ORLEANS
What France won in three years (1428-1431) under the leadership of
Joan of Arc restored all that France had lost during the Hundred
Years’ War. Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt were negatived by Orleans.
More wonderful than any myth of any nation under the sun, than any
concept of poetic fancy throughout all literatures, than any vision
of poet-sage or seer in all Sybilline rhapsodies--is the plain
historical narrative of the life and deeds of Joan of Arc. Some
power beyond the natural worked thro’ the peasant maid of Domremy.
“The people of Orleans when they first saw her in their city
thought that it was an angel from Heaven that had come down to
save them”, said an eye-witness of the scene who testified at the
reversal of Jeanne’s sentence ten years after her death. On the
contrary the Duke of Bedford, in a letter still extant, writing to
Henry VI. and lamenting recent disasters to the English army says:
“And alle thing there prospered for you til the tyme of the Siege
of Orleans taken in hand God knoweth by what advis.
“At the which tyme, after the adventure fallen to the person of
my cousin of Salisbury, whom God assoile, there fell by the hand
of God as it seemeth, a great strook upon your peuple that was
assembled there in grete nombre, caused in great part as I trowe,
of lakke of sadde beleve, and of unlevefull doubte, that they had
of a disciple and limb of the Feende, called the Pucelle, that used
fals enchantments and sorcerie.”
“So certainly
As morn returneth in her radiant light
Infallibly the day of truth shall come”
said the Maid of Orleans.
That day of truth has come. Around Joan of Arc the charmed circle
of the Church of Rome is drawn. Let no man dare to call evil
that which the Church calls good; let no man dare to attribute
imposture, hysterical exaltation, or necromantic might to one whom
the Church calls Blessed. Vindicated, rehabilitated, restored,
cherished, Blessed is now the Maid who died five hundred years ago
burned at the stake as a witch.
Condemned by the University of Paris, an ecclesiastical tribunal?
Yes. Hounded to the stake by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais?
Yes. But the Church can shake off and disclaim the clinging
hands of her children whose touch pollutes her; and the Church
of all ages can outshine the lurid darkness of any one age, and
deprecate, and deplore and denounce the deeds done in that lurid
darkness. Splendidly, too, and with stern magnanimity, defying
apparent self-contradiction, can the Church reverse the decrees of
ecclesiastical tribunals, and stoop down to pick up and restore and
rehabilitate and bless a strangely foolish child whom kings and
courts and the great University of Paris had condemned and cast
away.
The Church of the Middle Ages must ever stand darkly enigmatic to
the non-Catholic student of history. He cannot rightly appreciate
the binding force of spiritual authority. The withering away from
fear of Church censure, the clinging claim upon all the powers
of the soul in the prayers and ceremonies and sacraments of the
Church, the isolating horrors of her excommunications, the abject
fear of her spiritual punishments, powerful alike over prince
and potentate and peasant--are practically meaningless to the
non-Catholic.
That scene in “Richelieu” by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, well
illustrates the power of the Church in the Middle Ages. King
Louis XIII. has sent to demand that Julie de Mortemar, Cardinal
Richelieu’s orphan ward, shall be immediately sent to the court
subject to the king’s pleasure. The girl clings to the Cardinal for
protection. To these messengers Cardinal Richelieu replies,
“To those who sent you!--
And say you found the virtue they would slay
Here--couched upon this heart, as at an altar,
And sheltered by the wings of sacred Rome.
Begone!”
They go. But soon again comes Baradas, favorite of the king, First
Gentleman of the Chamber, and about to be made premier to succeed
the temporarily deposed Cardinal Richelieu. To Baradas’ insolent
importunities the eloquent old Cardinal in righteous wrath exclaims:
“Ay, is it so?--
Then wakes the power which in the age of iron
Burst forth to curb the great and raise the low.
Mark where she stands!--around her form I draw
The awful circle of our solemn Church!
Set but a foot within that holy ground,
And on thy head--yea tho’ it wore a crown
I launch the curse of Rome!”
Baradas abashed retires, the king’s suit ceases; the Church has
triumphed.
LA PUCELLE.
