JOAN: When I was thirteen years old, I had a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very fearful. And came this voice, about the hour of noon, in the summer-time, in my father’s garden; I had not fasted on the eve preceding that day. I heard the voice on the right-hand side, towards the church; and rarely do I hear it without a brightness. This brightness comes from the same side as the voice is heard. It is usually a great light. When I came to France, often I heard this voice. . . . The voice was sent to me by God and, after I had thrice heard this voice, I knew that it was the voice of an angel. This voice has always guarded me well and I have always understood it clearly.
Question: What sort of help say you that this voice has brought you for the salvation of your soul?
JOAN: It has taught me to conduct myself well, to go habitually to church. It told me that I, Joan, should come into France. . . . This voice told me, twice or thrice a week, that I, Joan, must go away and that I must come to France and that my father must know nothing of my leaving. The voice told me that I should go to France and I could not bear to stay where I was. The voice told me that I should raise the siege laid to the city of Orleans. The voice told me also that I should make my way to Robert de Baudricourt in the fortress of Vaucouleurs, the Captain of that place, that he would give me people to go with me. And me, I answered it that I was a poor girl who knew not how to ride nor lead in war. (C.47–48)
Question: Have you some other sign that these voices are good spirits?
JOAN: Saint Michael assured me of it before the voices came.
Question: How did you know it was Saint Michael?
JOAN: I knew it by his speech and by the language of the Angels, and I believe firmly that they were Angels.
Question: How did you know that they were Angels?
JOAN: I believed it quite quickly (soon) and I had the will to believe it. Saint Michael, when he came to me, told me that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret would come to me and that I should act by their advice, that they were bidden to lead me in what I had to do and that I should believe in what they would say to me and that it was by God’s order.
Question: If the devil put himself into the form or figure of a good Angel, how would you know that it is a good or bad Angel?
JOAN: I should certainly know if it was Saint Michael or some other thing which had put itself into his resemblance. The first time I had great doubt if it was Saint Michael who came to me, and that first time I was very much afraid; and I saw him afterwards several times before knowing that it was Saint Michael.
Question: How was it that you recognized Saint Michael rather on that occasion when you did believe (it to be him), than the first time he appeared to you?
JOAN: The first time I was a child and was afraid, and afterwards Saint Michael taught me and showed me and proved to me that I must believe firmly that it was him.
Question: What doctrines did he teach you?
JOAN: Before all things he told me to be a good child and that God would help me. And, among other things he told me to come to the help of the King of France. . . . And the Angel told me the pity (pitiful state) that was in the Kingdom of France. (C.162–163)
Question: Of these visions which you say you had, did you mention them to your parish priest or to any other churchman?
JOAN: No, but to Robert de Baudricourt only, and to my King. My voices did not oblige me to hold this secret, but I feared greatly to reveal it for fear of the Burgundians, lest they prevent my journey; and above all I greatly feared my father, that he might prevent me from making my journey.
Question: Did you think you were doing well in going away without the permission of your father and your mother, since we must honour our father and our mother?
JOAN: In all other things I did obey my father and my mother, save in this leaving them, but afterwards I wrote to them about it and they gave me their forgiveness.
Question: When you left your father and your mother, did you think you were committing a sin?
JOAN: Since God commanded it, it had to be. Since God commanded it, had I had a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, had I been a King’s daughter, I should have departed.
Question: Did you ask your voices whether you could tell your father and your mother of your setting forth?
JOAN: As for my father and my mother, my voices would have been satisfied that I tell them, had it not been for the pain it would have caused them if I had announced my departure. As for me, I would not have told them for anything in the world. The voices left it to me to tell my father and my mother, or to keep silent. . . . And them within so little of going out of their senses the time I left to go to the town of Vaucouleurs. (C.124–125–127)
It was, then, in secret that Joan left Domremy. The nearest she came to giving her plans away was in allusions made to certain people who were unable to understand her.
Hauviette: “I did not know when Joan went away and because of that I wept a great deal for I loved her dearly for her sweet nature and I was her companion.” (R.77)
Mengette: “On going away she bade me adieu, then passed on her way commending me to God, and went away to Vaucouleurs. (R.78)
Gerardin d’Epinal: “I know nothing (of her leaving) save that when she was wishing to go away she said to me, ‘My good friend*, if you were not a Burgundian†, I should tell you something.’ Me, I thought she was talking about some companion she wanted to marry.” (R.81)
Michel Lebuin: “I know nothing, save that once Joan herself told me, on the eve of St. John Baptist’s Day, that there lived a maid between Coussey and Vaucouleurs who, before the year was out, would have the King of France crowned. And in the year which followed, the King was crowned at Rheims; I know nothing else.” (R.80)
How did Joan set about leaving Domremy without alerting her parents?
