The Life of Joan of Arc Part 40

286. _Chronique de la fete_, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 285. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 61, 62.]

At last, when she heard that Brother Pasquerel would go with them to Blois, accompanied by the priests and bearing her standard, believing that her men would have a good spiritual director, she consented to stay.[942] She crossed the Loire with her brothers, her little company, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the Marshal de Boussac, the Captain La Hire, and reached Checy, which was then quite a town, with two churches, an infirmary, and a lepers' hospital.[943] She was received by a rich burgess, one Guy de Cailly, in whose manor of Reuilly she pa.s.sed the night.[944]

[Footnote 942: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 105. _Mistere du siege_, line 11,616.]

[Footnote 943: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 62, 99, note xiv, and in _Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais_, vol. iv, p. 429; vol. ix, p. 73.]

[Footnote 944: _Journal du siege_, p. 75. Ch. du Lys, _Traite sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle d'Orleans et de ses freres_, Paris, 1628, in 4to, p. 50. Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 344. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p.

86. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 65, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, note xv.]

On the morning of the 29th the barges, which had been anch.o.r.ed at Checy, crossed the Loire, and those who were with the convoy loaded them with victuals, ammunition, and cattle.[945] The river was high.[946] The barges were able to drift down the navigable channel near the left bank. The birches and osiers of l'ile-aux-Boeufs hid them from the English in the Saint-Loup bastion. Besides, at that moment, the enemy was occupied elsewhere. The town garrison was skirmis.h.i.+ng with them in order to distract their attention. The fighting was somewhat hard. There were slain and wounded; prisoners were taken on both sides; and the English lost a banner.[947] Beneath the deserted[948] watch of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc the barges pa.s.sed unprotected. Between l'ile-aux-Boeufs and the Islet of Les Martinets they turned starboard, to go down again, following the right bank, under l'ile-aux-Toiles, as far as La Tour Neuve, the base of which was washed by the Loire, at the south-eastern corner of the town. Then they took shelter in the moat near the Burgundian Gate.[949]

[Footnote 945: _Journal du siege_, pp. 75, 76.]

[Footnote 946: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 68.]

[Footnote 947: _Chronique de la Fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 290.]

[Footnote 948: _Journal du siege_, pp. 74, 75. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 69. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 284, 285.]

[Footnote 949: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 51 _et seq._]

The whole day the manor of Reuilly was besieged by a procession of citizens, who could not forbear coming at the risk of their lives to see the promised Maid. It was six o'clock in the evening before she left Checy. The captains wanted her to enter the town at nightfall for fear of disorders and lest the crush around her should be too great.[950] Doubtless they pa.s.sed along the broad valleys leading from Semoy towards the south, on the borders of the parishes of Saint-Marc and Saint-Jean-de-Braye. On the way she said to those who rode with her: "Fear nothing. No harm shall happen to you."[951] And indeed the only danger was for pedestrians. Hors.e.m.e.n ran little risk of being pursued by the English, who were short of horses in their bastions.

[Footnote 950: _Journal du siege_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 951: _Ibid._, p. 76.]

On that Friday, the 29th of April, in the darkness, she entered Orleans, by the Burgundian Gate. She was in full armour and rode a white horse.[952] A white horse was the steed of heralds and archangels.[953] The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had placed her on his right. Before her was borne her standard, on which figured two angels, each holding a flower de luce, and her pennon, painted with the picture of the Annunciation. Then came the Marshal de Boussac, Guy de Cailly, Pierre and Jean d'Arc, Jean de Metz, and Bertrand de Poulengy, the Sire d'Aulon, and those lords, captains, men-of-war, and citizens who had come to meet her at Checy.[954] Bearing torches and rejoicing as heartily as if they had seen G.o.d himself descending among them, the townfolk of Orleans pressed around her.[955] They had suffered great privations, they had feared that help would never come; but now they were heartened and felt as if the siege had been raised already by the divine virtue, which they had been told resided in this Maid. They looked at her with love and veneration; elbowing and pus.h.i.+ng each other, men, women, and children rushed forward to touch her and her white horse, as folk touch the relics of saints. In the crush a torch set her pennon on fire. The Maid, beholding it, spurred on her horse and galloped to the flame, which she extinguished with a skill apparently miraculous; for everything in her was marvellous.[956]

Men-at-arms and citizens, enraptured, accompanied her in crowds to the Church of Sainte-Croix, whither she went first to give thanks, then to the house of Jacques Boucher, where she was to lodge.[957]

[Footnote 952: _Journal du siege_, pp. 74, 75.]

[Footnote 953: And even now trumpeters ride white horses (_Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, by Lebrun de Charmettes, 1817, in 8vo, vol. ii, p.

21).]

[Footnote 954: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 7. _Journal du siege_, p. 76.

_Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 287. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 72. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 28, 30.]

[Footnote 955: "_Comme se ilz veissent Dieu descendre entre eulx_,"

says _Le journal du siege_, p. 76. Luillier (_Trial_, vol. iii, p. 24) calls her "the angel of the Lord" (_l'ange de Dieu_).]

[Footnote 956: _Journal du siege_, pp. 76, 77.]

[Footnote 957: _Chronique de l'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la fete_, p. 28.]

Jacques or Jacquet Boucher, as he was called, had been the Duke of Orleans' treasurer for several years. He was a very rich man and had married the daughter of one of the most influential burgesses of the city.[958] Having stayed in the town throughout the siege, he contributed to the defence by gifts of wheat, oats, and wine, and by advancing funds for the purchase of ammunition and weapons. As the care of the ramparts fell to the burgesses, it was Jacques' duty to keep in repair and ready for defence the Renard Gate, where he dwelt, which was the most exposed to the English attack. His mansion, one of the finest and largest in the town, once inhabited by Regnart or Renard, the family which had given its name to the gate, was in the Rue des Talmeliers, quite near the fortifications. The captains held their councils of war there, when they did not meet at the house of Chancellor Guillaume Cousinot in the Rue de la Rose.[959] Jacques Boucher's dwelling was doubtless well furnished with silver plate and storied tapestry. It would appear that in one of the rooms there was a picture representing three women and bearing this inscription: _Justice, Peace, Union_.[960]

[Footnote 958: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 101; vol. iii, pp. 34, 68, 124 _et seq._, 211. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 285. Boucher de Molandon, _Jacques Boucher, sieur de Guilleville, tresorier general du district d'Orleans...._ in _Memoires de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais_, vol. xxii, 1889, p. 373. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 101, note xvi; proofs and ill.u.s.trations, p. 108.]

[Footnote 959: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 73. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, p. 20. [Note on G. Cousinot the Chancellor.] Cf. _Nouvelle biographie generale_. Vallet de Viriville, _Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du regne de Charles VII_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, 1857, fourth series, vol. iii, pp. 11-14, 105-111.]

[Footnote 960: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 101; vol. iii, pp. 68, 124 _et seq._; vol. iv, pp. 153, 219, 227. _Journal du siege_, pp. 77, 78.

Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 69, 107, note xvi.]

Into this house the Maid was received with her two brothers, the two comrades who had brought her to the King, and their valets. She had her armour taken off.[961] Jacques Boucher's wife and daughter pa.s.sed the night with her. Jeanne shared the child's bed. She was nine years old and was called Charlotte after Duke Charles, who was her father's lord.[962] It was the custom in those days for the host to share his bed with his man guest and the hostess with her woman guest. This was the rule of courtesy; kings observed it as well as burgesses. Children were taught how to behave towards a sleeping companion, to keep to their own part of the bed, not to fidget, and to sleep with their mouths shut.[963]

[Footnote 961: G. Lefevre-Pontalis (_Chronique d'Antonio Morosini_, vol. iii, p. 101, note) discovers in _La chronique de la Pucelle_ (xliv, p. 285) a wrong use of an incident cited by Dunois in his evidence, which must be allowed to have happened on the 7th of May, as Dunois cited it (_Trial_, vol. iii, p. 9).]

[Footnote 962: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 34, 68.]

[Footnote 963: Franklin, _La vie privee d'autrefois_, vols. ii, xix, _pa.s.sim_. H. Havard, _Dictionnaire de l'ameublement_, under the word _lit_.]

Thus the Duke's treasurer took the Maid into his house and entertained her at the town's expense. Jeanne's horses were stabled by a burgess named Jean Pillas.

As for the D'Arc brothers, they did not stay with their sister, but lodged in the house of Thevenin Villedart. The town paid all their expenses; for example it furnished them with the shoes and gaiters they needed and gave them a few gold crowns. Three of the Maid's comrades, who were very dest.i.tute and came to see her at Orleans, received food.[964]

[Footnote 964: Accounts of the fortress in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 259, 260.]

On the next day, the 30th of April, the town bands of Orleans were early afoot. From morn till eve everything in the town was topsy-turvy; the rebellion, which had been repressed so long, now broke forth. As early as February the citizens had begun to mistrust and hate the knights;[965] now at last they shook off their yoke and broke it.[966] Henceforth they would recognise no King's lieutenant, no governor, no lords, no generals; there was but one power and one defence: the Maid.[967] The Maid was the people's captain. This damsel, this shepherdess, this nun did the knights the greatest injury they ever experienced: she reduced them to nothing. On the morning of the 30th they must have been convinced that the popular revolution had taken place. The town bands were waiting for the Maid to put herself at their head, and with her to march immediately against the _G.o.dons_.

