Saint Joan of Arc

by Vita Sackville-West

  Jeanne, of course, wept at once for the soul of Glasdale and his companions. The French, in the midst of their triumph, found time to regret the loss of the richest ransoms. Still, they could not deny that the enemy was beaten, the siège raised, and the impregnable Tourelles in flames. Neither could they deny that Jeanne’s prophecy, made that morning, that they would return at nightfall into the city ‘across the bridge,’ had been nobly fulfilled. While the Tourelles flamed, reddening the waters of the Loire, all the bells of Orleans rang out, and priests and people united in singing the Te Deum laudamus, giving thanks to God, to Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, to their valiant defenders, and, more especially and above all, to Jeanne la Pucelle.fn49

  X

  The shouting dies away; the flames die down; night falls; the quiet aftermath succeeds the strenuous and noisy day. A tiny picture of Jeanne remains to complete the story. ‘She was taken back to her lodging, to have her wound dressed. The dressing over, she refreshed herself with four or five slices of bread dipped in wine mixed with a great deal of water: it was all that she had eaten or drunk during the whole day.’fn50

  As for Sir William Glasdale, called Classidas, his body was fished up, cut into pieces, boiled, and embalmed; his remains lay for a week in a chapel, with four candles burning day and night, and then were transported to his own country for burial.fn51

  Some other little echoes of that famous encounter come down to us. They are to be found in the account-books of the city of Orleans for the year 1429. Here are five of them:

  ‘Paid: forty sous for a heavy piece of wood obtained from Jean Bazin when the Tourelles were won from the English, to put across one of the broken arches of the bridge.’

  ‘To Jean Poitevin, a fisherman, eight sous for having beached a chaland which was put under the bridge of the Tourelles to fire them when they should be taken.’

  ‘To Boudon, nine sous for two S-shaped irons weighing four pounds and a half, attached to the chaland which was kindled under the bridge of the Tourelles.’

  ‘Lard and resin bought to grease the Bags for the firing of the Tourelles.’

  ‘Given to Champeaux and other carpenters, sixteen sous to go and drink on the day the Tourelles were won.’fn52

  11. REIMS

  I

  Champeaux and the other carpenters may have enjoyed their drink, but the Duke of Bedford, reviewing the position, was far less happy. He expounded his views presently in a letter to those at home: ‘There fell, by the hand of God, as it seemeth, a great stroke upon your people that was assembled there [at Orleans] in great number, caused in great part, as I trow, of lack of sad belief and unlawful doubt that they had of a disciple and limb of the Fiend, called the Pucelle, that used false enchantments and sorcery. The which stroke and discomfiture not only lessened in great part the number of your people there, but as well withdrew the courage from the remnant in marvellous wise.…’fn1

  The Duke of Bedford states the position dramatically, but dramatic events were in the air. Explain it as we may, the English appear to have been completely disconcerted, disorganised, and at fault. We have already seen how, inexplicably, they failed to attack Jeanne at her first entry into Orleans, and, subsequently, how they again failed to attack her or the French army coming to her support. The whole attitude of the English throughout is so odd and laggard as to be unexplainable save on supernatural grounds which we, in the light of our twentieth-century knowledge – or should we say in the darkness of our twentieth-century ignorance? – find difficult to accept. Bedford perhaps was wiser, except in so far as he attributed Jeanne’s powers to the Fiend rather than to Jeanne’s own King of Heaven. It was a superstitious age, and conclusions depended very much on whether one’s commands proceeded from God or from the Devil. Jeanne thought her commands proceeded from God; the Duke of Bedford thought they proceeded from the Devil. Bedford and the English were, in their different ways, as credulous as Jeanne. The net result was that Bedford, for good or evil, laid stress upon her other-worldly inspiration. In his letter he testifies to it, and Bedford was not by nature an emotional man. He was not the sort of man who would emotionally testify to the influence of a country girl, uuless that country-girl had proved herself capable of exercising a very definite and practical influence over the behaviour of her own troops and over the effect of those troops on the war-hardened English who had terrorised France for nearly a century, and who, more immediately, had held Orleans in a state of siege for half a year. Bedford himself could not deny that Jeanne had turned the English out of Orleans in the space of thirteen hours. Nor could he explain the sudden discomfiture of his English troops, save by ascribing it to some super-natural power on the part of ‘that disciple and limb of the Fiend, that used false enchantments and sorcery.’ Bedford could conveniently, and perhaps genuinely, overlook the fact that the English spirit was no longer at all the same thing as it had been under the gay and dashing leadership of Henry V, and that Jeanne’s arrival on the scene was, for the French, most fortunately opportune.

