Jeanne Rides to Chinon.
When Jeanne was with the army, twice every day she gathered the priests who were there round her banner, and they prayed and sang hymns; men learnt to behave better for her presence. As she neared Orleans, Dunois one of the chief men in the French army, came out to meet her, and said that he was right glad of her coming. With him she made her way into Orleans past the English army. She entered the city by night lest the crowd should be too great; but many bearing torches came to meet her, and men, women, and children pressed lovingly around her. Her business now was to attack the forts which the English had built outside the town. But before she would allow this to be done, she insisted that the English should thrice be summoned to depart in peace. In her clear young voice (she was only seventeen) she cried to them across the river, and they shouted back insulting words saying they would burn her if they caught her. But just as Jeanne’s coming had filled the French soldiers with new hope and courage, so it had terrified the English. They did not dare attack that slim figure in shining armour. At last the French from the other side began to attack the English forts. Jeanne, worn out, was resting on her bed, she did not know that the fighting had begun. But suddenly she woke with a cry saying that she must go against the English. Quickly her armour was buckled on, she sprang on her horse and was off. On the next five days there was fighting with the English, except on Ascension day, when Jeanne would not allow any one to go out. On the last day, the chief of the English forts was attacked and Jeanne led the attack. At noon as she mounted the first scaling ladder set against the wall, an arrow struck her shoulder, piercing her armour. She shrank and wept, but she barely paused to have her wound stanched, and went back to the front. When the sun was sinking and men doubted whether the fort could be taken, her voice was heard crying, “Doubt not, the place is ours.” Her faithful followers rallied round her, and one seized her standard and dashed forwards. “Watch,” Jeanne said, “till the tail of my standard touches the wall.” When it did she said, “Then enter: all is yours.” The last terrible assault carried all before it, and the fort was won. When Jeanne saw close at hand the terrors of war, she knelt weeping and praying for the souls of her enemies. Her first act was to go to the church and give thanks, after that she had her wound dressed.
A few days after this glorious victory, Jeanne went with Dunois to visit the Dauphin. Her good sense, which was one of the causes of her wonderful success, made her wish to press on to Rheims; besides her voices had told her that she would only have one year in which to do her work, and she was eager to get on. But the Dauphin hesitated and listened to other advice. “Noble Dauphin,” Jeanne pleaded, “hold not such long and wordy councils, but come at once to Rheims and be worthily crowned.” She could not persuade him to make haste, and the next month she spent in taking other places from the English. A young noble saw her at that time and wrote to his mother: “To see her and hear her speak, she seems a thing wholly divine.”
At last her persistence was rewarded, and the Dauphin agreed to march to Rheims. The towns on their way yielded to him, or rather to Jeanne; it was she who ever filled her friends with courage and her foes with fear. Rheims opened its gates to them, and preparations were at once made for the coronation. When Charles was crowned in the great cathedral, the Maid stood next him with her standard in her hand, and when all was over she knelt, embracing his knees and weeping for joy, saying, “Gentle King, now is accomplished the will of God, who decreed that I should raise the siege of Orleans and bring you to this city of Rheims to receive your solemn sacring, thereby showing that you are the true king, and that France should be yours.” In less than three months she had accomplished what she had set out from her village to do.
Jeanne is Wounded by the Arrow.
Jeanne had hoped that the day after the coronation, the king would set out for Paris, which was in the hands of his enemies. But again there were delays; Charles consented to make a truce of fifteen days with his enemies. Jeanne’s good sense showed her what a mistake this was. Weary of the struggle, she longed that it might be God’s pleasure for her to lay down her arms and return to keep her father and mother’s sheep. But she would not leave her task. It was nearly six weeks before she was allowed to go against Paris, and she was so badly supported, that in spite of her great courage the attack failed. Once she stood all day in the ditch under the wall in the heat of the fire calling on the enemy to yield, till she was shot in the leg. Then when her men carried her under cover, though she could not move for her wound, she kept on crying out to them to charge, and telling them that the place was theirs if they would. But it was of no avail. Three days after the king decided to retreat and go back to the Loire. During most of the following winter there was little fighting, but in the spring once more Jeanne began to advance on Paris. It was then, one day in Easter week, that her voices told her that she would be captured before Midsummer day, adding that she must take all things well for God would help her. So they warned her every day, but never told her the hour of her captivity. Yet with this terrible fate before her, she rode on; she knew no turning back. A few weeks afterwards she was at Compiegne and led her men out against the enemy. They were surprised by an unexpected attack as they rode. Thrice Jeanne charged, and drove back the enemy, but more and more soldiers came up; most of Jeanne’s men fled, only a few faithful ones stayed with her. The enemy surrounded them and Jeanne was forced from her horse, and carried off. Great was the joy of the English and their French friend, the Duke of Burgundy, when they heard that Jeanne was a prisoner. She was in the hands of a French noble of the English party, and was treated as a prisoner of war, but her enemies planned to sell her to the English, who had always said they would burn her if they could get her. Meanwhile she was kept in the castle of Beaurevoir, and kindly treated by the ladies of the castle. They wished her to lay aside her man’s dress, but she refused, saying that she had not yet had leave from God. She did not feel that her mission was ended. She was much distressed by the stories that she heard of the sufferings of the people of Compiegne, the town which she was trying to relieve when she was taken prisoner. She longed to go and help them. She knew, too, that she was to be sold to the English and she dreaded falling into their hands. So one night she tried to escape by leaping from the tower, a height of sixty feet. She was found lying insensible in the ditch, but with no bones broken. She said afterwards that her voices had bidden her not to leap and had told her that Compiegne would be saved. Now the voices comforted her, bidding her beg God’s pardon for having leaped.
The Coronation of Charles VII.