Jeanne entered Orleans on a white horse, in full armour, her standard borne before her. She rode at the Bastard’s right hand. They were followed by many knights, squires, captains, and soldiers, a crowd of citizens bringing up the rear. Other soldiers and citizens came to meet her, men, women, and children, carrying a great number of torches – for it was already eight o’clock in the evening – and rejoicing as though God had come amongst them. It seemed to them as though the siege were already raised; and such was the press rouncl her, as they triecl to touch her or her horse, that a torch set fire to her pennant. At this, Jeanne struck spurs into her horse, turning it with great skill and herself extinguishing the flame. Their admiration knew no bounds, and they escorted her with acclamation right across the city from east to west, from the Porte de Bourgogne to the Porte Regnart, where a lodging had been arranged for her in the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans.fn19
Once the door had shut behind her, she made them disarm her, and indeed she must have been longing for that moment, for, apart from the emotions she had undergone, it is related that she had spent the day without either eating or drinking. Supper had been prepared for her, but she accepted only a little wine in a silver cup, which she filled up with water ancl into which she dipped five or six sops of bread. After which she went to bed, where she had for company Charlotte, the daughter of the treasurer, a child of nine.fn20
One hopes that this much-honoured chilcl observed the rules that children were then taught to observe when sharing a bed: to keep to their own side, not to fidget, and to sleep with their mouths shut.fn21
VIII
It is tempting to pause at this point and to survey the position and frame of mind of the various parties concerned. Jeanne, the Bastard, the townsfolk of Orleans, and the English commanders, all held their different points of view as they went to their beds on that night of April 29th when the jubilation had died down and the torches had been extinguished. Jeanne, as we know, was tired, but at any rate she was in the place where she had most ardently desired to be. True, she had met with an irritating check on her arrival, but God had come to her rescue, and had sent a sign from Heaven at the most opportune moment. She could not help knowing that she was established in the minds of thousands as something inspired from above; as the true envoy of God. No personal vanity entered into this knowledge, for she had never doubted it herself; her only difficulty had lain in getting her fellow-countrymen to accept so manifest and undeniable a fact. Her own faith in her mission and in the support of her great Ally had never wavered for an instant; the change of wind had come to her as no surprise, but simply as a thing which was bound to happen, God being on her side. It was convenient, partly because it enabled the boats to get across, partly because it startled the Bastard and his companions and reinforced their belief; it was convenient certainly, but it was no more than might have been expected. God meant her to carry out His divine pleasure; God was omnipotent; God had change:d the wind.
With this childlike trust in her heart, she was almost equally confident that next day the English also would listen to the voice of God as represented by the letter she had so carefully brought with her. She would send that lecter to them, giving them every opportunity for a peaceful withdrawal before she set about chasing them away by force of arms. Some remnant of her native common sense suggested to her that possibly the English would not be quite so amenable as the wind to the voice of God; the wind was an element under the direct rule of God; the English were a reasoning people, endowed by God Himself with the quality of free will; they might refuse to turn and scamper; they might refuse to go away into their own country, as she was requesting them to do. In that eventuality she was ready to fight. But even her idea of fighting was closely mixed up with her religion. She had been extremely reluctant to allow her chastened and well-confessed army to depart towards Blois, and nothing but their assurance that they would soon return to her had induced her to let them out of her sight; as it was, she had sent her own confessor, Jean Paquerel, to accompany them. It was a sacrifice to let him go, for she depended on him greatly for Masses and frequent confession, but the needs of the army must come first. Perhaps it was some consolation to her as she lay in the dark in the unfamiliar room at Orleans, with the child’s small body discreetly stretched beside her, to reflect that the man of God would watch over those three thousand men whom she had persuaded into a state of grace, and who were even then retracing their steps along the road she had just travelled.
