Women of Mediaeval France Part 15

Legend has gilded her portrait for us, and much that is told of her is not susceptible of proof, but the tendency of her influence is shown by one little incident. Charles, unable to win back his kingdom, unable to maintain himself in it north of the Loire, unable to find money to pay his troops, was yet able to build a chateau at Loches for Agnes Sorel.

Here he was basking in her smiles and heedless of the distress of France, when accident gave Agnes a chance to rouse his n.o.bler feelings.

Charles had, to amuse the pa.s.sing hour, called a fortune teller to the chateau, and stood by while the man told the fortune of his well-beloved Agnes. The mountebank, with the cunning of his kind, thought to flatter this vain and lovely lady by prophesying: "Some day thou shalt be the wife of the greatest king on earth." Agnes, with ready wit, rose at once to her occasion. "If that be my true fortune," said she to the dauphin, "I must leave you this instant and go marry the King of England; for I see that, in the sloth that confines you here, you will not long be King of France." The shot told, and Charles was stung into momentary activity. Throughout her life Agnes continued to exert a salutary influence upon him; and when she died,--poisoned, it was said, by the then dauphin, afterward Louis XI,--evil favorites soon replaced the wise counsellors at the king's board, and his last years were as full of misery as had been those before Jeanne came mysteriously out of the east and gave him his crown.

It was not Charles, the miserable, ungrateful voluptuary whose character we have attempted to show, that was loved and saved by Jeanne d'Arc; it was France, represented to her in the person of the dauphin. For her, Charles was a symbol, a mere incarnate _patrie_ for whose salvation she was commissioned by the Lord of Hosts; the man himself was nothing; in her simple peasant's heart, she hardly thought of him as a man, rather as a sort of divinity that could do no wrong, that must be wors.h.i.+pped, that must first of all be saved and set up safely in its tabernacle of Rouen. Unworthier idol never was created than this insensible thing called the dauphin, with as little care for the victims crushed beneath him as if he had been in very truth a mere wooden Juggernaut or Mumbo Jumbo; but all of us wors.h.i.+p unworthy idols and are quite unconscious of their unworthiness. And, as in the case of Jeanne, if wors.h.i.+p and wors.h.i.+pper be pure, what matter if the idol be a little unsteady on the pedestal to which our blind devotion has raised it?

The wors.h.i.+p of Jeanne for the dauphin had begun in very childhood, when this dream-guided little maid of Lorraine hardly knew what "king" or "kingdom" meant. Writers have remarked, as De Quincey and Michelet, upon the fact that Jeanne was born in a border land, on the marches of Lorraine and Champagne, in the debatable land between the great parties of Orleans and Burgundy; but the mere situation of this little village of Domremy upon the great Franco-German highway is a geographical fact that could be conned over and over, and then forgotten, without our being one whit the better or the worse. The dead fact is nevertheless a fruitful seed of thought, if we but allow it to come to germination. We may recall that in the present day the most enthusiastic of those patriots of France who are ever clamoring misguidedly for war are the people of this one-time border of France. However misguided may be the demonstrations of the crowds who annually drape in mourning the statue of Strasbourg on the Place de la Concorde, an enthusiastic patriotism is their inspiration. "The outposts of France, as one may call the great frontier provinces," De Quincey says, "were of all localities the most devoted to the Fleurs de Lys. To witness, at any great crisis, the generous devotion to these lilies of the little fiery cousin (Lorraine) that in gentler weather was forever tilting at the breast of France, could not but fan the zeal of France's legitimate daughters; whilst to occupy a post of honour on the frontiers against an old hereditary enemy of France would naturally stimulate this zeal by a sentiment of martial pride, by a sense of danger always threatening, and of hatred always smouldering.... The eye that watched for the gleams of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that listened for the groaning of wheels, made the highroad itself, with its relations to centres so remote, into a manual of patriotic duty."

Nursed in an atmosphere of patriotism, therefore, the little Jeanne had the horrors of war brought vividly before her when a band of brigands, nominally English or Burgundian partisans, rushed down upon Domremy, sacked the town, burned the church, and drove many of the inhabitants, including Jeanne's family, into temporary exile. The family came back again, and the immediate ravages of the soldiers were repaired, but Jeanne never forgot, and told in after years how she would s.h.i.+ver with horror and then weep from sheer pity at seeing her village friends come back wounded and bleeding from some affray with the English.