JOAN: I went to my uncle’s and I told him that I wanted to stay with him for a time and there I stayed about eight days. And I then told my uncle that I must go to the town of Vaucouleurs and my uncle took me there. And when I came to this town of Vaucouleurs I recognized Robert de Baudricourt, whereas never before had I seen him and by my voice I knew this Robert, for the voice told me that it was him. And I told this same Robert that I must go into France. This Robert twice refused and repulsed me. (C.48–49)
Isabelette, wife of Gérardin d’Epinal: “I have heard Durand Laxart, who took her to the lord Robert de Baudricourt, say that she told him that she would tell her father that she was going to help his wife at her confinement, so that he could take her to the lord Robert” (R.82)
Durand Laxart: “I went myself to fetch Joan at her father’s house and I took her to my house. And she told me that she wanted to go to France, to the Dauphin, to have him crowned, saying, ‘Has it not been said that France will be lost by a woman and shall thereafter be restored by a virgin?’ And she told me also that I was to go to Robert de Baudricourt that he might have her taken to the place where the lord Dauphin was to be found. This Robert several times told me that I should return her to her father’s house after having cuffed her soundly.”
Gérard Guillemette: “When Joan left her father’s house, I saw her pass in front of the house with her uncle who was called Durand Laxart. At which time Joan said to her father, ‘God be with you, I am going to Vaucouleurs.’ Then I heard it said that Joan was going away into France.”
One of those who were to be her companions on the “journey” from Vaucouleurs to Chinon, remembered the first encounter between Joan and de Baudricourt. Bertrand de Poulengy, esquire to the King of France, sixty-three years of age or thereabouts: “According to report, Joan was from Domremy, and her father was Jacques d’Arc of that town. I know not her mother’s name, but I was several times in their house and I know that they were worthy farmers. . . . Joan the Maid came to Vaucouleurs at the time of the Ascension of Our Lord, as I recall it, and there I saw her speak with Robert de Baudricourt who was then captain of the town. She told him that she was come to him, Robert, sent by her Lord to bring word to the Dauphin that he hold himself prepared but make no war on his enemies, for the Lord would aid him before mid-Lent. Joan said that the kingdom did not belong to the Dauphin but to her Lord, and that the Lord wanted the Dauphin to be made King and he was to place his kingdom at her command, saying that despite his enemies the Dauphin would be made King and that she would lead him to his coronation. Robert asked her who was her Lord. She answered: ‘The King of Heaven’. That done, she returned to her father’s house with her uncle called Durand Laxart of Bureyle-Petit. And thereafter, towards the end of Lent, Joan came again to Vaucouleurs, asking for a company to go to the lord Dauphin. Which perceiving, myself and Jean de Metz together offered to lead her to the King, at that time Dauphin.” (R.98)
The chronological hints here given by Bertrand de Poulengy allow us to place Joan’s first attempt in the month of May 1428: it took place, therefore, about one month before the Sire de Vergy’s attack on Vaucouleurs. The second attempt took place at the beginning of the year 1429. Lent began very early that year since Ash Wednesday fell on February 9. This second residence in Vaucouleurs was, as we shall see, longer than the first, and we know more about it, Robert de Baudricourt first refusing to yield to Joan’s demand, then letting himself be convinced.
JOAN: Robert twice refused and repulsed me, and the third time he received me and gave me men. The voice had told me that it would so happen.
Durand Laxart: “When the Maid saw that Robert did not want to send her to the place where the Dauphin was, she herself handed me my cloak and told me that she wished to withdraw. And, withdrawing, I took her to Saint-Nicholas, and when she was there she went with a safe-conduct to the lord Charles, Duke of Lorraine, and when the lord Charles saw her, he spoke with her and gave her four francs, which she showed me. Then Joan went back to Vaucouleurs, and the inhabitants of the town of Vaucouleurs bought for her men’s clothes, hose, leggings, and all that she needed. And myself and Jacques Alain of Vaucouleurs, bought her a horse for the price of twelve francs at our own expense. However, thereafter the lord Robert de Baudricourt caused us to be reimbursed. And that done, Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengy, Colet de Vienne and Richard Larcher, with the two servants of Jean de Metz and Bertrand, took Joan to the place where the Dauphin was.” (R.83)
It was thus that Durand Laxart, in curt phrases proper to a far from garrulous peasant, summed up the events. Other witnesses gave more details.
