Joan of Arc was clearly not to blame for the defeat at Paris. But this was not the prevailing opinion in Charles VII’s court. Joan had failed, and her failure cast doubt on the divinity of her mission. It also cast doubt on the tactical method that she had used to gain her Loire victories and that she had also employed against the Saint-Honoré gate at Paris. It had cost France many men to attack the Parisian walls, and it had gained them nothing. Over the objections of numerous military leaders, the king had listened to the overly cautious advice of Georges de la Trémoïlle, Regnault de Chartres, and others, and, at least for a few months following the Paris débâcle, it seemed to him and others that he had been correct in listening to that advice. While Joan had been victorious, others had been able to replace La Trémoïlle in Charles’s favor, but after she had lost at Paris, and had been badly wounded in the process, the former king’s favorite returned to his chief counselor position with even greater power and influence. For example, no one received more pay from the king for his military and diplomatic service on the road to Reims and around Paris; indeed, his pay far exceeded that of any of the major military leaders – for example, La Trémoïlle received 5,890 livres tournois in comparison to Joan’s 479.1 During the march northwards to the coronation and Paris, he had continually cautioned the king to move slowly so that he would not bring Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, more actively into the fray. Undoubtedly, although not always recorded as such in contemporary sources, La Trémoïlle was the author of the numerous peace negotiations held between Charles and Philip during this time. As La Trémoïlle became more desperate to stop the Maid, the peace proposals to the Burgundians became more generous, until Charles’s advantages in the north were practically erased; much to the disappointment and suffering of those who had accepted him as their new king and had submitted their towns to his rule. It would be in attempting to preserve and defend the allegiance of one Compiègne, of those towns that had surrendered to the French king, that Joan would finally meet her military end.
Once they had returned to the Loire, La Trémoïlle continued to caution Charles VII against attempting military adventures that might hamper his hopes of a reunited Franco-Burgundian realm. Even after Philip proved time and time again not to adhere to many of the peace accords and truces made with the French, or when he did adhere to them, to also be dealing with the English on the side, La Trémoïlle continued to try to manage the French war effort to the benefit of his diplomacy. Thus, once Joan recovered from her wounds, La Trémoïlle was able to persuade the king to send her to a less significant theater of operations, along the southern (or upper) Loire, where she would not be able to offend the Burgundians. That her targeted opponent was a mercenary captain, Perrinet Gressart, who had once imprisoned the counselor, causing him to pay a heavy ransom from his personal funds for his freedom, no doubt also played a role in the decision to send the Maid there.
In October 1429, after having healed her wounded leg, but certainly not her spirits, Joan departed for Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier. Her army, of which she was only a minor commander, was woefully undersupplied. Nor was she enthusiastic about the task assigned to her. She was not to fight the English, nor even the Burgundians. She was instead headed to an area controlled by the leader of a free company, Perrinet Gressart. It is true that Gressart was effectively in the service of the Burgundians and the English and had received funds from them to control what he did in central France.2 But he was a soldier for hire. He had fought previously for the Burgundians and the English and even, on occasion, for the French. Had the English and the Burgundians lost Paris and been pushed back into Normandy and Burgundy, they would probably have forgotten about Gressart, and he would also probably have been looking for a new employer. Surely, he could have been ‘enticed’ to abandon his Loire territories, or at least to rule them as a French governor instead of an Anglo-Burgundian one. He was, in fact, little more than an irritant in this phase of the Hundred Years War, and Joan was greatly underutilized as the means of removing him. Not only was her war materiél low, but so too were her spirits.
Gressart was one of the last members of what in the Hundred Years War was becoming a dying breed.3 Leaders of the free companies, mercenary captains, were quite numerous during the fourteenth century. Men such as John Hawkwood and Robert Knolles led armies of mercenaries who fought for whomever would pay them, while supplementing their income with whatever booty they could gain; even the great Bertrand du Guesclin, revered by Joan of Arc for his French patriotism and fighting ability, fought in Spain against the Black Prince as the leader of a free company in the employ of the eventually victorious Henry of Trastamara.4 Such employment was profitable, if they survived. They led skilled warriors who fought for them loyally and with frequent victories. But they remained leaders only until they began to be defeated, and then their troops sought new leadership.5 However, during the fifteenth century mercenary captains were rare in France. Possibly this was because of the lack of funds available to the principal warring parties: England, France, and Burgundy. Possibly it was the lack of booty available in a country that had suffered almost a century of constant warfare. Possibly it was because the more profitable military employment had shifted to Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. Whatever the reason, Perrinet Gressart was one of the last, and it was decided late in 1429 that he should be engaged by Joan and a small French army.
Gressart’s holdings were impressive if not widespread. A Picardian by birth, he had been encouraged in his leadership by his experiences fighting with Duke John the Fearless in the early phases of the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war. Although probably not awarded such officially, he declared himself a noble in 1417 and created a coat-of-arms – a fess with three cinquefoils – under which he fought the rest of his days. Like most mercenary captains, he was paid to perform military service, in this case by the Burgundians early on, but became rich on what he stole or pillaged from the areas he raided. (Only rarely did these captains do anything more dangerous than raiding during warfare.) By 1426, he was wealthy enough to purchase a small fortress, La Motte-Josserand, which he used as a base, and he began to call himself the ‘lord of La Motte-Josserand’. From that fortified location and under the cover of the campaign of Earl Thomas Montagu of Salisbury, Gressart had stretched out his holdings into the surrounding countryside. He soon captured towns such as Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, Cosne, Bonny, Dompierre, and La Charité-sur-Loire. Into this last town, with its large monastery and strong castle surrounded by formidable town walls, Gressart moved his forces and set up his headquarters. It was an ideal place, for not only was it strongly fortified, but it also protected a vital section of the Loire, one that catered to merchants – whom Gressart could tax heavily – as well as to armies. It was also central to his land holdings.
