On the 22nd of June, from the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France for Henry VI, Antoine de Vergy, Governor of Champagne, received a commission to furnish forth a thousand men-at-arms for the purpose of bringing the castellany of Vaucouleurs into subjection to the English. Three weeks later, commanded by the two Vergy, Antoine and Jean, the little company set forth. It consisted of four knights-banneret, fourteen knights-bachelor, and three hundred and sixty-three men-at-arms. Pierre de Trie, commander of Beauvais, Jean, Count of Neufchâtel and Fribourg, were ordered to join the main body.[352]
On the march, as was his custom, Antoine de Vergy laid waste all the villages of the castellany with fire and sword. Threatened once again with a disaster with which they were only too well acquainted, the folk of Domremy and Greux already beheld their cattle captured, their barns set on fire, their wives and daughters ravished. Having experienced before that the Castle on the Island was not secure enough, they determined to flee and seek refuge in their market town of Neufchâteau, only five miles away from Domremy. Thus they set out towards the middle of July. Abandoning their houses and fields and driving their cattle before them, they followed the road, through the fields of wheat and rye and up the vine-clad hills to the town, wherein they lodged as best they could.[353]
The d'Arc family was taken in by the wife of Jean Waldaires, who was called La Rousse. She kept an inn, where lodged soldiers, monks, merchants, and pilgrims. There were some who suspected her of harbouring bad women.[354] And there is reason to believe that certain of her women customers were of doubtful reputation. Albeit she herself was of good standing, that is to say, she was rich. She had money enough to lend sometimes to her fellow-citizens.[355] Although Neufchâteau belonged to the Duke of Lorraine, who was of the Burgundian party, it has been thought that the hostess of this inn inclined towards the Armagnacs; but it is vain to attempt to discover the sentiments of La Rousse concerning the troubles of the kingdom of France.[356]
At Neufchâteau as at Domremy Jeanne drove her father's beasts to the field and kept his flocks.[357] Handy and robust she used also to help La Rousse in her household duties.[358] This circumstance gave rise to the malicious report set on foot by the Burgundians that she had been serving maid in an inn frequented by drunkards and bad women.[359] The truth is that Jeanne, when she was not tending the cattle, and helping her hostess, passed all her time in church.[360]
There were two fine religious houses in the town, one belonging to the Grey Friars, the other to the Sisters of St. Claire, the sons and daughters of good St. Francis.[361] The monastery of the Grey Friars had been built two hundred years earlier by Mathieu II of Lorraine. The reigning duke had recently added richly to its endowments. Noble ladies, great lords, and among others a Bourlémont lord of Domremy and Greux lay there beneath brasses.[362]
In the flower of their history these mendicant monks of old had welcomed to their third order crowds of citizens and peasants as well as multitudes of princes and kings.[363] Now they languished corrupt and decadent among the French friars. Quarrels and schisms were frequent. Notwithstanding Colette of Corbie's attempted restoration of the rule, the old discipline was nowhere observed.[364] These mendicants distributed leaden medals, taught short prayers to serve as charms, and vowed special devotion to the holy name of Jesus.[365]
During the fortnight Jeanne spent in the town of Neufchâteau,[366] she frequented the church of the Grey Friars monastery, and two or three times confessed to brethren of the order.[367] It has been stated that she belonged to the third order of St. Francis, and the inference has been drawn that her affiliation dated from her stay at Neufchâteau.[368]
Such an inference is very doubtful; and in any case the affiliation cannot have been very ceremonious. It is difficult to see how in so short a time the friars could have instructed her in the practices of Franciscan piety. She was far too imbued with ecclesiastical notions concerning the spiritual and the temporal power, she was too full of mysteries and revelations to imbibe their spirit. Besides, her sojourn at Neufchâteau was troubled by anxiety and broken by absences.
In this town she received a summons to appear before the official of Toul, in whose jurisdiction she was, as a native of Domremy-de-Greux. A young bachelor of Domremy alleged that a promise of marriage had been given him by Jacques d'Arc's daughter. Jeanne denied it. He persisted in his statement, and summoned her to appear before the official.[369] To this ecclesiastical tribunal such cases belonged; it pronounced judgment on questions of nullity of marriage or validity of betrothal.
