[Footnote 741: Judith, xvi, 7 (W.S.).]

Jeanne was taken to the mansion where dwelt Maitre Jean Rabateau, not far from the law-courts, in the heart of the town.[742] Maitre Jean Rabateau was Lay Attorney General; all criminal cases went to him, while civil cases went to the ecclesiastical Attorney General, Jean Jouvenel. Alike King's advocates, in the King's service, they both represented him in cases wherein he was concerned. The King was an unprofitable client. For representing him in criminal trials Maitre Jean Rabateau received four hundred livres a year. He was forbidden to appear in any but crown cases; and no one suspected him of receiving many bribes. If in addition he held the office of Councillor to the Duke of Orleans he gained little by it. Like most Parlement officials he was for the moment very poor. A stranger in Poitiers, he had no house there, but lodged in a mansion, which, because it belonged to a family named Rosier, was called the Hotel de la Rose. It was a large dwelling. Witnesses whom it was necessary to keep securely and deal with honourably were entertained there. Jeanne was taken there although the Parlement had nothing to do with her cross-examination.[743] Once again she was placed in charge of a man who served both the Duke of Orleans and the King of France.

[Footnote 742: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 19, 74, 82, 203. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 275. B. Ledain, Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, Saint-Maixent, 1891, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 743: Nevertheless see Le mistere du siege, pp. 397-406.]

Jean Rabateau's wife, in common with the wives of all lawyers, was a woman of good reputation.[744] While she was at La Rose, Jeanne would stay long on her knees every day after dinner. At night she would rise from her bed to pray, and pass long hours in the little oratory of the mansion. It was in this house that the doctors conducted her examination. When their coming was announced she was seized with cruel anxiety. The Blessed Saint Catherine was careful to reassure her.[745] She likewise had disputed with doctors and confounded them. True, those doctors were heathen, but they were learned and their minds were subtle; for in the life of the Saint it is written: "The Emperor summoned fifty doctors versed in the lore of the Egyptians and the liberal arts. And when she heard that she was to dispute with the wise men, Catherine feared lest she should not worthily defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But an angel appeared unto her and said: 'I am the Archangel Saint Michael, and I am come to tell thee that thou shalt come forth from the strife victorious and worthy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the hope and crown of those who strive for him.' And the Virgin disputed with the doctors."[746]

[Footnote 744: There can be no reason for suspecting this lady of not living up to her reputation, for nothing is known of her, not even whether she were Maitre Jean Rabateau's first or second wife, for he had two. The first was the daughter of Benoit Pidelet. Cf. B. Ledain, La maison de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, Maitre Jean Rabateau (Revue du Bas-Poitou, April, 1891, pp. 48, 66). A. Barbier, Jeanne d'Arc et l'hotellerie de la Rose, Poitiers, 1892, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 745: Trial, vol. iii, p. 82.]

[Footnote 746: Voragine, La legende doree (Vie de Sainte Catherine).]

The grave doctors and masters and the principal clerks of the Parlement of Poitiers, in companies of two and three, repaired to the house of Jean Rabateau, and each one of them in turn questioned Jeanne. The first to come were Jean Lombard, Guillaume le Maire, Guillaume Aimery, Pierre Turelure, and Jacques Meledon. Brother Jean Lombard asked: "Wherefore have you come? The King desires to know what led you to come to him."

Jeanne's reply greatly impressed these clerks: "As I kept my flocks a Voice appeared to me. The Voice said: 'God has great pity on the people of France. Jeanne, thou must go into France.' On hearing these words I began to weep. Then the Voice said unto me: 'Go to Vaucouleurs. There shalt thou find a captain, who will take thee safely into France, to the King. Fear not.' I did as I was bidden, and I came to the King without hindrance."[747]

[Footnote 747: Trial, vol. iii, p. 204 (evidence of Brother Seguin).]

Then the word fell to Brother Guillaume Aimery: "According to what you have said, the Voice told you that God will deliver the people of France from their distress; but if God will deliver them he has no need of men-at-arms."

"In God's name," replied the Maid, "the men-at-arms will fight, and God will give the victory."

Maitre Guillaume declared himself satisfied.[748]

[Footnote 748: Ibid., pp. 203, 204.]

On the 22nd of March, Maitre Pierre de Versailles and Maitre Jean Erault went together to Jean Rabateau's lodging. The squire, Gobert Thibault, whom Jeanne had already seen at Chinon, came with them. He was a young man and very simple, one who believed without asking for a sign. As they came in Jeanne went to meet them, and, striking the squire on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, she said: "I wish I had many men as willing as you."[749]

[Footnote 749: Ibid., p. 74.]

With men-at-arms she felt at her ease. But the doctors she could not tolerate, and she suffered torture when they came to argue with her. Although these theologians showed her great consideration, their eternal questions wearied her; their slowness and heaviness exasperated her. She bore them a grudge for not believing in her straightway, without proof, and for asking her for a sign, which she could not give them, since neither Saint Michael nor Saint Catherine nor Saint Margaret appeared during the examination. In retirement, in the oratory, and in the lonely fields the heavenly visitants came to her in crowds; angels and saints, descending from heaven, flocked around her. But when the doctors came, immediately the Jacob's ladder was drawn up. Besides, the clerks were theologians, and she was a saint. Relations are always strained between the heads of the Church Militant and those devout women who communicate directly with the Church Triumphant. She realised that the revelations granted to her so abundantly inspired her most favourable judges with doubts, suspicion, and even mistrust. She dared not confide to them much of the mystery of her Voices, and when the Churchmen were not present she told Alencon, her fair Duke, that she knew more and could do more than she had ever told all those clerks.[750] It was not to them she had been sent; it was not for them that she had come. She felt awkward in their presence, and their manners were the occasion of that irritation which is discernible in more than one of her replies.[751] Sometimes when they questioned her she retreated to the end of her bench and sulked.

[Footnote 750: Trial, vol. iii, p. 92.]

[Footnote 751: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 275.]

"We come to you from the King," said Maitre Pierre de Versailles.

She replied with a bad grace: "I am quite aware that you are come to question me again. I don't know A from B."[752] But to the question: "Wherefore do you come?" she made answer eagerly: "I come from the King of Heaven to raise the siege of Orleans, and take the King to be crowned and anointed at Reims. Maitre Jean Erault, have you ink and paper? Write what I shall tell you." And she dictated a brief manifesto to the English captains: "You, Suffort, Clasdas, and La Poule, in the name of the King of Heaven I call upon you to return to England."[753]

[Footnote 752: Trial, vol. iii, p. 74 (evidence of Gobert Thibault).]

[Footnote 753: Trial, vol. iii, p. 74. Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise, p. 111. La Poule, as he is called here, is identical with Suffort, and is none other than William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, unless John Pole, William's brother, be intended, but he was not one of the three organisers of the siege. As for Clasdas or Glasdale, as the French called him, he served under the orders of the Commander of Les Tourelles. These errors may have been Jeanne's, or possibly they were made by the witness. They do not recur in the letter to the English.]

Maitre Jean Erault, who wrote at her dictation, was, like most of the clerks, favourably disposed towards her. Further, he had his own ideas. He recollected that Marie of Avignon, surnamed La Gasque, had uttered true and memorable prophecies to King Charles VI. Now La Gasque had told the King that the realm was to suffer many sorrows; and she had seen weapons in the sky. Her story of her vision had concluded with these words: "While I was afeard, believing myself called upon to take these weapons, a voice comforted me, saying: 'They are not for thee, but for a Virgin, who shall come and with these weapons deliver the realm of France.'" Maitre Jean Erault meditated on these marvellous revelations and came to believe that Jeanne was the Virgin announced by Marie of Avignon.[754]

[Footnote 754: Trial, vol. iii, p. 83.]

Maitre Gerard Machet, the King's Confessor, had found it written that a Maid should come to the help of the King of France. He remarked on it to Gobert Thibault, the Squire, who was no very great personage;[755] and he certainly spoke of it to several others. Gerard Machet, Doctor of Theology, sometime Vice Chancellor of the University, from which he was now excluded, was regarded as one of the lights of the Church. He loved the court,[756] although he would not admit it, and enjoyed the favour of the King, who had just rewarded his services by giving him money with which to purchase a mule.[757] All doubts concerning the disposition of these doctors are removed by the discovery that the King's Confessor himself put into circulation those prophecies which had been distorted in favour of the Maid from the Bois-Chenu.

[Footnote 755: Ibid., p. 75.]

[Footnote 756: Lettres de Gerard Machet, Bibl. nat. Latin documents, no. 8577. Launoy, Regii Navarrae Gymnasii Parisiensis historia, Paris, 1682 (2 vols. in 4to), vol. ii, pp. 533, 557. Du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Parisiensis, vol. v, p. 875. Vallet de Viriville, in Nouvelle biographie generale.]

[Footnote 757: De Beaucourt, Extrait du catalogue des actes de Charles VII, p. 18.]

The damsel was interrogated concerning her Voices, which she called her Council, and her saints, whom she imagined in the semblance of those sculptured or painted figures peopling the churches.[758] The doctors objected to her having cast off woman's clothing and had her hair cut round in the manner of a page. Now it is written: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deuteronomy xxii, 5). The Council of Gangres, held in the reign of the Emperor Valens, had anathematised women who dressed as men and cut short their hair.[759] Many saintly women, impelled by a strange inspiration of the Holy Ghost, had concealed their sex by masculine garb. At Saint-Jean-des-Bois, near Compiegne, was preserved the reliquary of Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria, who lived for thirty-eight years in man's attire in the monastery of the Abbot Theodosius.[760] For these reasons, and because of these precedents, the doctors argued: since Jeanne had put on this clothing not to offend another's modesty but to preserve her own, we will put no evil interpretation on an act performed with good intent, and we will forbear to condemn a deed justified by purity of motive.

