The Life of Joan of Arc Part 1

The Life of Joan of Arc.

by Anatole France.

PREFACE

TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

Scholars have been good enough to notice this book; and the majority have treated it very kindly, doubtless because they have perceived that the author has observed all the established rules of historical research and accuracy. Their kindness has touched me. I am especially grateful to MM. Gabriel Monod, Solomon Reinach and Germain Lefevre-Pontalis, who have discovered in this work certain errors, which will not be found in the present edition.

My English critics have a special claim to my grat.i.tude. To the memory of Joan of Arc they consecrate a pious zeal which is almost an expiatory wors.h.i.+p. Mr. Andrew Lang's praiseworthy scruples with regard to my references have caused me to correct some and to add several.

The hagiographers alone are openly hostile. They reproach me, not with my manner of explaining the facts, but with having explained them at all. And the more my explanations are clear, natural, rational and derived from the most authoritative sources, the more these explanations displease them. They would wish the history of Joan of Arc to remain mysterious and entirely supernatural. I have restored the Maid to life and to humanity. That is my crime. And these zealous inquisitors, so intent on condemning my work, have failed to discover therein any grave fault, any flagrant inexactness. Their severity has had to content itself with a few inadvertences and with a few printer's errors. What flatterers could better have gratified "the proud weakness of my heart?"[1]

PARIS, _January, 1909_.

[Footnote 1: "_De mon coeur l'orgueilleuse faiblesse_," Racine, _Iphigenie en Aulide_, Act i, sc. i.--(W.S.)]

INTRODUCTION

My first duty should be to make known the authorities for this history. But L'Averdy, Buchon, J. Quicherat, Vallet de Viriville, Simeon Luce, Boucher de Molandon, MM. Robillard de Beaurepaire, Lanery d'Arc, Henri Jadart, Alexandre Sorel, Germain Lefevre-Pontalis, L.

Jarry, and many other scholars have published and expounded various doc.u.ments for the life of Joan of Arc. I refer my readers to their works which in themselves const.i.tute a voluminous literature,[2] and without entering on any new examination of these doc.u.ments, I will merely indicate rapidly and generally the reasons for the use I have chosen to make of them. They are: first, the trial which resulted in her condemnation; second, the chronicles; third, the trial for her rehabilitation; fourth, letters, deeds, and other papers.

[Footnote 2: Le P. Lelong, _Bibliotheque historique de la France_, Paris, 1768 (5 vols. folio), II, n. 17172-17242. Potthast, _Bibliotheca medii aevi_, Berlin, 1895, 8vo, vol. i, pp. 643 _seq._ U.

Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources historiques du Moyen age_, Paris, 8vo, 1877, pp. 1247-1255; _Jeanne d'Arc, bibliographie_, Montbeliard, 1878 [selections]; _Supplement au Repertoire_, Paris, 1883, pp.

2684-2686, 8vo. Lanery d'Arc, _Le livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc, bibliographie raisonnee et a.n.a.lytique des ouvrages relatifs a Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1894, large 8vo, and supplement. A. Molinier, _Les sources de l'histoire de France des origines aux guerres d'Italie, IV: Les Valois, 1328-1461_, Paris, 1904, pp. 310-348.]

First, in the trial[3] which resulted in her condemnation the historian has a mine of rich treasure. Her cross-examination cannot be too minutely studied. It is based on information, not preserved elsewhere, gathered from Domremy and the various parts of France through which she pa.s.sed. It is hardly necessary to say that all the judges of 1431 sought to discover in Jeanne was idolatry, heresy, sorcery and other crimes against the Church. Inclined as they were, however, to discern evil in every one of the acts and in each of the words of one whom they desired to ruin, so that they might dishonour her king, they examined all available information concerning her life.

The high value to be set upon the Maid's replies is well known; they are heroically sincere, and for the most part perfectly lucid.

Nevertheless they must not all be interpreted literally. Jeanne, who never regarded either the bishop or the promoter as her judge, was not so simple as to tell them the whole truth. It was very frank of her to warn them that they would not know all.[4] That her memory was curiously defective must also be admitted. I am aware that the clerk of the court was astonished that after a fortnight she should remember exactly the answers she had given in her cross-examination.[5] That may be possible, although she did not always say the same thing. It is none the less certain that after the lapse of a year she retained but an indistinct recollection of some of the important acts of her life.

Finally, her constant hallucinations generally rendered her incapable of distinguis.h.i.+ng between the true and the false.

[Footnote 3: Jules Quicherat, _Proces de cond.a.m.nation et de rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 8vo, 1841, vol. i. (Called hereafter _Trial_.--W.S.)]

