The Life of Joan of Arc Part 122

In the summer of 1439, la Dame des Armoises went to Orleans. The magistrates offered her wine and meat as a token of gladness and devotion. On the first of August they gave her a dinner and presented her with two hundred and ten livres of Paris as an acknowledgment of the service she had rendered to the town during the siege. These are the very terms in which this expenditure is entered in the account books of that city.[2660]

[Footnote 2660: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 570-571.]

If the folk of Orleans did actually take her for the real Maid, Jeanne, then it must have been more on account of the evidence of the Du Lys brothers, than on that of their own eyes. For, when one comes to think of it, they had seen her but very seldom. During that week in May, she had only appeared before them armed and on horseback.

Afterwards in June, 1429, and January, 1430, she had merely pa.s.sed through the town. True it was she had been offered wine and the magistrates had sat at table with her;[2661] but that was nine years ago. And the lapse of nine years works many a change in a woman's face. They had seen her last as a young girl, now they found her a woman and the mother of two children. Moreover they were guided by the opinion of her kinsfolk. Their att.i.tude provokes some astonishment, however, when one thinks of the conversation at the banquet, and of the awkward and inconsistent remarks the dame must have uttered. If they were not then undeceived, these burgesses must have been pa.s.sing simple and strongly prejudiced in favour of their guest.

[Footnote 2661: Original doc.u.ments of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, p.

270.]

And who can say that they were not? Who can say that, after having given credence to the tidings brought by Jean du Lys, the townsfolk did not begin to discover the imposture? That the belief in the survival of Jeanne was by no means general in the city, during the visit of la Dame des Armoises, is proved by the entries in the munic.i.p.al accounts of sums expended on the funeral services, which we have already mentioned. Supposing we abstract the years 1437 and 1438, the anniversary service had at any rate been held in 1439, two days before Corpus-Christi, and only about three months before the banquet on the 1st of August.[2662] Thus these grateful burgesses of Orleans were at one and the same time entertaining their benefactress at banquets and saying ma.s.ses in memory of her death.

[Footnote 2662: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 274. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 286.]

La Dame des Armoises only spent a fortnight with them. She left the city towards the end of July. Her departure would seem to have been hasty and sudden. She was invited to a supper, at which she was to have been presented with eight pints of wine, but when the wine was served she had gone, and the banquet had to be held without her.[2663]

Jean Quillier and Thevanon of Bourges were present. This Thevanon may have been that Thevenin Villedart, with whom Jeanne's brothers dwelt during the siege.[2664] In Jean Quillier we recognise the young draper who, in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple, wherewith to make a gown for the Maid.[2665]

[Footnote 2663: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 287.]

[Footnote 2664: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 260.]

[Footnote 2665: _Ibid._, pp. 112-113.]

La Dame des Armoises had gone to Tours, where she gave herself out to be the true Jeanne. She gave the Bailie of Touraine a letter for the King; and the Bailie undertook to see that it was delivered to the Prince, who was then at Orleans, having arrived there but shortly after Jeanne's departure. The Bailie of Touraine in 1439 was none other than that Guillaume Bellier who ten years before as lieutenant of Chinon had received the Maid into his house and committed her to the care of his devout wife.[2666]

[Footnote 2666: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 17; vol. v, p. 327.]

To the messenger, who bore this letter, Guillaume Bellier also gave a note for the King written by himself, and "touching the deeds of la Dame des Armoises."[2667] We know nothing of its purport.[2668]

[Footnote 2667: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 332. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 23-24.]

[Footnote 2668: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 332.]

Shortly afterwards the Dame went off into Poitou. There she placed herself at the service of Seigneur Gille de Rais, Marshal of France.[2669] He it was who in his early youth had conducted the Maid to Orleans, had been with her throughout the coronation campaign, had fought at her side before the walls of Paris. During Jeanne's captivity he had occupied Louviers and pushed on boldly to Rouen. Now throughout the length and breadth of his vast domains he was kidnapping children, mingling magic with debauchery, and offering to demons the blood and the limbs of his countless victims. His monstrous doings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and already the hand of the Church was upon him.