Gressart had first come to the notice of the French as more than a minor player in 1427 when it appears that first Arthur de Richemont and then Georges de la Trémoïlle tried to stop the raids he was conducting into the neighboring counties of Berry and Nevers. On one occasion and despite having a writ of ‘safe-conduct’ to protect him, La Trémoïlle had been captured by Gressart as he travelled to La Charité to negotiate with the mercenary captain. To gain his freedom, La Trémoïlle was forced to pay a ransom of 14,000 écus, an incredibly large amount, to give gifts and praise to Gressart’s wife, and to grant a pardon to his captor. It must have been extremely embarrassing, as well as economically punishing, to the egotistical French courtier. In fact, it seems that he never forgot the indignity or the insult.6 The official reason for Joan’s campaign against Gressart’s territory was, as given by Jean d’Aulon at Joan’s nullification trial, ‘that it was very necessary to recover the town of La Charité, which was held by the enemy, but that it was important first to capture the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, which was also held by the enemy’.7 But there can be little doubt that revenge for La Trémoïlle’s imprisonment, ransom, and embarrassment was also a factor. (The ironic hypocrisy of La Trémoïlle using for this task an individual, the Maid, whose past methods he had shown such disdain for, probably does not need to be noted.)
Many of the details of Joan’s campaign on the upper Loire cannot be known, for the sources on her life are fewer for this period; some of the more complete ones for the earlier events, like the Journal du siège d’Orléans and the Chronique de la Pucelle, have given out all together by this point, with the authors of others, such as Perceval de Cagny’s chronicle, removed from her presence and seemingly unable to know or discover enough about what occurred at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier and La Charité to write much down. In addition, with the exception of Jean d’Aulon, Joan’s squire, and Reginald Thierry, who was along as an army surgeon, none of the witnesses at her nullification trial testified about the campaign – and these two only spoke about her victory at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, not about her defeat at La Charité, which is perhaps more of a comment on what the judges at that trial were concerned with (her victories) than what was known by the witnesses.
She set out from Bourges late in October, but the exact date is unknown. With her was an army, its size unknown, although Aulon’s phrase ‘a certain number of men’, ‘does not’, in the words of J.-L. Jaladon de la Barre, ‘imply the idea of a very important army’.8 Joan was not in charge of the expedition: that responsibility fell to Charles d’Albret, the lieutenant-general for the county of Berry and half-brother to Georges de la Trémoïlle. However, it is certain that she wielded great authority. Also along as a military leader was Louis of Bourbon, the count of Montpensier. Although Albret had participated in some of Joan’s previous military ventures, principally along the road to Reims and in the north, Montpensier was new to the Maid. Later, the marshal de Boussac, an old ally of Joan’s, would also join the campaign.9
The first target of the journey was one of Gressart’s southernmost towns, Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier. The reason for choosing this as the first site of campaign against Gressart is not known, although it may simply have been because of its geography: lying quite far south and away from the River Loire might have made it difficult for Gressart to reach it with reinforcements. It might also have increased the element of surprise, which could prove advantageous to the French. Still, when the next target was La Charité-sur-Loire, Gressart’s base, keeping away from the mercenary captain does not seem to have been a strategy. Presumably, had La Charité also fallen, the other of Gressart’s holdings, Dompierre, Cosne, and Bonny would have been Joan’s next destinations, either for attack or to accept their capitulation. But that, too, is speculation.
Because it is not known when Joan and her French army left Bourges, it is also not known when she began her siege of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier. It was before 1 November, as news of the siege being undertaken there had reached Charles VII by that time.10 Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier was not a large town, more the size of a village really, but it was surrounded by a wall, with a deep moat, six flanking towers, and three fortifed gates, all of which had been augmented and repaired in 1421.11 In the center stood (in fact, still stands) a beautiful Romanesque church dedicated to St Peter; also within the walls stood a Benedictine monastery dedicated to the same saint. In addition, Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier seems to have been sparsely populated, with most of its inhabitants having fled from the town to avoid the bloodshed and financial burdens imposed by Gressart. Nor does it appear that the self-styled ‘lord of La Motte-Josserand’ had left much of a garrison to watch over the location, although Aulon later testified that there were a ‘large number of soldiers in the town’.12
Such a target should have been easy to attack, but the fact that it was walled, with few weaknesses in the walls, and that the French were undermanned and underarmed, especially in the gunpowder weapons which Joan had become so accustomed to using in her attacks on this type of site, meant that Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier proved to be more formidable than it should have been to such a force. By 4 November, it had still not fallen. Finally, according to Aulon, Joan took matters into her own hands and called for an attack that would capture the town:
And after the Maid and her soldiers had besieged [Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier] for some time, an order was given to attack the town. And thus an attack was made, and those who were there before the town tried to take it, but, because of the large number of soldiers in the town, and their great strength, and also the marvellous resistance which those inside gave, the French were compelled and forced to retreat. And at that time, he, who had been wounded by an arrow in his heel, such that he could not stand or walk without crutches, saw that the Maid and a very small number of her men and others had been left behind. And sure that harm would come to her, he mounted a horse and rode towards her, demanding to know why she had not retreated with the others. She, after taking her helmet from her head, responded to him that she was not alone, that she had in her company fifty thousand soldiers, and that she was not going to leave until she had taken the town. At that time, whatever she may have said, she did not have more than four or five men, as he knew for certain, and so do many others who also saw her. For which reason, he had said frankly that she should leave from there and retire to the rear with the rest. And then she said to him to get bundles of sticks and hurdles to make a bridge across the moat of the town so that it might be easier to make an approach. And when she said this she shouted in a loud voice: ‘Everyone, to the faggots and hurdles to make a bridge!’ which was soon after done and put into place. That such a thing was done was very astonishing, because afterwards the village was taken by assault, without finding there very much resistance.13
Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier was conquered, although not without a struggle. The French troops streamed into the town, and many wished to treat its capture violently. But Joan would not allow it. Reginald Thierry explained to the nullification tribunal:
When the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier was captured by assault, where she was, the soldiers wished to do violence to the church and to steal the holy relics and other goods stored there. But Joan strongly prohibited this and defended the place, nor did she ever allow anything to be stolen.14
This could have been the soldiers’ attitude as a result of the frustration of having to fight a tiresome battle to conquer the town, or perhaps this was what soldiers were accustomed to do after having taken a location that had not willingly surrendered to them. (One need only recall the aftermath of the conquest of Jargeau.) On the other hand, these may not have been soldiers who had fought with the Maid before; what they might have been accustomed to, she forbade. Her mission did not allow for abuses of the French population.
For a brief moment Joan had regained her confidence and military authority. Those with her, whether the four or five which Jean d’Aulon saw, or the 50,000 Joan claimed, all witnessed the kind of military action that had brought about the relief of Orléans, the recapture of Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency, the victory at the battle of Patay, the submission of many central and northern villages and towns, and the crowning of the king of France. But it would be the last time that anyone would witness such an event. Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier was the last of Joan’s major victories.
