemies of England were not all encouraged. There were others
besides La Trémoïlle at the councils of Gien who advised against the
ride to Rheims. The way was long, and thick set with strong places
garrisoned by English and Burgundians. There would be great danger for
the Dauphin and all concerned.
"I know all that, and care nothing for it!" cried the Maid; and in
desperation she rode out of the town and bivouacked in the open fields,
her faithful comrades about her.
Deep as was her distress, her determination never wavered. She wrote to
the people of Tournai, who had been faithful throughout to the Dauphin's
cause, "Loyal Frenchmen, I pray and require you to be ready to come to
the coronation of the gentle King Charles at Rheims, where we shall
shortly be, and to come and meet us so soon as ye shall learn of our
approach."
This was on June 25th; on the 29th, La Trémoïlle and the Dauphin yielded
reluctantly enough to the irresistible force of public enthusiasm. The
Maid had already started. The stage was set for the coronation; there
was really no help for it.
So off they set for Rheims, Dauphin, favorite, court and all, following
the Maid of Domrémy.
It was no holiday procession. As had been foreseen, there were
obstacles, and plenty of them. Auxerre would not open its gates; sent,
it was said, a bribe of two thousand crowns to save itself from assault;
but sent also food (at a price!) to the advancing army.
Troyes, a little farther on, had sworn allegiance to England and
Burgundy. Coronation at Rheims? The Trojans knew nothing about it. They
had a garrison, English and Burgundian, five or six thousand good stout
men; they snapped their fingers at Maid and Dauphin; would not hear of
admitting them. Had not Brother Richard, the Cordelier friar, warned
them against this Maid, saying that she was, or might be, a female
Antichrist? Had he not bidden them sow beans in vast quantities in case
of emergency?
Here were the beans, whole fields of them, in evidence! here was also
Brother Richard himself, breathing forth fire and fury. Presently the
holy brother, who seems to have been a second edition of Father Thomas,
preaching repentance and practicing the destruction of vanities, came
forth to exorcise the Maid; threw holy water at her, and made the sign
of the cross. Joan laughed her pleasant, merry laugh; bade him take
courage and come forward. She would not fly away, she assured him.
Whereupon, at nearer view of the supposed sorceress and limb of evil,
Brother Richard suffered a sudden change of heart; perceived that here
was a thing divine; plumped down on his knees to do homage: but the good
Maid knelt too, humbly, in token that she was "of like passions" with
himself. Soon the pair were good friends, and the friar hurried back to
the city and declared that the Maid was of God, and could if she wished
fly over the walls.
Troyes heard, but kept its gates shut. Anxious council was held in the
Dauphin's camp; La Trémoïlle advised retreat; had he not said all along,
etc., etc.
The archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France and a tool of La
Trémoïlle, drew lurid pictures of the strength of Troyes and the
contumaciousness of its people. They never would yield; the supplies of
the army were running low. Best retire while they could do so with
safety. The councillors were called on in turn for their opinion; some
advised retreating, some passing by the obstinate town in hope of faring
better elsewhere; hardly one favored an attack on the city.
When the turn came of Robert de Maçon, sometime chancellor (of Charles
VI.), he said bluntly, "This march was begun not because we were rich in
money or strong in men, but because Joan the Maid said it was the will
of God. Let the Maid be summoned, and let the Council hear what she has
to say on the matter!"
Joan was sent for, and was told the sense of the meeting; the lions in
the path; the necessity of retreat.
To the Archbishop, who addressed her, she made no reply, but turned to
her prince.
"Do you believe all this, gentle Dauphin?" she asked.
Charles was not sure, perhaps, what La Trémoïlle would allow him to
believe. He made cautious answer; if the Maid had anything profitable
and reasonable to say, she would be trusted.
"Good Dauphin," said the Maid in her clear thrilling voice, "command
your people to advance to the siege, and waste no more time in councils;
in God's name, before three days pass I will bring you into Troyes, by
favor or force or valor, and false Burgundy shall be greatly amazed."
Even the Archbishop seems to have been impressed by these words.
"Joan," he said, "we could wait for six days were we sure of having the
town, but can we be sure?"
"Have no doubt of it!" replied the Maid. Thereupon she mounted her
horse and rode through the camp, banner in hand, exhorting, encouraging,
ordering preparations for the assault.
Following the example of the English at Meung, she collected doors,
tables, screens, to shelter the advance, bundles of fagots to fill in
the ditches.
"Immediately," says Dunois (_quorum pars magna_, we may well believe),
"she crossed the river with the royal army and pitched tents close by
the wall, laboring with a diligence that not two or three most
experienced and renowned captains could have shown."
All night she worked, never pausing for an hour. When morning broke, the
burgesses of Troyes, looking over their battlements, saw an army in
storming array; saw in the very front a slender figure in white armor,
waving on her men.
"To the assault!" cried the Maid; and made a sign to fill the ditch with
fagots. At the sight the hearts of the men of Troyes turned to water.
They sent their Bishop to make terms, and the city opened its gates to
the Dauphin and the Maid.
Four days later the Bishop of Chalôns appeared with the keys of his
city, which the little Army of Triumph entered July 14th. At Chalôns
Joan found several men of Domrémy, who had come from the village to see
the glory of their own Maid. To one of them, her godfather, she gave a
red cap--or some say a robe--that she had worn; she was full of kindly
and neighborly words; told one of them who had been Burgundian in his
sympathies that she feared nothing but treachery. About this time she
said to the king, in Alençon's hearing, "Make good use of my time! I
shall hardly last longer than a year."
