Joan of Arc

by Regine Pernoud

  “In this town of Tours, Joan was lodged at the house of Jean Dupuy, a burgess of Tours. I found Joan at his house and those who had brought me spoke, saying, ‘Joan, we have brought you this good Father, if you knew him well you would love him much.’

  “Joan answered that she was well pleased and that she had already heard tell of me and that on the morrow she would like to confess to me. The next day I heard her confession and sang mass before her, and from that hour I followed her always and remained with her unto the town of Compiègne where she was seized. . . .

  “Joan had her standard made on which was painted the image of Our Saviour seated in judgment in the clouds of the sky, and there was an angel painted holding in his hand a fleur-de-lys which the image was blessing. I was in Tours, there where this standard was painted. . . .

  “When Joan left Tours to go to Orleans, she asked me not to leave her, but to remain always with her as her confessor, which I promised her to do. We were at Blois, about two or three days, waiting for the victuals which were there being loaded into boats, and it was there that she bade me have made a banner to rally the priests, and on this banner to have painted the image of Our Lord crucified, which I did. This banner completed, Joan twice a day, morning and evening, caused all the priests to assemble and, when they were met together, they sang anthems and hymns to Saint Mary, and Joan was with them and she would not have the soldiers mingle with the priests if they had not confessed. And she exhorted all the soldiers to confess that they might come to this assembly. And at the assembly itself all the priests were ready to hear those who wished to confess. When Joan set out from Blois to go to Orleans, she caused all the priests to rally about this banner, and the priests marched ahead of the army. They went out by the Sologne way thus assembled, singing the Veni Creator Spiritus and many other anthems, and camped that night in the fields and the same on the day following.”

  This banner differed from the standard which Joan bore into battle as her “ensign”, carried by a standard-bearer who preceded her. It was the custom at the time, a time when, since one was completely encased in iron when leading an attack, a distinctive sign was necessary to rally the men of one’s “battle”, a “battle” being a captain’s company. The account book of Master Hemon Raguier, King’s treasurer, contains the following entry: “And to Hauves Poulnoir, painter, living at Tours, for painting and providing the stuff for a great standard and a small for the Maid, 25 pounds* tournois.”

  She had not only an intendant, Jean d’Aulon, but two pages: one called Raymond who was to be killed during the assault on Paris, and Louis de Coutes. In addition, two heralds named, respectively, Ambleville and Guyenne. In other words, she was equipped and treated exactly the same as any other captain.

  “It was at Tours,” declares Louis de Coutes, “that I was told and ordered that I was to be Joan’s page, with one named Raymond. From that hour I was always with Joan and I always went with her, serving her in my office of page at Blois as at Orleans, until we arrived before Paris. At the time when she was at Tours, a suit of armour was given to her and Joan received her condition (commission, rank) from the King. And from Tours she went to the town of Blois in company with some men-at-arms of the King, and that company, from that very time, had great confidence in Joan, and Joan kept with the soldiers in the town of Blois during some time, I no longer remember how much, and then it was decided to withdraw from Blois and to go to Orleans on the Sologne side. And Joan withdrew with her troops of men-at-arms, continually exhorting the soldiers that they trust altogether in God and confess their sins. And in her company I often saw Joan receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.” (R.169)

  Certain details of her equipment are known to us. Thus, and again in Hemon Raguier’s accounts, we find, for May 10, 1429, a payment: “To the Master Armourer, for a complete harness for the Maid, 100 pounds tournois.”

  In addition to the armour there was the sword itself, of which we know that she had caused it to be taken from the church of Sainte-Catherine at Fierbois.

  JOAN: When I was at Tours or at Chinon I sent to seek a sword which was in the church of Sainte-Catherine of Fierbois, behind the altar, and it was found at once all covered with rust.

  Question: How did you know that this sword was there?

