FOUR hundred and seventy years ago, the children of Domremy, a little
village near the Meuse, on the borders of France and Lorraine, used to
meet and dance and sing beneath a beautiful beech-tree, 'lovely as a
lily.' They called it 'The Fairy Tree,' or 'The Good Ladies' Lodge,'
meaning the fairies by the words 'Good Ladies.' Among these children was
one named Jeanne (born 1412), the daughter of an honest farmer, Jacques
d'Arc. Jeanne sang more than she danced, and though she carried garlands
like the other boys and girls, and hung them on the boughs of the
Fairies' Tree, she liked better to take the flowers into the parish
church, and lay them on the altars of St. Margaret and St. Catherine. It
was said among the villagers that Jeanne's godmother had once seen the
fairies dancing; but though some of the older people believed in the
Good Ladies, it does not seem that Jeanne and the other children had
faith in them or thought much about them. They only went to the tree and
to a neighbouring fairy well to eat cakes and laugh and play. Yet these
fairies were destined to be fatal to Jeanne d'Arc, JOAN THE MAIDEN, and
her innocent childish sports were to bring her to the stake and the
death by fire. For she was that famed Jeanne la Pucelle, the bravest,
kindest, best, and wisest of women, whose tale is the saddest, the most
wonderful, and the most glorious page in the history of the world. It is
a page which no good Englishman and no true Frenchman can read without
sorrow and bitter shame, for the English burned Joan with the help of
bad Frenchmen, and the French of her party did not pay a _sou_, or write
a line, or strike a stroke to save her. But the Scottish, at least, have
no share in the disgrace. The Scottish archers fought on Joan's side;
the only portrait of herself that Joan ever saw belonged to a Scottish
man-at-arms; their historians praised her as she deserved; and a
Scottish priest from Fife stood by her to the end.[1]
To understand Joan's history it is necessary to say, first, how we come
to know so much about one who died so many years ago, and, next, to
learn how her country chanced to be so wretched before Joan came to
deliver it and to give her life for France.
[Illustration: 'The Fairy Tree']
We know so much about her, not from poets and writers of books who lived
in her day, but because she was tried by French priests (1431), and all
her answers on everything that she ever did in all her life were written
down in Latin. These answers fill most of a large volume. Then, twenty
years later (1550-1556), when the English had been driven out of
France, the French king collected learned doctors, who examined
witnesses from all parts of the country, men and women who had known
Joan as a child, and in the wars, and in prison, and they heard her case
again, and destroyed the former unjust judgment. The answers of these
witnesses fill two volumes, and thus we have all the Maid's history,
written during her life, or not long after her death, and sworn to on
oath. We might expect that the evidence of her friends, after they had
time to understand her, and perhaps were tempted to overpraise her,
would show us a picture different from that given in the trial by her
mortal enemies. But though the earlier account, put forth by her foes,
reads like a description by the Scribes and Pharisees of the trial of
Our Lord, yet the character of Joan was so noble that the versions by
her friends and her enemies practically agree in her honour. Her
advocates cannot make us admire her more than we must admire her in the
answers which she gave to her accusers. The records of these two trials,
then, with letters and poems and histories written at the time, or very
little later, give us all our information about Joan of Arc.
Next, as to 'the great pitifulness that was in France' before Joan of
Arc came to deliver her country, the causes of the misery are long to
tell and not easy to remember. To put it shortly, in Joan's childhood
France was under a mad king, Charles VI., and was torn to pieces by two
factions, the party of Burgundy and the party of Armagnac. The English
took advantage of these disputes, and overran the land. France was not
so much one country, divided by parties, as a loose knot of states,
small and great, with different interests, obeying greedy and selfish
chiefs rather than the king. Joan cared only for her country, not for a
part of it. She fought not for Orleans, or Anjou, or Britanny, or
Lorraine, but for France. In fact, she made France a nation again.
Before she appeared everywhere was murder, revenge, robbery, burning of
towns, slaughter of peaceful people, wretchedness, and despair. It was
to redeem France from this ruin that Joan came, just when, in 1429, the
English were besieging Orleans. Had they taken the strong city of
Orleans, they could have overrun all southern and central France, and
would have driven the natural king of France, Charles the Dauphin, into
exile. From this ruin Joan saved her country; but if you wish to know
more exactly how matters stood, and who the people were with whom Joan
had to do, you must read what follows. If not, you can 'skip' to Chapter
III.