by Donald Spoto
It was logical for Joan to live chastely “as long as it should be pleasing to God,” the better to commit everything of herself to Him without reservation. “I must keep the promise I made to Our Lord, to keep my virginity of body and soul.” That is the essential key to what might otherwise be regarded as mere continence. Like others who consecrated their lives outside convents and monasteries, Joan would be autonomous but nevertheless entirely dependent on God.
To keep her virginity meant to rely on God, to abandon herself to His mercies, and not to rely on herself or a man, her motives or his, her actions or talents or his. This abandonment, this absolute trust in God, lies at the core of all Christian spirituality; it is also the incontrovertible mark of authentic prayer. It does not imply inactivity or passivity: it is the mark of a life that gives up trust in self in order to give that self over to God. At this point Joan began to identify herself as “la Pucelle”—the maid, the virgin. Of course, there are many other ways for consecration of self to God besides vowed virginity, but this was Joan’s way.
Her chaste condition was her identity, and this derived from the sense of self provided by her revelations. As Joan’s contemporary Thomas Basin, the bishop of Lisieux, wrote not long after her death:
Regarding her mission, and the apparitions and revelations that she said she had, everyone has the right to believe as he pleases, to reject them or not, according to his point of view or way of thinking. What is important regarding these visions is the fact that Joan had herself no shadow of a doubt regarding their reality, and it was their effect upon her, and not her natural inclination, that impelled her to leave her parents and her home to undertake great perils and to endure great hardships—and, as it proved, a terrible death. It was these visions and voices, and they alone, which enabled her to believe that she would succeed in saving her country and in placing her king on his throne. It was these visions and voices which finally enabled her to do those marvelous deeds, and accomplish what appeared to all the world as impossible
IN JULY 1428, life changed dramatically for Joan and her family. On their way to attack Vaucouleurs and thus destroy the major northern center supporting the Valois, the Burgundians pillaged the towns surrounding Domrémy. Jacques, Isabelle, and their children quickly gathered what possessions and livestock they could and with some of their neighbors fled for refuge to the fortified town of Neufchâteau, five miles south. There they lodged at a small inn owned by a woman nicknamed la rousse, “the redhead.” For several weeks Joan and her mother helped with the serving and household chores. When the family at last returned to Domrémy, they saw that armed horsemen had plundered and burned the local church, laid waste most of the fields and homes, and attacked the women who could not flee.
And then an ominous report reached them through mendicant friars and couriers passing through on their way to Vaucouleurs. In October the English army, under the command of the Earl of Salisbury, besieged Orléans, the last major city loyal to the Valois. Within a fortnight the town was encircled and soldiers destroyed the bridge linking it to territory controlled by the dauphin. The invaders planned to starve Orléans of food and all necessary supplies. The formal accession and anointing of the dauphin as king were thus in immediate and grave jeopardy, for Chinon would fall after Orléans, and young Charles VII with it.
Joan and her family must have been enraged and all the more determined to resist the partisans of England. It would have been natural if her father and brothers, along with some neighbors, were roused to speak of joining the forces in support of the dauphin. But how could they do that, and where could they fight? How could they withstand so well armed an enemy, who swept down on them like a sudden storm? Joan herself may have joined in such conversations, saying she too wanted to do something—anything—to help the French cause.
We cannot be certain of such talk, but we do know that her father was suddenly suspicious of her intentions. As a trial note states, “Her mother told her that her father had dreamed of Joan going off with men of arms, and so her parents were insistent on keeping a watch over her. Her father said to her brothers, ‘If I thought that my dream was coming true, I’d want you to drown her—and if you didn’t, I’d do it myself.’” The reason for his violent reaction to the dream was obvious. A girl “going off with men of arms” could mean only one thing—that she was setting out as a camp follower, a prostitute.
