Philip ‘the Good’, son of John ‘the Fearless’, disliked the Dauphin as his father’s murderer, but he had little love for his English allies. By marriage and skilful diplomacy he had absorbed a great part of modern Holland into his already vast inheritance and could assume the state and importance of an independent sovereign. With England he felt that he could treat as an equal, and now regarded with dismay the idea that she might permanently control both sides of the Channel. So long as John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V, acted as regent for his young nephew with statesmanlike moderation, an outward semblance of friendship was maintained; but Bedford could with difficulty keep in order his quarrelsome, irresponsible younger brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who ruled in England, and with still greater difficulty quell the sullen discontent of the people of Paris who, suffering from starvation as the result of a prolonged war, professed to regard a foreign king as the source of all their troubles.
Only the prestige of English arms retained the loyalty of northern France. ‘Two hundred English would drive five hundred French before them,’ says a chronicler of the day; but salvation was to come to France from an unexpected quarter, and enable the same writer to add proudly, ‘Now two hundred French would chase and beat four hundred English.’
Jeanne d’Arc
In the village of Domremy on the Upper Meuse there lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century a peasant maid, Jeanne d’Arc, who was, according to the description of a fellow villager, ‘modest, simple, devout, went gladly to Church and sacred places, worked, sewed, hoed in the fields, and did what was needful about the house.’ Up till the age of thirteen Jeanne had been like other light-hearted girls, but it was then that a change came into her life: voices seemed to draw her away from her companions and to speak to her from behind a brilliant cloud, and later she had visions of St. Catherine and of St. Michael, whose painted effigies she knew in church.
‘I saw them with my bodily eyes as clearly as I see you,’ she said when questioned as to these appearances, and admitted that at first she was afraid but that afterwards they brought her comfort. Always they came with the same message, in her own words, ‘that she must change her course of life and do marvellous deeds, for the King of Heaven had chosen her to aid the King of France.’
Jeanne d’Arc was no hysterical visionary: she had always a fund of common sense, and knew how ridiculous the idea that she, an uneducated peasant girl, was called to save France would seem to the world. For some time she tried to forget the message her Voices told her; but at last it was borne in upon her that God had given her a mission, and from this time neither her indignant father nor timid friends could turn her from her purpose.
FRANCE in 1429
Of all the difficulties and checks that she encountered before at last, at the age of seventeen, she was allowed to have audience with Charles VII, there is no space to tell here. News of her persistence had spread abroad, and the torch-lit hall of the castle into which Jeanne was shown was packed with gaily-clad courtiers, and standing amongst them the King, in no way distinguished from the others by his dress or any outward pomp. Every one believed that the peasant-maid would be dazzled; but she, who had seen no portrait of the King and lived all her life in the quiet little village of Domremy, showed no confusion at the hundreds of eyes fixed on her. Recognizing at once the man with whom her mission was concerned she went straight to him and said, ‘My noble lord, I come from God to help you and your realm.’
There must have been something arresting in Jeanne’s simplicity and frankness contrasted with that corrupt atmosphere. Even the feeble king was moved; and, when she had been questioned and approved by his bishops, he allowed her to ride forth, as she wished, with the armies of France to save for him the important town of Orleans that was closely besieged by the English. She went in armour with a sword in hand and a banner, and those who rode with her felt her absolute belief in victory, and into their hearts stole the magic influence of her own gay courage and hope.