The Life of Joan of Arc Part 28

Meanwhile the despatches brought from the Commander of Vaucouleurs by Colet de Vienne were presented to the King.[635] These despatches instructed him concerning the deeds and sayings of the damsel. This was one of those countless matters to be examined by the Council, one which, it appears, the King must himself investigate, as pertaining to his royal office and as interesting him especially, since it might be a question of a damsel of remarkable piety, and he was himself the highest ecclesiastical personage in France.[636] His grandfather, wise prince that he was, would have been far from scorning the counsel of devout women in whom was the voice of G.o.d. About the year 1380 he had summoned to Paris Guillemette de la Roch.e.l.le, who led a solitary and contemplative life, and acquired such great power therefrom, so it was said, that during her transports she raised herself more than two feet from the ground. In many a church King Charles V had beautiful oratories built, where she might pray for him.[637] The grandson should do no less, for his need was still greater. There were still more recent examples in his family of dealings between kings and saints. His father, the poor King Charles VI, when he was pa.s.sing through Tours, had caused Louis, Duke of Orleans, to present to him Dame Marie de Maille. She had taken a vow of virginity and had transformed the spouse, who approached her like a devouring lion, into a timorous lamb. She revealed secrets to the King, and he was pleased with her, for three years later he wanted to see her again at Paris.

This time they talked long together in private, and she revealed more secrets to the King, so that he sent her away with gifts.[638] This same Prince had granted an audience to a poor knight of Caux, one Robert le Mennot, to whom, when he was in danger of s.h.i.+pwreck near the coast of Syria, had been vouchsafed a vision. He proclaimed that G.o.d had sent him to restore peace.[639] Still more favourably had the King received a woman, Marie Robine, who was commonly called la Gasque of Avignon.[640] In 1429, there were those at court who remembered the prophetess sent to Charles VI to confirm him in his subjection to Pope Benedict XIII. This pope was held to be an antipope; nevertheless, La Gasque was regarded as a prophetess. Like Jeanne she had had many visions concerning the desolation of the realm of France; and she had seen weapons in the sky.[641] The kings of England were no less ready than the kings of France to heed the words of those saintly men and women, mult.i.tudes of whom were at that time uttering prophecies. Henry V consulted the hermit of Sainte-Claude, Jean de Gand, who foretold the King's approaching death; and on his death-bed he again had the stern prophet summoned.[642] It was the custom of saints to speak to kings and of kings to listen to them. How could a pious prince disdain so miraculous a source of counsel? Had he done so he would have incurred the censure of the wisest.

[Footnote 635: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, pp. 46, 47.]

[Footnote 636: _Epitre de Jouvenel des Ursins_, in De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_ vol. v, p. 206, note 1.]

[Footnote 637: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.

ii, p. x.]

[Footnote 638: _Acta sanctorum_, vol. iii, March, p. 742. Abbe Petin, _Dictionnaire hagiographique_, 1850, vol. ii, p. 1516.]

[Footnote 639: Froissart, _Chroniques_, Bk. IV, ch. xliii _et seq._]

[Footnote 640: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 83, note 2. Vallet de Viriville, _Proces de cond.a.m.nation de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1867, in 8vo, pp.

x.x.xi _et seq._]

[Footnote 641: _Le songe du vieil Pelerin_, by Philippe de Maizieres (Bibl. Nat. French collection, no. 22,542).]

[Footnote 642: Chastellain, ed. Buchon, pp. 114, 116. _Acta Sanctorum Junii_, vol. 1, p. 648. Le P. De Buck, _Le bienheureux Jean de Gand_, Brussels, 1862, in 8vo, 40 pages. Le P. Chapotin, _La guerre de cent ans; Jeanne d'Arc et les Dominicains_, evreux, 1888, in 8vo, p. 89.]

King Charles read the Commander of Vaucouleur's letters, and had the damsel's escort examined before him. Of her mission and her miracles they could say nothing. But they spoke of the good they had seen in her during the journey, and affirmed that there was no evil in her.[643]

[Footnote 643: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, p. 46.]

Of a truth, G.o.d speaketh through the mouths of virgins. But in such matters it is necessary to act with extreme caution, to distinguish carefully between the true prophetesses and the false, not to take for messengers from heaven the heralds of the devil. The latter sometimes create illusions. Following the example of Simon the Magician, who worked wonders vying with the miracles of St. Peter, these creatures have recourse to diabolical arts for the seduction of men. Twelve years before, there had prophesied a woman, likewise from the Lorraine Marches, Catherine Suave, a native of Thons near Neufchateau, who lived as a recluse at Port de Lates, yet most certainly did the Bishop of Maguelonne know her to be a liar and a sorceress, wherefore she was burned alive at Montpellier in 1417.[644] Mult.i.tudes of women, or rather of females, _mulierculae_,[645] lived like this Catherine and ended like her.

[Footnote 644: _Parvus Thalamus_, ed. Archaeological Society of Montpellier, p. 464. Th. de Beze, _Histoire ecclesiastique_, 1580, vol. i, p. 217. A. Germain, _Catherine Suave_, Montpellier, 1853, in 4to, 16 pages. H.C. Lea, _A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages_ (1906), vol. ii, p. 157. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. x.]