[Footnote 4: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 93, _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 89, 142, 161, 176, 178, 201.]

The record of the trial is followed by an examination of Jeanne's sayings in _articulo mortis_.[6] This examination is not signed by the clerks of the court. Hence from a legal point of view the record is out of order; nevertheless, regarded as a historical doc.u.ment, its authenticity cannot be doubted. In my opinion the actual occurrences cannot have widely differed from what is related in this unofficial report. It tells of Jeanne's second recantation, and of this recantation there can be no question, for Jeanne received the communion before her death. The veracity of this doc.u.ment was never a.s.sailed,[7] even by those who during the rehabilitation trial pointed out its irregularity.[8]

[Footnote 6: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 478 _et seq._]

[Footnote 7: _Cf._ J. Quicherat, _Apercus nouveaux sur l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1880, pp. 138-144.]

[Footnote 8: Evidence of G. Manchon, _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 14.]

Secondly, the chroniclers of the period, both French and Burgundian, were paid chroniclers, one of whom was attached to every great baron.

Tringant says that his master did not expend any money in order to obtain mention in the chronicles,[9] and that therefore he is omitted from them. The earliest chronicle in which the Maid occurs is that of Perceval de Cagny, who was in the service of the house of Alencon and Duke John's master of the house.[10] It was drawn up in the year 1436, that is, only six years after Jeanne's death. But it was not written by him. According to his own confession he had "not half the sense, memory, or ability necessary for putting this, or even a matter of less than half its importance, down in writing."[11] This chronicle is the work of a painstaking clerk. One is not surprised to find a chronicler in the pay of the house of Alencon representing the differences concerning the Maid, which arose between the Sire de la Tremouille and the Duke of Alencon, in a light most unfavourable to the King. But from a scribe, supposed to be writing at the dictation of a retainer of Duke John, one would have expected a less inaccurate and a less vague account of the feats of arms accomplished by the Maid in company with him whom she called her fair duke. Although this chronicle was written at a time when no one dreamed that the sentence of 1431 would ever be revoked, the Maid is regarded as employing supernatural means, and her acts are stripped of all verisimilitude by being recorded in the manner of a hagiography. Further, that portion of the chronicle attributed to Perceval de Cagny, which deals with the Maid, is brief, consisting of twenty-seven chapters of a few lines each. Quicherat is of opinion that it is the best chronicle of Jeanne d'Arc[12] existing, and the others may indeed be even more worthless.

[Footnote 9: _Ne donnoit point d'argent pour soy faire mettre es croniques._--Jean de Bueil, _Le Jouvencel_, ed. C. Fabre and L.

Lecestre, Paris, 1887, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 283.]

[Footnote 10: Perceval de Cagny, _Chroniques_, published by H.

Moranville, Paris, 1902, 8vo.]

[Footnote 11: _Le sens, memoire, ne l'abillite de savoir faire metre par escript ce, ne autre chose mendre de plus de la moitie_, Perceval de Cagny, p. 31.]

[Footnote 12: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 1.]

Gilles le Bouvier,[13] king at arms of the province of Berry, who was forty-three in 1429, is somewhat more judicious than Perceval de Cagny; and, in spite of some confusion of dates, he is better informed of military proceedings. But his story is of too summary a nature to tell us much.

[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, pp. 40-50. D. G.o.defroy, _Histoire de Charles VII_, Paris, 1661, fol. pp. 369-474.]

Jean Chartier,[14] precentor of Saint-Denys, held the office of chronicler of France in 1449. Two hundred years later he would have been described as historiographer royal. His office may be divined from the manner in which he relates Jeanne's death. After having said that she had been long imprisoned by the order of John of Luxembourg, he adds: "The said Luxembourg sold her to the English, who took her to Rouen, where she was harshly treated; in so much that after long delay, they had her publicly burnt in that town of Rouen, without a trial, of their own tyrannical will, which was cruelly done, seeing the life and the rule she lived, for every week she confessed and received the body of Our Lord, as beseemeth a good catholic."[15] When Jean Chartier says that the English burned her without trial, he means apparently that the Bailie of Rouen did not p.r.o.nounce sentence.