Jean de Novellompont or de Metz, esquire, ennobled by Charles VII in 1448, fifty-seven years old or thereabouts: “When Joan the Maid came to the place and town of Vaucouleurs, in the diocese of Toul, I saw her, dressed in poor clothes, women’s clothes, red; she lodged at the house of one Henri Le Royer of Vaucouleurs. I spoke to her, saying, ‘My dear girl, what are you doing here? Must it not be that the King be cast out of the kingdom and we become English?’ And the Maid answered me, ‘I am come here to a King’s Chamber’ (i.e., to a royalist place) ‘to talk with Robert de Baudricourt that he may be willing to lead me or send me to the King, but he pays no attention to me nor to my words. And yet, before we are in mid-Lent, I must be at the King’s side, though I wear my feet to the knees. For indeed there is nobody in all the world, neither king nor duke, nor daughter of the King of Scotland, nor any other who can recover the kingdom for France. And there will be no help (for the kingdom) if not from me. Although I would rather have remained spinning at my mother’s side, for it is not my condition, yet must I go and must I do this thing, for my Lord wills that I do so.’ I asked her who was her Lord. And she told me that it was God. Whereupon I, Jean, who bear witness here, promised the Maid, putting my hand in hers in a gesture of good faith, that, God helping, I would lead her to the King. And I asked her when she wished to set out. She said to me, ‘Rather today than tomorrow and tomorrow than later.’ Then I asked her if she wanted to go in her own clothes. She replied that she would rather have men’s clothes. Then I gave her clothes and hose of my servants that she might don them. And that done, the inhabitants of Vaucouleurs had men’s clothes made for her and shoes and all things necessary to her and they delivered to her a horse which cost about sixteen francs. When she was dressed and had a horse, with a safe conduct from the lord Charles, Duke of Lorraine, the Maid went to speak with that lord and I went with her to the city of Toul. And when she returned to Vaucouleurs, it being about Bures Sunday*—twenty-seven years ago come next Bures Sunday, that would be—myself and Bertrand de Poulengy and two of his servants and Colet de Vienne, King’s Messenger, and one Richard, an archer, we conducted the Maid to the King who was at Chinon, at my expense and Bertrand’s.” (R.91–92)
It was thus that Joan won over to her cause not only the two squires who led the escort, but a whole group of inhabitants of Vaucouleurs, beginning with the Le Royer couple with whom she lodged.
Catherine Le Royer of Vaucouleurs: “At the time when Joan sought to leave the town she had been in my house for a period of three weeks. And it was then that she sent to have speech with the lord Robert de Baudricourt that he take her to that place where the Dauphin was. But the lord Robert would not. And when Joan saw that Robert would not take her, she said—I heard her—that she must go to the place where the Dauphin was: ‘Have you not heard it said that it has been prophesied that France shall be lost by a woman and restored by a virgin from the Lorraine marches?’ I remembered having heard that and I was stupefied. Joan ardently desired this and the time lagged for her as for a woman pregnant of a child until (the time) when she would be taken to the Dauphin. And after that I believed in her words and with me many others, so much so that Jacques Alain and Durand Laxart were willing to take her and did take her as far as Saint-Nicholas, but thereafter came back to Vaucouleurs, for Joan said that it was not thus that it suited her to go away. When they came back, certain inhabitants of the town caused a tunic to be made for her, hose, leggings, spurs, a sword and other such things, and bought her a horse, and Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengy, Colet de Vienne with three others, took her to the place where the Dauphin was. I saw them mount their horses to set off.”
Henri Le Royer, her husband: “Joan said that she must make her way to the noble Dauphin, for her Lord, the King of Heaven, wished her to go there and that the King of Heaven was thus her sponser; that though she be obliged to make her way there on her knees, go she would. Joan came into my house. She was dressed in a woman’s garment, red. Later she was dressed in a vest, hose and other clothes proper to a man, and rode on a horse to the place where the Dauphin was. I saw them set out all together. When she sought to go, she was asked how she would do it, when there were so many men-at-arms everywhere. She answered that she feared not men-at-arms for her way was open, and if there were men-at-arms on her road, she had God, her Lord, who would clear the way for her to go to the lord Dauphin, and that she had been born to do this.” (R.94–96)
At the time of the rehabilitation, several witnesses remembered Joan as they had seen her at Vaucouleurs twenty-seven years before.
