[Footnote 1954: H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, p. 61.]

[Footnote 1955: Trial, vol. i, p. 158.]

[Footnote 1956: Ibid., pp. 158, 159.]

He was not of gentle birth and his arms were the sign of his hostelry. It was the custom in those days to give the title of Seigneur to the masters of the great Paris inns. Thus Colin, who kept the inn at the Temple Gate, was known as Seigneur du Boisseau. The hotel de l'Ours stood in the Rue Saint-Antoine, near the Gate properly called La Porte Baudoyer, but commonly known as Porte Baudet, Baudet possessing the double advantage over Baudoyer of being shorter and more comprehensible.[1957] It was an ancient and famous inn, equal in renown to the most famous, to the inn of L'Arbre Sec, in the street of that name, to the Fleur de Lis near the Pont Neuf, to the Epee in the Rue Saint-Denis, and to the Chapeau Fetu of the Rue Croix-du-Tirouer. As early as King Charles V's reign the inn was much frequented. Before huge fires the spits were turning all day long, and there were hot bread, fresh herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty. But since then the plunderings of men-at-arms had laid waste the countryside, and travellers no longer ventured forth for fear of being robbed and slain. Knights and pilgrims had ceased coming into the town. Only wolves came by night and devoured little children in the streets. There were no fagots in the grate, no dough in the kneading-trough. Armagnacs and Burgundians had drunk all the wine, laid waste all the vineyards, and nought was left in the cellar save a poor piquette of apples and of plums.[1958]

[Footnote 1957: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 71, 72. Sauval, Antiquites de Paris, vol. i, p. 104. A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 118. H. Legrand, Paris en 1380, Paris, 1868, in 4to, p. 65.]

[Footnote 1958: Piquette, a sour wine or cider, made from the residue of grapes or apples. A kind of second brewing (W.S.). Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 150, 154, 156, 187. Francisque-Michel and Edouard Fournier, Histoire des hotelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis, Paris, 1851 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. ii, p. 5.]

The Seigneur de l'Ours, whom the Maid demanded, was called Jaquet Guillaume.[1959] Although Jeanne, like other folk, called him Seigneur, it is not certain that he personally directed his inn, nor even that the inn was open through these years of disaster and desolation. The only ascertainable fact is that he was the proprietor of the house with the sign of the Bear (l'Ours). He held it by right of his wife Jeannette, and had come into possession of it in the following manner.

[Footnote 1959: A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 117.]

Fourteen years before, when King Henry with his knighthood had not yet landed in France, the host of the Bear Inn had been the King's sergeant-at-arms, one Jean Roche, a man of wealth and fair fame. He was a devoted follower of the Duke of Burgundy, and that was what ruined him. Paris was then occupied by the Armagnacs. In the year 1416, in order to turn them out of the city, Jean Roche concerted with divers burgesses. The plot was to be carried out on Easter Day, which that year fell on the 29th of April. But the Armagnacs discovered it. They threw the conspirators into prison and brought them to trial. On the first Saturday in May the Seigneur de l'Ours was carried to the market place in a tumbrel with Durand de Brie, a dyer, master of the sixty cross-bowmen of Paris, and Jean Perquin, pin-maker and brasier. All three were beheaded, and the body of the Seigneur de l'Ours was hanged at Montfaucon where it remained until the entrance of the Burgundians. Six weeks after their coming, in July, 1418, his body was taken down from gibbet and buried in consecrated ground.[1960]

[Footnote 1960: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 71, 72. A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 118, note 1.]

Now the widow of Jean Roche had a daughter by a first marriage. Her name was Jeannette; she took for her first husband a certain Bernard le Breton; for her second, Jaquet Guillaume, who was not rich. He owed money to Maitre Jean Fleury, a clerk at law and the King's secretary. His wife's affairs were not more prosperous; her father's goods had been confiscated and she had been obliged to redeem a part of her maternal inheritance. In 1424, the couple were short of money, and they sold a house, concealing the fact that it was mortgaged. Being charged by the purchaser, they were thrown into prison, where they aggravated their offence by suborning two witnesses, one a priest, the other a chambermaid. Fortunately for them, they procured a pardon.[1961]

[Footnote 1961: A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, pp. 119-123.]

The Jaquet Guillaume couple, therefore, were in a sorry plight. There remained to them, however, the inheritance of Jean Roche, the inn near the Place Baudet, at the sign of the Bear, the title of which Jaquet Guillaume bore. This second Seigneur de l'Ours was to be as strongly Armagnac as the other had been Burgundian, and was to pay the same price for his opinions.

Six years had passed since his release from prison, when, in the March of 1430, there was plotted by the Carmelites of Melun and certain burgesses of Paris that conspiracy which we mentioned on the occasion of Jeanne's departure for l'Ile de France. It was not the first plot into which the Carmelites had entered; they had plotted that rising which had been on the point of breaking out on the Day of the Nativity, when the Maid was leading the attack near La Porte Saint-Honore; but never before had so many burgesses and so many notables entered into a conspiracy. A clerk of the Treasury, Maitre Jean de la Chapelle, two magistrates of the Chatelet, Maitre Renaud Savin and Maitre Pierre Morant, a very wealthy man, named Jean de Calais, burgesses, merchants, artisans, more than one hundred and fifty persons, held the threads of this vast web, and among them, Jaquet Guillaume, Seigneur de l'Ours.

The Carmelites of Melun directed the whole. Clad as artisans, they went from King to burgesses, from burgesses to King; they kept up the communications between those within and those without, and regulated all the details of the enterprise. One of them asked the conspirators for a written undertaking to bring the King's men into the city. Such a demand looks as if the majority of the conspirators were in the pay of the Royal Council.

In exchange for this undertaking these monks brought acts of oblivion signed by the King. For the people of Paris to be induced to receive the Prince, whom they still called Dauphin, they must needs be assured of a full and complete amnesty. For more than ten years, while the English and Burgundians had been holding the town, no one had felt altogether free from the reproach of their lawful sovereign and the men of his party. And all the more desirous were they for Charles of Valois to forget the past when they recalled the cruel vengeance taken by the Armagnacs after the suppression of the Butchers.

One of the conspirators, Jaquet Perdriel, advocated the sounding of a trumpet and the reading of the acts of oblivion on Sunday at the Porte Baudet.

"I have no doubt," he said, "but that we shall be joined by the craftsmen, who, in great numbers will flock to hear the reading."

He intended leading them to the Saint Antoine Gate and opening it to the King's men who were lying in ambush close by.

Some eighty or a hundred Scotchmen, dressed as Englishmen, wearing the Saint Andrew's cross, were then to enter the town, bringing in fish and cattle.

"They will enter boldly by the Saint-Denys Gate," said Perdriel, "and take possession of it. Whereupon the King's men will enter in force by the Porte Saint Antoine."

The plan was deemed good, except that it was considered better for the King's men to come in by the Saint-Denys Gate.

On Sunday, the 12th of March, the second Sunday in Lent, Maitre Jean de la Chapelle invited the magistrate Renaud Savin to come to the tavern of La Pomme de Pin and meet divers other conspirators in order to arrive at an understanding touching what was best to be done. They decided that on a certain day, under pretext of going to see his vines at Chapelle-Saint-Denys, Jean de Calais should join the King's men outside the walls, make himself known to them by unfurling a white standard and bring them into the town. It was further determined that Maitre Morant and a goodly company of citizens with him, should hold themselves in readiness in the taverns of the Rue Saint-Denys to support the French when they came in. In one of the taverns of this street must have been the Seigneur de l'Ours, who, dwelling near by, had undertaken to bring together divers folk of the neighbourhood.

The conspirators were acting in perfect agreement. All they now awaited was to be informed of the day chosen by the Royal Council; and they believed the attempt was to be made on the following Sunday. But on the 21st of March Brother Pierre d'Allee, Prior of the Carmelites of Melun, was taken by the English. Put to the torture, he confessed the plot and named his accomplices. On the information he gave, more than one hundred and fifty persons were arrested and tried. On the 8th of April, the Eve of Palm Sunday, seven of the most important were taken to the market-place on a tumbrel. They were: Jean de la Chapelle, clerk of the Treasury; Renaud Savin and Pierre Morant, magistrates at the Chatelet; Guillaume Perdriau; Jean le Francois, called Baudrin; Jean le Rigueur, baker, and Jaquet Guillaume, Seigneur de l'Ours. All seven were beheaded by the executioner, who afterwards quartered the bodies of Jean de la Chapelle and of Baudrin.

Jaquet Perdriel was merely deprived of his possessions. Jean de Calais soon procured a pardon. Jeannette, the wife of Jaquet Guillaume, was banished from the kingdom and her goods confiscated.[1962]

[Footnote 1962: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 251, 253. Falconbridge, in A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 302, note 1. Sauval, Antiquites de Paris, vol. iii, p. 536. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 140. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 274 et seq.]

How can the Maid have known the Seigneur de l'Ours? Possibly the Carmelites of Melun had recommended him to her, and perhaps it was on their advice that she demanded his surrender. She may have seen him in the September of 1429, at Saint-Denys or before the walls of Paris, and he may have then undertaken to work for the Dauphin and his party. Why were attempts made at Lagny to save this man alone of the one hundred and fifty Parisians arrested on the information of Brother Pierre d'Allee? Rather than Renaud Savin and Pierre Morant, magistrates at the Chatelet, rather than Jean de la Chapelle, clerk of the Treasury, why choose the meanest of the band? And how could they look to exchange a man accused of treachery for a prisoner of war? All this seems to us mysterious and inexplicable.

In the early days of May, Jeanne did not know what had become of Jaquet Guillaume. When she heard that he had been tried and put to death she was sore grieved and vexed. None the less, she looked upon Franquet as a captive held to ransom. But the Bailie of Senlis, who for some unknown reason was determined on the captain's ruin, took advantage of the Maid's vexation at Jaquet Guillaume's execution, and persuaded her to give up her prisoner.

