|WE have heard how the town of Compiègne came over to Joan and the
King, after the coronation at Rheims. The city had often been taken and
retaken, and hold by both sides. But now they made up their minds that,
come what might, they would be true to France, and now, in May, the
English and Burgundians besieged Compiègne with a very large army.
Joan, who was at Lagny, heard of this, and she made up her mind to help
the good and loyal town, or perish with it. She first tried to cut the
roads that the Duke of Burgundy used for his soldiers and supplies of
food, but she failed to take Soissons and Pent l’Évêque, and so shut the
Duke off from his bridges over the rivers. So she rode into Compiègne
under cloud of night, with her brother Pierre, and two or three hundred
men. This was before dawn, on May 23.
The town of Compiègne is on the left bank of the river Oise. Behind the
town was a forest, through which Joan rode, and got into the town, to
the great joy of the people. From Compiègne to the right bank of the
Oise, where the English and Burgundians had their camps, there was a
long bridge, fortified, that led into a great level meadow, about a mile
broad. In wet weather the meadow was often under water from the flooded
river, so a causeway, or raised road, was built across it, high and dry.
At the end of the causeway, farthest from Compiègne was the village
of Margny, with the steeple of its church, and here a part of the
Burgundian army was encamped. Two miles and a half farther on was the
village of Clairoix, where lay another part of the Burgundian force.
About a mile and a half to the left of the causeway was the village of
Venette, which was held by the English, and, about three miles off, was
Coudun, where the Duke of Burgundy himself had his quarters. There were
very large forces in front, and on the side, of the only road by which
Joan could get at them, with her own men, only three hundred, probably,
and any of the townspeople who liked to follow her on foot, with clubs
and scythes, and such weapons.
Thus it was really a very rash thing of Joan to lead so few men, by such
a narrow road, to attack the nearest Burgundians, those at Margny, at
the end of the causeway. The other Burgundians, farther off, and the
English from Venette, quite near, and on Joan’s left flank, would
certainly come up to attack her, and help their friends at Margny.
She would be surrounded on all sides and cut off, for the garrison of
Compiègne stayed in the town, under their general, de Flavy, who was a
great ruffian, but a brave man, and loyal to France.
Why Joan, about five o’clock in the evening of May 23. rode out with her
little force, crossed the bridge, galloped down the causeway, and rode
through and through the Burgundians at Margny, we do not know. Her
Voices seem to have ceased to give her advice, only saying that she
would certainly be captured. Perhaps she only meant to take Margny;
though it is not easy to understand how she expected to hold it, when
the whole Burgundian and English armies came up to recover it, as they
would certainly do. If she aimed at more, her charge was very brave but
very ill-judged. Joan said that her Voices did not tell her to make her
desperate sally; it was her own idea.
Nearly seventy years afterwards, two very old men said that, when they
were young at Compiègne, they heard Joan tell a crowd of children,
before she rode out, that “I am betrayed, and soon will be delivered to
death. Pray God for me, for I shall never again be able to help France
and the King.” One of the men was ninety-eight, so he would be quite
twenty-eight when he heard Joan say this; if he really did hear her But,
long before men are ninety-eight, or even eighty-six, line the other
man, they are apt to remember things that never happened. But Joan may
have told children, of whom she was very fond, that she knew she was
soon to be taken.
Her enemies declared that she said she would take the Duke of Burgundy
himself, but as he was several miles away, in the middle of a large
army, while she had only three hundred of her own men, this cannot be
true. Probably she only meant to break up the Burgundians at Margny, and
show that she was there, to encourage the people at Compiègne.
Her own account is that she charged the Burgundians at Margny, the
nearest village, and drove them twice back to Clairoix, where they were
reinforced by the great Burgundian army there, and thrust her back to
the middle of the causeway, where she turned again, charged them, and
made them retreat. But then the English came up from Venette, on her
flank, and came between her and the bridge of Compiègne, and she
leaped her horse off the raised causeway into the meadow, where she was
surrounded, and pulled off her horse and taken, though she would not
surrender. No doubt she hoped that, as she refused to surrender, she
would be killed on the spot. When they cried to her to yield she said,
“I have given my faith to another than you, and I will keep my oath to
Him,” meaning Our Lord.
[Illustration: 0111]
But she was too valuable to be killed. The captors might either get a
great ransom, a king’s ransom, or sell her to the English to burn.
The French would not pay the ransom, and Jean de Luxembourg, who got
possession of her, sold her to the English. The Burgundian historian,
who was with the Duke, and did not see the battle, says, “the English
feared not any captain, nor any chief in war, as they feared the Maid.”
“She had done great deeds, passing the nature of woman.” Says another
Burgundian writer: “She remained in the rear of her men as their
captain, and the bravest of all, there, where fortune granted it, for
the end of her glory, and for that last time of her bearing arms.”
But, indeed, her glory never ceased, for in her long, cruel imprisonment
and martyrdom, she showed mere courage than any man-at-arms can display,
where blows are given and taken.