Spring 1429
Ils étaient grandement ébahis comme une si simple
bergère jeune fille pouvait ainsi répondre
(Examination of Jeanne d’Arc)
THAT must have been a strange journey, that eleven days’ ride from Vaucouleurs to Chinon, on the Loire.
The heart of the Maid was light and gay, for the first step in fulfilment of her mission had at last been taken. She had, moreover, in reply to tender messages sent to Domrémy, received a letter of forgiveness from her parents, together with a ring of broad plated gold, inscribed with the names Jesus, Maria.
Straight-backed, healthy, long of limb, she sat her great horse, tossing back her short dark hair from her brow, and gazing with bright grey eyes into the dark ways in front of her, as though she already saw the end of her journey ere it had well begun.
Her companions bore a different spirit within their breasts. They had taken a vow before de Baudricourt to protect and honour the Maid, but, beside the fact that they had a long and dangerous road in front of them, they carried chilly doubts at their hearts.
“Will you really do what you say?” Jean de Metz inquired of her, being full of fear of the ridicule that would assuredly cover him should Jeanne prove an impostor.
“Have no fear,” she replied, “for my Brothers of Paradise have always told me what I should do, and it is now four years or five since they and my Lord have told me that I must go to the war that France may be recovered.”
The men-at-arms, also, possibly, their master, the King’s messenger, had even less faith in her. They felt their task an indignity. Who was this village girl that she should require such an escort?
Once, in rude jest, they tried to frighten her by pretending they were set upon by English or Burgundian troops. But the Maid, though she believed them, was not afraid.
“Do not flee! I tell you, in God’s name, they will not harm you!” she cried, and her simple courage must have touched even those rough hearts to shame.
Riding by night, and sleeping by day among the straw of some inn-stable by the roadside, the girl bore well the hardships of the journey, her one regret being that it was not considered safe in that hostile country to let her hear Mass every day. Choosing by-ways and avoiding high roads and bridges, the journey was toilsome enough, and four flooded rivers had to be forded ere they could draw a long breath of relief at Gien, in the country of the Dauphin. At Fierbois, a stage nearer to Chinon, she was delighted to find a chapel dedicated to one of her favourite saints, St. Catherine, the patroness of captive soldiers and imprisoned peasants.
In that chapel she said her prayer of faith, and from that place she dictated a letter to the Dauphin, telling him that she had ridden one hundred and fifty leagues to tell him things that would be useful to him, and which she alone knew. She ended with a declaration of loyal affection, in which she may have said that she would recognize him, her “gentle prince,” among all others, though in later days she seems to have forgotten this saying, if, indeed, she ever said it.
At midday she set out for the town of Chinon, which had been for some time the refuge of the Dauphin.
Chinon
Petit ville
Grande renom.
So ran the old jingle, dating from the days when the Plantagenet princes lived in the fortress of Coudray, which frowned over the gabled houses of the town. “The great walls, interrupted and strengthened by huge towers, stretch along a low ridge of rocky hill, with the swift and clear river—the Vienne—flowing at its foot,” says one of Jeanne’s chroniclers; and within these strong walls, the dull-witted, timid young Dauphin strove to forget the miseries of the land, fast slipping from his grasp, in amusements, dancing and games.
The ruling spirit of the Court of Chinon was La Trémouille, that stout, coarse-featured noble “always defeated, always furious, bitter, ferocious, whose awkwardness and violence created an impression of rude frankness.”5
The influence of this violent character was the worst thing possible for the faint-hearted Charles. The prince owed La Trémouille money, in security for which he had been obliged to hand over to him many broad lands and fair castles. Without his leave he dared not act even if he would; and it was to La Trémouille’s interest, traitor as he was at heart, to make him play the waiting game.
To such a man the coming of the innocent Maid, with her boy’s clothes and her pure eyes full of faith and confidence, was a thing to be scoffed at, if it were noticed at all. Probably that little letter of Jeanne to the Dauphin had passed through his rough hands, and been torn up and scattered to the winds as a bit of sheer nonsense; for the Dauphin knew nothing of it when she appeared at the Castle gates, craving leave to see the prince.
“Who was she, and why had she come?” they asked her; to which she simply replied that she had come to relieve Orleans and to cause the King to be crowned at Rheims.
There was a delay of two days while the Court considered her request, and Jeanne was fain to possess her eager soul in patience. Slowly the hours must have passed, as the Maid, weak with her Lenten fast, looked forth from the steep street where she had found lodging to the great grey walls that enclosed one who was ever to her a hero prince, her “gentle Dauphin.” Then creeping into the dusky shadows of St. Maurice, the nearest church, Jeanne knelt and prayed, and heard, perchance, repeated there the message now grown familiar to her listening ears:
“Daughter of God, thou shalt lead the Dauphin to Rheims that he may there receive worthily his anointing.”
