During the coronation march, he had entered into communication with the bishops and burgesses of the cities of Champagne; and like communications he had entered into in Paris.[1792] He had dealings with the monks and notably with the Carmelites of Melun, whose Prior, Brother Pierre d'Allee, was working in his interest.[1793] For some time paid agents had been watching for an opportunity of throwing the city into disorder and of bringing in the enemy in a moment of panic and confusion. During the assault they were working for him in the streets. In the afternoon, on both sides of the bridges, were heard cries of "Let every man look to his own safety! The enemy has entered! All is lost!" Such of the citizens as were listening to the sermon hastened to shut themselves in their houses. And others who were out of doors sought refuge in the churches. But the tumult was quelled. Wise men, like the clerk of the Parlement, believed that it was but a feigned attack, and that Charles of Valois looked to recover the town not so much by force of arms as by a movement of the populace.[1794]

[Footnote 1792: For the opinions of the townsfolk of Paris, see various acts of Henry VI of the 18th and 25th of Sept., 1429 (MS. Fontanieu, 115). Sauval, Antiquites de Paris, vol. iii, p. 586 and circ.]

[Footnote 1793: A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 302.]

[Footnote 1794: Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 456, 458.]

Certain monks who were acting in Paris as the King's spies, went out to him at Saint-Denys and informed him that the attempt had failed. According to them it had very nearly succeeded.[1795]

[Footnote 1795: Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, p. 344.]

The Sire de la Tremouille is said to have commanded the retreat, for fear of a massacre. Indeed, once the French had entered they were quite capable of slaughtering the townsfolk and razing the city to the ground.[1796]

[Footnote 1796: Chronique de Normandie, in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 342, 343.]

On the morrow, Friday the 9th, the Maid, rising with the dawn, despite her wound, asked the Duke of Alencon to have the call to arms sounded; for she was strongly determined to return to the walls of Paris, swearing not to leave them until the city should be taken.[1797] Meanwhile the French captains sent a herald to Paris, charged to ask for a safe conduct for the removing of the bodies of the dead left behind in great numbers.[1798]

[Footnote 1797: Perceval de Cagny, p. 168.]

[Footnote 1798: Ibid. Chronique normande, in La chronique de la Pucelle, p. 465. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 120, note 1.]

Notwithstanding that they had suffered cruel hurt, after a retreat unmolested it is true, but none the less disastrous and involving the loss of all their siege train, several of the leaders were, like the Maid, inclined to attempt a new assault. Others would not hear of it. While they were disputing, they beheld a baron coming towards them and with him fifty nobles; it was the Sire de Montmorency, the first Christian peer of France, that is the first among the ancient vassals of the bishop of Paris. He was transferring his allegiance from the Cross of St. Andrew to the Flowers-de-luce.[1799] His coming filled the King's men with courage and a desire to return to the city. The army was on its way back, when the Count of Clermont and the Duke of Bar were sent to arrest the march by order of the King, and to take the Maid back to Saint-Denys.[1800]

[Footnote 1799: Duchesne, Histoire de la maison de Montmorency, p. 232. Perceval de Cagny, p. 168. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 118, 119.]

[Footnote 1800: G. Lefevre-Pontalis, Un detail du siege de Paris, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. xlvi, 1885, p. 12.]

On Saturday the 10th, at daybreak, the Duke of Alencon, with a few knights, appeared on the bank above the city, where a bridge had been thrown over the Seine some days earlier. The Maid, always eager for danger, accompanied the venturesome warriors. But the night before, the King had prudently caused the bridge to be taken down, and the little band had to retrace its steps.[1801] It was not that the King had renounced the idea of taking Paris. He was thinking more than ever of the recovery of his great town; but he intended to regain it without an assault, by means of the compliance of certain burgesses.

[Footnote 1801: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 168, 169. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 219, note 4. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 120, note 1. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, Un detail du siege de Paris, loc. cit.]

At this same place of Saint-Denys there happened to Jeanne a misadventure, which would seem to have impressed her comrades and possibly to have lessened their faith in her good luck in war. As was customary, women of ill-fame followed the army in great numbers; each man had his own; they were called amietes.[1802] Jeanne could not tolerate them because they caused disorder, but more especially because their sinful lives filled her with horror. At that very time, stories like the following were circulated far and wide, and spread even into Germany.

[Footnote 1802: Diminutive of amie (W.S.).]

There was a certain man in the camp, who had with him his amiete. She rode in armour in order not to be recognised. Now the Maid said to the nobles and captains: "There is a woman with our men." They replied that they knew of none. Whereupon the Maid assembled the army, and, approaching the woman said: "This is she."

Then addressing the wench: "Thou art of Gien and thou art big with child. Were it not so I would put thee to death. Thou hast already let one child die and thou shalt not do the same for this one."

When the Maid had thus spoken, servants took the wench and conveyed her to her own home. There they kept her under watch and ward until she was delivered of her child. And she confessed that what the Maid had said was true.

After which, the Maid again said: "There are women in the camp." Whereupon two wantons, who did not belong to the army, and had already been dismissed from it, hearing these words, rode off on horseback. But the Maid hastened after them crying: "Ye foolish women, I have forbidden you to come into my company." And she drew her sword and struck one of them on the head, so sore that she died.[1803]

[Footnote 1803: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 184, 186.]

The tale was true; Jeanne could not suffer these wenches. Every time she met one she gave chase to her. This was precisely what she did at Gien, when she saw women of ill-fame awaiting the King's men.[1804] At Chateau-Thierry, she espied an amiete riding behind a man-at-arms, and, running after her, sword in hand, she came up with her, and without striking, bade her henceforth avoid the society of men-at-arms. "If thou wilt not," she added, "I shall do thee hurt."[1805]

[Footnote 1804: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 90.]

[Footnote 1805: Trial, vol. iii, p. 73.]

At Saint-Denys, being accompanied by the Duke of Alencon, Jeanne pursued another of these wantons. This time she was not content with remonstrances and threats. She broke her sword over her.[1806] Was it Saint Catherine's sword? So it was believed, and doubtless not without reason.[1807] In those days men's minds were full of the romantic stories of Joyeuse and Durandal. It would appear that Jeanne, when she lost her sword, lost her power. A slight variation of the story was told afterwards, and it was related how the King, when he was acquainted with the matter of the broken sword, was displeased and said to the Maid: "You should have taken a stick to strike withal and should not have risked the sword you received from divine hands."[1808] It was told likewise how the sword had been given to an armourer for him to join the pieces together, and that he could not, wherein lay a proof that the sword was enchanted.[1809]

[Footnote 1806: Ibid., p. 99.]

[Footnote 1807: Ibid., vol. i, p. 76.]

[Footnote 1808: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 90.]

[Footnote 1809: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 122, 123.]

Before his departure, the King appointed the Count of Clermont commander of the district with several lieutenants: the Lords of Culant, Boussac, Lore, and Foucault. He constituted joint lieutenants-general the Counts of Clermont and of Vendome, the lords Regnault de Chartres, Christophe d'Harcourt and Jean Tudert. Regnault de Chartres established himself in the town of Senlis, the lieutenant's headquarters. Having thus disposed, the King quitted Saint-Denys on the 13th of September.[1810] The Maid followed him against her will notwithstanding that she had the permission of her Voices to do so.[1811] She offered her armour to the image of Our Lady and to the precious body of Saint Denys.[1812] This armour was white, that is to say devoid of armorial bearings.[1813] She was thus following the custom of men-at-arms, who, after they had received a wound, if they did not die of it, offered their armour to Our Lady and the Saints as a token of thanksgiving. Wherefore, in those warlike days, chapels, like that of Notre-Dame de Fierbois, often presented the appearance of arsenals. To her armour the Maid added a sword which she had won before Paris.[1814]

[Footnote 1810: Perceval de Cagny, p. 169. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 335 et seq. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 112 et seq. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 356. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 246. Berry in Trial, vol. iv, p. 48. Gilles de Roye, p. 208.]

[Footnote 1811: Trial, vol. i, p. 260.]

[Footnote 1812: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 109. Perceval de Cagny, p. 170. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 114. Jacques Doublet, Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 1813: La Curne, at the word Blanc: white armour was worn by squires, gilded armour by knights. Bouteiller, in his Somme Rurale, refers to the "harnais dore" (gilded armour) of the knights. Cf. Du Tillet, Recueil des rois de France, ch. Des chevaliers, p. 431. Du Cange, Observations sur les etablissements de la France, p. 373.]

[Footnote 1814: Trial, vol. i, p. 179.]



CHAPTER IV

THE TAKING OF SAINT-PIERRE-LE-MOUSTIER—FRIAR RICHARD'S SPIRITUAL DAUGHTERS—THE SIEGE OF LA CHARITE

The King slept at Lagny-sur-Marne on the 14th of September, then crossed the Seine at Bray, forded the Yonne near Sens and went on through Courtenay, Chateaurenard and Montargis. On the 21st of September he reached Gien. There he disbanded the army he could no longer pay, and each man went to his own home. The Duke of Alencon withdrew into his viscounty of Beaumont-sur-Oise.[1815]

[Footnote 1815: Journal du siege, p. 130. Perceval de Cagny, pp. 170, 171. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 246, 247. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 79. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 219.]

Learning that the Queen was coming to meet the King, Jeanne went before her and greeted her at Selles-en-Berry.[1816] She was afterwards taken to Bourges, where my Lord d'Albret, half-brother of the Sire de la Tremouille, lodged her with Messire Regnier de Bouligny. Regnier was then Receiver General. He had been one of those whose dismissal the University had requested in 1408, as being worse than useless, for they held him responsible for many of the disorders in the kingdom. He had entered the Dauphin's service, passed from the administration of the royal domain to that of taxes and attained the highest rank in the control of the finances.[1817] His wife, who had accompanied the Queen to Selles, beheld the Maid and wondered. Jeanne seemed to her a creature sent by God for the relief of the King and those of France who were loyal to him. She remembered the days not so very long ago when she had seen the Dauphin and her Husband not knowing where to turn for money. Her name was Marguerite La Touroulde; she was damiselle, not dame; a comfortable bourgeoise and that was all.[1818]

[Footnote 1816: Trial, vol. iii, p. 86. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 265. P. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, avec des documents et des eclaircissements inedits, Paris, 1892, in 12mo, chap. vi.]

