I.
“Give me Duke René de Barrois, the noble son of good Queen Yolande, to guide me into France.” The request was made by a simple village maiden aged not more than seventeen years, and the personage she addressed was Charles II., Duke of Lorraine. It was an extraordinary request; the occasion, too, was extraordinary.
Born on the Feast of the Epiphany in the year 1412, of worthy peasants, at Domremy, in Alsace,—Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée, his wife,—Jeanne was the younger of their two daughters; she had three brothers older than herself. Domremy was a squalid little hamlet, like many another upon the Meuse, boasting of the mother-church of the commune—a grim old building, but glorified by many figures of holy saints in its coloured windows. The nearest village was Maxey, upon the borders of Lorraine. The villagers were in constant feud—Domremy for the King of France and her own Duke at Nancy, Maxey for the Duke of Burgundy and the hated English. Sieur Jacques d’Arc and his three stalwart, hard-working sons were as ready with the pike as they were handy with the plough. Mère Isabelle and her two daughters were zealous backers of their menfolk.
Sieur Jacques was, as peasant farmers went, a man of substance and well connected. He had saved a goodly sum of money, and owned, perhaps, the biggest flock of sheep in the country-side. Milch cows and fattening oxen grazed his wide meadows. He was a man of probity, and had served the ancestral office of Maire of Domremy for many a year. Mère Isabelle excelled in stitchery as well as in the rearing of poultry and the cultivation of her fair garden plot. When about to be delivered of her youngest child, she dreamed three times that she should bear a girl, and that she should become famous in her country’s history. The narrative goes on to say that many unusual circumstances attended her child’s nativity: a fierce thunderstorm shook the dwelling, and mysterious voices uttered the strange cry: “Aux secours! aux secours de la France!”
Jeanne, the little daughter, was duly christened by the curé, and from her mother’s womb she was a child of dedication—St. Catherine and St. Margaret were her spiritual sponsors. Precocious from her weaning, both in physical growth and mental development, she grew up a devotee at Mass and shrine. She sought solitude and silence, and declined to share her playmates’ games. Other children thought her odd, and old crones shook their heads and pitied Sieur Jacques and his worthy spouse. Jeanne’s favourite resort was a thicket near her parents’ home,—Le Bois Chènus it was called,—an oak-wood grove where her father’s pigs greedily sought for acorns. The Bois had, however, a weird repute; it had been, centuries before, a sacrificial site of heathen worship, and the village folk avoided it at night, for they said they saw strange figures under the trees and heard strange sounds,—in fact, the wood was haunted.
JEANNE D’ARC
From a Fresco by E. Lepenveu. Pantheon, Paris
To face page 144
One summer’s day in July, 1424, Jeanne d’Arc was seated, as was her wont, upon an ancient fallen menhir at the verge of the coppice. She was shelling peas, and she also had her knitting by her. The hour of the day was nearly that of the “Angelus,” when the frightened damsel heard an unusual rustling of the oaken branches overhead, and somewhere out of the tree or out of the sky voices sounded faintly upon her ear. At the same time a strange lurid light gleamed between her and the church-tower across the meadow. Laying aside her occupation, she listened breathlessly, almost in a trance, to what the “Voices” said; they were pitched in soothing female treble accents.
“Jeanne soit bonne et sage enfant,” said one; and another went on: “Va souvent à l’église.” Surely the heavenly speakers were Jeanne’s holy guardians, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Jeanne was riveted to the spot, and moved not till the twilight brought her sister looking for her. Jeanne said nothing, but for seven days in succession she sat as at the first, and heard the same solemn words repeated; then on the seventh,—it was Saturday,—another wonder appeared to her: a very glorious holy one and a watcher,—the great St. Michael, God’s warring archangel, in shining armour,—stood before her under the great oak-tree, and bade her give heed to what he said. He told her eloquently and convincingly the story of the sad state of France—devoured by enemies, torn by factions, her King a fugitive uncrowned. When the heavenly visitant had finished his impassioned narrative, he bade Jeanne kneel, and, touching her shoulder with his flashing sword, said: “Jeanne va toy aux secours du roy de France.”
The girl swooned as soon as her ghostly visitor had vanished, and so was found, and borne to her couch by her brothers in alarm. In delirium for days and nights, she kept on repeating what the archangel had said, until, amid broken-hearted sobs, her grieving parents counted her as mad. All the gossips of the village and those from more distant homes shook their heads sadly, and said more fervently their Ave Marias. Jeanne was not mad, and after she had recovered her usual demeanour she related to her doubting father and mother and the good curé her mysterious story. The good priest proposed to exorcise the evil spirit which he was convinced was in her. Her father,—a matter-of-fact sort of man, and serious-minded, like all the peasant-folk of France,—thought a good thrashing was her deserts; her mother sided with her: she remembered the strange cry at her Jeanne’s birth. Jeanne heard all they had to say, and kept silence, her protestations only adding fuel to the fire of denunciation. She resumed her usual avocations, but daily sat to hear the “Voices,” as she called her ghostly visitants, and daily they repeated their strange instructions. She spent much time upon her knees in the church, and at last the curé, good man, gave heed to her infatuation. “If this be from God,” he said to himself, “no man may stay her.” He wondered, naturally, how this quiet and devout village girl could ever be the Divine instrument for the deliverance of France.