Poor little lonely figure, kneeling there in the cold spring twilight, waiting with such eager longing to fulfil the commands of God! Let us hope that the “good woman” with whom she lodged those two days looked with kindly eyes upon the slim girlish figure and gave her a motherly kiss ere she sought her couch. This is her own simple account of the matter:—
“I was constantly at prayers in order that God should send the King a sign. I was lodging with a good woman when that sign was given him, and then I was summoned to the King.”
Whether this “sign” was anything more than a decision on the part of his Council of courtiers that it would be to their interest, possibly to their amusement, to see the strange maiden from Domrémy, we cannot say. Possibly, indeed, Jeanne is referring to that other “sign” given by her to the Dauphin during their first interview, of which so much was made at her trial, and concerning which she was so careful to baffle her questioners rather than betray the “secret of the King.”
It was evening when the Maid climbed the steep ascent and passed through the Old Gate that led into the Castle of Chinon. Its vast hall was crowded with armed barons, courtiers in long furred robes, knights and younger nobles in their pointed shoes, tight hosen, and brightly coloured tunics. The brilliant scene was lit up by flaming torches held by pages standing against the walls, which for a moment dazzled the sight of Jeanne as she stood within the great doorway. All eyes were turned upon her, and most of those faces were either openly hostile, contemptuous, or showed a sneering smile of amusement at the sight of the slim young Maid in her boy’s dress, her short dark hair flung back from her broad and open brow.
In order to raise a silly laugh at her, the Dauphin, dressed in ordinary clothes, had slipped behind the courtiers into another room, and as she looked about her, with that straight and fearless gaze of hers, there were not wanting those who would try to impose upon her with trickery. “See, there is the Dauphin!” said one, pointing to Charles de Bourbon in his princely robes. Some, with ill-bred chuckles, drew her attention to other gaily dressed nobles. But the Maid did not heed them. Looking quietly from one to another, she waited till Charles entered the hall, and at once, going up to him, knelt before him saying:
“God send you life, gentle Dauphin.”
The prince, somewhat out of countenance at the failure of his practical joke, peevishly asked her name.
“I am Jeanne the Maid,” she answered.
“And what do you want of me, Jeanne?”
“The King of Heaven sends me to succour you and your kingdom, and to conduct you to Rheims to be crowned.”
The absolute simplicity and perfect confidence of the words seem to have gone straight to the heart of Charles, who drew her aside and held her in earnest conversation.
At what passed on that occasion we can but guess. Much has been made of some “secret sign” given by Jeanne by which the Prince openly declared he had been most deeply impressed. But what this was the Maid herself would never reveal; and we can but conjecture, from the hints dropped in after years by one of the few confidants of the King, that Jeanne had revealed her knowledge of his secret fears and scruples and prayers as to whether he were the true heir to the throne, and had reassured him that all was well with him, and that God intended him to be crowned.
Yet it was impossible for a slow, timid nature, such as that of Charles, to act at once, and the girl was dismissed, though with a due amount of honour. She was lodged in a tower of the Castle, under the care of a good and pious woman, and given a noble young page, Louis de Coutes, to wait upon her.
Now and again she was sent for to hold converse with the Prince and his advisers, but nothing seemed to come of such meetings, and the Maid was fain to pray afresh and weep with annoyance at such delay.
“You hold so many and such long councils,” she said to the Dauphin on one occasion, “and I have but a year and a little more in which to finish all my work.”
From the first that piteous prophecy was the burden of all her warnings. Why were they so slow to accept Jeanne with confidence? The history of the time provides us with an answer.
At this period, as we have seen, the religious and political state of Europe was in a ferment. The Turks were threatening to overrun Western as well as Eastern Europe; three popes claimed to be Head of Christendom; and no man knew to whom to look with confidence for religious or political truth and righteousness.
Such times have often produced a crowd of impostors pretending to be the saviours of their country. Sometimes they were fanatics, self-deceived; sometimes they were deliberate frauds. Only a few years earlier a woman named Marie of Avignon had talked of a vision in which she had been bidden to arm herself and go fight for the King; and when she shrank from the task, was told that the weapons were not for her but for another Maid, who should shortly arise and liberate France. This event, while it certainly predisposed the ordinary citizens of Chinon to look with awe and favour upon Jeanne, only did harm to her cause with irreligious nobles like La Trémouille or with worldly ecclesiastics who would keep all supernatural matters within their own province; for the success of the Maid would be a reproach, they thought, to them for their failure.
One consolation came to Jeanne in those dark days of waiting. The young Duc d’Alençon, of the blood royal, who had been taken captive at Verneuil, had just returned to Chinon from five years’ sojourn in prison, disheartened and weary of the unhappy cause for which he had already suffered. He had been shooting quails in the marshes of the river meadows, when he heard that Jeanne had arrived, and was at that moment talking to the Dauphin. As he entered the hall, his handsome, boyish figure at once attracted the attention of the Maid.
“Who is that?” she asked the Dauphin, and when she heard his name, “Sire, you are welcome,” she said, “the more we have of the blood royal here the better.”
