Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And Death

by Mrs. Oliphant

"Now let us go and see the English of Meung," cried Jeanne, unwearying, as soon as this victory was assured. That place fell easily; it is called the bridge of Meung, in the Chronicle, without further description, therefore presumably the fortress was not attacked—and they proceeded onward to Beaugency. These towns still shine over the plain, along the line of the Loire, visible as far as the eye will carry over the long levels, the great stream linking one to another like pearls on a thread. There is nothing in the landscape now to give even a moment's shelter to the progress of a marching army which must have been seen from afar, wherever it moved; or to veil the shining battlements, and piled up citadels rising here and there, concentrated points and centres of life. The great white Castle of Blois, the darker tower of Beaugency, still stand where they stood when Jeanne and her men drew near, as conspicuous in their elevation of walls and towers as if they had been planted on a mountain top. On more than one occasion during this wonderful progress from victory to victory, the triumphant leaders returned for a day or two to Orleans to tell their good tidings, and to celebrate their success.

And there is but one voice as to the military skill which she displayed in these repeated operations. The reader sees her, with her banner, posted in the middle of the fight, guiding her men with a sort of infallible instinct which adds force to her absolute quick perception of every difficulty and advantage, the unhesitating promptitude, attending like so many servants upon the inspiration which is the soul of all. These are things to which a writer ignorant of war is quite unable to do justice. What was almost more wonderful still was the manner in which the Maid held her place among the captains, most of whom would have thwarted her if they could, with a consciousness of her own superior place, in which there is never the slightest token of presumption or self-esteem. She guarded and guided Alençon with a good-natured and affectionate disdain; and when there was risk of a great quarrel and a splitting of forces she held the balance like an old and experienced guide of men.

This latter crisis occurred before Beaugency on the 15th of June, when the Comte de Richemont, Constable of France, the brother of the Duc de Bretagne, a great nobleman and famous leader, but in disgrace with the King and exiled from the Court, suddenly appeared with a considerable army to join himself to the royalist forces, probably with the hope of securing the leading place. Richemont was no friend to Jeanne; though he apparently asked her help and influence to reconcile him with the King. He seems indeed to have thought it a disgrace to France that her troops should be led, and victories gained by no properly appointed general, but by a woman, probably a witch, a creature unworthy to stand before armed men. It must not be forgotten that even now this was the general opinion of her out of the range of her immediate influence. The English held it like a religion. Bedford, in his description of the siege of Orleans and its total failure, reports to England that the discomfiture of the hitherto always triumphant army was "caused in great part by the fatal faith and vain fear that the French had, of a disciple and servant of the enemy of man, called the Maid, who uses many false enchantments, and witchcraft, by which not only is the number of our soldiers diminished but their courage marvellously beaten down, and the boldness of our enemies increased." Richemont was a sworn enemy of all such. "Never man hated more, all heresies, sorcerers, and sorceresses, than he; for he burned more in France, in Poitou, and Bretagne, than any other of his time." The French generals were divided as to the merits of Richemont and the advantages to be derived from his support. Alençon, the nominal commander, declared that he would leave the army if Richemont were permitted to join it. The letters of the King were equally hostile to him; but on the other hand there were some who held that the accession of the Constable was of more importance than all the Maids in France. It was a moment which demanded very wary guidance. Jeanne, it would seem, did not regard his arrival with much pleasure; probably even the increase of her forces did not please her as it would have pleased most commanders, holding so strongly as she did, to the miraculous character of her own mission and that it was not so much the strength of her troops as the help of God that got her the victory. But it was not her part to reject or alienate any champion of France. We have an account of their meeting given by a retainer of Richemont, which is picturesque enough. "The Maid alighted from her horse, and the Constable also. 'Jeanne,' he said, 'they tell me that you are against me. I know not if you are from God (de la part de Dieu) or not. If you are from God I do not fear you; if you are of the devil, I fear you still less.' 'Brave Constable,' said Jeanne, 'you have not come here by any will of mine; but since you are here you are welcome.'"

Armed neutrality but suspicion on one side, dignified indifference but acceptance on the other, could not be better shown.

These successes, however, had been attended by various escarmouches going on behind. The English, who had been driven out of one town after another, had now drawn together under the command of Talbot, and a party of troops under Fastolfe, who came to relieve them, had turned back as Jeanne proceeded, making various unsuccessful attempts to recover what had been lost. Failing in all their efforts they returned across the country to Genville, and were continuing their retreat to Paris when the two enemies came within reach of each other. An encounter in open field was a new experience of which Jeanne as yet had known nothing. She had been successful in assault, in the operations of the siege, but to meet the enemy hand to hand in battle was what she had never been required to do; and every tradition, every experience, was in favour of the English. From Agincourt to the Battle of the Herrings at Rouvray near Orleans, which had taken place in the beginning of the year (a fight so named because the field of battle had been covered with herrings, the conquerors in this case being merely the convoy in charge of provisions for the English, which Fastolfe commanded), such a thing had not been known as that the French should hold their own, much less attain any victory over the invaders. In these circumstances there was much talk of falling back upon the camp near Beaugency and of retreating or avoiding an engagement; anything rather than hazard one of those encounters which had infallibly ended in disaster. But Jeanne was of the same mind as always, to go forward and fear nothing. "Fall upon them! Go at them boldly," she cried. "If they were in the clouds we should have them. The gentle King will now gain the greatest victory he has ever had."