[Footnote 758: Trial, vol. i, pp. 71, 72, 73, 171.]

[Footnote 759: Labbe, Sacro-Sancta Consilia (1671), vol. ii, pp. 413, 434.]

[Footnote 760: Surius, Vitae S.S. (1618), vol. i, pp. 21-24. Gabriel Brosse, Histoire abregee de la vie et de la translation de Sainte Euphrosine, Vierge d'Alexandrie, patronne de l'abbaye de Beaulieu-les-Compiegne, Paris, 1649, in 8vo.]

Certain of her questioners inquired why she called Charles Dauphin instead of giving him his title of King. This title had been his by right since the 30th of October, 1422; for on that day, the ninth since the death of the King his father, at Mehun-sur-Yevre, in the chapel royal, he had put off his black gown and assumed the purple robe, while the heralds, raising aloft the banner of France, cried: "Long live the King!"

She answered: "I will not call him King until he shall have been anointed and crowned at Reims. To that city I intend to take him."[761]

[Footnote 761: Trial, vol. iii, p. 20.]

Without this anointing there was no king of France for her. Of the miracles which had followed that anointing she had heard every year from the mouth of her priest as he recited the glorious deeds of the Blessed Saint Remi, the patron saint of her parish. This reply was such as to satisfy the interrogators because, both for things spiritual and temporal, it was important that the King should be anointed at Reims.[762] And Messire Regnault de Chartres must have ardently desired it.

[Footnote 762: It may be noticed that during the consultation of the doctors, according to the report of it given by Thomassin in Le registre Delphinal, Charles of Valois is designated alike by the title of King and by that of Dauphin (Trial, vol. iv, p. 303).]

Contradicted by the clerks, she opposed the Church's doctrine by the inspiration of her own heart, and said to them: "There is more in the Book of Our Lord than in all yours."[763]

[Footnote 763: Trial, vol. iii, p. 86.]

This was a bold and biting reply, which would have been dangerous had the theologians been less favourably inclined to her. Otherwise they might have held it to be trespassing on the rights of the Church, who, as the guardian of the Holy Books, is their jealous interpreter, and does not suffer the authority of Scripture to be set up against the decisions of Councils.[764] What were those books, which without having read she judged to be contrary to those of Our Lord, wherein with mind and spirit she seemed to read plainly? They would seem to be the Sacred Canons and the Sacred Decretals. This child's utterance sapped the very foundations of the Church. Had the doctors of Poitiers been less zealously Armagnac they would henceforth have mistrusted Jeanne and suspected her of heresy. But they were loyal servants of the houses of Orleans and of France. Their cassocks were ragged and their larders empty;[765] their only hope was in God, and they feared lest in rejecting this damsel they might be denying the Holy Ghost. Besides, everything went to prove that these words of Jeanne were uttered without guile and in all ignorance and simplicity. No doubt that is why the doctors were not shocked by them.

[Footnote 764: Le Pere Didon, Vie de Jesus, vol. i, Preface.]

[Footnote 765: Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI, p. 359.]

Brother Seguin of Seguin in his turn questioned the damsel. He was from Limousin, and his speech betrayed his origin. He spoke with a drawl and used expressions unknown in Lorraine and Champagne. Perhaps he had that dull, heavy air, which rendered the folk of his province somewhat ridiculous in the eyes of dwellers on the Loire, the Seine, and the Meuse. To the question: "What language do your Voices speak?" Jeanne replied: "A better one than yours."[766]

[Footnote 766: Trial, vol. iii, p. 204.]

Even saints may lose patience. If Brother Seguin did not know it before, he learnt it that day. And what business had he to doubt that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who were on the side of the French, spoke French? Such a doubt Jeanne could not bear, and she gave her questioner to understand that when one comes from Limousin one does not inquire concerning the speech of heavenly ladies. Notwithstanding he pursued his interrogation: "Do you believe in God?" "Yes, more than you do," said the Maid, who, knowing nothing of the good Brother, was somewhat hasty in esteeming herself better grounded in the faith than he.

But she was vexed that there should be any question of her belief in God, who had sent her. Her reply, if favourably interpreted, would testify to the ardour of her faith. Did Brother Seguin so understand it? His contemporaries represented him as being of a somewhat bitter disposition. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that he was good-natured.[767]

[Footnote 767: It seems to have been the fate of the inhabitants of Limousin to be jeered at by the French of Champagne and of l'Ile de France. After Brother Seguin we have the student from Limousin to whom Pantagruel says: "Thou art Limousin to the bone and yet here thou wilt pass thyself off as a Parisian." It is the lot of M. de Pourceaugnac. La Fontaine, in 1663, writes from Limoges to his wife that the people of Limousin are by no means afflicted; neither do they labour under Heaven's displeasure "as the folk of our provinces imagine." But he adds that he does not like their habits. It would seem that at first Brother Seguin was annoyed by Jeanne's mocking vivacious repartees. But he cherished no ill-will against her. "The Limousin's good nature does not permit the endurance of any unfriendly feeling," says Abel Hugo in La France pittoresque: Haute-Vienne. Cf. A. Precicou, Rabelais et les Limousins, Limoges, 1906, in 8vo.]

"But after all," he said, "it cannot be God's will that you should be believed unless some sign appear to make us believe in you. On your word alone we cannot counsel the King to run the risk of granting you men-at-arms."

"In God's name," she answered, "it was not to give a sign that I came to Poitiers. But take me to Orleans and I will show you the signs wherefore I am sent. Let me be given men, it matters not how many, and I will go to Orleans."

And she repeated what she was continually saying: "The English shall all be driven out and destroyed. The siege of Orleans shall be raised and the city delivered from its enemies, after I shall have summoned it to surrender in the name of the King of Heaven. The Dauphin shall be anointed at Reims, the town of Paris shall return to its allegiance to the King, and the Duke of Orleans shall come back from England."[768]

[Footnote 768: Trial, vol. iii, p. 205.]

Long did the doctors and masters, following the example of Brother Seguin of Seguin, urge her to show a sign of her mission. They thought that if God had chosen her to deliver the French nation he would not fail to make his choice manifest by a sign, as he had done for Gideon, the son of Joash. When Israel was sore pressed by the Midianites, and when God's chosen people hid from their enemies in the caves of the mountains, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon under an oak, and said unto him: "Surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." To which Gideon made answer: "If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me." And Gideon made ready a kid and kneaded unleavened cakes; the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot and brought the pot and the basket beneath the oak. Then the Angel of God said unto him: "Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. When Gideon perceived that he had seen an angel of the Lord, he cried out: "Alas, O Lord God! for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face."[769] With three hundred men Gideon subdued the Midianites. This example the doctors had before their minds.[770]

[Footnote 769: Judges, ch. vi. (W.S.).]

[Footnote 770: Trial, vol. iii, p. 20.]

But for the Maid the sign of victory was victory itself. She said without ceasing: "The sign that I will show you shall be Orleans relieved and the siege raised."[771]

[Footnote 771: Ibid., pp. 20, 205. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 278. Journal du siege, p. 49.]

Such persistency made an impression on most of her interrogators. They determined to make of it, not a stone of stumbling, but rather an example of zeal and a subject of edification. Since she promised them a sign it behoved them in all humility to ask God to send it, and, filled with a like hope, joining with the King and all the people, to pray to the God, who delivered Israel, to grant them the banner of victory. Thus were overcome the arguments of Brother Seguin and of those who, led away by the precepts of human wisdom, desired a sign before they believed.

After an examination which had lasted six weeks, the doctors declared themselves satisfied.[772]

[Footnote 772: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 19, 20.]

There was one point it was necessary to ascertain; they must know whether Jeanne was, as she said, a virgin. Matrons had indeed already examined her on her arrival at Chinon. Then there was a doubt as to whether she were man or maid; and it was even feared that she might be an illusion in woman's semblance, produced by the art of demons, which scholars considered by no means impossible.[773] It was not long since the death of that canon who held that now and again knights are changed into bears and spirits travel a hundred leagues in one night, then suddenly become sows or wisps of straw.[774] Suitable measures had therefore been taken. But they must be carried out exactly, wisely, and cautiously, for the matter was of great importance.

[Footnote 773: Ibid., vol. i, p. 95; vol. iii, p. 209.]

[Footnote 774: Mary Darmesteter, Froissart, Paris, 1894, in 12mo, p. 96.]



CHAPTER VIII

THE MAID AT POITIERS (continued)

A belief, common to learned and ignorant alike, ascribed special virtues to the state of virginity. Such ideas had been handed down from a remote antiquity; their origin was pre-Christian; they were an immemorial inheritance, one part of which came from the Gauls and Germans, the other from the Romans and Greeks. In the land of Gaul there still lingered a memory of the sacred beauty of the white priestesses of the forest; and sometimes in the Island of Sein, along the misty shores of the Ocean, there wandered the shades of those nine sisters at whose bidding, in days of yore, the tempest raged and was stilled.