  In spite of Bedford, the disciple and limb of the Fiend proceeded on her victorious career. She had inspired her followers to capture the fort of the Tourelles on May the seventh; on May the eighth the remaining English offered battle, but she declined it, preferring to let the enemy retire upon Meung. The story, like most stories about Jeanne, is an odd one, and shows her in her most Quixotic, least vindictive, light. Early, at dawn in fact, the English issued from their tents, and ranged themselves in order of battle. Jeanne, awakened to hear this news, arose from her bed, and, arrayed only in a coat of mail (jasseran), by reason of the wound she had received the previous day, forbade any attack to be made on them, so that they tnight be allowed to retire without pursuit.fn2 Nevertheless, she went out of the city with her usual escort of captains, La Hire, Sainte-Sévère, Gilles de Rais, Poton de Saintrailles, Florent d’Illiers, and others, and the French and English forces drew up and looked at each other for an hour without coming to blows.fn3 It must have been an odd confrontation of the two armies. The French were obviously and wisely longing to follow up their victory of the previous day.

  Jeanne forbade it. She held back the whole army, as a trainer holds back a pack of eager dogs. It was Sunday, a day on which one might not fight – unless, indeed, one was attacked, in which case it might be permissible to defend oneself. Here, again, Jeanne’s mixture of religion and common sense comes into play: on a Sunday one should not be the aggressor, but, in the event of an attack, one might be allowed to defend oneself. Her colleagues could scarcely understand this point of view, although they obeyed it: Les Francois souffryrent très envis, obtempérans au vouloir de la Pucelle, qui leur commanda et deffendit dès le commancement que pour l’amour et honneur du sainct dimanche ne commanchassent point la bataille n’assaillissent les Angloys, mais se les Angloys les assailloyent, qu’ils se deffendissent fort et hardiment et qu’ilz n’eussent nulle paour.fn4

  The Chronique de la Pucelle gives an exact account of how she proceeded. Sending for a portable altar, composed of a table and a block of marble, she caused two Masses to be said in the open field, with the whole army for congregation. This ceremony over, she told them to look and see whether the English were turning their faces or their backs. On hearing that they were turning their backs, she said, ‘Let them go, it is not the Lord’s pleasure that we should fight them today; you will get them another time.’fn5

  So Jeanne reined in the vindictive French by the sheer force of her personality – a real tribute, I think, to her personal influence, but also a great error, since she could easily have fallen then upon the dis-heartened English and wiped them out instead of letting them retire safely upon Meung. Jeanne, here, made as great a blunder as the English had made in allowing her to enter Orleans without opposition. They had both missed their chance – the English for a reason which can never be explained; Jeanne for a reason entirely due to her regard for Sunday. She has been frequently represented as a great military commander, but such epis
odes as her having allowed the English army to retreat after the defeat at Orleans must be reckoned among the mistakes she made. The fact that the day was Sunday was more important to her than the fact that she then held the English in her power. Because of the Sabbath, she allowed them to escape. One can only draw the conclusion that, on this occasion at least, she was no great commander, but an inspired sentimentalist.

