Of course, there is a great deal to be said in her defence. She was quite right to think that the Dauphin would never be accepted as the King until he was crowned. Such ceremonies as the anointing with holy oil were of immense importance in the eyes of the fifteenth century. No King of France could be given his true title until he was consecrated and crowned, and had received the peculiar grace he was supposed to receive from the Holy Spirit through the holy oil. This holy oil, traditionally used for the anointing of the Kings of France, and contained, as it was, in the sacred vessel known as the Sainte Ampoule, was the very especial pride and property of the city of Reims, and constituted, in fact, the whole claim of that city to consecrate the sovereign within the walls of its cathedral. In such veneration was it held, that it was never allowed to leave Reims save on one sole occasion during thirteen centuries – to comfort the dying Louis XI, who, autocrat though he was, had been obliged to send to Rome for permission from the Pope.fn34 The vessel itself was a little phial measuring only an iuch and a half long, the neck beiug closed by a stopper of red silk;fn35 the holy contents had admittedly dried and shrivelled siuce a pigeon whiter than snow had arrived with the phial iu its beak to the assistance of Saiut Rémi at the baptism of Clovisfn36. But the size of the vessel and the state of the contents – d’une consistance cérumineuse, d’une couleur rougeâtre – bore no relation to the awe with which they were regarded. It was all very well for Saiut Remi himself, for Pope Anastasius the Second, for Saiut Avitus, Bishop of Vienna, for Saiut Nicet, Bishop of Treves, for Saiut Gregory of Tours, for Fredegaire, his successor, for the authors of the life of Saiut Arnoul, for Alcuiu, author of the life of Saiut Vaast, for the monk Horicon, for the authors of the Gesta Dagoberti and the Gesta Francorum to withhold their testimony on the subject of so miraculous an origiu: the people of France knew better. They knew that the Kiug was not the King until the necessary morsel of Saiut Remi’s oil had been dug out of the Saiute Ampoule at the point of a golden needle, And Jeanne d’Arc was very much a daughter of France. She had always been very careful to address Charles VII as Dauphin and not as King before his coronation, and had iu fact declared her iutention of doiug so. When we consider that she was only a peasant, and a peasant living iu a credulous age, and an especially inspired peasant at that, we can begin to understand why her desire to lead the Dauphin to Reims exceeded, however unwisely, her desire to lead his army to Paris. Besides, there were other difficulties in her way, which did but increase her obstinacy. The fat La Trémoïlle crossed her whenever he could, jealously disapproviug of any influence she might exercise over the weak puppet wavering between them; thus, thanks to his viudictive iutervention, she completely failed to effect a reconciliation between Charles and the Constable de Richemont; and other leaders who, entirely on her account, had come from all sides to offer their services to Charles at their own expense, met with black looks even if they were not actually turned away. The Constable, who was turned away, took his company of twelve hundred men with him. Such wanton sacrifice of much-needed help to La Trémoïlle’s personal ambition, drew general criticism, yet no one dared breathe a word outwardly against him.fn37
And not only did La Trémoïlle impede her, but Charles himself seemed to have but little idea of what she was doing for him, or of what she would expect him to do for her in retum. When, after Patay, she met him (June 19th-22nd) at St Benoit-sur-Loire, he reduced her to tears by the suggestion that she should now allow herself a rest.fn38 a It was not that he was ungrateful, for he expressed his pity for all the fatigues she had suffered on his behalf – indeed, he could do no less – it was that he was utterly unable to enter into sympathy with a flaming spirit such as Jeanne’s. Besides, we cannot tell what La Trémoïlle was saying to him in private, nor can we justly estimate what indolence, lethargy, and even cowardice contributed to his disinclination.
Jeanne got her way in the end, but only after a week’s delay. If Perceval de Cagny is to be believed, all sorts of difficulties were raised, some people saying, with truth, that many hostile towns lay on the road, others, with equal truth, that the Dauphin had no money to pay his men. The men, according to the loyal de Cagny, were ready to give their services for nothing, saying that they would go anywhere the Pucelle wished to lead them.
