The register of warlike engines, both large and small, is sufficiently impressive, and the smallness of their execution correspondingly surprising. Our modern ideas of warfare must, in fact, be looked at through the wrong end of the telescope before we can get things into their proper proportion. This applies to the casualties as well as to the general effective. It seems strange that large lumps of stone hurtling through the air, massive enough to knock a breach through a solid wall, not to speak of showers of bolts and arrows, should have done as little damage as they did, even allowing for the armour or mail or leather which protected the combatants. Yet the chroniclers are frequently at pains to record such insignificant losses as un seigneur d’Angleterre, or a woman killed by mistake, or an English soldier who had tumbled into a well, where he was despatched by the French; this on a day of grosse escarmouche. Such statistics and details tend somewhat to diminish our respect for mediaeval battles and even for Jeanne’s achievement. Compared with modern warfare, heavy artillery, shells, barrage, gas, mines, tanks, and all the ingenious resources of progress and civilisation, the poor cumbersome contraptions of the fifteenth century – the huge wooden shields, scaling-ladders, faggots, culverins, bows and arrows, cross-bows – suggest a picture by Mr Heath Robinson rather than an engagement in which desperate men intended to fight to the death. Yet it must be remembered that the personal element was much more dominant for each man concerned. He was in no danger of being suddenly blown to bits by an unseen gun a couple of miles away. He could dodge the stone; if he was very quick, he could even dodge the arrow. The men who ordered his fate were not vague tiny figures sticking pins into a map at a distant GHQ. On the other hand he was quite likely to be tumbled backwards off a ladder by the fist of an enemy thrust against his face, and the men in the highest positions of command were equally likely to be fighting by his side, as sweaty, gasping, and exhausted as he. In such conditions, where half the battle was hand-to-hand, concentrated into a small space, the spirit and example of the leader counted for much. When we remember this, it becomes easier to understand the astonishing effect of Jeanne’s presence upon the French troops. Her position as a leader was a unique one. She was not a professional soldier; she was not really a soldier at all; she was not even a man. She was ignorant of war. She was a girl dressed up. But she believed, and had made others willing to believe, that she was the mouthpiece of God.
V
On Friday, April 29th, 1429, the news spread in Orleans that a force, led by the Pucelle of Domremy, was on its way to the reliefof the city, a piece of news which, as the chronicler remarks, comforted them greatly.
The army had, in fact, left Blois on the 27th, the priests going ahead intoning the Veni Creator Spiritus,fn7 the long train of horsemen, men-at-arms, waggons, and four hundred head of cattle stringing out along the road behind them. It was a great moment for Jeanne. She had got her forces at last – three to four thousand men following her. Jean de Metz and Poulengy were still with her; they were familiar companions; they had believed in her from the first – they had accompanied her on that precarious journey from Vaucouleurs to Chinon. On that journey, they had ridden on either side of her horse in the desire to escort and protect her; then, she was nothing but a girl dependent upon their chivalry; now, she was officially the envoy of the Dauphin, as well as the self-appointed envoy of the Lord. Her brothers had joined her too: Pierre and Jean, those same brothers who had been told by their father to drown their sister rather than allow her to ‘go with soldiers.’ Besides these, she had some of the most distinguished names of France in her company; she was riding in the midst of famous captains: the maréchal de Sainte-Sévère; the maréchal de Rais;fn8 Louis de Culen, Admiral of France; Ambroise de Loré, and the formidable Gascon, Etienne de Vignolles, known as La Hire.fn9
Although she was not actually in command of the army, as is frequently and erroneously supposed, but was merely under the escort of these men, she conducted herselffrom the first inher usual high-handed manner. She interfered with them, not on military but on personal grounds. First she made them all go to confession, and then decreed tltat all tlteir loose women should be left behind, two edicts which must have astonished tltem considerably, but which tltey nevertheless obeyed. She had them all under her control, tlte only woman now left riding witlt tltose tltousands of rough men, not even officially tlteir leader. La Hire, least tractable of soldiers, was forced to forgo his habit of violent swearing, tltough as a concession he was allowed to use Jeanne’s own two favourite exclamations: en nom Dieu and par mon martin! – which must, to him, have seemed very like a cup of milk to a man pining for strong drink. La Hire emerges out of the crowd as a definite personality. Whatever we know of him is all very much of a piece. His oaths and his prayers fit togetlter. He swore and he prayed. When he prayed, his prayer was almost in the nature of an oatlt, it was almost in the nature of a threat to God: ‘Sire, Dieu, je te prie defaire pour La Hire ce que La Hire ferait pour toi si tu étais capitaine et si La Hire était Dieu.’
Even his jokes have their personal flavour. It was he who nicknamed Aymert de Puiseux, a French page, Capdorat, partly because he was very brave and alert and partly because his hair was so golden.fn10 It was he, again, who made the bold and memorable answer to Charles VIL ‘Je pense,’ he said to the King, ‘que l’on ne sçauroit perdre son royaume plus gaiment,’ on one occasion when he had come to ask the King for some important decision, and had been put off by Charles consulting him as to the preparations for a fete.fn11 La Hire evidently had no patience with the frivolities of a Charles VII, when a Jeanne d’Arc was in the offing.
