The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

by Eugène Sue

Canon Loyseleur (reading)—"'Yielding to the wishes of the Maid, the Duke of Alençon returned to the King, who promised him that on August 27 he would proceed to Chapelle-St. Denis and march from there to Paris. But he did not keep his promise. The Duke of Alençon returned to him on Monday, September 5. Thanks to the pressure that he exercised, after long hesitating and against the advice of his council, the King came to Chapelle-St. Denis on September 7 to the great joy of the Maid. Everybody in the army said: "The Maid will restore Paris to the King, if he but consents to show himself before the gates." On Thursday, the 8th of September, the Duke of Alençon together with a few captains whom the Maid carried away with her persuasion, started from Chapelle-St. Denis towards eight in the morning with flying colors but leaving behind the King, who did not wish to accompany them. The Maid advanced toward the St. Honoré Gate, which was defended by a body of English soldiers, because, said she, she had a horror of seeing Frenchmen fighting Frenchmen. She took her standard in her hand and boldly leaped at the head of all into the moat, near the swine market. The assault was long and bloody; the English defended themselves bravely; the Maid was wounded by an arrow that ran through her thigh; she fell, but in falling cried out that the attack had to be kept up with all the greater vigor. But despite her feeble efforts, the Sire of Gaucourt and others carried her to a place of safety seeing that she was losing much blood. She was placed on a cart and taken back to Chapelle-St Denis—'"

Bishop Cauchon (writing)—"Let us underscore once more the bloodthirsty nature of the she-devil, who against the advice of all insists upon fighting. We must emphasize her thirst for carnage. She recommends the extermination of the English."

Canon Loyseleur (reading)—"'On Monday, September 12, and still hardly able to keep herself in the saddle, the Maid wished to ride out towards St. Denis in order to assure herself that a bridge over the Seine, the construction of which she had ordered in order to facilitate the passage of the troops, had been properly built. The bridge had been built, but was afterwards cut by orders of the King, who had decided to make no further attempts against Paris. On Tuesday, the 13th of September, 1429, and with the advice of his council, the King left St. Denis after dinner, intending to retreat towards the Loire. In despair at the King's departure the Maid wept bitterly, and carried away by the first impulse of her grief she decided to renounce his service. She took off her armor and deposited it ex voto before the statue of Our Lady in the basilica of St. Denis—'"

Bishop Cauchon (rubs his hands and writes)—"Excellent! Very excellent! Idolatry! Sacrilege! In her infernal pride, she offers her armor to the adoration of the simple-minded!"

Canon Loyseleur (reading)—"'In her despair, the Maid wished to return to her own country of Lorraine, to her family, and forever renounce war. But the King ordered her to follow him to Gien, where, said he, he would need her services. They arrived in that town on September 29. The Maid offered the Duke of Alençon to aid him in reconquering his duchy of Normandy. The Duke communicated the project to the King. He refused his consent. He wished to keep the Maid near him in Touraine to defend the province in case the English should return to attack it. The Maid took several fortified towns in the neighborhood of Charité-on-the-Loire and then laid siege to that place. But as the royal council sent neither provisions nor money to the Maid for the soldiers, she was, much to her sorrow, forced to give up the attack, and on March 7, 1430, she went to the Castle of Sully, the property of the Sire of La Tremouille, where the King was sojourning. The Maid expressed in the presence of the prince her unqualified indignation against the royal councilors and the captains, and bitterly reproached them with traitorously putting obstacles in the way of the complete recovery of the realm. Fully aware of the uselessness of her further services to the King, but still hoping to serve France, she left Charles VII forever, and without taking leave of him she departed under the pretext of exercising outside of the castle a company of determined men attached to her fortunes. She went with them to Crespy in Valois. There she was soon called for by the Sire of Flavy who wished her aid in Compiegne, a town that the Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Arundel had jointly besieged. The Maid was not a little perplexed what to do in the matter. She was not ignorant of the proverbial perfidy and ferocity of the Sire of Flavy. But the inhabitants of the place that he commanded had, at the time of her first visit to the town, received Joan with so much affection, that, overcoming her apprehensions, she decided to go to the aid of the good people. On the 23rd of May, 1430, Joan departed from Crespy at the head of her company, two or three hundred men strong. Thanks to the darkness and to the skilful precautions in which she wrapped her nocturnal march, her troops passed unperceived between the Burgundian and English camps and entered Compiegne with her before daylight. She immediately went to mass in the parish church of St. James. It was barely day, but a large number of the inhabitants had learned of the arrival of their emancipatrix and went to church to see her. After mass, Joan retired near one of the pillars of the nave, and addressing herself to several of the people who were gathered there together with their children, all anxious to see her, she said to them in sad accents: "My friends, I have been sold and betrayed, I shall soon be taken and put to death—my voices have for some time been warning me of the contemplated treason"—'"

Bishop Cauchon—"What a lucky thing it was for us that Joan did not hearken to these presentiments! The she-devil so often escaped the snares vainly laid for her by the captains, whose vindictive jealousy so well served our purposes and the purposes of the Sires of La Tremouille and of Gaucourt and of my companion in God, the Bishop of Chartres!"

Canon Loyseleur—"Indeed, the emissary whom Monseigneur the Bishop of Chartres sent here secretly and whom I visited in your name, informed me that it was in concert with the Sire of La Tremouille that the Sire of Flavy invited the Maid to Compiegne, meaning to deliver her to the English."