[Footnote 1817: Trial, vol. iii, p. 85, note 1. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 418, note 7.]

[Footnote 1818: Trial, vol. iii, p. 85.]

Three weeks Jeanne sojourned in the Receiver General's house. She slept there, drank there, ate there. Nearly every night, Damiselle Marguerite La Touroulde slept with her; the etiquette of those days required it. No night-gowns were worn; folk slept naked in those vast beds. It would seem that Jeanne disliked sleeping with old women.[1819] Damiselle La Touroulde, although not so very old, was of matronly age;[1820] she had moreover a matron's experience, and further she claimed, as we shall see directly, to know more than most matrons knew. Several times she took Jeanne to the bath and to the sweating-room.[1821] That also was one of the rules of etiquette; a host was not considered to be making his guests good cheer unless he took them to the bath. In this point of courtesy princes set an example; when the King and Queen supped in the house of one of their retainers or ministers, fine baths richly ornamented were prepared for them before they came to table.[1822] Mistress Marguerite doubtless did not possess what was necessary in her own house; wherefore she took Jeanne out to the bath and the sweating-room. Such are her own expressions; and they probably indicate a vapour bath[1823] not a bath of hot water.

[Footnote 1819: Ibid., pp. 81, 86.]

[Footnote 1820: Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, pp. 72, 73.]

[Footnote 1821: "In balneo et stuphis." Trial, vol. iii, p. 88.]

[Footnote 1822: L'amant rendu cordelier a l'observance d'amour; poem attributed to Martial d'Auvergne, A. de Montaiglon, Paris, 1881, in 8vo, lines 1761-1776 and note p. 184. A. Franklin, La vie privee d'autrefois, vol. ii, Les soins de la toilette, Paris, 1887, in 18mo, pp. 20 et seq. A. Lecoy de la Marche, Le bain au moyen age, in Revue du monde catholique, vol. xiv, pp. 870-881.]

[Footnote 1823: Livre des metiers, by Etienne Boileau, edited by De Lespinasse and F. Bonnardot, Paris, 1879, pp. 154, 155, and note. G. Bayle, Notes pour servir a l'histoire de la prostitution au moyen age, in Memoires de l'Academie de Vauctuse, 1887, pp. 241, 242. Dr. P. Pansier, Histoire des pretendus statuts de la reine Jeanne, in Le Janus, 1902, p. 14.]

At Bourges the sweating-rooms were in the Auron quarter, in the lower town, near the river.[1824] Jeanne was strictly devout, but she did not observe conventual rule; she, like chaste Suzannah therefore, might permit herself to bathe and she must have had great need to do so after having slept on straw.[1825] What is more remarkable is that, after having seen Jeanne in the bath, Mistress Marguerite judged her a virgin according to all appearances.[1826]

[Footnote 1824: Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, pp. 76, 77.]

[Footnote 1825: Trial, vol. iii, p. 100.]

[Footnote 1826: Ibid., p. 88.]

In Messire Regnier de Bouligny's house and likewise wherever she lodged, she led the life of a beguine but did not practise excessive austerity. She confessed frequently. Many a time she asked her hostess to come with her to matins. In the cathedral and in collegiate churches there were matins every day, between four and six, at the hour of sunset. The two women often talked together; the Receiver General's wife found Jeanne very simple and very ignorant. She was amazed to discover that the maiden knew absolutely nothing.[1827]

[Footnote 1827: Trial, vol. iii, p. 87. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, pp. 73, 74.]

Among other matters, Jeanne told of her visit to the old Duke of Lorraine, and how she had rebuked him for his evil life; she spoke likewise of the interrogatory to which the doctors of Poitiers had subjected her.[1828] She was persuaded that these clerks had questioned her with extreme severity, and she firmly believed that she had triumphed over their ill-will. Alas! she was soon to know clerks even less accommodating.

[Footnote 1828: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 86, 87.]

Mistress Marguerite said to her one day: "If you are not afraid when you fight, it is because you know you will not be killed." Whereupon Jeanne answered: "I am no surer of that than are the other combatants."

Oftentimes women came to the Bouligny house, bringing paternosters and other trifling objects of devotion for the Maid to touch.

Jeanne used to say laughingly to her hostess: "Touch them yourself. Your touch will do them as much good as mine."[1829]

[Footnote 1829: Ibid., pp. 86, 88.]

This ready repartee must have shown Mistress Marguerite that Jeanne, ignorant as she may have been, was none the less capable of displaying a good grace and common sense in her conversation.

While in many matters this good woman found the Maid but a simple creature, in military affairs she deemed her an expert. Whether, when she judged the saintly damsel's skill in wielding arms, she was giving her own opinion or merely speaking from hearsay, as would seem probable, she at any rate declared later that Jeanne rode a horse and handled a lance as well as the best of knights and so well that the army marvelled.[1830] Indeed most captains in those days could do no better.

[Footnote 1830: Trial, vol. iii, p. 88.]

Probably there were dice and dice-boxes in the Bouligny house, otherwise Jeanne would have had no opportunity of displaying that horror of gaming which struck her hostess. On this matter Jeanne agreed with her comrade, Friar Richard, and indeed with everyone else of good life and good doctrine.[1831]

[Footnote 1831: Ibid., p. 87.]

What money she had Jeanne distributed in alms. "I am come to succour the poor and needy," she used to say.[1832]

[Footnote 1832: Ibid., pp. 87, 88.]

When the multitude heard such words they were led to believe that this Maid of God had been raised up for something more than the glorification of the Lilies, and that she was come to dispel such ills as murder, pillage and other sins grievous to God, from which the realm was suffering. Mystic souls looked to her for the reform of the Church and the reign of Jesus Christ on earth. She was invoked as a saint, and throughout the loyal provinces were to be seen carved and painted images of her which were worshipped by the faithful. Thus, even during her lifetime, she enjoyed certain of the privileges of beatification.[1833]

[Footnote 1833: Noel Valois, Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne d'Arc, in Annuaire bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France, Paris, 1907, in 8vo, pp. 8 and 18 (separate issue).]

North of the Seine meanwhile, English and Burgundians were at their old work. The Duke of Vendome and his company fell back on Senlis, the English descended on the town of Saint-Denys and sacked it once more. In the Abbey Church they found and carried off the Maid's armour, thus, according to the French clergy, committing undeniable sacrilege and for this reason: because they gave the monks of the Abbey nothing in exchange.

The King was then at Mehun-sur-Yevre, quite close to Bourges, in one of the finest chateaux in the world, rising on a rock and overlooking the town. The late Duke Jean of Berry, a great builder, had erected this chateau with the care that he never failed to exercise in matters of art. Mehun was King Charles's favourite abode.[1834]

[Footnote 1834: Trial, vol. iii, p. 217. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 265. A. Buhot de Kersers, Histoire et statistique du departement du Cher, canton de Mehun, Bourges, 1891, in 4to, pp. 261 et seq. A. de Champeaux and P. Gauchery, Les travaux d'art executes pour Jean de France, duc de Berry, Paris, 1894, in 4to, pp. 7, 9, and the miniature in Les grandes heures of Duke Jean of Berry at Chantilly.]

The Duke of Alencon, eager to reconquer his duchy, was waiting for troops to accompany him into Normandy, across the marches of Brittany and Maine. He sent to the King to know if it were his good pleasure to grant him the Maid. "Many there be," said the Duke, "who would willingly come with her, while without her they will not stir from their homes." Her discomfiture before Paris had not, therefore, entirely ruined her prestige. The Sire de la Tremouille opposed her being sent to the Duke of Alencon, whom he mistrusted, and not without cause. He gave her into the care of his half-brother, the Sire d'Albret, Lieutenant of the King in his own country of Berry.[1835]

[Footnote 1835: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 170, 171. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 48. Letter from the Sire d'Albret to the people of Riom, in Trial, vol. v, pp. 148, 149. Martin Le Franc, Champion des dames, in Trial, vol. v, p. 71.]

The Royal Council deemed it necessary to recover La Charite, left in the hands of Perrinet Gressart at the time of the coronation campaign;[1836] but it was decided first to attack Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier, which commanded the approaches to Bec-d'Allier.[1837] The garrison of this little town was composed of English and Burgundians, who were constantly plundering the villages and laying waste the fields of Berry and Bourbonnais. The army for this expedition assembled at Bourges. It was commanded by my Lord d'Albret,[1838] but popular report attributed the command to Jeanne. The common folk, the burgesses of the towns, especially the citizens of Orleans knew no other commander.

[Footnote 1836: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 310. Journal du siege, p. 107. Morosini, vol. ii, p. 229, note 4. Perceval de Cagny, p. 172.]

[Footnote 1837: Trial, vol. iii, p. 217. Jaladon de la Barre, Jeanne d'Arc a Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier et deux juges nivernais a Rouen, Nevers, 1868, in 8vo, chaps. ix et seq.]

[Footnote 1838: Trial, vol. v, p. 356. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, p. 89.]

After two or three days' siege, the King's men stormed the town. But they were repulsed. Squire Jean d'Aulon, the Maid's steward, who some time before had been wounded in the heel and consequently walked on crutches, had retreated with the rest.[1839] He went back and found Jeanne who had stayed almost alone by the side of the moat. Fearing lest harm should come to her, he leapt on to his horse, spurred towards her and cried: "What are you doing, all alone? Wherefore do you not retreat like the others?"

[Footnote 1839: Trial, vol. iii, p. 217.]

Jeanne doffed her sallet and replied: "I am not alone. With me are fifty thousand of my folk. I will not quit this spot till I have taken the town."

Casting his eyes around, Messire Jean d'Aulon saw the Maid surrounded by but four or five men.

More loudly he cried out to her: "Depart hence and retreat like the others."