He represented to her that this man had committed many a murder, many a theft, that he was a traitor, and that consequently he ought to be brought to trial.

"You will be neglecting to execute justice," he said, "if you set this Franquet free."

These reasons decided her, or rather she yielded to the Bailie's entreaty.

"Since the man I wished to have is dead," she said, "do with Franquet as justice shall require you."[1963]

[Footnote 1963: Trial, vol. i, pp. 158, 159.]

Thus she surrendered her prisoner. Was she right or wrong? Before deciding we must ask whether it were possible for her to do otherwise than she did. She was the Maid of God, the angel of the Lord of Hosts, that is clear. But the leaders of war, the captains, paid no great heed to what she said. As for the Bailie, he was the King's man, of noble birth and passing powerful.

Assisted by the judges of Lagny, he himself conducted the trial. The accused confessed that he was a murderer, a thief, and a traitor. We must believe him; and yet we cannot forbear a doubt as to whether he really was, any more than the majority of Armagnac or Burgundian men-at-arms, any more than a Damoiseau de Commercy or a Guillaume de Flavy, for example. He was condemned to death.

Jeanne consented that he should die, if he had deserved death, and seeing that he had confessed his crimes[1964] he was beheaded.

[Footnote 1964: Ibid., p. 159.]

When they heard of the scandalous treatment of Messire Franquet, the Burgundians were loud in their sorrow and indignation.[1965] It would seem that in this matter the Bailie of Senlis and the judges of Lagny did not act according to custom. We, however, are not sufficiently acquainted with the circumstances to form an opinion. There may have been some reason, of which we are ignorant, why the King of France should have demanded this prisoner. He had a right to do so on condition that he paid the Maid the amount of the ransom. A soldier of those days, well informed in all things touching honour in war, was the author of Le Jouvencel. In his chivalrous romances he writes approvingly of the wise Amydas, King of Amydoine, who, learning that one of his enemies, the Sire de Morcellet, has been taken in battle and held to ransom, cries out that he is the vilest of traitors, ransoms him with good coins of the realm, and hands him over to the provost of the town and the officers of his council that they may execute justice upon him.[1966] Such was the royal prerogative.

[Footnote 1965: Ibid., p. 254. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 385. E. Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle, book i, folio 82.]

[Footnote 1966: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, pp. 210, 211.]

Whether it was that camp life was hardening her, or whether, like all mystics, she was subject to violent changes of mood, Jeanne showed at Lagny none of that gentleness she had displayed on the evening of Patay. The virgin who once had no other arm in battle than her standard, now wielded a sword found there, at Lagny, a Burgundian sword and a trusty. Those who regarded her as an angel of the Lord, good Brother Pasquerel, for example, might justify her by saying that the Archangel Saint Michael, the standard-bearer of celestial hosts, bore a flaming sword. And indeed Jeanne remained a saint.

While she was at Lagny, folk came and told her that a child had died at birth, unbaptized.[1967] Having entered into the mother at the time of her conception, the devil held the soul of this child, who, for lack of water, had died the enemy of its Creator. The greatest anxiety was felt concerning the fate of this soul. Some thought it was in limbo, banished forever from God's sight, but the more general and better founded opinion was that it was seething in hell; for has not Saint Augustine demonstrated that souls, little as well as great, are damned because of original sin. And how could it be otherwise, seeing that Eve's fall had effaced the divine likeness in this child? He was destined to eternal death. And to think that with a few drops of water this death might have been avoided! So terrible a disaster afflicted not only the poor creature's kinsfolk, but likewise the neighbours and all good Christians in the town of Lagny. The body was carried to the Church of Saint-Pierre and placed before the image of Our Lady, which had been highly venerated ever since the plague of 1128. It was called Notre-Dame-des-Ardents because it cured burns, and when there were no burns to be cured it was called Notre-Dame-des-Aidants, or rather Des Aidances, that is, Our Lady the Helper, because she granted succour to those in dire necessity.[1968]

[Footnote 1967: Trial, vol. i, p. 105.]

[Footnote 1968: A. Denis, Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1896, in 8vo, pp. 4 et seq. J.A. Lepaire, Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1880, in 8vo, 38 pages.]

The maidens of the town knelt before her, the little body in their midst, beseeching her to intercede with her divine Son so that this little child might have his share in the Redemption brought by our Saviour.[1969] In such cases the Holy Virgin did not always deny her powerful intervention. Here it may not be inappropriate to relate a miracle she had worked thirty-seven years before.

[Footnote 1969: Trial, vol. i, p. 105.]

At Paris, in 1393, a sinful creature, finding herself with child, concealed her pregnancy, and, when her time was come, was without aid delivered. Then, having stuffed linen into the throat of the girl she had brought forth, she went and threw her on to the dust-heap outside La Porte Saint-Martin-des-Champs. But a dog scented the body, and scratching away the other refuse, discovered it. A devout woman, who happened to be passing by, took this poor little lifeless creature, and, followed by more than four hundred people, bore it to the Church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, there placed it on the altar of Our Lady, and kneeling down with the multitude of folk and the monks of the Abbey, with all her heart prayed the Holy Virgin not to suffer this innocent babe to be condemned eternally. The child stirred a little, opened her eyes, loosened the linen, which gagged her, and cried aloud. A priest baptized her on the altar of Our Lady, and gave her the name of Marie. A nurse was found, and she was fed from the breast. She lived three hours, then died and was carried to consecrated ground.[1970]

[Footnote 1970: Religieux de Saint-Denis, vol. ii, p. 82. Jean Juvenal des Ursins, in Coll. Michaud et Poujoulat, p. 395, col. 2.]

In those days resurrections of unbaptized children were frequent. That saintly Abbess, Colette of Corbie, who, when Jeanne was at Lagny, dwelt at Moulins with the reformed Sisters of Saint Clare, had brought back to life two of these poor creatures: a girl, who received the name of Colette at the font and afterwards became nun, then abbess at Pont-a-Mousson; a boy, who was said to have been two days buried and whom the servant of the poor declared to be one of the elect. He died at six months, thus fulfilling the prophecy made by the saint.[1971]

[Footnote 1971: Acta Sanctorum, 6th of March, pp. 381 and 617. Abbe Bizouard, Histoire de Sainte Colette, pp. 35, 37. Abbe Douillet, Sainte Colette, sa vie, ses oeuvres, 1884, pp. 150-154.]

With this kind of miracle Jeanne was doubtless acquainted. About twenty-five miles from Domremy, in the duchy of Lorraine, near Luneville, was the sanctuary of Notre-Dame-des-Aviots, of which she had probably heard. Notre-Dame-des-Aviots, or Our Lady of those brought back to life, was famed for restoring life to unbaptized children. By means of her intervention they lived again long enough to be made Christians.[1972]

[Footnote 1972: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, Notre-Dame de France, Paris, in 8vo, vol. vi, 1860, p. 57.]

In the duchy of Luxembourg, near Montmedy, on the hill of Avioth,[1973] multitudes of pilgrims worshipped an image of Our Lady brought there by angels. On this hill a church had been built for her, with slim pillars and elaborate stonework in trefoils, roses and light foliage. This statue worked all manner of miracles. At its feet were placed children born dead; they were restored to life and straightway baptized.[1974]

[Footnote 1973: For the etymology of Avioth see C. Bonnabelle, Petite etude sur Avioth et son eglise, in Annuaire de la Meuse, 1883, in 18mo, p. 14.]

[Footnote 1974: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, loc. cit., vol. v, pp. 107 et seq. Bonnabelle, loc. cit., pp. 13 et seq. Jacquemain, Notre-Dame d'Avioth et son eglise monumentale, Sedan, 1876, in 8vo.]

The folk, gathered in the Church of Saint-Pierre de Lagny, around the statue of Notre-Dame-des-Aidances, hoped for a like grace. The damsels of the town prayed round the child's lifeless body. The Maid was asked to come and join them in praying to Our Lord and Our Lady. She went to the church, and knelt down with the maidens and prayed. The child was black, "as black as my coat," said Jeanne. When the Maid and the damsels had prayed, it yawned three times and its colour came back. It was baptized and straightway it died; it was buried in consecrated ground. Throughout the town this resurrection was said to be the work of the Maid. According to the tales in circulation, during the three days since its birth the child had given no sign of life;[1975] but the gossips of Lagny had doubtless extended the period of its comatose condition, like those good wives who of a single egg laid by the husband of one of them, made a hundred before the day was out.

[Footnote 1975: Trial, vol. i, pp. 105, 106.]



CHAPTER VII

SOISSONS AND COMPIEGNE—CAPTURE OF THE MAID

Leaving Lagny, the Maid presented herself before Senlis, with her own company and with the fighting men of the French nobles whom she had joined, in all some thousand horse. And for this force she demanded entrance into the town. No misfortune was more feared by burgesses than that of receiving men-at-arms, and no privilege more jealously guarded than that of keeping them outside the walls. King Charles had experienced it during the peaceful coronation campaign. The folk of Senlis made answer to the Maid that, seeing the poverty of the town in forage, corn, oats, victuals and wine, they offered her an entrance with thirty or forty of the most notable of her company and no more.[1976]

[Footnote 1976: Arch. mun. of Senlis in Muse des archives departementales, pp. 304, 305. J. Flammermont, Histoire de Senlis pendant la seconds partie de la guerre de cent ans, p. 245. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 294, note 5.]

It is said that from Senlis Jeanne went to the Castle of Borenglise in the parish of Elincourt, between Compiegne and Ressons; and, in ignorance as to what can have taken her there, it is supposed that she made a pilgrimage to the Church of Elincourt, which was dedicated to Saint Margaret; and it is possible that she wished to worship Saint Margaret there as she had worshipped Saint Catherine at Fierbois, in order to do honour to one of those heavenly ladies who visited her every day and every hour.[1977]

[Footnote 1977: Manuscript History of Beauvais by Hermant, in Trial, vol. v, p. 165. G. Lecocq, Etude historique sur le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, Amiens, 1879, in 8vo, 13 pages. A. Peyrecave, Notes sur le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, Paris, 1875, in 8vo. Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, notice historique et archeologique, Compiegne, 1888. Ch. vii, pp. 113, 123.]