Bishop Cauchon (laughing)—"I shall give Flavy, whenever he wishes it, full absolution for all his crimes in return for the capture of Joan. Proceed, canon. I shall presently tell you more fully what my projects are."

Canon Loyseleur (reading)—"'When it was full daylight the Maid made preparations for a vigorous sally. The town of Compiegne is situated on the left bank of the Oise. On the right bank is a wide meadow about a quarter of a league in length and bounded by crags on the side of Picardy. This low meadow, which often is under water, is crossed by a road that starts at Compiegne and ends at the foot of the hill that bounds the horizon on that side of the town. Three villages border on the meadow: Margny, at the extreme end of the road; Clairoy about three-fourths of a league up the river at the confluence of the Aronde and the Oise; and Venette about half a league below on the road to Pont St. Maxence. The Burgundians had a camp at Margny and one at Clairoy. The English occupied Venette. The defences of Compiegne consisted of a redoubt raised at the head of the bridge and the boulevards. The redoubt was zigzagged and strongly palisaded. The Maid's plan of attack was first to carry the village of Margny, then that of Clairoy, and, mistress of the two positions, to await in the valley of the Aronde the troops of the Duke of Burgundy, who, so soon as he heard the noise of the action, would not fail to hasten to the help of the English. Foreseeing the movement and wishing to keep her retreat free, the Maid demanded of the Sire of Flavy to charge himself with keeping the Duke of Burgundy in check, should he turn into the valley before the capture of Margny and Clairoy, and also to keep a reserve of troops on the front and the flanks of the redoubt, ready to cover her retreat. Furthermore, covered barges, placed on the Oise, were to stand ready to receive the footmen in case of a reverse. Having given these orders, the Maid, despite her sinister forebodings, hastened to mount her horse, and, at the head of her company, marched straight upon the village of Margny, which, although vigorously defended, she swiftly carried. The English encamped at Clairoy rushed to the defence of their allies and were thrown back; but they thrice returned to the attack with maddening fury. This battle was fought in the low meadow and was dragging along. The Duke of Burgundy was not long in entering the valley of the Aronde with his men and he reached the jetty. It was in order to guard against such a move that Joan had charged Flavy to keep the Burgundians in check. Her order was not executed. The Burgundians entered the valley by the road. At the sight of these hostile reinforcements, some cowards or traitors cried: "Run for your lives! Run to the barges!" The Maid's auxiliary troops, commanded by Flavy's lieutenants, broke ranks and rushed to the barges that lay at the river's bank, leaving Joan and her small band to sustain alone the shock of the combined English and Burgundian forces. She sustained it bravely, and assailed by fresh presentiments at the sight of the rout of her auxiliaries, whose captains had failed to execute her orders, she decided to die rather than fall alive into the hands of the English. She drew her sword and rushed temerariously upon an enemy a hundred times more numerous than the handful of heroes who stood by her. After prodigies of valor, and seeing the battle lost, the latter wished to save the Maid's life at the cost of their own. Two of them seized her horse by the bit, and despite her prayers, despite even her resistance, sought to force her back to the city while their companions were to allow themselves to be cut down to the last man in order to cover her retreat. Already were they near a drawbridge, thrown over a moat that separated the redoubt from the road, when the bridge was raised by orders of the Sire of Flavy. Thus vilely betrayed and delivered to the enemy, the Maid and her soldiers fell upon the surging foe with the fury of despair. Struck by several simultaneous blows, Joan was thrown from her horse and was immediately surrounded by a mass of English and Burgundians who disputed with each other the possession of the glorious capture. Joan remained in the power of an archer, who was a banneret of the Bastard of Vendome, an equerry, a native of the county of Artois and lieutenant of Sire John of Luxembourg of the Burgundian party. Pinioned on the field of battle, the Maid was tied fast to a horse and taken to the Castle of Beaurevoir, belonging to the Sire of Luxembourg, the sovereign of the Bastard of Vendome, whose archer had made the capture. After remaining some time a prisoner in the castle, Joan learned that the Sire of Luxembourg had sold her as a prisoner of war to the English Regent for the sum of ten thousand gold sous. Despair seized her at the thought of being delivered to the English, and whether she hoped to escape, or whether she meant to put an end to her life, she threw herself out of one of the towers of the Castle of Beaurevoir. But the fall did not prove fatal. Picked up unconscious and severely hurt, Joan was thrown into a dungeon and soon thereupon was surrendered to the English captain who was commissioned to deliver to the Sire of Luxembourg the ten thousand gold sous—the price agreed upon for the blood of the Maid. She was taken under a strong escort to the Castle of Dugy near St. Riquier. Thus was Joan the Maid betrayed and sold, to the deep sorrow of the loyal French.'" (The canon lays down on the table the chronicle that he has just read to the end.)

Bishop Cauchon (with ferocious joy)—"And I shall add what that royalist chronicler could not know, to wit, that taken from the Castle of Dugy to that of Crotoy, the Maid was there embarked upon the Somme, on which she sailed as far as St. Valery. She was thence conveyed to the Castle of Eu, thence to Dieppe, and from Dieppe hither to Rouen, where she is to arrive this very night or to-morrow morning. So, then, the she-devil is in our hands! And, now, canon, I must make a very serious revelation to you. It is in your power to render a signal service to our friends from across the water, to the Cardinal of Winchester, to the Duke of Bedford the Regent, and to the whole English government. The remuneration will exceed your hopes, I swear that to you! As true as the archbishopric of Rouen has been promised to me by the Regent of England if Joan is duly brought to the pyre and burned, you will be royally rewarded."