She did not betray herself to the man of God, and Baudricourt sent her off to Chinon on February 23rd.
II
A messenger from the Dauphin was in Vaucouleurs at the moment, and was detailed to accompany her on her journey. It is permissible to suppose that this man, named Colet de Vienne, was quite possibly the bearer of the Dauphin’s reply to Baudricourt’s letter, authorising him to send his young visionary to the Court. Colet de Vienne was not to be her only escort. Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy were also to go with her, their servants Julian and Jean de Honnecourt, and a dim figure of whom we know only the name, Richard the Archer. Before they could set out, it was necessary to equip their charge. Baudricourt seems to have thought he had done enough, for De Metz and Poulengy bore most of the expense out of their own pockets,fn2 assisted by Lassois and by some citizens of Vaucouleurs, notably Jeanne’s host Le Royer and a man named Jacques Alain who had been her companion on the expedition to Nancy. Poulengy leaves a brief description of what they provided in the way of apparel: a man’s tunic, spurs, a sword, and boots,fn3 but for greater detail we are indebted to that other eye-witness who has already been quoted (Chapter 1, here), the greffier of the Hôtel de Ville of La Rochelle – he who gives us a picture of Jeanne with her short black hair, arriving at Chinon dressed in her black tunic. They also provided her with a horse, which cost them sixteen francs. It is not very clear what happened to the horse already presented to her by the Duke of Lorraine. Perhaps, as M Simeon Luce suggests, her supporters did not think it fitting that the maid of Domremy should ride to the Court of the Dauphin on a mount provided by the liberality of an Anglo-Burgundian leader. Perhaps, also, it was not a very good horse. Jeanne, in spite of her protestations to Saint Michael about her inability to ride, was rather particular as to the quality of her horses: later on she rejected the haquenée of the Bishop of Senlis, as being not good enough for her purposes, and said the bishop might have the horse back if he wanted it – a rejection which got her into considerable trouble at her trial before the Ecclestiastical and Inquisitorial Court of Rouen.fn4 Anyway, the Duke of Lorraine’s present disappears very quickly from Jeanne’s history and is replaced by the gift of the citizens of Vaucouleurs. Robert de Baudricourt solemnly recommended her to the care of her escort, gave her a sword, and bade her farewell. ‘Va!’ he said to her. ‘Va, et advienne que pourra.’fn5
Durand Lassois, her first convert, was left behind to resume his dull life at Burey-le-Petit – the dull life which Jeanne briefly, brilliantly, had on two occasions disturbed. How often he must have wondered what was happening to the young cousin who called him uncle because he was sixteen years her senior; who had dragged him before the governor of Vaucoulcurs, only to get snubbed and ridiculed for his pains; who had returned six months later to the charge; obliged him to arrange for her to stay with his friends into whose humble household she attracted so terrifying a visitant as a priest bent on exorcism; borrowed his clothes; dragged him to the ducal Court at Nancy; made him take care of her money; and finally departed, equipped as a man, on that mad mission of whose success she seemed so firmly convinced. Jeanne went to Chinon. Durand Lassois remained at Burey. Perhaps his cousin from Domrcmy had upset his life more than he had bargained for. Perhaps he felt some natural relief at being allowed to resume his ordinary life. Nevertheless some curiosity drew him once more into her orbit, for the next time he saw her she was in full armour, holding her standard in the cathedral of Reirns, beside the King.
III
They rode out from Vaucouleurs through the Porte de France, late in the afternoon of Wednesday, February 23rd, 1429, on their journey of three hundred and fifty miles across France. Catherine le Royer saw them off, and it may be presumed that an interested concourse of other people were also present. They set forth in no very favourable conditions. The rains that winter had been exceptionally heavy, and the rivers were overflowing their banks. The Duke of Bar himself had had to forgo the fish for his table, by reason of the floods.fn6 It is thought that for greater safety they muffled their horses’ hooves,fn7 and it is known that they sometimes travelled by night. Poulengy, riding beside Jeanne, asked her whether she would indeed accomplish what she had promised, and she always answered in the same way: that they should be without fear; that she had orders to do what she was doing; that her brothers in Paradise advised her as to what she was to do; and that four or five of her brothers in Paradise, and God Himself, had already told her that she must go to war in order to recover the kingdom.fn8 They were evidently nervous – and, indeed, who can blame them? for it was no light responsibility they had undertaken, to conduct a heaven-sent virgin across a country infested by warring bands – and all at their own expense, too – but Jeanne’s unwavering replies encouraged and heartened them. She never found it difficult to restore the confidence of her own men. Sometimes, in a more light-hearted mood, they teased her. Perhaps they were less teasing than testing her. They would pretend to be on the English side. They would pretend to run away, as though they feared an attack. None of these jokes in poor taste affected Jeanne. Whether she took them seriously or not, she exhibited no alarm, merely remarking, ‘Do not run away. By God’s name, they will do you no harm.’fn9 In other ways, however, she worried them with suggestions to which their practical, masculine experience could not always accede. She was quite willing to travel by day or by night, as they judged best; she gave them no trouble as to her health, her endurance proving equal to theirs – unexpectedly in a woman; but she did bother them considerably by her constant desire to hear Mass. ‘If only we could hear Mass,’ she said to them, ‘all would be well.’ But they were afraid she might be recognised, and only on two occasions during the eleven days of the journey did they feel justified in allowing her to gratify her wish.