According to these beliefs, which had dawned in the childhood of races, the gift of prophecy is bestowed on virgins alone. It is the heritage of a Cassandra or a Velleda. It was said that Sibyls had prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ. In the Church they were considered the first witnesses of Christ among the Gentiles, and they were venerated as the august sisters of the prophets of Israel. The Dies Irae mentions one of them in the same breath with King David himself. By what pious frauds their fame for prophecy was established, we cannot tell any more than Jean Gerson or Gerard Machet. With the doctors of the fifteenth century we must look upon these virgins as speaking the word of truth to the nations, who venerated but did not understand them. Such was the ancient tradition of the Christian Church. The most ancient fathers of the Church, Justin, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, frequently made use of the Sibylline oracles; and the heathen were at a loss for a reply when Lactantius confronted them with these prophetesses of the nations. Trusting in the word of Varro, Saint Jerome firmly believed in their existence. Into The City of God Saint Augustine introduces the Erythrean Sibyl, who, he says, faithfully foretold the Life of the Saviour. As early as the thirteenth century, these virgins of old had their places in cathedrals by the side of patriarchs and prophets. But it was not until the fifteenth century that multitudes of them were represented; sculptured on church porches, carved on choir stalls, painted on chapel walls or glass windows. Each one has her distinctive attribute. The Persian holds the lantern and the Libyan the torch, which illuminated the darkness of the Gentiles. The Agrippine, the European, and Erythrean are armed with the sword; the Phrygian bears the Paschal cross; the Hellespontine presents a rose tree in flower; the others display the visible signs of the mystery they foretell: the Cumaean a manger; the Delphian, the Samian, the Tiburtine, the Cimmerian a crown of thorns, a sceptre of reeds, scourges, a cross.[775]

[Footnote 775: Jean Philippe de Lignan, Rome, 1481 (not paginated), leaf 10 and the following. For the comparison of Jeanne d'Arc to the ancient Sibyl, see the Clerk of Spire, Sibylla Francica, in the Trial, vol. iii, p. 422. Christine de Pisano in the Trial, vol. v, p. 12. Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 8-10. Barbier de Montault, Iconographie des Sibylles, in the Revue de l'art chretien, xiii-xiv (1869-1870). Barraud, Notice sur les attributs avec lesquelles on represente les Sibylles aux XV'e et XVI'e siecles, in the Bulletin archeologique de la Commission historique des arts mon., vol. iv (1848). Cf. Morosini, vol. iv, supplement xiv, p. 319.]

The very economy of the Christian religion—the ordering of its mysteries, wherein humanity is represented as ruined by a woman and saved by a virgin, and all flesh is involved in Eve's curse—led to the triumph of virginity and the exaltation of a condition which, in the words of a Father of the Church, is in the flesh, yet not of the flesh.

"It is because of virginity," says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, "that God vouchsafes to dwell with men. It is virginity which gives men wings to soar towards heaven." Celibacy raises the Apostle John above the Prince of the Apostles himself. At the funeral of the Virgin Mary, Peter gave John a palm branch, saying: "It becometh one who is celibate to bear the Virgin's palm."[776]

[Footnote 776: Voragine, La legende doree (Assomption de la Vierge).]

Throughout western Christendom the Virgin Mary—the Virgin par excellence—had been the object of zealous devout worship[777] ever since the twelfth century. The great cathedrals of northern France, dedicated to Our Lady, celebrated the feast of their patron saint on the day of the Assumption. On the sculptured pillar of the central porch was the Virgin, with her divine Child and the Virgin's lily. Sometimes Eve figured beneath, in order to represent at once sin and its redemption: the second Eve redeeming the first, the Virgin exalted the woman humbled. Marvellous scenes are portrayed on the tympanums of porches. The Virgin is kneeling; at her side is a flowering lily in a vase. The Angel, book in hand, greets her with an AVE, thus transposing the name EVA, mutans Evae nomen. Or again, with her feet resting on the crescent moon, she rises to the highest heaven: Exaltata est super choros angelorum. Further, from Jesus Christ she receives the precious crown: Posuit in capite ejus coronam de lapide pretioso. In gems of painted glass, church windows portrayed the figures of Mary's virginity; the stone which Daniel saw dug from the mountain by no human hand, Gideon's fleece, Moses' burning bush, and Aaron's budding rod.

[Footnote 777: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, Notre Dame de France ou histoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge en France, Paris, 1862, 7 vols. in 8vo. Abbe Mignard, La Sainte Vierge, Paris, 1877, in 8vo, pp. 382 et seq.]

In an inexhaustible flow of images, expressed in hymns, sequences, and litanies, she was the Mystic Rose, the Ivory Tower, the Ark of the Covenant, the Gate of Heaven, the Morning Star. She was the Well of Living Water, the Fountain of the Garden, the Walled Orchard, the Bright and Shining Stone, the Flower of Virtue, the Palm of Sweetness, the Myrtle of Temperance, the Sweet Ointment.

In the Golden Legend, images rich and charming clothed the idea that grace and power resided in virginity. The hagiographers burst forth in loving praise of the brides of Jesus Christ; of those especially who put on the white robe of virginity and the red roses of martyrdom. It was during the passion of virgins that miracles of the most abounding grace were worked. Angels bring down to Dorothea celestial roses, which she scatters over her executioners. Virgin martyrs exercise their power over beasts. The lions of the amphitheatre lick the feet of Saint Thecla. The wild beasts of the circus gather together, and with tails interlaced, prepare a throne for Saint Euphemia; in the pit, aspics form a pleasing necklace for Saint Christina. It is not the will of the divine Spouse for whom they endure anguish that they should suffer in their modesty. When the executioner tears off Saint Agnes's garments, her hair grows thicker and clothes her in a miraculous garment. When Saint Barbara is to be taken naked through the streets, an angel brings her a white tunic. These Agneses and these Dorotheas, these Catherines and these Margarets, this legion of innocent conquerors prepared men's minds to believe in the miracle of a virgin stronger than armed men. Had not Saint Genevieve turned away Attila and his barbarian warriors from Paris?

The fable of the Maid and the Unicorn, so widely known in those days, is a lively expression of this belief in a special virtue residing in the state of virginity.

The unicorn was half goat and half horse, of immaculate whiteness; it bore a marvellous sword upon its forehead. Hunters, when they saw it pass in the thicket, had never been able to reach it, so rapid was its course. But if a virgin in the forest called the unicorn, the creature obeyed, came and laid its head on her lap, and allowed such feeble hands to take and bind it. If however a damsel corrupt and no longer a maid approached it, the unicorn slew her immediately.[778]

[Footnote 778: De l'unicorne qu'une jeune fille seduit, in the Bestiaire of R. de Fournival (Paulin Paris, Manuscrits francais, vol. iv, p. 25). Berger de Xivrey, Traditions teratologiques, p. 559. J. Doublet, Histoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Denys, vol. i, p. 320. Vallet de Viriville, Nouvelles recherches sur Agnes Sorel, in Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie, vol. vi, p. 621. A. Maury, Croyances et legendes du moyen age, pp. 262 et seq.]

It was even said that a virgin had the power to cure king's evil, by reciting, fasting and naked, certain magic words; but they were not words from the Gospel.[779]

[Footnote 779: Leber, Des ceremonies du sacre, Paris, 1825, in 8vo, p. 459.]

While mystics and visionaries were glorifying virginity, the Church, bent on governing the body as well as the soul, condemned opinions denying the lawfulness of marriage, which she had constituted a sacrament. Those who would anathematise all works of the flesh she held to be abominable and impious. A maid deserved praise for preserving her virginity, provided always that her motives were praiseworthy. Two hundred years before the reign of Charles VII, a young girl of Reims realised that a grave sin may be committed against the Church of God by refusing the solicitations of a clerk in a vineyard. Here is the damsel's story as related by the canon Gervais.

"On a day, Guillaume with the White Hands, Uncle of King Philippe of France, for his pleasure rode forth from his town. A clerk of his following, Gervais by name, who was in the heat of youth, saw a maiden walking alone in a vineyard. He went to her, greeted her and asked: 'What are you doing in such great haste?' And with fitting words he courteously solicited her.

"Without even looking at him, calmly and gravely she replied: 'God forbid, youth, that I should ever be yours or any man's, for if I were to lose my virginity and my body its purity, I should inevitably fall into eternal damnation.'

"Such words caused the clerk to suspect that the maiden belonged to the impious sect of the Cathari, whom the Church was in those days pursuing relentlessly and punishing severely. One of the errors of these heretics was indeed to condemn all carnal intercourse. Impatient to resolve his doubts, Gervais straightway provoked the damsel to a discussion on the Church's teaching in this matter. Meanwhile, the Archbishop, Guillaume with the White Hands, turned his steed, and, followed by his monks, came to the vineyard where the clerk and the maiden were disputing together. When he learnt the cause of their disagreement he ordered the maiden to be seized and brought into the town. There he exhorted her, and, in charity, endeavoured to convert her to the Catholic Faith.

"She would not submit, however. 'I am not well enough grounded in doctrine to defend myself,' she said to him. 'But in the town I have a mistress, who, with good reasons, will easily refute all your arguments. She it is who lodges in that house.'

"The Archbishop Guillaume straightway sent to inquire after this woman; and, having questioned her, perceived that what the maiden had said concerning her was true. The very next day he convoked an assembly of clerks and nobles to judge the two women. Both of them were condemned to be burnt. The mistress contrived to escape, but promises and persuasions having failed to turn the maiden from the pernicious error of her ways, she was delivered up to the executioner. She died without shedding a tear, without uttering a complaint."[780]

[Footnote 780: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en France, Paris, 1893, in 8vo, p. 293.]

In the year 1416 there was a certain woman, a native of the Duchy of Bar, Catherine Sauve by name. She was then a solitary, living at Montpellier, on the road to Lattes. Having been publicly accused, she was examined by the Inquisitor's Vicar, Maitre Raymond Cabasse, and found to be infected with the heresy of the Cathari. Among other errors she maintained that all carnal intercourse is sinful, even in wedlock. Wherefore she was delivered to the secular arm and burned at the stake on the 2nd of November in that year.[781]

[Footnote 781: Germain, Catherine Sauve, in Academie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier, Lettres, vol. i, 1854, in 4to, pp. 539-552.]