  The French, more practical than she, pursued the English in their retreat, and took from them a number of cannon and other instruments of war.fn6

  II

  Sentimentalist or not, Jeanne chased the Dauphin with more determination than she had shown towards the half-beaten enemy. On leaving Orleans, she tracked that reluctant and unhappy man down to Tours. She was determined at all costs to get him crowned at Reims. The coronation at Reims was, to her, more urgent than even the reduction of Paris. He should no longer be the Dauphin, but the King. She had achieved wonders on his behalf: she had cleared the English out of Orleans. He ought to be grateful to her. In spite of all the delays and tests he had imposed upon her, leaving her little more than a week to accomplish her first task, she had already made good the first part of her promise. She had delivered Orleans without any trouble to Charles himself. He had merely sat back in his comfortable seat at Chinon, while Jeanne went to do the necessary work. Now having done the work, having got herself wounded, having inspired the citizens of his own town of Orleans, having rid that important city of its protracted siege, having turned herself into the popular heroine of France, she was coming back to ask him to go and get himselfcrowned at Reims.

  He received her graciously enough, meeting her as, standard in hand, she rode into Tours (May 10th, 1429). She bowed low to him, but he told her to sit erect, and the onlookers thought he was on the point of kissing her, so great was his delight.fn7 He was generous enough also to pay her a special tribute in a letter which he addressed to the citizens of Narbonne, apprising them of the recent events at Orleans.fn8 But letters were easy to dictate, and these acknowledgements, however public and official, were not at all the same thing as putting himself out to the extent of hurrying off in person to Reims.

  Jeanne, however, was importunate. She consented to go with him to his castle at Loches, but, having accompanied him there, she would not leave him in peace. She came to knock on the door of his private apartment, where he had retired with his confessor, Christopher d’Harcourt, Bishop of Castres, and the seigneur de Trèves, and, kneeling before him, clasping him round the knees, she addressed him once more as her gentil Dauphin. ‘Centil Dauphin, do not hold such long and wordy councils, but come to your coronation at Reims. I am most eager that you should go there.’fn9 Neither the Dauphin nor his counsellors seem to have known what to make of this request. One would imagine that the course proposed by Jeanne was the obvious course to adopt, since a victory not followed up is only half a victory, yet they hesitated. Some of them were of the opinion that the English should first be driven out of Normandy. Others were of the opinion that all the principal towns along the Loire should first be brought into subjection. Others, again, the Dauphin amongst them, were of the opinion that Jeanne should be asked to say what her voices had told her, yet they hesitated to put the question, for fear of annoying her. She herself guessed what was in their minds, and, coming forward of her own accord, addressed the Dauphin: ‘En nom de Dieu, I know what you are thinking and what you would like to know about the voice I have heard, as concerns your coronation, and I will tell you that I entered into prayer after my usual manner. When I complained that no one would believe what I said, the voice replied, “Fille de Dieu, va, va, va: je seray en ton aide, va.”’fn10

  Eventually they arrived at a compromise. Charles would consent to go to Reims, but the Loire towns should be taken on the way. The army under the command of the Bastard, Poton de Saintrailles, and the maréchal de Sainte-Sévère had already been engaged on an unsuccessful attack upon Jargeau (May 10th or 11th),fn11 Jeanne remaining in Charles’ company, following him from Tours to Loches, while May passed into June. Once more she was being compelled to waste precious time – she who knew by her voices that her time on earth was limited. Charles, the supreme procrastinator, the forerunner of the Hamlet who could never make up his mind to action, dawdled in his pleasant province of Touraine, with Jeanne fretting at his heels. She ought, of course, failing Reirns, to have forced him to march direct on Paris; but so uncompromising an alternative could scarcely commend itself to the timorous and wavering soul of Charles VII. He contented himselfby writing polite letters about her to his few faithful subjects, and by appointing her young friend and supporter, d’Alençon, her beau duc, as lieutenant-general of his armies.fn12 This meant, at any rate, that her most loyal friend was a friend in the field, which perhaps was just as important as having friends at Court.