The action at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier had taken its toll on the French army. Its supplies were utterly depleted. Whatever disposable weapons, such as arrows, gunpowder, and cannonballs, which the forces had brought with them from Bourges the month previously, never very numerous, were now gone. And no one in Charles’s court seems to have remembered to send Joan’s army more. Bows without arrows, crossbows without bolts, and cannon without gunpowder or cannonballs were useless, especially against a strongly fortified and well-stocked town filled with soldiers who were not likely to surrender unless forced and who were led by a captain whose capture meant certain execution. Such was Joan’s next target, La Charité-sur-Loire. In desperation both Albret and Joan sent letters to nearby towns asking for whatever assistance could be granted them. Joan’s letter to the town of Riom (dated 9 November 1429) still survives:
Dear and good friends, you know well how the city of Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier was taken by assault, and with the help of God, I have the intention of emptying the other places which are hostile to the king. But, because of the great quantities of gunpowder, arrows, and other equipment of war that were expended before the said town, and because the lords who are in this town and I are so poorly provided to besiege La Charité, where we are going presently, I beseech you, that as you love the good and honor of the king and also those others here, that you would instantly send help for this siege, of gunpowder, saltpeter, sulphur, arrows, heavy crossbows, and other equipment of war. And do this so that, for lack of the said powder and other equipment of war, the situation will not be prolonged, and that you will not be said to be neglectful or rejecting. Dear and good friends, may Our Lord watch over you. Written at Moulins on the ninth day of November.
Charles d’Albret’s letters said essentially the same.16
The reasons for Joan’s and her army’s lack of success at La Charité can be seen in these letters. The despair at having to fight an offensive war when the army was completely unprepared can be felt in the tenor of her words, if not seen absolutely in the letter itself. Joan, it appears, had difficulty in condemning nearby townspeople for not providing for her army, when the king and his court seemed completely apathetic to the expedition. (The French army was sent a large number of gunpowder weapons from Orléans which they used in the siege, and they also received money from the citizens of both Orléans and Bourges. What this was spent on, however, is not reported.)17
And La Charité was going to be a more difficult conquest than Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, especially during the height of winter. The weather was ‘very harsh’, writes Jacques Bouvier, as the French army marched along the River Loire towards the Perrinet Gressart’s capital, something which certainly did not help raise the spirits of this undersupplied force.18 Nor did matters improve once the army arrived, even after the appearance of the marshal of Boussac and reinforcements (especially as it seems that he brought no new supplies). La Charité could only be approached across its single bridge, and once that was crossed, the besiegers were forced to contend with a strong town wall built by Charles V and then a large castle complex, with several keeps, towers, and a huge inner courtyard which allowed for a large and well-stocked garrison to live quite comfortably; indeed, the soldiers inside were probably far more comfortable than their besiegers outside.19
The siege lasted for almost a month. Every day the French fired their ‘bombards, cannon, and other artillery’ from ‘three or four places’ across the river. But, although it appears that it was a single-sided bombardment, they made no headway. Eventually, they left without taking the town. So fatigued were they by the experience as a whole, the French did not even take away much of their artillery. With a long return march to the north over wet and frozen roads ahead, there probably seemed no point.20 Joan’s role in the siege is not known; the sources hardly even mention that she was present. For Perceval de Cagny, it is clear that the blame lay elsewhere: ‘because the king had not paid to send victuals or money to maintain the army there, they decided to lift the siege and departed in great displeasure’.21 Asked about the defeat at her trial, ‘why had she not entered the town of La Charité, after she had a commandment from God to do so’, Joan was indignant in her answer: ‘Who said to you that I had a commandment from God to do so?’ Later she testified ‘that she wished to go into France, but that the men of arms told her that it was better to go first against the town of La Charité.’22
On Christmas Day 1429, Joan returned to Jargeau.23 Waiting for her was news that she and her descendants had been ennobled, through both the male and female lines.24 It was a consolation prize for what she wanted most: to be able to drive the English from France.
The early months of 1430 cannot have been pleasant ones for the Maid. Little is known about what she did during this time or even where she went. Her presence at court is not often recorded, nor is she said to have visited old friends, like Alençon or Richemont.25 She wrote letters, it is known, as three written during these winter and early spring months still exist in one form or another. All show the growing desperation she felt at being stuck so far from the action. Two were written to the citizens of Reims. The first, dated 16 March, talks about the citizens’ fear of being besieged. She mentions enemies from within and without the city who were conspiring to turn it over to the duke of Burgundy. Do not fear the Burgundians, she writes:
Know well that you should not be at all distressed if I can confront them. If they come near, shut your gates, for I will be very direct with you: if they come there, I will make them fasten their spurs so fast that they will not know how to put them on and get out of there, and very quickly at that.26
The second, written twelve days later, on 28 March, seeks to clarify what she had written in the previous letter, especially concerning those inside the city who wished to surrender to Philip the Good. Again it promises assistance against those who conspire with the Burgundians:
Very good and dear friends, may it please you to know that I have received your letters which mention the report to the king that in the good city of Reims there are many wicked people. If you want to know the real truth, this report said to him that there are many who are a part of a plot to betray the city and install the Burgundians. And since the king has learned that from you, it will not happen, and he is very pleased with you. Believe that you are high in his grace and that if you have to fight he will assist you in the event of any siege. He knows well that you have suffered much because of the hardships these treasonous Burgundian adversaries have imposed on you. So surrender yourselves to the will of God; rest assured that relief will be sent as soon as possible. I pray and require you, my dear friends, to guard your good city well for the king; keep good watch.27
However, the idea that she or Charles VII would go to Reims or anywhere in the north may only have been an idle threat. Charles had shown no signs of uprooting himself from his comfort on the Loire, even if it meant a repeat of his triumphs the year before. Nor does it seem that he would allow Joan to leave. Perhaps the Maid thought that she should try her luck fighting elsewhere for God.
This may be why she had a letter written for her to the heretical Hussites who were fighting against their Catholic lords in Bohemia, dated 23 March 1430:
For some time now, rumor and public information have reported to me, Joan the Maid, that from true Christians you have become heretics and that, like the Saracens, you have destroyed true religion and worship; embracing a shameful and criminal superstition and wishing to protect and propagate it, there is no shameful deed or belief you do not dare. You ruin the sacraments of the Church, you rend the articles of Faith, you destroy churches, you smash and burn the statues which have been erected as memorable monuments, you massacre Christians simply because they have kept the true Faith.
