On the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a little village in the valley
of the Meuse, between Neufchâtel and Vaucouleurs, on the edge of the
frontier from Champagne to Lorraine, the young daughter of simple
tillers-of-the-soil “of good life and repute, herself a good, simple,
gentle girl, no idler, occupied hitherto in sewing or spinning with
her mother or driving afield her parent’s sheep and sometimes even,
when her father’s turn came round, keeping for him the whole flock of
the commune,” was fulfilling her sixteenth year. It was Joan of Arc,
whom all her neighbors called Joannette. Her early childhood was passed
amidst the pursuits characteristic of a country life; her behavior was
irreproachable, and she was robust, active, and intrepid. Her imagination
becoming inflamed by the distressed situation of France, she dreamed that
she had interviews with St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael, who
commanded her, in the name of God, to go and raise the siege of Orleans,
and conduct Charles to be crowned at Rheims. Accordingly she applied to
Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the neighboring town of Vaucouleurs,
revealing to him her inspiration, and conjuring him not to neglect the
voice of God, which spoke through her. This officer for some time treated
her with neglect; but at length, prevailed on by repeated importunities,
he sent her to the king at Chinon, to whom, when introduced, she said:
“Gentle Dauphin, my name is Joan the Maid, the King of Heaven hath sent
me to your assistance; if you please to give me troops, by the grace of
God and the force of arms, I will raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct
you to be crowned at Rheims, in spite of your enemies.” Her requests
were now granted; she was armed _cap-a-pie_, mounted on horseback, and
provided with a suitable retinue. Previous to her attempting any exploit,
she wrote a long letter to the young English monarch, commanding him
to withdraw his forces from France, and threatening his destruction in
case of refusal. She concluded with “hear this advice from God and _la
Pucelle_.”
But, side by side with these friends, she had an adversary in the king’s
favorite, George de la Trémoille, an ambitious courtier, jealous of any
one who seemed within the range of the king’s good graces, and opposed to
a vigorous prosecution of the war, since it hampered him in the policy
he wished to keep up toward the duke of Burgundy. To the ill-will of
La Trémoille was added that of the majority of courtiers enlisted in
the following of the powerful favorite, and that of warriors irritated
at the importance acquired at their expense by a rustic and fantastic
little adventuress. Here was the source of the enmities and intrigues
which stood in the way of all Joan’s demands, rendered her successes
more tardy, difficult, and incomplete, and were one day to cost her more
dearly still.
At the end of about five weeks the expedition was in readiness. It was
a heavy convoy of revictualment protected by a body of ten or twelve
thousand men commanded by Marshal de Boussac, and numbering amongst
them Xaintrailles and La Hire. The march began on the 27th of April,
1429. Joan had caused the removal of all women of bad character, and
had recommended her comrades to confess. She took the communion in the
open air, before their eyes; and a company of priests, headed by her
chaplain, Pasquerel, led the way whilst chanting sacred hymns. Great
was the surprise amongst the men-at-arms. Many had words of mockery on
their lips. It was the time when La Hire used to say, “If God were a
soldier, he would turn robber.” Nevertheless, respect got the better of
habit; the most honorable were really touched; the coarsest considered
themselves bound to show restraint. On the 29th of April they arrived
before Orleans. But, in consequence of the road they had followed, the
Loire was between the army and the town; the expeditionary corps had to
be split in two; the troops were obliged to go and feel for the bridge
of Blois in order to cross the river; and Joan was vexed and surprised.
Dunois, arrived from Orleans in a little boat, urged her to enter the
town that same evening. “Are you the bastard of Orleans?” asked she, when
he accosted her. “Yes; and I am rejoiced at your coming.” “Was it you who
gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river and not
the direct way, over yonder where Talbot and the English were?” “Yes;
such was the opinion of the wisest captains.”
Joan’s first undertaking was against Orleans, which she entered without
opposition on the 29th of April, 1429, on horseback, completely armed,
preceded by her own banner, and having beside her Dunois, and behind
her the captains of the garrison and several of the most distinguished
burgesses of Orleans, who had gone out to meet her. The population, one
and all, rushed thronging round her, carrying torches, and greeting her
arrival “with joy as great as if they had seen God come down amongst
them.” With admirable good sense, discovering the superior merits of
Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, a celebrated captain, she wisely adhered
to his instructions; and by constantly harassing the English, and beating
up their intrenchments in various desperate attacks, in all of which she
displayed the most heroic courage, Joan in a few weeks compelled the earl
of Suffolk and his army to raise the siege, having sustained the loss
of six thousand men. The proposal of crowning Charles at Rheims would
formerly have appeared like madness, but the Maid of Orleans now insisted
on its fulfillment. She accordingly recommenced the campaign on the 10th
of June; to complete the deliverance of Orleans an attack was begun upon
the neighboring places, Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency; thousands of the
late dispirited subjects of Charles now flocked to his standard, many
towns immediately declared for him; and the English, who had suffered in
various actions, at that of Jargeau, when the earl of Suffolk was taken
prisoner, and at that of Patay, when Sir John Fastolfe fled without
striking a blow, seemed now to be totally dispirited. On the 16th of
July King Charles entered Rheims, and the ceremony of his coronation was
fixed for the morrow.
