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Title: Joan of Arc
Author: Ronald Sutherland Gower
Release Date: October 24, 2005 [EBook #16933]
Language: English
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[Illustration: TOUR COUDRAY--CHINON.]
JOAN OF ARC
BY
LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A.
A TRUSTEE OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS
SEVEN ETCHINGS AND THREE PHOTO-ETCHINGS
LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND
MDCCCXCIII
DEDICATION.
My mother had what the French call a _culte_ for the heroine whose
life I have attempted to write in the following pages.
It was but natural that one who loved and admired all that is good and
beautiful and high-minded should have a strong feeling of admiration
for the memory of Joan of Arc. On the pedestal of the bronze statue,
which my mother placed in her house at Cliveden, are inscribed those
words which sum up the life and career of the Maid of Orleans:--
'_La grande pitié qu'il y avait au royaume de France._'
Thinking that could my mother have read the following pages she would
have approved the feeling which prompted me to write them, I inscribe
this little book to her beloved memory.
R.G.
ARCACHON,
_November 29._
PREFACE.
The authors whose works I have chiefly used in writing this Life of
Joan of Arc, are--first, Quicherat, who was the first to publish at
length the Minutes of the two trials concerning the Maid--that of her
trial at Rouen in 1430, and of her rehabilitation in 1456, and who
unearthed so many chronicles relating to her times; secondly, Wallon,
whose Life of Joan of Arc is of all the fullest and most reliable;
thirdly, Fabre, who has within the last few years published several
most important books respecting the life and death of Joan. Fabre was
the first to make a translation in full of the two trials which
Quicherat had first published in the original Latin text.
Thinking references at the foot of the page a nuisance to the reader,
these have been avoided.
The subjects for the etched illustrations in this volume have been
kindly supplied by my friend, Mr. Lee Latrobe Bateman, during a
journey we made together to places connected with the story of the
heroine.
R.G.
LONDON, _January, 1893._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE CALL 1
CHAPTER II.
THE DELIVERY OF ORLEANS 39
CHAPTER III.
THE CORONATION AT RHEIMS 70
CHAPTER IV.
THE CAPTURE 100
CHAPTER V.
IMPRISONMENT AND TRIAL 138
CHAPTER VI.
MARTYRDOM 242
CHAPTER VII.
THE REHABILITATION 253
APPENDIX.
I. JOAN OF ARC IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH HISTORY 289
II. JOAN OF ARC IN POETRY 301
FRENCH BIBLIOGRAPHY 311
ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY 320
INDEX 323
List of Illustrations
(_SEVEN ETCHINGS, THREE PHOTO-ETCHINGS_).
TOUR COUDRAY--CHINON FRONTISPIECE
CHINON To face page 16
STREET IN CHINON " 20
HALL OF AUDIENCE--CHINON " 28
TOUR D'HORLOGE--CHINON " 32
WEST PORTAL--RHEIMS " 80
INTERIOR--RHEIMS " 96
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY HOUSES--COMPIÈGNE " 112
TOUR DE LA PUCELLE--COMPIÈGNE " 128
ST. OUEN--ROUEN " 224
_JOAN OF ARC._
CHAPTER I.
_THE CALL._
Never perhaps in modern times had a country sunk so low as France,
when, in the year 1420, the treaty of Troyes was signed. Henry V. of
England had made himself master of nearly the whole kingdom; and
although the treaty only conferred the title of Regent of France on
the English sovereign during the lifetime of the imbecile Charles VI.,
Henry was assured in the near future of the full possession of the
French throne, to the exclusion of the Dauphin. Henry received with
the daughter of Charles VI. the Duchy of Normandy, besides the places
conquered by Edward III. and his famous son; and of fourteen provinces
left by Charles V. to his successor only three remained in the power
of the French crown. The French Parliament assented to these hard
conditions, and but one voice was raised in protest to the
dismemberment of France; that solitary voice, a voice crying in a
wilderness, was that of Charles the Dauphin--afterwards Charles VII.
Henry V. had fondly imagined that by the treaty of Troyes and his
marriage with a French princess the war, which had lasted over a
century between the two countries, would now cease, and that France
would lie for ever at the foot of England. Indeed, up to Henry's
death, at the end of August 1422, events seemed to justify such hopes;
but after a score of years from Henry's death France had recovered
almost the whole of her lost territory.
There is nothing in history more strange and yet more true than the
story which has been told so often, but which never palls in its
interest--that life of the maiden through whose instrumentality France
regained her place among the nations. No poet's fancy has spun from
out his imagination a more glorious tale, or pictured in glowing words
an epic of heroic love and transcendent valour, to compete with the
actual reality of the career of this simple village maiden of old
France: she who, almost unassisted and alone, through her intense love
of her native land and deep pity for the woes of her people, was
enabled, when the day of action at length arrived, to triumph over
unnumbered obstacles, and, in spite of all opposition, ridicule, and
contumely, to fulfil her glorious mission.
Sainte-Beuve has written that, in his opinion, the way to honour the
history of Joan of Arc is to tell the truth about her as simply as
possible. This has been my object in the following pages.
On the border of Lorraine and Champagne, in the canton of the
Barrois--between the rivers Marne and Meuse--extended, at the time of
which we are writing, a vast forest, called the Der. By the side of a
little streamlet, which took its source from the river Meuse, and
dividing it east by west, stands the village of Domremy. The southern
portion, confined within its banks and watered by its stream,
contained a little fortalice, with a score of cottages grouped around.
These were situated in the county of Champagne, under the suzerainty
of the Count de Bar.
The northern side of the village, containing the church, belonged to
the Manor of Vaucouleurs. In this part of the village, in a cottage
built between the church and the rivulet close by, Joan of Arc was
born, on or about the 6th of January, 1412. The house which now exists
on the site of her birthplace was built in 1481, but the little
streamlet still takes its course at its foot. Michelet, in his account
of the heroine, says the station in life of Joan's father was that of
a labourer; later investigations have proved that he was what we
should call a small farmer. In the course of the trial held for the
rehabilitation of Joan of Arc's memory, which yields valuable and
authentic information relating to her family as well as to her life
and actions, it appears that the neighbours of the heroine deposed
that her parents were well-to-do agriculturists, holding a small
property besides this house at Domremy; they held about twenty acres
of land, twelve of which were arable, four meadow-land, and four for
fuel. Besides this they had some two to three hundred francs kept safe
in case of emergency, and the furniture goods and chattels of their
modest home. The money thus kept in case of sudden trouble came in
usefully when the family had to escape from the English to
Neufchâteau. All told, the fortune of the family of Joan attained an
annual income of about two hundred pounds of our money, a not
inconsiderable revenue at that time; and with it they were enabled to
raise a family in comfort, and to give alms and hospitality to the
poor, and wandering friars and other needy wayfarers, then so common
in the land.
Two documents lately discovered prove Joan's father to have held a
position of some importance at Domremy. In the one, dated 1423, he is
styled '_doyen_' (senior inhabitant) of the village, which gave him
rank next to the Mayor. In the other, four years later, he fills a post
which tallies with what is called in Scotland the Procurator-fiscal.
The name of the family was Arc, and much ink has been shed as to the
origin of that name. By some it is derived from the village of d'Arc,
in the Barrois, now in the department of the Haute Marne; and this
hypothesis is as good as any other.
Jacques d'Arc had taken to wife one Isabeau Romée, from the village of
Vouthon, near Domremy. Isabeau is said to have had some property in
her native village. The family of Jacques d'Arc and Isabella or
Isabeau consisted of five children: three sons, Jacquemin, Jean, and
Pierre, and two daughters, the elder Catherine, the younger Jeanne, or
Jennette, as she was generally called in her family, whose name was to
go through the ages as one of the most glorious in any land.
Well favoured by nature was the birthplace of Joan of Arc, with its
woods of chestnut and of oak, then in their primeval abundance. The
vine of Greux, which was famous all over the country-side as far back
as the fourteenth century, grew on the southern slopes of the hills
about Joan's birthplace. Beneath these vineyards the fields were
thickly clothed with rye and oats, and the meadow-lands washed by the
waters of the Meuse were fragrant with hay that had no rival in the
country. It was in these rich fields that, after the hay-making was
over, the peasants let out their cattle to graze, the number of each
man's kine corresponding with the number of fields which he owned and
which he had reaped.
The little maid sometimes helped her father's labourers, and the idea
has become general that Joan of Arc was a shepherdess; in reality, it
was only an occasional occupation, and probably undertaken by Joan out
of mere good-nature, seeing that her parents were well-to-do people.
All that we gather of Joan's early years proves her nature to have
been a compound of love and goodness. Every trait recorded of the
little maid's life at home which has come down to us reveals a mixture
of amiability, unselfishness, and charity. From her earliest years she
loved to help the weak and poor: she was known, when there was no room
for the weary wayfarer to pass the night in her parents' house, to
give up her bed to them, and to sleep on the floor, by the hearth.
She loved her mother tenderly, and in her trial she bore witness
before men to the good influence that she had derived from that
parent. Isabeau d'Arc appears to have been a devout woman, and to
have brought up her children to love work and religion. Joan loved to
sit by her mother's side for the hour together, spinning, and
doubtless listening to the stories of wars with the hereditary enemy.
When she could be of use, Joan was ever ready to lend a hand to help
her father or brothers in the rougher labours of coach-house, stable,
or farmyard, to keep watch over the flocks as they browsed by the
river-side along the meadow-lands.
Joan had not the defect of so many excellent but tedious women, who
love talk for the mere sake of talking: she seems to have been
reserved; but, as she proved later on, she was never at a loss for a
word in season, and with a few words could speak volumes. From her
childhood she showed an intense and ever-increasing devotion to things
holy; her delight in prayer became almost a passion. She never wearied
of visiting the churches in and about her native village, and she
passed many an hour in a kind of rapt trance before the crucifixes and
saintly images in these churches. Every morning saw her at her
accustomed place at the early celebration of her Lord's Sacrifice; and
if in the afternoon the evening bells sounded across the fields, she
would kneel devoutly, and commune in her heart with her divine Master
and adored saints. She loved above all things these evening bells,
and, when it seemed to her the ringer grew negligent, would bribe him
with some little gift--the worked wool from one of her sheep or some
other trifle--to remind him in the future to be more instant in his
office. That this little trait in Joan is true, we have the testimony
of the bell-ringer himself to attest.
This devotion to her religious duties had not the effect of making
Joan less of a companion to her fellow-villagers. She could not have
been so much beloved by them as she was had she held herself aloof
from them: on the contrary, Joan enjoyed to play with the lads and
village lasses; and we hear of her swiftness of foot in the race, of
her gracefulness in the village dance, either by the stream or around
an old oak-tree in the forest, which was said to be the favourite
haunt of the fairies.
Often in the midst of these sports Joan would break away from her
companions, and enter some church or chapel, where she placed garlands
of flowers around statues of her beloved saints.
Thus passed away the early years of the maiden's gentle life, among
her native fields, with nothing especially to distinguish her from her
companions beyond her goodness and piety. A great change, however, was
near at hand. The first of those mysterious and supernatural events
which played so all-important a part in the life of our heroine
occurred in the summer of 1425, when Joan was in her thirteenth year.
In her trial at Rouen, on being asked by her judges what was the first
manifestation of these visions, she answered that the first indication
of what she always called 'My voices' was that of St. Michel. It is
not a little remarkable that this vision of St. Michel, the patron
saint of the French army, should have taken place in the summer of
1425, at the time of a double defeat by land and sea of the enemy of
France, and when the Holy Mount in Normandy, crowned by the chapel
guarded by St. Michel, was once again in the hands of the French. At
the same time, Joan of Arc experienced some of the hardships of war
when the country around Domremy was overrun by the enemy; and the
little household of the Arcs had to fly for shelter to the
neighbouring village of Châteauneuf, in Lorraine.
I will pass somewhat rapidly over the visions, or rather
revelations--for, whatever doubts one may hold as to such heavenly
messengers appearing literally on this earth, no man can honestly
doubt that Joan believed as firmly in these unearthly visitants coming
from Heaven direct as she did in the existence of herself or of her
parents. On the subject of these voices and visions no one has written
with more sense than a distinguished prelate who was a contemporary of
the heroine's--namely, Thomas Basin, Bishop of Lisieux, who, in a work
relating to Joan of Arc, writes thus:--
'As regards her mission, and as regards the apparitions and
revelations that she affirmed having had, we leave to every one the
liberty to believe as he pleases, to reject or to hold, according to
his point of view or way of thinking. What is important regarding
these visions is the fact that Joan had herself no shadow of a doubt
regarding their reality, and it was their effect upon her, and not her
natural inclination, which impelled her to leave her parents and her
home to undertake great perils and to endure great hardships, and, as
it proved, a terrible death. It was these visions and voices, and they
alone, which made her believe that she would succeed, if she obeyed
them, in saving her country and in replacing her king on his throne.
It was these visions and voices which finally enabled her to do those
marvellous deeds, and accomplish what appeared to all the world the
impossible; these voices and visions will ever be connected with Joan
of Arc, and with her deathless fame and glory.'
From the year 1425 till 1428, the apparitions and voices were heard
and seen more or less frequently.
It is the year 1427: all that remains to Charles of his kingdom north
of the Loire, with the exception of Tournay, are a pitiful half-dozen
places. Among these is Vaucouleurs, near Domremy. They are defended by
a body of men under the command of a knight, Robert de Baudricourt,
who is about to play an important part in the history of Joan.
In one of her visions the maid was told to seek this knight, that
through his help she might be brought to the French Court; for the
voices had told her she might find the King and tell him her message,
by which she should deliver the land from the English, and restore him
to his throne. There had not been wanting legends and prophecies upon
the country-side which may have impressed Joan, and helped her to
believe that it was her mission to deliver France. One of the
prophecies was to the effect that a maiden from the borders of
Lorraine should save France, that this maiden would appear from a
place near an oak forest. This seemed to point directly to our
heroine. The old oak-tree haunted by the fairies, the neighbouring
country of Lorraine, were all in help of the tradition. Since the
betrayal of her husband's country by the wife of Charles VI., another
saying had been spread abroad throughout all that remained of that
small portion of France still held by the French King--namely, that
although France would be lost by a woman, a maiden should save it. Any
hope to the people in those distressful days was eagerly seized on;
and although the first prophecy dated from the mythical times of
Merlin, it stirred the people, especially when, later on, Joan of Arc
appeared among them, and her story became known.
These prophecies appear to have struck deeply into Joan's soul; they,
and her voices aiding, made her believe she was the maiden by whom her
country would be delivered from the presence of the enemy. But how was
she to make her parents understand that it was their child who was
appointed by Heaven to fulfil this great deliverance? Her father seems
to have been a somewhat harsh, at any rate a practical, parent. When
told of her intention to join the army, he said he would rather throw
her into the river than allow her to do so. An attempt was made by her
parents to induce her to marry. They tried their best, but Joan would
none of it; and bringing the case before the lawyers at Toul, where
she proved that she had never thought of marrying a youth whom her
parents required her to wed, she gained her cause and her freedom.
In order to take the first step in her mission, Joan felt it necessary
to rely on some one outside her immediate family. A distant relation
of her mother's, one Durand Laxart, who with his wife lived in a
little village then named Burey-le-Petit (now called Burey-en-Vaux),
near Vaucouleurs, was the relation in whose care she placed her fate.
With him and his wife Joan remained eight days; and it might have been
then that the plan was arranged to hold an interview with Baudricourt
at Vaucouleurs, in order to see whether that knight would interest
himself in Joan's mission.
The interview took place about the middle of the month of May (1428),
and nothing could have been less propitious. A soldier named Bertrand
de Poulangy, who was one of the garrison of Vaucouleurs, was an
eye-witness of the meeting. He accompanied Joan of Arc later on to
Chinon, and left a record of the almost brutal manner with which
Baudricourt received the Maid. From this soldier's narrative we
possess one of the rare glimpses which have come down to us of the
appearance of the heroine: not indeed a description of what would be
of such intense interest as to make known to us the appearance and
features of her face; but he describes her dress, which was that then
worn by the better-to-do agricultural class of Lorraine peasant women,
made of rough red serge, the cap such as is still worn by the
peasantry of her native place.
It is much to be regretted that no portrait of Joan of Arc exists
either in sculpture or painting. A life-size bronze statue which
portrayed the Maid kneeling on one side of a crucifix, with Charles
VII. opposite, forming part of a group near the old bridge of Orleans,
was destroyed by the Huguenots; and all the portraits of Joan painted
in oils are spurious. None are earlier than the sixteenth century, and
all are mere imaginary daubs. In most of these Joan figures in a hat
and feathers, of the style worn in the Court of Francis I. From
various contemporary notices, it appears that her hair was dark in
colour, as in Bastien Lepage's celebrated picture, which supplies as
good an idea of what Joan may have been as any pictured representation
of her form and face. Would that the frescoes which Montaigne
describes as being painted on the front of the house upon the site of
which Joan was born could have come down to us. They might have given
some conception of her appearance. Montaigne saw those frescoes on his
way to Italy, and says that all the front of the house was painted
with representations of her deeds, but even in his day they were much
injured.
When Joan at length stood before the knight of Vaucouleurs, she told
him boldly that she had come to him by God's command, and that she was
destined to give the King victory over the English. She even said that
she was assured that early in the following March this would be
accomplished, and that the Dauphin would then be crowned at Rheims,
for all these things had been promised to her through her Lord.
'And who is he?' asked de Baudricourt.
'He is the King of Heaven,' she answered.
The knight treated Joan's words with derision, and Joan herself with
insults; and thus ended the first of their interviews.
It was only in the season of Lent of the next year (March 1427) that
Joan again sought the aid of de Baudricourt. On the plea of attending
her cousin Laxart's wife's confinement, Joan returned to
Burey-le-Petit. She left Domremy without bidding her parents farewell;
but it has been recorded by one of her friends, named Mengeth, a
neighbour of the d'Arcs, that she told this woman of her intention of
going to Vaucouleurs, and recommended her to God's keeping, as if she
felt that she would not see her again. At Burey-le-Petit Joan remained
between the end of January until her departure for Chinon, on the 23rd
of February; and before taking final leave she asked and received her
parents' pardon for her abrupt departure from them.
While with the Laxarts, news reached Vaucouleurs that the English had
commenced the siege of Orleans. This intelligence brought matters to a
crisis, for with the loss of Orleans the whole of what remained to the
French King must fall into the hands of the enemy, and France felt her
last hour of independence had come.
Joan determined on again seeking an interview with Robert de
Baudricourt, and this second meeting between her and the knight, which
took place six months after the first, had far happier results. As M.
Simeon Luce has pointed out in his history of 'Jeanne d'Arc at
Domremy,' the situation both of Charles VI. and of the knight of
Vaucouleurs was far different in 1429 to what it had been when Joan
first saw de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs in the previous year. The most
important stronghold held by the French in their ever-lessening
territory was in utmost danger of falling into the grasp of the
English; while de Baudricourt was anxiously waiting to hear whether
his protector, the Duc de Bar, whom Bedford had summoned to enter into
a treaty with the English, would not be prevailed upon to do so. If he
consented, this would make the knight's tenure of Vaucouleurs
impracticable. It was probably owing to this state of affairs that, on
her second interview with the knight of Vaucouleurs, Joan of Arc was
favourably received by him. Since the first visit to de Baudricourt by
the Maid of Domremy, her name had become familiar to many of the
people in and about Vaucouleurs. An officer named Jean de Metz has
left some record of his meeting at this time with Joan; for he was
afterwards examined among other witnesses at the time of the Maid's
rehabilitation in 1456. De Metz describes the Maid as being clothed in
a dress of coarse red serge, the same as she wore on her first visit
to Vaucouleurs. When he questioned her as to what she expected to gain
by coming again to Vaucouleurs, she answered that she had returned to
induce Robert de Baudricourt to conduct her to the King; but that on
her first visit he was deaf to her entreaties and prayers. But, she
added, she was still determined to appear before Charles, even if she
had to go to him all the way on her knees.
'For I alone,' she added, 'and no other person, whether he be King, or
Duke, or daughter of the King of Scots' (alluding to the future wife
of Charles VII.'s son, Louis XI.--Margaret of Scotland) 'can recover
the kingdom of France.'
As far as her own wishes were concerned, she said she would prefer to
return to her home, and to spin again by the side of her beloved
mother; for, she added: 'I am not made to follow the career of a
soldier; but I must go and carry out this my calling, for my Lord has
appointed me to do so.'
'And who,' asked de Metz, 'is your Lord?'
'My Lord,' answered the Maid, 'is God Himself.'
The enthusiasm of Joan seems to have at once gained the soldier's
heart. He took her by the hand, and swore that God willing he would
accompany her to the King. When asked how soon she would be ready to
start, she said that she was ready. 'Better to-day than to-morrow, and
better to-morrow than later on.'
During her second visit to Vaucouleurs, Joan remained with the same
friends as on her former visit; they appear to have been an honest
couple, of the name of Le Royer. One day while Joan was helping in
the domestic work of her hosts, and seated by the side of Catherine Le
Royer, Robert de Baudricourt suddenly entered the room, accompanied by
a priest, one Jean Fournier, in full canonicals. It appeared that the
knight had conceived the brilliant idea of finding out, through the
assistance of the holy man, whether Joan was under the influence of
good or evil spirits, before allowing her to go to the King's Court.
As may be imagined, Joan received the priest with all respect,
kneeling before him; and the good father was soon able to reassure de
Baudricourt that the evil spirits had no part or parcel in the heart
of the maid who received him with so much humility.
[Illustration: CHINON.]
For three weeks Joan was left in suspense at Vaucouleurs, and probably
it was not until a messenger had been sent to Chinon and had returned
with a favourable answer, that at length de Baudricourt gave a
somewhat unwilling consent to Joan's leaving Vaucouleurs on her
mission to Chinon. During those weary weeks of anxious waiting, Joan's
hostess bore witness in after days to the manner in which the time was
passed: of how she would help Catherine in her spinning and other
homely work, but, as when at home, her chief delight was to attend the
Church services, and she would often remain to confession, after the
early communion in the church. The chapel in which she worshipped was
not the parochial church of Vaucouleurs, but was attached to the
castle, and it still exists. In that castle chapel, and in a
subterranean crypt beneath the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame de
Vaucouleurs, Joan passed much of her time. Seven and twenty years
after these events, one Jean le Fumeux, at that time a chorister of
the chapel, a lad of eleven, bore witness, at the trial in which the
memory of Joan was vindicated, to having often seen her kneeling
before an image of the Virgin. This image, a battered and rude one,
still exists. Nothing less artistic can be imagined; but no one, be
his religious views what they may, be his abhorrence of Mariolatry as
strong as that of a Calvinist, if he have a grain of sympathy in his
nature for what is glorious in patriotism and sublime in devotion, can
look on that battered and broken figure without a feeling deeper than
one of ordinary curiosity.
A short time before leaving Vaucouleurs, Joan made a visit into
Lorraine--a visit which proved how early her fame had spread abroad.
The then reigning Duke of that province, Charles II. of Lorraine, an
aged and superstitious prince, had heard of the mystic Maid of
Domremy, and he had expressed his wish to see her, probably thinking
that she might afford him relief from the infirmities from which he
suffered. Whatever the reason may have been, he sent her an urgent
request to visit him, a message with which Joan at once complied.
Accompanied by Jean de Metz, Joan went to Toul, and thence with her
cousin, Durand Laxart, she proceeded to Nancy. Little is known of her
deeds while there. She visited Duke Charles, and gave him some advice
as to how he should regain his character more than his health, over
which she said she had no control. The old Duke appears to have been
rather a reprobate, but whether he profited by Joan's advice does not
appear.
Possibly this rather vague visit of the Maid's to Nancy was undertaken
as a kind of test as to how she would comport herself among dukes and
princes. That she showed most perfect modesty of bearing under
somewhat difficult circumstances seems to have struck those who were
with her at Nancy. She also showed practical sagacity; for she advised
Duke Charles to give active support to the French King, and persuaded
him to allow his son-in-law, young René of Anjou, Duke of Bar, to
enter the ranks of the King's army, and even to allow him to accompany
her to the Court at Chinon. By this she bound the more than lukewarm
Duke of Lorraine to exert all his influence on the side of King
Charles.
Before leaving Nancy on her return to Vaucouleurs, Joan visited a
famous shrine, not far from the capital, dedicated to St. Nicolas,
after which she hastened back to Vaucouleurs to make ready for an
immediate start for Chinon.
Joan's equipment for her journey to Chinon was subscribed for by the
people of Vaucouleurs; for among the common folk there, as wherever
she was known, her popularity was great. She seems to have won in
every instance the hearts of the good simple peasantry, the poorer
classes in general, called by a saintly King of France the 'common
people of our Lord,' who believed in her long before others of the
higher classes and the patricians were persuaded to put any faith in
her. To the peasantry Joan was already the maiden pointed out in the
old prophecy then known all over France, which said that the country
would be first lost by a woman and then recovered by a maiden hailing
from Lorraine. The former was believed to be the Queen-mother, who had
sided with the English; Joan, the Maid out of Lorraine who should save
France, and by whose arm the English would be driven out of the
country.
Clad in a semi-male attire, composed of a tight-fitting doublet of
dark cloth and tunic reaching to the knees, high leggings and spurred
boots, with a black cap on her head, and a hauberk, the Maid was armed
with lance and sword, the latter the gift of de Baudricourt. Her good
friends of Vaucouleurs had also subscribed for a horse. Thus
completely equipped, she prepared for war, ready for her eventful
voyage. Her escort consisted of a knight named Colet de Vienne,
accompanied by his squire, one Richard l'Archer, two men-at-arms from
Vaucouleurs, and the two knights Bertrand de Poulangy and Jean de
Metz--eight men in all, well armed and well mounted, and thoroughly
prepared to defend their charge should the occasion arise. Nor were
precautions and means of repelling an attack unnecessary, for at this
time the country around Vaucouleurs was infested by roving bands of
soldiers belonging to the Anglo-Burgundian party. Especially dangerous
was that stretch of country lying between Vaucouleurs and Joinville,
the first of the many stages on the way to Chinon. Although the
knights and men of the small expedition were not without
apprehension, Joan seems to have shown no sign of fear: calm and
cheerful, she said that, being under the protection of Heaven, they
had nothing to fear, for that no evil could befall her.
There still exists the narrow gate of the old castle of Vaucouleurs
through which that little band rode out into the night; hard by is the
small subterranean chapel, now under repair, where Joan had passed so
many hours of her weary weeks of waiting at Vaucouleurs. The old gate
is still called the French Gate, as it was in the days of the Maid.
[Illustration: STREET IN CHINON.]
It was the evening of the 23rd of February, 1429, that the little band
rode away into the open country on their perilous journey. Joan,
besides adopting a military attire, had trimmed her dark hair close,
as it was then the fashion of knights to do--cut round above the ears.
Even this harmless act was later brought as an accusation against her.
Joan was then in her seventeenth year, and, although nothing but
tradition has reached us of her looks and outward form, it is not
difficult to imagine her as she rides out of that old gate, a comely
maid, with a frank, brave countenance, lit up by the flame of an
intense enthusiasm for her country and people. There can be no doubt
that by her companions in arms--rough soldiers though most of them
were--she was held in veneration; they bore testimony to their
feelings by a kind of adoration for one who seemed indeed to them more
than mortal. Wherever Joan appeared, this feeling of veneration spread
rapidly through the length and breadth of the land; and the
people were wont to speak of the future saviour of France, not by the
name of Joan the Maid, or Joan of Arc, but as the Angelic
One--'l'Angélique.'
Among the crowd who gathered to see Joan depart was de Baudricourt,
who then made amends for his rudeness and churlish behaviour on her
first visit by presenting her with his own sword, and bidding her
heartily god-speed. '_Advienne que pourra!_' was his parting salute.
The journey between Vaucouleurs and Chinon occupied eleven days. Not
only was the danger of attack from the English and Burgundian soldiers
a great and a constant one, but the winter, which had been
exceptionally wet, had flooded all the rivers. Five of these had to be
crossed--namely, the Marne, the Aube, the Seine, the Yonne, and the
Loire: and most of the bridges and fords of these rivers were strictly
guarded by the enemy. The little band, for greater security, mostly
travelled during the night. Their first halt was made at the Monastery
of Saint-Urbain-les-Joinville. The Celibat of this monastery was named
Arnoult d'Aunoy, and was a relative of de Baudricourt. After leaving
that shelter they had to camp out in the open country.
Joan's chief anxiety was that she might be able to attend Mass every
day. 'If we are able to attend the service of the Church, all will be
well,' she said to her escort. The soldiers only twice allowed her the
opportunity of doing so, on one occasion in the principal church of
the town of Auxerre.
They crossed the Loire at Gien; and at that place, in the church
dedicated to one of Joan's special saints--St. Catherine, for whom she
held a personal adoration--she thrice attended Mass.
When the little band entered Touraine, they were out of danger, and
here the news of the approach of the Maid spread like wildfire over
the country-side. Even the besieged burghers of Orleans learned that
the time of their delivery from the English was at hand.
Perhaps it was when passing through Fierbois that Joan may have been
told of the existence in its church of the sword which so
conspicuously figured in her later story, and was believed to have
been miraculously revealed to her.
A letter was despatched from Fierbois to Charles at Chinon, announcing
the Maid's approach, and craving an audience. At length, on the 6th of
March, Joan of Arc arrived beneath the long stretch of castle walls of
the splendid old Castle of Chinon.
That imposing ruin on the banks of the river Vienne is even in its
present abandoned state one of the grandest piles of mediæval building
in the whole of France. Crowning the rich vale of Touraine, with the
river winding below, and reflecting its castle towers in the still
water, this time-honoured home of our Plantagenet kings has been not
inaptly compared to Windsor. Beneath the castle walls and the river,
nestles the quaint old town, in which are mediæval houses once
inhabited by the court and followers of the French and English kings.
When Joan arrived at Chinon, Charles's affairs were in a very perilous
state. The yet uncrowned King of France regarded the chances of being
able to hold his own in France as highly problematical. He had doubts
as to his legitimacy. Financially, so low were his affairs that even
the turnspits in the palace were clamouring for their unpaid wages.
The unfortunate monarch had already sold his jewels and precious
trinkets. Even his clothes showed signs of poverty and patching, and
to such a state of penury was he reduced that his bootmaker, finding
that the King was unable to pay him the price of a new pair of boots,
and not trusting the royal credit, refused to leave the new boots, and
Charles had to wear out his old shoe-leather. All that remained in the
way of money in the royal chest consisted of four gold 'écus.' To such
a pitch of distress had the poor King, who was contemptuously called
by the English the King of Bourges, sunken.
Now that Orleans was in daily peril of falling into the hands of the
English, and with Paris and Rouen in their hold, the wretched
sovereign had serious thoughts of leaving his ever-narrowing territory
and taking refuge either in Spain or in Scotland. Up to this time in
his life Charles had shown little strength of character. His existence
was passed among a set of idle courtiers. He had placed himself and
his broken fortunes in the hands of the ambitious La Tremoïlle, whose
object it was that the King should be a mere cipher in his hands, and
who lulled him into a false security by encouraging him to continue a
listless career of self-indulgence in his various palaces and pleasure
castles on the banks of the Loire. Charles had, indeed, become a mere
tool in the hands of this powerful minister. The historian Quicherat
has summed up George de la Tremoïlle's character as an avaricious
courtier, false and despotic, with sufficient talent to make a name
and a fortune by being a traitor to every side. That such a man did
not see Joan of Arc's arrival with a favourable eye is not a matter of
surprise, and La Tremoïlle seems early to have done his utmost to
undermine the Maid's influence with his sovereign. From the day she
arrived at Chinon, if not even before her arrival there--if we may
trust one story--an ambush was arranged by Tremoïlle to cut her off
with her escort. That plot failed, but her capture at Compiègne may be
indirectly traced to La Tremoïlle's machinations.
Those who have visited Chinon will recall the ancient and picturesque
street, named La Haute Rue Saint Maurice, which runs beneath and
parallel with the castle walls and the Vienne. Local tradition pointed
out till very recently, in this old street, the stone well on the side
of which the Maid of Domremy placed her foot on her arrival in the
town. This ancient well stone has recently been removed by the
Municipality of Chinon, but fortunately the 'Margelle' (to use the
native term) has come into reverent hands, and the stone, with its
deeply dented border, reminding one of the artistic wells in Venice,
is religiously preserved.
Of Chinon it has been said:
Chynon, petit ville,
Grande renom.
Its renown dates back from the early days of our Plantagenets, when
they lived in the old fortress above its dwellings: how Henry III.
died of a broken heart, and the fame of Rabelais, will ever be
associated with the ancient castle and town. Still, the deathless
interest of Chinon is owing to the residence of the Maid of
Domremy--as one has a better right to call her than of Orleans--in
those early days of her short career, in its burgh and castle. In or
near the street La Haute Rue Saint Maurice, hard by a square which now
bears the name of the heroine, Joan of Arc arrived at noon on Sunday,
the 6th of March.
It would be interesting to know in which of the old gabled houses Joan
resided during the two days before she was admitted to enter the
castle. Local tradition reports that she dwelt with a good housewife
('_chez une bonne femme_'). According to a contemporary plan of
Chinon, dated 1430, a house which belonged to a family named La Barre
was where she lodged; and although the actual house of the La Barres
cannot be identified, there are many houses in the street of Saint
Maurice old enough to have witnessed the advent of the Maid on that
memorable Sunday in the month of March 1430. Few French towns are so
rich in the domestic architecture of the better kind dating from the
early part of the fifteenth century as that of Chinon; and now that
Rouen, Orleans, and Poitiers have been so terribly modernised, a
journey to Chinon well repays the trouble. Little imagination is
required to picture the street with its crowd of courtiers and Court
hangers-on, upon their way to and from the castle above; so mercifully
have time and that far greater destroyer of things of yore dealt with
this old thoroughfare.
Two days elapsed before Joan was admitted to the presence of the King.
A council had been summoned in the castle to determine whether the
Maid should be received by the monarch. The testimony of the knights
who had accompanied the Maid from Vaucouleurs carried the day in her
favour.
While waiting to see the King, we have from Joan's own lips a
description of how her time was passed. 'I was constantly at prayers
in order that God should send the King a sign. I was lodging with a
good woman when that sign was given him, and then I was summoned to
the King.'
The church in which she passed her time in prayer was doubtless that
of Saint Maurice, close by the place at which she lodged. It owed its
origin to Henry II. of England; it is a rare and beautiful little
building of good Norman architecture, but much defaced by modern
restoration. Its age is marked by the depth at which its pavement
stands, the ground rising many feet above its present level.
A reliable account of Joan of Arc's interview with King Charles has
come down to us, as have so many other facts in her life's history,
through the witnesses examined at the time of the heroine's
rehabilitation. Foremost among these is the testimony of a priest
named Pasquerel, who was soon to become Joan's almoner, and to
accompany her in her warfare. He tells how, when Joan was on her road
to enter the castle, a soldier used some coarse language as he saw the
young Maid pass by--some rude remark which the fellow qualified with
an oath. Turning to him, the Maid rebuked him for blaspheming, and
added that he had denied his God at the very moment in which he would
be summoned before his Judge, for that within an hour he would appear
before the heavenly throne. The soldier was drowned within the hour.
At least such is the tale as told by Priest Pasquerel.
The castle was shrouded in outer darkness, but brilliantly lit within,
as Joan entered its gates. The King's Chamberlain, the Comte de
Vendôme, received the Maid at the entrance of the royal apartments,
and ushered her into the great gallery, of which fragments still
exist--a blasted fireplace, and sufficient remains of the original
stone-work to prove that this hall was the principal apartment in the
palace. Flambeaux and torches glowed from the roof and from the sides
of this hall, and here the Court had assembled, half amused, half
serious, as to the arrival of the peasant girl, about whom there had
been so much strange gossip stirring. Now the grass grows in wild
luxuriance over the pavement, and the ivy clings to the old walls of
that noble room, in which, perhaps, the most noteworthy of all
recorded meetings between king and subject then took place. A score of
torches held by pages lit the sides of the chamber. Before these were
ranged the knights and ladies, the latter clothed in the fantastically
rich costume of that time, with high erections on their heads, from
which floated long festoons of cloth, and glittering with the emblems
of their families on their storied robes. The King, in order to test
the divination of the Maid, had purposely clad himself in common garb,
and had withdrawn himself behind his more brilliantly attired
courtiers.
Ascending the flight of eighteen steps which led into the hall, and
following Vendôme, Joan passed across the threshold of the hall, and,
without a moment's hesitation singling out the King at the end of the
gallery, walked to within a few paces of him, and falling on her knees
before him--'the length of a lance,' as one of the spectators
recorded--said, 'God give you good life, noble King!' ('_Dieu vous
donne bonne vie, gentil Roi_').
'But,' said Charles, 'I am not the King. This,' pointing to one of his
courtiers, 'is the King.'
Joan, however, was not to be hoodwinked, and, finding that in spite of
his subterfuges he was known, Charles acknowledged his identity, and
entered at once with Joan on the subject of her mission.
[Illustration: HALL OF AUDIENCE--CHINON]
It appears, from all the accounts which have come to us of this
interview, that Charles was at first somewhat loth to take Joan and
her mission seriously. He appears to have treated the Maid as a
mere visionary; but after an interview which the King gave her apart
from the crowded gallery, when she is supposed to have revealed to him
a secret known only to himself, his whole manner changed, and from
that moment Joan exercised a strong influence over the man,
all-vacillating as was his character. It has never been known what
words actually passed in this private interview between the pair, but
the subject probably was connected with a doubt that had long tortured
the mind of the King--namely, whether he were legitimately the heir to
the late King's throne. At any rate the impression Joan had produced
on the King was, after that conversation, a favourable one, and
Charles commanded that, instead of returning to her lodging in the
town, Joan should be lodged in the castle.
The tower which she occupied still exists--one of the large circular
towers on the third line of the fortifications. A gloomy-looking
cryptal room on the ground floor was probably the one occupied by
Joan. It goes by the name of Belier's Tower--a knight whose wife, Anne
de Maille, bore a reputation for great goodness among the people of
the Court. Close to Belier's Tower is a chapel within another part of
the castle grounds, but the church which in those days stood hard by
Joan's tower has long since disappeared--its site is now a mass of
wild foliage.
While Joan was at Chinon, there arrived, from his three years'
imprisonment in England, the young Duke of Anjou. Of all those who
were attached to the Court and related to the French sovereign, this
young Prince was the most sympathetic to Joan of Arc. He seems to have
fulfilled the character of some hero of romance more than any of the
French princes of that time, and Joan at once found in him a
chivalrous ally and a firm friend. That she admired him we cannot
doubt, and she loved to call him her knight.
Hurrying to Chinon, having heard of the Maid of Domremy's arrival, he
found Joan with the King. Her enthusiasm was contagious with the young
Prince, who declared how eagerly he would help her in her enterprise.
'The more there are of the blood royal of France to help in our
enterprise the better,' answered Joan.
Many obstacles had still to be met before the King accorded liberty of
action to the Maid. La Tremoïlle and others of his stamp threw all the
difficulties they could suggest in the way of Joan of Arc's expedition
to deliver Orleans: these men preferred their easy life at Chinon to
the arbitrament of battle. In vain Joan sought the King and pressed
him to come to a decision: one day he said he would consent to her
progress, and the following he refused to give his consent. He
listened to the Maid, but also to the courtiers, priests, and lawyers,
and among so many counsellors he could come to no determination.
Joan during these days trained herself to the vocation which her
career compelled her to follow. We hear of her on one occasion
surprising the King and the Court by the dexterity with which she rode
and tilted with a lance. From the young Duke of Alençon she received
the gift of a horse; and the King carried out on a large scale what de
Baudricourt had done on a small one, by making her a gift of arms and
accoutrements. Before, however, deciding to entrust the fate of
hostilities into the hands of the Maid, it was decided that the advice
and counsel of the prelates assembled at Poitiers should be taken.
It was in the Great Hall of that town that the French Parliament held
its conferences. The moment was critical, for should the decision of
these churchmen be favourable to Joan, then Charles could no longer
have any scruples in making use of her abilities, and of profiting by
her influence.
It was, therefore, determined that Joan should be examined by the
Parliament and clergy assembled at Poitiers. The King in person
accompanied the Maid to the Parliament. The majestic hall, which still
calls forth the admiration of all travellers at Poitiers, is little
changed in its appearance since the time of that memorable event. It
is one of the noblest specimens of domestic architecture in France:
its graceful pillars and arched roof, and immense fireplace, remain as
they were in the early days of the fifteenth century.
Of the proceedings of that examination unfortunately no complete
report exists. Within a tower connected with the Parliament Hall is
still pointed out a little chamber, said to have been occupied by the
Maid while undergoing this, the first of her judicial and clerical
examinations. But later investigations point to her having been lodged
in a house within the town belonging to the family of the
Parliamentary Advocate-General, Maître Jean Rabuteau.
It must have been a solemn moment for Joan when summoned for the first
time into the presence of the Court of bishops, judges, and lawyers,
whom Charles had gathered together to examine her on her visions and
on her mission. The orders had been sent out by the King and the
Archbishop of Rheims; Gerard Machot, the Bishop of Castres and the
King's confessor; Simon Bonnet, afterwards Bishop of Senlis; and the
Bishops of Macquelonne and of Poitiers. Among the lesser dignitaries
of the Church was present a Dominican monk, named Sequier, whose
account of the proceedings, and the notes kept by Gobert Thibault, an
equerry of the King, are the only records of the examination extant.
The scantiness of these accounts is all the more to be regretted,
inasmuch as Joan frequently referred to the questions made to her, and
her answers, at this trial at Poitiers, during her trial at Rouen; and
they would probably have thrown much light on the obscure passages of
her early years, for at Poitiers she had not to guard against hostile
inquisition, and, doubtless, gave her questioners a full and free
record of her past life.
[Illustration: TOUR D'HORLOGE--CHINON.]
The first conference between these prelates, lawyers, and Joan lasted
two hours. At first they appeared to doubt the Maid, but her frank and
straightforward answers to all the questions put her impressed them
with the truth of her character. They were, according to the old
chronicles, 'grandement ebahis comme une ce simple bergère jeune fille
pouvait ainsi repondre.'
One of her examiners, Jean Lombard by name, a professor of theology
from the University of Paris, in asking Joan what had induced her to
visit the King, was told she had been encouraged so to do by 'her
voices'--those voices which had taught her the great pity felt by her
for the land of France; that although at first she had hesitated to
obey them, they became ever more urgent, and commanded her to go.
'And, Joan,' then asked a doctor of theology named William Aymeri,
'why do you require soldiers, if you tell us that it is God's will
that the English shall be driven out of France? If that is the case,
then there is no need of soldiers, for surely, if it be God's will
that the enemy should fly the country, go they must!'
To which Joan answered: 'The soldiers will do the fighting, and God
will give the victory!'
Sequier, whose account of the proceedings has come down to us, then
asked Joan in what language the Saints addressed her.
'In a better one than yours,' she answered.
Now Brother Sequier, although a doctor of theology, had a strong and
disagreeable accent which he had brought from his native town of
Limoges, and, doubtless, the other clerks and priests tittered not a
little at Joan's answer. Sequier appears to have been somewhat
irritated, and sharply asked Joan whether she believed in God.
'Better than you do,' was the reply; but Sequier, who is described as
a 'bien aigre homme,' was not yet satisfied, and returned to the
charge. Like the Pharisees, he wished for a sign, and he declared that
he for one could not believe in the sacred mission of the Maid, did
she not show them all a sign, nor without such a sign could he advise
the King to place any one in peril, merely on the strength of Joan's
declaration and word.
To this Joan said that she had not come to Poitiers to show signs, but
she added:--
'Let me go to Orleans, and there you will be able to judge by the
signs I shall show wherefore I have been sent on this mission. Let the
force of soldiers with me be as small as you choose; but to Orleans I
must go!'
For three weeks did these conferences last. Nothing was neglected to
discover every detail regarding Joan's life: of her childhood, of her
family and her friends. And one of the Council visited Domremy to
ferret out all the details that could be got at. Needless to say, all
that he heard only redounded to the Maid's credit; nothing transpired
which was not honourable to the Maid's character and way of life, and
in keeping with the testimony Jean de Metz and Poulangy had given the
King at Chinon.
One day she said to one of the Council, Pierre de Versailles, 'I
believe you have come to put questions to me, and although I know not
A or B, what I do know is that I am sent by the King of Heaven to
raise the siege of Orleans, and to conduct the King to Rheims, in
order that he shall be there anointed and crowned.'
On another occasion she addressed the following words in a letter
which John Erault took down from her dictation--to write she knew
not--to the English commanders before Orleans: 'In the name of the
King of Heaven I command you, Suffolk [spelt in the missive Suffort],
Scales [Classidas], and Pole [La Poule], to return to England.'
One sees by the above missive that the French spelling of English
names was about as correct in the fifteenth as it is in the nineteenth
century.
What stirred the curiosity of Joan's examiners was to try and discover
whether her reported visions and her voices were from Heaven or not.
This was the crucial question over which these churchmen and lawyers
puzzled their brains during those three weeks of the blithe
spring-tide at Poitiers. How were they to arrive at a certain
knowledge regarding those mystic portents? All the armoury of
theological knowledge accumulated by the doctors of the Church was
made use of; but this availed less than the simple answers of Joan in
bringing conviction to these puzzled pundits that her call was a
heavenly one. When they produced piles of theological books and
parchments, Joan simply said: 'God's books are to me more than all
these.'
When at length it was officially notified that the Parliament approved
and sanctioned the mission of the Maid, and that nothing against her
had appeared which could in any way detract from the faith she
professed to follow out her mission of deliverance, the rejoicing in
the good town of Poitiers was extreme. The glad news spread rapidly
over the country, and fluttered the hearts of the besieged within the
walls of Orleans. The cry was, 'When will the angelic one arrive?' The
brave Dunois--Bastard of Orleans--in command of the French in that
city, had ere this sent two knights, Villars and Jamet de Tilloy, to
hear all details about the Maid, whose advent was so eagerly looked
forward to. These messengers of Dunois had seen and spoken with Joan,
and on their return to Orleans Dunois allowed them to tell the
citizens their impressions of the Maid. Those people at Orleans were
now as enthusiastic about the deliverance as the inhabitants at
Poitiers, who had seen her daily for three weeks in their midst. All
who had been admitted to her presence left her with tears of joy and
devotion; her simple and modest behaviour, blended with her splendid
enthusiasm, won every heart. Her manner and modesty, and the gay
brightness of her answers, had also won the suffrage of the priests
and lawyers, and the military were as much delighted as surprised at
her good sense when the talk fell on subjects relating to their trade.
It was on or about the 20th of April 1429 that Joan of Arc left
Poitiers and proceeded to Tours. The King had now appointed a military
establishment to accompany her; and her two younger brothers, John and
Peter, had joined her. The faithful John de Metz and Bertrand de
Poulangy were also at her side. The King had selected as her esquire
John d'Aulon; besides this she was followed by two noble pages, Louis
de Contes and Raimond. There were also some men-at-arms and a couple
of heralds. A priest accompanied the little band, Brother John
Pasquerel, who was also Joan's almoner. The King had furthermore made
Joan a gift of a complete suit of armour, and the royal purse had
armed her retainers.
During her stay at Poitiers Joan prepared her standard, on which were
emblazoned the lilies of France, in gold on a white ground. On one
side of the standard was a painting representing the Almighty seated
in the heavens, in one hand bearing a globe, flanked by two kneeling
angels, each holding a fleur-de-lis. Besides this standard, which Joan
greatly prized, she had had a smaller banner made, with the
Annunciation painted on it. This standard was triangular in form; and,
in addition to those mentioned, she had a banneret on which was
represented the Crucifixion. These three flags or pennons were all
symbolic of the Maid's mission: the large one was to be used on the
field of battle and for general command; the smaller, to rally, in
case of need, her followers around her; and probably she herself bore
one of the smaller pennons. The names 'Jesu' and 'Maria' were
inscribed in large golden letters on all the flags.
The national royal standard of France till this period had been a dark
blue, and it is not unlikely that the awe and veneration which these
white flags of the Maid, with their sacred pictures on them, was the
reason of the later French kings adopting the white ground as their
characteristic colour on military banners.
Joan never made use of her sword, and bore one of the smaller banners
into the fight. She declared she would never use her sword, although
she attached a deep importance to it.
'My banner,' she declared, 'I love forty times as much as my sword!'
