Knights and their days

“Orders for ladies” have been favorite matters with both Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses. The Austrian Empress, Eleanora de Gonzague, founded two orders, which admitted only ladies as members. The first was in commemoration of the miraculous preservation of a particle of the true cross, which escaped the ravages of a fire which nearly destroyed the imperial residence, in 1668. Besides this Order of the Cross, the same Empress instituted the Order of the Slaves of Virtue. This was hardly a complimentary title, for a slave necessarily implies a compulsory and unwilling servant. The number of members were limited to thirty, and these were required to be noble, and of the Romish religion. The motto was, Sole ubique triumphat; which may have implied that she only who best served virtue, was likely to profit by it. This was not making a very exalted principle of virtue itself. It was rather placing it in the point of view wherein it was considered by Pamela, who was by far too calculating a young lady to deserve all the eulogy that has been showered upon her.

Another Empress of Germany, Elizabeth Christiana, founded, in the early part of the last century, at Vienna, an Order of Neighborly Love. It consisted of persons of both sexes; but nobody was accounted a neighbor who was not noble. With regard to numbers, it was unlimited. The motto of the order was Amor Proximi; a motto which exactly characterized the feelings of Queen Guinever for any handsome knight who happened to be her neighbor for the nonce. “Proximus” at the meetings of the order was, of course, of that convenient gender whereby all the members of the order could profit by its application. They might have had a particularly applicable song, if they had only possessed a Béranger to sing as the French lyrist has done.

There was also in Germany an order for ladies only, that was of a very sombre character. It was the Order of Death’s Head; and was founded just two centuries ago, by a Duke of Wirtemburg, who decreed that a princess of that house should always be at the head of it. The rules bound ladies to an observance of conduct which they were not likely to observe, if the rule of Christianity was not strong enough to bind them; and probably many fair ladies who wore the double cross, with the death’s head pending from the lower one, looked on the motto of “Memento Mori,” as a reminder to daring lovers who dared to look on them.

France had given us, in ladies’ orders, first, the Order of the Cordelière, founded by that Anne of Brittany who brought her independent duchy as a dower to Charles VIII. of France, and who did for the French court what Queen Charlotte effected for that of England, at a much later period. Another Anne, of Austria, wife of Louis XIII., and some say of Cardinal Mazarin also, founded, for ladies, the Order of the Celestial Collar of the Holy Rosary. The members consisted of fifty young ladies of the first families in France; and they all wore, appended to other and very charming insignia hanging from the neck, a portrait of St. Dominic, who found himself in the best possible position for instilling all sorts of good principles into a maiden’s bosom.

The Order of the Bee was founded a century and a half ago by Louisa de Bourbon, Duchess of Maine. The ensign was a medal, with the portrait of the duchess on one side, and the figure of a bee, with the motto, Je suis petite, mais mes piqueures sont profondes, on the other.

In Russia, Peter the Great founded the Order of St. Catherine, in honor of his wife, and gave as its device, Pour l’amour et la fidélité envers la patrie. It was at first intended for men, but was ultimately made a female order exclusively. A similar change was found necessary in the Spanish Order of the Lady of Mercy, founded in the thirteenth century by James, King of Aragon. There were other female orders in Spain, and the whole of them had for their object the furtherance of religion, order, and virtue. In some cases, membership was conferred in acknowledgment of merit. Who forgets Miss Jane Porter in her costume and insignia of a lady of one of the orders of Polish female chivalry—and who is ignorant that Mrs. Otway has been recently decorated by the Queen of Spain with the Order of Maria Louisa?