[Footnote 2669: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes et de ma.n.u.scrits appartenant au British Museum_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, 1846, p. 116.]

According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the Marechal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the men-at-arms,[2670] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had occupied at Lagny and Compiegne. Did she do great prowess? We do not know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[2671] In the spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[2672]

[Footnote 2670: Abbe Bossard, _Gille de Rais_, p. 174.]

[Footnote 2671: Pardon, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 332-334.]

[Footnote 2672: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 335. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]

For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[2673] The townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[2674] Even in Rouen such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the people of Orleans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.

[Footnote 2673: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 338 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp. 384 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2674: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270.]

Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just the same as it had been under Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured and respected the King of France, the guardian of its privileges and the defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The ill.u.s.trious masters felt no remorse at having demanded and obtained the chastis.e.m.e.nt of the rebel and heretic, Jeanne the Maid. Whosoever persists in error is a heretic; whosoever essays and fails to overthrow the powers that be is a rebel. It was G.o.d's will that in 1440 Charles of Valois should possess the city of Paris; it had not been G.o.d's will in 1429; wherefore the Maid had striven against G.o.d.

With equal bitterness would the University, in 1440, have proceeded against a Maid of the English.

The magistrates who had returned to their Paris homes from their long dreary exile at Poitiers sat in the Parlement side by side with the converted Burgundians.[2675] In the days of adversity these faithful servants of King Charles had set the Maid to work, but now in 1440 it was none of their business to maintain publicly the truth of her mission and the purity of her faith. Burned by the English, that was all very well. But a trial conducted by a bishop and a vice-inquisitor with the concurrence of the University is not an English trial; it is a trial at once essentially Gallican and essentially Catholic.

Jeanne's name was forever branded throughout Christendom. That ecclesiastical sentence could be reversed by the Pope alone. But the Pope had no intention of doing this. He was too much afraid of displeasing the King of Catholic England; and moreover were he once to admit that an inquisitor of the faith had p.r.o.nounced a wrong sentence he would undermine all human authority. The French clerks submit and are silent. In the a.s.semblies of the clergy no one dares to utter Jeanne's name.

[Footnote 2675: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, ch.

xvi.]

Fortunately for them neither the doctors and masters of the University nor the sometime members of the Parlement of Poitiers share the popular delusion touching la Dame des Armoises. They have no doubt that the Maid was burned at Rouen. And they fear lest this woman, who gives herself out to be the deliverer of Orleans, may arouse a tumult by her entrance into the city. Wherefore the Parlement and the University send out men-at-arms to meet her. She is arrested and brought to the Palais.[2676]

[Footnote 2676: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]

She was examined, tried and sentenced to be publicly exhibited. In the Palais de Justice, leading up from the court called the Cour-de-Mai, there was a marble slab on which malefactors were exhibited. La Dame des Armoises was put up there and shown to the people whom she had deceived. The usual sermon was preached at her and she was forced to confess publicly.[2677]

[Footnote 2677: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, _loc. cit._]

She declared that she was not the Maid, that she was married to a knight and had two sons. She told how one day, in her mother's presence, she heard a woman speak slightingly of her; whereupon she proceeded to attack the slanderer, and, when her mother restrained her, she turned her blows against her parent. Had she not been in a pa.s.sion she would never have struck her mother. Notwithstanding this provocation, here was a special case and one reserved for the papal jurisdiction. Whosoever had raised his hand against his father or his mother, as likewise against a priest or a clerk, must go and ask forgiveness of the Holy Father, to whom alone belonged the power of convicting or acquitting the sinner. This was what she had done. "I went to Rome," she said, "attired in man's apparel. I engaged as a soldier in the war of the Holy Father Eugenius, and in this war I twice committed homicide."