Two days after this, halting at Sept-Saule, the Dauphin received a
deputation from Rheims. The holy city had been strongly Anglo-Burgundian
till now; had vowed unshakable loyalty to John of Bedford and Philip of
Burgundy. But this was while Troyes still held out; Troyes, which had
"sworn on the precious body of Jesus Christ to resist to the death."
Now, Troyes had submitted, and her people wrote to those of Rheims
begging them to do likewise, assuring them that the Dauphin was
everything that was lovely and of good report; moreover, "_une belle
personne!_" Their own Archbishop wrote too, charging them to make
submission to their lawful prince. What was a holy city to do?
"Bow thy head meekly, O Sicambrian! adore----" was St. Remy speaking
again in the person of this peasant maid? Must the city of Clovis bow
like him, taking on new vows and forswearing old?
There seemed no help for it. Accordingly the deputation was sent,
inviting Charles to enter his loyal city of Rheims; and people began to
make ready for the coronation.
Rheims; Durocortorum of the Romans; an important town in the days of
Caesar, faithful to him and to his followers, and receiving special
favors in recognition of its fidelity.
The Vandals captured it in 406, and slew St. Nicasus; later, Attila and
his Huns visited it with fire and sword. Later still, as we know, it saw
the baptism of Clovis, and became the Holy City of France, where all her
kings would fain be crowned. Did not men say that the phial of oil used
in that kingly baptism by St. Rémy, and still preserved in his abbey,
was brought to him by a white dove, straight from heaven? Accordingly
the kings were crowned there, from Philip Augustus in 1180 to Charles X.
in 1824.
Now, on the seventeenth day of July, 1429, Charles of Valois, seventh of
that name, was to receive his solemn sacring, and to become king of
France _de jure_, if not yet _de facto_. The ceremony began at nine in
the morning.
"A right fair thing it was," wrote Pierre de Beauvais to the queen, "to
see that fair mystery, for it was as solemn and as well adorned with all
things thereto pertaining, as if it had been ordered a year before."[58]
First, a company of knights and nobles in full armor, headed by the
Maréchal de Boursac, rode out to meet the Abbot of St. Rémy, who came
from his abbey bringing the holy phial (_ampoule_). Then they all rode
into the cathedral, and alighted at the choir-gate. There met them
Charles the Dauphin, and presently received his consecration at the
hands of the Archbishop, and was anointed and crowned king of France.
The people shouted "_Noël!_" and blessed God for the auspicious day.
"And the trumpets sounded so that you might think the roofs would be
rent. And always during that mystery the Maid stood next the King, her
standard in her hand. A right fair thing it was to see the goodly
manners of the King and the Maid."[59]
D'Albert carried the Sword of State; Alençon gave the accolade. Guy de
Laval was there, and La Trémoïlle, and many others whose names we know;
all in their brightest armor, we may be sure, with much clanking of
swords and waving of banners. We hardly see them; all our eyes are for
the Maid (she also in full armor, as becomes a good soldier), as she
kneels before the King she has made, embracing his knees and weeping for
joy.
"Gentle King," she says, "now is accomplished the Will of God, who
decreed that I should raise the siege of Orleans and bring you to this
city of Rheims to receive your solemn sacring, thereby showing that you
are the true king, and that France shall be yours."
The chronicle adds, "And right great pity came upon all who saw her, and
many wept."
If this might have been the end! if she might have turned now, in the
hour of her triumph, her task accomplished, and the bidding of her
Voices done--have turned away from the warfare and the pomp, the cabals
and the intrigues, and gone back to Domrémy, to tend her sheep and mind
her spinning-wheel, and dream over "the great days done!"
Tradition has long held that this was the wish of her heart, and that
after the coronation she begged Charles to let her depart in peace, now
that her mission was ended. This legend seems to have no foundation in
fact; it probably sprang from the universal feeling; "Might it have
been!" We shall see, however, that somewhat later she expressed to
others her desire to depart. The relief of Orleans and the coronation of
the king were all, says Dunois, that she actually claimed as her
mission; beyond this all was vague. Still, the Voices said that the
English must be driven from French soil, and Joan was the last one to
take her hand from the plough while work was still to do. Forward then,
in God's name, since thus it must be!
I have never seen Rheims Cathedral, and now I shall never see it with
my bodily eyes; yet to me, as to all of this day and generation, it is
intimately familiar in both its aspects. First we see it the crown and
glory of Gothic architecture, the "frozen music," the "rugged lacework"
whose praises men have sung for seven hundred years, yet whose beauty
has never been expressed in words.
Next we see it--every child knows how. Let us not dwell upon it. One
thought brightens against the dark background of ruin and desolation.
Through all the four-years' agony of Rheims, while this sacred Heart of
her was crashing and splintering under the deadly shell-fire; while the
splendors of its great rose-window were tinkling in rainbow showers down
on its uptorn pavements; while the very lead from its roofs was dripping
down in those curious lengths and festoons of clinging particles which
men now call "the tears of Rheims," one thing remained untouched. Before
the Cathedral (which with its ruined and dying body seemed to shelter
her), quiet through the thunders of the bombardment, marble on her
marble steed, still sat the Maid of France.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] "Pictorial History of England," Knight, p. 88.
[58] Trans. A. Lang.
[59] Trans. A. Lang.