[Footnote 645: Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p.

502.]

Certain ecclesiastics briefly interrogated Jeanne and asked her wherefore she had come. At first she replied that she would say nothing save to the King. But when the clerks represented to her that they were questioning her in the King's name, she told them that the King of Heaven had bidden her do two things: one was to raise the siege of Orleans, the other to lead the King to Reims for his anointing and his coronation.[646] Just as at Vaucouleurs before Sire Robert, so before these Churchmen she repeated very much what the vavasour of Champagne had said formerly, when he had been sent to Jean le Bon, as she was now sent to the Dauphin Charles.

[Footnote 646: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 22. These facts were known at Lyons on the 22nd of April, 1429. (Clerk of the Chambre des Comptes of Brabant, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 426.)]

Having journeyed as far as the Plain of Beauce, where King John, impatient for battle, was encamped with his army, the vavasour of Champagne entered the camp and asked to see the wisest and best of the King's liegemen at court. The n.o.bles, to whom this request was carried, began to laugh. But one among them, who had with his own eyes seen the vavasour, recognised at once that he was a good, simple man and without guile. He said to him: "If thou hast any advice to give, go to the King's chaplain." The vavasour therefore went to King John's chaplain and said to him: "Obtain for me an audience of the King; I have something to tell that I will say to no one but to him." "What is it?" asked the chaplain. "Tell me what is in your heart." But the good man would not reveal his secret. The chaplain went to King John and said to him: "Sire, there is a worthy man here who seems to me wise in his way. He desires to say to you something that he will tell to you alone." King John refused to see the good man. He summoned his confessor, and, accompanied by the chaplain, sent him to learn the vavasour's secret. The two priests went to the man and told him that the King had appointed them to hear him. At this announcement, despairing of ever seeing King John, and trusting to the Confessor and the chaplain not to reveal his secret to any but the King, he uttered these words: "While I was alone in the fields, a voice spake unto me three times, saying: 'Go unto King John of France and warn him that he fight not with any of his enemies.' Obedient to that voice am I come to bring the tidings to King John." Having heard the vavasour's secret the confessor and the chaplain took him to the King, who laughed at him. With his comrades-in-arms he advanced to Poitiers, where he met the Black Prince. He lost his whole army in battle, and, twice wounded in the face, was taken prisoner by the English.[647]

[Footnote 647: S. Luce, _Chronique des quatre premiers Valois_, Paris, 1861, in 8vo, pp. 46, 48.]

The ecclesiastics, who had examined Jeanne, held various opinions concerning her. Some declared that her mission was a hoax, and that the King ought to beware of her.[648] Others on the contrary held that, since she said she was sent of G.o.d, and that she had something to tell the King, the King should at least hear her.

[Footnote 648: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 115. Thoma.s.sin, _Registre Delphinal_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 304. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, p. 47.]

Two priests who were then with the King, Jean Girard, President of the Parlement of Gren.o.ble, and Pierre l'Hermite, later subdean of Saint-Martin-de-Tours, judged the case difficult and interesting enough to be submitted to Messire Jacques Gelu, that Armagnac prelate who had long served the house of Orleans and the Dauphin of France both in council and in diplomacy. When he was nearly sixty, Gelu had withdrawn from the Council, and exchanged the archiepiscopal see of Tours for the bishopric of Embrun, which was less exalted and more retired. He was ill.u.s.trious and venerable.[649] Jean Girard and Pierre l'Hermite informed him of the coming of the damsel in a letter, wherein they told him also that, having been questioned in turn by three professors of theology, she had been found devout, sober, temperate, and in the habit of partic.i.p.ating once a week in the sacraments of confession and communion. Jean Girard thought she might have been sent by the G.o.d who raised up Judith and Deborah, and who spoke through the mouths of the Sibyls.[650]

[Footnote 649: _Gallia Christiana_, vol. iii, col. 1089.]

[Footnote 650: Le R.P. Marcellin Fornier, _Histoire generale des Alpes Maritimes ou Cottiennes_, ed. by the Abbe Paul Guillaume, Paris, 1890-1892 (3 vols. in 8vo), vol. ii, pp. 313 _et seq._]

Charles was pious, and on his knees devoutly heard three ma.s.ses a day.

Regularly at the canonical hours he repeated the customary prayers in addition to prayers for the dead and other orisons. Daily he confessed, and communicated on every feast day.[651] But he believed in foretelling events by means of the stars, in which he did not differ from other princes of his time. Each one of them had an astrologer in his service.[652]

[Footnote 651: The Monk of Dunfermline, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.

340. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, pp. 265 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 243.]

[Footnote 652: Simon de Phares, _Recueil des plus celebres astrologues_, fr. ms. 1357. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 306; vol. ii, p. 345, note. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. vi, p. 399.]

