Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

White is her steed, white is her armor —

  She battles, she battles, she battles still,

  In the midst of a forest of lances,

  And seems to be riding on the backs of the enemy’s archers!”

  CHAPTER VII.

  THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1429.

  DESPITE THE INGENUOUSNESS of her loyal nature, Joan could no longer doubt the ill will or jealousy of the captains. They hypocritically invoked the sanctity of the feast of the Ascension merely for the purpose of paralyzing her movements by calculated inertia. In this extremity she asked the advice of her mysterious “voices,” and these were now more than ever the echo of her excellent judgment, of her patriotism and of her military genius. The mysterious “voices” answered:

  “These captains, like almost all the nobles who make of war a trade, are devoured with envy. Their jealous hatred is irritated at you, poor child of the field, because your genius crushes them. They would prefer to see the English take possession of Orleans rather than have the siege raised by your valor. They may perhaps not dare openly to refuse to second you, fearing to arouse the indignation of their own soldiers, above all of the bourgeois militiamen and of the people of Orleans. But these captains will traitorously resist your plans until the day when the general exasperation will compel them to follow you with their bands of mercenaries. Accordingly, you can rely for the accomplishment of your mission of liberation only upon yourself, and upon the councilmen and the town militia of Orleans. These do not fight out of vainglory or as a trade; they fight in the defence of their hearths, their families, their town. These love and respect you. You are their redeeming angel. Their confidence in you, increased by the victory of yesterday, is to-day boundless. Lean boldly upon these loyal people; you will triumph over the envious and the enemy combined; and you will triumph with the aid of God.”

  The advice, given to Joan through the intermediary of her good saints, comforted her. Furthermore she learned in the morning that the capture of the bastille of St. Loup had an immense result. As that bastille commanded at once the roads to the Sologne district and to Berry, and the Loire above Orleans, it had rendered difficult the provisioning and reinforcing of the town. Learning, however, of the destruction of the formidable redoubt, the surrounding peasants promptly began to pour into town with their products as on a market day. Thanks to these fresh supplies, besides the convoy of the previous day, abundance succeeded scarcity, and the inhabitants glorified Joan for the happy change of things. There was another precious result. Numerous well armed bands, fanaticized by the accounts that they received of the Maid, entered the town from the side of the Sologne, and offered their help to march against the English with the urban militia. The heroine immediately realized that she had a powerful counterpoise to the ill will of the captains, and was not slow in putting it to use. Accordingly, she ordered her equerry Daulon to convoke the captains and councilmen for the hour of noon after high mass, at the house of Master Boucher, and she pressed upon her host to see that none of the magistrates be absent; the Maid then requested Madeleine to procure her a dress of one of the servants of the house and a hooded cloak, took off her male clothes, donned the attire of her sex, carefully wrapped herself so as to be discovered of none in the town, went to the banks of the Loire, took a boat and ordered the boatman to cross the river and land at a good distance from the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc situated on the opposite bank and face to face with the still smoldering debris of the bastille of St. Loup.

  Joan disembarked and proceeded, according to her custom, to examine the entrenchments that she contemplated assailing. Not far from the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc rose the Augustinian Convent, composed of massive buildings that were strongly fortified. Beyond that, the bastille of the Tournelles, a veritable citadel flanked with high wooden towers, spread its wings towards the Beauce and Touraine and faced the bridge of Orleans that had long been cut off by the enemy. Still another formidable redoubt, that of St. Privé, situated to the left and not far from the Tournelles completed the besieging works of the English to the south of the town. The martial maid proposed to carry the four formidable positions one after the other, after which the English would be compelled to abandon the other and less important bastilles which they had raised to the west, these being incapable of resistance after the destruction of the more important works. Joan long and leisurely observed the approaches of these works and revolved her plan of attack. Her woman’s clothes aroused no suspicion with the English sentinels. After she had gathered full information with a quick and intelligent eye, she returned to her boat and re-entered the house of Master Boucher so well wrapped in her mantle that she actually escaped the observation of all eyes. She forthwith resumed her male attire to attend the high mass, where she again took the communion. The enthusiastic acclamations that broke out along her route to and from the church proved to her that she could count with the support of the people of Orleans. She entered the house of Master James Boucher where the captains and councilmen were gathered. The council soon went into session, but Joan was not summoned at the start.

  At this session there assisted the magistrates of the town as well as Xaintrailles, Dunois, Marshals Retz and St. Sever, the Sire of Graville, Ambroise of Loré, Lahire and other captains. The Sire of Gaucourt presided in his quality of royal captain. The recent victory of the Maid, a victory in which several of the captains least hostile to her had played a secondary role, inspired them all with secret and bitter envy. They had expected to serve themselves with the young peasant girl as a passive instrument of their will, to utilize her influence to their own advantage and to issue their commands through her. It had turned out otherwise. Forced, especially after the battle of the day before, to admit that Joan excelled them all in the profession of war, irritated at the injury done to their military fame, and convinced that the military successes would be wholly placed to the credit of Joan, the one time less hostile captains now went wholly though secretly over to her pronounced enemies, and the following plan of battle was unanimously adopted for the morrow:

  “A feint shall be made against the fortress of the Tournelles in order to deceive the enemy and cause it to sally out of the redoubts that lie on the other side of the Loire and hasten to bring help to the threatened position. The enemy will be readily duped. A few detachments shall continue skirmishing on the side of the Tournelles. But the royal troops and the companies of mercenaries will move upon and easily capture the other bastilles where the English, in their hurry to hasten to the defence of an important post, will have left but feeble garrisons behind.”