The captains endeavoured to make them understand that they must wait for the army from Blois and the company of Marshal de Boussac, who that night had set out to meet the army. The citizens in arms would listen to nothing, and with loud cries clamoured for the Maid. She did not appear. My Lord the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, who was honey-tongued, had advised her to keep away.[968] This was the last advantage the leaders gained over her. And now as before, when she appeared to give way to them, she was merely doing as she liked. As for the citizens, with the Maid or without her, they were determined to fight. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d could not hinder them. They sallied forth,[969] accompanied by the Gascons of Captain La Hire and the men of Messire Florent d'Illiers. They bravely attacked the bastion Saint-Pouair, which the English called Paris, and which was about eight hundred yards from the walls. They overcame the outposts and approached so close to the bastion that they were already clamouring for f.a.ggots and straw to be brought from the town to set fire to the palisades. But at the cry "Saint George!" the English gathered themselves together, and after a sore and sanguinary fight repulsed the attack of the citizens and free-lances.[970]

[Footnote 965: _Journal du siege_, pp. 43, 44.]

[Footnote 966: _Ibid._, pp. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 967: See the evidence of S. Charles (vol. iii, pp. 116, 117) and certain details in _La chronique de la Pucelle_.]

[Footnote 968: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 7, 211; vol. iv, pp. 221, 222.

_Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 250, 251, 287. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 74, 75.]

[Footnote 969: _Journal du siege_, pp. 78, 79.]

[Footnote 970: _Ibid._, p. 78. _Chronique de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 291, 292. Cf. Letter written from Germany, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 349.]

The Maid had known nothing of it. Sent from G.o.d, on her white horse, a messenger armed yet peaceful, she held it neither just nor pious to fight the English before they had refused her offers of peace. On that day as before her one wish was to go in true saintly wise straight to Talbot. She asked for tidings of her letter and learnt that the English captains had paid no heed to it, and had detained her herald, Guyenne.[971] This is what had happened:

[Footnote 971: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 27, 108. _Journal du siege_, p.

79.]

That letter, which the b.a.s.t.a.r.d deemed couched in vulgar phrase, produced a marvellous impression on the English. It filled them with fear and rage. They kept the herald who had brought it; and, although use and custom insisted on the person of such officers being respected, alleging that a sorceress's messenger must be a heretic, they put him in chains, and after some sort of a trial condemned him to be burnt as the accomplice of the seductress.[972]

[Footnote 972: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 284. _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 26, 27.]

They even put up the stake to which he was to be bound. And yet, before executing the sentence, they judged it well to consult the University of Paris, as in like manner the Bishop of Beauvais was to consult it eighteen months later.[973] Their evil disposition arose from fear. These unfortunates, who were treated as devils, were afraid of devils. They suspected the subtle French of being necromancers and sorcerers. They said that by repeating magic lines the Armagnacs had compa.s.sed the death of the great King, Henry V. Fearing lest their enemies should make use of sorcery and enchantment against them, in order to protect themselves from all evil influences, they wore bands of parchment inscribed with the formulae of conjuration and called _periapts_.[974] The most efficacious of these amulets was the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John. At this time the stars were unfavourable to them, and astrologers were reading their approaching ruin in the sky. Their late King, Henry V, when he was studying at Oxford, had learnt there the rules of divination by the stars. For his own special use he kept in his coffers two astrolabes, one of silver and one of gold. When his queen, Catherine of France, was about to be confined, he himself cast the horoscope of the expected child. And further, as there was a prophecy in England[975] which said that Windsor would lose what Monmouth had gained, he determined that the Queen should not be confined at Windsor. But destiny cannot be thwarted. The royal child was born at Windsor. His father was in France when he heard the tidings. He held them to be of ill omen, and summoned Jean Halbourd of Troyes, minister general of the Trinitarians or Mathurins, "excellent in astrology," who, having drawn up the scheme of nativity, could only confirm the King in his doleful presentiments.[976] And now the time had come. Windsor reigned; all would be lost. Merlin had predicted that they would be driven out of France and by a Virgin utterly undone. When the Maid appeared they grew pale with fright, and fear fell upon captains and soldiers.[977]

Those whom no man could make afraid, trembled before this girl whom they held to be a witch. They could not be expected to regard her as a saint sent of G.o.d. The best they could think of her was that she was a very learned sorceress.[978] To those she came to help she appeared a daughter of G.o.d, to those she came to destroy she appeared a horrid monster in woman's form. In this double aspect lay all her strength: angelic for the French, devilish for the English, to one and the other she appeared invincible and supernatural.

[Footnote 973: Martial de Paris, called d'Auvergne, _Vigiles de Charles VII_, ed. Coustelier, 1724, vol. i, p. 98.]