|We may think that Joan’s best plan would have been to attack the
English in Paris at once, while they were still in a fright, after their
great defeat at Pathay. But she thought that if the Dauphin was once
crowned, and anointed with the holy oil, at Rheims, the French who were
of the English party would join him more readily. Robert the Bruce, in
the same way, had himself crowned at Scone, which, in Scotland, was the
usual place for coronations, when he had only very few followers, and
very little chance of beating the English. Rheims, as you can sec on the
map, is a long way farther from Orleans than Paris, on the north-east.
But Joan had made up her mind to drag the Dauphin to Rheims to be
crowned.
The Dauphin was lingering at Gien, which is some distance south of
Orleans, instead of being at the head of his army, and in the front
of the fighting, where he should have been. His lazy and cowardly
favourites told him that it was a long way to Rheims, and on the
road there were several towns with strong walls, and castles full of
Englishmen and Burgundians, who would not let him pass.
Joan answered that she knew this very well, and cared nothing about it:
all the towns and castles would yield and open their gates. So she left
the Dauphin to do as he pleased, and went away with her company into
the country. The Dauphin had no money to pay his troops, but men-at-arms
came in, hundreds of them, saying that they would fight for the love
of the Maid and of chivalry. No doubt they would have been very glad to
crown _her_, in place of the stupid Dauphin, but the French law did not
allow it; and Joan wanted nothing for herself, only to make France free,
and go back to her mother, as she said. However, the Dauphin, who was
grateful in his lazy way, made her and her brothers, Peter and John,
nobles, and gave her a coat-of-arms, a sword supporting the Crown, with
the Lilies of France on each side, and changed their name to du Lys.
But Joan never used her coat-of-arms, but bore a Dove, silver, on a blue
shield. Her brothers were with her, and seem to have fought very well,
though in most ways they were quite ordinary young men.
When Joan went away, the Dauphin made up his mind at last to march
to Rheims, going first to Troyes, a strong town on the road. All the
castles and fortresses on the way, instead of resisting him, submitted
to him, as Joan had said that they would. At Troyes, where he came on
8th July, the English garrison, and the people of the town who were on
the English and Burgundian side, wanted to oppose him. They fought on
the 8th and 9th of Jury. The Dauphin’s advisers did not want to fight,
the brave Dunois tells us, but Jean said, “Gentle Dauphin, bid your army
besiege the town, and do net hold these long councils, for in three days
I will bring you into the town.” Then down she went to the great ditch
or fosse round the town, and worked harder, says Dunois, than two or
three of the most famous knights could have done. The people of Troyes
then yielded to Joan, and they had a great feast in the city, which they
needed, for the army had been living on soup made from the beans in the
fields.
Then they went on to Rheims, and the Archbishop and all the people came
out to meet them, with shouts of joy. On 17th July the Dauphin, with
Joan and all his nobles, went to the Cathedral, and there he was crowned
and anointed, and made King in earnest, Joan standing beside him with
her banner in her hand. This was her happiest day, perhaps, and the last
of her great days. She had done so much! In the beginning of May there
was every chance that the English would take Orleans, and sweep across
the Loire, and seize all France, and drive the Dauphin into Spain, or
across the sea to Scotland, and France would have been under the English
for who knows how long. But in two months Joan had driven the English
behind the walls of Paris, and her Dauphin was King in deed.
Then the Maid knelt at the King’s feet and wept for joy, in the
great Cathedral, among the splendid nobles, and the lights, and the
bright-coloured coats-of-arms, and the sweet smoke of incense.
“Gentle King,” she said, calling him “King” for the first time, “now is
the will of God fulfilled!” and the knights themselves wept for joy.
Somewhere in the crowd was an elderly countryman in his best clothes.
Joan’s father, whom now she saw for the first time since she left her
village, and for the last time in her life. The King asked her to
choose a gift and reward, and she asked that the people of her village,
Domremy, should be free from paying taxes, and they were made free, and
never paid taxes again, for three hundred years. On the books of the
accounts of money paid by every town and village of France is written,
after the names of Domremy and the village nearest it, Greux, _Nothing.
For the Sake of the Maid._
The paper in which the King ordered that they should pay nothing may
still be seen, dated the last of July 1429.
How glad the people at Domremy must have been when Joan’s father came
home with the good news!
This was the last glad day of the Maid.
As she rode to Rheims, some people from Domremy met her and asked her if
she was afraid of nothing.
“Of nothing but treachery,” she said, and, from this day, she met
treachery among the King’s advisers, who held long councils, and did not
fight.
As she rode from Rheims towards Paris, the people shouted round her, and
she said that they were kind people, and she would like to be buried in
their cathedral--she, who was never to be buried in the earth.
“Joan,” said the Archbishop, “in what place do you expect to die?”
“Where God pleases, for of that hour and that place I know nothing more
than you do. But would to God that now I might take off my armour, and
go home to my father and mother,” for, as she had seen her father, she
was longing for her mother more than ever.
After this, the people about the King-, and the King himself, did not
obey Joan, and all went wrong.