Her only reply was a request for fagots and hurdles to fill up the moat. And straightway in a loud voice she called: "To the fagots and the hurdles all of ye, and make a bridge!"

The men-at-arms rushed to the spot, the bridge was constructed forthwith and the town taken by storm with no great difficulty. At any rate that is how the good Squire, Jean d'Aulon, told the story.[1840] He was almost persuaded that the Maid's fifty thousand shadows had taken Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier.

[Footnote 1840: Ibid., p. 218.]

With the little army on the Loire at that time were certain holy women who like Jeanne led a singular life and held communion with the Church Triumphant. They constituted, so to speak, a kind of flying squadron of beguines, which followed the men-at-arms. One of these women was called Catherine de La Rochelle; two others came from Lower Brittany.[1841]

[Footnote 1841: Ibid., vol. i, p. 106. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 259, 260, 271, 272. Nider, Formicarium, in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 503, 504. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 74 et seq. N. Quellien, Perrinaic, une compagne de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1891, in 8vo. Mme. Pascal-Estienne, Perrinaik, Paris, 1893, in 8vo. J. Trevedy, Histoire du roman de Perrinaic, Saint-Brieuc, 1894, in 8vo. Le roman de Perrinaic, Vannes, 1894, in 8vo. A. de la Borderie, Pierronne et Perrinaic, Paris, 1894, in 8vo.]

They all had miraculous visions; Jeanne saw my Lord Saint Michael in arms and Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret wearing crowns;[1842] Pierronne beheld God in a long white robe and a purple cloak;[1843] Catherine de La Rochelle saw a white lady, clothed in cloth of gold; and, at the moment of the consecration of the host all manner of marvels of the high mystery of Our Lord were revealed unto her.[1844]

[Footnote 1842: Trial, vol. v, index at the words Catherine, Michel, Marguerite.]

[Footnote 1843: Ibid., vol. i, p. 106.]

[Footnote 1844: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 271, 272.]

Jean Pasquerel was still with Jeanne in the capacity of chaplain.[1845] He hoped to take his penitent to fight in the Crusade against the Hussites, for it was against these heretics that he felt most bitterly. But he had been entirely supplanted by the Franciscan, Friar Richard, who, after Troyes, had joined the mendicants of Jeanne's earlier days. Friar Richard dominated this little band of the illuminated. He was called their good Father. He it was who instructed them.[1846] His designs for these women did not greatly differ from those of Jean Pasquerel: he intended to conduct them to those wars of the Cross, which he thought were bound to precede the impending end of the world.[1847]

[Footnote 1845: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 104 et seq.]

[Footnote 1846: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 450. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 271, 272.]

[Footnote 1847: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 235.]

Meanwhile, it was his endeavour to foster a good understanding between them, which, eloquent preacher though he was, he found very difficult. Within the sisterhood there were constant suspicions and disputes. Jeanne had been on friendly terms with Catherine de la Rochelle at Montfaucon in Brie and at Jargeau; but now she began to suspect her of being a rival, and immediately she assumed an attitude of mistrust.[1848] Possibly she was right. At any moment either Catherine or the Breton women might be made use of as she had been.[1849] In those days a prophetess was useful in so many ways: in the edification of the people, the reformation of the Church, the leading of men-at-arms, the circulation of money, in war, in peace; no sooner did one appear than each party tried to get hold of her. It seems as if, after having employed the Maid Jeanne to deliver Orleans, the King's Councillors were now thinking of employing Dame Catherine to make peace with the Duke of Burgundy. Such a task was deemed fitting for a saint less chivalrous than Jeanne. Catherine was married and the mother of a family. In this circumstance there need be no cause for astonishment; for if the gift of prophecy be more especially reserved for virgins, the example of Judith proves that the Lord may raise up strong matrons for the serving of his people.

[Footnote 1848: Trial, vol. i, p. 106.]

[Footnote 1849: Ibid., p. 107.]

If we believe that, as her surname indicates, she came from La Rochelle, her origin must have inspired the Armagnacs with confidence. The inhabitants of La Rochelle, all pirates more or less, were too profitably engaged in preying upon English vessels to forsake the Dauphin's party. Moreover, he rewarded their loyalty by granting them valuable commercial privileges.[1850] They had sent gifts of money to the people of Orleans; and when, in the month of May, they learned the deliverance of Duke Charles's city, they instituted a public festival to commemorate so happy an event.

[Footnote 1850: Arcere, Histoire de La Rochelle, 1756, in 4to, vol. i, p. 271. Trial, vol. v, p. 104, note. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 24, 75 et seq., 219, 279.]

The first duty of a saint in the army, it would appear, was to collect money. Jeanne was always sending letters asking the good towns for money or for munitions of war; the burgesses always promised to grant her request and sometimes they kept their promise. Catherine de la Rochelle appears to have had special revelations concerning the funds of the party; her mission, therefore, was financial, while Jeanne's was martial. She announced that she was going to the Duke of Burgundy to conclude peace.[1851] If one may judge from the little that is known of her, the inspirations of this holy dame were not very elevated, not very orderly, not very profound.

[Footnote 1851: Trial, vol. i, pp. 107, 108.]

Meeting Jeanne at Montfaucon in Berry (or at Jargeau) she addressed her thus:

"There came unto me a white lady, attired in cloth of gold, who said to me: 'Go thou through the good towns and let the King give unto thee heralds and trumpets to cry: "Whosoever has gold, silver or hidden treasure, let him bring it forth instantly."'"

Dame Catherine added: "Such as have hidden treasure and do not thus, I shall know their treasure, and I shall go and find it."

She deemed it necessary to fight against the English and seemed to believe that Jeanne's mission was to drive them out of the land, since she obligingly offered her the whole of her miraculous takings.

"Wherewithal to pay your men-at-arms," she said. But the Maid answered disdainfully:

"Go back to your husband, look after your household, and feed your children."[1852]

[Footnote 1852: Trial, vol. i, p. 107.]

Disputes between saints are usually bitter. In her rival's missions Jeanne refused to see anything but folly and futility. Nevertheless it was not for her to deny the possibility of the white lady's visitations; for to Jeanne herself did there not descend every day as many saints, angels and archangels as were ever painted on the pages of books or the walls of monasteries? In order to make up her mind on the subject, she adopted the most effectual measures. A learned doctor may reason concerning matter and substance, the origin and the form of ideas, the dawn of impressions in the intellect, but a shepherdess will resort to a surer method; she will appeal to her own eyesight.

Jeanne asked Catherine if the white lady came every night, and learning that she did: "I will sleep with you," she said.

When night came, she went to bed with Catherine, watched till midnight, saw nothing and fell asleep, for she was young, and she had great need of sleep. In the morning, when she awoke, she asked: "Did she come?"

"She did," replied Catherine; "you were asleep, so I did not like to wake you."

"Will she not come to-morrow?"

Catherine assured her that she would come without fail.

This time Jeanne slept in the day in order that she might keep awake at night; so she lay down at night in the bed with Catherine and kept her eyes open. Often she asked: "Will she not come?"

And Catherine replied: "Yes, directly."

But Jeanne saw nothing.[1853] She held the test to be a good one. Nevertheless she could not get the white lady attired in cloth of gold out of her head. When Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret came to her, as they delayed not to do, she spoke to them concerning this white lady and asked them what she was to think of her. The reply was such as Jeanne expected:

"This Catherine," they said, "is naught but futility and folly."[1854]

[Footnote 1853: Trial, vol. i, pp. 108, 109.]

[Footnote 1854: Ibid., p. 107.]

Then was Jeanne constrained to cry: "That is just what I thought."

The strife between these two prophetesses was brief but bitter. Jeanne always maintained the opposite of what Catherine said. When the latter was going to make peace with the Duke of Burgundy, Jeanne said to her:

"Me seemeth that you will never find peace save at the lance's point."[1855]

[Footnote 1855: Ibid., p. 108.]

There was one matter at any rate wherein the White Lady proved a better prophetess than the Maid's Council, to wit, the siege of La Charite. When Jeanne wished to go and deliver that town, Catherine tried to dissuade her.

"It is too cold," she said; "I would not go."[1856]

[Footnote 1856: Ibid.]

Catherine's reason was not a high one; and yet it is true Jeanne would have done better not to go to the siege of La Charite.

Taken from the Duke of Burgundy by the Dauphin in 1422, La Charite had been retaken in 1424, by Perrinet Gressart,[1857] a successful captain, who had risen from the rank of mason's apprentice to that of pantler to the Duke of Burgundy and had been created Lord of Laigny by the King of England.[1858] On the 30th of December, 1425, Perrinet's men arrested the Sire de La Tremouille, when he was on his way to the Duke of Burgundy, having been appointed ambassador in one of those eternal negotiations, forever in process between the King and the Duke. He was for several months kept a prisoner in the fortress which his captor commanded. He must needs pay a ransom of fourteen thousand golden crowns; and, albeit he took this sum from the royal treasury,[1859] he never ceased to bear Perrinet a grudge. Wherefore it may be concluded that when he sent men-at-arms to La Charite it was in good sooth to capture the town and not with any evil design against the Maid.

[Footnote 1857: "Perrinet Crasset, mason and captain of men-at-arms." Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 446 verso. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 117. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 174. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 328.]

[Footnote 1858: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cclxxviii. A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, p. 109. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iii, pp. 20, 21, 373 et seq. J. de Freminville, Les ecorcheurs en Bourgogne (1435-1445); Etude sur les compagnies franches au XV'e siecle, Dijon, 1888, in 8vo. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, xxx.]

[Footnote 1859: Sainte-Marthe, Histoire genealogique de la maison de la Tremoille, 1668, in 12mo, pp. 149 et seq. L. de La Tremoille, Les La Tremoille pendant cinq siecles, Nantes, 1890, vol. i, p. 165.]