It was then commonly believed that such maidens as gave themselves to the devil were straightway stripped of their virginity; and that thus he obtained power over these unhappy creatures.[782] Such ways accorded with what was known of his libidinous disposition. These pleasures were tempered to his woeful state. And thereby he gained a further advantage,—that of unarming his victim,—for virginity is as a coat of mail against which the darts of hell are but blades of straw. Hence it was all but certain that a soul vowed to the devil could not reside within a maid.[783] Wherefore, there was one infallible way of proving that the peasant girl from Vaucouleurs was not given up to magic or to sorcery, and had made no pact with the Evil One. Recourse was had to it.

[Footnote 782: Du Cange, Glossaire, under the word Matrimonium.]

[Footnote 783: Pierre Le Loyer, Livre des spectres, 1586, in 4to, pp. 527, 551.]

Jeanne was seen, visited, privately inspected, and thoroughly examined by wise women, mulieres doctas; by knowing virgins, peritas virgines; by widows and wives, viduas et conjugates. First among these matrons were: the Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, Duchess of Anjou; Dame Jeanne de Preuilly, wife of the Sire de Gaucourt, Governor of Orleans, who was about fifty-seven years of age; and Dame Jeanne de Mortemer, wife of Messire Robert le Macon, Lord of Treves, a man full of years.[784] The last was only eighteen, and one would have expected her to be better acquainted with the Calendrier des Vieillards than with the formulary of matrons. It is strange with what assurance the good wives of those days undertook the solution of a problem which had appeared difficult to King Solomon in all his wisdom.

[Footnote 784: Trial, vol. iii, p. 102. Vallet de Viriville, article Le Macon, in Nouvelle biographie generale.]

Jeanne of Domremy was found to be a maid pure and intact.[785]

[Footnote 785: Trial, vol. iii, p. 210. Eberhard Windecke, p. 157. Morosini, p. 99.]

While she herself was being subjected to the interrogatories of doctors and the examination of matrons, certain clerics who had been despatched to her native province were there prosecuting an inquiry concerning her birth, her life, and her morals.[786] The ecclesiastics had been chosen from those mendicant Friars[787] who could pass freely along the highways and byways of the enemy's country without exciting the suspicion of English and Burgundians. And, indeed, they were in no way molested. From Domremy and from Vaucouleurs they brought back sure testimony to the humility, the devotion, the honesty, and the simplicity of Jeanne. But, most important, they had found no difficulty in gleaning certain pious tales, such as commonly adorned the childhood of saints. To these monks we must attribute an important share in the development of those legends of Jeanne's early years, which were so soon to become popular. From this time, apparently, dates the story that when Jeanne was in her seventh year, wolves spared her sheep, and birds of the woods came at her call and ate crumbs from her lap.[788] Such saintly flowers suggest a Franciscan origin; among them are the wolf of Gubbio and the birds preached to by Saint Francis. These mendicants may also have furnished examples of the Maid's prophetic gift. They may have spread abroad the story that, when she was at Vaucouleurs, on the day of the Battle of the Herrings, she knew of the great hurt inflicted on the French at Rouvray.[789] The success of such little stories was immediate and complete.

[Footnote 786: Trial, vol. iii, p. 82.]

[Footnote 787: Simeon Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cxliii. Trial, vol. ii, p. 397.]

[Footnote 788: Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers to the Duke of Milan, in the Trial, vol. v, pp. 115, 121. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 237.]

[Footnote 789: Journal du siege, p. 48. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 275.]

After this examination and inquiry, the doctors came to the following conclusions: "The King, beholding his own need and that of his realm, and considering the constant prayers to God of his poor subjects and all others who love peace and justice, ought not to repulse or reject the Maid who says that God has sent her to bring him succour, albeit these promises may be nothing[790] but the works of man; neither ought he lightly or hastily to believe in her. But, according to Holy Scripture he must try her in two ways: to wit, with human wisdom, by inquiring of her life, her morals, and her motive, as saith Saint Paul the Apostle: Probate spiritus, si ex Deo sunt; and by earnest prayer to ask for a sign of her work and her divine hope, by which to tell whether it is by God's will that she is come. Thus God commanded Ahaz that he should ask for a sign when God promised him victory, saying unto him: Pete signum a Domino; and Gideon did likewise when he asked for a sign and many others, etc. Since the coming of the said Maid, the King hath observed her in the two manners aforesaid: to wit, by trial of human wisdom and by prayer, asking God for a sign. As for the first, which is trial by human wisdom, he has tested the said Maid in her life, her origin, her morals, her intention; and has kept her near him for the space of six weeks to show her to all people, whether clerks, ecclesiastics, monks, men-at-arms, wives, widows or others. In public and in private she hath conversed with persons of all conditions. But there hath been found no evil in her, nothing but good, humility, virginity, devoutness, honesty, simplicity. Of her birth, as well as of her life, many marvellous things are related."

[Footnote 790: The word seules in the text is doubtful.]

"As for the second ordeal, the King asked her for a sign, to which she replied that before Orleans she would give it, but neither earlier nor elsewhere, for thus it is ordained of God.

"Now, seeing that the King hath made trial of the aforesaid Maid as far as it was in his power to do, that he findeth no evil in her, and that her reply is that she will give a divine sign before Orleans; seeing her persistency, and the consistency of her words, and her urgent request that she be sent to Orleans to show there that the aid she brings is divine, the King should not hinder her from going to Orleans with men-at-arms, but should send her there in due state trusting in God. For to fear her or reject her when there is no appearance of evil in her would be to rebel against the Holy Ghost, and to render oneself unworthy of divine succour, as Gamaliel said of the Apostles in the Council of the Jews."[791]

[Footnote 791: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 391, 392.]

In short, the doctors' conclusion was that as yet nothing divine appeared in the Maid's promises, but that she had been examined and been found humble, a virgin, devout, honest, simple, and wholly good; and that, since she had promised to give a sign from God before Orleans, she must be taken there, for fear that in her the gift of the Holy Ghost should be rejected.

Of these conclusions a great number of copies were made and sent to the towns of the realm as well as to the princes of Christendom. The Emperor Sigismond, for example, received a copy.[792]

[Footnote 792: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 32, 41.]

If the doctors of Poitiers had intended this six weeks inquiry, culminating in a favourable and solemn conclusion, to bring about the glorification of the Maid and the heartening of the French people by the preparation and announcement of the marvel they had before them, then they succeeded perfectly.[793]

[Footnote 793: The conclusions of the Poitiers commission were circulated everywhere. Traces of them are to be found in Brittany (Buchon and Chronique de Morosini), in Flanders (Chronique de Tournai and Chronique de Morosini), in Germany (Eb. Windecke), in Dauphine (Buchon).]

That prolonged investigation, that minute examination reassured those doubting minds among the French, who suspected a woman dressed as a man of being a devil; they flattered men's imaginations with the hope of a miracle; they appealed to all hearts to judge favourably of the damsel who came forth radiant from the fire of ordeal and appeared as if glorified with a celestial halo. Her vanquishing the doctors in argument made her seem like another Saint Catherine.[794] But that she should have met difficult questions with wise answers was not enough for a multitude eager for marvels. It was imagined that she had been subjected to a strange probation from which she had come forth by nothing short of a miracle. Thus a few weeks after the inquiry, the following wonderful story was related in Brittany and in Flanders: when at Poitiers she was preparing to receive the communion, the priest had one wafer that was consecrated and another that was not. He wanted to give her the unconsecrated wafer. She took it in her hand and told the priest that it was not the body of Christ her Redeemer, but that the body was in the wafer which the priest had covered with the corporal.[795] After that there could be no doubt that Jeanne was a great saint.

[Footnote 794: "Altra santa Catarina" (Morosini, vol. iii, p. 52). There is no doubt that here she is compared to Saint Catherine of Alexandria and not to Saint Catherine of Sienna.]

[Footnote 795: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 101.]

At the termination of the inquiries, a favourable opportunity for introducing the Maid into Orleans arrived in the beginning of April. For her arming and her accoutring she was sent first to Tours.[796]

[Footnote 796: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 66, 210.]

Sixty-six years later, an inhabitant of Poitiers, almost a hundred years old, told a young fellow-citizen that he had seen the Maid set out for Orleans on horseback, in white armour.[797] He pointed to the very stone from which she had mounted her horse in the corner of the Rue Saint-Etienne. Now, when Jeanne was at Poitiers, she was not in armour. But the people of Poitou had named the stone "the Maid's mounting stone." With what a glad eager step the Saint must have leapt from that stone on to the horse which was to carry her away from those furred cats to the afflicted and oppressed whom she was longing to succour.[798]

[Footnote 797: Jean Bouchet, Annales d'Aquitaine, in the Trial, vol. iv, pp. 536, 537.]

[Footnote 798: Guilbert, Histoire des villes de France, vol. iv, Poitiers. Cf. B. Ledain, La Maison de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, Saint-Maixent, 1892, in 8vo. According to M. Ledain the Hotel de la Rose was on the spot now occupied by a house, number 13 in La Rue Notre-Dame-la-Petite.]



CHAPTER IX

THE MAID AT TOURS

At Tours the Maid lodged in the house of a dame commonly called Lapau.[799] She was Eleonore de Paul, a woman of Anjou, who had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie of Anjou. Married to Jean du Puy, Lord of La Roche-Saint-Quentin, Councillor of the Queen of Sicily, she had remained in the service of the Queen of France.[800]

[Footnote 799: Trial, vol. iii, p. 66.]