Jeanne’s simplicity and sincerity, her earnestness and good behaviour, however, gradually silenced unfriendly critics; and although most folk regarded her as mad, many believed her story and watched developments. The strange revelation of the maid of Domremy travelled far and wide, and brought many a neighbour and many a stranger to question her. Among the rest came Sieur Durand Laxaert, her mother’s uncle by marriage—a man of means, too, and well known the country round. He questioned Jeanne, he questioned her parents, he questioned the village curé, and then he went off and told the amazing story to his friend, Chevalier Robert de Baudricourt, the Captain of Vaucouleurs, a market-town in Champagne, not far from Domremy. The gallant Captain listened attentively, but when the story was completed he burst out laughing. “Why, man,” said he, “you and all of them are crazy! Just go back and box the child’s ears soundly; that’s the way to treat this sort of nonsense.”
The matter dropped so far as the Chevalier was concerned, but again, in the following January, Sieur Laxaert approached Baudricourt, and asked him to see his young niece. He consented, and Jeanne, wearing her coarse red homespun kirtle and heavy wooden shoes and her village girl’s coif, was introduced to the unbelieving Captain. He was dumbfounded by her appearance, for the lass was no village hoyden. Her figure was slender, her features refined; her great brown eyes,—staring into his face,—told only of simple faith and untarnished honour. Her voice was low and sweet, and there was a something eerie and incomprehensible about her which struck the good man, and made him feel uncomfortable. When he asked her what she wanted, she promptly replied: “I want to be led to the King of France.”
“My child,” de Baudricourt replied, “that I cannot do; but, if you wish, I will willingly take you to Nancy, and lead you to the Duke, your sovereign lord and mine. Prepare yourself at once for the journey.”
Amid the tears and protests of her parents and her friends Jeanne started, as she was, upon her eventful pilgrimage. At St. Nicholas de Pont,—a little town two leagues from Nancy,—she asked to be allowed to spend three hours in devotions in the church. When she reappeared, her face was wet with tears, and her long brown hair hung dishevelled over her shoulders. She did not seem to care. Her gaze was heavenward, and the only words she uttered were: “En avant!” With Sieur Laxaert was a comrade, a young man, Jehan de Novelonpont, better known as Jehan de Metz, of good birth and knightly carriage. He offered Jeanne his sword. She touched the hilt, and, smiling sadly, said: “Alas! young sir, that blade will be required erelong to slay thy country’s foes and God’s.” Thus they entered the capital of Lorraine.
Duke Charles received his strange visitor somewhat reluctantly. He was a man of shrewd common-sense, intolerant of superstition, and impatient of feminine assumptions—as his consort, Duchess Marguerite, learnt to her undoing. He asked curtly about her home and her occult powers, and jokingly invoked her aid in the cure of gout, to which he was martyr, and from which he was then suffering acutely. “This,” said he, “shall be the test of your pretensions to save France. Remove my pain, and I will take you to the King.” Jeanne shed tears, and, straightening out her rough woolsey skirt, she looked sadly up to heaven. At last she spoke: “Take me not, noble Duke, for a common jongleuse. First of all, noble Duke, I implore you to become reconciled to the Duchess, your wife; as for me, I am the unworthy instrument of God to set King Charles of France upon his throne and to scatter his enemies.” The Duke dismissed the maid with a wave of his hand. “Take her away,” he said; “be kind to her; maybe I will see her again shortly.” “Jeanne,” he added, “in a day or two you shall tell your tale before some noble lords.”
All over Lorraine and Barrois internecine war was rife; noble rose against noble, and yeoman and peasant joined the fray. The most serious was the rivalry of René, the young Duke of Bar, and Antoine, Count of Vaudémont, concerning the rights of succession to the dukedom of Lorraine. Metz, into which de Vaudémont had thrown himself, was invested by the Barrois troops, splendidly led by the boy-warrior—he was but twenty years of age. A messenger from Charles requested a truce, and invited both commanders to join him at Nancy to take counsel with their peers upon the strange claims of a shepherd-girl from Domremy. With Duke René rode a score of knights and nobles; Count Antoine was accompanied by a like company. Upon the morrow of their arrival at the capital, Duke Charles assembled them and others in the great courtyard of the castle, and sent for Jeanne, who, still attired in her peasant garb, knelt at his feet and kissed his hand. Then she surveyed the assembly furtively, as though prepared for insult or worse, and quietly repeated her strange story amid general scoffs and impatience. One noble knight alone gave serious heed,—René, Duke of Bar. Duke Charles taunted her with her inability to mount a horse, much more to lead an army.