The army despatched against this Burgundian captain and this great plunder of pilgrims was composed of no mean folk. Its leaders were Louis of Bourbon, Count of Montpensier, and Charles II, Sire d'Albret, La Tremouille's half-brother and Jeanne's companion in arms during the coronation campaign. The army was doubtless but scantily supplied with stores and with money.[1860] That was the normal condition of armies in those days. When the King wanted to attack a stronghold of the enemy, he must needs apply to his good towns for the necessary material. The Maid, at once saint and warrior, could beg for arms with a good grace; but possibly she overrated the resources of the towns which had already given so much.

[Footnote 1860: Trial, vol. v, p. 149. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. iii. Journal du siege, p. 129. Monstrelet, vol. v, chap, lxxii. A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, p. 108.]

On the 7th of November, she and my Lord d'Alencon signed a letter asking the folk of Clermont in Auvergne for powder, arrows and artillery. Churchmen, magistrates, and townsfolk sent two hundredweight of saltpetre, one hundredweight of sulphur, two cases of arrows; to these they added a sword, two poniards and a battle-axe for the Maid; and they charged Messire Robert Andrieu to present this contribution to Jeanne and to my Lord d'Albret.[1861]

[Footnote 1861: Trial, vol. v, p. 146. F. Perot, Un document inedit sur Jeanne d'Arc, in Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais, vol. xii, 1898-1901, p. 231.]

On the 9th of November, the Maid was at Moulins in Bourbonnais.[1862] What was she doing there? No one knows. There was at that time in the town an abbess very holy and very greatly venerated. Her name was Colette Boilet. She had won the highest praise and incurred the grossest insults by attempting to reform the order of Saint Clare. Colette lived in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Clare, which she had recently founded in this town. It has been thought that the Maid went to Moulins on purpose to meet her.[1863] But we ought first to ascertain whether these two saints had any liking for each other. They both worked miracles and miracles which were occasionally somewhat similar;[1864] but that was no reason why they should take the slightest pleasure in each other's society. One was called La Pucelle,[1865] the other La Petite Ancelle.[1866] But these names, both equally humble, described persons widely different in fashion of attire and in manner of life. La Petite Ancelle wended her way on foot, clothed in rags like a beggar-woman; La Pucelle, wrapped in cloth of gold, rode forth with lords on horseback. That Jeanne, surrounded by Franciscans who observed no rule, felt any veneration for the reformer of the Sisters of Saint Clare, there is no reason to believe; neither is there anything to indicate that the pacific Colette, strongly attached to the Burgundian house,[1867] had any desire to hold converse with one whom the English regarded as a destroying angel.[1868]

[Footnote 1862: Trial, vol. v, pp. 147-150. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, ch. viii.]

[Footnote 1863: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cclxxix.]

[Footnote 1864: Acta Sanctorum, March, i, 554, col. 2, no. 61. Abbe Bizouard, Histoire de sainte Colette, pp. 35, 37. S[ilvere], Histoire chronologique de la bienheureuse Colette, Paris, 1628, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 1865: The Maid (W.S.).]

[Footnote 1866: Servant. Cf. Godefroy, Lexique de l'ancien Francais (W.S.).]

[Footnote 1867: Histoire chronologique de la bienheureuse Colette, pp. 168-200.]

[Footnote 1868: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc et les ordres mendiants, in Revue des deux mondes, 1881, vol. xlv, p. 90. L. de Kerval, Jeanne d'Arc et les Franciscains, Vanves, 1893, pp. 49, 51. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cclxxviii et seq. F. Perot, Jeanne d'Arc en Bourbonnais, Orleans, in 8vo, 26 pp., 1889. F. Andre, La verite sur Jeanne d'Arc, in 8vo, 1895, pp. 308 et seq.]

From this town of Moulins, Jeanne dictated a letter by which she informed the inhabitants of Riom that Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier was taken, and asked them for materials of war as she had asked the folk of Clermont.[1869]

[Footnote 1869: Trial, vol. v, pp. 146-148.]

Here is the letter:

Good friends and beloved, ye wit how that the town of Saint Pere le Moustier hath been taken by storm; and with God's help it is our intention to cause to be evacuated the other places contrary to the King; but for this there hath been great expending of powder, arrows and other munition of war before the said town, and the lords who are in this town are but scantily provided for to go and lay siege to La Charite, whither we wend presently; I pray you as ye love the welfare and honour of the King and likewise of all others here, that ye will straightway help and send for the said siege powder, saltpetre, sulphur, arrows, strong cross-bows and other munition of war. And do this lest by failure of the said powder and other habiliments of war, the siege should be long and ye should be called in this matter negligent or unwilling. Good friends and beloved, may our Lord keep you. Written at Molins, the ninth day of November.

Jehanne.

Addressed to: My good friends and beloved, the churchmen, burgesses and townsfolk of the town of Rion.[1870]

[Footnote 1870: Ibid., pp. 146, 148. Facsimile in Le Musee des archives departementales, p. 124.]

The magistrates of Riom, in letters sealed with their own seal, undertook to give Jeanne the Maid and my Lord d'Albret the sum of sixty crowns; but when the masters of the siege-artillery came to demand this sum, the magistrates would not give a farthing.[1871]

[Footnote 1871: F. Perot (Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais, vol. xii, p. 231).]

The folk of Orleans, on the other hand, once more appeared both zealous and munificent; for they eagerly desired the reduction of a town commanding the Loire for seventy-five miles above their own city. They deserve to be considered the true deliverers of the kingdom; had it not been for them neither Jargeau nor Beaugency would have been taken in June. Quite in the beginning of July, when they thought the Loire campaign was to be continued, they had sent their great mortar, La Bougue, to Gien. With it they had despatched ammunition and victuals; and now, in the early days of December, at the request of the King addressed to the magistrates, they sent to La Charite all the artillery brought back from Gien; likewise eighty-nine soldiers of the municipal troops, wearing the cloak with the Duke of Orleans' colours, the white cross on the breast; with their trumpeter at their head and commanded by Captain Boiau; craftsmen of all conditions, master-masons and journeymen, carpenters, smiths; the cannoneers Fauveau, Gervaise Lefevre and Brother Jacques, monk of the Gray friars monastery, at Orleans.[1872] What became of all this artillery and of these brave folk?

[Footnote 1872: A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, p. 107, proofs and illustrations, xvii, pp. 159, 168. Trial, vol. v, pp. 268, 270, according to the original documents in the Orleans Library.]

On the 24th of November, the Sire d'Albret and the Maid, being hard put to it before the walls of La Charite, likewise solicited the town of Bourges. On receipt of their letter, the burgesses decided to contribute thirteen hundred golden crowns. To raise this sum they had recourse to a measure by no means unusual; it had been employed notably by the townsfolk of Orleans when, some time previously, to furnish forth Jeanne with munition of war, they had bought from a certain citizen a quantity of salt which they had put up to auction in the city barn. The townsfolk of Bourges sold by auction the annual revenue of a thirteenth part of the wine sold retail in the town. But the money thus raised never reached its destination.[1873]

[Footnote 1873: La Thaumassiere, Histoire du Berry, p. 161. Trial, vol. v, pp. 356, 357. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, pp. 105 et seq. A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, pp. 111, 112.]

A right goodly knighthood was gathered beneath the walls of La Charite; besides Louis de Bourbon and the Sire d'Albret, there was the Marechal de Broussac, Jean de Bouray, Seneschal of Toulouse, and Raymon de Montremur, a Baron of Dauphine, who was slain there.[1874] It was bitterly cold and the besiegers succeeded in nothing. At the end of a month Perrinet Gressart, who was full of craft, caused them to fall into an ambush. They raised the siege, abandoning the artillery furnished by the good towns, those fine cannon bought with the savings of thrifty citizens.[1875] Their action was the less excusable because the town which had not been relieved and could not well expect to be, must have surrendered sooner or later. They pleaded that the King had sent them no victuals and no money;[1876] but that was not considered an excuse and their action was deemed dishonourable. According to a knight well acquainted with points of honour in war: "One ought never to besiege a place without being sure of victuals and of pay beforehand. For to besiege a stronghold and then to withdraw is great disgrace for an army, especially when there is present with it a king or a king's lieutenant."[1877]

[Footnote 1874: Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires du Centre, vol. iv, 1870-1872, pp. 211, 239.]

[Footnote 1875: Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 126. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, p. 89.]

[Footnote 1876: Perceval de Cagny, p. 172.]

[Footnote 1877: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, pp. 216, 217.]

On the 13th of December there preached to the people of Perigueux a Dominican friar, Brother Helie Boudant, Pope Martin's Penitentiary in that town. He took as his text the great miracles worked in France by the intervention of a Maid, whom God had sent to the King. On this occasion the Mayor and the magistrates heard mass sung and presented two candles. Now for two months Brother Helie had been under order to appear before the Parlement of Poitiers.[1878] On what charge we do not know. Mendicant monks of those days were for the most part irregular in faith and in morals. The doctrine of Friar Richard himself was not altogether beyond suspicion.

[Footnote 1878: Extract from the Book of Accounts of the town of Perigueux, in Bulletin de la Societe historique et archeologique du Perigord, vol. xiv, January to February, 1887. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, proofs and illustrations, ccxvii, p. 252. Le P. Chapotin, La guerre de cent ans et les dominicains, pp. 74 et seq.]

At Christmas, in the year 1429, the flying squadron of beguines being assembled at Jargeau,[1879] this good Brother said mass and administered the communion thrice to Jeanne the Maid and twice to that Pierronne of Lower Brittany, with whom our Lord conversed as friend with friend. Such an action might well be regarded, if not as a formal violation of the Church's laws, at any rate as an unjustifiable abuse of the sacrament.[1880] A menacing theological tempest was then gathering and was about to break over the heads of Friar Richard's daughters in the spirit. A few days after the attack on Paris, the venerable University had had composed or rather transcribed a treatise, De bono et maligno spiritu, with a view probably to finding therein arguments against Friar Richard and his prophetess Jeanne, who had both appeared before the city with the Armagnacs.[1881]

[Footnote 1879: Trial, vol. i, p. 106.]

[Footnote 1880: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 271.]