[Footnote 800: Vallet de Viriville, Notices et extraits de chartes et de manuscrits appartenant au British Museum de Londres, in the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. viii, pp. 139, 140.]

The town of Tours belonged to the Queen of Sicily, who grew richer and richer as her son-in-law grew poorer and poorer. She aided him with money and with lands. In 1424, the duchy of Touraine with all its dependencies, except the castellany of Chinon, had come into her possession.[801] The burgesses and commonalty of Tours earnestly desired peace. Meanwhile they made every effort to escape from pillage at the hands of men-at-arms. Neither King Charles nor Queen Yolande was able to defend them, so they must needs defend themselves.[802] When the town watchmen announced the approach of one of those marauding chiefs who were ravaging Touraine and Anjou, the citizens shut their gates and saw to it that the culverins were in their places. Then there was a parley: the captain from the brink of the moat maintained that he was in the King's service and on his way to fight the English; he asked for a night's rest in the town for himself and his men. From the heights of the ramparts he was politely requested to pass on; and, in case he should be tempted to force an entry, a sum of money was offered him.[803] Thus the citizens fleeced themselves for fear of being robbed. In like manner, only a few days before Jeanne's coming, they had given the Scot, Kennedy, who was ravaging the district, two hundred livres to go on. When they had got rid of their defenders, their next care was to fortify themselves against the English. On the 29th of February of this same year, 1429, these citizens lent one hundred crowns to Captain La Hire, who was then doing his best for Orleans. And even on the approach of the English they consented to receive forty archers belonging to the company of the Sire de Bueil, only on condition that Bueil should lodge in the castle with twenty men, and that the others should be quartered in the inns, where they were to have nothing without paying for it. Thus it was or was not; and the Sire de Bueil went off to defend Orleans.[804]

[Footnote 801: De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 77.]

[Footnote 802: Vallet de Viriville, Analyse et fragments tires des Archives municipales de Tours in Cabinet historique, vol. v, pp. 102-121.]

[Footnote 803: Quicherat, Rodrigue de Villandrando, Paris, 1879, in 8vo, pp. 14 et seq.]

[Footnote 804: Le Jouvencel, vol. i, Introduction, p. xxii, note 1.]

In Jean du Puy's house, Jeanne was visited by an Augustinian monk, one Jean Pasquerel. He was returning from the town of Puy-en-Velay where he had met Isabelle Romee and certain of those who had conducted Jeanne to the King.[805]

[Footnote 805: Trial, vol. iii, p. 101.]

In this town, in the sanctuary of Anis, was preserved an image of the Mother of God, brought from Egypt by Saint Louis. It was of great antiquity and highly venerated, for the prophet Jeremiah had with his own hands carved it out of sycamore wood in the semblance of the virgin yet to be born, whom he had seen in a vision.[806] In holy week, pilgrims flocked from all parts of France and of Europe,—nobles, clerks, men-at-arms, citizens and peasants; and many, for penance or through poverty, came on foot, staff in hand, begging their bread from door to door. Merchants of all kinds betook themselves thither; and it was at once the most popular of pilgrimages and one of the richest fairs in the world. All round the town the stream of travellers overflowed from the road on to vineyards, meadows, and gardens. On the day of the Festival, in the year 1407, two hundred persons perished, crushed to death in the throng.[807]

[Footnote 806: Francisque Mandet, Histoire du Velay, Le Puy, 1860-1862 (7 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, pp. 590 et seq. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, ch. xii.]

[Footnote 807: Jean Juvenal des Ursins, 1407.]

In certain years the feast of the conception of Our Lord fell on the same day as that of his death; and thus there coincided the promise and the fulfilment of the promise of the greatest of mysteries. Then Holy Friday became still holier. It was called Great Friday, and on that day such as entered the sanctuary of Anis received plenary indulgence. On that day the crowd of pilgrims was greater than usual. Now, in the year 1429, Good Friday fell on the 25th of March, the day of the Annunciation.[808]

[Footnote 808: Nicole de Savigni, Notes sur les exploits de Jeanne d'Arc et sur divers evenements de son temps, in the Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de Paris, 1, 1874, p. 43. Chanoine Lucot, Jeanne d'Arc en Champagne, Chalons, 1880, pp. 12, 13.]

There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary in Brother Pasquerel's meeting Jeanne's relatives at Puy during Holy Week. That a peasant woman should travel two hundred and fifty miles on foot, through a country infested with soldiers and other robbers, in a season of snows and mist, to obtain an indulgence, was an every-day matter if we remember the surname which had for long been hers.[809] This was not La Romee's first pilgrimage. As we do not know which members of the Maid's escort the good Brother met, we are at liberty to conjecture that Bertrand de Poulengy was among them. We know little about him, but his speech would suggest that he was a devout person.[810]

[Footnote 809: Trial, vol. i, p. 191; vol. ii, p. 74, note. La Romee may have received her surname for an entirely different reason. Most of our knowledge of Jeanne's mother is derived from documents of very doubtful authenticity.]

[Footnote 810: Francis C. Lowell considers the idea of La Romee's pilgrimage to Puy as a "characteristic example of the madness" of Simeon Luce (Joan of Arc, Boston, 1896, in 8vo, p. 72, note). Nevertheless, after considerable hesitation, I, like Luce, have rejected the corrections proposed by Lebrun de Charmettes and Quicherat, and adopted unamended the text of the Trial.]

Jeanne's comrades, having made friends with Pasquerel, said to him: "You must go with us to Jeanne. We will not leave you until you have taken us to her." They travelled together. Brother Pasquerel went with them to Chinon, which Jeanne had left; then he went on to Tours, where his convent was.

The Augustinians, who claimed to have received their rule from St. Francis himself, wore the grey habit of the Franciscans. It was from their order that in the previous year the King had chosen a chaplain for his young son, the Dauphin Louis. Brother Pasquerel held the office of reader (lector) in his monastery.[811] He was in priest's orders. Quite young doubtless and of a wandering disposition, like many mendicant monks of those days, he had a taste for the miraculous, and was excessively credulous.

[Footnote 811: Trial, vol. iii, p. 101. For the meaning of Lector, professor of theology, cf. Du Cange.]

Jeanne's comrades said to her: "Jeanne, we have brought you this good father. You will like him well when you know him."

She replied: "The good father pleases me. I have already heard tell of him, and even to-morrow will I confess to him." The next day the good father heard her in confession, and chanted mass before her. He became her chaplain, and never left her.[812]

[Footnote 812: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 101 et seq.]

In the fifteenth century Tours was one of the chief manufacturing towns of the kingdom. The inhabitants excelled in all kinds of trades. They wove tissues of silk, of gold, and of silver. They manufactured coats of mail; and, while not competing with the armourers of Milan, of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, they were skilled in the forging and hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the corselet, in its slender grace and curious slimness, always has the air of a woman's armour, and seems made for Queen Penthesilea or for the Roman Camilla. The Maid's armour was white and unadorned, if one may judge from its modest price of one hundred livres tournois. The two suits of mail, made at the same time by the same armourer for Jean de Metz and his comrade, were together worth one hundred and twenty-five livres tournois.[816] Possibly one of the skilful and renowned drapers of Tours took the Maid's measure for a houppelande or loose coat in silk or cloth of gold or silver, such as captains wore over the cuirass. To look well, the coat, which was open in front, must be cut in scallops that would float round the horseman as he rode. Jeanne loved fine clothes but still more fine horses.[817]

[Footnote 813: E. Giraudet, Histoire de la ville de Tours, Tours, 1874, 2 vols. in 8vo, passim.]

[Footnote 814: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210; vol. iv, pp. 3, 301, 363.]

[Footnote 815: J. Quicherat, Histoire du costume en France, Paris, 1875, large 8vo, pp. 270, 271.]

[Footnote 816: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, p. 60. "The white armour of fifteenth century soldiers, simple as it was, was expensive; it cost about ten thousand francs of our present money. But the complete horse's armour was included in this" (Maurice Maindron, Pour l'histoire de l'armure, in Le monde moderne, 1896). According to the calculation of P. Clement (Jacques Coeur et Charles VII, 1873, p. lxvi), 100 livres would be equal to 4000 francs of present money.]

[Footnote 817: Trial, vol. i, p. 76. Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers, ibid., vol. v, p. 120. Greffier de la Chambre des comptes of Brabant, ibid., vol. iv, p. 428. Le Fevre de Saint-Remy, ibid., p. 439.]

The King invited her to choose a horse from his stables. If we may believe a certain Latin poet, she selected an animal of illustrious origin, but very old. It was a war horse, which Pierre de Beauvau, Governor of Maine and Anjou, had given to one of the King's two brothers; who had both been dead, the one thirteen years, the other twelve.[818] This steed, or another, was brought to Lapau's house and the Duke of Alencon went to see it. The horse must likewise be accoutred, it must be furnished with a chanfrin to protect its head and one of those wooden saddles with broad pommels which seemed to encase the rider.[819] A shield was out of the question. Since chain-armour, which was not proof against blows, had been succeeded by that plate-armour, on which nothing could make an impression, they had ceased to be used save in pageants. As for the sword,—the noblest part of her accoutrement and the bright symbol of strength joined to loyalty,—Jeanne refused to take that from the royal armourer; she was resolved to receive it from the hand of Saint Catherine herself.

[Footnote 818: Anonymous poem in the Trial, vol. v, p. 38 and note.]

[Footnote 819: Capitaine Champion, Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere, pp. 146 et seq.]

