Joan of Arc

by Regine Pernoud

  Before this retreat Joan hung up, as an ex-voto, a suit of armour taken from a prisoner she had captured before Paris.

  Question: What arms did you offer in the church of Saint-Denis in France?

  JOAN: A white harness entire for gentleman-at arms with a sword which I won before the town of Paris.

  Question: Why did you offer these arms?

  JOAN: It was in devoutness, as is the custom among men of war when they are wounded; and because I had been wounded before the town of Paris, I gave them to Saint-Denis because that is the (war)-cry of France. (C.170)

  Today there is a plaque on the façade of the café de la Régence in the place du Palais-Royal, marking the spot where Joan was wounded near to the Saint-Honoré gate which opened unto the suburb of the same name, that of the bakers. As for the “white harness entire for gentleman-at-arms” it has been removed from the basilica of Saint-Denis and is preserved in the Musée de l’armée at the Invalides.

  It is impossible to understand the sum of events and the incredible attitude of Charles VII, his changes of mind, that inexplicable halt at Senlis where the Duke of Alençon was twice obliged to return and urge him to rejoin his own army, without reference to the text of certain negotiations which, unknown to the Maid, had been conducted at Arras. A truce had been signed on August 21—initially of four months’ duration but subsequently to be extended until April 16, 1430. The terms were altogether unfavourable to the King of France. The status quo was confirmed as regards all the towns important as communication links on the banks of the Seine; the truce applied to those regions on the right bank which lay between Nogent-sur-Seine and Honfleur, which prevented any French offensive against Normandy. But, on the other hand, the Duke of Burgundy, henceforth governor of Paris, was authorised to defend the city and moreover was to receive from the King the principal towns of the Oise-Compiègne, Pont Saint-Maxence, Créil and Senlis. Let us add that two memoirs of slightly later date than this treaty, drawn up in September or October by the King of England’s counsellor, Hugues de Lannoy, show that an English offensive for the following spring had already been planned. The important things for the Regent of England were to strengthen the ties with his powerful ally of Burgundy; to ensure the Duke of Brittany’s benevolent neutrality and, if possible, the Constable de Richemont’s; and to detach the Scots from their French alliance since their military aid was redoubtable. Meanwhile, preparations for war were to be pushed along actively, while the King of France was to be kept amused with the promise of a peace conference to be held at Auxerre in the spring.

  In point of fact, on October 13th Philippe the Good received from Bedford the title of Lieutenant-General of the King of England for the Kingdom of France; which meant that he held, after the Regent himself, the highest office in the kingdom.

  A chronicle—actually it is hardly a chronicle but an account in verse more nearly related to a Chanson de Geste than to a historical narrative—gives an account of events as Charles VII’s partisans would have liked them to happen. Written during the reign of Charles VIII, at the end of the fifteenth century, it is pure fantasy and of no historical value. In it Joan is depicted taking Bordeaux and Bayonne after Orleans! After the sacring at Rheims,* the Maid, seeing all accomplished, said to the King, “ ‘Now, let us go to Paris, there you shall be crowned.’ Straight to Paris the road they took. When at Paris they appeared, all churchmen and noblemen to him presented themselves, received him in (et se l’ont bouté), the little children crying ‘Long live the King!’ The Maid always near him, by them of Paris much regarded was, saying ‘Here is a maid greatly to be praised, God grants her the great mercy of making herself feared.’ All the King’s nobility to their lodging taken. Beside him the Maid did they house to serve God and make her welcome did they not delay. The morrow all the princes, Bourbon, Orleans, Nemours, Alençon, took the crown, on the King’s head set it, saying, ‘Long live the King.’ They led him to Saint-Denis, eight days during were jousts, tourney and great bouts, dames and demoiselles set dancing, it was great pleasure.

