Joan of Arc

by Regine Pernoud

  Thus the order of events, if not their exact chronology (we shall see in the commentary on this chapter how that can be established), can easily be reconstructed on the basis of the testimonies which are in agreement. Passing through Sainte-Catherine de Fierbois, Joan sends a member of her escort to announce her coming to the King and ask for an audience. She, herself, arrived at Chinon, asks to be received by the King, who hesitates and, eventually, receives her. The meeting takes place at evening. “It was high hour” (late in the day), said Joan, during her interrogation (C.135), in the great hall of the castle of which nothing today remains but a fragment of wall and a fireplace hanging in a void. The scene in which Joan recognizes the King and makes unerringly for him has been developed in our minds and in anecdotal history to an extent which it does not, perhaps, deserve.

  It had already undergone this inflation as it appears in Jean Chartier’s Chronique: “Then, Joan, who was come before the King, made the bows and reverences customary to make to the King, as if she had been nurtured at court, and this greeting done said, addressing her speech to the King: ‘God give you life, gentle King,’ whereas she knew him not and had never seen him. And there were (present) several lords, dressed with pomp and richly and more so than was the King. Wherefore he answered the said Joan, ‘Not I am the King, Joan.’ And, pointing to one of his lords, said, ‘There is the King.’ To which she replied, ‘By God, gentle prince, it is you and none other.’ ”

  The writer who gives us the interview in greatest detail was not an eye-witness of it but was unquestionably well-informed: this was Jean Pasquerel, a hermit of Saint-Augustin, formerly of the monastery at Bayeux and subsequently Joan’s confessor and her companion on all her campaigns until the moment of her capture at Compiègne. “The Count of Vendome conducted Joan to the King and led her into the King’s chamber. When he saw her he asked Joan her name and she replied: ‘Gentle Dauphin, Joan the Maid is my name, and to you is sent word by me from the King of Heaven that you will be anointed (sacré) and crowned in the town of Rheims and you will be Lieutenant to the King of Heaven who is King of France.’ And after other questions put by the King, Joan said to him again: ‘I tell thee, on behalf of Messire, that thou art true heir of France and King’s son, and He has sent me to thee to lead thee to Rheims, that thou mayst receive thy coronation and thy consecration, if thou wilt.’ That heard, the King told those who were present that Joan had told him certain secrets that none knew or could know, excepting only God; that is why he had great confidence in her. All this I heard from Joan’s mouth, for I was not present.” (R.176)

  What was this secret? We shall probably never know any more about this than did the Rouen judges themselves. The only testimony touching this subject which exists is to be found in a very late and somewhat anecdotal chronicle, that of Pierre Sala, who, after having served successively Louis XI and Charles VIII, in his old age wrote, at Lyons, a work entitled Hardiesse des grands rois et empereurs. He claims to have had what follows directly from Guillaume Gouffier, lord of Boissy, chamberlain and intimate of Charles VII: “He told me, among other things, the secret which had been between the King and the Maid; and well might he know it, for in his youth he had been greatly loved by that King, so much so that he would never allow any gentleman to be his bedfellow but him. In that great privacy of which I tell you was he told by the King the words which the Maid had said to him. . . . In the time of the great adversity of this King Charles VII, he found himself (brought) so low that he no longer knew what to do. . . . The King, being in this extremity, entered one morning alone into his oratory and there he made a humble petition and prayer to Our Lord in his heart, without utterance of words, in which he petitioned devoutly that if so it was that he was true heir descended from the noble House of France and that the kingdom should rightly belong to him, that it please Him to keep and defend him, or, at worst, to grant him the mercy of escaping death or prison, and that he might fly to Spain or to Scotland which were from time immemorial brothers in arms and allies of the Kings of France, wherefore had he there chosen his last refuge. A little time afterwards, it came about that the Maid was brought to him, who, while watching her ewes in the fields, had received divine inspiration to go and comfort the good King. She did not fail, for she had herself taken and conducted by her own parents even before the King and there she gave her message at the sign aforesaid (dessusdit) which the King knew to be true. And thenceforth he took counsel of her and great good it did him.”

