II. JEANNE'S VOICES…

II. JEANNE'S VOICES

Now, when she was about thirteen, it befell one summer day, at noon, that while she was in her father's garden she heard a voice that filled her with a great fear. It came from the right, from towards the church, and at the same time in the same direction there appeared a light. The voice said: "I come from God to help thee to live a good and holy life.[254] Be good, Jeannette, and God will aid thee."

[Footnote 254: Trial, vol. i, pp. 52, 72, 73, 89, 170.]

It is well known that fasting conduces to the seeing of visions. Jeanne was accustomed to fast. Had she abstained from food that morning and if so when had she last partaken of it? We cannot say.[255]

[Footnote 255: The manuscript runs: non jejunaverat die praecedenti. Quicherat omits non. Trial, vol. i, p. 52. Cf. Revue critique, March, 1908, p. 215.]

On another day the voice spoke again and repeated, "Jeannette, be good."

The child did not know whence the voice came. But the third time, as she listened, she knew it was an angel's voice and she even recognised the angel to be St. Michael. She could not be mistaken, for she knew him well. He was the patron saint of the duchy of Bar.[256] She sometimes saw him on the pillar of church or chapel, in the guise of a handsome knight, with a crown on his helmet, wearing a coat of mail, bearing a shield, and transfixing the devil with his lance.[257] Sometimes he was represented holding the scales in which he weighed souls, for he was provost of heaven and warden of paradise;[258] at once the leader of the heavenly hosts and the angel of judgment.[259] He loved high lands.[260] That is why in Lorraine a chapel had been dedicated to him on Mount Sombar, north of the town of Toul. In very remote times he had appeared to the Bishop of Avranches and commanded him to build a church on Mount Tombe, in such a place as he should find a bull hidden by thieves; and the site of the building was to include the whole area overtrodden by the bull. The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer was erected in obedience to this command.[261]

[Footnote 256: V. Servais, Annales historiques du Barrois, Bar-le-Duc, 1865, vol. i, engraving 2.]

[Footnote 257: P. Ch. Cahier, Caracteristique des saints dans l'art populaire, vol. i, p. 363. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 50. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. xcv, xcvi, and proofs and illustrations, xxiv, p. 74.]

[Footnote 258: Mystere de Saint Remi, the Arsenal Library, ms. 3.364, folios 4 and 108.]

[Footnote 259: "Sed signifer Sanctus Michael representet eas (animas) in lucem sanctam." Prayer from the mass for the dead.]

[Footnote 260: A. Maury, Croyances et legendes du moyen age, pp. 171 et seq. Barbier de Montault, Traite d'iconographie chretienne, vol. i, p. 191.]

[Footnote 261: AA. SS., 1672, vol. iii, i, pp. 85 et seq. Dom. J. Huynes, Histoire generale de l'abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel, ed. R. de Beaurepaire, Rouen, 1872, pp. 61 et seq. A. Forgeais, Collection de plombs (seals) histories trouves dans la Seine, Paris, 1864, vol. iii, p. 197. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, ch. iv. Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel (1343-1468), ed. S. Luce, Paris, 1880-1886 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, pp. 26, 146, 163 et seq.]

About the time when the child was having these visions, the defenders of Mont-Saint-Michel discomfited the English who were attacking the fortress by land and sea. The French attributed this victory to the all-powerful intercession of the archangel.[262] And why should he not have favoured the French who worshipped him with peculiar devoutness? Since my Lord St. Denys had permitted his abbey to be taken by the English, my Lord St. Michael, who carefully guarded his, was in a fair way to become the true patron saint of the kingdom.[263] In the year 1419 the Dauphin Charles had had escutcheons painted, representing St. Michael fully armed, holding a naked sword and in the act of slaying a serpent.[264] The maid of Domremy, however, knew but little of the miracles worked by my Lord St. Michael in Normandy. She recognised the angel by his weapons, his courtesy, and the noble words that fell from his lips.[265]

[Footnote 262: Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 272 (opinion of Jean Bochard, called de Vaucelle, Bishop of Avranches). Dom. J. Huynes, loc. cit., ch. viii, p. 105.]

[Footnote 263: Dom Felibien, Histoire de l'abbaye royale de Saint-Denis.... Paris, 1706, in folio, p. 341.]

[Footnote 264: Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle, ms. fr. 10,448, fol. 13. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, proofs and illustrations, xxiv.]

[Footnote 265: Trial, vol. i, pp. 173, 248, 249.]

One day he said to her: "Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret will come to thee. Act according to their advice; for they are appointed to guide thee and counsel thee in all thou hast to do, and thou mayest believe what they shall say unto thee." And these things came to pass as the Lord had ordained.[266]

[Footnote 266: Ibid., p. 170.]

This promise filled her with great joy, for she loved them both. Madame Sainte Marguerite was highly honoured in the kingdom of France, where she was a great benefactress. She helped women in labour,[267] and protected the peasant at work in the fields. She was the patron saint of flax-spinners, of procurers of wet-nurses, of vellum-dressers, and of bleachers of wool. Her precious relics in a reliquary, carried on a mule's back, were paraded by ecclesiastics through towns and villages. Plenteous alms[268] were showered upon the exhibitors in return for permission to touch the relics. Many times had Jeanne seen Madame Sainte Marguerite at church, painted life-size, a holy-water sprinkler in her hand, her foot on a dragon's head.[269] She was acquainted with her history as it was related in those days, somewhat on the lines of the following narrative.

[Footnote 267: La vierge Marguerite substituee a la Lucine antique, analysis of an unpublished poem of the fifteenth century, Paris, 1885, in 8vo, p. 2. Rabelais, Gargantua, vol. i, ch. vi. L'Abbe J.B. Thiers, Traite des superstitions qui regarde les sacrements selon l'Ecriture sainte, Paris, 1697 (4 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, p. 109.]

[Footnote 268: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, proofs and illustrations, ccxxxiv, p. 272.]

[Footnote 269: Abbe Bourgaut, Guide du pelerin a Domremy, Nancy, 1878, in 12mo, p. 60. E. Hinzelin, Chez Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 65-72.]

The blessed Margaret was born at Antioch. Her father, Theodosius, was a priest of the Gentiles. She was put out to nurse and secretly baptised. One day when she was in her fifteenth year, as she was watching the flock belonging to her nurse, the governor Olibrius saw her, and, struck by her great beauty, conceived a great passion for her. Wherefore he said to his servants: "Go, bring me that girl, in order that if she be free I may marry her, or if she be a slave I may take her into my service."

And when she was brought he inquired of her her country, her name, and her religion. She replied that she was called Margaret and that she was a Christian.

And Olibrius said unto her: "How comes it that so noble and beautiful a girl as you can worship Jesus the Crucified?"

And because she replied that Jesus Christ was alive for ever, the governor in wrath had her thrown into prison.

The next day he summoned her to appear before him and said: "Unhappy girl, have pity on your own beauty and for your own sake worship our gods. If you persist in your blindness I will have your body rent in pieces."

And Margaret made answer: "Jesus suffered death for me, and I would fain die for him."

Then the governor commanded her to be hung from the wooden horse, to be beaten with rods, and her flesh to be torn with iron claws. And the blood flowed from the virgin's body as from a pure spring of fresh water.

Those who stood by wept, and the governor covered his face with his cloak that he might not see the blood. And he commanded to unloose her and take her back to prison.

There she was tempted by the Spirit, and she prayed the Lord to reveal to her the enemy whom she had to withstand. Thereupon a huge dragon, appearing before her, rushed forward to devour her, but she made the sign of the cross and he disappeared. Then, in order to seduce her, the devil assumed the form of a man. He came to her gently, took her hands in his and said: "Margaret, what you have done sufficeth." But she seized him by the hair, threw him to the ground, placed her right foot upon his head and cried: "Tremble, proud enemy, thou liest beneath a woman's foot."

The next day, in the presence of the assembled people, she was brought before the judge, who commanded her to sacrifice to idols. And when she refused he had her body burned with flaming pine-wood, but she seemed to suffer no pain. And fearing lest, amazed at this miracle, all the people should be converted, Olibrius commanded that the blessed Margaret should be beheaded. She spoke unto the executioner and said: "Brother, take your axe and strike me." With one blow he struck off her head. Her soul took flight to heaven in the form of a dove.[270]

[Footnote 270: Voragine, La legende doree (Legende de Sainte Marguerite). Douhet, Dictionnaire des legendes, pp. 824-836.]

This story had been told in songs and mysteries.[271] It was so well known that the name of the governor, jestingly vilified and fallen into ridicule, was in common parlance bestowed on braggarts and blusterers. A fool who posed as a wicked person was called an olibrius.[272]

[Footnote 271: Gaston Paris, La litterature francaise au moyen age, 1890, in 16mo, p. 212.]

[Footnote 272: La Curne, Dictionnaire de l'ancien langage francais, under the word Olibrius. Olibrius figures also in the legend of Saint Reine, where he is governor of the Gallic Provinces. The legend of Saint Reine is only a somewhat ancient variant of the legend of Saint Margaret.]

Madame Sainte Catherine, whose coming the angel had announced to Jeanne at the same time as that of Madame Sainte Marguerite, was the protectress of young girls and especially of servants and spinsters.

Orators and philosophers too had chosen as their patron saint the virgin who had confounded the fifty doctors and triumphed over the magi of the east. In the Meuse valley rhymed prayers like the following were addressed to her:

Ave, tres sainte Catherine, Vierge pucelle nette et fine.[273]

[Footnote 273:

Hail, thou holy Catherine, Virgin Maid so pure and fine.

Bibliotheque Mazarine, manuscrit, 515. Recueil de prieres, folio 55. This manuscript comes from the banks of the Meuse.]

This fine lady was no stranger to Jeanne; she had her church at Maxey, on the opposite bank of the river; and her name was borne by Isabelle Romee's eldest daughter.[274]

[Footnote 274: S. Luce, loc. cit., proofs and illustrations, xiii, p. 19, note 2. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. xvi and 62. Guide et souvenir du pelerin a Domremy, Nancy, 1878, in 18mo, p. 60.]

Jeanne certainly did not know the story of Saint Catherine as it was known to illustrious clerks; as, for example, about this time it was committed to writing by Messire Jean Mielot, the secretary of the Duke of Burgundy. Jean Mielot told how the virgin of Alexandria controverted the subtle arguments of Homer, the syllogisms of Aristotle, the very learned reasonings of the famous physicians AEsculapius and Galen, practised the seven liberal arts, and disputed according to the rules of dialectics.[275] Jacques d'Arc's daughter had heard nothing of all that; she knew Saint Catherine from stories out of some history written in the vulgar tongue, in verse or in prose, so many of which were in circulation at that time.[276]

[Footnote 275: J. Mielot, Vie de sainte Catherine, text revised by Marius Sepet, 1881, in large 8vo.]

[Footnote 276: Gaston Paris, La litterature francaise au moyen age, pp. 82, 213.]

Catherine, daughter of King Costus and Queen Sabinella, as she grew in years, became proficient in the arts, and a skilful embroiderer in silk. While her body was resplendent with beauty, her soul was clouded by the darkness of idolatry. Many barons of the empire sought her in marriage; she scorned them and said: "Find me a husband wise, handsome, noble, and rich." Now in her sleep she had a vision. Holding the Child Jesus in her arms, the Virgin Mary appeared unto her and said: "Catherine, will you take him for your husband? And you, my sweet son, will you have this virgin for your bride?"

The Child Jesus made answer: "Mother, I will not have her; bid her depart from you, for she is a worshipper of idols. But if she will be baptised I will consent to put the nuptial ring on her finger."

Desiring to marry the King of Heaven, Catherine went to ask for baptism at the hands of the hermit Ananias, who lived in Armenia on Mount Negra. A few days afterwards, when she was praying in her room, she saw Jesus Christ appear in the midst of a numerous choir of angels and of saints. He drew near unto her and placed his ring upon her finger. Then only did Catherine know that her bridal was a spiritual bridal.

In those days Maxentius was Emperor of the Romans. He commanded the people of Alexandria to offer great sacrifices to the idols. Catherine, as she was at prayer in her oratory, heard the chanting of the priests and the bellowing of the victims. Straightway she went to the public square, and beholding Maxentius at the gate of the temple, she said unto him: "How comes it that thou art so foolish as to command this people to offer incense to idols? Thou admirest this temple built by the hands of thy workmen. Thou admirest these ornaments which are but dust blown away by the wind. Thou shouldest rather admire the sky, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is therein. Thou shouldest rather admire the ornaments of the heavens: the sun, the moon, and the stars, and those circling planets, which from the beginning of the world move from the west and return to the east and never grow weary. And when thou hast observed all these things, ask and learn who is their Creator. It is our God, the Lord of Hosts, and the God of gods."

"Woman," replied the emperor, "leave us to finish our sacrifice; afterwards we will make answer unto thee."

And he commanded Catherine to be taken into the palace and strictly guarded, because he marvelled at the great wisdom and the wonderful beauty of this virgin. He summoned fifty doctors well versed in the knowledge of the Egyptians and the liberal arts; and, when they were gathered together, he said unto them: "A maiden of subtle mind maintains that our gods are but demons. I could have forced her to sacrifice or have made her pay the penalty of her disobedience; I judged it better that she should be confounded by the power of your reasoning. If you triumph over her, you will return to your homes laden with honours."

And the wise men made answer: "Let her be brought, that her rashness may be made manifest, that she may confess that never until now has she met men of wisdom."

And when she learned that she was to dispute with wise men, Catherine feared lest she should not worthily defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. But an angel appeared to her and said: "I am the Archangel Saint Michael, sent by God to make known unto thee that from this strife thou shalt come forth victorious and worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ, the hope and crown of those who strive for him."

And the virgin disputed with the doctors. When they maintained that it was impossible for God to become man, and be acquainted with grief, Catherine showed how the birth and passion of Jesus Christ had been announced by the Gentiles themselves, and prophesied by Plato and the Sibyl.

The doctors had nothing to oppose to arguments so convincing. Therefore the chief among them said to the emperor: "Thou knowest that up till now no one has disputed with us without being straightway confounded. But this maid, through whom the Spirit of God speaks, fills us with wonder, and we know nothing nor dare we say anything against Christ. And we boldly confess that if thou hast no stronger arguments to bring forth in favour of the gods, whom hitherto we have worshipped, we will all of us embrace the Christian religion."

On hearing these words, the tyrant was so transported with wrath that he had the fifty doctors burned in the middle of the town. But as a sign that they suffered for the truth, neither their garments nor the hairs of their heads were touched by the fire.

Afterwards Maxentius said unto Catherine: "O virgin, issue of a noble line, and worthy of the imperial purple, take counsel with thy youth, and sacrifice to our gods. If thou dost consent, thou shalt take rank in my palace after the empress, and thy image, placed in the middle of the town, shall be worshipped by all the people like that of a goddess."

But Catherine answered: "Speak not of such things. The very thought of them is sin. Jesus Christ hath chosen me for his bride. He is my love, my glory, and all my delight."

Finding it impossible to flatter her with soft words, the tyrant hoped to reduce her to obedience through fear; therefore he threatened her with death.

Catherine's courage did not waver. "Jesus Christ," she said, "offered himself to his Father as a sacrifice for me; it is my great joy to offer myself as an agreeable sacrifice to the glory of his name."

Straightway Maxentius commanded that she should be scourged with rods, and then cast into a dark dungeon and left there without food. Thereupon, at the call of urgent affairs, Maxentius set out for a distant province.

Now the empress, who was a heathen, had a vision, in which Saint Catherine appeared to her surrounded by a marvellous light. Angels clad in white were with her, and their faces could not be looked upon by reason of the brightness that proceeded from them. And Catherine told the empress to draw near. Taking a crown from the hand of one of the angels who attended her, she placed it upon the head of the empress, saying: "Behold a crown sent down to thee from heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, my God, and my Lord."

The heart of the empress was troubled by this wonderful dream. Wherefore, attended by Porphyrius, a knight who was commander-in-chief of the army, in the early hours of night she repaired to the prison in which Catherine was confined. Here in her cell a dove brought her heavenly food, and angels dressed the virgin's wounds. The empress and Porphyrius found the dungeon bathed in a light so bright that it filled them with a great fear, and they fell prostrate on the ground. But there straightway filled the dungeon an odour marvellously sweet, which comforted them and gave them courage.

"Arise," said Catherine, "and be not afraid, for Jesus Christ calleth you."

They arose, and beheld Catherine in the midst of a choir of angels. The saint took from the hands of one among them a crown, very beautiful and shining like gold, and she put it upon the empress's head. This crown was the sign of martyrdom. For indeed the names of this queen and of the knight Porphyrius were already written in the book of eternal rewards.

On his return Maxentius commanded Catherine to be brought before him, and said unto her: "Choose between two things: to sacrifice and live, or to die in torment."

Catherine made answer: "It is my desire to offer to Jesus Christ my flesh and my blood. He is my lover, my shepherd, and my husband."

Then the provost of the city of Alexandria, whose name was Chursates, commanded to be made four wheels furnished with very sharp iron spikes, in order that upon these wheels the blessed Catherine should die a miserable and a cruel death. But an angel broke the machine, and with such violence that the parts of it flying asunder killed a great number of the Gentiles. And the empress, who beheld these things from the top of her tower, came down and reproached the emperor for his cruelty. Full of wrath, Maxentius commanded the empress to sacrifice; and when she refused, he commanded her breasts to be torn out and her head to be cut off. And while she was being taken to the torturer, Catherine exhorted her, saying: "Go, rejoice, queen beloved of God, for to-day thou shalt exchange for a perishable kingdom an everlasting empire, and a mortal husband for an immortal lover."

And the empress was taken to suffer death outside the walls. Porphyrius carried away the body and had it buried reverently as that of a servant of Jesus Christ. Wherefore Maxentius had Porphyrius put to death, and his body cast to the dogs. Then, summoning Catherine before him, he said unto her: "Since, by thy magic arts thou hast caused the empress to perish, now if thou repent thou shalt be first in my palace. To-day, therefore, sacrifice to the gods, or thy head shall be struck off."

She made answer: "Do as thou hast resolved that I may take my place in the band of maidens who are around the Lamb of God."

The emperor sentenced her to be beheaded. And when they had led her outside the city of Alexandria, to the place of death, she raised her eyes to heaven and said: "Jesus, hope and salvation of the faithful, glory and beauty of virgins, I pray thee to listen and to answer the prayer of whomsoever, in memory of my martyrdom, shall invoke me in death or in peril whatsoever."

And a voice from heaven made answer: "Come, my beloved bride; the gate of heaven is open to thee. And to those who shall invoke me through thy intercession, I promise help from on high." From the riven neck of the virgin flowed forth milk instead of blood.

Thus Madame Sainte Catherine passed from this world to celestial happiness, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of November, which was a Friday.[277]

[Footnote 277: Voragine, La legende doree, 1846, pp. 789-797. Douhet, Dictionnaire des legendes, 1855, pp. 824-836.]

My Lord Saint Michael, the Archangel, did not forget his promise. The ladies Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret came as he had said. On their very first visit the young peasant maid vowed to them to preserve her virginity as long as it should please God.[278] If there were any meaning in such a promise, Jeanne, however old she may then have been, could not have been quite a child. And it seems probable that the angel and the saints appeared to her first when she was on the threshold of womanhood, that is, if she ever became a woman.[279]

[Footnote 278: Trial, vol. i, p. 128. Hinzelin, Chez Jeanne d'Arc, p. 29. When we come to the trial, we shall consider whether it be possible to reconcile Jeanne's assertions with regard to this vow.]

[Footnote 279: Trial, vol. i, p. 128; vol. iii, p. 219.]

The saints soon entered into familiar relations with her.[280] They came to the village every day, and often several times a day. When she saw them appear in a ray of light coming down from heaven, shining and clad like queens, with golden crowns on their heads, wearing rich and precious jewels, the village maiden crossed herself devoutly and curtsied low.[281] And because they were ladies of good breeding, they returned her salutation. Each one had her own particular manner of greeting, and it was by this manner that Jeanne distinguished one from the other, for the dazzling light of their countenances rendered it impossible for her to look them in the face. They graciously permitted their earth-born friend to touch their feet, to kiss the hems of their garments, and to inhale rapturously the sweet perfume they emitted.[282] They addressed her courteously,[283] as it seemed to Jeanne. They called the lowly damsel daughter of God. They taught her to live well and go to church. Without always having anything very new to say to her, since they came so constantly, they spoke to her of things which filled her with joy, and, after they had disappeared, Jeanne ardently pressed her lips to the ground their feet had trodden.[284]

[Footnote 280: Ibid., index, under the words, Voices, Catherine, and Marguerite.]

[Footnote 281: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 71-85, 167 seq., 186 seq.]

[Footnote 282: Ibid., pp. 185, 186.]

[Footnote 283: In the French, humblement. In old French humblement means courteously. In Froissart there is a passage quoted by La Curne: "Li contes de Hainaut rechut ces seigneurs d'Engleterre, l'un apres l'autre, moult humblement."]

[Footnote 284: Trial, vol. i, p. 130.]