Jeanne, still according to de Cagny, ended by losing her patience; left the Dauphin at Gien, and, going off in despite, encamped for two days and nights, without him, in the fields.fn39 This gesture seems to have stirred him into some activity, for on June 29th he finally took his departure from Gien, and on July 1st we find him and Jeanne together before the Burgundian city of Auxerre. Jeanne, it is said, was in favour of entering Auxerre by force, but, as the army stood in serious need of reprovisioning, an agreement was reached by which the city provided the necessary supplies on condition that it should be left in peace. It is also added that La Trémoïlle received two thousand crowns from the city as a bribe for his good offices in effecting this arrangement.fn40
It is not diflicult to enter into Jeanne’s feelings as she once more beheld Auxerre, that noble city with its two great churches towering so majestically on the slope above the river, the city in which she ‘on her way from Domremy, in her black and grey page’s suit, had heard Mass with Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy,’ and to which ‘within four months she returned, the companion and counsellor of princes, at the head of an army which, in her presence, had never met with a single check.’fn41 No doubt the mediaeval beauty of Auxerre did not appeal to Jeanne in the same way as it appeals to us, with our trained aesthetic appreciation and exaggerated sentiment for antiquity, but in a different way the dominance of the great Houses of God over the jumbled roofs of streets no less tortuous than the policy of her enemies, must have impressed her with a grandeur and single-mindedness as uncompromising as her own intentions.
More practically, she must have regretted the decision to leave an unsubjected city behind her, especially as she could foresee the possibility of Troyes, Châlons, and Reims itself holding out on learning that Auxerre had with impunity been allowed to do so.
VII
It is perhaps unnecessary to follow the march towards Reims in any detail; I cannot, however, resist the temptation of pausing before the Burgundian city of Troyes, where Jeanne came into contact with one of those curious characters abounding among her contemporaries. Troyes was at the moment under the influence of a Franciscan friar named Brother Richard. This fiery and extraordinary personage had already made a name for himself as a preacher in Paris, where he seems, for three weeks, to have combined the roles of a Solomon Eagle and a Savonarola. Endowed with a magnificent voice, he could speak in the open from five o’clock in the morning till ten or eleven, without coming to an end of his eloquence or showing any signs of fatigue. His audiences, who were willing to spend the whole night under the stars rather than miss his opening sentences, flocked in their thousands to hear his denunciations, and to fling their vanities in armfuls on braziers lighted in the streets. Cards, dice, and personal ornaments such as the then extravagant head-dresses of women, were willingly heaped upon the flames. Apart from his demagogic powers of oratory, he was shrewd enough to claim definite justifications for his pronouncements. He announced himself as newly arrived from Jerusalem, where the brothers of his order were in charge of the Holy Sepulchre, and where he had met, or said he had met, bands of Jews setting out for Babylon to visit the Antichrist who had been living for some years in that city. The very name of Antichrist struck terror. What did the Parisians care or know that Babylon had ceased to exist some hundreds of years ago? A man who had met Jews actually setting out from Jerusalem to Babylon was a man to be listened to. Besides, he could foretell that the year 1430 would bring forth the most marvellous things that had ever yet been seen. It was very necessary, under such teaching, that they should secure their salvation, and so they not only heaped their finery and their games on the bonfires at street comers, but also struck and wore leaded medals stamped with the monogram
of the name Jesus. Brother Richard’s sway over Paris was dramatic but short-lived. The religious terror he had evoked was soon eclipsed by the more immediate dread that he might have gone over to the side of the Dauphin – an excellent excuse for resuming all the amusements he had forbidden, and for throwing his leaden medals into the Seine.fn42