After Christmas, without telling family or friends, Joan walked the ten-mile distance to Vaucouleurs, intending to confront the captain on her own, to obtain his recommendation of her to the dauphin, and to plead for an escort for her journey to Chinon. She bade farewell to no one, neither family nor friends, doubtless expecting them to imagine that she had returned to her cousins to help after the baby’s birth. When they learned her true whereabouts and her purpose, Joan’s parents were angry and frightened; later they were reconciled to her.
This time Joan stayed with friends of the Laxarts, a family named Le Royer, and from there she went again to beg an audience with the commander of the fortress. Finally her sheer persistence was rewarded.
FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS Robert de Baudricourt’s family had fought resolutely against the English occupation of France. Although some accounts characterize him as rude and dissolute, Baudricourt finally listened to Joan and admired her zeal for the Valois crown. Despite the opinion of advisers who urged him to dismiss her permanently, Baudricourt did not: he temporized, without passing judgment on her visions and voices. On the matter of sending her directly to the dauphin, however, he refused. But Joan sensed that this rebuff was not quite so firm and fixed. This time she did not return to Domrémy but remained in Vaucouleurs with the Royers. Jean le Fumeux, an altar boy and later a curate at the local church of Notre-Dame des Voûtes, recalled seeing Joan at Mass there every day that January.
Then, toward the end of that month, things began to happen quickly.
Baudricourt felt that he could not endorse Joan’s plan or trust her claims to divine guidance unless he had some collegial support for her. His close friend René of Anjou, son-in-law of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, had grown up with the dauphin. Baudricourt and René exchanged letters, and one morning a messenger arrived at the Royer cottage. Joan was summoned to travel to the town of Nancy in Lorraine, where she was to meet the duke, then sixty-four and very ill. If she were truly sent by God, Joan was told, she would be able to cure Charles by some miraculous means.
With safe conduct provided by Baudricourt, Joan went at once to the duke’s residence in Nancy (thirty miles from Vaucouleurs, a day’s horseback ride); Durand Laxart accompanied her, along with one or two of Baudricourt’s squires. Ushered into the presence of the ailing duke, Joan was asked to perform a miracle on his behalf. She told him that she had no control over his illness and well-being—and in any case, she added with extraordinary sangfroid, the duke ought to regain his character more zealously than his vigor. Accordingly, she advised him to give up his mistress and take back his wife. “She then said that she would pray to God for his health.” In spite of himself, Charles of Lorraine was duly impressed and gave Joan money for the journey she had undertaken to visit him.
Back in Vaucouleurs, Joan was teased by one of Baudricourt’s loyal companions and squires, Jean de Metz: “M’amie [“Sweetheart” or “Honey,” here used ironically], what are you doing here? Shouldn’t the dauphin be thrown out, and then we’ll all become English?”
“I’m here,” Joan replied, “to ask Robert de Baudricourt’s help in going to the king—but he pays no attention to me. I must save France, even though I would prefer to stay home and spin wool with my mother, for this sort of thing is not my proper station in life. But I must go, because my Lord wills that I do so.”
“And who is your Lord?”
“God,” she answered.
Jean de Metz, then about twenty-nine, teased her no more. “I put my hand in hers as a sign of good faith,” he said years later, “and I promised to do all I could to lead her
to the king.” By placing his hand between her two hands—the formal gesture of knightly loyalty—Metz effectively became Joan’s liege man, her follower in faithful service. With that, Joan began to attract loyalty and inspire confidence among both the townsfolk and some men in Baudricourt’s retinue, including Bertrand de Poulengy, who had been present at her first audience with Baudricourt. Up to this point the captain of Vaucouleurs and his advisers thought the girl in the tattered country-russet skirt (pauvres vêtements de femmes, rouges, according to Jean de Metz) had a quixotic goal indeed; now they were no longer so sure.
Meantime Baudricourt sent a message to Chinon by way of his courier, Colet de Vienne, asking if Joan would be admitted should he decide to send her for their consideration. With the dauphin’s financial and military fortunes in full ruin, he had little to lose, as a clerk replied. They could send the girl along, and they would see what they would see.