Oftentimes she received the heavenly ladies in her little garden, close to the precincts of the church. She used to meet them near the spring; often they even appeared to their little friend surrounded by heavenly companies. "For," Isabelle's daughter used to say, "angels are wont to come down to Christians without being seen, but I see them."[285] It was in the woods, amid the light rustling of the leaves, and especially when the bells rang for matins or compline, that she heard the sweet words most distinctly. And so she loved the sound of the bells, with which her Voices mingled. So, when at nine o'clock in the evening, Perrin le Drapier, sexton of the parish, forgot to ring for compline, she reproached him with his negligence, and scolded him for not doing his duty. She promised him cakes if in the future he would not forget to ring the bells.[286]

[Footnote 285: Ibid., p. 130.]

[Footnote 286: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 413, note 2.]

She told none of these things to her priest; for this, according to some good doctors, she must be censured, but, according to others equally excellent, she must be commended. For if on the one hand we are to consult our ecclesiastical superiors in matters of faith, on the other, where the gift of the Holy Ghost is poured out, there reigns perfect liberty.[287]

[Footnote 287: Trial, vol. i, p. 52, marginal comment of the d'Urfe MS.: Celavit visiones curato, patri et matri et cuicumque, in the Trial, vol. i, p. 128, note. Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 471.]

Since the two saints had been visiting Jeanne, my Lord Saint Michael had come less often; but he had not forsaken her. There came a time when he talked to her of love for the kingdom of France, of that love which she felt in her heart.[288]

[Footnote 288: Trial, vol. i, p. 171: "Et luy racontet l'angle la pitie qui estoit ou royaume de France." Pitie means here occasion for tenderness and love. The angel is thinking especially of the Dauphin. For the meaning and use of this word, cf. Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 74: "... et le peuple plorant de pitie et de joie qu'ils avoient a regarder leur seigneur." Gerard de Nevers in La Curne: "Pitie estoit de voir festoyer leur seigneur; on ne pourroit retenir ses larmes en voyant la joie qu'ils marquoient de recevoir leur seigneur."]

And the holy visitants, whose voices grew stronger and more ardent as the maiden's soul grew holier and more heroic, revealed to her her mission. "Daughter of God," they said, "thou must leave thy village, and go to France."[289]

[Footnote 289: Trial, vol. i, p. 53.]

Had this idea of a holy militant mission, conceived by Jeanne through the intermediary of her Voices, come into her mind spontaneously without the intervention of any outside will, or had it been suggested to her by some one who was influencing her? It would be impossible to solve this problem were there not a slight indication to direct us. Jeanne at Domremy was acquainted with a prophecy foretelling that France would be ruined by a woman and saved by a maiden.[290] It made an extraordinary impression upon her; and later she came to speak in a manner which proved that she not only believed it, but was persuaded that she herself was the maiden designated by the prophecy.[291] Who taught her this? Some peasant? We have reason to believe that the peasants did not know it, and that it was current among ecclesiastics.[292] Besides, it is important to notice in this connection that Jeanne was acquainted with a particular form of this prophecy, obviously arranged for her benefit, since it specified that the Maiden Redemptress should come from the borders of Lorraine. This local addition is not the work of a cowherd; it suggests rather a mind apt to direct souls and to inspire deeds. It is no longer possible to doubt that the prophecy thus revised is the work of an ecclesiastic whose intentions may be easily divined. Henceforth one is conscious of an idea agitating and possessing the young seer of visions.

[Footnote 290: Trial, vol. ii, p. 444.]

[Footnote 291: "Nonne alias dictum fuit quod Francia per mulierem desolaretur, et postea per Virginem restaurari debebat?" Evidence given by Durand Lassois in Trial, vol. ii, p. 444.]

[Footnote 292: Trial, vol. ii, p. 447. Nevertheless the woman Le Royer of Domremy remembered it and was astonished by it. Et hunc ipsa testis haec audisse recordata est et stupefacta fuit.]

On the banks of the Meuse, among the humble folk of the countryside, some churchman, preoccupied with the lot of the poor people of France, directed Jeanne's visions to the welfare of the kingdom and to the conclusion of peace. He carried the ardour of his pious zeal so far as to collect prophecies concerning the salvation of the French crown, and to add to them with an eye to the accomplishment of his design. For such an ecclesiastic we must seek among the priests of Lorraine or Champagne upon whom the national misfortunes imposed cruel sufferings.[293] Merchants and artizans, crushed under the burden of taxes and subsidies, and ruined by changes in the coinage,[294] peasants, whose houses, barns, and mills had been destroyed, and whose fields had been laid waste, no longer contributed to the expenses of public worship.[295] Canons and ecclesiastics, deprived both of their feudal dues and of the contributions of the faithful, quitted the religious houses and set out to beg their bread from door to door, leaving behind in the monasteries only two or three old monks, and a few children. The fortified abbeys attracted captains and soldiers of both sides. They entrenched themselves within the walls; they plundered and burnt. When one of those holy houses succeeded in remaining standing, the wandering village folk made it their place of refuge, and it was impossible to prevent the refectories and dormitories from being invaded by women.[296] In the midst of this obscure throng of souls afflicted by the sufferings and the scandals of the Church may be divined the prophet and the director of the Maid.

[Footnote 293: Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 180. Jean Chartier, Chronique latine, ed. Vallet de Viriville, vol. i, p. 13. Th. Basin, Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI, vol. i, pp. 44 et seq.]

[Footnote 294: Alain Chartier, Quadriloge invectif, ed. Andre Duchesne, Paris, 1617, pp. 440 et seq. Ordonnances, vol. xi, pp. 101 et seq. Viutry, Les monnaies sous les trois premiers Valois, Paris, 1881, in 8vo, passim. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, ch. xi.]

[Footnote 295: Juvenal des Ursins and Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, passim. Letter from Nicholas de Clemangis to Gerson, in Clemangis opera omnia, 1613, in 4to, vol. ii, pp. 159 et seq.]

[Footnote 296: Le P. Denifle, La desolation des eglises, monasteres, Macon, 1897, in 8vo, introduction.]

We shall not be tempted to recognise him in Messire Guillaume Frontey, priest of Domremy. The successor of Messire Jean Minet, if we may judge from his conversation which has been preserved, was as simple as his flock.[297] Jeanne saw many priests and monks. She was in the habit of visiting her uncle, the priest of Sermaize, and of seeing in the Abbey of Cheminon,[298] her cousin, a young ecclesiastic in minor orders, who was soon to follow her into France. She was in touch with a number of priests who would be very quick to recognise her exceptional piety, and her gift of beholding things invisible to the majority of Christians. They engaged her in conversations, which, had they been preserved, would doubtless present to us one of the sources whence she derived inspiration for her marvellous vocation. One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.

[Footnote 297: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 298: These two persons, however, are only known to us through somewhat doubtful genealogical documents. Trial, vol. v, p. 252. Boucher de Molandon, La famille de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 127. G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, Nouvelles recherches, pp. 7 et seq.]

Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into France: "I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to make war."[299]

[Footnote 299: Trial, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

As soon as she began to receive these revelations she gave up her games and her excursions. Henceforth she seldom danced round the fairies' tree, and then only in play with the children.[300] It would seem that she also took a dislike to working in the fields, and especially to herding the flocks. From early childhood she had shown signs of piety. Now she gave herself up to extreme devoutness; she confessed frequently, and communicated with ecstatic fervour; she heard mass in her parish church every day. At all hours she was to be found in church, sometimes prostrate on the ground, sometimes with her hands clasped, and her face turned towards the image of Our Lord or of Our Lady. She did not always wait for Saturday to visit the chapel at Bermont. Sometimes, when her parents thought she was tending the herds, she was kneeling at the feet of the miracle-working Virgin. The village priest, Messire Guillaume Frontey, could do nothing but praise the most guileless of his parishioners.[301] One day he happened to say with a sigh: "If Jeannette had money she would give it to me for the saying of masses."[302]

[Footnote 300: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 404, 407, 409, 411, 414, 416, passim.]

[Footnote 301: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 302: Ibid., p. 402. Concerning Jeanne's religious observances, see Ibid., index, under the words Messe, Vierge, Cloche.]

As for the good man, Jacques d'Arc, it is possible that he may have occasionally complained of those pilgrimages, those meditations, and those other practices which ill accorded with the ordinary tenor of country life. Every one thought Jeanne odd and erratic. Mengette and her friends, when they found her so devout, said she was too pious.[303] They scolded her for not dancing with them. Among others, Isabellette, the young wife of Gerardin d'Epinal, the mother of little Nicholas, Jeanne's godson, roundly condemned a girl who cared so little for dancing.[304] Colin, son of Jean Colin, and all the village lads made fun of her piety. Her fits of religious ecstasy raised a smile. She was regarded as a little mad. She suffered from this persistent raillery.[305] But with her own eyes she beheld the dwellers in Paradise. And when they left her she would cry and wish that they had taken her with them.

[Footnote 303: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 429.]

[Footnote 304: Ibid., p. 427.]

[Footnote 305: Trial, vol. ii, p. 432.]

"Daughter of God, thou must leave thy village and go forth into France."[306]

[Footnote 306: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

And the ladies Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret spoke again and said: "Take the standard sent down to thee by the King of Heaven, take it boldly and God will help thee." As she listened to these words of the ladies with the beautiful crowns, Jeanne was consumed with a desire for long expeditions on horseback, and for those battles in which angels hover over the heads of the warriors. But how was she to go to France? How was she to associate with men-at-arms? Ignorant and generously impulsive like herself, the Voices she heard merely revealed to her her own heart, and left her in sad agitation of mind: "I am a poor girl, knowing neither how to bestride a horse nor how to make war."[307]

[Footnote 307: Ibid., p. 53.]

Jeanne's native village was named after the blessed Remi;[308] the parish church bore the name of the great apostle of the Gauls, who, in baptising King Clovis, had anointed with holy oil the first Christian prince of the noble House of France, descended from the noble King Priam of Troy.

[Footnote 308: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 393, 400, passim.]

Thus runs the legend of Saint Remi as it was told by churchmen. In those days the pious hermit Montan, who lived in the country of Laon, beheld a choir of angels and an assembly of saints; and he heard a voice full and sweet saying: "The Lord hath looked down upon the earth. That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain: that they may declare the name of the Lord in Sion: and his praise in Jerusalem. When the people assemble together, and kings to serve the Lord.[309] And Cilinia shall bring forth a son for the saving of the people."

[Footnote 309: Psalm ci, 20-23. Vulgate, Douai Version (W.S.).]

Now Cilinia was old, and her husband Emilius was blind. Yet Cilinia, having conceived, brought forth a son; and with the milk with which she nourished her babe she rubbed the eyes of the father, and straightway his eyes were opened, and he saw.

This child, whose birth had been foretold by angels, was called Remi, which, being interpreted, means oar; for by his teaching, as with a well-cut oar, he was to guide the Church of God, and especially the church of Reims, over the stormy sea of life, and by his merits and his prayers bring it into the heaven of eternal salvation.

In retirement and in the practice of holy and Christian observances, Cilinia's son passed his pious youth at Laon. Hardly had he entered his twenty-second year, when the episcopal seat of Reims fell vacant on the death of the blessed Bishop Bennade. An immense concourse of people nominated Remi the shepherd of the flock. He refused a burden which he said was too heavy for the weakness of his youth. But suddenly there fell upon his forehead a ray of celestial light, and a divine liquid was shed upon his hair, and scented it with a strange perfume. Wherefore, without further delay, the bishops of the province of Reims, with one consent, consecrated him their bishop. Established in the seat of Saint Sixtus, the blessed Remi revealed himself liberal in almsgiving, assiduous in vigilance, fervent in prayer, perfect in charity, marvellous in doctrine, and holy in all his conversation. Like a city built on the top of a mountain, he was admired of all men.

In those days, Clovis, King of France, was a heathen, with all his knights. But he had won a great victory over the Germans by invoking the name of Christ. Wherefore, at the entreaty of the saintly Queen Clotilde, his wife, he resolved to ask baptism at the hands of the blessed Bishop of Reims. When this pious desire had been made known to him, Saint Remi taught the King and his subjects that, renouncing Satan and his pomps and his works, they must believe in God and in Jesus Christ his Son. And as the solemn festival of Easter was approaching, he commanded them to fast according to the custom of the faithful. On the day of the Passion of Our Lord, the eve of the day on which Clovis was to be baptised, early in the morning the Bishop went to the King and Queen and led them to an oratory dedicated to the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles. Suddenly the chapel was filled with a light so brilliant that the sunshine became as shadow, and from the midst of this light there came a voice saying: "Peace be with you, it is I, fear not and abide in my love." After these words the light faded, but there remained in the chapel an odour of ineffable sweetness. Then, with his face shining like the countenance of Moses, and illuminated within by a divine brightness, the holy Bishop prophesied and said: "Clovis and Clotilde, your descendants shall set back the boundaries of the kingdom. They shall raise the church of Jesus Christ and triumph over foreign nations provided they fall not from virtue and depart not from the way of salvation, neither enter upon the sinful road leading to destruction and to those snares of deadly vices which overthrow empires and cause dominion to pass from one nation to another."

Meanwhile the way is being prepared from the King's palace to the baptistry; curtains and costly draperies are hung up: the houses on each side of the street are covered with hangings; the church is decorated, and the baptistry is strewn with balsam and all manner of sweet-smelling herbs. Overwhelmed with the Lord's favour the people seem already to taste the delights of Paradise. The procession sets out from the palace; the clergy lead with crosses and banners, singing hymns and sacred canticles; then comes the Bishop leading the King by the hand; and lastly the Queen follows with the people. By the way the King asked the Bishop if yonder was the kingdom of God he had promised him. "No," answered the blessed Remi, "but it is the beginning of the road that leads to it." When they had reached the baptistry, the priest who bore the holy chrism was hindered by the crowd from reaching the sacred font; so that, as God had ordained, there was no holy oil for the benediction at the font. Then the Pontiff raises his eyes to heaven, and prays in silence and in tears. Straightway there descends a dove white as snow, bearing in its beak an ampulla full of chrism sent from heaven. The heavenly oil emits a delicious perfume, which intoxicates the multitude with a delight such as they had never experienced before that hour. The holy Bishop takes the ampulla, sprinkles the baptismal water with chrism, and straightway the dove vanishes.

At the sight of so great a miracle of grace, the King, transported with joy, renounces Satan and his pomps and his works. He demands instant baptism, and bends over the fountain of life.[310]

[Footnote 310: Gregoire de Tours, Le livre des miracles, ed. Bordier, 1864, in 8vo, vol. ii, pp. 27, 31. Hincmar, Vita sancti Remigii in the Patrologie de Migne, vol. cxxv, pp. 1130 et seq. H. Jadart, Bibliographie des ouvrages concernant la vie et le culte de saint Remi, eveque de Reims, 1891, in 8vo.]

Ever since then the kings of France have been anointed with the divine oil which the dove brought down from heaven. The holy ampulla containing it is kept in the church of Saint Remi at Reims. And by God's grace on the day of the King's anointing this ampulla is always found full.[311]

[Footnote 311: Froissart, Bk. II, ch. lxxiv. Le doyen de Saint-Thibaud, p. 328. Vertot, Dissertation au sujet de la sainte ampoule conservee a Reims, in Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1736, vol. ii, pp. 619-633; vol. iv, pp. 1350-1365. Leber, Des ceremonies du sacre ou recherches historiques et critiques sur les moeurs, les coutumes dans l'ancienne monarchie, Paris, Reims, 1825, in 8vo, pp. 255 et seq.]

Such was the clerks' story; and doubtless the peasants of Domremy on a humbler note might have said as much or even more. We may believe that they used to sing the complaint of Saint Remi. Every year, when on the 1st of October the festival of the patron saint came round, the priest was wont to pronounce an eulogium on the saint.[312]

[Footnote 312: A. Monteil, Histoire des Francais, 1853, vol. ii, p. 194.]

About this time a mystery was performed at Reims in which the miracles of the apostle of Gaul were fully represented.[313]

[Footnote 313: Mystere de saint Remi, Arsenal Library, ms. no. 3.364. This mystery dates from the fifteenth century, from the time of the wars in Champagne. The following lines relate to the misfortunes of the kingdom:

SAINT-ESTIENNE

O Jhesucrist, qui les sains cieulx As de lumiere environnez, Soleil et lune enlumines, Et ordonnez a ta plaisance; Pour le tres doulz pais de France Les martirs, non pas un mais tous, A jointes mains et a genoux Te requierent que tu effaces La grant doleur de France; et faces Par ta sainte digne vertu Qu'ilz aient paix; adfin que tu, Ta doulce mere et tous les sains, Et ceulx qui sont de pechiez sains, Devotement servis y soient!...

SAINT STEPHEN

O Jesus Christ who hast surrounded the heavens with light and kindled the sun and the moon, command, if it be thy will, the martyrs, not one only but all, to clasp their hands and on bended knee to implore thee to remove the great sorrow from France; and by thy holy and august merit ordain that they may have peace, that thou, thy sweet mother and all the saints and those who are cleansed from sin may be served devoutly!...

SAINT-NICOLAS

Dieu tout puissant fay tant qu'il ysse Hors du doulz pais sans amer Que toutes gens doivent amer C'est France, ou sont les bons Chrestiens S'on les confort; si les soustiens Car l'engin de leur adversaire Et son faulx art les tire a faire Contre ta sainte voulente. Ayez pitie de Crestiente Beau sire Dieux Tant en France qu'en autres lieux! Ce seroit Pitie a oultrance Que si noble roiaume, comme France, Fust par male temptacion Mis du tout a perdicion....

Fol. 3, verso.

SAINT NICHOLAS

God all powerful grant that he may issue forth from that sweet land which all must love, all France, where are good Christians, and may they be comforted, and may they be sustained; for the power of their adversary and his false art tempt them to withstand thy holy will. Have pity on Christendom, good lord God, on other lands as well as on France! It would be the worst of pities if so noble a kingdom as France were through much temptation to fall into perdition....]

And among them were some which would appeal strongly to rustic souls. In his mortal life my Lord Saint Remi had healed a blind man possessed of devils. A man bestowed his goods on the chapter of Reims for the salvation of his soul and died; ten years after his death Saint Remi restored him to life, and made him declare his gift. Being entertained by persons who had nothing to drink, the saint filled their cask with miraculous wine. He received from King Clovis the gift of a mill; but when the miller refused to yield it up to him, my Lord Saint Remi, by the power of God, threw down the mill, and cast it into the centre of the earth. One night when the Saint was alone in his chapel, while all his clerks were asleep, the glorious apostles Peter and Paul came down from Paradise to sing matins with him.

Who better than the folk of Domremy should know of the baptism of King Clovis of France, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost, at the singing of Veni Creator Spiritus, bearing in its beak the holy ampulla, full of chrism blessed by Our Lord?[314]

[Footnote 314: Mystere de Saint Remi, Arsenal Library, ms. no. 3.364, fol. 69, verso.]

Who better than they should understand the words addressed to the very Christian King, by my Lord Saint Remi, not doubtless in the Church's Latin, but in the good tongue of the people and very much like the following: "Now, Sire, take knowledge and serve God faithfully and judge justly, that thy kingdom may prosper. For if justice depart from it then shall this kingdom be in danger of perdition."[315]

[Footnote 315: Mystere de Saint Remi, fol. 71, verso.]

In short, in one way or another, whether through the clerks who directed her or through the peasants among whom she dwelt, Jeanne had knowledge of the good Archbishop Remi, who so dearly cherished the royal blood in the holy ampulla at Reims, and of the anointing of the very Christian kings.[316]

[Footnote 316:

_Le bon archevesque Remy, Qui tant aime le sang royal, Qui tant a son conseil loyal, Qui tant aime Dieu et l'Eglise._

Mystere de Saint Remi, fol. 77.

The good Archbishop Remi, who so dearly cherishes the royal blood, so faithful in counsel, so devout a lover of God and the Church.]

And the Angel appeared unto her and said: "Daughter of God, thou shalt lead the Dauphin to Reims that he may there receive worthily his anointing."[317]

[Footnote 317: Trial, vol. i, p. 53.]

The maid understood. The scales fell from her eyes; a bright light was shed abroad in her mind. Behold wherefore God had chosen her. Through her the Dauphin Charles was to be anointed at Reims. The white dove, which of old was sent to the blessed Remi, was to come down again at the Virgin's call. God, who loves the French, marks their king with a sign, and when there is no sign the royal power has departed. The anointing alone makes the king, and Messire Charles de Valois had not been anointed. Notwithstanding the father lies becrowned and besceptred in the basilica of Saint-Denys in France, the son is but the dauphin and will not enter into his inheritance till the day when the oil of the inexhaustible ampulla shall flow over his forehead. And God has chosen her, a young, ignorant peasant maid, to lead him, through the ranks of his enemies, to Reims, where he shall receive the unction poured upon Saint Louis. Unfathomable ways of God! The humble maid, knowing not how to ride a horse, unskilled in the arts of war, is chosen to bring to Our Lord his temporal vicar of Christian France.

Henceforth Jeanne knew what great deeds she was to bring to pass. But as yet she discerned not the means by which she was to accomplish them.

"Thou must fare forth into France," Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret said to her.

"Daughter of God, thou shalt lead the Dauphin to Reims[318] that he may there receive worthily his anointing," the Archangel Michael said to her.

[Footnote 318: Trial, vol. i, p. 130; vol. ii, p. 456; vol. iii, p. 3, passim.]

She must obey them--but how? If at that time there were not just at hand some devout adviser to direct her, one incident quite personal and unimportant, which then occurred in her father's house, may have sufficed to point out the way to the young saint.

