Historic Girlhoods, Part One

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The enemy's soldiers soon left that part of the country and James of Arc and his neighbors were able to return to Domremy. They found the village burned, the church a pile of ruins, only the stone walls of their houses standing, the crops destroyed, their goods carried away. They still had their cattle, and they set to work to build new roofs for their homes and go on with their work. For the first time the children saw what war meant. Joan found the orchard where she had seen her first vision laid waste, and beyond it the blackened stones of what had been the church. She understood that what had happened there was happening all over France and began to realize that God had called her to the wonderful work of saving her countrymen. The voices spoke again, and now they began to tell her exactly what it was that she must do.

Joan was now nearly seventeen, and Philippe, her old friend, was much in love with her and asked her to marry him. She was very fond of him, and liked him much better than she did any of the other youths of Domremy, but the voices told her that she must not marry, but must give all her thoughts to the great work which had been set her. Philippe entreated her to change her mind, but she would not. Little by little now she spoke to him and to her other friends of the messages Saint Michael and the other saints had sent her.

In the autumn of 1428 the fate of France seemed trembling in the balance, bound up with the fate of the city of Orleans. The English army had just laid siege to that city, and if Orleans fell France was lost. The sovereign of France, Charles VII, was a weakling, and in the eyes of many French people not really their king, but only the heir to the throne, or Dauphin as he was called, because he had not yet been crowned and consecrated as king at the old city of Rheims. Rheims was in the hands of the English, but it must be taken from them, and Charles the Dauphin must be crowned and anointed there if he was to be King of France. One autumn day in 1428 the voices spoke again to the peasant maid of Domremy and gave her two commands; first to save Orleans from the English, and second to lead the Dauphin to Rheims and have him crowned king there.

Naturally the tasks seemed impossible to Joan; she pleaded that she could not ride, knew nothing of war, and had never been out of the valley of the Meuse. The voices told her that she would be guided safely, and that first she must go to the village of Vaucouleurs and ask the captain, Robert of Baudricourt, for an escort to take her to the Dauphin. Moreover, she must not delay; she must save the city of Orleans.

Her chance to start came almost at once. A cousin of hers who lived near Vaucouleurs fell sick, and Joan offered to nurse her. At the cousin's house Joan told the husband that she was commanded to raise the siege of Orleans and asked him to take her to Robert of Baudricourt. The simple peasant was amazed and at first would not believe her, but she was so earnest and spoke so positively of the commands given her that finally he yielded and agreed to take her to the captain in Vaucouleurs.

A little later Joan and the peasant appeared before Robert of Baudricourt. The captain saw a common farmer and a strong, dark, pretty girl dressed in coarse red stuff like any ordinary peasant maid. Joan told him he must send her with an escort to the Dauphin. The captain laughed loudly and bade her go home and tend the cattle. She protested, but he only scoffed at her talk of her mission.

Joan, however, did not go home, but stayed in the town, and told those she met that she must go to the Dauphin because she was the maid who was to save France. She seemed an honest, gentle girl, and one by one people began to take an interest in her story and wonder if it could be true. One day a roystering soldier named John of Metz stopped at the house where she lived, and asked for her, thinking to make fun of her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded when she came to the door. "I have come," said Joan, "to a royal city to tell Robert of Baudricourt to send me to the Dauphin, but he cares not for me or for my words. Nevertheless, before mid-Lent, I must be with the Dauphin, though I have to wear my legs down to my knees. No one in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, nor king of Scotland's daughter, nor any one else can recover the kingdom of France without help from me, though I would rather spin by my mother's side, since this is not my calling. But I must go and do this work, for my Lord wishes me to do it." "Who is your Lord?" asked the soldier in surprise. "God," said Joan. The man was so much impressed by her words that he said he would take her to the Dauphin himself. He asked her when she wished to start. "Rather now than to-morrow, rather to-morrow than afterwards," Joan answered.

But even with the aid of this soldier and of the friends she had made who believed in her it was some time before Joan could persuade the captain to give her an escort. At last she told him of the visions and the voices and finally he let himself be persuaded. He gave her the men she wanted and she made ready to start on her journey to the Dauphin. She decided she had better dress as a young man, and her friends bought her the clothes she needed and a horse. She rode out of Vaucouleurs clad in the black vest and hose, and gray cloak of a squire, booted and spurred, with a sword at her side and her hair cut short and round, saucer fashion, as was the style. Six armed men went with her. She did not want to go, she longed to return to her mother and the simple folk of Domremy, but the voices kept saying over and over, "Go, Child of God, go forth to save France."

The Dauphin was at the castle of Chinon in Touraine. There Joan went, and begged him to listen to her. The news of the peasant girl who thought she was to rescue the land had already come to him and he was curious about her. He granted her an interview, but thinking to test her, hid himself among a group of courtiers. As she entered the room the voices told her which was Charles and she went straight to him. She dropped upon her knee before him. "Gentle Dauphin," she said, "I have come to you on a message from God, to bring help to you and to your kingdom." Then in answer to his questions, she told him how she had been directed to lead his army to the aid of Orleans.

The Dauphin was impressed, and bade her be cared for at the castle. Again she had to wait, but now the story of her visions and the prophecy that a peasant maid of Lorraine should save France had spread abroad and people began to put their faith in her. The common people were the first to be convinced, because they were by nature superstitious and found no difficulty in believing the marvelous stories that now began to be told about Joan; after them the captains and the soldiers were willing at least to pretend to believe in her because she would lead them against their enemies; and finally Charles VII himself, weak and disappointed king as he was, decided that Joan could at least do his cause no harm, and might do it good, and so gave his consent to her requests.