As for what she thought of the prospect of possible battle for herself, she already knew that she would suffer. She had predicted her wound to the Dauphin; she had predicted it to her confessor, Paquerel The prophecy is beyond doubt and seems to have been a matter of fairly common knowledge, for on the 12th of April,fn22 nearly a month before the event, a Flemish envoy living at Lyon wrote a letter home to Brussels describing in detail the occasion on which Jeanne knew she would be wounded. Prophecies thus recorded in advance cannot be disputed. They depend neither on hearsay, nor on falsified memory, nor on subsequent legend, but on the blunt testimony of the written, dated word. Legends sprouting like tropical growths quickly hung themselves in garlands round Jeanne’s neck, almost strangling her, and making it very difficult for her to distinguish between what she knew to be false and what she believed to be true. Lying in bed at Orleans on the night of April 29th, she knew some things for certain. She knew she would relieve the siege; she knew she would be hurt; she knew she would not die. She knew she would lead the Dauphin to Reims for the supreme ceremony of his coronation, a consummation overdue for seven years, since Charles VII had succeeded his father in 1422. She knew all these things, because her voices had told her about them, and her voices were not to be discounted or disbelieved. Lying in bed at Orleans that night, she must have reviewed these future things quite simply as things ordained and consequently inevitable. Probably the idea of being wounded in her physical body was no more alarming to her than the idea of the great responsibility of pushing a weak and reluctant Dauphin into an overwhelmingly historical cathedral. These things lay before her. She had been told about them by her voices. They were part of the future. To people like Jeanne, there is not very much difference between the future and the past. One thing melts into the other. The ordinary rules cease to apply.
The Bastard, a practical man for all his gallantry and charm, must have felt somewhat appalled if he lay awake in bed reviewing the events of the day. True, he was partly responsible for bringing Jeanne to Orleans, but, having brought her there, he must have realised within the space of a few hours that she was going to prove something of a handful. She had shown no respect for him, either as a semi-royal prince or as a commander. She had no respect for military strategy or obligations. She had horrified him both by her unorthodoxy and her obstinacy. To the assumptions of a man she had added the unreasonableness of a woman. Yet it could not be denied that the weather itself had obeyed her, and that the common people in their worship had almost allowed themselves to be trampled underfoot by her horse. She had exhibited all the signs of an inspired being, certainly, but what was she going to prove like as a companion in arms? How was she going to be managed as a military collaborator? One might be prepared to believe in the voice of God speaking, but there were also other considerations, such as the lives of men for whom one was responsible. There were also one’s colleagues, intemperate men who would not at all relish having their opinions overridden. I cannot believe that the Bastard went to sleep early that night.
The townsfolk of course were in a state of exaltation, produced partly by religious fervour and partly by mass-hysteria. Their deliverer was at last amongst them, and the end of their troubles in sight. Like sparks on stubble, the fire of enthusiasm had run across the crowd. They blazed; but with a blaze that could not be put out with blood. The fire kindled in Orleans that night was not to be extinguished during the week that followed, nor were the red embers of gratitude and veneration to cool for
many years.
The English within their fortifications alone remain inscrutable, undiscemible, and taciturn.