Tenant-in-chief of the Castle on the island in 1419, and in 1423 elder of the community, Jacques d'Arc was one of the notables of Domremy. The village folk held him in high esteem and readily entrusted him with difficult tasks. Towards the end of March, 1427, they sent him to Vaucouleurs as their authorised proxy in a lawsuit they were conducting before Robert de Baudricourt. It was a question of the payment of damages required at once from the lord and the inhabitants of Greux and Domremy by a certain Guyot Poignant, of Montigny-le-Roi. These damages went back four years to when, as a return for his protection, the Damoiseau of Commercy had extorted from Greux and Domremy a sum amounting to two hundred and twenty golden crowns.

Guyot Poignant had become security for this sum which had not been paid by the time fixed. The Damoiseau seized Poignant's wood, hay, and horses to the value of one hundred and twenty golden crowns, which amount the said Poignant reclaimed from the nobles and villeins of Greux and Domremy. The suit was still pending in 1427, when the community nominated Jacques d'Arc its authorised proxy, and sent him to Vaucouleurs. The result of the dispute is not known; but it is sufficient to note that Jeanne's father saw Sire Robert and had speech with him.[319]

[Footnote 319: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cliv, clv, clvi, 97, 359 et seq.; La France pendant la guerre de cent ans, p. 287.]

On his return home he must have more than once related these interviews, and told of the manners and words of so great a personage. And doubtless Jeanne heard many of these things. Assuredly she must have pricked up her ears at the name of Baudricourt. Then it was that her dazzling friend, the Archangel Knight, came once more to awaken the obscure thought slumbering within her: "Daughter of God," he said, "go thou to the Captain Robert de Baudricourt, in the town of Vaucouleurs, that he may grant unto thee men who shall take thee to the gentle Dauphin."[320]

[Footnote 320: Trial, vol. i, p. 53.]

Resolved to obey faithfully the behest of the Archangel which accorded with her own desire, Jeanne foresaw that her mother, albeit pious, would grant her no aid in her design and that her father would strongly oppose it. Therefore she refrained from confiding it to them.[321]

[Footnote 321: Trial, vol. i, p. 128.]

She thought that Durand Lassois would be the man to give her the succour of which she had need. In consideration of his age she called him uncle,--he was her elder by sixteen years.

Their kinship was by marriage: Lassois had married one Jeanne, daughter of one Le Vauseul, husbandman, and of Aveline, sister of Isabelle de Vouthon, and consequently cousin-german of Isabelle's daughter.[322]

[Footnote 322: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 443. Boucher de Molandon, La famille de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 146. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, introduction, pp. xxi, xxii.]

With his wife, his father-in-law, and his mother-in-law, Lassois dwelt at Burey-en-Vaulx, a hamlet of a few homesteads, lying on the left bank of the Meuse, in the green valley, five miles from Domremy, and less than two and a half miles from Vaucouleurs.[323]

[Footnote 323: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 411, 431, 439. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxi. Hinzelin, Chez Jeanne d'Arc, p. 92.]

Jeanne went to see him, told him of her design, and showed him that she must needs see Sire Robert de Baudricourt. That her kind kinsman might the more readily believe in her, she repeated to him the strange prophecy, of which we have already made mention: "Was it not known of old," she said, "that a woman should ruin the kingdom of France and that a woman should re-establish it?"[324]

[Footnote 324: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 443, 444.]

This prognostication, it appears, caused Durand Lassois to reflect. Of the two facts foretold therein, the first, the evil one, had come to pass in the town of Troyes, when Madame Ysabeau had given the Kingdom of the Lilies and Madame Catherine of France to the King of England. It only remained to hope that the second, the good, would likewise come to pass. If in the heart of Durand Lassois there were any love for the Dauphin Charles, such must have been his desire; but on this point history is silent.

During this visit to her cousin, Jeanne met with others besides her kinsfolk, the Vouthons and their children. She visited a young nobleman, by name Geoffroy de Foug, who dwelt in the parish of Maxey-sur-Vayse, of which the hamlet of Burey formed part. She confided to him that she wanted to go to France. My Lord Geoffroy did not know much of Jeanne's parents; he was ignorant even of their names. But the damsel seemed to him good, simple, pious, and he encouraged her in her marvellous undertaking.[325] A week after her arrival at Burey she attained her object: Durand Lassois consented to take her to Vaucouleurs.[326]

[Footnote 325: Trial, vol. ii, p. 442.]

[Footnote 326: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 53, 221; vol. ii, p. 443.]

Before starting she asked a favour from her aunt Aveline who was with child; she said to her: "If the babe you bear is a daughter, call her Catherine in memory of my dead sister."

Catherine, who had married Colin de Greux, had just died.[327]

[Footnote 327: Genealogical Inquiry made by the Bailie of Chaumont concerning Jehan Royer (8 October, 1555) in E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 62. [Document of doubtful authenticity.]]

Chapter III

FIRST VISIT TO VAUCOULEURS--FLIGHT TO NEUFCHATEAU--JOURNEY TO TOUL--SECOND VISIT TO VAUCOULEURS

Robert de Baudricourt, who in those days commanded the town of Vaucouleurs for the Dauphin Charles, was the son of Liebault de Baudricourt deceased, once chamberlain of Robert, Duke of Bar, governor of Pont-a-Mousson, and of Marguerite d'Aunoy, Lady of Blaise in Bassigny. Fourteen or fifteen years earlier he had succeeded his two uncles, Guillaume, the Bastard of Poitiers, and Jean d'Aunoy as Bailie of Chaumont and Commander of Vaucouleurs. His first wife had been a rich widow; after her death he had married, in 1425, another widow, as rich as the first, Madame Alarde de Chambley. And it is a fact that the peasants of Uruffe and of Gibeaumex stole the cart carrying the cakes ordered for the wedding feast. Sire Robert was like all the warriors of his time and country; he was greedy and cunning; he had many friends among his enemies and many enemies among his friends; he fought now for his own side, now against it, but always for his own advantage. For the rest he was no worse than his fellows, and one of the least stupid.[328]

[Footnote 328: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 271. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 67. Le R.P. Benoit, Histoire ecclesiastique et politique de la ville et du diocese de Toul, Toul, 1707, p. 529. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. clxii, clxiii. Leon Mougenot, Jeanne d'Arc, le Duc de Lorraine et le Sire de Baudricourt, 1895, in 8vo. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches, p. xviii. G. Niore, Le pays de Jeanne d'Arc, in Memoires de la Societe academique de l'Aube, 1894, vol. xxxi, pp. 307-320. De Pange, Le Pays de Jeanne d'Arc; Le fief et l'arriere-fief. Les Baudricourt, Paris, 1903, in 8vo.]

Clad in a poor red gown,[329] but her heart bright with mystic love, Jeanne climbed the hill dominating the town and the valley. Without any difficulty she entered the castle, for its gates were opened as freely as if it had been a fair; and she was led into the hall where was Sire Robert among his men-at-arms. She heard the Voice saying to her: "That is he!"[330] And immediately she went straight to him, and spoke to him fearlessly, beginning, doubtless, by saying what she deemed to be most urgent: "I am come to you, sent by Messire," she said, "that you may send to the Dauphin and tell him to hold himself in readiness, but not to give battle to his enemies."[331]

[Footnote 329: Trial, vol. ii, p. 436.]

[Footnote 330: Ibid., vol. i, p. 53.]

[Footnote 331: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 456.]

Assuredly she must thus have spoken, prompted by a new revelation from her Voices. And it is important to notice that she repeated word for word what had been said seventy-five years earlier, not far from Vaucouleurs, by a peasant of Champagne who was a vavasour, that is, a freeman. This peasant's career had begun like Jeanne's, but had come to a much more abrupt conclusion. Jacques d'Arc's daughter had not been the first to say that revelations had been made to her concerning the war. Periods of great distress are the times when inspired persons most commonly appear. Thus it came to pass that in the days of the Plague and of the Black Prince the vavasour of Champagne heard a voice coming forth from a beam of light.

While he was at work in the fields the voice had said to him: "Go thou, and warn John, King of France, that he fight not against any of his enemies." It was a few days before the Battle of Poitiers.[332]

[Footnote 332: Chronique des quatre premiers Valois, ed. S. Luce, Paris, 1861, in 8vo, pp. 46-48.]

Then the counsel was wise; but in the month of May, 1428, it seemed less wise, and appeared to have little bearing on the state of affairs at that time. Since the disaster of Verneuil, the French had not felt equal to giving battle to their enemies; and they were not thinking of it. Towns were taken and lost, skirmishes were fought, sallies were attempted, but the enemy was not engaged in pitched battles. There was no need to restrain the Dauphin Charles, whom in those days nature and fortune rendered unadventurous.[333] About the time that Jeanne was uttering these words before Sire Robert, the English in France were preparing an expedition, and were hesitating, unable to decide whether to march on Angers or on Orleans.[334]

[Footnote 333: P. de Fenin, Memoires, ed. Mademoiselle Dupont, Paris, 1837, pp. 195, 222, 223.]

[Footnote 334: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise au siege d'Orleans, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo, pp. 75, 76.]

Jeanne gave utterance according to the promptings of her Archangel and her Saints, and touching warfare and the condition of the kingdom they knew neither more nor less than she. But it is not surprising that those who believe themselves sent by God should ask to be waited for. And again in the damsel's fear lest the French knights should once more give battle after their own guise there was much of the sound common sense of the people. They were only too well acquainted with knightly warfare.

Perfectly calm and self-possessed, Jeanne went on and uttered a prophecy concerning the Dauphin: "Before mid Lent my Lord will grant him aid." Then straightway she added: "But in very deed the realm belongs not to the Dauphin. Nathless it is Messire's will that the Dauphin should be king and receive the kingdom in trust--en commande.[335] Notwithstanding his enemies, the Dauphin shall be king; and it is I who shall lead him to his anointing."

[Footnote 335: Et quod aberet in commendam: illud regnum, Trial, vol. ii, p. 456 (evidence of Bertrand de Poulengy).]

Doubtless the title Messire, in the sense in which she employed it, sounded strange and obscure, since Sire Robert, failing to understand it, asked: "Who is Messire?"

"The King of Heaven," the damsel answered.

She had made use of another term, concerning which, as far as we know, Sire Robert made no remark; and yet it is suggestive.[336]

[Footnote 336: Trial, vol. ii, p. 456.]

That word commande employed in matters connected with inheritance signified something given in trust.[337] If the King received the kingdom en commande he would merely hold it in trust. Thus the maid's utterance agreed with the views of the most pious concerning Our Lord's government of kingdoms. By herself she could not have happened on the word or the idea; she had obviously been instructed by one of those churchmen whose influence we have discerned already[338] in the Lorraine prophecy, but the trace of whom has completely vanished.

[Footnote 337: See La Curne and Godefroy for the word commande. Durand de Maillane, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, 1770, vol. i, pp. 567 et seq.]

[Footnote 338: See ante, p. 59, post, pp. 177, 178.]

Touching things spiritual Jeanne held converse with several priests; among others with Messire Arnolin, of Gondrecourt-le-Chateau, and Messire Dominique Jacob, priest of Moutier-sur-Saulx, who was her confessor.[339] It is a pity we do not know what these ecclesiastics thought of the insatiable cruelty of the English, of the pride of my Lord Duke of Burgundy, of the misfortunes of the Dauphin, and whether they did not hope that one day Our Lord Jesus Christ at the prayer of the common folk would condescend to grant the kingdom en commande to Charles, son of Charles. It was possibly from one of these that Jeanne derived her theocratic ideas.[340]

[Footnote 339: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 392, 393, 458, 459.]

[Footnote 340: As for Nicolas de Vouthon, priest of the Abbey of Cheminon, what is stated concerning him in the evidence of the 2nd and 3rd November, 1476, seems improbable. Trial, vol. v, p. 252. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. xviii et seq., 9.]

While she was speaking to Sire Robert there was present, and not by chance merely, a certain knight of Lorraine, Bertrand de Poulengy, who possessed lands near Gondrecourt and held an office in the provostship of Vaucouleurs.[341] He was then about thirty-six years of age. He was a man who associated with churchmen; at least he was familiar with the manner of speech of devout persons.[342] Perhaps he now saw Jeanne for the first time; but he must certainly have heard of her; and he knew her to be good and pious. Twelve years before he had frequently visited Domremy; he knew the country well; he had sat beneath l'Arbre des Dames, and had been several times to the house of Jacques d'Arc and Romee, whom he held to be good honest farmer folk.[343]

[Footnote 341: Trial, vol. ii, p. 475. Servais, in _Memoires de la Societe des Lettres, Sciences et Arts de Bar-le-Duc_, vol. vi, p. 139. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches, p. xxviii. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, proofs and illustrations xcv, p. 143 and note 3. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 204.]

[Footnote 342: This appears from the manner in which he reports Jeanne's words.]

[Footnote 343: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 451, 458.]

It may be that Bertrand de Poulengy was struck by the damsel's speech and bearing; it is more likely that the knight was in touch with certain ecclesiastics unknown to us, who were instructing the peasant seeress with an eye to rendering her better able to serve the realm of France and the Church. However that may be, in Bertrand she had a friend who was to be her strong support in the future.

For the nonce, however, if our information be correct, he did nothing and spoke not a word. Perhaps he judged it best to wait until the commander of the town should be ready to grant a more favourable hearing to the saint's request. Sire Robert understood nothing of all this; one point only appeared plain to him, that Jeanne would make a fine camp-follower and that she would be a great favourite with the men-at-arms.[344]

[Footnote 344: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 72. Journal du siege, p. 35.]

In dismissing the villein who had brought her, he gave him a piece of advice quite in keeping with the wisdom of the time concerning the chastising of daughters: "Take her back to her father and box her ears well."

Sire Robert held such discipline to be excellent, for more than once he urged Uncle Lassois to take Jeanne home well whipped.[345]

[Footnote 345: Trial, vol. ii, p. 444. L. Mougenot, Jeanne d'Arc, le Duc de Lorraine et le Sire de Baudricourt, Nancy, 1895, in 8vo.]

After a week's absence she returned to the village. Neither the Captain's contumely nor the garrison's insults had humiliated or discouraged her. Imagining that her Voices had foretold them,[346] she held them to be proofs of the truth of her mission. Like those who walk in their sleep she was calm in the face of obstacles and yet quietly persistent. In the house, in the garden, in the meadow, she continued to sleep that marvellous slumber, in which she dreamed of the Dauphin, of his knights, and of battles with angels hovering above.

[Footnote 346: Trial, vol. i, p. 53.]

She found it impossible to be silent; on all occasions her secret escaped from her. She was always prophesying, but she was never believed. On St. John the Baptist's Eve, about a month after her return, she said sententiously to Michel Lebuin, a husbandman of Burey, who was quite a boy: "Between Coussey and Vaucouleurs is a girl who in less than a year from now will cause the Dauphin to be anointed King of France."[347]

[Footnote 347: Ibid., p. 440.]

One day meeting Gerardin d'Epinal, the only man at Domremy not of the Dauphin's party, whose head according to her own confession she would willingly have cut off, although she was godmother to his son, she could not refrain from announcing even to him in veiled words her mystic dealing with God: "Gossip, if you were not a Burgundian there is something I would tell you."[348]

[Footnote 348: Ibid., p. 423.]

The good man thought it must be a question of an approaching betrothal and that Jacques d'Arc's daughter was about to marry one of the lads with whom she had broken bread under l'Arbre des Fees and drunk water from the Gooseberry Spring.

Alas! how greatly would Jacques d'Arc have desired the secret to be of that nature. This upright man was very strict; he was careful concerning his children's conduct; and Jeanne's behaviour caused him anxiety. He knew not that she heard Voices. He had no idea that all day Paradise came down into his garden, that from Heaven to his house a ladder was let down, on which there came and went without ceasing more angels than had ever trodden the ladder of the Patriarch Jacob; neither did he imagine that for Jeannette alone, without any one else perceiving it, a mystery was being played, a thousand times richer and finer than those which on feast days were acted on platforms, in towns like Toul and Nancy. He was miles away from suspecting such incredible marvels. But what he did see was that his daughter was losing her senses, that her mind was wandering, and that she was giving utterance to wild words. He perceived that she could think of nothing but cavalcades and battles. He must have known something of the escapade at Vaucouleurs. He was terribly afraid that one day the unhappy child would go off for good on her wanderings. This agonising anxiety haunted him even in his sleep. One night he dreamed that he saw her fleeing with men-at-arms; and this dream was so vivid that he remembered it when he awoke. For several days he said over and over again to his sons, Jean and Pierre: "If I really believed that what I dreamed of my daughter would ever come true, I would rather see her drowned by you; and if you would not do it I would drown her myself."[349]

[Footnote 349: Trial, vol. i, pp. 131, 132, 219.]

Isabelle repeated these words to her daughter hoping that they might alarm her and cause her to correct her ways. Devout as she was, Jeanne's mother shared her father's fears. The idea that their daughter was in danger of becoming a worthless creature was a cruel thought to these good people. In those troubled times there was a whole multitude of these wild women whom the men-at-arms carried with them on horseback. Each soldier had his own.

It is not uncommon for saints in their youth by the strangeness of their behaviour to give rise to such suspicions. And Jeanne displayed those signs of sainthood. She was the talk of the village. Folk pointed at her mockingly, saying: "There goes she who is to restore France and the royal house."[350]

[Footnote 350: Trial, vol. ii, p. 421, cf. p. 433, "et alii juvenes de ea deridebant," said Colin's son, referring to her piety.]

The neighbours had no difficulty in finding a cause for the strangeness which possessed the damsel. They attributed it to some magic spell. She had been seen beneath the Beau Mai bewreathing it with garlands. The old beech was known to be haunted as well as the spring near by. It was well known, too, that the fairies cast spells. There were those who discovered that Jeanne had met a wicked fairy there. "Jeannette has met her fate beneath l'Arbre des Fees,"[351] they said. Would that none but peasants had believed that story!

[Footnote 351: Ibid., vol. i, p. 68.]

On the 22nd of June, from the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France for Henry VI, Antoine de Vergy, Governor of Champagne, received a commission to furnish forth a thousand men-at-arms for the purpose of bringing the castellany of Vaucouleurs into subjection to the English. Three weeks later, commanded by the two Vergy, Antoine and Jean, the little company set forth. It consisted of four knights-banneret, fourteen knights-bachelor, and three hundred and sixty-three men-at-arms. Pierre de Trie, commander of Beauvais, Jean, Count of Neufchatel and Fribourg, were ordered to join the main body.[352]

[Footnote 352: Report of Andre d'Epernon in S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxvii and proofs and illustrations, pp. 217, 218, 220.]

On the march, as was his custom, Antoine de Vergy laid waste all the villages of the castellany with fire and sword. Threatened once again with a disaster with which they were only too well acquainted, the folk of Domremy and Greux already beheld their cattle captured, their barns set on fire, their wives and daughters ravished. Having experienced before that the Castle on the Island was not secure enough, they determined to flee and seek refuge in their market town of Neufchateau, only five miles away from Domremy. Thus they set out towards the middle of July. Abandoning their houses and fields and driving their cattle before them, they followed the road, through the fields of wheat and rye and up the vine-clad hills to the town, wherein they lodged as best they could.[353]

[Footnote 353: Trial, vol. i, pp. 51, 214; vol. ii, pp. 391-454. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxvi.]

The d'Arc family was taken in by the wife of Jean Waldaires, who was called La Rousse. She kept an inn, where lodged soldiers, monks, merchants, and pilgrims. There were some who suspected her of harbouring bad women.[354] And there is reason to believe that certain of her women customers were of doubtful reputation. Albeit she herself was of good standing, that is to say, she was rich. She had money enough to lend sometimes to her fellow-citizens.[355] Although Neufchateau belonged to the Duke of Lorraine, who was of the Burgundian party, it has been thought that the hostess of this inn inclined towards the Armagnacs; but it is vain to attempt to discover the sentiments of La Rousse concerning the troubles of the kingdom of France.[356]

[Footnote 354: Trial, vol. i, p. 214.]

[Footnote 355: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxvii.]

[Footnote 356: Trial, vol. i, pp. 51, 214; vol. ii, p. 402.]

At Neufchateau as at Domremy Jeanne drove her father's beasts to the field and kept his flocks.[357] Handy and robust she used also to help La Rousse in her household duties.[358] This circumstance gave rise to the malicious report set on foot by the Burgundians that she had been serving maid in an inn frequented by drunkards and bad women.[359] The truth is that Jeanne, when she was not tending the cattle, and helping her hostess, passed all her time in church.[360]

[Footnote 357: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 409, 423, 428, 463.]

[Footnote 358: Ibid., pp. 416, 417.]

[Footnote 359: Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 314.]

[Footnote 360: Trial, vol. i, p. 51.]

There were two fine religious houses in the town, one belonging to the Grey Friars, the other to the Sisters of St. Claire, the sons and daughters of good St. Francis.[361] The monastery of the Grey Friars had been built two hundred years earlier by Mathieu II of Lorraine. The reigning duke had recently added richly to its endowments. Noble ladies, great lords, and among others a Bourlemont lord of Domremy and Greux lay there beneath brasses.[362]

[Footnote 361: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxvii.]

[Footnote 362: Expilly, Dictionnaire geographique de la France, under the word Neufchateau.]

