The Life of Joan of Arc Part 3

[Footnote 69: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 2 and 35.]

Certain evidence would appear to have been cut short. Brother Pasquerel's abruptly comes to an end at Paris. This circ.u.mstance, if we did not possess his signature at the conclusion of the Latin letter to the Hussites, would lead us to believe that the good Brother left the Maid immediately after the attack on La Porte Saint-Honore. It surely cannot have chanced that in so long a series of questions and answers not one word was said of the departure from Sully or of the campaign which began at Lagny and ended at Compiegne.[70]

[Footnote 70: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 100 _et seq._]

We conclude, therefore, that in the study of this voluminous evidence we must exercise great judgment and that we must not expect it to enlighten us on all the circ.u.mstances of Jeanne's life.

Fourthly. On certain points of the Maid's history the only exact information is to be obtained from account-books, letters, deeds, and other authentic doc.u.ments of the period. The records published by Simeon Luce and the lease of the Chateau de l'ile inform us of the circ.u.mstances among which Jeanne grew up.[71] Neither the two trials nor the chronicles had revealed the terrible conditions prevailing in the village of Domremy from 1412 to 1425.

[Footnote 71: Simeon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, recherches critiques sur les origines de la mission de la Pucelle_, Paris, 1886, in 8vo; _La France pendant la guerre de cent ans: episodes historiques et vie privee aux xiv'e et xv'e siecles_, Paris, 1890, in 12mo.]

The fortress accounts kept at Orleans[72] and the doc.u.ments of the English administration[73] enable us to estimate approximately the respective forces of defenders and besiegers of the city. On this point also they enable us to correct the statements of chroniclers and witnesses in the rehabilitation trial.

[Footnote 72: D. Lottin, _Recherches sur la ville d'Orleans_, Orleans, 7 vols. in 8vo; Boucher de Molandon, _Les comptes de ville d'Orleans des xiv'e et xv'e siecles_, 1880, in 8vo; Jules Loiseleur, _Compte des depenses faites par Charles VII pour secourir Orleans pendant le siege de 1428_, Orleans, 1868, in 8vo; Louis Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise au siege d'Orleans_, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo; Couret, _Un fragment inedit des anciens registres de la prevote d'Orleans, relatif au reglement des frais du siege de 1428-1429_, Orleans, 1697, in 8vo (extract from the _Memoires de l'Academie de Sainte Croix_).]

[Footnote 73: Rymer, _Foedera, conventiones...._, ed. tercia, Hagae Comitis, 1739-1745, 10 vols. in folio; Delpit, _Collection de doc.u.ments francais qui se trouvent en Angleterre_, Paris, 1847, in 4to; J. Stevenson, _Letters and Papers ill.u.s.trative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry VI_, 1861-1864, 3 parts, in 2 vols. in 8vo; Charles Gross, _The Sources and Literature of English History_, 1900, in 8vo.]

From the letters in the archives at Reims, copied by Rogier in the seventeenth century, we learn how Troyes, Chalons, and Reims surrendered to the King. From these letters also we see how very far from accurate is Jean Chartier's account of the capitulation of the city and how insufficient, especially considering the character of the witness, is the evidence of Dunois on this subject.[74]

[Footnote 74: Varin, _Archives legislatives de la ville de Reims_, 2nd part; _Statuts_, vol. i, p. 596; _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 284 _et seq._]

Four or five records throw a faint light here and there on the obscurity which shrouds the unfortunate campaign on the Aisne and the Oise.

The registers of the chapter of Rouen, the wills of canons and sundry other doc.u.ments, discovered by M. Robillard de Beaurepaire in the archives of Seine-Inferieure, serve to correct certain errors in the two trials.[75]

[Footnote 75: E. Robillard de Beaurepaire, _Recherches sur le proces de cond.a.m.nation de Jeanne d'Arc_, Rouen, 1869, in 8vo [_Precis des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen, 1867-1868_, pp. 321-448]; _Notes sur les juges et les a.s.sesseurs du proces de cond.a.m.nation de Jeanne d'Arc_, Rouen, 1890, in 8vo [_Precis des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen, 1888-1889_, pp. 375-504].]