This fear of theirs, that she should be recognised, is suggestive. It can only mean that her reputation was already widely spread. We can take it only as indicative of the fact that she was already being talked about, and that the news of her progress through France was known.fn10 Yet she had, so far, accomplished nothing very dramatic. She had merely succeeded in gaining the attention of the governor of Vaucouleurs and the confidence of two of his captains. She had gained the attention of the governor of Vaucouleurs to the extent of allowing her to proceed to Chinon. She had gained the confidence of his two captains to such an extent that they proved themselves not only ready to accept all risks, but also to bear the expenses of the journey out of their private pockets; a gesture which, as all those who intimately know the French will appreciate, represents a very definite tribute. It is true that they recovered their expenses later on from the Dauphin’s treasury, but they could not have counted on that reimbursement with any certain reliance when they set out. So far, she had accomplished nothing, save by the sheer pressure of her own personality. She had not yet, miraculously, recognised the Dauphin. She had not yet relieved Orleans. She had not yet recovered the kingdom of France. She had only affirmed her confidence in her powers to do so. Those few men believed in her; and it seems likely that other people had heard of her, and that her tiny, credulous escort, aware of the curiosity she was arousing, took especial precautions to safeguard her. Jean de Metz was regarded as the leader of the little troop; he believed absolutely in Jeanne, whose words inspired him with a love of God equivalent to her own; he believed her to be sent by God, for she never swore, liked going to church, was in the habit of making the sign of the cross when taking an oath, and frequently took his money in order to give it away in charity.fn11 Poulengy felt much the same, adding, though he little knew the prophetic nature of his words, that she was as good as were she a saint.
Their respect for her virtue was as profound as their conviction of her heavenly mission. Men in the prime of life – soldiers; rough-livers – they were travelling in the company of a solitary woman, a healthy girl; opportunity was theirs, over and over again, yet no idea of taking advantage of her unprotected condition ever seems to have entered their
heads. When they were not travelling by night, she slept beside them. Yet Jean de Metz could say of her that ‘each night during the journey, Bertrand, myself, and la Pucelle, we lay side by side, la Pucelle next to me, with her upper and nether garments closely shut; I felt such respect for her that I would never have dared to make her an unseemly proposal, and I declare under oath that I never felt an evil desire towards her, nor was aware of any sensual thought.’fn12 And Poulengy, in corroboration, says: ‘Each night Jeanne lay with us, I mean with Jean de Metz and with me who am making this statement.… I was young then, nevertheless I felt no desire for women nor stirring of the flesh (attamen non habebat voluntatem, nec aliquem motum carnalem cognoscendi mulierem); and I would never have dared to make her an evil proposal, by reason of the virtue I divined in her.’fn13
It is difficult to make any comment. One may take it either way. Either it means that Jeanne was unusually devoid of any sexual attraction – which, given her robust youth and the equally robust youth and presumable lack of fastidiousness of her companions, seems inadmissible as an explanation – or else it means that, on closer acquaintance, they really sensed some special quality in her which, for that exceptional moment, exalted their character above its natural plane. All evidence, not concerning only Jean de Metz and Poulengy, points overwhelmingly to the second interpretation.