“Jeanne,” said he, “thou hast never bestridden a charger, thou canst not bear a lance!”
“Sire,” she replied, “mount me, and see if I cannot both ride and hold my own.”
A quiet palfrey,—the property of Duchess Marguerite,—was led into the courtyard by its groom, but Jeanne refused to mount. “Give me,” she demanded, “the charger of that Prince yonder,” pointing to René of Sicily-Anjou and Bar. The Prince lifted her into the saddle, and his gentleness, reverence, and good looks, differentiated him from the rest of that knightly assemblage.
“What is thy name, brave Prince?” she asked.
“René de Bar,” he said.
“What!” the Maid replied, “the noble Duke of Bar, the gallant son of good Queen Yolande of Anjou. You shall be my escort into France.”
With that she laid firm hold of the heavy lance, offered by a young esquire, placed it correctly in stay, and smartly gathered up the reins. Saluting Dukes Charles and René, she drove the heels of her wooden shoes into the horse’s sides, and dashed round and round the courtyard, the lance in position, and then out into the open. Astonishment marked each noble countenance, and then loud applause greeted this quite unexpected display; it enlisted to her cause most of the spectators, who had meant to cry down the girl’s ineptitude, but now were perfectly ready to follow her. With difficulty Jeanne reined in her mount, and slowly cantered into the courtyard again. Saluting in correct knightly fashion the Duke, her Sovereign, and beckoning René once more to her side, she dismounted with his help, rendered up her lance, and fell at Charles’s feet.
The Duke gently raised the palpitating, girlish form, and aloud exclaimed: “May God grant the accomplishment of thy desires! I see thou hast both courage and intelligence.” Jeanne then turned to René, and, laying her trembling hand upon his arm, looked up innocently but intently with her great brown eyes, into his open, truthful face, and said: “You, my Prince, will help me, I am sure. There is none other here in whom I know I can put my whole trust. You are like the blessed Michael who speaks to me and strengthens me. You are a Christian knight; you will lead me into France.” The Maid’s partiality for René de Bar gave rise, unworthily, to evil gossip with respect to their mutual relations. She was attracted to him by the tales of the country-side. Domremy was so near to the scenes of his military achievements in Lorraine that news of him and his prowess affected greatly the younger folk. The fact that he was the husband of their Princess Isabelle, “the Pride of Lorraine,” greatly added to his local fame.
The noble company at the castle moved into the hall of audience, and there Jeanne laid before them fully all her loyal aims—heaven-directed, as she said. She told them, too, the story of the “Voices,” and craved their assistance in her enterprise. “We will traverse France together,” she exclaimed, “until we find King Charles. We will crown him at Reims, and we will then cast out our country’s enemies. Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, will protect us and our homes!”
This amazing speech by a young country girl roused general enthusiasm, and the mysterious magic of her voice and manner disarmed all opposition. Each belted knight drew forth his steely blade, and, tossing it on high, swore to be her henchman. “Vive la nostre Royne! à bas les Anglois!” they cried aloud together. These acclamations hurtled stridently through gallery, way-ward, and postern, and away they flew in increased volume past the portcullis, till every citizen in Nancy and the labourers in the fields around joined in the ecstatic chorus: “Vive la nostre Royne Jeanne!” Rich and poor, noble and simple, and the children, too, pressed into the castle precincts to catch a sight of the humble yet brave messenger of God, and perchance to touch her person or her dress, seeking infection from the virtue and valour which possessed her. Jeanne’s reception and recognition at Nancy Castle attained the proportions of a Bretagne pardon. Church-bells clanged for her, priests blessed her, and relics of saints were exposed with the Blessed Sacrament on her behalf.
JEANNE D’ARC EXPELLING GAY WOMEN FROM HER CAMP
From an Illuminated MS. National Library of Paris
To face page 152
Duke René, on his part, showed no hesitation in accepting the high honour the inspired Maid had paid him. He kissed her hand, a peasant’s hand,—strange act for a royal knight!—smitten with the girl’s piety and devotion; he, too, was religiously affected. Jeanne became an heroic figure in his estimation. What clean-minded lad is there, or has ever been, who is not marvellously affected by a handsome, dashing girl, irrespective of her rank in life? What traces some have seen of a tenderer passion still than youthful admiration were surely hard to diagnose in that first burst of emotional romance: it may have bloomed later, but René’s heart was in the safe-keeping of Isabelle. Times and manners then lent colour to the insinuation, possibly, for love and lovers were freer then than now from social conventions. René departed for Bar-le-Duc, to prepare for the expedition. He gave immediate orders to raise the siege of three fortresses, Metz, Vézelise, and Vaudémont, and, calling off the troops encamped there, he returned quickly to Nancy, to escort Jeanne to the King of France. He found her arrayed in quasi-armour, with spurs on her mailed boots; her head alone was uncovered, save for the glory of her abundant hair. She wore a sash of white silk, the gift of Duchess Marguerite; her horse, too, had white silken favours. The cavalcade started from the castle, René and Jeanne riding side by side in front. Through byways they went,—an ever-increasing host of armed men and camp-followers,—avoiding notice as best they could, marching by night, resting by day, to avoid the scattered bands of English foemen.