The Order of St. Ulrica, in Sweden, was founded in 1734, in honor of a lady, the reigning Queen, and to commemorate the liberty which Sweden had acquired and enjoyed from the period of her accession. Two especial qualities were necessary in the candidates for knighthood in this order. It was necessary that a public tribunal should declare that they were men of pure public spirit; and it was further required of them to prove that in serving the country, they had never been swayed by motives of private interest. When the order was about to be founded, not less than five hundred candidates appeared to claim chivalric honor. Of these, only fifty were chosen, and decree was made that the number of knights should never exceed that amount. It was an unnecessary decree, if the qualifications required were to be stringently demanded. But, in the conferring of honors generally, there has often been little connection between cause and effect; as, for instance, after Major-General Simpson had failed to secure the victory which the gallantry of our troops had put in his power at the Redan, the home government was so delighted, that they made field-marshals of two very old gentlemen. The example was not lost on the King of the Belgians. He, too, commemorated the fall of Sebastopol by enlarging the number of his knights. He could not well scatter decorations among his army, for that has been merely a military police, but he made selection of an equally destructive body, and named eighteen doctors—Knights of St. Leopold.

These orders of later institution appear to have forgotten one of the leading principles of knighthood—love for the ladies—but perhaps this is quite as well. When Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, instituted the Order of the Golden Shield, he was by no means so forgetful. He enjoined his knights to honor the ladies above all, and never permit any one to slander them with impunity; “because,” said the good duke, “after God, we owe everything to the labors of the ladies, and all the honor that man can acquire.” One portion of which assertion may certainly defy contradiction.

The most illustrious of female knights, however, is, without dispute, the Maid of Orleans. Poor Jeanne Darc seems to me to have been an illustrious dupe and an innocent victim. Like Charlotte Corday, the calamities of her country weighed heavily upon her spirits, and her consequent eager desire to relieve them, caused her to be marked as a fitting instrument for a desired end. Poor Charlotte Corday commissioned herself for the execution of the heroic deed which embellishes her name—Jeanne Darc was evidently commissioned by others.

The first step taken by Jeanne to obtain access to the Dauphin, was to solicit the assistance of the proud De Baudricourt, who resided not far from the maid’s native place, Domremy. However pious the young girl may have been, De Baudricourt was not the man to give her a public reception, had not some foregone conclusion accompanied it. She needed his help to enable her to proceed to Chinon. The answer of the great chief was that she should not be permitted to go there. The reply of the maid, who was always uncommonly “smart” in her answers, was that she would go to Chinon, although she were forced to crawl the whole way on her knees. She did go, and the circumstances of a mere young girl, who was in the habit of holding intercourse with angels and archangels, thus overcoming, as it were, the most powerful personage in the district, was proof enough to the common mind, as to whence she derived her strength and authority. The corps of priests by whom she was followed, as soon as her divine mission was acknowledged or invented by the court, lent her additional influence, and sanctified in her own mind, her doubtless honest enthusiasm. The young girl did all to which she pledged herself, and in return, was barbarously treated by both friend and foe, and was most hellishly betrayed by the Church, under whose benediction she had raised her banner. She engaged to relieve Orleans from the terrible English army which held it in close siege, and she nobly kept her engagement. It may be noticed that the first person slain in this siege, was a young lady named Belle, and the fair sex thus furnished the first victim, as well as the great conqueror, in this remarkable conflict.

I pass over general details, in order to have the more space to notice particular illustrative circumstances touching our female warrior. Jeanne, it must be allowed, was extremely bold of assertion as well as smart in reply. She would have delighted a Swedenborgian by the alacrity with which she protested that she held intercourse with spirits from Heaven and prophets of old. Nothing was so easy as to make her believe so; and she was quite as ready to deny the alleged fact when her clerical accusers, in the day of her adversity, declared that such belief was a suggestion of the devil. I think there was some humor and a little reproach in the reply by Jeanne, that she would maintain or deny nothing but as she was directed by the Church.

Meanwhile, during her short but glorious career, she manifested true chivalrous spirit. She feared no man, not even the brave Dunois. “Bastard, bastard!” said she to him on one occasion, “in the name of God, hear me; I command you to let me know of the arrival of Fastolf as soon as it takes place; for, hark ye, if he passes without my knowledge, I give you my word, you shall lose your head.” And thereon she turned to her dinner of dry bread and wine-and-water—half a pint of the first to two pints of the last, with the quiet air of a person able and determined to realize every menace.