Jeanne, the daughter of one who is described as a _simple laboureur_ (which may mean that he was an independent farmer in a small way, not a mere laborer), was born in 1412, and was therefore old enough to see and to appreciate the worst of the miseries of France and to understand the tales of war and of English outrages brought to her father's door by many a traveller on the great highway that pa.s.sed through Domremy; and her heart was filled with pity for the poor dauphin, repudiated by his own mother, exiled from his kingdom by the English, wandering aimlessly from province to province where the arms of his enemies made it safe for him to pa.s.s. The child's mind could but be stirred and filled with those vague, generous dreams of sacrifice, of heroism, of impossible achievements, which, like other visions, fade "into the light of common day" with most of us. Not so with Jeanne, in whom from the start there was something mystical, something that set her apart from other children.

With her work-a-day life we are not concerned, nor with those members of her family who stand for none of the things of the spirit for which she was to serve. Her father, of whom even tradition has been able to make neither a monster nor a hero, was merely a commonplace peasant, apparently amiable and kindly, but manifestly incapable of sympathy with things ethereal and supernatural; we need not go so far as De Quincey and deny him patriotism: "He would greatly have preferred... the saving of a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France." And so with her brothers, Jean and Pierre; though enn.o.bled by the king, and though doubtless very good fellows, they were certainly very far from being n.o.ble in spirit, or in any way comparable to their sister. For Jeanne's n.o.bility was based upon no accident of birth or favor of a prince: it was the gift of G.o.d.

The life of Jeanne d'Arc was probably not essentially different from that of other girls of her cla.s.s, at least up to her fourteenth or fifteenth year. From the testimony of those who recalled the childhood of the heroine long after she had become a heroine we must turn with some distrust; for motives the most diverse may have induced, and doubtless did induce, them to conceal or even to misrepresent many things in this simple story. But there seems to be no doubt that Jeanne tended sheep, like her sister and other children of the neighborhood, that she learned all the simple little domestic arts, and "was a good girl, diligent at her work"; she herself refers with pride to her skill as a needlewoman: "My mother taught me so well that I could sew as well as any woman in Rouen," and Rouen was one of the centres of fine work; but of reading and writing, even the rudiments of education, she knew nothing. Of one other thing, too, there is no doubt, though the legend-mongers have doubtless colored the picture a little here also; this is that the child was pious, manifesting greater devoutness than was common among her cla.s.s. And in this devoutness, too, a thing more significant still, she manifested a diffidence, a desire to withdraw herself and her prayers from the profanation of vulgar and inquisitive eyes.

Much has been made of the mysterious a.s.sociations of forests fairy-haunted, of trees where the children danced and hung garlands in honor of some fairy queen, whom the good _cure_ of the village devoutly exorcised every spring. What community in a land neighbored by mountains but has its "little people," whether fairies, hobgoblins, or gnomes? The learned doctors at Jeanne's trial were trying to fasten upon her some preposterous charge of witchcraft and a.s.sociation with the powers of evil; it was their business to drag in the fairies and to show that Jeanne knew more of such things than was good for the glory of G.o.d; and ever since, the biographers have seized upon what scanty ravellings of childish legend Jeanne could recall upon her trial, and have woven of them fine cobwebs of filmy pattern, to show how the whole soil of Domremy, more than any other particular spot in France, produced mushroom crops of fairies, and that a very miasma of enchantment was in the air. The ma.s.s of fanciful and sometimes exquisite rhetoric on this theme in the lives of Jeanne would surely have convicted her of witchcraft in the fifteenth century. In good truth, Jeanne probably had as firm belief in fairies as you and I once had in Hop-o'-my-Thumb and Red Ridinghood; but those were childish things, in no way connected with her mission.

That which is of importance to note is that she was always a gentle and tender-hearted girl, ready to nurse the sick or to play with the children. "Well do I know it," says an aged peasant who testified for her memory years after she was dead, "I was then but a child, and she nursed me." But most important of all is the knowledge that her enemies could not find in Domremy one witness to testify against her; there was in her native village no envious wretch, no Ascalaphus, who could concoct a probable tale of any sort to the injury of one who had as a child led a life so pure, so good, but likewise so uneventful.

At what time Jeanne began to see visions we cannot tell exactly; it is probable that the dreams of childhood, long indulged, merged at first unconsciously into visions that seemed to her as real as things seen with the bodily eye. By her own account, it was some six or seven years after she first felt called by the heavenly voices before she found courage to attempt the apparently impossible things they commanded. One vision she remembered all her life long, because it was kept constantly before her mind by the great pa.s.sion of her life. She herself tells of this one, and neither persuasions nor ridicule nor the terrors of the prison could shake her absolute faith in its reality. "Long had she heard celestial voices, sometimes counselling her to be a good girl, sometimes specially recommending to her the practice of piety and the careful guarding of her virginity, sometimes echoing in unison with her own thoughts as they told her of the woes of France and the groans of the people. One day as she sat working and musing in the garden next to the church wall, there came a bright and blinding light, a heavenly effulgence stronger than the midday sun; then out of this glory came the voice, soft, yet commanding, of a man, whose glorious winged figure she could see dimly, saying: 'Jeanne, arise! go to the succor of the Dauphin, and thou shalt restore his kingdom to him.' The poor girl, all abashed, fell upon her knees: 'Messire, how can I do this, since I am but a poor girl, and know not how to ride or to lead men-at-arms?' But the voice insisted: 'Thou shalt go to the Sire de Baudricourt, commanding for the King at Vaucouleurs, and he will conduct thee to the Dauphin. Fear not; Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine will aid thee.'"