We know that on her coming into France she had stopped at Fierbois and heard three masses in Saint Catherine's chapel.[820] Therein the Virgin of Alexandria had many swords, without counting the one Charles Martel was said to have given her, and which it would not have been easy to find again. A good Touranian in Touraine, Saint Catherine was an Armagnac ever on the side of those who fought for the Dauphin Charles. When captains and soldiers of fortune stood in danger of death, or were prisoners in the hands of their enemies, she was the saint they most willingly invoked; for they knew she wished them well. She did not save them all, but she aided many. They came to render her thanks; and as a sign of gratitude they offered her their armour, so that her chapel looked like an armoury.[821] The walls bristled with swords; and, as gifts had been flowing in for half a century, ever since the days of King Charles V, the sacristans were probably in the habit of taking down the old weapons to make room for the new, hoarding the old steel in some store-house until an opportunity arrived for selling it.[822] Saint Catherine could not refuse a sword to the damsel, whom she loved so dearly that every day and every hour she came down from Paradise to see and talk with her on earth,—a maiden who in return had shown her devotion by travelling to Fierbois to do the Saint reverence. For we must not omit to state that Saint Catherine in company with Saint Margaret had never ceased to appear to Jeanne both at Chinon and at Tours. She was present at all those secret assemblies, which the Maid called sometimes her Council but oftener her Voices, doubtless because they appealed more to her ears and her mind than to her eyes, despite the burst of light which sometimes dazzled her, and notwithstanding the crowns she was able to discern on the heads of the saints. The Voices indicated one sword among the multitude of those in the Chapel at Fierbois. Messire Richard Kyrthrizian and Brother Gille Lecourt, both of them priests, were then custodians of the chapel. Such is the title they assumed when they signed the accounts of miracles worked by their saint. Jeanne in a letter caused them to be asked for the sword, which had been revealed to her. In the letter she said that it would be found underground, not very deep down, and behind the altar. At least these were all the directions she was able to give afterwards, and then she could not quite remember whether it was behind the altar or in front. Was she able to give the custodians of the chapel any signs by which to recognise the sword? She never explained this point, and her letter is lost.[823]

[Footnote 820: Trial, vol. i, pp. 56, 75, 76, 77.]

[Footnote 821: Abbe Bourasse, Les miracles de madame sainte Katerine de Fierboys en Touraine (1375-1446), Tours, 1858, in 8vo, passim.]

[Footnote 822: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 277. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 69.]

[Footnote 823: Trial, vol. i, p. 77. Les miracles de madame sainte Katerine, passim.]

It is certain, however, that she believed the sword had been shown to her in a vision and in no other manner. An armourer of Touraine, whom she did not know (afterwards she maintained that she had never seen him), was appointed to carry the letter to Fierbois. The custodians of the chapel gave him a sword marked with five crosses, or with five little swords on the blade, not far from the hilt. In what part of the chapel had they found it? No one knows. A contemporary says it was in a coffer with some old iron. If it had been buried and hidden it was not very long before, because the rust could easily be removed by rubbing. The priests were careful to offer it to the Maid with great ceremony[824] before giving it to the armourer who had come for it. They enclosed it in a sheath of red velvet, embroidered with the royal flowers de luce. When Jeanne received it she recognised it to be the one revealed to her in a celestial vision and promised her by her Voices, and she failed not to let the little company of monks and soldiers who surrounded her know that it was so. This they took to be a good omen and a sign of victory.[825] To protect Saint Catherine's sword the priests of the town gave her a second sheath; this one was of black cloth. Jeanne had a third made of very tough leather.[826]

[Footnote 824: Trial, vol. i, pp. 76, 234, 236. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 277. Journal du siege, p. 49. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 69, 70. Guerneri Berni, in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 519. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 267. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 109. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, pp. 337, 338. Chronique Messine, edition Bouteiller, 1878, Orleans, in 8vo, 26 pages.]

[Footnote 825: Trial, vol. i, pp. 75, 235.]

[Footnote 826: Ibid., p. 76.]

The story of the sword spread far and wide and was elaborated by many a curious fable. It was said to be the sword of the great Charles Martel, long buried and forgotten. Many believed it had belonged to Alexander and the knights of those ancient days. Every one thought well of it and esteemed it likely to bring good fortune. When the English and the Burgundians heard tell of the matter, there soon occurred to them the idea that the Maid had discovered what was hidden beneath the earth by taking counsel of demons; or they suspected her of having herself craftily hidden the sword in the place she had indicated in order to deceive princes, clergy, and people. They wondered anxiously whether those five crosses were not signs of the devil.[827] Thus there began to arise conflicting illusions, according to which Jeanne appeared either saint or sorceress.[828]

[Footnote 827: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 108, 109. Chronique de Lorraine, in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 332. Eberhard Windecke, p. 101. Cf. Journal du siege, p. 49.]

[Footnote 828: Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 122.]

The King had given her no command. Acting according to the counsel of the doctors, he did not hinder her from going to Orleans with men-at-arms. He even had her taken there in state in order that she might give the promised sign. He granted her men to conduct her, not for her to conduct. How could she have conducted them since she did not know the way? Meanwhile she had a standard made according to the command of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who had said: "Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven!" It was of a coarse white cloth, or buckram, edged with silk fringe. At the bidding of her Voices, Jeanne caused a painter of the town to represent on it what she called "the World,"[829] that is, Our Lord seated upon his throne, blessing with his right hand, and in his left holding the globe of the world. On his right and on his left were angels, both painted as they were in churches, and presenting Our Lord with flowers de luce. Above or on one side were the names Jhesus—Maria, and the background was strewn with the royal lilies in gold.[830] She also had a coat-of-arms painted: on an azure shield a silver dove, holding in its beak a scroll on which was written: "De par le Roi du Ciel."[831] This coat-of-arms she had painted on the reverse of the standard bearing on the front the picture of Our Lord. A servant of the Duke of Alencon, Perceval de Cagny, says that she ordered to be made another and a smaller standard, a banner, on which was the picture of Our Lady receiving the angel's salutation. The Tours painter Jeanne employed came from Scotland and was called Hamish Power. He provided the material and executed the paintings of the two escutcheons, of the small one as well as of the large. For this he received from the keeper of the war treasury twenty-five livres tournois.[832] Hamish Power had a daughter, Heliote by name, who was about to be married and to whom Jeanne afterwards showed kindness.[833]

[Footnote 829: Trial, vol. i, pp. 77, 179, 236; vol. iii, p. 103.]

[Footnote 830: Ibid., pp. 78, 117.]

[Footnote 831: Ibid., pp. 78, 117, 181, 300. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, p. 338. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 110; vol. iv, supplement, xv, pp. 313, 315.]

[Footnote 832: Perceval de Cagny, p. 150. Journal du siege, p. 76. Relation du greffier d'Albi, in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 301. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, p. 338. Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud de Metz, in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 322. Extract from the thirteenth account of Hemon Raguier, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 258.]

[Footnote 833: Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 65; Un episode de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. iv, first series, p. 488.]

The standard was the signal for rallying. For long only kings, emperors, and leaders in war had had the right of raising it. The feudal suzerain had it carried before him; vassals ranged themselves beneath their lord's banners. But in 1429 banners had ceased to be used save in corporations, guilds, and parishes, borne only before the armies of peace. In war they were no longer needed. The meanest captain, the poorest knight had his own standard. When fifty French men-at-arms went forth from Orleans against a handful of English marauders, a crowd of banners like a swarm of butterflies waved over the fields. "To raise one's standard" came to be a figure of speech for "to be puffed up."[834] So indeed it was permissible for a freebooter to raise his standard when he commanded scarce a score of men-at-arms and half-naked bowmen. Even if Jeanne, as she may have done, held her standard to be a sign of sovereign command, and if, having received it from the King of Heaven, she thought to raise it above all others, was there a soul in the realm to say her nay? What had become of all those feudal banners which for eighty years had been in the vanguard of defeat; sown over the fields of Crecy; collected beneath bushes and hedges by Welsh and Cornish swordsmen; lost in the vineyards of Maupertuis, trampled underfoot by English archers on the soft earth into which sank the corpses of Azincourt; gathered in handfuls under the walls of Verneuil by Bedford's marauders? It was because all these banners had miserably fallen, it was because at Rouvray a prince of the blood royal had shamefully trailed his nobles' banners in flight, that the peasant now raised her banner.

[Footnote 834: In Beaudouin de Sebourg (xx, 249) is the passage:

Il est cousin au conte Il en fait estandart

quoted by Godefroy. Cf. La Curne and Littre.]



CHAPTER X

THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS FROM THE 7TH OF MARCH TO THE 28TH OF APRIL, 1429

Since the terrible and ridiculous discomfiture of the King's men in the Battle of the Herrings, the citizens of Orleans had lost all faith in their defenders.[835] Their minds agitated, suspicious and credulous were possessed by phantoms of fear and wrath. Suddenly and without reason they believe themselves betrayed. One day it is announced that a hole big enough for a man to pass through has been made in the town wall just where it skirts the outbuildings of the Aumone.[836] A crowd of people hasten to the spot; they see the hole and a piece of the wall which had been restored, with two loop-holes; they fail to understand, and think themselves sold and betrayed into the enemy's hands; they rave and break forth into howls, and seek the priest in charge of the hospital to tear him to pieces.[837] A few days after, on Holy Thursday, a similar rumour is spread abroad: traitors are about to deliver up the town into the hands of the English. The folk seize their weapons; soldiers, burgesses, villeins mount guard on the outworks, on the walls and in the streets. On the morrow, the day after that on which the panic had originated, fear still possesses them.[838]

[Footnote 835: "Pourquoy la Hire, Poton et plusieurs autres vaillants hommes qui moult enviz s'en alloient ainsi honteusement," Journal du siege, p. 42.]

[Footnote 836: The hospital of Orleans, close to the cathedral.]