In the flower of their history these mendicant monks of old had welcomed to their third order crowds of citizens and peasants as well as multitudes of princes and kings.[363] Now they languished corrupt and decadent among the French friars. Quarrels and schisms were frequent. Notwithstanding Colette of Corbie's attempted restoration of the rule, the old discipline was nowhere observed.[364] These mendicants distributed leaden medals, taught short prayers to serve as charms, and vowed special devotion to the holy name of Jesus.[365]

[Footnote 363: S.M. de Vernon, Histoire generale et particuliere du tiers-ordre de Saint-Francois, Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 8vo. Hilarion de Nolay, Histoire du tiers-ordre, Lyon, 1694, in 4to.]

[Footnote 364: Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. i, p. 549.]

[Footnote 365: Wadding, Annales Minorum, vol. v, p. 183.]

During the fortnight Jeanne spent in the town of Neufchateau,[366] she frequented the church of the Grey Friars monastery, and two or three times confessed to brethren of the order.[367] It has been stated that she belonged to the third order of St. Francis, and the inference has been drawn that her affiliation dated from her stay at Neufchateau.[368]

[Footnote 366: Jean Morel declares that she was at Neufchateau four days, and he adds: "What I tell you I know, for I was with the others at Neufchateau" (Trial, vol. ii, p. 392); Gerard Guillemette speaks of four or five days (Ibid., p. 414); Nicolas Bailly of three or four (Ibid., p. 451). But Jeanne told her judges at Rouen that she stayed a fortnight at Neufchateau (Ibid., vol. i, p. 51). When she gave her evidence, the event was less remote, and doubtless her recollection of it was more accurate.]

[Footnote 367: Ibid., vol. i, p. 51.]

[Footnote 368: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, chs. ix, x, xi. Abbe V. Mourot, Jeanne d'Arc et le tiers-ordre de Saint-Francois, Saint-Die, 1886, in 8vo. L. de Kerval, Jeanne d'Arc et les Franciscains, Vanves, 1893, in 18mo. E iera begina, says a correspondent of Morosini, edited by Lefevre-Pontalis, vol. iii, p. 92 and note 2.]

Such an inference is very doubtful; and in any case the affiliation cannot have been very ceremonious. It is difficult to see how in so short a time the friars could have instructed her in the practices of Franciscan piety. She was far too imbued with ecclesiastical notions concerning the spiritual and the temporal power, she was too full of mysteries and revelations to imbibe their spirit. Besides, her sojourn at Neufchateau was troubled by anxiety and broken by absences.

In this town she received a summons to appear before the official of Toul, in whose jurisdiction she was, as a native of Domremy-de-Greux. A young bachelor of Domremy alleged that a promise of marriage had been given him by Jacques d'Arc's daughter. Jeanne denied it. He persisted in his statement, and summoned her to appear before the official.[369] To this ecclesiastical tribunal such cases belonged; it pronounced judgment on questions of nullity of marriage or validity of betrothal.

[Footnote 369: Trial, vol. i, pp. 128, 219. E. Misset, Jeanne d'Arc Champenoise, 1895, in 8vo, p. 28.]

The curious part of Jeanne's case is that her parents were against her, and on the side of the young man. It was in defiance of their wishes that she defended the suit and appeared before the official. Later she declared that in this matter she had disobeyed them, and that it was the only time she had failed in the submission she owed her parents.[370]

[Footnote 370: Trial, vol. i, p. 219: quibus obediebat in omnibus, nisi in processu Tullensi.]

The journey from Neufchateau to Toul and back involved travelling more than twenty leagues on foot, over roads infested with bands of armed men, through a country desolated by fire and sword, from which the peasants of Domremy had recently fled in a panic. To such a journey, however, she made up her mind against the will of her parents.

Possibly she may have appeared before the judge at Toul, not once but two or three times. And there was a great chance of her having to journey day and night with her so-called betrothed, for he was passing over the same road at the same time. Her Voices bade her fear nothing. Before the judge she swore to speak the truth, and denied having made any promise of marriage.

She had done nothing wrong. But an evil interpretation was set upon conduct which proceeded alone from an innocence both singular and heroic. At Neufchateau it was said that on those journeys she had consumed all her substance. But what was her substance? Alas! she had set out with nothing. She may have been driven to beg her bread from door to door. Saints receive alms as they give them: for the love of God. There was a story that her betrothed seeing her living during the trial in company with bad women, had abandoned his demand for justice, renouncing a bride of such bad repute.[371] Such calumnies were only too readily believed.

[Footnote 371: Trial, vol. i, p. 215. Article 9 of the deed of accusation is drawn up as the result of an inquiry made at Neufchateau.]

After a fortnight's sojourn at Neufchateau, Jacques d'Arc and his family returned to Domremy. The orchard, the house, the monastery, the village, the fields,--in what a state of desolation did they behold them! The soldiers had plundered, ravaged, burnt everything. Unable to exact ransom from the villeins who had taken flight, the men-at-arms had destroyed all their goods. The monastery once as proud as a fortress, with its watchman's tower, was now nothing but a heap of blackened ruins. And now on holy days the folk of Domremy must needs go to hear mass in the church of Greux.[372]

[Footnote 372: Trial, vol. ii, p. 396, passim.]

So full of danger were the times that the villagers were ordered to keep in fortified houses and castles.[373]

[Footnote 373: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. clxxx, 230.]

Meanwhile the English were laying siege to the town of Orleans, which belonged to their prisoner Duke Charles. By so doing they acted badly, for, having possession of his body, they ought to have respected his property.[374] They built fortified towers round the city of Orleans, the very heart of France; and it was said that they had entrenched themselves there in great strength.[375] Now Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret loved the Land of the Lilies; they were the sworn friends and gentle cousins of the Dauphin Charles. They talked to the shepherd maid of the misfortunes of the kingdom and continued to say: "Leave thy village and go into France."[376]

[Footnote 374: Mistere du siege, v, 497.]

[Footnote 375: Chronique de la Pucelle, chs. xxxiv, xxxv. Jean Chartier, Chronique, chs. xxxii, xxxv; Journal du siege, pp. 2 et seq.]

[Footnote 376: Trial, vol. i, pp. 52, 216.]

Jeanne was all the more impatient to set forth because she had herself announced the time of her arrival in France, and that time was drawing near. She had told the Commander of Vaucouleurs that succour should come to the Dauphin before mid Lent. She did not want to make her Voices lie.[377]

[Footnote 377: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 456.]

Towards the middle of January occurred the opportunity she was looking for of returning to Burey. At this time Durand Lassois' wife, Jeanne le Vauseul, was brought to bed.[378] It was the custom in the country for the young kinswomen and friends of the mother to attend and wait upon her and her babe. A good and kindly custom, followed all the more readily because of the opportunity it gave of pleasant meetings and cheerful gossip.[379] Jeanne urged her uncle to ask her father that she might be sent to tend the sick woman, and Lassois consented: he was always ready to do what his niece asked him, and perhaps his complaisance was encouraged by pious persons of some importance.[380] But how this father, who shortly before had said that he would throw his daughter into the Meuse rather than that she should go off with men-at-arms, should have allowed her to go to the gates of the town, protected by a kinsman of whose weakness he was well aware, is hard to understand. However so he did.[381]

[Footnote 378: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 428, 434. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxx. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches, p. xxiii.]

[Footnote 379: Les caquets de l'accouchee, new edition by E. Fournier and Le Roux de Lincy, Paris, 1855, in 16mo, introduction.]

[Footnote 380: Trial, vol. i, p. 53; vol. ii, p. 443.]

[Footnote 381: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 428, 430, 434.]

Leaving the home of her childhood, which she was never to see again, Jeanne, in company with Durand Lassois, passed down her native valley in its winter bareness. As she went by the house of the husbandman Gerard Guillemette of Greux, whose children and Jacques d'Arc's were great friends, she cried: "Good-bye! I am going to Vaucouleurs."[382]

[Footnote 382: Ibid., p. 416.]

A few paces further she saw her friend Mengette: "Good-bye, Mengette," she said. "God bless thee."[383]

[Footnote 383: Ibid., p. 431.]

And by the way, on the doorsteps of the houses, whenever she saw faces she knew, she bade them farewell.[384] But she avoided Hauviette with whom she had played and slept in childhood and whom she dearly loved. If she were to bid her good-bye she feared that her heart would fail her. It was not till later that Hauviette heard of her friend's departure and then she wept bitterly.[385]

[Footnote 384: Trial, vol. ii, p. 418.]

[Footnote 385: Ibid., p. 419: dixit quod nescivit recessum dictae Johannae; quae testis propter hoc multum flebat, quia eam multum propter suam bonitatem diligebat et quod sua socia erat.]

On her second arrival at Vaucouleurs, Jeanne imagined that she was setting foot in a town belonging to the Dauphin, and, in the language of the day, entering the royal antechamber.[386] She was mistaken. Since the beginning of August, 1428, the Commander of Vaucouleurs had yielded the fortress to Antoine de Vergy, but had not yet surrendered it to him.

[Footnote 386: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 436.]

It was one of those promises to capitulate at the end of a given time. They were not uncommon in those days, and they ceased to be valid if the fortress were relieved before the day fixed for its surrender.[387]

[Footnote 387: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. clxviii, 222, 234.]

Jeanne went to Sire Robert in his castle just as she had done nine months before; and this was the revelation she made to him: "My Lord Captain," she said, "know that God has again given me to wit, and commanded me many times to go to the gentle Dauphin, who must be and who is the true King of France, and that he shall grant me men-at-arms with whom I shall raise the siege of Orleans and take him to his anointing at Reims."[388]

[Footnote 388: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 273; La Chronique de Lorraine in Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. iii, col. vj, gives an amplified version of these words, the authenticity of which is doubtful.]

This time she announces that it is her mission to deliver Orleans. And the anointing is not to come to pass until this the first part of her task shall have been accomplished. We cannot fail to recognise the readiness and the tact with which the Voices altered their commands previously given, according to the necessities of the moment. Robert's manner towards Jeanne had completely changed. He said nothing about boxing her ears and sending her back to her parents. He no longer treated her roughly; and if he did not believe her announcement at least he listened to it readily.

In one of her conversations with him she spoke of strange matters: "Once I have accomplished the behest Messire has given me, I shall marry and I shall bear three sons, the eldest of whom shall be pope, the second emperor, and the third king."

Sire Robert answered gayly: "Since thy sons are to be such great personages, I should like to give thee one. Thereby should I myself have honour."

Jeanne replied: "Nay, gentle Robert, nay. It is not yet time. The Holy Ghost shall appoint the time."[389]

[Footnote 389: Trial, vol. i, pp. 219, 220. The source is doubtful. Nevertheless the accusation here lays stress on these facts produced by the inquiry. If Jeanne denied having spoken these words, it was because she had forgotten them, or because they had been so changed that she could disavow the form in which they were presented to her.]

To judge from the few of her words handed down to us, in the early days of her mission the young prophetess spoke alternately two different languages. Her speech seemed to flow from two distinct sources. The one ingenuous, candid, naive, concise, rustically simple, unconsciously arch, sometimes rough, alike chivalrous and holy, generally bearing on the inheritance and the anointing of the Dauphin and the confounding of the English. This was the language of her Voices, her own, her soul's language. The other, more subtle, flavoured with allegory and flowers of speech, critical with scholastic grace, bearing on the Church, suggesting the clerk and betraying some outside influence. The words she uttered to Sire Robert touching the children she should bear are of the second sort. They are an allegory. Her triple birth signifies that the peace of Christendom shall be born of her work, that after she shall have fulfilled her divine mission, the Pope, the Emperor, and the King--all three sons of God--shall cause concord and love to reign in the Church of Jesus Christ. The apologue is quite clear; and yet a certain amount of intelligence is necessary for its comprehension. The Captain failed to understand it; he interpreted it literally and answered accordingly, for he was a simple fellow and a merry.[390]

[Footnote 390: See ante, page 66.]

Jeanne lodged in the town with humble folk, Henri Leroyer and his wife Catherine, friends of her cousin Lassois. She used to occupy her time in spinning, being a good spinster; and the little she had she gave to the poor. With Catherine she went to the parish church.[391] In the morning, in her most devout moods, she would climb the hill, round the foot of which cluster the roofs of the town, and enter the chapel of Sainte Marie-de-Vaucouleurs. This collegiate church, built in the reign of Philippe VI, adjoined the chateau wherein dwelt the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The venerable stone nave rose up boldly towards the east, overlooking the vast extent of hills and meadows, and dominating the valley where Jeanne had been born and bred. She used to hear mass and remain long in prayer.[392]

[Footnote 391: Trial, vol. ii, p. 446.]

[Footnote 392: Trial, vol. ii, p. 461.]

Under the chapel, in the crypt, there was an image of the Virgin, ancient and deeply venerated, called Notre-Dame-de-la-Voute.[393] It worked miracles, but especially on behalf of the poor and needy. Jeanne delighted to remain in this dark and lonely crypt, where the saints preferred to visit her.

[Footnote 393: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cxcxiv.]

One day a young clerk, barely more than a child, who waited in the chapel, saw the damsel motionless, with hands clasped, head thrown back, eyes full of tears raised to heaven; and as long as he lived the vision of that rapture remained imprinted on his mind.[394]

[Footnote 394: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 460, 461 (evidence of Jean le Fumeux in the rehabilitation trial).]

She confessed often, usually to Jean Fournier, priest of Vaucouleurs.[395]

[Footnote 395: Ibid., p. 446.]

Her hostess was touched by the goodness and gentleness of her manner of life; but she was profoundly agitated when one day the damsel said to her: "Dost thou not know it hath been prophesied that France ruined by a woman shall be saved by a maiden from the Lorraine Marches?"

Leroyer's wife knew as well as Durand Lassois that Madame Ysabeau, as full of wickedness as Herodias, had delivered up Madame Catherine of France and the Kingdom of the Lilies to the King of England. And henceforth she was almost persuaded to believe that Jeanne was the maid announced by the prophecy.[396]

[Footnote 396: Ibid., p. 447.]

This pious damsel held converse with devout persons and also with men of noble rank. To all alike she said: "I must to the gentle Dauphin. It is the will of Messire, the King of Heaven, that I wend to the gentle Dauphin. I am sent by the King of Heaven. I must go even if I go on my knees."[397]

[Footnote 397: Trial, vol. ii, p. 448.]

Revelations of this nature she made to Messire Aubert, Lord of Ourches. He was a good Frenchman and of the Armagnac party, since four years earlier he had made war against the English and Burgundians. She told him that she must go to the Dauphin, that she demanded to be taken to him, and that to him should redound profit and honour incomparable.

At length through her illuminations and her prophecies, her fame was spread abroad in the town; and her words were found to be good.[398]

[Footnote 398: Quae puella multum bene loquebatur. Trial, vol. ii, p. 450. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. 103.]

In the garrison there was a man-at-arms of about twenty-eight years of age, Jean de Novelompont or Nouillompont, who was commonly called Jean de Metz. By rank a freeman, albeit not of noble estate, he had acquired or inherited the lordship of Nouillompont and Hovecourt, situate in that part of Barrois which was outside the Duke's domain; and he bore its name.[399] Formerly in the pay of Jean de Wals, Captain and Provost of Stenay, he was now, in 1428, in the service of the Commander of Vaucouleurs.

[Footnote 399: Ibid., vol. v, p. 363; Journal du siege, p. 45. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. xcv, cxi, cxxvj. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 204, note. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches, pp. xxv et seq.]

Of his morals and manner of life we know nothing, except that three years before he had sworn a vile oath and been condemned to pay a fine of two sols.[400] Apparently when he took the oath he was in great wrath.[401] He was more or less intimate with Bertrand de Poulengy, who had certainly spoken to him of Jeanne.

[Footnote 400: A sol tournois is the twentieth part of a livre tournois (W.S.).]

[Footnote 401: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cxc, 160, 161.]

One day he met the damsel and said to her: "Well, ma mie, what are you doing here? Must the King be driven from his kingdom and we all turn English?"[402]

[Footnote 402: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 435-457. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches, pp. xxvi, xxvii.]

Such words from a young Lorraine warrior are worthy of notice. The Treaty of Troyes did not subject France to England; it united the two kingdoms. If war continued after as before, it was merely to decide between the two claimants, Charles de Valois and Henry of Lancaster. Whoever gained the victory, nothing would be changed in the laws and customs of France. Yet this poor freebooter of the German Marches imagined none the less that under an English king he would be an Englishman. Many French of all ranks believed the same and could not suffer the thought of being Anglicised; in their minds their own fates depended on the fate of the kingdom and of the Dauphin Charles.

Jeanne answered Jean de Metz: "I came hither to the King's territory to speak with Sire Robert, that he may take me or command me to be taken to the Dauphin; but he heeds neither me nor my words."

Then, with the fixed idea welling up in her heart that her mission must be begun before the middle of Lent: "Notwithstanding, ere mid Lent, I must be before the Dauphin, were I in going to wear my legs to the knees."[403]

[Footnote 403: Trial, vol. ii, p. 436. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 396 et seq.]

A report ran through the towns and villages. It was said that the son of the King of France, the Dauphin Louis, who had just entered his fifth year, had been recently betrothed to the daughter of the King of Scotland, the three-year-old Madame Margaret, and the common people celebrated this royal union with such rejoicings as were possible in a desolated country.[404] Jeanne, when she heard these tidings, said to the man-at-arms: "I must go to the Dauphin, for no one in the world, no king or duke or daughter of the King of Scotland, can restore the realm of France."

[Footnote 404: Trial, vol. ii, p. 436. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cxci.]

Then straightway she added: "In me alone is help, albeit for my part, I would far rather be spinning by my poor mother's side, for this life is not to my liking. But I must go; and so I will, for it is Messire's command that I should go."

She said what she thought. But she did not know herself; she did not know that her Voices were the cries of her own heart, and that she longed to quit the distaff for the sword.

Jean de Metz asked, as Sire Robert had done: "Who is Messire?"

"He is God," she replied.

Then straightway, as if he believed in her, he said with a sudden impulse: "I promise you, and I give you my word of honour, that God helping me I will take you to the King."

He gave her his hand as a sign that he pledged his word and asked: "When will you set forth?"

"This hour," she answered, "is better than to-morrow; to-morrow is better than after to-morrow."

Jean de Metz himself, twenty-seven years later, reported this conversation.[405] If we are to believe him, he asked the damsel in conclusion whether she would travel in her woman's garb. It is easy to imagine what difficulties he would foresee in journeying with a peasant girl clad in a red frock over French roads infested with lecherous fellows, and that he would deem it wiser for her to disguise herself as a boy. She promptly divined his thought and replied: "I will willingly dress as a man."[406]

[Footnote 405: Trial, vol. ii, p. 436.]

[Footnote 406: Ibid., p. 436, 437.]

There is no reason why these things should not have occurred. Only if they did, then a Lorraine freebooter suggested to the saint that idea concerning her dress which later she will think to have received from God.[407]

[Footnote 407: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 161, 176, 332. Journal du siege, p. 45. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 372.]

Of his own accord, or rather, acting by the advice of some wise person, Sire Robert desired to know whether Jeanne was not being inspired by an evil spirit. For the devil is cunning and sometimes assumes the mark of innocence. And as Sire Robert was not learned in such matters, he determined to take counsel with his priest.

Now one day when Catherine and Jeanne were at home spinning, they beheld the Commander coming accompanied by the priest, Messire Jean Fournier. They asked the mistress of the house to withdraw; and when they were left alone with the damsel, Messire Jean Fournier put on his stole and pronounced some Latin words which amounted to saying: "If thou be evil, away with thee; if thou be good, draw nigh."[408]

[Footnote 408: Trial, vol. ii, p. 446.]

It was the ordinary formula of exorcism or, to be more exact, of conjuration. In the opinion of Messire Jean Fournier these words, accompanied by a few drops of holy water, would drive away devils, if there should unhappily be any in the body of this village maiden.

Messire Jean Fournier was convinced that devils were possessed by an uncontrollable desire to enter the bodies of men, and especially of maidens, who sometimes swallowed them with their bread. They dwelt in the mouth under the tongue, in the nostrils, or penetrated down the throat into the stomach. In these various abodes their action was violent; and their presence was discerned by the contortions and howlings of the miserable victims who were possessed.

Pope St. Gregory, in his Dialogues, gives a striking example of the facility with which devils insinuate themselves into women. He tells how a nun, being in the garden, saw a lettuce which she thought looked tender. She plucked it, and, neglecting to bless it by making the sign of the cross, she ate of it and straightway fell possessed. A man of God having drawn near unto her, the demon began to cry out: "It is I! It is I who have done it! I was seated upon that lettuce. This woman came and she swallowed me." But the prayers of the man of God drove him out.[409]

[Footnote 409: Voragine, La legende doree, in the Festival of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.]

The caution required in such a matter was therefore not exaggerated by Messire Jean Fournier. Possessed by the idea that the devil is subtle and woman corrupt, carefully and according to prescribed rules he proceeded to solve a difficult problem. It was generally no easy matter to recognise one possessed by the devil and to distinguish between a demoniac and a good Christian. Very great saints had not been spared the trial to which Jeanne was to be subjected.

Having recited the formula and sprinkled the holy water, Messire Jean Fournier expected, if the damsel were possessed, to see her struggle, writhe, and endeavour to take flight. In such a case he must needs have made use of more powerful formulae, have sprinkled more holy water, and made more signs of the cross, and by such means have driven out the devils until they were seen to depart with a terrible noise and a noxious odour, in the shape of dragons, camels, or fish.[410]

[Footnote 410: Migne, Dictionnaire des sciences occultes, Paris, 2 vols. in large 8vo, under the word Exorcisme.]