Jeanne was in tears, for the fear of the thing, not daring as yet to confide in anyone. But the voices continued to importune her, and again she saw the angel, him whom in her simple fas.h.i.+on she described as _moult prudhomme_ (a very n.o.ble man), and whom she now recognized to be the very Saint Michael whose image she had seen in her church, triumphing over the dragon. And with him came fair women, all in white, with lights and troops of angels all about them, the holy and brave virgins Margaret and Catherine. They had come, as Saint Michael the Archangel had promised, to be her spiritual guides and comforters; and their blessed forms were never far from her, and their voices whispered to her to be of good cheer, for that through her and her alone France would be saved.

Tortured by doubts and fears, she revealed these visions to her mother, from whom she had learned her _Ave, Pater, Credo_, the sweet and simple faith that meant so much to her. Her mother was half inclined to believe in Jeanne, and was at least sympathetic; but her father could see in these visions but childish nonsense that would lead his daughter astray.

For him there was no faith in such things; can one blame him if he thought them but the silly moonings of a child, and dealt with that child sternly in the hope of saving her? He declared that he would drown Jeanne with his own hands rather than see her ride off with men-at-arms into that France of which he and she knew nothing but that it was from end to end given over to war and pillage. Thinking that marriage might dispel her illusions about saving France,--as indeed it would,--they persecuted her to marry a young villager who had fallen desperately in love with her and claimed that she had promised to marry him. With a courage that must have surprised even herself, she went before the ecclesiastical court of Toul and told her story so frankly that the judge dismissed the desperate lover. Not for her were the joys and sorrows of a wife and mother.

With all her determination and masculine contempt for those things that are terrors to most women, Jeanne loved her home. In after years she was ever sighing for the quiet life of her father's cottage, where she might sit and spin with her mother, or wander forth over the fields with her sister to tend the sheep. What a piteous struggle must there have been in her breast! On the one hand, an angry father, whom she loved, a mother whom she loved better, a safe home, and in it all that her simple heart desired; on the other, the great and terrible world, the armies of rough men, the dissolute courtiers, the long journeys over an unknown country, for one who had hardly stirred out of sight of Domremy church tower. Love of home, so strong in the hearts of all women, so precious to the peasant woman of France above all others, must be renounced for love of country. There have been no better or more determined patriots than women, as Caesar found when the women of Gaul cheered their husbands on to the contest with his legions; but these women were fighting at home, as it were upon the threshold; they did not go forth to lead armies in offensive warfare; theirs was the steady courage of desperation, not the active courage which must sustain itself, keep its own fires alive, instead of relying upon the stimulus of impulse and a desperate crisis. All the fears and heartbreakings of the struggle in Jeanne's mind have been hidden from us, for she speaks not of them; having fought out this battle with herself and decided that France needs her more than does her mother, she does not allow herself to turn back, and we get but a plaintive reminiscence here and there, since she has locked up this grief in her heart.

The opportunity to attempt the execution of the commands imposed by her voices was long in coming; she had become a subject of common talk in her village; everywhere she met discouraging incredulity, if not ridicule. It was not that there was lack of belief in marvels, for the land was filled with stories of portents and wonders in which the people did not hesitate to believe. There was the holy peasant whom the great captain, Xaintrailles, brought before the court to display upon his hands and feet the very marks of the cross, the stigmata, and who was said to sweat blood upon the day of the Pa.s.sion. There was Catherine de la Roch.e.l.le, who saw visions of angels and who proclaimed herself commissioned to discover treasures for the dauphin. In these and the like the people of Domremy may have believed; but not in their own little peasant girl; for had they not known her when she was but like the rest, a simple shepherdess?

In one member of her family Jeanne found faith, and to him she turned for help. This was her uncle, whose wife she was sent to nurse and whose spark of faith she kindled during this stay till, what with her urging and that of his wife, the good man' went to Vaucouleurs and carried Jeanne's message to Baudricourt. Is it any wonder that the seigneur smiled derisively at this foolish peasant who came to him with a message from a girl declaring that he must give her soldiers to accomplish that which the best captains of France could not accomplish? He was not unduly harsh, merely contemptuous in his rebuff: "Whip the girl well, and send her home to her father." There are so many with "missions" in this world, missions that are but vain imaginings, profiting naught; the more experience one has had in the world the more one learns to distrust these missions; and beyond a doubt the chastis.e.m.e.nt suggested by the Sire de Baudricourt would, in nine cases out of ten, have ended the mission and cured the hysterical enthusiast.