  JOAN: This sword was in the earth, all rusty, and there were upon it five crosses and I knew it by my voices and I had never seen the man who went to seek this sword. I wrote to the prelates of the place that if they please I should have the sword and they sent it to me. It was not very deep under ground behind the altar, as it seems to me, but I do not know exactly whether it was before or behind the altar. I think that I wrote at the time that it was behind the altar. After this sword had been found, the prelates of the place had it rubbed, and at once the rust fell from it without difficulty. There was an arms merchant of Tours who went to seek it, and the prelates of that place gave me a sheath, and those of Tours also, with them, had two sheaths made for me: one of red velvet and the other of cloth-of-gold, and I myself had another made of right strong leather. But when I was captured, it was not that sword which I had. I always wore that sword until I had withdrawn from Saint-Denis after the assault against Paris. (C.76–77)

  Question: Had you, when you went to Orleans, a standard, and of what colour?

  JOAN: I had a standard whose field was sewn with fleurs-de-lys and there was the world figured and two angels at the sides and its colour was white, (and) of boucassin canvas. And there, it seems to me, were written the names of Jesus and of Mary, and they were embroidered in silk. . . .

  Question: Which did you like the better, your standard or your sword?

  JOAN: I liked better, even forty times, my standard than my sword.

  Question: Who caused you to have this painting on the standard done?

  JOAN: I have told you often enough that I did nothing but by God’s commandment. I bore this standard when we went forward against the enemy to avoid killing anyone. I have never killed anyone. (C.78)

  What impression did this girl—whose company, given to her by the King, were obliged to obey her as they had to obey any other military commander—make on her soldiers? Several of them have told us.

  Thiband d’Armagnac or de Termes, Knight, bailiff of Chartres: “Apart from the matter of the war, she was simple and ignorant. But in the conduct and disposition of armies and in the matter of warfare, in drawing-up the army in battle (order) and heartening the soldiers, she behaved as if she had been the shrewdest captain in the world and had all her life been learning (the art of) war.”

  Louis de Coutes: “As far as I was in a position to know, Joan was a good and honest woman, living in Catholic fashion. She very readily heard mass and never missed going to hear it if that was possible for her. She waxed very wrath when she heard the name of God blasphemed, or if she heard someone swear. Several times, I heard, when the lord Duke of Alençon swore or spoke some blasphemy, that she reprimanded him, and in general nobody in the army dared, before her, swear or blaspheme for fear of being by her reprimanded. She would not have any women with the army. Once, near to the town of Château-Thierry, having seen the mistress of one of the soldiers, a Knight, she pursued her with drawn sword. She did not, however, strike the woman, but warned her gently and charitably that she be no longer found in the company of the soldiers, otherwise she would do something to her which would not please her.” (R.176)

  This testimony is confirmed by the Duke of Alençon himself: “Joan was chaste and she detested the women who follow soldiers. I saw her once at Saint-Denis, returning from the King’s coronation, pursue with drawn sword a girl who was with the soldiers, and in such manner that in chasing* her she broke her sword. She became very incensed when she heard the soldiers swear, and scolded them much and especially me who swore from time to time. So that when I saw her, I refrained from my swearing. Sometimes in the army I lay down to sleep with Joan and the soldiers, all in the straw together (a la paillade), and sometimes I saw
Joan prepare for the night and sometimes I looked at her breasts which were beautiful, and yet I never had carnal desire for her. . . .

  “Joan, in these matters, apart from the matter of war, was simple and young, but in the matter of war she was very expert, in the management of the lance as in the drawing up of the army in battle order and in preparing the artillery. And at that all marvelled, that she could act in so prudent and well-advised a fashion in the matter of war as might a captain of twenty or thirty years experience have done, above all in the preparation of the artillery, for it was in that that she comported herself very well.” (R.153–154)

  Simon Beaucroix, esquire: “Joan was a good Catholic, fearing God . . . I remember very well that from the moment I was with her never did I have the will to do evil. Joan slept always with young girls, she did not like to sleep with old women. She detested swearing and blasphemy, she apostrophised those who swore and blasphemed. In the army she would never have had those of her company pillage anything. Never would she eat victuals when she knew them to have been looted. Once, a Scot gave her to understand that she had eaten of a calf which had been looted. She was very angry and for that made to strike the Scotsman.