There was nothing suspicious in Jeanne's attitude. No wild agitation, no frenzy. Merely anxious and intreating, she dragged herself on her knees towards the priest. She did not flee before God's holy name. Messire Jean Fournier concluded that no devil was within her.

Left alone in the house with Catherine, Jeanne, who now understood the meaning of the ceremony, showed strong resentment towards Messire Jean Fournier. She reproached him with having suspected her: "It was wrong of him," she said to her hostess, "for, having heard my confession, he ought to have known me."[411]

[Footnote 411: Trial, vol. ii, p. 446.]

She would have thanked the priest of Vaucouleurs had she known how he was furthering the fulfilment of her mission by subjecting her to this ordeal. Convinced that this maiden was not inspired by the devil, Sire Robert must have been driven to conclude that she might be inspired by God; for apparently he was a man of simple reasoning. He wrote to the Dauphin Charles concerning the young saint; and doubtless he bore witness to the innocence and goodness he beheld in her.[412]

[Footnote 412: Trial, vol. iii, p. 115. Journal du siege, p. 48. Mirouer des femmes vertueuses in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 267.]

Although it looked as if the Captain would have to resign his command to my Lord de Vergy, Sire Robert did not intend to quit his country where he had dealings with all parties. Indeed he cared little enough about the Dauphin Charles, and it is difficult to see what personal interest he can have had in recommending him a prophetess. Without pretending to discover what was passing in his mind, one may believe that he wrote to the Dauphin on Jeanne's behalf at the request of some of those persons who thought well of her, probably of Bertrand de Poulengy and of Jean de Metz. These two men-at-arms, seeing that the Dauphin's cause was lost in the Lorraine Marches, had every reason for proceeding to the banks of the Loire, where they might still fight with the hope of advantage.

On the eve of setting out, they appeared disposed to take the seeress with them, and even to defray all her expenses, reckoning on repaying themselves from the royal coffers at Chinon, and deriving honour and advantage from so rare a marvel. But they waited to be assured of the Dauphin's consent.[413]

[Footnote 413: Extract from the eighth report of Guillaume Charrier, in the Trial, vol. v, pp. 257 et seq.]

Meanwhile Jeanne could not rest. She came and went from Vaucouleurs to Burey and from Burey to Vaucouleurs. She counted the days; time dragged for her as for a woman with child.[414]

[Footnote 414: Trial, vol. ii, p. 447.]

At the end of January, feeling she could wait no longer, she resolved to go to the Dauphin Charles alone. She clad herself in garments belonging to Durand Lassois, and with this kind cousin set forth on the road to France.[415] A man of Vaucouleurs, one Jacques Alain, accompanied them.[416] Probably these two men expected that the damsel would herself realise the impossibility of such a journey and that they would not go very far. That is what happened. The three travellers had barely journeyed a league from Vaucouleurs, when, near the Chapel of Saint Nicholas, which rises in the valley of Septfonds, in the middle of the great wood of Saulcy, Jeanne changed her mind and said to her comrades that it was not right of her to set out thus. Then they all three returned to the town.[417]

[Footnote 415: Ibid., vol. i, p. 53; vol. ii, pp. 443 et seq.]

[Footnote 416: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 445-447.]

[Footnote 417: Ibid., pp. 447-457.]

At length a royal messenger brought King Charles's reply to the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The messenger was called Colet de Vienne.[418] His name indicates that he came from the province which the Dauphin had governed before the death of the late King, and which had remained unswervingly faithful to the unfortunate prince. The reply was that Sire Robert should send the young saint to Chinon.[419]

[Footnote 418: Ibid., p. 406. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. 160, note 6.]

[Footnote 419: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 314, 315. Anonymous poem on the arrival of the Maid, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 30.]

That which Jeanne had demanded and which it had seemed impossible to obtain was granted. She was to be taken to the King as she had desired and within the time fixed by herself. But this departure, for which she had so ardently longed, was delayed several days by a remarkable incident. The incident shows that the fame of the young prophetess had gone out through Lorraine; and it proves that in those days the great of the land had recourse to saints in their hour of need.

Jeanne was summoned to Nancy by my Lord the Duke of Lorraine. Furnished with a safe-conduct that the Duke had sent her, she set forth in rustic jerkin and hose on a nag given her by Durand Lassois and Jacques Alain. It had cost them twelve francs which Sire Robert repaid them later out of the royal revenue.[420] From Vaucouleurs to Nancy is twenty-four leagues. Jean de Metz accompanied her as far as Toul; Durand Lassois went with her the whole way.[421]

[Footnote 420: Durand Lassois says it cost twelve francs, Jean de Metz, sixteen. "Ce serait aujourd'hui un cheval de cent ecus." It would be a horse worth one hundred crowns to-day (L. Champion, Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere, 1901, p. 55). According to the reckoning of P. Clement, from 400 to 800 francs (Jacques Coeur et Charles VII, 1873, p. lxvi).]

[Footnote 421: Trial, vol. i, pp. 54, 222; vol. ii, pp. 391, 406, 432, 437, 442-450, 456, 457; vol. iii, pp. 87, 115. Extract from the eighth account of Guillaume Charrier and from the thirteenth account of Hemon Raguier, in the Trial, vol. v, pp. 257 et seq.]

Before going to the Duke of Lorraine's palace, Jeanne ascended the valley of the Meurthe and went to worship at the shrine of the great Saint Nicholas, whose relics were preserved in the Benedictine chapel of Saint-Nicholas-du-Port. She did well; for Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of travellers.[422]

[Footnote 422: Et postquam ipsa Johanna fuit in peregrinacio in Sancto Nicolas et exstitit versus dominum ducem Lotharingiae, says Bertrand de Poulengy, Trial, vol. ii, p. 457. Cf. The Evidence of J. Robert, in E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 33, 34. It is impossible to find in the text of the Trial a redundancy such as the evidence of D. Lannois and the woman Le Royer would lead us to expect. A. Renard, Jeanne d'Arc. Examen d'une question de lieu, Orleans, 1861, in 8vo, 16 pages. G. de Braux, Jeanne d'Arc a Saint-Nicolas, Nancy, 1889, in 8vo. De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, 1890, in 8vo, with maps.]

Chapter IV

THE JOURNEY TO NANCY--THE ITINERARY OF VAUCOULEURS--TO SAINTE-CATHERINE-DE-FIERBOIS

By giving his eldest daughter, Isabelle, the heiress of Lorraine, in marriage to Rene, the second son of Madame Yolande, Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, and Duchess of Anjou,[423] Duke Charles II of Lorraine, who was in alliance with the English, had recently done his cousin and friend, the Duke of Burgundy, a bad turn. Rene of Anjou, now in his twentieth year, was a man of culture as much in love with sound learning as with chivalry, and withal kind, affable, and gracious. When not engaged in some military expedition and in wielding the lance he delighted to illuminate manuscripts. He had a taste for flower-decked gardens and stories in tapestry; and like his fair cousin the Duke of Orleans he wrote poems in French.[424] Invested with the duchy of Bar by the Cardinal Duke of Bar, his great-uncle, he would inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of Duke Charles which could not be far off. This marriage was rightly regarded as a clever stroke on the part of Madame Yolande. But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against Rene the Count of Vaudemont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was Rene of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples.[425] It was so called because the cause of war was a basketful of apples which had been brought into the town of Metz without paying duty to the officers of the Duke of Lorraine.[426]

[Footnote 423: Le Pere Anselme, Histoire genealogique de la maison de France, vol. ii, p. 218. Ludovic Drapeyron, Jeanne d'Arc et Philippe le Bon, in Revue de Geographie, November, 1886, p. 236. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. lxvi, cxcix.]

[Footnote 424: Oeuvres du Roi Rene, by Le Comte de Quatrebarbes, Angers, 1845, vol. i, preface, pp. lxxvi et seq. Lecoy de la Marche, Le Roi Rene, sa vie, son administration, ses travaux artistiques et litteraires, Paris, 1875, 2 vols. in 8vo, and Giry, Review in the Revue critique.]

[Footnote 425: La guerre de la hottee de pommes.]

[Footnote 426: Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. ii, col. 695, 703.]

Meanwhile Rene's mother was sending convoys of victuals from Blois to the citizens of Orleans, besieged by the English.[427] Although she was not then on good terms with the counsellors of her son-in-law, King Charles, she was vigilant in opposing the enemies of the kingdom when they threatened her own duchy of Anjou. Rene, Duke of Bar, had therefore ties of kindred, friendship, and interest binding him at the same time to the English and Burgundian party as well as to the party of France. Such was the situation of most of the French nobles. Rene's communications with the Commander of Vaucouleurs were friendly and constant.[428] It is possible that Sire Robert may have told him that he had a damsel at Vaucouleurs who was prophesying concerning the realm of France. It is possible that the Duke of Bar, curious to see her, may have had her sent to Nancy, where he was to be towards the 20th of February. But it is much more likely that Rene of Anjou thought less about the Maid of Vaucouleurs, whom he had never seen, than about the little Moor and the jester who enlivened the ducal palace.[429] In this month of February, 1429, he was neither desirous nor able to concern himself greatly with the affairs of France; and although brother-in-law to King Charles, he was preparing not to succour the town of Orleans, but to besiege the town of Metz.[430]

[Footnote 427: Trial, vol. iii, p. 93.]

[Footnote 428: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cxcvii, clxxxvii, clxxxviii, and 236. The register of the Archives of La Meuse, B. 1051, bears trace of a regular correspondence between the Duke of Bar and Baudricourt.]

[Footnote 429: Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud, in Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, proofs and illustrations, vol. ii, col. cxcix. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cxcvii et seq.]

[Footnote 430: Letter from Jean Desch, Secretary of the town of Metz, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 355. Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. ii, proofs and illustrations, col. cxcix.]

Old and ill, Duke Charles dwelt in his palace with his paramour Alison du Mai, a bastard and a priest's daughter, who had driven out the lawful wife, Dame Marguerite of Bavaria. Dame Marguerite was pious and high-born, but old and ugly, while Madame Alison was pretty. She had borne Duke Charles several children.[431]

[Footnote 431: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cc, note.]

The following story appears the most authentic. There were certain worthy persons at Nancy who wanted Duke Charles to take back his good wife. To persuade him to do so they had recourse to the exhortations of a saint, who had revelations from Heaven, and who called herself the Daughter of God. By these persons the damsel of Domremy was represented to the enfeebled old Duke as being a saint who worked miracles of healing. By their advice he had her summoned in the hope that she possessed secrets which should alleviate his sufferings and keep him alive.

As soon as he saw her he asked whether she could not restore him to his former health and strength.

She replied that "of such things" she knew nothing. But she warned him that his ways were evil, and that he would not be cured until he had amended them. She enjoined upon him to send away Alison, his concubine, and to take back his good wife.[432]

[Footnote 432: Trial, vol. iii, p. 87. Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. iii, proofs and illustrations, col. vj.]

No doubt she had been told to say something of this kind; but it also came from her own heart, for she loathed bad women.

Jeanne had come to the Duke because it was his due, because a little saint must not refuse when a great lord wishes to consult her, and because in short she had been brought to Nancy. But her mind was elsewhere; of nought could she think but of saving the realm of France.

Reflecting that Madame Yolande's son with a goodly company of men-at-arms would be of great aid to the Dauphin, she asked the Duke of Lorraine, as she took her leave, to send this young knight with her into France.

"Give me your son," she said, "with men-at-arms as my escort. In return I will pray to God for your restoration to health."

The Duke did not give her men-at-arms; neither did he give her the Duke of Bar, the heir of Lorraine, the ally of the English, who was nevertheless to join her soon beneath the standard of King Charles. But he gave her four francs and a black horse.[433]

[Footnote 433: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 391, 444.]

Perhaps it was on her return from Nancy that she wrote to her parents asking their pardon for having left them. The fact that they received a letter and forgave is all that is known.[434] One cannot forbear surprise that Jacques d'Arc, all through the month that his daughter was at Vaucouleurs, should have remained quietly at home, when previously, after having merely dreamed of her being with men-at-arms, he had threatened that if his sons did not drown her he would with his own hands. For he must have been aware that at Vaucouleurs she was living with men-at-arms. Knowing her temperament, he had displayed great simplicity in letting her go. One cannot help supposing that those pious persons who believed in Jeanne's goodness, and desired her to be taken into France for the saving of the kingdom, must have undertaken to reassure her father and mother concerning their daughter's manner of life; perhaps they even gave the simple folk to understand that if Jeanne did go to the King her family would derive therefrom honour and advantage.

[Footnote 434: Ibid., vol. i, p. 129.]

Before or after her journey to Nancy (which is not known), certain of the townsfolk of Vaucouleurs who believed in the young prophetess either had made, or purchased for her ready made, a suit of masculine clothing, a jerkin, cloth doublet, hose laced on to the coat, gaiters, spurs, a whole equipment of war. Sire Robert gave her a sword.[435]

[Footnote 435: Trial, vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, pp. 438, 445, 447, 457. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, in the Revue historique, vol. iv, p. 336.]

She had her hair cut round like a boy.[436] Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, with their servants Jean de Honecourt and Julien, were to accompany her as well as the King's messenger, Colet de Vienne, and the bowman Richard.[437] There was still some delay and councils were held, for the soldiers of Antoine de Lorraine, Lord of Joinville, infested the country. Throughout the land there was nothing but pillage, robbery, murder, cruel tyranny, the ravishing of women, the burning of churches and abbeys, and the perpetration of horrible crimes. Those were the hardest times ever known to man.[438] But the damsel was not afraid, and said: "In God's name! take me to the gentle Dauphin, and fear not any trouble or hindrance we may meet."[439]

[Footnote 436: Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, in the Revue historique, ibid.]

[Footnote 437: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 406, 432, 442, 457; vol. iii, p. 209. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. xcv, 143 note 3. G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, Nouvelles recherches, pp. xxix et seq.]

[Footnote 438: Les routiers en Lorraine, in the Journal de la Societe archeologique de Lorraine, 1866, p. 161. Dr. A. Lapierre, La guerre de cent ans dans l'Argonne et le Rethelois, Sedan, 1900, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 439: Journal du siege (interpolation); Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 272 (a document of doubtful authority owing to its hagiographical character).]

At length, on a day in February, so it is said, the little company issued forth from Vaucouleurs by La Porte de France.[440]

[Footnote 440: Trial, vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, p. 437. Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel, vol. i, p. 30. De Boismarmin, Memoire sur la date de l'arrivee de Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon, in the Bulletin du comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1892, pp. 350-359. Ulysse Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 10, note 1. Jeanne had returned to Vaucouleurs about the first Sunday in Lent, the 13th of February, 1429 (Trial, vol. iii, p. 437). Bertrand de Poulengy says that the journey to Chinon (6th March) lasted eleven days, and that sometimes they travelled by night only (ibid.). It is difficult to admit that they started from Vaucouleurs on the 23rd of February, and that about 660 kilometres were traversed in eleven days.]

A few friends who had followed her so far watched her go. Among them were her hosts, Henri Leroyer and Catherine, and Messire Jean Colin, canon of Saint-Nicolas, near Vaucouleurs, to whom Jeanne had confessed several times.[441] They trembled for their saint as they thought of the perils of the way and the length of the journey.

[Footnote 441: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 431, 446.]

"How can you," they asked her, "set forth on such a journey when there are men-at-arms on every hand?" But out of the serene peace of her heart she answered them:

"I do not fear men-at-arms; my way has been made plain before me. If there be men-at-arms my Lord God will make a way for me to go to my Lord Dauphin. For that am I come."[442]

[Footnote 442: Ibid., p. 449.]

Sire Robert was present at her departure. According to the customary formula he took an oath from each of the men-at-arms that they would surely and safely conduct her whom he confided to them. Then, being a man of little faith, he said to Jeanne in lieu of farewell: "Go! and come what may."[443] And the little company went off into the mist, which at that season envelops the meadows of the Meuse.

[Footnote 443: Ibid., vol. i, p. 55.]

They were obliged to avoid frequented roads and to beware especially of passing by Joinville, Montiers-en-Saulx and Sailly, where there were soldiers of the hostile party. Sire Bertrand and Jean de Metz were accustomed to such stealthy expeditions; they knew the byways and were acquainted with useful precautions, such as binding up the horses' feet in linen so as to deaden the sound of hoofs on the ground.[444]

[Footnote 444: De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1891, in 8vo, with maps.]

At nightfall, having escaped all danger, the company approached the right bank of the Marne and reached the Abbey of Saint-Urbain.[445] From time immemorial it had been a place of refuge, and in those days its abbot was Arnoult of Aulnoy, a kinsman of Robert of Baudricourt.[446] The gate of the plain edifice opened for the travellers who passed beneath the groined vaulting of its roof.[447] The abbey included a building set apart for strangers. There they found the resting-place of the first stage of their journey.

[Footnote 445: Trial, vol. i, p. 54.]

[Footnote 446: Jolibois, Dictionnaire historique de la Haute-Marne, p. 492.]

[Footnote 447: De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, loc. cit.]

On the right of the outer door was the abbey church wherein were preserved the relics of Pope Saint Urbain. On the 24th of February, in the morning, Jeanne attended conventual mass there.[448] Then she and her companions took horse again. Crossing the Marne by the bridge opposite Saint-Urbain, they pressed on towards France.

[Footnote 448: Trial, vol. i, pp. 54, 55.]

They had still one hundred and twenty-five leagues to cover and three rivers to cross, in a country infested with brigands. Through fear of the enemy they journeyed by night.[449] When they lay down on the straw the damsel, keeping her hose laced to her coat, slept in her clothes, under a covering, between Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy in whom she felt confidence. They said afterwards that they never desired the damsel because of the holiness they beheld in her;[450] that may or may not be believed.

[Footnote 449: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 437. According to the somewhat improbable testimony of Bertrand de Poulengy. See ante, p. 96, note 6.]

[Footnote 450: Trial, vol. ii, p. 457.]

Jean de Metz was filled with no such ardent faith in the prophetess, since he inquired of her: "Will you really do what you say?"

To which she replied: "Have no fear. I do what I am commanded to do. My brethren in Paradise tell me what I have to do. It is now four or five years since my brethren in Paradise and Messire told me that I must go forth to war to deliver the realm of France."[451]

[Footnote 451: Ibid., pp. 437, 438.]

These rude comrades did not all preserve an attitude of religious respect in her presence. Certain mocked her and diverted themselves by talking before her as if they belonged to the English party. Sometimes, as a joke, they got up a false alarm and pretended to turn back. Their jests were wasted. She believed them, but she was not afraid, and would say gravely to those who thought to frighten her with the English: "Be sure not to flee. I tell you in God's name, they will not harm you."[452]

[Footnote 452: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 199.]

Ever at the approach of danger whether real or feigned, there came to her lips the words of encouragement: "Do not be afraid. You will see how graciously the fair Dauphin will look upon us when we come to Chinon."[453]

[Footnote 453: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 458.]

Her greatest grief was that she could not pray in church as often as she would like. Every day she repeated: "If we could, we should do well to hear mass."[454]

[Footnote 454: Trial, vol. ii, p. 438.]

As they avoided high roads they were not often in the way of bridges; and they were frequently forced to ford rivers in flood. They crossed the Aube, near Bar-sur-Aube, the Seine near Bar-sur-Seine, the Yonne opposite Auxerre, where Jeanne heard mass in the church of Saint-Etienne; then they reached the town of Gien, on the right bank of the Loire.[455]

[Footnote 455: Ibid., vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, p. 437.]

At length these Lorrainers beheld a French town loyal to the King of France. They had travelled seventy-five leagues through the enemy's country without being attacked or molested. Afterwards this was considered miraculous. But was it impossible for seven or eight Armagnac horsemen to traverse English and Burgundian lands without misadventure? The Commander of Vaucouleurs frequently sent letters to the Dauphin which reached him, and the Dauphin was in the habit of despatching messengers to the Commander; Colet de Vienne had just borne his message.[456]

[Footnote 456: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 406, 432, 445, 448, 457.]

In point of fact the followers of the Dauphin ran risks well nigh as great in the provinces under his sway as in lands subject to other masters.[457]

[Footnote 457: Monstrelet, vol. v, p. 269. Th. Basin, vol. i, p. 44. Bueil, Le jouvencel, introduction. Royal Pardons, in E. Boutaric, Institutions militaires de la France avant les armees permanentes.... 1863, in 8vo, p. 266. Recit du prieur de Droillet, ed. Quicherat, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, fourth series, vol. iii, p. 359. Mantellier, Histoire de la communaute des marchands frequentant la riviere de Loire, vol. i, p. 195. Le P. H. Denifle, La desolation des eglises, monasteres, hopitaux en France, vers le milieu du XV'e siecle, Macon, in 8vo.]

Freebooters in the pay of King Charles, when they pillaged travellers and held them to ransom, did not stay to ask whether they were Armagnacs or Burgundians. Indeed, it was after their passage of the Loire that Bertrand de Poulengy and his companions found themselves exposed to the greatest danger.

Informed of their approach, certain men-at-arms of the French party went before and lay in ambush, waiting to surprise them. They intended to capture the damsel, cast her into a pit, and keep her there beneath a great stone, in the hope that the King who had sent for her would give a large sum for her rescue.[458] It was the custom for freebooters and mercenaries thus to cast travellers into pits delivering them on payment of ransom. Eighteen years before, at Corbeil, five men had been kept in a pit on bread and water by Burgundians. Three of them died, being unable to pay the ransom.[459] Such a fate very nearly befell Jeanne. But the wretches who were lying in wait for her, at the moment when they should have struck did nothing, wherefore is unknown, perhaps because they were afraid of not being the stronger.[460]

[Footnote 458: Trial, vol. iii, p. 203.]