  What appears to be certain is that the King, having consented to receive Joan, was convinced by her that he was face to face with something extraordinary and worthy of closer study. It should, moreover, be remembered that for this anxiety-ridden man, tortured by doubts of his legitimacy planted by his mother herself, the mere fact that this girl claiming to be sent by the King of Heaven and from so great a distance, had reached him and hailed him, “Thou art true heir of France and King’s son,” must have had something comforting about it and even quasi-miraculous.

  At all events, a few days later he decides to take Joan to Poitiers, to which town most of the University masters had retreated. The English had filled the places at the University of Paris with their own paid creatures, which was, as we shall see, to have consequences for Joan herself. It was with the professors, prelates and theologians who had remained loyal to the French cause that, in 1432, the University of Poitiers was founded. François Garivel, King’s Counsellor (in the matter of taxes*): “I remember that at the time of Joan the Maid’s arrival, the King sent her to Poitiers where she was lodged at the house of the late Master Jean Rabateau, at that time King’s advocate in the Parliament. Deputed in this city of Poitiers, by order of the King, were certain solemn doctors and masters, to wit, Master Pierre of Versailles, at that time Abbot of Talmont, later Bishop of Meaux; Jean Lambert, Guillaume Aimeri of the Order of Preaching Friars; Pierre Seguin of the Order of Carmelite Friars, Doctor of Holy Scripture; Mathieu Mesuage; Guillaume Lemaire, Bachelor of Theology, with several other King’s counsellors, licenciates in Civil Law and Canon Law, who, on several occasions, during a period of about three weeks, examined Joan.”

  Joan, several times during the Trial of Condemnation, referred her questioners to the “book of Poitiers”.

  JOAN: That is in writing at Poitiers.

  Question: The masters who examined you there, some over a month, others over three weeks, did they question you about the change in your apparel?

  JOAN: I do not remember. (C.93)

  One of the Poitiers examiners survived to be present at the Trial of Rehabilitation, Brother Seguin Seguin of the Order of Preaching Friars, professor of theology and, by this time, at about seventy years of age, Dean of the Faculty at Poitiers University: “I saw Joan for the first time at Poitiers. The King’s Council had met there in the house of one La Macée, and among them was the Lord Archbishop of Rheims, then Chancellor of France (Regnault de Chartres). Summoned, apart from myself, were Master Jean Lombard, professor of theology at the University of Paris, Guillaume Lemaire, Canon of Poitiers, Bachelor of theology, Guillaume Aimeri, professor of theology of the Order of Preaching Friars, Brother Pierre Turelure, Master Jacques Madelon and several others whom I no longer remember. We were told that we had been summoned by the King to interrogate Joan, and to report what we made of her (ce qu’ il nous semblait d’elle) to the King’s Council, and we were sent to the house of Master Jean Rabateau at Poitiers, where Joan was lodging, to examine her. When we arrived we put several questions to Joan and, among other questions, Master Jean Lombard asked her why she was come and that the King wanted to know what had impelled her to come to him. And she answered boldly and gravely that while she was guarding the beasts, a voice had manifested itself to her which told her that God had great pity on the people of France and that she, Joan, must go to France. Upon hearing that, she had begun to weep; then the voice told her that she should go to Vaucouleurs and that there she would find a captain who would take her safely into France
and to the King, and that she should doubt not; and she had done accordingly and had come to the King without any obstacle.

