Joan of Arc, the Warrior Maid

by Lucy Foster Madison

Jeanne had scarcely reached Lagny when news came that a band of Anglo-Burgundians was traversing the Isle of France, under one Franquet d’Arras, burning and pillaging the country, damaging it as much as they could. The Maid, with Foucault, Kennedy and Baretta, determined to go against the freebooters.

They came up with the raiders when they were laying siege to a castle, and were laden with the spoils of a recently sacked village. The assault was made, and “hard work the French had of it,” for the enemy was superior in numbers. But after a “bloody fight” they were all taken or slain, with losses also to the French in killed and wounded.

For some reason the leader, Franquet d’Arras, was given to Jeanne. There had been an Armagnac plot in Paris in March to deliver the city to the loyalists, but it had failed. The Maid hoped to exchange the leader of the freebooters for one of the chief conspirators who had been imprisoned, but it was found that the man had died in prison, so the burghers demanded Franquet of Jeanne, claiming that he should be tried as a murderer 324 and thief by the civil law. Jeanne did as requested, saying as she released him to the Bailly of Senlis:

“As my man is dead, do with the other what you should do for justice.”

Franquet’s trial lasted two weeks; he confessed to the charges against him, and was executed. The Burgundians although accustomed to robbery, murder and treachery, charged Jeanne with being guilty of his death, and later this was made a great point against her.

There was another happening at Lagny that was later made the basis of a charge against the Maid. A babe about three days old died, and so short a time had it lived that it had not received the rites of baptism, and must needs therefore be buried in unconsecrated ground. In accordance with the custom in such cases the child was placed upon the altar in the hope of a miracle, and the parents came to Jeanne requesting her to join with the maidens of the town who were assembled in the church praying God to restore life that the little one might be baptized.

Jeanne neither worked, nor professed to work miracles. She did not pretend to heal people by touching them with her ring, nor did the people attribute miracles to her. But she joined the praying girls in the church, and entreated Heaven to restore the infant to life, if only for so brief a space of time as might allow it to be received into the Church. Now as they knelt and prayed the little one seemed suddenly to move. It gasped three times and its color began to come back.

Crying, “A miracle! A miracle!” the maidens ran for the priest, and brought him. When he came to the side of the child 325 he saw that it was indeed alive, and straightway baptized it and received it into the Church. And as soon as this had been done the little life that had flared up so suddenly went out, and the infant was buried in holy ground. If receiving an answer to earnest prayer be witchcraft were not the maidens of Lagny equally guilty with Jeanne? But this act was later included in the list of charges brought against her.

From Lagny Jeanne went to various other places in danger, or that needed encouragement or help. She made two hurried visits to Compiègne which was being menaced in more than one direction by both parties of the enemy, and was now at Soissons, now at Senlis, and presently in the latter part of May came to Crépy-en-Valois.

And here came the news that Compiègne was being invested on all sides, and that preparations to press the siege were being actively made. Eager to go at once to the aid of the place Jeanne ordered her men to get ready for the march. She had but few in her company, not more than two or three hundred, and some of them told her that they were too few to pass through the hosts of the enemy. A warning of this sort never had any effect upon Jeanne.