We say nine cases out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred, or any further multiples you please, with careless a.s.surance that there is no tenth case, and that fate will not take our wager and prove us fools, no matter what the odds we offer. But there is that tenth case, and the world is caught, the wise world, as here in the case of the peasant la.s.s of Lorraine, at whom all in Domremy smiled indulgently, whom all in France were soon to wors.h.i.+p.

It was the month of February, 1429, when the eyes of all France were fixed upon one city, Orleans. To the shattered French party it was the last hope of their dauphin; to the English it was the barrier which shut them off from the south of France. Since October the siege had been in progress, and England had given the command of her besieging forces to the best captains, while Dunois held out for France and for his half-brother, that Charles d'Orleans who had been a prisoner in England ever since Agincourt. But neither the skill of Dunois nor the gay courage of the citizens could cope with famine; it looked as if Orleans must fall, and all France mourned in advance the fate of the gallant city. Charles, the dauphin, wept at Chinon, and was without hope or counsel. In the heart of the daughter of Domremy one fervent prayer replaced all others: that Orleans might be saved! Her voices grew more and more importunate, crying to her ceaselessly that it was for her to save Orleans. With this more definite and immediate aim in mind she found courage to make another appeal to Baudricourt. She persuaded her uncle to accompany her, and the two trudged on foot to Vaucouleurs, where Jeanne was lodged with a wheelwright, her mother's cousin.

Impatient at the persistence of this mad girl, Baudricourt nevertheless consented to see her, probably thinking that he would thus more easily rid himself of her. In her simple peasant's dress of red cloth the young mystic stood before him. She was not tall, but was well proportioned and st.u.r.dy; in her features there was nothing remarkable, merely a regularity that failed of absolute beauty by being commonplace; still, it was a comely face, and even the sceptic Baudricourt could not fail to note the honesty and gentleness of the expression, or the deep and dreamy eyes, the sole feature that revealed some gleams of the great spirit within. Without hesitation or embarra.s.sment and yet without effrontery she answered his questions, and uttered her message to the dauphin: "My lord, I come to you in the name of G.o.d, bidding you enjoin the dauphin to hold firm and to set no day of battle with the enemy at this time, for G.o.d will send him aid about Mid-Lent. The kingdom is not his alone, but G.o.d's. Nevertheless, the Lord meaneth that he shall be King, despite his enemies; and it is I who shall lead him to be crowned at Rheims."

Baudricourt could not surrender at once to the faint belief aroused in him by Jeanne's earnestness, but the faint belief was already there, and he dismissed her kindly to reflect upon what she had said. The _cure_ of the parish was called into consultation, and the knight and the priest agreed that it was quite possible that Satan might have a hand in all this, and the two visited Jeanne, the priest exorcising the evil spirit, whereat Jeanne did not fly away or disappear with a flash and a bad smell of powder and brimstone. Her simple piety satisfied and touched the priest.

Meanwhile, rumors of her wonderful visions and of her sanct.i.ty began to be current among the people and to find credence. Had it not been prophesied by the mighty Merlin that France should be lost through a wicked woman and saved by a pure virgin? Who could the wicked woman be other than Isabeau de Baviere, who had sold France and disinherited and denied her own son? And here was Jeanne, a pure child, come to redeem France. It was criminal in Baudricourt to doubt, to reject the a.s.sistance thus sent by G.o.d himself. Crowds of people, gentles and mere laborers, visited Jeanne, and all were sure of one thing at least, that she was a good girl, while many went away firm believers in her mission.

A gentleman, Jean de Metz, thinking to jest with her, said: "Well, sweetheart, then we must all turn English, since the King will be driven out of France." But there was no thought of jest in her, as she complained of Baudricourt's refusal to send her to the dauphin: "And yet they must get me to the Dauphin before Mid-Lent, were I to wear out my legs to the knees walking there. For no one in this world, kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the king of Scotland, can win back the kingdom of France; and there is for him no other help save in me, albeit I should far rather stay beside my poor mother and spin.... For this is not my work, fighting battles; but I needs must go to do that which is commanded, for my Lord so wills it."