[Footnote 1881: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 232, 233. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Cartularium Univ. Paris, vol. iv, p. 515.]

About the same time, a clerk of the faculty of law had published a summary reply to Chancellor Gerson's memorial concerning the Maid. "It sufficeth not," he wrote, "that one simply affirm that he is sent of God; every heretic maketh such a claim; but he must prove the truth of that mysterious mission by some miraculous work or by some special testimony in the Bible." This Paris clerk denies that the Maid has presented any such proof, and to judge her by her acts, he believes her rather to have been sent by the Devil than by God. He reproaches her with wearing a dress forbidden to women under penalty of anathema, and he refutes the excuses for her conduct in this matter urged by Gerson. He accuses her of having excited between princes and Christian people a greater war than there had ever been before. He holds her to be an idolatress using enchantments and making false prophecies. He charges her with having induced men to slay their fellows on the two high festivals of the Holy Virgin, the Assumption and the Nativity. "Sins committed by the Enemy of Mankind, through this woman, against the Creator and his most glorious Mother. And albeit there ensued certain murders, thanks be to God they were not so many as the Enemy had intended."

"All these things do manifestly prove error and heresy," adds this devout son of the University. Whence he concludes that the Maid should be taken before the Bishop and the Inquisitor; and he ends by quoting this text from Saint Jerome: "The unhealthy flesh must be cut off; the diseased sheep must be driven from the fold."[1882]

[Footnote 1882: Noel Valois, Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1907, in 8vo, 19 pages.]

Such was the unanimous opinion of the University of Paris concerning her in whom the French clerks beheld an Angel of the Lord. At Bruges, in November, a rumour ran and was eagerly welcomed by ecclesiastics that the University of Paris had sent an embassy to the Pope at Rome to denounce the Maid as a false prophetess and a deceiver, and likewise those who believed in her. We do not know the veritable object of this mission.[1883] But there is no doubt whatever that the doctors and masters of Paris were henceforward firmly resolved that if ever they obtained possession of the damsel they would not let her go out of their hands, and certainly would not send her to be tried at Rome, where she might escape with a mere penance, and even be enlisted as one of the Pope's mercenaries.[1884]

[Footnote 1883: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 232.]

[Footnote 1884: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 354, 355.]

In English and Burgundian lands, not only by clerks but by folk of all conditions, she was regarded as a heretic; in those countries the few who thought well of her had to conceal their opinions carefully. After the retreat from Saint-Denys, there may have remained some in Picardy, and notably at Abbeville, who were favourable to the prophetess of the French; but such persons must not be spoken of in public.

Colin Gouye, surnamed Le Sourd, and Jehannin Daix, surnamed Le Petit, a man of Abbeville, learned this to their cost. In this town about the middle of September, Le Sourd and Le Petit were near the blacksmith's forge with divers of the burgesses and other townsfolk, among whom was a herald. They fell to talking of the Maid who was making so great a stir throughout Christendom. To certain words the herald uttered concerning her, Le Petit replied eagerly:

"Well! well! Everything that woman does and says is nought but deception."

Le Sourd spoke likewise: "That woman," he said, "is not to be trusted. Those who believe in her are mad, and there is a smell of burning about them."[1885]

[Footnote 1885: Sentent la persinee: literally, smell of roast parsley. Cf. Godefroy, Lexique de l'ancien francais at the word persinee. Sentir la persinee: to be suspected of heresy (W.S.).]

By that he meant that their destiny was obvious, and that they were sure to be burned at the stake as heretics.

Then he had the misfortune to add: "In this town there be many with a smell of burning about them."

Such words were for the dwellers in Abbeville a slander and a cause of suspicion. When the Mayor and the aldermen heard of this speech they ordered Le Sourd to be thrown into prison. Le Petit must have said something similar, for he too was imprisoned.[1886]

[Footnote 1886: Pardon granted to Le Sourd and Jehannin Daix, in Trial, vol. v, pp. 142-145.]

By saying that divers of his fellow-citizens were suspect of heresy, Le Sourd put them in danger of being sought out by the Bishop and the Inquisitor as heretics and sorcerers of notoriously evil repute. As for the Maid, she must have been suspect indeed, for a smell of burning to be caused by the mere fact of being her partisan.

While Friar Richard and his spiritual daughters were thus threatened with a bad end should they fall into the hands of the English or Burgundians, serious troubles were agitating the sisterhood. On the subject of Catherine, Jeanne entered into an open dispute with her spiritual father. Friar Richard wanted the holy dame of La Rochelle to be set to work. Fearing lest his advice should be adopted, Jeanne wrote to her King to tell him what to do with the woman, to wit that he should send her home to her husband and children.

When she came to the King the first thing she had to say to him was: "Catherine's doings are nought but folly and futility."

Friar Richard made no attempt to hide from the Maid his profound displeasure.[1887] He was thought much of at court, and it was doubtless with the consent of the Royal Council that he was endeavouring to compass the employment of Dame Catherine. The Maid had succeeded. Why should not another of the illuminated succeed?

[Footnote 1887: Trial, vol. i, p. 107.]

Meanwhile the Council had by no means renounced the services Jeanne was rendering to the French cause. Even after the misfortunes of Paris and of La Charite, there were many who now as before held her power to be supernatural; and there is reason to believe that there was a party at Court intending still to employ her.[1888] And even if they had wished to discard her she was now too intimately associated with the royal lilies for her rejection not to involve them too in dishonour. On the 29th of December, 1429, at Mehun-sur-Yevre, the King gave her a charter of nobility sealed with the great seal in green wax, with a double pendant, on a strip of red and green silk.[1889]

[Footnote 1888: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 84; vol. iv, pp. 312 et passim. A. de Villaret, loc. cit. Proofs and illustrations.]

[Footnote 1889: Trial, vol. v, pp. 150-153. J. Hordal, Heroinae nobilissimae Joannae Darc, lotharingae, vulgo aurelianensis puellae historia.... Ponti-Mussi, 1612, small 4to. C. du Lys, Traite sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle, justifie par plusieurs patentes et arrets, enquetes et informations.... Paris, 1633, in 4to. De la Roque, Traite de la noblesse, Paris, 1678, in 4to, ch. xliii. Lanery d'Arc, Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, ch. x.]

The grant of nobility was to Jeanne, her father, mother, brothers even if they were not free, and to all their posterity, male and female. It was a singular grant corresponding to the singular services rendered by a woman.

In the title she is described as Johanna d'Ay, doubtless because her father's name was given to the King's scribes by Lorrainers who would speak with a soft drawl; but whether her name were Ay or Arc, she was seldom called by it, and was commonly spoken of as Jeanne the Maid.[1890]

[Footnote 1890: See analytical index, in Trial, vol. v, at the word Pucelle.]



CHAPTER V

LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF REIMS—LETTER TO THE HUSSITES—DEPARTURE FROM SULLY

The folk of Orleans were grateful to the Maid for what she had done for them. Far from reproaching her with the unfortunate conclusion of the siege of La Charite, they welcomed her into their city with the same rejoicing and with as good cheer as before. On the 19th of January, 1430, they honoured her and likewise Maitre Jean de Velly and Maitre Jean Rabateau with a banquet, at which there was abundance of capons, partridges, hares, and even a pheasant.[1891] Who that Jean de Velly was, who was feasted with her, we do not know. As for Jean Rabateau, he was none other than the King's Councillor, who had been Attorney-General at the Parlement of Poitiers since 1427.[1892] He had been the Maid's host at Orleans. His wife had often seen Jeanne kneeling in her private oratory.[1893] The citizens of Orleans offered wine to the Attorney-General, to Jean de Velly, and to the Maid. In good sooth, 'twas a fine feast and a ceremonious. The burgesses loved and honoured Jeanne, but they cannot have observed her very closely during the repast or they would not eight years later, when an adventuress gave herself out to be the Maid, have mistaken her for Jeanne, and offered her wine in the same manner and at the hands of the same city servant, Jacques Leprestre, as now presented it.[1894]

[Footnote 1891: Trial, vol. v, p. 270.]

[Footnote 1892: Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 19, 74, 203. H. Daniel Lacombe, L'hote de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, Maitre Jean Rabateau, president du parlement de Paris, in Revue du Bas-Poitou, 1891, pp. 48, 66.]

[Footnote 1893: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 88 et seq.]

[Footnote 1894: Extract from the Accounts of the town of Orleans, in Trial, vol. v, p. 331.]

The standard that Jeanne loved even more than her Saint Catherine's sword had been painted at Tours by one Hamish Power. He was now marrying his daughter Heliote; and when Jeanne heard of it, she sent a letter to the magistrates of Tours, asking them to give a sum of one hundred crowns for the bride's trousseau. The nuptials were fixed for the 9th of February, 1430. The magistrates assembled twice to deliberate on Jeanne's request. They described her honourably and yet not without a certain caution as "the Maid who hath come into this realm to the King, concerning the matter of the war, announcing that she is sent by the King of Heaven against the English." In the end they refused to pay anything, because, they said, it behoved them to expend municipal funds on municipal matters and not otherwise; but they decided that for the affection and honour they bore the Maid, the churchmen, burgesses, and other townsfolk should be present in the church at the wedding, and should offer prayers for the bride and present her with bread and wine. This cost them four livres, ten sous.[1895]

[Footnote 1895: Vallet de Viriville, Un episode de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. iv (1st series), p. 488. Trial, vol. v, pp. 154-156.]