But there was one final examination to which the captain wished to subject the Maid. To the Royer home came Baudricourt himself, accompanied by a priest. As Madame Le Royer recalled, a kind of medieval ordeal ensued, although a nonviolent one. The clergyman put a liturgical stole around his neck and took up a cross. He told Joan that if she was indeed inhabited by a good spirit she must approach him and kneel, and if she harbored a devil she must forthwith quit the house. This was a routine intended to carry out a discernment of spirits. Testily Joan replied that this procedure was neither necessary nor appropriate: the priest had several times heard her confession at the local church, and he knew the state of her soul. Still, she did as she was told and reverently knelt before him.
By now Baudricourt was under pressure from the people of Vaucouleurs and his own entourage, almost all of whom were favorably impressed with Joan’s integrity, piety, and clarity—and unlike the mercenaries who comprised the army, she was a volunteer. And so the captain began to make arrangements for her journey to Chinon.
FOR HUNDREDS OF years in Europe, groups of country folk had been leaving their homes to be of service elsewhere, persuaded that one critical situation or another required them to redress injustice or go to the aid of those in need. From the eleventh century, for example, groups who called themselves les pauvres—poor in spirit if not always in pocketbook—and those called pueri, or servants, had undertaken pilgrimages. A misreading of pueri, which also meant “boys,” inspired the false idea that children were conscripted into the Crusades; on the contrary, the pueri of those tragic expeditions were, both literally and symbolically, servants, often but not always also pauvres.
For her journey to Chinon, a major alteration had to be made in Joan’s outward appearance. She could hardly ride hundreds of miles on horseback wearing the now-threadbare red skirt she had brought from Domrémy. This was first pointed out to her by Jean de Metz, who asked her if she intended to continue wearing her own clothes. She at once saw the impracticality of them and replied no, she would rather have a man’s riding outfit. “And so I gave her some of my own young servants’ clothes and boots,” Metz continued, adding that Bertrand de Poulengy and some towns people supplemented this with “everything necessary for the journey.” They also shared the cost of her horse. Baudricourt gave her a sword, and a linen banner or standard was made for her to carry, the better to be seen. Later it was sewn with a pattern of fleur-de-lis, two angels and the names “Jesus Maria” along the side.
The Maid now had the proper riding clothes. So attired, she looked like a mounted page: her hair was cropped short under a leather hood, and a belt cinched her short coat, beneath which she wore underpants, a doublet (an undercoat padded with a solid breastplate), and a shirt and hose that were attached to the doublet with hooks. With boots, spurs, and a short cape for warmth, her outfit was complete.
The practical necessity of such a wardrobe had another purpose. Because she was going to be constantly in the company of men, she had to dress like one, for protection. Her clothes had to conceal or at least deemphasize her gender, thus to protect her from rape by Burgundians, attack by mere highwaymen they might encounter en route, and even assault by her own allies. A practical soul, she saw no reason not to wear sensible clothes. In modern times some radical analysts have insisted that Joan’s male wardrobe indicates that she was either a transvestite or a lesbian. If that skewed judgment is correct, then every woman who wears, for example, overalls for work or sport or a riding habit or even elegant trousers ought to be similarly charged as residing on the margins of “normal” sexuality.
As for the idea that a woman was forbidden by biblical and ecclesiastical law from wearing men’s clothes under any and every circumstance, that was simply not so: women were encouraged to adopt a disguise when necessary—for instance, to protect themselves. However, a woman was not permitted to live every day of her life cross-dressed as a man and intending to be taken for a man, for that would be to imitate what was presumed to be the loftier status of men. The towns people of Vaucouleurs thought as did Joan: the change of clothing was merely expedient, and there was no discussion about it; later, however, her male clothing became the overriding argument for her execution.
When her accoutrements were in order, Jean de Metz asked Joan when she would like to head for Chinon. “Tomorrow rather than later,” she replied, “but even better, now.”