When had she journeyed to Rome? Probably before the exile of Pope Eugenius to Florence, about the year 1433, when the condottieri of the Duke of Milan were advancing to the gates of the Eternal City.[2678]

[Footnote 2678: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 27.]

We do not find either the University, or the Ordinary, or the Grand Inquisitor demanding the trial of this woman, who was suspected of witchcraft and of homicide, and who was attired in unseemly garments.

She was not prosecuted as a heretic, doubtless because she was not obstinate, and obstinacy alone const.i.tutes heresy.

Henceforth she attracted no further attention. It is believed, but on no very trustworthy evidence, that she ended by returning to Metz, to her husband, le Chevalier des Armoises, and that she lived quietly and respectably to a good old age, dwelling in the house over the door of which were her armorial bearings, or rather those of Jeanne the Maid, the sword, the crown and the Lilies.[2679]

[Footnote 2679: Vergnaud-Romagnesi, _Des portraits de Jeanne d'Arc et de la fausse Jeanne d'Arc_ and _Memoire sur les fausses Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Les Memoires de la Societe d'Agriculture d'Orleans_, 1854, in 8vo.]

The success of this fraud had endured four years. After all it is not so very surprising. In every age people have been loath to believe in the final end of existences which have touched their imagination; they will not admit that great personalities can be struck down by death like ordinary folk; such an end to a n.o.ble career is repugnant to them. Impostors, like la Dame des Armoises, never fail to find some who will believe in them. And the Dame appeared at a time which was singularly favourable to such a delusion; intellects had been dulled by long suffering; communication between one district and another was rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned dimness, ignorance, confusion.

But even then folk would not have been imposed upon so long by this pseudo-Jeanne had it not been for the support given her by the Du Lys brothers. Were they her dupes or her accomplices? Dull-witted as they may have been, it seems hardly credible that the adventuress could have imposed upon them. Admitting that she very closely resembled La Romee's daughter, the woman from La Grange-aux-Ormes cannot possibly for any length of time have deceived two men who knew Jeanne intimately, having been brought up with her and come with her into France.

If they were not imposed upon, then how can we account for their conduct? They had lost much when they lost their sister. When he arrived at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Pierre du Lys had just quitted a Burgundian prison; his ransom had been paid with his wife's dowry, and he was then absolutely dest.i.tute.[2680] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois, afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vaucouleurs, was hardly more prosperous.[2681] Such circ.u.mstances explained much.

And yet it is unlikely that they of themselves alone and unsupported would have played a game so difficult, so risky, and so dangerous.

From the little we know of their lives we should conclude that they were both too simple, too naf, too placid, to carry on such an intrigue.

[Footnote 2680: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 210, 213.]

[Footnote 2681: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 279.]

We are tempted to believe that they were urged on by some higher and greater power. Who knows? Perhaps by certain indiscreet persons in the service of the King of France. The condemnation and death of Jeanne was a serious attack upon the prestige of Charles VII. May he not have had in his household or among his counsellors certain subjects who were rashly jealous enough to invent this appearance, in order to spread abroad the belief that Jeanne the Maid had not died the death of a witch, but that by virtue of her innocence and her holiness she had escaped the flames? If this were so, then we may regard the imposture of the pseudo-Jeanne, invented at a time when it seemed impossible ever to obtain a papal revision of the trial of 1431, as an attempt, surrept.i.tious and fraudulent and speedily abandoned, to bring about her rehabilitation.

Such a hypothesis would explain why the Du Lys brothers were not punished or even disgraced, when they had put themselves in the wrong, had deceived King and people and committed the crime of high treason.

Jean continued provost of Vaucouleurs for many a long year, and then, when relieved of his office, received a sum of money in lieu of it.

Pierre, as well as his mother, La Romee, was living at Orleans. In 1443 he received from Duke Charles, who had returned to France three years before, the grant of an island in the Loire, l'ile-aux-Boeufs,[2682]

which was fair grazing land. Nevertheless, he remained poor, and was constantly receiving help from the Duke and the townsfolk of Orleans.[2683]