The late Duke of Burgundy had been constantly accompanied by a Jewish soothsayer, Maitre Mousque. On that day, the end of which he was never to see, as he was going to the Bridge of Montereau, Maitre Mousque counselled him not to advance any further, prophesying that he would not return. The Duke continued on his way and was killed.[653] The Dauphin Charles confided in Jean des Builhons, in Germain de Thibonville and in all others of the peaked cap.[654]

[Footnote 653: Chastellain, vol. iii, p. 446.]

[Footnote 654: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 173.]

He always had two or three astrologers at court. These almanac makers drew up schemes of nativity, cast horoscopes and read in the sky the approach of wars and revolutions. One of them, Maitre Rolland the Scrivener, a fellow of the University of Paris, was one night, at a certain hour, observing the heavens from his roof, when he saw the apex of Virgo in the ascendant, Venus, Mercury, and the sun half way up the sky.[655] This his colleague, Guillaume Barbin of Geneva, interpreted to mean that the English would be driven from France and the King restored by the hand of a mere maid.[656] If we may believe the Inquisitor Brehal, some time before Jeanne's coming into France, a clever astronomer of Seville, Jean de Montalcin by name, had written to the King among other things the following words: "By a virgin's counsel thou shalt be victorious. Continue in triumph to the gates of Paris."[657]

[Footnote 655: I here correct the text of Simon de Phares (_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 536) according to the written opinion of M. Camille Flammarion.]

[Footnote 656: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 536.]

[Footnote 657: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 341.]

At that very time the Dauphin Charles had with him at Chinon an old Norman astrologer, one Pierre, who may have been Pierre de Saint-Valerien, canon of Paris. The latter had recently returned from Scotland, whither, accompanied by certain n.o.bles, he had gone to fetch the Lady Margaret, betrothed to the Dauphin Louis. Not long afterwards this Maitre Pierre was, rightly or wrongly, believed to have read in the sky that the shepherdess from the Meuse valley was appointed to drive out the English.[658]

[Footnote 658: Recueil de Simon de Phares, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.

32, note.]

Jeanne had not long to wait in her inn. Two days after her arrival, what she had so ardently desired came to pa.s.s: she was taken to the King.[659] In the last century near the Grand-Carroy, opposite a wooden-fronted house, there was shown a well on the edge of which, according to tradition, Jeanne set foot when she alighted from her horse, before climbing the steep ascent leading to the Castle.

Through La Vieille Porte,[660] she was already crossing the moat when the King was still hesitating as to whether he would receive her. Many of his familiar advisers, and those not the least important, counselled him to beware of a strange woman whose designs might be evil. There were others who put it before him that this shepherdess was introduced by letters from Robert de Baudricourt carried through hostile provinces; that in journeying to the King she had forded many rivers in a manner almost miraculous. On these considerations the King consented to receive her.[661]

[Footnote 659: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 143.]

[Footnote 660: The kerb was removed during the Second Empire. Moreover it is admitted that no faith should be put in such traditions. G. de Cougny, _Charles VII et Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon_, Tours, 1877, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 661: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 75; vol. iii, p. 115. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, pp. 46, 47. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 68.]

The great hall was crowded. As at every audience given by the King the room was close with the breath of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude. The vast chamber presented that aspect of a market-house or of a rout which was so familiar to courtiers. It was evening; fifty torches flamed beneath the painted beams of the roof.[662] Men of middle age in robes and furs, young, smooth-faced n.o.bles, thin and narrow shouldered, of slender build, their lean legs in tight hose, their feet in long, pointed shoes; barons fully armed to the number of three hundred, according to Aulic custom, pushed, crowded and elbowed each other while the usher was here and there striking the courtiers on the head with his rod.[663]

[Footnote 662: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75, 141.]

[Footnote 663: Le Curial, in _Les oeuvres de Maistre Alain Chartier_, ed. Du Chesne, Paris, 1642, in 4to, p. 398.]

Besides the two amba.s.sadors from Orleans, Messire Jamet du Tillay and the old baron Archambaud de Villars, governor of Montargis, there were present Simon Charles, Master of Requests, as well as certain great n.o.bles, the Count of Clermont, the Sire de Gaucourt, and probably the Sire de La Tremouille and my Lord the Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor of the kingdom.[664] On hearing of Jeanne's approach, King Charles buried himself among his retainers, either because he was still mistrustful and hesitating, or because he had other persons to speak to, or for some other reason.[665] Jeanne was presented by the Count of Vendome.[666] Robust, with a firm, short neck, her figure appeared full, although confined by her man's jerkin. She wore breeches like a man,[667] but still more surprising than her hose was her head-gear and the cut of her hair. Beneath a woollen hood, her dark hair hung cut round in soup-plate fas.h.i.+on like a page's.[668] Women of all ranks and all ages were careful to hide their hair so that not one lock of it should escape from beneath the coif, the veil, or the high head-dress which was then the mode. Jeanne's flowing locks looked strange to the folk of those days.[669] She went straight to the King, took off her cap, curtsied, and said: "G.o.d send you long life, gentle Dauphin."[670]

[Footnote 664: According to Jeanne there were present La Tremolle and the Archbishop of Reims, but she also mentions the Duke of Alencon, who was certainly not there.]

[Footnote 665: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 115.]

[Footnote 666: _Ibid._, pp. 102-103.]