What is the frenzy? What rage or madness drives you? This Faith, which Almighty God, which is the Son, which the Holy Spirit have revealed, established, given sway and glorified a thousandfold through miracles is the faith which you persecute, which you wish to overturn and obliterate. You are blind, not because you lack foresight. Do you think that you will not be punished for this? Or do you not realize that God will block your criminal efforts? Do you think He will allow you to remain in darkness and error? The more you give yourselves over to criminal sacrilege, the more He will ready great punishment and torment for you.
As for myself, I tell you frankly that if I were not kept busy with these English wars I would have come to see you a long time ago. But if I do not hear that you have corrected yourselves, I may well leave these English and set off against you, so that, by the sword if I cannot otherwise, I may remove your madness and foul superstition, taking either your heresy or your lives. But if you choose instead to return to the Catholic faith and to the original source of light, send me your ambassadors and I shall tell them what you must do. If you do not wish to do so and persist in resisting the spur, recall how much criminal harm you have done and wait for me, who will deal with you comparably with the aid of divine and human force.28
Some wonder if this is Joan’s letter or someone else’s, who, writing in her name, sought to gain the legitimacy that she would bring to such a threatening epistle. Jean Pasquerel, her confessor, signed the letter, and it is possibly his work, for it seems unlikely that she would promise the citizens of Reims, both a week before and a few days later, that she would come running to them if they were attacked, were she thinking about the possibility of a crusade against the Hussites.29 On the other hand, should Charles VII not have been willing to let her go to fight the Anglo-Burgundians in the north, she might have pondered the possibility of leaving from France and fulfilling a mission, if not her mission, elsewhere.
As seen in her letters to the inhabitants of Reims, Joan was not happy about the Burgundian attacks on French territory that she had won just a few months before. Nor could she have been pleased with the increased closeness of the English and Burgundians, news of which had spread everywhere throughout France by this time. But, then again, neither probably was the king or his counselors, especially Georges de la Trémoïlle and Regnault de Chartres, who had brokered the disadvantageous peace with Duke Philip the Good based on the promises of neutrality, if not alliance, which he had frequently given them.30 What was Charles VII’s response to the crisis? He went into council meetings to listen to the very people who had put him into this situation. (Eventually, he would have to accept the fact that he had been duped. In a letter, dated 6 May 1430, the king admitted his mistake in dealing so ignorantly with the duke of Burgundy. It was co-signed by Archbishop Regnault of Chartres.31)
Then came the news in March 1430 that Philip was planning to lay siege to Compiègne. The people of the town which Charles VII had so quickly and willingly returned to the duke of Burgundy the September before had decided that they would not surrender to him. Like Tournai, Vaucouleurs, and Mont-Saint-Michel, Compiègne decided to remain French and that meant it was forced to resist military attempts to capture it.32 The citizens of Compiègne began to stockpile supplies and weapons.
Such bravery in a people whom Joan had met just a short time before, but who like her were willing to do whatever they could to stay within the French realm, seems to have encouraged her that there was still hope, still a mission, even if she had to deal with political figures whose apathy was killing far more Frenchmen than any of her military exploits had. She decided not to wait for permission to travel north to aid the people of Compiègne. Sometime at the end of March, with a renewed confidence and determination to rid her land of the evil forces which occupied it, Joan simply left. Perceval de Cagny remarks:
When the king was in the town of Sully-sur-Loire, the Maid, who had seen and heard all the fact and the manner that the king and his council planned for the recovery of his kingdom, and being very irritated concerning that, found a means of departing from them. And without the knowledge of the king, and not taking leave from him, she seemed to be gone on some business, but, without returning, she went to the town of Lagny-sur-Marne [on the road to Compiègne], because those of that place were making good war against the English in Paris and elsewhere.33
Of course, she was committing treason, and this may have been one of the reasons why Charles showed no desire to try to ransom her after her capture. But, who can blame Joan? She had reached the point when she was willing to betray the king whose throne she had helped obtain, to whom she had been so loyal, simply because she knew that she had to try to fulfil her mission, even if the king, who had played such an important part in that same mission earlier, was then too apathetic or too badly counselled to let her continue to fight on his behalf.
By 29 March, she was in Lagny, dated there by the miracle of her restoring the life of a baby long enough for it to be baptised, thereby earning it the right to be buried in holy ground.34 At Easter, she was in Melun. There she reported that she had received a revelation that she would soon be captured.35 She was at Senlis on 24 April.36
When she had begun her journey, Joan only had a few soldiers in her company, but throughout her journey she had acquired more men who wished to ride with ‘the Maid’. Even though this force never became large, at each of these stops, she tried to engage the English in battle. But only at Lagny was she able to accomplish more than a few small skirmishes.