[Footnote 837: 9 March. Journal du siege, pp. 56, 57.]

[Footnote 838: Journal du siege, p. 64.]

In the beginning of March the besiegers saw approaching the Norman vassals, summoned by the Regent. But they were only six hundred and twenty-nine lances all told, and they were only bound to serve for twenty-six days. Under the leadership of Scales, Pole, and Talbot, the English continued the investment works as best they could.[839] On the 10th of March, two and a half miles east of the city, they occupied without opposition the steep slope of Saint-Loup and began to erect a bastion there, which should command the upper river and the two roads from Gien and Pithiviers, at the point where they meet near the Burgundian gate.[840] On the 20th of March they completed the bastion named London, on the road to Mans. Between the 9th and 15th of April two new bastions were erected towards the west, Rouen nine hundred feet east of London, Paris nine hundred feet from Rouen. About the 20th they fortified Saint-Jean-le-Blanc across the Loire and established a watch to guard the crossing of the river.[841] This was but little in comparison with what remained to be done, and they were short of men; for they had less than three thousand round the town. Wherefore they fell upon the peasants. Now that the season for tending the vines was drawing near, the country folk went forth into the fields thinking only of the land; but the English lay in wait for them, and when they had taken them prisoners, set them to work.[842]

[Footnote 839: Boucher de Molandon, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, ch. ii. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 60, 107, 110, 112.]

[Footnote 840: Journal du siege, pp. 57, 58. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, dissertation vi.]

[Footnote 841: Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 265, 267. Morosini, vol. iv, supplement xiii.]

[Footnote 842: Journal du siege, p. 58.]

In the opinion of those most skilled in the arts of war, these bastions were worthless. They were furnished with no stabling for horses. They could not be built near enough to render assistance to each other; the besieger was in danger of being himself besieged in them. In short, from these vexatious methods of warfare the English reaped nothing but disappointment and disgrace. The Sire de Bueil, one of the defenders, perceived this when he was reconnoitring.[843] In fact it was so easy to pass through the enemy's lines that merchants were willing to run the risk of taking cattle to the besieged. There entered into the town, on the 7th of March, six horses loaded with herrings; on the 15th, six horses with powder; on the 29th, cattle and victuals; on the 2nd of April, nine fat oxen and horses; on the 5th, one hundred and one pigs and six fat oxen; on the 9th, seventeen pigs, horses, sucking-pigs, and corn; on the 13th, coins with which to pay the garrison; on the 16th, cattle and victuals; on the 23rd, powder and victuals. And more than once the besieged had carried off, in the very faces of the English, victuals and ammunition destined for the besiegers and including casks of wine, game, horses, bows, forage, and even twenty-six head of large cattle.[844]

[Footnote 843: Le Jouvencel, vol. i, p. xxii; vol. ii, p. 44.]

[Footnote 844: Journal du siege, pp. 56, 62.]

The siege was costing the English dear,—forty thousand livres tournois a month.[845] They were short of money; they were obliged to resort to the most irritating expedients. By a decree of the 3rd of March King Henry had recently ordered all his officers in Normandy to lend him one quarter of their pay.[846] In their huts of wood and earth, the men-at-arms, who had endured much from the cold, now began to suffer hunger.

[Footnote 845: Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 50, 58.]

[Footnote 846: Pierre Sureau's account in Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, proofs and illustrations, no. vi, pp. 45, 46.]

The wasted fields of La Beauce, of l'Ile-de-France, and of Normandy could furnish them with no great store of sheep or oxen. Their food was bad, their drink worse. The vintage of 1427 had been bad, that of the following year was poor and weak—more like sour grapes than wine.[847] Now an old English author has written of the soldiers of his country:

"They want their porridge and their fat bull-beeves: Either they must be dieted like mules And have their provender tied to their mouths Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice."[848]

[Footnote 847: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 221, 222 et seq.]

[Footnote 848: Shakespeare, Henry VI, part i, act i, scene ii. According to M. G. Duval the first part of this play was adapted from one of Shakespeare's predecessors.]

A sudden humiliation still further weakened the English. Captain Poton de Saintrailles and the two magistrates, Guyon du Fosse and Jean de Saint-Avy, who had gone on an embassy to the Duke of Burgundy, returned to Orleans on the 17th of April. The Duke had granted their request and consented to take the town under his protection. But the Regent, to whom the offer had been made, would not have it thus.

He replied that he would be very sorry if after he had beaten the bush another should go off with the nestlings.[849] Therefore the offer was rejected. Nevertheless the embassy had been by no means useless, and it was something to have raised a new cause of quarrel between the Duke and the Regent. The ambassadors returned accompanied by a Burgundian herald who blew his trumpet in the English camp, and, in the name of his master, commanded all combatants who owed allegiance to the Duke to raise the siege. Some hundreds of archers and men-at-arms, Burgundians, men of Picardy and of Champagne, departed forthwith.[850]

[Footnote 849: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 65.]

[Footnote 850: Journal du siege, pp. 69, 70. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 270. Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 317 et seq. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 19, 20, 21; vol. iv, supplement xiv, p. 311. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 68 et seq. Boucher de Molandon, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, p. 145.]

On the next day, at four o'clock in the morning, the citizens emboldened and deeming the opportunity a good one, attacked the camp of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils. They slew the watch and entered the camp, where they found piles of money, robes of martin, and a goodly store of weapons. Absorbed in pillage, they paid no heed to defending themselves and were surprised by the enemy, who in great force had hastened to the place. They fled pursued by the English who slew many. On that day the town resounded with the lamentations of women weeping for a father, a husband, a brother, kinsmen.[851]

[Footnote 851: Journal du siege, p. 70.]

Within those walls, in a space where there was room for not more than fifteen thousand inhabitants, forty thousand[852] were huddled together, one vast multitude agonised by all manner of suffering; depressed by domestic sorrow; racked with anxiety; maddened by constant danger and perpetual panic. Although the wars of those days were not so sanguinary as they became later, the sallies of the inhabitants of Orleans were the occasion of constant and considerable loss of life. Since the middle of March the English bullets had fallen more into the centre of the town; and they were not always harmless. On the eve of Palm Sunday one stone, fired from a mortar, killed or wounded five persons; another, seven.[853] Many of the inhabitants, like the provost, Alain Du Bey, died of fatigue or of the infected air.[854]

[Footnote 852: Jollois, Histoire du siege, part vi, ch. i. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, dissertation ix. Loiseleur, Compte des depenses de Charles VII, ch. v. Lottin, Recherches historiques sur la ville d'Orleans, vol. ii, p. 205. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 25, note 2.]

[Footnote 853: Journal du siege, p. 64.]

[Footnote 854: Ibid., p. 59.]

In the Christendom of those days all men were taught to believe that earthquakes, wars, famine, pestilence are punishments for wrong-doing. Charles, the Fair Duke of Orleans, good Christian that he was, held that great sorrows had come upon France as chastisement for her sins, to wit: swelling pride, gluttony, sloth, covetousness, lust, and neglect of justice, which were rife in the realm; and in a ballad he discoursed of the evil and its remedy.[855] The people of Orleans firmly believed that this war was sent to them of God to punish sinners, who had worn out his patience. They were aware both of the cause of their sorrows and of the means of remedying them. Such was the teaching of the good friars preachers; and, as Duke Charles put it in his ballad, the remedy was to live well, to amend one's life, to have masses said and sung for the souls of those who had suffered death in the service of the realm, to renounce the sinful life, and to ask forgiveness of Our Lady and the saints.[856] This remedy had been adopted by the people of Orleans. They had had masses said in the Church of Sainte-Croix for the souls of nobles, captains, and men-at-arms killed in their service, and especially for those who had died a piteous death in the Battle of the Herrings. They had offered candles to Our Lady and to the patron saints of the town, and had carried the shrine of Saint-Aignan round the walls.[857]

[Footnote 855: Charles d'Orleans, Poesies, edited by A. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1842, in 8vo, p. 176.]

[Footnote 856: Miniature in the MS. of the poems of Charles d'Orleans, in the British Museum, Royal 16 F. ii, fol. 73 v'o.]

[Footnote 857: Journal du siege, p. 43. Symphorien Guyon, Histoire de la ville d'Orleans, vol. ii, p. 43.]

Every time they felt themselves in great danger, they brought it forth from the Church of Sainte-Croix, carried it in grand procession round the town and over the ramparts,[858] then, having brought it back to the cathedral, they listened to a sermon preached in the porch by a good monk chosen by the magistrates.[859] They said prayers in public and resolved to amend their lives. Wherefore they believed that in Paradise Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan, touched by their piety, must be interceding for them with Our Lord; and they thought they could hear the voices of the two pontiffs. Saint Euverte was saying, "All-powerful Father, I pray and entreat thee to save the city of Orleans. It is mine. I was its bishop. I am its patron saint. Deliver it not up to its enemies."

[Footnote 858: Chronique de la fete, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 297.]

[Footnote 859: Accounts of the Commune, passim, in Journal du siege, pp. 210 et seq.]

Then afterwards spoke Saint-Aignan: "Give peace to the people of Orleans. Father, thou who by the mouth of a child didst appoint me their shepherd, grant that they fall not into the hands of the enemy."

The inhabitants of Orleans expected that the Lord would not at once answer the prayers of the two confessors. Knowing the sternness of his judgments they feared lest he would reply: "For their sins are the French people justly chastised. They suffer because of their disobedience to Holy Church. From the least to the greatest in the realm each vies with the other in evil-doing. The husbandmen, citizens, lawyers and priests are hard and avaricious; the princes, dukes and noble lords are proud, vain, cursers, swearers, and traitors. The corruptness of their lives infects the air. It is just that they suffer chastisement."