Baudricourt hesitated to a.s.sume the responsibility of any action in the matter. He took Jeanne to see the old Duke de Lorraine, his feudal superior. Duke Charles, at that time under the domination of a mistress, Alison du May, of great wit and beauty, was ill, and thought the miraculous maiden of Domremy might restore him to health and the arms of Alison. Jeanne, very wisely and frankly, told him to put away his paramour and take back his wife and lead a decent life. She was no worker of vulgar miracles to profit a worn-out old roue.

Coming back to Vaucouleurs, she found the authorities more ready to give her a hearing, for the situation in Orleans had become desperate, and the gallant citizens, who had entered into the siege with as much eagerness as if it had been but play, found enthusiasm very exhausting and food supplies very scant. Jeanne had predicted the date and the disastrous result of the battle of Rouvray, "the battle of the Herrings"

(February 12, 1429), and the people of Vaucouleurs believed in her.

Grudgingly and half-heartedly, the Sire de Baudricourt was compelled to yield to her request and to despatch her to the dauphin. Some citizens of the town subscribed a sum to equip her with horse and armor, and the Sire de Baudricourt himself gave her a sword. For the long journey through a rough country the poor girl, with no woman companion, could not retain her simple gown, but must be dressed as a man-at-arms. On the very eve of her departure, she was subjected to another severe trial to her feelings: her parents, hearing of her determination, sent to implore, to command, her not to go; and Jeanne, unable to write, had to dictate a letter asking their forgiveness for her disobedience.

Her little troop, consisting of two gentlemen and a few men of their following, had to traverse part of the country where the Burgundian interest was strong, for the dauphin was then holding his court at Chinon, near Tours. And the dangers of the road infested by hostile troops were not the only dangers, for among her own companions there were many misgivings: they knew not whether to reverence her as a saint or to destroy her as a witch. The latter course, indeed, they were very near pursuing; but the innocence and the harmless, hopeful, confident demeanor of the girl moved their hearts to pity.

She arrived at Chinon on February 24th, and sent word to Charles that she had much to tell him that would comfort his heart, and that she had come one hundred and fifty leagues to see him; but Charles had no will of his own, and his councillors wrangled about what should be done.

There was a strong party opposed to Jeanne, but her friends, headed by Queen Yolande, carried the day, and she was admitted to see the king, or, as she continued to call him until after the consecration at Rheims, the dauphin. The story of how this country maiden was introduced into the throng of dazzling courtiers and left to divine which was the chosen of the Lord has been too often told, and too generally credited, to need either retelling or defence; the whole story of Jeanne d'Arc is so little short of what we would call miraculous that it seems a petty thing to balk at this one detail. Whether by divine inspiration, or by mere luck, or by the friendly and secret guidance of her followers, Jeanne did discover Charles, and spoke without fear as she knelt at the feet of this unworthy prince whom she had come so far to save: "Gentle Dauphin, I am called Jeanne la Pucelle; the King of Heaven sends you word by me that you shall be consecrated and crowned in the city of Rheims, and that you shall be his lieutenant in France. Give me, therefore, soldiers, that I may raise the siege of Orleans and take you to Rheims to be consecrated. It is G.o.d's will that your enemies, the English, shall go back to their own land; and woe be unto them if they do not go; for the kingdom shall be and remain your own."

The dauphin could but be struck by these words, uttered with such directness and earnestness; but he still doubted of the divine mission of the peasant girl. Might she not be an impostor, hired by his enemies?

Might she not be, if nothing worse, merely a poor demented creature? His mind had been much tormented by doubts of his own legitimacy. The English openly proclaimed him no son of Charles VI.; his mother's intimacy with Orleans was too notorious and too recent a scandal to be concealed, and he had been born at the very moment when that intimacy was at its height, while she who was his mother had acted as if there were good reason why he should not inherit the crown; is it any wonder that the wretched young prince himself half believed the allegations of his foes? He desired rea.s.surance on this point, and it was doubtless to ask some question of the kind that he now led Jeanne d'Arc aside and seemed to converse with her in low tones. All that pa.s.sed between them has never been told, since Jeanne refused to reveal it; but the courtiers saw his countenance light up, and it was known that she had told him good news, and this much she confessed to having said: "I am sent from G.o.d to a.s.sure you that you are the true heir of France, the son of the King."