[Footnote 459: Abbe J.-J. Bourasse, Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine de Fierboys en Touraine, d'apres un manuscrit de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, Paris, in 12mo, 1858, p. 28.]

[Footnote 460: I have here interwoven the account given by Seguin, Trial, vol. iii, p. 203, with that of Touroulde, Trial, vol. iii, pp. 86, 87. It seems to me the same incident reported summarily by the former, inexactly by the latter.]

From Gien, the little company followed the northern boundary of the duchy of Berry, crossed into Blesois, possibly passed through Selles-sur-Cher and Saint-Aignan, then, having entered Touraine, reached the green slopes of Fierbois.[461] There one of the two heavenly ladies, who daily discoursed familiarly with the peasant girl, had her most famous sanctuary; there it was that Saint Catherine received multitudes of pilgrims and worked great miracles. According to popular belief the origin of her worship in this place was warlike and national and dated back to the beginning of French history. It was known that after his victory over the Saracens at Poitiers Charles Martel had placed his sword in the oratory of the Blessed Catherine.[462] But it must be admitted that since then the sanctuary had long suffered from desertion and neglect. Rather more than forty years before the coming of the damsel from Domremy, its walls in the depths of a wood were overrun by briers and brambles.

[Footnote 461: Trial, vol. i, pp. 56, 75; vol. iii, pp. 3, 21; vol. v, p. 378.]

[Footnote 462: That Saint Catherine was known in the west shortly before the Crusades is possible, but not that her worship should date back to Charles Martel; at any rate it flourished in the days of Jeanne d'Arc. Cf. H. Moranville, Un pelerinage en Terre sainte et au Sinai au XV'e siecle, in the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. lxvi (1905), pp. 70 et seq.]

In those days it was not uncommon for saints of both sexes, if they had suffered from some unjust neglect, to come and complain to some pious person of the wrong being done them on earth. They appeared possibly to a monk, to a peasant or a citizen, denounced the impiety of the faithful in terms urgent and sometimes violent, and commanded him to reinstate their worship and restore their sanctuary. And this is what Madame Saint Catherine did. In the year 1375 she entrusted a knight of the neighbourhood of Fierbois, one Jean Godefroy, who was blind and paralysed, with the restoration of her oratory to its old brilliance and fame, promising to cure him if he would pray for nine days in the place where Charles Martel had put his sword. Jean Godefroy had himself carried to the deserted chapel, but beforehand his servants must perforce hew a way through the thicket with their axes. Madame Saint Catherine restored to Jean Godefroy the use of his eyes and his limbs, and it was by this benefit that she recalled to the people of Touraine the glory they had slighted. The oratory was repaired; the faithful again wended their way thither, and miracles abounded. At first the saint healed the sick; then, when the land was ravaged by war, it was her office more especially to deliver from the hands of the English such prisoners as had recourse to her. Sometimes she rendered captives invisible to their guards; sometimes she broke bonds, chains, and locks; to wit, those of a nobleman by name Cazin du Boys, who in 1418 was taken with the garrison of Beaumont-sur-Oise. Locked in an iron cage, bound with a strong rope on which slept a Burgundian, he thought on Madame Saint Catherine, and dedicated himself to this glorious virgin. Immediately the cage was opened. Sometimes she even constrained the English to unchain their prisoners themselves and set them free without ransom. That was a great miracle. One no less great was worked by her on Perrot Chapon, of Saint-Sauveur, near Luzarches. For a month Perrot had been in bonds in an English prison, when he dedicated himself to Saint Catherine and fell asleep. He awoke, still bound, in his own house.

Generally she helped those who helped themselves. Such was the case of Jean Ducoudray, citizen of Saumur, a prisoner in the castle of Belleme in 1429. He commended his soul devoutly to Saint Catherine, then leapt forth, throttled the guard, climbed the ramparts, dropped the height of two lances, and went out a free man into the country.[463]

[Footnote 463: Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine, passim. G. Launay, Article in Bull. soc. archeol. du Vendomois, 1880, vol. xix, pp. 23-25.]

Perhaps these miracles would have been less frequent had the English been in greater force in France; but their men were few: in Normandy they intrenched themselves in towns, abandoning the open country to soldiers of fortune who ranged the district and captured convoys, thus greatly promoting the intervention of Madame Saint Catherine.[464]

[Footnote 464: G. Lefevre-Pontalis, La guerre des partisans dans la Haute Normandie (1424-1429), in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes (1893-1896).]

The prisoners, who had become her votaries and whom she had delivered, discharged their vows by making the pilgrimage to Fierbois. In her chapel there, they hung the cords and chains with which they had been bound, their armour, and sometimes, in special cases, the armour of the enemy.

This had been done nine months before Jeanne's coming to Fierbois by a certain knight, Jean du Chastel. He had escaped from the hands of a captain, who accused him of having committed treason thereby, alleging that du Chastel had given him his word of honour. Du Chastel on the other hand maintained that he had not sworn, and he challenged the captain to meet him in single combat. The issue of the combat proved right to be on the side of the French knight; for with the aid of Madame Saint Catherine he was victorious. In return he came to Fierbois to offer to his holy protectress the armour of the vanquished Englishman, in the presence of my Lord, the Bastard of Orleans, of Captain La Hire and several other nobles.[465]

[Footnote 465: Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine, passim.]

Jeanne must have delighted to hear tell of such miracles, or others like them, and to see so many weapons hanging from the chapel walls. She must have been well pleased that the saint who visited her at all hours and gave her counsel should so manifestly appear the friend of poor soldiers and peasants cast into bonds, cages and pits, or hanged on trees by the Godons.

She prayed in the chapel and heard two masses.[466]

[Footnote 466: Trial, vol. i, p. 75.]

Chapter V

THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS FROM THE 12TH OF OCTOBER, 1428, TILL THE 6TH OF MARCH, 1429

Since the victory of Verneuil and the conquest of Maine, the English had advanced but little in France and their actual possessions there were becoming less and less secure.[467] If they spared the lands of the Duke of Orleans it was not on account of any scruple. Albeit on the banks of the Loire it was held dishonourable to seize the domains of a noble when he was a prisoner,[468] everything is fair in war. The Regent had not scrupled to seize the duchy of Alencon when its duke was a prisoner.[469] The truth is that by bribes and entreaties the good Duke Charles dissuaded the English from attacking his duchy. From 1424 until 1426 the citizens of Orleans purchased peace by money payments.[470] The Godons, not being in a position to take the field, were all the more ready to enter into such agreements. During the minority of their half English and half French King, the Duke of Gloucester, the brother and deputy of the Regent, and his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of the Kingdom, were tearing out each other's hair, and their disputes were the occasion of bloodshed in the London streets.[471] Towards the end of the year 1425 the Regent returned to England, where he spent seventeen months reconciling uncle and nephew and restoring public peace. By dint of craft and vigour he succeeded so far as to render his fellow countrymen desirous and hopeful of completing the conquest of France. With that object, in 1428, the English Parliament voted subsidies.[472]

[Footnote 467: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 190. Alain Chartier, L'esperance ou consolation des trois vertus, in Oeuvres, p. 271. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 14.]

[Footnote 468: Mistere du siege, line 497.]

[Footnote 469: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 21, 22.]

[Footnote 470: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 255. Chronique de l'etablissement de la fete in the Trial, vol. v, p. 286. Le Maire, Histoire et antiquites de la ville et duche d'Orleans, Orleans, 1645, in 4to, pp. 129 et seq. Lottin, Recherches historiques sur la ville d'Orleans, Orleans, 1836-1845 (7 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, p. 197.]

[Footnote 471: Joseph Stevenson, Letters and Papers, Introduction, vol. i, p. xlvii. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 17.]

[Footnote 472: Rymer, Foedera, vol. iv, part iv, p. 135. Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais dans l'Orleanais, la Beauce chartraine et le Gatinais (1421-1428), Orleans, 1893, in 8vo, original documents, p. 134. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, vol. i, pp. 403 et seq.]

Now the most cunning, the most expert, the most fortunate in arms of all the English captains and princes was Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury and of Perche.[473] He had long waged war in Normandy, in Champagne, and in Maine. At present he was gathering an army in England, intended for the banks of the Loire. He got as many bowmen as he wanted; but of horse and men-at-arms he was disappointed. Only those of low estate were willing to go and fight in a land ravaged by famine.[474] At length the noble earl, the fair cousin of King Henry, crossed the sea with four hundred and forty-nine men-at-arms and two thousand two hundred and fifty archers.[475] In France he found troops recruited by the Regent, four hundred horse of whom two hundred were Norman, with three bowmen to each horseman, according to the English custom.[476] He led his men to Paris where irrevocable resolutions were taken.[477] Hitherto the plan had been to attack Angers; at the last moment it was decided to lay siege to Orleans.[478]

[Footnote 473: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 300.]

[Footnote 474: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise au siege d'Orleans, 1428-1429, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo, pp. 59 et seq.]

[Footnote 475: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 293. Rymer, Foedera, vol. iv, part iv, pp. 132, 135, 138.]

[Footnote 476: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 477: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 294. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, p. lxii.]

[Footnote 478: Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc sous les murs d'Orleans, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo, p. 61. L. Jarry, loc. cit.]

Between la Beauce and la Sologne, at the entrance to the loyal provinces Touraine, Blesois, and Berry, the ducal city confronted the enemy, lying on a bend of the Loire, just as the arrow's point is lodged on the taut bow.[479] Bishopric, university, market of the country far and wide, on its belfries, towers, and steeples it raised proudly towards heaven the cross of Our Lord, the three coeurs de lis of the city and the three fleurs de lis of the dukes. Beneath the high slate roofs of its houses of stone or wood, built along winding streets or dark alleys, Orleans sheltered fifteen thousand souls. There were to be found officers of justice and of the treasury, goldsmiths, druggists, grocers, tanners, butchers, fishmongers, rich citizens as delicate as amber, who loved fine clothes, fine houses, music and dancing; priests, canons, wardens, and fellows of the university; booksellers, scriveners, illuminators, painters, scholars who were not all founts of learning, but who played prettily on the flute; monks of every habit, Black-friars, Grey-friars, Mathurins, Carmelites, Augustinians, and artisans and labourers to boot, smiths, coopers, carpenters, boatmen, fishermen.[480]

[Footnote 479: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 29.]

[Footnote 480: Astesan in Paris et ses historiens, by Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, pp. 528 et seq. Le Maire, Antiquites, ch. xix, pp. 75 et seq. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, in 18mo, pp. 22, 24. E. Fournier, Le Conteur orleanais, p. 111. C. Cuissard, Etude sur la musique dans l'Orleanais, Orleans, 1886, p. 50. Jodocius Sincere, Itirerarium Galliae, Amstelodami, 1655, pp. 24, 25. Paul Charpentier et Cuissard, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, memoire inedite de M. l'Abbe Dubois, Orleans, 1894, in 8vo, p. 129. De Buzonniere, Histoire architecturale de la ville d'Orleans, 1849 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, p. 76.]

Of Roman origin, the form of the town was still the same as in the days of the Emperor Aurelian. The southern side along the Loire and the northern side extended to some three thousand feet. The eastern and western boundaries were only one hundred and fifty feet long. The city was surrounded by walls six feet thick and from eighteen to thirty-three feet high above the moat. These walls were flanked by thirty-four towers, pierced with five gates and two posterns.[481] The following is the description of the situation of these gates, posterns, and towers, with the names of those which became famous during the siege.

[Footnote 481: Jollois, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, Paris, 1833, in 4to, with plans. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 183 et seq.]

Passing from the south east to the south west angle of the wall, were: La Tour Neuve, round and huge, washed by the Loire; three other towers on the river bank; the postern Chesneau, the only one opening on to the water and defended by a portcullis; the tower of La Croiche-Meuffroy, so called from the crook or spur which protruded from the foot of the tower into the river; two other towers washed by the Loire; La Port du Pont, with drawbridge and flanked by two towers; La Tour de l'Abreuvoir; la Tour de Notre-Dame, deriving its name from a chapel built against the city walls; la Tour de la Barre-Flambert, the last on this side, at the south west angle of the ramparts and commanding the river. All along the Loire the walls had a stone parapet with machicolated battlements, whence pavingstones could be thrown, and whence, when attempts were made to scale the walls, the enemy's ladders could be hurled down. The distance between the towers was about a bow-shot.

On the western side were first three towers, then two gate towers called Regnard or Renard from the name of citizens to whom had once belonged the adjoining palace, where in 1428 dwelt Jacques Boucher, Treasurer of the Duke of Orleans. Then came another tower and lastly La Porte Bernier or Bannier, at the north west angle of the ramparts. On this side the walls had been constructed in the days of the cross-bow, which shot a greater distance than the bow. The towers here, therefore, were farther apart at the distance of a cross-bow shot one from the other, and the walls were lower than elsewhere. On the northern side, looking towards the forest, were ten towers at a bow-shot's interval. The second, that of Saint-Samson, was used as an arsenal. The sixth and seventh flanked the Paris Gate.

On the eastern side were likewise ten towers at the same distance one from the other as those on the north. The fifth and sixth were those of the Burgundian Gate, also called the Gate of Saint-Aignan, because it was close to the church of Saint-Aignan without the walls; the last was the great corner tower, called La Tour Neuve, which thus comes to have been twice counted.

The stone bridge lined with houses which led from the town to the left bank of the Loire was famous all over the world. It had nineteen arches of varying breadth. The first, on leaving the town by La Porte du Pont, was called l'Allouee or Pont Jacquemin-Rousselet; here was a drawbridge. The fifth arch abutted on an island which was long, narrow, and in the form of a boat, like all river islands. Above the bridge it was called Motte-Saint-Antoine, from a chapel built upon it dedicated to that saint; and below, Motte-des-Poissonniers, because in order to keep captured fish alive boats with holes in them were moored to it. In 1447, to provide against the occupation of this island by the enemy, the people of Orleans had constructed a tower, the tower or fortress of Saint-Antoine, beyond the sixth arch and occupying the whole breadth of the bridge. On the buttress between the eleventh and twelfth arch was a cross of gilded bronze, supported by a pedestal of stone. It was indeed what it was called, the Cross Beautiful,--La Belle-Croix. The buttresses of the eighteenth arch were extended, and on the abutment there rose a little castle formed of two towers joined by a vaulted porch. This little castle was called Les Tourelles. Between the nineteenth and the twentieth arch as in the first was a drawbridge. Outside it was Le Portereau; and thence ran the road to Toulouse, which beyond the Loiret on the heights of Olivet joined the road to Blois.[482]

[Footnote 482: Jollois, Lettre a Messieurs les membres de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, sur l'emplacement du fort des Tourelles de l'ancien pont d'Orleans, Paris, 1834, in folio with illustrations. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, dissertation, v. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 15-18. Vergniaud Romagnesi, Des differentes enceintes de la ville d'Orleans, pp. 17-19. A. Collin, Le Pont des Tourelles a Orleans, Orleans, 1895, in 8vo. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 13, note 2.]

In those days the lazy waters of the Loire flowed midst osier-beds and birchen thickets, since removed for purposes of navigation. Two and a half miles east of Orleans, on the height of Checy, l'Ile aux Bourdons was separated from the Sologne bank by a thin arm of the river and by a narrow channel from l'Ile Charlemagne and l'Ile-aux-Boeufs, with their green grass and underwood facing Combleux on the La Beauce bank. A boat dropping down the river would next come to the two islands Saint-Loup, and, doubling La Tour Neuve, would glide between the two Martinet Islets on the right and l'Ile-aux-Toiles on the left. Thence it would pass under the bridge which overspanned, as we have seen, an island called above bridge Motte-Saint-Antoine and below, Motte-des-Poissonniers. At length, below the ramparts, opposite Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, it would come to two islets Biche-d'Orge and another, the name of which is unknown, possibly it was nameless.[483]

[Footnote 483: For some unknown reason modern historians have named the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent l'Ile Charlemagne, which causes it to be confused with the Ile Charlemagne lying to the East of l'Ile-aux-Boeufs. On the accompanying plan we indicate the little island just below Biche-d'Orge by the name of Petite Ile Charlemagne. Jollois, Histoire du siege, engraving 1. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 193, 199. Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 16. Manuscript of M. A. Cagnieul, librarian at Orleans.]

The suburbs of Orleans were the finest in the kingdom. On the south the fishermen's suburb of Le Portereau, with its Augustinian church and monastery, extended along the river at the foot of the vineyards of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which produced the best wine in the country.[484] Above, on the gentle slopes ascending to the bleak plateau of Sologne, the Loiret, with its torrential springs, its limpid waters, its shady banks, the gardens and the brooks of Olivet, smiled beneath a mild and showery sky.

[Footnote 484: Symphorien Guyon, Histoire de l'eglise et diocese d'Orleans, Orleans, 1647, vol. i, preface. Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 36.]

The faubourg of the Burgundian gate stretching eastwards was the best built and the most populous. There were the wonderful churches of Saint-Michel and of Saint-Aignan. The cloister of the latter was held to be marvellous.[485] Leaving this suburb and passing by the vineyards along the sandy branch of the Loire extending between the bank of the river and l'Ile-aux-Boeufs about a quarter of a league further on, one comes to the steep slope of Saint-Loup; and, advancing still further towards the east, the belfries of Saint-Jean-de-Bray, Combleux and Checy may be seen rising one beyond the other between the river and the Roman road from Autun to Paris. On the north of the city were fine monasteries and beautiful churches, the chapel of Saint-Ladre, in the cemetery; the Jacobins, the Cordeliers, the church of Saint-Pierre-Ensentelee. Directly north, the faubourg of La Porte Bernier lay along the Paris road, and close by there stretched the sombre city of the wolves, the deep forest of oaks, horn-beams, beeches, and willows, wherein were hidden, like wood-cutters and charcoal-burners, the villages of Fleury and Samoy.[486]

[Footnote 485: Journal du siege, pp. 13, 15. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 270. Hubert, Antiquites historiques de l'eglise royale d'Orleans, Orleans, 1661, in 8vo. Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 284. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 133, 205, 277, passim. Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 21. H. Baraude, Le siege d'Orleans et Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1906, pp. 10 et seq.]

[Footnote 486: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 43.]

Towards the west the faubourg of La Porte Renard stretched out into the fields along the road to Chateaudun, and the hamlet of Saint-Laurent along the road to Blois.[487]

[Footnote 487: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 296. Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, le ravitaillement d'Orleans, nouveaux documents, Orleans, 1874, in large 8vo, with topographical plan: Orleans, la Loire et ses iles en 1429.]

These faubourgs were so populous and so extensive that when, on the approach of the English, the people from the suburbs took refuge within the city the number of its inhabitants was doubled.[488]

[Footnote 488: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 391, 399. Jollois, Histoire du siege, pp. 41, 44. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, Orleans, 1867, in 8vo, p. 24. Lottin, Recherches sur Orleans, vol. i, p. 141.]

The inhabitants of Orleans were resolved to fight, not for their honour indeed; in those days no honour redounded to a citizen from the defence of his own city; his only reward was the risk of terrible danger. When the town was captured the great and wealthy had but to pay ransom and the conqueror entertained them well; the lesser and poorer nobility ran greater risks. In this year, 1428, the knights, who defended Melun and surrendered after having eaten their horses and their dogs, were drowned in the Seine. "Nobility was worth nothing," ran a Burgundian song.[489]

[Footnote 489: Le Roux de Lincy, Chants historiques et populaires du temps de Charles VII, Paris, 1862, in 18mo, p. 28.]

But generally being of noble birth saved one's life. As for those burghers brave enough to defend themselves, they were likely to perish. There were no fixed rules with regard to them; sometimes several were hanged; sometimes only one, sometimes all. It was also lawful to cut off their heads or to throw them into the water, sewn in a sack. In that same year, 1428, Captains La Hire and Poton had failed in their assault on Le Mans and decamped just in time. The citizens who had aided them were beheaded in the square du Cloitre-Saint-Julien, on the Olet stone, by order of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had already arrived at Olivet, and of John Talbot, the most courteous of English knights, who was shortly to come there too.[490] Such an example was sufficient to warn the people of Orleans.

[Footnote 490: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 225, 226. Geste des nobles, p. 202. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 251. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 59. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 107, 112.]

Notwithstanding that it was under the control of the Governor, the town administered its own affairs by means of twelve magistrates elected for two years by the citizens, subject to the governor's approbation.[491] These magistrates risked more than the other citizens. One of them, as he passed the monastery of Saint-Sulpice, where was the place of execution, might well reflect that before the year was out he might have justice executed on him there for having defended his lord's inheritance. Yet the twelve were resolved to defend this inheritance; and they acted for the common weal with promptness and with wisdom.

[Footnote 491: Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 164, 171. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 25.]

The people of Orleans were not taken by surprise. Their fathers had watched the English closely, and put their city in a state of defence. They themselves, in the year 1425, had so firmly expected a siege that they had collected arms in the Tower of Saint-Samson, while all, rich and poor alike, had been required to dig dykes and build ramparts.[492] War has always been costly. They devoted three quarters of the yearly revenue of the town to keeping up the ramparts and other preparations for war. Hearing of the approach of the Earl of Salisbury, with marvellous energy they prepared to receive him.

