In a Dark Wood Wandering

by Hella S. Haasse

  A February haze hangs over the streets of Paris and the brownish waters of the Seine. The sun struggles to break through and is visible for a moment before it is lost again in mist and clouds. Despite the damp chill, the streets on the left bank of the Seine are as filled with people as though there were to be a fete or procession. But all similarity ends with the numbers: the silent crowd which flows swiftly past the rows of houses toward the great market-halls is in neither a festive nor a pious mood. A depression hangs over the city of Paris, bleaker and more frigid than the winter mist; it is the realization of complete bankruptcy, of misery without hope. Never within memory has the city been in such dire need of spirtual and physical comfort.

  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Pestilence, Famine, Death and Destruction, have ridden into the city, and will not be moved. The years are notable more for their catastrophes than for their seasons: in the winters, more severe than ever before, thousands die of the cold every day; in the summer thousands more are destroyed by plagues and diseases and—continually—by starvation. When snow comes to the surrounding fields, and the ground is frozen hard, packs of wolves descend on the suburbs, looking for food; children and all solitary homeless wanderers fall prey to these famished beasts. Food, extremely scarce, is almost priceless when it can be procured. As a consequence of war there is little money for wages, and everywhere work is undone: the fields are smothered in weeds, scythes and ploughshares rust, draughthorses and beasts of burden are butchered, barns and stables torn down to be used as kindling. Taxes become higher from day to day: Bedford needs money urgently to carry on the war—his officers and constables show no mercy. The sheriff is a pitiless man who metes out heavy physical punishment for even the slightest infraction of the laws. But the value of money has dropped; a sixteen denier coin is worth no more than two deniers, a beggar’s alms.

  In the summer of 1424, a swarm of locusts sweeps over the land and blights the crops in the fields. In dull resignation the people of Paris await the winter, a long harsh winter without food, without firewood; a winter of pestilence and privation. Not a week passes without Bedford’s heralds proclaiming fresh English victories to empty streets and deserted squares. And this is even more difficult to bear than cold and hunger. The knowledge that they are being overwhelmed by a foreign power, that they have been abandoned to alien rulers, the awareness of their own impotence and their defeat, deprives the people of their final hope. They have been betrayed. The rebellions and civil wars, the hardships which the country has suffered over the last hundred years seem trifling in comparison to this great infamy. France is lost, it exists no longer as an independent kingdom. There is no reason to believe that the territories occupied by England can be redeemed. Hardly anyone dares even to think of the young man in Bourges in the Midi who calls himself king and attempts to resist Bedford’s troops pouring in from all sides. Has he the right to the royal title, the royal power? No one knows. The only person who can know, the Dowager-Queen Isabeau, is tucked away for good, and silent, in the heart of Saint-Pol. Her chambers can be reached only through a maze of deserted, neglected gardens and corridors. The brightly colored tapestries on the walls recall the luxurious, carefree days of the past, but the fountains are stilled, the park is a wilderness, and the windows which once glowed with festive candlelight are dark and empty.

  The Queen no longer quits her apartments. Year in, year out, she sees only the walls adorned with embroidered flowers and golden doves; year in, year out, she sits motionless in her wheelchair, she who had loved to travel from Saint-Pol to Vincennes, from Vin-cennes to Melun, from Melun to Creil and Saint-Ouen, to Chartres and Compiegne, to castles, cloisters, cathedrals. She sits with her back to the window, staring vacantly during the long daylight hours, or she asks for food or her jewel boxes. She eats greedily and carelessly, greasy sauce trickles from her lips over her chin and her mourning dress; she gnaws the small bones of fowl and sucks out the marrow, she spits fruit stones around her. She concentrates fiercely on her jewels. Bent forward, she rummages with gouty fingers among the gold chains and the large gleaming stones; she pulls strings of pearls from the bottom of the pile; she lets fall again and again from the palm of her hand a sparkling rain of rubies and sapphires, gold coins, rings and buckles. If at these moments anyone approaches her, she dismisses him, irritably. Outside her chamber doors her servants stand listening to the jingle of gold, the rustle of ropes of pearls and necklaces. The Queen lives entirely in seclusion; she wishes to hear no news, receive no visitors. She wants to know nothing: her gold is enough for her, and her roast capons—for which, alas, she must pay more each day—and her memories.

