Joan of Arc

Far to southward, La Rochelle, "proud city of the waters," made like resistance to the invaders. The Rochellais knew the English of old. John Lackland had landed there when he came in 1214 to try to recover certain lands seized by Philip Augustus shortly before. It remained in English hands till 1224, when it was captured by Louis VIII.; was restored by treaty to the English in 1360; finally shook off the foreign yoke in Du Guesclin's time. Now it was one of the great maritime cities of France, its mariners sailing all seas, hardy and bold as Drake or Magellan.

On August 15th, 1427, an English fleet of one hundred and twenty sail appeared off the port, bringing troops for an invasion. La Rochelle promptly strengthened her defences, laid a heavy tax on herself to meet expenses, and sent out a fleet of armed privateers to meet the invaders, who, after some deliberation, withdrew without attempting to land.

Tired of this war of wasps – a sting, a flight, a sting again – John of Bedford resolved to strike a decisive blow, one which should bring the wasps' nest down once and for all. The blow fell upon Orleans.

Royal Orleans (several kings were consecrated in its cathedral and lodged in its palaces) lies on the right bank of the Loire, one of the sacred cities of France. It had been besieged before, in 451, by Attila, the Hun of the period, who failed to gain entrance. Forty-odd years later, Clovis got possession of the city, and held there the first Council of France. Philip of Valois made it a separate duchy; Charles VI. gave it to his brother Louis, and the House of Orleans came into existence.

The city stretched along the river bank some nine hundred yards, and back to a depth of six hundred yards; was protected by a wall from twenty to thirty feet high, with parapet, machicolations, and twenty-four towers; and on all sides – except that of the river – by a ditch forty feet wide and twenty feet deep. The river was spanned by a bridge three hundred and fifty yards long, the centre resting on an island, its further end protected by a small fortress called Les Tourelles, which in its turn was covered by a strong earthwork known as the boulevard.

Now, in the autumn of 1428, all eyes were turned on the city, and on the ring of "bastilles" (palisaded earthworks) surrounding it, commanding every approach. In these bastilles and in the camps stretching beyond them on every side, the English commanders were gathered: Salisbury, Suffolk, Talbot, Scales, Fastolf. Inside the city walls were Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, La Fayette – beside these the citizens fought with desperate courage. On both sides captains and soldiers girded themselves for a struggle which all felt must be a decisive one. Assault on one side, sortie on the other, began and continued briskly. Salisbury with his curious copper cannon (throwing stone balls of one hundred and fifty pounds' weight a distance of seven hundred yards) battered the walls and rained shot into the city: the besieged replied with boiling oil, lime, and the like, with which the women of Orleans kept them supplied. The fight raged with greatest violence round the Tourelles, which English and French were equally determined to take and to keep. After being battered almost to pieces, it was finally captured by the besiegers, but at terrible cost. On the eighth day of the siege (October) Salisbury, standing by an embrasure in one of its towers, was struck on the head by a stone ball from a French cannon, and died soon after. This was a heavy loss to the English. On the other hand, Sir John Fastolf, convoying provisions for the English, completely routed a party of French, who sallied out to intercept him. Lent was near, and prudent Sir John had procured a large supply of salt herrings; these, scattered over the field in every direction, gave the skirmish its name, the Battle of the Herrings. Most of the provender was brought safely into camp, rejoicing greatly the hearts of the English. But the city managed to get victualed too. One day six hundred pigs were driven in, spite of cannon and mortar; another day two hundred, and forty beeves; but the day after they lost five hundred head of cattle and "the famous light field-piece of that master gunner, Jean the Lorrainer."17 A merry wag, this John of Lorraine: his jests flew as fast as his balls. Now and then he would drop beside his gun, and be carried off apparently dead. Shouts of joy would go up from the English: in the midst of which, John would "bob up serenely" bowing and smiling, and would go to work again.

So, back and forth, the tide ebbed and flowed, while the winter dragged on. A leisurely, almost a cheerful siege; Andrew Lang thinks the fighting was "not much more serious than the combats with apples and cheeses, in the pleasant land of Torelore, as described in the old romance of Aucassin and Nicolete."[21] He quotes the Monk of Dunfermline, "a mysterious Scots chronicler,"18 as saying that the English camp was like a great fair, with booths for the sale of all sorts of commodities, and with sunk ways leading from one fort to another.