In those days, in the town of Angers, was a licentiate of laws, canon of the churches of Tours and Angers and Dean of Saint-Jean d'Angers. Less than ten days before Jeanne's coming to Sainte-Marguerite d'Elincourt, on April 18, about nine o'clock in the evening, he felt a pain in the head, which lasted until four o'clock in the morning, and was so severe that he thought he must die. He prayed to Saint Catherine, for whom he professed a special devotion, and straightway was cured. In thankfulness for so great a grace, he wended on foot to the sanctuary of Saint Catherine of Fierbois; and there, on Friday, the 5th of May, in a loud voice, said a mass for the King, for "the Maid divinely worthy," and for the peace and prosperity of the realm.[1978]

[Footnote 1978: Trial, vol. v, pp. 164, 165. Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine de Fierboys, pp. 16, 62, 63.]

The Council of King Charles had made over Pont-Sainte-Maxence to the Duke of Burgundy, in lieu of Compiegne, which they were unable to deliver to him since that town absolutely refused to be delivered, and remained the King's despite the King. The Duke of Burgundy kept Pont-Sainte-Maxence which had been granted him and resolved to take Compiegne.[1979]

[Footnote 1979: P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, pp. 150, 154. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 276, note 3. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176.]

On the 17th of April, when the truce had expired, he took the field with a goodly knighthood and a powerful army, four thousand Burgundians, Picards and Flemings, and fifteen hundred English, commanded by Jean de Luxembourg, Count of Ligny.[1980]

[Footnote 1980: Monstrelet, ch. xxx. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 175. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, xliv, xlv.]

Noble pieces of artillery did the Duke bring to that siege; notably, Remeswelle, Rouge Bombarde and Houppembiere, from all three of which were fired stone balls of enormous size. Mortars, which the Duke had brought and paid ready money for to Messire Jean de Luxembourg, were brought likewise; Beaurevoir and Bourgogne, also a great "coullard" and a movable engine of war. The vast states of Burgundy sent their archers and cross-bowmen to Compiegne. The Duke provided himself with bows from Prussia and from Caffa in Georgia,[1981] and with arrows barbed and unbarbed. He engaged sappers and miners to lay powder mines round the town and to throw Greek fire into it. In short my Lord Philip, richer than a king, the most magnificent lord in Christendom and skilled in all the arts of knighthood, was resolved to make a gallant siege.[1982]

[Footnote 1981: "In this country the Emperor [of Constantinople] has a city called Capha, which is a seaport belonging to the Genoese and whence is obtained wood for the making of bows and cross-bows, likewise wine called Rommenie." Le Livre de description des pays de Gilles le Bouvier. Ed. E.T. Hamy, Paris, 1908, p. 90.]

[Footnote 1982: De La Fons-Melicocq, Documents inedits sur le siege de Compiegne de 1430 in La Picardie, vol. iii, 1857, pp. 22, 23. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, p. 176.]



The town, then one of the largest and strongest in France, was defended by a garrison of between four and five hundred men,[1983] commanded by Guillaume de Flavy. Scion of a noble house of that province, forever in dispute with the nobles his neighbours, and perpetually picking quarrels with the poor folk, he was as wicked and cruel as any Armagnac baron.[1984] The citizens would have no other captain, and in that office they maintained him in defiance of King Charles and his chamberlains. They did wisely, for none was better able to defend the town than my Lord Guillaume, none was more set on doing his duty. When the King of France had commanded him to deliver the place he had refused point-blank; and when later the Duke promised him a good round sum and a rich inheritance in exchange for Compiegne, he made answer that the town was not his, but the King's.[1985]

[Footnote 1983: Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 178. H. de Lepinois, Notes extraites des archives communales de Compiegne, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 1863, vol. xxiv, p. 486. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc devant Compiegne et l'histoire des sieges de la meme ville sous Charles VI et Charles VII, d'apres des documents inedits avec vues et plans, Paris, 1889, in 8vo, p. 268.]

[Footnote 1984: Jacques Duclercq, Memoires, ed. Reiffenberg, vol. i, p. 419. Le Temple de Bocace in Les oeuvres de Georges Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. vii, p. 95. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, capitaine de Compiegne, contribution a l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc et a l'etude de la vie militaire et privee au XV'ieme siecle, Paris, 1906, in 8vo, passim.]

[Footnote 1985: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 125. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 495 recto. Rogier, in Varin, Arch. de la ville de Reims, 11th part, Statuts, vol. i, p. 604. A. Sorel, loc. cit., p. 167. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 33.]

The Duke of Burgundy easily took Gournay-sur-Aronde, and then laid siege to Choisy-sur-Aisne, also called Choisy-au-Bac, at the junction of the Aisne and the Oise.[1986]

[Footnote 1986: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 379, 381. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 495 recto. Livre des trahisons, p. 202.]

The Gascon squire, Poton de Saintrailles and the men of his company crossed the Aisne between Soissons and Choisy, surprised the besiegers, and retired immediately, taking with them sundry prisoners.[1987]

[Footnote 1987: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 382, 383. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 49.]

On the 13th of May, the Maid entered Compiegne, where she lodged in the Rue de l'Etoile.[1988] On the morrow, the Attorneys[1989] offered her four pots of wine.[1990] They thereby intended to do her great honour, for they did no more for the Lord Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor of the realm, who was then in the town with the Count of Vendome, the King's lieutenant and divers other leaders of war. These noble lords resolved to send artillery and other munitions to the Castle of Choisy, which could not hold out much longer;[1991] and now, as before, the Maid was made use of.

[Footnote 1988: According to a note by Dom Bertheau, in A. Sorel, Sejours de Jeanne d'Arc a Compiegne, maisons ou elle a loge en 1429 et 1430, with view and plans, Paris, 1888, in 8vo, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 1989: Magistrates of the town. Cf. ante, p. 34, note 3.]

[Footnote 1990: Accounts of the town of Compiegne, CC 13, folio 291. Dom Gillesson, Antiquites de Compiegne, vol. v, p. 95. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 145, note 3.]

[Footnote 1991: Choisy surrendered on the 16th of May. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 497, verso. Livre des trahisons, p. 201. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 382. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 49. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 145, 146. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 40-41, 162-163.]

The army marched towards Soissons in order to cross the Aisne.[1992] The captain of the town was a squire of Picardy, called by the French Guichard Bournel, by the Burgundians Guichard de Thiembronne; he had served on both sides. Jeanne knew him well; he reminded her of a painful incident. He had been one of those, who finding her wounded in the trenches before Paris, had insisted on putting her on her horse against her will. On the approach of King Charles's barons and men-at-arms, Captain Guichard made the folk of Soissons believe that the whole army was coming to encamp in their town. Wherefore they resolved not to receive them. Then happened what had already befallen at Senlis: Captain Bournel received the Lord Archbishop of Reims, the Count of Vendome and the Maid, with a small company, and the rest of the army abode that night outside the walls.[1993] On the morrow, failing to obtain command of the bridge, they endeavoured to ford the river, but without success; for it was spring and the waters were high. The army had to turn back. When it was gone, Captain Bournel sold to the Duke of Burgundy the city he was charged to hold for the King of France; and he delivered it into the hand of Messire Jean de Luxembourg for four thousand golden saluts.[1994]

[Footnote 1992: Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 49, 50.]

[Footnote 1993: F. Brun, Jeanne d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons en 1430, Soissons, 1904, p. 5 (extract from l'Argus Soissonnais). P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 41.]

[Footnote 1994: Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 50. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 168. Proofs and illustrations, xxxv, p. 168. F. Brun, Nouvelles recherches sur le fait de Soissons (Jeanne d'Arc et Bournel en 1430) a propos d'un livre recent, Meulan, 1907, in 8vo.]

At the tidings of this treacherous and dishonourable action on the part of the Captain of Soissons, Jeanne cried out that if she had him, she would cut his body into four pieces, which was no empty imagining of her wrath. As the penalty of certain crimes it was the custom for the executioner, after he had beheaded the condemned, to cut his body in four pieces, which was called quartering. So that it was as if Jeanne had said that the traitor deserved quartering. The words sounded hard to Burgundian ears; certain even believed that they heard Jeanne in her wrath taking God's name in vain. They did not hear correctly. Never had Jeanne taken the name of God or of any of his saints in vain. Far from swearing when she was angered, she used to exclaim: "God's good will!" or "Saint John!" or "By Our Lady!"[1995]

[Footnote 1995: Trial, vol. i, p. 273.]

Before Soissons, Jeanne and the generals separated. The latter with their men-at-arms went to Senlis and the banks of the Marne. The country between the Aisne and the Oise was no longer capable of supporting so large a number of men or such important personages. Jeanne and her company wended their way back to Compiegne.[1996] Scarcely had she entered the town when she sallied forth to ravage the neighbourhood.

[Footnote 1996: I have rejected the story told by Alain Bouchard of Jeanne's meeting with the little children in the Church of Saint Jacques. (Les grandes croniques de Bretaigne, Paris, Galliot Du Pre, 1514, fol. cclxxxi.) M. Pierre Champion (Guillaume de Flavy, p. 283) has irrefutably demonstrated its unauthenticity.]

For example, she took part in an expedition against Pont-l'Eveque, a stronghold, some distance from Noyon, occupied by a small English garrison, commanded by Lord Montgomery.

The Burgundians, who were besieging Compiegne, made Pont-l'Eveque their base. In the middle of May, the French numbering about a thousand, commanded by Captain Poton, by Messire Jacques de Chabannes and divers others, and accompanied by the Maid, attacked the English under Lord Montgomery, and the battle was passing fierce. But the enemy, being relieved by the Burgundians of Noyon, the French must needs beat a retreat. They had slain thirty of their adversaries and had lost as many, wherefore the combat was held to have been right sanguinary.[1997] There was no longer any question of crossing the Aisne and saving Choisy.