10. ORLEANS (2)
I
When they all awoke on the morning of Saturday, April 30th, the paramount question in everybody’s mind was, What was to happen next? We might well expect to find that Jeanne’s arrival would prove the signal for a renewed and desperate attempt on the part of the French to drive away their besiegers: after all, both the garrison and the citizens were whipped up into a readiness for any effort, and the Bastard might well have taken advantage of their inspired excitement to fling them in full force against the English forts. Quite on the contrary, the presence of the Pucelle produced a lull lasting for four days. There were several excellent reasons for this. In the first place, the Pucelle herself – who, to put it mildly, had to be reckoned with – was determined to deliver her summons to the English before embarking on hostilities.fn1 In the second place, the Bastard, having sent the army back to Blois, now began to feel anxious lest it should return to Orleans insufficiently reinforced. He had therefore come to the conclusion that he must ride to Blois in person to supervise this all-important matter; perhaps there was even a sneaking and quite justifiable fear at the back of his mind that the army might not, if he were not there to ensure it, return to Orleans at all. In any case, he very wisely hesitated to attack: no man in his senses would have gone to the supreme assault when a paltry delay of four days offered him a very good chance of obtaining reinforcements enough to tip the balance. La Hire and Florent d’Illiers were all for an immediate attack, but the wiser and more prudent Bastard put a brake on these Hotspurs. He had a very ticklish situation to deal with. Reading the various accounts, our sympathy goes out to the Bastard. Not only had he to deal with that inexplicable character, the girl-boy captain – La Pucelle – but he had to cope with such incidentally troubilesome people as the sieur de Gamaches. The sieur de Gamaches lost his temperover the high tone taken by the Pucelle, and, as the sieur de Gamaches was one of the Bastard’s recognised colleagues, the situation for the Bastard must have been extremely awkward. He was in the unenviable position of having to manage both the incalculable Pucelle and the calculable captains. The sieur de Gamaches took a perfectly understandable line. ‘Since you pay more heed,’ he said, ‘to the advice of a little saucebox (péronelle) of low birth than to a knight such as myself, I will no longer protest; when the time and the place come, my good sword will speak; I may meet my end in the doing, but the King and my honour demand it. Henceforth I lower my banner and am no longer anything more than a simple squire. I prefer to have a noble man as my master, rather than a hussy (fille) who may once have been God knows what.’ So saying, he furled his banner and handed it to the Bastard.fn2 The captains, however, intervening, succeeded in calming him down and in persuading him and Jeanne to kiss one another on the cheek, which they both did with extreme reluctance.
It must have been very difficult for the Bastard to decide where he was most urgently needed, whether in Orleans to keep Jeanne in order or at Blois to encourage the army. Moreover, Jeanne was as disinclined to let him go as she had been disinclined to let her purified army disappear. The day of April 30th seems to have been spent largely in arguments between the Pucelle and the Bastard, arguments in which the Bastard’s tact again prevailed, for we find him leaving for Blois on the following day. No account has come down to us of their discussions; we can judge only by the result.
In the meantime, the day of April 30th had not been solely occupied by the two principal protagonists sitting together in conference. La Hire and Florent d’Illiers with other officers of the garrison, and some of the townsfolk, went out to worry the English, and succeeded in driving them back into the fort they called Paris (Saint Pouair) – an engagement typical of what had been taking place for weeks and months past. Whether this was done with Jeanne’s approval or not, we do not know. She took no part in it. She was probably talking to the Bastard while all this scrapping went on between the English fort and the city walls. The scrap threatened at one moment to develop into a serious affair, for they shouted loudly all through the city that everyone should bring straw and faggots to set fire to the English in their retreat; luckily for the English, they set up their war-cry of Hurrah! which had never failed to strike terror into the French, so neither faggot nor straw was brought, and the French retired under a salvo of cannon and culverins, after a skirmish in which several were killed, wounded, or made prisoner, both on one side and the other.fn3
There is no record of whether Jeanne knew what was going on while she was closeted with the Bastard. The moment had come when her ultimatum was to be delivered to Talbot. As I have already explained (Chapter 8, here), some confusion exists as to what had actually happened to the letter to the English which she had dictated at Poitiers on March 22nd. Was it already in Talbot’s hands when she arrived at Orleans, or was it not? We shall probably never know, nor shall we ever be able to disentangle satisfactorily the complex story of what happened to her various heralds. The only thing which seems certain is that on April 30th she did summon the English to depart in peace if they wished to avoid the grans doumaiges she would bring upon them in battle. The Bastard himself depones to this: ‘She wanted to summon the English to retire, before forcing them to raise the siège or going so far as to attack them. This, in effect, is what she did. She summoned them by means of a letter written in the maternal idiom, in very plain terms, informing them in substance that they should give up the siège and withdraw to England, otherwise she would deliver such an assault upon them that they would be constrained to depart. The letter was given to Talbot.’fn4
