The Executioner's Knife Part 21

"What impudence! I can hardly believe it possible! Whom do you think I come from this minute, Joan? The Sire of Gaucourt," and answering an interrogating gesture of the heroine, her host proceeded: "Would you believe the man has forgotten the rude lesson of this morning? Would you believe that at his instigation the captains, a.s.sembled this evening after supper, decided that--_in view of the small number of the mercenary troops in town, the council opposes a battle for the morrow, and declares that the people should be satisfied with the successes they have so far won ... and until the arrival of reinforcements no further measures shall be taken against the English_.[93] I was commissioned to inform you of this decision on the spot and demand your submission--"

"It is nothing short of treason!" broke in Dame Boucher, who although ignorant of arms, nevertheless perceived the baseness of the act. "What, remain locked up within our walls, on the eve of the last triumph that is to free our town!"

"I spoke in that sense to the Sire of Gaucourt," replied James Boucher, "and I consented to communicate to Joan the decision of the captains, but declared at the same time that I was positive she would refuse to obey, and that in that case she should not lack the support of the councilmen and the good people of Orleans."

"You have answered, sir, as I myself would have answered," said the warrior maid with a smile of deep sorrow at this further evidence of the captains' perfidy. "Be at ease. Your brave militiamen occupy to-night the Augustinian Convent. I shall join them to-morrow at daybreak to lead them to the a.s.sault, and with G.o.d's help and their courage we shall carry the Tournelles. As to the captains' ill will, I have a sovereign means to thwart it. It is for that reason that I requested you to have me escorted to-morrow to the sound of the town's trumpets. Good night, sir; have faith and courage. The good town of Orleans will be set free.

G.o.d so orders it."

James Boucher withdrew, followed by his wife. Madeleine alone remained with the warrior maid. The latter, before taking to her bed, and yielding to a vague presentiment, requested her companion, to whom she frankly avowed her utter ignorance of reading and writing, to write to her mother, Isabelle Darc, a letter that she proceeded to dictate--a simple, touching, respectful letter that revealed at every word her love for her family and the tender recollection of the happy days that she spent in Domremy. In that missive Joan did not forget even her village girl friend, nor the good old s.e.xton who, to oblige her, when she was still little and loved so pa.s.sionately to listen to the sound of the bells, purposely prolonged the morning chimes or the chimes of the Angelus. This missive, that bore the stamp of serious, religious and tender sentiment, breathed a vague presentiment concerning her chances of safety at the murderous battle contemplated for the morrow.

Madeleine, who more than once, while writing the letter, had dried her tears, was struck by these apprehensions and asked her with a trembling voice:

"Oh, Joan, do you apprehend misfortune to yourself?"

"The will of G.o.d be done, dear Madeleine. I do not know why, but it seems to me I shall be wounded to-morrow again.[94] Oh, I was right! It was a mistake to delay employing me so long. I am not to live long!"

Joan then relapsed into silence and presently added: "May G.o.d protect you, dear friend; I am going to sleep. I feel very tired and I must be on my feet to-morrow before dawn."

CHAPTER IX.

SAt.u.r.dAY, MAY 7, 1429.

Before daybreak Joan re-armed herself with the help of Madeleine. The wound in her foot pained her severely. Although the distance was short from Orleans to the Convent of the Augustinians she asked for her horse.

After tenderly embracing her companion, Madeleine helped her descend to the ground floor. There they found James Boucher, his wife and a female friend named Colette, the wife of the registrar Millet. All three had risen early to bid the warrior maid G.o.dspeed. Sadness overspread the faces of all at the thought of the fresh dangers that the heroine was about to brave, but the latter rea.s.sured her friends as well as she could, and pressed upon James Boucher the necessity of causing it to be proclaimed throughout the city that, in order to insure a successful issue to the a.s.sault on the Tournelles the fort should be attacked by the captains from the side of the bridge the instant that she began the attack from the side of the Augustinian Convent. Thus pressed upon by popular clamor, the captains would be forced to recede from their treasonable decision of the previous evening. Will they, nill they, they would co-operate with her. Joan had just given these last instructions to her host, when a fisherman stopped at the door to offer for sale to Dame Boucher an enormous river shad that he had just caught in the Loire. In order not to leave her hosts under a sad impression, Joan said mirthfully to James Boucher:

"Do buy this shad and keep it for this evening. I shall return by the Orleans bridge after we have carried the Tournelles and I shall bring an English prisoner along to help us finish up the fish."[95]

Saying this Joan mounted her horse and preceded by her page, her equerry and the town trumpeters, who at her orders blew the reveille and the call to arms, she crossed the whole city and rode towards the Bourgogne Gate where she was to be joined by Master John the cannonier, the representative of the carpenters named Champeaux, and the representative of the fishermen, named Poitevin, both of them intelligent and resolute men.

By traversing the town from one end to the other to the sound of trumpets, it was the Maid's purpose to call the townsmen up and out, and to announce to them that she was about to start on the a.s.sault; and thus to compel the captains to choose between seconding her in a combat upon which the final deliverance of Orleans depended, or else covering themselves with overwhelming shame and exposing themselves to be killed by an indignant people. Upon arriving at the Bourgogne Gate Joan found Master John together with Champeaux and Poitevin. She ordered the former to gather all the necessary workmen and quickly construct a drop-bridge to be thrown over the arches where the English had cut the bridge for the purpose of isolating the Tournelles from the boulevard of the town and thus turning the Loire into a natural moat for their fortification.

The communication being thus re-established it would enable the captains who remained in town to advance with their men to the very foot of the fortress and a.s.sail it. The placing of the bridge and the eruption of the soldiers from that side were to be announced by the town belfry. At that signal Joan was to commence the a.s.sault from her side. The carpenter promised that all would be ready in two hours. The equerry Daulon was sent by Joan to inform the captains of her dispositions.

Nevertheless, preparing against the contingency of the captains' failing to comply, she ordered Poitevin to fill two large barges with tarred and pitched f.a.gots, and in case no attack was made by way of the improvised bridge, Poitevin, a.s.sisted by some other intrepid skippers, was to drive the burning barges against the Tournelles and fasten them there against the lower framework of the English fortress. The English were thus to be hemmed in between a conflagration and the lances and pikes of the French.

Obedient to the instructions he had received from Joan the previous evening, Master John carried during the night a large number of scaling ladders to the Augustinian Convent for the attack from that side; moreover, a.s.sisted by his two st.u.r.dy friends, Champeaux and Poitevin, and their workmen, he had established two pontoon bridges, one from the right bank of the Loire to the small island of St. Aignan, the second from that island to a path on the left bank of the river and almost opposite the ruins of the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc. By opening this path to the foot soldiers, to the cavalry and to the artillery, the Maid facilitated the pa.s.sage of the troops and cannons of Master John, both of which could thus be easily brought to bear upon the Tournelles; if occasion should arise, the bridge alone offered a safe means of retreat.

Joan was about to step upon the pontoon bridge when she was joined by Dunois and Lahire. Yielding to the point of honor, no less than to the public outcry of the townspeople, who were notified of the departure of Joan to the a.s.sault, the two captains came at the head of their companies of troops to take part in the battle. Commander Gireme, Marshal St. Sever and other captains were, according to the Maid's orders, to attack the Tournelles from the side of the bridge. At a signal from the belfry the attack of the fortress was to commence upon both sides. Followed by Lahire and Dunois, the heroine arrived before the Augustinian Convent. Formed in battle line since early morning, the militiamen awaited impatiently the order to march upon the enemy. Loud were the cheers with which they received the Maid. While waiting for the signal for the general a.s.sault, she desired to inspect more closely the outer fortifications of the Tournelles, and she approached the fortress which she found protected by a wide moat on the other side of which rose a palisaded embankment, and beyond and above that a rampart equipped with artillery and flanked with frame turrets. The works presented a formidable appearance. Already the pieces of artillery of longest range were showering their projectiles at Master John and his cannoniers, who were training their cannons against the rampart to the end of knocking a breach through for the a.s.sault. Unconcerned at the bullets that at times buried themselves in the ground at the feet of her horse, the warrior maid attentively watched the work of Master John, and with a visual precision that threw the old cannonier into confusion and wonder, she pointed out to him more correct positions for several of his pieces.