France is assuredly a genius-mad nation: whether genius or madness
shall ultimately prevail is an answerless question. The Republic
shall go down in “a slough of mire and blood” is the current
prophecy today; but, then, France has gone down in mire and blood
many and many a time and, phœnix like, she has risen and soared
aloft led onward and upward by some strong Genius-Child.
Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte stand unique in history; each
picked up torn, bleeding, fragmentary France and restored her
to her rightful place in the family of nations. That Napoleon
Bonaparte, a man, a soldier, and a master of opportune occasion,
should have rescued France is not wonderful; but that the Maid of
Domremy, a timid girl aged seventeen, who “knew not how to ride
or to handle a sword”, whose hand never shed blood, should have,
amid most inopportune occasion, prevailed in battle against Talbot,
Gladsdale, Falstofe and the flower of the English Army is, past all
credence, wonderful.
France as a nation was extinguished by the Treaty of Troyes.
Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI. deliberately and exultantly
aided the trembling hand of the imbecile king as he signed away
his kingdom. Henry VI. of England, infant son of Henry V. and
Catharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France, was proclaimed heir
of the united kingdoms France and England: later, at the death
of Henry V. this child was crowned at Paris king of England and
of France. Isabeau of Bavaria aided in the coronation ceremony,
graciously accepting young Harry Lancaster as king of France to the
exclusion of the rightful heir, her own son, Charles the dauphin.
As Schiller says:
“Even the murderous bands
Of the Burgundians, at this spectacle
Evinced some token of indignant shame.
The queen perceived it and addressed the crowds,
Exclaiming with loud voice, ‘Be grateful, Frenchmen,
That I engraft upon a sickly stock
A healthy scion, and redeem you from
The misbegotten son of a mad sire.’”
Surely the first part of Merlin’s prophecy had been ominously
fulfilled: France was lost by a woman. Would a woman save
France? And far away--among the wooded hills of Domremy wandered
the splendid Dreamer who should, in three bright, bitter
years--flame-cut into fame forever--undo what Isabeau had done,
throw off the incubus of alien authority, negative the Treaty of
Troyes, and save France.
Thank God for the enthusiasts, for those who follow their Voices!
Tho’ their way lies thro’ adamantine opposition, they know it not,
their eyes are fixed on the goal; and even as one in hypnotic
somnambulism leaps on from toppling crag to crag unawed by the
sheer depths of yawning destiny o’er which he strides, so do these
enthusiasts press on to the goal: and they reach it.
Joan appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of brilliant
white armor, mounted on a stately black war-horse, and with a lance
in her right hand, which she had learned to wield with skill and
grace. Her head was unhelmeted; so that all could behold her fair
and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her
long black hair, which was parted across her forehead and bound by
a ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe,
and the consecrated sword marked on the blade with five crosses
which had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St.
Catharine at Fierbois.
A page carried her banner which she had caused to be made and
embroidered as her Voices enjoined. It was white satin, strewn with
fleurs-de-lis; and on it were the words “_Jhesus Maria_”. And thus
spectacularly equipped Joan made her appearance at Orleans at the
head of an enthusiastic French army. The astounded English soldiers
could only stare and glare; and had it not been from their greater
fear of their irate commanders, these brave heroes of Agincourt
would have promptly run away in panic fright from this dread Maid.
Joan advanced towards the besiegers and solemnly admonished the
English generals to desist from their unlawful holding of Orleans,
to withdraw at once from France, and to spare further bloodshed.
Oaths and imprecations and ribald jests answered her earnest
abjuration. Joan returned to her ranks and gave order for battle.
Yet she shrank from the fury of the strife and her heart recoiled
and sickened at the sight of suffering and death. Joan’s most
trustworthy biographer tells us that her own hand never shed blood.
Joan was wounded at the battle around Orleans; an arrow from a
cross-bow penetrated her armor between the neck and shoulder and
remained fastened in the wound. Joan grew faint from pain and she
suffered La Hire to lead her from the fray. Recovering herself in a
little while, she sat up and withdrew the arrow with her own hands,
then putting a little oil on the wound, she mounted and galloped
back to where the battle was raging. Joan’s presence reinspired her
followers; mad dash after dash was made against the fort held by
Sir John Gladsdale. The English soldiers, thinking her to have been
mortally wounded, were terrified at her abrupt return. Again Joan
called out to Gladsdale to surrender and spare further bloodshed.