  This plan of battle, whether good or bad from the viewpoint of strategy, concealed an act of cowardly perfidy, an infamous, horrible snare spread for Joan. Speaking in the name of the councilmen, and answering the Sire of Gaucourt, who explained the plan that the captains had adopted, Master James Boucher observed that the Maid should be summoned so as to submit to her the projects of the council.

  The Sire of Gaucourt hastened to object in the name of all the captains, on the ground that they were not sure the young girl would know how to keep so delicate a matter secret, and that, seeing the doubt existed, she should be informed only upon the plan of attack against the Tournelles, but should not be apprised that the manoeuvre was only a feint, a ruse of war. Accordingly, during a skirmish commanded by the Maid in person, the bulk of the army was to carry out the real plan of battle, on which Joan was to be kept in the dark.

  The infernal snare was skilfully planned. The captains relied upon the Maid’s intrepidity, certain that she would march without hesitation at the head of a small number of soldiers against the formidable Tournelles, and they did not doubt that in such an assault, as murderous as it was unequal, she would be either killed or taken, while the captains, sallying from Orleans at the opposite side and at the head of the bulk of the troops, would proceed against the other bastilles, that were expected to be found almost wholly deserted by the English, who would have hastened to the aid of the defender
s of the Tournelles. Finally, Joan having on the previous day taken an emphatic stand against the captains’ opinion, and maintained that the raising of the siege of Orleans depended almost wholly upon the capture of the Tournelles, and that that important work should be forthwith attacked, it was expected she would imagine her views had been adopted by the council of war after mature reflection, and that, carried away by her courage, she was certain to march to her death. Thus the plot concocted long before by the Sire of La Tremouille, Gaucourt and the Bishop of Chartres was now to be put into execution.

  Despite their mistrust of the captains, the councilmen failed to scent the trap laid for the Maid. She was introduced, and Gaucourt informed her of the decision of the council omitting, however, to say that the attack upon the Tournelles was only to be a feint. Gifted with rare good sense and sagacity, the Maid had too many proofs of the constant opposition that until then all her plans had met from the captains not to be astonished at seeing them suddenly adopt a plan that they had so loudly condemned the day before. Suspecting a snare, she listened silently to Gaucourt while pensively pacing up and down the hall. When he ended she stopped walking, fixed her frank and beautiful eyes upon the traitor and said boldly:

  “Seigneur Gaucourt, do not hide from me anything of what has been decided. I have known and shall know how to keep other secrets than yours.”

  These words, through which the Maid’s mistrust of the captains plainly peeped, confused them. They looked at each other dumbfounded and uneasy. Dunois, the least depraved of all, felt the pangs of remorse and could not decide to remain an accomplice in the execrable scheme of betrayal. Still, not wholly daring to uncover it, he answered:

  “Joan, do not get angry. You can not be told everything at once. You have been made acquainted with the first part of our plan of battle. I must now add that the attack upon the Tournelles is to be a feint, and while the English come to the help of their fellows and cross the Loire, we shall attack in good earnest their bastilles over in the Sologne, which they will have left almost empty of defenders.”

  Despite the belated explanation, the heroine no longer doubted the perfidy of the captains. She nevertheless concealed her indignation, and with the full power of her military superiority she declared to them point blank and with her rustic frankness that the council’s plan of battle was detestable — worse yet, shameful. Did not the plan resolve itself into a ruse of war that was not merely cowardly, but fatal in its consequences? Was it not necessary, by keeping the soldiers continually on their mettle by daring, if need be vast exploits, to restore the confidence of the defenders of the town who had been so long beaten? Was it not necessary to convince them that nothing could resist their daring? “Now, then,” the martial maid proceeded to argue, “granted that this pitiful feint succeeds, what a wretched victory! To march upon an enemy whom one knows is not there, and thanks to the excess of numbers crush a handful of men! To thus expose the vanquishers to a cowardly triumph, at a time when the hour has struck for heroic resolutions! A hundred times preferable would be a heroic defeat! And, finally, always granting the success of the ruse, what would have been destroyed? A few defenceless redoubts of no farther importance since the capture of the strong and large redoubt of St. Loup, which alone cut off the town’s communication with the Sologne and Berry. Assuredly the plan is worthless, it is at all points bad and inopportune.”

  After thus summarizing and disposing of the captains’ plans, the Maid continued:

  “On the contrary, we should not to-morrow feign, but really and boldly attack the Tournelles, by crossing the Loire a little above St. John-le-Blanc, the first redoubt to take, then marching against the fortified Convent of the Augustinians, and finally upon the Tournelles. These positions being taken, the English, no longer in condition to keep themselves a single day longer in the other bastilles, will find themselves forced to raise the siege.”