[Footnote 1997: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 382. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 178. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 498 verso.]

After returning to Compiegne, Jeanne, who never rested for a moment, hastened to Crepy-en-Valois, where were gathering the troops intended for the defence of Compiegne. Then, with these troops, she marched through the Forest of Guise, to the besieged town and entered it on the 23rd, at daybreak, without having encountered any Burgundians. There were none in the neighbourhood of the Forest, on the left bank of the Oise.[1998]

[Footnote 1998: Trial, vol. i, p. 114. Perceval de Cagny, p. 174. Extract from a note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 296, note 1.]

They were all on the other side of the river. There meadowland extends for some three-quarters of a mile, while beyond rises the slope of Picardy. Because this meadow was low, damp and frequently flooded, a causeway had been built leading from the bridge to the village of Margny, which rose on the steep slope of the hill. Some two miles up the river there towered the belfry of Clairoix, at the junction of the Aronde and the Oise. On the opposite bank rose the belfry of Venette, about a mile and a quarter lower down, towards Pont-Sainte-Maxence.[1999]

[Footnote 1999: Manuscript map of Compiegne in 1509, in Debout, Jeanne d'Arc, vol. ii, p. 293. Plan of the town of Compiegne, engraved by Aveline in the 17th century, reduction published by La Societe historique de Compiegne, May, 1877. Lambert de Ballyhier, Compiegne historique et monumental, 1842, 2 vols. in 8vo, engravings. Plan of the restitution of the town of Compiegne in 1430, in A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 43.]

A little band of Burgundians commanded by a knight, Messire Baudot de Noyelles, occupied the high ground of the village of Margny. Most renowned among the men of war of the Burgundian party was Messire Jean de Luxembourg. He with his Picards was posted at Clairoix, on the banks of the Aronde, at the foot of Mount Ganelon. The five hundred English of Lord Montgomery watched the Oise at Venette. Duke Philip occupied Coudun, a good two and a half miles from the town, towards Picardy.[2000] Such dispositions were in accordance with the precepts of the most experienced captains. It was their rule that when besieging a fortified town a large number of men-at-arms should never be concentrated in one spot, in one camp, as they said. In case of a sudden attack, it was thought that a large company, if it has but one base, will be surprised and routed just as easily as a lesser number, and the disaster will be grievous. Wherefore it is better to divide the besiegers into small companies and to place them not far apart, in order that they may aid one another. In this wise, when those of one body are discomfited those of another have time to put themselves in battle array for their succour. While the assailants are sore aghast at seeing fresh troops come down upon them, those who are being attacked take heart of grace. At any rate such was the opinion of Messire Jean de Bueil.[2001]

[Footnote 2000: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 383, 384.]

[Footnote 2001: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, p. 196.]

That same day, the 23rd of May, towards five o'clock in the evening[2002] riding a fine dapple-grey horse, Jeanne sallied forth, across the bridge, on to the causeway over the meadow. With her were her standard-bearer and her company of Lombards, Captain Baretta and his three or four hundred men, both horse and foot, who had entered Compiegne by night. She was girt with the Burgundian sword, found at Lagny, and over her armour she wore a surcoat of cloth of gold.[2003] Such attire would have better beseemed a parade than a sortie; but in the simplicity of her rustic and religious soul she loved all the pompous show of chivalry.

[Footnote 2002: Trial, vol. i, p. 116. Letter from Philippe le Bon to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Letter from Philippe le Bon to Amedee, Duke of Savoy in P. Champion, loc. cit. Proofs and illustrations, xxxvii. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. William Worcester, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 475, and Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255.]

[Footnote 2003: Trial, vol. i, pp. 78, 223, 224. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. The Clerk of the Brabant Chambre des Comptes, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 428.]

The enterprise had been concerted between Captain Baretta, the other leaders of the party and Messire Guillaume de Flavy. The last-named, in order to protect the line of retreat for the French, had posted archers, cross-bowmen, and cannoneers at the head of the bridge, while on the river he launched a number of small covered boats, intended if need were to bring back as many men as possible.[2004] Jeanne was not consulted in the matter; her advice was never asked. Without being told anything she was taken with the army as a bringer of good luck; she was exhibited to the enemy as a powerful enchantress, and they, especially if they were in mortal sin, feared lest she should cast a spell over them. Certain there were doubtless on both sides, who perceived that she did not greatly differ from other women;[2005] but they were folk who believed in nothing, and that manner of person is always outside public opinion.

[Footnote 2004: Notes concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 177. Chronique de Tournai, in Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, 1856, vol. iii, pp. 415, 416.]

[Footnote 2005: Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49.]

This time she had not the remotest idea of what was to be done. With her head full of dreams, she imagined she was setting forth for some great and noble emprise. It is said that she had promised to discomfit the Burgundians and bring back Duke Philip prisoner. But there was no question of that; Captain Baretta and those who commanded the soldiers of fortune proposed to surprise and plunder the little Burgundian outpost, which was nearest the town and most accessible. That was Margny, and there on a steep hill, which might be reached in twenty or twenty-five minutes along the causeway, was stationed Messire Baudot de Noyelles. The attempt was worth making. The taking of outposts constituted the perquisites of men-at-arms. And, albeit the enemy's positions were very wisely chosen, the assailants if they proceeded with extreme swiftness had a chance of success. The Burgundians at Margny were very few. Having but lately arrived, they had erected neither bastion nor bulwark, and their only defences were the outbuildings of the village.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the French set out on the march. The days being at their longest, they did not depend on the darkness for success. In those times indeed, men-at-arms were chary of venturing much in the darkness. They deemed the night treacherous, capable of serving the fool's turn as well as the wise man's, and thus ran the saw: "Night never blushes at her deed."[2006]

[Footnote 2006: Le Jouvencel, vol. i, p. 91.]

Having climbed up to Margny, the assailants found the Burgundians scattered and unarmed. They took them by surprise; and the French set to work to strike here and there haphazard. The Maid, for her part, overthrew everything before her.

Now just at this time Sire Jean de Luxembourg and the Sire de Crequy had ridden over from their camp at Clairoix.[2007] Wearing no armour, and accompanied by eight or ten gentlemen-at-arms, they were climbing the Margny hill. They were on their way to visit Messire Baudot de Noyelles, and all unsuspecting, they were thinking to reconnoitre the defences of the town from this elevated spot, as the Earl of Salisbury had formerly done from Les Tourelles at Orleans. Having fallen into a regular skirmish, they sent to Clairoix in all haste for their arms and to summon their company, which would take a good half hour to reach the scene of battle. Meanwhile, all unarmed as they were, they joined Messire Baudot's little band, to help it to hold out against the enemy.[2008] Thus to surprise my Lord of Luxembourg might be a stroke of good luck and certainly could not be bad; for in any event the Margny men would have straightway summoned their comrades of Clairoix to their aid, as they did in very deed summon the English from Venette and the Burgundians from Coudun.

[Footnote 2007: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 387. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 179. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 48. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176.]

[Footnote 2008: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, in Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Monstrelet, Lefevre de Saint-Remy, Chastellain. Notes concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit.]

Having stormed the camp and pillaged it, the assailants should in all haste have fallen back on the town with their booty; but they dallied at Margny, for what reason is not difficult to guess: that reason which so often transformed the robber into the robbed. The wearers of the white cross as well as those of the red, no matter what danger threatened them, never quitted a place as long as anything remained to be carried away.

If the mercenaries of Compiegne incurred peril by their greed, the Maid on her side by her valour and prowess ran much greater risk; never would she consent to leave a battle; she must be wounded, pierced with bolts and arrows, before she would give in.

Meanwhile, having recovered from so sudden an alarm, Messire Baudot's men armed as best they might and endeavoured to win back the village. Now they drove out the French, now they themselves were forced to retreat with great loss. The Seigneur de Crequy, among others, was sorely wounded in the face. But the hope of being reinforced gave them courage. The men of Clairoix appeared. Duke Philip himself came up with the band from Coudun. The French, outnumbered, abandoned Margny, and retreated slowly. It may be that their booty impeded their march. But suddenly espying the Godons from Venette advancing over the meadowland, they were seized with panic; to the cry of "Sauve qui peut!" they broke into one mad rush and in utter rout reached the bank of the Oise. Some threw themselves into boats, others crowded round the bulwark of the Bridge. Thus they attracted the very misfortune they feared. For the English followed so hard on the fugitives that the defenders on the ramparts dared not fire their cannon for fear of striking the French.[2009]

[Footnote 2009: Perceval de Cagny, p. 176. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. Monstrelet. Note concerning G. de Flavy; Lefevre de Saint-Remy, Chastellain, loc. cit.]

The latter having forced the barrier of the bulwark, the English were about to enter on their heels, cross the bridge and pass into the town. The captain of Compiegne saw the danger and gave the command to close the town gate. The bridge was raised and the portcullis lowered.[2010]

[Footnote 2010: Note concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit. Du Fresne de Beaucourt, Jeanne d'Arc et Guillaume de Flavy in Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France, vol. iii, 1861, pp. 173 et seq. Z. Rendu, Jeanne d'Arc et G. de Flavy, Compiegne, 1865, in 8vo, 32 pp. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 209. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, appendix i, pp. 282, 286.]

In the meadow, Jeanne still laboured under the heroic delusion of victory. Surrounded by a little band of kinsmen and personal retainers, she was withstanding the Burgundians, and imagining that she would overthrow everything before her.

Her comrades shouted to her: "Strive to regain the town or we are lost."

But her eyes were dazzled by the splendour of angels and archangels, and she made answer: "Hold your peace; it will be your fault if we are discomfited. Think of nought but of attacking them."

And once again she uttered those words which were forever in her mouth: "Go forward! They are ours!"[2011]

[Footnote 2011: Perceval de Cagny, p. 175.]