At a time which it is impossible to fix exactly the Maid bought a house at Orleans. To be more precise she took it on lease.[1896] A lease (bail a vente) was an agreement by which the proprietor of a house or other property transferred the ownership to the lessee in return for an annual payment in kind or in money. The duration of such leases was usually fifty-nine years. The house that Jeanne acquired in this manner belonged to the Chapter of the Cathedral. It was in the centre of the town, in the parish of Saint-Malo, close to the Saint-Maclou Chapel, next door to the shop of an oil-seller, one Jean Feu, in the Rue des Petits-Souliers. It was in this street that, during the siege, there had fallen into the midst of five guests seated at table a stone cannon-ball weighing one hundred and sixty-four pounds, which had done no one any harm.[1897] What price did the Maid give for this house? Apparently six crowns of fine gold (at sixty crowns to the mark), due half-yearly at Midsummer and Christmas, for fifty-nine years. In addition, she must according to custom have undertaken to keep the house in good condition and to pay out of her own purse the ecclesiastical dues as well as rates for wells and paving and all other taxes. Being obliged to have some one as surety, she chose as her guarantor a certain Guillot de Guyenne, of whom we know nothing further.[1898]

[Footnote 1896: Jules Doinel, Note sur une maison de Jeanne d'Arc, in Memoires de la Societe archeologique et historique de l'Orleanais, vol. xv, pp. 491-500.]

[Footnote 1897: Journal du siege, pp. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 1898: Jules Doinel, Note sur une maison de Jeanne d'Arc, loc. cit.]

There is no reason to believe that the Maid did not herself negotiate this agreement. Saint as she was, she knew well what it was to possess property. Such knowledge ran in her family; her father was the best business man in his village.[1899] She herself was domesticated and thrifty; for she kept her old clothes, and even in the field she knew where to find them when she wanted to make presents of them to her friends. She counted up her possessions in arms and horses, valued them at twelve thousand crowns, and, apparently made a pretty accurate reckoning.[1900] But what was her idea in taking this house? Did she think of living in it? Did she intend when the war was over to return to Orleans and pass a peaceful old age in a house of her own? Or was she planning for her parents to dwell there, or some Vouthon uncle, or her brothers, one of whom was in great poverty and had got a doublet out of the citizens of Orleans?[1901]

[Footnote 1899: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. 360.]

[Footnote 1900: Trial, vol. i, p. 295.]

[Footnote 1901: Accounts of the fortress, in Trial, vol. v, pp. 259, 260.]

On the third of March she followed King Charles to Sully.[1902] The chateau, in which she lodged near the King, belonged to the Sire de la Tremouille, who had inherited it from his mother, Marie de Sully, the daughter of Louis I of Bourbon. It had been recaptured from the English after the deliverance of Orleans.[1903] A stronghold on the Loire, on the highroad from Paris to Autun, and commanding the plain between Orleans and Briare and the ancient bridge with twenty arches, the chateau of Sully linked together central France and those northern provinces which Jeanne had so regretfully quitted, and whither with all her heart she longed to return to engage in fresh expeditions and fresh sieges.

[Footnote 1902: Trial, vol. v, p. 159.]

[Footnote 1903: Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 258. Berry, in Godefroy, p. 376. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 294, notes 4, 5. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, pp. 139, 163. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 144.]

During the first fortnight of March, from the townsfolk of Reims she received a message in which they confided to her fears only too well grounded.[1904] On the 8th of March the Regent had granted to the Duke of Burgundy the counties of Champagne and of Brie on condition of his reconquering them.[1905] Armagnacs and English vied with each other in offering the biggest and most tempting morsels to this Gargantuan Duke. Not being able to keep their promise and deliver to him Compiegne which refused to be delivered, the French offered him in its place Pont-Sainte-Maxence.[1906] But it was Compiegne that he wanted. The truces, which had been very imperfectly kept, were to have expired at Christmas, but first they had been prolonged till the 15th of March and then till Easter. In the year 1430 Easter fell on the 16th of April; and Duke Philip was only waiting for that date to put an army in the field.[1907]

[Footnote 1904: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 378. D. Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne, vol. iv, p. 137. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 268.]

[Footnote 1905: Du Tillet, Recueil des rois de France, vol. ii, p. 39 (ed. 1601-1602). Rymer, Foedera, March, 1430.]

[Footnote 1906: P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 35, 152.]

[Footnote 1907: De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 351, 389.]

In a manner concise and vivacious the Maid replied to the townsfolk of Reims:

"Dear friends and beloved and mightily desired. Jehenne the Maid hath received your letters making mention that ye fear a siege. Know ye that it shall not so betide, and I may but encounter them shortly. And if I do not encounter them and they do not come to you, if you shut your gates firmly, I shall shortly be with you: and if they be there, I shall make them put on their spurs so hastily that they will not know where to take them and so quickly that it shall be very soon. Other things I will not write unto you now, save that ye be always good and loyal. I pray God to have you in his keeping. Written at Sully, the 16th day of March.

I would announce unto you other tidings at which ye would mightily rejoice; but I fear lest the letters be taken on the road, and the said tidings be seen.

Signed. Jehanne.

Addressed to my dear friends and beloved, churchmen, burgesses and other citizens of the town of Rains."[1908]

[Footnote 1908: Trial, vol. v, p. 160, according to Rogier's copy. H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, proofs and illustrations xv. Facsimile in Wallon, 1876 edition, p. 200. The original of this letter exists, likewise the original of the letter addressed on the 9th of November, 1429, to the citizens of Riom. These two letters, about one hundred and twenty-six days apart, are not written by the same scribe. The signature of neither one nor the other can be attributed to the hand which indited the rest of the letter. The seven letters of the name Jehanne seem to have been written by some one whose hand was being held, which is not surprising, seeing that the Maid did not know how to write. But a comparison of the two signatures reveals their close similarity. In both the stem of the J slopes in the same direction and is of identical length; the first n through one letter being written on the top of another has three pothooks instead of two; the second pothook of the second n obviously written in two strokes is too long, in short the two signatures correspond exactly. We must conclude therefore that having once obtained the Maid's signature by guiding her hand, an impression was taken to serve as a model for all her other letters. To judge from the two missives of the 9th of November, 1429 and the 16th of March, 1430, this impression was most faithfully reproduced. Cf. post, p. 117, note 2.]

There can be no doubt that the scribe wrote this letter faithfully as it was dictated by the Maid, and that he wrote her words as they fell from her lips. In her haste she now and again forgot words and sometimes whole phrases; but the sense is clear all the same. And what confidence! "You will have no siege if I encounter the enemy." How completely is this the language of chivalry! On the eve of Patay she had asked: "Have you good spurs?"[1909] Here she cries: "I will make them put on their spurs." She says that soon she will be in Champagne, that she is about to start. Surely we can no longer think of her shut up in the Castle of La Tremouille as in a kind of gilded cage.[1910] In conclusion, she tells her friends at Reims that she does not write unto them all that she would like for fear lest her letter should be captured on the road. She knew what it was to be cautious. Sometimes she affixed a cross to her letters to warn her followers to pay no heed to what she wrote, in the hope that the missive would be intercepted and the enemy deceived.[1911]

[Footnote 1909: Trial, vol. iii, p. 11.]

[Footnote 1910: Perceval de Cagny, p. 172.]

[Footnote 1911: Trial, vol. i, p. 83.]

It was from Sully that on the 23rd of March Brother Pasquerel sent the Emperor Sigismund a letter intended for the Hussites of Bohemia.[1912]

[Footnote 1912: Ibid., vol. v, p. 156.]

The Hussites of those days were abhorred and execrated throughout Christendom. They demanded the free preaching of God's word, communion in both kinds, and the return of the Church to that evangelical life which allowed neither the wealth of priests nor the temporal power of popes. They desired the punishment of sin by the civil magistrates, a custom which could prevail only in very holy society. They were saints indeed and heretics too on every possible point. Pope Martin held the destruction of these wicked persons to be salutary, and such was the opinion of every good Catholic. But how could this armed heresy be dealt with when it routed all the forces of the Empire and the Holy See? The Hussites were too much for that worn-out ancient chivalry of Christendom, for the knighthood of France and of Germany, which was good for nothing but to be thrown on to the refuse heaps like so much old iron. And this was precisely what the towns of the realm of France did when over these knights of chivalry they placed a peasant girl.[1913]

[Footnote 1913: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 24, 86, 87. J. Zeller, Histoire d'Allemagne, vol. vii, La reforme, Paris, 1891, pp. 78 et seq. E. Denis, Jean Hus et la guerre des Hussites (1879); Les origines de l'Unite des Freres Bohemes, Angers, 1885, in 8vo, pp. 5 et seq.]

At Tachov, in 1427, the Crusaders, blessed by the Holy Father, had fled at the mere sound of the chariot wheels of the Procops.[1914] Pope Martin knew not where to turn for defenders of Holy Church, one and indivisible. He had paid for the armament of five thousand English crusaders, which the Cardinal of Winchester was to lead against these accursed Bohemians; but in this force the Holy Father was cruelly disappointed; hardly had his five thousand crusaders landed in France, than the Regent of England diverted them from their route and sent them to Brie to occupy the attention of the Maid of the Armagnacs.[1915]

[Footnote 1914: Two of the great leaders of the Hussites who held large parts of central Germany in terror from 1419-1434 (W.S.).]

[Footnote 1915: L. Paris, Cabinet historique, vol. i, 1855, pp. 74, 76. Rogier, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 294. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 132, 133, 136, 137, 168, 169, 188, 189; vol. iv, supplement, xvii.]

Since her coming into France Jeanne had spoken of the crusade as a work good and meritorious. In the letter dictated before the expedition to Orleans, she summoned the English to join the French and go together to fight against the Church's foe. And later, writing to the Duke of Burgundy, she invited the son of the Duke vanquished at Nicopolis to make war against the Turks.[1916] Who but the mendicants directing her can have put these crusading ideas into Jeanne's head? Immediately after the deliverance of Orleans it was said that she would lead King Charles to the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre and that she would die in the Holy Land.[1917] At the same time it was rumoured that she would make war on the Hussites. In the month of July, 1429, when the coronation campaign had barely begun, it was proclaimed in Germany, on the faith of a prophetess of Rome, that by a prophetess of France the Bohemian kingdom should be recovered.[1918]

[Footnote 1916: Trial, vol. i, p. 240; vol. v, p. 126.]

[Footnote 1917: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 82-85. Christine de Pisan, in Trial, vol. v, p. 416. Eberhard Windecke, pp. 60-63.]

[Footnote 1918: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 108, 115, 188.]