  “She would never have women of evil life in the army with the soldiers. That is why none such would have dared be found in company with Joan. When she found any of them, she obliged them to go away, unless the soldiers were willing to take them as wives. I believe that she was a true Catholic, fearing God and keeping his precepts, obedient according to her capacity to the Church’s commandments. She showed pity not only for the French, but also for the enemies. I know this for during a long time I was with her and often I helped her put on her armour.” (R.115–116)

  We have in her page Louis de Coutes another witness to that pity shown to the enemy: “Joan was pious and she felt great pity at such massacres. Once, when a Frenchman was leading away some English prisoners, he struck one of the Englishmen on the head so hard that he left him for dead. Joan, seeing this, dismounted from her horse. She had the Englishman make his confession, supporting his head and consoling him with all her power.” (R.172)

  But it was above all Joan’s purity which seems to have struck the men-at-arms.

  Gobert Thibault: “Joan was a good Christian. She willingly heard mass every day and often received the sacrament of the Eucharist. She was much vexed when she heard swearing, and that was a good sign according to what was said by the lord confessor of the King, who took great pains to inform himself concerning her life and all things about her.

  “In the army she was always with the soldiers, and I have heard it said by several of Joan’s familiar acquaintances, that they had never felt desire for her, that is to say that sometimes they had the carnal desire for her (ils en avaient volonté charnel), however never dared give way to it, and they believed that it was not possible to try it (or “to want to”). And often, when they were talking among themselves about the sin of the flesh and spoke words which might excite lust, when they saw her and drew nigh her they could no longer talk of such things and abruptly ceased their carnal transports. On this subject I questioned several of those who sometimes lay down to sleep at night in Joan’s company, and they answered me as I have said, adding that they had never felt carnal desire at the moment of seeing her.”

  We will, by way of summing up these impressions, conclude with the evidence of Marguerite la Touroulde, of particular value because it is the judgment of a woman who lived intimately with Joan and must have known her in all her diverse aspects. Marguerite la Touroulde: “I did not see Joan until the time when the King returned from Rheims where he had been crowned. He came to the town of Bourges where the Queen was and me with her . . . Joan was then brought to Bourges and, by command of the lord d’Albret, she was lodged in my house. . . . She was in my house for a period of three weeks, sleeping, drinking and eating, and almost every day I slept with Joan and I neither saw in her nor perceived anything of any kind of unquietness*, but she behaved herself as an honest and Catholic woman, for she went very often to confession, willingly heard mass and often asked me to go to Matins. And at her instance I went, and took her with me several times.

  “Sometimes we talked together and some said to Joan that doubtless she was not afraid to go into battle because she knew well that she would not be killed. She answered that she was no safer than any other combatant. And sometimes Joan told how she had been examined by the clerks and that she had answered them: ‘In Our Lord’s books there is more than in yours . . .’ Joan was very simple and ignorant and knew absolutely nothing, it seems to me, excepting in the matter of war. I remember that several women came to my house while Joan was staying there, and brought paternosters (chaplets) and other objects of piety that she might touch them, which made her laugh and say tome, ‘Touch them yourself, they will be as good from your touch as from mine.’ She was open-handed (large) in almsgiving and most willingly gave to the indigent and to the poor, saying that she had been sent for the consolation of the poor and the indigent.

  “And several times I saw her at the bath and in the bath-houses (étuves), and so far as I was able to see, she was a virgin, and from all that I know she was all innocence, excepting in arms, for I saw her riding on horseback and bearing a lance as the best of soldiers would have done it, and at that the men-at-arms marvelled.” (R.119–120)

  COMMENTARY

  Poitiers was, indeed, what Boissonade called it, a “stage of capital import in Joan of Arc’s mission”. When she arrived there she was as yet no more than a strange young girl whose words people wondered whether to take seriously. The King was manifestly shaken by some revelation which she made to him, but was not yet sure whether it had been made by a witch, a woman possessed, or simply by an illuminata.