It is very clear that her brother knights, while they profited by her services, and obeyed (with some reluctance) her orders, neither thought nor spoke over-well of her. Their comments were not complimentary to a virgin reputation, which a jury of princesses, with a queen for a forewoman, had pronounced unblemished. She even risked her prestige over the common rank and file, but generally by measures which resulted in strengthening it. Thus, on taking the Fort of the Augustins from the English, she destroyed all the rich things and lusty wine she found there, lest the men should be corrupted by indulgence therein. It may be remembered that Gustavus Vasa highly disgusted his valiant Dalecarlians by a similar exhibition of healthy discipline.

The Maid undoubtedly placed the work of fighting before the pleasure of feasting. When she was about to issue from her lodgings, to head the attack against the bastion of the Tourelles, where she prophesied she would be wounded, her host politely begged of her to remain and partake of a dish of freshly-caught shad. It was the 7th of May, and shad was just in season; the Germans call it distinctively “the May-fish.” Jeanne resisted the temptation for the moment. “Keep the fish till to-night,” said she, “till I have come back from the fray; for I shall bring a Goden [a ‘God d—n,’ or Englishman] with me to partake of my supper.”

She was not more ready of tongue than she was quick of eye. An instance of the latter may be found in an incident before Jargeau. She was reconnoitring the place at a considerable distance. The period was more than a century and a half before Hans Lippershey, the Middleburg spectacle-maker, had invented, and still more before Galileo had improved, the telescope. The Duke d’Alençon was with Jeanne, and she bade him step aside, as the enemy were pointing a gun at him. The Duke obeyed, for he knew her acuteness of vision; the gun was fired, and De Lude, a gentleman of Anjou, standing in a line with the spot which had been occupied by the Duke, was slain—which must have been very satisfactory to the Duke!

I have said that some of the knights had but a scanty respect for the gallant Maid. A few, no doubt, objected to the assumption of heavenly inspiration on her part. One, at least, was not so particular. I allude to the Baron De Richemond, who had been exiled from court for the little misdemeanor of having assassinated Cannes de Beaulieu. The Baron had recovered his good name by an actively religious exercise, manifested by his hunting after wizards and witches, and burning them alive, to the delight and edification of dull villagers. This pious personage paid a visit to Jeanne, hoping to obtain, by her intercession, the royal permission to have a share in the war. The disgraced knight, who brought with him a couple of thousand men, when these were most wanted, was not likely to meet with a refusal of service, and the permission sought for was speedily granted. Jeanne playfully alluded to her own supernatural inspiration and the Baron’s vocation as “witch-finder.” “Ah well,” said De Richemond, “with regard to yourself, I have only this to say, that it is difficult to say anything; but if you are from Heaven, it is not I who shall be afraid of you; and if you come from the devil, I do not fear even him, who, in such case, sends you.” Thereupon, they laughed merrily, and began to talk of the next day’s battle.

That battle was fought upon the field of Patay, where the gallant Talbot was made prisoner by the equally gallant Saintrailles. When the great English commander was brought into the presence of Jeanne, he was good-humoredly asked if he had expected such a result the day before. “It is the fortune of war,” philosophically exclaimed the inimitable John; and thereby he made a soldier’s comment, which has often since been in the mouths of the valiant descendants of the French knights who heard it uttered, and which is frequently quoted as being of Gallic origin. But, again, I think that “fortuna belli” was not an uncommon phrase, perhaps, in old days before the French language was yet spoken.

And here, talking of origin, let me notice a circumstance of some interest. Jeanne Darc is commonly described as Jeanne D’Arc, as though she had been ennobled. This, indeed, she was, by the King, but not by that name. To the old family name was added that of du Lys, in allusion to the Lily of France, which that family had served so well. The brothers of Jeanne, now Darc du Lys, entered the army. When Guise sent a French force into Scotland, some gallant gentlemen of this name of Lys were among them. They probably settled in Caledonia, for the name is not an uncommon one there; and there is a gallant major in the 48th who bears it, and who, perhaps, may owe his descent to the ennobled brothers of “The Maid of Orleans.”