The curious part of Jeanne's case is that her parents were against her, and on the side of the young man. It was in defiance of their wishes that she defended the suit and appeared before the official. Later she declared that in this matter she had disobeyed them, and that it was the only time she had failed in the submission she owed her parents.[370]
The journey from Neufchâteau to Toul and back involved travelling more than twenty leagues on foot, over roads infested with bands of armed men, through a country desolated by fire and sword, from which the peasants of Domremy had recently fled in a panic. To such a journey, however, she made up her mind against the will of her parents.
Possibly she may have appeared before the judge at Toul, not once but two or three times. And there was a great chance of her having to journey day and night with her so-called betrothed, for he was passing over the same road at the same time. Her Voices bade her fear nothing. Before the judge she swore to speak the truth, and denied having made any promise of marriage.
She had done nothing wrong. But an evil interpretation was set upon conduct which proceeded alone from an innocence both singular and heroic. At Neufchâteau it was said that on those journeys she had consumed all her substance. But what was her substance? Alas! she had set out with nothing. She may have been driven to beg her bread from door to door. Saints receive alms as they give them: for the love of God. There was a story that her betrothed seeing her living during the trial in company with bad women, had abandoned his demand for justice, renouncing a bride of such bad repute.[371] Such calumnies were only too readily believed.
After a fortnight's sojourn at Neufchâteau, Jacques d'Arc and his family returned to Domremy. The orchard, the house, the monastery, the village, the fields,—in what a state of desolation did they behold them! The soldiers had plundered, ravaged, burnt everything. Unable to exact ransom from the villeins who had taken flight, the men-at-arms had destroyed all their goods. The monastery once as proud as a fortress, with its watchman's tower, was now nothing but a heap of blackened ruins. And now on holy days the folk of Domremy must needs go to hear mass in the church of Greux.[372]
So full of danger were the times that the villagers were ordered to keep in fortified houses and castles.[373]
Meanwhile the English were laying siege to the town of Orléans, which belonged to their prisoner Duke Charles. By so doing they acted badly, for, having possession of his body, they ought to have respected his property.[374] They built fortified towers round the city of Orléans, the very heart of France; and it was said that they had entrenched themselves there in great strength.[375] Now Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret loved the Land of the Lilies; they were the sworn friends and gentle cousins of the Dauphin Charles. They talked to the shepherd maid of the misfortunes of the kingdom and continued to say: "Leave thy village and go into France."[376]
Jeanne was all the more impatient to set forth because she had herself announced the time of her arrival in France, and that time was drawing near. She had told the Commander of Vaucouleurs that succour should come to the Dauphin before mid Lent. She did not want to make her Voices lie.[377]
Towards the middle of January occurred the opportunity she was looking for of returning to Burey. At this time Durand Lassois' wife, Jeanne le Vauseul, was brought to bed.[378] It was the custom in the country for the young kinswomen and friends of the mother to attend and wait upon her and her babe. A good and kindly custom, followed all the more readily because of the opportunity it gave of pleasant meetings and cheerful gossip.[379] Jeanne urged her uncle to ask her father that she might be sent to tend the sick woman, and Lassois consented: he was always ready to do what his niece asked him, and perhaps his complaisance was encouraged by pious persons of some importance.[380] But how this father, who shortly before had said that he would throw his daughter into the Meuse rather than that she should go off with men-at-arms, should have allowed her to go to the gates of the town, protected by a kinsman of whose weakness he was well aware, is hard to understand. However so he did.[381]
Leaving the home of her childhood, which she was never to see again, Jeanne, in company with Durand Lassois, passed down her native valley in its winter bareness. As she went by the house of the husbandman Gérard Guillemette of Greux, whose children and Jacques d'Arc's were great friends, she cried: "Good-bye! I am going to Vaucouleurs."[382]
A few paces further she saw her friend Mengette: "Good-bye, Mengette," she said. "God bless thee."[383]
And by the way, on the doorsteps of the houses, whenever she saw faces she knew, she bade them farewell.[384] But she avoided Hauviette with whom she had played and slept in childhood and whom she dearly loved. If she were to bid her good-bye she feared that her heart would fail her. It was not till later that Hauviette heard of her friend's departure and then she wept bitterly.[385]
On her second arrival at Vaucouleurs, Jeanne imagined that she was setting foot in a town belonging to the Dauphin, and, in the language of the day, entering the royal antechamber.[386] She was mistaken. Since the beginning of August, 1428, the Commander of Vaucouleurs had yielded the fortress to Antoine de Vergy, but had not yet surrendered it to him.