The dauphin may have been momentarily converted to faith in Jeanne la Pucelle; but he was vacillating, and some of his wisest councillors, including the chancellor, would not believe in her. She must first be proved no witch and a pure virgin. To both these tests Jeanne submitted willingly and courageously, and from both she came out vindicated. As they prepared to take her to Poitiers, where some half dozen learned doctors of the church were to focus their wisdom upon this poor child, she said: "Well do I see that many a hard trial awaits me in Poitiers; but G.o.d will aid me. Let us go, then, with stout hearts." During the interrogation to which she was subjected by the theologians, the one dominant characteristic of the girl--not of the saint--was strongly brought out: her common sense. Her answers, though naive and utterly unsophisticated, by their frankness and good sense frequently discomfited the most adroit catechists. One of the doctors objected: "If G.o.d wishes to deliver the people of France he has no need of men-at-arms." With readiness and rational, half-humorous shrewdness, Jeanne replied: "Ah! my G.o.d! the men-at-arms will fight, and G.o.d will give the victory." Then Brother Seguin, "a very sour man," with a strong tw.a.n.g of his native Limoges, would fain know "what tongue these Heavenly visitors spoke?" "A better than thine," replied Jeanne. "I did not come to show signs or work miracles in Poitiers; the sign I shall give you will be to raise the siege of Orleans. Give me soldiers, few or many, and I will go."

Confident of coming out scathless from the examination of the doctors, Jeanne grew weary of the long delay and dictated a letter to the English regent, Bedford, announcing to him that "the Maid has come from G.o.d to drive you out of France." Finally, the representatives of the Church gave it as their opinion that it would be lawful to employ this maid, if in very truth she were a maid, "for the hand of G.o.d works in mysterious ways!" Her purity of life and of body were more easily established than her orthodoxy, and now there remained nothing but to grant her prayer and let her march on to Orleans. For Orleans, too, had heard of its advocate, and the gallant Dunois sent entreaty after entreaty that they would send the maid to him.

A little retinue was provided as her personal escort, under command of a staunch and staid old knight, Jean Daulon, with a page, two heralds, a steward, two valets, and Jeanne's brother, Pierre d'Arc. Clothed in pure white armor--white as symbolizing the purity of the heroine--and mounted upon her black horse, glorious must have been the sight of the sweet maid, a very _sursum corda_ to every loyal heart in France. One can see through the mists of years the seraphic smile of tender triumph with which she looked up at her banner, the holy banner that was of white with _fleurs-de-lis_ upon it, and on one side the Lord of Hosts Himself, with angels by His side, holding the world in His hands. And then she waved aloft the sacred sword of Saint Catherine with its five crosses, which she had discovered hid behind the altar of Saint Catherine de Fierbois; the word was at last: "On to Orleans!"

No greater contrast could have been than that here set before the eyes of wondering France: on the one hand, the chaste, kindly, simple-hearted Jeanne; on the other, leaders and soldiers brutalized by long years of desultory civil war. Think of a Sire de Giac, who gave poison to his wife and then, setting her astride a horse, made her gallop till she died. When he was brought to justice he prayed that his right hand, vowed to the service of the devil, might be cut off before his execution, lest the astute ruler of Hades seize the said hand and drag the whole body along with it. Or think, again, of Gilles de Retz, the Marquis de Laval, whose murders of children (to the number of one hundred and sixty, some say) were so atrocious that he was at last seized, tried, condemned to death at the stake and to eternal, if mistaken, a.s.sociation with that nursery horror, Bluebeard. Think of him riding beside Jeanne la Pucelle, nay, standing beside her at the coronation in Rheims and fetching the sacred ampulla! What an a.s.sociate for her was even that brave and loyal friend Etienne Vignoles, nicknamed Lahire (the Barker), who was wont to say, in extenuation of the universal practice of plundering and brigandage among the so-called soldiers, "Were G.o.d to turn man-at-arms, He too would pillage!" It was he who prayed before a battle, with less reverence but surely not with less fervency than some other pious soldiers: _Sire Dieu, je te prie de faire pour Lahire ce que Lahire ferait pour toi, si tu etais capitaine et si Lahire etait Dieu_ (Sir G.o.d, I pray thee to do for Lahire what Lahire would do for thee, if thou were a soldier and Lahire were G.o.d).

It is a most excellent and comprehensive prayer, good to prefer when one has not time to remind the Deity of each little thing He should do.

With an army composed of such men, Jeanne d'Arc set out for Orleans; but she sadly doubted if her saints would be coadjutors to such unrepentant sinners. Accordingly, she insisted that the morals of the camp be reformed. Lahire must swear no more dreadful, soul-blasting oaths; he obeyed, but the good-hearted girl, seeing him at a loss for unseasoned speech, relented so far as to permit him to swear "by his baton." But the reform did not end with puerile matters; the Pucelle would have no loose women about the camp; all her soldiers must go humbly and confess their sins before they dared to follow her sacred banner; in the open air upon the banks of the Loire she raised an altar, and all must take communion with her. No need of the dauphin's order to Dunois, Xaintrailles, Lahire, Boussac, and the other captains to respect the person and obey the commands of Jeanne la Pucelle; the enthusiasm inspired by her innocent face, the patriotism of her unselfish heart, that mysterious power which, sometimes and only sometimes, the good and pure and utterly defenseless exert upon evil natures these were far stronger motives than the commands of a prince so weak that he could not maintain his own in half of France. It was a crusade upon which this fair young saint was leading them; and something of the old ardor of the crusaders inspired her followers.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRIUMPH AND MARTYRDOM OF JEANNE D'ARC