Her men took her horse by the bridle and forced her to turn towards the town. It was too late; the bulwarks commanding the bridge could not be entered: the English held the head of the causeway. The Maid with her little band was penned into the corner between the side of the bulwark and the embankment of the road. Her assailants were men of Picardy, who, striking hard and driving away her protectors, succeeded in reaching her.[2012] A bowman pulled her by her cloak of cloth of gold and threw her to the ground. They all surrounded her and together cried:

"Surrender!"

[Footnote 2012: Perceval de Cagny, p. 175. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 122; vol. iii, p. 207. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 87.]

Urged to give her parole, she replied: "I have plighted my word to another, and I shall keep my oath."[2013]

[Footnote 2013: Perceval de Cagny, p. 176.]

One of those who pressed her said that he was of gentle birth. She surrendered to him.

He was an archer, by name Lyonnel, in the company of the Bastard of Wandomme. Deeming that his fortune was made, he appeared more joyful than if he had taken a king.[2014]

[Footnote 2014: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy in Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Perceval de Cagny, p. 175. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 400. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, p. 175. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 174. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 118. P. Champion, loc. cit., pp. 46, 49. Lanery d'Arc, Livre d'Or, pp. 513-518.]

With the Maid was taken her brother, Pierre d'Arc, Jean d'Aulon, her steward, and Jean d'Aulon's brother, Poton, surnamed the Burgundian.[2015] According to the Burgundians, the French in this engagement lost four hundred fighting men, killed or drowned;[2016] but according to the French most of the foot soldiers were taken up by the boats which were moored near the bank of the Oise.[2017]

[Footnote 2015: Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle, book iv, fol. 188 et seq. P. Champion, loc. cit. Proofs and illustrations, xxxiii. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388. Note concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit. Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, loc. cit. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 459.]

[Footnote 2016: According to Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255, four hundred French were killed or drowned.]

[Footnote 2017: Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176. Perceval de Cagny, p. 175.]

Had it not been for the archers, cross-bowmen and cannoneers posted at the bridge end by the Sire de Flavy, the bulwark would have been captured. The Burgundians had but twenty wounded and not one slain.[2018] The Maid had not been very vigorously defended.

[Footnote 2018: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, in Trial, vol. v, p. 166.]

She was disarmed and taken to Margny.[2019] At the tidings that the witch of the Armagnacs had been taken, cries and rejoicings resounded throughout the Burgundian camp. Duke Philip wished to see her. When he drew near to her, there were certain of his clergy and his knighthood who praised his piety, extolled his courage, and wondered that this mighty Duke was not afraid of the spawn of Hell.[2020]

[Footnote 2019: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 50. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 253 et seq.]

[Footnote 2020: Jean Jouffroy, in d'Achery, Spicilegium, iii, pp. 823 et seq.]

In this respect, his knighthood were as valiant as he, for many knights and squires flocked to satisfy this same curiosity. Among them was Messire Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a native of the County of Boulogne, a retainer of the House of Luxembourg, the author of the Chronicles. He heard the words the Duke addressed to the prisoner, and, albeit his calling required a good memory, he forgot them. Possibly he did not consider them chivalrous enough to be written in his book.[2021]

[Footnote 2021: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388.]

Jeanne remained in the custody of Messire Jean de Luxembourg, to whom she belonged henceforward. The bowman, her captor, had given her up to his captain, the Bastard of Wandomme, who, in his turn, had yielded her to his Master, Messire Jean.[2022]

[Footnote 2022: Ibid., p. 389. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 168.]

Branches of the Luxembourg tree extended from the west to the east of Christendom, as far as Bohemia and Hungary; and it had produced six queens, an empress, four kings, and four emperors. A scion of a younger branch of this illustrious house and himself a but poorly landed cadet, Jean de Luxembourg, had with great labour won his spurs in the service of the Duke of Burgundy. When he held the Maid to ransom, he was thirty-nine years of age, covered with wounds and one-eyed.[2023]

[Footnote 2023: La Chronique des cordeliers, and Monstrelet, passim. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 165, 166.]

That very evening from his quarters at Coudun the Duke of Burgundy caused letters to be written to the towns of his dominions telling of the capture of the Maid. "Of this capture shall the fame spread far and wide," is written in the letter to the people of Saint-Quentin; "and there shall be bruited abroad the error and misbelief of all such as have approved and favoured the deeds of this woman."[2024]

[Footnote 2024: Trial, vol. v, p. 167. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 95.]

In like manner did the Duke send the tidings to the Duke of Brittany by his herald Lorraine; to the Duke of Savoy and to his good town of Ghent.[2025]

[Footnote 2025: Trial, vol. v, p. 358. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iii, p. 534. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 169-171.]

The survivors of the company the Maid had taken to Compiegne abandoned the siege, and on the morrow returned to their garrisons. The Lombard Captain, Bartolomeo Baretta, Jeanne's lieutenant, remained in the town with thirty-two men-at-arms, two trumpeters, two pages, forty-eight cross bowmen, and twenty archers or targeteers.[2026]

[Footnote 2026: Note concerning Guillaume de Flavy in Trial, vol. v, p. 177. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 333.]



CHAPTER VIII

THE MAID AT BEAULIEU—THE SHEPHERD OF GEVAUDAN

The tidings that Jeanne was in the hands of the Burgundians reached Paris on the morning of May the 25th.[2027] On the morrow, the 26th, the University sent a summons to Duke Philip requiring him to give up his prisoner to the Vicar-General of the Grand Inquisitor of France. At the same time, the Vicar-General himself by letter required the redoubtable Duke to bring prisoner before him the young woman suspected of divers crimes savouring of heresy.[2028]

[Footnote 2027: Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 96. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc au cimetiere de Saint-Ouen et l'authenticite de sa formule, Paris, 1902, in 8vo, p. 18.]

[Footnote 2028: Trial, vol. i, pp. 8-10. E. O'Reilly, Les deux proces, vol. ii, pp. 13, 14. P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 516, no. 2372.]

"... We beseech you in all good affection, O powerful Prince," he said, "and we entreat your noble vassals that by them and by you Jeanne be sent unto us surely and shortly, and we hope that thus ye will do as being the true protector of the faith and the defender of God's honour...."[2029]

[Footnote 2029: Trial, vol. i, p. 12. E. O'Reilly, Les deux proces.]

The Vicar-General of the Grand Inquisitor of France, Brother Martin Billoray,[2030] Master of theology, belonged to the order of friars preachers, the members of which exercised the principal functions of the Holy office. In the days of Innocent III, when the Inquisition was exterminating Cathari and Albigenses, the sons of Dominic figured in paintings in monasteries and chapels as great white hounds spotted with black, biting at the throats of the wolves of heresy.[2031] In France in the fifteenth century the Dominicans were always the dogs of the Lord; they, jointly with the bishops, drove out the heretic. The Grand Inquisitor or his Vicar was unable of his own initiative to set on foot and prosecute any judicial action; the bishops maintained their right to judge crimes committed against the Church. In matters of faith trials were conducted by two judges, the Ordinary, who might be the bishop himself or the Official, and the Inquisitor or his Vicar. Inquisitorial forms were observed.[2032]

[Footnote 2030: Trial, vol. i, pp. 3, 12; vol. iii, p. 378; vol. v, p. 392.]

[Footnote 2031: Domini canes. Thus they are represented in the frescoes of the Capella degli Spagnuoli in Santa-Maria-Novella at Florence.]

[Footnote 2032: Tanon, Histoire des tribuneaux de l'inquisition en France, ch. ii.]

In the Maid's case it was not the Bishop only who was prompting the Holy Inquisition, but the Daughter of Kings, the Mother of Learning, the Bright and Shining Sun of France and of Christendom, the University of Paris. She arrogated to herself a peculiar jurisdiction in cases of heresy or other matters of doctrine occurring in the city or its neighbourhood; her advice was asked on every hand and regarded as authoritative over the face of the whole world, wheresoever the Cross had been set up. For a year her masters and doctors, many in number and filled with sound learning, had been clamouring for the Maid to be delivered up to the Inquisition, as being good for the welfare of the Church and conducive to the interests of the faith; for they had a deep-rooted suspicion that the damsel came not from God, but was deceived and seduced by the machinations of the Devil; that she acted not by divine power but by the aid of demons; that she was addicted to witchcraft and practised idolatry.[2033]

[Footnote 2033: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 510; Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'universite de Paris, Paris, 1897, in 8vo, 32 pp.]

Such knowledge as they possessed of things divine and methods of reasoning corroborated this grave suspicion. They were Burgundians and English by necessity and by inclination; they observed faithfully the Treaty of Troyes to which they had sworn; they were devoted to the Regent who showed them great consideration; they abhorred the Armagnacs, who desolated and laid waste their city, the most beautiful in the world;[2034] they held that the Dauphin Charles had forfeited his rights to the Kingdom of the Lilies. Wherefore they inclined to believe that the Maid of the Armagnacs, the woman knight of the Dauphin Charles, was inspired by a company of loathsome demons. These scholars of the University were human; they believed what it was to their interest to believe; they were priests and they beheld the Devil everywhere, but especially in a woman. Without having devoted themselves to any profound examination of the deeds and sayings of this damsel, they knew enough to cause them to demand an immediate inquiry. She called herself the emissary of God, the daughter of God; and she appeared loquacious, vain, crafty, gorgeous in her attire. She had threatened the English that if they did not quit France she would have them all slain. She commanded armies, wherefore she was a slayer of her fellow-creatures and foolhardy. She was seditious, for are not all those seditious who support the opposite party? But recently having appeared before Paris in company with Friar Richard, a heretic, and a rebel,[2035] she had threatened to put the Parisians to death without mercy and committed the mortal sin of storming the city on the Anniversary of the Nativity of Our Lady. It was important to examine whether in all this she had been inspired by a good spirit or a bad.[2036]

[Footnote 2034: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, passim. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 450.]

[Footnote 2035: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 237. T. Basin, Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI, vol. iv, pp. 103, 104. Monstrelet, vol. iv, ch. lxiii. Bougenot, Deux documents inedits relatifs a Jeanne d'Arc, in Revue bleue, 13 Feb., 1892, pp. 203, 204.]