  “Master Guillaume Aimeri interrogated her: ‘Thou hast said that the voice told thee that God wishes to deliver the people of France from the calamities which afflict it. If he wishes to deliver it, it is not necessary to have men-at-arms.’ Then Joan answered him: ‘By God the men-at-arms will do battle and God will give victory.’ With this answer Master Guillaume held himself satisfied. I asked her what language the voice spoke. She answered me: ‘Better than yours.’ Me, I spoke Limousin. And again I asked her if she believed in God; she answered me, ‘Yes, better than you.’ And then I told Joan that it was not God’s will that she be believed if nothing appeared by which it should seem that she ought to be believed, and that the King could not be advised, on her mere assertion, to entrust her with soldiers that they be placed in peril, unless she had something else to say. She answered: ‘In God’s name, I am not come to Poitiers to make signs; but take me to Orleans, I will show you the signs for which I have been sent,’ adding that men be given her in such number as should seem good to her and that she would go to Orleans. Then she told me, me and others present, four things which were then to come and which thereafter happened. First, she said that the English would be defeated and that the siege which was laid to the town of Orleans would be raised and that the town of Orleans would be liberated of the English, but that first she would send them summonses.* She said next that the King would be crowned at Rheims. Thirdly, that the town of Paris would return to its obedience to the King; and that the Duke of Orleans would return from England. All that I have seen accomplished.

  “We reported all that to the King’s Council, and were of opinion that, given the imminent necessity and the peril in which the town of Orleans stood, the King could well use her help and send her to Orleans.

  “We enquired, I and the others designated, into Joan’s life and morals (mores) and we found that she was a good Christian and lived as a Catholic and was never known to be lazy. And the better to understand how she comported herself, women were sent to her who reported all she did and said to the Council. I believe that Joan was sent by God, considering that the King and the people who were his lieges (en son obeissance) had no hope, but that all believed in beating a retreat.” (R.107–109)

  That the case was, indeed, desperate is attested by all the writings of the times. In Joan’s own circle, a woman who was well qualified to speak since her husband was in charge of the royal finances, the Marguerite la Touroulde whose evidence has already been quoted, conveys this impression for us: “When Joan came to the king at Chinon,” she declares, “I was at Bourges where the Queen was. At that time there was in his kingdom and in those parts obedient (loyal) to the King, such calamity and such penury of money that it was piteous, and indeed those true to their allegiance to the King were in despair. I know it because my husband was at the time Receiver General and, both of the King’s money and his own, he had not four crowns. And the city of Orleans was besieged by the English and there was no means of going to his aid. And it was in the midst of this calamity that Joan came, and, I believe it firmly, she came from God and was sent to raise up the King and the people still within his allegiance, for at that time there was no hope but in God.” (R.118)

  The impression made by the contemporary texts is that things had come to such a pass that in the general opinion Joan might just as well be tried: things might, perhaps, go better in consequence, but could not go worse.

  Jean Barbin, advocate in the Parliament: “Finally, it was concluded by the clerks after the interrogations and examinations by them accomplished, that there was in her nothing evil nor anything contrary to the Catholic faith, and that, given the King’s necessity and the kingdom’s, since the King and the inhabitants who were faithful to him were then in despair and could not hope for aid of any sort if it came not from God, that the King might as well take her in aid.” (R.109–110)

  Joan, meanwhile, was bearing all these delays impatiently.

  Jean Pasquerel: “I have heard her say that she was not pleased with all these interrogations and that they were preventing her from accomplishing the work for which she was sent and that the need and time were come to act.” (R.176)

  Her first care, when at last permission was given her to take action, was to send the English a letter of summons.

  Gobert Thibault, King’s esquire: “I was at Chinon when Joan came seeking the King who was then residing at Chinon, but I did not have much acquaintance with her at that place. I knew her better thereafter, for, as the King wished to go to Poitiers, Joan was taken there. . . . She was lodged in the house of one Rabateau, and it was in that house that Pierre de Versailles and Jean Erault, in my presence, talked to Joan. As we were arriving there, Joan came to meet us and she clapped me on the shoulder, saying that she would like well to have many men of my sort. Then Pierre de Versailles told Joan that they were sent to her by the King. She answered, ‘I think that you are sent to question me,’ saying (adding), ‘Me, I know neither A nor B.’ Then we asked her why she was come. She answered, ‘I come on behalf of the King of Heaven to raise the siege of Orleans and to conduct the King to Rheims for his coronation and sacring.’ She asked us if we had paper and ink, saying to Master Jean Erault: ‘Write what I shall tell you: “You Suffort, Classidas and La Poule, I summon you, in the name (de par, by) of the King of Heaven, that you go away to England.” ’ And on that occasion, Versailles and Erault did nothing else, that I remember, and Joan remained in Poitiers for as long a time as did the King.”