It was one of those promises to capitulate at the end of a given time. They were not uncommon in those days, and they ceased to be valid if the fortress were relieved before the day fixed for its surrender.[387]
Jeanne went to Sire Robert in his castle just as she had done nine months before; and this was the revelation she made to him: "My Lord Captain," she said, "know that God has again given me to wit, and commanded me many times to go to the gentle Dauphin, who must be and who is the true King of France, and that he shall grant me men-at-arms with whom I shall raise the siege of Orléans and take him to his anointing at Reims."[388]
This time she announces that it is her mission to deliver Orléans. And the anointing is not to come to pass until this the first part of her task shall have been accomplished. We cannot fail to recognise the readiness and the tact with which the Voices altered their commands previously given, according to the necessities of the moment. Robert's manner towards Jeanne had completely changed. He said nothing about boxing her ears and sending her back to her parents. He no longer treated her roughly; and if he did not believe her announcement at least he listened to it readily.
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]
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, naïve, 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 God—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]
Jeanne lodged in the town with humble folk, Henri Leroyer and his wife Catherine, friends of her cousin Lassois. 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 cluster 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 château 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 mass and remain long in prayer.[392]
Under the chapel, in the crypt, there was an image of the Virgin, ancient and deeply venerated, called Notre-Dame-de-la-Voûte.[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.
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]
She confessed often, usually to Jean Fournier, priest of Vaucouleurs.[395]
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 Lassois 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]
This pious damsel held converse with devout persons and also with men of noble 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]
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]
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 noble estate, he had acquired or inherited the lordship 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.
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.
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]
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]
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."
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 God," 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 God 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]
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 God.[407]
Of his own accord, or rather, acting by the advice of some wise person, Sire Robert desired to know whether Jeanne was not being inspired by an evil spirit. For the devil is cunning and sometimes assumes the mark of innocence. And as Sire Robert was not learned in such matters, he determined to take counsel with his priest.
Now one day when Catherine and Jeanne were at home spinning, they beheld the Commander coming accompanied by the priest, Messire Jean Fournier. They asked the mistress of the house to withdraw; and when they were left alone with the damsel, Messire Jean Fournier put on his stole and pronounced some Latin words which amounted to saying: "If thou be evil, away with thee; if thou be good, draw nigh."[408]
It was the ordinary formula of exorcism or, to be more exact, of conjuration. In the opinion of Messire Jean Fournier these words, accompanied by a few drops of holy water, would drive away devils, if there should unhappily be any in the body of this village maiden.
Messire Jean Fournier was convinced that devils were possessed by an uncontrollable desire to enter the bodies of men, and especially of maidens, who sometimes swallowed them with their bread. They dwelt in the mouth under the tongue, in the nostrils, or penetrated down the throat into the stomach. In these various abodes their action was violent; and their presence was discerned by the contortions and howlings of the miserable victims who were possessed.
Pope St. Gregory, in his Dialogues, gives a striking example of the facility with which devils insinuate themselves into women. He tells how a nun, being in the garden, saw a lettuce which she thought looked tender. She plucked it, and, neglecting to bless it by making the sign of the cross, she ate of it and straightway fell possessed. A man of God having drawn near unto her, the demon began to cry out: "It is I! It is I who have done it! I was seated upon that lettuce. This woman came and she swallowed me." But the prayers of the man of God drove him out.[409]
The caution required in such a matter was therefore not exaggerated by Messire Jean Fournier. Possessed by the idea that the devil is subtle and woman corrupt, carefully and according to prescribed rules he proceeded to solve a difficult problem. It was generally no easy matter to recognise one possessed by the devil and to distinguish between a demoniac and a good Christian. Very great saints had not been spared the trial to which Jeanne was to be subjected.