It is curious to hear that in that great plain of the Beauce, so flat, so fertile, with nothing but vines and cornfields now against the horizon, the two armies at last almost stumbled upon each other by accident, in the midst of the brushwood by which the country was wildly overgrown. The story is that a stag roused by the French scouts rushed into the midst of the English, who were advantageously placed among the brushwood to arrest the enemy on their march; the wild creature terrified and flying before an army blundered into the midst of the others, was fired at and thus betrayed the vicinity of the foe. The English had no time to form or set up their usual defences. They were so taken by surprise that the rush of the French came without warning, with a suddenness which gave it double force. La Hire made the first attack as leader of the van, and there was thus emulation between the two parties, which should be first upon the enemy. When Alençon asked Jeanne what was to be the issue of the fight, she said calmly, "Have you good spurs?" "What! You mean we shall turn our backs on our enemies?" cried her questioner. "Not so," she replied. "The English will not fight, they will fly, and you will want good spurs to pursue them." Even this somewhat fantastic prophecy put heart into the men, who up to this time had been wont to fly and not to fight.

And this was what happened, strange as it may seem. Talbot himself was with the English forces, and many a gallant captain beside: but the men and their leaders were alike broken in spirit and filled with superstitious terrors. Whether these were the forces of hell or those of heaven that came against them no one could be sure; but it was a power beyond that of earth. The dazzled eyes which seemed to see flights of white butterflies fluttering about the standard of the Maid, could scarcely belong to one who thought her a servant of the enemy of men. But she was a pernicious witch to Talbot, and strangely enough to Richemont also, who was on her own side. The English force was thrown into confusion, partly, we may suppose, from the broken ground on which they were discovered, the undergrowth of the wood which hid both armies from each other. But soon that disorder turned into the wildest panic and flight. It would almost seem as if between these two hereditary opponents one must always be forced into this miserable part. Not all the chivalry of France had been able to prevent it at the long string of battles in which they were, before the revelation of the Maid; and not the desperate and furious valour of Talbot could preserve his English force from the infection now. Fastolfe, with the philosophy of an old soldier, deciding that it was vain to risk his men when the field was already lost, rode off with all his band. Talbot fought with desperation, half mad with rage to be thus a second time overcome by so unlikely an adversary, and finally was taken prisoner; while the whole force behind him fled and were killed in their flight, the plain being scattered with their dead bodies.

Jeanne herself made use of those spurs concerning which she had enquired, and carried away by the passion of battle, followed in the pursuit, we are told, until she met a Frenchman brutally ill-using a prisoner whom he had taken, upon which the Maid, indignant, flung herself from her horse, and, seating herself on the ground beside the unfortunate Englishman, took his bleeding head upon her lap and, sending for a priest, made his departure from life at least as easy as pity and spiritual consolation could make it on such a disastrous field. In all the records there is no mention of any actual fighting on her part. She stands in the thick of the flying arrows with her banner, exposing herself to every danger; in moments of alarm, when her forces seem flagging, she seizes and places a ladder against the wall for an assault, and climbs the first as some say; but we never see her strike a blow. On the banks of the Loire the fate of the mail-clad Glasdale, hopeless in the strong stream underneath the ruined bridge, brought tears to her eyes, and now all the excitement of the pursuit vanished in an instant from her mind, when she saw the English man-at-arms dying without the succour of the Church. Pity was always in her heart; she was ever on the side of the angels, though an angel of war and not of peace.

It is perhaps because the numbers engaged were so few that this flight or "Chasse de Patay," has not taken a more important place in the records of French historians. In general it is only by means of Fontenoy that the amour propre of the French nation defends itself against the overwhelming list of battles in which the English have had the better of it. But this was probably the most complete victory that has ever been gained over the stubborn enemy whom French tactics are so seldom able to touch; and the conquerors were purely French without any alloy of alien arms, except a few Scots, to help them. The entire campaign on the Loire was one of triumph for the French arms, and of disaster for the English. They—it is perhaps a point of national pride to admit it frankly—were as well beaten as heart of Frenchman could desire, beaten not only in the result, but in the conduct of the campaign, in heart and in courage, in skill and in genius. There is no reason in the world why it should not be admitted. But it was not the French generals, not even Dunois, who secured these victories. It was the young peasant woman, the dauntless Maid, who underneath the white mantle of her inspiration, miraculous indeed, but not so miraculous as this, had already developed the genius of a soldier, and who in her simplicity, thinking nothing but of her "voices" and the counsel they gave her, was already the best general of them all.

When Talbot stood before the French generals, no less a person than Alençon himself is reported to have made a remark to him, of that ungenerous kind which we call in feminine language "spiteful," and which is not foreign to the habit of that great nation. "You did not think this morning what would have happened to you before sunset," said the Duc d'Alençon to the prisoner. "It is the fortune of war," replied the English chief.