Master John recognized the justice of her opinion and followed her instructions. Suddenly the peals of the belfry reached the ears of Joan's troops. It was to be the signal for the general attack, but it turned out otherwise. Instead of beginning the action from their side, the captains wasted time with false manoeuvres, and left Joan to engage the English alone, in the hope that the latter, not being compelled to divide their forces as Joan had counted that they would, might easily crush her. Ignorant of this fresh act of treason on the part of the captains, the Maid gave Master John orders to open fire upon the ramparts in order to protect the descent of the troops into the moat.

The cannons roared. At their sound, and unable to support the idea of remaining nailed to her horse instead of taking an active part in this decisive combat, the warrior maid, despite the smarting wound of the previous day, jumped to the ground, and soon forgot the stinging pain in the effervescence of the struggle. Her standard in her hand, she marched to the a.s.sault.

The English were commanded by their most ill.u.s.trious captains--Lord Talbot, the Earl of Suffolk, Gladescal and many more. Violent at their recent defeats, these warriors were bent upon wiping out the stain on their arms. This supreme day would decide the fate of Orleans, perchance also of the English domination of Gaul. It was necessary for the English to restore by a brilliant victory the drooping courage of their troops.

The captains gathered their best men, veterans of scores of battles, reminded them of their past victories, p.r.i.c.ked their national pride, fired their military ardor, and succeeded once more in overcoming the terror that the Maid filled them with. The French met with a furious and dogged resistance. Three times they mounted to the a.s.sault, here through the breach, yonder by means of their scaling ladders. Three times they were repelled and their ladders thrown down with all who were climbing them. A hailstorm of b.a.l.l.s, bolts and arrows showered down upon the French. The bottom of the moat was covered with the dead and dying.

The breach having been opened, Master John hastened to join the Maid and reached her side at the moment when she rushed at a ladder that her intrepid followers raised for the fourth time at the foot of one of the turrets. Master John followed the Maid. She had mounted several rungs when she was struck at the juncture of her gorget and cuira.s.s by a "vireton," a long and sharp steel arrow, that was ejected with such force from a ballista that, piercing her armor, it entered near her right breast and partly issued under her shoulder.[96]

Thrown back by the force of the projectile, the Maid fell into the arms of the cannonier who followed close behind her, and who, with the aid of a few militiamen, carried her fainting beyond the moat. There they laid her on the gra.s.s near a tree that protected her from the enemy's fire.

She felt, she said, as if she were dying, but still retaining her full presence of mind she deplored the slowness of the captains, who, not having attacked the Tournelles from the side of the town, endangered by their treason an otherwise certain victory. Informed of the wound received by Joan, her equerry Daulon hastened to her and realizing the seriousness of her condition informed her that in order to avoid being choked by the flowing blood, her cuira.s.s had to be instantly unfastened and the dart extracted. At these words, Joan's pale face turned purple.

Her modesty revolted at the thought of exposing her shoulder and bosom to the eyes of the men who surrounded her; and so painful was the thought that her tears--touching tears, not drawn by the physical pain that she was suffering from, welled up to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.[97]