How many other detached papers, all valuable to the historian, might I not enumerate! Surely this is another reason for mistrusting records false or falsified, as, for example, the patent of n.o.bility of Guy de Cailly.[76]

[Footnote 76: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 342 _et seq._]

Rapid as this examination of authorities has been, I think nothing essential has been omitted. To sum up, even in her lifetime the Maid was scarce known save by fables. Her oldest chroniclers were devoid of any critical sense, for the early legends concerning her they relate as facts.

The Rouen trial, certain accounts, a few letters, sundry deeds, public and private, are the most trustworthy doc.u.ments. The rehabilitation trial is also useful to the historian, provided always that we remember how and why that trial was conducted.

By means of such records we may attain to a pretty accurate knowledge of Jeanne d'Arc's life and character.

The salient fact which results from a study of all these authorities is that she was a saint. She was a saint with all the attributes of fifteenth-century sanct.i.ty. She had visions, and these visions were neither feigned nor counterfeited. She really believed that she heard the voices which spoke to her and came from no human lips. These voices generally addressed her clearly and in words she could understand. She heard them best in the woods and when the bells were ringing. She saw forms, she said, like myriads of tiny shapes, like sparks on a dazzling background. There is no doubt she had visions of another nature, since she tells us how she beheld Saint Michael in the guise of a _prud'homme_, that is as a good knight, and Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, wearing crowns. She saw them saluting her; she kissed their feet and inhaled their sweet perfume.

What does this mean if not that she was subject to hallucinations of hearing, sight, touch, and smell? But the most strongly affected of her senses was her hearing. She says that her voices appear to her; she sometimes calls them her council. She hears them very plainly unless there is a noise around her. Generally she obeys them; but sometimes she resists. We may doubt whether her visions were really so distinct as she makes out. Because she either could not, or would not, she never gave her judges at Rouen any very clear or precise description of them. The angel she described most in detail was the one which brought the crown, and which she afterwards confessed to have seen only in imagination.

At what age did she become subject to these trances? We cannot say exactly. But it was probably towards the end of her childhood, notwithstanding that according to Jean d'Aulon, childhood was a state out of which she never completely developed.[77]

[Footnote 77: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 19.]

Although it is always hazardous to found a medical diagnosis on doc.u.ments purely historical, several men of science have attempted to define the pathological conditions which rendered the young girl subject to false perceptions of sight and hearing.[78] Owing to the rapid strides made by psychiatry during recent years, I have consulted an eminent man of science, who is thoroughly conversant with the present stage attained by this branch of pathology, to which he has himself rendered important service. I asked Doctor Georges Dumas, Professor at the Sorbonne, whether sufficient material exists for science to make a retrospective diagnosis of Jeanne's case. He replied to my inquiry in a letter which appears as the first Appendix to this work.[79]

[Footnote 78: Briere de Boismont, _De l'hallucination historique, ou etude medico-psychique sur les voix et les revelations de Jeanne d'Arc_, 1861, in 8vo. Le Vicomte de Mouchy, _Jeanne d'Arc, etude historique et psychologique_, Montpellier, 1868, in 8vo, 67 pp.]

[Footnote 79: Vol. ii, Appendix i.]

With such a subject I am not qualified to deal. But it does lie within my province to make an observation concerning the hallucinations of Jeanne d'Arc, which has been suggested to me by a study of the doc.u.ments. This observation is of infinite significance. I shall be careful to restrict it to the limits prescribed by the object and the nature of this work.

Those visionaries, who believe they are entrusted with a divine mission, are distinguished by certain characteristics from other inspired persons. When mystics of this cla.s.s are studied and compared with one another, resemblances are found to exist which may extend to very slight details: certain of their words and acts are identical.