WHILE the army of Jeanne d'Arc, starting with but four or five thousand men and gathering numbers from every side as it goes, is marching toward Orleans, let us look at the military situation of that town and of the English cause in France. To begin with, the force of the besiegers had never been large; during the long siege it had been reduced by disease, by loss in battle, by defections, till the English army itself was almost in as great straits as the garrison. Moreover, in order to secure themselves, the English had constructed a dozen or more small forts, or _bastilles_, on both sides of the Loire, and the garrisons of these places had no sure means of intercommunication. It is true that plans were on foot for reinforcing the besiegers, but the political conditions in France and England were such as very seriously to handicap Bedford.

There was never hearty cooperation between him and the all-powerful Cardinal Winchester; the Duke of Gloucester was wrangling with Winchester, and had not long ago seriously offended Bedford's most important ally, Philippe de Bourgogne, by marrying Jacqueline of Flanders and espousing her cause against the Burgundians. Though Gloucester had since married another lady--bigamy was but a small matter--and had patched up matters with Philippe de Bourgogne, the latter was showing distinct signs of estrangement from the English. Much depended therefore on the successful termination of the siege of Orleans, and the English power, apparently at its climax, needed but a slight check to start it on the decline.

All this must lead us to ponder upon the achievements of that force now collected under the white banner of Jeanne, and to ask ourselves, were those achievements indeed so marvellous, from a military point of view?

When the chemist has evaporated his solution of a salt almost to the point of crystallization, and yet it will not crystallize, a mere splinter cast into the dish will suddenly gather to itself the hesitating particles, and the crystals form as if by magic. The figure will help us to understand the condition of the dauphin's cause and the kind of influence exerted by Jeanne d'Arc. She was the nucleus, lacking which the French forces might have continued mere floating and helpless bands, without a leader, without a common cause; above all, without hope or enthusiasm. There was no lack of valiant soldiers on the side of the dauphin, the Constable de Richemont, Dunois, Xaintrailles, Lahire, Gilles de Retz, Armagnac; all these were either in Jeanne's army or in Orleans. It was her presence, her influence, that enabled them to combine successfully. She was essential to them, no doubt; but had she herself not said wisely and well: "The men-at-arms will fight, and G.o.d will give the victory "?

The captains of the dauphin's army thoroughly appreciated the value, the inestimable value, of the enthusiasm aroused by the Maid, and they made shrewd use of it; but they had no intention of trusting the whole campaign to spiritual direction, whether of saints or devils; and some of them were not a little inclined to view Jeanne as hardly better than a witch. It might have been better for France had they trusted to the guidance of the heroine. She would have marched up to Orleans on the side of the river held most strongly by the English and have defied them, be the risk what it might. By a deception she was led to cross the Loire, and was indignant when, on reaching Orleans, she discovered that the river lay between her and the town.

Dunois, commander-in-chief in Orleans, seeing her from the ramparts, crossed the river at once and came to give her reverent and joyful greeting. After reproaching him and the other captains for placing more reliance upon human prudence than upon Divine behests, she said: "I bring you the best succor that ever knight or city had; it is the succor of the King of Heaven, and comes not from me, but from G.o.d." It was the 29th of April, and that same evening, at eight o'clock, Jeanne entered Orleans with provisions and an escort, the main body of the army retiring to Blois to cross the Loire.

Orleans went mad with joy at the advent of its heaven-sent deliverer. As she rode through the streets the crowds blocked her way, and eager admirers rudely jostled each other in the struggle but to touch the horse that bore her. With sweet kindliness, she thanked them, losing none of her humility, and exhorting them to thank not her, but G.o.d and the dauphin. For that night and the rest of her stay in Orleans she was lodged with the wife of the treasurer of Charles d'Orleans, and slept with one of the daughters of the house. St.u.r.dy and healthy as she was, the unaccustomed rough life of the camp, sleeping with her armor on and none but men about her, had occasioned her great fatigue.