While there, Joan heard of a detachment of Anglo-Burgundian soldiers, numbering between 300 and 400, who had ridden out of Paris towards the north and were passing not far outside of Lagny.37 They were commanded by a Burgundian, Franquet d’Arras, who, Georges Chastellain writes, ‘had not thought about nor wished for the honor of fighting a battle, except that the name of the Maid was so great and so famous’.38 Such pride would prove to be his undoing. Joan’s force was the larger, at more than 400, and it seems to have been mostly, if not entirely cavalry. Arras’s troops were a mixture of men-at-arms and archers. There may also have been some surprise involved; either that or Arras was simply a poor leader, for according to Chastellain and Monstrelet, both Burgundian writers, he was never able to deploy his archers effectively, and, according to Jean Chartier, he formed his men with their backs to a hedge, affording them no room to fight or retreat.39 The Maid charged down on these soldiers, ‘courageously and vigorously’, are the words Monstrelet uses.40 The Anglo-Burgundians withstood two attacks, but they could not withstand a third. Almost all were killed or captured. Joan herself took Arras prisoner; she kept the sword which he presented her at his surrender until she herself was caught.41 For a while, she kept Arras, too, wishing to trade him for a French prisoner, Jacquet Guillaume, but when she discovered that Guillaume had been executed, she surrendered Arras to the townspeople of Senlis, who, with Joan’s consent, executed him for murder, theft, and treason.42 Her consenting to Arras’s execution would be used as evidence against her at her own trial a year later.43
Where else she travelled during her journey to Compiègne is not recorded but by 14 May, Joan had reached her goal. She may have arrived earlier, but this is the first date that her presence in the town is recorded, for on this date the town gave a reception in her honor. Also in attendance were Louis of Bourbon, the count of Vendôme, and Archbishop Regnault de Chartres, the latter – since his 6 May declaration of having been duped by the Burgundians – ostensibly repentant of his earlier disapproval of Joan’s military methods, although only for the moment.44 By this time, Philip the Good had begun his move on Compiègne in earnest.45 Using funds provided by the English,46 whose interest in seeing the return of Compiègne to Burgundian control is obvious, Philip amassed a large army and an impressive artillery train. To this date, there was no power with a stronger or more numerous gunpowder weaponry arsenal than the Burgundians.47 And almost all of it was directed entirely at Compiègne and Joan. Contemporary chroniclers report the existence of at least five large bombards, two veuglaires, one large and one small, innumerable couleuvrines, and two ‘engins’ among the besieging Burgundian army;48 other sources record the transportation of at least 17,000 lb of gunpowder with the artillery train.49 Extant artillery comptes for the Burgundian forces have shown that these tallies are in fact too low.50
But this show of technological power did not intimidate either Joan or Guillaume de Flavy, the governor of Compiègne and leader of its defense effort. The fortifications of the town were very strong. The town walls were tall and thick; indeed, several still stand today as extremely impressive examples of medieval defensive power. More than 2,600 meters long, they surrounded a town of 53 hectares. A large number of towers had been built along these walls, with no fewer than forty-four of these towers running parallel to the Oise river. This river served as a ‘moat’ on one side of Compiègne, while its water also filled a wide and deep ditch surrounding the rest of the walls. A rampart, made from the dirt taken out of the ditch, added to the town’s defenses as a counterscarp outside the moat. Should these defenses be breached, there was also a large royal castle, modelled after the Louvre in Paris, located within the walls. This castle functioned as a residence for Charles VII when he had stayed in the town after his coronation. The only weak defensive points seem to have been the numerous gates into the town through the walls – these were protected by large gatehouses – and the single bridge over the Oise, running 450 feet long and built on ten or eleven arches. This bridge was lined with houses and ended on the town’s shore in a large fortified gate and on the shore opposite the town in a boulevard.51 Additionally, the defenders of Compiègne had their own gunpowder weaponry arsenal, and they had prepared their defenses to use it by destroying any superfluous fortifications which hindered gunfire.52 These guns would prove very effective, particularly, as reported by an anonymous eyewitness, ‘the great number of small engines, called couleuvrines, which were made of bronze and which fired lead balls’. He even boasted that these balls were able to penetrate the armor of a man-at-arms.53
Joan was familiar with the use of gunpowder weapons, although most often to destroy walls, not to protect them. But staying behind protective walls was not her military style. Up to this point she had always been the aggressor, the attacker. At Compiègne, she was one of the town’s defensive forces, and defense had never been a part of her tactical regimen. Thus on frequent occasions she sortied out against the attacking Burgundian troops, or as Jean Chartier puts it, ‘every day she fought large skirmishes against the English and Burgundians’.54
The first one of these sorties which proved to be a more major engagement took place at Choisy-au-Bac, a village surrounding a bridge crossing the Aisne river north-west of Compiègne a day or two after Joan had been welcomed there. Choisy was an important site; should the French be able to keep the Burgundians from capturing it, the likelihood of the latter surrounding Compiègne with troops and gunpowder weapons was slight. Therefore, Guillaume de Flavy had put the defense of the bridge under the command of his brother, Louis. Joan became involved when she discovered that the fighting there was harsh: she was never one to turn down a challenge. It was a see-saw affair, with heavy casualties taken on both sides, but eventually the continual bombardment of Burgundian gunpowder weapons against the make-shift French fortifications at Choisy proved to be too fierce, and, on 16 May, Joan, Louis de Flavy, and the other soldiers were forced to withdraw to Compiègne.55
Two days later, Joan, Archbishop Regnault de Chartres, and Louis of Bourbon decided to ride with their troops up the Aisne river, cross at the Soissons bridge, and try to maneuver behind and attack the rear of the Burgundian army. Such an attack probably would not have been able to prevent the siege of Compiègne, but it would have caused enough harassment and general mischief to make Philip the Good aware of Joan’s presence and perhaps also to frighten these soldiers who had yet to face the Maid in battle. Yet, it was not allowed to succeed. Soissons was a French town, having surrendered the previous year to Charles VII, and its governor, Guichard Bournel, was a French appointee, having been assigned to that position as the king retreated to the Loire in the previous year. But neither the townspeople nor the governor there had the same desire as the Compiègnoise and Guillaume de Flavy to try to withstand Burgundian attempts at recapture. The herald of Berry, Jacques Bouvier, describes the incident:
And when they arrived at the town of Soissons, a Picardian squire named Guichard Bournel, who the count of Clermont, son of the duke of Bourbon, had made captain of the place, refused entry into the town to all those lords and men-at-arms, and he bought off the people of the town so that they thought that those lords and men-at-arms had come to be garrisoned with them, and the people were of the opinion that they did not want to entertain them in the town. The soldiers camped all night in the fields, and in the end, the captain did entertain the archbishop, the Maid, the count of Vendôme, and a small group of them.56
The following day, the French returned to Compiègne, frustrated in their efforts to fight the Burgundians by some who lacked their patriotism. A little while later, Bournel sold Soissons to the duke of Burgundy for 4,000 gold saluts.57
A day or so after her frustration at Soissons, Joan rode south to Crépy-en-Valois and returned with 300–400 more soldiers who had come to fight for the freedom of Compiègne. On her return, during the night of 22/3 May, she discovered that the town had been surrounded by Burgundian and English troops. According to Perceval de Cagny, Joan was forced to sneak into Compiègne without arousing the Anglo-Burgundians. This she accomplished successfully:
Although her men said that she had few soldiers to pass through the army of the Burgundians and the English, she said: ‘By my Martin, we are enough. I wish to see my good friends in Compiègne.’ She arrived there about sunrise and without confusion nor disturbance from either herself or her men, they entered the town.58
The siege in its full intensity had begun. The knowledge that the Maid was inside the town made the Anglo-Burgundians wish to capture it even more. At the same time, those inside were strengthened by her presence, and they fought more vigorously because of her inspiration.59 Joan herself did not rest, nor did she change her tactics. On 23 May, without even taking time to sleep after her daring entry into the town, she decided to act forcefully against the besiegers. Cagny again provides one of the best reports as to how Joan of Arc’s last day as an active French soldier began:
And around nine o’clock in the morning, the Maid heard that a large and forceful skirmish was being fought on the meadows outside of town [at Margny]. She armed herself and had her men arm themselves. They mounted their horses, and went out to join in the mêlée.60
Georges Chastellain describes the confidence in her appearance and her demeanor:
She mounted her horse, armed as would a man, and adorned in a doublet of rich cloth-of-gold over her armor. She rode a grey steed, very handsome and very proud, and displayed herself in the armor and manners that a captain who led a large army would. And in that state, with her standard raised high and blowing in the wind, and accompanied by many noble men, around four hours before midday, she charged out of the town.61
She must have presented a great inspiration to those inside the town . . . and a great target to those besieging it.