  “After that done, the Maid said to the King, ‘Sire, since these English are all into Normandy retreated, all the army should be ready, should undertake driving them out, and that they return into England.’ And said the King, ‘My daughter, since you made a good beginning, must you make a good ending.’ The King ordered all the army to be ready, and thanked them for the obedience and service which to the Maid they had given. ‘I trust in you that with the Maid you will persevere, into Normandy she would lead you.’ All the army promised him always to obey and to do so they prepared, the King to God commended them, and they set out.” (Q. iv, 336)

  It was thus that an optimistic imagination reordered events into a might-have-been. The reality is very different, and Perceval de Cagny seems to give us the right note when he shows the King in a hurry to get back to the banks of the Loire, where his personal safety would be assured and where it would be possible, without for ever chasing about battle-fields, to construct elaborate diplomatic devices. “We are not of the court and council, we are of the field of battle,” said one of the people who played an active part in Joan’s saga, Poton de Xaintrailles. But it is easy to see that Charles VII was surrounded by both sorts: those who were “de l’exploit des champs” . . . of battle-field prowess—Alençon, La Hire, Dunois, Joan herself; and those who preferred to be “of the court and council”—the diplomats—men like Georges de la Trémoille and Regnault de Chartres whose influence is to be traced in events. And it was they who won the King over, thus wrecking the victory gained by the others. This situation was to last until the moment when Arthur de Richemont thrust de la Trémoille abruptly out of the picture, and by force rather than favour silenced the men of court and council and enabled the warriors to act; but by that time Joan had been sacrificed.

  A part of that sacrifice was accomplished when, at Gien on September 21, 1429, the King gave orders to disband the fine army of the coronation adventure and condemned his war captains to inaction. “And thus,” wrote de Cagny, “were the will of the Maid and King’s army broken.”

  “I shall last a year, hardly longer,” Joan had declared when she arrived at Chinon, adding that “it was necessary during that year to toil mightily.” But from the moment that the man who was contemptuously known as “the little King of Bourges” became King of France, he seems to have had but a single care: to prevent Joan from “toiling”. He began by separating her from the Duke of Alençon, whose warlike ardour accorded too well with hers. “The Duke of Alençon had been in the Maid’s company and always escorted her on the road to the King’s crowning at Rheims, and thence in coming to Paris; when the King was come to the place of Gien, Alençon went away to his wife and his viscounty of Beaumont, and the other captains each to his own frontiers. The Maid remained at the King’s side, very vexed at their going and above all at the Duke of Alençon’s whom she well loved and did for him what she would not have done for any other. A short time after, Alençon gathered together his men to return to the country of Normandy near the Breton and Maine marches, and to do so he requested and petitioned the King that it might please him to give him the Maid and that with her many (or several) would place themselves in his company who would not leave them if she set out with him. Messire Regnault de Chartres, the lord de la Trémoille, the sire de Gaucourt, who at that time governed the King’s council and matters of war, would never consent, nor permit, nor suffer that the Maid and the Duke of Alençon be together, and since then he has not been able to recover her.” (P. de Cagny, Q. iv, 30)

  We rather lose track of Joan at this point. It is certain that she stayed for about three weeks at Bourges with Marguerite La Touroulde, and it is also known that she resided for some time at the castle of Sully-sur-Loire which belonged to La Trémoille. Another residence was Montfaucon-en-Berry; it was there that she met Catherine de La Rochelle, an “illuminata” who claimed, like Joan herself, to see visions and receive revelations.

  Question:
Did you know or meet Catherine de La Rochelle?

  JOAN: Yes, at Jargeau or at Montfaucon-en-Berry.

  Question: Did Catherine show you a certain lady dressed in white who she said sometimes appeared to her?

  JOAN: No.

  Question: What did Catherine say to you?