JOAN DEPARTED ON Wednesday, February 23. Henri Le Royer came to the town square to say good-bye, expressing his concern about her safety among soldiers, brigands and Burgundians. “She was not afraid [Le Royer recalled], for she had God, her Lord, Who would clear the road for her to go to the dauphin. She said she was born for this.” Robert de Baudricourt uttered an ambiguous farewell, directed, in the singular imperative, to Joan: “Va, et advienne que pourra. Go, and come what may.” In a sense, he was washing his hands of Joan and her campaign, and he was doubtless relieved to see her depart. He had done his duty, he had tried to discourage her, he had tested her spirit. The whole enterprise seemed hopelessly unrealistic to this gruff, pessimistic commander.
Joan had an entourage of six: Jean de Metz and his servant; Bertrand de Poulengy and his attendant; Colet de Vienne, a royal messenger who knew the route; and a Scottish archer named Richard, a mercenary. Metz and Poulengy provided food and supplies and bore the expenses of the journey, including payments to the other men; the money for Joan’s horse was raised by the townsfolk. With the blessing of the local priest and the cheers of a crowd, the group rode down the hillside.* The day was frigid, the earth hard as iron, the sun obscured behind wintry clouds.
As Saint Benedict had enjoined, abbeys traditionally offered hospitality to travelers. The superior of the monastery of Saint-Urbain was a relative of Baudricourt, and he went out to greet the sojourners from Vaucouleurs on the first night of their journey, when (as Poulengy recalled) they stopped “for fear of the Burgundians who were numerous in the region.” The men slept in the monastery; Joan was lodged in a guest cottage, as women routinely were.
The remaining itinerary took them through Clairvaux, Pothières, Mezilles, Saint-Aignan and L’Ile-Bouchard. “During our journey, Joan used to say it would be good for all of us if we could attend Mass,” added Metz, “but we were afraid of being recognized [as French loyalists], and so we went to Mass only twice”—at Auxerre and Saint-Catherine-de-Fierbois, towns sympathetic to the dauphin.
Chinon was a distance of about three hundred fifty miles, and Colet de Vienne calculated a journey of eleven to twelve days, barring fierce weather or attack. At first they thought their hardy young lady might be more than foolish; Joan was sincere, but they wondered if she might not also be a bit mad. They were soon disabused of this suspicion and recognized that her single-mindedness was a sign of fidelity to a calling far beyond the political.
Poulengy was about thirty-six and Metz about thirty—and they were both, as Bertrand put it, “young and strong,” which then implied sexual health and responsiveness, as he confirmed in his remarks following: “At night Joan slept close to Jean de Metz and
me—but without ever removing her coat, doublet, hose, or boots. I was young and strong, but I wouldn’t have dared touch her, because of the goodness I saw in her.” Jean agreed, as he too later said in sworn testimony: “She was right beside us at night, but she inspired such respect that I wouldn’t have dared to make any advance. On my oath, I tell you that there was no carnal movement toward her—I was so much inspired by her words and by her love of God. Very soon I came to believe that she was indeed sent by God Himself.”
It is important to recall that in times past an obviously pious woman would have been shown respect and chivalric admiration. In fact there was a kind of restraining, knightly scruple against taking advantage of her (which, in Joan’s case, her clothing would have made difficult but not impossible if men became sufficiently violent). Joan’s goodness, in other words, did not make her seem a greater challenge to their seductive skills. After Joan’s death Poulengy testified that he had never seen in her “the slightest evidence of any wickedness or sin; she was really so good that, even then, we could have called her a saint.”
ON THURSDAY, MARCH 3, they stopped at Saint-Catherine-de-Fier-bois, a village ten miles east of Chinon, named for the legendary martyr who was one of Joan’s spiritual patrons. After Mass they dined, and then Joan dictated a letter to her parents, asking pardon for whatever heartache she may have caused by her precipitous departure. Her mother and father forgave her and sent a private chaplain to attend her on her mission; in addition, her brothers, Pierre and Jean, left Domrémy at once to join her. At the same time, Joan sent word to the dauphin, formally seeking permission to enter Chinon and adding that she had many good things to tell him.