And yet the sword which she obtained from the altar at Fierbois was in
her eyes a sacred weapon.
CHAPTER II.
_THE DELIVERY OF ORLEANS._
It will be now necessary to go back in our story to the commencement
of the siege by the English of the town of Orleans, in order to
understand the work which Joan of Arc had promised to accomplish.
Orleans was the place of the utmost importance; not merely as being
the second city in France, but as forming the 'tête du pont' for the
passage of the river Loire. The French knew that were it to fall into
the hands of the English the whole of France would soon become subject
to the enemy.
The town was strongly fortified; huge towers of immense thickness, and
three stories in height, surrounded by deep and wide moats, encircled
the city. The only bridge then in existence was also strongly defended
with towers, called 'Les Tournelles,' while at the end of the town
side of the bridge were large 'bastilles,' powerful fortresses which
dated from the year 1417, when Henry V. threatened Orleans after his
triumphal march through Normandy. In 1421 the Orleanists defied the
victor of Agincourt: again they were in the agony of a desperate
defence against their invaders, ready to sustain all the horrors of a
siege.
Equally keen and determined were the English leaders to take Orleans,
which they rightly considered as the key of what remained unconquered
to them in France. Both countries looked anxiously on as the siege
progressed. Salisbury commanded the English; he had been up to this
point successful in taking all the places of importance in the
neighbourhood of Orleans, and that portion of the valley of the Loire
was commanded by his forces, both above and below Orleans.
On the approach of the enemy, the inhabitants of Orleans turned out to
strengthen the outer fortifications, and to place cannon and catapults
on the walls and ramparts. The priests on this occasion worked as hard
as the other citizens, and even the women and children helped with a
will.
Besides Dunois, who commanded the besieged garrison, was Raoul de
Gaucourt, who had defended Harfleur in 1415; he had but recently
returned from imprisonment in England, and was burning to avenge his
captivity. La Hire, Xaintrailles, Coulant, Coaraze, and Armagnac were
among the defenders of Orleans. Many Gascons belonging to the
Marshal-Saint Sévère and soldiers from Brittany helped to swell the
forces of the besieged.
It was on the 12th day of October (1428) that Salisbury crossed the
Loire and established his besieging force at the village of Portereau,
in front of the strongly defended bridge. In the meanwhile the
besieged had razed the houses and the convent of St. Augustin, in
order to prevent the enemy from entrenching themselves so near the
city gates. Salisbury, however, threw up fortifications on the site of
St. Augustin's, and placed a battery of guns opposite to the bridge
and its 'bastilles,' whence he was able to bombard the town with huge
stones. The English also placed mines below the bridge and the
fortresses of the Tournelles.
On the 21st, an assault was made on the bridge and its defences, which
was vigorously repulsed; the whole population were in arms, and manned
the walls; the women fought by the side of their husbands and
brothers. After a severe fight of four hours, the besiegers were
forced to withdraw.
The Tournelles were now mined and counter-mined, and were soon found
to be untenable. The besieged then abandoned this fortification, and
retired further back towards the centre of the bridge, which, as well
as its approaches, was defended by towers. Part of the bridge on the
side near the English was blown up, and a drawbridge, which could be
raised or lowered at pleasure, was thrown across the open space.
Salisbury was satisfied with the result of that day's fighting, for he
knew that, once he had the command of the northern side of the tower,
he could take it when necessary from that quarter. What he aimed at
for the present was to prevent all communication between the town and
the south of France. Holding the bridge, he could prevent relief from
coming to the city, and when the moment arrived he would be able to
throw his men with certain success upon it from the northern side.
The evening of the day in which he had made so successful an attack,
Salisbury mounted into the Tournelles in order to inspect thence the
city which lay beneath him. While gazing on it, a stray cannon shot
struck him on the face; he was carried, mortally wounded, from the
place. That fatal shot was said to have been fired by a lad, who,
finding a loaded cannon on the ramparts, had discharged it. For the
English, it was the deadliest shot of the whole war.
Readers of Shakespeare will remember that, in the first part of _Henry
VI._, the Master Gunner (no doubt that very 'Maître Jean' whose fame
was great in the besieged town) and his boy are introduced on the
scene, and that the boy fires the shot which proved fatal both to
Salisbury and Sir Thomas Gargrave. The prominent place given to this
French Master Gunner in the English play shows what a high reputation
Maître Jean must have had, even among the English, at the siege.
Salisbury's death, occurring a few days after he received the wound,
caused the siege to languish. Glansdale succeeded Salisbury in the
command; but it was not until the doughty Talbot and Lord Scales
appeared on the scene that siege operations recommenced with vigour.
The great pounding match then began again; the huge stone shot of the
English, which weighed one hundred and sixty-four livres, came
tumbling about the heads of the besieged, to which cannonade the
French promptly replied by a heavy fire. They had a kind of bomb, of
which they were not a little proud, wherefrom they fired iron shot of
one hundred and twenty livres in weight. The Master of Gunners of
Shakespeare's play, whose name was John de Monsteschère, made also
extraordinary practice with his culverin; and he could pick off marked
men in the Tournelles, as, for the misfortune of the English, had been
proved in the case of Salisbury. At times Master John would sham dead,
and, just as the English were congratulating themselves on his demise,
would reappear, and again use his culverin with deadly effect.
On the last day but one of the year (1428), the English had been
reinforced, and were now commanded by William de la Pole, Earl, and
afterwards Duke of Suffolk, under whose command acted Suffolk's
brother, John de la Pole, Lord Scales, and Lancelot de Lisle. In order
to maintain touch with his troops posted at the Tournelles, Suffolk
threw up flanking batteries on the northern side of the town. To
Suffolk's already large force Sir John Fastolfe brought a force of
twelve hundred men, in the month of January (1429).
The number of troops mustered by the besieged and besiegers was as
follows:--
On the side of the English, there were quartered at the Tournelles
five hundred men, under the command of Glansdale; three hundred under
Talbot; twelve hundred with Fastolfe. Including those who had come
with Suffolk at the commencement of the siege, the English force
amounted to four thousand five hundred men.
On the side of the besieged, excluding the armed citizens, who were
from three to four thousand strong, was a garrison numbering between
six and seven hundred men; also some thousand soldiers had been thrown
into the city between the middle of October 1428 and the January
following.
Both in strength of position, and as regards the number of their
troops, the French had the advantage. The comparative weakness of the
English force--which, all told, could only count about four thousand
men to carry on the siege--is to be accounted for by the garrisons
which were left in the conquered places over the north and south of
the country.
The siege was weakly conducted during the winter--a series of
skirmishes from the bastilles or towers thrown up by the besiegers led
to little result on either side; and it was not till the month of
February that a decisive engagement took place.
Near Rouvray a battle was fought, which is known by the singular
appellation of the Battle of the Herrings, from the circumstance that,
at that Lenten season, a huge convoy of fish was being taken from the
coast to Paris. In the fight, the fish-laden barrels were overthrown,
and their contents scattered over the field; whence the name of the
Battle of the Herrings. During this engagement, in which the French
were defeated, fell, on the side of the French, two noble Scots--John
Stuart, the Constable of Scotland, and his brother William.
After this action, the position of the besieged in Orleans became more
perilous, and the citizens, despairing of help coming to them from
Charles, were inclined to call in aid from the Duke of Burgundy. The
east, north, and west of the city were covered by the bastilles or
huge towers which the besiegers had thrown up, and from which they
could bombard the place; and the pressure on the devoted city waxed
ever stronger. By the month of April, Orleans was girdled by a chain
of fortresses, from which the cannonade was incessant. The English
gave names of French towns to these huge towers which threatened
Orleans on every side; one they named Paris, another Rouen, and one
other they called London.
The thirty thousand men, women, and children within the city walls
were now beginning to suffer from the horrors of a long siege. In the
town disturbances broke out, and the cry of treachery was heard--that
sure precursor of the fears of the strong that the hardships of the
siege would undermine the patriotism of their weaker citizens. But
when things seemed at their worst, succour was near at hand.
During those winter months the Queen-mother, who had warmly interested
herself in Joan of Arc's mission, had, in the Castle of Blois, been
collecting troops and securing the services of some notable officers,
including the Duke of Alençon. Towards the end of April Joan arrived
at Blois from Poitiers, accompanied by the Archbishop of Rheims,
Regnault de Chartres. On the 27th of April she left Blois on her first
warlike expedition.
No certain account of the numbers of troops which accompanied the Maid
has been kept. Monstrelet gives the numbers at seven thousand; but
Joan, during her trial, asserted that she had between ten and twelve
thousand men committed to her charge by the King. Joan's historian, M.
Wallon, points out that this may be an incorrect entry made in the
interest of the English at the trial, as they naturally would wish the
relieving force to appear as large as possible. It has even been
placed as low as three thousand. Among the officers who accompanied
the Maid was a Gascon knight, named La Hire, half freebooter, half
condottiere, a brave and reckless soldier, of whom it is recorded
that, before making a raid, he would offer up the following prayer:--
'I pray my God to do for La Hire what La Hire would do for Him, if He
were Captain and La Hire was God.'
From having been a mighty swearer, owing to Joan of Arc's influence La
Hire broke off this habit, but, in order to give him some scope for
venting his temper, Joan allowed him to swear by his stick.
These are but trivial details: still, they are of interest as showing
what influence a simple village maiden like Joan was able to exert on
those who, from their position and habits of life, might have been
thought to be the last to tolerate such interference. So changed, it
is said, had this rough warrior, La Hire, and many of his
fellow-soldiers become in their habits while with the Maid, that they
were happy to be able to kneel by the side of the sainted maiden and
partake in her Lord's Sacrament of the Eucharist; and then to confess
themselves to her good father confessor, Peton de Xaintrailles, the
Marshal de Boussac, and the Seigneur de Rais.
Joan had the following letter despatched to the Duke of Bedford:--
'In the name of Jesus and Mary--You, King of England; and you, Duke of
Bedford [Bethfort], who call yourself Regent of France; you, William
de la Pole; you, Earl of Suffolk; you, John Lord Talbot [Thalebot];
and you, Thomas Lord Scales, who call yourselves Lieutenants of the
said Bedford, in the name of the King of Heaven, render the keys of
all the good towns which you have taken and violated in France, to the
Maid sent hither by the King of Heaven. She is ready to make peace if
you will consent to return and to pay for what you have taken. And all
of you, soldiers, and archers, and men-at-arms, now before Orleans,
return to your country, in God's name. If this is not done, King of
England, I, as a leader in war, whenever I shall meet with your people
in France, will oblige them to go whether they be willing or not; and
if they go not, they will perish; but if they will depart I will
pardon them. I have come from the King of Heaven to drive you out
[_bouter_] of France. And do not imagine that you will ever
permanently hold France, for the true heir, King Charles, shall
possess it, for it is God's wish that it should belong to him. And
this has been revealed to him by the Maid, who will enter Paris. If
you will not obey, we shall make such a stir [_ferons un si gros
hahaye_] as hath not happened these thousand years in France. The Maid
and her soldiers will have the victory. Therefore the Maid is willing
that you, Duke of Bedford, should not destroy yourself.'
And Joan finishes this strange effusion by proposing to Bedford that
they should combine in making a holy war for Christianity!
This letter, written 'in the name of the Maid,' was dated on a Tuesday
in Holy Week. The address ran thus: 'To the Duke of Bedford, so called
Regent of the Kingdom of France, or to his Lieutenants, now before the
town of Orleans.'
Doubtless the reference to the deed of arms which, once again at peace
together, might be accomplished by the combined English and French
armies, was an idea which seems to have floated in Joan's enthusiastic
imagination, that the day might come when the two foremost nations in
Christendom would fight together for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre.
As might be expected, this letter was received by the English with
gibes and jeers, which was pardonable; but what was not so was the
bad treatment of the messenger who had brought it to the English
camp. He was kept prisoner, and, if some rather doubtful French
writers of the day are to be believed, it was seriously debated
whether or not he should be burnt. Let us trust this is but an
invention of the enemy.
Joan, before leaving Blois, insisted on the dismissal of all camp
followers--such bad baggage was certainly well left behind, and could
not have followed an army led by one who, night and morning, had an
altar erected, around which her hallowed flags were placed, and where
the Maid, and those willing, took the Sacrament at the head of the
army. It must have been a striking sight during that spring-time--that
army, led by a maiden all clad in white armour, and mounted on a black
charger, surrounded by a brilliant band of knights, riding along the
pleasant fields of Touraine, then in their first livery of brilliant
green. And a striking sight it must have been, when, at the close of
the long day's march, the tents were pitched and the altar raised, the
officiating priests grouped about it and the sacred pictured standards
waving above, while the solemn chant was raised, and the soldiers
knelt around.
One can well think how ready were those soldiers to follow Joan
wherever she would lead them, and it is not improbable that such a
crusade as she dreamt of, had it been possible, in which the two
nations, so closely connected by religious feeling, and so closely
united by position, but so long enemies owing to the rapacity and
greed of their kings, might have again placed the cross on the
battlements of the Holy City, under the leadership of her whom her
countrymen rightly called 'The Angelic.'
Joan rode out of Blois bearing her pennon in her hand, and as she rode
she chanted the '_Veni Creator_.' The sacred strain was taken up by
those who followed, and thus passed the Maid forth on her first great
deed of deliverance.
During the whole of the first night Joan remained, as was her custom
when she had no women about her, in her armour.
It was the Maid's wish to enter Orleans from the northern side, but
the officers with her thought this would be a great imprudence, and
followed the opposite bank of the river. Passing through Beaugency and
Meung, they went on by Saint Die, Saint Laurent, and Clery, without
meeting with any attack from the enemy who occupied these places. On
arriving at a place called Olivet, they were within the neighbourhood
of the beleaguered city. Below them rose the English bastille towers;
beyond, the walls, towers, and steeples of Orleans.
Joan had hoped that the city could have been entered without further
difficulty; she now found that not only the river lay between her and
the town, but that the English were in force on all sides. She wished
that the nearest of these bastilles, at Saint Jean le Blanc, should be
stormed, and the river forded there; but this scheme was judged by her
companions-in-arms to be too perilous, and Joan had again to comply
with the opinion of the officers.
Riding to the eastwards, and skirting the river some four miles below
the town, she and her knights forded it at a spot where some low long
islands, or 'eyots' as we call them on the Thames, lay in this part of
the Loire. On one of these, called l'Isle aux Bourdons, the provisions
and stores for the beleaguered city were shipped and transhipped, and
carried down to Orleans when the wind lay in that quarter.
It was at Reuilly that Dunois met the Maid, still chafing from her
thwarted plan of attacking the English in their stronghold at Saint
Jean le Blanc, and she appears to have shown him her displeasure.
While this interview took place the wind changed, and the provision
boats, which, owing to the wind being contrary, had not been able to
make the islands, were now enabled to leave the city. They soon
arrived, were laden with provisions, corn, and even cattle embarked on
them, and, when thus provisioned, returned to Orleans by the canal on
the left bank of the Loire, and successfully arrived at the city end
of the broken bridge, whence the provisions and live stock were passed
into the town.
The river was too much in flood to allow of the army being taken
across, nor could a bridge of boats be made, owing to the height of
the waters. Joan, however, was determined to enter Orleans, flood or
no flood, for she knew what the moral effect of her appearing to the
townspeople would be. Accompanied by Dunois, La Hire, and some two
hundred lances, just after darkness had hidden her movements from the
enemy, she left Reuilly and entered the city.
Preceded by a great banner, the Maid of Orleans, as she may now be
called, with Dunois by her side, and followed by her knights and
men-at-arms, rode slowly through the streets, filled with a crowd
almost delirious in its joy at welcoming within its walls its
long-looked-for Deliverer. The people clung to her, kissing her knees
and feet, and, according to the old chroniclers, behaved as if God
Himself had appeared among them. So eager was the throng to approach
her, that in the press one of her standards was set on fire by a
flambeau. After returning thanks for the delivery of her countrymen in
the cathedral, Joan was made welcome at the house of the treasurer of
the imprisoned Duke of Orleans. This citizen's name was James Boucher;
and here she lodged, with her brothers, and the two faithful knights
who had accompanied her during her journey from Vaucouleurs to Chinon.
A vaulted room in this house is still shown, which purports to have
been that occupied by the Maid of Orleans. If it is the same building
it has been much modernised, although a beautiful specimen of the
domestic Gothic of the early part of the fifteenth century, known as
the house of Agnes Sorel, remains much in the condition that it must
have been in during the famous year of deliverance, 1429.
Although Orleans, by the action of Joan of Arc, had been succoured for
the time, the enemy was still at its gates, and Joan's mission was but
half accomplished. The aspect of affairs since the 29th of April was,
however, greatly changed in favour of the French, and the _rôles_ of
besieged and besiegers changed. Joan's arrival had infused a fresh
spirit of enthusiasm and patriotism into the citizens, and the English
were no longer feared. We have Dunois's authority for the fact that
whereas, up to that time, two hundred English could put eight hundred
French to the rout, now five hundred French soldiers were prepared to
meet the entire English army.
On the 13th of April, hostilities had recommenced. Four hundred men,
commanded by Florent d'Illiers, made a sortie against the English near
the trenches at Saint Pouair, driving them into their quarters. But
the success was not followed up, and appears to have been undertaken
without Joan of Arc's advice. To the heralds that she sent into the
English camp only jeers and taunts were returned; and already the
threat of burning her when caught was made use of. Joan was, however,
not to be deterred by menaces and insults from doing all she could to
prevent unnecessary loss of life. On one occasion she rode out
half-way across the bridge, to where there stood a crucifix called La
Belle Croix, within speaking distance of the English in the
Tournelles. Thence she summoned Glansdale and his men to surrender,
promising that their lives should be spared. They answered with
derisive shouts and villainous abuse. Still commanding her patience,
which was only equalled by her courage, and before returning to the
town, she told them that, in spite of their boasting, the time was
near at hand when they would be driven forth, and that their leader
would never see England again. That they feared the Maid was evident,
in spite of the insults with which they greeted her; at any rate, no
attempt was made to attack her: even when almost alone, she came close
to their fortifications.
Meanwhile Dunois left for Blois to bring up the bulk of the army,
while Joan remained in Orleans, encouraging its inhabitants by her
confidence, faith, and courage. The people, writes the chronicler of
the siege, were never sated with the sight of the Maid: 'ils ne
pouvaient saouler de la voir,' he graphically says.
A second ineffectual effort was made by Joan, this time at a place
called the Croix Morin, to negotiate with the English, she again
promising them quarter if they would capitulate, but, as might be
expected, with no better result than before.
On the 2nd of May, followed by a vast throng, Joan of Arc rode out
along the enemy's forts, and after closely inspecting their defences
returned to vespers at the Church of Sainte-Croix. Certainly among the
people there was no want of belief in, and enthusiastic devotion to,
the Maid; but she had already enemies among the _entourage_ of the
King. We have already alluded to Tremoïlle's feelings with regard to
her and her mission. A still more formidable enemy was the Chancellor
of France, the Archbishop of Rheims, Regnault de Chartres; he and
Tremoïlle worked in concert to undermine all the prestige which Joan's
success in revictualling Orleans had caused at Court. The historian
Quicherat, whose work on Joan of Arc is by far the most complete and
reliable, considers this man to have been an astute politician,
without any moral strength or courage. When with Joan of Arc, he seems
to have shown firmness and even enthusiasm in her mission, but he sank
into the _rôle_ of a poltroon when her influence was withdrawn.
Instead of hastening the despatch of the reinforcements from Blois to
Orleans, he threw delay in the way; he seems to have hesitated in
letting these troops join those under the Maid, for fear that were she
to gain a thorough success his influence at Court would be weakened.
When Joan fell into the hands of her foes, the Archbishop had the
incredible baseness publicly to show his pleasure, declaring that her
capture by the enemy was a proof of Divine justice.
It was not till the 4th of May, and not until Dunois had ridden in hot
haste from Blois, that at length the aid, so long and eagerly
expected, arrived.
Joan rode to meet the succouring army some two miles out of the city,
bearing her flag, accompanied by La Hire and others of her knights.
After a joyful meeting, they turned, riding right through the enemy's
lines and along the fortified bastilles occupied by the English.
Whether it was fear, or superstition mixed with fear, not a man from
the English side stirred, although the English outnumbered the French.
It seemed that a terror had seized on the enemy as they saw her, whom
they called the Sorceress, ride by in her white panoply, bearing aloft
her mystic banner.
The English had now run short of supplies, and eagerly awaited the
arrival of Sir John Fastolfe, who was on his road to Orleans. Joan of
Arc felt uneasy, lest she might not be able to cut off Fastolfe and
his supplies, and she playfully threatened Dunois with his instant
execution if he failed to tell her of the moment he learnt of his
approach. Her anxiety was well founded, for the attack commenced
before she had been apprised of it. She had lain down for a short
repose one afternoon, when she heard the sounds of a cannonade. She
instantly ordered her squire d'Aulon to arm her, as she must
immediately attack the English; but whether those at the Tournelles,
or the advancing force under Fastolfe, she could not yet tell.
While arming, a great clamour rang through the town: the enemy were
said to be at hand, and the battle already engaged. Hastily throwing
on her armour, with the assistance of her hostess and d'Aulon, she
dashed off on her horse, and had only time to snatch her flag, as it
was handed to her from a window, so impetuous was she to enter the
fray.
As she galloped down the street the sparks flew from the stones,
through the High Street and past the cathedral, and out by the
Burgundy Gate. The action had already been raging, and the wounded
were being borne back into the town. It was the first time the Maid
came face to face with such grisly sights--the agony of the wounded,
the blood and gaping wounds. Her squire, d'Aulon, who has left some
record of that day, says how much she grieved over the wounded as they
were carried past her; her beloved countrymen bleeding and dying
affected her deeply. As her page writes, she said she could not see
French blood without her hair rising with horror at the sight.
Before she reached the field the day had been lost and won, the
English were in full retreat, and the battle now lay around the
bastilles of Saint Loup. About a mile to the north-east of the town
were the Englishmen; strongly entrenched, the place commanded that
portion of the river which Talbot had garrisoned with some three
hundred of his best troops. Joan now gave instructions that no aid
should reach this portion of the English defences from the adjacent
bastilles. All around the fight raged, and Joan was soon in the
hottest of the engagement, encouraging her soldiers, her flag in her
hand. Dismounting, she stood on the edge of the earthwork, beyond
which the English were at bay.
Talbot, seeing his men hard pressed, gave orders for a sortie to be
made from one of the other towers, named Paris, and thus cause a
diversion, while another force attacked the French in their rear. This
expedient, however, failed, for a fresh force appeared at this
juncture from Orleans, led by Boussac and De Graville, who beat back
the attack of the English. The English troops within the fortress of
Saint Loup were slain or taken. Joan herself rescued some of these,
and placed them under her protection; caring for them in the house she
was staying in.
At the close of the day, on returning into the town, Joan told the
people that they might count on being free from the enemy in five
days' time, and that by that time not a single Englishman would remain
before Orleans. No wonder that the joy-bells rang out in victorious
clamour during all that night in May, the eve of the Ascension.
On the following day no hostilities occurred. Joan again had a letter
sent to the English, summoning them as before to surrender and to quit
their forts; she said this was the third and the last time that she
could give them a chance of escaping with their lives. On this
occasion she made use of a new way of communicating with the foe; she
tied the letter to an arrow, which was discharged into the English
lines. No answer was received in return.
It was now determined that the next attack against the English should
be made from the left bank of the river, where they were strongly
fortified at the Bastille des Augustins, a little further down the
Loire than the Tournelles. On the opposite side this fortress
communicated with the Boulevard of Saint Privé, as well as with the
strong fortress of Saint Laurent, near which a small island, which
exists no longer, called the Isle of Charlemagne, kept open their
connections on both sides of the Loire. To the east, on the same side
of the river, a fortress, that of Saint Jean le Blanc, which had been
abandoned on the approach of Joan, had since been reoccupied by the
English. It was at this spot that the next and all-important attack
was directed to be made.
The French forces crossed the river over an island called Saint
Aignan. The distance was so narrow between the river bank on the town
side and this island, that a couple of boats moored together served as
a bridge. When Saint Jean le Blanc was reached, it was found deserted
by the English, Glansdale having left it in order to concentrate his
forces at the Tournelles. Joan led the attack. At first the French
fought badly; they had been seized by a panic, believing that a strong
force of the enemy were coming down on them from Saint Privé. Rallying
her men, Joan threw herself on the English, and drove them back into
the Augustins. She was now eagerly followed by the soldiers.
The first barricade was carried in a hand-to-hand fight, and soon the
French flags waved above the fortress so long held by the enemy. The
few English able to escape retired to the Tournelles. Eager to carry
on the success of the attack, and to prevent delay, Joan ordered that
the fort of the Augustins be fired, with the booty it contained.
The victors, who only numbered three thousand strong, captured six
hundred prisoners, one third were slain of the English, and two
hundred French prisoners recovered.
This was the second occasion on which the Maid had carried all before
her.
The day was closing, and the attack on the Tournelles had to be
deferred for that evening. That night Joan of Arc said to her almoner:
'Rise early to-morrow, for we shall have a hard day's work before us.
Keep close to me, for I shall have much to do, more than I have ever
had to do yet. I shall be wounded; my blood will flow!'
This prophetic speech of the Maid is among the most curious facts
relating to her life; for not only did she, during her trial at Rouen,
tell her judges that she had been aware that she would be wounded on
that day, and even knew the position beforehand of the wound, but that
she had known it would occur a long time before, and had told the King
about it. A letter is extant in the Public Library at Brussels,
written on the 22nd of April (1429), by the Sire de Rotslaer, dated
from Lyons, in which Joan's prophecy regarding her wound is mentioned.
This letter was written fifteen days before the date (7th of May) of
the engagement when that event occurred. A facsimile of the passage in
this letter referring to Joan's prophecy appears in the illustrated
edition of M. Wallon's _Life of Joan of Arc_.
Very early on the following day, Saturday, the 7th of May, it appears
that an attempt was made to prevent the Maid from starting for the
field, as, at a council held on the evening before by the officers, it
had been considered more prudent, before renewing the attack on the
English fortifications, to await fresh reinforcements from the King.
When this was reported to Joan, she said: 'You have taken your
counsel, and I have received mine,' and at break of day she was ready,
armed and prepared for the attack. Before starting, her host wished
her to eat some fish, an 'alose,' which had just been brought to him.
'Keep it,' said Joan with a smile, 'till the evening, and I will bring
with me a "Godon" who will, eat his share of it.' This sobriquet of
'Godon' was evidently the generic term for the English, as far back as
the early years of the fifteenth century, and may have been centuries
before the French designation for our countrymen.
Thus, full of spirits and with a brave heart, the Maid rode off to
meet the foe. When she reached the gate called Burgundy, she found it
closed by order of De Gaucourt, Grand Master of the King's Household,
who had done so at the instigation of those officers who wished the
attack on the English deferred until fresh reinforcements arrived.
But the Maid was not to be beaten and kept back even by barred gates.
'You are doing a bad deed,' she indignantly said to those about the
gate, 'and whether you wish it or not, my soldiers shall pass.'
The gate was opened, and Joan, followed by her men, galloped to where
some troops who had been left in possession of the fortifications
taken on the previous day were stationed. The attack on the Tournelles
commenced as soon as Joan arrived--it was then between six and seven
in the morning. Meanwhile Dunois, La Hire, and the principal forces
from the town came up. A desperate struggle ensued; both sides knew
that, whatever the result, that day would decide the fate of
Orleans--even that of the war.
The French were fighting under the eyes of their countrymen, who
manned the walls, and under the guidance of a leader they already
regarded as more than human--and never had they fought so well, during
that long and bloody century of warfare, as they did on that day.
The English, on the other hand, knew that if they were beaten out of
the Tournelles their defeat would be complete, and they too fought
with desperate courage.
Down into the ditches rushed the French, and up the sides of the
glacis; scaling-ladders were placed against the walls, to which the
men upon them clung like a swarm of bees. The defenders met them with
showers of arrows and shot, and hurled them back with lance and
hatchets. Constantly beaten back, they returned as constantly to the
charge. For six hours this fight lasted, and weariness and
discouragement fell on the French. Joan, who had been all these hours
in the thick of the engagement, seeing her men were losing heart,
redoubled her efforts; and, helping to raise a scaling-ladder, she
placed it against the parapet of one of the towers. While thus engaged
she was struck by a bolt from a cross-bow, between her shoulder and
neck. The wound was a severe one; she fell, and was carried out of the
press. Although she suffered acutely, she had the nerve to draw the
arrow from the wound. She refused to have the wound 'charmed,' as some
of those standing around her suggested, saying she would sooner die
than do anything that might be displeasing in the sight of Heaven. A
compress, steeped in oil, was then applied, and it staunched the
bleeding. She was faint and unnerved, and, as she seemed to feel her
death was near, made her confession to her priest.
Still the Tournelles held out in spite of these repeated attacks, and
Dunois, as the shadows lengthened, was on the point of calling back
his forces and sounding the retreat. Joan, in the meanwhile, had been
withdrawn from the fighting, and placed in a meadow at some distance
from the carnage; but when she heard that the troops were about to be
recalled from their attack on the Tournelles, she seemed to forget
her wound, and, making her way to Dunois, implored him not to give up
the fight. She assured him that she was certain they would even yet be
victorious. In a few stirring sentences she rallied the men to fresh
efforts, and told them that now or never would they conquer; the
English, she declared, could not hold out much longer. Mounting her
horse, and with flag unfurled, she again led the van; to those near
her she said, 'Watch my standard; when it reaches the walls the place
will be ours.'
The struggle that ensued was fierce and decisive. Inspired by the
valour of Joan, the French, who appeared as fresh as before her wound,
stormed the bastions and towers of the Tournelles with tremendous
energy. Reinforcements had meanwhile arrived from the town, and these
attacked the Tournelles in the rear. Passing over the broken arches of
the bridge by means of ladders thrown across the masonry, the first
man to reach the other bank was a knight of Rhodes, Nicolas de
Giresme. Attacked from two sides, the English still held the
Tournelles with bull-dog tenacity; but the sight of the witch and
sorceress, as they considered Joan, and who they thought had met with
a mortal hurt, leading the soldiers with unabated courage, caused a
panic to spread through their ranks; and when a sudden shout of
victory proclaimed that the white and golden banner had at length
struck the walls of the fortress, the doom of the Tournelles had
arrived.
Clear above the din of battle rang out the triumphant voice of the
Maid: 'The victory is ours!' she cried.
Seeing the day was lost, the English now attempted to escape
destruction by swimming the river; others threw themselves on a
bridge, which, however, having been set on fire by the French, only
caused those who hoped to cross to fall either into the flames or into
the river below.
Glansdale, the English leader, who had grossly insulted Joan but a few
days before, was among those who were drowning in the Loire. Seeing
his peril, Joan of Arc attempted to save him, but Glansdale was swept,
before her aid could reach him, down the stream, never more to return
to his own land again, as Joan had prophesied.
Five hundred English perished either in the Tournelles or were drowned
in attempting to escape; the rest were made prisoners by the French.
Darkness had now fallen, and although Joan had been taking part in the
battle for more than a dozen hours, and had besides been grievously
hurt, she would not leave the field till late in the night, in case
the English at the Bastille of Saint Laurent should be inclined to
avenge the fall of the Tournelles, and the victory over their
comrades. But for that day, at all events, the English had had enough
of fighting: 'ils n'en avaient une vouloir' for more, as the old
chronicler quaintly expresses himself.
Riding back across the bridge which the citizens had in the meanwhile
partially restored, Joan re-entered the city which her splendid
courage had rescued from the English. 'God knows,' writes Perceval de
Cagny, 'with what joy she was received'; and our English historian of
those days, Hall, has left the following graphic account of the joy
that went out from the people of Orleans to their saviour:--
'After the siege was thus broken up, to tell you what triumphs were
made in the city of Orleans, what wood was spent in fire, what wine
was drunk in houses, what songs were sung in the streets, what melody
was made in taverns, what rounds were danced in large and broad
places, what lights were set up in the churches, what anthems were
sung in chapels, and what joy was showed in every place--it were a
long work, and yet no necessary cause. For they did as we in like case
would have done; and we, being in like estate, would have done as they
did.'
All that day Joan of Arc had eaten nothing, and her strength must have
been more than mortal to have sustained the heat, fatigue, and, above
all, the anguish of her wound. At length she was able to find some
repose with her kind hosts, and, after taking a little bread dipped in
wine, she retired to enjoy her well-earned rest.
Orleans was now delivered, as the citizens found on waking the next
morning after the battle, when the joyful news spread through the
town that the English had abandoned the bastilles on the northern side
of the city, leaving all their sick, stores, artillery, and
ammunition. That day Lord Talbot must have used expressions probably
not as poetical as those put into his mouth in the play of _Henry
VI._; but doubtless far more forcible--for it was now that he, for the
first time, felt the bitterness of defeat, the shame of turning his
back on his enemy; that enemy whom, until now, he had, after so many
victories, almost grown to despise.
'My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do:
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops, and conquers as she lists.'
But although retire he had to, Talbot's retreat was made in perfect
order, and in a kind of defiant fashion. Ranging his forces near to
and facing the town, he seemed inclined to make a further stand, if
not to carry out an attack against the city. Joan was prepared to
repel such an attack, but the English contented themselves with a mere
feint, a military demonstration.
The day was a Sunday, and Joan, ever loath to fight on that day,
refused to give the signal for attack, saying that if the enemy chose
to begin an engagement they would be met and defeated; but that she
could not sanction fighting on that holy day. Prepared for whatever
might occur, the Maid of Orleans then ordered that Mass should be
said at the head of her troops.
When the religious act was over:
'Look,' she said, 'whether the English have their faces or their backs
turned to us.'
And when she heard that they were in full retreat on Mehun-sur-Loire,
she added, 'Let them depart, in God's name: it is not His wish that
you should attack them to-day, and you will meet them again.'
After an hour's halt, the English continued to retreat, previously
setting fire to their bastilles, and carrying their prisoners with
them.
The day that saw the deliverance of Orleans was held for centuries as
a national day of rejoicing in the town, and seldom have the citizens
of any place had better cause for celebrating so joyful and honourable
an event. The siege which Joan had thus brought to an end began on the
12th of October (1428), and ended on the 8th of May (1429). Ten days
had sufficed for the heroic Maid to raise the English blockade.
Throughout France the effect of the news of the deliverance of Orleans
was prodigious; and although most of the English, no doubt, believed
that the result was owing to the instrumentality of the powers of
darkness, many saw in it the finger of God.
When the great news reached Paris on the 10th of May, Fauconbridge, a
clerk of Parliament, made the following note in his register:--'Quis
eventus fuerit novit Deus bellorum'; and on the margin of the
register he has traced a little profile sketch of a woman in armour,
holding in her right hand a pennon on which are inscribed the letters
I.H.S. In the other hand she holds a sword. This parchment may still
be seen in the National Archives in Paris.
Joan, having accomplished her undertaking, lost no time in returning
to the King at Chinon.
CHAPTER III.
_THE CORONATION AT RHEIMS._
Leaving the now free and happy town to jubilate in its deliverance
from the enemy, Joan of Arc went by Blois and Tours to Chinon. At
Tours the King had come to meet the Maid. When within sight of the
King, Joan dismounted and knelt before him. Charles came forward
bareheaded to meet her, and embraced her on the cheek; and, to use the
words of the chronicler, made her '_grande chère_'. It was on this
occasion that the King bestowed on Joan of Arc the badge of the Royal
Lily of France to place in her coat-of-arms. The cognizance consisted
of a sword supporting a royal crown, with the fleur-de-lis on either
side.
Joan now strongly urged the King to lose no time, but at once go to
Rheims, to be crowned. The fact of his being crowned and proclaimed
King of France would add infinitely to his prestige and authority; he
would then no longer be a mere Dauphin or King of Bourges, as the
English and Burgundians styled him. But now Joan found how many at
Court were lukewarm. The council summoned to deliberate on her
proposal alleged that the King's powers and purse would not enable
him to make so long and hazardous an expedition. Joan used every
argument in favour of setting out forthwith for Rheims: she declared
that the time given to her for carrying out her mission was short,
and, according to the Duke of Alençon's testimony, she said that after
the King was crowned she would deliver the Duke of Orleans from his
captivity in England, but that she had only one year in which to
accomplish this task; and therefore she prayed that there might be no
delay in starting for Rheims.
Charles was now staying at the Castle of Loches, that gloomy
prison-fortress whose dungeons were to become so terribly notorious in
the succeeding reign. Joan, whose impatience for action carried her
beyond the etiquette of the Court, entered on one occasion into the
King's private apartment, where the feeble and irresolute monarch was
consulting with his confessor the Bishop of Castres, Christophe
d'Harcourt, and Robert de Maçon. Kneeling, the Maid said:--
'Noble Dauphin, hold not such long and so many councils, but start at
once for Rheims, and there receive your crown.'
'Do your voices inspire this advice?' asked the King's confessor.
'Yes,' was the answer, 'and with vehemence.'
'Then,' said the Bishop, 'will you not tell us in the King's presence
in what way your voices communicate with you?'
To this Jesuitical query, Joan, in her simple and straightforward
manner, answered the priest, that when she met with people who doubted
the truth of her mission she would retire to her room and pray, and
then voices returned and spoke to her:--'Go forward, daughter of God,
and we will assist you,' and how hearing those voices and those words
she would rejoice and take courage, and only long that her then state
of happiness might last always. While telling them these things she
seemed a being transformed, surrounded by a something Divine and holy.
It was not unnatural that the King and his councillors should hesitate
before making up their minds to undertake the journey to Rheims, for
the English were posted in force at Beaugency, at Meun, where Talbot
was encamped, and at Jargeau. They also held a strong position on the
Loire; it would be difficult to reach Rheims without encountering some
of their forces. Jargeau had been attacked, indeed, by Dunois and
Xaintrailles, but unsuccessfully; and there was real danger in going
northwards while the English were still so plentiful and so strongly
entrenched in the towns of the centre and south of France. Another
reason for delaying the journey to Rheims and the ceremony of the
coronation, was that some time must elapse before the princes and
great nobles, who would have to take part in the coronation, could
assemble at Rheims.
Joan, thus thwarted in her wish of marching directly on to Rheims,
suggested driving the English from their fortresses and encampments
on the Loire. To this scheme the royal consent was obtained, and the
Duke of Alençon was placed in command of a small force of soldiers.
Joan directed the expedition, and it was ordered that nothing should
be done without the sanction of the Maid.
In a letter, dated the 8th June, 1429, written by the young Count of
Laval, who met Joan of Arc in Selles in Berri, the place of rendezvous
for the expedition, is a pleasant notice of the impression the heroine
caused him. He describes her as being completely armed, except that
her head was bare. She entertained the Count and his brother at
Selles. 'She ordered some wine,' he writes, 'and told me that I should
soon drink wine with her in Paris.' He adds that it was marvellous to
see and hear her. He also describes her leaving Selles that same
evening for Romorantin, with a portion of her troops. 'We saw her,' he
writes, 'clothed all in white armour excepting her head; her charger,
a great black one, plunged and reared at the door of her lodging, so
that she could not mount him. Then she said, "Lead him to the Cross,"
which cross stood in front of the church on the high road. And then he
stood quite still before the cross, and she mounted him; then as she
was riding away she turned her face to the people who were standing
near the door of the church; in her clear woman's voice she
said:--"You priests and clergy, make processions, and pray to God for
our success." Then she gave the word to advance, and with her banner
borne by a handsome page, and with her little battle-axe in her hand,
she rode away.'
The church before which this scene took place at Selles-sur-Cher still
exists, a fine massive building, dating from between the eleventh and
thirteenth centuries; but the old cross that stood before it, to which
Joan of Arc's black charger was led, has long ago disappeared.
In my opinion, this graphic description of the Maid of Orleans,
written by Guy de Laval to his parents, is the best that has come down
to our day of the heroine. There is to us a freshness about it which
proves how deeply the writer must have been stirred by that wonderful
character; it shows too that, with all her intensely religious and
mystic temperament, Joan of Arc had a good part of sprightliness and
_bonhomie_ in her character, which endeared her to those whose good
fortune it was to meet her.
The incident of the black charger standing so still beside the cross,
and the figure of the Maid, mystic, wonderful, in her white panoply,
with her head bare--that head which, in spite of no authentic portrait
having come down to us, we cannot but imagine a grand and noble
one--make up a living picture of historic truth, far above the fancies
evolved out of the brains of any writer of fiction--for is it not
romance realised?
The eagerness to accompany Joan of Arc in this expedition of the Loire
was great. The Duke of Alençon wrote to his mother to sell his lands
in order that money might be raised for the army. The King was unable
or unwilling to pay out of his coffers the expenses of the campaign.
From all sides came officers and men eager for new victories under the
banner of the Maid.
Joan led the vanguard, followed by Alençon, de Rais, Dunois, and
Gaucourt. At Orleans they were joined by fresh forces under Vendôme
and Boussac. On the 11th of June the army amounted to eight thousand
men. Jargeau was the first place to be attacked. Here Suffolk, with
between six and seven thousand men, all picked soldiers, had
established himself. Inferior in numbers, the English had the
advantage over the French in their artillery. In the meanwhile,
Bedford, who had news of Suffolk's peril, sent Fastolfe to Jargeau,
with a fresh force of five thousand men. But for some reason or other
Fastolfe seemed in no hurry to come to Suffolk's assistance; he lost
four days at Etampes, and four more at Jauville. Some alarm seems to
have been felt among the French troops at the news of Fastolfe's
approach. Joan mildly rebuked those who showed anxiety by saying to
them: 'Were I not sure of success, I would prefer to keep sheep than
to endure these perils.'
The faubourgs of the town of Jargeau were attacked and taken, but
before storming the place, Joan, according to her habit, sent a
summons to the army. She bade the enemy surrender: doing so, he would
be spared, and allowed to depart with his side-arms; if he refused,
the assault should be made at once. The English demanded an armistice
of fifteen days: hardly a reasonable request when it is remembered
that Fastolfe, with his reinforcements, might any day arrive before
Jargeau. Joan said they might leave, taking their horses with them,
but within the hour. To this the English would not consent, and it was
decided to attack upon the following morning.
The next day was a Tuesday; the signal was given at nine in the
morning. Joan had the trumpets sounded, and led on the attacking
column in person. Alençon appears to have thought the hour somewhat
early; but Joan overruled him by telling him that it was the Divine
will that the engagement should then take place. 'Travaillez,' she
repeated, 'Travaillez! et Dieu travaillera!'
These words may well be called Joan of Arc's life motto, and the
secret of her success. 'Had she,' she asked Alençon, 'ever given him
reason to doubt her word?' And she reminded him how she had promised
his wife to bring him, Alençon, back safe and sound from this
expedition. Joan seems throughout that day's fighting to have watched
over the Duke's safety with much anxious care; at one hour of the day
she bade him leave a position from which he was watching the attack,
as she told him that if he remained longer in that place he would get
slain from some catapult or engine, to which she pointed on the walls.
Hardly had the Duke left the spot when a Seigneur de Lude was struck
and killed by a shot from the very engine about which Joan had warned
Alençon.
Hour after hour raged the attack; both Joan and Alençon directed the
storming parties under a heavy fire. A stone from a catapult struck
Joan on her helmet as she was in the act of mounting a ladder--she
fell back, stunned, into the ditch, but soon revived, and rising, with
her undaunted courage, she turned to hearten her followers, declaring
that the victory would be theirs. In a few more moments the place was
in possession of the French. Suffolk fled to the bridge which spanned
the Loire: there he was captured. A soldier named William Regnault
beat him to the ground, but Suffolk refused to yield to one so low in
rank, and is said to have dubbed his victor knight before giving him
up his sword. Besides Suffolk, a brother of his was taken, and four or
five hundred men were killed or captured. The place was pillaged. The
most important of the prisoners were shipped to Orleans.
The following day Joan returned to Orleans with Alençon, where they
remained two days to rest their men, after which they proceeded to
Meun. This was a strongly fortified town on the Loire, about an equal
distance from Orleans on the west and from Jargeau on the east.
The first success of the French was the occupation of a bridge held by
the English. They then descended the river, and attacked the town of
Beaugency. This town had been abandoned by the English garrison, who
had thrown themselves into the castle. Here it was that the army of
the Loire was joined by the Constable de Richemont, who could be
almost considered as a little monarch in his own territory of
Brittany. This magnate appears to have been a somewhat unwelcome
addition to Joan and Alençon's army. He was, however, tolerated, if
not welcomed. Alençon and the Constable, who had till now been at
enmity, were reconciled by Joan's influence, and she paved the way for
a reconciliation between Richemont and the King.
It was high time that all the French princes should be reconciled, for
the danger from the invaders was still great even in the immediate
circle of the Court and army. A strong body of men was known to be on
the way from Paris, under the command of Fastolfe, and Talbot was
marching to meet him with a force from the Loire district; they soon
met, and together proceeded directly upon Orleans. Fastolfe appears to
have been disinclined to attack, his force being smaller than that of
the French; but Talbot was beside himself with rage at having to
retreat from Orleans, and swore by God and St. George that, even had
he to fight the enemy alone, fight he would. Fastolfe had to give way
to the fiery lord, although he told his commander that they had but a
handful of men compared to the French; and that if they were beaten,
all that King Henry V. had won in France with so much loss of life
would be again lost to the English.
Leaving some troops to watch the English garrisons in the castle of
Beaugency, Joan marched against the English. The hostile armies met
some two miles between Beaugency and Meun. The English had taken up a
place of vantage on the brow of a hill; their archers as usual were
placed in the front line, and before them bristled a stockade. The
French force numbered about six thousand, led by Joan of Arc, the Duke
of Alençon, Dunois, Lafayette, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and other
officers.
It was late in the day when heralds from the English lines arrived
with a defiant message for the French. Joan's answer was firm and
dignified. 'Go,' she said to the heralds, 'and tell your chiefs that
it is too late for us to meet to-night, but to-morrow, please God and
our Lady, we shall come to close quarters.'
The English were still strongly fortified in the little town of Meun.
A portion of their army left Beaugency in order to effect a junction
with their other comrades, and in perfect order Talbot commenced his
retreat on Paris, taking the northern road through the wooded land of
La Beauce. They were closely followed by the French, but neither army
had any idea how near they were to one another till a stag, startled
by the approach of the French, crossed the English advanced guard. The
shouts of the English soldiers on seeing the stag gallop by was the
first sign the French had of the propinquity of their foes. A hasty
council of war was held by the French commanders. Some were for delay
and postponing the attack until all their forces should be united; and
these, the more prudent, pointed out the inferiority of their force to
that of the enemy, arguing that a battle under the circumstances, in
the open country, would be hazardous. Joan of Arc, however, would not
listen to these monitions. 'Even,' she cried, 'if they reach up to the
clouds we must fight them!' And she prophesied a complete victory.
Although, as ever, anxious to command the attack, she allowed La Hire
to lead the van. His orders were to prevent the enemy advancing, and
to keep him on the defensive till the entire French force could reach
the ground. La Hire's attack proved so impetuous that the English
rearguard broke and fled back in confusion. Talbot, who had not had
time, so sudden and unexpected had been the French attack, to place
his archers and defend the ground, as was his wont, with palisades and
stockades, turned on the enemy like a lion at bay. Fastolfe now came
up to Talbot's succour; but his men were met by the rout of the
rearguard of the broken battle, and the fugitives caused a panic among
the new-comers. In vain did Sir John attempt to rally his men and face
the enemy. After a hopeless struggle, he too was borne off by the tide
of fugitives. One of these, an officer named Waverin, states the
English loss that day to have amounted to two thousand slain and two
hundred taken, but Dunois gives a higher figure, and places the
English killed at four thousand.
[Illustration: RHEIMS CATHEDRAL--WEST DOOR.]
This battle of Patay was the most complete defeat that the English had
met with during the whole length of that war of a hundred years
between France and England; and, to add to its completeness, the
hitherto undefeated Talbot was himself amongst the taken.
'You little thought,' said Alençon to him, when brought before him,
'that this would have happened to you!'
''Tis the fortune of war,' was the old hero's laconic answer.
The effects of this victory of Patay on the fortunes of the English in
France were greater than the deliverance of Orleans, and far more
disastrous, for the French had now for the first time beaten in the
open field their former victors. The once invincible were now the
vanquished, and the great names of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt had
lost their glamour. When the news was known that the English under
Talbot and Fastolfe had been beaten, and that the great commander for
so many years the terror of France had been made a prisoner, and that
these mighty deeds had been accomplished by the advanced guard of the
French army under the inspiration of the Maid of Orleans, the whole
country felt that the knell of doom of the English occupation in
France had rung.