Indeed as we come to recognise how vigorous is the determinism controlling the actions of these visionaries, we are astonished to find the human machine, when impelled by the same mysterious agent, performing its functions with inevitable uniformity. To this group of the religious Jeanne belongs. In this connection it is interesting to compare her with Saint Catherine of Sienna,[80] Saint Colette of Corbie,[81] Yves Nicolazic, the peasant of Kernanna,[82] Suzette Labrousse, the inspired woman of the Revolution Church,[83] and with many other seers and seeresses of this order, who all bear a family likeness to one another.

[Footnote 80: _Acta Sanctorum_, 1675, April, iii, 851.]

[Footnote 81: _Ibid._, March 1, 1532.]

[Footnote 82: Le Pere Hugues de Saint-Francois, _Les grandeurs de Sainte Anne_, Rennes, 1657, in 8vo; L'abbe Max Nicol, _Sainte-Anne-d'Auray_, Paris, Brussels, s.d., in 8vo, pp. 37 _et seq._ M. le Docteur G. de Closmadeuc has kindly lent me his valuable work, as yet unpublished, on Yves Nicolazic, which is characterised by the same exactness of information and of criticism as are to be found in his studies of local history.]

[Footnote 83: _Recueil des ouvrages de la celebre Mademoiselle Labrousse, du Bourg de Vauxains, en Perigord, canton de Ribeirac de la Dordogne, actuellement prisonniere au chateau Saint-Ange, a Rome_, Bordeaux, 1797, in 8vo; E. Lairtullier, _Les femmes celebres de 1789 a 1795_, Paris, 1842, in 8vo, vol. i, pp. 212 _et seq._; Abbe Chr.

Moreau, _Une mystique revolutionnaire Suzette Labrousse_, Paris, 1886, in 8vo; A. France, _Susette Labrousse_, Paris, 1907, in 12mo.]

Three visionaries especially are closely related to Jeanne. The earliest in date is a vavasour of Champagne, who had a mission to speak to King John; of this holy man I have written sufficiently in the present work. The second is a farrier of Salon, who had a mission to speak to Louis XIV; the third, a peasant of Gallardon, named Martin, who had a mission to speak to Louis XVIII. Articles on the farrier and the farmer, who both saw apparitions and showed signs to their respective kings, will be found in the appendices at the end of this work.[84] In spite of difference in s.e.x, the points of similarity between Jeanne d'Arc and these three men are very close and very significant; they are inherent in the very nature of Jeanne and her fellow visionaries; and the variations, which at a first glance might seem to separate widely the latter from Jeanne, are aesthetic, social, historical, and consequently external and contingent. Between them and her there are of course striking contrasts in appearance and in fortune. They were entirely wanting in that charm which she never failed to exercise; and it is a fact that while they failed miserably she grew in strength and flowered in legend. But it is the duty of the scientific mind to recognise common characteristics, proving ident.i.ty of origin alike in the n.o.blest individual and in the most wretched abortion of the same species.

[Footnote 84: Vol. ii, Appendices ii and iii.]

The free-thinkers of our day, imbued as they are, for the most part, with transcendentalism, refuse to recognise in Jeanne not merely that automatism which determines the acts of such a seeress, not only the influence of constant hallucination, but even the suggestions of the religious spirit. What she achieved through saintliness and devoutness, they make her out to have accomplished by intelligent enthusiasm. Such a disposition is manifest in the excellent and erudite Quicherat, who all unconsciously introduces into the piety of the Maid a great deal of eclectic philosophy. This point was not without its drawbacks. It led free-thinking historians to a ridiculous exaggeration of Jeanne's intellectual faculties, to the absurdity of attributing military talent to her and to the subst.i.tution of a kind of polytechnic phenomenon for the fifteenth century's artless marvel.