Jean le Fumeux, parish priest of Ugny, canon of Vaucouleurs, thirty-eight years of age or thereabouts: “Joan came to Vaucouleurs and said that she wanted to go to the Dauphin. Me, I was young at that time and I was churchwarden of the chapel Notre-Dame of Vaucouleurs. I often saw Joan the Maid come to that church very piously. She heard mass in the morning and remained long at prayer. I have seen her beneath the vault of that church on her knees before the Holy Virgin, sometimes with bowed head, sometimes with her head raised. I believe her to have been a good and holy girl.” (R.86)
Geoffrey Dufay, knight, of de Baudricourt’s suite, fifty years of age or thereabouts: “I often heard the Maid talked of. She was saying that she wanted to go to France. I saw that Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengy, and Julien, who was a squire, took the Maid to the King. I did not see her at that time, but it was they who told me that she was to go with them.”
Albert d’Ourches, another of Baudricourt’s people sixty years of age or therabouts: “I saw Joan at Vaucouleurs when she wanted to be taken to the King. I heard the Maid several times say that she wanted to go to the King and that she only wished she could be taken to him for the great advantage of the Dauphin. This Maid, as it seems to me, was full of goodness in her conduct (remplie de bonnes meurs). I should have liked to have so well-behaved a daughter. I saw her later in the company of soldiers. I saw the Maid confess to Brother Richard before Senlis and receive the Body of Christ, with the Dukes of Clermont and Alençon, during two days. And I believe that she was a perfectly good Christian—I said above, she demanded to be taken to the King. This Maid spoke very well. She was taken there by Bertrand de Poulengy, Jean de Metz and their servants.” (R.96–97)
Noble as well as simple must have been talking about her in Vaucouleurs at that time. The fame of the young peasant girl who wanted to go to the King’s aid, and whose mission was in fact heralded in a prophecy which was going the rounds in that part of the country and here and there all over the kingdom, will have come to the ears of the Duke Charles of Lorraine who must have wanted to see her for himself. The old duke was sick, and it was as a thaumaturge from whom a miracle might be hoped that he sent for her, rather than as the instrument of a victory and a coronation which he did not much care about.
JOAN: The Duke of Lorraine required that I be taken to him. I went and I told him that I wanted to go to France, and the duke questioned me about the restoration of his health and I told him that of that I knew nothing; I said little to him about my journey, but I said to the duke that he (should) give me his son and some men to take me into France and that I would pray to God for his health; I went to him by means of a safe-conduct and I returned afterwards to the town of Vaucouleurs. (C.49)
Another witness, Marguerite de Touroulde, widow of the King’s counsellor Regnier de Bouligny, with whom Joan stayed in Bourges for some time on her return from the coronation and in whom she had confided, had a few words to say about the above encounter: “I have heard Joan say that the Duke of Lorraine, who was sick, wanted to see her. And Joan had been to speak with him and had told him that he was behaving badly and that never would he recover his health if he did not mend his ways, and she exhorted him to take back his good spouse.” (R.120)
In fact Charles of Lorraine had for some time been neglecting his “good spouse” Marguerite of Bavaria for a girl named Alison Dumay by whom he had had five bastards: the son Joan mentioned was in reality his son-in-law, René of Anjou, husband of Charles’s daughter Isabelle and future heir to Lorraine, of which he was to take possession when the duke died on January 25, 1431.
It was on her return from Nancy (Nancy is about fifty kilometres from Vaucouleurs, say a day on horseback) that Joan found the atmosphere somewhat changed in her favour and Baudricourt himself, perhaps prompted by Jean de Metz, whom Joan, as we have seen, had succeeded in winning over by the ardour of her pleading, disposed to help her. But he was to take one preliminary precaution: he was to have Joan exorcised.
Catherine Le Royer: “I saw Robert de Baudricourt, then captain of the town of Vaucouleurs, and Messire Jean Fournier, come into my house. I heard it from Joan that the latter, a priest, had brought a stole and that he had conjured her before the captain, saying that if there was any bad thing in her that she go hence from them, and that if there was a good thing then let her approach them. And Joan approached this priest and went down on her knees; and she said that this priest had not done well, since he had heard her confession.” (R.94)
Then came her departure.