There is an anecdote relating to Joan of Arc at Patay that should find
a place here. After the battle, and while the prisoners were being
marched off by the French, Joan was distressed to see the brutality
with which those captives unable to pay a ransom were treated. One
poor fellow she saw mortally wounded by his captors. Flinging herself
from her saddle, she knelt by the side of the dying man, and, having
sent for a priest to shrive him, she remained by the poor fellow's
side and attended to him to the end, and by her tender ministrations
helped him to pass more gently over the dark valley of death.
Michelet discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's
page, Louis de Contes, who was probably an eye-witness of the scene.
With this brilliant victory at Patay closed Joan of Arc's short but
glorious campaign on the Loire. Briefly, this was the career of her
victories:--On the 11th of June the Maid attacked Jargeau, which
surrendered the next day. On the 13th she re-entered Orleans, where
she rallied her troops. On the 15th she occupied the bridge at Meun,
and the following day she attacked Beaugency, which yielded on the day
after. The English had in vain hoped to relieve Jargeau: they arrived
too late. After the fall of Beaugency they fell back, and were
defeated at Patay on the 18th.
A wonderful week's work was this campaign, ordered and led by a maiden
of eighteen. What made Joan of Arc's success more remarkable is the
fact that among the officers who served under her many were lukewarm
and repeatedly foiled her wishes. And it is not difficult to trace the
feeling of jealousy that existed among her officers; for here was one
not knight or noble, not prince, or even soldier, but a village
maiden, who had succeeded in a few days in turning the whole tide of
a war, which had lasted with disastrous effects for several
generations, into a succession of national victories. This
professional jealousy, as one may call it, among the French military
leaders was fomented and aggravated by the perfidious counsellors
about the King. The only class who thoroughly appreciated and were
really worthy of the Maid and her mission, were the people. And it is
still by the people that everlasting gratitude and love of the heroic
Maid are most deeply felt.
While Joan was gaining a succession of victories on the Loire, the
indolent King was on a visit to La Tremoïlle at his castle of
Sully-sur-Loire. Accompanied by Alençon and the Constable Richemont,
Joan repaired to Sully. She had promised to make the peace between
Charles and Richemont, and as the Constable had brought with him from
his lands in Brittany fifteen hundred men as a peace-offering, the
reconciliation was not a matter of much difficulty. La Tremoïlle saw
with an evil feeling the ever-growing popularity of Joan, and feared
her daily increasing influence with the King; but he could not prevent
the march on Rheims, much as he probably wished to do so. It was
arranged that the army should be concentrated at Gien. From Gien, Joan
addressed a letter to the citizens of Tournay, a town of doubtful
loyalty to Charles, and much under the influence of the Burgundian
party. She summoned in this letter those who were loyal to Charles to
attend the King's forthcoming coronation.
On the 28th of June the King and Court left Gien, on their northern
march. That march was not a simple matter, for a country had to be
traversed in which the towns and castles still bristled with English
garrisons, or with doubtful allies. Auxerre belonged to the Burgundian
party, always in alliance with the English; Troyes was garrisoned with
a mixed force of English and Burgundians; and the strongly fortified
places on the Loire, such as Marchenois, Cosne, and La Charité, were
still held by the English troops. Charles' army had no artillery; it
was therefore out of the question to storm or besiege towns however
hostile, and the counsellors and creatures of the King urged him not
to risk the dangers of a journey to Rheims under such disadvantageous
circumstances.
Joan, wearied out by the endless procrastination and hesitation of the
King, left him, and preferred a free camp in the open fields to the
purlieus of the Court, with its feeble sovereign and plotting
courtiers. Joan of Arc on this occasion may be said to have 'sulked,'
but she showed her usual common sense in what she did, and her leaving
the Court seems to have given the vacillating King a momentary feeling
of shame and remorse. Orders were issued that the Court should be
moved on the 29th of June.
The royal army which started on that day for Rheims numbered twelve
thousand men; but this force was greatly increased on its march. By
the side of the King rode the Maid of Orleans; on the other side of
the King, Alençon. The Counts of Clermont, of Vendôme, and of
Boulogne--all princes of the blood--came next. Dunois, the Maréchal de
Boussac (Saint-Sevère), and Louis Admiral de Culan followed. And then,
in a crowd of knights and captains, rode the Seigneurs de Rais, de
Laval, de Loheac, de Chauvigny, La Hire, Xaintrailles, La Tremoïlle,
and many others.
Before the town of Auxerre a halt was called: it was still under the
influence of the English and Burgundians. A deputation waited upon
Charles, provisions were sent to the army, but the town was not
entered. Outside its fortifications the army rested three days, after
which it continued its march to Saint-Florentin, whose gates swung
open to the King; thence on to Brinon l'Archevêque, whence Charles
forwarded a messenger with a letter to his lieges at Rheims,
announcing his approach.
On the 4th of July the royal force had reached Saint-Fal, near Troyes.
Joan of Arc despatched a messenger summoning that place to open its
gates to the King; but Troyes was strongly garrisoned by a force of
half English half Burgundian soldiers, and these had sent for succour
to the English Regent, the Duke of Bedford. The army of the King
arrived before the gates of the town on the 4th of July; a sally was
made by the hostile garrison, but this was driven back. _Pour-parlers_
ensued. The King's heralds were informed by the garrison officers that
they had sworn to the Duke of Burgundy not to allow, without his
leave, any other troops to enter their gates. They went further, and
insulted the Maid of Orleans in gross terms, calling her a
'_cocquarde_'--whatever that ugly term may mean.
The situation was embarrassing. How could the town be taken without a
siege train and artillery? But to leave it in the rear, with its
strong garrison, would be madness. The King's men were in favour of
retiring and abandoning the expedition to Rheims. There happened to be
within the town of Troyes at this time a famous monk of the preaching
kind, named Father Richard. Father Richard had been a pilgrim, and had
visited the Holy Land, and had made himself notorious by interminable
sermons, for he was wont to preach half-a-dozen hours at a time.
Crowds had listened to him in Paris and other places. The English, who
probably thought his sermons insufferably long, or too much leavened
with French sympathies, drove him out of Paris, and he had taken
refuge at Troyes. The monk had heard much of Joan of Arc, and was
eager to see and speak with her, but his enthusiasm was mixed with a
religious and even superstitious fear in regard to the heroine. He was
allowed to enter the royal precincts, and approached the Maid of
Orleans with many a sign of the cross, and with sprinkling of holy
water. Seeing the good man's terror, Joan told him to approach her
without fear.
'Come forward boldly!' she said to the monk. 'I shall not fly away!'
And after convincing him that she was not a demon in any way, she made
him the bearer of a letter from her to the people in the town. The
negotiations between the army and the burghers lasted five days; the
town refusing to admit the King, and the King unwilling to pass the
town, but unable to take it by force. Charles was on the point of
giving up the attempt to reach Rheims when one of his Council pointed
out that as the expedition had been undertaken at the instigation of
Joan of Arc, it was only fair her judgment should now be followed, and
not that of any one else. Joan was summoned before the Council, when
she solemnly assured the King that in three days' time the place would
be taken.
'If we were sure of it,' said the Chancellor, 'we would wait here six
days.'
'Six days!' said the Maid. 'You will enter Troyes to-morrow.'
Mounting her horse, the Maid rode into the camp, and ordered all to
prepare to carry out a general assault on the next morning. Anything
that could be used in the shape of furniture and fagots, to make a
bridge across the town ditches, was collected. Joan, who had now her
tent moved up close to the moat, worked harder, says an eye-witness,
than any two of the most skilful captains in preparing the attack. She
directed that fascines should be thrown into the moat, across which
the troops were to pass to the town.
Early next day everything was in readiness for the attack, but at this
juncture, just as she was preparing to lead the storming party, the
Bishop of Troyes, John Laiguise, attended by a deputation of the
principal citizens, came from the town with offers of capitulation.
The people were ready to place themselves at the King's mercy, owing
probably to the terror the preparations made by Joan of Arc on the
previous evening had inspired them with, mixed, too, with the
superstitious dread they felt for her presence. Had not even the
English soldiers declared that, when attacked by the terrible Maiden,
they had seen what appeared to be flights of white butterflies
sparkling all around her form! How could these good people of Troyes
hope to withstand such a power? To add to this fear, it was remembered
by the citizens of Troyes that in it had been signed and concluded the
shameful treaty by which Charles VII. had been disinherited from his
crown and possessions. The people therefore gave in without further
struggle. The conditions of capitulation were soon arranged. The
burghers were granted the immunity of their persons and their goods,
and certain liberties for their commerce. All those traders who held
any office at the hands of the English government were to continue the
enjoyment of these offices or benefices, with the condition of taking
them up again at the hands of the King of France. No garrison would be
quartered upon the town, and the English and Burgundian soldiers were
to be allowed to depart with their goods.
The next day--the 10th of July--Charles and his host entered Troyes in
state, the Maid of Orleans riding by the side of the King, her banner
displayed as was her custom.
When, as had been arranged in the treaty of capitulation, the foreign
soldiers began to leave the place with bag and baggage (goods), Joan
was indignant at finding that some of these so-called goods were
nothing less than French prisoners. This was a thing that she could
not tolerate, treaty or no treaty; and, placing herself at the gate of
the town, she insisted that her imprisoned countrymen should be left
in her charge. The King naturally felt obliged to gratify her; so he
released the captives, and paid their ransom down. Before leaving
Troyes the next day, William Bellier, who had been Joan's host at
Chinon, was left as bailiff of the place, along with other officers.
Thence the army moved on by way of Châlons. Though still in the hands
of the English, a deputation of clergy and citizens met the King, and
placed themselves at his orders.
While in the neighbourhood of Châlons, Joan of Arc met some friends
who had arrived from Domremy; among them were two old village
companions, Gerardin d'Epinal and John Morel, to whom she gave her red
dress. In conversation with these she said that the only dread she had
in the future was treachery: a dread which seems to point in some
strange prophetic manner to the fate which was so soon to meet her at
Compiègne.
It was on the evening of the 16th of July that the royal host at
length came in sight of the massive towers of the great cathedral
church of Rheims. It was at Sept Saulx, about eight miles' distance
from Rheims, that the King waited for a deputation to reach him from
the town. Rheims was still filled with the English and Burgundian
adherents, and had Bedford chosen to throw, as he could well have
done, a force into that place, Charles might yet have been prevented
from entering its gates. Perhaps Bedford did not believe in the
possibility of Charles arriving at his goal, and had counted on the
King's well-known weakness and indecision, and on the hesitation of
such men as La Tremoïlle and others of his Council. The Regent had
received assurances from the officials in Rheims that they would not
admit Charles. But after what passed at Troyes and at Châlons, Charles
had not long to wait for a favourable answer from his lieges at
Rheims. Indeed, the deputation which met him at Sept Saulx were
effusive in their good offices and entreaties that the King should
forthwith enter his good city of Rheims.
The Archbishop (Regnault de Chartres), who had preceded the King by a
few hours to his town, came out to meet the King at the head of the
corporation and civic companies. From all sides flocked crowds eager
to welcome the King, and even more the Maid of Orleans. In those days
the people's cry of joy and triumph was '_Noël!_'--but why that cry of
Christmas joy had become the popular hosanna, it is not easy to
conjecture.
Throughout that night the preparations for the coronation were
feverishly made both within and without the cathedral. On the 17th of
July, with all the pomp and ceremony that the church and army could
bestow, the King was crowned and anointed with the holy oil which four
of his principal officers had brought to the cathedral from the
ancient abbey church of Saint-Remy.
There exist few grander fanes in Christendom than the great cathedral
of Rheims. The thirteenth century, so prolific of splendid churches,
had expended all its wealth of lavish decoration on the gorgeous
portal, with its array of saints and sovereigns, under which passed
Charles VII. of France, with the Maid of Orleans on his right hand.
Hurried as had been the preparations for the ceremonial, the even then
ancient and venerable rites must have deeply impressed the spectators,
and the semi-sacred act was carried out with scrupulous care--the King
crowned and anointed with the holy oil, surrounded on his throne by
the ecclesiastical peers and high dignitaries of the Church, and
waited on by the secular peers during the crowning and after at the
coronation banquet.
At length was accomplished the darling wish of Joan of Arc's heart,
for now her King was regarded and sanctioned by all true French
persons as King of France, by the grace of God and Holy Church.
When the King received the crown from the hands of the Archbishop, a
peal of trumpets rang out, with such a mighty volume of sound that the
very roof of the cathedral seemed to shake again. Ingres, in his
striking picture of Joan of Arc, now in the gallery of the Louvre,
represents her standing by the high altar, clad in her white panoply
of shining steel, her banner held on high; below bows in prayer her
confessor, the priest Pasquerel, in his brown robes of the Order of
Augustin; and beyond stand her faithful squire and pages. The
heroine's face is raised, and on it sits a radiant look of mingled
gratitude and triumph. It is a noble idea of a sublime figure.
When the long-drawn-out ceremony came to an end, and after the people
had shouted themselves hoarse in crying 'Noël!' and 'Long live King
Charles!'--Joan, who had remained by the King throughout the day,
knelt at his feet and, according to one chronicle, said these words:
'Now is finished the pleasure of God, who willed that you should come
to Rheims and receive your crown, proving that you are truly the King,
and no other, to whom belongs this land of France.'
Many besides the King are said to have shed tears at that moment.
That seemed indeed the moment of Joan of Arc's triumph. The _Nunc
Dimittis_ might well have then echoed from her lips; but in the midst
of all the rejoicing and festivity at this time Joan had saddened
thoughts and melancholy forebodings as to the future. While the
people shouted 'Noël!' as she rode through the jubilant streets by the
side of the King, she turned to the Archbishop, and said: 'When I die
I should wish to be buried here among these good and devout people.'
And on the prelate asking her how it was that at such a moment her
mind should set itself on the thought of death, and when she expected
her death to happen, she answered: 'I know not--it will come when God
pleases; but how I would that God would allow me to return to my home,
to my sister and my brothers! For how glad would they be to see me
back again. At any rate,' she added, 'I have done what my Saviour
commanded me to do.'
Her mission was indeed accomplished: that is to say, if her mission
consisted of the two great deeds which while at Chinon she had
repeatedly assured her listeners she was born to accomplish. These
were, first, to drive the English out of Orleans, and thereby deliver
that town; the second, to take the King to Rheims, where he would
receive his crown. The other enterprises, such as the wish to deliver
the Duke of Orleans from his captivity in England, and then to wage a
holy war against the Moslems, may be left out of the actual task
which, encouraged by her voices, Joan had set herself to accomplish.
But the two great deeds had now been carried out--and with what
marvellous rapidity! In spite of all the obstacles placed in her path,
not only by the enemies of her country, but by those nearest to the
ear of the King, Orleans had been delivered in four days' time, the
English host had been in a week driven out of their strongholds on the
Loire, and defeated in a pitched battle! The King unwillingly, and
with many of his Court opposed to the enterprise, after passing
through a country strongly occupied by the enemy without having lost a
man, had by the tact and courage of Joan of Arc been enabled to reach
Rheims; and after this successful march he had received his crown
among his peers and lieges, as though the country were again at peace,
and no English left on the soil of France. What was still more
surprising was, that all these things should have been accomplished at
the instigation and by the direction of a Maid who only a few months
before had been an unknown peasant in a small village of Lorraine. How
had she been able not only to learn the tactics of a campaign, the
rudiments of the art of war, but even the art itself? No one had shown
in these wars a keener eye for selecting the weakest place to attack,
or where artillery and culverin fire could be used with most effect,
or had been quicker to avail himself of these weapons. No one saw with
greater rapidity--(that rarest of military gifts)--when the decisive
moment had arrived for a sudden attack, or had a better judgment for
the right moment to head a charge and assault. How indeed must the
knights and commanders, bred to the use of arms since their boyhood,
have wondered how this daughter of the peasants had obtained the
knowledge which had placed her at their head, and enabled her to gain
successes and reap victories against the enemy, which until she came
none of them had any hope of obtaining. They indeed could not account
for it, except that in Joan of Arc was united not only the soul of
patriotism and a faith to move mountains, but the qualities of a great
captain as well. That, it seems to us, must have been the conclusion
that her comrades in arms arrived at regarding the Maid of Orleans.
Dunois stated that until the advent of the Maid the French had no
longer the courage to attack the English in the open field, but that
since she had inspired them with her courage they were ready to attack
any force of the army, however superior it might be. This testimony
was confirmed by Alençon also: he declared that in things outside the
province of warfare she was in every respect as simple as a young
girl; but in all that concerned the science of war she was thoroughly
skilled, from the management of a lance in rest to that of marshalling
an army; and that as regarded the use of artillery she was eminently
qualified. All the military commanders, he said, were amazed to see in
her as much skill as could be expected in a seasoned captain who had
profited by a training of from twenty to thirty years. 'But,' added
the Duke, 'it is principally in her use of artillery that she
displays her most complete talent.' And he proceeds to bear his high
tribute to her goodness of heart, which she displayed on every
possible occasion.
[Illustration: RHEIMS CATHEDRAL INTERIOR]
Although her physical courage enabled her to face the greatest perils
and personal risks, she had a horror of bloodshed, and though her
spirit was 'full of haughty courage, not fearing death nor shrinking
distress, but resolute in most extremes,' she never entered battle but
bearing her banner in her hand; and to the last day of her appearance
on the field she strove with all her great moral force to induce the
rude and brutal men around her to become more humane even in the
hurly-burly of the din of battle. All unnecessary cruelty and
bloodshed made her suffer intensely, and we have seen how she
ministered to the English wounded who had fallen in fight. As far as
she could she prevented pillage, and she would only promise her
countrymen success on the condition that they should not prey upon the
citizens of the places they conquered. Even when she had passed the
day fasting on horseback, Joan would refuse any food unless it had
been honourably obtained. As a child she had been taught to be
charitable and to give to the needy, and she carried out these
Christian principles when at the head of armies; the 'quality of
mercy' with her was ever present. She distributed to the poor all she
had with her, and would say, with what truth God knows, 'I have been
sent for the consolation of the poor and the relief of the needy.' She
would take upon herself the charge of the wounded; indeed, she
may be considered as the precursor of all the noble hearts who in
modern warfare follow armies in order to alleviate and help the sick
and wounded. And she tended with equal care and sympathy the wounded
among the enemy, as well as those of her own side.
This is no invention, no fancy of romance, but the plain truth; for
there can be no disputing the testimony of those who followed Joan of
Arc and saw her acts.
Regarding herself, Joan of Arc said she was but a servant and an
instrument under Divine command. When people would avow that such
works as she had carried out had never been done in former times, she
would simply say: 'My Saviour has a book in which no one has ever
read, however learned a scholar he may be.'
In all things she was pure and saint-like, and her wonderful life, as
Michelet has truly said of it, was a living legend. Had she not been
inspired by her voices and her visions to take up arms for the
salvation of her country, Joan of Arc would probably have lived and
ended her obscure life in some place of holy retreat. An all-absorbing
love for all things sacred was her ruling idiosyncrasy. From her
childhood her delight was to hear the church bells, the music of
anthems, the sacred notes of the organ. Never did she miss attending
the Church festivals. When within hail of a church it was her wont,
however hurried the march, to enter, attended by any of the soldiers
whom she could induce to follow her, and kneel with them before the
altar. At the close of some stirring day passed in the midst of the
din of battle, and after being for hours in the saddle, she would, ere
she sought rest, always return thanks to her God and His saints for
their succour.
Joan also loved to mix in the crowd of poor citizens, and begged that
the little children should be brought to her. Pasquerel, her
confessor, was always told to remind Joan of Arc of the feast days on
which children were allowed to receive the Communion, in order that
she too might receive it with these innocents.
The army has probably ever been the home of high swearing: the
expression in French of '_ton de garnison_' is an amiable way of
referring to that habit of speech; and we all know ancient warriors
whose conversation is thickly larded with oaths and profanity. This
habit Joan of Arc seems to have held in great abhorrence. We have seen
how she got La Hire to swear only by his stick; to another officer of
high rank, who had been making use of some strong oaths, she said:
'How can you thus blaspheme your Saviour and your God by so using His
name?' Let us hope her lesson bore fruit.
Throughout the land Joan of Arc was now regarded as the Saviour of
France. Nor at this time did the King prove ungrateful. In those days
nobility was highly regarded. It brought with it great prestige, and
much benefit accrued to the holders of titles. Charles now raised the
Maid of Orleans to the equal in rank of a Count, and bestowed upon
her an establishment and household. The grateful burghers of Orleans,
too, loaded her with gifts, all which honours Joan received with quiet
modesty. For herself she never asked anything. After the coronation at
Rheims, when the King begged her to make him a request, the only thing
she asked was, that the taxes might be taken off her native village.
Her father, who came to see her at Rheims, had the satisfaction of
carrying back this news to Domremy.
Although both King and nobles vied in paying honours to Joan of Arc,
it was from the common people, from the heart of the nation, that she
received what seems to have amounted to a feeling approaching
adoration. Wherever she passed she was followed by crowds eager to
kiss her feet and her hands, and who even threw themselves before her
horse's feet. Medals were struck and worn as charms, with her effigy
or coat-of-arms struck on them. Her name was introduced into the
prayers of the Church.
Joan, although touched by these marks of affection, never allowed the
people, as far as in her power lay, to ascribe unearthly influence to
her person. When in the course of her trial the accusation that the
people had made her an object of adoration was brought as a proof of
her heresy, she said: 'In truth I should not have been able to have
prevented that from being so, had God not protected me Himself from
such a danger.'
CHAPTER IV.
_THE CAPTURE._
We must now glance at the movements of the English since the
deliverance of Orleans and their defeat at Patay, and the French
King's coronation.
What proves the utter demoralisation of the English at this time is
that the Regent Bedford was not only afraid of remaining in Paris, but
had also taken refuge in the fortress of Vincennes. He was so poor
that he could not pay the members of Parliament sitting in Paris. Like
other bodies receiving no pay, the Parliament declined to work. So
restricted were all things then in Paris that when the child-king
(Henry VI.) was brought from London to be crowned there, not enough
parchment could be found on which to register the details of his
arrival.
For want of a victim to assuage his ire, the Regent disgraced Sir John
Fastolfe, whom he unknighted and ungartered, in order to punish him
for the defeat at Patay; and he wrote that the English reverses had
been caused by 'a disciple and lyme of the Feende, called the Pucelle,
that used fals enchantements and sorcerie.'
The Regent, whose degrading of Fastolfe and vituperation of Joan of
Arc did not serve to help, applied to his powerful brother-in-law, the
Duke of Burgundy, for aid. Burgundy came to the Regent's assistance,
bringing a small force with him from Picardy. Then Bedford bethought
him of his powerful relation in England, Henry Beaufort, the Bishop of
Winchester. Most opportunely for the Regent, the Bishop had collected
an army for the suppression of the Bohemian Hussites. The Regent
implored his uncle, the Bishop, to send this army for the defence of
the English and their interests, now in such dire jeopardy. Winchester
was a mean, avaricious prince, and his aid had to be bought. A treaty
was signed on the 1st of July, in which Winchester promised to bring
his troops to his nephew's assistance; but he delayed stirring till
the middle of that month. It pleased the crafty Bishop to know that
his great wealth made him all-powerful in England; for the English
Protector, the Duke of Gloucester, was a mere cipher compared to
Winchester; and now that his other nephew, the Protector of France,
was in distress, he could dictate his own terms to both. It was not
until the 25th of July that Winchester at length arrived with his army
in Paris. Then Bedford breathed more freely, and left the capital with
an army of observation to watch the movements of the French King.
It was now the earnest wish of Joan of Arc that Charles should march
direct on Paris, and perhaps had he done so he might have entered
that city with as little difficulty as he had entered Rheims; for if
once the King of France had appeared in person, many of the wealthy
citizens, as well as the majority of the common people, would have
welcomed him. Charles, however, as usual vacillated, and the precious
moment slipped by.
Philip (called 'the Good'), Duke of Burgundy, was at this time one of
the most powerful princes of Christendom. In addition to his titular
domain, he held the wealthy provinces of Burgundy, including Brabant,
Flanders, Franche-Comté, Holland, Namur, Lower Lorraine, Luxembourg,
Artois, Hainault, Zealand, Friesland, Malines, and Salines. This
much-territoried potentate was at the present juncture coquetting both
with Bedford and with Charles, playing one against the other. To the
former he promised an army, but only contributed a handful of men; to
the latter he made advances of friendship, as false as the man who
made them.
Joan had despatched two letters of a conciliatory tone to the Duke of
Burgundy from Rheims. The original of one of these is to be seen in
the archives at Lille. Like most of Joan of Arc's letters, it
commences with the name of Jesus and Mary. As Joan could not write,
the only portion of this letter which bears the mark of her hand is
the sign of the Cross placed at the left of those names at the top of
the document. She strongly urged the Duke in these letters to make
peace with the King; she appeals on the score of his relationship with
Charles, to his French blood, in order to prevent further bloodshed,
and to aid the rightful King. While waiting some definite answer from
the Duke, the King went to Vailly-sur-Aisne from Rheims. He arrived at
Soissons on the 28th of July, and Château Thierry on the next day.
Montmirail was reached on the 1st of August, Provins on the 2nd. It
will be seen that, instead of marching straight upon Paris, the King
was making a mere detour from Rheims towards the Loire.
It was soon evident that Charles and his civil councillors had no
intention of advancing direct upon Paris, and were merely marching and
counter-marching until they could, as they trusted, get the Duke of
Burgundy to join them.
In the meanwhile, Bedford saw his opportunity, and made prompt use of
it. Early in the month of August he issued a proclamation calling on
all the subjects of Henry of England in France and Normandy to rally
round their liege lord. Leaving Paris on the 25th of July, Bedford
marched to Melun with a force of ten thousand men. Melun was reached
on the 4th of August. On the day after Bedford's arrival at Melun a
letter was sent by Joan of Arc to her friends at Rheims, announcing
that the King's retreat on the Loire would not be continued by his
Majesty. The King had, in fact, met with a check to his advanced guard
at Bray-sur-Seine. Charles had, she informed her correspondents,
concluded a truce of fifteen days with the Duke of Burgundy, at the
expiration of which the Duke had promised to surrender Paris to the
King. But, she adds, it could not be certain whether the Duke would
keep to his promise. She concludes her letter by saying that should
the treaty not hold good, then the army of the King would be able to
take active measures.
This letter is vaguely dated from a lodging on the road to Paris. It
was, she knew, necessary to be near the capital at the close of the
period stipulated by Burgundy, and the royal army accordingly took the
northern road, leading to Paris.
On the 7th of August the royal force reached Coulommiers; on the 10th
La Ferté Milon, and on the 11th Crespy-en-Valois. Bedford, apprised of
this change in the movements of his foe, sent off an insulting letter
to Charles, whom he addressed as 'Charles who called himself Dauphin,
and now calls himself King!' The Regent reproaches the King for having
taken the crown of France, which he said belonged to the rightful King
of France and of England, King Henry; and he then styles the Maid of
Orleans 'an abandoned and ill-famed woman, draped in men's clothes and
leading a corrupt life.' He bids Charles to make either his peace with
him or to meet him face to face. Altogether a most rude, abusive, and
ungallant letter for one prince to send to another. This letter
reached Charles at Crespy-en-Valois on the 11th of August. Bedford was
then close at hand, and eager to provoke the King into attacking him.
Charles contented himself with pushing on his advanced guard as far as
Dammartin, remaining himself at Lagny-le-Sec.
During the 13th of August skirmishes took place between the advanced
guards of the armies, but without any result.
Bedford now returned to Paris--in order to collect more troops, some
said, others that he had found the French too strong to attack. The
towns and villages around Paris, hearing of these events, and that the
English had returned to the capital, showed now their readiness to
join the French cause.
On his way to Compiègne news reached the French King that Bedford had
left Paris and marched on Senlis. On the 15th of August the French
attacked the English at dawn. Their army, formed into companies, was
commanded by Alençon, René d'Anjou, the King, who had with him La
Tremoïlle, and Clermont. Joan of Arc was at the head of a detachment
with Dunois and La Hire. The English held a strong position, which
they had made still more so by throwing up palisades and digging
ditches.
What appeared destined to be a great engagement ended in a mere
skirmish. Neither Charles nor Bedford were eager to pit all on a
stake, and both preferred to play a waiting game. Charles retired on
Crecy, while Joan of Arc remained in the field. She had done all that
courage and audacity could to induce the English to attack. She had
ridden up to their palisades and struck them with the staff of her
banner. But nothing would make the English fight that day; and the
next, Joan had the mortification of watching the retreat of the
English upon Paris. Joan had nothing now left her to do but to rejoin
the King at Crecy.
On the 17th the King received the keys of the town of Compiègne, and
there he was welcomed on the next day with much loyalty. It was during
his stay at Compiègne that Charles heard the welcome news that the
people of Senlis had admitted the Count of Vendôme within their walls,
and had bestowed on him the governorship of their town. Beauvais had
also shown its loyalty, had made an ovation in honour of the King, and
had ordered the _Te Deum_ to be sung, greatly to the annoyance of the
Bishop of that place--Peter Cauchon--a creature of the Anglo-Burgundian
faction, of whom we shall hear a good deal later on.
Charles remained at Compiègne until the expiration of the term during
which the treaty with the Duke of Burgundy relating to the disposal of
Paris remained open; but the negotiations ended in Burgundy contenting
himself with sending to Charles, John of Luxembourg and the Bishop of
Arras with words of peace. Arrangements were projected that in order
to come to a general peace the Duke of Savoy was to be called in as
mediator. In the meanwhile a truce was proposed, which was to last
until Christmas, with the proviso that the town of Compiègne should be
ceded to Burgundy during the continuance of the armistice. No allusion
appears to have been made regarding the fate of Paris.
Joan of Arc, knowing that without Paris all that she had fought for
and obtained would soon again be lost, resolved to see what she could
do without coming to the King for assistance. She bade Alençon be
ready to accompany her, as she wished, so she expressed it, to see
Paris at closer quarters than she had yet been able to do.
Joan of Arc left Compiègne accompanied by the Duke of Alençon on the
23rd of August, taking a strong force with them. At Senlis they
collected more troops; on the 26th they arrived at Saint Denis. Here
they were joined by the King, who may be supposed to have felt some
shame at not having started with them from Compiègne; he came very
unwillingly, it is said, for all that.
Bedford left Paris precipitately for Normandy, owing to the discovery
of a plot having been started to make over Rouen to the French. This
event must have opened the Regent's eyes to the uncertain tenure the
English held even in the old duchy of their kings. Bedford had left
Louis of Luxembourg in Paris to command its garrison of two thousand
English soldiers. De L'Isle Adam was in command of the Burgundian
soldiers. In addition to Luxembourg, who was a bishop (of Thérouanne)
as well as a soldier, Bedford had given charge of the joint command to
an English officer named Radley. The Bishop summoned the Parliament in
order that it should swear fealty to King Henry VI. The town walls and
ditches were carefully repaired and renewed. Guns were placed on the
towers, walls, and batteries; immense quantities of ammunition of iron
and stone were piled ready at hand, to be used for the defence of all
the gates and approaches of the city. The moats were deepened, and by
dint of threats and menace, and by frightening the people as to the
terrible revenge the French King would take on the town and its people
when it fell into his power, the citizens were cajoled into being made
the agents of their natural enemies, and in sheer terror helped to
strengthen the defences of their town.
During the first days of the siege only a few unimportant skirmishes
took place between besieged and besiegers. Joan of Arc was
indefatigable, and with her keen eye sought out the likeliest place
where an assault might be successfully carried; but she lacked troops
for storming such strong outworks as Paris then had. The capital was
not only defended by walls and towers, but the English held both the
upper and lower banks of the Seine.
From Saint Denis no assistance came from the King, and it was only on
the 8th of September that, having received reinforcements, Joan of Arc
was at length enabled to make a determined attack. It was a very high
and holy day in the Church Calendar--the Feast of the Virgin's
Nativity--and, not unmindful of the sacredness of that feast-day, Joan
of Arc had determined to make a general attack; for 'the better the
day the better the deed!' was her feeling on that anniversary. In
those times the western limit of Paris was where now the wide
thoroughfare of the Avenue de l'Opéra runs from north to south. The
walls of the city erected under Charles V., flanked by huge moats and
protected by double fortress towers, each tower having a double
drawbridge, made any attack almost a forlorn hope. The Regent's
departure from Paris points to the little fear he felt that Paris
could be taken by assault; and in this matter Bedford judged rightly.
Whether or not Joan felt that some Divine assistance would enable her
to surmount the barriers that lay between her and the town she was so
determined to win back for her King, we cannot say. She fought below
the walls with a courage which, if the others had equalled, might have
made Paris their own. The attacking force was divided into two
parts--one, commanded by Joan, Rais, and De Gaucourt, was to attack
the city at the Gate of Saint Honoré; the other, led by Alençon and
Clermont, was to cover the assailants, and prevent any sorties being
made by the garrison.
Joan's impetuous onslaught successfully carried the first barriers and
the boulevard in front of the gate; but here she met with a check--the
heavy gates were barred, nor could she prevail on the enemy to make a
sortie.
Joan of Arc, carrying her flag, dashed, under a heavy fire, into the
ditch, followed by a few of the most courageous of the soldiers. The
ditch was a deep but a dry one; and rising on the further side, close
beneath the town walls, was a second and a wider moat, full of water.
Here, unable to advance, but unwilling to retire, Joan of Arc and her
followers were exposed to a murderous hail of shot, arrows, and other
missiles. Sending for fagots and fascines to be cast into the moat, in
order to enable a kind of bridge to be thrown across, while probing
with the staff of her banner the depth of the water, Joan was struck
by a cross-bow bolt, which made a deep wound in her thigh. Refusing to
leave the spot, she urged on the soldiers to fill the ditch. The day
was waxing late, and the men, who had been fighting since noon, were
nearly exhausted. The news of Joan having been wounded caused a kind
of panic among the French. There came a lull in the fighting, and the
recall was sounded. Joan had almost to be forced back from before the
walls by the Duke of Alençon and other of the officers. Placed upon
her horse, she was led back to the camp, Joan protesting the whole
time that if the attack had only been continued it would have been
crowned with success. The spot where the heroine is supposed to have
been wounded is near where now stands Fremiet's spirited statue of the
Maid of Orleans, between the Rue Saint Honoré--named in later days
after the gate she had so gallantly attacked--and the Gardens of the
Tuileries.
Within the town a great fear had fallen on the citizens, divided as
they were between the hope of their countrymen forcing their way into
the city and fear as to how they would be treated by Charles should he
be victorious. Perhaps, had Joan of Arc's urgent entreaties of
continuing the attack been more vigorously responded to by the other
French commanders, she might have been in the end successful. At any
rate Joan herself was of that opinion.
The following day she was, in spite of the previous evening's failure
and her wound, as urgent as ever for further fighting; and again and
again implored Alençon to renew the attack. It seems the Duke was on
the point of complying, when there appeared on the scene René d'Anjou
and Clermont, sent by the King with the order for the Maid's immediate
return to Saint Denis. There was nothing to do but to obey, but it
must have been a bitter disappointment to the brave maiden when she
turned her back on Paris. Alençon did his best to encourage her in the
hope that it might yet fall. He gave orders for a bridge to be thrown
across the Seine at Saint Denis, in order to make a fresh attack on
the city from that quarter. However, on the next night this bridge was
ordered by Charles to be removed, and with its destruction fell any
hopes Joan might still have entertained of being able to take Paris.
All the blame of the want of success of the army before Paris was now
laid at the door of Joan of Arc; and the creatures of the Court, who
had long waited for an opportunity of this kind to show their bitter
jealousy of the heroine, now made no secret of their enmity. Foremost
of these was the Archbishop of Rheims, who now, in spite of Joan of
Arc's entreaties, was allowed by the King to make a truce with the
enemy. Another powerful foe was La Tremoïlle, who (as has been
pointed out by Captain Marin in his work on Joan of Arc) thought it to
be against his personal influence that the French should take Paris.
La Tremoïlle had shown, from Joan's first appearance at Court, his
entire want of confidence in her mission. He had unwillingly, after
the examination of the Maid by the doctors and lawyers at Poitiers,
conformed to the King's wish that a command should be given her in the
army. He had done all in his power to induce the King not to undertake
the expedition to Rheims. He had told the King, when nothing else
could be urged against the journey, that there was no money in the
royal coffers, and that consequently the soldiers would not receive
their pay. As it turned out, volunteers offered their services
gratuitously to escort Charles to his crowning. At Auxerre, La
Tremoïlle concluded a treaty with the citizens, which prevented Joan
from taking that town. At Troyes he tried to create a like impediment;
but here he was foiled, for Troyes capitulated. After the coronation,
he persuaded Charles not to go to Paris, but to go instead to linger
in his castle on the Loire; and thereby prevented what might then have
proved a successful attack on the capital. And he again succeeded in
thwarting the Maid of Orleans when he resisted her wish to make a
second attack upon Paris. Later on it was La Tremoïlle who tried to
make Joan of Arc fail at the siege of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier. When
she was unsuccessful before La Charité-sur-Loire, and when the blame
of that failure was laid at Joan's door, La Tremoïlle for very
shame was obliged publicly to acknowledge the heroic zeal with which
she had carried out the operations of that siege. The higher Joan's
popularity rose among the people and in the army, the more her two
bitter enemies, La Tremoïlle and the Archbishop of Rheims, shared
between them their jealous dislike.
[Illustration: XV CENTURY HOUSE--COMPIÈGNE.]
Thus, even before her capture and trial, Joan of Arc met with some of
her worst foes among those whose duty it was to have been her
staunchest friends and helpers; and, deplorable to say, among her own
countrymen.
Charles left Saint Denis on the 13th of September. Before his
departure, Joan of Arc performed an act which indicated that she felt
her mission to be finished. In the old fane of Saint Denis, the
tomb-house of the long line of French kings, she solemnly placed her
armour and arms at the foot of an image of the Holy Mother, near the
spot where were kept the relics of the Patron Saint of France. By that
act of humility she seemed to wish to show her abnegation of any
further earthly victory by the aid of arms.
We have now arrived at the turning-point of Joan of Arc's successes,
and although the heroine is even more admirable in her days of
misfortune and suffering than in those of her triumphs, when she led
her followers on from victory to victory, the course of her brief life
now darkens rapidly, and the approaching fate of the brave-hearted
maiden is so terrible that it requires some courage to follow her to
the very end, glorious as that end was, and bright with its sainted
heroism.
The King's return journey from Compiègne to Gien was so hurried that
it almost resembled a flight. Avoiding the towns still doubtful in
their loyalty to him, Charles sped from Lagny to Bovins, then to Bray,
Courtenay, Château-Regnaut, and Montargis, arriving at Gien on the
21st of September. Ere this time there could be little doubt of the
Duke of Burgundy's unwillingness to abide by his pledge, and restore
Paris to Charles. The Duke and Bedford had in fact already come to
terms. The Regent resigned to Burgundy the Lieutenancy of the country,
keeping only the now empty title of Regent and the charge of Normandy.
The result of the King's withdrawal from the neighbourhood of Paris,
and his hurried march, or rather retreat, to Gien, was that the
English felt that there was now no longer any fear of their being
drawn out of the capital. They promptly marched on and occupied Saint
Denis, pillaging that town and carrying off as a trophy the arms which
Joan of Arc had placed by the shrine of Saint Denis, in the ancient
basilica of Dagobert.
The other towns, which had so recently returned to their allegiance to
Charles, were again abandoned to the English, who punished them by
levying large ransoms on the citizens. The surrounding country was
laid waste, and Joan of Arc had the mortification of seeing that,
without any attempt being made to defend her people, the places which
had so shortly before been the scene of her triumphs were now allowed
to be reoccupied by the English and their allies. Normandy, Picardy,
and Burgundy were once more in possession of the enemy.
At length Joan obtained Charles' permission to attack La Charité,
where the enemy were in force, and from whence they threatened the
French forts on the Loire. At Bourges she assembled a few troops, and
in company with the Sire d'Albret she laid siege to Saint
Pierre-le-Moutier. Then, although feebly supported, Joan led the first
column of attack. This attacking column might have been called a
forlorn hope, so few men had she with her. The little party were
repulsed, and at one moment her squire, d'Aulon, saw that his brave
mistress was fighting alone, surrounded by the English. At great peril
she was rescued from the mêlée. Asked how she could hope to succeed in
taking the place with hardly any support, she answered, while she
raised her helmet, 'There are fifty thousand of my host around me,'
alluding to the vision of angels that in moments of extreme peril she
relied on. D'Aulon in vain urged her to beat a retreat, and retire to
a place of safety; she insisted on renewing the attack, and gave
orders for crossing the moat on logs and fascines. A roughly
constructed bridge over the fosse was then made, and after a desperate
struggle the fortress was taken.
This occurred early in the month of November (1429). A few years ago a
stained-glass window commemorative of the Maid of Orleans having saved
the church in Saint Pierre-le-Moutier (it had been converted by the
besieged into a warehouse for the goods and chattels of the citizens)
was placed in the building she had preserved from destruction.
The next siege undertaken by Joan of Arc was that of La Charité--a far
larger and more strongly garrisoned town than the other. La Charité was
held by one Peter Grasset, who had been its governor for seven years.
It was not only strongly defended by fortifications, but fully
victualled for a prolonged siege. Joan and her little army had not the
material necessary for carrying on such a siege as that of La Charité
would require--the very sinews of war were wanting. Charles would not
or could not contribute a single écu d'or, and Joan had to solicit help
and funds from the towns. In the public library at Riom is preserved
the original letter addressed by the Maid of Orleans to 'My dear and
good friends the clergy, burghers, and citizens of the town of Riom.'
It was sent to that place on the 9th of November from Moulins. In this
letter, the only one to which is affixed the Maid's signature, spelt
'Jehonne,' possibly signed by herself, she says that her friends at
Riom are aware of how the town of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier had been
taken, and she adds that she has the intention of driving out (_de
faire vider_) the other towns hostile to King Charles. She begs the
citizens of Riom, in order to accomplish this, to provide her with the
means of pushing forward the siege of La Charité, and asks them to
supply her with powder, saltpetre, sulphur, bows and arrows,
cross-bows, and other material of war, having exhausted all her stock
of such things in the late siege. Whether or not the burghers of Riom
were able to carry out Joan's wishes is not known. The town of Bourges,
however, provided funds out of its customs, and Orleans also sent
soldiers and artillerymen ('_joueurs de coulverines_') to the Maid's
army for the siege of La Charité.
But in spite of all efforts Joan of Arc was destined to fail in this
undertaking. No doubt her enemies at Court helped to thwart all her
attempts at raising a sufficient force to beleaguer so strong a place
of arms, and seeing her hopes of taking La Charité by assault vanish,
Joan of Arc relinquished the undertaking.
The remainder of that winter Joan of Arc passed in what must have
tried her high spirit sorely--inaction.
Accompanying the Court, she went from Bourges to Sully-sur-Loire, and
revisited Orleans. In the latter town we find some traces of her
passage, and some further traits of her sweet nature, and of that
simplicity which had endeared her so deeply to the hearts of the
people: a disposition no success altered, no disappointment
embittered. What was the chief charm of her character was this
simplicity, her entire freedom from self-glorification, her horror of
it being imagined that she was a supernatural or miraculous being,
even when those supernatural and miraculous powers were considered as
coming direct to her from Heaven--in fact, to use a slang but
expressive phrase, her utter freedom from humbug. This is one of the
most marked features of her character, although not the most glorious
or salient to those who are dazzled by her triumphs and extraordinary
career.
When she was told by people that they could well understand how little
she feared being in action and under fire, knowing that she had a
charmed life, she answered them that she had no more assurance of not
being killed than the commonest of her soldiers; and when some foolish
creatures brought her their rosaries and beads to touch, she told them
to touch these themselves, and that their rosaries would benefit quite
as much as if she had done so.
On one occasion at Lagny she was asked to resuscitate a dead child.
One of the greatest of the French nobles wrote to ask her which of the
rival Popes was the true one. When asked on the eve of a battle who
would be victor, she answered that she could no more tell than any of
the soldiers could. A woman named Catherine de la Rochelle, who
assumed the power of knowing where money was hidden, was commanded by
the King to take Joan of Arc into her confidence. The latter soon
discovered that Catherine was a fraud, and refused to have anything
to do with her. Catherine had suggested going to the Duke of Burgundy
to arrange a peace between him and the French King, to which
proposition Joan of Arc very sensibly said that it seemed to her that
no peace could be made between them but at the lance's point. Joan had
seen too much of the duplicity of the Duke to believe in any of his
treaties and promises.
The early months of the year 1430 were months of anxiety for the
citizens of Orleans and the other towns which had thrown off the
English allegiance. The truce made between Burgundy and France expired
at Christmas of the former year, but was renewed till Easter. Early in
the year, the burghers of Rheims implored help of Joan of Arc, and not
of the King, thus proving how far greater trust was placed in the
hands of the Maid of Orleans, by such a town as Rheims, than in the
goodwill of the King.
Twice during the month of March did Joan have letters written to
reassure them of aid in case of need. 'Know,' she says in a letter
dated the 16th of March, 'that if I can prevent it you will not be
assailed; and if I cannot come to your rescue, close your gates, and I
will make them [the English] buckle on their spurs in such a hurry
that they will not be able to use them.'
In the second letter to the people of Rheims, written at Sully on the
28th of March, Joan tells them that they will soon hear some good
news about herself. This good news referred no doubt to her return to
the field, for we find that by the end of that month she was again on
the march.
It was early in the month of April, 1430, that Joan of Arc left the
Court and rode to the north, on what was to prove her last expedition.
It is said that while at Melun, during Easter week, she was told by
her voices that she would be taken prisoner before St. John's Day.
It was at Lagny that an incident occurred which formed one of the
accusations brought against the Maid by her judges, and to which
reference may now be made. A freebooter, named Franquet d'Arras, had,
at the head of a band of about three hundred English freelances, held
all the country-side in terror round about Lagny. Hearing of this,
being in the neighbourhood of Lagny, Joan of Arc gave orders that
Franquet and his band should be attacked. The French were in number
about equal to the English. After a stubborn fight, the English were
all killed or captured. Among the latter was the chief of the robbers,
Franquet d'Arras. It was proved before the bailiff and justices of
Lagny that Franquet had not only been a thief, but a murderer, and he
was consequently condemned to die. Joan of Arc wished that he should
be exchanged for a French prisoner, but this French prisoner had
meanwhile died. The justices of Lagny insisted on having their
sentence carried out, to which Joan at length unwillingly gave way,
and Franquet met with his deserts. We cannot see how the Maid was to
blame in this affair; but this thing was one of the accusations which
helped to bring her to the stake.
On the 17th of April the truce agreed to between King Charles and
Burgundy came to an end. At this time the town of greatest strategical
importance to Burgundy was that of Compiègne. Holding Compiègne, the
Duke of Burgundy held the key of France. King Charles, with his
habitual carelessness, had been on the point of handing over Compiègne
to the Duke as a pledge of peace; and no doubt he would have done so
had not the inhabitants protested. Charles then surrendered the town
of Pont Sainte-Maxence to Burgundy instead of Compiègne. But this sop
did not at all satisfy the greedy Duke, whose mouth watered for
Compiègne, which he was determined to obtain by fair or by foul means.
At Soissons the Duke had succeeded in gaining the Governor by a bribe,
and had, through this bribe, obtained the place; and there is little
reason not to suppose that he was still more ready to offer a still
greater bribe to obtain Compiègne. The Governor of Compiègne, William
de Flavigny--a man very deeply suspected, writes Michelet of him--was
not likely to refuse a bribe; and, as we shall see, he acted in a
manner that has made the accusation of his treachery to his country
and Joan of Arc almost a certainty.
It was to prevent, if possible, Compiègne falling into the hands of
Burgundy that Joan of Arc hastened to its defence. On the 13th of May
she reached Compiègne, where she was received with great joy by the
citizens. The Maid lodged in the town with Mary le Boucher, wife of
the _Procureur_ of the King. At Compiègne were some important Court
officials--the Chancellor Regnault de Chartres, no friend to Joan as
we have seen, Vendôme, and others. The country around and the places
of armed strength were all in the occupation of the English and
Burgundians; near Noyon, the town of Pont-l'Evêque was in the
possession of the English. This place Joan of Arc attacked, and she
was on the point of capturing it when a strong force of Burgundians
arrived from Noyon, and Joan had to beat a retreat on Crecy. On the
23rd of May, news reached Joan that Compiègne was threatened by the
united English and Burgundian forces, under the command of the Duke
and the Earl of Arundel. By midnight of that day, Joan of Arc was back
again in Compiègne. She had been warned of the danger of passing, to
gain the town, through the enemies' lines with so small a company.
