The Life of Joan of Arc Part 79

[Footnote 1813: La Curne, at the word _Blanc_: white armour was worn by squires, gilded armour by knights. Bouteiller, in his _Somme Rurale_, refers to the "_harnais dore_" (gilded armour) of the knights. Cf. Du Tillet, _Recueil des rois de France_, ch. _Des chevaliers_, p. 431. Du Cange, _Observations sur les etabliss.e.m.e.nts de la France_, p. 373.]

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

CHAPTER IV

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

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

[Footnote 1815: _Journal du siege_, p. 130. Perceval de Cagny, pp. 170, 171. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 246, 247. Berry, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 79. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 219.]

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

[Footnote 1816: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 86. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 265. P. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, _Jeanne d'Arc en Berry, avec des doc.u.ments et des eclairciss.e.m.e.nts inedits_, Paris, 1892, in 12mo, chap. vi.]

[Footnote 1817: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 85, note 1. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 418, note 7.]

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

Three weeks Jeanne sojourned in the Receiver General's house. She slept there, drank there, ate there. Nearly every night, Damiselle Marguerite La Touroulde slept with her; the etiquette of those days required it. No night-gowns were worn; folk slept naked in those vast beds. It would seem that Jeanne disliked sleeping with old women.[1819]

Damiselle La Touroulde, although not so very old, was of matronly age;[1820] she had moreover a matron's experience, and further she claimed, as we shall see directly, to know more than most matrons knew. Several times she took Jeanne to the bath and to the sweating-room.[1821] That also was one of the rules of etiquette; a host was not considered to be making his guests good cheer unless he took them to the bath. In this point of courtesy princes set an example; when the King and Queen supped in the house of one of their retainers or ministers, fine baths richly ornamented were prepared for them before they came to table.[1822] Mistress Marguerite doubtless did not possess what was necessary in her own house; wherefore she took Jeanne out to the bath and the sweating-room. Such are her own expressions; and they probably indicate a vapour bath[1823] not a bath of hot water.

[Footnote 1819: _Ibid._, pp. 81, 86.]

[Footnote 1820: Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, _Jeanne d'Arc en Berry_, pp.

72, 73.]

[Footnote 1821: "_In balneo et stuphis._" _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 88.]

[Footnote 1822: _L'amant rendu cordelier a l'observance d'amour_; poem attributed to Martial d'Auvergne, A. de Montaiglon, Paris, 1881, in 8vo, lines 1761-1776 and note p. 184. A. Franklin, _La vie privee d'autrefois_, vol. ii, _Les soins de la toilette_, Paris, 1887, in 18mo, pp. 20 _et seq._ A. Lecoy de la Marche, _Le bain au moyen age_, in _Revue du monde catholique_, vol. xiv, pp. 870-881.]

[Footnote 1823: _Livre des metiers_, by etienne Boileau, edited by De Lespina.s.se and F. Bonnardot, Paris, 1879, pp. 154, 155, and note. G.

Bayle, _Notes pour servir a l'histoire de la prost.i.tution au moyen age_, in _Memoires de l'Academie de Vauctuse_, 1887, pp. 241, 242. Dr.

P. Pansier, _Histoire des pretendus statuts de la reine Jeanne_, in _Le Ja.n.u.s_, 1902, p. 14.]

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

[Footnote 1824: Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, _Jeanne d'Arc en Berry_, pp.

76, 77.]

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

[Footnote 1826: _Ibid._, p. 88.]

In Messire Regnier de Bouligny's house and likewise wherever she lodged, she led the life of a _beguine_ but did not practise excessive austerity. She confessed frequently. Many a time she asked her hostess to come with her to matins. In the cathedral and in collegiate churches there were matins every day, between four and six, at the hour of sunset. The two women often talked together; the Receiver General's wife found Jeanne very simple and very ignorant.

She was amazed to discover that the maiden knew absolutely nothing.[1827]

[Footnote 1827: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 87. Lanery d'Arc and L. Jeny, _Jeanne d'Arc en Berry_, pp. 73, 74.]

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

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

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

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

Jeanne used to say laughingly to her hostess: "Touch them yourself.

Your touch will do them as much good as mine."[1829]

[Footnote 1829: _Ibid._, pp. 86, 88.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 1831: _Ibid._, p. 87.]

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

[Footnote 1832: _Ibid._, pp. 87, 88.]

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

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

North of the Seine meanwhile, English and Burgundians were at their old work. The Duke of Vendome and his company fell back on Senlis, the English descended on the town of Saint-Denys and sacked it once more.

In the Abbey Church they found and carried off the Maid's armour, thus, according to the French clergy, committing undeniable sacrilege and for this reason: because they gave the monks of the Abbey nothing in exchange.

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

[Footnote 1834: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 217. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 265. A. Buhot de Kersers, _Histoire et statistique du departement du Cher, canton de Mehun_, Bourges, 1891, in 4to, pp. 261 _et seq._ A. de Champeaux and P. Gauchery, _Les travaux d'art executes pour Jean de France, duc de Berry_, Paris, 1894, in 4to, pp. 7, 9, and the miniature in _Les grandes heures_ of Duke Jean of Berry at Chantilly.]

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

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

The Royal Council deemed it necessary to recover La Charite, left in the hands of Perrinet Gressart at the time of the coronation campaign;[1836]

but it was decided first to attack Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier, which commanded the approaches to Bec-d'Allier.[1837] The garrison of this little town was composed of English and Burgundians, who were constantly plundering the villages and laying waste the fields of Berry and Bourbonnais. The army for this expedition a.s.sembled at Bourges. It was commanded by my Lord d'Albret,[1838] but popular report attributed the command to Jeanne. The common folk, the burgesses of the towns, especially the citizens of Orleans knew no other commander.