VI
They slept in the fields, the first night on the way from Blois. Jeanne, unaccustomed to the weight of the armour which she refused to remove, awoke bruised and weary.fn12 But they were drawing nearer to Orleans and the spirit counted for more than the body. The second night, that is, Thursday 28th, they encamped opposite the lle Saint Loup, little more than a mile beyond Orleans, on the south bank of the Loire. It was then that Jeanne discovered that she had been, as she thought, tricked. A great deal of ink has been spilt in trying to decide how far and how intentionally the captains had tricked her; for my own part I do not believe that they had intended to trick her at all.
This was the position (if the reader will refer to the map facing here, I think it will readily become clear):
Blois and Orleans both lie on the Loire with a distance of thirty-four miles between them. Orleans, however, lay entirely on the north bank; therefore in order to arrive there from Blois, the army had two alternative routes: the one on the north side, which would have allowed them to approach the city without having to cross the river; the other on the south side, which would entail the use of boats and bridges. On the face of it, it seems inexplicable that the captains should have chosen the south side, with the dangerous necessity of transporting a large force and all their supplies by a water-way involving slow sailing-boats or pontoon-bridges linking the opposite shores with the help of sandy islets. Still, choose it they did, and on her arrival Jeanne to her great disgust found herself with the river between herself and her enemies. There were reasons, of course, for a choice which otherwise seems so inexplicable, and those reasons may be very briefly stated by saying that the English positions were far stronger and more numerous on the north, west, and south sides than on the east, and that in the neighbourhood of the Ile Saint Loup, where the army was brought to a halt, the English positions were especially weak. What strikes us as odd is that they should not have explained their reasons quite simply to Jeanne when they saw her begirullng to lose her temper. Why, after all, should they have wanted to trick her, once having accepted her as their hope and their salvation? If she had really expected to be led through la Beauce (that is to say, on the north side), instead of through la Sologne (on the south), why should they not have trusted her with the reasons for their decision? Was it because they regarded her as a religious inspiration rather than as a military commander? She
held, after all, no official command. Was it because, haughtily but not unnaturally, these experienced captains saw no obligation to admit this totally inexperienced girl into their councils, although they were quite prepared to indulge her whims by going to confession on her demand and even by dismissing the disreputable women from their ranks? Was it because they regarded her as a sort of mascot rather than as a soldier like themselves? Was it merely because they already knew the danger of entering into argument with so intransigent a personality and thought the only chance of keeping her quiet was to keep her in the dark? Or was it that Jeanne herself had displayed no interest whatsoever in her route, being by now confident that she was being led straight towards Talbot and his English? Was it, finally, because they regarded themselves less as a relieving force than as an armed escort to the valuable provisions they were taking to the necessitous Orleans? They were, undeniably, so much encumbered that they could scarcely have risked a sudden swoop from the English on the road through la Beauce. The road through la Sologne, though less heroic, was much safer. I think any, or several, of these explanations may be true. But that they deliberately tricked her with malicious intent I find hard to believe.
Jeanne, however, was very angry indeed. It was pouring with rain; it was a stormy day; it was late; she was tired; her armour hurt her; and she was disappointed. She had expected to find herself under the very walls of Orleans, with nothing but the English between her and the accomplishment of her dream, instead of which these men whom she had trusted had landed her on the wrong side of a large river, with, so far as she could see, nothing but further delays and difficulties in her way. The Bastard of Orleans, hastily crossing the river in a small boat to greet her on her arrival – for he was as anxious to see her as were the people of Orleans – met with a very poor reception. Jeanne was no respecter of persons. It did not affect her in the least that the Bastard should be in command of the very city she had come to relieve; that his goodwill should be of such vital importance to her; that he should be of royal blood, the first cousin of her own Dauphin, the half-brother of her especial charge the captive Dulce of Orleans, and the half-uncle by marriage of her beloved Alençon; that he should already be the Bastard of Orleans, whereas she was not yet its Pucelle. Nor did she stop to reflect that it was very gracious of him to come in person to receive her. Her opening words to him were anything but gracious. He himself has left a report of them. ‘Jeanne spoke in the following terms: “Is it you who are the Bastard of Orleans?” “I am, and I rejoice in your arrival.” Then she said, “Is it you who advised them to bring me here by this bank of the river, instead of sending me straight to Talbot and his English?” I replied that I, and others wiser than myself, had given this advice, believing it to be the best and wisest. Then Jeanne spoke in these terms, “En nom Dieu! the counsel of Our Lord is wiser and better than yours. You thought to deceive me, but you have deceived yourselves, for I bring you the finest help that ever was brought to knight or to city, since it is the help of the King of Heaven.”’fn13