  This, Joan declared, was her plan of battle, and nothing in the world could turn her from her resolution, her “voices” having inspired her by order of God. She was accordingly determined, she declared, in case the captains opposed her project, to carry it to a successful finish despite them, demanding only the aid of the councilmen and the militia of the good town of Orleans, whom the Lord would take under his protection, because they would indeed be defending the town, France and the King against the English. Finally she would on that very day order the militia to stand ready for the next day at dawn, and, followed or not by the captains and their bands, she would march straight upon the enemy.

  Laid down in a firm voice and fully approved by the councilmen, Joan’s project aroused the most violent objections on the part of the captains; they declared it to be as hazardous as impracticable. The Sire of Gaucourt summed up the views of his accomplices, crying with scornful haughtiness: “The council of captains having taken a decision, it will be upheld, and they will oppose with force, if necessary, any attempt on the part of the soldiers of Orleans to make an attack on the morrow. Such is the council’s will.”

  “Your council has decided, say you?” replied Joan with serene assurance; “my council has also decided — it is God’s. I shall obey Him despite you!”

  Saying this, the Maid left the room, wounded to the quick by the obvious perfidy of the captains. Firmly resolved to put an end to so many fatal delays, and in accord with the councilmen to demand the safety of their town only from the bravery of her own citizens if need be, Joan immediately turned her attention to the preparations for the morrow’s attack, and commissioned the councilmen to gather a large number of barges for the transport of the soldiers, at whose head she was to attack the English at early dawn from the side of the Tournelles.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1429.

  EARLY IN THE morning the Sire of Gaucourt, with a squad of soldiers and mercenaries, took possession of the Bourgogne Gate, through which Joan had to pass to reach the river bank and effect the embarkation of the troops. Gaucourt ordered the soldiers, whom he planted under the arch, to allow none to leave the town, and to use their arms against anyone who tried to violate their orders. Stepping back a few paces, wrapping himself closely in his cloak, and listening from time to time for what was happening in town, the traitor waited.

  Dawn soon appeared; its early glimmer lighted the horizon and set off the outlines of the crenelated Bourgogne Gate. A distant noise presently attracted the attention of Gaucourt; it increased and drew near; and soon he distinguished the muffled tread of many feet and the rattling of arms. He then repeated his orders to his soldiers and withdrew into the shadow of the vault that united the two towers at this entrance to the town. A few minutes later a compact column, marching in good order and composed of the urban militia and surrounding peasants, who had entered Orleans after the capture of the bastille of St. Loup, turned into the street that led to the Bourgogne Gate. Master John and about twelve other citizen cannoniers marched in the front ranks, dragging a cart on which were two portable culverins, christened by Master John “Jeannette” and “Jeanneton” in honor of his countrywoman; another cart, also hand-drawn, contained the munitions for the two pieces of artillery. The martial maid rode at the head of the column, escorted by several armed councilmen who had previously taken part in the defence of the town. One of these, intending to hasten the egress of the troops, quickened his horse’s pace, and advanced toward the gate to have it opened. A sergeant in his cups seized the bridle of the councilman’s horse and cried roughly:

  “There is no passage here. It is forbidden to leave the town! Such are our orders!”

  “The town gates are opened or closed by orders of the councilmen. I am a councilman. You must obey.”

  “I have my orders,” replied the mercenary drawing his sword; “back, or I cut you to pieces!”

  “You miserable drunken fellow! Do you dare to threaten a magistrate!”

  “I only know my captain, and since you are trying to pass despite my orders, here is for you!” saying whic
h he made a thrust at the councilman. The sword glided over the magistrate’s armor, and the soldier cried out: “This way, my men!”

  About twenty soldiers rushed to the spot from under the gate. The squad of drunken men had surrounded and were hooting at and threatening the magistrate when Joan, her equerry Daulon, her page, and the other councilmen who, together with her, formed the head of the column, reached the scene of the wrangle. At the same moment the Sire of Gaucourt appeared. He was in a towering rage, made a sign to his soldiers to draw back, and himself stepped towards the heroine whom he insolently addressed:

  “Joan, the council of war pronounced itself yesterday against your proposed plan for to-day. You shall not leave the town—”

  “You are a bad man!” cried the Maid indignantly. “I shall pass whether you will it or not. The men of Orleans will follow me — and we shall vanquish the English again as we have done before.”

  The Maid’s defiant answer to the impudent and imprudent words of the royal captain were heard by Master John and his cannoniers, and were repeated down the column from rank to rank of the militiamen, producing such exasperation against Gaucourt that from all parts the furious cries were heard:

  “Death to the traitor! Cut the captain to pieces!”

  “He dares to oppose the Maid’s passage!”

  “Death to the traitor! Death to his soldiers! They are worse than the English!”

  In the midst of these cries, Master John and his cannoniers, together with a mass of armed citizens, fell upon Gaucourt and his mercenaries and drubbed them soundly with the handles of their pikes; not content with having almost killed the captain and his band, the more enraged of the militiamen insisted upon hanging them. With much difficulty, Joan and the councilmen obtained mercy for Gaucourt and his crew. On a later occasion he admitted that he had never before been as near death as on that day.