There are three different versions of how she was captured. For Perceval de Cagny, giving what might be called the French version, Joan’s tactic of direct assault seemed to have been well known, especially to a military leader as astute as Philip the Good. An ambush had been laid out in anticipation that she would do just what she did:
And as soon as she came, the enemy was pushed back and put to flight. The Maid charged forward strongly into the Burgundian army. Those in the ambush saw their soldiers who were retreating in great disarray. Then they uncovered their ambush, and, spurring their mounts on, they placed themselves between the bridge into the town and the Maid and her company.
They were trapped, and Joan herself was targeted:
And one party among those [of the Burgundians] turned toward the Maid in such a great number that those of her company could not hope to save her. And they spoke to the Maid: ‘Take pains to return to the town, or you and we will be lost!’
But Joan refused to hear this, or to retreat:
When the Maid heard them say this, she spoke to them very angrily: ‘You be quiet! Their defeat depends on you. Think only of striking at them.’ Even though she said this, her men did not want to believe it, and by force they made her return directly to the bridge. And when the Burgundians and English saw that she was trying to return to the town, with a great effort, they came to capture the bridge. And there was a great clash of arms.
Fearing the onrushing enemy troops, Guillaume de Flavy did what he thought was needed to preserve the town. He shut the gate. But in doing so, he cut off the only means that Joan had to escape into the town:
The captain of the place, seeing the great multitude of Burgundians and English about to enter the bridge, for fear that he would lose the place, had the bridge raised and the gate shut. And thus the Maid remained closed outside and a few of her men with her. When the enemy saw this all tried hard to capture her. She resisted very strongly against them, and in the end had to be taken by five or six together, the one putting his hand on her, the others on her horse, each of them saying, ‘surrender yourself to me and give me your promise [her promise not to flee].’ She responded: ‘I will swear and give my promise to someone other than you and I will give an oath to him.’ And saying other like things, she was taken to the tent of Jean de Luxembourg [the Burgundian leader of the men who captured Joan].62
Georges Chastellain’s Burgundian interpretation of what occurred does not mention an ambush or the shutting of gates. While fighting bravely and strongly, Joan was taken simply because she was overwhelmed by the Burgundian troops:
The Burgundians then pushed back the French towards their lodgings, and the French, with their Maid, began to retreat very slowly, as they had found no advantage over their enemies, but only danger and harm. Accordingly, the Burgundians, seeing that, and covered with blood and not satisfied by repulsing them in defense alone, as they were able to do them no more great harm than by following them closely, struck them courageously both on foot and on horse, and did much damage to the French. Then the Maid, surpassing the nature of a woman, took on a great force, and took much pain to save her company from defeat, remaining behind as the leader and as the bravest of the troop. But there fortune permitted for the end of her glory and for the last time that she would ever carry arms. An archer, a rough and very sour man, full of much spite because a woman, who so much had been spoken about, should have defeated so many brave men, as she had done, grabbed the edge of her cloth-of-gold doublet, and threw her from her horse flat to the ground. Never was she able to find refuge nor to receive help from her soldiers, though they tried to assist her to become remounted. But a manat-arms named the Bastard of Wandomme, who arrived just when she fell, so pressed near her, that she gave him her promise [surrendered to him], because he said that he was a nobleman.63
But Joan remembered it differently, testifying that she was captured fighting in a much more bellicose manner – making a direct, confident, and aggressive assault against her enemy. She mentions no ambush and no closed gates either:
She crossed over the bridge and through the French boulevard and went with a company of soldiers manning those sections against the lord of Luxembourg’s men whom she drove back twice, all the way to the Burgundian camp, and a third time half way back. And then the English who were there cut her and her men off, coming between her and the boulevard, and so her men retreated. And withdrawing into the fields on her flank, in the direction of Picardy, near the boulevard, she was captured.64
So Joan was taken. Asked at her trial ‘whether she had a voice tell her to leave’ from Compiègne, she answered that ‘on that day she did not know beforehand of her capture, nor did she have any order to leave. But it always had been said to her that she would become a prisoner.’65 But how had she actually been taken? Was she ambushed? That depends on whether one accepts Cagny’s record – he was not there – or Chastellain’s – also not present, but supported by Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who was present, in his belief that Joan was overwhelmed by the Burgundian troops who attacked her – or Joan’s – obviously present, but perhaps not the best able to remember what had put her into the position that she was in at the time that she related the story above.