The pilgrimage,—for such it really was,—partook not only of a religious and a warlike character,—for Jeanne insisted on attending Mass en route, and prevailed upon her escort to say their daily prayers,—but it exhibited elements of gaiety; with Duke René rode a company of minstrels, with Jehan Durant of Bar as their leader. To him René paid 30 gold florins a month—“to make warlike melody for keeping up my men’s brave hearts,” he said. At Troyes, Jeanne and her escort were received rapturously; the Bishop placed in her hand a white silken oriflamme, a banner made by ladies of the city, and censed and blessed her, and so they won their way to Tours.
Before entering that ancient loyal city,—under the special charge of the holy warrior St. Martin,—Jeanne requested René to send to the neighbouring village of Fierbois, and “ask the curé of the Church of St. Catherine for a sword which hangs,” she said, “over the high-altar.” It was a famous weapon, although the doughty knight whose it had been was unremembered. The blade was of finely tempered steel, and richly damascened with golden crosses and silver lilies—the emblems of Jeanne’s spiritual sponsors. The sword itself, in size and shape, was like St. Michael’s own. She told René that the “Voices” had revealed this relic to her, and had bidden her hang it on her hip. At Tours, also, René had news of the whereabouts of the King, who, sad to say, was a fugitive in and out of his own dominions and those of his neighbours. Charles VII. was at Chinon, safe in its majestic castle—much like that of Windsor in extent, position, and distinction.
It came certainly as a grievous shock to all that enthusiastic expedition to find the King,—“poor as a church mouse and defenceless as a rabbit,”—engaged in frivolities and excesses. The Court at Chinon was the maddest and the merriest in France. Duke René, true to his promise, at once sought out the King, and arranged an interview with the Maid of Domremy, although His Majesty at first refused “to be troubled with a country wench.” The meeting was held in the Grand Logis of the enceinte of the Château du Milieu. Chinon, indeed, had three castles connected with one another: The Château de St. Georges was a sort of advanced fortress, built by Henri Plantagenet (Henry II. of England) in the twelfth century, but greatly dilapidated 300 years later; the Château du Milieu, the most important part of Chinon, contained the royal apartments; and the Château de Couldray, the most ancient, dating from the time of the heroic Thibaut le Tricheur, early in the tenth century. Henry II. died in the Grand Logis, where King Charles VII. had his temporary residence. In the Salle du Trône, with its vast chimney-piece of sculptured stone and its famous painted windows, the King summoned his courtiers, and, disguised as an ordinary noble of the Court, he mingled with them, giving out as his reason that he should “test the wench’s power of divination. If she picks me out at once, then I will hear what she has to say; if not, I won’t have anything to do with her.”
Jeanne was brought into the splendid apartment, filled with the pageantry of France, and dazzling enough to have disturbed any ordinary girl’s equanimity. She made, taught by René, an obeisance to the empty throne, and then he told her she must find the King among the company. Without a moment’s hesitation she went straight up to the Sovereign incognito, bowed low, and said softly: “Sire, you are Charles the Dauphin.” Very much astonished by Jeanne’s appearance and demeanour, and still more by her certainty as to his identity, Charles acknowledged himself, and, leading the unabashed damsel with René aside into the embrasure of a window, he asked her to give him her message. This Jeanne did with candour and emphasis, and furthermore astounded “the Dauphin,” as she persisted in calling him,—he had not been crowned King, of course,—by “revealing,” as he told René afterwards, “certain secrets known only to myself and God.” What these “secrets” were has puzzled curious inquirers. Probably they concerned happenings during the King’s youth, and affected the question of his legitimacy. He, too, was at one time proposed as the husband of the “Pride of Lorraine,” the heiress Isabelle. Anyhow, as known to Jeanne d’Arc, they were the usual exaggerations of Court and country gossip. Kings, knights, and ladies, and their doings, ever cause peasants topics for discussion.
“Gentle Dauphin,” the Maid said, “I am sent to you to tell you that you shall be crowned at Reims.” The Court was divided; part held with la Trémouille, the Chancellor, against Jeanne’s pretensions, some of the baser sort attempted to make sport of her rusticity, but the majority sided with Duke René, who was now more than ever impressed with the bearing of his “Queen.”