All this time, under cover of the desultory shooting, the English were drawing the ring of fortifications closer and closer yet about the city. In the gloomy days of February, the citizens began to lose heart. No more provisions came in. Dunois, now their leader, a natural son of Louis of Orleans, and the bravest heart in France save one, was wounded. People began to leave the city, stealthily, under cover of night. The bishop left; Clermont, who had lost the Battle of the Herrings, stole away, taking two thousand men with him: the admiral and chancellor of France "thought it would be a pity to have the great officers of the crown taken by the English, and went too."19

Dunois sent La Hire to the Dauphin at Chinon, begging for men, money, food. The receiver-general, he was told, had not four crowns in his chest. Charles kept the messenger to dinner, and regaled him with a fowl and a sheep's tail. La Hire returning empty-handed, Dunois in desperation sent to Philip of Burgundy, begging him to take the city under his protection. Philip of Burgundy, always distracted between his hatred of the Dauphin and his fear of the growing power of the English, sent a message asking the Duke of Bedford to raise the siege; but this John of Bedford was in nowise minded to do.

"We are not here to champ the morsels for Burgundy to swallow!" said one of his advisers.

"Nay! nay!" assented Duke John. "We will not beat the bushes for another to take the birds!"

High words ensued, and Philip withdrew his men from the siege. John cared little, had plenty without them. English and French, all thought the city was doomed: through all France men sighed and wept over its approaching fall; and across the Channel, in the White Tower, the captive lord of Orleans wept with them, and tuned his harp to songs of grief.

L'un ou l'autre desconfiraDe mon cueur et Mérencolie;Auquel que fortune s'alye,L'autre "je me rens" lui dira.D'estre juge me suffiraPour mettre fin en leur folye;L'un ou l'autre desconfiraDe mon cueur et Mérencolie.Dieu scet comment mon cueur riraSe gaigne, menant chière lye;Contre ceste saison jolye,On verra comment en yra:L'un ou l'autre desconfira.– Charles d'Orléans.

April was come, and the end seemed near, when whispers began to creep about. A bird of the air carried the matter, a wind of the forest breathed it. Help was coming. A marvel had come to light: a holy Maid (or an accursed witch: it depended on which camp you were in!) had arisen, had visited the Dauphin at Chinon: was coming to rescue Orleans from its besiegers. Like wildfire the rumor spread. Brave Dunois listened, and his heart beat faster, recalling the prophecy. "France lost by a woman shall be saved by a woman!" Could it be? Was Heaven, after all, on the side of France?

The English listened too; not the King, for he was, we will hope, sleeping comfortably in his cradle at Windsor; but John of Bedford in Paris (not in that haunted Palace of St. Paul, but in the more cheerful one of Les Tourelles across the way); and before Orleans, his lieutenants, Suffolk, Talbot, Scales, and the rest. These gentlemen were amused. The Dauphin must be fallen low indeed to avail himself of such aid. They made merry in the English camp, and laugh and jest went round at the expense of their sorry adversary, clinging to the red petticoat of a peasant girl (for so rumor described her) for succor and relief.

Suddenly, one April day, the laughter ceased. A letter was brought into the camp: a message brief and sharp as a sword-thrust greeted the astonished captains.

"Jesu Maria," thus it began:

"King of England, account to the King of Heaven for His blood royal. Give up to the Maid the keys of all the good towns you have taken by force. She is come from God to avenge the blood royal, and quite ready to make peace, if you will render proper account. If you do not so, I am a war-chief; in whatsoever place I shall fall in with your folk in France, if they be not willing to obey, I shall make them get thence, whether they will or not; and if they be willing to obey, I will receive them to mercy… The Maid cometh from the King of Heaven as His representative, to thrust you out of France; she doth promise and certify you that she will make therein such mighty haha (great tumult), that for a thousand years hitherto in France was never the like… Duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of France, the Maid doth pray you and request you not to bring destruction on yourself; if you do not justice towards her, she will do the finest deed ever done in Christendom.

"Writ on Tuesday in the great week" (Easter week, March, 1429). Subscribed: "Hearken to the news from God and the Maid."20

The hour was come, and the Maid. Let us go back a little, and see the manner of her coming.