Having recited the formula and sprinkled the holy water, Messire Jean Fournier expected, if the damsel were possessed, to see her struggle, writhe, and endeavour to take flight. In such a case he must needs have made use of more powerful formulæ, have sprinkled more holy water, and made more signs of the cross, and by such means have driven out the devils until they were seen to depart with a terrible noise and a noxious odour, in the shape of dragons, camels, or fish.[410]
There was nothing suspicious in Jeanne's attitude. No wild agitation, no frenzy. Merely anxious and intreating, she dragged herself on her knees towards the priest. She did not flee before God's holy name. Messire Jean Fournier concluded that no devil was within her.
Left alone in the house with Catherine, Jeanne, who now understood the meaning of the ceremony, showed strong resentment towards Messire Jean Fournier. She reproached him with having suspected her: "It was wrong of him," she said to her hostess, "for, having heard my confession, he ought to have known me."[411]
She would have thanked the priest of Vaucouleurs had she known how he was furthering the fulfilment of her mission by subjecting her to this ordeal. Convinced that this maiden was not inspired by the devil, Sire Robert must have been driven to conclude that she might be inspired by God; for apparently he was a man of simple reasoning. He wrote to the Dauphin Charles concerning the young saint; and doubtless he bore witness to the innocence and goodness he beheld in her.[412]
Although it looked as if the Captain would have to resign his command to my Lord de Vergy, Sire Robert did not intend to quit his country where he had dealings with all parties. Indeed he cared little enough about the Dauphin Charles, and it is difficult to see what personal interest he can have had in recommending him a prophetess. Without pretending to discover what was passing in his mind, one may believe that he wrote to the Dauphin on Jeanne's behalf at the request of some of those persons who thought well of her, probably of Bertrand de Poulengy and of Jean de Metz. These two men-at-arms, seeing that the Dauphin's cause was lost in the Lorraine Marches, had every reason for proceeding to the banks of the Loire, where they might still fight with the hope of advantage.
On the eve of setting out, they appeared disposed to take the seeress with them, and even to defray all her expenses, reckoning on repaying themselves from the royal coffers at Chinon, and deriving honour and advantage from so rare a marvel. But they waited to be assured of the Dauphin's consent.[413]
Meanwhile Jeanne could not rest. She came and went from Vaucouleurs to Burey and from Burey to Vaucouleurs. She counted the days; time dragged for her as for a woman with child.[414]
At the end of January, feeling she could wait no longer, she resolved to go to the Dauphin Charles alone. She clad herself in garments belonging to Durand Lassois, and with this kind cousin set forth on the road to France.[415] A man of Vaucouleurs, one Jacques Alain, accompanied them.[416] Probably these two men expected that the damsel would herself realise the impossibility of such a journey and that they would not go very far. That is what happened. The three travellers had barely journeyed a league from Vaucouleurs, when, near the Chapel of Saint Nicholas, which rises in the valley of Septfonds, in the middle of the great wood of Saulcy, Jeanne changed her mind and said to her comrades that it was not right of her to set out thus. Then they all three returned to the town.[417]
At length a royal messenger brought King Charles's reply to the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The messenger was called Colet de Vienne.[418] His name indicates that he came from the province which the Dauphin had governed before the death of the late King, and which had remained unswervingly faithful to the unfortunate prince. The reply was that Sire Robert should send the young saint to Chinon.[419]
That which Jeanne had demanded and which it had seemed impossible to obtain was granted. She was to be taken to the King as she had desired and within the time fixed by herself. But this departure, for which she had so ardently longed, was delayed several days by a remarkable incident. The incident shows that the fame of the young prophetess had gone out through Lorraine; and it proves that in those days the great of the land had recourse to saints in their hour of need.