With an oath the infuriated general came out upon the drawbridge
shouting orders for a final desperate assault. As he stood thus
conspicuous between the two armies, a cannon ball from the town
crashed thro’ the drawbridge and Gladsdale fell and perished in
the waters. At the sight of this disaster, and also at the attack
upon the fort under the leadership of Joan in person, the English
army fled. The siege of Orleans was raised. The long imprisoned
Orleannais came forth and hailed Joan as their deliverer sent from
Heaven.
CHARLES VII.
The raising of the siege of Orleans was quickly followed by the
decisive battle of Patay in which Talbot, the English commander,
was wounded and taken prisoner together with a large part of the
English army. The way now lay open to Rheims. Thither marched the
victorious French forces under Joan of Arc carrying with them the
perplexed and irresolute Dauphin. In the cathedral at Rheims, July
17, 1429, with all the solemn ceremonies of the coronation of
kings, this weakling was crowned Charles VII. of France.
Perhaps as the son of an imbecile sire and Isabeau of Bavaria,
Charles VII. couldn’t help being what he was. So in the shadow of
that comfortable Lombrosian theory we leave without reproach the
man whom, in the good sunlight of common sense and honest manhood,
we should scathingly reproach as dastard and ingrate.
After the crowning of Charles at Rheims, Joan desired to withdraw
from the king’s service and go back to Domremy. She declared that
her work was done; she, moreover, maintained that her Voices no
longer urged her to remain in the field, or pointed out unerringly
just what she should do. Du Nois and La Hire prevailed upon her to
remain with the army.
Joan was wounded in an unsuccessful attack upon Paris. And the
following spring in a sortie at Compeigne Joan was taken prisoner
by the Burgundians and subsequently sold to the English.
Joan was cast into prison at Rouen. Here the indignities to which
she was subjected, as related by her biographers, are almost
incredible. The apathy of the fickle French towards their late
“deliverer sent from Heaven”, and the dastardly indifference of
Charles VII. during her imprisonment and throughout her trial
and death form a conspicuous page in the black book of Human
Ingratitude.
_Et tu, Brute!_ (And thou too, O Brutus!) cried Cæsar as he fell
pierced, indeed, with twenty-three wounds, but slain at the sight
of his beloved Brutus among the murderers. That was death in
death. _And if my enemy had done this to me, verily, I could have
borne it. But thou, my friend and my familiar!_--This agonizing
cry--shrieked so that all the world may hear by Cæsar, Wolsey,
Joan--rises in bitter silence in many a heart. Only those we love
have power to wound us; and we stand defenceless, unresenting,
dim-wondering, yet loving. Nancy of the slums under the murderous
blows of Bill Sykes, Cæsar as he gazes at Brutus, Joan of Arc
blessing Charles VII. from her Calvary of flames--shine as
radiant silhouettes of human nobility on the somber overshadowing
background of human ingratitude.
JOAN’S VOICES.
“This pure, this gentle creature cannot lie!
No, if enchantment binds me, ’tis from Heaven
My spirit tells me she is sent from God.”--_Schiller._
Both the French and the English firmly believed that Joan of Arc
was aided by some preternatural power; but was she borne upward
by “airs from heaven or blasts from hell”? Burned at the stake as
a Witch, Relapsed Heretic, Accurst--thus died the Maid whom the
Church has raised to her altars.
But ere we too scathingly condemn that scene, disgraceful alike
to the Church and to human nature, which was enacted in the Rouen
market-place May 31, 1531; it might be well to turn a balancing
gaze upon our own Cotton Mather madness which had its orgies upon
Gallows Hill, Salem, June-September 1692. Nor are we of the passing
day and hour sufficiently washed white of the soot of Occultism
that we may conspicuously disclaim the witch-burning at Rouen.