[Footnote 2036: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 515, no. 2370; Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'universite de Paris.]

Despite his strong attachment to the interests of the Church, the Duke of Burgundy did not respond to the urgent demand of the University; and Messire Jean de Luxembourg, after having kept the Maid three or four days in his quarters before Compiegne, had her taken to the Castle of Beaulieu in Vermandois, a few leagues from the camp.[2037] Like his master, he ever appeared the obedient son of Mother Church; but prudence counselled him to await the approach of English and French and to see what each of them would offer.

[Footnote 2037: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 389. Perceval de Cagny, p. 176. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 300-302; vol. iv, pp. 254-355. De La Fons-Melicocq, Une cite picarde au moyen age ou Noyon et les Noyonnais aux XIV'e et XV'e siecles, Noyon, 1841, vol. ii, pp. 100-105. In 1441 Lyonnel de Wandomme, who was governor of this town, was driven out by the inhabitants on the death of Jean de Luxembourg (Monstrelet, vol. v, p. 456).]

At Beaulieu, Jeanne was treated courteously and ceremoniously. Her steward, Messire Jean d'Aulon, waited on her in her prison; one day he said to her pitifully:

"That poor town of Compiegne, which you so dearly loved, will now be delivered into the hands of the enemies of France, whom it must needs obey."

She made answer: "No, that shall not come to pass. For not one of those places, which the King of Heaven hath conquered through me and restored to their allegiance to the fair King Charles, shall be recaptured by the enemy, so diligently will he guard them."[2038]

[Footnote 2038: Perceval de Cagny, p. 177, very doubtful.]

One day she tried to escape by slipping between two planks. She had intended to shut up her guards in the tower and take to the fields, but the porter saw and stopped her. She concluded that it was not God's will that she should escape this time.[2039] Notwithstanding she had far too much self-reliance to despair. Her Voices, like her enamoured of marvellous encounters and knightly adventures, told her that she must see the King of England.[2040] Thus did her dreams encourage and console her in her misfortune.

[Footnote 2039: Trial, vol. i, pp. 163-164, 249.]

[Footnote 2040: Ibid., p. 151.]

Great was the mourning on the Loire when the inhabitants of the towns loyal to King Charles learnt the disaster which had befallen the Maid. The people, who venerated her as a saint, who went so far as to say that she was the greatest of all God's saints after the Blessed Virgin Mary, who erected images of her in the chapels of saints, who ordered masses to be said for her, and collects in the churches, who wore leaden medals on which she was represented as if the Church had already canonized her,[2041] did not withdraw their trust, but continued to believe in her.[2042] Such faithfulness scandalized the doctors and masters of the University, who reproached the hapless Maid herself with it. "Jeanne," they said, "hath so seduced the Catholic people, that many have adored her as a saint in her presence, and now in her absence they adore her still."[2043]

[Footnote 2041: Vallet de Viriville, Note sur deux medailles de plomb relatives a Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1861, in 8vo, 30 pages. Forgeais, Notice sur les plombs histories trouves dans la Seine, Paris, 1860, in 8vo. J. Quicherat, Medaille frappee en l'honneur de la Pucelle, Six dessins sur Jeanne d'Arc tires d'un manuscrit du XV'e siecle, in L'autographe, No. 24, 15 Nov., 1864.]

[Footnote 2042: P. Lanery d'Arc, Le culte de Jeanne d'Arc au XV'e siecle, Paris, 1887, in 8vo, 29 pages.]

[Footnote 2043: Trial, vol. i, p. 290.]

This was indeed true of many folk and many places. The councillors of the town of Tours ordered public prayers to be offered for the deliverance of the Maid. There was a public procession in which took part the canons of the cathedral church, the clergy of the town, secular and regular, all walking barefoot.[2044]

[Footnote 2044: Carreau, Histoire manuscrite de Touraine, in Proces, vol. v, pp. 253, 254.]

In the towns of Dauphine prayers for the Maid were said at mass.

"Collect. O God, all powerful and eternal, who, in thy holy and ineffable mercy, hast commanded the Maid to restore and deliver the realm of France, and to repulse, confound and annihilate her enemies, and who hast permitted her, in the accomplishment of this holy work, ordained by thee, to fall into the hands and into the bonds of her enemies, we beseech thee, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints to deliver her out of their hands, without her having suffered any hurt, in order that she may finish the work whereto thou hast sent her."

"For the sake of Jesus Christ, etc."

"Secret. O God all powerful, Father of virtues, let thy holy benediction descend upon this sacrifice; let thy wondrous power be made manifest, that by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints, it may deliver the Maid from the prisons of the enemy so that she may finish the work whereto thou hast sent her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."

"Post Communion. O God all powerful, incline thine ear and listen unto the prayers of thy people: by the virtue of the Sacrament we have just received, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the saints, burst the bonds of the Maid, who, in the fulfilment of thy commands, hath been and is still confined in the prisons of our enemy; through thy divine compassion and thy mercy, permit her, freed from peril, to accomplish the work whereto thou hast sent her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."[2045]

[Footnote 2045: Trial, vol. v, p. 104. E. Maignien, Oraisons latines pour la delivrance de Jeanne d'Arc. Grenoble, 1867, in 8vo (Revue des Societes savantes, vol. iv, pp. 412-414). G. de Braux, Trois oraisons pour la delivrance de Jeanne d'Arc, in Journal de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine, June, 1887, pp. 125, 127.]

Learning that the Maid, whom he had once suspected of evil intentions and then recognised to be wholly good, had just fallen into the hands of the enemy of the realm, Messire Jacques Gelu, my Lord Archbishop of Embrun, despatched to King Charles a messenger bearing a letter touching the line of conduct to be adopted in such an unhappy conjuncture.[2046]

[Footnote 2046: Vita Jacobi Gelu ab ipso conscripta, in Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de Touraine, iii, 1867, pp. 266 et seq. The Rev. Father Marcellin Fornier, Histoire des Alpes Maritimes ou Cottiennes, vol. ii, pp. 313 et seq.]

Addressing the Prince, whom in childhood he had directed, Messire Jacques begins by recalling what the Maid had wrought for him by God's help and her own great courage. He beseeches him to examine his conscience and see whether he has in any wise sinned against the grace of God. For it may be that in wrath against the King the Lord hath permitted this virgin to be taken. For his own honour he urges him to strain every effort for her deliverance.

"I commend unto you," he said, "that for the recovery of this damsel and for her ransom, ye spare neither measures nor money, nor any cost, unless ye be ready to incur the ineffaceable disgrace of an ingratitude right unworthy."

Further he advises that prayers be ordered to be said everywhere for the deliverance of the Maid, so that if this disaster should have befallen through any misdoing of the King or of his people, it might please God to pardon it.[2047]

[Footnote 2047: Ibid., pp. 319, 320.]

Such were the words, lacking neither in strength nor in charity, of this aged prelate, who was more of a hermit than of a bishop. He remembered having been the Dauphin's Councillor in evil days and he dearly loved the King and the kingdom.

The Sire de la Tremouille and the Lord Archbishop of Reims have been suspected of desiring to get rid of the Maid and of having promoted her discomfiture. There are those who think they have discovered the treacherous methods employed to compass her defeat at Paris, at La Charite and at Compiegne.[2048] But in good sooth such methods were unnecessary. At Paris there was but little chance of her being able to cross the moat, since neither she nor her companions in arms had ascertained its depth; besides, it was not the fault of the King and his Council that the Carmelites, on whom they relied, failed to open the gates. The siege of La Charite was conducted not by the Maid, but by the Sire d'Albret and divers valiant captains. In the sortie from Compiegne, it was certain that any dallying at Margny would cause the French to be cut off by the English from Venette and by the Burgundians from Clairoix and to be promptly overcome by the Burgundians from Coudun. They forgot themselves in the delights of pillage; and the inevitable result followed.

[Footnote 2048: Thomassin, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 312. Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 323. Chronique de Tournai, in Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, vol. iii, p. 415. Chronique de Normandie, ed. A. Hellot, Rouen, 1881, in 8vo, pp. 77, 78. Chronique de Lorraine, ed. Abbe Marchal (Recueil de documents sur l'histoire de Lorraine, vol. v).]

And why should the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Archbishop have wanted to get rid of the Maid? She did not trouble them; on the contrary they found her useful and employed her. By her prophecy that she would cause the King to be anointed at Reims, she rendered an immense service to my Lord Regnault, who more than any other profited from the Champagne expedition, more even than the King, who, while he succeeded in being crowned, failed to recover Paris and Normandy. Notwithstanding this great advantage, the Lord Archbishop felt no gratitude towards the Maid; he was a hard man and an egoist. But did he wish her harm? Had he not need of her? At Senlis he was maintaining the King's cause; and he was maintaining it well, we may be sure, since, with the towns that had returned to their liege lord, he was defending his own episcopal and ducal city, his benefices and his canonries. Did he not intend to use her against the Burgundians? We have already noted reasons for believing that towards the end of March, he had asked the Sire de la Tremouille to send her from Sully with a goodly company to wage war in l'Ile-de-France. And our hypothesis is confirmed when, after they had been unhappily deprived of Jeanne's services, we find the bishop and the Chamberlain driven to replace her by someone likewise favoured with visions and claiming to be sent of God. Unable to discover a maid they had to make shift with a youth. This resolution they took a few days after Jeanne's capture and this is how it came about.

Some time before, a shepherd lad of Gevaudan, by name Guillaume, while tending his flocks at the foot of the Lozere Mountains and guarding them from wolf and lynx, had a revelation concerning the realm of France. This shepherd, like John, Our Lord's favourite disciple, was virgin. In one of the caves of the Mende Mountain, where the holy apostle Privat had prayed and fasted, his ear was struck by a heavenly voice, and thus he knew that God was sending him to the King of France. He went to Mende, just as Jeanne had gone to Vaucouleurs in order that he might be taken to the King. There he found pious folk, who, touched by his holiness and persuaded that there was power in him, provided for his equipment and for his journey, which provisions, in sooth, amounted to very little. The words he addressed to the King were much the same as those uttered by the Maid.