CHAPTER VII

VAUCOULEURS AND CHINON

"Go to Vaucouleurs!" the Voices had said: "go to Robert of Baudricourt, and bid him send thee to the Dauphin!" Again and yet again, "Go!"

Vaucouleurs, the "valley of color," is a little walled town on the Meuse, some thirteen miles from Domrémy. Its narrow streets climb a steep hill to the castle, perched on its rock like an eagle's nest. In this castle, holding the town partly for the Dauphin, but chiefly for himself, lived Robert of Baudricourt; a robber captain, neither more nor less. A step beyond the highwayman, since he had married a rich and noble widow, and had lived handsomely in (and on) Vaucouleurs for some twelve years; but still little more civilized than the band of rude and brutal soldiers under his command. It was from this man that the Maid was bidden to seek aid in her mission.

She bethought her of a kinsman, Durand Laxart (or Lassois) living at Little Burey, a village near Vaucouleurs; asked and obtained leave of her parents to visit him. This was in May, 1428. She opened her mind to her "uncle" (by courtesy: he was really only a cousin by marriage) and impressed him so much that he consented to bring her before the lord of the castle.

Baudricourt looked at the comely peasant maid in her red stuff dress, probably with some interest at first; when she quietly informed him that God had bidden her to save France, and had sent her to him for help in the task, his interest changed to amused impatience. At first he laughed; but when he was called upon in God's name to send a message to the Dauphin his mood changed.

"Let him guard himself well," the message ran, "and not offer battle to his foes, for the Lord will give him succor by mid-Lent."

Now Lent was to fall in March of the coming year.

"By God's will," the Maid added, "I myself will lead the Dauphin to be crowned."

This was too much for the lord of Vaucouleurs. Turning to Laxart, he said, "Give the wench a sound whipping and send her home!" and so dismissed the pair.

Joan made no resistance; went back to Domrémy and bided her time. We are to suppose that through the summer of 1428 she plied her faithful tasks at home, listening to her Voices, strengthening her purpose steadily in the quiet of her resolute heart. In October came the news that Orleans was besieged; and now once more the Voices grew urgent, imperative; yet again she must go to Vaucouleurs, yet again demand help of Robert of Baudricourt. This time the way was made easy for her. The wife of Durand Laxart was about to have a child, and needed help. There were no trained nurses then in the Meuse valley or anywhere else; it was the simple and natural thing for Joan to offer her services, and for the kinsfolk to accept them. January, 1489, found her domiciled in the Laxart household, caring for the mother and the newborn child in her own careful, competent way.

One day she told her kinsman that she must see My Lord of Baudricourt once more, and besought him to bear her company. He demurred; they had got little good of the first visit, he reminded her.

"Do you not know," asked the girl, "the saying that France is to be made desolate by a woman and restored by a Maid?" and added that she must go "into France" and lead the Dauphin to Rheims for his coronation. Laxart had heard the prophecy; most people knew it, in the Meuse valley and elsewhere. He yielded, and once more the peasant man and maid made their way up the climbing street and appeared before the lord of the castle. We do not know that the second interview prospered much better than the first. Laxart says that Baudricourt bade him "more than once" to box the girl's ears and send her home to her father; but this time Joan did not go home. After spending several weeks with her cousin's family, she went to stay with a family named Royer, where she helped in the housework, and "won the heart of her hostess by her gentle ways, her skill in sewing, and her earnest faith."21

This must have been a season of anguish for the Maid. France was dying: they thought it then as they thought it in 1918: she alone could save her country, and no man would give her aid, would even listen to her. Perhaps at no time – save at the last – is the heroic quality of the Maid more clearly shown than in the meagre record of these weeks of waiting. How should she sit to spin, with saints and angels calling in her ear? How should she ply her needle, when the sword was waiting for her hand? But the needle flew swiftly, the spindle whirled diligently, and day and night her prayers went up to God. People recalled afterward how often they had seen her in the church of St. Mary on the hill above the town, kneeling in rapt devotion, her face now bowed in her hands, now lifted in passionate appeal. Courage, Joan! the time is near, and help is coming.