Master John, who also had considerable experience in wounds, confirmed the equerry's opinion--to allow the dart to remain longer in the wound was to expose the heroine's precious life. Indeed, feeling more and more suffocated, Joan believed her last hour had struck, still she did not wish as yet to die. Her mission was not yet fulfilled. She invoked her saints, gathered strength from the mental prayer and mustered up the necessary resolution to submit to a necessity that cruelly wounded her modesty. Before, however, allowing her wound to be attended, Joan ordered the a.s.sault to be suspended in order to give the troops some rest. She ordered Dunois, who ran to her, together with Lahire and Xaintrailles, to send one of their orderlies into Orleans on the spot, in order to ascertain the cause of the fatal inaction of the other chiefs, and to enjoin them to commence the attack from the side of the town within an hour, or else to order the barges with combustibles to be set on fire and pushed against the Tournelles. Again the belfry was to give the signal for a general attack. The trumpets sounded a retreat amidst the triumphant cheers of the English, who were intoxicated with their first triumph. Thanks, however, to the exaltation that the heroine had produced in her soldiers, they clamored to be allowed to return to the a.s.sault. A cordon of sentinels, placed at a little distance from the tree at whose base Joan had been laid, kept back the alarmed, trembling and desolate crowd of soldiers. Blus.h.i.+ng with confusion, the warrior maid allowed her equerry to unfasten her cuira.s.s, and with a steady hand herself extracted the dart from her breast, emitting, however, in doing so, a piercing cry of pain. Dunois and the other captains wished to have her transported to Orleans, where, said they, she would receive the best of care, and they proposed to adjourn the battle for the next day. Joan opposed both propositions, and maintained that, even then, if the captains would support her from the side of Orleans, success was certain.

"Let our people take some food," she said to Dunois; "we shall return to the a.s.sault; the Tournelles will be ours!"[98]

Once the dart was extracted from the wound, the warrior maid allowed herself to be tended. The mental tortures that she underwent at the moment by far exceeded her physical pain. When, her cuira.s.s and padded jacket having been taken off, she felt her linen s.h.i.+rt, wet with blood and the sole cover on her shoulder and breast, respectfully removed by her equerry, a shudder ran through Joan's body and she involuntarily closed her eyes. She seemed to wish to close her eyes to the looks that she feared might be cast at her. But so sacred was the nation's virgin to all the troops that not even the shadow of an improper thought stained the purity of the pious offices of any of the men who saw the beautiful warrior maid thus semi-nude.[99]

Like all other professional equerries, Daulon was expert in surgery. He carried about him, in a leather case suspended from his shoulder, lint, bandages and a bottle of balm. With these he tended the wound which he p.r.o.nounced so serious that he considered it highly imprudent for Joan to return to the combat. But on that point she remained inflexible. So great was the relief she speedily experienced, that she said she hardly felt the wound. Tightly laced, her armor would keep the bandage in position. All she wanted was a few mouthfuls of water to slake her burning thirst. Master John ran to a nearby streamlet, filled up full a pouch that was half full of wine and returned with it to the Maid. She drank and felt better, rose, put on her armor and took a few steps to test her strength. Her celestial face, grown pale with the loss of blood, speedily recovered its serene and resolute expression. She requested those near her to step aside for a moment, whereupon she knelt down near the old oak tree, joined her hands, prayed, thanked her good saints for having delivered her from a mortal danger, and besought them further to sustain and protect her. Immediately she heard the mysterious voices murmur in her ear:

"Go, daughter of G.o.d. Courage! Combat with your wonted audacity. Heaven will give you victory. By you Gaul will be delivered."

Inspired anew the heroine rose, put on her casque, seized her banner that had been placed against the tree, and cried out aloud:

"Now, to the a.s.sault! Ours will the Tournelles be, by the order of G.o.d!

To arms! Be brave! Forward, victory to Gaul!"[100]

The cry was repeated from mouth to mouth with a tremor of impatient bravery. The quick peals from the belfry rent the air. The detonations of the artillery resounded from the side of the town, announcing the execution of the Maid's orders, however tardy. The Tournelles was a.s.sailed by the captains from the bridge at the moment when the Maid marched to the attack of the fortress in front. The happy plan redoubled the already exalted ardor of the a.s.sailants under the Maid. Led by her they resumed the a.s.sault with irresistible impetus. After a stubborn and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle that lasted until night the Tournelles was carried. As on the previous day, the sinking rays of the sun cast the gleam of their ruddy aureola upon the folds of Joan Darc's standard, planted by herself upon the battlements of the fortress. The enemy was vanquished again.

Gladescal, who had so outrageously insulted Joan, was killed during the combat, as also the Seigneurs of Moulin and Pommiers and the Bailiff of Trente, together with a great number of English n.o.blemen. Almost all their men who were not killed were made prisoners, the rest were either burned or drowned in the attempt to flee when the a.s.sailants were upon them. They sought to escape by the improvised bridge under which Poitevin let his burning barges float. The bridge took fire and broke under the feet of the fleeing soldiers who thus perished either in the flames or the river.