Jeanne was summoned to Nancy by my Lord the Duke of Lorraine. Furnished with a safe-conduct that the Duke had sent her, she set forth in rustic jerkin and hose on a nag given her by Durand Lassois and Jacques Alain. It had cost them twelve francs which Sire Robert repaid them later out of the royal revenue.[420] From Vaucouleurs to Nancy is twenty-four leagues. Jean de Metz accompanied her as far as Toul; Durand Lassois went with her the whole way.[421]
Before going to the Duke of Lorraine's palace, Jeanne ascended the valley of the Meurthe and went to worship at the shrine of the great Saint Nicholas, whose relics were preserved in the Benedictine chapel of Saint-Nicholas-du-Port. She did well; for Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of travellers.[422]
BY giving his eldest daughter, Isabelle, the heiress of Lorraine, in marriage to René, the second son of Madame Yolande, Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, and Duchess of Anjou,[423] Duke Charles II of Lorraine, who was in alliance with the English, had recently done his cousin and friend, the Duke of Burgundy, a bad turn. René of Anjou, now in his twentieth year, was a man of culture as much in love with sound learning as with chivalry, and withal kind, affable, and gracious. When not engaged in some military expedition and in wielding the lance he delighted to illuminate manuscripts. He had a taste for flower-decked gardens and stories in tapestry; and like his fair cousin the Duke of Orléans he wrote poems in French.[424] Invested with the duchy of Bar by the Cardinal Duke of Bar, his great-uncle, he would inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of Duke Charles which could not be far off. This marriage was rightly regarded as a clever stroke on the part of Madame Yolande. But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against René the Count of Vaudémont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was René of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples.[425] It was so called because the cause of war was a basketful of apples which had been brought into the town of Metz without paying duty to the officers of the Duke of Lorraine.[426]
Meanwhile René's mother was sending convoys of victuals from Blois to the citizens of Orléans, besieged by the English.[427] Although she was not then on good terms with the counsellors of her son-in-law, King Charles, she was vigilant in opposing the enemies of the kingdom when they threatened her own duchy of Anjou. René, Duke of Bar, had therefore ties of kindred, friendship, and interest binding him at the same time to the English and Burgundian party as well as to the party of France. Such was the situation of most of the French nobles. René's communications with the Commander of Vaucouleurs were friendly and constant.[428] It is possible that Sire Robert may have told him that he had a damsel at Vaucouleurs who was prophesying concerning the realm of France. It is possible that the Duke of Bar, curious to see her, may have had her sent to Nancy, where he was to be towards the 20th of February. But it is much more likely that René of Anjou thought less about the Maid of Vaucouleurs, whom he had never seen, than about the little Moor and the jester who enlivened the ducal palace.[429] In this month of February, 1429, he was neither desirous nor able to concern himself greatly with the affairs of France; and although brother-in-law to King Charles, he was preparing not to succour the town of Orléans, but to besiege the town of Metz.[430]
Old and ill, Duke Charles dwelt in his palace with his paramour Alison du Mai, a bastard and a priest's daughter, who had driven out the lawful wife, Dame Marguerite of Bavaria. Dame Marguerite was pious and high-born, but old and ugly, while Madame Alison was pretty. She had borne Duke Charles several children.[431]
The following story appears the most authentic. There were certain worthy persons at Nancy who wanted Duke Charles to take back his good wife. To persuade him to do so they had recourse to the exhortations of a saint, who had revelations from Heaven, and who called herself the Daughter of God. By these persons the damsel of Domremy was represented to the enfeebled old Duke as being a saint who worked miracles of healing. By their advice he had her summoned in the hope that she possessed secrets which should alleviate his sufferings and keep him alive.
As soon as he saw her he asked whether she could not restore him to his former health and strength.
She replied that "of such things" she knew nothing. But she warned him that his ways were evil, and that he would not be cured until he had amended them. She enjoined upon him to send away Alison, his concubine, and to take back his good wife.[432]
No doubt she had been told to say something of this kind; but it also came from her own heart, for she loathed bad women.
Jeanne had come to the Duke because it was his due, because a little saint must not refuse when a great lord wishes to consult her, and because in short she had been brought to Nancy. But her mind was elsewhere; of nought could she think but of saving the realm of France.