  She was very much mixed up, by then, with friends in the field. The Bastard of Orleans had been at her side when she knocked at the Dauphin’s private door at Loches, and it was in the company of d’Alençon that she took leave of the Dauphin and again entered the rejoicing portals of Orleans (June 9th, 1429).fn13 Jeanne, I think, must thoroughly have enjoyed the several returns she made to Orleans, identified as she now was with that city, and more than persona grata with its inhabitants, who de laquelle veoir ne se povoyent saouler. It must indeed have been a moving experience for her to ride fearlessly now through those once-threatened gates. She knew her way about the city, which by that time had grown as familiar to her as her remote and native Dornremy. She had her private friends there as well as the adoring anonymous populace. The friendly house of Jacques Boucher was well known to her. It must have seemed strange to her to look upon the charred ruins of the once formidable Tourelles, strange to look once more at the broken bridge which had precipit;ited Glasdale and his companions into the fire-lit river, strange to look once more at the deserted forts where she had shouted in challenge at the English. Fortunately for her, the geographical situation of Orleans allowed her to use it to some extent as her headquarters during the dazzling fortnight which followed.

  For a week (June 10th to 18th) Jeanne, apparently grown irresistible, was engaged almost daily in a series of victories. With d’Alençon in command of the army, and the Bastard, Florent d’Illiers, and La Hire supporting her, her hands were fairly free. Of course she was never officially the leader. Of course there were the customary disagreements among the captains, and the customary divisions of opinion on matters of military policy, but on the whole she was usually able to carry them along by the almost physical force of her inner convictions. Moreover theyknewthatshehad the popular backing of the army, whose superstitious trust made them ready to follow her anywhere. The sight of that strange small figure in her gleaming armour, the famous standard floating wherever the turmoil was thickest, was enough to rally them over and over again. The Dauphin’s friends at Court might whisper jealously against the adventuress from Lorraine, inspired less probably by God than by the Devil: in the field and in the eyes of the populace she was a leader to die for, a saint whose clothing was reverently to be touched.

  And now, one by one, the English strongholds were falling before her. On June 10th she left Orleans, and, with her beau duc, spent the night in a wood.fn14 In the morning they were joined by the Bastard and Florent d’Illiers, when a discussion ensued as to whether they should attack Jargeau or not. It was occupied by the Earl of Suffolk and his two brothers, the de la Poles; Sir John Fastolf, also, was known to be on his way from Paris with a large force for the reinforcement of Suffolk and his men. Some of the French captains gave the advice that Fastolf should be intercepted before the assault was launched against Jargeau; Jeanne, however, would hear nothing of this counsel. God, she said, was on their side; she was assured of success; otherwise, she would prefer to keep sheep than expose herself to such great perils. They listened to her and took the road to Jargeau, in the hope of capturing the suburbs at least that day. At first they met with a reverse, for the Englis
h sallied out of the town to meet them, but Jeanne – the repetition of such incidents grows monotonous – threw herself into the mêlée, and the troops, following her, carried the out-lying portions of the town. D’Alençon was convinced that the hand of God was in it, and adds, rather naïvely, as an additional proof of the hand of God, that, owing to the small number of French sentries posted that night, the English could quite easily have fallen upon the army by surprise and put them into the greatest clanger. The negligence of the French on this oceasion is as inexplicable as the English failure to take advantage of their opportunity. The story of these military campaigns is full of such curious lapses on either side.

  Jeanne, according to her custom, that evening advised the English to retire and to leave the place to God and the Dauphin; the English, according to theirs, ignored the suggestion.fn15

  Next day the town fell. D’Alençon tried to hold back, judging it inadvisable to attack further; La Hire, unknown to his colleagues, started negotiations with Suffolk on his own account. Luckily this enterprise, which seems to accord ill with La Hi.re’s robust and outspoken character, and especially with the respect he felt for Jeanne, came in time to the ears of the French captains then sitting in council; they were naturally angry, sent for La Hire to come back, and listened once more to Jeanne’s persuasions – ‘Avant, gentil duc, à l’assault.’ Still d’Alençon hesitated. Jeanne taunted him. Was he afraid, she asked? Did he not remember that she had promised his wife to bring him home safe and sound? Stung by these words, d’Alençon, who for all his caution was a gallant man, gave the order to attack. In the thick of the battle, he saw Jeanne at his side. ‘Move from this place,’ she said to him, ‘or that piece of ordnance on the rampart will kill you.’ A few moments later the sieur de Ludes was indeed struck and killed by the same gun on that very spot.fn16