Jeanne was not so affected as to believe that nobility was above the desert of her deeds. When her relatives, including her brothers, Peter and John, congratulated her and themselves on all that she had accomplished, her remark was: “My deeds are in truth those of a ministry; but in as great truth never were greater read of by cleric, however profound he may be in all clerical learning.” The degree of nobility allowed to the deserving girl was that of a countess. Her household consisted of a steward, almoner, squire, pages, “hand, foot, and chamber men,” independently of the noble maidens who tended her, and who seem to have been equally served by three “valets de main, de pied, et de chambre.”

But short-lived was the glory; no, I will not say that, let me rather remark that short-lived was the worldly splendor of the chivalrous my-lady countess. She had rendered all the service she could, when she fell wounded before Paris, and was basely abandoned for a while by her own party. She was rescued, ultimately, by D’Alençon, but only to be more disgracefully abandoned on the one side, and evilly treated on the other. When as a bleeding captive she was rudely dragged from the field at Compiègne; church, court, and chivalry, ignobly abandoned the poor and brave girl who had served all three in turn. By all three she was now as fiercely persecuted; and it may safely be said, that if the English were glad to burn her as a witch, to account for the defeat of the English and their allies, the French were equally eager to furnish testimony against her.

Her indecision and vacillation after falling into the hands of her enemies, would seem to show that apart from the promptings of those who had guided her, she was but an ordinary personage. She, however, never lost heart, and her natural wit did not abandon her. “Was St. Michael naked when he appeared to you?” was a question asked by one of the examining commissioners. To which Jeanne replied, “Do you think heaven has not wherewith to dress him?” “Had he any hair on his head?” was the next sensible question. Jeanne answered it by another query, “Have the goodness to tell me,” said she, “why Michael’s head should have been shaved?” It was easy, of course, to convict a prejudged and predoomed person, of desertion of her parents, of leading a vagabond and disreputable life, of sorcery, and finally, of heresy. She was entrapped into answers which tended to prove her culpability; but disregarding at last the complicated web woven tightly around her, and aware that nothing could save her, the heart of the knightly maiden beat firmly again, and as a summary reply to all questions, she briefly and emphatically declared: “All that I have done, all that I do, I have done well, and do well to do it.” In her own words, “Tout ce que j’ai fait, tout ce que je fais, j’ai bien fait, et fais bien de le faire;” and it was a simply-dignified resume in presence of high-born ecclesiastics, who did not scruple to give the lie to each other like common ploughmen.

She was sentenced to death, and suffered the penalty, as being guilty of infamy, socially, morally, religiously, and politically. Not a finger was stretched to save her who had saved so many. Her murder is an indelible stain on two nations and one church; not the less so that the two nations unite in honoring her memory, and that the church has pronounced her innocent. Never did gallant champion meet with such base ingratitude from the party raised by her means from abject slavery to triumph; never was noble enemy so ignobly treated by a foe with whom, to acknowledge and admire valor, is next to the practice of it; and never was staff selected by the church for its support, so readily broken and thrown into the fire when it had served its purpose. All the sorrow in the world can not wash out these terrible facts, but it is fitting that this sorrow should always accompany our admiration. And so, honored be the memory of the young girl of Orleans!

After all, it is a question whether our sympathies be not thrown away when we affect to feel for Jeanne Darc. M. Delepierre, the Belgian Secretary of Legation, has printed, for private circulation, his “Doute Historique.” This work consists chiefly of official documents, showing that the “Maid” never suffered at all, but that some criminal having been executed in her place, she survived to be a pensioner of the government, a married lady, and the mother of a family! The work in which these documents are produced, is not to be easily procured, but they who have any curiosity in the matter will find the subject largely treated in the Athenæum. This “Historical Doubt” brings us so closely in connection with romance, that we, perhaps, can not do better in illustrating our subject, than turn to a purely romantic subject, and see of what metal the champions of Christendom were made, with respect to chivalry.