The Bastard must have been in great perplexity. The whole of Orleans was feverishly awaiting the Maid, and he could not afford to alienate her. Besides, he himself believed in her; was it not largely due to his efforts that she had arrived at Orleans at all? And, now that she had arrived, he confronted no soft saintly girl, but a stem and angry young captain with very definite ideas of her own. Luckily, as soon appears from subsequent events, he was possessed of a certain instinctive skill in managing her. He needed all the skill he possessed, for there were complications which Jeanne had not taken into consideration; which nobody, indeed, could have taken into consideration unless they had been familiar with the place, or furnished with excellent maps, or in close and constant touch with those upon the spot. Jeanne had enjoyed none of these advantages; it is far more probable that she had formed no practical idea of Orleans at all before arriving there, and had thought of it in her simple faith as a second Jericho whose walls would fall before the trumpet-blast of her Lord. She had made some such declaration at Poitiers, saying that the siege would be raised and the city liberated after she had made her demand in the name of God. The Bastard took a more practical view. He had formed a plan which in appearance was a sound and simple one. He had intended to borrow boats from the citizens and to sail them up-stream as far as Chécy, a village on the north bank about five miles distant from Orleans. The cattle and provisions were meanwhile to await the: arrival of the boats opposite Chécy, and were to be fetched by them on the following morning, when they were to be transported across the river and driven down towards Orleans, entering the town by the east gate or Porte de Bourgogne. This side of the town was the least strongly defended, as can readily be seen by a reference to the map facing here. The English held only one fort on that side, the Bastille de Saint Loup, and it had been calculated that the French garrison, issuing from the Porte de Bourgogne with the support of the citizens, would suffice to hold the garrison of Saint Loup in check while the train of cattle passed into the town. It reads almost from the Bastard’s account, as though he had no thought of attempting actually to relieve the town by force of arms until he had been able to revicmal it, a sensible and prudent course which, at best, could not have accorded at all with Jeanne’s ideas. Unfortunately for the Bastard, even this sensible and prudent course went wrong. It went wrong for two reasons.
For one thing, he and his fellow-commanders: were forced to the conclusion that the relieving force which had just arrived was wholly inadequate to oppose the English resistance. For another thing, and far more importantly, it proved impossible to take the boats up the river. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction. That was a factor beyond all human calculation or control.
They tried to explain this to Jeanne. She would only reply by telling them to wait a little, all would be well.fn14 And suddenly, inexplicably, the wind changed.
VII
In spite of have dramatic event, which enabled them to pass the English fort and up the river in safety, Jeanne’s difficulties were not yet at an end. True, her reputation had gone up at a bound, for her prophecy about the wind had very naturally impressed the Bastard and his friends, but there still remained the practical obstacle that the army was not considered sufficient to encounter the English in battle. Indeed, it seems unlikely that either the Bastard or the captains had ever regarded it otherwise than as a convoy for the cattle and the waggons. Having accomplished its mission, the Bastard wanted it to return to Blois. At the same time, he wanted Jeanne to stay behind and to accompany him into Orleans. Orleans was very anxious to see Jeanne. Now that the sails were filled with wind, he begged her to cross the Loire with him and the Grand-Prior of France, Nicolas de Giresme. This suggestion seems to have distressed her, and for the most unexpected reason. It was not that she resented the dismissal of her army; it was not that she feared that their disappearance would diminish her chance of relieving Orleans; no, she seems to have forgotten all about Orleans at the moment, and to have thought only of her own reluctance to separate herself from her troops, who were all confessed, repentant, and animated by good feelings. Really, what a strange character the Bastard must have thought her: Here she was within reach of Orleans at last; having worried Baudricourt, the Dauphin, and the Court of Poitiers into allowing her to go there; having spoken in and out of season of her divine mission to relieve the town; having even induced the elements to alter their arrangements in order to oblige her, and now she only wanted to go away again, all because she refused to be separated from an army which she had persuaded into a state of grace! What could the Bastard have made of such a girl? Certainly his opinion of her religious convictions may have grown, but he cannot have thought any better of her as a military authority. Curiously enough, the captains who had brought her all that way seemed equally reluctant to part with her; the Bastard had to beg and require of them that they should allow her to enter Orleans, while they themselves returned to Blois, crossed the river by the bridge there,fn15 and
made their way back to Orleans by the northern road. His diplomacy succeeded; he got the captains to add their persuasion to his – ‘Jeanne,’ they said, ‘go in surety, for we promise to return to you before long,’fn16 and Jeanne finally also relented, coming towards him with her standard in her hand.fn17 They crossed and spent the night at Chécy. It was his first experience of managing the saint, but not the last; a few days later she was telling him that she would have his head off if he did not do as she demanded.
A queer little experience seems to have befallen Jeanne at Chécy or at Reuilly near Chécy, the night before she entered Orleans. She spent the night, it appears,fn18 in the house of a certain Gui de Cailly, a local seigneur whose name would scarcely deserve to be rescued from oblivion, save that he has been mentioned as the only person who ever shared in the visions of Jeanne d’Arc. Some verisimilitude is given to the story by the fact that Charles VII ennobled this Gui de Cailly a few months later Qune 1429) in a document couched in the strangest language of fantasy and heraldry combined.
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