We are not at all clear as to how often Jeanne troubled the governor of Vaucouleurs, or as to what passed between them during their various interviews. She was later accused of having told him on one occasion that she would have three sons: the first should become Pope, the second Emperor, and the third a king. Baudricourt is represented as having replied gallantly to this announcement, that he would willingly father one of the three sons himself, since they were destined to be so powerful, and he would profit. To which she is represented as having replied that the time had not yet come, but that the Holy Ghost would see to it. This conversation, according to the accusation, had been repeated by Baudricourt in various places and in the presence of prelates and other notable people.fn27
Several queer stories, not exactly legends, crop up in connexion with Jeanne, and this one certainly deserves to rank amongst them. It is one of the puzzling articles in the Act of Accusation later brought against her. Did she really make this boast to Baudricourt, or did she not? Was she falsely accused of having made it, and, if so, why? What gave rise to it? Was it compatible with what we know of her character? We know that she had vowed herself to virginity, but was that vow necessarily incompatible with the idea that the Holy Ghost might collaborate in the conception of her sons? Finally, if she had re;illy boasted thus to Baudricourt, would it have led him to a greater belief in her, or the reverse? Would the claim have appeared any more extravagant to his mediaeval credulity than the claim that she could redeem France? It is difficult to decide. Certainly the opening words of the article of accusation, with their implication that she had become his mistress (habita familiaritate dicti Roberti), are nothing but an empty outrageous insult.
Anatole France, who, according to his usual practice whenever he sees the chance of a page of picturesque writing, accepts the story after casting only the most perfunctory doubt, in a footnote, upon its authenticity, and then provides an ingenious theory to account for Jeanne’s remark, to the effect that she was speaking allegorically. By her prophecy concerning her three cluldren, he says, she meant that the peace of Christ should be the outcome of her task, and that, having once accomplished her mission, the Pope, the Emperor, and the King should establish love and concord in the Church of Christ. The captain, he adds, was incapable of understanding this subtlety, and, being a plain and jolly man, took her words at their literal value, and answered accordingly.fn28
It is not impossible. Jeanne was quite capable of inventing allegories when they would serve her purpose. She invented another one, far more extensive and elaborate than this, which will be dealt with in its place. But what seems to me far more important as an agent contributing to Baudricourt’s final conversion is that on her own showing she told him about her voices, the first man to whom she had ever revealed her secret. Now this interview, or interviews, must have taken place in private, since she herself said she told no one but Baudricourt and her King.fn29 No one else can have been present. And she must have convinced him, or, at any rate, disturbed him, to the extent of actually despatching a messenger to the Dauphin on her behalf. fn30 This was a great advance for Jeanne – the first real advance she had been able to make. Now, at least, she was in touch with her Dauphin. A messenger from Vaucouleurs was really on his way to the Dauphin at last. The references to the reception of Baudricourt’s letter at Chinon are neither contemporary nor, consequently, very reliable, Still, they have an air of probability which carries conviction; they report, in fact, precisely the attitude which one would expect them to report. They report that some people amongst the great personages surrounding the Dauphin received Baudricourt’s letter in a spirit of scepticism, saying that it was all a fantasy to which no attention should be paid; others, on the contrary, held that God intended to redeem the unhappy country of France through the good sense and commands of one whom, alone, He would inspire beyond the dictates of human understanding.fn31 This version may read as rather too romantical to be wholly believed; yet I suspect that there is a good residue of truth in it. Even if wildly misleading on certain points (e.g. the statement that Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée were fetched to Chinon, which they certainly never were), it represents in essence the effect that Baudricourt’s letter must have produced at Chinon. Baudricourt, after all, was no irresponsible man. No, but even responsible men were apt to be misled by witchcraft and superstition. Thus did the opposite camps argue. The sceptics lost. Jeanne was finally to be allowed to leave for Chin on.