  JOAN: Catherine told me that there came to her a certain lady clad in cloth of gold, telling her that she should go to the good towns and that the King would give her heralds and trumpets to make proclamation that all gold, all silver and all hidden treasure be at once brought to her, and that if those who had treasures hidden brought them not, she, Catherine, would know them well and that she would know where to find these treasures and that with them she would pay the men-at-arms in Joan’s service. To this I answered this Catherine that she return to her husband and do her housework and feed her children. And to have certainty in the matter of this Catherine, I spoke with Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret and they told me that as for the matter of Catherine de la Rochelle, it was nothing but folly and nullity. And I wrote to my King telling him what he should do about it and when I went to him I told him that it was folly and nullity, this matter of Catherine. However, Brother Richard wanted Catherine to be set to work and they were very ill content with me, Brother Richard and this Catherine.

  Question: Did you not talk with Catherine de la Rochelle in the matter of going to La Charité-sur-Loire?

  JOAN: Catherine did not advise me to go there and said that it was too cold and that I should not go. I told her, when she wanted to go to the Duke of Burgundy to make peace, that it seemed to me we should find no peace but at the lance-point; and I asked Catherine whether this white lady who appeared to her came to her every night, telling her that I should like to sleep with her in her bed, to see her. And, in fact, I lay down and watched until about midnight and I saw nothing, and then I fell asleep. And when morning came I asked this Catherine whether the white lady had come to her. She answered me, yes, while I slept and that she had been unable to awaken me. And I asked her if this lady would come the following night, and this Catherine answered me, yes. Therefore that day I slept in the daytime to be able to watch all the following night, and I lay down that night with Catherine and I watched all night long, but I saw nothing, although often I questioned Catherine to know if the lady was going to come or not. And Catherine answered me, “Yes, presently.” (C.104–106)

  The siege of La Charité-sur-Loire, referred to in the above exchange, seems to have been suggested to Joan more or less by way of a distraction, inspired by La Trémoille.

  Jean d’Aulon: “A certain time after the return from the King’s sacring, he was advised by his council, being then at Mehun-sur-Yevre, that it was very necessary to recover the town of La Charité which was held by the enemy; but that it was first necessary to take the town of Saint-Pierre-les-Moutiers which was also held by the enemy.

  “To do this and assemble the men, went the Maid to the town of Bourges in which she made her assembly, and from there, with a certain quantity of men-at-arms of which my lord d’Albret was chief, went to besiege the town of Saint-Pierre-les-Moutiers.

  “After the Maid and her people had maintained the siege of the town for some time, it was ordered to storm the town. And so was it done and to take it did those who were there do their duty. But, because of the great number of men-at-arms being in the town, and of the great strength and also the great resistance which those within did make, the French were constrained and forced to retreat, and at the time I, who was wounded by an arrow in the heel, so that without crutches could I not stand or move, I saw that the Maid remained but very slightly accompanied by her men or others, and fearing lest some evil transpire, I mounted a horse and immediately made my way to her and asked her what she was doing thus alone, and why she did not retreat like the others. After she had removed her light helmet (salade), she answered me that she was not alone, and that still had she in her company fifty thousand of her men and that she would not leave there until she had taken the town.

  “At that time, whatever she might say, she had not with her more than four or five men, and this I know certainly and many others who likewise saw her: for which cause I told her once more that she must come away and retreat as the others did. Then she told me to have them bring faggots and hurdles to make a bridge over the town moats so that we could better get at it. And as she spoke thus to me, she cried in a loud voice: ‘Faggots and hurdles, everyone, to build a bridge!’ which immediately was done. At this thing I marvelled greatly, for immediately the town was taken by storm without encountering too much resistance.” (R. 165–6)

  As was usual, Joan had written to the good towns in the neighbourhood to get from them help in the siege of Saint Pierre-les-Moutiers and in the attempt made on La Charité. One of these letters has been preserved, the one she wrote to the inhabitants of Riom; it is still in the archives of that town. The scholar Quicherat, who had had the letter in his hands, saw its red wax seal in better condition than it is now. He wrote: “One can see the mark of a finger and the remains of a black hair which seems to have been originally put into the wax.” It was a common custom at the time to put some personal mark into the seal, a finger-print or a hair. Was this one of Joan’s own hairs? There would be nothing surprising in this, and from it we might deduce that she was a brunette.