That the Lord should speak thus must be expected, because he was angry and because the people of Orleans had greatly sinned. But now, behold, Our Lady, she who loves the King of the Lilies, prays for him and for the Duke of Orleans to the Son, whose pleasure it is to do her will in all things: "My Son, with all my heart I entreat thee to drive the English from the land of France; they have no right to it. If they take Orleans, then they will take the rest at their pleasure. Suffer it not, O my Son, I beseech thee." And Our Lord, at the prayer of his holy Mother, forgives the French and consents to save them.[860]

[Footnote 860: Mistere du siege, lines 6964 et seq.]

Thus in those days, according to their ideas of the spiritual world, did men represent even the councils of Paradise. There were folk not a few, and those not unlearned, who believed that as the result of these councils Our Lord had sent his Archangel to the shepherdess. And it might even be possible that he would save the kingdom by the hand of a woman. Is it not in the weak things of the world that he maketh his power manifest?

Did he not allow the child David to overthrow the giant Goliath, and did he not deliver into the hands of Judith the head of Holophernes? In Orleans itself was it not by the mouth of a babe that he had caused to be named that shepherd who was to deliver the besieged town from Attila?[861]

[Footnote 861: Aug. Theiner, Saint Aignan ou le siege d'Orleans par Attila, notice historique suivie de la vie de ce saint, tiree des MSS. de la Bibliotheque du Roi, Paris, 1832, in 8vo.]

The Lord of Villars and Messire Jamet du Tillay, having returned from Chinon, reported that they had with their own eyes seen the Maid; and they told of the marvels of her coming. They related how she had travelled far, fording rivers, passing by many towns and villages held by the English, as well as through those French lands wherein were rife pillage and all manner of evils. Then they went on to tell how, when she was taken to the King, she had spoken fair words to him as she curtsied, saying: "Gentle Dauphin, God sends me to help and succour you. Give me soldiers, for by grace divine and by force of arms, I will raise the siege of Orleans and then lead you to your anointing at Reims, according as God hath commanded me, for it is his will that the English return to their country and leave in peace your kingdom which shall remain unto you. Or, if they do not quit the land, then will God cause them to perish." Further, they told how, interrogated by certain prelates, knights, squires, and doctors in law, her bearing had been found honest and her words wise. They extolled her piety, her candour, that simplicity which testified that God dwelt with her, and that skill in managing a horse and wielding weapons which caused all men to marvel.[862]

[Footnote 862: Journal du siege, p. 46. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 278. Jean Chartier, Chronique, p. 66.]

At the end of March, tidings came, that, taken to Poitiers, she had there been examined by doctors and famous masters, and had replied to them with an assurance equal to that of Saint Catherine before the doctors at Alexandria. Because her words were good and her promises sure, it was said that the King, trusting in her, had caused her to be armed in order that she might go to Orleans, where she would soon appear, riding on a white horse, wearing at her side the sword of Saint Catherine and holding in her hand the standard she had received from the King of Heaven.[863]

[Footnote 863: Journal du siege, pp. 47, 48. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, pp. 61 et seq.]

To the ecclesiastics what was told of Jeanne seemed marvellous but not incredible, since parallel instances were to be found in sacred history, which was all the history they knew. To those who were lettered among them their erudition furnished fewer reasons for denial than for doubt or belief. Those who were simple frankly wondered at these things.

Certain of the captains, and certain even of the people, treated them with derision. But by so doing they ran the risk of ill usage. The inhabitants of the city believed in the Maid as firmly as in Our Lord. From her they expected help and deliverance. They summoned her in a kind of mystic ecstasy and religious frenzy. The fever of the siege had become the fever of the Maid.[864]

[Footnote 864: Journal du siege, p. 77.]

Nevertheless, the use made of her by the King's men proved that, following the counsel of the theologians, they were determined to adopt only such methods as were prompted by human prudence. She was to enter the town with a convoy of victuals, then being prepared at Blois by order of the King assisted by the Queen of Sicily.[865] In all the loyal provinces a new effort was being made for the relief and deliverance of the brave city. Gien, Bourges, Blois, Chateaudun, Tours sent men and victuals; Angers, Poitiers, La Rochelle, Albi, Moulins, Montpellier, Clermont sulphur, saltpetre, steel, and arms.[866] And if the citizens of Toulouse gave nothing it was because their city, as the notables consulted by the capitouls[867] ingenuously declared, had nothing to give—non habebat de quibus.[868]

[Footnote 865: Trial, vol. iii, p. 93. Geste des nobles, in La chronique de la Pucelle, p. 250. The Accounts of fortresses (1428-1430), in Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 30 et seq.]

[Footnote 866: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 287. Journal du siege, p. 81. Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 28, 29. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 230.]

[Footnote 867: The name by which the town councillors of Toulouse were called.]

[Footnote 868: Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse, by A. Thomas, in Annales du Midi, 1889, p. 232. It would appear that Saint-Flour, although solicited, did not contribute: it had enough to do to defend itself from the freebooters who were constantly hovering round. Cf. Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour by M. Boudet, Clermont-Ferrand, 1895, in 8vo, pp. 18 et seq.]

The King's councillors, notably my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of the Realm, were forming a new army. What they had failed to accomplish, by means of the men of Auvergne, they would now attempt with troops from Anjou and Le Mans. The Queen of Sicily, Duchess of Touraine and Anjou, willingly lent her aid. Were Orleans taken she would be in danger of losing lands by which she set great store. Therefore she spared neither men, money, nor victuals. After the middle of April, a citizen of Angers, one Jean Langlois, brought letters informing the magistrates of the imminent arrival of the corn she had contributed. The town gave Jean Langlois a present, and the magistrates entertained him at dinner at the Ecu Saint-Georges. This corn was a part of that large convoy which the Maid was to accompany.[869]

[Footnote 869: Receipts of the town of Orleans in 1429, in Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 36.]

Towards the end of the month, by order of my Lord the Bastard, the captains of the French garrisons of La Beauce and Gatinais, betook themselves to the town to reinforce the army of Blois, the arrival of which was announced. On the 28th, there entered my Lord Florent d'Illiers,[870] Governor of Chateaudun, with four hundred fighting men.[871]

[Footnote 870: Florent d'Illiers, descended from an old family of the Chartres country, had married Jeanne, daughter of Jean de Coutes and sister of the little page whom the Sire de Gaucourt had given the Maid (A. de Villaret).]

[Footnote 871: Journal du siege, p. 73. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 278.]

What was to become of Orleans? The siege, badly conducted, was causing the English the most grievous disappointments. Further, their captains perceived they would never succeed in taking the town by means of those bastions, between which anything, either men, victuals, or ammunition, could pass, and with an army miserably quartered in mud hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had lost nearly all their horses. Far from being able to continue the attack it was hard for them to maintain the defensive and to hold out in those miserable wooden towers, which, as Le Jouvencel said, were more profitable to the besieged than to the besiegers.[872]

[Footnote 872: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, p. 44.]

Their only hope, and that an uncertain and distant one, lay in the reinforcements, which the Regent was gathering with great difficulty.[873] Meanwhile, time seemed to drag in the besieged town. The warriors who defended it were brave, but they had come to the end of their resources and knew not what more to do. The citizens were good at keeping guard, but they would not face fire. They did not suspect the miserable condition to which the besiegers had been reduced. Hardship, anxiety, and an infected atmosphere depressed their spirits. Already they seemed to see Les Coues taking the town by storm, killing, pillaging, and ravaging. At every moment they believed themselves betrayed. They were not calm and self-possessed enough to recognise the enormous advantages of their situation. The town's means of communication, whereby it could be indefinitely reinforced and revictualled, were still open. Besides, a relieving army, well in advance of that of the English, was on the point of arriving. It was bringing a goodly drove of cattle, as well as men and ammunition enough to capture the English fortresses in a few days.

[Footnote 873: Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 75 et seq.]

With this army the King was sending the Maid who had been promised.



CHAPTER XI

THE MAID AT BLOIS—THE LETTER TO THE ENGLISH—THE DEPARTURE FOR ORLEANS

With an escort of soldiers of fortune the Maid reached Blois at the same time as my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of France, and the Sire de Gaucourt, Governor of Orleans.[874] She was in the domain of the Prince, whom it was her great desire to deliver: the people of Blois owed allegiance to Duke Charles, a prisoner in the hands of the English. Merchants were bringing cows, rams, ewes, herds of swine, grain, powder and arms into the town.[875] The Admiral, De Culant, and the Lord Ambroise de Lore had come from Orleans to superintend the preparations. The Queen of Sicily herself had gone to Blois. Notwithstanding that at this time the King consulted her but seldom, he now sent to her the Duke of Alencon, commissioned to concert with her measures for the relief of the city of Orleans.[876] There came also the Sire de Rais, of the house of Laval and of the line of the Dukes of Brittany, a noble scarce twenty-four, generous and magnificent, bringing in his train, with a goodly company from Maine and Anjou, organs for his chapel, choristers, and little singing-boys from the choir school.[877] The Marshal de Boussac, the Captains La Hire and Poton came from Orleans.[878] An army of seven thousand men assembled beneath the walls of the town.[879] All that was now waited for was the money necessary to pay the cost of the victuals and the hire of the soldiers. Captains and men-at-arms did not give their services on credit. As for the merchants, if they risked the loss of their victuals and their life, it was only for ready money.[880] No cash, no cattle—and the wagons stayed where they were.

[Footnote 874: Trial, vol. iii, p. 4.]

[Footnote 875: Journal du siege, passim. Chronique de Tournai, ed. Smedt (vol. iii, in the Recueil des chroniques de Flandre), p. 409.]