CHAPTER VI.
Like all oppressive systems, feudalism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. When the King, shorn of prerogative and of dignity, made alliance with the people lying in helpless misery beneath the mailed surface, the system was rudely shaken. When artisans flocked to the free cities enjoying especial immunities and privileges from the King, and by skill and industry amassed fortunes, the commune and the bourgeoisie were created, and feudalism was stricken to its centre. When spendthrift nobles and needy barons mortgaged their estates, the end was not far off. And when in 1302 the "tiers état" entered the States-General as a legitimate order of the Government, the very foundations were crumbling, and it needed but the final coup de grâce given by Charles VII. in the fifteenth century, when he established a standing army under the control of the King. When this was done, the feudal system was relegated to the region of the obsolete.
It was well for that sovereign that he could do something to save his name from the obloquy attached to it on account of his base desertion of Joan of Arc, to whom he owed his throne and his kingdom.
From the moment when a French province was attached to the crown of England, the dream of that nation was the conquest of France. Generations came and went, one dynasty replaced another, and still the struggle continued; France sometimes seeming near to dominion over England, and England always believing it was her destiny to bring France under the rule of an English sovereign.
A glamour of romance is thrown over history by the royal marriages which occur in dazzling profusion. It seems to have been the custom, whenever a peace was concluded in Europe, to cement it with a royal marriage, and to throw in a princess as a sacrifice,—one of the conditions of almost every treaty being that a royal daughter, or sister, or niece, should be tossed across the Channel, or into Germany, or Italy, or Spain, an unwilling bride thrown into the arms of a reluctant bridegroom; with the result that in the succeeding generation there was a plentiful sprinkling of heirs with claims, more or less shadowy, to the neighboring thrones. This was the source, or rather pretext, for most of the wars between France and England for four hundred years.
In the early part of the fifteenth century the great crisis arrived. With that lack of unity which seemed a fatal Gallic inheritance, France broke into civil war, while an invading English army was in the heart of her kingdom. England's dream was near realization.
An insane King, a vicious intriguing Queen-Regent, the Duke of Burgundy madly jealous of the Duke of Orleans, and both ready to sacrifice France in the rage of disappointed ambition,—such were the elements. England's opportunity had come.
The depraved Queen Isabella, acting for her insane husband, held conference with Henry V., and actually concluded a treaty bestowing the regency upon the English King. There was the usual douceur of a princess thrown in, and Katharine, the daughter of Isabella, and sister to the Dauphin (the future King Charles VII.), was espoused by King Henry V. of England, who set up a royal court at Vincennes.
The fortunes of the kingdom had never been so desperate. The people saw in these insolent traitorous dukes their natural enemy; in the King, their friend and protector. Had not monarchy given them life and hope? It was to them sacred next to Heaven. They rose in an outburst of patriotism. The young Dauphin was hastily and informally crowned, and thousands flocked to his standard. It was the King and the people against the great vassals, the last struggle of an expiring feudalism. Desperation lent fury to the conflict which was, upon both sides, a fight for existence; the Queen-mother in unnatural alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, who was resolved to rule or ruin.
He soon saw that defeat was inevitable, and, preferring infamy, threw himself into the hands of the English, offering to turn the kingdom over to the infant King Henry VI. (Henry V. having died).
Charles abandoned hope; how could he struggle against such a combination? He was considering whether he should find refuge in Spain or in Scotland, when the tide of events was turned by the strangest romance in history.
It must ever remain a mystery that a peasant girl, a child in years and in experience, should have believed herself called to such a mission; conferring only with her heavenly guides or "voices," that she should have sought the King, inspired him with faith in her, and in himself and his cause, reanimated the courage of the army, and led it herself to victory absolute and complete; and then, compelling the half-reluctant, half-doubting Charles to go with her to Rheims, where she had him anointed and consecrated, this simple child in that day bestowed upon him a kingdom, and upon France a King!
Was there ever a stranger chapter in history! Alas, if it could have ended here, and she could have gone back to her mother and her spinning and her simple pleasures, as she was always longing to do when her work should be done. But no! we see her falling into the hands of the defeated and revengeful English—this child, who had wrested from them a kingdom already in their grasp. She was turned over to the French ecclesiastical court to be tried. A sorceress and a blasphemer they pronounce her, and pass her on to the secular authorities, and her sentence is—death.
We see the poor defenceless girl, bewildered, terrified, wringing her hands and declaring her innocence as she rides to execution. God and man had abandoned her. No heavenly voice spoke, no miracle intervened as her young limbs were tied to the stake and the fagots and straw piled up about her. The torch was applied, and her pure soul mounted heavenward in a column of flames.
Rugged men wept. A Burgundian general said, as he turned gloomily away, "We have murdered a saint."
And Charles, sitting upon the throne she had rescued for him, what was he doing to save her? Nothing—to his everlasting shame be it said, nothing. He might not have succeeded; the effort at rescue, or to stay the event, might have been unavailing. But where was his knighthood, where his manhood, that he did not try, or utter passionate protest against her fate?
Twenty-five years later we see him erecting statues to her memory, and "rehabilitating" her desecrated name. And to-day, the Church which condemned her for blasphemy is placing her upon the calendar of saints, while all political parties alike are using her name as a thing to conjure with.