"Sire," he said, "I am commanded to go with your people; and without fail the English and Burgundians shall be discomfited."[2049]

[Footnote 2049: Summary of a letter from Regnault de Chartres to the inhabitants of Reims, Trial, vol. v, p. 168.]

The King received him kindly. The clerks who had examined the Maid must have feared lest if they repulsed this shepherd lad they might be rejecting the aid of the Holy Ghost. Amos was a shepherd, and to him God granted the gift of prophecy: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." MATT. xi, 25.

But before this shepherd could be believed he must give a sign. The clerks of Poitiers, who in those evil days languished in dire penury, did not appear exacting in their demand for proofs; they had counselled the King to employ the Maid merely on the promise that as a token of her mission she would deliver Orleans. The Gevaudan shepherd had more than promises to allege; he showed wondrous marks on his body. Like Saint Francis he had received the stigmata; and on his hands, his feet and in his side were bleeding wounds.[2050]

[Footnote 2050: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 272. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 263. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 124.]

The mendicant monks rejoiced that their spiritual father had thus participated in the Passion of Our Lord. A like grace had been granted to the Blessed Catherine of Sienna, of the order of Saint Dominic. But if there were miraculous stigmata imprinted by Jesus Christ himself, there were also the stigmata of enchantment, which were the work of the Devil, and very important was it to distinguish between the two.[2051] It could only be done by great knowledge and great piety. It would appear that Guillaume's stigmata were not the work of the devil; for it was resolved to employ him in the same manner as Jeanne, as Catherine de la Rochelle, and as the two Breton women, the spiritual daughters of Friar Richard.

[Footnote 2051: A. Maury, La stigmatisation et les stigmates, in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1854, ch. viii, pp. 454-482. Dr. Subled, Les stigmates selon la science, in Science catholique, 1894, vol. viii, pp. 1073 et seq.; vol. ix, pp. 2 et seq.]

When the Maid fell into the hands of the Burgundians, the Sire de la Tremouille was with the King, on the Loire, where fighting had ceased since the disastrous siege of La Charite. He sent the shepherd youth to the banks of the Oise, to the Lord Archbishop of Reims, who was there opposing the Burgundians, commanded by Duke Philip, himself. Messire Regnault had probably asked for the boy. In any case he welcomed him willingly and kept him at Beauvais, supervising and interrogating him, ready to use him at an auspicious moment. One day, either to try him or because the rumour was really in circulation, young Guillaume was told that the English had put Jeanne to death.

"Then," said he, "it will be the worse for them."[2052]

[Footnote 2052: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in Trial, vol. v, p. 168.]

By this time, after all the rivalries and jealousies which had torn asunder this company of the King's beguines, there remained to Friar Richard one only of his penitents, Dame Catherine of La Rochelle, who had the gift of discovering hidden treasure.[2053] The young shepherd approved of the Maid as little as Dame Catherine had done.

[Footnote 2053: Trial, vol. i, pp. 295 et seq.]

"God suffered Jeanne to be taken," he said, "because she was puffed up with pride and because of the rich clothes she wore and because she had not done as God commanded her but according to her own will."[2054]

[Footnote 2054: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in Ibid., vol. v, p. 168.]

Were these words suggested to him by the enemies of the Maid? That may be: but it is also possible that he derived them from inspiration. Saints are not always kind to one another.

Meanwhile Messire Regnault de Chartres believed himself possessed of a marvel far surpassing the marvel he had lost. He wrote a letter to the inhabitants of his town of Reims telling them that the Maid had been taken at Compiegne.

This misfortune had befallen her through her own fault, he added. "She would not take advice, but would follow her own will." In her stead God had sent a shepherd, "who says neither more nor less than Jeanne." God has strictly commanded him to discomfit the English and the Burgundians. And the Lord Archbishop neglects not to repeat the words by which the prophet of Gevaudan had represented Jeanne as proud, gorgeous in attire, rebellious of heart.[2055] The Reverend Father in God, my Lord Regnault, would never have consented to employ a heretic and a sorcerer; he believed in Guillaume as he had believed in Jeanne; he held both one and the other to have been divinely sent, in the sense that all which is not of the devil is of God. It was sufficient for him that no evil had been found in the child, and he intended to essay him, hoping that Guillaume would do what Jeanne had done. Whether the Archbishop thus acted rightly or wrongly the issue was to decide, but he might have exalted the shepherd without denying the Saint who was so near her martyrdom. Doubtless he deemed it necessary to distinguish between the fortune of the kingdom and the fortune of Jeanne. And he had the courage to do it.

[Footnote 2055: Ibid., p. 168.]



CHAPTER IX

THE MAID AT BEAUREVOIR—CATHERINE DE LA ROCHELLE AT PARIS—EXECUTION OF LA PIERRONNE

The Maid had been taken captive in the diocese of Beauvais.[2056] At that time the Bishop Count of Beauvais was Pierre Cauchon of Reims, a great and pompous clerk of the University of Paris, which had elected him rector in 1403. Messire Pierre Cauchon was not a moderate man; with great ardour he had thrown himself into the Cabochien riots.[2057] In 1414, the Duke of Burgundy had sent him on an embassy to the Council of Constance to defend the doctrines of Jean Petit;[2058] then he had appointed him Master of Requests in 1418, and finally raised him to the episcopal see of Beauvais.[2059] Standing equally high in the favour of the English, Messire Pierre was Councillor of King Henry VI, Almoner of France and Chancellor to the Queen of England. Since 1423, his usual residence had been at Rouen. By their submission to King Charles the people of Beauvais had deprived him of his episcopal revenue.[2060] And, as the English said and believed that the army of the King of France was at that time commanded by Friar Richard and the Maid, Messire Pierre Cauchon, the impoverished Bishop of Beauvais, had a personal grievance against Jeanne. It would have been better for his own reputation that he should have abstained from avenging the Church's honour on a damsel who was possibly an idolatress, a soothsayer and the invoker of devils, but who had certainly incurred his personal ill-will. He was in the Regent's pay;[2061] and the Regent was filled with bitter hatred of the Maid.[2062] Again for his reputation's sake, my Lord Bishop of Beauvais should have reflected that in prosecuting Jeanne for a matter of faith he was serving his master's wrath and furthering the temporal interests of the great of this world. On these things he did not reflect; on the contrary, this case at once temporal and spiritual, as ambiguous as his own position, excited his worst passions. He flung himself into it with all the thoughtlessness of the violent. A maiden to be denounced, a heretic and an Armagnac to boot, what a feast for the prelate, the Councillor of King Henry! After having concerted with the doctors and masters of the University of Paris, on the 14th of July, he presented himself before the camp of Compiegne and demanded the Maid as subject to his jurisdiction.[2063]

[Footnote 2056: This point was not called in question at the time; but what might be discussed is whether the Bishop of Beauvais could exercise ordinary jurisdiction over the Maid. On this subject see: Abbe Ph. H. Dunand, Histoire complete de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1899, vol. ii, pp. 412, 413.]

[Footnote 2057: Robillard de Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges et assesseurs du proces de Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 1890, p. 12. Douet d'Arcq, Choix de pieces inedites relatives au regne de Charles VI, vol. i, pp. 356, 357. Chanoine Cerf, Pierre Cauchon de Sommievre, chanoine de Reims et de Beauvais, eveque de Beauvais et de Lisieux; son origine, ses dignites, sa mort et ses sepultures, in Travaux de l'Academie de Reims, CI (1898), pp. 363 et seq., A. Sarrazin, Pierre Cauchon, juge de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1901, in 8vo, pp. 26 et seq.]

[Footnote 2058: Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. i, p. 116. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 36, 37.]

[Footnote 2059: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, 1670, vol. v, p. 912. The Abbe Delettre, Histoire du diocese de Beauvais, Beauvais, 1842, vol. ii, p. 348.]

[Footnote 2060: Robillard de Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 13.]

[Footnote 2061: A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 58 et seq.]

[Footnote 2062: Rymer, Foedera, vol. x, p. 408, passim.]

[Footnote 2063: Trial, vol. i, p. 13. Vallet de Viriville, Proces de condamnation, pp. 10 et seq. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 108 et seq.]

He supported his demand by letters from the Alma Mater to the Duke of Burgundy and the Lord Jean de Luxembourg.

The University made known to the most illustrious Prince, the Duke of Burgundy, that once before it had claimed this woman, called the Maid, and had received no reply.

"We greatly fear," continued the doctors and masters, "that by the false and seductive power of the Hellish Enemy and by the malice and subtlety of wicked persons, your enemies and adversaries who, it is said, are making every effort to deliver this woman by crooked means, will in some manner remove her out of your power.

"Wherefore, the University hopes that so great a dishonour may be spared to the most Christian name of the house of France, and again it supplicates your Highness, the Duke of Burgundy, to deliver over this woman either to the Inquisitor of the evil of heresy or to my Lord Bishop of Beauvais within whose spiritual jurisdiction she was captured."

Here follows the letter which the doctors and masters of the University entrusted to the Lord Bishop of Beauvais for the Lord Jean de Luxembourg:

Most noble, honoured and powerful lord, to your high nobility we very affectionately commend us. Your noble wisdom doth well know and recognise that all good Catholic knights should employ their strength and their power first in God's service and then for the common weal. Above all, the first oath of the order of knighthood is to defend and keep the honour of God, the Catholic Faith and holy Church. This sacred oath was present to your mind when you employed your noble power and your person in the taking of the woman who calleth herself the Maid, by whom the glory of God hath been infinitely offended, the Faith deeply wounded and the Church greatly dishonoured: for through her there have arisen in this kingdom, idolatries, errors, false doctrines and other evils and misfortunes without end. And in truth all loyal Christians must give unto you hearty thanks for having rendered so great service to our holy Faith and to all the kingdom. As for us, we thank God with all our hearts, and you we thank for your noble prowess as affectionately as we may. But such a capture alone would be but a small thing were it not followed by a worthy issue whereby this woman may answer for the offences she hath committed against our merciful Creator, his faith and his holy Church, as well as for her other evil deeds which are said to be without number. The mischief would be greater than ever, the people would be wrapped in yet grosser error than before and his Divine Majesty too insufferably offended, if matters continued in their present state, or if it befell that this woman were delivered or retaken, as we are told, is wished, plotted and endeavoured by divers of our enemies, by all secret ways and by what is even worse by bribe or by ransom. But it is our hope that God will not permit so great an evil to betide his people, and that your great and high wisdom will not suffer it so to befall but will provide against it as becometh your nobility.