  The chamber with the flowered tapestry is peopled with silent figures: they glide without sound, almost without motion, past the woman who is sunken, heavily and clumsily, into her wheelchair: Valentine with her sad smile, the young pale Isabelle, Louis toying with his gloves, Burgundy and Margaretha, cold and judging, Bourbon and Berry, two very old men, mistrustful beneath their displays of courtliness, Jean of Burgundy with his cold eyes, the dead crown princes, thin, pale youths bowed under their heavy purple, and last of all Charles, her husband, his eyes distended in madness. It is a procession which comes and goes incessantly, a procession of mists. They do not speak to her, these quiet passersby, they do not greet her, they do not look at her. Without touching the ground they fly past her, by day, by night. They carry a faint odor of dust and decay, of the far distant past. But the Queen does not talk about this, not even to her confessor, who visits her weekly.

  From letters sent secretly by Dunois, Bastard of Orléans, to Charles, Duke of Orléans in the years 1428, 1429 and 1430.

  “… we are now virtually bankrupt, Monseigneur my brother; I have little hope that fortune will smile on us in the near future. In more than fifteen years, we have not been in so bad a situation as this, and you know very well what that means. God grant that the King—for here we consider him our lawful king although he has not been crowned at Reims—will realize this and throw off his cursed irresolution. We have suffered many misfortunes because of his inability to act. It is his curse that he allows himself to be led blindly by his favorites; as long as these lords are loyal, everything goes reasonably well; but God help us when traitors predominate, and there are many of them, Monseigneur—that is why the military operations creep along; we mount no organized opposition. A skirmish here or there, nothing more; and whatever the valiant lads—especially our Scottish troops—manage to win, is immediately lost by us again because our cause has no leader. Bedford has at most 20,000 men at arms and these are spread out here and there over the occupied territories. In ’24 he defeated our troops at Verneuil with an army of 5,000 men at most; it was a second Agincourt, thanks to the stupidity of the King’s favorites. This is Bedford’s greatest strength—that he has sharp insight, that he holds the reins firmly in his hands and through his air of self-assurance convinces friend and foe alike of England’s superiority. But anyone who uses his intelligence must have seen long ago that all this is bluff, even though it is a massive bluff. We know that in England itself everything is going wrong. If I may believe the rumors, something is brewing in the government; the danger of civil war grows every day. Furthermore, no one can pretend that Burgundy has fraternal feelings toward England—on the contrary, the bonds between the two parties are so fragile that they threaten to snap at any moment.

  “… What I have long expected has happened: the English lie before Orléans under the command of William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. They have occupied the Tourelles fort near the bridge over the Loire and have built a great number of fortifications and ditches to the south, west and northwest of the city. If they should succeed in taking Orléans, we are lost; the English will then rule the whole region of the Loire—Touraine, Berry and the Midi.

  “Although we can at the moment supply men and provisions without too much difficulty, it does not appear that the city will be able to hold out. I have been captain of the garr
ison here for a few months now; there are surely as many defenders as there are attackers, but the fellows inside Orléans are listless and discouraged. They have no hope for a better future, they do not believe in an ultimate victory. The populace is desperate and fearful, exhausted by long years of war. This public temper, my lord brother, will destroy us all—unless there is a miracle.”

