The Life of Joan of Arc Part 18

In one of her conversations with him she spoke of strange matters: "Once I have accomplished the behest Messire has given me, I shall marry and I shall bear three sons, the eldest of whom shall be pope, the second emperor, and the third king."

Sire Robert answered gayly: "Since thy sons are to be such great personages, I should like to give thee one. Thereby should I myself have honour."

Jeanne replied: "Nay, gentle Robert, nay. It is not yet time. The Holy Ghost shall appoint the time."[389]

[Footnote 389: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 219, 220. The source is doubtful.

Nevertheless the accusation here lays stress on these facts produced by the inquiry. If Jeanne denied having spoken these words, it was because she had forgotten them, or because they had been so changed that she could disavow the form in which they were presented to her.]

To judge from the few of her words handed down to us, in the early days of her mission the young prophetess spoke alternately two different languages. Her speech seemed to flow from two distinct sources. The one ingenuous, candid, nave, concise, rustically simple, unconsciously arch, sometimes rough, alike chivalrous and holy, generally bearing on the inheritance and the anointing of the Dauphin and the confounding of the English. This was the language of her Voices, her own, her soul's language. The other, more subtle, flavoured with allegory and flowers of speech, critical with scholastic grace, bearing on the Church, suggesting the clerk and betraying some outside influence. The words she uttered to Sire Robert touching the children she should bear are of the second sort. They are an allegory. Her triple birth signifies that the peace of Christendom shall be born of her work, that after she shall have fulfilled her divine mission, the Pope, the Emperor, and the King--all three sons of G.o.d--shall cause concord and love to reign in the Church of Jesus Christ. The apologue is quite clear; and yet a certain amount of intelligence is necessary for its comprehension. The Captain failed to understand it; he interpreted it literally and answered accordingly, for he was a simple fellow and a merry.[390]

[Footnote 390: See _ante_, page 66.]

Jeanne lodged in the town with humble folk, Henri Leroyer and his wife Catherine, friends of her cousin La.s.sois. She used to occupy her time in spinning, being a good spinster; and the little she had she gave to the poor. With Catherine she went to the parish church.[391] In the morning, in her most devout moods, she would climb the hill, round the foot of which cl.u.s.ter the roofs of the town, and enter the chapel of Sainte Marie-de-Vaucouleurs. This collegiate church, built in the reign of Philippe VI, adjoined the _chateau_ wherein dwelt the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The venerable stone nave rose up boldly towards the east, overlooking the vast extent of hills and meadows, and dominating the valley where Jeanne had been born and bred. She used to hear ma.s.s and remain long in prayer.[392]

[Footnote 391: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 446.]

[Footnote 392: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 461.]

Under the chapel, in the crypt, there was an image of the Virgin, ancient and deeply venerated, called Notre-Dame-de-la-Voute.[393] It worked miracles, but especially on behalf of the poor and needy.

Jeanne delighted to remain in this dark and lonely crypt, where the saints preferred to visit her.

[Footnote 393: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. cxcxiv.]

One day a young clerk, barely more than a child, who waited in the chapel, saw the damsel motionless, with hands clasped, head thrown back, eyes full of tears raised to heaven; and as long as he lived the vision of that rapture remained imprinted on his mind.[394]

[Footnote 394: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 460, 461 (evidence of Jean le Fumeux in the rehabilitation trial).]

She confessed often, usually to Jean Fournier, priest of Vaucouleurs.[395]

[Footnote 395: _Ibid._, p. 446.]

Her hostess was touched by the goodness and gentleness of her manner of life; but she was profoundly agitated when one day the damsel said to her: "Dost thou not know it hath been prophesied that France ruined by a woman shall be saved by a maiden from the Lorraine Marches?"

Leroyer's wife knew as well as Durand La.s.sois that Madame Ysabeau, as full of wickedness as Herodias, had delivered up Madame Catherine of France and the Kingdom of the Lilies to the King of England. And henceforth she was almost persuaded to believe that Jeanne was the maid announced by the prophecy.[396]

[Footnote 396: _Ibid._, p. 447.]

This pious damsel held converse with devout persons and also with men of n.o.ble rank. To all alike she said: "I must to the gentle Dauphin.

It is the will of Messire, the King of Heaven, that I wend to the gentle Dauphin. I am sent by the King of Heaven. I must go even if I go on my knees."[397]

[Footnote 397: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 448.]

Revelations of this nature she made to Messire Aubert, Lord of Ourches. He was a good Frenchman and of the Armagnac party, since four years earlier he had made war against the English and Burgundians. She told him that she must go to the Dauphin, that she demanded to be taken to him, and that to him should redound profit and honour incomparable.