For if without the retribution that behoveth she were to be delivered, irreparable would be the dishonour which should fall on your great nobility and on all those who have dealt in this matter. But your good and noble wisdom will know how to devise means whereby such scandal shall cease as soon as may be, whereof there is great need. And because all delay in this matter is very perilous and very injurious to this kingdom, very kindly and with a cordial affection do we beseech your powerful and honoured nobility to grant that for the glory of God, for the maintenance of the Holy Catholic Faith, for the good and honour of the kingdom, this woman be delivered up to justice and given over here to the Inquisitor of the Faith, who hath demanded her and doth now demand her urgently, in order that he may examine the grievous charges under which she labours, so that God may be satisfied and the folk duly edified in good and holy doctrine. Or, an it please you better, hand over this woman to the reverend Father in God, our highly honoured Lord Bishop of Beauvais, who it is said hath likewise claimed her, because she was taken within his jurisdiction. This prelate and this inquisitor are judges of this woman in matters of faith; and every Christian of whatsoever estate owes them obedience in this case under heavy penalty of the law. By so doing you will attain to the love and grace of the most High and you will be the means of exalting the holy Faith, and likewise will you glorify your own high and noble name and also that of the most high and most powerful Prince, our redoubtable Lord and yours, my Lord of Burgundy. Every man shall be required to pray God for the prosperity of your most noble worship, whom may it please God our Saviour in his grace, to guide and keep in all his affairs and finally to grant eternal joy.

Given at Paris, the 14th day of July, 1430.[2064]

[Footnote 2064: Trial, vol. i, pp. 10, 11. M. Fournier, La faculte de decret, vol. i, p. 353, note.]

At the same time that he bore these letters, the Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of Beauvais was charged to offer money.[2065] To us it seems strange indeed that just at the very time when, by the mouth of the University, he was representing to the Lord of Luxembourg that he could not sell his prisoner without committing a crime, the Bishop should himself offer to purchase her. According to these ecclesiastics, Jean would incur terrible penalties in this world and in the next, if in conformity with the laws and customs of war he surrendered a prisoner held to ransom in return for money, and he would win praise and blessing if he treacherously sold his captive to those who wished to put her to death. But at least we might expect that this Lord Bishop who had come to buy this woman for the Church, would purchase her with the Church's money. Not at all! The purchase money is furnished by the English. In the end therefore she is delivered not to the Church but to the English. And it is a priest, acting in the interests of God and of his Church, by virtue of his episcopal jurisdiction, who concludes the bargain. He offers ten thousand golden francs, a sum in return for which, he says, according to the custom prevailing in France, the King has the right to claim any prisoner even were he of the blood royal.[2066]

[Footnote 2065: Trial, vol. i, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 2066: Trial, vol. i, p. 14.]

There can be no doubt whatever that the high and solemn ecclesiastic, Pierre Cauchon, suspected Jeanne of witchcraft. Wishing to bring her to trial, he exercised his ecclesiastical functions. But he knew her to be the enemy of the English as well as of himself; there is no doubt on that point. So when he wished to bring her to trial he acted as the Councillor of King Henry. Was it a witch or the enemy of the English he was buying with his ten thousand gold francs? And if it were merely a witch and an idolatress that the Holy Inquisitor, that the University, that the Ordinary demanded for the glory of God, and at the price of gold, wherefore so much ado, wherefore so great an expenditure of money? Would it not be better in this matter to act in concert with the ecclesiastics of King Charles's party? The Armagnacs were neither infidels nor heretics; they were neither Turks nor Hussites; they were Catholics; they acknowledged the Pope of Rome to be the true head of Christendom. The Dauphin Charles and his clergy had not been excommunicated. Neither those who regarded the Treaty of Troyes as invalid nor those who had sworn to it had been pronounced anathema by the Pope. This was not a question of faith. In the provinces ruled over by King Charles the Holy Inquisition prosecuted heresy in a curious manner and the secular arm saw to it that the sentences pronounced by the Church did not remain a dead letter. The Armagnacs burned witches just as much as the French and the Burgundians. For the present doubtless they did not believe the Maid to be possessed by devils; most of them on the contrary were inclined to regard her as a saint. But might they not be undeceived? Would it not be good Christian charity to present them with fine canonical arguments? If the Maid's case were really a case for the ecclesiastical court why not join with Churchmen of both parties and take her before the Pope and the Council? And just at that time a Council for the reformation of the Church and the establishment of peace in the kingdom was sitting in the town of Bale; the University was sending its delegates, who would there meet the ecclesiastics of King Charles, also Gallicans and firmly attached to the privileges of the Church of France.[2067] Why not have this Armagnac prophetess tried by the assembled Fathers? But for the sake of Henry of Lancaster and the glory of Old England matters had to take another turn. The Regent's Councillors were already accusing Jeanne of witchcraft when she summoned them in the name of the King of Heaven to depart out of France. During the siege of Orleans, they wanted to burn her heralds and said that if they had her they would burn her also at the stake. Such in good sooth was their firm intent and their unvarying intimation. This does not look as if they would be likely to hand her over to the Church as soon as she was taken. In their own kingdom they burned as many witches and wizards as possible; but they had never suffered the Holy Inquisition to be established in their land, and they were ill acquainted with that form of justice. Informed that Jeanne was in the hands of the Sire de Luxembourg, the Great Council of England were unanimously in favour of her being purchased at any price. Divers lords recommended that as soon as they obtained possession of the Maid she should be sewn in a sack and cast into the river. But one of them (it is said to have been the Earl of Warwick) represented to them that she ought first to be tried, convicted of heresy and witchcraft by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and then solemnly degraded in order that her King might be degraded with her.[2068] What a disgrace for Charles of Valois, calling himself King of France, if the University of Paris, if the French ecclesiastical dignitaries, bishops, abbots, canons, if in short the Church Universal were to declare that a witch had sat in his Council and that a witch led his host, that one possessed had conducted him to his impious, sacrilegious and void anointing! Thus would the trial of the Maid be the trial of Charles VII, the condemnation of the Maid the condemnation of Charles VII. The idea seemed good to them and was adopted.

[Footnote 2067: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. v, pp. 393-408. Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi decimi quinti, vol. i, pp. 70 et seq. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'Universite de Paris.]

[Footnote 2068: Valeran Varanius, ed. Prarond, Paris, 1889, book iv, p. 100.]

The Lord Bishop of Beauvais was eager to put it into execution. He, a priest and Councillor of State, was consumed with a desire, under the semblance of trying an unfortunate heretic, to sit in judgment on the descendant of Clovis, of Saint Charlemagne and of Saint Louis.

Early in August, the Sire de Luxembourg had the Maid taken from Beaulieu, which was not safe enough, to Beaurevoir, near Cambrai.[2069] There dwelt Dame Jeanne de Luxembourg and Dame Jeanne de Bethune. Jeanne de Luxembourg was the aunt of Lord Jean, whom she loved dearly. Among the great of this world she had lived as a saint, and she had never married. Formerly lady-in-waiting to Queen Ysabeau, King Charles VII's godmother, one of the most important events of her life had been to solicit from Pope Martin the canonisation of her Brother, the Cardinal of Luxembourg, who had died at Avignon in his ninetieth year. She was known as the Demoiselle de Luxembourg. She was sixty-seven years of age, infirm and near her end.[2070]

[Footnote 2069: Trial, vol. i, pp. 109, 110; vol. ii, p. 298; vol. iii, p. 121. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 389. E. Gomart, Jeanne d'Arc au chateau de Beaurevoir, Cambrai, 1865, in 8vo, 47 pages (Mem. de la Societe d'emulation de Cambrai, xxxviii, 2, pp. 305-348). L. Sambier, Jeanne d'Arc et la region du Nord, Lille, 1901, in 8vo, 63 pages. Cf. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 300, notes 3 and 4, vol. iv, supplement xxi.]

[Footnote 2070: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 231. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 402. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 2; vol. ii, pp. 72, 73.]

Jeanne de Bethune, widow of Lord Robert de Bar, slain at the Battle of Azincourt, had married Lord Jean in 1418. She was reputed pitiful, because, in 1424, she had obtained from her husband the pardon of a nobleman of Picardy, who had been brought prisoner to Beaurevoir and was in great danger of being beheaded and quartered.[2071]

[Footnote 2071: A. Duchene, Histoire de la maison de Bethune, ch. iii, and proofs and illustrations, p. 33. Vallet de Viriville, loc. cit., and Morosini, vol. iv, pp. 352, 354.]

These two ladies treated Jeanne kindly. They offered her woman's clothes or cloth with which to make them; and they urged her to abandon a dress which appeared to them unseemly. Jeanne refused, alleging that she had not received permission from Our Lord and that it was not yet time; later she admitted that had she been able to quit man's attire, she would have done so at the request of these two dames rather than for any other dame of France, the Queen excepted.[2072]

[Footnote 2072: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 231.]

A noble of the Burgundian party, one Aimond de Macy, often came to see her and was pleased to converse with her. To him she seemed modest in word and in deed. Still Sire Aimond, who was but thirty, had found her personally attractive.[2073] If certain witnesses of her own party are to be believed, Jeanne, although beautiful, did not inspire men with desire.