After the royal Mass next day the Dauphin called the Maid and the young Duke together, with La Trémouille, into his private room to breakfast with him; and there, in company strange enough to a peasant girl, did Jeanne speak boldly to the vacillating Charles, bidding him amend his life and live after the Will of God, bidding him also to place his realm in the hands of the Almighty and in sure confidence to receive it again from Him.
We can see La Trémouille’s coarse lips writhe in a scornful smile at the simple earnest words, and the uneasy impatience of the Dauphin. But d’Alençon’s nobler nature was struck, as that of Jean de Metz had been, by her sincerity and quiet force. From that moment he was her staunch friend; and almost immediately after their meeting, when they rode out together for exercise in the meadows, Jeanne so won his heart in another way by her pluck and skill in throwing a lance that he made her a present of a horse.
A few days later he took her to the Abbey of St. Florent, where his mother and his young wife were staying. They too were won by the simple good breeding of the Maid, though the poor little wife said pathetically, before they parted, “Jeannette, I am full of fear for my husband. He has just come out of prison, and we have had to give so much money for his ransom that gladly would I entreat him to stay at home.” To which the Maid replied, “Madame, fear not, I will bring him back to you in safety, either as he is now, or better.”
We cannot wonder that the girl preferred the character of her “beau Duc,” now full of energy for the fight as well as of confidence in her as a leader, to the uncertain, weak young King, who would not make up his mind to do anything at all.
At last there was a new stir at the Castle. Something was to be done, some journey undertaken. The Maid was delighted and made her small preparations in eager haste, hoping that she was to be allowed to go straight to Orleans.
Only when she was in the saddle and had ridden some miles did she learn that she was to go to Poitiers, to be examined as to her mission by the university and the local parliament of that town. To her this seemed a heart-sickening delay; but there is perhaps some excuse for it when we remember the very critical state of affairs, and the inevitable line taken by the King’s counsellors. To trust the affairs of the realm, now already tottering to its fall, to a peasant girl utterly unversed in matters of warfare, where great soldiers like Dunois and statesmen like La Trémouille had failed, seemed nothing less than ludicrous. “But what if she be sent by God? Is it not possible that the Divine help may overcome her natural difficulties?” the Dauphin might have argued. And the Church of that day would reply with cold and superior scorn, “How are we to know that she is divinely sent? How does she differ from Marie d’Avignon and many another visionary and impostor? What is to be the proof?”
We cannot think it strange that they hesitated; the stranger thing is that, when Jeanne came before this hostile array, she certainly did, to a great extent, manage to convince it.
Loathing the delay as she did, the whole thing must have been a cause of deep irritation and annoyance to the girl; and though she had always been humble and reverent toward the authority of the Church, she almost lost her temper with some of her questioners—Dominican monks, who strove to bully her and who were answered with the rough directness of an angry girl.
“You say,” said one of these, “that God will deliver France; if He has so determined He has no need of men-at-arms.”
“Oh! can’t you see?” she cried, impatiently. “In God’s name the men-at-arms will fight, and God will give the victory.”
“What language does the Voice speak?” said one who himself talked in broad dialect.
“A better language than yours!” she answered sharply, perhaps detecting the scornful inflection of his words.
The questioner seems to have lost his own temper at this thrust, for he asks her abruptly:
“Do you believe in God?”
“More firmly than you do!”
“Well, God does not wish us to believe in you without better evidence. We cannot advise the King to entrust you with men-at-arms on your word alone, and risk their lives, unless you can show us a sign.”
“In God’s name!” cried the Maid, “I did not come to Poitiers to give signs! Take me to Orleans, and I will show you the signs of my sending; give me few men or many, but let me go!”
Still, however, the wearisome examination dragged on. Interview followed interview, till the girl was heartily sick of the whole thing. Rashly, perhaps, she confided to her friend d’Alençon, that “she had been much questioned, but she knew and could do more than she had confided to the inquirers”; and this may have accounted for their uncertainty. They felt the power in reserve, and were unwilling to acknowledge it, but they had to do so in the end.
“The Maid’s character has been studied; inquiry has been made into her past life, her birth, her intentions; for six weeks she has been examined by clerks, churchmen, men of the sword, matrons and widows. Nothing has been found in her but honesty, simplicity, humility, maidenhood and devotion.... She may go therefore with the army, under honourable superintendence.”
Thus was won the first victory over sloth, and doubt, and suspicion. Every effort had been made to rake up something discreditable in her past or present life. To prove her a bold girl, lacking in habits of modesty and discretion, would have settled the question against her. Hence that other examination, hinted here, of discreet widows and matrons, whose sharp eyes and instincts were not likely to be at fault; and the hearts of these good ladies were promptly won by the modesty and purity of the Maid, as those of many of the soldiers and young nobles had been by her pluck and spirit. For let us always see her, not as a pious visionary, full of ecstatic experiences that place her above this common earth, but rather, as one of her most sympathetic biographers says, as a clean, honest, public schoolboy, “full of chivalry as of sanctity,” fearless in the face of danger, and all the while keeping clear and undimmed the window of her soul.