The operations of the siege had been suspended by the English, who sullenly kept to their _bastilles_. Jeanne insisted upon an immediate attack, and during the week that followed she was with difficulty restrained from rash enterprises. Indeed, she could not always be restrained, and her rashness was not infrequently rewarded with unexpected success. Warned of the approach of English reinforcements under Sir John Fastolf, she conjured Dunois to let her know without delay of his coming. She suspected Dunois of intending to engage Fastolf without her, and in her nervous eagerness to be up and doing for France she precipitated a successful attack upon the bastilles. She had retired to rest for a few hours in the middle of the day when the noise of a tumult in the streets aroused her; the cry was that the French were being slaughtered at one of the gates. Leaping from her couch, and hardly taking time to have half of her armor buckled on, she mounted her horse and, seizing her banner as it was reached to her from a window, galloped toward the gates. On the way, she met the wounded and her heart was moved at the sight of blood. Without the authority of Dunois the garrison had undertaken an a.s.sault upon the _bastille_ of Saint-Loup, which stood most directly across the path of those who would bring supplies into Orleans. The French had been beaten back, but with the arrival of Jeanne hope and courage returned. Jeanne in person led a fresh a.s.sault, while Talbot, the English commander, vainly strove to rally his men and dissipate their fears of "the witch." The English were forced to retire, and the fort fell into the hands of Jeanne, who, lapsing at once from warrior into woman after this first experience of an actual battle, wept over the slain, cared for the wounded, and did her best to protect the English prisoners from her own savage followers.

The military success was not great, but the mere fact of success in this first active enterprise enhanced Jeanne's credit in the eyes of her own party. Nevertheless, the military chiefs hesitated to trust her, perhaps because they were jealous of her; and while she was spending Ascension day in fasting and prayer they held a council at which it was determined to attack the princ.i.p.al English fort under cover of a feint upon one on the other side of Orleans. She was told only of the feigned attack, but Dunois later confessed the truth, refusing, however, to allow her to proceed to the a.s.sault in person. As she watched the battle from afar, saw the French carry and burn one fort, and then saw them repulsed from before another, her impatience could no longer be restrained. Crossing the river with a few followers, she rallied her people, who followed her charmed standard and captured the fort, which Jeanne fired with her own hand.

Once more the wisdom or the expediency of her seemingly rash counsels had been vindicated; but still the leaders hesitated, and determined to await reinforcements before attacking the fort of Les Tournelles, in which the English had now concentrated a considerable part of their forces. "Nay," said Jeanne, "you have been at your councils, but I have been at mine. Know that the counsel of my King and Lord shall prevail over yours." She ordered her chaplain to be ready to attend her at break of day: "For I shall have much to do, more than I have done any day yet.

Blood shall issue from my body, for I shall be wounded." With the English daily awaiting reinforcements, it is difficult to comprehend what could have induced experienced military leaders to meditate delay instead of pursuing the advantage already gained; yet they shut the gates next morning to keep Jeanne in, and her host, Milet, begged her to remain quietly to sup with him. "Keep your supper," she said; "I shall bring back some _G.o.ddems_ to eat it with us." The national oath, which Figaro was to consider sufficient for all conversation in English, was manifestly familiar and characteristic three centuries before his time.

In spite of the orders of their chiefs the men-at-arms followed their idol, forced the gates, and charged upon the English fort. As the sun rose over the Loire the desperate struggle began, the English defending themselves with determination and driving back column after column till the dead and wounded lay in heaps beneath the walls of Les Tournelles.

Sword in hand, La Pucelle placed a ladder against the wall, and as she mounted an arrow pierced her shoulder. As she fell fainting to the earth the English sallied forth to capture her, but she was rescued by the Sire de Gamaches, who had been one of those who refused to serve as a captain in an army dominated by "a mere girl, who may have been G.o.d knows what." Though sceptical of her mission, he was a gallant soldier, and succeeded in removing the wounded heroine to a place of safety.

If the pain of the wound and the sight of her own blood had unnerved Jeanne, the spectacle of their wounded deliverer completely demoralized her soldiers. They pressed about her offering to dress the wound, to remove the arrow, to charm away the pain by magic incantations. She would have none of the works of Satan for her healing. Praying to her saints for strength, she rallied her courage, pulled the arrow out with her own hands, and had the wound dressed with oil. It was nearly dark, and the captains were for retiring, but Jeanne's spirits inspired her to continue the fight. The Sire de Daulon, her knight, rushed back to the fosse of the fort to recover the sacred banner, dropped there in the confusion of the fray. As he raised it to the breeze its folds were opened, and the disheartened French soldiers charged again. "If my banner but touch the walls," said Jeanne, "the fort will fall." Wounded as she was, she mounted her horse and rode toward the fort. Panic seized the English at what seemed to them a miraculous restoration to life of one whom they thought dead, and their excited imaginations saw the heavenly hosts, led by Michael, fighting on the French side. Attempting a hurried evacuation, the English captain, Glasdale, was precipitated into the Loire from a frail bridge on which he was crossing; the fort was taken, and the remnant of its defenders put to the sword.