IX
Before receiving the long-desired permission, however, she had had a long interval of waiting, and a great deal of time to fill in. It is easy to believe that her by then restive and straining spirit found the feminine occupation of spinning at the side of Catherine le Royer scarcely adequate as a pastime. She was, it must be remembered, impatient as a woman great with child. Any diversion, especially an active diversion, must have been welcome. Otherwise, her expedition to the Court of the Duke of Lorraine at Nancy, which she undertook in the midst of her stay at Vaucouleurs, accompanied as far as Taul by Jean de Metz, and all the way to Nancy by the faithful Lassois, would surely have to rank as one of the oddest incidents in the whole of her career. Except in view of her impatience, it seems not only odd, but meaningless; a waste of time, leading to nothing. Why did she agree to go to Nancy to be interviewed by the Duke of Lorraine at precisely the moment when she ought to have remained on the spot at Vaucouleurs, keeping Robert de Baudricourt up to the mark? What could she hope to gain from this in opportune journey? The Duke, as she must have known, was avowedly attached to the Anglo-Burgundian party – in other words, an enemy, one of those who, abiding by the Treaty of Troyes, schemed to give her country over to the English rule. Therefore she could hope for nothing from him in support of the French cause. Her agreement to this interruption in her arguments for immediate departure for Chinon would be more comprehensible had she aspired to enlist the services of a great foudal vassal in the interest of her King. In the case of the Duke of Lorraine, she could, reasonably speaking, entertain no such aspiration. He was an Anglo-Burgundian out and out. Yet she went. She was wasting valuable and urgent time. Why? There seems to be no valid answer to this question, unless, perhaps, the answer is to be found not only in her fretting impatience, but also, quite simply, in the fact that when a great feudatory prince summoned her she obeyed the summons. Perhaps she did not dare refuse. She had not yet acquired the habit of earthly princes having had as yet no communion with any princes save those of the sky. Earthly princes may still have inspired her with respect, so that, when Charles II of Lorraine sent tor her, she went.
So much for Jeanne’s part in the expedition to Nancy. But why did he, a great noble in his capital, ever think of sending for her? What rumours had he heard which could make him think of sending for the girl who had but recently made her appearance at Vaucouleurs, disarranging the ideas of that solid, cautious, and sceptical soldier Robert de Baudricourt to such an extent that he had despatched a messenger to the Dauphin across half of France? The curiosity of the Duke was doubtless tickled. As a prince living a life of pleasure, as well as of dury, on his estates, he may well be supposed to have welcomed any extra diversion from the monotonous round of pleasure and government. The virgin of Domremy was a novelry from the outside; and, as such, something to be attracted to his Court. Besides, he was frightened about his health. Perhaps the virgin of Domremy could give him some useful, or, indeed, miraculous, advice? In any case, he sent for her. She came.
But when she arrived she found that he was less interested in politics than in himself. Her own words may speak for their interview. ‘I told him that I wanted to go into France. He asked me how he might regain his health, and I answered him, that I knew nothing about that, and said little to him about my journey [into France]. I told him nevertheless that if he would give me his son and some men [filium suum en gentes] to conduct me into France I would pray to God for his health.’fn32
This terse statement of Jeanne’s is full of matter. Taken
phrase by phrase, it shows first that she had come into his presence full of her own idea: I told him that I wanted to go into France. Then, seeing that he was not interested, she grows reserved on the subject of her own desires and intentions: I said little to him about my journey; nevertheless, though shrewd enough not to bore and perhaps even to irritate him by insisting on an unwelcome topic, she is also shrewd enough to use it in order to strike a bargain, and tells him that she will pray to God for the restoration of his health if he will give her his son and some men to conduct her into France. He gave her neither, but he did give her four francs towards the expenses of her journey, which she dutifully handed over to Durand Lassois, fn33 and he did give her a black horse. fn34 The four francs may not have been lavish, but it does seem strange that his other gift should have been one which could but facilitate a venture of which, as a supporter of the Anglo-Burgundians, he could only disapprove. He gave her, in fact, a horse which she could ride into France – the last thing which he could have wanted her to do. Was it her compelling personality which persuaded him? Or was it in the nature of a bribe to obtain her prayers? History and Jeanne are silent on the subject.