  What did the “royal sign” consist of? We have already given all that we have by way of documents touching this subject, and are bound to conclude only that we do not know, that our ignorance is as total as that of the Rouen doctors. Some have insisted on believing that there must have been a material “sign”, legendary sayings which went the rounds in the Middle Ages are recalled; legends of a crimson cross or fleur-de-lys on the right shoulder, which Kings (of France) were supposed to have been born with. (See, in this connection, Le signe royal et le secret de Jeanne d’Arc, Antoine Thomas, Rev. List. CIII. p. 278.)

  In fact, given the almost total want of documentation, any hypothesis whatsoever is permissible—on condition that it be offered as an hypothesis and not as a certainty.

  After Poitiers, Joan had permission to take action. She was not really “War Chief” (chef de guerre) as it was put in the letter-of-summons sent by her to the English (see next chapter); she herself denied or deprecated the epithet which was probably added by the clerk to whom she dictated the letter. Some such proceeding was common enough at the time: you dictated your letter to a clerk who “cast it into correct form”, not infrequently adding something of his own devising. The conduct of the military operations at Orleans was entrusted to the Bastard of Orleans, subsequently count of Dunois, the town being a fief of his half-brother Charles, at that time a prisoner-of-war. As to the Loire campaign, the expeditionary force was commanded by the Duke d’Alençon. But Joan was nevertheless treated as a captain on an equality with the other captains, a La Hire, for example, or a Xaintrailles, with her own military household, her own “battle”, her own men-at-arms.

  Her Poitiers examination was studied in detail by Boissonade (op. cit. above). It included a theological enquiry: during three weeks Joan was questioned at the house of Master Jean Rabateau, Counsellor in the Parliament of Poitiers who lived “in the hotel of the Rose” (on the site of the rue de la Cathedrale). During this time two mendicant friars were sent to Domremy to enquire into Joan’s origins and morals (Jean Barbin’s deposition). Subsequently came the verification of Joan’s virginity under the control of Yolande of Sicily, the King’s mother-in-law. That, it should be noted, was the only occasion when we f
ind her interfering directly in any matter concerning Joan. She financed, in part at least, the Orleans expedition, but that was neither the first nor the last time she did something of the kind, having energetically espoused her son-in-law’s cause and played the part of a mother to him whose own mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, was neither inclined nor able to do so. Impossible to infer from this, as some however have done, that Joan was the Queen of Sicily’s “tool”; for in that case we should also have to see her as Bedford’s “tool” since, on the occasion of the second verification of Joan’s virginity which was to take place at Rouen, control of the examination was entrusted to Anne of Burgundy, Duchess of Bedford. The most we can say is that on both occasions choice was made of the woman best placed to inspire complete confidence.

  The Poitiers “trial” was conducted, as were to be the two others—those of condemnation and rehabilitation—by a series of interrogatories recorded by clerks. Theologians were, as far as possible, also called into consultation, and it is to this that we owe two treatises: Jean Gerson’s*—he was ex-Chancellor of the University of Paris but had taken refuge in Lyon at the time of the English invasion—and Jacques Gelu’s, Archbishop of Embrun and loyal partisan of the French cause. And once conclusions had been reached, the King’s council, having deliberated, adopted them.

  What happened to the Book of Poitiers? The only part we find recorded in the Minutes of the Rehabilitation Trial is the text of the doctors’ conclusions (Q.111, 391–392). It has been supposed that Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, who had been chairman of the Poitiers Commission of Prelates and theologians, destroyed it in 1431: given the man’s character—he was the very type of the opportunist—it may well have been so; he may have been afraid that he had protected a heretic.

  But there is no reason why a copy should never have been made. There are so many documents, bundles of papers and registers in our archives still unidentified or inadequately studied that we may legitimately hope to recover the whole text one of these days; and it will surely be the greatest historical discovery of the times. Some surprise, even, may be felt at the fact that methodical research into so captivating a subject has never been undertaken.