'Never fear!' she answered, 'we are enough. I must go and see my good
friends at Compiègne.'
These words have been appropriately placed on the pedestal of the
statue of the heroine in front of the Hôtel de Ville in Compiègne.
By sunrise all her troopers were within the town: not a man was
missing.
Compiègne was a strongly fortified place, resting on the left bank of
the river Oise, across which, as at Orleans, one long stoutly defended
bridge connected the right bank with the town. In front of the bridge
was one of those redoubts which were in those days called
'boulevards.' This boulevard was surrounded by a wet moat or ditch
connected with the principal bridge by a drawbridge, closed or opened
from within at pleasure. The town was surrounded and protected by a
broad and deep moat, filled from the river. Behind this moat rose the
town walls, girt with strong towers at short intervals. On the right
bank of the river extended a wide stretch of fertile meadow land,
bounded on the northern horizon by the soft low-lying hills of
Picardy. From the circuit of the walls across the plain the eye rested
on the towns of Margny, of Clairvoix, and of Venette. The Burgundians
were encamped at Margny and at Clairvoix; the English, under the
command of Montgomery, were encamped at Venette.
The evening of the day on which she had arrived at Compiègne (the 24th
of May), Joan of Arc resolved to attack the Burgundians, both at
Margny and also at Clairvoix. Her plan was to draw out the Duke of
Burgundy, should he come to the support of his men at these places. As
to the English at Venette, she trusted that Flavy with his troops at
Compiègne would prevent them from cutting her off after her attack on
the Burgundians, and so intercepting her return to the town; but this
unfortunately was the very disaster which occurred.
In front of the bridge the redoubts were filled by French archers to
keep off any attack made by the English, and Flavy had placed a large
number of boats filled with armed men, principally bowmen, in
readiness along the river to receive their companions should they meet
with a repulse in their attack on the Burgundians.
It was about five o'clock that afternoon when Joan of Arc rode out of
Compiègne at the head of five hundred horsemen and foot soldiers.
Flavy remained within the town, of which he was Governor. The attack
led by the Maid on Margny, with splendid impetuosity, proved a
complete success, and the enemy fled for shelter to their companions
at Clairvoix. Here the resistance made was far more stubborn. While
the French and Burgundians were combating in the meadows at Clairvoix,
the English came from Venette to the assistance of their allies, and
attacked the French in their rear. A panic was created by this attack
among the French troops, and a _sauve qui peut_ ensued, both foot and
horse dashing back in confusion towards Compiègne, and when they
reached the river either taking refuge in the boats or on the redoubts
near the bridge. Mixed among this panic-stricken crowd of fugitives
came the English in hot pursuit, followed by the Burgundians.
Carried away by the throng of frightened soldiers, Joan was among the
last to leave the field, and to those who cried to her to make her
escape she answered that all might yet be saved, and urged her men to
rally. Nevertheless, she was forced back towards the bridge, across
which fugitives were making their escape into the town. In a few
seconds Joan could have been safe across the drawbridge, and under
shelter of the towers which defended it. At this instant, whether
intentionally to exclude the heroine from safety, or through panic and
fear of the Burgundians and English entering the town along with the
French, the drawbridge was lifted, and Joan, with a handful of the
faithful few who were ever at her side in time of peril, was
surrounded by a sea of foemen. In a moment half a dozen soldiers
secured her horse and seized her on every side, trying to drag her out
of the saddle. The long skirts which the heroine wore were soon torn
off by these rough hands. An archer of Picardy, belonging to the army
of John of Luxembourg, wrenched her from her horse and made her
prisoner. Her brother Peter, her faithful squire d'Aulon, and Pothon
de Xaintrailles were all captured at the same time.
Thus fell Joan of Arc into the hands of her enemies, and the question
whether through treachery or not has never been settled.
According to an old work published early in the sixteenth century,
called _Le Miroir des Femmes Vertueuses_, Joan of Arc had taken the
communion in the Church of Saint James at Compiègne, and was standing
leaning against a pillar of that church; a large number of citizens
with many children stood around, to whom she said: 'My children and
dear friends, I bid you to mark that I have been sold and betrayed,
and that I shall be shortly put to death. So I beseech you all to pray
to God for me, for never more shall I be able to be of service to the
King or to the kingdom of France.'
This story, which, whether authentic or not, is surely a touching one,
is full of the spirit of the heroine. It rests upon the testimony of
two persons, one eighty-six and the other eighty-eight years of age,
by whom the author was told the tale in 1498, both affirming that they
had been in the church when Joan of Arc spoke of her betrayal. There
can be but little doubt that Joan had had for some time before she
went to Compiègne a presentiment of her soon falling into her enemies'
power. On the eve of the King's coronation at Rheims she said to her
friends that what she alone feared was treason--a foreboding too soon,
alas! to come true. She never, however, seems to have fixed on any
particular period when the treason she dreaded would occur; and during
her trial she acknowledged that, had she known she would have been
taken prisoner during the sortie on the 24th of May, she would not
have undertaken that adventure.
One of her best historians, M. Wallon, thinks that the words which she
is supposed to have spoken to the people in the Church of Saint James
at Compiègne were owing to her discouragement at not having, a few
weeks previously, been able to cross the river Aisne at Soissons, and
thus finding herself prevented from attacking the Duke of Burgundy at
Choisy, and thence having been obliged to return to Compiègne. Wallon
points out that in coming to defend Compiègne, Joan of Arc came
entirely at her own instigation, and that during the previous six
months Flavy had defended Compiègne against the English and
Burgundians with success and energy; nay more, that, in spite of
bribes from the Duke of Burgundy, Flavy contrived to hold the town
till the close of the war.
On the other side, a recent writer of the heroine's life, especially
as regarded from a military standpoint, M. Marin, gives at great
length his reasons for believing in the treachery of Flavy. M. Marin
points out that, in the first place, Flavy's character was a
notoriously bad one; secondly, that he was very possibly under the
influence of both La Tremoïlle and the Chancellor Regnault de
Chartres, bitter opponents, as we have already shown, of the Maid;
thirdly, that it was in Flavy's interest that the prestige of saving
Compiègne from the Burgundians and English should be entirely owing to
his own conduct; and fourthly, that he, Flavy, with the majority of
the French officers, was affected against Joan of Arc since the
execution of Franquet d'Arras. M. Marin goes on to prove that Joan of
Arc might have been rescued without difficulty, and that the enemy
could not have forced their way into the town alongside of the
retreating French, unless they were ready to be cut up as soon as they
had come within its walls. M. Marin's opinion, having the authority of
a soldier, carries weight with it; and his opinion is that Joan of Arc
was deliberately betrayed by Flavy, and purposely allowed to fall into
the hands of her enemies.
The names of La Tremoïlle and Regnault de Chartres should also be
pilloried by the side of that of Flavy--the two great courtiers who
held the ear of the King, and who had always plotted against Joan of
Arc. As has already been said, it was Regnault de Chartres who had the
effrontery to announce the news of Joan of Arc's capture to the
citizens of Rheims as being a judgment of Heaven upon her. She had,
this mean prelate said, offended God by her pride, and in wearing rich
apparel, and in having preferred to follow her own will rather than
that of God! Verily, and with reason, might poor Joan have prayed to
be delivered from such friends as those creatures and courtiers about
her King, for whom she had done and suffered so much.
* * * * *
The archer who had captured Joan of Arc was in the pay of the Bastard
of Wandome, or Wandoune, and this Wandome was himself in the service
of John de Ligny, a vassal of the Duke of Burgundy, and a cadet of
the princely house of Luxembourg. Like most younger sons, John de
Ligny was badly off, and the temptation of the English reward in
exchange for his prisoner, whose escape he greatly feared, overtopped
any scruples he may have felt in receiving this blood-money.
[Illustration: TOUR DE LA PUCELLE--COMPIÈGNE.]
The historian Monstrelet tells us he was present when Joan of Arc was
brought into the Burgundian camp, at Margny, and before the Duke of
Burgundy. But the old chronicler relates nothing with regard to that
eventful meeting; only he is eloquent on the joy caused by the capture
of the Maid of Orleans among the English and their allies; and he
tells us that in their opinion Joan's capture was equal by itself to
that of five hundred ordinary prisoners, for they had feared her, he
adds, more than all the other French leaders put together. Of the high
opinion held by her enemies of the Maid's influence, one could not ask
for a more remarkable proof than this testimony, coming as it does
from a partisan of her foes.
After three days passed at Margny, Joan of Arc was taken, for greater
security, by Luxembourg to the castle of Beaulieu, in Picardy.
CHAPTER V.
_IMPRISONMENT AND TRIAL._
The news of Joan's capture soon reached Paris, and within a few hours
of that event becoming known, the Vicar-General of the Order of the
Inquisition sent a letter to the Duke of Burgundy, accompanied by
another from the University of Paris, praying that Joan of Arc might
be delivered up to the keeping of Mother Church as a sorceress and
idolatress. That terrible engine, the Inquisition, had, like some
mighty reptile scenting its prey near, slowly unfolded its coils.
Whether Bedford had or had not caused these letters to be sent the
Duke is not known, but the Regent had both in the Church and the
University of Paris the men he wanted--instruments by whom his
vengeance could be worked on Joan of Arc; and he had the astuteness to
see that in calling in the aid of the Church, and treating Joan of Arc
as a heretic and witch, the rules of war could be laid aside. What no
civilised body of men could do, namely, kill a prisoner of war, that
thing could be done in the name and by the authority of the Church and
its holy office; and in the Bishop of Beauvais, the inexorable
Cauchon, Bedford had the tool necessary to his hand whereby this
dastardly plot could be carried out.
The first move that Bedford now was obliged to take was to secure the
victim; and in order to do so the Bishop of Beauvais was applied to.
The name of Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, will go down to the
latest posterity with the execration of humanity, for the part he
played in the tragedy of the worst of judicial murders of which any
record exists. Let us give even the devil his due. According to
Michelet the Bishop was 'not a man without merit,' although the
historian does not say in what Cauchon's merit consisted. Born at
Rheims, he had been considered a learned priest when at the University
of Paris; but he had the reputation of being a harsh and vindictive
opponent to all who disagreed with his views, within or without the
Church. He was forced to leave Paris, in 1413, for some misconduct. It
was then that Cauchon became a strong partisan of the Duke of
Burgundy. It was through the Duke that he obtained the See of
Beauvais. The English also favoured Cauchon, and obtained for him a
high post in the University of Paris. When the tide of French success
reached Beauvais, in 1429, Cauchon was obliged to escape, and found
shelter in England. There Winchester received him with cordiality.
While in England, Cauchon became a thorough partisan of the English,
and the humble servant of the proud Prince-Cardinal. Winchester
promised Cauchon preferment, and, when the See of Rouen fell vacant,
recommended the Pope to place Cauchon on its throne. The Pope,
however, refused his consent, and the Rouen Chapters would hear naught
of the Anglicised Bishop. At that time the Church at Rouen was at war
with the University of Paris, and did not wish one of the members of
that University placed over it.
Joan of Arc's place of capture happened to be in the diocese of
Beauvais, and although Cauchon was now only nominally Bishop of
Beauvais, he still retained that title. Cauchon now placed himself,
body and soul, at the disposal of the English, hoping thereby sooner
to obtain the long-coveted Archbishopric of Rouen in exchange for
helping his friends to the utmost in his power by furthering their
schemes and in ridding them of their prisoner once and for ever. The
bait held out by Winchester and Bedford was the Archbishopric of
Rouen, and eagerly did Cauchon seize his prey. What added to his zeal
was his wish to gratify base feelings of revenge on those who had
thrust him out of his Bishopric of Beauvais, and on her without whose
deeds he might have still been living in security in his palatial home
there.
After a consultation with the leaders of the University of Paris,
Cauchon arrived at the Burgundian camp before Compiègne on the 14th
of July, and claimed Joan of Arc as prisoner from the keeping of the
Duke of Burgundy. Cauchon justified his demand by letters which he had
obtained from the doctors of the University, and he made the offer in
the name of the child-king of England. The sum handed over for the
purchase of the prisoner was 10,000 livres tournois, equivalent to
61,125 francs of French money of to-day--about £2400 sterling. This
was the ordinary price in that day for the ransom of any prisoner of
high rank. Luxembourg, to his shame and that of his order, consented
to the sale on those terms, and Cauchon soon returned with the news of
his bargain to his English employers.
The whole transaction sounds more like what one might expect to have
occurred amongst an uncivilised nation rather than among a people who
prided themselves on their chivalry and their usages of fair-play in
matters relating to warfare. That a high dignitary of the Church, and
a countryman of Joan of Arc, should have bought her from a prince, the
descendant of emperors and kings, also a countryman of the heroic
Maid's, for English gold, is bad enough; and that the so-called 'good'
Duke of Burgundy should have been a silent spectator of the infamous
transaction, brands all the actors as among the most sordid and
meanest of individuals. But what is infinitely worse is the fact that
no steps appear to have been taken by Charles to rescue the Maid, or
to attempt an exchange of her for any other prisoner or prisoners.
Thus Joan of Arc, bound literally hand and foot, was led like a lamb
to the shambles, not a hand being raised by those for whom she had
done such great and noble deeds.
The University of Paris, whose decisions carried so great a weight in
the issue of the trial of the Maid of Orleans, consisted at this
period of an ecclesiastical body of doctors; but as far as its
attributes consisted it was a body secular, and holding an independent
position owing to its many privileges. The University was a political
as well as an ecclesiastical body, supreme under the Pope above the
whole of the Gallican Church. Although divided into two parties
through the war then raging between England and France, its judicature
was greatly influenced by the Church. It was a matter of certainty
that the Doctors of Theology who sat in the University of Paris, and
who were all, or nearly all, French by birth, would favour the
English, and give an adverse decision to that of those French
ecclesiastics who had examined into Joan's life and character when
assembled at Poitiers, and who then considered her to be acting under
the influence and with the protection of the Almighty.
As a prisoner, Joan of Arc's behaviour was as modest and courageous as
it had been in her days of success and liberty. In the first times of
her durance, d'Aulon, who, as we mentioned, had been captured at the
same time, appears to have been allowed to remain with her. On his
telling her that he feared Compiègne would now probably be taken by
the enemy, Joan of Arc said such a thing could not occur, 'For all the
places,' she added, 'which the King of Heaven has placed in the
keeping of King Charles by my means will never again be retaken by his
enemies, at any rate as long as he cares to keep them.'
Although willing to endure for the sake of her beloved country all the
cruelty her enemies could inflict upon her, Joan was most anxious to
return in order to continue her mission. While in the castle of
Beaulieu she made a desperate attempt to escape. She managed to
squeeze herself between two beams of wood placed across an opening in
her prison, and was on the point of leaving her dungeon tower when one
of the jailers caught sight of her, and she was retaken. Probably in
consequence of this attempt, Joan of Arc, after an imprisonment of
four months at Beaulieu, was transferred thence by Ligny to his castle
of Beaurevoir, near the town of Cambrai, a place far removed from the
neighbourhood of the war, and consequently more secure than Beaulieu.
At Beaurevoir lived the wife and the aunt of Ligny; they showed some
attention and compassion to the prisoner. They offered her some of
their dresses, and tried to persuade her to quit her male attire.
Joan, however, refused: she gave as her reason for not complying with
their request that the time had not yet arrived for her to cease
wearing the clothes she had worn during the time of her mission. That
she had good reason not to don woman's attire even when at Beaurevoir,
and keep to her male attire as a protection, is probable, as she was
not safe from wanton insult at the hands of the rough soldiery placed
about her person. This clinging to her male dress, we shall see, under
similar circumstances at Rouen, was the principal indictment made
against her by her executioners.
At Beaurevoir Joan of Arc was placed in a chamber at the top of a high
tower, whence Ligny thought that no attempt at escape would be made,
but Joan of Arc tried once again to recover her liberty. In the course
of her trial she told her judges how her voices counselled her not
again to make this venture, and of her perplexity whether she should
obey them, or, at the risk of her life, escape from the clutches of
the English, for at this time she knew that she had been sold to her
bitterest foes.
What appears to have determined her decision was hearing that
Compiègne was in imminent peril of falling into the hands of the
English, and that the inhabitants would be massacred. In her
desperation, feeling, like young Arthur, that
'The wall is high; and yet will I leap down:--
Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!...
As good to die, and go, as die, and stay'
she knotted some thongs together and let herself out of a window; but
the thongs broke, and she fell from a great height--the tower is
supposed to have been no less than sixty feet high. She was found
unconscious at its foot, and for several days she was not expected to
recover from the injuries she had received. But she was doomed for a
far more terrible death.
For several days Joan of Arc took no nourishment. Gradually she
revived, and she told her jailers that her beloved Saint Catherine had
visited and comforted her; and she also told them that she knew
Compiègne would not be taken, and would be free from its enemies
before the Feast of Saint Martin.
Beaurevoir is now a ruin: although above the lintel can still be seen
the coat-of-arms of the jailer of the Maid, the tower in which she was
imprisoned, and from which she so nearly met her death, has been
destroyed.
In the month of November of that year (1430), in spite of the
entreaties of his wife and aunt, Ligny delivered up his prisoner into
the custody of the Duke of Burgundy, from whose keeping she was soon
transferred into that of the English.
On the 20th of November the University of Paris sent a message to
Cauchon, advising him to bring Joan of Arc before a tribunal. Cauchon,
however, waited the arrival of Winchester, bringing with him his
great-nephew, Henry VI. Winchester arrived with the boy-king on the
2nd of December. The Cardinal intended the function of the crowning of
his great-nephew to be as imposing a ceremony as possible; and he
also meant, by defaming the source of the French King's successes, to
show the French people that Charles' coronation at Rheims had been
brought about by what the Regent Bedford called a 'limb of the evil
one.' It was, therefore, Bedford's plan that it should be declared
before the world that Joan of Arc was inspired by Satanic agencies,
and that consequently the French King's coronation was also due to
these agencies. By similar means it would be made clear that all the
French victories were owing to the same influence; for were it not,
argued the English, they would be proved to have been themselves
fighting against and defeated by--not the spirit of evil but--the
spirit of righteousness.
Nothing, indeed, could be clearer than Winchester's argument. It was
now only necessary that Joan of Arc should be at once placed on her
trial as a sorceress and a witch--one who was in league with the evil
one; and, when that had been satisfactorily proved, that she should
publicly meet with the fate which a merciful Church had, in its
infinite wisdom, ordained for such as she. Thus would the English army
and people be avenged, and the French King's crown and prerogative
suffer an irreparable damage.
From Beaurevoir, Joan of Arc was first taken to the town of Arras,
thence to Crotoy, where, about the 21st of November, she was handed
over to the English.
A chronicler of that day writes that the English rejoiced as greatly
on that occasion as if they had received all the wealth of Lombardy.
The Duke of Burgundy had never merited the title of 'Good,' which,
somehow or other, has been linked with his name. Had he been the most
virtuous of princes of any time, he yet deserves to have his memory
branded for the part he then took in the sale of Joan of Arc--a
transaction whereof the poor excuse of not losing the benefits of his
alliance with the English avails nothing. For this, if nothing else,
we reverse the good fame which lying history has accorded him.
In the underground portion of a tower at Crotoy, still to be seen,
although the upper part has disappeared, facing the sea, is a
door-way, which local tradition points out as that of the dungeon of
Joan of Arc. Crotoy, or Le Crotoy, is on the coast of Picardy, a
little to the north of Abbeville. In the fifteenth century it was a
place of some warlike importance, especially to the English. Its
situation near the coast, and the strength of its fortress, made Le
Crotoy one of the principal places on the sea line, whence stores and
war provender could be carried into France. Le Crotoy had fallen into
possession of the English through the marriage of Henry III. with
Eleanor of Castille, Countess of Ponthieu, of which Crotoy formed a
part. During the hundred years' war, the port could receive vessels of
considerable tonnage; and from this point the booty taken by the
English could be shipped and sent across the Channel. Now but a few
vestiges can be traced of its once strong and ably fortified castle. A
few years ago, a statue, representing the Maid of Orleans in the garb
of a prisoner, was placed near the ruins of the castle in which she
passed most of the month of December, 1430.
At Crotoy, Joan of Arc was permitted to assist at the celebration of
the Mass in the chapel of the castle; and while here she received a
visit from some of her admirers from Abbeville--a few noble hearts who
still remained loyal to the once all-powerful deliveress of their
country, now a poor and abandoned prisoner on her road to a long
imprisonment and a cruel death! Touched by this mark of sympathy from
these Abbeville folk, Joan gave them, on parting from them, her
blessing, and asked them to remember her in their prayers. The
enlightened clergy and doctors, lay and spiritual, who formed the body
known as the University of Paris, preferred that Joan of Arc should be
sent to the capital, there to undergo her trial, and wrote to this
effect to Bedford, through the name of the boy-king. They also
despatched a letter to Cauchon (probably inspired by Bedford), in
which they rated him for not bringing the Maid at once to her trial.
They told him he was showing a lamentable laxness in not immediately
punishing the scandals which had been committed under his jurisdiction
against the Christian religion.
Paris was not considered enough of a safe place to take Joan of Arc
into; the French lay too near its walls, and the loyalty of its
citizens to the English was a doubtful quantity. Besides, it was not
convenient that the University of Paris should be allowed the entire
direction of the trial. It was well that the University should be made
use of; but Cauchon relied on the Inquisition to carry out his and
Bedford's plan. Cauchon must be the principal agent and judge, and he
felt, with Bedford, that they had a freer hand if the trial were to be
at Rouen; therefore Rouen was decided on as the place of trial and
punishment. Rouen, also, being in the midst of the English
possessions, was perfectly safe from attack, should it occur to any of
Joan of Arc's countrymen to attempt a rescue.
At the close of December Joan of Arc was taken across the river Somme,
in a boat, to Saint Valery, and thence, strongly guarded, and placed
on horseback, she was led along the Normandy coast by Eure and Dieppe
to the place of her martyrdom. On arriving at Rouen it was seriously
debated by some of her captors whether or not she should be at once
put to death. They suggested her being sewn into a sack and thrown
into the river! The reason these people gave for summarily disposing
of Joan of Arc without form or trial was that, as long as she lived,
there was no security for the English in France. As has already been
noticed, those who commanded and sided with the English were desirous
that Joan of Arc should be first branded as a witch and a sorceress,
both by the doctors of the Church and by the State, before being put
to death.
Arrived at Rouen, Joan of Arc was immured in the old fortress built by
Philip Augustus. One tower alone remains of the seven massive round
towers which surrounded the circular castle. Her jailers had the
barbarity to place their prisoner in an iron cage, in which she was
fastened with iron rings and chains, one at the neck, another at the
hands, and a third confining the feet. Joan was thus caged as if she
were a wild animal until her trial commenced. After that, she was
chained to a miserable truckle bed.
A chronicler of that time, named Macy, tells the following story of an
incident which, for the sake of English manhood, one trusts is untrue.
Among others who went to see Joan of Arc in her prison came one day
the Earl of Warwick, with Lord Stafford and Ligny--Joan's former
jailer. The latter told her in a jeering way that he had come to buy
her back from the English, provided she promised never again to make
war against them.
'You are mocking me,' said Joan of Arc. 'For I know that you have not
the power to do that, neither the will.' And she added, 'I know well
that these English will kill me, thinking that by doing so they will
reconquer the kingdom of France; but even if there were one hundred
thousand Godons more in France than there are now, they will never
again conquer the kingdom!'
On hearing these words Stafford drew his dagger, and would have struck
her had not Warwick prevented the cowardly act.
Cauchon formed his tribunal of the following:--
1. John Graverent, a Dominican priest, D.D., Grand Inquisitor of
France. It was he who appointed John Lemaître as judge in the trial of
the Maid. The following July this Graverent preached a sermon in
Paris, in which he glorified the death of Joan of Arc.
2. John Lemaître, who represented the Inquisition on the trial. He was
a Dominican prior. He appears to have been a feeble-minded creature,
and a mere tool of Cauchon and Graverent.
3. Martin Bellarme, D.D., another Dominican, and also a member of the
Inquisition.
4. John d'Estivet, surnamed 'Bénédicité,' canon of Beauvais and
Bayeux, was another of Cauchon's creatures. He acted the part of
_Procureur-Général_ during the trial. D'Estivet was a gross and cruel
ecclesiastic, and it is somewhat satisfactory to know his end. He was
found dead in a muddy ditch soon after Joan of Arc's death. As M.
Fabre justly says, 'He perished in his native element.'
5. John de la Fontaine, M.A. He was _Conseille d'Instruction_ during
the trial. In the course of it he was threatened by Cauchon for having
given some friendly advice to the prisoner, and escaped from Rouen
before the conclusion of the trial.
6, 7, 8. William Manchon, William Colles, and Nicolas Taquel, all
three recorders. They belonged to the Church. It is to Manchon that we
are indebted for a summary of the most interesting account of the
trial. We shall find that at the time of Joan's execution this man was
horrified at the part he had taken in it. He confesses his horror at
having received money for his infamy, but instead of casting his
blood-money at the feet of Cauchon, and hanging himself like another
Judas, he somewhat naïvely informs us that he laid it out in the
purchase of a breviary in order to pray for the soul of the martyr.
9. Massieu, another priest, who acted as the sheriffs officer. He
appears to have had feelings of humanity, and attended Joan to the
end.
10. Louis de Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouenne and the Chancellor of
France to King Henry VI. This bishop was the go-between of Cauchon and
Winchester throughout the trial; but he only appears to have taken
part in these occasions during the examinations. It was he who was
made Archbishop of Rouen, which post Cauchon had hoped to gain; and it
was for this archbishopric that Cauchon had taken the presiding post
during the trial.
11. John de Mailly, Bishop of Noyon; he was another staunch auxiliary
of Cauchon. In the year 1456, at the trial for the rehabilitation of
Joan of Arc's memory, Mailly signed his name among those who condemned
the deed he had helped to carry out.
12. Zanon de Castiglione, Bishop of Lisieux. One of the reasons that
this man gave for condemning Joan of Arc to the stake was that she was
born in too low a rank of life to have been inspired by God. This
decision makes one wonder so aristocratic a prelate could demean
himself by belonging to a religion which owed its origin to One who
had followed the trade of a carpenter.
13. Philibert de Montjeu, Bishop of Coutances.
14. John de Saint Avét, Bishop of Avranches. The latter was the only
one of the above Bishops, Dominicans, and members of the French Church
who gave his vote against the condemnation of Joan of Arc, although
the trial minutes have not recorded the fact.
Besides the above French prelates, were:--
15. John Beaupère, M.A. and D.D., formerly a rector of the University
of Paris, also a canon of Besançon. It was he who, with the following
five representatives of the University of Paris, took the most
prominent part in the cross-questioning of the prisoner.
16. Thomas de Courcelles, a canon of Amiens, of Thérouenne, and of
Laon. This person was employed to read the articles of accusation to
the prisoner, and was in favour of employing torture to make Joan
confess what was required of her by her prosecutors. He was considered
one of the shining lights of the University of Paris. He died in 1469,
and until the Revolution an engraved slab, on which his virtues and
learning were recorded, covered his remains.
17. Gerard Feuillet. He was sent to Paris during the trial in order to
lay the twelve articles of accusation before the University, and did
not take part in the latter portion of the trial.
18. Nicolas Midi, D.D., a celebrated preacher. He is supposed to have
been the author of the twelve articles; and he it was who preached a
sermon at the time of the execution of Joan of Arc. Attacked soon
after by leprosy, he sufficiently recovered to see Charles VII. enter
Paris; and he had the audacity to send the King an address of
felicitation in the name of the faculties of the University by whose
instrumentality Joan of Arc had been executed.
19. Peter Morice, a doctor of the University and a canon of Rouen. He
was one of the most eager to bring Joan to the stake.
20. James de Touraine, also a doctor of the University, was violently
hostile to Joan of Arc.
The above six doctors, with Cauchon, were those who had most to do
with the proceedings of the trial, and those whose duty it was
principally to question the prisoner.
21. Nicolas Loiseleur, M.A., a canon of Rouen; he was the most abject
of all the gang of priests and doctors who formed part of this
infamous tribunal. It was Loiseleur who, in the disguise of a layman,
attempted to worm secrets from Joan, pretending to be her friend and
sympathiser. When he found he gained nothing by the subterfuge, he
resumed his clerical garb, and succeeded in getting, under the
promise of secrecy from his order, a confession from the prisoner. He
also introduced spies into the prison who took notes of Joan's words.
When the idea was mooted of putting Joan of Arc to the torture,
Loiseleur was one of the most urgent for it to be applied. However, on
the day of the execution this man, who, strange as it may seem,
appears to have had some kind of conscience, or at least to have been
able to feel remorse for the base part he had played in the trial of
the Maid, implored Joan of Arc's forgiveness. He, however, after the
execution, helped Cauchon to spread calumnies regarding their victim.
This infamous scoundrel died suddenly at Basle.
22. Raoul Roussel de Vernon, D.C.L., and the canon treasurer of the
Cathedral of Rouen. He acted throughout the trial as reporter. In 1443
Roussel became Archbishop of Rouen.
23. Robert Barbier, also a D.C.L., and canon of Rouen Cathedral.
24. Nicolas Coppequesne, also a canon of Rouen Cathedral.
25. Nicolas de Venderès, a canon of Rouen, and Cauchon's chaplain.
26. John Alessée, also a canon of Rouen. This Alessée was greatly
moved at the heroine's death, and exclaimed, 'I pray to God my soul
may one day be where hers is now.'
27. Raoul Auguy, another canon.
28. William de Baubribosc, also a canon of Rouen.
29. John Brullot, another canon and precentor of Rouen.
30. John Basset, another canon and a M.A.
31. John Brullot, another canon. Besides these were seventeen others,
named Caval, Columbel, Cormeilles, Crotoy, Duchemin, Dubesert, Garin,
Gastinel, Ledoux, Leroy, Maguerie, Manzier, Morel, Morellet, Pinchon,
Saulx, and Pasquier de Vaux, who became Bishop of Meaux, Evreux, and
Lisieux. In all, nine-and-twenty canons of Rouen.
After these came a list of mitred abbots, priors, and heads of
religious houses: Peter de Crique, Prior of Sigy; William Lebourg,
Prior of the College of Saint Lô of Rouen; Peter Migiet, Prior of
Longueville.
After these priors came eleven abbots: Durement, Abbot of Fécamp,
later Bishop of Coutances; Benel, Abbot of Courcelles; De Conti, Abbot
of Sainte Catherine; Dacier, Abbot of Saint Corneille of Compiègne;
Frique, Abbot of Bee; Jolivet, Abbot of Saint Michael's Mount in
Normandy; Labbé, Abbot of Saint George de Bocherville; Leroux, Abbot
of Jumièges; Du Masle, Abbot of Saint Ouen; Moret, Abbot of Préaux;
and Theroude, Abbot of Mortemer.
Besides these there were many doctors and assessors from the
University of Paris; among the latter lot appears the name of an
English priest, William Haiton, a secretary of Henry VI. He and
William Alnwick, Bishop of Norwich, Privy Seal to the English King,
are the only two names belonging to the English clergy who took part
in the trial. The Cardinal of Winchester never once appeared during
the proceedings, although he was, together with Cauchon, the prime
mover in the business. To complete the list of the other French
clergy--French only by birth and nationality indeed--must be added the
names of Chatillon, Archdeacon of Evreux; Erard, Canon of Langres,
Laon, and Beauvais; Martin Ladvenu, a Dominican priest, one of the few
who showed some humanity to the prisoner. It was Ladvenu who heard her
confession on the day of her execution, and who after her death
testified to her saintliness. Isambard de la Pierre, also a Dominican.
Although he voted for her death, de la Pierre showed signs of pity and
compassion for his victim, and assisted her at her last moments.
Testimony to her pure character was given by him in the time of her
rehabilitation. Besides these were Emenyart, Fiexvet, Guerdon, Le
Fèvre, Delachambre, and Tiphanie, all of whom, with the exception of
the last two, who were doctors of medicine, were members of the
University. As we have already stated, out of this vast crowd of
ecclesiastics and a few laymen, only two Englishmen took part in the
trial. But the immediate guard of the prisoner was composed of English
soldiers--namely, of the following: John Gris, an English knight, one
of Henry's bodyguard, who was in personal attendance on Joan of Arc;
also John Berwoit (?) and William Talbot, subordinator to Gris. These
men commanded a set of soldiers called _houspilleurs_, placed in the
cell of the prisoner day and night. According to J. Bellow's pocket
dictionary, the term _houspilleur_ is derived from the old French term
_houspiller_--Ang. 'to worry.' And these fellows certainly carried out
that meaning of the word.
If anything is needed to prove what an important case the English and
those allied to them in France considered that of Joan of Arc, the
great number of prelates and doctors assembled to judge her is
sufficient to show. The doctors who had been summoned to attend the
trial, and who had come to Rouen from Paris, were well paid by
Winchester. Some of the receipts are still in existence. The
Inquisition and Cauchon also received pay from the English Government.
Besides money, as we have said, Cauchon expected also to receive the
Archbishopric of Rouen for his zeal in bringing Joan of Arc to the
stake. Cupidity, lust of place and power, and fear of the enemies of
the French were the principal motives which influenced these men,
whose names should for ever be execrated. In truth, a vulgar greed
induced them to destroy one of the noblest creatures that had ever
honoured humanity.
The _procès-verbal_ and the minutes of the trial were written in
Latin, and translated by Thomas de Courcelles; only a portion of the
original translation has been preserved. There were three reporters
who took notes during the trial--Manchon, Colles, and Taquel. The
notes in Latin, written as the trial proceeded, were collected in the
evenings, and translated into French by Manchon.
One difficult question arises--namely, are these notes to be relied
on? Manchon appears to have been honest in his writing, but Cauchon
was not to be trifled with in what he wished noted, as the following
instance will show. A sheriff's officer, named Massieu, was overheard
to say that Joan of Arc had done nothing worthy of the death sentence.
It was repeated to Cauchon, who threatened to have Massieu drowned.
When Isambert de la Pierre advised Joan to submit herself to the
Council then holding meetings at Bâle, to which she assented, Cauchon
shouted out, 'In the devil's name hold your peace!' On being asked by
Manchon whether the prisoner's wish to submit her case to the Council
at Bâle should be placed on the minutes of the trial, Cauchon roughly
refused. Joan of Arc overhearing this, said, 'You write down what is
against my interest, but not what is in my favour.' But we think the
truth comes out, on the whole, pretty clearly; and we have in the
answers of Joan to her judges, however much these answers may have
been altered to suit Cauchon's views and ultimate object, a splendid
proof of her presence of mind and courage. This she maintained day
after day in the face of that crowd of enemies who left no stone
unturned, no subtlety of law or superstition disused, to bring a
charge of guilt against her.
No victory of arms that Joan of Arc might have accomplished, had her
career continued one bright and unclouded success, could have shown in
a grander way the greatness of her character than her answers and her
bearing during the entire course of her examinations before her
implacable enemies, her judicial murderers.
After holding some preliminary and private meetings, in which Cauchon,
with some of the prelates, drew up a series of articles of indictment
against the prisoner, the first public sitting of the tribunal took
place in the chapel of the castle, in the same building in which Joan
was imprisoned.
This was on the 21st of February, 1431. As we have said, from the day
of her arrival in Rouen, at the end of December of the previous year,
till this 21st day of February, Joan had been kept in an iron cage--a
martyrdom of fifty days' daily and nightly torture. During the trial
her confinement was less barbarous, but she was kept chained to a
wooden bed, and the only wonder is that she did not succumb to this
barbarous imprisonment. We shall see that she fell seriously ill, and
the English at one time feared she would die a natural death, and
defeat their object of having her exposed and destroyed as a witch and
a heretic.
On the day before the meeting of the tribunal, Cauchon sent summonses
for all the judges to attend. Joan of Arc had meanwhile made two
demands, both of which were refused. One was, that an equal number of
clergy belonging to the French party should form an equal number in
the tribunal to those of the English faction. The other demand was
that she should be allowed to hear Mass before appearing before the
tribunal.
At eight in the morning of Wednesday, the 21st of February, Cauchon
took his seat as presiding judge for the trial about to commence.
Beneath him were ranged forty-three assessors--there were ninety-five
assessors in all who took part in the trial. On the public days their
numbers varied from between forty to sixty.
The prisoner was led into the chapel by the priest Massieu. Cauchon
opened the proceedings with the following harangue:--
'This woman,' he said, pointing to Joan of Arc, 'this woman has been
seized and apprehended some time back, in the territory of our diocese
of Beauvais. Numerous acts injurious to the orthodox faith have been
committed by her, not merely in our diocese, but in many other
regions. The public voice which accuses her of such crimes has become
known throughout Christendom, and quite recently the high and very
Christian Prince, our lord the King, has delivered her up and given
her in our custody in order that a trial in the cause of religion
shall be made, as it seemeth right and proper. For as much in the eyes
of public opinion, and owing to certain matters which have come to our
knowledge'--(Cauchon here refers to the information that he sought to
obtain from Domremy: as nothing could be learnt there but what
redounded to Joan of Arc's credit, no further use was made of the
information by the Bishop)--'we have, with the assistance of learned
doctors in religious and civil law, called you together in order to
examine the said Joan, in order that she be examined on matters
relating to faith. Therefore,' he continued, 'we desire in this trial
that you fill the duty of your office for the preservation and
exaltation of the Catholic faith; and, with the Divine assistance of
our Lord, we call upon you to expedite these proceedings for the
welfare of your consciences, that you speak the plain and honest
truth, without subterfuge or concealment, on all questions that will
be made you touching the faith. And in the first place we call upon
you to take the oath in the form prescribed. Swear, the hands placed
on the Gospels, that you will answer the truth in the questions that
will be asked you.'
The latter words the Bishop had addressed to Joan; who answered that
she knew not on what Cauchon would question her. 'Perhaps,' she said,
'you will ask me things about which I cannot answer you.'
'Will you swear,' said Cauchon, 'to tell the truth respecting the
things which will be asked you concerning the faith, and of which you
are cognisant?'
'Of all things regarding my family, and what things I have done since
coming into France, I will gladly answer; but, as regards the
revelation which I have received from God, I have never revealed to
any one, except to Charles my King, and I will never reveal these
things, even if my head were to be cut off, because my voices have
ordered me not to confide these things to any one save the King. But,'
she continued, 'in eight days' time I shall know whether or not I may
be allowed to tell you about them.'
Cauchon then repeated his question to the prisoner, namely, whether
she would answer any questions put to her regarding matters of faith,
and the Gospels were placed before her. The prisoner, kneeling, laid
her hands upon them, and swore to speak the truth in what was asked
her as regarded matters of faith.
'What is your name?' asked Cauchon.
J.--'In my home I was called Jeannette. Since I came to France I was
called Joan. I have no surname.'
C.--'Where were you born?'
J.--'At Domremy, near Greux. The principal church is at Greux.'
C.--'What are your parents' names?'
J.--'My father's name is James d'Arc; my mother's, Isabella.'
C.--'Where were you baptized?'
J.--'At Domremy.'
Cauchon then asked her the names of her god-parents, who baptized her,
her age (she was about nineteen), and what her education amounted to.
'I have learnt,' Joan said, in answer to the last question, 'from my
mother the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Belief. All that I know
has been taught me by my mother.'
Cauchon then called upon her to repeat the Lord's Prayer.
In trials for heresy the prisoners had to repeat this prayer before
the judges. At the commencement of Joan of Arc's trial the crime of
magic was brought against her, but as Cauchon completely failed to
find any evidence for such a charge against his prisoner, he altered
the charge of magic into one of heresy. It was probably supposed that
a heretic would be unable to repeat the prayer and the creed, being
under diabolic influence.
Joan of Arc then asked whether she might make her confession before
the tribunal. Cauchon refused this request, but told her that he would
send some one to whom she might confess. He then warned her that if
she were to leave her prison she would be condemned as a heretic.
Considering the way she was chained to her cell, it sounds strange
that Cauchon should fear her flight.
'I have never,' the Maid said, 'given my promise not to attempt to
escape if I can.'
'Have you anything to complain about?' asked the Bishop; and Joan then
said how cruelly she was fastened by chains round her body and her
feet. Probably, had she then promised not to escape from prison, this
severity would have been relaxed, but Joan of Arc had not the spirit
to stoop to her persecutors; she would not give her word not to get
free if she could. 'The hope of escape is allowed to every prisoner,'
she bravely said.
At the close of the sitting, John Gris, the English knight who had the
chief charge over the prisoner, with the two soldiers Berwoit and
Talbot, were called, and took an oath not to allow the prisoner to see
any one without Cauchon's permission, and to strictly guard the
prisoner. And with that the first day's trial ended.
Manchon, in his minutes on the day's proceedings, says that shouts and
interruptions interfered with the reporters and their notes, and that
Joan of Arc was repeatedly interrupted. Cauchon had placed some of his
clerks behind the tapestry in the depth of a window of the chapel,
whose duty it was to make a garbled copy of Joan of Arc's answers to
suit the Bishop.
Possibly finding the chapel of the castle too small for the number of
people present at the trial, the next meeting of the judges was held
in a different place, more suitable--namely, in the great hall of the
castle. That second day's trial took place on the 22nd of February.
The tribunal consisted of Cauchon and forty-seven assessors.
Cauchon commenced the proceedings by introducing John Lemaître, vicar
of the Inquisition, to the judges, after which Joan was brought into
the hall--a splendid chamber used on happier occasions for festivities
and Court pageants.
Cauchon again commanded the prisoner to take the oath, as on the first
day's trial. She said that she had already once sworn to speak nothing
but the truth, and that that should suffice. Cauchon still insisted,
and again Joan replied that as far as any question was put to her
regarding faith and religion she had promised to answer, but that she
could not promise more, and Cauchon failed to get anything more from
her.
The Bishop then applied to one of the doctors of theology to examine
and cross-question the prisoner. This man's name was Beaupère.
B.--'In the first place, Joan, I will exhort you to tell the truth, as
you have sworn to do, on all that I may have to ask you.'
J.--'You may ask me questions on which I shall be able to answer you,
and on others about which I cannot. If you were well informed about me
you should wish me out of your power. All that I have done has been
the work of revelation.'
B.--'How old were you when you left your home?'
J.--'I do not exactly know.'
B.--'Did you learn any trade at home?'
J.--'Yes, to sew and to spin, and for that I am not afraid to be
matched by any woman in Rouen?'
B.--'Did you not once leave your father's house before you left it
altogether?'
J.--'We left for fear of the Burgundians, and I once left my father's
house and went to Neufchâteau in Lorraine, to visit a woman named La
Rousse, where I remained for fifteen days.'
B.--'What was your occupation when at home?'
J.--'When I was with my father I looked after the household affairs,
and I went but seldom with the sheep and cattle to the fields.'
B.--'Did you make your confession every year?'
J.--'Yes, to my curate, and when he was prevented hearing it, to
another priest, with my curate's permission. I think on two or three
occasions I have confessed to mendicant friars. That happened at
Neufchâteau. I took the Communion at Easter.'
B.--'Have you received the Eucharist at other festivals besides that
of Easter?'
Joan of Arc said that what she had already told regarding this
question was sufficient.
'_Passez outre_' is the term she used, not an easy one to translate.
Perhaps 'that will suffice' is like it.
Beaupère now began questioning Joan of Arc regarding 'her voices,' and
one can imagine how eagerly this portion of the prisoner's examination
must have been listened to by all present.
'When did you first hear the voices?' asked Beaupère.
'I was thirteen,' answered Joan, 'when I first heard a voice coming
from God to help me to live well. That first time I was much alarmed.
The voice came to me about mid-day; it was in the summer, and I was in
my father's garden.'
'Had you been fasting?' asked Beaupère.
J.--'Yes, I had been fasting.'
B.--'Had you fasted on the day before?'
J.--'No, I had not.'
B.--'From what direction did the voices come?'
J.--'I heard the voice coming from my right--from towards the church.'
B.--'Was the voice accompanied with a bright light?'
J.--'Seldom did I hear it without seeing a bright light. The light
came from the same side as did the voice, and it was generally very
brilliant. When I came into France I often heard the voices very
loud.'
B.--'How could you see the light when you say it was at the side?'
To this question Joan gave no direct answer, but she said that when
she was in a wood she would hear the voices coming towards her.
'What,' next asked Beaupère, 'what did you think this voice which
manifested itself to you sounded like?'
J.--'It seemed to me a very noble voice, and I think it was sent to me
by God. When I heard it for the third time I recognised it as being
the voice of an angel.'
B.--'Could you understand it?'
J.--'It was always quite clear, and I could easily understand it.'
B.--'What advice did it give you regarding the salvation of your
soul?'
J.--'It told me to conduct myself well, and to attend the services of
the Church regularly; and it told me that it was necessary that I
should go to France.'
B.--'In what manner of form did the voice appear?'
J.--'As to that I will give you no answer.'
B.--'Did that voice solicit you often?'
J.--'It said to me two or three times a week, "Leave your village and
go to France."'
B.--'Did your father know of your departure?'
J.--'He knew nothing about it. The voice said, "Go to France," so I
could not remain at home any longer.'
B.--'What else did it say to you?'
J.--'It told me that I should raise the siege of Orleans.'
B.--'Was that all?'
J.--'The same voice told me to go to Vaucouleurs, to Robert de
Baudricourt, captain of that place, and that he would give me soldiers
to accompany me on my journey; and I answered it, that I was a poor
girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight.'
B.--'What did you do then?'
J.--'I went to my uncle, and told him that I wished to remain with him
for some time, and I lived with him eight days. I then told him that I
must go to Vaucouleurs, and he took me there. When I arrived there I
recognised Robert de Baudricourt, although it was the first time that
I saw him.'
B.--'How, then, did you recognise him?'
J.--'I knew him through my voices. They said to me, "This is the man,"
and I said to him, "I must go to France." Twice he refused to listen
to me. The third time he received me. The voices had told me this
would happen.'
B.--'Had you not some business with the Duke of Lorraine?'
J.--'The Duke ordered that I should be brought to him. I went and said
to him, "I must go to France." The Duke asked me how he should recover
his health. I told him I knew nothing about that.'
B.--'Did you speak much to him about your journey?'
J.--'I told him very little about it. But I asked him to allow his
son, with some soldiers, to go to France with me, and that I should
pray God to cure him. I had gone to him with a safe conduct. After
leaving him I returned to Vaucouleurs.'
B.--'How were you dressed when you left Vaucouleurs?'
J.--'When I left Vaucouleurs I wore a man's dress. I had on a sword
which Robert de Baudricourt had given me, without any other arms. I
was accompanied by a knight, a squire, and four servants. We went to
the town of Saint Urban, and I passed that night in the abbey. On the
way, we passed through the town of Auxerre, where I attended mass in
the principal church. At that time I heard my voices often, with that
one of which I have already spoken.'
B.--'Tell me, now, by whose advice did you come to wear the dress of a
man?'
Joan of Arc refused to answer, in spite of being repeatedly told to do
so.
B.--'What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?'
J.--'He made them who went with me promise to take charge of me, and
as I left he said, "Go, and let come what may!"' (_Advienne que
pourra!_)
B.--'What do you know regarding the Duke of Orleans, now a prisoner in
England?'
J.--'I know that God protects the Duke of Orleans, and I have had more
revelations about the Duke than about any other person in the world,
with the exception of the King.'
She was now again asked as to who it was who had advised her to wear
male attire. She said it was necessary that she should dress in that
manner.
'Did your voice tell you so?' was asked her.
'I believe my voice gave me good advice,' she answered.
B.--'What did you do on arriving at Orleans?'
J.--'I sent a letter to the English before Orleans. In it I told them
to depart; a copy of this letter has been read to me here in Rouen.
There are two or three sentences in that copy which were not in my
letter. For instance, "Give back to the Maiden" should read, "Give
back to the King." Also these words, "Troop for troop" and
"Commander-in-chief," which were not in my letters.'
In this Joan of Arc was mistaken, M. Fabre points out in his _Life of
the Maid of Orleans_, the text being the same both in the original and
in the copy of the letter.
B.--'When at Chinon, could you see as often as you wished him you call
your King?'