As Joan had calculated, the garrisons of the other bastilles, to the number of from eight to ten thousand men, decamped in haste during the very first night that followed the capture of the Tournelles. They left in terror and consternation. At break of the next day, the warrior maid mounted her horse, a.s.sembled the town militiamen and a few companies of the captains' troops and marched out to offer battle to the English whom they supposed to be still there. But these were gone, they were beating a precipitate retreat towards Meung and Beaugency, fortified places held by the English.

On that day, Sunday, May 8, 1429, Joan re-entered Orleans at the head of the troops, and attended noon ma.s.s at the Church of St. Croix in the midst of an immense concourse of people, delirious with joy and grat.i.tude to the warrior maid--the redeeming angel of Orleans.

Such was the "Week of Joan Darc." In eight days and with three battles she caused the raising of the siege that had lasted nearly a year. The deed achieved by the peasant girl of Domremy dealt a mortal blow to the rule of England in Gaul.

But not yet was Joan's secret martyrdom at an end; it increased from day to day with her glory. Charles VII, that poltroon and ingrate prince, unnerved and plunged in ign.o.ble effeminacy, was yet to cause the shepherdess of Domremy to undergo all the tortures and all the disappointments that a soul inflamed with patriotism can not choose but undergo when it has devoted itself to a prince whose baseness is equal to his selfishness and cowardice.

CHAPTER X.

THE KING CROWNED.

Immediately upon the raising of the siege of Orleans, Joan hastened to the Castle of Loches. The fame of her triumphs ran ahead heralding her approach. The gates of the palace flew open before her. She was told the King was closeted in his private cabinet with his council. Thither Joan walked resolutely, knocked at the door and intrepidly addressed Charles VII:

"Sire, pray do not hold such long conferences with these seigneurs. The siege of Orleans is raised. The good town is now restored to you. You must now march boldly to Rheims and be consecrated. The consecration will crown you King of France in the eyes of the French. The English will then be impotent against you."

The sound sense and political ac.u.men of Joan traced to Charles VII in these few words the only path that wisdom dictated. His consecration at Rheims, a divine attestation of his contested rights, would impart in the eyes of the ignorant and credulous ma.s.s a powerful prestige to a royalty thus reconst.i.tuted, rehabilitated, rejuvenated and breaking forth in renewed splendor. The step was moreover a bold challenge flung at the English, whose King claimed also to be King of France, and the challenge had the proper threatening ring coming swiftly upon the victory of Orleans. But Joan had counted without the pusillanimity of a prince who doted on his idleness, who was jealous of his pleasures, who hated the bare thought of physical exertion, and who considered only his personal comfort. In order to be consecrated at Rheims he would have to mount on horseback and place himself at the head of the army. It would be necessary to confront considerable danger seeing that from Orleans to Rheims the whole country still was in the hands of the English.

"Go to Rheims! Why, the project is insane, criminal!" cried La Tremouille and the Bishop of Chartres. "Does it not endanger the life, at least the health of the King?"

And the sorry King joined his council:

"I, risk myself out of my Castles of Loches and Chinon! And do so when the English still are in possession of Meung, Beaugency, Jargeau and other strongholds on the frontier of Touraine! Why, at the first step that I take out of my retreat they will gobble me up!" and to himself he cursed his luck and wished the possessed Maid to the devil, seeing her more interested than himself in the honor of the crown.

Disappointed and grieved Joan hardly repressed her indignation. The brave Maid answered that if Charles's departure for Rheims only depended upon the capture of the strongholds held in Touraine by the English, she would capture these fortresses and drive the enemy so far, so very far that they could not then inspire the King with the slightest fear.[101]

She then appointed Gien for their rendezvous, implored the King to meet her there in a week, and promised him that he would then be able to undertake the journey to Rheims without danger. The Maid forthwith left the court and rejoined the army.