The Catholic historians of the present day when they make a saint of the Maid are much nearer to nature and to truth. Unfortunately the Church's idea of saintliness has grown insipid since the Council of Trent, and orthodox historians are disinclined to study the variations of the Catholic Church down the ages. In their hands therefore she becomes sanctimonious and bigoted. So much so that in a search for the most curiously travestied of all the Jeannes d'Arc we should have been driven to choose between their miraculous protectress of Christian France, the patroness of officers, the inimitable model of the pupils of Saint-Cyr, and the romantic Druidess, the inspired woman-soldier of the national guard, the patriot gunneress of the Republicans, had there not arisen a Jesuit Father to create an ultramontane Jeanne d'Arc.[85]

[Footnote 85: Le P. Ayroles, _La vraie Jeanne d'Arc_, 5 vols. in large 8vo, Paris, 1894-1902. Writing of this book in a study of _L'Abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_ (Paris, 1902, pp. 7 and 8, note), Canon Ulysse Chevalier, author of a valuable _Repertoire des sources du moyen age_, displays boldness and sound sense. "From the dimensions of these five volumes," he says, "one might expect this work to be the fullest history of Jeanne d'Arc; it is nothing of the sort. It is a chaos of memoranda translated or rendered into modern French, reflections and arguments against free-thought as represented by Michelet, H. Martin, Quicherat, Vallet de Viriville, Simeon Luce, and Joseph Fabre. Two headings will suffice to give an idea of the book's tone: _The Pseudo-theologians, executioners of Jeanne d'Arc, executioners of the Papacy_ (vol. i, p. 87); _The University of Paris and the Brigandage of Rouen_ (p. 149). The author too often judges the fifteenth century by the standards of the nineteenth. Is he quite sure that if he had been a member of the University of Paris in 1431 he would have thought and p.r.o.nounced in favour of Jeanne, and in opposition to his colleagues?"]

On the subject of Jeanne's sincerity I have raised no doubts. It is impossible to suspect her of lying; she firmly believed that she received her mission from her voices. But whether she were not unconsciously directed is more difficult to ascertain. What we know of her before her arrival at Chinon comes to very little. One is inclined to believe that she had been subject to certain influences; it is so with all visionaries: some unseen director leads them. Thus it must have been with Jeanne. At Vaucouleurs she was heard to say that the Dauphin held the kingdom in fief (_en commende_).[86] Such a term she had not learnt from the folk of her village. She uttered a prophecy which she had not invented and which had obviously been fabricated for her.

[Footnote 86: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 456.]

She must have a.s.sociated with priests who were faithful to the cause of the Dauphin Charles, and who desired above all things the end of the war. Abbeys were being burned, churches pillaged, divine service discontinued.[87] Those pious persons who sighed for peace, now that they saw the Treaty of Troyes failing to establish it, looked for the realisation of their hopes to the expulsion of the English. And the wonderful, the unique point about this young peasant girl--a point suggesting the ecclesiastic and the monk--is not that she felt herself called to ride forth and fight, but that in "her great pity" she announced the approaching end of the war, by the victory and coronation of the King, at a time when the n.o.bles of the two countries, and the men-at-arms of the two parties, neither expected nor desired the war ever to come to an end.

[Footnote 87: Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises, monasteres hopitaux en France vers le milieu du xv'ieme siecle_, Macon, 1897, in 8vo.]

The mission, with which she believed the angel had entrusted her and to which she consecrated her life, was doubtless extraordinary, marvellous; and yet it was not unprecedented: it was no more than saints, both men and women, had already endeavoured to accomplish in human affairs. Jeanne d'Arc arose in the decline of the great Catholic age, when sainthood, usually accompanied by all manner of oddities, manias, and illusions, still wielded sovereign power over the minds of men. And of what miracles was she not capable when acting according to the impulses of her own heart, and the grace of her own mind? From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries G.o.d's servants perform wondrous works. Saint Dominic, possessed by holy wrath, exterminates heresy with fire and sword; Saint Francis of a.s.sisi for the nonce founds poverty as an inst.i.tution of society; Saint Antony of Padua defends merchants and artisans against the avarice and cruelty of n.o.bles and bishops; Saint Catherine brings the Pope back to Rome. Was it impossible, therefore, for a saintly damsel, with G.o.d's aid, to re-establish within the hapless realm of France that royal power inst.i.tuted by our Lord Himself and to bring to his coronation a new Joash s.n.a.t.c.hed from death for the salvation of the holy people?