J.--'I used to go whenever I wished to see my King. When I arrived at
the village of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, I sent a messenger to
Chinon to the King. We arrived about mid-day at Chinon, and lodged at
an inn. After dinner I went to see the King at the castle.'
Either here Joan of Arc, or the reporter, which is more likely, makes
a slip, as she did not see Charles till two days after her arrival at
Chinon.
B.--'Who pointed out the King to you?'
J.--'When I entered the chamber I recognised the King from among all
the others, my voices having revealed him to me. I told the King that
I wished to go and make war on the English.'
B.--'When your voices revealed your King to you, were they accompanied
by any light?'
Joan made no answer.
B.--'Did you see any angel above the figure of the King?'
'Spare me such questions,' pleaded Joan; but the Inquisitor was not to
be so easily put off, and repeated the question again and again, until
Joan said that the King had also seen visions and heard revelations.
'What were these revelations?' asked the priest.
This Joan refused to answer, and told Beaupère that he might, if he
liked, send to Charles and ask him.
'Did you expect the King to see you?' then asked the priest.
Her answer was that the voice had promised her that the King would
soon see her after her arrival.
'And why,' asked Beaupère, 'did he receive you?'
'Those on my side,' said Joan, 'knew well that I was sent by God; they
have known and acknowledged that voice.'
'Who?' asked Beaupère.
'The King and others,' answered Joan, 'have heard the voices coming to
me. Charles of Bourbon also, and two or three others.'
(The Charles of Bourbon was the Count of Clermont.)
'Did you often hear that voice?' asked the priest.
'Not a day passes that I do not hear it,' Joan replied.
'What do you ask of it?' inquired Beaupère.
'I have never,' answered Joan, 'asked for any recompense, except the
salvation of my soul.'
'Did the voice always encourage you to follow the army?'
'The voice told me to remain at Saint Denis. I wished to remain, but
against my will the knights obliged me to leave. I would have remained
had I had my free-will.'
'When were you wounded?' asked Beaupère.
'I was wounded,' Joan answered, 'in the moat before Paris, having gone
there from Saint Denis. At the end of five days I recovered.'
'What did you attempt to do against Paris?'
Joan answered that she had made one skirmish (_escarmouche_) in front
of Paris.
'Was it on a feast day?' asked the priest.
'It was,' replied Joan. And on being asked if she considered it right
to make an attack on such a day, she refused to answer.
It is plain that the gist of those questions made by Beaupère was to
try and make Joan of Arc avow that her voices had given her evil
counsel. On the following day the same tactics were pursued.
The third meeting of the tribunal was held on the 24th of February, in
the same chamber. Sixty-two assessors were present. Again Cauchon
commenced by admonishing Joan to tell the truth on all subjects asked
her, and again she protested that as far as her revelations were
concerned she could give no answers. On Cauchon insisting, she said,
'Take care what you, who are my judge, undertake, for you take a
terrible responsibility on yourself, and you presume too far. It is
enough,' she added, 'that I have already twice taken the oath.'
Upon her saying this, Cauchon lost all control, and he stormed and
threatened her with instant condemnation if she refused to take the
oath.
'All the clergy in Paris and Rouen could not condemn me,' was the
proud answer, 'if they had not the right to do so.' But, as on the
previous occasions, she said she would willingly answer all questions
relating to her deeds since leaving her home, but that it would take
many days for her to tell them all. Wearied with the persistence and
threats of her arch-tormentor, Cauchon, Joan said that she had been
sent by God and wished to return to God. 'I have nothing more to do
here,' she added.
Beaupère was again ordered to cross-examine the prisoner.
He began by asking her when she had last eaten.
'Not since yesterday at mid-day,' she said. (It was then Lent.)
Beaupère then began again to question her regarding the voice. When
had she last heard it?
'On the previous day,' Joan said, 'and also on that day too.'
'At what o'clock of the day before?'
Thrice she had heard the voice in the morning, and once at the hour
of Vespers, and again when the _Ave Maria_ was being sung.
'What were you doing,' asked Beaupère, 'when the voices called you?'
'I was sleeping,' answered Joan, 'and the voice awoke me.'
'Did it awake you by touching your arm?'
'The voice awoke me without its touching me.'
'Was it in your room?'
'Not that I know, but it was in the castle.'
'Did you acknowledge it by kneeling?'
'I acknowledged its presence by sitting up and clasping my hands. I
had begged for its help.'
'And what did it say to you?'
'It told me to answer boldly.'
'Tell us more clearly what it said to you.'
'I asked its advice in what I should answer, and bade it ask the
Saviour for counsel. And the voice said, "Answer boldly; God will help
you."'
'Had it said anything to you before you interrupted it?'
'Some words it had said which I did not clearly comprehend; but when
fully awake I understood it to tell me to answer boldly.' Then,
emboldened as it seemed by the recollection of that voice, she turned
to Cauchon and exclaimed, 'You, Bishop, you tell me that you are my
judge--have a care how you act, for in truth I am sent by God, and
your position is one of great peril.'
Then Beaupère broke in again, and asked Joan of Arc if the voice had
ever altered its advice, and whether it had told Joan not to answer
all the questions that would be put to her.
'I cannot answer you about that,' said Joan. 'I have revelations of
matters concerning the King which I shall not reveal.'
The Maid then asked whether she might wait for fifteen days, in order
that, by that time, she might know whether she might, or might not,
answer questions relating to this point.
The priest then asked whether she knew that the voice came from God.
'Yes,' she answered, 'and by this order--that,' she continued, 'I
believe as firmly as I believe the Christian religion, and that God
has saved us from the pains of hell.'
She was then asked if the voice was that of a male or of a female.
'It is a voice sent by God,' she only deigned to say to this.
Joan again asked for an interval of fifteen days, in order that she
might better be able in that time to know how much she might reveal to
her judges relating to her voices.
On being asked whether she believed the Almighty would be displeased
at her telling the whole truth, she said that she had been ordered by
the voices to reveal certain things to the King, and not to her
judges; that her voices had told her that very night many things for
the good of the King which he alone was to know.
But, asked Beaupère, could she not prevail on the voices to visit the
King?
'I know not if the voices would consent,' she answered.
'But why,' then asked Beaupère, 'does the voice not speak to the King
now, as it did formerly, when you were with him?'
'I know not if it be the wish of God,' Joan answered: 'without the
grace of God I should be able to do nothing.'
This remark, most innocent to our comprehension, was afterwards made
use of as a weapon to accuse the prisoner of the charge of heresy.
Later on in the day Beaupère asked Joan if the voice had form and
features. This the prisoner refused to answer.
'There is a saying among children,' she said, 'that one is sometimes
hanged for speaking the truth.'
On being asked by Beaupère if she was sure of being in a state of
grace--a question to which he had carefully led up, and whereby
Cauchon hoped to entrap her into a statement which might be used in
the accusation of heresy he was now framing against Joan of Arc--her
answer even disarmed the Bishop.
'If I am not, may God place me in it; if I am already, may He keep me
in it.'
When that test question had been put to the prisoner, one of the
judges, guessing the object of its being made, expostulated, to
Cauchon's rage--who roughly bade him hold his peace.
To that triumphant reply Joan of Arc added these words: 'If I am not
in God's grace I should be the most unhappy being in the world, and I
do not think, were I living in sin, that my voices would come to me.
Would,' she cried, 'that every one could hear them as well as I do
myself!'
Beaupère then asked her about her childhood, and when she had first
heard the voices. Asked if there were many people at Domremy in favour
of the Burgundians, she said she only knew of one individual. Then
came a string of questions about the fairy-well, the haunted oak-tree.
All these questions Joan fully answered. She had never, she said, seen
a fairy, nor had she heard the prophecy about the oak wood from which
a maid was to come and deliver France. When asked if she would leave
off wearing man's clothes, she said she would not, as it was the will
of Heaven for her to wear them.
The fourth day of the trial was the 27th of February. Fifty-three
judges were present. The usual attempt to make Joan take the oath was
made to the prisoner by Cauchon, and she was again cross-examined by
Beaupère. Again questioned as to her voices, she said that without
their permission she could not say what they said to her relating to
the King.
Asked if the voices came to her direct from God, or through some
intermediary channel, she answered, 'The voices are those of Saint
Catherine and Saint Margaret; they wear beautiful crowns--of this I
may speak, for they allow me to do so.' If, she added, her words were
doubted, they might send to Poitiers, where she had already been
questioned on the same subject.
'How do you distinguish one from the other?' asked Beaupère.
'By the manner in which they salute me,' Joan answered.
'How long have they been in communication with you?'
'I have been under their protection seven years,' was the answer.
Joan had referred to the succour which she had received from Saint
Michel. On being asked which of these saints was the first to appear
to her, she said it was the last named. She had seen him, she said, as
clearly as she saw Beaupère, and that he was not by himself, but in a
company of angels. When he left her she felt miserable, and longed to
have been taken with the flight of angels.
When Beaupère asked her if it was her own idea to come into France,
Joan replied in the affirmative, and also that she would sooner have
been torn to pieces by horses than have come without the will of God.
'Does He,' asked the priest, 'tell you not to wear the man's dress?
and had not Baudricourt,' he added, 'wished she should dress as a
man?'
She said it was not by man's but by God's orders that she wore the
dress of a man.
The questions again turned upon the vision and the voice.
Had an angel appeared above the head of the King at Chinon?
She answered that when she entered the King's presence, three hundred
soldiers stood in the hall, and fifty torches burnt in the great hall
of the castle, and that without counting the spiritual light within.
She was then asked respecting her examination before the clergy at
Poitiers.
'They believed,' Joan answered, 'that there was nothing in me against
matters of religion.'
Then Beaupère asked the prisoner if she had visited Sainte Catherine
de Fierbois.
'Yes,' she answered; 'I heard mass there twice in one day, on my way
to Chinon.'
'How did you communicate your message to the King?'
'I sent a letter asking him if I might be allowed to see him. That I
had come one hundred and fifty miles to bring him assistance, and that
I had much to do for him. I think,' she added, 'that I also said I
should know him amongst all those who might be present.'
'Did you then wear a sword?' asked Beaupère.
'I had one that I had taken at Vaucouleurs.'
'Had you not another one as well?'
'Yes; I had sent to the church of Fierbois, either from Troyes or
Chinon, for a sword from the back of the altar of Sainte Catherine. It
was found, much rusted.'
'How did you know there was a sword there?'
'Through my voices. I asked in a letter that the sword should be given
me, and the clergy sent me it. It lay underground--I am not certain
whether at the front or at the back of the altar. It was cleaned by
the people belonging to the church. They had a scabbard made for me;
also one was made at Tours--one of velvet, the other of black cloth. I
had also a third one for the Fierbois sword made of very strong
leather.'
'Were you wearing that sword,' asked Beaupère, 'when you were
captured?'
'No, I had not one then; I used to wear it constantly up to the time
that I left Saint Denis, after the assault on Paris.'
'What benediction did you bestow on that sword?'
'None,' said Joan; and she added, on being questioned as to her
feeling about the sword, that she had a particular liking for it, from
its having been found in the Church of Sainte Catherine, her favourite
saint.
Then Beaupère inquired whether Joan was not in the habit of placing
this sword on the altar, in order to bring it good luck.
Joan answered in the negative.
'But then,' the priest asked, 'had she not prayed that it might bring
her good fortune?'
'It is enough to know,' answered Joan, 'that I wished my armour might
bring me good fortune.'
'What had become of the Fierbois sword?' asked the priest.
'I offered up at Saint Denis,' answered Joan, 'a sword and some
armour, but not the Fierbois sword.'
'Had you it when at Lagny?' asked Beaupère.
'Yes,' answered the prisoner.
But between the time passed at Lagny and Compiègne she wore another
sword, taken from a Burgundian soldier, which she said was a good
weapon, able to deal shrewd blows. But she would not satisfy
Beaupère's curiosity as to what had become of the sword of Fierbois:
'That,' she said, 'has nothing to do with the trial.'
Beaupère next inquired as to what had become of Joan of Arc's goods.
She said her brother had her horses and her goods; she said she
believed the latter amounted to some twelve thousand _écus_.
'Had you not,' asked the priest, 'when you went to Orleans, a banner
or pennon? Of what colour was that?'
'My banner had a field all covered with _fleurs-de-lis_. In it was
represented the world, with angels on either side. It was white, made
of white cloth, of a kind called _coucassin_. On it was written _Jesu
Maria_. It was bordered with silk.'
'Which were you fondest of?' asked Beaupère,--'your banner or your
sword?'
'I loved my banner,' was the answer, 'forty times as much as I did my
sword.'
'Who painted your banner?'
This Joan would not say.
'Who bore your flag?' asked the priest.
Joan of Arc said she carried it herself when charging the enemy, 'in
order,' she added, 'to avoid killing any one. I never killed any one,'
she said.
'How many soldiers did the King give you,' asked the priest, 'when he
gave you a command?'
'Between ten and twelve thousand men,' answered Joan.
Then Beaupère questioned her regarding the relief of Orleans, and he
was told by the Maid that she first went to the redoubt of Saint Loup
by the bridge.
'Did you expect,' was the next question, 'that you would be able to
raise the siege?'
'Yes,' she was certain, Joan answered, from a revelation which she had
received, and of which she had told the King before making the
expedition.
'At the time of the assault,' asked Beaupère, 'did you not tell your
soldiers that you alone would receive all the arrows, bolts, and
stones discharged by the cannon and culverins?'
'No,' she answered, 'there were over a hundred wounded; but,' she
added, 'I said to my people, "Be assured that you will raise the
siege."'
'Were you wounded?' asked the priest.
'I was wounded,' Joan answered, 'at the assault of the fortress on the
bridge. I was struck and wounded by an arrow or a dart; but I
received much comfort from Saint Catherine, and I recovered in less
than fifteen days. I recovered, and in spite of the wound I did not
give up riding or working.'
'Did you know beforehand that you would be wounded?' asked Beaupère.
'Yes,' was the answer; 'and I had told my King I should be wounded. My
saints had told me of it.'
'In what manner were you wounded?' he asked.
'I was,' she answered, 'the first to raise a ladder against the
fortress at the bridge. While raising the ladder I was struck by the
bolt.'
'Why,' now asked the priest, 'did you not come to terms with the
English captains at Jargeau?'
'The knights about me,' she answered, 'told the English that they
could not have a truce of fifteen days, which they wanted; but that
they and their horses must leave the place at once.'
'And what did you say?'
'I told them that if they left the place with their side arms
(_petites cottes_) their lives would be spared. If not, that Jargeau
would be stormed.'
'Had you then consulted your voices to know whether you should accord
them that delay or not?'
Joan did not remember.
Here closed the fourth day's trial.
The fifth day of the trial took place on the 1st of March. Fifty-eight
judges were present.
The opening proceedings were the same as on the former occasions, and
Joan of Arc again professed her willingness to answer all questions
put to her regarding her deeds as readily as if she were in the
presence of the Pope of Rome himself; but, as formerly, she gave no
promise of revealing what her voices had told her.
Beaupère caught immediately at the opportunity of her having spoken of
the Pope to lay a pitfall in her path: Which Pope did she believe the
authentic one--he at Avignon or the one in Rome?
'Are there two?' she asked. This was an awkward question to those
bishops and doctors of the faith who had for so long a time encouraged
the schism in the Church.
Beaupère evaded the question, and asked her if it were true that she
had received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking her which of
the two Popes he was bound to obey.
A copy of this letter was produced, as well as the one sent by Joan of
Arc in reply.
When she sent her answer, the Maid said, she was about to mount her
horse, and had told him she would be able better to answer his
question when at rest in Paris or elsewhere. The copy of her letter
which was now read, Joan said, did not quite agree with that she had
sent to Armagnac.
'She had not,' Joan added, 'said in her letter that what she knew was
by the inspiration of Heaven.'
Again pressed as to which of the two Popes she believed the true one,
she said that the one then in Rome was to her that one.
Questioned regarding her letter to the English before Orleans, she
acknowledged the accurateness of the copy produced, with the exception
of a slight mistake. She retracted nothing regarding this letter, and
declared that the English would, ere seven years were passed from that
time, give a more striking proof of their loss of power in France than
that which they had shown before Orleans. This prediction was
literally carried out when, in 1436, Paris opened its gates to Charles
VII., the loss of the capital being shortly after followed by the loss
of all the other English conquests, with the exception of the town of
Calais--the gains of a century of war being snatched from them in a
score of years.
'They will meet,' said Joan of Arc, 'with greater reverses than have
yet befallen them.'
When she was asked what made her speak thus, she answered that these
things had been revealed to her. The examination again turned upon her
voices and apparitions.
'Do they always appear to you in the same dress? Always in the same
form, and richly crowned?'
Similar foolish questions were then put to her. Had the saints long
hair? She did not know. And what language did they converse in with
her?
'Their language,' she replied, 'is good and beautiful.'
'What sort of voices were theirs?'
'They speak to me in soft and beautiful French voices,' she said.
'Does not Saint Margaret speak in English?'
'How should she,' was the answer, 'when she is not on the side of the
English?'
'Do they wear ear-rings?'
This Joan could not say; but the idiotic question reminded the
prisoner that Cauchon had taken a ring from her. She had worn two--one
had been taken by the Burgundians when she was captured, the other by
the Bishop. The former had been given her by her parents, the latter
by one of her brothers. This ring she asked Cauchon to give the
Church.
'Had she not,' she was asked, 'made use of these rings to heal the
sick?'
She had never done so.
It is very easy throughout all these questionings to see how eager
Cauchon and the other judges were to find some acknowledgment from the
lips of Joan of Arc, upon which they could found a charge of heresy
against her. Her visions were distorted by them into a proof of
infernal agency; even the harmless superstitions of her village home
did not escape being turned into idolatrous and infernal matters of
belief.
Had not her saints, questioned the Bishop, appeared to her beneath
the haunted oak of Domremy?--and what had they promised her besides
the re-establishment of Charles upon the throne?
'They promised,' she answered, 'to take me with them to Paradise,
which I had prayed them to do.'
'Nothing more?' queried Cauchon.
'If they made me another promise,' Joan replied, 'I am not at liberty
to say what that promise is till three months are past.'
'Did they say that you would be free in three months' time?'
That question remained unanswered, but before those three months had
passed, the heroine had been delivered by death from all earthly
sufferings.
She was again minutely questioned regarding the superstitions of her
country. Was there not growing there a certain fabulous plant, called
Mandragora? Joan of Arc knew nothing regarding such a plant--had never
seen it, and did not know the use of it. Again the apparitions were
brought forward.
'What was Saint Michel like? Was he clothed?'
'Do you think,' was the answer to this question, which could only have
occurred to a foul-minded priest, 'do you think that God cannot clothe
him?'
Other absurd questions followed--as to his hair; long or short? Had he
a pair of scales with him? As before, Joan of Arc answered these
futile, and sometimes indecent, questions with her wonderful patience.
At one moment she could not help exclaiming how supremely happy the
sight of her saints made her; it seemed as if a sudden vision of her
beloved saints had been vouchsafed her in the midst of that crowd of
persecuting priests.
She was again told to tell what the sign or secret was which she had
revealed to the King on first seeing him at Chinon; but about this she
was firm as adamant, and refused to give any information. To reveal
that sign or secret would, she felt, be not only a breach of
confidence and disloyalty between her and her King, but a crime to
divulge a sacred secret, which Charles kept sealed in his breast, and
which she was determined to utter to no one, and least of all to his
enemies.
'I have already said,' she told her judges, 'that you will have
nothing from me about that. Go and ask the King!'
Then followed questions as to the fashion of the crown that the King
had worn at Rheims: which brought the fifth day of the trial to a
close.
The sixth and last day's public examination took place on the 3rd of
March, forty-two judges present. The long series of questions were
nearly all relating to the appearance of the saints. Both questions
and answers were nearly the same as on the previous occasions, and
little more information was got from the prisoner.
After these, the subject of her dress--what she then wore, and what
she had worn--was entered upon.
'When you came to the King,' she was asked, 'did he not inquire if
your change in dress was owing to a revelation or not?'
'I have already answered,' said Joan, 'that I do not remember if he
asked me. This evidence was made known when I was at Poitiers.'
'And the doctors who examined you,' asked Beaupère, 'at Poitiers, did
they not want to know regarding your being dressed in man's clothes?'
'I don't remember,' she answered; 'but they asked me when I had first
begun to wear man's dress, and I told them that it was when I was at
Vaucouleurs.'
She was then asked whether the Queen had not asked her to leave off
wearing male clothes. She answered that that had nothing to do with
the trial.
'But,' next inquired Beaupère, 'when you were at the castle of
Beaurevoir, did not the ladies there ask you to do so?'
'Yes,' was the answer, 'and they offered to give me a woman's dress.
But the time had not yet come.' She would, she added, have yielded
sooner to the wishes of those ladies than to those of any other, the
Queen excepted.
The subject of the flags and banners used by her during her campaigns
was now entered on.
Had her standards not been copied by the men-at-arms?
'They did so at their pleasures,' she answered.
'Of what material was the banner made? If the poles were broken, were
they renewed?'
'They were,' she answered, 'when broken.'
'Did you not,' asked Beaupère, 'say that the flags made like your
banners were of good augury?'
'What I said,' answered Joan, 'to my soldiers was, that they should
attack the enemy with boldness.'
'Did you not sprinkle holy water on the banners?'
To this question Joan refused to answer.
Next she was questioned about a certain Friar Richard, the preaching
friar who had seen her at Troyes. She answered that he came to her
making the sign of the Cross, and that she told him to come up to her
without fear.
She was asked if it was true that she had pictures painted of herself
in the likeness of a saint.
'When at Arras,' she answered, 'she had seen a portrait of herself, in
which she was represented kneeling before the King and presenting him
with a letter.'
'But was there not a picture of you,' asked Beaupère, 'in your host's
house at Orleans?'
Joan of Arc knew nothing regarding such a picture.
'Did you not know,' was the next question put, 'that your partisans
had prayers and masses said in your honour?'
'If they did so,' she answered, 'it was not by my wish; but if they
prayed for me,' she added, 'there was no harm in so doing.'
She was then asked what her opinion was regarding the people who
kissed her hands and her feet, and even her clothes. She answered
that, inasmuch as she could, she prevented them doing so; but she
acknowledged that the poor people flocked eagerly around her, and that
she gave them all the assistance in her power.
She was next asked if she had not stood sponsor to some children
baptized at Rheims.
'Not at Rheims,' she said; but she had for one child at Troyes. She
had also stood sponsor for two children at Saint Denis, and she had
gladly had the boy christened by the name of Charles in honour of the
King, and the girl Joan, as it pleased their mothers.
'Did the women not touch your rings and charms?'
'Many,' she answered, 'were wont to touch both my hands and my rings;
but I know not with what intention.'
'Did she not receive the sacrament and confess herself as she passed
through the country?'
'Often,' she answered.
'And did you,' asked the priest, 'receive the sacrament in your male
attire?'
'Yes,' she said; 'but not, if I recollect right, when wearing my
armour.'
This confession of having received the Eucharist in her male dress was
made one of the accusations of sacrilege by Joan of Arc's judges.
She was next questioned about a horse she had bought from the Bishop
of Senlis, and ridden in battle.
The next point related to the supposed miraculous resurrection--a very
temporary one however--of an infant three days old at Lagny. When Joan
was in that place, this child appeared to have died, and was put
before the image of the Virgin, in front of which some young women
were kneeling. Joan of Arc joined them in their prayers, upon which it
was noticed that the supposed dead infant gave some signs of life; he
or she was baptized, and soon after expired. Joan of Arc had never for
a moment supposed that it was owing to her presence and her prayers
that this miracle had occurred.
'But,' asked Beaupère, 'was it not the common talk of the town of
Lagny that you had performed this miracle, and had been the means of
restoring the infant to life?'
'I did not inquire,' she said.
She was then asked about the woman, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom, it
may be remembered, Joan had discovered to be a vulgar impostor, and
whom she had tried to dissuade from making people believe that she
could discover hidden treasures, advising her to return to her husband
and her children.
Next she was asked why she had tried to escape from her prison tower
at Beaurevoir. She said that she had made the attempt, although
against the warning of her voices, which had counselled her to have
patience--but that Saint Catherine had comforted her after her fall
from the tower, telling her that she would recover, and also that
Compiègne would not be taken.
It was tried to prove that in order not to fall into the hands of the
enemy she intended committing suicide. To this accusation she
answered:--
'I have already said that I would sooner give up my soul into God's
keeping, than fall into the hands of the English.'
And with this ended the sixth and last public day of the heroine's
trial.
Joan of Arc's judges had found nothing to attach guilt to her in any
of her replies; but as she had been condemned before the farce was
enacted of trying her, her innocence could not save her life. As
Michelet observes, Joan of Arc's answers may have had some effect in
touching the hearts of even such men as were her judges; and it was
perhaps on this account that Cauchon thought it more prudent to
continue holding the trial with only a few, and those few picked men,
of whose sympathies, characters, and feelings he was sure. The
Bishop's ostensible reason in having the trial henceforth carried on
in private was in order 'not to tire the others.' A most thoughtful
and tender-hearted Bishop! The details of the trial were now placed in
the hands of two judges and two witnesses. Cauchon now felt he had a
free hand. On the 12th of March he had obtained the permission of the
Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Office in France to make use of the
services of his Vicar-General--his name, as has already been said, was
John Lemaître.
The first of the long series of secret interrogations was held in Joan
of Arc's prison--probably in the principal tower--on the 10th of
March.
John de la Fontaine questioned the prisoner as follows:--
'When you went to Compiègne from which place did you start?'
'From Crespy-en-Valois.'
'When you arrived at Compiègne did many days elapse before you made
the sortie?'
'I arrived secretly at an early hour of the morning, and entered the
town so that the enemy could not be aware of my arrival, and the same
day, in the evening, I made the sortie in which I was captured.'
'Were the bells of the church rung on the occasion of your arrival?'
'If they were, it was not by my command. I had not given it a
thought.'
'Did you not order them to be rung?'
'I have no recollection of having done so.'
'Did you make the sortie by the command of your voices?'
'Last Easter, when in the trenches of Melun, the voices of Saint
Catherine and Saint Margaret told me I should be taken prisoner before
St. John's Day; but that I was to keep a brave heart, and take all
that befell me with patience, and that in the end God would come to my
aid.'
'Since then, did your voices tell you that you would be taken?'
'Yes, often; nearly every day; and I implored my voices that when I
was taken I might then die, and not suffer a long imprisonment: and
the voices said, "Be without fear, for these things must happen." But
they did not tell me the time when I should be taken, for had I known
that I should not have made that sortie.'
'Did you not question them about the time in which you would be
taken?'
'I often inquired; but they never told me.'
'Did your voices cause you to make that sortie, and not tell you the
manner by which you would be captured?'
'Had I known the hour of my capture I should not have gone out
voluntarily; but had my voices ordered me to go and I had known, then
would I have gone all the same, whatever might have happened.'
'When you made the sally did you pass over the bridge at Compiègne?'
'I passed over the bridge and along the redoubt; and I charged with my
soldiers against John de Luxembourg's men. Twice were they driven
back as far as the quarters of the Burgundians; the third time half as
far. While so engaged the English arrived, and cut off our
communications. While returning towards the bridge, I was taken in the
meadows on the side nearest to Picardy.'
'Upon your banner, the one you carried, was not a picture painted
representing the world and two angels? What was the significance of
that?'
'My saints told me to carry that banner boldly.'
'Did you not also bear arms and a shield?'
'Not I; but the King gave my brothers a coat-of-arms; a shield with a
blue ground, on which were two _fleurs-de-lis_ of gold, and a sword
between.'
'Did you make a present to your brothers of those arms?'
'They were given my brothers by the King, without any request made by
me.'
'What kind of horse were you riding when you were captured?'
'I was mounted on a _demi-coursier_.'
'Who had given you that horse?'
'My King,' answered Joan of Arc; and she went on to tell them how she
had had fine horses purchased by the King for her use; she also gave
them an account of her few possessions.
There is, indeed, so much repetition in the questions and answers
during these long examinations, that it would be a weariness to the
reader did one minutely re-write them as they appear in the chronicle.
We shall therefore confine ourselves to the principal and most
important facts and statements which bear most prominently on our
heroine's career, and on the answers most characteristic made by her.
The remainder of that first day's trial in the prison consisted nearly
entirely of trying to elicit from Joan of Arc what was the special
sign or secret that she had revealed to the King at Chinon. She,
however, gave them no further information than in saying that the sign
was a beautiful and honoured mark of Divine favour. For hours she was
urged to tell of what this special sign or token consisted--whether of
precious stones, gold, or silver. Joan, who apparently was wearied out
by the pertinacity of her inquisitors, seems to have allowed herself
to mix with the reality the fabulous, and described that an angel had
appeared to Charles bringing him a crown of matchless beauty. She
seems, poor creature, half dazed and bewildered by her sufferings and
her tormentors, to have mixed up in her mind and in her replies the
actual event of the King's coronation at Rheims with her angelic
visions and voices; for to her one must have appeared as real and
actual as the other.
Nine examinations in the prison tower of Rouen were undergone by Joan
of Arc:--Once on the 10th of March; twice on the 12th, and again on
the 13th; twice on the 14th; again on the 15th; and twice more on the
17th. In all these successive trials, nothing of importance was
obtained by the judges from the prisoner. Both answers and questions
were similar to those which have already been recorded during the days
of her examinations in public. Throughout all this trying process of a
week's long and minute cross-questioning, the heroine maintained the
same firmness, and answered with the same simple dignity as on the
former occasions. Two of her answers may be justly called sublime.
When during the course of the seventh day's trial, she was asked what
doctrine Saint Michel had inspired her with, she answered:--
'The pity that I have for the Kingdom of France!'
And again, when at the close of the last day's examination she was
asked why she had taken such special care that her banner should be
carried and held near the King during the ceremony of the coronation,
she answered:--
'If it had been in the travail it was right that it should be in the
place of greatest honour.' ('_Il avait été à la peine; c'était bien
raison qu'il fut à l'honneur!_')
Glorious words, worthy of her who spoke them! They bear with them an
heroic ring, and reveal by one sublime expression the very soul and
spirit of Joan of Arc!
Little as the secret interrogations had revealed to Joan of Arc's
examiners regarding the mysterious sign they were so eager to wrest
from her, Cauchon had succeeded in inveigling his victim into making
statements he considered could be used in a charge of heresy against
her.
When bidden to say if she would be ready to submit herself regarding
all her actions to the determination of the Church, she answered that
she loved the Church, and was ready to obey its doctrines as far as
lay in her power; and on being asked to which Church she alluded,
whether to the Church Militant or to the Church Triumphant, she
replied, 'I have been sent to France by God and the Virgin Mary, and
by the saints of the Church Victorious from above, and to that Church
I submit myself, and all that I have done or may have to do!'
This answer did not satisfy Cauchon, and he again inquired to which
Church she submitted; but Joan had already answered, and would say no
more--and on this Cauchon fixed his accusation of heresy against the
heroine. Having failed throughout the trial to get Joan to say
anything incriminating regarding Charles VII. or anything which might
tend to injure him in the minds of his subjects, Cauchon had Joan
questioned as to what she thought respecting the murder of the Duke of
Orleans by Charles.
'It was a great misfortune for the kingdom of France,' was her answer.
Could the wariest statesman have better parried that question? Not on
one single occasion during the long series of questions that Joan of
Arc was made to undergo, without any counsel or help, and with some of
the subtlest brains in the country eager to involve her in damaging
statements and to entangle her in saying something which might be
taken up as injurious to Charles--that mean prince, who made so much
by her devotion to him and his cause, and in return for that devotion
had not taken a step towards attempting her deliverance--not at any
time did she drop one word or let an expression escape her which could
cause any uneasiness to the King, who had proved himself so utterly
unworthy of such a subject, or to the men about the King's person,
some of whom, if not actually guilty of having given her over to her
enemies, at any rate had allowed her to be kept during all those long
months a close prisoner, without protest or any sign of sympathy.
When the judges asked Joan if she were as willing to answer the
questions put to her, standing in the presence of the Pope, as she had
done in the presence of the Bishop of Beauvais, she replied that she
would willingly do so. The idea of referring her case to the Pope was
not at all what Cauchon wished to enter her mind; and when he found
that John de la Fontaine and two monks had visited the prisoner and
advised her to submit herself to Rome, he was furious, and threatened
them with condign punishment. They only escaped the Bishop's anger by
taking flight from Rouen. It was not too soon for Cauchon's object
that the trial was now conducted with closed doors. Joan of Arc's
courage, firmness, and simplicity, accompanied by her transparent
truth and pure fervent belief in her mission, impressed even her
judges--and much more so those who had attended the public days of her
trial as spectators. Now and again, after one of her straightforward
and brave answers, which would expose and lay bare the malicious
intention of the question, voices were heard to say in the great hall,
'Well spoken, Joan!' and an English knight was overheard to declare
that, for his part, he regretted that such a courageous maid had not
been born an Englishwoman. A reaction in favour of the heroine might
have set in, and, as we have already said, it was for fear of this
that Cauchon caused the trial in future to be held in private. It is
clear from the previous narrative that the prisoner had no one to
advise her, no one to support her. At the commencement of the trial
she asked to be allowed counsel, but Cauchon refused this most just
demand. Among the crowd of doctors and clergy it was impossible but
that, now and again, some feeling of interest, even of sympathy,
should gain a few of these men, who, in spite of their education and
surroundings, were human beings after all. But whenever such feeling
was shown, Cauchon, ever on the watch, sternly repressed its
manifestation. The name of Isambard de la Pierre should be remembered
for good; for he, although one of the creatures of the detestable
Inquisition, showed humanity to Cauchon's victim. During the
examinations it was the wont of Isambard to place himself as near as
possible to Joan of Arc, and by nudging her, or by some sign, he
attempted to help her and advise her in her answers to the questions
of the judges. Cauchon's evil eye, however, at length detected
Isambard's conduct, and he informed Warwick of it. Soon after,
Isambard was confronted by Warwick, and the latter, with many abusive
words, threatened to have him drowned in the Seine if he dared assist
Joan of Arc.
Though the Maid's treatment in the dungeon of the castle was not,
after the beginning of the trial, so barbarous as in the first days
after her arrival at Rouen, when she was treated like a caged wild
animal, the poor prisoner was watched day and night by three soldiers,
who, one must fear, outraged every sense of humanity in their
treatment of Joan. The very term _houspiller_ proves that they were
set apart to embitter the prisoner's already too cruel state. Although
Joan of Arc never herself disclosed the abominable fact, the reason
for retaining and continuing to wear her male dress was that it served
her as a protection from these ruffians. Chained to a heavy wooden
beam, her sufferings must have been at times almost beyond endurance;
but in this long torture, which was only to terminate in the flaming
death, her wonderful constancy and heaven-inspired spirit never
failed. Had she given way to a kind of despair, as happened shortly
before her final release--for only a few moments indeed--her jailers
would not have neglected to record such weakness as a sign that her
heavenly agencies had failed, if not forsaken her utterly. What
appears to have constituted the greatest privation to Joan of Arc
during her imprisonment was not being allowed the consolation of
receiving the rites of the religion she so fervently believed. During
the days on which the public examinations were held in the hall of the
castle, she was wont to be led from her dungeon by a passage leading
to the place of judgment: the castle chapel was passed in traversing
this passage. One day while going by the chapel door she asked one of
the sheriffs, Massieu, whether the Eucharist was then exposed within
the chapel, and, if so, whether she might be permitted to kneel before
the entrance. The man was humane enough to allow her to do so, but
this coming to the knowledge of one of Cauchon's familiars, the
sheriff was told if he allowed the prisoner again to kneel before the
chapel door that he would be thrown into prison--'and,' added Cauchon,
'in a prison where no light of sun or moon should appear!'
But perhaps among so many instances of cruelty and bigotry, the most
infamous act of all the many in this tragedy was that performed by the
Canon Nicolas Loiseleur, a creature of Cauchon, as false, as cruel, and
as unscrupulous as his master and patron. This reverend scoundrel had,
at the beginning of the trial, by his feigned sympathy for the
prisoner, wormed himself into Joan of Arc's confidence. He told her
that he, too, came from near her home, that he in his heart of hearts
belonged to the French side, that he was a prisoner on account of his
known devotion to Charles and to France, and many other such lies. This
Judas--half in the character of a layman, half in that of a confessor,
and wholly as a sympathetic friend and a fellow-sufferer--paid the
prisoner long visits, disguised both as priest and layman, as the part
suited the day's action best. Loiseleur actually used the means of
extracting information from Joan of Arc under the seal of confession,
to be afterwards employed against her by Cauchon. While these
conversations and confessions took place, Warwick and Cauchon would be
concealed in a part of the dungeon from which they could overhear what
passed between the two--one of whom worthily might be called an angel,
the other truthfully a devil. With the Bishop and knight--whose conduct
as regards Joan of Arc deeply tarnished an otherwise high
character--were seated clerks, who wrote down what passed in these
meetings. The clerks, to their credit, are said to have at first
refused to comply with doing such dirty work.
Cauchon gained but little by this infamy. Nothing of any importance
could be constructed out of the prisoner's confidence and confessions;
but Cauchon was, through Loiseleur, enabled to tender such advice to
Joan as made her answers coincide more closely with his wishes than
they otherwise could have done; especially those relating to the
Church Triumphant and Militant.
When his crime had borne fruit, Loiseleur, like another Judas, was
overwhelmed with an intolerable remorse; and, although he obtained his
victim's pardon, his end appears to have been as sudden as that of
Judas, if not also self-inflicted. By a lawyer named John Lohier, whom
he consulted during the course of the trial, Cauchon was not so well
served as he had been by Loiseleur. This Lohier, who was a Norman and
seems to have been a worthy man, had the courage to tell Cauchon that
inasmuch as Joan of Arc was being tried in secret and without benefit
of counsel, the proceedings were null and worthless. Like all who
showed any interest for the prisoner, Lohier was threatened by Cauchon
with imprisonment, but he escaped and found refuge in Rome.
On Passion Sunday, the 18th of March, Cauchon held a meeting of a
dozen of the lawyers, including the Vice-Inquisitor, and asked them to
give their opinion on some of the answers of Joan of Arc. He held a
second and similar consistory on the 22nd of that month, at which it
was decided to shape into the form of a series of articles the chief
heads of accusation. This, when made out, was to be submitted to the
prisoner. On the 24th, the Bishop, accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor
and some others, proceeded to the dungeon in which Joan of Arc was
kept. The day was Palm Sunday, and the great French historian Michelet
has, with his accustomed skill and bright, vivid word-painting, in his
short but incomparable _Life_ of the heroine not only of France but
of humanity, reminded his readers with what a longing Joan of Arc
must, on that festival of joy and triumph, have yearned for the
privilege 'to breathe once again the fresh air of heaven.' Daughter of
the fields, born on the border of the woods, she who had always lived
under the open sky had to pass Easter Day in a dark dungeon tower. To
her the great succour which the Church invokes upon that day did not
reach--her prison door did not fly open.
It may be recalled that on Palm Sunday the morning prayer in the
office of the Roman Church contains these words: '_Deus in adjutorium
meum intende._' For her, however, no earthly gate was to be thrown
open wide. The gate through which she was to pass from suffering and
death into life eternal and peace everlasting--(_per angusta ad
augusta_)--was, however, not far distant. But she had still to wait
awhile amid the ever-darkening shadows.
'If,' said Cauchon to Joan, 'you will cease to wear this man's dress,
and dress as you would do were you back in your home, you shall be
allowed to hear Mass.'
But Joan could not be prevailed on to consent to abandon the costume,
which, as we have said, proved her safeguard against the brutality of
her jailers.
By the 26th of March the articles were drawn up and ready, and were
approved of in a meeting held by Cauchon in his own house. And on
these articles, or rather heads of articles, the further trial of the
prisoner was to be carried on.
The examination took place on the days following in a chamber next to
the great hall in the castle. Nine judges, besides Cauchon, attended.
The Bishop ordered Joan to answer categorically all the accusations on
which she was arraigned; if she refused to do so, or remained silent
beyond a given time, he threatened her with excommunication. He went
on to declare that all her judges were men of high position, well
versed in all matters appertaining to Church and State; and he had the
audacity to qualify them--and probably included himself among them--as
being _benins et pitoyables_, having no wish to inflict corporal
punishment upon Joan, but filled only with the pious desire of leading
her into the way of truth and salvation. 'Seeing that,' he continued,
'she was not sufficiently versed in such weighty matters as those they
had now to deal with, they in their pitifulness and benignity, would
allow her to choose among the learned doctors present, one or more to
aid her with counsel and advice.'
The Bishop had probably guessed that by this time Joan of Arc would
have ceased to care for the benefit of counsel, having had to do
without it till now; and his asking her whether she wished for it was
merely made in order to appear as an act of judicial indulgence on his
part--perhaps, also, what Lohier had urged regarding the illegality of
trying his prisoner without giving her the help of counsel may have
influenced him.
In a few simple words Joan of Arc thanked the Bishop and the others
for the offer, of which she, however, declined to avail herself. She
added that she felt no need now of having any human counsel, for that
she had that of her Lord to aid her.
Thomas de Courcelles next proceeded to read the articles contained in
the act of accusation. These were so long that they occupied the
remainder of that and the next day's sitting. This first series of
articles--for there were forty more to follow--consisted of thirty
heads, and forms one of the most glaring examples of what the human
mind is capable of inventing when thoroughly steeped in bigotry,
stupidity, and cruelty. The Bishop of Beauvais may have been
congratulated on producing the most momentous mass of accusation,
intended to destroy the life and reputation of a peerless and perfect
woman and to blast the career of his native sovereign: it only
redounded to the Bishop's everlasting shame and infamy.
We will spare the reader a detailed summary of these
articles--articles which have the lie so palpably and strongly writ
all over them, that we can but hesitate whether to be more surprised
or disgusted that even such a man as Cauchon could dare to bring them
into court.
The preamble of the articles gave the gist of what was to follow, and
showed up the true spirit of Joan's 'benign and merciful judges.' It
consisted of one long string of abuse, in which the terms 'sorceress,'
'false prophet,' 'a practiser of magic,' and 'devilish arts,' were
freely used. Joan of Arc was declared in this preamble to be
'abominable in the eyes of God and man'; a violator of all
laws--divine, ecclesiastical and natural. To sum up all the epithets,
she was termed 'heretical, or, at any rate, strongly suspected of
being so.' This accusation, the most awful that those cruel times
held, must have sounded to all those men present as the heroine's
knell of doom.
Then followed the thirty articles of accusation. Never, indeed, had a
short but well filled career, bright with glorious deeds, undertaken
for King and fatherland--never had such a life (for no life ever
approached that of the Maid's) been so ludicrously, so violently and
wilfully misrepresented. Her most innocent words and actions were
turned into accusations of sorcery, witchcraft, vice, and every kind
of wickedness. Her harmless and pure youth was made to appear a
childhood of sorcery and idolatrous superstition; she was accused in
her earliest years of having trafficked with evil spirits: it was
alleged that she had consorted with witches; that she had frequented
places where spirits and fairies best loved to congregate; that she
had taken part in sacrilegious dancing; that she had suspended wreaths
on the trees in honour of these rural spirits; that she had carried
hidden about her person a plant called Mandragora, hoping by it to
obtain good luck; that she had left her parents against their will to
go to Neufchâteau, and lived in that place among a debauched set of
people: that in consequence of all these wicked acts, a youth who
intended marrying her had not done so. Then, having left not a stage
or an act of her innocent girlhood unblasted, and covered with the
slime of the Bishop's reptile-like imagination, her acts when with the
King were reviewed. She had promised Charles to slay all the English
in France; her cruelty and love of bloodshed were insatiable; she had
influenced Charles by acts of magic; her banners and her rings were
bewitched; she was schismatic, and doubted as to which was the right
Pope; and, in spite of this, she had the wickedness to inform the Earl
of Armagnac which of the two Popes he was to believe the genuine. Of
all this long tissue of crimes laid to her charge, that of wearing a
man's dress was made the most heinous; for the Almighty had made it a
crime abominable to Himself, that woman should wear man's dress. Now,
not only had the prisoner committed this sin, but she had added to it
by affirming that she did so by the wish of God--she had done even
worse; for did she not refuse when at the castle of Beaurevoir to wear
woman's dress, also when at Arras, and even now in Rouen? So obstinate
was she in her wickedness that she had refused to comply with the
Bishop's wish that she should leave off these clothes, although he
had told her she would be allowed to assist at the offices of the
Church if she would consent to do so.
To all these accusations, at the end of each paragraph, Cauchon bade
Courcelles, who read the accusations, to pause, and would then ask the
prisoner what answer she had to make to that accusation. Joan of Arc
contented herself by simply denying the alleged crime, or else she
referred to the answers she had made to the same, or similar
questions, during the former days when under examination. Some of her
replies were, as they often had been during those trials, grand in
their simplicity. For instance, when asked a difficult and even
perplexing question relating to her belief in the Church Militant, she
said:--'I believe that the Holy Father, the Bishops, and other clergy,
are here for the protection of the Christian faith, and to punish
those who deserve it. As to my acts,' she continued, 'I submit them to
the Church in Heaven, to God, to the Holy Virgin, and the Saints in
Paradise. I have not failed,' she proudly added, 'in the Christian
religion; nor will I ever do so.'
When repeatedly questioned about the change of costume, and of its
importance regarding her being allowed to attend Mass or not, she
said: 'In the eyes of the Saviour the dress of those who receive the
Sacrament can have no importance.'
On the day after, the 28th of March, the same chamber was used for the
trial, and the same indictments were entered on. That almost
interminable series of accusations numbered some seventy charges. On
that day, Joan of Arc appears to have ceased to deny at any length the
string of false evidence brought against her; she generally replied
that she had already answered as to the crimes laid to her charge, or
simply said, 'I refer myself to my Saviour.' Two of her answers are
worth recording: the first, when accused of having been guilty not
only of discarding the proper dress of her sex, but also of having
acted the part of a man, she said: 'As to women's occupation there are
plenty of them to occupy themselves with such things'; and to the
second question, when taunted with having carried out her mission with
violence and slaughter, she answered: 'I implored at the commencement
of my mission that peace might be made, while, at the same time, I
declared that if that was not agreed to, I was willing to fight.' When
she was accused of having made war on the Burgundians and the English
alike, she made the distinguishing difference between them by
saying:--'As to the Duke of Burgundy, I wrote to him, and asked him
through his envoys that peace should be made between him and my King.
As regards the English, the only peace that could be made with them is
when they have returned to England.' The Maid's natural modesty and
simplicity are apparent in a circumstance which occurred in one of
those long days of searching examination and cross-questioning. When
the sentence she had used, and which had been noted down in the
minutes of an early day of the trial, was read as follows: 'All that I
have done has been done by the advice of my Saviour,' she stopped the
clerk, and said that it should stand thus: 'All that I have done well
has been done by the advice of my Saviour.' When she was asked by what
form of words she prayed to her Saints to come to her assistance, she
repeated the following prayer:--'Very blessed God, in honour of your
holy Passion, I beseech you, if you love me, that you will reveal to
me what I am to answer these Churchmen. I know concerning the dress
the reason for which I have adopted it, but I know not in what manner
I am to discard it. For this thing I beseech you to tell me what to
do.' And she added that after this prayer her voices were soon heard.
On the 31st of March, Cauchon, accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor and
some other of the judges, had an interview with the prisoner. They
again inquired of Joan of Arc whether she submitted herself wholly and
entirely into the hands of the Church Militant. She answered that if
such were her Saviour's wish she was quite willing to do so. The
accusations were now set forth afresh, in twelve chief heads or
articles, under which the series of calumnies was summarised before
they should be submitted to the University of Paris. These twelve
heads, which formed the foundation of Joan of Arc's condemnation, were
never shown her; and she had therefore no chance of contradicting any
of the grossly false charges of which they were full. Like the trial
itself, these articles were merely a sham invented for the purpose of
throwing dust in the eyes of the people, who by these, it was hoped,
would be persuaded that the law of the Church and State had been acted
up to. The heads of these articles were as follows:--
_First_--A woman pretends to have had communication with Saints from
her thirteenth year; and she affirms that they have counselled her to
dress in male attire; she affirms that she has found her salvation,
and refuses to submit herself to the Church.
_Second_--She affirms that, through a sign, she persuaded the King to
believe in her; and that accompanied by an angel she placed a crown
upon his head.
_Third_--She affirms her companionship with Saint Michel and other
Saints.
_Fourth_--She affirms certain things will occur by the revelation
obtained by her from certain Saints.