  Dunois, Bastard of Orléans, did not believe in miracles; at any rate he did not believe that irresolution, timidity and stupidity could be miraculously transformed into courage, strength of mind and insight. He had, since he had served as captain of the army of the “King of Bourges”, learned how to give directions in the face of the King’s almost morbid impotence. He knew that this man, with his badly tainted heredity, would never put forth the vigorous effort to make himself worthy of the Crown of France. Authority was in fact divided between the King’s mother-in-law, the energetic, ambitious Duchess d’Anjou, and the King’s favorites, who were for the most part impoverished knights from the southern provinces, eager for their own profit. These parties did not share mutual interests; they were divided, perpetually involved in disputes and intrigues. While the English—without undue strain on their resources—drew an ever-tightening noose around the heart of France, while roaming bands of every description tormented and harassed the people, the bankrupt court at Bourges concerned itself only with petty scuffles for precedence and favors.

  Dunois deliberately kept aloof from the poisonous atmosphere; when, however, his duty called him to Bourges, he armed himself with a stiff silence. He chose the company of captains like la Hire and de Broussart, men calloused and coarsened by continuous battle, unlettered and crude, but trustworthy and as hard upon themselves as upon their men. Dunois had fought side by side with these seasoned warriors against the English; at the defeats of Cravant, Ivry, Verneuil and at Montargis, the single victory, achieved with great effort. The years had passed for Dunois in a long series of sieges and battles, here and there bypassing all towns and castles near the front line, skirmishing, retreating, raiding. But what was the result of all this effort? It seemed to him that he and his comrades were like the men in the legend who attempted to build a dam of sand against the oncoming flood; his work was never completed. As soon as he turned his back the sea ate its way through his defenses again. On the ramparts of Orléans Dunois was overcome with despair. He knew that not more than 5,000 English were camped below the city, that their ranks were constantly being eroded by sickness and desertion. But still he could not persuade the people of Orléans to make any belligerent sallies against the enemy. In essence they were indifferent; they did not care whether the English took the city or not. Indeed, many believed that it would be better for them to surrender as soon as possible.

  In February, 1429, Dunois learned that an English convoy was approaching the besieged city from Paris with wagons filled with salted fish for fast days. He decided to risk an attack on the convoy on its route. Messengers rode at full speed to Blois to instruct the Count de Clermont, who was stationed there with his men, to fall upon the English as they approached the city. As a result of Clermont’s dawdling—he seemed to suffer from the same unfortunate Bourbon family traits as his father and grandfather before him—the enterprise justifiably failed: the French were decisively defeated, although they far outnumbered the enemy. This defeat, known as the Battle of the Herrings, had a most deleterious effect upon the morale of the troops holding Orléans.

  In a final attempt to shake the King from his lethargy, Dunois sent the young captain la Hire to the castle of Chinon. La Hire found the King, timid and distracted as usual, hidden in one of the small rooms reached only through secret doors. He was distressed to hear about the debacle, but he did not know what to say, and still less what to do.

  La Hire returned to Orléans bitter and angry; with a string of violent curses—no one knew them better than he—he gave an account of his visit.

  “We have to allow ourselves to be butchered here, Bastard,” he growled at last. “In the future the King and the fools and villains who cluster around him like lice on a sore head can do the dirty work themselves … unless he wants to try the peasant maid from Lorraine first—in Chinon that’s all they talk about now. A courier came from Captain de Baudricourt in Vaucouleurs … It seems a young girl goes about there with a plan to drive the English out of France and to bring the King to Reims and the King, God keep him well, had nothing better to do than to listen to that sort of drivel. There you have all my news, Bastard.”

  Dunois, who sat at the table signing vouchers for the payment of wages—a final measure to keep the men satisfied—did not reply at once. He answered, without raising his eyes from the paper, only when la Hire, still cursing under his breath, was preparing to leave the room.

  “Let the King divert himself in his own way, la Hire. A child who is occupied in play is no trouble. We shall do our duty, and that is enough.”