Reflecting that Madame Yolande's son with a goodly company of men-at-arms would be of great aid to the Dauphin, she asked the Duke of Lorraine, as she took her leave, to send this young knight with her into France.
"Give me your son," she said, "with men-at-arms as my escort. In return I will pray to God for your restoration to health."
The Duke did not give her men-at-arms; neither did he give her the Duke of Bar, the heir of Lorraine, the ally of the English, who was nevertheless to join her soon beneath the standard of King Charles. But he gave her four francs and a black horse.[433]
Perhaps it was on her return from Nancy that she wrote to her parents asking their pardon for having left them. The fact that they received a letter and forgave is all that is known.[434] One cannot forbear surprise that Jacques d'Arc, all through the month that his daughter was at Vaucouleurs, should have remained quietly at home, when previously, after having merely dreamed of her being with men-at-arms, he had threatened that if his sons did not drown her he would with his own hands. For he must have been aware that at Vaucouleurs she was living with men-at-arms. Knowing her temperament, he had displayed great simplicity in letting her go. One cannot help supposing that those pious persons who believed in Jeanne's goodness, and desired her to be taken into France for the saving of the kingdom, must have undertaken to reassure her father and mother concerning their daughter's manner of life; perhaps they even gave the simple folk to understand that if Jeanne did go to the King her family would derive therefrom honour and advantage.
Before or after her journey to Nancy (which is not known), certain of the townsfolk of Vaucouleurs who believed in the young prophetess either had made, or purchased for her ready made, a suit of masculine clothing, a jerkin, cloth doublet, hose laced on to the coat, gaiters, spurs, a whole equipment of war. Sire Robert gave her a sword.[435]
She had her hair cut round like a boy.[436] Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, with their servants Jean de Honecourt and Julien, were to accompany her as well as the King's messenger, Colet de Vienne, and the bowman Richard.[437] There was still some delay and councils were held, for the soldiers of Antoine de Lorraine, Lord of Joinville, infested the country. Throughout the land there was nothing but pillage, robbery, murder, cruel tyranny, the ravishing of women, the burning of churches and abbeys, and the perpetration of horrible crimes. Those were the hardest times ever known to man.[438] But the damsel was not afraid, and said: "In God's name! take me to the gentle Dauphin, and fear not any trouble or hindrance we may meet."[439]
At length, on a day in February, so it is said, the little company issued forth from Vaucouleurs by La Porte de France.[440]
A few friends who had followed her so far watched her go. Among them were her hosts, Henri Leroyer and Catherine, and Messire Jean Colin, canon of Saint-Nicolas, near Vaucouleurs, to whom Jeanne had confessed several times.[441] They trembled for their saint as they thought of the perils of the way and the length of the journey.
"How can you," they asked her, "set forth on such a journey when there are men-at-arms on every hand?" But out of the serene peace of her heart she answered them:
"I do not fear men-at-arms; my way has been made plain before me. If there be men-at-arms my Lord God will make a way for me to go to my Lord Dauphin. For that am I come."[442]
Sire Robert was present at her departure. According to the customary formula he took an oath from each of the men-at-arms that they would surely and safely conduct her whom he confided to them. Then, being a man of little faith, he said to Jeanne in lieu of farewell: "Go! and come what may."[443] And the little company went off into the mist, which at that season envelops the meadows of the Meuse.
They were obliged to avoid frequented roads and to beware especially of passing by Joinville, Montiers-en-Saulx and Sailly, where there were soldiers of the hostile party. Sire Bertrand and Jean de Metz were accustomed to such stealthy expeditions; they knew the byways and were acquainted with useful precautions, such as binding up the horses' feet in linen so as to deaden the sound of hoofs on the ground.[444]
At nightfall, having escaped all danger, the company approached the right bank of the Marne and reached the Abbey of Saint-Urbain.[445] From time immemorial it had been a place of refuge, and in those days its abbot was Arnoult of Aulnoy, a kinsman of Robert of Baudricourt.[446] The gate of the plain edifice opened for the travellers who passed beneath the groined vaulting of its roof.[447] The abbey included a building set apart for strangers. There they found the resting-place of the first stage of their journey.