Joan, on leaving the city of Vaucouleurs: “I was in man’s clothes, holding in my hand a sword which Robert de Baudricourt had given me and without other arms, with a knight, an esquire and four servants. I came to the town of Saint Urbain and there I spent the night in the abbey.
“Robert de Baudricourt caused those who escorted me to swear that they would lead me truly and surely, and Robert said to me, ‘Go’ as I set off, ‘Go and let what is to be come to pass.’ On the way I passed the town of Auxerre and there I heard mass in the great church. Often, at that time, I had my voices.” (C.49–50)
Astonishing, surely, this undertaking on which Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy were embarking. Later, they gave some account, notably to Marguerite la Touroulde, of the somewhat contradictory feelings which animated them on the subject of Joan.
Marguerite la Touroulde: “Afterwards I heard those who took her to the King speak of it and heard them say that, to begin with, they thought her presumptuous and their intention was to put her to the proof. But when they had set out to take her, they were ready to do whatever Joan pleased and were as eager to present her to the King as herself, and that they could not have resisted Joan’s will. They said that in the beginning they wanted to require her to lie with them carnally. But when the moment came to speak to her of this they were so much ashamed that they dared not speak of it to her nor say a word of it.” (R.119)
And they themselves summoned to bear witness at the trial of rehabilitation, swore to the astonishing influence which the girl had gained over them in the course of a ride which, at all events for her companions, constituted in itself an almost decisive ordeal: the ordeal of daily life and the ordeal of chastity.
Bertrand de Poulengy: “Upon leaving the town, on the first day, we were afraid because of the Burgundian and English soldiers who were masters of the roads, and we made our way during the night. Joan the Maid said to me, as to Jean de Metz and those who travelled with us, that it would be a good thing to hear mass, but because of the wars in the countryside we could not, for we had to pass unperceived. Every night she lay down with Jean de Metz and me, keeping upon her her surcoat and hose, tied and tight. I was young then and yet I had neither desire nor carnal movement to touch woman, and I should not have dared to ask such a thing of Joan, because of the abundance of goodness which I saw in her. We were eleven days on the road going to the King, then Dauphin. But on the way we had many anxieties. But Joan repeatedly told us not to be afraid, and that once we came to the town of Chinon the noble Dauphin would give us good countenance. She never swore, and I myself was much stimulated by her voices, for it seemed to me that she was sent by God, and I never saw in her any evil, but always was she so virtuous a girl that she seemed a saint. And thus all together, without great difficulties, we made our way to the place of Chinon where the King, then Dauphin, lay.” (R.99)
Jean de Novellompont or de Metz: “Leaving the town of Vaucouleurs, for fear of the English and the Burgundians who were everywhere across our road to the King, we sometimes moved at night. And we kept on the road for a period of eleven days, riding towards the town of Chinon; and making my way beside her, I asked her if she would do what she said, and the Maid always told us to have no fear and that she had a mandate to do this thing, for her brothers in Paradise told her what she had to do; that for four or five years already her brothers in Paradise and her Lord, to wit God, had been telling her that she must go to the war to recover the Kingdom of France. On our way, Bertrand and I, we lay down with her, and the Maid lay beside me, keeping on her doublet and hose; and I, I feared (respected) her so that I would never have dared make advances to her, and I say upon oath that neither did I have for her desire nor carnal motion. . . . On her way she would have liked to hear mass, for she often said to us, ‘If we could hear mass, we should do well.’ But, to my knowledge, we only heard mass twice upon our way. I had great confidence in the Maid’s sayings, and I was fired by her sayings and with love for her, divine as I believe. I believe that she was sent by God; never did she swear, she liked to hear mass and she crossed herself with the sign of the Cross. And thus we took her to the King, to the place of Chinon, as secretly as we could.”