[Footnote 492: The Monk of Dunfermline, in Trial, vol. v, p. 341. Le Maire, Antiquites, pp. 283 et seq. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 160, 161.]

The walls, except those along the river, were devoid of breastwork; but in the shops were stakes and cross-beams intended for the manufacture of balustrades. These were put up on the fortifications to form parapets, with barbicans of a pent-house shape so as to provide with cover the defenders firing from the walls.[493] At the entrance to each suburb wooden barriers were erected, with a lodge for the porter whose duty it was to open and shut them. On the tops of the ramparts and in the towers were seventy-one pieces of artillery, including cannons and mortars, without counting culverins. The quarry of Montmaillard, three leagues from the town, produced stones which were made into cannon balls. At great expense there were brought into the city lead, powder, and sulphur which the women prepared for use in the cannons and culverins. Every day there were manufactured in thousands, arrows, darts, stacks of bolts,[494] armed with iron points and feathered with parchment, numbers of pavas, great shields made of pieces of wood mortised one into the other and covered with leather. Corn, wine, and cattle were purchased in great quantities both for the inhabitants and the men-at-arms, the King's men, and adventurers who were expected.[495]

[Footnote 493: Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 6. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 202-205.]

[Footnote 494: An arrow shot from the long-bow, the feathers of the arrow were spirally arranged to produce a spinning movement in its flight (W.S.).]

[Footnote 495: The accounts of the fortresses, in Journal du siege, pp. 301 et seq. Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 12. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, pp. 15-17. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses faites par Charles VII pour secourir Orleans pendant le siege de 1428, Orleans, 1868, in 8vo, p. 113. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, p. 81.]

By a jealously guarded privilege the inhabitants had the right of defending the ramparts. According to their trades they were divided into as many companies as there were towers. Thus defending themselves they had the right to refuse to admit any garrison within the walls. They held to this right because it delivered them from the pillage, the rapine, the burnings and constant molestations inflicted by the King's men. But now they were eager to renounce it; for they realised that alone with only the town bands and those from the neighbouring villages, mere peasants, they could not sustain the siege; to resist the enemy they must have horsemen, skilled in wielding the lance, and foot, skilled in the use of the cross-bow. While their Governor the Sire de Gaucourt and my Lord, the Bastard of Orleans, the King's Lieutenant General, went to Chinon and Poitiers to obtain supplies of men and money[496] from the King, the citizens in commissions of two and two went forth asking help of the towns, travelling as far as Bourbonnais and Languedoc.[497] The magistrates appealed to those soldiers of fortune who held the neighbouring country for the King of France. By the mouths of the two heralds of the city, Orleans and Coeur-de-Lis, they proclaimed that within the city walls were gold and silver in abundance and such good provision of victuals and arms as would nourish and accoutre two thousand combatants for two years, and that every gentle, honest knight who would might share in the defence of the city and wage battle to the death.[498]

[Footnote 496: Accounts of Hemon Raguier, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 7858, fol. 41. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses, p. 65. Pallet, Nouvelle histoire du Berry, vol. iii, pp. 78-80. Vallet de Viriville, in Bulletin de la Societe d'histoire de France. Cabinet historique, vol. v, part ii, p. 107. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 15.]

[Footnote 497: A. Thomas, Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse, in Annales du Midi, April, 1889, p. 232. M. Boudet, Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour, pp. 18, 19. A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, p. 61.]

[Footnote 498: The monk of Dunfermline in the Trial, vol. v, p. 341.]

The inhabitants of Orleans feared God. In those days God was greatly to be feared; he was almost as terrible as in the days of the Philistines. The poor fisher folk were afraid of being repulsed if they addressed him in their affliction; they thought it better to take a roundabout road and to seek the intercession of Our Lady and the saints. God respected his Mother and sought to please her on every occasion. Likewise he deferred to the wishes of the Blessed, seated on his right hand and on his left in Paradise, and he inclined his ear to listen to the petitions they presented to him. Thus in cases of dire necessity it was customary to solicit the favour of the saints by presenting prayers and offerings. Then also did the citizens of Orleans remember Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan, the patrons of their town. In very ancient days Saint Euverte had sat upon that episcopal seat, now, in 1428, occupied by a Scot. Messire Jean de Saint Michel, and Saint Euverte had shone with all the glory of apostolic virtue.[499] His successor, Saint-Aignan had prayed to God. He had regarded the city in a peril like unto that of which it was now in danger.

[Footnote 499: Journal du siege, p. 51. Chronique de la fete in the Trial, vol. v, p. 296. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 27-31.]

The following is his story as it was known to the people of Orleans. When still young, Saint-Aignan had withdrawn to a solitary place near Orleans. There Saint Euverte, at that time bishop of the city, discovered him. He ordained him priest, appointed him Abbot of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, and elected him to succeed him in the government of the faithful. And when Saint Euverte had passed from this life to the other, the blessed Aignan, with the consent of the people of Orleans, was proclaimed bishop by the voice of a little child. For God, who is praised out of the mouths of babes, permitted one of them, borne in his swaddling clothes to the altar, to speak and say: "Aignan, Aignan is chosen of God to be bishop of this town." Now in the sixtieth year of his pontificate, the Huns invaded Gaul, led by their King Attila, who boasted that wherever he went the stars fell and the earth trembled beneath him, that he was the hammer of the world, stellas pre se cadere, terram tremere, se malleum esse universi orbis. Every town on his march had been destroyed by him, and now he was advancing against Orleans. Then the blessed Aignan went forth into the city of Arles, to the Patrician Aetius, who commanded the Roman army, and implored his aid in so great a peril. Having obtained of the Patrician promise of succour, Aignan returned to his episcopal see, which he found surrounded by barbarian warriors. The Huns, having made breaches in the walls, were preparing an assault. The blessed saint went up on to the ramparts, knelt and prayed, and then, having prayed, spat upon the enemy. By God's will that drop of his saliva was followed by all the raindrops in the sky. A tempest arose: the rain fell in such torrents on the barbarians that their camp was flooded; their tents were overturned by the power of the winds, and many among them perished by lightning. The rain lasted for three days, after which time Attila assailed the ramparts with powerful engines of war. When they saw the walls fall down the inhabitants were terrified. All hope of resistance being at an end, the holy bishop, clad in his episcopal robes, went to the King of the Huns and adjured him to take pity on the people of Orleans, threatening him with the wrath of God if he dealt hardly with the conquered. These prayers and these threats did not soften Attila's heart. On his return to the faithful, the bishop warned them that henceforth nothing remained to them but trust in God; divine succour, however, would not fail them. And soon, according to the promise he had given them, God delivered the town by means of the Romans and the Franks, who defied the Huns in a great battle. Not long after the miraculous deliverance of his beloved city, Saint Aignan fell asleep in the Lord.[500]

[Footnote 500: Hubert, Antiquitez historiques de l'eglise royale de Saint-Aignan d'Orleans, 1661, in 8vo, pp. 1-15.]

Wherefore, in this great peril of the English, the citizens of Orleans resorted to Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan for succour and relief. According to the marvels accomplished by Saint-Aignan in this mortal life they measured his power of working miracles now that he was in Paradise. These two confessors had each his church in the faubourg de Bourgogne, wherein their bodies were jealously guarded.[501] In those days the bones of martyrs and confessors were devoutly worshipped. It was said that sometimes they shed abroad a healing odour which represented the virtues proceeding from them. They were enclosed in gilded reliquaries adorned with precious stones, and no miracle was thought too great to be accomplished by these holy relics. On the 6th of August, 1428, the clergy of the city went to the church wherein was the reliquary of Saint Euverte and bore it round the walls, that they might be strengthened. And the holy reliquary made the round of the whole city, followed by all the people. On the 8th of September a tortis weighing one hundred and ten livres[502] was offered to Saint-Aignan. In time of need the favour of the saints was solicited by all kinds of gifts, garments, jewels, coins, houses, lands, woods, ponds; but natural wax was thought to be especially grateful to them. A tortis was a wheel of wax on which candles were placed and two escutcheons bearing the arms of the city.[503]

[Footnote 501: Trial, vol. iii, p. 32. Journal du siege, p. 14. Hubert, loc. cit., chs. iii, iv. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 82, 83.]

[Footnote 502: A livre varied in weight from province to province; generally it was about seventeen ounces (W.S.).]

[Footnote 503: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 285. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 16.]

Thus did the people of Orleans strive to provision and protect their town.

Adventurers from all parts responded to the magistrates' appeal. The first to hasten to the city were: Messire Archambaud de Villars, Governor of Montargis; Guillaume de Chaumont, Lord of Guitry; Messire Pierre de la Chapelle, a baron of La Beauce; Raimond Arnaud de Corraze, knight of Bearn; Don Matthias of Aragon; Jean de Saintrailles and Poton de Saintrailles. The Abbot of Cerquenceaux, sometime student at the University of Orleans, arrived at the head of a band of followers.[504] Thus the number of friends who entered the city was well-nigh as great as that of the expected foe. The defenders were paid; they were furnished with bread, meat, fish, forage in plenty, and casks of wine were broached for them. In the beginning the inhabitants treated them like their own children. The citizens all contributed to the entertainment of the strangers, and gave them what they had. But this concord did not long endure. Whatever tradition alleges as to the friendly relations subsisting between the citizens and their military guests,[505] affairs in Orleans were in truth not different from what they were in other besieged towns; before long the inhabitants began to complain of the garrison.

[Footnote 504: Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 257, 258. Journal du siege, pp. 6, 7. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 204. J. Devaux, Le Gatinais au temps de Jeanne d'Arc, in Ann. Soc. hist. et arch. du Gatinais, vol. v, 1887, p. 220.]

[Footnote 505: Journal du siege, p. 92.]

On the 5th of September the Earl of Salisbury reached Janville, having taken with ease towns, fortified churches or castles to the number of forty. But that was not his greatest achievement; for, although he had left but few men in each place, he had by that means rid himself on the march of that portion of his army which had already shown itself ready to drop away.[506]

[Footnote 506: Geste des Nobles, p. 204. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 256. Letter from Salisbury to the Commons of London, in Delpit, Collection de documents francais qui se trouvent en Angleterre, pp. 236, 237. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 79-89.]

From Janville he sent two heralds to Orleans to summon the inhabitants to surrender. The magistrates lodged these heralds honourably in the faubourg Bannier, at the Hotel de la Pomme and confided to them a present of wine for the Earl of Salisbury; they knew their duty to so great a prince. But they refused to open their gates to the English garrison, alleging, doubtless, as was the custom of citizens in those days, that they were not able to open them, having those within who were stronger than they.[507]

[Footnote 507: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 11. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, p. 82. Boucher de Molandon, Les comptes de ville d'Orleans des quatorzieme et quinzieme siecles, Orleans, 1880, in 8vo, pp. 91 et seq.]

Now that the danger was drawing near, on the 6th of October, priests, burgesses, notables, merchants, mechanics, women and children walked in solemn procession with crosses and banners, singing psalms and invoking the heavenly guardians of the city.[508]

[Footnote 508: Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 205. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 17.]

On Tuesday, the 12th of this month, at the news that the enemy was coming through Sologne, the magistrates sent soldiers to pull down the houses of Le Portereau, the suburb on the left bank, also the Augustinian church and monastery of that suburb, as well as all other buildings in which the enemy might lodge or entrench himself. But the soldiers were taken by surprise. That very day the English occupied Olivet and appeared in Le Portereau.[509] With them were the victors of Verneuil, the flower of English knighthood: Thomas, Lord of Scales and of Nucelles, Governor of Pontorson, whom the King of England called cousin; William Neville; Baron Falconbridge; William Gethyn, a Welsh knight, Bailie of Evreux; Lord Richard Gray, nephew of the Earl of Salisbury; Gilbert Halsall, Richard Panyngel, Thomas Guerard, knights, and many others of great renown.

[Footnote 509: Journal du siege, p. 4.]

Over the two hundred lances from Normandy there floated the standards of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and of John Pole, two brothers descended from a comrade-in-arms of Duke William; of Thomas Rampston, knight banneret, the Regent's chamberlain; of Richard Walter, squire, Governor of Conches, Bailie and Captain of Evreux; of William Mollins, knight; of William Glasdale, whom the French called Glacidas, squire, Bailie of Alencon, a man of humble birth.[510]

[Footnote 510: Journal du siege, pp. 2-4. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, p. 129.]

The archers were all on horseback. There were practically no foot-soldiers. In carts drawn by oxen were barrels of powder, cross-bows, arrows, cannon-balls, and guns of all kinds, muskets, fowling-pieces, and large cannon. The two English master-gunners, Philibert de Moslant and William Appleby, accompanied the troops. There were also two masters of mining with thirty-eight workmen. Of women there were not a few, some of them acting as spies.[511]

[Footnote 511: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 26, 28, 29. Boucher de Molandon and de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 50 et seq. Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, Campagne des anglais, ch. iv, pp. 39, 53; Accounts of the siege, nos. 30, 31, p. 214. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 205.]

When the army arrived it was greatly diminished by desertions, having shed runaways at each victory. Some returned to England, others roamed through the realm of France robbing and plundering. That very 12th of October orders had been despatched from Rouen to the Bailies and Governors of Normandy to arrest those English who had departed from the company of my Lord, the Earl of Salisbury.[512]

[Footnote 512: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, p. 61.]

The fort of Les Tourelles and its outworks barred the entrance to the bridge. The English established themselves in Le Portereau, placed their cannon and their mortars on the rising ground of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc,[513] and, on the following Sunday, they hurled down upon the city a shower of stone cannon-balls, which did great damage to the houses, but killed no one save a woman of Orleans, named Belles, who dwelt near the Chesneau postern on the river bank. Thus the siege, which was to be ended by a woman's victory, began with a woman's death.

[Footnote 513: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 258. Jean Chartier, Chronique, p. 66. Jean Raoulet in Chartier, Chronique, vol. iii, p. 198. Journal du siege, pp. 1, 2. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 246. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 27. H. Baraude, Le siege d'Orleans et Jeanne d'Arc, p. 31.]

That same week the English cannon destroyed twelve water mills near La Tour Neuve. Whereupon the people of Orleans constructed within the city eleven mills worked by horses,[514] in order that there might be no lack of flour. There were a few skirmishes at the bridge. Then on Thursday, the 21st of October, the English attempted to storm the outworks of Les Tourelles. The little band of adventurers in the service of the town and the city troops made a gallant defence. The women helped; throughout the four hours that the assault lasted long lines of gossips might be seen hurrying to the bridge, bearing their pots and pans filled with burning coals and boiling oil and fat, frantic with joy at the idea of scalding the Godons.[515] The attack was repulsed; but two days later the French perceived that the outworks were undermined; the English had dug subterranean passages, to the props of which they had afterwards set fire. The outworks having become untenable in the opinion of the soldiers, they were destroyed and abandoned. It was deemed impossible to defend Les Tourelles thus dismantled. Those towers which would once have arrested an army's progress for a whole month were now useless against cannon. In front of La Belle Croix the townsfolk erected a rampart of earth and wood. Beyond this outwork two arches of the bridge were cut and replaced by a movable platform. And when this was done, the fort of Les Tourelles was abandoned to the English with no great regret. The latter set up a rampart of earth and faggots on the bridge, breaking two of its arches, one in front, the other behind their earthwork.[516]

[Footnote 514: Journal du siege, p. 4.]

[Footnote 515: Ibid., pp. 7-8. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 208, 210.]

[Footnote 516: Journal du siege, pp. 5-8.]

On the Sunday, towards evening, a few hours after the flag of St. George had been planted on the fort, the Earl of Salisbury, with William Glasdale and several captains, went up one of the towers to observe the lie of the city. Looking from a window he beheld the walls armed with cannon; the towers vanishing into pinnacles or with terraces on their flat roofs; the battlements dry and grey; the suburbs adorned for a few days longer with the fine stone-work of their churches and monasteries; the vineyards and the woods yellow with autumn tints; the Loire and its oval-shaped islands,--all slumbering in the evening calm. He was looking for the weak point in the ramparts, the place where he might make a breach and put up his scaling ladders. For his plan was to take Orleans by assault. William Glasdale said to him, "My Lord, look well at your city. You have a good bird's-eye view of it from here."

At this moment a cannon-ball breaks off a corner of the window recess, a stone from the wall strikes Salisbury, carrying away one eye and one side of his face. The shot had been fired from La Tour Notre-Dame. That at least was generally believed. It was never known who had fired it. A townsman, alarmed by the noise, hastened to the spot, saw a child coming out of the tower and the cannon deserted. It was thought that the hand of an innocent child had fired the bullet by the permission of the Mother of God, who had been irritated by the Earl of Salisbury's despoiling monks and pillaging the Church of Notre Dame de Clery. It was said also that he was punished for having broken his oath, for he had promised the Duke of Orleans to respect his lands and his towns. Borne secretly to Meung-sur-Loire, he died there on Wednesday the 27th of October; and the English were very sorrowful.[517] Most of them felt that loss to be irreparable which had deprived them of a chief who was conducting the siege vigorously, and who in less than twelve days had captured Les Tourelles, the very corner-stone of the city's defence. But there were others who reflected that he must have been very simple to imagine that thick ramparts could be overthrown by stone balls, the force of which had already been spent in crossing the wide stretches of the river, and that he must have been mad to attempt to storm a city which could only be reduced by famine. Then they thought: "He is dead. God receive his soul! But he has brought us into a sorry plight."

[Footnote 517: Journal du siege, pp. 10, 12. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 264. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 298. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 63. Mistere d'Orleans, line 3104 et seq. Chronique de la fete in Trial, vol. v, p. 288. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 131. Lorenzo Buonincontro in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. xxi, col. 136. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 85, 86.]

Men told how Maitre Jean de Builhons, a famous astrologer, had prophesied this death,[518] and how in the night before the fatal day, the Earl of Salisbury himself had dreamed that he was being clawed by a wolf. A Norman clerk composed two songs on this sad death, one against the English, the other for them. The first, which is the better, closes with a couplet, worthy in its profound wisdom of King Solomon himself:[519]

Certes le duc de Bedefort Se sage est, il se tendra Avec sa femme en ung fort, Chaudement le mieulx[520] que il porra, De bon ypocras finera, Garde son corps, lesse la guerre: Povre et riche porrist en terre.[521]

[Footnote 518: Trial, vol. iv, p. 345. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 263. Journal du siege, p. 10. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 32.]

[Footnote 519: L. Jarry, Deux chansons normandes, Orleans, 1894, in 8vo, p. 11.]

[Footnote 520: The text published by M. Jarry has mielux.]

[Footnote 521: Certes that wise man the Duke of Bedford, will keep himself in a fortress with his wife as snug as may be. He will drink good hypocras (a kind of wine). He looks after himself, leaves warfare and the poor and rich to rot in the ground.]

The day after the taking of Les Tourelles and when its loss had been remedied as best might be, the King's lieutenant-general entered the town. He was le Seigneur Jean, Count of Porcien and of Montaing, Grand Chamberlain of France, son of Duke Louis of Orleans, who had been assassinated in 1407 by order of Jean-Sans-Peur, and whose death had armed the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Dame de Cany was his mother, but he ought to have been the son of the Duchess of Orleans since the Duke was his father. Not only was it no drawback to children to be born outside wedlock and of an adulterous union, but it was a great honor to be called the bastard of a prince. There have never been so many bastards as during these wars, and the saying ran: "Children are like corn: sow stolen wheat and it will sprout as well as any other."[522] The Bastard of Orleans was then twenty-six at the most. The year before, with a small company, he had hastened to revictual the inhabitants of Montargis, who were besieged by the Earl of Warwick. He had not only revictualled the town; but with the help of Captain La Hire had driven away the besiegers. This augured well for Orleans.[523] The Bastard was the cleverest baron of his day. He knew grammar and astrology, and spoke more correctly than any one.[524] In his affability and intelligence he resembled his father, but he was more cautious and more temperate. His amiability, his courtesy and his discretion caused it to be said that he was in favour with all the ladies, even with the Queen.[525] In everything he was apt, in war as well as in diplomacy, marvellously adroit, and a consummate dissembler.

[Footnote 522: Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 25; vol. ii, p. 389.]

[Footnote 523: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 273, 274. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 243, 247. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 54. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 221. Cronique Martiniane, p. 7.]

[Footnote 524: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. ii, p. 105.]

[Footnote 525: Mathieu d'Escouchy, Chronique, ed. Beaucourt, Paris, 1863, vol. i, p. 186. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 236.]

My Lord the Bastard brought in his train several knights, captains, and squires of renown, that is to say, of high birth or of great valour: the Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes, Seneschal of Bourbonnais, the Lord of Chaumont, Messire Theaulde of Valpergue, a Lombard knight, Captain La Hire, wondrous in war and in pillage, who had lately done so well in the relief of Montargis, and Jean, Sire de Bueil, one of those youths who had come to the King on a lame horse and who had taken lessons from two wise women, Suffering and Poverty. These knights came with a company of eight hundred men, archers, arbalesters, and Italian foot, bearing broad shields like those of St. George in the churches of Venice and Florence. They represented all the nobles and free-lances who for the moment could be gathered together.[526]

[Footnote 526: Journal du siege, pp. 10, 12. Cronique Martiniane, p. 8. Le jouvencel, p. 277. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses, pp. 90, 91.]