Perhaps a more important question to ask, at least a question which has been asked by Joan of Arc scholars since the middle of the fifteenth century, is: was she locked out of Compiègne on purpose? In other words, was there treason involved in her capture? Jules Michelet, Alexandre Sorel, Eug. Bourguignon, and Paul Marin are of the strong opinion that she was betrayed by Guillaume de Flavy, the military leader in charge of Compiègne.66 While, just as strongly, Jules Quicherat, Pierre Champion, and J.-B. Mestre believe that she was not.67
Both the accusers and defenders must in turn either indict or vindicate the character of Compiègne’s governor, Guillaume de Flavy, and the role he played in shutting off any escape possibility for Joan of Arc on that day. The question of Flavy’s treason is an old one. Joan was supposed to have told her ‘Burgundian’ neighbor, Gérardin l’Épinal, at Châlons that ‘she feared nothing except treason’,68 and as early as 1450, some authors were turning this into a prophetic remark tied to her capture at Compiègne. Within a century, that Compiègne treason was assigned to Flavy. The debate became even more intense after the mid-nineteenth-century discovery by Jules Quicherat of Perceval de Cagny’s Chronique, and Cagny’s explicit statement that it had been the ‘captain of Compiègne’ who ‘had the bridge raised and the gate shut’.69
It is known that the duke of Burgundy used bribery to achieve the surrender of towns in 1430, the case of Guichard Bournel and Soissons being the perfect example. Of course, this was not the first time that such a tactic had been used in medieval conflict, nor in fact were the Burgundians the only army in the Hundred Years War to gain a town’s surrender in such a way. But, if Guillaume de Flavy took such a bribe, he seems not to have done so for the surrender of the town of Compiègne, as the town did not surrender to Philip the Good on 23 May 1430, the day of the capture of Joan of Arc, or at any other time. Eventually, after waging an unsuccessful siege for the whole summer, the Burgundians were forced to retreat from Compiègne without capturing it; in fact, they were forced to withdraw in such a manner and with such speed that they lost most of their impressive gunpowder artillery train.70 (One might even wonder if Joan’s capture did not work against the duke of Burgundy, inspiring the defending troops of Compiègne to fight even harder to resist the Anglo-Burgundian efforts to make them surrender. Joan learned of the Burgundian failure to capture Compiègne while in prison, and it inspired her to stay confident during her continued imprisonment and trial.) So, if Guillaume de Flavy did take money from Philip the Good, it was only for treachery against Joan.
However, this then poses a different question: was the duke of Burgundy so fearful of the Maid that he would pay a bribe to Flavy for the capture of her alone and not for Compiègne also? Nothing in Philip the Good’s character to this point would suggest as much. Certainly, she had cost him dearly as far as territory was concerned, as most of the towns that had submitted to the French on the road to Reims were his – Auxerre, Troyes, Châlons, Reims, Compiègne, Laon, and Soissons. But Joan had failed to capture his main jewel in central France, Paris, which although co-ruled with the English, had always been accepted to be Burgundy’s by Philip as well as by his father, John the Fearless, who had initially captured it from the Armagnacs/French. Additionally, Philip had recently seen the return of Soissons, and Troyes was not far from returning to him as well. In May 1430, with his large army and artillery train, there was little reason to think that Compiègne would not fall shortly, followed by all of the other towns lost to the Maid the year before. So, why should he fear Joan of Arc? Of course, it would be nice to know what was said between the two when Joan was brought to meet the duke by Jean of Luxembourg a short time after her capture. But Monstrelet, who was present, writes only that ‘I do not remember well’ what transpired between the two enemies.71 Ultimately, it cannot be imagined that Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy and one of the major warlords in the Hundred Years War, would have paid a substantial bribe to Guillaume de Flavy, and that the governor would have taken it, just to capture Joan.
Coupled with the issue of why Philip the Good might have paid a bribe just to get Joan is another question: for what reason would Guillaume de Flavy take money to allow Joan’s capture, but then stand in opposition to accepting a bribe for the surrender of the town? The late fifteenth-century Diariumor Chronicle of Heinrich Token claims that ‘the captains . . . found it difficult to accept that a young girl should lead them and that the glory won by them should be attributed to her’.72 But this cannot be seen as credible even by those who accept Guillaume de Flavy’s guilt. No captain who had fought by Joan’s side before had ever felt this type of jealousy, not even the duke of Alençon, the Bastard of Orléans, La Hire, or Richemont, who had seen her virtually assume their command positions. In addition, those leaders had been involved in far more successful military adventures with the Maid and seemingly received far less credit than anything which Flavy could lay claim to. He was nowhere near the engagement with Franquet d’Arras outside Lagny, and Joan had done nothing around Compiègne that could be described as the least bit successful. Her defense of Choisy had failed, and she had not even been allowed to cross the bridge over the Aisne river at Soissons. Again, simply put, what did Guillaume de Flavy have to be jealous of?
There is also the suggestion put forth by Régine Pernoud and Marie-Veronique Clin that the captain of Compiègne could have surrendered Joan because ‘Guillaume de Flavy had in fact no commitment other than his personal interest, which was to build up a petty domain around Compiègne. Joan was definitely an obstacle to that ambition.’73 Yet, if Joan was an obstacle to Guillaume de Flavy’s ambition, what was Philip the Good? Why, if the object was to rule Compiègne as a small fiefdom, did Flavy not simply surrender the town to him and then rule as his governor, in similar way to what Guichard Bournel was to do for Philip at Soissons? Joan was far less of an obstacle than the duke of Burgundy, and, as it seems that Flavy intended to try to hold out against the Anglo-Burgundians, perhaps in order to preserve this personal domain, Joan’s assistance would have been much more important than her removal. That could always have been arranged later.
So there seems little reason either for Philip the Good to desire treason against the Maid or for Guillaume de Flavy to perpetrate it. One further note should be entered into consideration: Joan herself did not think that there was treachery involved in her capture. In her testimony at Rouen, as seen above, she claimed that the reason that she and her men could not return to Compiègne was not that the gates into the town were closed, but that they were blocked from that retreat option by the Burgundian soldiers because those men had captured and held the bridge between herself and the town. Even if the gates had been shut and the drawbridge raised prematurely and ‘treasonously’, something which Joan did not seem to have noticed if it occurred, or at least she never testified that she noticed, it did not affect her capture according to her testimony.