In the matter of Joan’s residence at Vaucouleurs and of her departure from it, a question of dates arises. Traditionally, the date of departure was placed between February 20 and 25, 1429, and the arrival at Chinon on March 6. The learned Pierre Boissonade had corrected these dates and his conclusions are now accepted by the majority of historians. (See his article: Une etape capitale de la mission de Jeanne d’Arc, Revue des Questions Historiques, 3rd Series, Vol. XVII, 1930, pp. 12–67.) He bases his argument principally on the Journal du greffier de La Rochelle (published by Quicherat in the Revue Historique, Vol. IV, 1877, pp. 327–344). This clerk wrote up his journal in September 1429 on the basis of notes taken from day to day. He was in a position to be well-informed for La Rochelle was at that time the only port which the King of France disposed of; the town was, therefore, in continual touch with the other towns which had remained loyal to Charles VII, the more so in that La Rochelle was the port of disembarkation for the Scottish troops which arrived from time to time to reinforce those serving with the King. His account is very exact; and this is what he wrote: “The 23rd February there came to the King our lord who was at Chinon a maid aged sixteen or seventeen years.”
The evidence given by Jean de Metz indicates, as we have seen, that the date of their departure was “about Bures Sunday”, that is to say the first Sunday in Lent, which in 1429 fell on February 12th. The two dates agree very well since, also according to his evidence, the journey lasted eleven days. Moreover Joan herself had declared, “Before it be mid-Lent, I must be with the King.” Mid-Lent that year (Shrove Thursday) fell on March 1st.
Other evidence, including that of the Journal of the Siege of Orleans, points to February as the month.
It may, therefore, be taken that Joan and her escort left Vaucouleurs on the 12th to arrive at Chinon on the 23rd. In that case it was on the evening of February 23rd that Joan was received by the King himself in the great hall of the chateau of Chinon.
Thus set forth, the chronology of events leaves room for the Poitiers interrogatories which, according to witnesses, lasted six weeks, which would mean that Joan was in that town from March 1st to April 10th or thereabouts. From Poitiers Joan returned to Chinon where she spent only a short time. She resided at Tours where her equipment was got ready for her between April the 12th and 21st, and thence, on April 22, she went to Blois, the royal army’s GHQ.
Diverse questions of varying importance have been raised touching the events described in this chapter.
Surprise has been expressed at the fact that Joan was “sufficiently well-informed” to speak of the project of a marriage between the Dauphin and King of Scotland’s daughter.
In point of fact this project was in no sense a state secret. The year before, in April 1428, Charles VII had sent an embassy to James I of Scotland, an embassy which included among others the famous poet Alain Chartier, to ask the hand of Margaret of Scotland for his son, the young Dauphin Louis: this had been promised him, and the promise became part of the treaty of alliance made at that time between France and Scotland. This treaty did, in any case, no more than renew the numerous treaties of alliance concluded between France and traditionally friendly Scotland, expressions of a policy going back more than a century and which the French hastened to reaffirm upon the renewal of hostilities with England. Scottish battalions had always fought shoulder to shoulder with the armies of the “King of Bourges”. At the time of the first offensive operation undertaken by Charles VII as King (in 1423, against Cravant), the commanding officer was a Scot, John Stuart; the King’s gratitude was expressed by a licence to quarter the arms of France with his own.
There can be no doubt that the marriage project was at once communicated to the King’s good towns, for Charles was punctual in informing them of all diplomatic and military events: Joan, like everybody else, was au courant.
Then there has been an attempt—once again it is the old business of getting the bastardy theory accepted—to inflate the part played by the two gentlemen who agreed to escort Joan, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. They are supposed to have known Joan before her arrival in Vaucouleurs, to have instructed her in her mission, taught her the part she was expected to play, etc. etc. On what are these suppositions founded? Solely on Bertrand de Poulengy’s declaration, reported above: “I was often in their house” (Joan’s parents’ house). (More precisely, pluries, i.e., “several times”.) The reader can judge for himself the disingenuousness of such an interpretation. At no time did Bertrand say that he had ever been there before he met Joan in Vaucouleurs; and there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that after his astonishing eleven-day ride with Joan he should, upon returning to his own town, have called several times on her parents.
As for Jean de Metz or de Novellompont, it emerges quite clearly from his deposition that, on the day when he addressed himself to Joan in a tone of irony, that was the first time he had ever seen her.
Finally, Colet de Vienne, another member of the escort, has been cast in the role of messenger sent especially by the King to fetch Joan, the moment being come to reveal to the world that he had a bastard sister from whom he expected marvels. (Why, one wonders?)