After the death of its chief, Salisbury's army was paralysed by disunion and diminished by desertions. Winter was coming: the captains, seeing there was nothing to be done for the present, broke up their camp, and, with such men as remained to them, went off to shelter behind the walls of Meung and Jargeau.[527] On the evening of the 8th of November all that remained before the city was the garrison of Les Tourelles, consisting of five hundred Norman horse, commanded by William Molyns and William Glasdale. The French might besiege and take them: they would not budge. The Governor, the old Sire de Gaucourt, had just fallen on the pavement in La Rue des Hotelleries and broken his arm; he couldn't move.[528] But what about the rest of the defenders?

[Footnote 527: Journal du siege, pp. 12, 13. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 245. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 92, 111. Jean de Bueil, Le jouvencel, passim.]

[Footnote 528: Journal du siege, p. 7.]

The truth is, no one knew what to do. These warriors were doubtless acquainted with many measures for the succour of a besieged town, but they were all measures of surprise.[529] Their only devices were sallies, ambuscades, skirmishes, and other such valiant feats of arms. Should they fail in raising a siege by surprise, then they remained inactive,--at the end of their ideas and of their resources. Their most experienced captains were incapable of any common effort,--of any concerted action, of any enterprise in short, requiring a continuous mental effort and the subordination of all to one. Each was for his own hand and thought of nothing but booty. The defence of Orleans was altogether beyond their intelligence.

[Footnote 529: Le jouvencel, vol. i, p. 142.]

For twenty-one days Captain Glasdale remained entrenched, with his five hundred Norman horse, under the battered walls of Les Tourelles, between his earthworks on Le Portereau side, which couldn't have become very formidable as yet, and his barrier on the bridge, which being but wood, a spark could easily have set on fire.

Meanwhile the citizens were at work. After the departure of the English they performed a huge and arduous task. Concluding, and rightly, that the enemy would return not through La Sologne this time, but through La Beauce, they destroyed all their suburbs on the west, north, and east, as they had already destroyed or begun to destroy Le Portereau. They burned and pulled down twenty-two churches and monasteries, among others the church of Saint-Aignan and its monastery, so beautiful that it was a pity to see it spoiled, the church of Saint Euverte, the church of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, not without promising the blessed patrons of the town that when they should have delivered the city from the English, the citizens would build them new and more beautiful churches.[530]

[Footnote 530: Journal du siege, p. 19. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 270. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 61. Le P. Denifle, La desolation des eglises de France, petition C.]

On the 30th of November Captain Glasdale beheld Sir John Talbot approaching Les Tourelles. He brought three hundred men furnished with cannon, mortars, and other engines of war. Thenceforward the bombardment was resumed more violently than before: roofs were broken through, walls were battered, but there was more noise than work. In La Rue Aux-Petits-Souliers a cannon-ball fell on to a table, round which five persons were dining, and no one was hurt. It was thought to have been a miracle of Our Lord worked at the intercession of Saint Aignan, the patron saint of the city.[531] The people of Orleans had wherewith to answer the besiegers. For the seventy cannon and mortars, of which the city artillery consisted, there were twelve professional gunners with servants to wait on them. A very clever founder named Guillaume Duisy had cast a mortar which from its position at the crook or spur by the Chesneau postern, hurled stone bullets of one hundred and twenty livres on to Les Tourelles. Near this mortar were two cannon, one called Montargis because the town of Montargis had lent it, the other named Rifflart[532] after a very popular demon. A culverin firer, a Lorrainer living at Angers, had been sent by the King to Orleans, where he was paid twelve livres[533] a month. His name was Jean de Montesclere. He was held to be the best master of his trade. He had in his charge a huge culverin which inflicted great damage on the English.[534]

[Footnote 531: Journal du siege, pp. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 532: Ibid., p. 17. J.L. Micqueau, Histoire du siege d'Orleans par les Anglais, translated by Du Breton, Paris, 1631, p. 27. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 287. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 209, 210.]

[Footnote 533: Livre, if it were of Paris, was equivalent to one shilling, if of Tours, to ten pence (W.S.).]

[Footnote 534: Journal du siege, p. 18. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxxv. Loiseleur, Compte des depenses faites par Charles VII pour secourir Orleans, in Mem. Soc. Arch. de l'Orleanais, vol. xi, pp. 114, 186.]

A jovial fellow was Maitre Jean. When a cannon-ball happened to fall near him he would tumble to the ground and be carried into the town to the great joy of the English who believed him dead. But their joy was short-lived, for Maitre Jean soon returned to his post and bombarded them as before.[535] These culverins were loaded with leaden bullets by means of an iron ramrod. They were tiny cannon or rather large guns on gun-carriages. They could be moved easily.[536] And so Maitre Jean's culverin was brought wherever it was needed.

[Footnote 535: Journal du siege, p. 28. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 214.]

[Footnote 536: Loiseleur, Comptes, p. 114. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 33.]

On the 25th of December a truce was proclaimed for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord. Of one faith and one religion, on feast days the hostility of the combatants ceased, and courtesy reconciled the knights of the two camps whenever the calendar reminded them that they were Christians. Noel is a gay feast. Captain Glasdale wanted to celebrate it with carol singing according to the English custom. He asked my Lord Jean, the Bastard of Orleans, and Marshal de Boussac to send him a band of musicians, which they graciously did. The Orleans players went forth to Les Tourelles with their clarions and their trumpets; and they played the English such carols as rejoiced their hearts. To the folk of Orleans, who came on to the bridge to listen to the music, it sounded very melodious; but no sooner had the truce expired than every man looked to himself. For from one bank to the other the cannon burst from their slumber, hurling balls of stone and copper with renewed vigour.[537]

[Footnote 537: Journal du siege, pp. 15, 18.]

That which the people of Orleans had foreseen happened on the 30th of December. On that day the English came in great force through La Beauce to Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[538] All the French knights went out to meet them and performed great feats of arms; but the English occupied Saint-Laurent, and then the siege really began. They erected a bastion on the left bank of the Loire, west of Le Portereau, in a place called the Field of Saint-Prive. Another they erected in the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[539] On the right bank, at Saint-Laurent, they constructed an entrenched camp. At a bow-shot's distance on the road to Blois, in a place called la Croix-Boissee, they built another bastion. Two bow-shots away, towards the north on the road to Mans, at a spot called Les Douze-Pierres, they raised a fort which they called London.[540]

[Footnote 538: To the number of 2500. Journal du siege, p. 20. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 265. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 252. Jollois, Histoire du siege, pp. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 539: Cf. ante, p. 112, note 1. On the plan this island is called Petite Ile Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 540: G. Girault's report in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 283. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 16, note 5; vol. iv, supplement xiii.]

By these works half of Orleans was invested, which was as good as saying that it was not invested at all. People went in and out as they pleased. Small relieving companies despatched by the King arrived without let or hindrance. On the 5th of January, 1429, Admiral de Culant with five hundred men-at-arms crosses the Loire opposite Saint-Loup and enters the city by the Burgundian Gate. On the 8th of February there enters William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, at the head of a thousand combatants well accoutred, and accompanied by several knights and squires. On the morrow they are followed by three hundred and twenty soldiers. Victuals and ammunition are constantly arriving; on the 3rd of January, nine hundred and fifty-four pigs and four hundred sheep; on the 10th, powder and victuals; on the 12th, six hundred pigs; on the 24th, six hundred head of fat cattle and two hundred pigs; on the 31st, eight horses loaded with oil and fat.[541]

[Footnote 541: Journal du siege, pp. 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 34.]

It became evident to Lord Scales, William Pole, and Sir John Talbot, who since Salisbury's[542] death had been conducting the siege, that months and months must elapse ere the investment could be completed and the city surrounded by a ring of forts connected by a moat. Meanwhile the miserable Godons, up to the ears in mud and snow, were freezing in their wretched hovels,--mere shelters of wood and earth. If things went on thus they were in danger of being worse off and more starved than the besieged. Therefore, following the example of the late Earl, from time to time they tried to bring matters to a crisis; without great hope of success they endeavoured to take the town by assault.[543]

[Footnote 542: Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 3 et seq. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, proofs and illustrations v, p. 233.]

[Footnote 543: Jan. 1, 2. Journal du siege, pp. 21, 22, 30.]

On the side of the Renard Gate the wall was lower than elsewhere; and, as their strongest force lay in this direction, they preferred to attack this part of the ramparts. They stormed the Renard Gate, rushing against the barriers with loud cries of Saint George; but the king's men and the city bands drove them back to their bastions.[544] Each of these ill planned and useless assaults cost them many men. And they already lacked both soldiers and horses.

[Footnote 544: 4-27 Jan. Journal du siege, pp. 21, 22, 30.]

Neither had they succeeded in alarming the people of Orleans by their double bombardment on the south and on the west. There was a joke in the town that a great cannon-ball had fallen near La Porte Banniere into the midst of a crowd of a hundred people without touching one, except a fellow who had his shoe taken off by it, but suffered no further hurt than having to put it on again.[545]

[Footnote 545: 17 Jan. Ibid., p. 26.]

Meanwhile the French, English, and Burgundian knights took delight in performing valiant deeds of prowess. Whenever the whim took them, and under the slightest protest, they sallied forth into the country, but always with the object of capturing some booty, for they thought of little else. One day, for instance, towards the end of January, when it was bitterly cold, a little band of English marauders entered the vineyards of Saint-Ladre and Saint-Jean-de-la-Ruelle to gather sticks for firewood. The watchman no sooner announces them than behold all the banners flying to the wind. Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes, Seneschal of Bourbonnais, Messire Denis de Chailly, and many another baron, and with them captains and free-lances, make forth into the fields. Not one of them can have commanded as many as twenty men.[546]

[Footnote 546: Ibid., p. 32.]

The King's council was making every effort to succour Orleans. The King summoned the nobles of Auvergne. They had been true to the Lilies ever since the day when the Dauphin, Canon of Notre-Dame-d'Ancis, and barely more than a child, had travelled over wild peaks to subdue two or three rebellious barons.[547] At the royal call the nobles of Auvergne came forth from their mountains. Beneath the standard of the Count of Clermont, in the early days of February, they reached Blois, where they joined the Scottish force of John Stuart of Darnley, the Constable of Scotland, and a company from Bourbonnais, under the command of the barons La Tour-d'Auvergne and De Thouars.[548]

[Footnote 547: Gallia Christiana, vol. ii, p. 732. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 213; vol. ii, p. 6, note 2. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. ccxcv.]

[Footnote 548: Journal du siege, pp. 21, 36-38. The accounts of Hemon Raguier, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 7858, fol. 41. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses de Charles VII pour secourir Orleans, loc. cit.]

Just at this time tidings were received of a convoy of victuals and ammunition which Sir John Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the English at Orleans. With two hundred men-at-arms the Bastard started from Orleans to concert measures with the Count of Clermont. It was decided to attack the convoy. Commanded by the Count of Clermont and the Bastard the whole army from Blois marched towards Etampes with the object of encountering Sir John Fastolf.[549]

[Footnote 549: Journal du siege, p. 37.]

On the 11th of February there sallied forth from Orleans fifteen hundred fighting men commanded by Messire Guillaume d'Albret, Sir William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, the Marshal de Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle, the two Captains Saintrailles, Captain La Hire, the Lord of Verduzan, and sundry other knights and squires. They were summoned by the Bastard and ordered to join the Count of Clermont's army on the road to Etampes, at the village of Rouvray-Saint-Denis, near Angerville.[550]

[Footnote 550: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 231. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 266, 267. Journal du siege, pp. 37, 38.]

The next day, Saturday, the eve of the first Sunday in Lent, when the Count of Clermont's army was still some distance away, they reached Rouvray. There, early in the morning, the Gascons of Poton and La Hire perceived the head of the convoy advancing into the plain, along the Etampes road.

There they were, a line of three hundred carts and wagons full of arms and victuals conducted by English soldiers and merchants and peasants from Normandy, Picardy, and Paris, fifteen hundred men at the most, all tranquil and unsuspecting. There naturally occurred to the Gascons the idea of falling upon these people and making short work with them at the moment when they least expected it.[551] In great haste they sent to the Count of Clermont for permission to attack. As handsome as Absalom and Paris of Troy, full of words and eaten up of vanity, the Count of Clermont, who was but a lad and none of the wisest, had that very day received his spurs and was at his first engagement.[552] He foolishly sent word to the Gascons not to attack before his arrival. The Gascons obeyed greatly disappointed; they saw what was being lost by waiting. And at length, perceiving that they have walked into the lion's mouth, the English leaders, Sir John Fastolf, Sir Richard Gethyn, Bailie of Evreux, Sir Simon Morhier, Provost of Paris, place themselves in good battle array. With their wagons they make a long narrow enclosure in the plain. There they entrench their horsemen, posting the archers in front, behind stakes planted in the ground with their points inclined towards the enemy.[553] Seeing these preparations, the Constable of Scotland loses patience and leads his four hundred horsemen in a rush upon the stakes, where the horses' legs are broken.[554] The English, discovering that it is only a small company they have to deal with, bring out their cavalry and charge with such force that they overthrow the French and slay three hundred. Meanwhile the men of Auvergne had reached Rouvray and were scouring the village, draining the cellars. The Bastard left them and came to the help of the Scots with four hundred fighting men. But he was wounded in the foot, and in great danger of being taken.[555]

[Footnote 551: Journal du siege, pp. 38, 39. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 267, 268. Mistere du siege, line 8867. Dom Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne, vol. iv, p. 127.]

[Footnote 552: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 312. Journal du siege, p. 43. Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. ii, p. 164.]

[Footnote 553: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 311. Journal du siege, p. 39. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 232. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 267, 268. Perceval de Cagny, pp. 137, 139.]

[Footnote 554: Journal du siege, pp. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 555: Ibid., p. 43. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 232.]

There fell in this combat Lord William Stuart and his brother, the Lords of Verduzan, of Chateaubrun, of Rochechouart, Jean Chabot with many others of high nobility and great valour.[556] The English, not yet satiated with slaughter, scattered in pursuit of the fugitives. La Hire and Poton, beholding the enemy's standards dispersed over the plain, gathered together as many men as they could, between sixty and eighty, and threw themselves on a small part of the English force, which they overcame. If at this juncture the rest of the French had rallied they might have saved the honour and advantage of the day.[557] But the Count of Clermont, who had not attempted to come to the aid of the Bastard and the Constable of Scotland, displayed his unfailing cowardice to the end. Having seen them all slain, he returned with his army to Orleans, where he arrived well on into the night of the 12th of February.[558] There followed him with their troops in disorder, the Baron La Tour-d'Auvergne, the Viscount of Thouars, the Marshal de Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle and the Bastard, who with the greatest difficulty kept in the saddle. Jamet du Tillay, La Hire, and Poton came last, watching to see that the English did not complete their discomfiture by falling upon them from the forts.[559]

[Footnote 556: Journal du siege, p. 43. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 269. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 313.]

[Footnote 557: Journal du siege, p. 42. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 63.]

[Footnote 558: Journal du siege, p. 44.]

[Footnote 559: Ibid., pp. 43, 44.]

Because the Lenten fast was beginning, the victuals which Sir John Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the English round Orleans, consisted largely of red herrings, which had suffered during the battle from the casks containing them having been broken in. To honour the French for having discomfited so many natives of Dieppe the delighted English merrily named the combat the Battle of the Herrings.[560]

[Footnote 560: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 230-233. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 313. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. ii, p. 62. Symphorien Guyon, Histoire de la ville d'Orleans, vol. ii, p. 195. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 37.]

Albeit the Count of Clermont was the King's cousin, the people of Orleans received him but coldly. He was held to have acted shamefully and treacherously; and there were those who let him know what they thought. On the morrow he made off with his men of Auvergne and Bourbonnais amidst the rejoicings of the townsfolk who did not want to support those who would not fight.[561] At the same time there left the city Sire Louis de Culant, High Admiral of France and Captain La Hire, with two thousand men-at-arms. At their departure there arose from the citizens such howls of displeasure, that to appease them it was necessary to explain that the captains were going to fetch fresh supplies of men and victuals, which was the actual truth. My Lord Regnault de Chartres, the date of whose arrival at Orleans is uncertain, departed with them; but he could not be reproached for going, since as Chancellor of France his place was in the King's Council. But what must indeed have appeared strange was that my Lord Saint-Michel, the successor of Saint-Euverte and Saint-Aignan, should quit his episcopal see and desert his afflicted spouse.[562] When the rats go the vessel is on the point of sinking. Only the Lord Bastard and the Marshal de Boussac were left in the city. And even the Marshal was not to stay long. A month later he went, saying that the King had need of him and that he must go and take possession of broad lands fallen to him through his wife, by the death of his brother-in-law, the Lord of Chateaubrun, at the Battle of the Herrings.[563] The townsfolk deemed the reason a good one. He promised to return before long, and they were content. Now the Marshal de Boussac was one of the barons who had the welfare of the kingdom most at heart.[564] But he who has lands must needs do his duty by them.

[Footnote 561: 18 Feb. Journal du siege, pp. 50, 52.]

[Footnote 562: Ibid., p. 51.]

[Footnote 563: 16 March. Ibid., p. 59.]

[Footnote 564: Thaumas de la Thaumassiere, Histoire du Berry, Bourges, 1689, in fol., pp. 648-656.]

Believing that they were betrayed and abandoned, the citizens bethought them of securing their own safety. Since the King was not able to protect them, they resolved that in order to escape from the English, they would give themselves to one more powerful than he. Therefore, to Lord Philip, Duke of Burgundy, they despatched Captain Poton of Saintrailles, who was known to him because he had been his prisoner, and two magistrates of the city, Jean de Saint-Avy and Guion du Fosse. Their mission was to pray and entreat the Duke to look favourably on the town, and for the sake of his good kinsman, their Lord, Charles, Duke of Orleans, a prisoner in England, and thus prevented from defending his own domain, to induce the English to raise the siege until such time as the troubles of the realm should be set at rest.[565] Thus they were offering to place their town as a pledge in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. Such an offer was in accordance with the secret desire of the Duke, who, having sent a few hundred Burgundian horse to the walls of Orleans, was helping the English, and did not intend to do it for nothing.[566]

[Footnote 565: Journal du siege, p. 52.]

[Footnote 566: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 317. Journal du siege, p. 52. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 269. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 65. Morosini, pp. 16, 17, vol. iv, supplement xiv. Du Tillet, Recueil des traites, p. 221.]

Pending the uncertain and distant day when they might be thus protected, the people of Orleans continued to protect themselves as best they could. But they were anxious and not without reason. For although they might prevent the enemy from entering within the city, they could devise no means for speedily driving him away. In the early days of March they observed with concern that the English were digging a ditch to serve them as cover in passing from one bastion to another, from la Croix-Boissee to Saint-Ladre. This work they attempted to destroy. They vigorously attacked the Godons and took a few prisoners. With two shots from his culverin Maitre Jean killed five persons, including Lord Gray, the nephew of the late Earl of Salisbury.[567] But they could not hinder the English from completing their work. The siege continued with terrible vigour. Agitated by doubts and fears, consumed with anxiety, without sleep, without rest, and succeeding in nothing, they began to despair. Suddenly a strange rumour arises, spreads, and gains credence.

[Footnote 567: 3 March. Journal du siege, p. 54.]

It is told that there had lately passed through the town of Gien a maid (une pucelle), who proclaimed that she was on her way to Chinon to the gentle Dauphin, and said that she had been sent by God to raise the siege of Orleans and take the King to his anointing at Reims.[568]

[Footnote 568: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 21, 23. Journal du siege, pp. 46 et seq. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 278.]

In colloquial language, a maid (une pucelle) was a girl of humble birth, who earned her livelihood by manual work and was generally a servant. Thus the leaden pumps used in kitchens were usually called pucelles. The term was doubtless vulgar, but it had no evil meaning. In spite of Clopinel's naughty saying: "Je legue ma pucelle a mon cure," it was used to describe a respectable girl of good morals.[569]

[Footnote 569: La Curne, under the word Pucelle; Du Cange, ad. v. Pucella.

_Je laisse cent sols de deniers A ceulx qui boivent voluntiers Et s'ay laissie a mon cure Ma pucelle quand je mourrai,_

says Eustache Deschamps (quoted by La Curne); Du Cange cites a will of 1274: "afterwards I leave to Laurence ma pucelle and twelve livres of Paris."]

The tidings that a little saint of lowly origin, one of Our Lord's poor, was bringing divine help to Orleans made a great impression on minds excited by the fevers of the siege and rendered religious through fear. The Maid inspired them with a burning curiosity, which the Lord Bastard, like a wise man, deemed it prudent to encourage. He despatched to Chinon two knights charged to inquire concerning the damsel. One was Sire Archambaud of Villars, Governor of Montargis, whom the Bastard had already sent to the King during the siege; he was an aged knight, once the intimate friend of Duke Louis of Orleans, and one of the seven Frenchmen who fought against the seven Englishmen at Montendre,[570] in 1402: an Orleans citizen of the early days, notwithstanding his great age he had vigourously defended Les Tourelles on the 21st of October. The other, Messire Jamet du Tillay, a Breton squire, had recently won great honour by covering the retreat of Rouvray with his men. They set forth and the whole town anxiously awaited their return.[571]

[Footnote 570: Relation contemporaine du combat de Montendre, in Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France, 1834, pp. 109-113.]

[Footnote 571: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 3, 125, 215. Journal du siege, pp. 5, 6, 31, 44. Nouvelle biographie generale, articles by Vallet de Viriville.]