That statement is clear and unequivocal; moreover, it tallies perfectly with the terms of the letter dictated at Poitiers. I think we may accept the Bastard’s evidence in preference to that of the Journal du siège, which relates that she merely sent two heralds demanding the return of the herald she had sent with the letter from Blois, supported by a message from the Bastard that, failing the herald’s safe return, he would put to death all those English whom he held as prisoners in Orleans. This would give a total of three heralds, whereas only two seem to have been concerned: Ambleville and Guienne, both of whom were sent out from Orleans with the letter on April 30th. Guienne was detained, thrown into irons, and a stake prepared to bum him. Ambleville, who was allowed to return, charged with rude messages to the effect that Jeanne had better go home and mind the cows, otherwise she would be caught and burnt, did not at all relish his mission when Jeanne told him to go back again and rescue his companion,fn5 for the English captains had read Jeanne’s letter with surprise and rage, calling her by every uncomplimentary name they could think of, notably ribaude and vachère, though we may well believe that their vocabulary was not limited to that.fn6 Fortunately for her poor envoy, Guienne, they did, however, hesitate before putting their threat of burning him into practice. They knew that that was not the way to treat a herald and despatched a messenger to the University of Paris, asking for authorisation. The delay saved his life, for before the answer could be received the English were in flight, leaving the waiting stake and the fettered Guienne to be rescued by the French as they poured victoriously into the abandoned fort.fn7
Still, Jeanne, although much annoyed (fort yrée), was not satisfied that she had done her utmost to avoid hostilities if she possibly could. So that evening she went in person on to the bridge, and from there shouted to Sir William Glasdale, the commander of the English fort called les Tourelles (see map, here), that in God’s name he should give himself and his companions up, and save their lives. The English shouted back. ‘Cowgirl!’ they called her, as before; shouting loudly that they would burn her if they could catch her. On this occasion she was not annoyed at all; she simply replied that they were liars, and, having said that, withdrew into the city.fn8
It seems extraordinary that, in spite of all their threats of catching her, the English made no attempt whatsoever to do so. T
hey had allowed her to enter Orleans unopposed. They allowed her to come right on to the bridge and shout at them across the river. It is true that when she went on to the bridge she had the protection of a French fort behind her and that a gap in the bridge separated her from the Tourelles, but all the same it seems inexplicable that they should have contented themselves with a flight of insults instead of a flight of arrows. Was it because, in their English arrogance and stupidity, they did not take her seriously? She was good enough to bum, but not good enough to bother much about. They made a mistake. Although in the end they caught and burnt her, they had by then paid dearly for their procrastination.
Their conduct during the three following days continues to be equally inexplicable. Not only did they allow the Bastard, accompanied by Jean d’Aulon, to set out for Blois on his recruiting mission (May 1st), but they allowed Jeanne and La Hire, with some troops, to ride out a certain distance with them to cover and protect their departure.fn9 Why the English did not attack the Bastard and the Pucelle on that occasion, passes my comprehension. They might have caught them both, and what a prize that would have been! Still further does it pass my comprehension to understand why they refrained from delivering a decisive assault on Orleans during the three succeeding days. They must have known that the Bastard was away. They must have known, if they had spies worth the name, that he had gone to Blois for the express purpose of fetching as large an army as he could possibly raise, with which he intended to return as quickly as possible. What an opportunity was theirs, had they only chosen to take it! Orleans, deprived of its commander, lay practically at their mercy. The Bastard, indeed, must have felt some qualms on leaving the problematical Pucelle and the reckless La Hire in virtual control of his carefully guarded city; still, it seemed more urgent to him to take the risk and to go and throw his weight in at Blois. He made his financial arrangements before taking his departure, signing a receipt for six hundred livres tournois that he had borrowed from the citizens to pay the wages of the garrison during his absence.
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