Thus did pious French folk, in the year 1428, regard the mission of the Maid. She represented herself as a devout damsel inspired by G.o.d.

There was nothing incredible in that. When she announced that she had received revelations touching the war from my Lord Saint Michael, she inspired the men-at-arms of the Armagnac party and the burghers of the city of Orleans with a confidence as great as could have been communicated to the troops, marching along the Loire in the winter of 1871, by a republican engineer who had invented a smokeless powder or an improved form of cannon. What was expected from science in 1871 was expected from religion in 1428, so that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Orleans would as naturally employ Jeanne as Gambetta would resort to the technical knowledge of M. de Freycinet.

What has not been sufficiently remarked upon is that the French party made a very adroit use of her. The clerks at Poitiers, while inquiring at great length into her religion and her morals, brought her into evidence. These Poitiers clerks were no monks ignorant of the world; they const.i.tuted the Parliament of the lawful King; they were the banished members of the University, men deeply involved in political affairs, compromised by revolutions, despoiled and ruined, and very impatient to regain possession of their property. They were directed by the cleverest man in the King's Council, the Duke Archbishop of Reims, the Chancellor of the kingdom. By the ceremoniousness and the deliberation of their inquiries, they drew upon Jeanne the curiosity, the interest, and the hopes of minds lost in amazement.[88]

[Footnote 88: O. Raguenet, _Les juges de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, membres du Parlement ou gens d'eglise?_ in _Lettres et memoires de l'Academie de Sainte-Croix d'Orleans VII_, 1894, pp. 339-442; D.

Lacombe, _L'hote de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, maitre Jean Rabateau, President au Parlement de Poitiers in Revue du Bas-Poitou_, 1891, pp.

46-66.]

The defences of the city of Orleans consisted in its walls, its trenches, its cannon, its men-at-arms, and its money. The English had failed both to surround it and to take it by a.s.sault. Convoys and companies pa.s.sed between their bastions. Jeanne was introduced into the town with a strong relieving army. She brought flocks of oxen, sheep, and pigs. The townsfolk believed her to be an angel of the Lord. Meanwhile the men and the money of the besiegers were waxing scant. They had lost all their horses. Far from being in a position to attempt a new attack, they were not likely to be able to hold out long in their bastions. At the end of April there were four thousand English before Orleans and perhaps less, for, as it was said, soldiers were deserting every day; and companies of these deserters went plundering through the villages. At the same time the city was defended by six thousand men-at-arms and archers, and by more than three thousand men of the town bands. At Saint Loup, there were fifteen hundred French against four hundred English; at Les Tourelles, there were five thousand French against four or five hundred English.

By their retreat from Orleans the _G.o.dons_ abandoned to their fate the small garrisons of Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency.[89] The Battle of Patay gives us some idea of the condition of the English army. It was no battle but a ma.s.sacre, and one which Jeanne only reached in time to mourn over the cruelty of the conquerors. And yet the King, in his letters to his good towns, attributed to her a share in the victory.

Evidently the Royal Council made a point of glorifying its Holy Maid.

[Footnote 89: Mr. Andrew Lang (_La Jeanne d'Arc de M. Anatole France_, p. 60) misreads this pa.s.sage when he takes it to mean that the English withdrew their garrisons from these places. That their ultimate surrender became inevitable after the English retreat from Orleans is what the writer intends to convey.--W.S.]