_Fifth_--She affirms that her wearing a man's dress is done by her
through the will of God; she has sinned by receiving the Sacrament in
that garb, which she says she would sooner die than quit wearing.
_Sixth_--She admits having written letters signed with the names of
Jesus and Mary and with the sign of a cross. That, also, she admits
having threatened death to those who would not obey her; and she
affirms that all she has done has been accomplished by the Divine
will.
_Seventh_--She gives a false account of her journey to Vaucouleurs and
to Chinon.
_Eighth_--She also gives an untrue account of her attempt to kill
herself at Beaurevoir, sooner than fall into the power of the English.
_Ninth_--And also gives false statements of her assurance of
salvation, provided she remains a maid, and of never having committed
any sin.
_Tenth_--And also of her pretending that Saints Catherine and Margaret
speak to her in French, and not in English, as they do not belong to
the latter side.
_Eleventh_--She admits the adoration of her Saints; her disobedience
to her parents; and of saying that if the evil one were to appear in
the likeness of Saint Michel she would know it was not the Saint.
_Twelfth_--Admits that she refuses to submit to the Church Militant,
and this in spite of being told that all faithful members of the
Church must, by the article '_Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam_,'
comply with and submit to the commands of the Church Militant, and
principally in all things which pertain to sacred doctrines and the
ecclesiastical sanctions.
This was the substance of the twelve articles which Cauchon laid
before the doctors of theology and law in Paris. No one knew better
than the Bishop how false these were; Manchon himself had been so
impressed with their utter fraudulence that he had inserted in their
margin, under the date of the 4th of April, the statement that in
many instances the facts alleged were entirely at variance with the
declarations of the prisoner. Cauchon despatched the articles to Paris
on the following day, April the 5th. M. Wallon, in his admirable and
exhaustive history of Joan of Arc, has remarked that all her deeds
were in these twelve articles travestied from acts of piety or
patriotism into acts of superstition and rebellion against God and His
Church. 'What,' asks M. Wallon, 'had her accusers to reproach her
with? Her visions? None of her judges could declare these were
impossible, for then they would declare themselves unbelievers in the
history of all the saints, which is full of such visions. They might
deny them if they pleased, but it required all the wilful blindness of
passion to affirm, once such things were articles of belief, that they
came from Satanic influence.' As regards Joan of Arc's costume, she
had on several occasions answered with sufficient clearness, and every
person might have made a like answer, that there is no hard and fast
law laid down by the Church relating to the costume that may be worn
by members of the Church. Nay more, it was notorious that one of the
female saints of the Church (Sainte Marine) had always worn a man's
dress. The question as to her dress had been gone into thoroughly
during Joan of Arc's examination by the Churchmen and laymen at
Poitiers; that which the Church had not blamed at Poitiers could not
therefore be a sin in Rouen. By the same token, how was it possible
for Joan to believe that what had not been disapproved of by the
Archbishop at Rheims should be considered a criminal offence by the
Bishop of Beauvais? As regards the question of her submission to the
Church, Joan of Arc replied, when asked if she would submit to its
will, in these words: 'You speak to me of the "Church Militant" and of
the "Church Triumphant." I do not understand the signification of
those terms; but I wish to submit myself to the Church as all good
Christians should do.' What more could be required of her than this
entire submission to the Church? She had made that answer to the
doctors and clergy at Poitiers, and it had entirely satisfied those
men. What Joan of Arc had a clear right not to do was to submit
herself to her arch-enemy the Bishop of Beauvais. When she asked what
Cauchon and his judges called the 'Church Militant,' she was told it
consisted of the Pope and the prelates below him. She thereupon
exclaimed she would willingly appear before him, but that she would
not submit to the judgment of her enemies, and particularly not to
Cauchon. 'In saying this,' adds M. Wallon, 'she displayed her usual
courageous spirit. How eagerly had she,' he remarks (when told that if
she would submit herself to the Council then sitting at Bâle, where
she would find some judges of her party among the English), 'appealed
to be allowed to bring her case before that Council; and it will be
remembered how Cauchon cursed the lawyer who had brought forward the
suggestion during the trial.' On that occasion escaped from the
prisoner's lips the cry which showed how well she knew the
unscrupulousness of her judges. On learning that her wish to appeal to
the Council of Bâle by Cauchon's order was not to appear in that day's
report of the trial, she said, 'You write down what is against me, but
you will not write what is favourable to me.' Along with the twelve
articles, Cauchon enclosed a letter to the lawyers in Paris asking for
their opinion on what he calls the facts submitted to them, 'whether
they do not appear to be contrary to the orthodox faith, to the
Scriptures, and to the Church of Rome, and whether the learned members
of the Church and doctors do not consider such things as stated in
these articles as scandalous, dangerous to civil order, injurious and
adverse to public morals.' In every way Cauchon's letter was worthy of
its author.
On the 12th of April a meeting under the presidency of Erard Emenyart,
consisting of a score of lawyers and clergy, was held in the chapel of
the archiepiscopal palace. At this meeting, with scarcely a
dissentient voice, it was voted that Joan of Arc had by her deeds and
her expressed opinions proved herself schismatical and strongly
tainted with heresy. A second meeting took place in the same building
on the following day, attended by some more Church functionaries. Some
of these suggested that the prisoner should be promptly handed over
to the secular arm--if she refuses still to renounce her errors--and
if she acknowledges them, her fate will then be to be imprisoned for
life, and given for nourishment 'the bread of sorrows and the water of
anguish.' Eleven advocates--all belonging to Rouen--however, added the
following clause, that the latter should be her punishment, 'provided
that her revelations do not come from God.' But with the fear of
Cauchon before them, they added to this clause that the revelations
coming from such a source seems hardly probable, and they appeal to
the bachelors in theology to set them right on that head. The Bishop
of Lisieux, who had already given as his reason for not believing that
Joan of Arc's mission could be Heaven-inspired the fact of the low
station from which she came, now repeated the same absurdity on this
occasion. There were others who preferred delaying their verdict until
the decision arrived at by the University of Paris had been made
known. A number of the Churchmen belonging to the Chapter of the
Cathedral of Rouen hesitated, divided between two opinions, for and
against the Maid, and of these only twenty put in an appearance when
summoned by Cauchon to meet on the 13th of April. They were threatened
and bullied by the Bishop to come in stronger numbers on the next day,
when they attended to the number of thirty-one, but could not be
prevailed on to give a definite opinion until the answer arrived from
the University--which ultimatum Cauchon had to take with as much grace
as he could. While these things were taking place, Joan of Arc fell
ill--worn out probably by her long and harsh imprisonment, by the
mental as well as physical torment she must have undergone during
those weeks of cross-questioning and endless browbeating. Her jailers
were more alarmed about her condition than she was herself, for were
she to die a natural death, half the moral effect her enemies counted
on obtaining by giving her the death of a sorceress and heretic would
be lost. Doctors were sent for--sent by the Cardinal of Winchester and
Warwick. When asked what ailed her she said that her illness had
commenced after eating a fish that had been sent her by the Bishop of
Beauvais. Warwick is said to have had the brutality to tell the
doctors that her life must be saved at all hazards, for she had to die
by the hands of the executioners. The doctors ordered her to be bled,
and her naturally strong constitution soon restored her to health.
During the days of the weakness following her illness, Cauchon,
thinking probably that more might be then wrung from her than when
well, came to see her. This was on the 18th of April. He went to the
dungeon accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor and half-a-dozen judges,
and the following charitable exhortation, as the chronicler styles it,
took place.
'We have come,' began Cauchon, 'to you with charitable and amiable
intentions, to console you in your sickness. You will remember, Joan,
how you have been questioned on various matters relating to the faith,
and you know the answers you made. Knowing your ignorance relating to
such matters, we are willing to send learned and well-versed men in
such matters.' Then turning to the lawyers and others present, the
Bishop continued: 'We exhort you to give Joan profitable counsel on
the obligations which appertain to the true doctrine of the faith, and
to the furtherance of the safety and welfare of her body and soul.
'Joan,' continued Cauchon, 'if there be any one else you wish to
consult in this matter, we are ready to send for such in order that
they may aid you. We are men of the Church, ever ready to aid those in
need of advice good for the soul as well as the body, and ready to
benefit you or any of your own kith, or ourselves. We should gladly
give you daily such to advise you. In a word, we are ready, under the
circumstances, to aid you, as does the Church itself, ever ready to
help all such who will willingly come to her. But beware to act
against our advice and exhortation. For if you still should refuse to
submit yourself to us, we shall abandon you. Judge then of the peril
you lie in in that case. It is this peril which we hope to prevent you
from falling into with all our strength and all our affection.'
To this Mephistophelean address Joan of Arc made the following reply:
'I render you my best thanks for what you have said respecting the
salvation of my soul; and it seems to me, seeing the illness I am now
suffering, that I am in danger of dying. If this is to happen, God's
will be done. I will only ask you to allow me to confess, and to
partake of the Blessed Sacrament, and that my body may be laid in holy
ground.'
Cauchon replied as follows: 'If you wish to receive the Sacraments of
the Church you must confess yourself like a good Catholic, and you
must also submit yourself to the Church. If you persevere in not doing
so, you cannot obtain what you desire, except that for Penitence,
which we are always ready to administer.'
Joan wearily said to this: 'I have then nothing more to say.'
The Bishop, however, had no wish that the interview should end thus,
and continued: 'The greater your danger of now dying is, the greater
reason have you to amend your life; if you do not submit yourself to
the Church, then you will not obtain the privilege of a Catholic to
its Sacraments.'
To this she answered: 'If I die here in prison, I trust my body will
be placed in consecrated earth. If you refuse me this favour, I can
but appeal to my Saviour!'
'You said,' quoth Cauchon, 'during the trial that if you had done or
said anything that was against our Christian faith you could not
support it!'
'I refer myself,' said Joan, 'to the answer I then made, and to our
Lord!'
'You said,' continued the Bishop, 'that you had received many
revelations both from God and from the saints. Suppose, then, that now
some worthy person were to appear, declaring that they had received a
revelation from God about your deeds, would you believe that person?'
To this the prisoner replied: 'There is not a Christian on earth, who,
coming to me and saying that he came by such revelation, I should not
know whether to believe or not, for I should know whether he were true
or false by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.'
'But,' said Cauchon, 'do you imagine then that God is not able to
reveal to some one besides yourself things that you may be ignorant
about?'
Joan answered: 'Without a sign, I should not believe man or woman.'
Then Cauchon asked Joan if she believed in the holy Scriptures?
'You know that I do,' she answered.
Then the Bishop again returned to the question whether or not the
prisoner consented to submit herself to the Church Militant, by which
the Church Temporal should be understood.
Now, as before, Joan of Arc's answer was unchanged.
'Whatever,' she said, 'may happen to me, I shall neither do nor say
anything further than that I have already declared during the trial.'
In vain all the venerable doctors present exhorted the prisoner to
make her submission; they quoted Scripture, chapter and verse, to her
(Matt. xviii.), without obtaining any more success than the Bishop had
done.
As they were leaving the prison one of these 'venerable doctors'
hissed to Joan: 'If you refuse to submit to the Church, the Church
will abandon you as if you were a Saracen.'
To this Joan of Arc replied: 'I am a good Christian--a Christian born
and baptized--and a Christian I shall die.'
Before Cauchon left his victim he made one further attempt to obtain a
decided answer from Joan of Arc, this time making use of a bait which
he thought must catch her--namely, permission to receive the
Communion: 'As,' he said, 'you desire the Eucharist, will you, if you
are allowed to do so, submit yourself to the Church?'
To this offer Joan answered: 'As to that submission I can give no
other answer than that I have already given you. I love God; Him I
serve, as a good Christian should. Were I able I would help the Church
with all my strength.'
'But,' said Cauchon, 'if we were to order a grand procession to
restore your health, then would you not submit yourself?'
'I only request,' she answered, 'that the Church and all good
Catholics will pray for me.'
Some of the judges had suggested that, in a more public place than in
her prison, Joan of Arc should be again admonished relating to the
crimes of which she was accused; and Cauchon accordingly summoned a
public meeting of the judges for the 2nd of May, to be held in a
chamber near the Great Hall.
On that day sixty-two judges were present. Cauchon took care that the
actual charges contained in the twelve articles which had been sent to
the University should not be read in the presence of the prisoner, and
told her that she had only been summoned in order to receive another
admonition before a larger assemblage than had as yet met.
In his opening allocution he told his audience that the private
admonition had been unattended with good results, that Joan had
refused to submit herself to the Church, and that he had accordingly
invited to the present meeting a learned doctor of theology, namely,
John de Chatillon, archdeacon of Evreux, whose eloquence he doubted
not would have a beneficial effect upon the stubbornness of the
prisoner.
On Joan being led into the room, the Bishop admonished her to listen
to what Chatillon would now lay before her, and to agree to what he
would advise. If she would not do so, he added, she would place
herself in jeopardy, both as to her body and as to her soul.
Chatillon then took up his parable, which was to the effect that all
faithful Christians must conform to the tenets of the Church; and that
he trusted she would do so to all that the doctors lay and spiritual
there present expected her.
The Archdeacon held a digest of his sermon in his hand. Seeing this,
Joan of Arc requested him to read his book, after which, she said, she
would make her answer.
The speech, or sermon, that he then delivered was an exhaustive
examination of the twelve articles, brought under six heads, but much
altered and garbled.
In the first place, he admonished her of not having given a full
account of her apparitions to the Church through her judges; secondly,
he told her of her culpability in insisting on retaining her male
attire; thirdly, of her wickedness in asserting that she committed no
crime in retaining that dress; fourthly, her sin in holding as true
revelations that could only lead the people into error; fifthly, that
she had, owing to these revelations, done deeds displeasing to the
Divine will; and lastly, that she was committing a sin in treating the
apparitions as holy, when she was not certain whether they did not
come from evil spirits. When Chatillon said that by not conforming to
the article '_Sanctam Ecclesiam_,' she placed herself in the power of
the Church to condemn her to the flames, and to be burnt as a heretic,
she answered boldly:
'I will not say aught else than that I have already spoken; and were I
even to see the fire I should say the same!'
After this answer in the minutes of that day's trial is written by the
clerk in the margin of the vellum:
'_Superba responsio!_'
That was a testimony of admiration which neither the fears of
persecution nor of superstition could prevent from appearing.
Nothing more was to be obtained from the prisoner's lips than this
declaration, either by private or public examinations. This being so,
Cauchon bethought him what further cruelty could be employed to force
the prisoner to give way, and the barbarous scheme of torture was
decided on.
The only portion of the old castle of Rouen that has survived Time,
war, revolutions, and rebuilding (although partially restored), is a
massive high tower, built of white stone, called the Tower of Joan of
Arc. This is not the tower of the castle which contained the heroine's
dungeon, but it has always been traditionally regarded as that in
which, on the 9th of May, Joan of Arc was led to where her judges
intended, by fear or by the infliction of bodily torment, to oblige
her to make the confession which she had so steadily and for so long a
time refused. The lower portion of this tower only is ancient, for
from about its centre to the top is a restoration.
The chamber to which Joan of Arc was led, and where the instruments of
torture and the executioners were waiting, is probably that on the
ground floor, and is but little changed from what it was on that May
morning in the year of grace 1431.
In that dark stone chamber with its groined roof, besides the
prisoner, were present Cauchon, with the Vice-Inquisitor, the Abbot
of Saint Corneille of Compiègne, William Erard, Andrew Marguerie,
Nicolas de Venderès, John Massieu, William Haiton, Aubert Morel, and
the infamous Loiseleur. Ranged round the circular walls were placed
the instruments of torture, and men skilled in their use were ready at
hand.
'Joan,' said Cauchon, who had now dropped his hypocritical semblance
of sympathy, which he had assumed when interrogating the prisoner in
her cell, 'I command you to tell the truth. In your examination many
and various points have been touched on, about which you refused to
answer, or, when you did so, answered untruthfully. Of this we have
certain proof. These points will now be read to you.'
What was then read was probably a summary of the articles of
impeachment.
Cauchon then continued: 'If, Joan, you now refuse to speak the truth,
you will be put to the torture. You see before you the instruments
which are prepared, and by them stand the executioners, who are ready
to do their office at our command. You will be tortured in order that
you may be led into the way of truth, and for the salvation of your
body and soul, which you by your lies have exposed to so great a
peril.'
It was at this terrible juncture that Joan showed her indomitable
spirit more clearly than at any moment since her capture. In front of
her lay the rack upon which, at a signal from Cauchon, her limbs would
be wrenched asunder; but her reply, as given in the minutes written
by the clerk who was present, bears the ring of a courage superior to
all the terrors which confronted her.
'Even,' she said, 'if you tear me limb from limb, and even if you kill
me, I will not tell you anything further. And even were I forced to do
so, I should afterwards declare that it was only because of the
torture that I had spoken differently.'
That was an answer which sums up the whole folly and crime of
obtaining evidence by means of torture, and recalls Galileo's famous
phrase when in a somewhat similar situation.
Cauchon then again ordered Joan to tell them of her revelations, and
asked her if she had again sought counsel from her voices.
She had, answered Joan.
'And have they,' asked the Bishop, 'foretold what will now happen?'
'I asked them,' answered Joan of Arc, 'if I should be burnt, and they
answered: "Abide by your Lord and He will aid you."'
There is little more than the above recorded of what took place, but
it is probable that Joan, who had as yet hardly recovered from her
illness, was, from fear of her dying under the torture, not subjected
to it. At any rate, that additional horror was not to be laid on the
consciences of the already heavily burthened judges of the Maid.
It appears, however, that these men had not altogether given up the
idea of carrying out this barbarity, so congenial to such a man as
Cauchon and to his friend the Inquisitor; for a meeting was summoned
by Cauchon at his house three days after Joan had been brought face to
face with the torture apparatus, at which the question was discussed
as to whether it should not after all be used.
Thirteen judges met the Bishop and the Inquisitor to discuss the
question. Of these the following were against applying torture:
Maîtres Roussel, Venderès, Marguerie, Erard, Barbier, Gastinel,
Coppequesne, Ledoux, De la Pierre, Haiton, and Lemaîstre. One of
these, Erard, remarked that it was unnecessary to torture the prisoner
seeing that, as he expressed it, 'they had already sufficient evidence
to condemn her to death without putting her to torment.' But Morel de
Courcelles, and Loiseleur were in favour that it should be made use
of. Surely the names of these men deserve to be held in execration,
and placed by the side of Cauchon's in the historic pillory of
everlasting infamy.
[Illustration: St. OUEN--ROUEN.]
Meanwhile the University of Paris were deliberating upon their answer
to the twelve articles. This body met on the 29th of April, within the
convent of Saint Bernard. The ancient building, in which the
University held many notable conclaves when even Popes were judged by
the doctors of Paris, still exists, but it has been transformed into
an oil warehouse. John de Troyes, senior of the Faculty of Theology,
was the spokesman, and read the decisions of the faculty on each
of the twelve articles. It is unnecessary to go through the long
verbiage of abuse and blasphemy with which these theologians thought
it their duty to bespatter Joan of Arc.
On every head these reverend seigneurs condemned her. After De Troyes
had finished his reading of the opinions and the judgment, Guérold de
Boissel read the deliberations of the Faculty of Decrees upon the six
points of accusation. 'If this woman,' so ran the rede, 'was in her
right mind when she made affirmation of the propositions contained in
the twelve articles, one may say in the manner of counsel and of
doctrine, and to speak charitably, first, that she is schismatic in
separating herself from obedience to the Church; secondly, that she is
out of the pale of the law in contradicting the article "_Unam Sanctam
Ecclesiam Catholicam_"; thirdly, apostate, for having cut short her
hair, which was given her by God to hide her head with, and also in
having abandoned the dress of a woman for that of a man; fourthly,
vicious and a soothsayer, for saying, without showing miracles, that
she is sent by God, as was Moses and John the Baptist; fifthly, rebel
to the faith, by remaining under the anathema framed by the canons of
the Church, and by not receiving the Sacraments of the Church at the
season set apart by the Church, in order not to have to cease wearing
the dress of a man; and, sixthly, blasphemous in saying that she
knows she will be received into Paradise. Therefore, if after being
charitably warned she refuses to re-enter the Catholic faith, and
thereby give satisfaction, she shall be given over to the secular
judges, and meet with the punishment due to her crimes.'
And the University of Paris in solemn conclave ratified the above
judgment. The University also sent Cauchon a letter of commendation,
in which he was held up to the general admiration as a faithful
pastor, zealous in good works, on whom the University trusted that the
Almighty would, on the day of His manifestation, bestow an
imperishable crown of glory.
Such were the sentiments of the most erudite, most pious, and most
eminent school of learning existing in the capital of France. On the
19th of May Cauchon summoned yet another gathering of Joan's judges in
the archiepiscopal palace at Rouen. Fifty of them attended. After some
discussion, during which a few of the learned men present expressed
their opinion that Joan of Arc should be at once handed over to the
secular arm, it was decided that the prisoner should again be brought
before them to be what they were pleased to call 'charitably
admonished.' Accordingly, four days after, on the 23rd of May, in a
chamber near Joan of Arc's dungeon, another meeting was held. On this
occasion a canon of Rouen, named Peter Morice, was ordered to question
the prisoner.
He commenced by delivering a long lecture, in which he recapitulated
the twelve articles, and wound up his oration by imploring Joan to
submit herself to the Church Militant, and threatening her with the
loss of body and soul in this world and the next if she still refused
to do so.
Joan of Arc was as unmoved and as firm when thus threatened as she had
been when placed before the instruments of torture, and she replied:--
'If I were to see the fire itself, the stake, and the executioner
ready to light the pile, and were I in the midst of the flames, I
should not say anything else than what I have already spoken during
the trial, and this is my determination, even unto my death!'
There is some probability for believing that, during the following
evening after this last meeting of Joan of Arc and her judges,
Loiseleur gained admittance to the prisoner, and, under the disguise
of a friendly and sympathetic priest, promised Joan that if she would
conform to the wishes of the judges, she should be taken out of the
prison she now lay in and the custody of the English, and transferred
to prisons belonging to the Church.
Poor Joan's chief desire was that she might be set free from the hands
of the English. Be this as it may, there is no authority given for
this idea of Loiseleur having probed her on this point; and Wallon, in
his history of the Maid, makes no allusion to such an interview, and
only states that John Beaupère went in the morning of the 24th to the
prison, and he was soon followed there by Nicolas Loiseleur, who
vehemently urged on Joan to comply with the demands which the judges
had made.
Nothing had been neglected to give the greatest solemnity to the cruel
farce which Cauchon had prepared to be now enacted--a solemnity by
which the Bishop hoped to degrade Joan of Arc in the eyes of the
people. It was that of obliging the prisoner to make a public apology
and recantation of all her deeds--a declaration in fact to be made by
her in the eyes of the whole world that all she had undertaken and
accomplished had been through and by the aid of evil spirits.
By this stroke the Bishop hoped to show to France that its heroine,
instead of being a sainted and holy maid sent by God to deliver her
country from the invader, was, by her own open and public confession,
proved to be an emanation from Satan--a being abhorrent in the eyes of
God and man. By this device, Cauchon hoped also to deal a blow to
Charles, for when once it became known that his servant and saviour
was a creature in league with the fiends, all the works done through
her influence, and by her prowess, including his coronation, would
also be proved to have been accomplished by the powers of darkness,
and therefore deeds abhorrent to all good Catholics throughout his
realm.
The place chosen for the stage on which Joan of Arc was to abjure
before the eyes of Rouen--and through Rouen the rest of France--her
deeds and her words, was the cemetery in front of that most beautiful
of all Gothic fanes--the Church of Saint Ouen.
Adjacent to its southern wall the exquisitely carved portal named the
Marmousets, then as now rich in statuary of royal and imperial
benefactors of the Church, looks down upon what is the entrance to a
fair public garden. In the fifteenth century this space was used as a
place of burial.
Here, arranged with a view to dramatic effect, were placed two huge
wooden scaffolds, or rather platforms, which faced one another. Upon
one of these sat the Bishop of Beauvais in state. He had on his right
hand the Prince Cardinal of Winchester, great-uncle of the child-king
Henry VI., with other notabilities of the Church; the Bishops of
Norwich, of Noyon, and of Thérouenne; the Vice-Inquisitor, eight
abbots, and a large number of friars and doctors, clerical and lay--in
fact all those who had attended the trials of the Maid of Orleans
during the two preceding months. Upon the opposite platform stood Joan
of Arc, a crowd of lawyers and priests about her. Here, too, stood
Loiseleur close by the prisoner; he never ceased urging her to conform
to the commands of the clergy about her.
A vast throng of the town's-people gathered below, and the place was
all in a turmoil. A seething mob had followed the Maid from her prison
to the cemetery, which, already full, now held with difficulty the
fresh press of people who accompanied Joan of Arc and her guards to
the purlieus of the Church of Saint Ouen.
William Erard had been appointed by Cauchon to preach in this
'terrible comedy,' as Michelet calls this farce of the Maid's
abjuration. For text the monk selected the fifteenth chapter of Saint
John's gospel: 'The branch,' etc. Erard showed in his discourse how
Joan had fallen from one sin into another, till she had at length
separated herself from the Church. To a long string of abuse about
herself Joan of Arc listened with perfect patience; but the preacher,
not content with hurling his invectives at the prisoner, began to
attack her King for having listened to Joan's advice, by which conduct
the King had, Erard said, also incurred the crime of heresy.
This attack on Charles roused the indignation of the Maid. Turning on
the monk, without a moment's thought of her own situation, and the
fresh danger she exposed herself to, the noble girl exclaimed: 'By my
faith, and with all respect to you, I dare to affirm on my peril that
the King of this realm is the noblest of Christians, and no one has
greater love for the Faith and Church than my King!'
'Silence her!' shrieked the preacher, beside himself with rage at
finding that these few words from the lips of Joan of Arc had
destroyed all the effect of his eloquence on that vast crowd, whose
sympathy must have been now strongly shown towards the glorious victim
before them.
Again summoned to submit to the Church, Joan said: 'I have answered on
that point already to my judges. I call upon them to send an account
of all my actions to the Holy Father at Rome, to whom after God I
submit myself.'
This was not what Cauchon wished his victim to express, for one of the
charges that he had made against her was her refusal to submit to the
Pope. He therefore changed the subject, and asked Joan of Arc whether
she acknowledged that there were any things evil among those deeds she
had committed or said.
'As to my deeds and sayings,' she answered, 'I have done them by the
command of God.'
'Then you admit,' said the Bishop, 'that the King and others have
sometimes urged you to act as you have done?'
'As to my words and actions,' she answered, 'I make no one, and
particularly not the King, responsible. If any wrong has been
committed, it is I who am to blame, and not another.'
'But,' said Cauchon, 'those acts and words of yours which have been
found evil by the judges, will you recant them?'
'I submit them,' said Joan, 'to God and our Holy Father the Pope.'
'The bishops,' continued Cauchon, 'are the judges in their dioceses,
therefore you must submit to the Church as your judges have determined
that you shall do.'
Joan still refused, and the Bishop then began to read the sentence
condemning her to death as a heretic.
Now arose a great uproar among the clergy and others on the platforms
and among the crowd beneath. Loiseleur and Massieu urged her to
abjure; the former promising that if she consented she would, after
abjuring, be taken from her English jailers and placed in keeping of
the clergy. In the midst of the hubbub Erard produced a parchment
scroll, on which, he told Joan, were written the different accusations
against her, which she had only to sign with her mark to be saved. All
about this abjuration was a mesh of confusion to the mind of Joan.
Massieu told her she need but make a mark on the parchment before her
to be delivered: if not--and he pointed down to a grim figure near the
foot of the stage they were on, where stood the headsman with cart and
assistants, ready to draw her to the stake.
'Abjure!' cried Erard and Massieu, 'or you will be taken and burnt.'
Even Joan of Arc's courage failed at that sight, and all the woman in
her nature asserted itself.
'Do what I tell you,' cried Loiseleur; 'abjure and put on woman's
dress, and all will yet be well.'
The text of the abjuration was then hurriedly read, Joan of Arc
following it, and repeating the words, the sense of which she had no
time to understand. She spoke the words, it is said, as one in a
dream. Some said she did this mockingly, for she was observed to
smile once or twice; but the poor soul's spirit was crushed, and
doubtless the whole scene was to her like an evil dream--the poor
broken-down body could not discriminate what words she was forced to
repeat. A troubled, horrible dream must that have seemed to the
hapless maiden, standing on that scaffold, with all the shouting mob
about, and all her deadly enemies at hand. She made her mark on the
parchment--a little cross--and the deed was done.
In the recantation, or abjuration, thus obtained from Joan of Arc, the
twelve articles were included, with all their abuse set down. Thus was
Joan obliged by her signature to declare that all her visions and
voices were false and from evil spirits; also that she had been guilty
of transgressing laws divine in having worn her hair cut short and the
dress of a man; also in having caused bloodshed; also in having
idolatrously invoked evil spirits; also in having treated God and His
sacraments with contempt; and, besides all this, of having acted
schismatically, and of having fallen foul of the Church: all of which
crimes and errors she now abjured, and humbly submitted herself to the
will of the Church and its ordinances. She promised with her
abjuration not to relapse, and called on Saint Peter, the Pope, as
well as the Bishop of Beauvais and other of her judges, to keep her
word.
Not content with having inveigled Joan of Arc into signing this
farrago of blasphemous nonsense, her judges, it seems, added fraud to
their crime by reading to the prisoner a different recantation from
that to which they had forced her to sign her mark. The one she marked
contained only six lines, and it did not take longer to read these few
lines, an eye-witness afterwards asserted, than it does to repeat the
'Paternoster'; whereas the one produced after the ceremony of the
abjuration filled several sides. But in an act of such infamy as this
of having cheated Joan of Arc not only into signing a recantation of
her life-work, but of confessing to her existence having been one long
series of superstitious and criminal workings with the spirits of
evil, it matters very little whether she signed a longer or a shorter
list of falsehoods invented by her persecuting judges.
While these things were taking place upon the platform on which Joan
was bullied into signing this abjuration, the English and their
faction in the crowd below began to fear that their victim would
escape them; they had not grasped the astuteness of the French
prelate, who was ready to hand his prisoner over to them directly he
had obtained this recantation from her hand. Cauchon was, however,
obliged to keep them waiting until he had got that by which he hoped
to destroy Joan of Arc's fame, and at the same time, and by the same
deed, to retain in his possession a formidable weapon by which he
thought to weaken the cause of the French monarch.
Cauchon may well have felt on that afternoon that what he had done for
the English cause merited as his reward the coveted archbishopric of
Rouen. There remained but one further act for him to play in this
drama before he quitted his platform. Rising from among his brother
bishops he read a list of the crimes committed by the prisoner, and
announced that, as Joan had now, owing to her abjuration of her sins,
re-entered into the fold of the Church, she was absolved by him from
her excommunication. However, he added, as she had sinned so
grievously against God and the Church, he, for the sake of her soul's
welfare, condemned her to perpetual imprisonment--'to the water of
sorrow, and the bread of anguish,' so that she might repent of her
faults, and cease ever to commit any more.
Then, in spite of the promises made to her of being placed in the
charge of the clergy, Cauchon ordered that Joan should be taken back
to her former prison.
Warwick is said to have displayed anger at this termination of the
proceedings. Observing this, one of the judges pacified him by
assuring him that Joan should not be allowed to escape her fate: 'Do
not fear, my lord,' he said; 'you will catch her yet.'
That evening the Vice-Inquisitor, accompanied by Loiseleur, Thomas de
Courcelles, Isambard de la Pierre, and a few other of the judges who
had taken part in the proceedings that day at Saint Ouen, visited the
prisoner. Their object in going to her was to insist upon her changing
her man's dress, with which demand she now had to comply. That
occurred on Thursday night, and on the Sunday following a rumour was
spread abroad that Joan of Arc had discarded the woman's dress, and
had again put on male dress.
Although, during the last days of the heroine's life, it is most
difficult to gather anything authentic as to her treatment in the
prison, we are led to understand, by the least untrustworthy
testimony, that what happened in the interval between Thursday night
and the following Sunday was as follows.
The soldiers placed in charge of Joan after her recantation and her
return to the prison had rendered her existence a long martyrdom; and
there is reason to believe that on her discarding her man's dress
these ruffians attempted to violate the prisoner: so, sooner than
suffer this, although she knew that to return to her former dress
would be equivalent to meeting certain death, she did not hesitate to
save her maidenhood at the exposure of her life.
Michelet, in his history of the Maid, quotes from the deposition of
one of the officials--Massieu, who saw much of Joan of Arc in those
last days--the statement that on the morning of Trinity Sunday, on
waking, she asked the soldiers to leave her alone for a few moments
while she dressed; that one of the men removed her woman's clothes,
and in place substituted the dress of a man; and that, in order not
to be naked, she was obliged to put on the latter.
Be this as it may, on the following morning, Cauchon, followed by
several of his creatures, returned to the prison, in order that he
might see and show to others that his victim had been entrapped at
last. 'We have come,' he said to the prisoner, 'to find out the state
of your soul, and we find you, in despite of our command, and despite
of your promise to renounce this man's dress, again thus attired. Tell
us the reason why you have dared again to wear these clothes.'
Joan's answer was that she preferred that dress to the other, and
that, being placed among men, it was better that she should wear it
than the dress of a woman. Although not placed in the judicial record
of this interview, Manchon adds in his account of the proceedings on
that day, that Joan of Arc also said that she had returned to wearing
her male attire, feeling safer when in that dress than when she was
dressed in woman's clothes. This seems to us an evident avowal that
she had to resist the brutality of the men placed over her in the
dungeon. Massieu also adds to Manchon's testimony that he knew Joan
was unable to protect herself against attempts made to violate her.
Her legs were chained to the wood with which her pallet bed was
framed, and this chain was again fixed to a large beam about six feet
long, and locked with a padlock; so that the poor creature could
hardly move. To the above testimony of these two men, Isambard de la
Pierre adds his. He states that when Cauchon came to the Maid's
dungeon she bore all the traces of having undergone a violent
struggle, 'being all in tears, and so bruised and outraged
(_outrageé_) that he (Isambard) could not help feeling pity for her.'
But the strongest testimony of all is that of the priest, Martin
Ladvenu, who heard her confession on the eve of her death, and he
confirms Isambard's statement entirely. He even adds that not only had
Joan of Arc to suffer from the brutality of the soldiery placed about
her, but that a _millourt d'Angleterre_ had acted as shamefully as
these men towards her.
Although Michelet and other French writers have naturally not allowed
this 'Millourt' (which, by the way, is quite as correct a form of
spelling that title as the better known 'Milor') to escape the
branding he deserves for his attempted villainy, it is but fair to add
that Isambard de la Pierre, as well as Manchon, qualify his conduct as
that not of a would-be violator, but of a tempter--a not
inconsiderable difference in the scale of infamy.
To return to Cauchon and Joan of Arc.
'But,' said the Bishop, 'are you not aware you have now no right to
wear such a dress?'
Joan answered that she had been misled into believing that if she wore
the woman's dress she would be allowed to hear Mass and to
communicate, and to be, she added, 'delivered from these chains.'
'But,' replied Cauchon, 'have you not abjured, and promised never to
take to wearing this dress again?'
'I would prefer to die,' she answered, 'than to remain on a prisoner
here. But if I were allowed to go to the Mass, and these chains were
taken off me, and if I was placed in some other prison where some
woman could be near me, then I should do all that is required of me by
the Church.'
In all Joan of Arc's answers it should be noticed that she never, in
spite of the terrible sufferings she endured, and the gross
barbarities inflicted on her, in any single instance ever made any
complaint of her treatment. There is something superhuman in this
utter absence of any shade of vindictiveness, when one thinks that, by
a few words, she might have saved herself from much of what she had to
suffer. Never once did she blame even those who had deceived,
insulted, and ill-treated her; her life was one beautiful example,
full of divine charity and forgiveness.
Cauchon, to make doubly sure of completing his work, then asked Joan:
'Have you, since last Thursday, heard the voices of Saint Catherine
and Saint Margaret?'
'Yes,' she answered.
'And,' continued the Bishop, 'what did they say?'
'They told me of the great sorrow they felt for the great treason to
which I have been led, by my abjuring and revoking my deeds in order
to save my life, and that by so doing I have lost my soul.'
On the margin of the original document of the MSS. of this
examination, written in the prison, the original of which is in the
National Library in Paris, we find alongside of this answer of Joan of
Arc's the following words: '_Responsio mortifera_.' Indeed it was an
answer of deadliest import; for Joan in asserting that her voices had
again spoken to her, and in saying that she had committed a mortal sin
by recanting her deeds, had thrown away the only plank of safety left
her.
It seems to us evident, however, that Joan of Arc was now quite eager
and willing to meet the worst that her enemies could inflict upon her:
death itself must now have seemed more tolerable than the daily death
she was undergoing in her prison.
'Did your voices urge you to resist giving way about the recantation?'
questioned the Bishop.
'My voices,' Joan said, 'told me as I stood on the platform before the
people that I should answer the preacher with boldness.'
'Did he not,' said Cauchon, 'speak the truth?'
'No,' she answered, 'he was a false preacher; and he accused me of
having done things which I never did.'
'But,' then said Cauchon, 'do you mean to tell us that you still
persist in saying that you have been sent by God?'
To which Joan replied that that was still her belief.
'Then,' continued the Bishop, 'you deny that to which you swore on
oath only last Thursday?'
'My voices,' said Joan, 'have told me since then that I had committed
a bad deed in saying that I had not done the things which I have
done!'
'Then,' continued the Bishop, with eagerness, 'you retract your
abjuration?'
'It was,' said Joan of Arc, 'from the fear of being burnt that I
retracted what I had done; but I never intended to deny or revoke my
voices.'
'But then,' said Cauchon, 'are you now no longer afraid of being
burnt?'
'I had rather die than endure any longer what I have now to undergo.'
And with these broken-hearted words of the sufferer ended this long
mockery of a trial, so patiently endured during three weariful months
by the martyr Maid.
On quitting the prison, Cauchon met Lord Warwick among some Englishmen
in the outer court of the castle. They were clamouring that the
execution of Joan of Arc should be soon carried out. The Bishop
accosted the Earl with a smile of triumph, and said to him in
English:--
'You can dine now with a good appetite. We have caught her at last!'
CHAPTER VI.
_MARTYRDOM_.
The next day, the 29th of May, Cauchon summoned a large number of
prelates and doctors--forty-two in all--to meet him at the
archiepiscopal chapel, where he recounted to them all the
circumstances of his late interview with the prisoner. He told them
how he had found Joan, in spite of her abjuration, again dressed as a
man, and of her having reaffirmed all that she had so recently abjured
regarding her voices and apparitions. When he had concluded, Cauchon
took the opinion of those around him. Without one dissentient voice,
they all affirmed that she should be handed over to the secular
arm--_i.e._, burnt. The deliberation had not taken long, and, after
thanking the company, the Bishop made out a formal order by which Joan
was summoned at eight o'clock on the next morning to the old
market-place, there to be delivered into the hands of the civil judge,
and by him to be handed over to those of the executioners. 'We
conclude,' said the Bishop, as he dismissed the meeting, 'that Joan
shall be treated as a relapsed heretic, for this appears to us right
and proper in the sight of law and justice.'
Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 30th of May--a date which
should be held sacred in France as that of the martyrdom of her who
through all time must be her country's greatest glory--two priests
(Martin Ladvenu and John Toutmouillé) were sent by the Bishop's order
to the prisoner to tell her that her last day on earth had come.
Toutmouillé describes, with some pathos, the manner in which Joan of
Arc received the terrible news. She, he tells us, at first wept
bitterly, and said she would sooner be beheaded seven times than
suffer such a death as that of burning. She recalled with pain the
promises made by Cauchon to her--that after she had abjured she would
be taken to the prison of the Church, for then, she said, this cruel
death would not have befallen her; and she called upon God, 'the
omnipotent and just Judge,' to take pity on her. While she thus
lamented her fate, Cauchon entered the dungeon. Turning on him, she
cried: 'I lay my death at your door; for had you placed me in the
prison of the Church, this cruel death would not have befallen me, and
I make you responsible to God for my death.'
Then, turning away from the Bishop, she appeared more calm, and,
addressing one of the judges who had followed Cauchon into the prison,
exclaimed: 'Master Peter'--the man's name was Peter Maurice--'where
shall I be this evening?'
'Have you not good hope in God's mercy?' he answered.
'Yes,' said Joan; 'and by His grace I hope to be in Paradise.'
Cauchon and the others having left her alone with Martin Ladvenu, she
made her confession to him, and when that was finished she begged that
the Sacrament might be administered to her. Without Cauchon's leave
Ladvenu did not dare to obtain this supreme consolation for the
martyr.
He despatched a messenger to the Bishop, who, after consulting with
some of the clergy, gave his permission. In the meanwhile, the city
had heard that the day of the Maid of Orleans' execution had come, and
the people crowded about the neighbourhood of the castle. In spite of
the English soldiery, the people did not conceal their grief and
dismay on learning that the heroine was so soon to perish. The
Eucharist was brought into the prison, but without the usual
accompaniments of candle, stole, and surplice. These 'maimed rights'
raised the indignation of the priest Martin, and he indignantly
refused to proceed with the ceremony until lights and stole were
brought. During the time in which Joan of Arc was receiving the
Sacrament, those persons who had been admitted within the castle
recited the litany for the departing soul, and never had the mournful
invocation for the dying, the supplication of the solemn chant,
'_Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!_' been raised from a more tragic
place, or on a more heart-stirring occasion. Outside, in the street,
and all around the prison gates, knelt the weeping people, fervently
praying, and earnestly invoking the Almighty and His saints for her
who was about to lay down her young life in their behalf. 'Christ have
pity! Saint Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints,
archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels
intercede for her! From Thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O, Lord
God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech thee, good Lord!' The
poor, helpless people had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of
Arc; but these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more
pathetic events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless,
praying crowd, holding their lighted candles, and kneeling, on the
pavement, beneath the prison walls of the old fortress.
It was about nine o'clock when they placed on Joan of Arc a long white
shirt, such as criminals wore at their execution, and on her head they
set a mitre-shaped paper cap, on which the words 'heretic, relapsed,
apostate, idolatress,' were written.
This was the head-dress which the victims of the Inquisition carried,
and in which they were burnt.
When Joan of Arc was taken forth to die, there mounted with her on to
the cart the two priests, Martin Ladvenu and Isambard. Eight hundred
English troops lined the road by which the death-cart and its load
passed from the castle to the old market-place; they were armed with
staves and with axes. These soldiers, as the victim passed, fell into
line behind the cart, and kept off with their staves the crowd, eager
to show its sympathy for Joan.
Suddenly, when as yet the procession had gone but a short distance, a
man pushed his way through the crowd and the soldiers, and threw
himself at Joan of Arc's feet, imploring her forgiveness.
It was the priest Loiseleur, Joan's confessor and betrayer. Roughly
thrown back by the men-at-arms, Loiseleur disappeared in the throng,
but not before Joan had bestowed her pardon on him. On the old
market-place--where now not a single building remains which witnessed
the tragedy of that day--was a wide space, surrounded by picturesquely
gabled and high-roofed houses, like those which still survive in the
old Norman capital, and within a short distance of the churches of
Saint Sauveur and Saint Michel, now destroyed. Two tribunes had been
raised on either side of the square. Between this, placed high on a
stage of masonry, stood the pile. A placard affixed in front of this
pile bore a long inscription, beginning thus: 'Joan, known as the
Maid' ... and ending with a cumbrous list of epithets, among which
'apostate' and 'schismatic' were the least abusive.
Pending the final act, a monk named Nicolas Midi was ordered by
Cauchon to address the prisoner and those present. The Bishop's words
have come down to us.
'For your admonition,' he began, 'and for the edification of all
those present, a learned discourse will now be delivered by the
distinguished doctor, Nicolas Midi'; and the distinguished doctor then
took for his text, from the first Epistle of Saint Paul to the
Corinthians, twelfth chapter, the words: 'If one member suffereth,'
etc.
The gist of his sermon was to prove that it was necessary, in order to
prevent others falling into sin, that the guilty member should be
removed. Strange, indeed, how often the words of Scripture have been
used and mis-used in excuse, or in vindication, of the most atrocious
cruelties by so-called Christians, professing to preach the religion
of mercy, of forgiveness, and of humanity.
The sermon being finished, the preacher addressed Joan of Arc in the
following words: 'Joan, the Church, wishing to prevent infection,
casts you from her. She no longer protects you. Depart in peace!'
Then Cauchon took up his text, which was to the effect that Joan, 'by
renouncing her abjuration, had returned as the dog of Scripture did to
its vomit; for which cause we, Peter, by the divine mercy Bishop of
Beauvais, and brother John Lemaître, vicar of the very reverend doctor
John Graverent Inquisitor of the heretical evil [especially retained
by Cauchon in the present case], have by a just judgment, declared
you, Joan, commonly styled the Maid, fallen back into diverse errors
and crimes, schismatical, idolatrous, and guilty of other sins in
great number. For these causes we declare you fallen back into your
former errors, and by the sentence of excommunication under which you
were already found guilty we declare you to be heretical and relapsed;
and we declare that you, as a decayed member, to prevent the contagion
from spreading to others, are cast from the unity of the Church, and
given over to the secular power. We reject, we cast you off, and we
abandon you, praying that, beyond death and the mutilation of your
limbs, the Church treats you with moderation.'
These last words were the usual formula used by the Inquisition when
its victims were about to be committed to the flames. Joan of Arc
meanwhile was praying fervently; and when Cauchon had finished
speaking, she humbly begged those around her to pray for her. Her
tears, her fervour, and her submission, overcame the feelings even of
her judges.
Winchester was seen to weep, and a great wave of pity swept over the
immense confused crowd; for her enemies as well as her friends among
the people were all more or less under its influence.
In her prayers the heroine implored the Divine Mercy to pardon those
from whom she had suffered so much. 'Pray for me in your churches,'
she said to the priests--to those priests and to the Church that had
deserted and condemned her; for in spite of all that she had endured
at the hands of those Churchmen, Joan of Arc remained to the end as
fervent and loyal a Churchwoman as she had been throughout her life.
One thing she missed. Turning to Massieu, she asked him if he had a
cross. He had not, nor could one be found; but an Englishman broke his
stave into two pieces, and these tied together formed a rude cross.
This cross Joan took, and placed it against her heart; but she still
wanted a consecrated cross to be held before her while struggling in
the flames, and this was at length obtained by the priest Isambard,
who fetched one from the adjacent Church of Saint Sauveur.
Meanwhile the English soldiers began to grumble at the length of these
preparations: 'Do they expect us to dine here?' they growled.
As soon as the cross from the church had been placed in her hands, she
devoutly kissed it, invoking God and her saints to assist her in this
the heaviest of her needs, when all human help had abandoned her.
The heroine appears to have been then seized by the English
sergeants-at-arms, and given by them into the charge of the
executioners; and while she was being led to the foot of the high pile
of clay and wood--the instrument of her martyrdom--the men-at-arms
surrounded and roughly handled their prisoner. The scene had become so
poignant that many of the judges left their tribune, unable to endure
the sight of that white-robed and helpless figure in the midst of the
brutal soldiers hounding her on to her death. It must indeed have been
a ghastly spectacle, even for men accustomed to scenes of savage
brutality and cruelty. At length she was delivered from her
tormentors, and, preceded by the executioner, she mounted the ladder,
and was bound round the body by a chain attached to the stake.
The good priest, Isambard, closely followed her, and stood immediately
beneath her, with the cross held and raised towards Joan, who but once
removed her gaze from off it.
'Keep it,' she said to Isambard, 'keep it always before my eyes, till
death.'
Then she took a last look around her--a last look on a world which had
been so harsh and cruel a world to her, poor victim of all the powers
of evil on this earth! She looked but once on the surging crowd
beneath, at the old timbered houses of the town, filled from basement
to high-peaked roof, with thousands of its citizens. 'O, Rouen,
Rouen!' she cried, 'must I die here? I have great fear lest you will
suffer for my death.' And with that she put away from her all earthly
things, and gave herself up to Heaven. In the interval the
executioners had lighted the lower portion of the pile of wood, and
the fire, fed by the pitch-covered fagots, mounted rapidly.
Joan of Arc gave a cry of terror, and called aloud for 'Water, holy
water!' The body had for an instant conquered the spirit--but it was
only for an instant.