On the right of the outer door was the abbey church wherein were preserved the relics of Pope Saint Urbain. On the 24th of February, in the morning, Jeanne attended conventual mass there.[448] Then she and her companions took horse again. Crossing the Marne by the bridge opposite Saint-Urbain, they pressed on towards France.
They had still one hundred and twenty-five leagues to cover and three rivers to cross, in a country infested with brigands. Through fear of the enemy they journeyed by night.[449] When they lay down on the straw the damsel, keeping her hose laced to her coat, slept in her clothes, under a covering, between Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy in whom she felt confidence. They said afterwards that they never desired the damsel because of the holiness they beheld in her;[450] that may or may not be believed.
Jean de Metz was filled with no such ardent faith in the prophetess, since he inquired of her: "Will you really do what you say?"
To which she replied: "Have no fear. I do what I am commanded to do. My brethren in Paradise tell me what I have to do. It is now four or five years since my brethren in Paradise and Messire told me that I must go forth to war to deliver the realm of France."[451]
These rude comrades did not all preserve an attitude of religious respect in her presence. Certain mocked her and diverted themselves by talking before her as if they belonged to the English party. Sometimes, as a joke, they got up a false alarm and pretended to turn back. Their jests were wasted. She believed them, but she was not afraid, and would say gravely to those who thought to frighten her with the English: "Be sure not to flee. I tell you in God's name, they will not harm you."[452]
Ever at the approach of danger whether real or feigned, there came to her lips the words of encouragement: "Do not be afraid. You will see how graciously the fair Dauphin will look upon us when we come to Chinon."[453]
Her greatest grief was that she could not pray in church as often as she would like. Every day she repeated: "If we could, we should do well to hear mass."[454]
As they avoided high roads they were not often in the way of bridges; and they were frequently forced to ford rivers in flood. They crossed the Aube, near Bar-sur-Aube, the Seine near Bar-sur-Seine, the Yonne opposite Auxerre, where Jeanne heard mass in the church of Saint-Etienne; then they reached the town of Gien, on the right bank of the Loire.[455]
At length these Lorrainers beheld a French town loyal to the King of France. They had travelled seventy-five leagues through the enemy's country without being attacked or molested. Afterwards this was considered miraculous. But was it impossible for seven or eight Armagnac horsemen to traverse English and Burgundian lands without misadventure? The Commander of Vaucouleurs frequently sent letters to the Dauphin which reached him, and the Dauphin was in the habit of despatching messengers to the Commander; Colet de Vienne had just borne his message.[456]
In point of fact the followers of the Dauphin ran risks well nigh as great in the provinces under his sway as in lands subject to other masters.[457]
Freebooters in the pay of King Charles, when they pillaged travellers and held them to ransom, did not stay to ask whether they were Armagnacs or Burgundians. Indeed, it was after their passage of the Loire that Bertrand de Poulengy and his companions found themselves exposed to the greatest danger.
Informed of their approach, certain men-at-arms of the French party went before and lay in ambush, waiting to surprise them. They intended to capture the damsel, cast her into a pit, and keep her there beneath a great stone, in the hope that the King who had sent for her would give a large sum for her rescue.[458] It was the custom for freebooters and mercenaries thus to cast travellers into pits delivering them on payment of ransom. Eighteen years before, at Corbeil, five men had been kept in a pit on bread and water by Burgundians. Three of them died, being unable to pay the ransom.[459] Such a fate very nearly befell Jeanne. But the wretches who were lying in wait for her, at the moment when they should have struck did nothing, wherefore is unknown, perhaps because they were afraid of not being the stronger.[460]
From Gien, the little company followed the northern boundary of the duchy of Berry, crossed into Blésois, possibly passed through Selles-sur-Cher and Saint-Aignan, then, having entered Touraine, reached the green slopes of Fierbois.[461] There one of the two heavenly ladies, who daily discoursed familiarly with the peasant girl, had her most famous sanctuary; there it was that Saint Catherine received multitudes of pilgrims and worked great miracles. According to popular belief the origin of her worship in this place was warlike and national and dated back to the beginning of French history. It was known that after his victory over the Saracens at Poitiers Charles Martel had placed his sword in the oratory of the Blessed Catherine.[462] But it must be admitted that since then the sanctuary had long suffered from desertion and neglect. Rather more than forty years before the coming of the damsel from Domremy, its walls in the depths of a wood were overrun by briers and brambles.