  Dunois spent the following days inquiring in his own way about the girl from Lorraine. He found to his amazement that the people of the city and the countryside knew already in detail about everything she had done. Stories had spread across the Loire, from Dom-remy and Vaucouleurs, the district where Jeanne—for that was her name—lived. She was the daughter of a peasant, people said, a sturdy well-behaved maid who tended her father’s sheep. But now she had heard voices, from God’s Holy Self, or so she thought, which commanded her to free France and crown the King. Despite the protests of her parents and kinfolk, she had gone to Vaucouleurs to Captain de Baudricourt, the King’s representative, to ask for safe conduct. Strange stories stubbornly circulated in hamlet and city. An old prophecy, once popular in the Lorraine borderland and now half-forgotten, was revived: a young virgin would one day appear from an oak forest to save the Kingdom. Wasn’t there a grove of oaks behind Jeanne’s father’s property, the remnant of a vast prehistoric forest?

  Dunois listened without comment to these tales; he was amused by the gullibility of the people who were ready, on the strength of an old prophecy, to see in this girl from Domremy the long-awaited Maid who would bring salvation. What did interest and surprise him was Jeanne’s courage in holding fast to her convictions in the presence of the captain at Vaucouleurs, and even face to face with the Duke of Lorraine himself. What induced these men to listen to her, to support her proposals? He perceived that, without apparently being aware of it, she had a strange power which revived hope and the expectation of great events. And upon what was this enthusiasm based? On vague rumors, a simple tale which traveled from city to city—that a peasant maid was convinced that she had been sent by God to save the Kingdom. Dunois could not deny that the deep desire in the country for peace and freedom played a considerable part in the affair; nevertheless, day by day it became clearer to him that Jeanne the Maid, as she was now called everywhere, must possess to a considerable degree what he had for years wanted for the King, the commanders of the army and even, secretly, for himself: the ability to re-animate the masses who had lapsed into despair and deep apathy.

  From Orléans, he followed events attentively: he heard how Jeanne, dressed like a man and accompanied by a few horsemen, had traveled to Chinon in a long day’s journey across the ravaged, impoverished land through partially hostile territory; how she had remained serene and cheerful while her companions wavered, how she had shown herself sure of her mission at all times. This was impressive enough; Dunois was even more impressed to learn that she had not been taken in by an unchivalrous joke that the King had tried to play on her: she had barely glanced at the disguised courtier who sat on the throne, but had pointed out immediately the man whom she persisted in calling the “Dauphin,” because he had not yet been crowned at Reims. Her dignified, unassuming behavior had made an impression on the King, but he was even more fascinated by the private conversation he had with her. Neither he nor she told anyone what was said there, but from that time on no one dared openly doubt her words in the King’s presence. The favorites wisel
y kept their suspicions to themselves; it was impossible to resist the growing excitement.

  When finally a college of clergymen had, at the King’s request, carefully questioned Jeanne about matters of belief and given an unqualified judgment in her favor, Dunois considered this an answer and, in a letter to the King, urged that the Maid be sent to Orléans at the head of a contingent of auxiliary troops and a convoy of provisions. At the beginning of April, he received the news from Chinon: the King had entrusted Jeanne with the command, as he was requested to do.

  Around noon of the twenty-ninth of April, 1429, Dunois, together with la Hire and a number of horsemen, crossed the Loire to the village of Checy to greet the Maid who was advancing from Blois to Orléans along the left bank of the river. It was a clear, warm day; the broad river sparkled in the sunlight. Dunois rode bareheaded. As usual he said little; la Hire, who rode beside him, was more talkative. The captain could not accept the idea that a woman could be expected to perform feats which even experienced soldiers had been unable to accomplish. He was ready to assume that the girl was more brave and devout than most people; otherwise he found the whole affair to be little more than a farce. Dunois listened, now and then turning his head to watch the flat-bottomed barges advance over the river; later in the day they would reach Orléans with the provisions which were their cargo. Once he stood up in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his hand. The English reinforcements could clearly be seen, encamped on the other side of the river beyond Jargeau opposite Orléans.