Michelet observed, with unconsciously humourless patriotism, that neither an English nor a German girl would have taken the risk: the indelicacy of such a proceeding, he says, would have horrified her – a point of view which tallies perfectly with the French theory that the word ‘shocking’ plays a preponderant part in the vocabulary of the English, but nevertheless a point of view which one would scarcely expect to find adopted by a serious though too flamboyant, sentimental, and inaccurate historian.fn14
IV
Jeanne, then, still virgo intacta, proved herself right: they arrived without hindrance at Chinon. She had been right in saying that, although she must pass through a country full of enemies on every road, she could not fear them, since the way lay open before and God her Lord would see to it, she having been born, as she claimed, for that purpose.fn15 It seems strange that the little band of six men and a woman should nowhere have been attacked. Travellers were liable to be attacked, if only for the advantage of highway robbery; but in this case there would have been, from the Anglo-Burgundian point of view, an additional reason for interfering with a small packet of people bent on coming to the succour of the Dauphin. Yet they got through without any trouble. The first stage of their journey has been worked out in detail by a gentleman who owned a château on the route they presumably followed, and who wished he might claim, but prudently refrained from claiming, that the little party paused for shelter within his walls of Echènay.fn16 It seems strange that the, that they paused nowhere during that first night, but pressed forward as quickly as they could over the hilly miles that lay between Vaucouleurs and their first stopping-place, St Urbain. The roads were dangerous, the enemy abounded, the season was unfavourable, the rivers were in flood, and the moon was on the wane. There was no time to stop, if they wanted to reach St Urbain before the break of day. They knew they would be well-advised to avoid the sinister and windy forest known as La Saulxnoire. At St Urbain they were certain of a hospitable welcome from the Abbot Amould d’Aulnoy, himself a kinsman of Robert de Baudricourt. The abbey of St Urbain constituted in itself a kind of sanctuary, having been recognised by the lords of Joinville as a refuge for ill-doers so far back as 1132, so that Jeanne and her little escort, under threat of pursuit, might have remained there indefinitely in case of need. Small wonder that Jean de Metz and Poulengy, who knew well the whole of that countryside from the frequent campaigns that they had followed backwards and forwards across it, had fixed on the hospitable monastery as their first destination and were anxious to reach it without delay. They reached it at dawn, and rode in under the pointed archway which is still standing, and which today leads into a farm-like courtyard with ducks and hens scuttling away at the approach of the stranger. For, today, St Urbain is a lost little village, rather hard to find among all the lanes and by-ways of that remote part of France. The big church and the remains of the monastery, including a surprisingly inaccurate plaque on the front of the church, are all that are left to remind us of the first pause of those travellers, as dawn was breaking on February 24th, 1429.
After this, we lose any detailed track of them, but know only that they travelled on to Auxerre, where they heard Mass in the great cathedral with its magnificently jewelled windows. Then, having made their way safetly to Gien, they came for the first time into territory owing allegiance to the French cause. From now onwards, their anxiety arose no longer from the hostility of Anglo-Burgundians, but only from the ordinary dangers of marauders who might fall upon them unawares, rob them, ill-treat them, and even hold them to ransom. And, oddly enough, according to Anatole France, although they might not consider themselves to have entered friendly country, it was in this very region that Jeanne had her narrowest escape. The underpaid, sometimes unpaid, soldiers of the Dauphin had less regard for the political convictions of their victims than for the possibility of extorting money. Here, they argued, comes a miraculous virgin who has been sent for by the Dauphin; if we throw her into a ditch, and leave her there with a huge stone to keep her down, the Dauphin will pay a large sum for her release. I fear that this is but one of M France’s outrageously embellished inventions. There is certainly a story that some soldiers had posted themselves in ambush on the road, with the intention of seizing and robbing her – not that she had anything to lose, except the two treasured rings which she wore on her fingers – and that when the moment arrived for putting their intention into execution they found themselves unable to move from the spot where they lay waiting.fn17 But I question whether this story is any more credible than M France’s interpretation of it.
What is sure and certain is that, after Gien, they went to Fierbois, a little village lying half-way between Loches and Chinon. Fierbois was to play a very important part in Jeanne’s history; in the meantime, as a shrine of Saint Catherine, it was probably the most significant place to her on the whole route. There she was able to worship before the statue of Saint Catherine,fn18 which, as anybody who chooses to visit both the hermitage of Bermont and the church of Fierbois can see for himself, bears a curious resemblance to the statue of Our Lady at Bermont. There she was able to hear Mass three times in one day. There she also dictated a letter to the Dauphin, informing him that she had travelled a hundred and fifty leagues to come to his help, that she knew a great many things for his good, and that she would be able to recognise him amongst many others.fn19
They were now quite near to the end of their journey. They arrived at Chinon, in fact, on Sunday, March 6th, 1429. It was the fourth Sunday of Lent, the Sunday called Lutare, the very Sunday on which the children of Domremy had been in the habit of taking their picnics out to the miraculous fountain, a habit which later led Jeanne into such dangerous trouble.