Already zealous for the Crusade against the Turks, the Maid was now equally eager for the Crusade against the Hussites. Turks or Bohemians, it was all alike to her. Of one and the other her only knowledge lay in the stories full of witchcraft related to her by the mendicants of her company. Touching the Hussites, stories were told, not all true, but which Jeanne must have believed; and they cannot have pleased her. It was said that they worshipped the devil, and that they called him "the wronged one." It was told that as works of piety they committed all manner of fornication. Every Bohemian was said to be possessed by a hundred demons. They were accused of killing thousands of churchmen. Again, and this time with truth, they were charged with burning churches and monasteries. The Maid believed in the God who commanded Israel to wipe out the Philistines from the face of the earth. But recently there had arisen Cathari who held the God of the Old Testament to be none other than Lucifer or Luciabelus, author of evil, liar and murderer. The Cathari abhorred war; they refused to shed blood; they were heretics; they had been massacred, and none remained. The Maid believed in good faith that the extirpation of the Hussites was a work pleasing to God. Men more learned than she, not like her addicted to chivalry, but of gentle life, clerks like the Chancellor Jean Gerson, believed it likewise.[1919] Of these Bohemian heretics she thought what every one thought: her opinions were those of the multitude; her views were modelled on public opinion. Wherefore in all the simplicity of her heart she hated the Hussites, but she feared them not, because she feared nothing and because she believed, God helping her, that she was able to overcome all the English, all the Turks, and all the Bohemians in the world. At the first trumpet call she was ready to sally forth against them. On the 23rd of March, 1430, Brother Pasquerel sent the Emperor Sigismund a letter written in the name of the Maid and intended for the Hussites of Bohemia. This letter was indited in Latin. The following is the purport of it:

[Footnote 1919: Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, vol. ii, p. 481 (1906).]

JESUS [cross symbol] MARIE

Long ago there reached me the tidings that ye from the true Christians that ye once were have become heretics, like unto the Saracens, that ye have abolished true religion and worship and have turned to a superstition corrupt and fatal, the which in your zeal to maintain and to spread abroad there be no shame nor cruelty ye do not dare to perpetrate. You defile the sacraments of the Church, tear to pieces the articles of her faith, overthrow her temples. The images which were made for similitudes you break and throw into the fire. Finally such Christians as embrace not your faith you massacre. What fury, what folly, what rage possesses you? That religion which God the All Powerful, which the Son, which the Holy Ghost raised up, instituted, exalted and revealed in a thousand manners, by a thousand miracles, ye persecute, ye employ all arts to overturn and to exterminate.

It is you, you who are blind and not those who have not eyes nor sight. Think ye that ye will go unpunished? Do ye not know that if God prevent not your impious violence, if he suffer you to grope on in darkness and in error, it is that he is preparing for you a greater sorrow and a greater punishment? As for me, in good sooth, were I not occupied with the English wars, I would have already come against you. But in very deed if I learn not that ye have turned from your wicked ways, I will peradventure leave the English and hasten against you, in order that I may destroy by the sword your vain and violent superstition, if I can do so in no other manner, and that I may rid you either of heresy or of life. Notwithstanding, if you prefer to return to the Catholic faith and to the light of primitive days, send unto me your ambassadors and I will tell them what ye must do. If on the other hand ye will be stiff-necked and kick against the pricks, then remember all the crimes and offences ye have perpetrated and look for to see me coming unto you with all strength divine and human to render unto you again all the evil ye have done unto others.

Given at Sully, on the 23rd of March, to the Bohemian heretics.

Signed. Pasquerel.[1920]

[Footnote 1920: Th. de Sickel, Lettre de Jeanne d'Arc aux Hussites, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 3rd series, vol. ii, p. 81. A wrong date is given in the German translation used by Quicherat, Trial, vol. v, pp. 156-159.]

This was the letter sent to the Emperor. How had Jeanne really expressed herself in her dialect savouring alike of the speech of Champagne and of that of l'Ile de France? There can be no doubt but that her letter had been sadly embellished by the good Brother. Such Ciceronian language cannot have proceeded from the Maid. It is all very well to say that a saint of those days could do everything, could prophesy on any subject and in any tongue, so fine an epistle remains far too rhetorical to have been composed by a damsel whom even the Armagnac captains considered simple. Nevertheless, a careful examination will reveal in this missive, at any rate in the second half of it, certain of those bluntly naive passages and some of that childish assurance which are noticeable in Jeanne's genuine letters, especially in her reply to the Count of Armagnac;[1921] and more than once there occurs an expression characteristic of a village sibyl. The following, for example, is quite in Jeanne's own manner: "If you will return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, send me your ambassadors; I will tell you what you have to do." And her usual threat: "Expect me with all strength human and divine."[1922] As for the phrase: "If I hear not shortly of your conversion, of your return to the bosom of the Church, I will peradventure leave the English and come against you," here we may suspect the mendicant friar, less interested in the affairs of Charles VII than in those of the Church, of having ascribed to the Maid greater eagerness to set forth on the Crusade than she really felt. Good and salutary as she deemed the taking of the Cross, as far as we know her, she would never have consented to take it until she had driven the English out of the realm of France. She believed this to be her mission, and the persistence, the consistency, the strength of will she evinced in its fulfilment, are truly admirable. It is quite probable that she dictated to the good Brother some phrase like: "When I have put the English out of the kingdom, I will turn against you." This would explain and excuse Brother Pasquerel's error. It is very likely that Jeanne believed she would dispose of the English in a trice and that she already saw herself distributing good buffets and sound clouts to the renegade and infidel Bohemians. The Maid's simplicity makes itself felt through the clerk's Latin. This epistle to the Bohemians recalls, alas! that fagot placed upon the stake whereon John Huss was burning, by the pious zeal of the good wife whose saintly simplicity John Huss himself teaches us to admire.

[Footnote 1921: Trial, vol. i, p. 246.]

[Footnote 1922: Ibid., vol. v, p. 95.]

One cannot help reflecting that Jeanne and those very men against whom she hurled menace and invective had much in common; alike they were impelled by faith, chastity, simple ignorance, pious duty, resignation to God's will, and a tendency to magnify the minor matters of devotion. Zizka[1923] had established in his camp that purity of morals which the Maid was endeavouring to introduce among the Armagnacs. The peasant soldiers of Bohemia and the peasant Maid of France bearing her sword amidst mendicant monks had much in common. On the one hand and on the other, we have the religious spirit in the place of the political spirit, the fear of sin in the place of obedience to the civil law, the spiritual introduced into the temporal. Here is indeed a woeful sight and a piteous; the devout set one against the other, the innocent against the innocent, the simple against the simple, the heretic against heretics; and it is painful to think that when she is threatening with extermination the disciples of that John Huss, who had been treacherously taken and burned as a heretic, she herself is on the point of being sold to her enemies and condemned to suffer as a witch. It would have been different if this letter, at which the accomplished wits and humorists of the day looked askance, had won the approval of theologians. But they also found fault with it, an illustrious canonist, a zealous inquisitor deemed highly presumptuous this threatening of a multitude of men by a Maid.[1924]

[Footnote 1923: Another of the Hussite leaders (W.S.).]

[Footnote 1924: J. Nider, Formicarium in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 502-504.]

We were right in saying that she was not prepared to leave the English immediately and hasten against the Bohemians. Five days after her appeal to the Hussites she wrote to her friends at Reims and in mysterious words gave them to understand that she would come to them shortly.[1925]

[Footnote 1925: Trial, vol. v, pp. 161, 162.]

The partisans of Duke Philip were at that time hatching plots in the towns of Champagne, notably at Troyes and at Reims. On the 22nd of February, 1430, a canon and a chaplain were arrested and brought before the chapter for having conspired to deliver the city to the English. It was well for them that they belonged to the Church, for having been condemned to perpetual imprisonment, they obtained from the King a mitigation of their sentence, and the canon a complete remittance.[1926] The aldermen and ecclesiastics of the city, fearing they would be thought badly of on the other side of the Loire, wrote to the Maid entreating her to speak well of them to the King. The following is her reply to their request:[1927]

[Footnote 1926: Ibid., vol. iv, p. 299, and H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, pp. 60 et seq. Memoires de Pierre Coquault, ibid., pp. 109 et seq.]

[Footnote 1927: This letter was published by J. Quicherat, in Trial, vol. v, pp. 161, 162, and by M. H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, pp. 106, 107 and document XVI, according to Rogier's inaccurate copy. The original which had disappeared from the municipal archives at Reims was considered to be lost; but it has been found in the possession of the Count de Maleissye. Cf. the reproduction by A. Marty and M. Lepet, L'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc.... Cent facsimiles de manuscrits, de miniatures, Paris, 1907, in large 4to. Here for the first time is to be found a text correct according to the original document.]

"Very good friends and beloved, may it please you to wit that I have received your letters, the which make mention how it hath been reported to the King that within the city of Reims there be many wicked persons. Therefore I give you to wit that it is indeed true that even such things have been reported to him and that he grieves much that there be folk in alliance with the Burgundians; that they would betray the town and bring the Burgundians into it. But since then the King has known the contrary by means of the assurance ye have sent him, and he is well pleased with you. And ye may believe that ye stand well in his favour; and if ye have need, he would help you with regard to the siege; and he knows well that ye have much to suffer from the hardness of those treacherous Burgundians, your adversaries: thus may God in his pleasure deliver you shortly, that is as soon as may be. So I pray and entreat you my friends dearly beloved that ye hold well the said city for the King and that ye keep good watch. Ye will soon have good tidings of me at greater length. Other things for the present I write not unto you save that the whole of Brittany is French and that the Duke is to send to the King three thousand combatants paid for two months. To God I commend you, may he keep you.

Written at Sully, the 28th of March.

Jehanne.[1928]

Addressed to: My good friends and dearly beloved, the churchmen, aldermen, burgesses and inhabitants and masters of the good town of Reyms."[1929]

[Footnote 1928: The signature appears to be autograph. It differs from the two identical signatures of the letters from Riom and Reims (see ante, p. 108, note 1); and it bears trace of the resistance of a hand which was being guided.]