  But this letter is remarkable for another detail: it is the earliest in date which bears Joan’s own signature. By this time, November 9, 1429, it is probable that she had learned, if not to read and write, at least to sign her name. Two other, later letters (March and April, 1430), bear her signature. In the case of the Riom letter the handwriting is, it must be confessed, very clumsy and the vertical strokes of the N badly executed; on the later letters the signature is written with far more assurance. Joan would have conformed to the custom of the time which was to dictate one’s letters, but signed them herself, for the holograph signature was then beginning to replace the seal which, until that time, had been the usual personal mark. All contemporary letters from captains or other high personages, including the King and Queen, are likewise written by chancellery clerks but bear the author’s holograph signature (see Q. v, 147).

  The siege of La Charité-sur-Loire was a failure.

  The herald Berry sums up the event as follows: “The sire de la Trémoille sent Joan with her brother, the sire d’Albret, in the depths of winter, and the marshal de Boussac with very few men, before the town of La Charité, and there they were for about a month and withdrew themselves shamefully without aid coming to them from inside and there lost bombards and artilleries.” (Q. iv, 49)

  “When Joan had been there a space of time, because the King made no diligence to send her victuals nor money to maintain her company, she was obliged to raise her siege and depart from it in great displeasure,” adds Perceval de Cagny. Later Joan was to deny having been sent there by her voices:

  Question: What did you do on the moats of the town of La Charité?

  JOAN: I had an assault made there . . .

  Question: Why did you not enter into the town of La Charité since you had God’s commandment to do so?

  JOAN: Who told you that I had God’s commandment?

  Question: Did you have council from your voices?

  JOAN: Me, I wanted to go into France, but the men of war said that it was better to go first before the town of La Charité. (C.106)

  It is of course possible that she was anxious to avoid any implication that her voices might have made a mistake. But it is perfectly clear that this operation was not one which she would have wanted to undertake; ever since Rheims she had lost her grip on the conduct of events for want of that acquiescence of the royal will in her own wishes which had been indispensable to the accomplishment of her earlier exploits.

  Yet the King—who was nothing if not a good politician—was not grudging with his favours at the end of that year which had been so rich in events. In December 1429 he ennobled Joan and her fami
ly, making it clear that their nobility was to be transmitted to their posterity through either the male or female lines. (Q. v, 150–153) It is worth noting that the only favour which seems to have been asked for by Joan was that exemption from taxes which she had obtained for the people of Greux and Domremy, which had been granted on the morrow of the sacring, at the end of July 1429; it was enjoyed by the two towns until the Revolution.

  Meanwhile, time was passing and even the blindest began to get a gleam of light on the true state of affairs. Philippe the Good, now all-powerful in “France” (the term meant, at that time, only the Ile de France, of course) and in all the region directly under his rule, was busy strengthening his territory. He was then at the zenith of his power. Having been widowed, on January 8th, 1430, he married the Princess Isabel of Portugal at Bruges, and his marriage feast was celebrated with unheard-of luxury. It was on this occasion that he founded the famous Order of the Golden Fleece, thus gathering round himself, like Arthur his “peers” in the romances of chivalry, the flower of the Burgundian Knighthood. Significantly Hugues de Lannoy, the negotiator who had rendered him such valuable service in his dealings with France, was one of their number. In February his States held a parliament at Dijon, and from them he obtained a war subsidy; and he persuaded the Duke of Bedford to grant him the counties of Champagne and Brie, their conquest to be carried out by himself. His attention, however, was first turned to the problem of those towns of the Oise which had been delivered up to him by the King of France and which, especially Compiègne, were refusing to recognize his authority. The much-talked-of peace conference which was to have been held in Auxerre was repeatedly postponed, and Burgundian troops established themselves firmly along the course of the Oise.