V
The castle of Chinon stands magnificently rounded and embattled above the grey roofs of the little eponymous town stretched narrowly along the banks of the wide, dark Vienne. A grey and massive pile, it overlooks the river and the pleasant country beyond. More or less of a ruin today, with the wild snapdragon and yellow wallflower growing between the cracks of the stones, Jeanne saw it then in the full grandeur of its imposing bastions, deep fosses, and lordly towers, with formal gardens laid out inside the enceinte, the towers at their full unruined height, commanding broad views over the woods and vineyards of Touraine. It is not surprising that the indolent Dauphin should have preferred the life of Court and castle to the nobler and more arduous life of camps and battlefields. As one of his historians remarks, ‘Vraisemblablement il aurait préféré d’être un particulier heureux.’fn20 The eleventh child and fifth son of his mother, though perhaps not of his father, it did not seem as though destiny had ever inte
nded him for any higher or more responsible station than that of a younger prince, holding his little Court in some delectable comer of a brother’s kingdom. The care and luxury lavished on him in his very early days were only too prophetic of the tastes which were to develop in his adult years. Known as the comte de Ponthieu, he had three cradles and three screens to shelter him from the draught. The windows of his nursery were padded with felt as well, to stop any cold air entering from the outside. He was further provided with a harp, délivré aux gens de Monseigneur de Ponthieu pour en jouer devant ledit seigneur: and also with un petit chaudron de laiton, pour faire jouer et esbattre ledit seigneur, lequel estoit mal disposé.fn21 Now if Monseigneur de Ponthieu had been allowed to remain Monseigneur de Ponthieu all his days, or possibly even Duke of Touraine, as he at one moment became, he might have lived happy in the enjoyment of such secondary titles, with all their advantages and none of their responsibilities. Cradles, screens, amusements, were really all that he wanted. Unfortwiately, fate turned him into Charles VII of France, and, as Charles VII of France, his character emerges with so little honour from his association with Jeanne d’Arc that one can scarcely restrain a smile of amusement at the ironical contrast between such protagonists as the weak, knock-kneed, pious little man and the avenging virgin descending on him from the confines of his kingdom, bent not only upon forcing him to do all kinds of things he had no inclination whatsoever to do, but convinced, in a way which allowed of no open contradiction, of his ardent, iflatent, willingness to do them. It would be interesting to know what Jeanne really thought of Charles; it would be equally interesting to know what Charles really thought of Jeanne. Out-wardly she never expressed anything but the utmost loyalty and respectful affection. To her, he was, of course, the Appointed of God, who, as such, must remain above criticism, although she might pester him to any extent into the reluctant performance of his duty. I think we may discern, however, the slightest shade of difference between the manner she addressed Charles and the manner she addressed, say, the Duke of Alençon. Charles was always her gentil Dauphin (though it is true that she occasionally called him the oriflamme, a title more heraldic than appropriate), Alençon always mon beau duc. Is there an inflection of tender patronage in the one, and of appreciation for a gallant gentleman in the other – an inflection sufficient to set us wondering whether there were not moments when she privately shook her fists in exasperation and disheartenment at Charles’ laggard ways, much as a more feminine woman might sigh over the inertia of an adored but lamentable lover; Jeanne fanatically inspired, Charles secretly desiring only to be left in peace; Jeanne determined to save France and believing herself to be celestially appointed to do so, Charles not caring much about France so long as he might retain a few agreeable provinces and palaces in which to lead a life of pleasure and retirement? He must have found it exceedingly troublesome to be metaphorically picked up and shaken until his big knees knocked together and his courage rattled like the teeth in his head. With half his mind he could not help being impressed, the more especially as he was a good Catholic, not evil at all, but just feebly amiable; with the other half of his mind he can scarcely have failed to regard Jeanne as a truly redoubtable nuisance. Tepid people always do regard passionate people as nuisances. Evasive people always do regard dynamic people who tell them to do what they know they ought to do, but do not want to do, as nuisances: the righter and more inescapable the nuisance, the greater. And Jeanne was as certainly right as she was inescapable. She found her way into his presence, recognised him when he tried to play a buffoon’s trick on her, and, having once caught him, refused to let him go.
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