It was in February, 1429, that the first gleam of encouragement came to her. She met in the street a young man-at-arms named Jean de Metz, often called, from the name of his estate, Jean de Novelonpont. He had heard of her: probably by this time everyone in Vaucouleurs knew of her and her mission. Seeing her in her red peasant-dress, he stopped and said, "Ma mie, what are you doing here? Must the King be walked out of his kingdom, and must we all be English?"

Joan looked at him with her clear dark eyes.

"I am come," she answered, "to a Royal town to ask Robert de Baudricourt to lead me to the King. But Baudricourt cares nothing for me and for what I say; none the less I must be with the King by mid-Lent, if I wear my legs down to the knees. No man in the world – kings, nor dukes, nor the daughter of the Scottish king – can recover the kingdom of France, nor hath our king any succor save from myself, though I would liefer be sewing beside my poor mother. For this deed is not convenient to my station. Yet go I must; and this deed I must do, because my Lord so wills it."

"And who is your Lord?" asked Jean de Metz: and the Maid replied,

"My Lord is God!"22

Our hearts thrill to-day as we read the words; think how they fell on the ear of the young soldier there in the village street that winter day! He needed no voice of saint or angel: this simple maiden's voice was enough. He held out his hand.

"Then I, Jean, swear to you, Maid, my hand in your hands, that I, God helping me, will lead you to the King, and I ask when you will go?"

"Better to-day than to-morrow: better to-morrow than later!"23 was the reply.

From that day forth, Jean de Metz was Joan's faithful friend and helper.

What did she mean about help from Scotland? Why, a year before the Dauphin had sent Alain Chartier the poet to Scotland to beg help of the ancient ally of France. Help was promised; six thousand men, to arrive before Whitsuntide; to form moreover a body-guard for the little Princess of Scotland, another Margaret, who was to marry little Louis, son of the Dauphin. Joan had heard rumors of all this; but what was a baby princess three hundred leagues away? She, the Maid, was on the spot.

"Go boldly on!" said the Voices. "When you are with the King, he will have a sure sign to persuade him to believe and trust you."

As it fell out, the little princess did not come till seven years later: the six thousand men never came at all.

At last Joan had a friend who could give real help. A few days more and she had two: Bertrand of Poulangy, another young soldier, heard and believed her story, and took his stand beside her and Jean de Metz. The three together renewed the attack on Robert de Baudricourt, this time with more success. Apparently this was not so simple a case as had appeared: whipping, ear-boxing, no longer seemed adequate. What to do? Puzzled and annoyed, Baudricourt bethought him of the spiritual arm. After all, what more simple than to find out whether this counsel was of God or the devil? One evening, we are told, he entered the humble dwelling of the Royers, accompanied by the parish priest. The latter, assuming his stole, addressed the Maid in solemn tones.

"If thou be a thing of evil," he said, "begone from us! If a thing of good, approach us!"

Joan had knelt when the good father put on his garb of office; now, still on her knees, slowly and painfully (but with head held high, we may fancy) she made her way forward to where the priest stood. She was not pleased. It was ill-done of Father Fournier, she said afterward; had he not heard her fully in confession? It may be – who knows? – that the curé took this way to convince the lord of Baudricourt of her truth and virtue: be it as it may, Robert de Baudricourt no longer laughed at the peasant girl in her red dress; but still he was not ready to help her, and she could wait no longer. She resolved to walk to Chinon, where the Dauphin was; she borrowed clothes from her cousin Laxart, now for the first time assuming male attire; and so took her way to the shrine of St. Nicholas, on the road to France.

Now it took a horseman eleven days to ride from Vaucouleurs to Chinon; Joan soon realized that to make the journey on foot would be wasting precious time; she returned to Vaucouleurs, saddened, but no whit discouraged. About this time the Duke of Lorraine heard of the Maid who saw visions and heard voices. Being old and infirm and more interested in his own ailments than in those of the kingdom, he sent for Joan as we send for a new doctor who has cured our neighbor; sent moreover a letter of safe conduct, an important thing in those days. Here was Opportunity knocking at the door! A horse was bought – it is not clear by whom – and Joan and the faithful "uncle," accompanied by Jean de Metz, rode off in high hopes to Nancy, seventy miles away. Alas! here again disappointment awaited her. The Duke related his symptoms and asked for advice; hinted that perhaps a little miracle, even, might be performed? Such things had been done by holy maids before now! Joan told him briefly that she knew nought of these matters. Let him lend her his son-in-law, and men to lead her into France, and she would pray for his health. The son-in-law was René of Anjou, later known as the patron of minstrels and poets; an interesting if a somewhat fantastic figure. At this time his duchy of Bar was being so harried by French and English indiscriminately that he might well cry, "A plague of both your houses!" Certainly he gave no help to Joan. The old Duke of Lorraine gave her a black horse, some say, and a small sum of money; and so a second time, she returned to Vaucouleurs.