It was solemn and emotional as are all old national traditions which
recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the
archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with the
_Te Deum_ sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. “In God’s
name,” said Joan to Dunois, “here is a good people and a devout; when
I die, I should much like it to be in these parts.” “Joan,” inquired
Dunois, “know you when you will die and in what place?” “I know not,”
said she, “for I am at the will of God.” Then she added, “I have
accomplished that which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of
Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it
should please Him to send me back to my father and mother, to keep their
sheep and their cattle and do that which was my wont.” “When the said
lords,” says the chronicler, an eye-witness, “heard these words of Joan,
who, with eyes toward heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed
that it was somewhat sent from God and not otherwise.”
Historians and even contemporaries have given much discussion to the
question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really
limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the
coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. However that may be, when Orleans
was relieved and Charles VII. crowned, the situation, posture, and part
of Joan underwent a change. She no longer manifested the same confidence
in herself and her designs. She no longer exercised over those in whose
midst she lived the same authority. She continued to carry on war, but at
hap-hazard, sometimes with and sometimes without success, just like La
Hire and Dunois; never discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking
upon herself as triumphant. After the coronation, her advice was to march
at once upon Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, as being
the political center of the realm of which Rheims was the religious.
Nothing of the sort was done. She threw herself into Compiègne, then
besieged by the duke of Burgundy. The next day (May 25, 1430), heading
a sally upon the enemy, she was repulsed and compelled to retreat after
exerting the utmost valor; when, having nearly reached the gate of the
town, an English archer pursued her and pulled her from her horse. The
joy of the English at this capture was as great as if they had obtained a
complete victory. Joan was committed to the care of John of Luxembourg,
count of Ligny, from whom the duke of Bedford purchased the captive for
ten thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred pounds a year to
the bastard of Vendôme, to whom she surrendered. Joan was now conducted
to Rouen, where, loaded with irons, she was thrown into a dungeon,
preparatory to appear before a court assembled to judge her.
The trial lasted from the 21st of February to the 30th of May, 1431.
The court held forty sittings, mostly in the chapel of the castle, some
in Joan’s very prison. On her arrival there, she had been put in an
iron cage; afterward she was kept “no longer in the cage, but in a dark
room in a tower of the castle, wearing irons upon her feet, fastened
by a chain to a large piece of wood, and guarded night and day by four
or five soldiers of low grade.” She complained of being thus chained;
but the bishop told her that her former attempts at escape demanded
this precaution. “It is true,” said Joan, as truthful as heroic, “I did
wish and I still wish to escape from prison, as is the right of every
prisoner.” At her examination, the bishop required her to take “an oath
to tell the truth about everything as to which she should be questioned.”
“I know not what you mean to question me about; perchance you may ask me
things I would not tell you; touching my revelations, for instance, you
might ask me to tell something I have sworn not to tell; thus I should
be perjured, which you ought not to desire.” The bishop insisted upon an
oath absolute and without condition. “You are too hard on me,” said Joan;
“I do not like to take an oath to tell the truth save as to matters
which concern the faith.” The bishop called upon her to swear on pain
of being held guilty of the things imputed to her. “Go on to something
else,” said she. And this was the answer she made to all questions which
seemed to her to be a violation of her right to be silent. Wearied and
hurt at these imperious demands, she one day said, “I come on God’s
business, and I have naught to do here; send me back to God from whom I
come.” “Are you sure you are in God’s grace?” asked the bishop. “If I be
not,” answered Joan, “please God to bring me to it; and if I be, please
God to keep me in it!” The bishop himself remained dumbfounded.
There is no object in following through all its sittings and all its
twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges’ prejudiced
servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to
wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of
nineteen, who refused at one time to lie, and at another to enter into
discussion with them, and made no defence beyond holding her tongue or
appealing to God who had spoken to her and dictated to her that which
she had done. In the end she was condemned for all the crimes of which
she had been accused, aggravated by that of heresy, and sentenced to
perpetual imprisonment, to be fed during life on bread and water. The
English were enraged that she was not condemned to death. “Wait but a
little,” said one of the judges, “we shall soon find the means to ensnare
her.” And this was effected by a grievous accusation, which, though
somewhat countenanced by the Levitical law, has been seldom urged in
modern times, the wearing of man’s attire. Joan had been charged with
this offense, but she promised not to repeat it. A suit of man’s apparel
was designedly placed in her chamber, and her own garments, as some
authors say, being removed, she clothed herself in the forbidden garb,
and her keepers surprising her in that dress, she was adjudged to death
as a relapsed heretic, and was condemned to be burnt in the marketplace
at Rouen (1431).