Fortunately for the Dauphin and his army, Brother Richard had spent the previous Advent preaching at Troyes, where the population had interpreted one of his rhetorical flights so literally as to sow actual beans instead of only the metaphorical variety. ‘Sow, good people, sow beans in abundance,’ he had said to them, ‘for He who is to come will come before long.’ The odd result of this recommendation was that when the underfed army arrived before Troyes, in the following July, they found plenty to eat. They also found Brother Richard there in person, not at all sure what attitude he should adopt towards the notorious Pucelle. Not only were they rivals, in a sense, for popular favour, but the friar seems to have shared the suspicion which persisted in the minds of some people – that the Pucelle might be a witch. In any case, the citizens of Troyes were not at all disposed to admit either the Dauphin or his coquarde, as they termed Jeanne. The example of A uxerre was recent in their minds: if Auxerre could remain inviolate, so could Troyes, which was, moreover, a far more strongly fortified town. Jeanne, however, recommended a firm policy. She was summoned to the Dauphin’s council and invited to give her advice. Let him wait for two days, she said, and he should receive the submission of the town, either through force or love. The Archbishop of Reims, who was travelling with them, said that they could willingly wait for six days if necessary, but was she quite sure? Jeanne was always sure. Nor were her certainties based on mere optimism, for no sooner had she received their promise of patience, than she set about the practical preparations which, as she rightly conjectured, would terrorise the people of Troyes into opening their gates to their lawful sovereign.fn43 These practical preparations were supported by one of her famous letters, addressed to tl1e citizens (July 4th), saying that they need have no fear for their lives or property if only they would receive their King as they should; but if not, then on their lives she would promise them that with the aid of God all the cities of the kingdom would be entered and peace made, qui que vienne contre. ‘Answer quickly.’fn44 It was now that they sent Brother Richard to meet her, making the sign of the cross and sprinkling holy water, lest she might be a thing not sent by God. She reassured him. ‘Approach boldly,’ she said, ‘I shall not fly away.’fn45
After this, Brother Richard attached himself to the moving train of the royal army, an allegiance which he found was not without material profit.
VIII
Leaving a submissive Troyes behind him, the Dauphin went on to CM.Ions, which received him without any difficulty, thus proving how right Jeanne’s judgment had been over the scare she had produced at Troyes. They were now in full Champagne, and prospects were bright for a warm welcome at Reims. For Jeanne’s part, speaking personally, a homely little incident awaited her at Châlons: she met two friends from Domremy. They have both left an account, brief but vivid, of their meeting. One of them, Jean Morel, her godfather, states that she gave him her old red dress.fn46 The other, Gérardin d’Epinal, states that she told him she feared nothing but treachery.fn47 The remark is significant in the light of subsequent events, for at the moment she had, ostensibly, no immediate treachery to fear. All seemed to be going well in accordance with her plans when she met these two doubtless dazzled cronies at Châlons-sur-Marne. God still seemed to be wholly on her side. Swarms of white butterflies had recently been seen escorting her banner. Little more than thirty miles separated her from the goal of Reims. The Archbishop of Reims had already written to his people, requesting them to welcome their King; the citizens of Châlons had written to their neighbours at Reims, giving the King a good character, and advising their neighbours to receive him in the same spirit as they had themselves displayed.fn48
Jeanne cannot have found much time to spend with her friends from Domremy, for she stayed only one night at Châlons-sur-Marne. On the following day she entered an excited and loyal Reims in the train of the Dauphin.
IX
The preparations for the coronation had to be undertaken in some haste – in such haste, in fact, that those concerned had but one night in which to make ready. Up till the very afternoon before the actual ceremony the citizens of Reims had not decided whether to deliver their keys to the Dauphin or not. That Saturday, July 16th, must have been enough to fluster the most soberly minded. For one thing, in the morning, they had their first sight of their archbishop, who had been their archbishop for twenty years without ever coming near them. A few hours later, in the afternoon, they had their first sight of their King and of his famous Pucelle, whom everybody stared at (qui fut moult regardée de tous),fn49 not to mention the arrival of a whole army – seeking billets in the city, or of personages such as the Duke of Bar – that same gay young René whose support Jeanne had in vain demanded at the court of Nancy, five months earlier in the year. On top of all this excitement, with processions passing through the crowded streets, the order went forth for the ceremony to be performed on the following day. The moon was full, and all night long the city resounded to the blows of hammers and mallets.