It seems all the stranger that the Duke should have treated her so favourably when we learn, later on, from the words of another witness, that Jeanne had taken it upon herself to rate him soundly on what she considered as his wicked ways. This witness was Marguerite La Touroulde, wife of the treasurer of Charles VII, in whose house Jeanne had stayed for three weeks at Bourges, sleeping in the same bed as her hostess, and, as her hostess later implied, on terms of considerable intimacy. The two women had all the hours of the night or day in which to exchange their confidences. It appears that Jeanne told her that she had warned the Duke of Lorraine, atteint d’une certaine infirmité, that, unless he abandoned his evil life and returned to his virtuous spouse, he would never be cured. fn35 This seems rather hard on the virtuous spouse (Margaret of Bavaria), but perhaps Jeanne was inadequately informed on the question of infection in contagious diseases.
It is sufficiently remarkable that a great and powerful noble should have accepted so frank a criticism from a peasant, little more than a child. He was more accustomed to see such people tremble in his presence. Such impertinence must have taken his breath away. Besides, it attacked him in his most private feelings. For, at his somewhat advanced age of sixty-three, he was still passionately attached to a certain Alison Dumay, the daughter of a vegetable-seller of Nancy who kept her shop at the doors of the ducal palace. He had had five children by this Alison Dumay, a bastard herself: the natural daughter of a priest, fn36 and, not content with establishing her in a house complete with furniture and gold and silver plate, he had made provision also for her children and for her mother and sisters. The citizens of Nancy took their revenge upon her after his death, first forcing her to walk through the streets of Nancy while they pelted her with human excrement, and then putting her secretly to death.
Poor Alison Dumay. She came to a certainly humiliating and probably painful end, which she had deserved no more and no less than many of the mistresses of kings and princes. It was perhaps hard on her to have been so severely punished at the last. Harlot though she was, our sympathy goes out as we imagine her losing her house, her furniture, her gold and silver plate, her security, at one sweep. These things must have meant so much to her – quite as much, in her own limited way, as the salvation of France meant to Jeanne. The harlot and the saint; the material and the spiritual. Judging each according to the capacity of each, there is very little difference in values. The difference is of kind, not of degree. Yet I suppose we should not waste our sympathy unduly. She had had her good time while it lasted. It was not given to every vegetable-seller’s daughter to become the mistress of the reigning duke. Like others of her sort, she was both fortunate and unfortunate. Unbelievably fortunate so long as her princely lover survived, tragically unfortunate the moment he was dead, she had, at any rate, enjoyed her day. Her children, her mother, and her sisters were well provided for. We can only hope that the terms of her lover’s will – terms which would have brought some consolation to the French bourgeois mind – were known to her before the citizens of his capital, her fellow-townsmen, her aforctime friends and neighbours, caught her and filthily paraded her through their streets, finally to an unrecorded death.
X
This attack upon the Duke’s private morals by no means exhausts the sum of Jeanne’s impertinence towards him. In the first place it was impertinent to a degree for her, the avowed prospective servant of France, to venture at all into that Anglo-Burgundian stronghold. It was even more impertinent to suggest that he might send one of his sons to accompany her in her quest after the Dauphin at Chinon. On this point a query arises – Was it for one of his sons that she asked, or was it for his son-in-law, the young Duke of Bar? Historians have taken it for granted that she meant his son-in-law. Yet Jeanne herself explicitly says that she asked for his son (filium suum). Now, Charles of Lorraine had no legitimate sons. Did she thereby mean that she wanted one of the illegitimate sons of Alison Dumay, who were then living, it appears, in the ducal palace, or did she mean that she wanted his legitimate son-in-law, René d’Anjou, Duke of Bar? Again, the question is confused and unanswered. On the whole, it is quite likely that she meant his son-in-law, since the reigning Duke of Bar would naturally be a far more valuable asset to her in her forthcoming expedition to Chinon than one of the illegitimate sons of the vegetable-seller’s daughter. There were several reasons why Jeanne should thus boldly and impertinently demand the services of the young Duke of Bar. In the first place, the duchy of Bar depended on the duchy of Lorraine in so far as Charles II of Lorraine (Jeanne’s duke), had given his daughter Isabelle, heiress of his own duchy, in marriage to Réne d’Anjou when the boy was only eleven, and his bride still younger. During his minority, the Duke of Lorraine, as regent for René’s duchy of Bar, had committed his son-in-law to the English cause. But as soon as Réne took over the government for himself, his French sympathies became apparent, encouraged and influenced by his friendship with Robert de Baudricourt. Thus it would have been a real triumph for Jeanne to have taken René d’Anjou openly away from the convictions and obligations of his father-in-law. It was a high-handed attempt – the sort of gamble that would have appealed to her – but in this attempt she failed.