[Footnote 1929: Trial, vol. v, pp. 161, 162. Varin, Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims, vol. i, p. 596. H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, pp. 106, 107.]

Touching the succour to be expected from the Duke of Brittany, the Maid was labouring under a delusion. Like all other prophetesses she was ignorant of what was passing around her. Despite her failures, she believed in her good fortune; she doubted herself no more than she doubted God; and she was eager to pursue the fulfilment of her mission. "Ye shall soon have tidings of me," she said to the townsfolk of Reims. A few days after, and she left Sully to go into France and fight, on the expiration of the truces.

It has been said that she feigned an expedition of pleasure and set out without taking leave of the King, that it was a kind of innocent stratagem, an honourable flight.[1930] But it was nothing of the sort.[1931] The Maid gathered a company of some hundred horse, sixty-eight archers and cross-bowmen, and two trumpeters, commanded by a Lombard captain, Bartolomeo Baretta.[1932] In this company were Italian men-at-arms, bearing broad shields, like some who had come to Orleans at the time of the siege; possibly they were the same.[1933] She set out at the head of this company, with her brothers and her steward, the Sire Jean d'Aulon. She was in the hands of Jean d'Aulon, and Jean d'Aulon was in the hands of the Sire de la Tremouille, to whom he owed money.[1934] The good squire would not have followed the Maid against the King's will.

[Footnote 1930: Perceval de Cagny, who was in the pay of the Duke of Alencon, is the only chronicler to suggest it, p. 173.]

[Footnote 1931: "In the year 1430, Jeanne the Maid started from the country of Berry accompanied by divers fighting men...." Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 120.]

[Footnote 1932: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 120. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, ed. Coustellier, vol. i, p. 117. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 177. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 36, note 2.]

[Footnote 1933: Journal du siege, p. 12.]

[Footnote 1934: De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 293, note 3. True, the loan was made later; none the less the dependence of Jean d'Aulon on the Sire de la Tremouille existed at this time.]

The flying squadron of beguines had recently been divided by a schism. Friar Richard, who was then in high favour with Queen Marie, and who had preached the Lenten sermons of 1430[1935] at Orleans, stayed behind, on the Loire, with Catherine de la Rochelle. Jeanne took with her Pierronne and the younger Breton prophetess.[1936] If she went into France, it was not without the knowledge or against the will of the King and his Council. Very probably the Chancellor of the kingdom had asked La Tremouille to send her in order that he might employ her in the approaching campaign against the Burgundians, who were threatening his government of Beauvais and his city of Reims.[1937] He was not very kindly disposed towards her, but already he had made use of her and he intended to do so again. Possibly his intention was to employ her in a fresh attack on Paris.

[Footnote 1935: Trial, vol. i, p. 99, note. Journal du siege, pp. 235, 238.]

[Footnote 1936: This comes from the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 271.]

[Footnote 1937: Trial, vol. v, pp. 159, 160.]

The King had not abandoned the idea of taking his great city by the peaceful methods he always preferred. Throughout Lent, between Sully and Paris, there had been a constant passing to and fro of certain Carmelite monks of Melun, disguised as artisans. These were the churchmen who, during the attack on the Porte Saint Honore, on the Day of the Festival of Our Lady, had stirred up the popular rising which had spread from one bank of the Seine to the other. Now they were negotiating with certain influential citizens the entrance of the King's men into the rebel city. The Prior of the Melun Carmelites was directing the conspiracy.[1938] There is reason to believe that Jeanne had herself seen him or one of his monks. True it is that since the 22nd or the 23rd of March it was known at Sully that the conspiracy had been discovered;[1939] but perhaps the hope of success still lingered. It was to Melun that Jeanne went with her company; and it is difficult to believe that there was no connection between the conspiracy of the Carmelites and the expedition of the Maid.

[Footnote 1938: The Pardon of Jean de Calais in A. Longnon, Paris sous la domination anglaise, pp. 301-309. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, vol. i, pp. 34-50.]

[Footnote 1939: So it appears from Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 274-275.]

Why should Charles VII's Councillors have ceased to employ her? It cannot be said that she appeared less divine to the French or less evil to the English. Her failures, either unknown, or partially known, rendered unimportant by the fame of her victories, had not dispelled the idea that within her resided invincible power. At the time when the hapless damsel with the flower of French knighthood was receiving sore treatment under the walls of La Charite at the hands of an ex-mason's apprentice, in Burgundian lands it was rumoured that she was carrying by storm a castle twelve miles from Paris.[1940] She was still considered miraculous; the burgesses, the men-at-arms of her party still believed in her. And as for the Godons, from the Regent to the humblest swordsman of the army, they all regarded her with a terror as great as that which had possessed them at Orleans and Patay. At this time so many English soldiers and captains refused to go to France, that a special edict was issued obliging them to do so.[1941] But they doubtless discovered reasons enough for not going into a country where henceforth they could hope only for hard knocks and nothing tempting; so that many declined, terrified by the enchantments of the Maid.[1942]

[Footnote 1940: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 228-231. Concerning Perrinet Gressart see vol. i, p. 389.]

[Footnote 1941: May 3, 1430.]

[Footnote 1942: G. Lefevre-Pontalis, La panique anglaise. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iii, pp. 572-574.]



CHAPTER VI

THE MAID IN THE TRENCHES OF MELUN—LE SEIGNEUR DE L'OURS—THE CHILD OF LAGNY

In Easter week, Jeanne, at the head of a band of mercenaries, is before the walls of Melun.[1943] She arrives just in time to fight. The truces have expired.[1944] Is it possible that the town which was subject to King Charles[1945] can have refused to admit the Maid with her company when she came to it so generously? Apparently it was so. Was Jeanne able to communicate with the Carmelites of Melun? Probably. What misfortune befell her at the gates of the town? Did she suffer ill treatment at the hands of a Burgundian band? We know not. But when she was in the trenches she heard Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret saying unto her: "Thou wilt be taken before Saint John's Day."

[Footnote 1943: Trial, vol. i, pp. 115, 253, April 17-23. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 502 recto. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 158, note 2.]

[Footnote 1944: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 363 (April 16).]

[Footnote 1945: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 125. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 378. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 28. Melun certainly belonged to the French on the 23rd of April, 1430.]

And she entreated them: "When I am taken, let me die immediately without suffering long." And the Voices repeated that she would be taken and thus it must be.

And they added gently: "Be not troubled, be resigned. God will help thee."[1946]

[Footnote 1946: Trial, vol. i, pp. 114-116. G. Leroy, Histoire de Melun, Melun, 1887, in 8vo, ch. xvi ... x ... [Transcriber's Note: ellipses in original] Jeanne d'Arc a Melun, mi-avril, 1430, Melun, 1896, 32 pp.]

Saint John's Day was the 24th of June, in less than ten weeks. Many a time after that, Jeanne asked her saints at what hour she would be taken; but they did not tell her; and thus doubting she ceased to follow her own ideas and consulted the captains.[1947]

[Footnote 1947: Trial, vol. i, p. 147.]

On her way from Melun to Lagny-sur-Marne, in the month of May, she had to pass Corbeil. It was probably then, and in her company, that the two devout women from Lower Brittany, Pierronne and her younger sister in the spirit, were taken at Corbeil by the English.[1948]

[Footnote 1948: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 259.]

For eight months the town of Lagny had been subject to King Charles and governed by Messire Ambroise de Lore, who was energetically waging war against the English of Paris and elsewhere.[1949] For the nonce Messire Ambroise de Lore was absent; but his lieutenant, Messire Jean Foucault, commanded the garrison. Shortly after Jeanne's coming to this town, tidings were brought that a company of between three and four hundred men of Picardy and of Champagne, fighting for the Duke of Burgundy, after having ranged through l'Ile de France, were now on their way back to Picardy with much booty. Their captain was a valiant man-at-arms, one Franquet d'Arras.[1950] The French determined to cut off their retreat. Under the command of Messire Jean Foucault, Messire Geoffroy de Saint-Bellin, Lord Hugh Kennedy, a Scotchman, and Captain Baretta, they sallied forth from the town.[1951]

[Footnote 1949: Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 334, 335. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 110, 111. F.A. Denis, Le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1894, in 8vo, pp. 3 et seq.]

[Footnote 1950: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 384. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 120, 121. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173.]

[Footnote 1951: Jean Chartier, loc. cit. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 117. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 38, note.]

The Maid went with them. They encountered the Burgundians near Lagny, but failed to surprise them. Messire Franquet's archers had had time to take up their position with their backs to a hedge, in the English manner. King Charles's men barely outnumbered the enemy. A certain clerk of that time, a Frenchman, writes of the engagement. His innate ingeniousness was invincible. With candid common sense he states that this very slight numerical superiority rendered the enterprise very arduous and difficult for his party.[1952] And the battle was strong indeed. The Burgundians were mightily afraid of the Maid because they believed her to be a witch and in command of armies of devils; notwithstanding, they fought right valiantly. Twice the French were repulsed; but they returned to the attack, and finally the Burgundians were all slain or taken.[1953]

[Footnote 1952: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 121.]

[Footnote 1953: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 384.]

The conquerers returned to Lagny, loaded with booty and taking with them their prisoners, among whom was Messire Franquet d'Arras. Of noble birth and the lord of a manor, he was entitled to expect that he would be held to ransom, according to custom. Both Jean de Troissy, Bailie of Senlis,[1954] and the Maid demanded him from the soldier who was his captor. It was to the Maid that he was finally delivered.[1955] Did she obtain him in return for money? Probably, for soldiers were not accustomed to give up noble and profitable prisoners for nothing. Nevertheless, the Maid, when questioned on this subject, replied, that being neither mistress nor steward of France, it was not for her to give out money. We must suppose, therefore, that some one paid for her. However that may be, Captain Franquet d'Arras was given up to her, and she endeavoured to exchange him for a prisoner in the hands of the English. The man whom she thus desired to deliver was a Parisian who was called Le Seigneur de l'Ours.[1956]