At that moment Cauchon had the inconceivable and apparently
devil-driven curiosity to approach the martyr, hoping, perhaps, that
in the first terror at seeing the fire springing up to her, Joan of
Arc would let fall some words of reproach against her King or her
saints.
'Joan,' he cried through the crackling of the flames, 'I have come to
exhort you for the last time.'
'I die through you,' she said, as she had said once before, and then
she was allowed to die in peace, so far as Cauchon and his Church were
concerned. For her all earthly things were now over. Till the last sign
of life expired the eye-witnesses who have given us the fullest account
of her last moments--the priests Isambard and Massieu--declared that
she continued to call on her God and on her saints. Frequently through
the blinding smoke and the fierce rush of flame her face looked that of
a blessed saint uplifted and radiant.
With one loud cry of 'Jesus!' her head fell on her breast.
Thus came Joan of Arc to her glorious end.
There is a tradition that when the ashes of the martyr Maid were
gathered to be cast into the Seine, the heart was found
unconsumed--_Cor cordium!_
Many other traditions are related regarding her death, but none with
much certainty. The executioner is said to have come later on that day
to Isambard in an agony of grief. He confessed himself, and told
Isambard that he felt Heaven would never pardon him for the part he
had taken in killing a saint. The poor fellow's responsibility for her
death was really not greater than that of the fagots and the flames
which had destroyed her life. On Cauchon and his gang of judges, lay
and clerical--on the University of Paris and the Catholic Church--on
Winchester and the English, noble and simple, who had sold and bought
the glorious Maid, the crime of her martyrdom will ever rest, and
surely no other crime but one in the world's history can be paralleled
with it.
CHAPTER VII.
_THE REHABILITATION_.
Twenty years after the events which I have attempted to describe, an
act of tardy justice was accorded to Joan of Arc. Charles VII. at
length felt it necessary, more for his own interest than for any care
of the memory of Joan of Arc, to have a revision made of the
iniquitous condemnation of the heroine.
This King, even if unable to rescue the Maid of Orleans from her
captors, might at least have attempted her release, yet during all the
time--over a year--of her imprisonment he had not even made a sign in
her behalf.
There does not exist in the documents of the time a trace of any
negotiation, of the smallest offer made to obtain her exchange by
prisoners or by ransom, or of any wish to effect her release. But
Charles was anxious on his own account, when France had almost wholly
been gained back to its allegiance, that his coronation at Rheims
should not be imputed to the actions and to the aid of one whom the
French clergy and the French judges had condemned and executed as a
heretic and apostate. Hence the vast judicial inquiry set on foot by
the King to vindicate the fame of her whom the English and the
Anglo-French had hoped, through the condemnation pronounced by Cauchon
in the name of the Church, to vilify, and through her, by her trial,
condemnation, and death, to discredit Charles and his coronation.
On the 15th of February, 1450, Charles VII. declared that Joan of
Arc's enemies had destroyed her 'against reason'--so ran the
formula--'and very cruelly,' and that it was his, the King's,
intention 'to obtain the truth regarding this affair.'
Pope Nicolas V. made difficulties. Cardinal d'Estouteville, who had
undertaken to manage the process of rehabilitation, presented the Pope
with a claim for a revision of the sentence of condemnation in the
name of Joan of Arc's mother and of her two brothers. The petition ran
thus: 'The brothers, mother, and relations of Joan, anxious that her
memory and their own should be cleansed from this unmerited disgrace,
demand that the sentence of condemnation that was given at Rouen shall
be annulled.' Not, however, until the death of Pope Nicolas V., and
the accession of Calixtus III., was anything further done.
The new Pope (Alfonso Borgia) did not hesitate as to the line he
intended taking in the matter, and he gave his sanction to the
rehabilitation of the heroine by a rescript dated the 11th of June,
1455. It was as follows:--
'We, Calixtus, servant of the servants of God, accord a favourable
ear to the request which has been made us. There has lately been
brought before us on the part of Peter and John of Arc, also of
Isabella of Arc, their mother, and some of their relations, a petition
stating that their sister, daughter, and relative, Joan of Arc
deceased, had been unjustly condemned as guilty of the crime of heresy
and other crimes against the Faith, on the false testimony of the late
William [John, it should be] d'Estivet of the Episcopal Court of
Beauvais, and of Peter of happy memory, at that time Bishop of
Beauvais, and of the late John Lemaître, belonging to the Inquisition.
The nullity of their proceedings and the innocence of Joan are clearly
established both by documents and further by clearest proofs. In
consequence of this, the brothers, mother, and relatives of Joan are
therefore at liberty to cast off the mark of infamy with which this
trial has falsely stamped them; and thus they have humbly supplicated
our permission to authorise and to proceed in this trial of
rehabilitation.'
The prelates selected by the Pope as commissioners to follow the
course of the trial of rehabilitation were John Jouvenel des Ursins,
Archbishop of Rheims, William Chartrier, Bishop of Paris, and Richard
de Longueil, Bishop of Coutances. On the 7th of November, 1455, this
trial was solemnly begun in the Church of Notre Dame, in Paris.
It has been said that Joan of Arc's father died of grief on hearing of
his daughter's martyrdom. He was certainly dead before the date of
this trial. However, the now aged mother of Joan of Arc, Isabella
Romée d'Arc, in her sixty-seventh year, was there. She was supported
by her two sons, John and Peter, and was accompanied by many of her
relations from Vaucouleurs, and friends from Orleans. The poor soul
appears to have been much affected when she appeared before the
sympathetic crowd. Many of those present must have come from far to
see the mother of the famous heroine claiming at the hands of the
Church the vindication of her daughter's fame.
Two meetings took place at Notre Dame, and a third was held at Rouen,
at which the family of Joan of Arc were unable to be present--the
mother from illness, and the brothers by affairs at home. The
_Procureur_, whose name was Prévosteau, was the advocate for the Arc
family. The debates lasted all through the winter, and into the early
part of the year 1456. During the debates a hundred articles were
drawn up and agreed to, relating to the life, death, and trial of the
heroine. None of these are of much importance or interest.
It was not until the witnesses of Joan of Arc's life at home, and of
her actions abroad, gave their testimony that the debates became
interesting. Then began to pass before the eyes of the spectators a
succession of people who had known Joan of Arc, and who had taken part
in the same actions as those of the Maid--peasants from her native
village, townsfolk from Orleans, generals and soldiers who had ridden
with her into battle and fought by her side.
In fact, here appeared all sorts and conditions of men, from farm
labourers to princes of the blood royal. The testimony of these people
helps one to follow the life of Joan of Arc throughout its short
career with something like precision. The sittings of the
commissioners took place at Paris, Orleans, Rouen, and also at
Domremy. It may be said without exaggeration that the whole of France
and all its classes seemed, after an interval of a quarter of a
century, to raise its voice in honour of the memory of its martyr
Maid, and to attest to the spotless and noble life of her country's
saviour.
At Domremy, at Vaucouleurs, and at Toul, thirty-four witnesses were
heard on the 28th of January and on the 11th of February, 1456. At
Orleans, during the months of February and of March, forty-one
depositions were collected by the Archbishop of Rheims.
In Paris, in April and May, the same prelate, assisted by the Bishop
of Paris, heard the evidence of twenty witnesses. At Rouen, the same
commission heard nineteen others. Finally, at Lyons, the deposition of
Joan of Arc's esquire, d'Aulon, who had attended her throughout her
campaigns, was made before the Vice-Inquisitor of that province, John
Desprès.
All these depositions are recorded in Latin, the only exception being
that of d'Aulon, which was taken down in French. All those written in
Latin have been translated into French by M. Fabre, and published in
his _Procès de Réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_.
Among the witnesses first appear the friends and neighbours of Joan of
Arc in her childhood and early years. From her birthplace came her
greatest friends, Henriette, Mengette, and Isabellette. The first of
these, in the year 1456, was aged forty-five, the second was a year
older, and the third was in her fiftieth year. All three were the
wives of labourers. Henriette was married to Gerard, Mengette to John
Joyart, and Isabellette to Gerardin d'Epinal. To the child of the last
Joan had stood god-mother. Next came from the same village three older
women, all three being god-mothers to Joan. In those days the French
peasantry seem to have had an almost unlimited number of god-fathers
and god-mothers. These were named Jeannette, widow of Thépelin de
Viteau, aged sixty; Jeannette Théverien, aged sixty-six; and Beatrix,
widow of d'Estelin, a labourer of Domremy, then in her eightieth year.
After these three god-mothers, came to give their evidence her
god-fathers. Four of these appear--John Rainguesson, John Barrey, John
de Langart, and John Morel de Greux. Of these four god-fathers, only
the last one seems to have been called to give evidence; he was in his
seventieth year. Gerardin d'Epinal, husband of one of the god-mothers,
also gave his evidence; it was his son Nicolas for whom Joan of Arc
had stood sponsor. In those days it was held that the god-mother of a
child stood to it in the relation of a second mother: hence originated
the term of 'commère' and 'compère,' which Joan gave the d'Epinals.
Six labourers, who had been playmates with Joan in childhood, then
came forward. These men, named respectively Le Cuin, Guillemeth,
Waterin, Colin, Masnier, and Jacquard, were between the ages of
forty-four and fifty. All these humbly born witnesses agreed in their
answers to the twelve questions asked them in the following order:--
1. When and where was Joan born?
2. Who were her parents? Were they of good character and of
good repute?
3. Who were her god-fathers?
4. Was she piously brought up?
5. How did she conduct herself between her seventh year up
to the time she left her home?
6. Did she often frequent the churches and places of
devotion of her free-will?
7. How did she occupy herself, and what were her duties?
8. Did she confess often?
9. Did she frequent the fairies' tree and the haunted well,
and did she go to places with the other young people of the
neighbourhood?
10. How did she leave her home, and how did she accomplish
her journey?
11. Were any investigations made in her native country at
the time she was taken prisoner?
12. Did Joan on one occasion escape to Neufchâteau on
account of a military raid, and was she then in the company
of her parents?
We now arrive at a higher grade in the ranks of the witnesses, in the
shape of 'l'honorable homme Nicolas Bailly.' Bailly was a man of
sixty; he had been employed by the English in 1430, and by Cauchon--he
was a scrivener (_tabellion_) by profession--to make investigations
into the character of Joan in her native place.
Then came the old bell-ringer of Joan of Arc's village--Perrin le
Drassier, aged sixty. He told how the maiden loved the sound of the
church bells, and how she would blame him when he neglected ringing
them, and of her little gifts to him to make him more diligent in his
office. After the bell-ringer came three priests--all belonging to the
neighbourhood of Domremy. The first--namely, the 'discrète personne
Messire Henri Arnolin'--belonged to Gondrecourt-le-Château, near to
Commercy, and was sixty-four. The next is the 'vénérable personne
Messire Etienne de Sionne,' curate of the parish church at
Raucessey-sous-Neufchâteau, aged fifty-four; and the third was named
Dominic Jocab, curate of the parish church of Moutier-sur-Saulx.
Next came an old peasant from Domremy, named Bertrand Laclopssé, a
thatcher by profession, ninety years of age; after him three
neighbours of Joan's father--Thevenin le Royer, seventy years old;
Jacquier, sixty; and John Moen, wheelwright, fifty-six. But a far more
important witness than any of the preceding three-and-twenty was the
uncle of the heroine, Durand Laxart, farm labourer at Burey-le-Petit,
whom, it will be remembered, Joan first took into her confidence
regarding her voices and her mission. Laxart was then in his sixtieth
year. At the close of his evidence he states that all he had said
regarding his niece he had also told Charles VII.--probably at the
time of the coronation, for Laxart was then at Rheims. Laxart was
followed by the couple with whom Joan of Arc lodged when living at
Vaucouleurs, Henry and Joan le Royer (or le Charron). After this
worthy pair appeared the two brave knights who had guarded the Maid of
Orleans during her perilous journey to Chinon--John de Novelem-hont,
commonly called John de Metz, aged fifty-seven, and the other, named
Bertrand de Poulangy--one of the King's esquires--aged sixty-three.
Three other knights were heard after them--namely, Albert d'Ourche,
from Ourche, near Commercy, aged sixty; Geoffrey du Fay, aged fifty;
and Louis de Martigny, living at Martigny-les-Gerboneaux, a village
near Neufchâteau, aged fifty-four. These were followed by two curates
and a sergeant. 'Discrète personne Messire Jean le Fumeux,' of
Vaucouleurs, canon of the Church of Sainte Marie in that village, also
curate of the parish church of d'Ugny, aged only thirty-eight, was, as
he admitted, a mere child when Joan of Arc came to Vaucouleurs; but he
remembered distinctly having seen her praying in the church at
Vaucouleurs, and kneeling for a long time in the subterranean chapel
of Sainte Marie's Church before an image of the Blessed Virgin.
The other priest, named John Colin, was the curate of the parish
church of Domremy, and a canon of the collegiate church of Saint
Nicolas de Brixey, near Vaucouleurs. His age was sixty-six. The last
of these thirty-four witnesses was the sergeant, Guillot Jacquier,
aged thirty-six: why he was called as a witness does not appear. As a
child he had heard Joan of Arc spoken of as 'une brave fille, de bonne
renommée, et de conduite honnête,' which opinion was the general one
given in their evidence by all the other witnesses, whose names only
we have been able to give.
Relating to the period in the life of the heroine between the time of
the King's coronation and that of her capture, the facts told by the
various persons examined are few and far between. In the trial for the
rehabilitation of the Maid of Orleans, the story of her deeds in the
field was not of much importance to the commissioners. What they
principally desired to ascertain was the fact that no taint of heresy
could attach to the life of the heroine. It was for this reason that
all those persons who could throw any light upon Joan's early days and
the actions of her childhood had been collected to give their
evidence. We now come to those witnesses who were examined regarding
the life of Joan of Arc after her interview with the King at Chinon
and about the stirring events which immediately followed that
interview. The first of these is the 'nobile et savant homme Messire
Simon Charles,' Master of the Requests (_Maître des requêtes_) in the
year 1429. He had been president of the State exchequer in 1456, and
was aged sixty. Simon's evidence is of interest and importance both as
regards Joan of Arc's arrival at Chinon, and also with respect to the
siege of Orleans and the triumphant entry into Rheims. The next
witness was one of the clergy who examined Joan when at Poitiers; this
was a preaching friar from Limousin who had asked Joan of Arc in what
language her saints spoke to her, and had been answered by 'In a
better language than yours'--for this good friar, whose name was
Brother Sequier, spoke with a strong Limousin accent. When he was
giving his evidence before the commission (in 1456) he was an old man
in his seventy-third year, and head of the theological college of
Poitiers.
Next to him came the evidence given by the 'vénérable et savant homme
Maître Jean Barbier, docteur ès lois.' Barbier was King's-Advocate in
the House of Parliament, and had also been one of the judges at Joan
of Arc's examination at Poitiers: he was aged fifty. Barbier had been
at Loches when the people threw themselves before Joan of Arc's horse,
and embraced the heroine's feet and hands. Barbier reproved her for
allowing them to do so. He told her that if she permitted them to act
thus it would render them idolatrous in their worship of her, to which
reprimand Joan answered, 'Indeed, without God's help I could not
prevent them from becoming so.'
Another of the Poitiers witnesses was Gobert Thibault, also aged
fifty. This Thibault had been at Chinon when Joan arrived there, and
had followed her to Orleans. Among these Poitiers witnesses was
Francis Garivel, aged forty. Garivel, when a lad of fifteen, had seen
Joan at Poitiers, and he remembered that on her being asked why she
styled Charles Dauphin, and not by his kingly title, she replied that
she could not give him his regal title until he had been crowned and
anointed at Rheims.
The collected testimony of the above witnesses, whose evidence covers
the time passed by Joan at Poitiers, was submitted to Charles VII.,
and the MSS. exist in the National Library in Paris. It has been
edited by the historians Bachon and Quicherat, and translated from the
Latin into French by Fabre.
The next batch of witnesses' evidence concerns the fighting period of
Joan of Arc's life, and consists principally of the testimony given
by her companions in her different campaigns, and this appears to us
by far the most interesting and curious.
Of those witnesses the first to testify was a prince of the blood,
Joan of Arc's 'beau Duc,' as she loved to call John, Duke of Alençon.
He is thus styled in the original document: '_Illustris ac
potentissimus princeps et dominus_.'
Alençon came of a truly noble line of ancestors, and was descended
also from brave warriors. His great-grandfather fell at Crecy, leading
the vanguard of the French host. His grandfather was the
companion-in-arms of the great Du Guesclin. His father, on the field
of Agincourt, after having wounded the Duke of York and stricken him
to the ground, crossed swords with King Harry, and then, overwhelmed
by numbers, had fallen under a rain of blows.
With Dunois (Bastard of Orleans) Alençon is one of the most prominent
of the French leaders who appear in Shakespeare's play, in the first
part of _Henry VI_. Duke John, like his illustrious forebears, had
also fought and bled for his country. His first campaign was made when
he was but eighteen. Alençon first saw Joan of Arc in 1429. A strong
mutual regard sprang up between the prince and the Maid of Domremy.
Alençon had wedded the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, and it was to
her that the heroine, when she left with the Duke for their expedition
against Paris, promised to bring back her husband in safety.
No one had seen more of Joan of Arc during those days of fighting than
had Alençon, and no one bore a higher testimony than did the Duke to
her purity, her courage, and the sublime simplicity of her character.
It was the Duke of Alençon who was especially struck with the skill
shown by the heroine in warlike matters; particularly in her science
in the management of artillery--ridiculously rude as that branch of
the service appears to us.
'Everybody,' Alençon says, 'was amazed to see that in all that
appertained to warfare she acted with as much knowledge and capacity
as if she had been twenty or thirty years trained in the art of war.'
Next to Alençon's evidence came that of the famous Bastard of Orleans,
the Count de Dunois, one of the most engaging and sympathetic figures
of the whole age of chivalry. John of Orleans was the natural son of
the Duke of Orleans, and, as Fabre says of him, he 'glorified the
appellation of Bastard.' Indeed, the Bastard's name deserves to be
handed down in his country's annals with as much glory as that of his
great English rival and foe, Talbot, in those of the English. He was a
consummate soldier, who even at the early age of twenty-three had
brilliantly distinguished himself, and he lived to liberate Normandy
and Guyenne from the English.
Well may M. Fabre, in his book on the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc,
express his regret that Dunois' evidence was not set forth in the
language in which it was delivered, and that it has come down to us
weakened by translation into Latin. What is worse is that we have only
the translation of a translation.
Dunois had, besides his high military reputation, that of being
skilled in oratory. There is, however, in the translation more than a
trace of the enthusiasm with which Dunois speaks of the deeds of the
heroic maiden. Dunois, Bastard of Orleans as he is always called, bore
the following titles, as recited by the chronicler: 'l'illustrieuse
prince Jean Comte de Dunois et de Longueville, lieutenant-général de
notre seigneur le roi.' He was fifty-one years old in the month of
February, 1456. His deposition extends over the entire period of the
life of Joan of Arc between the time of her arrival before Orleans and
the period of the King's coronation.
Dunois' evidence closes thus:--'To conclude, it was habitual to Joan
to speak playfully on matters relating to war, in order to cheer the
soldiers, and she may have alluded to many military events which never
were to take place. But I declare that, when she spoke seriously about
the war, of her deeds, and of her vocation, she said her work was
limited to raising the siege of Orleans, to succouring the unhappy
people shut up in that town and in its suburbs, and to leading the
King to Rheims for his coronation and anointing.'
Next we have the testimony of the noble knight, Raoul de Gaucourt, who
had so stoutly defended Orleans during its long siege. De Gaucourt was
eighty-five years old. This fine old warrior's evidence confirms all
that Dunois had said in praise of Joan of Arc.
The next to appear was the heroine's page, Louis de Contes, aged
fifteen when appointed to attend on Joan of Arc: at the time of the
trial of her rehabilitation he was forty-two.
Next came a very interesting witness, to wit, Joan of Arc's almoner,
'vénérable et religieux personne Jean Pasquerel.' This worthy priest
had been formerly in a Tours monastery. We do not find his age given
at this time. The clear graphic testimony of this good man is a
pleasure to read. His love and admiration for the heroine appear in
every line of his testimony, and although this narrative is already
too long, it will not perhaps be considered tedious if some of his
evidence is quoted.
'When I first had tidings,' he says, 'of Joan of Arc and of her
arrival at Court, I was at Puy, where at that time were her mother and
some people who had accompanied her to Chinon. Having come to me, they
said, "You must come with us and see Joan; we will not allow you to
leave us until you have seen her." So I went with them to Chinon, and
also to Tours. At that time I was reader in a convent in that town.
When she came to Tours, Joan lived in the house of John Dupuy, a
burgher of that place. It was there that I first met her. "Joan,"
they said to her, "we have brought this good father to see you. When
you know him well you will like him very much." And Joan answered them
and said, "The good father pleases me much; I have heard about him
already, and I will make my confession to him to-morrow."
'And I heard her confession on the day following, when I also sang the
Mass before her. Since that I have always followed Joan, and I
remained her chaplain till the time of her capture at Compiègne.'
It was in this good priest's evidence that the touching trait of Joan
of Arc's fondness for gathering children about her was made known.
'She confessed nearly every day,' he said, 'and took the Sacrament
often. When near any community of begging friars she asked me to
remind her of the days on which the beggar children received the
Eucharist, so that she might receive it at the same time with them. It
was her delight,' he said, 'to take the Sacrament along with the poor
mendicant children. She shed tears often at confession.'
Later on in his evidence Pasquerel adds to the above, 'that often at
night I have seen her kneeling, praying for her King and for the
success of her mission. I certainly,' he said, 'firmly believed in the
divine source of her mission, for she was always engaged in good
works, and she was full of every good quality. During a campaign when
provisions ran short Joan would never take that which had been gained
by pillage. To the wounded she was ever pitiful--to the English as
well as to those of her own country, and she always tried to get them
to make their confession, if badly, and even if only slightly,
wounded. The fear of God was ever before her, nor would she for
anything in the world do anything which she considered contrary to His
will: for instance, when she was wounded in the shoulder by the dart
from a crossbow, when some people wished her to allow the wound to be
charmed, promising that if she had it done her hurt would be healed,
Joan said that to do so would be a sin, and that she would sooner die
than commit one.
'I am greatly surprised,' continued the unsophisticated old priest,
'that such great lawyers (_grands clercs_) as were those at Rouen
could have sentenced Joan to death. How could they put to death that
poor child, who was such a good and such a simple Christian, and that
too, so cruelly, without a reason--for surely they had not sufficient
reason at any rate to kill her!'
Pasquerel could evidently not grasp the real reason for the part
played by Cauchon in the execution of the Maid of Orleans, or imagine
that in order to obtain an archbishopric his beloved Joan had been
condemned by the Bishop of Beauvais to the flames. Pasquerel's
evidence ends thus:--
'I have nothing more to add except this. On several occasions Joan
told me that if she were to die, she hoped our lord the King would
found chantries in which the Almighty might be entreated in
intercession for the souls of those who had been slain in the defence
of the kingdom.'
The next witness is John d'Aulon, knight, Seneschal of Beaucaire,
member of the King's Council. It was he who had served Joan of Arc as
esquire during all her campaigns. His evidence is of importance, as it
proves clearly the grounds on which the trial of rehabilitation was
held--namely, to clear the King of having been crowned and anointed
through the agency of one condemned by the Church as an apostate and
heretic. The Archbishop thus wrote to d'Aulon on the 20th of April,
1456:--
'By the sentence pronounced against Joan the English wish it to be
believed that the Maid was a sorceress, a heretic, and in league with
the devil, and therefore that the King had received his kingdom by
those means; and thus they hold as heretics the King and those that
have served him.'
Nothing can be clearer than this declaration, or show better the real
object for which that utterly selfish prince, Charles VII., had, after
the lapse of a quarter of a century since the death of Joan of Arc,
instituted these proceedings--not at all in order to do honour to the
heroine's memory, but in order that his position as King of France
should not be tainted with the heresy which had been charged to the
account of Joan by and through the clergy and French doctors of
theology and learning.
D'Aulon's evidence is one of the most complete of the entire set of
testimonies. It was given, not at Rouen, but at Lyons, in 1456, before
the Vice-Inquisitor, John Desprès.
His depositions are remarkable in this, that, unlike those of the
other witnesses, they are recorded in French, and not in Latin.
Next to d'Aulon succeeds, in the chain of witnesses, Simon Beaucroix,
aged fifty. Simon was a youth at Chinon when Joan of Arc came there.
Beaucroix's evidence is followed by that of John Luillier, a citizen
of Orleans. He bore evidence to the immense popularity of the Maid
during and after the siege of Orleans. At the time of the trial of
rehabilitation Luillier was fifty. To the part played by the Maid at
the siege of his native town he speaks thus:--
'As to the question you put me, whether I think the siege of Orleans
was raised and the town saved from the enemy by the intervention and
the ministration (_ministère_) of the Maid, even more than by the
force of arms, this is my answer: All my fellow citizens, as well as I
myself, believe that had the Maid not come there by the will of God to
our rescue, we should very soon, both town and people, have been in
the power of the besiegers. It is my belief,' he adds, 'that it was
impossible for the people of Orleans and for the army present at
Orleans to have held out much longer against the superior strength of
the enemy.'
More people from Orleans next gave their evidence: viz. William le
Charron, John Volant, William Postian, Denis Roger, James de Thou,
John Canelier, Aignan de Saint-Mesmin, John Hilaire, Jacques
l'Esbalny, Cosmé de Commy, John de Champcoux, Peter Hue, Peter
Jonqualt, John Aubert, William Rouillart, Gentien Cabu, Peter
Vaillant, John Beaucharnys, John Coulon. All these men were burghers
of the town, and their ages varied between forty and seventy. All
agreed with Luillier in their belief that, under God, it was Joan of
Arc who rescued their city from the English.
Following these men we now come to the evidence of some of the women
who had seen or known the heroine. First of these is Joan, wife of
Gilles de Saint-Mesmin, aged seventy. She says: 'The general opinion
was and is still at Orleans that Joan was a good Catholic--simple,
humble, and of a holy life.' Such, too, is the opinion of Joan, the
wife of Guy Boyleau, and of Guillemette, wife of John de Coulon; also
of the widow of John de Mouchy. All these agree with the first lady's
testimony.
We have next the evidence of the daughter of James Boucher, the
treasurer of Orleans, at whose house Joan of Arc lodged while in
Orleans. Charlotte Boucher had married William Houet. When her
deposition was taken in 1456 she was thirty-six years old, and
consequently only nine when Joan lodged at her father's house.
However, young as she was then, the visit of the Maid had left a great
memory behind; she had been Joan's bed-fellow.
'Often,' she says, 'Joan said to my mother, "Hope in God, for He will
deliver the town of Orleans, and drive the enemy away."'
And last we find the evidence of two good wives of Orleans, one widow
of John Huré, the other Petronillé, wife of Beaucharnys. After these
came six clerics, canons of the Church of Saint Aignan at
Orleans--Robert de Farciaux, Peter Compaing, Peter de la Censurey,
Raoul Godert, Hervé Bonart, and André Bordez. Peter Milet and his
wife, Colette, were also witnesses. All had known Joan when she was at
Orleans, as had Aignan Viole, an advocate of Parliament, who had been
in Orleans during the siege.
The 'noble homme Guillaume de Richarville, panetier de la cour,' gave
his evidence, relating to Joan of Arc's appearance at Court, as also
did an old Court physician named Reginald Thierry; it is he who
relates how, at the capture of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier, Joan prevented
its church from being pillaged.
A doughty warrior follows, namely, 'noble et prudent Seigneur le
chevalier Thibauld d'Armagnac, Sire de Thermes, Bailli de Chartres.'
D'Armagnac was fifty years old; he had followed Joan of Arc all
through her campaign, and, like Alençon, had a very high opinion of
her military talents. At the close of his evidence, he says: 'In the
manner of the conduct and ordering of troops, in that of placing them
in battle array, and of animating the men, Joan of Arc had as much
capacity for these things as the most accomplished captain in the art
of war.'
After the soldier, the peasant. This peasant, or rather mechanic, is
a coppersmith named Husson Lemaître. Lemaître hailed from Domremy.
Being in the year 1456 at Rouen, he then and there gave his evidence.
He had known Joan of Arc's family, and Joan too in her childhood; of
all of them he spoke most highly.
Next comes 'honnête et prude femme demoiselle Marguerite la
Tournelle,' the widow of Réné de Bouligny. It was at her house at
Bourges that Joan lodged after the coronation at Rheims.
We now pass to an entirely different category of witnesses. These are
the men who sat in the trial of the heroine. One can well understand
the embarrassment shown by such folk in their replies to the questions
they had to answer, and their wish if it were possible to turn the
responsibility of their previous judgment on the heads of those who
were no longer in this world to answer the charges made against them.
The first of these men is 'vénérable et savante personne Maître Thomas
de Courcelles.' De Courcelles was only fifty-six in 1456, when called
on to make his deposition as to the part he had played in the
heroine's trial at Rouen, five-and-twenty years before. His evidence
is full of the feeblest argument, and his memory appears to have been
a very convenient one, as he repeatedly evades an answer by the plea
of having forgotten all about the incident alluded to.
Next follows that 'vénérable et circonspecte personne, Maître Jean
Beaupère'--a doctor of theology, and canon of Rouen, Paris, and
Besançon. This circumspect person was now in his seventieth year. He
laid most of the blame of Joan of Arc's death upon the English, and
the rest on Cauchon. The English being away, and Cauchon dead, the
circumspection of this doctor's evidence is evident.
We next have that of the Bishop of Noyon, John de Mailly. This bishop
had been in the service of the English King, but had, when Charles
became prosperous, returned to him. In 1456 he was aged sixty. An
intimate of the Prince Cardinal of Winchester, and one of the foremost
of the judges who condemned Joan of Arc to death, his deposition in
1456 is quite a study in the art of trying to convince people that
black is white. He had shown some kind of feeling of humanity at the
time of the martyrdom of the Maid, and had left that scene of horror
early. To the memory of his old friend and colleague, Cauchon, he
gives a parting kick by saying at the close of his examination that of
one thing he was quite certain, and that was that Cauchon received
money for the conduct of the trial from his friends, the English. But
he might have now been reminded that he too had received some of this
blood-money.
Next to appear is another French bishop, Monseigneur Jean Le Fèvre,
Evêque in partibus de Démétriade. This prelate was in his seventieth
year. At the time of Joan of Arc's trial he was professor of theology
of the order of hermit monks of Saint Augustins. The Bishop had taken
an active part in the trial and condemnation. Like his brother bishop,
Le Fèvre enjoyed a very convenient memory, and had quite forgotten
many things of importance which occurred during the trial in 1430. Nor
did he even take part as a spectator in the martyrdom which he had
helped to bring about--'I left before the end,' he said, 'not feeling
the strength to see more.' Let that shred of humanity in the
composition of priests like him be allowed before we entirely condemn
them.
The next witness is also a Churchman, Peter Migiet, the prior of
Longueville, aged seventy. He also had been one of Cauchon's crawling
creatures. There is little of interest in his evidence, except the
passage where he says that an English knight had told him that the
English feared Joan of Arc more than a hundred soldiers, and that her
very name was a source of terror to the foe. Although this sounds an
exaggerated statement, it is not so, as is proved by an edict having
been issued by the English Government in the May of 1430, in which
English officers and soldiers who refused to enter France for fear of
'the enchantments of the Maid' were threatened with severe punishment.
There is, moreover, an edict, bearing the date of December 1430, which
was also issued by the English military authorities, describing the
trial and the punishment by court martial of all soldiers who had
deserted the army in France from fear of Joan of Arc.
After the above priests, on whom rests the infamy of having taken part
in the death of the heroine, it is a relief to find the next witness,
although a Churchman, a man of sufficient honesty and courage to have
been one of those few who refused to take any part in the iniquitous
proceedings connected with Joan of Arc's trial, and who suffered
imprisonment owing to his unwillingness to carry out Cauchon's wishes.
This worthy priest was named Nicolas de Houppeville, a doctor of
theology, now in his sixty-fifth year.
The next witness is John Tiphanie, a canon of the Sainte Chapelle of
Paris. He was also a doctor in medicine. Tiphanie had been compelled
much against his inclination to take part in the trial of Joan. He was
one of the doctors who were sent to see her when she lay ill in
prison.
Then follows another doctor; this is William Delachambre, aged only
forty-eight in 1456. He must have practised his vocation at a very
early age. Delachambre had also joined in the trial of the Maid, from
fear of Cauchon. His evidence relating to the scene at Saint Ouen is
important.
'I remember well,' he says, 'the abjuration which Joan of Arc made.
She hesitated a long while before she made it. At length William Erard
determined her to make it by telling her that, when she had made it,
she should be delivered from her prison. Under this promise she at
length decided to do so, and she then read a short profession of some
six or seven lines written on a piece of folded paper. I was so near
that I could see the writing on the paper.'
We next come to the witness whose evidence is, next to that of Dunois,
of the greatest importance; it is that of the Recorder, or judges'
clerk, William Manchon. Born in 1395, he was sixty-one years of age
when the rehabilitation trial took place. Manchon's evidence takes up
thirty pages in M. Fabre's work, already often referred to--_Le Procès
de Réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_. Much against his will was Manchon
obliged to act in the trial of the Maid, but he did not dare disobey
the orders of those who formed the Council of Henry VI. All that he
deposed has been made use of in the account of the heroine's life; so
now we need do no more than refer to it. The other Recorder who helped
Manchon to draw up the minutes of the trial was also examined; this
was William Colles, called Boisguillaume. He was in his sixty-sixth
year. Colles relates that, after the execution, the people used to
point out the author of Joan's death with horror--'besides,' he adds,
'I have been told that the most prominent of those who took part in
her condemnation died miserably. Nicolas Midi [who had preached the
sermon on the day of her execution, and just before it took place] was
stricken with leprosy, and Cauchon died suddenly, while being
shaved.'
A third Recorder was also examined, Nicolas Taquel. Then followed the
priest Massieu. During the trial of Joan he had acted as bailiff to
the Court, and in that capacity had seen much of the prisoner; he had
always conveyed her to and from her prison. It may be remembered that
it was he who, on Joan's petition to be allowed to kneel before the
chapel on her way to the hall of judgment, granted her request, and
was threatened by Cauchon, should it again occur, to be thrown into
prison where, as Cauchon said to him, he would not have 'the light of
sun or moon.' Massieu remained till the end with Joan, and it is he
who records that the executioner found, after the body had been
destroyed, that the heart remained unconsumed. He also relates that
the executioner was ordered to collect the ashes and all that
remained, and to throw those few relics of humanity into the Seine,
which was accordingly done. Martin Ladvenu followed Massieu. Ladvenu
was a Dominican friar: he was one of the few priests who showed some
humanity to the victim. It was to him that Joan of Arc confessed on
the morning of her death, and it was also to him that the executioner
came on the night of the martyrdom, and said that no execution had
ever affected him as that one had done. Next to arrive was Isambard de
la Pierre, a Dominican priest. He had been an acolyte of the
Vice-Inquisitor, Lemaître; he too, like Ladvenu, had shown sympathy
with the sufferer, had given her advice during the trial, and had
helped to soothe her last moments. De la Pierre states in his evidence
regarding her supposed refusal to submit herself to the Church, that
Joan of Arc, when she was told by her judges to submit herself,
thought they meant themselves by the Church of which they spoke to
her; but when she was told by him what the Church really signified she
always said she submitted herself to it and to the Pope. It was to
Isambard de la Pierre that Joan begged for a cross when on the pile
and about to die. 'As I was close by the poor child,' he says, 'she
begged me humbly to go to the church close at hand and bring her a
cross to hold up right before her eyes, till her death, so that the
cross on which God hung might as long as she lived appear before her.
She died a true and good Christian. In the midst of the flames she
never ceased calling on the sacred name of Jesus, and invoking the aid
of the saints in Paradise. When the fire was lit she begged me to get
down from off the stake with my cross, but to hold it still before
her, which I did. At last, bending down her head, with a strong voice
calling on the name of Jesus, she gave up the ghost.'
Yet another priest succeeds: this is 'vénérable et religieux personne,
frère Jean Toutmouillé,' of the order of the preaching friars of
Rouen. Toutmouillé was quite a youth at the time of Joan of Arc's
death. Another priest follows, William Daval, also one of the order
of preaching friars, and belonging to the Church of Saint James at
Rouen. He, too, had been, with Isambard, one of the acolytes of the
Vice-Inquisitor. In his evidence, he tells of how, after Isambard had
been advising Joan in her prison, he was met by Warwick, who
threatened to have him thrown into the river if he continued seeing
the prisoner.
We next have 'vénérable et circonspecte personne Maître André
Marguerie'; this was one of Cauchon's most trusted creatures. His
'_âme damnée_,' Richard de Grouchet, canon of the collegiate Church of
Sans Faye, is the next witness. There is nothing of any interest in
the testimony of these Churchmen, nor in that of Nicolas Dubesert,
another canon of Rouen, nor in that of Nicolas Caval. Next appears a
prior, Thomas Marie, of the Church of Saint Michel, near Rouen. Four
other ecclesiastics follow them--John Roquier, Peter Bouchier, John
Bonnet, John de Lenozoles; but none of these men's testimony is of any
interest. The evidence of no less a person than the torturer is called
next. He is named--to give him his titles in full--'Honnête homme
Mauger Lessarmentrer, clerc non marier, appariteur de la cour
archiepiscopalle de Rouen.' The name of the chief torturer of the good
city of Rouen, Mauger, has a gruesome ring about it--it reminds one of
the headsman in Harrison Ainsworth's novel of the _Tower of London_.
Aged fifty-six in 1456, Mauger had seen Joan of Arc when she was
brought into the yet extant tower of the castle, and threatened by
Cauchon with the torture. 'We were,' deposed Mauger, 'my companion and
myself, ordered to go there to torture her. She was questioned, and
she answered with much prudence, and so well, that every one was
amazed. Finally, I and my companion left the tower without having laid
hands upon her.' Mauger attended at the execution, and this is what he
heard and saw there and then. 'As soon as the Bishop (Cauchon) had
read the sentence, Joan was taken to the fire. I did not hear whether
the civil judges delivered the sentence or not. Joan was placed
instantly upon the fire. In the midst of the flames she called out
more than six times the name of Jesus. It was when about to give the
last breath that she called out with a loud voice, "Jesus!" so that
every one could hear her. Nearly everybody wept, for all were overcome
with pity.'
After the torturer's witness came that of a soldier, Aimonde de Macy,
who was thirty years old when he met Joan in the Castle of Beaurevoir;
she being then a prisoner in the charge of Ligny.
De Macy was at Rouen at the time when Lord Stafford came so nearly
stabbing the Maid in her prison, and was only prevented from that
dastardly act by Warwick.
We next hear the evidence of an attorney, Peter Daron: he had also
seen Joan in her prison at Rouen, and had seen her die.
Next we have 'prudent homme Maître Jean Fave, maître des requêtes du
roi Charles VII.': he, too, was present at the execution.
Next appears upon the scene 'honnête personne Laurent Guesdon,' clerk
and advocate to the lay court of Rouen. He also had been present at
the death of Joan of Arc, and, from his office as lieutenant of the
Bailiff of Rouen, he held an important position at the execution; and
this is some of his evidence relating to it: 'I assisted at the last
sermon preached at the old market-place. I had accompanied the
Bailiff, being then his deputy. The sentence was read by which Joan
was abandoned to the secular arm; after that sentence had been
pronounced the executioners seized her, before either the Bailiff or
myself had time to read the sentence; and she was led up to the
stake--which was not as it should have been ordered.'
Next arrive as witnesses two burghers of Rouen, Peter Cusquel and John
Moreaux. Both of them had been spectators of the martyrdom, but they
have nothing of interest to say about it. And finally--(and doubtless
the reader will be glad to come to the end of this interminable
procession, as is the writer)--comes the deposition of John
Marcel--'bourgeois' of Paris. Marcel had been in Rouen during the time
of the Maid's trial, and was also present at the end of her life. M.
Fabre, in concluding in his book the translation of the testimonies of
the long list of witnesses given by him for the first time in full,
makes a great point of the universal concurrence of those who knew
Joan of Arc as to her undoubted purity of person as well as of mind:
that fact is of the greatest importance as regarded the rehabilitation
of the Maid of Orleans. That is a subject which it is not now
necessary to do more than to allude to; but to the French judges in
the time of the trial of the rehabilitation, the fact of Joan of Arc
being proved to have been incontestably a virgin was of the highest
interest. It was reserved for a countryman of Joan of Arc's (Du
Bellay) to invent a legend to disprove the fact; and to the
everlasting shame of French literature, Voltaire adopted the lying
calumny in his licentious burlesque-heroic poem, _La Pucelle
d'Orléans_.
The sentence of rehabilitation which fills in the translation a dozen
of M. Fabre's pages, was solemnly delivered in the great hall of the
archiepiscopal palace at Rouen. On that occasion one of Joan of Arc's
brothers, John, was present. The sentence which was framed to wipe
away the iniquity of the judgment by which the heroine had been
condemned, was delivered by the Archbishop of Rheims in the presence
of a vast concourse of people, among whom were the Bishops of Paris
and of Coutances. Among other things ordered to honour the memory of
the Martyr, it was ordained that after a sermon preached on the spot
where the act of abjuration had taken place in the cemetery of the
Church of Saint Ouen, and also on the site of the spot where had stood
the stake and pyre, two crosses should be erected.
Crosses were placed not only there, and in Rouen, but also on other
spots. It is interesting to know that one of these crosses can still
be seen in the Forest of Compiègne; and it is traditionally said that
this cross at Compiègne was placed there by no other than Dunois
himself. Both the crosses at Rouen have disappeared centuries ago.
Processions took place at Rouen, and all was done that the Church
could do to wash out the indelible stain of its action four-and-twenty
years before the time of the rehabilitation. In 1431, the clergy of
France, to please the English, had in the name of orthodoxy, and with
the tolerance of the Pope, denounced Joan of Arc as 'a heretic and
idolatress.' In 1456, the same French clergy, to please Charles VII.,
in the name of religion and justice pronounced the memory of Joan of
Arc free from all taint of heresy and of idolatry, and ordered
processions and erected crosses in her honour to keep her memory fresh
in the land.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
No. I.
_JOAN OF ARC IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH HISTORY._
Even in France no thoroughly satisfactory history exists of Joan of
Arc, although a large number of histories have been written. Following
is an enumeration of the most important.
As was natural while her countrymen were divided into two camps, those
writers who belonged to the side of the English attacked the heroine,
or rather her mission, with ill-placed zeal. Of them Enguerrand de
Monstrelet was the most eminent.
Less well known chroniclers on the national side, such as Philip de
Bergame, an Augustinian monk, on the other hand exaggerate the deeds
of the Maid. None of these chroniclers' writings can be called
histories of Joan of Arc. Nor in the following (the sixteenth)
century, did such writers as Du Bellay and Haillon do more than allude
to Joan of Arc; the first in his _Instructions sur le fait de la
guerre_, and the second in his book on the _Affaires de France_.
Haillon had written disparagingly of the heroine. It had the effect of
raising the ire of that learned scribe William Postel, who wrote that
the actions and renown of Joan of Arc were as necessary to maintain as
the Bible itself. With Postel the celebrated jurisconsult Stephen
Pasquier was quite in accord, and in his work called _Recherches sur
la France_, he writes that 'never had any one saved France so
opportunely or so well as did this Maid.' In 1576 a book was published
by the magistrates of Orleans relating to the siege of their town, in
which all honour was given to the heroine for the part she had taken
in its delivery. In the preface to that book the following sentiment
is expressed:--'It is a lamentable fact that the Maid, respected by
all other nations, the English alone excepted, finds amongst her
countrymen writings to injure her memory by people who are greater
enemies to the honour of France than those who are strangers to that
country.'
It should be noted that as early as the year 1534 the famous early
chronicler Polydore Virgile, Italian by origin, wrote a voluminous
history of England in twenty-six books, and treated the Maid's mission
as one inspired by divine influence, severely blaming her judges for
their inhuman conduct towards her.
In 1610 a book was published discussing the origin of the family of
the Maid of Orleans; a work of little value. In 1612 one of the
descendants of a brother of Joan of Arc--Charles du Lys--published a
slight work called _Traité sommaire sur le nom, les armes, la
naissance et la parenté de la Pucelle et de ses frères_. In that same
year the first history of Joan of Arc was published, also by a
descendant of one of her brothers, John Hordal. This book was in
Latin; it was entitled '_The History of Joan of Arc, that very noble
heroine_.' Soon after an elaborated work, based on this book, was
produced by Edmond Richer, a doctor of theology in Paris.
The next account of the Maid of any length occurs in Mézarie's huge
_History of France_, It was published between 1643 and 1652. In 1661
appeared a work called _L'Histoire du roi Charles VII., contenant les
choses mémorables de 1422 à 1466_. It was in this work, which was
compiled by Denis Godefroy, that the manuscripts of the _Chronique de
la Pucelle_ were first printed. This chronicle concerns the events
which occurred between the years 1422 and 1429. Although not a
complete history of the heroine, it is the earliest account. It was
republished by Buchon, by Petitot, and by Quicherat; and it was
consulted by Michelet when writing his account of Joan of Arc. M.
Vallet de Viriville believes the Chronicle of the Maiden to have been
written by G. Cousinot, Chancellor of the Duke of Orleans, who was
present at the siege of Orleans. At the close of the seventeenth
century was published a history of France by a Jesuit priest named
David, in which there is some account of Joan of Arc; but David's
history is more remarkable for being a colossal list of falsehoods
than for any other merit.
We now arrive at the eighteenth century, and still find no tolerable
history of Joan of Arc. In the year 1753 the Abbé Longlet Dufresnoy
published a _Life of Joan of Arc_; it is totally devoid of any merit.
In 1790 Clément de l'Averdy published some notices relating to the
trial and condemnation of Joan of Arc. These notices led up to, and
were followed by the publications of Petitot, Buchon, Michaud, and
Pougoulat. At length, under the protection of the Society of French
History, the learned author Quicherat produced his all-important
works. That distinguished historian and antiquarian began his career
under Charlet. In 1847 he was appointed Professor of Archæology, and
later, Director of the Institute of the Charters. Between 1841 and
1850 he edited the original documents relating to the trials of Joan
of Arc--those of her condemnation and of her rehabilitation. Of these
only a few extracts had previously been published by M. l'Averdy. The
series edited by Quicherat consists of five bulky tomes. Although when
Michelet was writing his history of France, Quicherat's work had not
yet been published, the chronicler helped the historian by lending
Michelet the MSS. he was then annotating.
But to return to the earlier years of the century. In 1817, Lebrun des
Charnettes published a history of Joan of Arc in four volumes; this
history of the Maid was up to that time the best that had been
written. In the same year there was published another history of the
heroine by M. Berriat Saint-Prix. The best thing that work contains is
an itinerary of the different places at which Joan of Arc passed the
last three years of her short existence. It is a useful list for any
one who wishes to visit the scenes connected with her wonderful
history.
The list commences with her flight to Neufchâteau in 1428, and the
journey to Toul, and continues as follows:--
1428.
MAY.
From Domremy to Burey-le-Petit, Vaucouleurs. Return to Domremy.
1429.
FEBRUARY.
From Domremy to Vaucouleurs, Toul, Nancy, Saint Nicolas-du-Port.
13th Return to Vaucouleurs, Saint Urbain, Auxerre.
MARCH.
Gien, Sainte Catherine de Fierbois.
6th Chinon, Le Coudray en Touraine, Poitiers.
APRIL.
Chinon, Tours, Saint Florent-les-Saumur.
25th Blois.
28th Rully près de Checy.
29th Orleans.
MAY.
2nd Reconnaissance before Orleans.
4th Sortie on the road of Blois.
10th Return to Blois from Orleans.
To Tours and Loches.
JUNE.
4th Selles-en-Berri.
6th Selles to Romorantin and Orleans,
11th Jargeau.
15th Meun-sur-Loire.
16th Beaugency.
18th Patay and Jauville.
19th Orleans, Saint Benoit-sur-Loire.
22nd Châteauneuf.
24th Departure from Orleans for Gien.
27th Departure from Gien in the direction of Montargis.
JULY.
1st Before Auxerre.
2nd Saint Florentin.
4th Saint Fal.
5th Before Troyes.
10th Entry into Troyes.
14th Bussy.
15th Châlons-sur-Marne.
16th Sept Saulx.
16th Rheims.
21st Saint Marcoul de Corbeny.
22nd Vailly.
23rd Soissons.