But now the town itself was roused. Every one by this time knew the Maid and had heard of her mission. Since that visit of the curé they held her in reverence; moreover, the news from Orleans grew worse and worse. The fall of the city was looked for any day, and with it would fall the kingdom. Since all else had failed, why not let the Maid prove her Voices to be of God?

We know not what pressure, apart from Joan's own burning words (for she never ceased her appeals), was brought to bear on Robert de Baudricourt. At last, and most reluctantly, he yielded; gave consent that Joan should seek the Dauphin at Chinon; gave her even, it would seem, a letter to the prince, testifying some belief in her supernatural powers. The good people of Vaucouleurs put together their pennies and bought a suit of clothes for her; man's clothes, befitting one who was undertaking a man's work. Thus equipped, on the twelfth of February, 1429, Joan of Arc rode out of Vaucouleurs to save France. Beside her, on either side, rode her two faithful squires, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulangy, with their servants; two more men, "Richard the Archer," and Colet de Vienne, a king's messenger, joined the little band; in all six rode out of the Gate of France. At the gate, Robert de Baudricourt, moved for once, we may hope, out of his boisterous sardonic humor, gave the Maid a sword; and as the adventurers passed on, he cried after them: "Allez! et vienne que pourra!" ("Go! and come what come may!")

What awaited the Maid in "white Chinon by the blue Vienne?" Let us see!

Pantagruel suggests that the city of the Plantagenets was founded by Cain, and named for him, but this theory is more literary than accurate. A strong little city, Chinon, from the days when Fulk Nerra, the Black Falcon, rode on his wild raids and built his crescent line of fortresses from Anjou to Amboise, cutting the "monstrous cantle" of Touraine from the domains of Blois. A fierce little city, looking down on furious quarrels of Angevin princes, French and so-called English. Here died Henry II. of England, men said of a broken heart, muttering, "Shame, shame, on a conquered king!" Here came Richard Yea-and-Nay to look on his father's body, which men said streamed blood as he approached it. Here John Lackland lived for a while with his French wife, no more beloved than he was elsewhere. Here, on Midsummer Eve, 1305, Philip Augustus entered victorious, and soon after English rule in France came to an end for the time. Here, in 1309, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was tried by a council of cardinals, set on by Charles of Valois, first of the name, who was in sore need of money and coveted the rich possessions of the great order. Master and many knights were burned (in Paris, not in the place of their trial) and the Order was dissolved.

More important, it may be, in the long sequence of human events, than any of these matters, here in 1483, was born Maître François Rabelais, whose statue still looks kindly down on the city of his love. "Ville insigne, ville noble, ville antique, voire première du monde,"24 he calls it. He remains king of it, however many crowned or uncrowned puppets may have flaunted it there by the blue Vienne.

In this year 1429, Charles the Dauphin was holding in Chinon his shadowy court. This deplorable prince, a king of shreds and patches, if ever one lived, was now twenty-seven years old, and had never done anything in particular except to pursue pleasure and to escape danger. Accounts differ as to his personal appearance. Monstrelêt, his contemporary, calls him "a handsome prince, and handsome in speech with all persons, and compassionate toward poor folk"; but is constrained to add "he did not readily put on his harness, and he had no heart for war if he could do without it." Another chronicler gives a less favorable account of his appearance. "He was very ugly, with small gray wandering eyes; his nose was thick and bulbous, his legs bony and bandy; his thighs emaciated, with enormous knock-knees." Yet another dwells on his physical advantages, and his kindness of manner, which won the favor of the people. It does not greatly matter now what he looked like. When a flame springs up and lights the sky, we do not scrutinize the match that struck out the spark.