At length through her illuminations and her prophecies, her fame was spread abroad in the town; and her words were found to be good.[398]

[Footnote 398: _Quae puella multum bene loquebatur._ _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 450. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. 103.]

In the garrison there was a man-at-arms of about twenty-eight years of age, Jean de Novelompont or Nouillompont, who was commonly called Jean de Metz. By rank a freeman, albeit not of n.o.ble estate, he had acquired or inherited the lords.h.i.+p of Nouillompont and Hovecourt, situate in that part of Barrois which was outside the Duke's domain; and he bore its name.[399] Formerly in the pay of Jean de Wals, Captain and Provost of Stenay, he was now, in 1428, in the service of the Commander of Vaucouleurs.

[Footnote 399: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 363; _Journal du siege_, p. 45. S.

Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. xcv, cxi, cxxvj. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 204, note. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. xxv _et seq._]

Of his morals and manner of life we know nothing, except that three years before he had sworn a vile oath and been condemned to pay a fine of two _sols_.[400] Apparently when he took the oath he was in great wrath.[401] He was more or less intimate with Bertrand de Poulengy, who had certainly spoken to him of Jeanne.

[Footnote 400: _A sol tournois_ is the twentieth part of a _livre tournois_ (W.S.).]

[Footnote 401: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. cxc, 160, 161.]

One day he met the damsel and said to her: "Well, _ma mie_, what are you doing here? Must the King be driven from his kingdom and we all turn English?"[402]

[Footnote 402: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 435-457. E. de Bouteiller and G.

de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. xxvi, xxvii.]

Such words from a young Lorraine warrior are worthy of notice. The Treaty of Troyes did not subject France to England; it united the two kingdoms. If war continued after as before, it was merely to decide between the two claimants, Charles de Valois and Henry of Lancaster.

Whoever gained the victory, nothing would be changed in the laws and customs of France. Yet this poor freebooter of the German Marches imagined none the less that under an English king he would be an Englishman. Many French of all ranks believed the same and could not suffer the thought of being Anglicised; in their minds their own fates depended on the fate of the kingdom and of the Dauphin Charles.

Jeanne answered Jean de Metz: "I came hither to the King's territory to speak with Sire Robert, that he may take me or command me to be taken to the Dauphin; but he heeds neither me nor my words."

Then, with the fixed idea welling up in her heart that her mission must be begun before the middle of Lent: "Notwithstanding, ere mid Lent, I must be before the Dauphin, were I in going to wear my legs to the knees."[403]

[Footnote 403: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 396 _et seq._]

A report ran through the towns and villages. It was said that the son of the King of France, the Dauphin Louis, who had just entered his fifth year, had been recently betrothed to the daughter of the King of Scotland, the three-year-old Madame Margaret, and the common people celebrated this royal union with such rejoicings as were possible in a desolated country.[404] Jeanne, when she heard these tidings, said to the man-at-arms: "I must go to the Dauphin, for no one in the world, no king or duke or daughter of the King of Scotland, can restore the realm of France."

[Footnote 404: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. cxci.]

Then straightway she added: "In me alone is help, albeit for my part, I would far rather be spinning by my poor mother's side, for this life is not to my liking. But I must go; and so I will, for it is Messire's command that I should go."

She said what she thought. But she did not know herself; she did not know that her Voices were the cries of her own heart, and that she longed to quit the distaff for the sword.

Jean de Metz asked, as Sire Robert had done: "Who is Messire?"

"He is G.o.d," she replied.

Then straightway, as if he believed in her, he said with a sudden impulse: "I promise you, and I give you my word of honour, that G.o.d helping me I will take you to the King."

He gave her his hand as a sign that he pledged his word and asked: "When will you set forth?"

"This hour," she answered, "is better than to-morrow; to-morrow is better than after to-morrow."

Jean de Metz himself, twenty-seven years later, reported this conversation.[405] If we are to believe him, he asked the damsel in conclusion whether she would travel in her woman's garb. It is easy to imagine what difficulties he would foresee in journeying with a peasant girl clad in a red frock over French roads infested with lecherous fellows, and that he would deem it wiser for her to disguise herself as a boy. She promptly divined his thought and replied: "I will willingly dress as a man."[406]

[Footnote 405: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 436.]

[Footnote 406: _Ibid._, p. 436, 437.]

There is no reason why these things should not have occurred. Only if they did, then a Lorraine freebooter suggested to the saint that idea concerning her dress which later she will think to have received from G.o.d.[407]