In the second place, René d’Anjou seems to have been a fantastically minded young man, who might readily have allowed himself to be enlisted in a mad venture such as the virgin of Domremy proposed to undertake. The younger son of Yolande, Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duchess of Anjou, he was just twenty at the time when Jeanne went to Nancy. He had already acquired a dwarf jester (petit fou), called Didier, attached to his Court, and a negro from Morocco, who, poor wretch, provoked the pleasantries of the citizens of Metz on an occasion when he was attempting to carry two hats and some rabbits to his master. The citizens released the hats, but ate the rabbits at a banquet to which they invited the gay ladies of Metz. Apart from these uncommon servitors who he attached to his person, the young man gave evidence of other tastes which marked him out from the run of ordinary young men. A fine horseman, skilled in the use of the lance, he nevertheless wrote poetry, drew illustrations in books, and took pleasure in the woven gardens of tapestry. Evidently a prince of many facets; just the kind of young man who would have been amused by this village girl from Domremy. It was unfortm1ate for Jeanne that she could not immediately enrol him among her followers – if, indeed, it was he whom she had in mind when she asked Charles II of Lorraine to give her his son to conduct her into France. She had not long to wait, as it turned out, for he threw in his lot with her and the Dauphin at Provins six months later (August 3rd, 1429).fn37
It was perhaps not so very strange that he should thus have decided eventually to give his support to the Pucelle and to the newly crowned Charles VII. It is true that his mother, in conjunction with his uncle Louis, her brother, Bishop of Châlons, a card
inal-prince of the Church, and hereditary Duke of Bar, had arranged his marriage with the heiress of the Duke of Lorraine, thereby committing him, irrevocably as it seemed, to the Anglo-Burgundian party. At the same time as the marriage was arranged (Treaty of Foug, March 20th, 1419) the cardinal-bishop agreed to hand over his duchy to his then ten-year-old nephew. The boy cannot have had much say in the matter. A private schoolboy of ten years old today would not have any very definite ideas were he suddenly presented with a large duchy, a bride still in the nursery, and attendant commitments to a dangerously involved political party. What did René d’Anjou know of duchies, of Anglo-Burgundians or of Armagnacs? He was probably more interested in playing with wooden soldiers. It was only when he reached adult age that he could seriously take a decision for himself. Having reached that age, he decided that his real interests and those of France lay vested in Jeanne and her crowned King. The English usurpers must be driven at all costs beyond the shores of France, despite the Treaty of Troy, despite personal family commitments. Thus did René d’Anjou decide finally, and thus, finally, did he join Jeanne and Charles VII some five or six months after she had made that vain appeal to his father-in-law at Nancy, for he was a young man of independent decisions; a remarkable young man, familiarly known to history as le bon roi René.
7. VAUCOULEURS TO CHINON
I
It would appear that Jeanne returned to Vaucouleurs from Nancy on February the 12th, sought out Baudricourt again, and startled him with the information that the Dauphin’s arms had that day suffered a great reverse near Orleans, and would suffer still others if she were not soon sent to him.fn1 Mr Andrew Lang suggests, with some plausibility, that this may have been the occasion which prompted him to take the curé to see her at the Le Royers’ house. For, indeed, when the news of the battle of Rouvray reached Vaucouleurs, several days later, and Jeanne’s declaration was astonishingly found to be correct, he must in all seriousness have begun to wonder whether the girl was a witch or not. That she had second-sight could no longer be denied, and second-sight, in Baudricourt’s belief, could proceed only from God or the Devil. If from the Devil, then she was a witch and would betray herself to the man of God. But if not …?
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