In those days it was not uncommon for saints of both sexes, if they had suffered from some unjust neglect, to come and complain to some pious person of the wrong being done them on earth. They appeared possibly to a monk, to a peasant or a citizen, denounced the impiety of the faithful in terms urgent and sometimes violent, and commanded him to reinstate their worship and restore their sanctuary. And this is what Madame Saint Catherine did. In the year 1375 she entrusted a knight of the neighbourhood of Fierbois, one Jean Godefroy, who was blind and paralysed, with the restoration of her oratory to its old brilliance and fame, promising to cure him if he would pray for nine days in the place where Charles Martel had put his sword. Jean Godefroy had himself carried to the deserted chapel, but beforehand his servants must perforce hew a way through the thicket with their axes. Madame Saint Catherine restored to Jean Godefroy the use of his eyes and his limbs, and it was by this benefit that she recalled to the people of Touraine the glory they had slighted. The oratory was repaired; the faithful again wended their way thither, and miracles abounded. At first the saint healed the sick; then, when the land was ravaged by war, it was her office more especially to deliver from the hands of the English such prisoners as had recourse to her. Sometimes she rendered captives invisible to their guards; sometimes she broke bonds, chains, and locks; to wit, those of a nobleman by name Cazin du Boys, who in 1418 was taken with the garrison of Beaumont-sur-Oise. Locked in an iron cage, bound with a strong rope on which slept a Burgundian, he thought on Madame Saint Catherine, and dedicated himself to this glorious virgin. Immediately the cage was opened. Sometimes she even constrained the English to unchain their prisoners themselves and set them free without ransom. That was a great miracle. One no less great was worked by her on Perrot Chapon, of Saint-Sauveur, near Luzarches. For a month Perrot had been in bonds in an English prison, when he dedicated himself to Saint Catherine and fell asleep. He awoke, still bound, in his own house.
Generally she helped those who helped themselves. Such was the case of Jean Ducoudray, citizen of Saumur, a prisoner in the castle of Bellême in 1429. He commended his soul devoutly to Saint Catherine, then leapt forth, throttled the guard, climbed the ramparts, dropped the height of two lances, and went out a free man into the country.[463]
Perhaps these miracles would have been less frequent had the English been in greater force in France; but their men were few: in Normandy they intrenched themselves in towns, abandoning the open country to soldiers of fortune who ranged the district and captured convoys, thus greatly promoting the intervention of Madame Saint Catherine.[464]
The prisoners, who had become her votaries and whom she had delivered, discharged their vows by making the pilgrimage to Fierbois. In her chapel there, they hung the cords and chains with which they had been bound, their armour, and sometimes, in special cases, the armour of the enemy.
This had been done nine months before Jeanne's coming to Fierbois by a certain knight, Jean du Chastel. He had escaped from the hands of a captain, who accused him of having committed treason thereby, alleging that du Chastel had given him his word of honour. Du Chastel on the other hand maintained that he had not sworn, and he challenged the captain to meet him in single combat. The issue of the combat proved right to be on the side of the French knight; for with the aid of Madame Saint Catherine he was victorious. In return he came to Fierbois to offer to his holy protectress the armour of the vanquished Englishman, in the presence of my Lord, the Bastard of Orléans, of Captain La Hire and several other nobles.[465]
Jeanne must have delighted to hear tell of such miracles, or others like them, and to see so many weapons hanging from the chapel walls. She must have been well pleased that the saint who visited her at all hours and gave her counsel should so manifestly appear the friend of poor soldiers and peasants cast into bonds, cages and pits, or hanged on trees by the Godons.
She prayed in the chapel and heard two masses.[466]