The cathedral itself was in its full glory. The building, its foundation-stone laid in 1212, interrupted since 1381, had been resumed in 1427, and was approaching completion. Little now remained to be done save the addition of a spire on each of the two towers flanking the great west door,fn50 and these, for the occasion, were replaced by enormous fleurs-de-lis. The thirteenth-century organ was still in use. Much of the stained glass had already been in its place for over a century, so that the grave and archaic company of saints, apostles, evangelists, and kings looked down upon the aisles and transepts, while the mosaic of the rosaces blazed like living flowers in sunlight and fell in splashes of red, blue, and yellow against the columns and on the paving of the floor. Eighteen double lancets in the nave represented thirty-six bishops and thirty-six kings and queens, crowned and sceptred, dressed in richly ornamented cloaks and tunics, seated in high-backed chairs, according to the custom of portraying the dead in a position of repose. Bishops and kings they certainly were; but were any of them really queens? There appears to be some doubt on the subject. An historian of Reims with unconscious humour observes that plusieurs de ces personnages, qui ont le même costume et les mêmes ornements que les rois, sont entiérement imberbes.
For some seven hundred years these gorgeous fragilities, let into the solid stone, withstood the ravages of elements and time: leur face extérieure, luttant sans discontinuité contre la pluie, la poussière, l’air, et le soleil, a cédé en mille endroits à ces influences malignes; mais rien n’a pu ébranler la solidité des panneaux, irrevocablement attachés a leur vêtement de fer, et bravarit, dans leur imperturbable fermeté, toute la fureur des plus terribles orages.fn51
Alas, the historian of Reims could not foresee the most terrible of storms, more terrible for being human, not elemental: the storm which in 1917 destroyed, under the most cruel of bombardments, the beauty which awaited Charles VII and Jeanne d’Arc on the morning of Sunday, July 17th, 1429.
X
It is a noticeable but odd fact that mediaeval chroniclers seldom if ever make any reference to the weather. They refer to the weather only in its more unpleasant and inconvenient aspects, such as excessive rains or the flooding of an otherwise fordable river. When they remain silent on the subject, we may suppose that the season was behaving according to its normal mood; thus, although it would add considerably to the vividness of our impressions were we to be told for certain whether the day of July 17th, 1429, was bright or clouded, we can only conjecture, in the absence of other evidence, that, the date being the height of summer and the situation being the favoured plain of Champagne, the day was warm and sunny, as might reasonably be expected en cette heure et en ce lieu. Had the heaven
s chosen to be overcast, or even to open themselves in tears, on such an occasion as the long-deferred translation of the Dauphin into the King, friendly chroniclers might possibly have suppressed the fact, but hostile chroniclers would certainly have seized with delight upon its symbolism. We may take it, therefore, that the day was gay when, at nine in the morning, Charles rode to the cathedral in full procession, accompanied by the Duke of Alençon, the Duke de la Trémoïlle, the Count of Clermont, the Count of Vendôme, and the young de Lavals, representing the peers of France. The maréchal de Sainte-Sévère, the maréchal de Rais, the seigneur de Graville, and Louis de Coulen, Admiral of France, had already gone to St Rémy to escort the Abbot bearing the miraculously holy oil. They brought him, dressed in his pontifical vestments, richly ornamented with gold, to Notre Dame, where they were met by the Archbishop, surrounded by his clergy, who, receiving the vessel from the Abbot, placed it upon the altar. There were present also such other dignitaries of the Church as the Archbishop of Châlons and the Bishops of Seez and Orleans, and an enormous concourse of knights and soldiers filling the vast cathedral.
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