Concerning the ecclesiastical trial and the two accusations of lapse and relapse he says not a word; and it is the English whom he accuses of having burnt a good Catholic without a trial. This example proves how seriously the condemnation of 1431 embarra.s.sed the government of King Charles. But what can be thought of a historian who suppresses Jeanne's trial because he finds it inconvenient? Jean Chartier was extremely weak-minded and trivial; he seems to believe in the magic of Catherine's sword and in Jeanne's loss of power when she broke it;[16]

he records the most puerile of fables. Nevertheless it is interesting to note that the official chronicler of the Kings of France, writing about 1450, ascribes to the Maid an important share in the delivery of Orleans, in the conquest of fortresses on the Loire and in the victory of Patay, that he relates how the King formed the army at Gien "by the counsel of the said maid,"[17] and that he expressly states that Jeanne caused[18] the coronation and consecration. Such was certainly the opinion which prevailed at the Court of Charles VII. All that we have to discover is whether that opinion was sincere and reasonable or whether the King of France may not have deemed it to his advantage to owe his kingdom to the Maid. She was held a heretic by the heads of the Church Universal, but in France her memory was honoured, rather, however, by the lower orders than by the princes of the blood and the leaders of the army. The services of the latter the King was not desirous to extol after the revolt of 1440. During this _Praguerie_,[19] the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome, the Duke of Alencon, whom the Maid called her fair duke, and even the cautious Count Dunois had been seen joining hands with the plunderers and making war on the sovereign with an ardour they had never shown in fighting against the English.

[Footnote 14: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1858, 3 vols., 18mo.

(_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_).]

[Footnote 15: _Lequel Luxembourg la vendit aux Angloix, qui la menerent a Rouen, ou elle fut durement traictee; et tellement que, apres grant dillacion de temps, sans procez, maiz de leur voulente indeue, la firent ardoir en icelle ville de Rouen publiquement ... qui fut bien inhumainement fait, veu la vie et gouvernement dont elle vivoit, car elle se confessoit et recepvoit par chacune sepmaine le corps de Nostre Seigneur, comme bonne catholique._--Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, vol. i, p. 122.]

[Footnote 16: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, vol. i, p. 122.]

[Footnote 17: _Par l'admonestement de ladite Pucelle_, Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 87.]

[Footnote 18: _Fut cause_, _ibid._, vol. i, p. 97.]

[Footnote 19: This revolt of the French n.o.bles was so named because various risings of a similar nature had taken place in the city of Prague.--W.S.]

"Le Journal du Siege"[20] was doubtless kept in 1428 and 1429; but the edition that has come down to us dates from 1467.[21] What relates to Jeanne before her coming to Orleans is interpolated; and the interpolator was so unskilful as to date Jeanne's arrival at Chinon in the month of February, while it took place on March 6, and to a.s.sign Thursday, March 10, as the date of the departure from Blois, which did not occur until the end of April. The diary from April 28 to May 7 is less inaccurate in its chronology, and the errors in dates which do occur may be attributed to the copyist. But the facts to which these dates are a.s.signed, occasionally in disagreement with financial records and often tinged with the miraculous, testify to an advanced stage of Jeanne's legend. For example, one cannot possibly attribute to a witness of the siege the error made by the scribe concerning the fall of the Bridge of Les Tourelles.[22] What is said on page 97 of P.

Charpentier's and C. Cuissart's edition concerning the relations of the inhabitants and the men-at-arms seems out of place, and may very likely have been inserted there to efface the memory of the grave dissensions which had occurred during the last week. From the 8th of May the diary ceases to be a diary; it becomes a series of extracts borrowed from Chartier, from Berry, and from the rehabilitation trial. The episode of the big fat Englishman slain by Messire Jean de Montesclere at the Siege of Jargeau is obviously taken from the evidence of Jean d'Aulon in 1446; and even this plagiarism is inaccurate, since Jean d'Aulon expressly says he was slain at the Battle of Les Augustins.[23]

[Footnote 20: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), ed. P.

Charpentier and C. Cuissart, Orleans, 1896, 8vo.]

[Footnote 21: The oldest copy extant is dated 1472 (MS. fr. 14665).]

[Footnote 22: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), p. 87.

_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 162, note.]

[Footnote 23: _Journal du siege_, p. 97. _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 215.]

The chronicle ent.i.tled _La Chronique de la Pucelle_,[24] as if it were the chief chronicle of the heroine, is taken from a history ent.i.tled _Geste des n.o.bles Francois_, going back as far as Priam of Troy. But the extract was not made until the original had been changed and added to. This was done after 1467. Even if it were proved that _La Chronique de la Pucelle_ is the work of Cousinot, shut up in Orleans during the siege, or even of two Cousinots, uncle and nephew according to some, father and son according to others, it would remain none the less true that this chronicle is largely copied from Jean Chartier, the _Journal du Siege_ and the rehabilitation trial. Whoever the author may have been, this work reflects no great credit upon him: no very high praise can be given to a fabricator of tales, who, without appearing in the slightest degree aware of the fact, tells the same stories twice over, introducing each time different and contradictory circ.u.mstances. _La Chronique de la Pucelle_ ends abruptly with the King's return to Berry after his defeat before Paris.