  The “book of Poitiers”, the Minute-book in which the questions put to Joan, and her answers, were recorded in writing, has not, unfortunately, been preserved for us; were it ever to be found it would be a source-document of the very highest value, for it would give us what the Trial of Condemnation does not: Joan freely answering questions put to her in good faith, whereas what the Trial of Condemnation shows us is a prisoner being questioned by people bent upon convicting her, under the control of a judge whom she knows perfectly well to be “her capital enemy”, as indeed she was to tell him, since he had revealed himself to be an agent of the English.

  Nothing remains to us of the Poitiers interrogatories but a few lines, the conclusions which were passed on by the doctors to the King and used again at the Trial of Rehabilitation: “That in her is found no evil, but only good, humility, virginity, devotion (devoutness), honesty, simplicity.”

  And the fact is that this conclusion convinced the King that she could perfectly well be allowed to take action and undertake that trial which, she declared, would be the “sign” of her mission: the attempt to deliver Orleans. Another examination had, however, taken place, which was, as it were, a double-check to the first: the girl was calling herself Joan the Maid; but was she, or was she not, a virgin? If she was not then she was clearly guilty of a flagrant imposture; if she was, that might be proof that she had, as she claimed, indeed “vowed her virginity to God”, virginity being the sign of one who dedicates himself or herself wholly to God.

  Jean Pasquerel: “I have heard it said that Joan, when she came to the King, was examined by women to know how it was with her, whether she was a man or a woman and whether she was corrupt or virgin. She was found to be woman and virgin and maid. Those who visited her (person) were, as I have heard say, the lady de Gaucourt (Jeanne de Preuilly) and the lady de Treves (Jeanne de Mortemer).” (R.175)

  Both these ladies were in the suite of Yolande of Aragon, Queen of Sicily, the King’s mother-in-law and one of the notabilities utterly devoted to his cause. It was under her influence it is said that Charles VII, albeit himself vacillating and timorous, had made up his mind, some years previously, to take the title of King of France.

  Jean d’Aulon: “The Master’s report having been made to the King, this Maid was put into the hands of the Queen of Sicily, mother of the Queen our sovereign lady, and to [sic] certain ladies being with he
r, by whom this maid was seen, visited and secretly regarded and examined in the secret parts of her body. But after they had seen and looked at all there was to look at in this case, the lady said and related to the King that she and her ladies found with certainty that she was a true and entire maid in whom appeared no corruption or violence. I was present when the lady made her report.

  “After having heard these things, the King, considering the great goodness which was in this maid and what she had said to him, that by God was she sent to him, concluded in his Council that, henceforth, he would use her aid for the war, given that to do so was she sent to him. It was, therefore, deliberated that she should be sent into the City of Orleans which was then besieged by the English. For this were given to her people for the service of her person, and others to take her there. For the ward and conducting of her, I was ordered by the King, our lord.*

  “For the safety of her body, the lord King had made for the Maid harness (armour) proper to her body and, that done, ordered her a certain quantity of men-at-arms to lead and conduct her safely, she and those of her company, to the place of Orleans.” (R.156–157)

  Joan was taken first to Tours where, while the King was making an effort to raise a fresh army, her armour and banner were made. It was in Tours that Jean Pasquerel made her acquaintance.

  Jean Pasquerel: “The first time I heard Joan spoken of and heard tell how she was come to the King, I was at Puy. In that town were Joan’s mother and some of those who had brought Joan to the King.† As they knew me slightly, they told me that I ought to go with them to Joan and that they would not let me go until they had taken me to her. And I went with them to the town of Chinon and beyond to the town of Tours in whose convent (monastery) I was Lector.