He asked her whether it was God who had sent her to succour the King.
Jeanne replied that it was.
"If it be so," replied Brother Yves Milbeau, "my Lord the Duke of Brittany, our liege lord, is disposed to proffer his service to the King. He cannot come in person for he is sorely infirm. But he is to send his son with a large army."
The good Brother was speaking lightly and making a promise for his duke which would never be kept. The only truth in it was that many Breton nobles were coming in to take service with King Charles.
On hearing these words, the little Saint made a curious mistake. She thought that Brother Yves had meant that the Duke of Brittany was her liege lord as well as his, which would have been altogether senseless. Her loyalty revolted: "The Duke of Brittany is not my liege lord," she replied sharply. "The King is my liege lord."
As far as we can tell, the Duke of Brittany's caution had produced no favourable impression in France. He was censured for having set the King's war ban at nought and made a treaty with the English. Jeanne was of that opinion and to Brother Yves she said so plainly: "The Duke should not have tarried so long in sending his men to aid the King."[1308]
A few days later, the Sire de Rostrenen, who had accompanied the Constable to Beaugency and to Patay, came from Duke John to treat of the prospective marriage between his eldest son, François, and Bonne de Savoie, daughter of Duke Amédée. With him was Comment-Qu'il-Soit, herald of Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes. The herald was commissioned to present the Maid with a dagger and horses.[1309]
At Rome, in 1428, there was a French clerk, a compiler of one of those histories of the world so common in those days and so much alike. His cosmography, like all of them, began with the creation and came down to the pontificate of Martin V who was then Pope. "Under this pontificate," wrote the author, "the realm of France, the flower and the lily of the world, opulent among the most opulent, before whom the whole universe bowed, was cast down by its invader, the tyrant Henry, who was not even the lawful lord of the realm of England." Then this churchman vows the Burgundians to eternal infamy and hurls upon them the most terrible maledictions. "May their eyes be torn out: may they perish by an evil death!" Such language indicates a good Armagnac and possibly a clerk despoiled of his goods and driven into exile by the enemies of his country. When he learns the coming of the Maid and the deliverance of Orléans, transported with joy and wonder, he re-opens his history and consigns to its pages arguments in favour of the marvellous Maid, whose deeds appear to him more divine than human, but concerning whom he knows but little. He compares her to Deborah, Judith, Esther, and Penthesilea. "In the books of the Gentiles it is written," he says, "that Penthesilea, and a thousand virgins with her, came to the succour of King Priam and fought so valiantly that they tore the Myrmidons in pieces and slew more than two thousand Greeks." According to him, both in courage and feats of prowess, the Maid far surpasses Penthesilea. Her deeds promptly refute those who maintain that she is sent by the Devil.[1310]
In a moment the fame of the French King's prophetess had been spread abroad throughout Christendom. While in temporal affairs the people were rending each other, in spiritual matters obedience to one common head made Europe one spiritual republic with one language and one doctrine, governed by councils. The spirit of the Church was all-pervading. In Italy, in Germany, the talk was all of the Sibyl of France and her prowess which was so intimately associated with the Christian faith. In those days it was sometimes the custom of those who painted on the walls of monasteries to depict the Liberal Arts as three noble dames. Between her two sisters, Logic would be painted, seated on a lofty throne, wearing an antique turban, clothed in a sparkling robe, and bearing in one hand a scorpion, in the other a lizard, as a sign that her knowledge winds its way into the heart of the adversary's argument, and saves her from being herself entrapped. At her feet, looking up to her, would be Aristotle, disputing and reckoning up his arguments on his fingers.[1311] This austere lady formed all her disciples in the same mould. In those days nothing was more despicable than singularity. Originality of mind did not then exist. The clerks who treated of the Maid all followed the same method, advanced the same arguments, and based them on the same texts, sacred and profane. Conformity could go no further. Their minds were identical, but not their hearts; it is the mind that argues, but the heart that decides. These scholastics, dryer than their parchment, were men, notwithstanding; they were swayed by sentiment, by passion, by interests spiritual or temporal. While the Armagnac doctors were demonstrating that in the Maid's case reasons for belief were stronger than reasons for disbelief, the German or Italian masters, caring nought for the quarrel of the Dauphin of Viennois,[1312] remained in doubt, unmoved by either love or hatred.
There was a doctor of theology, one Heinrich von Gorcum, a professor at Cologne. As early as the month of June, 1429, he drew up a memorial concerning the Maid. In Germany, minds were divided as to whether the nature of the damsel were human or whether she were not rather a celestial being clothed in woman's form; as to whether her deeds proceeded from a human origin or had a supernatural source; and, if the latter, whether that source were good or bad. Meister Heinrich von Gorcum wrote his treatise to present arguments from Holy Scripture on both sides, and he abstained from drawing any conclusion.[1313]