Now, on the subject of Colet de Vienne we have absolutely no documentary evidence excepting in the depositions set down above. And understandably, for he was a King’s messenger, indeed, but only one among many, nuntius regis, whose function it was to carry letters and dispatches addressed by the King to his captains and his good towns, an office very little superior to that of any procurator (procureur) or royal sergeant. His presence in Vaucouleurs was perfectly natural since the town’s commanding officer had remained loyal to the King of France and, despite the disturbed times, messengers had never ceased to move freely about whether to Vaucouleurs or even as far as Tournai which had also remained loyal. (On this subject see Charles Samaran’s Pour la defence de Jeanne d’Arc, in the Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire; de France, Vol. LXXXV, 1953, pp. 50–63.)
Yet another theory: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy according to this one, had been members of “the Queen of Sicily’s entourage”. The bastardy idea has been dropped, at this point, and in default of making Joan out to be a royal bastard, an attempt is made to turn her into somebody’s “instrument”. Note that even in her own day a Burgundian chronicler had tried to discredit her by representing her as Baudricourt’s tool. (Jean de Wavrin, Q IV, 407.) The idea now—for the theory is quite recent—is to represent her as the instrument of the Queen of Sicily, Yolande of Aragon, who became Yolande of Anjou when she married Louis of Anjou, and so mother-in-law to Charles VII who married her daughter, Marie of Anjou. For the purposes of the theory here in question she is called Yolande of Bar, a name she never bore but which had been her mother’s before she married the King of Aragon. Yolande had received the Duchy of Bar as a legacy from her mother, and in 1419 she succeeded in marrying her son René (the future King René) to the heiress of Lorraine, Isabelle, daughter of Duke Charles—the same Charles as had sent for Joan, hoping for a miracle which would restore his health. Their wedding was celebrated in 1420.
That Joan was, in fact, a native of the Lorraine-Barrois region might have made Yolande of Aragon—who, however, had never been to Lorraine in her life—regard her with benevolent interest. But to represent Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy as being “of the Queen of Sicily’s entourage” is to assert what no document justifies. Jean de Metz was a native of Novellompont, in the Messin country, which was never part of the Duchy of Lorraine; it is well known that Metz and its district were independent, and owed allegiance to the Empire. A simple gentleman of Baudricourt’s suite, Jean de Metz was only very belatedly enobled by Charles VII (see the lettre d’anoblisement in QV363) in 1448, that is nearly twenty years after the famous ride which ought, however, to have drawn the King’s attention to him. As for Bertrand de Poulengy, who, at the Trial of Rehabilitation was still a mere esquire, he makes no other appearance in history whatsoever.
We repeat, history is not made of suppositions but of documents. No document establishes any kind of action, direct or indirect, on the part of either Charles VII or Yolande of Aragon, designed to “bring” Joan to Chinon. As for Baudricourt, all we have touching his personal action in the matter are the documents we have quoted, and these show him twice sending Joan away before he—like everybody else—lets himself be won over by her.
Joan, to convince her own entourage, was not afraid to invoke the prophecies which were going the rounds. It was widely claimed that the kingdom lost by a woman (identified, of course, as the calamitous Isabeau of Bavaria) would be saved by a virgin; a prophecy of Merlin’s was commonly invoked—it told of a virgin who would ride on the back of Sagittarius, etc. In all such times of troubles prophetic sayings are invoked; we do not have to seek far back for an example; it suffices to remind ourselves of a certain “prophecy of Saint Odile” which everybody heard about between 1940 and 1945. . . . That Joan should have made use of it to convince her following proves nothing but that she was clever and knew how to turn everything to account to gain her point; it is worth noting that when dealing with Jean de Metz, or with the King, her language was of a very different order.
One final point: many have wondered how she came to be able to ride a horse. The question becomes pointless to anyone who, even in our own time, has watched Lorraine farm-girls, perched on the backs of the massive horses of that horse-and-cattle-breeding country, taking the cattle to water. At a time when the horse was the only means of locomotion it is obvious that Joan must have been riding her father’s, and riding them astride, since her childhood. When she protested against the summons of her voices, saying that she did not know how to ride, it is important to note that she used a term translated into Latin as equitare, which means to ride a warhorse, a very different matter from knowing how to sit an ordinary horse. That, indeed, she did not know how to do, but it does not seem very extraordinary that she should subsequently have learnt the art; easier, surely, and at all events, than delivering the City of Orleans!
* Or, possibly, “Godfather”. E.H.
† i.e., of the “Burgundian” Party.
* Dimanche des Bures. First Sunday in Lent. In 1429 this fell on February 12th.