Finally, the character of Guillaume de Flavy prior to and after the capture of the Compiègne defense should be investigated. For, in doing so, one does not see a man willing at any time to betray anyone fighting for a cause that he also believed in, even if that someone was as potentially profitable as Joan of Arc. As presented in the thorough, although biased, biography of Flavy by Pierre Champion (who wrote the work as a means of ridding the Compiègne captain of the charge of treason), it can be seen that Flavy was a warrior of similar quality to La Hire or Ponton de Xantrailles, whose tireless loyalty to the French side and Charles VII was above reproach. The first reference to Flavy as a French soldier comes from 1417 when he fought against the English in Rouen. After that town’s defeat, Flavy went to Corbeil where he participated in its successful defense against a siege by John the Fearless. In 1418–19, he appears in Paris, fighting in vain against the Burgundians; in Compiègne which he helped capture from the Burgundians; and at the relief of the siege of Saint-Martin-le-Gaillard. During this time, his family lost almost all of their land-holdings and dwellings in Picardy to those Burgundians whom he is later accused of conspiring with. During the early 1420s Guillaume de Flavy moved his fighting talents to Normandy, participating in the conflicts at Pont-Remy, Saint-Riquier, Abbeville, where he was left for dead on the battlefield, Offémont, and Meaux. And during the few years prior to Joan’s involvement in French military affairs, Flavy fought against the Burgundians in the region near to her home. He was the captain of Beaumont-en-Argonne, named such by the citizens of the town, from August 1427 and through its siege by Jean de Luxembourg, which began in January 1428, until he was forced to surrender the starved town at the end of May. Allowed to leave peacefully, Flavy was then assigned almost immediately to the threatened town of La Neuville-sur-Meuse, which he fortified and held out against a Burgundian siege during the months of July and August 1428. Finally, he was present in Reims on 17 July 1429 and stood with other brave French captains at the crowning of their king, Charles VII. When Charles left the north to return to the Loire on 12 September 1429, he appointed Guillaume de Flavy as his captain in Compiègne.74 Can there be any doubt that Flavy had earned this esteemed military position? It is true that after his successful defense of Compiègne, because of the loss of Joan during his time there, Guillaume de Flavy’s career declined, never to attain even a modicum of his pre-1430 glory. The question of not having done what he could to make sure that Joan was not captured, let alone the possibility of his treason in the matter, followed Guillaume de Flavy to his grave. It was an unfortunate end for a man who had fought as hard as and far longer than Joan for the removal of the Anglo-Burgundians from the French realm.
There can be but one conclusion. The treatment of Flavy as a deviously illogical but brilliant traitor presents a far more difficult solution to what occurred at Compiègne than does the more simple and much more credible recognition that there was no treason by Guillaume de Flavy against Joan of Arc.
On 23 May 1430, Joan of Arc became a prisoner of war – a very famous prisoner of war. Other military leaders had been captured before during the Hundred Years War – the French at the time of Joan’s capture were still holding Talbot, Suffolk, and Scales. Some of these prisoners had been of very high rank, including King John II of France, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. But, none, it seems, held the same attraction for their captors as the Maid did for hers. Maybe this was because she was a woman, a female military leader being rare in any military engagement at any time. However, more than likely, the gender issue was only a curiosity. Interest in Joan endured a very long time, due to the way that she fought her engagements and to Whom she gave credit for them. Her ‘mission’ was known to all, and the question on everyone’s mind, friend or foe, was put into words by the great French author Christine de Pisan, who wrote her last work as a Ditié for Joan after the crowning of Charles VII. Addressing herself to the English and Burgundians opposing Joan, Christine asked what they were afraid to have answered:
Oh, all you blind people, can you not detect God’s hand in this? If you cannot you are truly stupid for how else could the Maid who strikes you all down dead have been sent to us? And you do not have sufficient strength! Do you want to fight against God?75
Joan became a prize of war. Like the Romans of ancient times, who dragged their captive opposing military leaders back to their capital to be displayed in triumph, Joan was paraded throughout many of the lands of France occupied by the Burgundians and then the English. She was displayed as a symbol of their victory and the French loss. She would be taken through the streets of Clairoix, Beaulieu-lès-Fontaines, Beaurevoir, Bapaume, Arras, Avesnes-le-Comte, Lucheux, Drugy, Le Crotoy, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Eu, Arques, Bosc-le-Hard, and finally Rouen.76 Only at one place did she remain for any time – at Beaurevoir Castle, where she stayed for four months with Jean of Luxembourg, his wife, Joan of Béthune, her daughter by a first marriage, Joan of Bar, and his aunt, Joan of Luxembourg, while matters concerning who would try her and where were being decided. Tradition and Joan of Arc’s later testimony has it that these other Joans were very taken with her there and would have preferred her to stay with them in a sort of low-security house arrest.77 But, eventually, she was sold to the English who wished to grant her no mercy.
Letters, too, went out to all of the occupied peoples, especially throughout that part of France which had dared to rise in opposition to this occupation. One of the first was written by Philip the Good who, as mentioned, was the first of her opponents to interview her and to glory in her imprisonment. Written within a day of her capture, the duke of Burgundy wrote:
By the pleasure of our blessed Creator, the woman called the Maid has been taken; and from her capture will be recognized the error and mad belief of all those who became sympathetic and favorable to the deeds of this woman . . . and we write you this news hoping that you will have joy and consolation in it and that you will render homage to our Creator, who through His blessed pleasure has wished to conduct the rest of our enterprises on behalf of our lord king of England and of France and for the comfort of his good and loyal subjects.78
That Joan allowed herself to be made captive and would soon be lingering in a prison or worse was evidence to Philip the Good, who obviously had not read the New Testament, that she had not been directed on her mission from a divine source. She was to him a heretic.
Others also felt the same way. Within three days of her capture, the University of Paris requested that the Burgundians surrender their prize to the Inquisitor of France, Jean Graverent, to be tried for heresy. They did not, seeking a more rich reward for her capture. It finally came when the English agreed to pay the enormous sum of 10,000 livres tournois for Joan. The Bastard of Wandomme, who had captured her at Compiègne, received a pension of 300 livres, with Jean of Luxembourg receiving the rest.79 The English promptly put her on trial for heresy, confounded her with theological questions that even the most trained doctor of theology would have been hard pressed to answer correctly, while almost completely neglecting her military career and how she might have been able to win all of those victories without the aid of deity – there are always ways of rationalizing one’s own defeat in war. Found guilty of not knowing what the definition of the Church Militant was and of wearing men’s clothing, Joan first abjured (confessed to heresy) under extreme pressure, and then recanted her abjuration. A little more than a year after she had been captured, on 30 May 1431, Joan of Arc was burned to death as a heretic in the marketplace of Rouen.80 Stripped of her arms and armor, her standard torn from her hands, devoid of her troops and other generals, she may have looked like any other young woman. But this young woman relieved the siege of Orléans, conquered Jargeau, Beaugency, Meung-sur-Loire, and Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, won the battle of Patay and numerous other skirmishes, attacked Paris and Le-Charité-sur-Loire, participated in the defense of Compiègne, saw the capitulation of too many towns to list, and stood next to King Charles VII of France as he was crowned. All of this had been accomplished in a little more than a single year. Confident she had been in battle, so too was she confident in death. She had completed her military mission and had sealed it with her blood.