In the late Christian Science rupture accusations of “mental
assassination” and the use of “malicious animal magnetism” were
mutually charged. Just what that may mean in the esoteric circle,
I know not; but full meaning and full knowledge would doubtless
ramify back to Rouen.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
Yes, infinitely more: all that the human eye can see or the ear
hear or the intellect know is but as a shore-lapping wave of the
infinite ocean of the Seen, the Heard, the Known. And what if some
eye be abnormally endowed with vision, or some ear be attuned
beyond the normal for hearing, or some finely fashioned intellect
transcend ordinary knowing--shall it not inevitably see more or
hear more or know more of that infinite ocean? and shall it not
fearlessly and fully make known what it sees or hears or knows? And
then what? Why we gregarious Little People, spitefully content in
limitations, will with consenting conscience, condemn the witch to
death.
Joan’s Voices spoke to her more especially when the church bells
were ringing; they were mild and very kind; they always spoke
soothingly. When their music stilled she lay prostrate upon the
ground and wept because they had left her behind; because she had
not been able to ascend with them and go home to that waiting
Heaven. Joan’s Voices urged her to become the saviour of France.
And when the child remonstrated that she was only a poor peasant
girl and did not know how to ride a horse or handle a sword, the
Voices insistently replied, “It is God who commands.” And then the
Maid arose and went forth on that mighty mission.
Orleans, Jargeau, Troyes, Patay, Rheims, Laon, Soissons, Compeigne,
Beauvais were her victories. Then came the rapid flame-way of her
own emancipation.
As Joan stood bound to the stake, and as the smoke and flames were
hiding her from the _vulgus profanum_, a wild-eyed monk advanced to
the pyre. He held aloft a large iron cross having upon it an ivory
figure of the tortured Christ. A look of infinite sympathy and love
lit up the eyes of Joan as they rested upon the Christ. Her lips
parted in prayer. Blessings upon Charles VII., prayerful petitions
for her beloved France were heard thro’ the crackling flames. Not
once did her eyes turn from the tortured form upon the cross;
thence was coming the strength that enabled her to bear the pangs
of death, thence, too, the grace which urged her to pray for her
murderers.
Round her rolled the fire; her long black hair was blazing, her
head, her face, her wondrous eyes were flooded in flame. All was
ending. But the monk held aloft the Crucifix. A gust of wind parted
the fire, again the charred eyes rested upon the tortured form on
the cross, her lips moved in prayer; and again she was lost in
flames. Thus perished Joan of Arc, aged nineteen, virgin and martyr.
Take not the ivory Christ away. ’Tis sorrow’s mutual friend; ’tis
the strength of strong agony; ’tis the sympathizing consoler of the
rack, the stake, the prison house of pain, the dim valley of the
Shadow, the Rouen sea of flames. The Crucifix understands.
Pan? Well, yes, for the bright blue Arcadian hour in young-heart
Arcady. But for the gray every day and the solemn night; for the
hours of pain and loss and parting and change, sickness, old age,
sorrow; for the crucial crises of life as they come in bitter pangs
to us of a lost Arcady; for the mother whose boy fell at Vera Cruz;
for a Joan of Arc in the flames--ah! take your grinning Pan away;
we want the Crucifix, we want the thorny crowned Christ who has
suffered and understands.
Ten years after the death of Joan, there was a judicial reversal of
her sentence of condemnation. Twenty-five years later the Church
instituted a thorough investigation of Joan’s claims, deeds, trial,
condemnation, and death. The process and results of this inquiry
may be found in detail in the work “Proces de Condemnation et de
Rehabilitation de Jeanne D’Arc,” published in five volumes, by the
Société de L’Histoire de France.
Many eminent English authors, besides innumerable French
biographers, have written in deep sympathy with Joan of Arc; among
them may be mentioned Southey, Hallam, Carlyle, Landor, de Quincy,
Lang, and our own Mark Twain. Voltaire’s vulgar burlesque-epic is
now generally regarded as an insult to France and a superficial
satiric calumny. Schiller in The “Maid of Orleans” distorts well
known historical facts.
In 1869 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans presented at the Vatican
his petition and claims for the beatification of Joan of Arc.
The trial proceeded slowly, but on April 11, 1909, Pius X., the
present reigning pontiff, pronounced the decree which raised Joan
to the first step in the process of canonization. She was solemnly
declared Blessed. “A Mass and Office of Blessed Joan taken from
the _Commune Virginum_ with ‘proper’ prayers have been approved
of by the Holy See for use in the diocese of Orleans.” Joan’s
canonization is now under active consideration.