29th Château Thierry.
AUGUST.
1st Montmirail-en-Brive.
2nd Provins. Sortie as far as Lamotte-de-Nangis, Bray-sur-Seine.
5th Return towards Paris by Provins.
7th Coulommiers, Château Thierry.
10th La Ferté Milon.
11th Crespy-en-Valois.
12th Lagny-le-Sec.
13th Dammartin and Thieux.
14th Baron, Montessilloy.
15th Crespy.
18th Compiègne, Senlis.
23rd Leave Compiègne.
26th Saint Denis.
SEPTEMBER.
5th La Chapelle, near Paris.
8th Attack on the gate Saint Honoré.
9th Retreat from La Chapelle to Saint Denis.
14th Lagny-sur-Marne.
15th Provins, Bray-sur-Seine. Passage of the river Yonne at a ford
near Sens Courtenay. Château Regnaut, Montargis.
21st Gien. Selles-en-Berri, Bourges.
OCTOBER.
Meun-sur-Yèvre, Bourges.
NOVEMBER.
Saint Pierre-le-Moutier.
9th Moulins.
24th La Charité-sur-Loire, Meun-sur-Yèvre.
DECEMBER.
Jargeau.
1430.
JANUARY.
18th Bourges.
19th Orleans.
MARCH.
3rd Sully.
28th Flight from Sully.
APRIL.
15th Before Melun, Lagny, Sortie against Franquet d'Arras, Senlis,
Compiègne, Pont l'Evêque, Soissons, Compiègne.
MAY.
Lagny, Crecy, Compiègne.
28th Sortie from Compiègne against Margny and Clairvoix.
JUNE, JULY.
At Beaulieu-en-Vermandois.
AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, AND NOVEMBER.
Beaurevoir, Arras, Drugy, near Saint Riquier, Le Crotoy.
DECEMBER.
Saint Valéry-sur-Somme, Eu, Dieppe, Rouen.
1431.
JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, APRIL, AND MAY.
Rouen.
Sismondi devotes a part of the thirteenth volume of his _History of
France_, published between 1821 and 1844, to the Maid of Orleans. He
sums up the action of the Church to her in these words: 'The Church
was against the Maid. All persons not delegated by her who pretended
to have supernatural powers were accused of using magical arts.'
Barante in his famous history of the Dukes of Burgundy, published in
1824, gives a somewhat meagre and uninteresting account of Joan of
Arc. In 1821 appeared a _Life_ of the heroine, by Jollois, under whose
direction the little monument was placed at Domremy in honour of the
Maid.
Alexandre Dumas has left among his numberless works a Life of _Johanne
la Pucelle,_ which is neither true history nor romance, but a jumble
of both, and is a work hardly worthy the author, but there are some
fine expressions in the book. Dumas christened Joan of Arc 'The Christ
of France.' Michelet in the fifth volume of his _Histoire de France_
published in 1841, has written what will probably always be considered
the best account of the Maid. Although only one hundred and thirty
pages are given to her life, these pages form a book in themselves,
and as a separate volume Michelet's _Life of Joan of Arc_ has gone
through a large number of editions, the latest a handsome illustrated
one, published by Hachette in 1888.
One cannot help regretting that so great a writer should allow his
Anglophobism to appear to such an extent in some of the pages of his
work. Michelet attacks the entire English nation as if they had been
individually and collectively guilty of Joan of Arc's death. He even
goes out of his way to abuse English literature in this amazing
passage: 'De Shakespeare à Milton, de Milton à Byron leur belle et
simple littérature est sceptique, judaïque, satanique.' It is
pitiable that so distinguished a writer as was Michelet should pen
such rubbish, but when a Frenchman writes on the subject of Joan of
Arc much should be forgiven him. More serious than the abuse of the
English in Michelet's work are the inaccuracies in his account of Joan
of Arc. For instance, he writes of the heroine watching the English
coast from her prison in the castle of Crotoy. Her eyesight must have
been telescopic had she been able to do so, for eighty miles of sea
stretch between the site of Crotoy and the English coast.
We next come to Henry Martin's history of France. In this work a third
part of the sixth volume is consecrated to Joan of Arc, whom he calls
the 'Messiah of France.'
M. Wallon, however, is the writer who has given France the most
complete biography of her heroine. This work, published by Hachette,
had in 1879 attained its fifth edition. A most sumptuously illustrated
edition appeared in 1876, one of those splendidly illustrated books in
which the French press has no rival. That book is the finest monument
which has appeared to honour the memory of the Maid of Orleans. Its
illustrations contain views of all places and memorials connected with
the heroine from the fifteenth to the middle of the nineteenth
century. The text of Wallon's Life is, however, wanting in charm, and
it is, as M. Veuillot writes of it, 'un livre sérieuse et solide.'
Sainte-Beuve has been still more severe in his judgment on Wallon's
book, which he calls 'la faiblesse même.'
Some slighter histories may be alluded to: one by Lamartine, unworthy
of the author and the subject; another by M. Abel Desjardins; a third
by Villaume; a fourth by M. Lafontaine. There is an interesting study
by Simon Luce on Joan of Arc's early years; and last, but certainly
not least, the three works by M. Joseph Fabre, relating to Joan of
Arc's life, her trial, her condemnation, and her rehabilitation. In
the two last works the whole of the long examination appears for the
first time, translated into French from the Latin--documents
invaluable to any one studying the heroine's life.
In England little has been written in prose relating to Joan of Arc
that will be likely to live. The early chroniclers were monstrously
unjust to her. It is enough to allude to the lying and scurrilous
abuse which such writers as Robert Fabyan, in his chronicles on the
history of England and of France, published in 1516, heaped upon Joan
of Arc. Hall's and Holinshed's chronicles, from which the author of
the First Part of _King Henry VI._ borrowed so largely, sinned as
deeply. Hall's authorities among French writers were Monstrelet,
Bouchet, Mayer, Argentan, Gile Corozet, and the annals of France and
Aquitaine--and of English writers, Fabyan, Caxton, John Harding, Sir
Thomas More, Basset, Balantyne, and the Chronicle of London.
The annalist Stow, Hume's 'honest historian,' is less unjust and
bitter in his account of Joan of Arc than are Hall and Holinshed.
Thomas Fuller appears not to have settled to his satisfaction whether
Joan of Arc was a witch or a heroine.
In the seventeenth century we have only a handful of poor writers who
have treated more or less badly of the Maid, such as Daniel, Martyn,
and Sir Richard Baker. It is not until well into the eighteenth
century that a man of letters appears capable of giving an
unprejudiced and true history of the life of Joan of Arc: this
historian is Guthrie, who published, between the years 1744 and 1751,
a long history of England. M. Darmesteter has named this author 'a
village Bossuet.'
Coming to our own days we have quite a crowd of writers who have
written with enthusiasm on the Maid of Domremy. It is sufficient to
name the most prominent of these--Landor, Sir James Mackintosh, John
Sterling, Lord Mahon, De Quincey, and J.R. Green.
No. II.
_JOAN OF ARC IN POETRY._
The Maid of Orleans (though a more poetical figure cannot be found in
all history) has not been more fortunate at the hands of the poets
than at those of the historians.
To begin with her own countrywoman--for the first who sang of Joan of
Arc was appropriately enough a fellow-countrywoman--Christine de
Pisan.
As the name indicates, this poetess was an Italian by origin, but
appears to have lived most of her life in France. The latter part she
passed in a convent.
In the year 1429, Christine was sixty-seven years old; she had been
living in some conventual establishment for eleven years. Her verses
in praise of Joan of Arc--which number several hundred stanzas--were
undoubtedly written in the heroine's life-time. They are supposed to
have been the last lines she wrote. These stanzas were completed
shortly after the coronation of Charles VII. A manuscript copy of this
poem exists in which Joan of Arc is compared to Deborah, Judith, and
Queen Esther. These poems are curious and quaint in their old French
expressions, but they are quite unreadable for any but French students
well versed in the literature of the fifteenth century.
In 1440, Martin le France, provost of the Cathedral of Lausanne,
bestows some lines on Joan of Arc in his poem called the _Champion des
dames_. In 1487, Martial de Paris published, under the title of
_Vigiles du roi Charles VII._, a rhymed translation of Jean
Chartrier's chronicle of that monarch.
Villon has left some charming lines in which he has placed the
heroine's name as it were on a string of pearls; they occur in his
exquisite ballad 'Dames du temps jadis,' and, as it would be
profanation to try and translate, I give them here in the original:--
'La Reine blanche comme un lys
Qui chantait à voix de sirène,
Berthe au grand pied, Biétris, Allis,
Haremburge qui tint le Maine,
Et Jeanne la bonne Lorraine
Qu' Anglais brûlèrent à Rouen,
Où sont-ils, vierge souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?'
Long before those beautiful lines were written by Villon, a play
called _Le Mystère du Siège d'Orléans_ had been acted. As early as the
year 1435 this performance appears to have taken place on the
anniversary of the deliverance of the city, and the dramatic piece was
probably acted on the return of that day for many a year after. This
was one of the so-called 'Miracle Plays,' popular both in France and
in England at that period. The author or authors of the play are not
known.
Some one has taken the trouble to count the number of lines: they
amount to 20,529, and are all in dialogue!
Whether the unfortunate audience had to sit all through this
performance one does not know. One hopes, for their sake, that, like a
Chinese play or a Bayreuth performance of Wagner's operas, the
performance was extended over a number of days.
Joan is naturally the heroine throughout; she first appears as the
bearer of the Divine mandate to drive the enemy from off the sacred
soil of France. The play closes with her triumphant return to Orleans
after the victory of Patay. As far as the mission is concerned the
play is historically correct, and it is in this respect an improvement
on Shakespeare and Schiller. There is a point of great interest
concerning this piece which, so far as we know, has never been
noticed--namely, the fact of one of its acts being almost identical
with one in the First Part of _King Henry VI_. In the mystery play the
scene of this act is laid before Orleans. The French are determined to
defend their city to the last; the English are determined on taking
it. We are in front of the besieged and the besiegers. Salisbury has
entered the Tournelles, and he looks out over the city from a window
in the tower. Glansdale ('Glassidas') stands beside him, and says to
Salisbury, 'Look to your right, and to your left--it looks like a
terrestrial paradise, all this country flowing with milk and honey;
you will soon be its master.' Salisbury expresses his satisfaction at
the sight of all the plunder at his feet, and gives vent to some very
sanguinary sentiments about the French; he will slay every one in the
place--all the men, 'et leurs femmes et leurs enfants. Personne je
n'épargnerai.' But scarcely has he been able to give vent to this
terrible threat when his head is carried off by a cannon ball fired
from the town. The English cry out 'Ha! Hay! maudite journée!'
Earl Salisbury is carried out stiff and stark. Talbot and the other
English officers now vow vengeance on the French in these words:--
'Ha, Sallebery, noble coraige!
Ta mort nous sera vendue chère,
Jamais un tel de ton paraige,
Ne se trouvera en frontière.'
If we turn to Scene 4 of the first act of Shakespeare's First Part of
_King Henry VI._, we shall find almost the same scene enacted.
Enter on the turrets, Lord Salisbury, Talbot, etc. Salisbury, after
welcoming Talbot, calls on Sir William Glansdale to look down into the
town, and while conversing the shot is fired which kills Salisbury.
After the death of Salisbury, Talbot vows vengeance on the French, and
says he will
'Nero-like
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.'
There can be little doubt that whoever wrote the First Part of _King
Henry VI._ had seen the mystery play of the _Siege of Orleans_ acted
in that town. This brings one to the much debated question, 'Who wrote
the First Part of _King Henry VI._?'
There can be no doubt that Shakespeare had studied both Hall's and
Holinshed's chronicles. The former styled Joan of Arc 'a monstrous
woman,' and also suggested that fine passage beginning 'Why ring not
the bells throughout the town?' We are of those who would wish to
believe that our greatest poet had but little hand in delineating the
French heroine of all time as she is described in Hall and in
Holinshed, and to believe that he left the play--originally written,
we think, by Greene--very much as he found it. It is not indeed till
the fifth act, when Joan is represented as a magician, and when the
grotesqueness of the author passes even the limits of burlesque, that
we fail to see a shred of the poet's skill. Nothing in Shakespeare is
at once so unpoetical as well as so untrue to history as the last
scene, in which Joan repudiates her father. If it is by
Shakespeare--which we cannot believe--it must have been one of the
very earliest of his historical plays; and, with Ben Jonson, we could
wish that the passages referring to the Maid of Orleans had been
freely blotted.
The era of the Renaissance brought with it in France no poets to sing
of Joan of Arc, and we only find--besides the mystery play of the
_Siege of Orleans_--one literary work relating to her at this period;
that is a five-act tragedy written by a Jesuit priest named Fronton du
Duc, a gloomy piece, which was acted in 1580 at Pont-à-Mousson. In the
beginning of the seventeenth century appeared another tragedy by a
Norman squire named Virey: it was titled _Jeanne d'Arques, dite la
Pucelle d'Orléans_. This very mellifluous production was published at
Rouen in the year 1600.
Another tragedy on the same subject appeared in 1642, written by the
Abbé d'Aubignac--a very pedantic play.
Next appears an 'heroic poem' by Chapelain, published in 1656,
entitled _La Pucelle_. Great things had been expected of this poem,
but it fell very flat after a long expectancy of thirty years when it
at length saw the light. Chapelain's ridiculous poem gave the idea to
Voltaire of his licentious one.
Even Voltaire was ashamed of his work, and long denied that he was its
author. As a very slight reparation for his deed, he writes of Joan of
Arc in his _Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des natives_, that the
heroine would have had altars built in the days when altars were
erected by primitive men to their liberators.
Southey, referring to Voltaire's infamous production, said, 'I never
committed the crime of reading Voltaire's _Pucelle_.'
After all, Voltaire did infinitely more harm to himself by writing his
poem _La Pucelle_ than he did to the memory of the Maid of Orleans,
for it revealed to the world what an amount of depravity was mixed up
within that wonderful shrewd mind, and how it weakened its genius. The
great Revolution which swept so many shams away with its terrible
breath, venerated, to its honour be it said, both the spirit of
humanity displayed by the poet-philosopher and the spirit of
patriotism that possessed the virgin heroine and martyr.
In 1795 appeared Southey's heroic play on Joan of Arc. That drama is
more a glorification of the principles of the French Revolution than
of Joan of Arc. There is no attempt made to follow out her history.
The play contains a love episode due entirely to the youthful poet's
imagination, but it contains fine passages as well, and seems to us to
have merited more praise from posterity than it has received.
Schiller's play, like Southey's, sins grievously as far as historical
truth is concerned. The German poet wishes, it seems, to remove the
bad impression made by Voltaire's poem. The play was first performed
on the stage at Weimar in 1801; and the _Jungfrau von Orleans_ met
with considerable success. It contains noble lines, but is
historically a mere travesty of the life and death of the heroine.
In 1815 Casimir Delavigne wrote, as a counterblast to the double
invasion that France had just undergone, his well known _Messeniennes_
to the honour of the French heroine. These poems had a great success,
the second being the most admired; but they are now forgotten. Two
other dramatic poets followed in Delavigne's steps: these were
d'Avrigni and Soumet. By the former appeared, in 1819, a tragedy in
five acts and in verse; it was performed at the Théâtre Français.
Soumet's play was also acted; it almost equals d'Avrigni's in length
and tediousness.
Besides the above tragedies which had, as the French term it, the
honour of seeing the light of the footlights, Desnoyers wrote a play
on Joan of Arc in 1841, and was followed by a series of other writers
in verse and in prose--Caze, Dumolard, Maurin, Cramar, Hédouville,
Millot, Lequesme, Crepot, Puymaigre, Porchat, Haldy, Renard, Jouve,
Cozic, Daniel Stern, Bousson de Maviet, Constant Materne. All the
above wrote plays and tragedies on the subject of Joan of Arc between
the years 1805 and 1862. Daniel Stern was the only authoress who
composed a drama in honour of the heroine.
While all this _galimatias_ of dramas has sunk into the limbo which
waits for all such work, Villon's two lines remain as bright as the
day on which, four centuries ago, he wrote them:--
'Jeanne la bonne Lorraine,
Qu' Anglais brûlèrent à Rouen.'
Some plays on the subject of the Maid of Orleans also appeared in
Italy and in England, but none is likely to retain a long hold of the
stage. The drama of Joan of Arc's life has inspired two of the
greatest masters of music of our day. Verdi set a tragedy by Solera to
music in 1845, and in 1869 Gounod wrote some music for a piece by
Jules Barbier, which was performed with some success at the Gaîté
Théâtre in Paris in 1873.
What will always remain an unfortunate fact in the history of modern
literature is that the two greatest minds of England and France have
written on the subject of the Maid of Orleans lines which--for their
fame--it were well they had never written. Whether Shakespeare
composed the First Part of _King Henry VI._ may for long remain a
disputed point, but he is responsible for that play, and consequently
for the manner in which Joan of Arc is treated in it. No genius can
pardon or excuse the abuse and filth with which Voltaire bespatters
the immortal memory of the glorious Maid of Orleans.
Voltaire's attack on Church and State had much to excuse them in his
day; but that on Joan of Arc was entirely unwarranted, uncalled for,
and unpardonable. Still, could Joan have known the offence and the
offender, we have no doubt she would have forgiven the ribaldry and
the ribald as freely as she forgave all her enemies.
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ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOAN OF ARC.
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London, 1866. 8vo.
Charles, Mrs. E., 'Joan of Arc: A Story of the Fifteenth Century.'
London, 1879. 8vo.
'Commines, Philip de, The Memoirs of.' 2 vols. London, 1855. 12mo.
Davenport-Adams, W.H., 'The Maid of Orleans.' London, 1889. 8vo.
Delepierre, Joseph Octave, 'Historical Difficulties and Contested
Events.' London, 1868. 8vo.
Doran, John, 'Knights and their Days.' London, 1856. 8vo.
Fuller, Thomas, 'The Holy State and the Profane State.' London,
1840. 8vo. pp. 341.
Guizot, F.P.G., 'The History of France from the Earliest Times to
the year 1789.' Translated by R. Black. London, 1870. 8vo.
Jameson, Mrs. A., 'Lives of Celebrated Sovereigns.' London, 1834.
12mo.
'Joan of Arc: The Story of a Noble Life.' Edinburgh, 1871. 12mo.
Maceroni, Cecilia, 'Illustrations from the History of the Maid of
Orleans.' London, 1854. 8vo.
Owen, Emily, 'Heroines of History.' London, 1877. 8vo.
Parr, Harriet, 'The Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc.' London, 1866. 8vo.
Parton, James, 'The People's Book of Biography.' New York, 1869. 8vo.
Pauli, Rheinhold, 'Pictures of Old England.' Translated by E.C.
Otté. London, 1861. 8vo.
Quincey, T. de, 'Miscellaneous Essays: Joan of Arc.' London, 1865. 8vo.
Russell, Wm., 'Extraordinary Women.' London, 1857. 8vo.
R., C.L., 'The Story of Joan of Arc.' London, 1860. 16mo.
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4to.
Stanhope, P.H. (5th Earl), 'The Life of Joan of Arc.' London, 1853.
8vo.
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12mo.
Tuckey, Janet, 'Life of Joan of Arc.' London, 1880. 8vo.
* * * * *
MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON JOAN OF ARC.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, vol. xlvii. p. 284 (1841).
_Dublin Review_, vol. lx. p. 118 (1866).
_Dublin University Magazine_, vol. lxxxix. p. 417 (1876).
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, Article, 'Joan of Arc.'
_Temple Bar_, vol. xxi. p. 380 (1867).
_Fortnightly Review_, vol. vi. p. 632 (1866).
_Harper's Magazine_, vol. lxiii. p. 91 (1881).
INDEX
INDEX.
Adam, De l'Isle, commander of the Burgundian soldiers in Paris, 107
Albret, Sire d', assists Joan of Arc at the siege of Saint
Pierre-le-Moutier, 115
Alençon, Duke of, entrusted with the command of the expedition on the
Loire, 73, 74;
his personal safety vouchsafed by Joan of Arc, 76;
accompanies the King to Rheims, 85;
testifies to the military talents of Joan, 95;
gives evidence at the trial for her rehabilitation, 265
Alessée, John, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 147
Alnwick, William, Bishop of Norwich, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 148
Anjou, Duke of, his sympathy with Joan of Arc, 30
Anjou, René d', 111
Arc, origin of the name, 4
Arc, Isabeau d' (mother of Joan of Arc), her influence upon her
daughter, 5;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 256
Arc, Jacques d' (father of Joan of Arc), his social position, 4;
his death, 255
Arc, Joan of. _See_ Joan of Arc
Arc, John d' (brother of Joan of Arc), 37;
at the trial for her rehabilitation, 256, 285
Arc, Peter d' (brother of Joan of Arc), 37;
taken prisoner with his sister, 125;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 256
Armagnac, Thibauld d', Sire de Thermes, 40;
at the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 274
Arnolin, Henri, priest, 260
Arras, Bishop of, 106
Arundel, Earl of, threatens the town of Compiègne, 122
Aubert, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
Aubignac, Abbé d', his tragedy on Joan of Arc, 306
Auguy, Raoul, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 147
Aulon, John d', esquire of Joan of Arc, 37, 56, 57;
rescues his mistress, 115;
taken prisoner with her, 125, 134;
gives evidence at the trial for her rehabilitation, 257, 271
Aunoy, Arnoult d', Celibat of the Monastery of Saint
Urban-les-Joinville, 21
Averdy, Clément de l', 292
Avét, John de Saint, Bishop of Avranches, assessor at the trial of
Joan of Arc, 145
Avrigni, D', dramatic poet, 308
Aymeri, William, doctor of theology, 33
Bailly, Nicolas, scrivener, 260
Baker, Sir Richard, English writer, 300
Bar, Count de, 3
Barante, historian, 297
Barbier, Robert, canon of Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 147
Barbier, Jean, King's Advocate, 224;
at the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 263
Barbier, Jules, 309
Barrey, John, godfather of Joan of Arc, 258
Basin, Thomas, Bishop of Lisieux, quoted for Joan of Arc's belief in
the reality of her visions, 8
Basset, John, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Baubribosc, William de, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan
of Arc, 147
Baudricourt, Robert de, 9;
his first interview with Joan of Arc, 12;
second interview, 14;
presents her with his sword, 21
Beaucharnys, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
Beaucharnys, Petronillé, 274
Beaucroix, Simon, at the trial for rehabilitation, 272
Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Winchester. _See_ Winchester.
Beaupère, John, canon at Besançon, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 145;
examines and cross-questions her, 158;
seeks to effect her abjuration, 227;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 276
Bedford, Duke of, sends Fastolfe to Suffolk's assistance at Jargeau, 75;
takes refuge in the fortress of Vincennes, 100;
appeals for help to the Duke of Burgundy and the Bishop of
Winchester, 101;
advances from Paris, 103;
returns there, 105;
leaves for Normandy, 107;
comes to terms with the Duke of Burgundy, 114;
invokes the aid of the Church against Joan of Arc, 130
Bellarme, Martin, Dominican priest, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 143
Bellier, William, bailiff of Troyes, 89
Bellow, J., cited, 150
Benel, Abbot of Courcelles, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Bergame, Philip de, Augustinian monk, 289
Berwoit, John, attendant on Joan of Arc, 149, 157
Bibliography of Joan of Arc: French, 311;
English, 320
Boissel, Guérold de, 225
Bonart, Hervé, canon at Orleans, 274
Bonnet, John, priest, 282
Bonnet, Simon, Bishop of Senlis, 32
Bordez, André, canon at Rouen, 274
Boucher, Charlotte, bedfellow of Joan of Arc, at the trial for
rehabilitation, 273
Boucher, James, host of Joan of Arc in Orleans, 52
Boucher, Mary le, 122
Bouchier, Peter, priest, 282
Boulogne, Count of, accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Boussac, Marshal de (Saint-Sévère), 40, 47, 58, 75
Boyleau, Joan, 273
Brullot, John, canon at Rouen, assessor at trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Buchon, 291, 292
Burgundy, Philip, Duke of, his trimming conduct after the coronation
at Rheims, 102;
comes to terms with Bedford, 114;
intrigues to obtain possession of Compiègne, 121;
hands over Joan of Arc to the English, 137
Cabu, Gentien, burgher of Orleans, 273
Cagny, Perceval de, cited, 66
Calixtus III., Pope, sanctions the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 254
Canelier, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
Castiglione, Zanon de, Bishop of Lisieux, assessor at the trial of
Joan of Arc, 145, 213
Cauchon, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais, 106;
his early career, 131;
offered preferment by Winchester, 132;
ransoms Joan of Arc for the English, 133;
resolves that her trial shall take place in Rouen, 141;
constitution of his tribunal, 143;
his policy at the beginning of the trial, 150, 151;
his opening speech, 153;
his examination of the Maid, 154 _et seq._;
fails to attach guilt to her in the public trial, 187;
subjects her to a secret examination in prison, 188;
contents of his letter of indictment to the University of Paris, 208;
tries to extort her submission in illness, 215;
decides to put her to the torture, 221;
commended for his zealous conduct, 226;
seeks to effect her abjuration, 227;
absolves her from excommunication, 235;
interviews her in prison, 238;
hands her over to the secular powers, 248
Caval, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 282
Censurey, Peter de la, canon at Rouen, 274
Chapelain, his 'heroic poem' on the Maid, 306
Charles II., Duke of Lorraine, seeks an interview with Joan of Arc, 17
Charles V. of France, 1
Charles VI. of France, 1
Charles the Dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.),
protests against the dismemberment of France, 1;
his wretched condition at the beginning of 1429, 23;
interview with Joan of Arc at Chinon, 28;
presents her with a suit of armour, 37;
meets her after the delivery of Orleans, 70;
sets out for Rheims, 83;
is crowned there, 91;
ennobles Joan, 98;
vacillating conduct, 102;
marches on Paris, 104;
retreats to Gien, 114;
takes measures for the rehabilitation of the Maid, 253;
real object in doing so, 271
Charles, Simon, Master of the Requests, 263
Charlet, 292
Charnettes, Lebrun les, historian, 292
Charron, William le, burgher of Orleans, 272
Chartres, Regnault de, Archbishop of Rheims, 32;
accompanies Joan of Arc to Blois, 46;
tries to thwart her mission, 55;
meets Charles VII. on his entry into Rheims, 90;
makes a truce with the English, 111;
announces the capture of the Maid to the citizens of Rheims, 128
Chartrier, William, Bishop of Paris, appointed a commissioner for the
rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 255
Chatillon, Archdeacon of Evreux, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149;
his sermon before Joan, 219
Chauvigny, Seigneur de, accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Chinon, the Castle of, 22
Clermont, Count of, accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85, 111
Coaraze, 40
Colin, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Colin, John, priest, 262
Colles, William, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 144, 151;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 279
Columbel, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Compaing, Peter, canon at Orleans, 274
Compiègne, the town of, 122
Contes, Louis de, page of Joan, 37, 268
Conti, De, Abbot of Sainte Catherine, Assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 148
Coppequesne, Nicolas, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 147, 224
Cormeilles, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Coulant, 40
Coulon, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
Coulon, Guillemette de, 273
Courcelles, Thomas de, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc,
145, 150, 202, 224, 235;
nature of his evidence at the trial for rehabilitation, 275
Cousinot, G., Chancellor of the Duke of Orleans, 291
Crique, Peter de, Prior of Sigy, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Crotoy, Le, importance of, to the English in the fifteenth century, 139
Crotoy, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Culan, Louis, Admiral de, accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Cusquel, Peter, burgher of Rouen, 284
Dacier, Abbot of Saint Corneille of Compiègne, assessor at the trial
of Joan of Arc, 148, 222
Daniel, English writer, 300
Darmesteter, M., cited, 300
Daron, Peter, attorney, 283
Daval, William, priest, at the trial for rehabilitation, 281
David, Jesuit priest, 291
De Champcoux, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
De Commy, Cosmé, burgher of Orleans, 273
Delachambre, William, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 278;
Joan of Arc's doctor, _ib._
Delavigne, Casimir, his poems on Joan of Arc, 307
Desjardins, Abel, biographer of Joan of Arc, 299
Desnoyers, dramatist, 308
Desprès, John, 257
Domremy, birthplace of Joan of Arc, 3
Du Bellay, French writer, cited, 285, 289
Dubesert, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 282
Duchemin, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Du Duc, Fronton, his tragedy on Joan of Arc, 306
Du Fay, Geoffrey, knight, 261
Dufresnoy, Abbé Longlet, his Life of Joan of Arc, 292
Du Lys, Charles, descendant of the Arc family, 290
Dumas, Alexandre, his Life of Joan of Arc, 297
Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, commander of the French troops in Orleans,
36, 40;
interview with Joan of Arc at Reuilly, 51;
goes to Blois to bring up reinforcements, 54;
attacks the Tournelles, 62, 75;
testifies to the military talents of Joan, 95;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 266
Durement, Abbot of Fécamp, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Edward III. of England, 1
Emenyart, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149, 212
Epinal, Gerardin d', village companion of Joan of Arc, 89, 258
Epinal, Isabellette d', friend of Joan of Arc, 258
Erard, William, canon of Beauvais, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 149;
opposed to applying the torture to her, 224;
preaches on the occasion of Joan's abjuration, 230, 232
Erault, John, 35
Esbalny, Jacques l', burgher of Orleans, 273
Estelin, Beatrix d', godmother of Joan of Arc, 258
Estivet, John d', surnamed 'Bénédicité,' at trial of Joan of Arc, 143
Estouteville, Cardinal d', 254
Fabre, Joseph, historian, cited, 164, 258, 266, 284;
his works on Joan of Arc, 299
Fabyan, Robert, English writer, 299
Farciaux, Robert de, canon, 274
Fastolfe, Sir John, at the siege of Orleans, 43;
sent to Jargeau to reinforce Suffolk, 75;
joins forces with Talbot, 78;
defeated at the battle of Patay, 80;
disgraced, 100
Fauconbridge, clerk of the French Parliament, quoted, 68
Fave, Jean, Master of Requests, 284
Feuillet, Gerard, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 146
Fèvre, Le, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149
Fiexvet, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149
Flavigny, William de, governor of Compiègne, 121, 123, 124;
his supposed treachery towards Joan, 127
Fontaine, John de la, at the trial of Joan of Arc, 143;
secretly examines her in prison, 188;
flies from the wrath of Couchon, 194
Fournier, Jean, priest, testifies in favour of Joan of Arc, 16
France, state of, in 1420, 1
France, Martin le, 302
Franquet d'Arras, English freebooter, captured by Joan of Arc, 120
Fremiet, sculptor, 110
Frique, Abbot of Bee, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Fuller, Thomas, 300
Fumeux, Jean le, priest, testifies to the piety of Joan of Arc, 17;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 262
Gargrave, Sir Thomas, mortally wounded in the attack on Orleans, 42
Garin, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Garivel, Francis, at the trial for rehabilitation, 264
Gastinel, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148, 224
Gaucourt, Raoul de, Grand Master of the King's Household, 40;
closes the Burgundy Gate at Orleans against Joan of Arc, 61, 75;
at the trial for her rehabilitation, 268
Gerard, Henriette, friend of Joan of Arc, 258
Giresme, Nicolas de, knight of Rhodes, in the attack on the Tournelles, 64
Glansdale, Sir William, succeeds Salisbury in the command of the
English forces before Orleans, 42, 59;
drowned in the Loire, 65
Gloucester, Duke of, English Protector, 101
Godart, Raoul, canon at Rouen, 274
Godefroy, Denis, 291
'Godon,' the French sobriquet for the English, 61
Gounod, 309
Grasset, Peter, governor of La Charité, 116
Graverent, John, Dominican priest and Grand Inquisitor of France, at
the trial of Joan of Arc, 143
Graville, De, 58
Green, J.R., 300
Greene, Robert, dramatist, 305
Gris, John, English knight, personal attendant on Joan of Arc, 149, 157
Grouchet, Richard de, priest, 282
Guerdon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149
Guesdon, Laurent, clerk and advocate to the lay court of Rouen, 284
Guillemeth, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Guthrie, his Life of Joan of Arc, 300
Haillon, French writer, 289
Haiton, William, English priest, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc,
148, 222, 224
Hall, English historian, quoted, for the delivery of Orleans, 66, 299
Harcourt, Christophe d', Bishop of Castres, confessor of Charles VII., 71
Henry II. of England, 26
Henry III. of England, his death at Chinon, 25
Henry V. of England, his position in France in 1420, 1, 39
Henry VI. of England, 100, 137
Herrings, the battle of the, 44
Hilaire, John, burgher of Orleans, 273
Hire, La, 40;
persuaded to break off swearing by Joan of Arc, 46;
assists in the attack on the Tournelles, 62;
leads the van at the battle of Patay, 80;
accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Holinshed, English writer, 299
Hordal, John, descendant of the Arc family, 291
Houppeville, Nicolas de, doctor of theology, 278
Hue, Peter, burgher of Orleans, 273
Illiers, Florent d', 53
Ingres, his picture of Joan of Arc, 92
Inquisition, the, resolve to prosecute Joan of Arc as a sorceress and
idolatress, 130
Jacquard, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Jacquier, native of Domremy, 261
Jacquier, Guillot, 262
Joan of Arc, her birth and parentage, 3;
her amiable character, 5;
devotion to religious duties, 6;
first visions, 7;
her belief in their reality, 8;
interviews with Baudricourt, 11, 14;
visits Duke Charles of Lorraine, 17;
her popularity at Vaucouleurs, 18;
her equipment, 19;
sets out for Chinon, 20;
opposed by La Tremoïlle, 24;
arrival at Chinon, 25;
interview with the King, 26;
favourably impresses him, 29;
trains herself in military exercises, 30;
examined at Poitiers before the French Parliament, 32;
her mission sanctioned, 36;
prepares her standard, 37;
arrives at Blois, 46;
despatches a letter to the Duke of Bedford, 47;
her interview with Dunois before Orleans, 51;
enthusiastic entry into the city, 52;
summons the English to surrender, 53;
meets Dunois with the relieving forces, 55;
her first engagement, 57;
carries the Bastille des Augustins, 59;
prophesies she will be wounded, 60;
leads the attack on the Tournelles, 62;
wounded, 63;
rallies the wavering French, 64;
compels the English to raise the siege, 65;
returns to Chinon, 69;
urges Charles VII. to go to Rheims, 70;
leads the expedition on the Loire, 73;
storms and takes Jargeau, 75;
gains the battle of Patay, 80;
sets out for Rheims with Charles, 84;
the enforced halt before Troyes, 85;
expresses her fear of treachery, 89;
at the King's coronation in Rheims cathedral, 91;
her military talents, 94;
her humane conduct in war, 96;
ennobled by Charles, 98;
advises the latter to march on Paris, 101;
writes to the Duke of Burgundy for assistance, 102;
resolves to attempt to take Paris, 107;
her impetuous onslaught, 109;
again wounded, 110;
deposits her armour and arms in the fane of Saint Denis, 113;
assaults and captures the fortress of Saint Pierre-le-Moutier, 115;
fails to take La Charité, 117;
her simplicity and freedom from egotism, _ib._;
captures an English freebooter and his band at Lagny, 120;
received with joy in Compiègne, 122;
attacks the Burgundians at Margny, 124;
driven back from Clairvoix, 124;
taken prisoner, 125;
removed to the castle of Beaulieu, in Picardy, 129;
handed over to Peter Cauchon, 133;
attempts to escape, 135, 136;
delivered to the English, 138;
taken to Rouen, 141;
barbarously treated, 142;
demands that her judges should be equally divided in nationality, 153;
her answers to Cauchon and Beaupère, 154 _sq._;
secretly interrogated in prison, 188;
continued maltreatment, 196;
the twelve articles on which her condemnation was founded, 207;
falls ill in prison, 214;
again interrogated by Cauchon, 215;
threatened with torture, 221;
condemned by the University of Paris, 225;
her abjuration, 228 _sq._;
discards her male attire, 236;
roughly treated by her guard, _ib._;
her forgiving nature, 239;
is apprised of her fate, 243;
upbraids Cauchon, _ib._;
confesses and receives the sacrament, 244;
pardons Loiseleur, 246;
handed over to the secular powers, 248;
implores pardon for her enemies, _ib._;
her martyrdom, 250;
the trial for her rehabilitation, 253 _sq._
Jocab, Dominic, curate, 261
Jolivet, Abbot of St. Michel's Mount, Normandy, assessor at the trial
of Joan of Arc, 148
Jollois, historian, 297
Jonqualt, Peter, burgher at Orleans, 273
Jonson, Ben, cited for the authorship of the First Part of _King Henry
VI._, 304
Jouvenel des Ursins, John, Archbishop of Rheims, appointed
commissioner for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 255
Joyart, Mengette, friend of Joan of Arc, 258
Labbé, Abbot of Saint George de Bocherville, assessor at the trial of
Joan of Arc, 148
Laclopssé, Bertrand, thatcher, 261
Ladvenu, Martin, Dominican priest, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 149;
cited for her brutal treatment in prison, 238;
sent to apprise her of her fate, 243;
receives her confession and administers the sacrament, 244;
attends her to execution, 245;
at the trial for her rehabilitation, 280
La Fontaine, biographer of Joan of Arc, 299
Laiguise, John, Bishop of Troyes, offers to capitulate Troyes to King
Charles VII., 88
Lamartine, 299
Landor, Walter Savage, 300
Langart, John de, godfather of Joan of Arc, 258
Laval, Count Guy de, cited, 73;
accompanies the King to Rheims, 85
Laxart, Durand, cousin of Joan of Arc, 11;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 261
Lebourg, William, prior, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Le Cuin, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Ledoux, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148, 224
Le France, Martin, French poet, 300
Le Fèvre, Jean, bishop, at the trial for rehabilitation, 276
Lemaître, Husson, coppersmith, 275
Lemaître, John, Dominican prior, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc,
143, 157, 188, 224
Lenozoles, John de, priest, 282
Lepage, Bastien, his picture of Joan of Arc, 12
Leroux, abbot of Jumièges, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Leroy, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Lessarmentrer, Mauger, chief torturer of Rouen, at the trial for
rehabilitation, 282
Ligny, John de, 128;
transfers Joan of Arc to his castle of Beaurevoir, 135;
delivers her into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, 137;
taunts her in prison, 142
Lisle, Lancelot de, at the siege of Orleans, 43
Loheac, Seigneur de, accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Lohier, John, threatened by Cauchon for his sympathy with Joan of Arc, 199
Loiseleur, Nicolas, canon of Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 146;
his infamous conduct, _ib._, 197;
his remorse, 199;
intent on torture, 222, 224;
seeks to effect her abjuration, 227, 232, 235;
asks pardon of her, 246
Lombard, Jean, professor of theology, 33
Longueil, Richard de, Bishop of Coutances, appointed a commissioner
for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 255
Luce, Simeon, cited, 14, 299
Luillier, John, at the trial for rehabilitation, 272
Luxembourg, John of, 106
Luxembourg, Louis of, Bishop of Thérouanne, in command of the English
soldiers in Paris, 107;
consents to the sale of Joan of Arc to the English, 133;
an assessor at the trial of the Maid, 144
Machot, Gerard, Bishop of Castres, 32
Mackintosh, Sir James, 300
Maçon, Robert de, 71
Macquelonne, the Bishop of, 32
Macy, historian, cited, 142
Macy, Aimonde de, soldier, 283
Mahon, Lord, 300
Mailly, John de, Bishop of Noyon, assessor at trial of Joan of Arc, 144;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 276
Manchon, William, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 144, 151, 157, 209;
cited for the brutal treatment of her guard, 237, 238;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 279
Mansier, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Marcel, John, 284
'Margette,' the, 24
Marguerie, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148,
222, 224, 282
Marie, Thomas, priest, 282
Marin, Captain, cited, 112, 127
Martigny, Louis de, 216
Martin, Henry, historian, 298
Martyn, English writer, 300
Masle, Du, Abbot of Saint Ouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Masnier, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Massieu, John, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 144, 151, 153;
grants her permission to kneel at the prison chapel door, 197, 222;
urges her to abjure, 232;
cited for the brutal treatment of her guard, 237, 249;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 280
Maurice, Peter, 243
Metz, Jean de, becomes acquainted with Joan of Arc, 14;
escorts her to Chinon, 19;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 261
Mézarie, historian, 291
Michelet, cited, 3, 82, 121, 131, 187, 199, 236, 238, 291;
his Life of Joan of Arc, 297
Midi, Nicolas, D.D., assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 146;
his sermon on the eve of Joan's death, 246
Migiet, Peter, Prior of Longueville, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 148;
at trial for rehabilitation, 277
Milet, Peter, 274
Moen, John, of Domremy, 261
Monsteschère, John de, master gunner at the siege of Orleans, 43
Monstrelet, Enguerrand de, cited, 46, 129;
the most eminent writer against Joan of Arc, 289
Montaigne, cited, 12
Montgomery, commands the English forces before Compiègne, 123
Montjeu, Philibert de, Bishop of Coutances, assessor at the trial of
Joan of Arc, 145
Moreaux, John, burgher of Rouen, 284
Morel, Aubert, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148, 222, 224
Morel, John, village companion of Joan of Arc, 89
Morel de Greux, John, godfather of Joan of Arc, 258
Morellet, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Moret, Abbot of Préaux, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Morice, Peter, canon at Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc,
146, 226
Mystery play, the French, on Joan of Arc, 301
Nicolas V., Pope, opposed to the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, 254
Orleans, the siege of, begun by the English, 13;
enthusiasm of the people of, for Joan of Arc, 36;
its defences, 39;
horrors of the siege, 45;
the siege raised, 66, 68
Ourche, Albert d', knight, 261
Paris, Martial de, French poet, 301
Paris, University of. _See_ University
Parliament, French, at Poitiers, 31;
examine Joan of Arc, 32;
sanction her mission, 36
Pasquerel, Jean, cited, 27, 37;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 268
Pasquier, Stephen, French jurisconsult, 290
Patay, the battle of, 80
Perrin le Drassier, bell-ringer of Domremy, 260
Petitot, 291, 292
Pierre, Isambard de la, Dominican priest, assessor at the trial of
Joan of Arc, 149, 151;
his sympathy for her, 195, 224, 235;
cited for the brutal treatment of her guard, 238;
attends her last moments, 245, 249, 251;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 280
Pinchon, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Pisan, Christine de, poetess, 301
Poitiers, the Great Hall of, 31;
the Bishop of, 32
Pole, John de la, at the siege of Orleans, 43
Pole, William de la. _See_ Suffolk
Postel, William, French writer, 290
Postian, William, burgher of Orleans, 273
Pougoulat, 292
Poulangy, Bertrand de, 11;
escorts Joan of Arc on her journey to Chinon, 19;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 261
Prévosteau, advocate, at the trial for rehabilitation, 256
Quicherat, historian, cited, 24, 55, 291;
his literary labours, 292
Quincey, De, 300
Rabelais, connection with Chinon, 25
Rabuteau, Maître Jean, Parliamentary Advocate-General, 32
Radley, English officer, 107
Raimond, page of Joan, 37
Rainguesson, John, godfather of Joan of Arc, 258
Rais, Seigneur de, 47, 75;
accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85
Regnault, William, captures the Earl of Suffolk at Jargeau, 77
Rheims, coronation of Charles VII. at, 91
Rheims, the Archbishop of. _See_ Chartres, Regnault de
Richard, Father, his interview with Joan of Arc, 86
Richarville, Guillaume de, 274
Richemont, Constable de, joins the army of the Loire, 78
Richer, Edmond, doctor of theology, 291
Rochelle, Catherine de la, her deceit exposed by Joan of Arc, 118
Roger, Denis, burgher of Orleans, 273
Roquier, John, priest, 282
Rotslaer, Sire de, cited, 60
Rouillart, William, burgher of Orleans, 272
Roussel, 224
Rouvray, the Battle of the Herrings near, 44
Royer, Henry and Joan le, 261
Sainte-Beuve, cited, 2;
on Wallon's biography of Joan of Arc, 298
Saint-Mesmin, Aignan de, burgher of Orleans, 273
Saint-Prix, Berriat, historian, 293;
his itinerary of the last three years of the life of Joan of Arc, _ib._
Saint-Sévère, Marshal. _See_ Boussac.
Salisbury, commands the English forces before Orleans, 40;
mortally wounded, 42
Saulx, canon, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Savoy, Duke of, 106
Scales, Lord, at siege of Orleans, 42
Schiller, his _Jungfrau von Orleans_, 307
Sequier, Dominican monk, 32;
questions Joan, 33;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 263
Shakespeare and the character of Joan of Arc, 301, 309
Sionne, Etienne de, curate, 260
Sismondi, historian, 296
Solera, 309
Sorel, Agnes, 52
Soumet, dramatic poet, 308
Southey, cited, 306;
his heroic poem on Joan of Arc, 307
Stafford, Lord, visits Joan of Arc in prison, 142
Sterling, John, 300
Stern, Daniel, French authoress, 308
Stow, historian, 299
Stuart, John, Constable of Scotland, killed at the battle of the
Herrings, 45
Stuart, William, brother of the Constable of Scotland, killed at the
battle of the Herrings, 45
Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, commands the English forces
before Orleans, 43;
confronts the French at Jargeau, 75;
defeated and captured, 77
Talbot, Lord, at the siege of Orleans, 42;
withdraws his forces, 67;
joins hands with Fastolfe, 78;
defeated and taken prisoner, 80
Talbot, William, attendant on Joan of Arc, 149, 157
Taquel, Nicolas, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 144;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 280
Thépelin de Viteau, Jeannette, god-mother of Joan of Arc, 258
Theroude, Abbot of Mortemer, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 148
Thevenin le Royer, of Domremy, 261
Théverien, Jeannette, godmother of Joan of Arc, 258
Thibault, Gobert, 32, 264
Thierry, Reginald, court physician, 274
Thou, James de, burgher of Orleans, 273
Tilloy, Jamet de, French knight, 36
Tiphanie, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 149, 278
Touraine, James de, assessor at the trial of Joan of Arc, 146
Toutmouillé, John, apprises Joan of Arc of her fate, 243;
at the trial for rehabilitation, 281
Tremoïlle, George de la, minister of Charles VII., 23;
tries to thwart Joan of Arc in her mission, 24, 30, 55, 112;
alarmed at her ever-growing popularity, 83;
accompanies the King to Rheims, 85, 128
Troyes, the treaty of (1420), 1
Troyes, John de, senior of the Faculty of Theology in the University
of Paris, 224
University of Paris, aid in the prosecution of Joan of Arc, 130;
constitution of the, 134;
recommend the removal of Joan to Paris, 140;
their decision regarding her guilt, 224
Vaillant, Peter, burgher of Orleans, 273
Vaux, Pasquier de, canon, one of the tribunal on the trial of Joan of
Arc, 148
Venderès, Nicolas de, canon of Rouen, assessor at the trial of Joan of
Arc, 147, 222, 225
Vendôme, Comte de, Chamberlain to Charles VII., 27, 75;
accompanies the King to Rheims, 85
Verdi, 307
Vernon, Raoul Roussel de, reporter at the trial of Joan of Arc, 147
Versailles, Pierre de, 35
Veuillot, on Wallon's Life of Joan of Arc, 298
Viennne, Colet de, escorts Joan of Arc to Chinon, 19
Villars, French knight, 36
Villaume, biographer of Joan of Arc, 299
Villon, François, his lines on Joan of Arc, 302, 308
Viole, Aignan, advocate, 274
Virey, his tragedy on Joan of Arc, 306
Virgile, Polydore, French writer, 290
Viriville, Vallet de, 291
Volant, John, burgher of Orleans, 272
Voltaire, cited, 285;
his _Pucelle_, 306, 309
Wallon, historian, cited, 46, 126, 210, 211, 227, 297
Wandome, the Bastard of, 128
Warwick, Earl of, visits Joan of Arc in prison, 142;
threatens Isambard de la Pierre for his sympathy with her, 196;
demands that she should be saved from a natural death, 214;
enraged at the prospect of her release, 235
Waterin, playmate of Joan of Arc, 259
Waverin, English officer, cited for the English loss at the battle of
Patay, 80
Winchester, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of, arrives in Paris with his army, 101;
retains Peter Cauchon to prosecute Joan of Arc, 132;
his scheme for this purpose, 137;
at the abjuration of Joan, 229;
weeps over her fate, 248
Xaintrailles, 40, 47;
accompanies Charles VII. to Rheims, 85;
taken prisoner, 125
THE END.
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