The ceremony was conducted with all its accustomed pomp. The Duke of Alençon knighted the King; the seigneur d’Albret held the sword. The Archbishop of Reims performed his traditional duty. But a single figure drew all eyes, the cause, as they said, after God, of this coronation and of all that assembly:fn52 Jeanne d’Arc, who kept her place standing beside the King, in armour, her standard in her hand. ‘Il avait été à la peine,’ she said, when they asked why her standard had figured at the sacre, ‘c’était bien raison qu’il fut à l’honneur.fn53
12. REIMS TO PARIS
I
The coronation represented the peak of Jeanne’s triumph. Not five months had elapsed since she had left Domremy, but during the course of that time she had forced herself into acceptance, had become a national heroine, and had accomplished two out of her four main promises. She had seen her father again, and had received his forgiveness, for that bewildered man had travelled from Domremy to Reims, where he had been lodged with much honour at the town’s expense. She had stood beside her King in a position never accorded even to the greatest peer of France, and had fallen on her knees before him, weeping with emotion, while even those present had been moved to tears as the crown was placed upon his head to the sound of trumpets and the shouts of ‘Noel!’ so that it seemed as though the vaulting of the roof would be rent.fn1 That was her hour, and she had lived it to the full. It seemed also as though her victory would be pushed to its logical conclusion, for the plan was definitely to march towards Paris next day.fn2 Jeanne herself had no doubt of reducing Paris to obedience. She had already laid the train by writing to the haut et redoubté prince, the Duke of Burgundy, three weeks earlierfn3 and again on the very day of the coronation, begging him à jointes mains to make peace,fn4 but, as events proved, she had here acted as her own worst enemy. Crossing her second letter, Burgundy sent envoys to Reims to negotiate, if not a permanent peace, then at least a truce; and Charles, gullible, optimistic, and only too thankful for any excuse for delay, wasted four precious days in pourparlers with the Burglllldians at Reims, while a large English army, under Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Bedford, was hastening towards Paris, strengthened by Burgundy’s men from Picardy.
The Dukes of Burgundy and Bedford between them, in fact, fooled the King exactly as they pleased. Jeanne’s fate was sealed. From Reims onwards her feet were set on the sharply sloping path which fetched up at the stake.
II
Jeanne herself was in despair. She was fully conscious of the seriousness and urgency of the situation, but what could she do? I dare to suggest that after Reims the first great gale of her inspiration left her, and that she was no longer capable in quite her old way of making men listen to her voice, She seems to have been aware of something of the sort herself, for she told the Archbishop of Reims, as she rode between him and the Bastard, that she wished God her Creator would allow her to lay down her arms and return to serve her father and mother, keeping their sheep with her sister and her brothers, who would greatly rejoice on seeing her.fn5 One may conjecture that the immediate reason for the expression of so llllcharacteristically weak a wish lay in the recent meeting with her father at Reims. Although no record exists of their meeting, nor of the place in which it happened, nor of the words which passed between them, it is only reasonable to imagine that this strange reunion, humanly speaking, must have been fraught with great and difficult emotions on either side. Consider the experiences through which Jeanne had passed, and through which we have followed her almost day by day in those five packed months. But consider also the unrelieved and unrecorded days at Domremy, where there was nothing to do but to follow patiently on the same accustomed round of a peasant’s year – sowing the crops, milking the cows, slicing the turnips, collecting the eggs; keeping on in the same old way although one’s daughter had run away after the wildest of geese; no news coming through, save unbelievable rumours of her doings among men whose names were as aweful as they were remote. Insufficient sympathy has, I think, been accorded to the parents of Jeanne d’Arc. Anxious, perplexed, and very human beings, they have been allowed to suffer an almost total eclipse in the shadow of their resplendent child. It is permissible to pause and to speculate for a moment on the feelings of Jacques d’Arc as on those of Jeanne herself, when, on the eve of the King’s coronation, they met again in Reims, Jeanne no longer the disgraced and fugitive Jeannette, but the magnificent Pucelle who had earned her right to stand beside the King.
Was it difficult for her to readjust herselfimmediately to the position of a child, confronted by a father from whom she still had to obtain a verbal forgiveness? Where did they meet? Was it at Jacques’ lodging at the Ane Rayé,fn6 or did he have to be summoned because his Jeannette could not ride through the streets of Reims without provoking the wildest of demonstrations? The last time he had seen her she had been wearing her patched red dress. Now, she had a green tunic, armour, and a gold and crimson cloak. Then, she had ridden the farm-horses bareback; now, she had a charger of her own, a household, pages, a majordomo, and her own confessor. She was on terms of familiarity with princes; with lords both spiritual and temporal; with the King himself, who gave her sixty livres tournois as a present for her father.fn7 Did she show him her miraculous sword and her armour, telliug him how its weighthadhurtherwhenfirstshehad put it on? Was it difficult for her, having been translated into so different a world, to revert suddenly to the old idiom, or did the familiar Lorraine accent carry her back into asking quite naturally for news of her mother and of her friends Hauviette and Mengette and all those whom she had left behind? We shall never know. We know only that a fortnight later the King, at her special request, accorded remission in perpetuity of all taxes or other levies to the villages of Grewe and Domremy, and that their taxation-demands henceforth appeared cancelled by the words: Néant, la Pucelle, written in the margin.fn8
Someone else witnessed the triumph of Jeanne at Reims: Durand Lassois, that patient man who had been the first to believe in her.
III
All these things were pleasant, but they were not enough to satisfy Jeanne. I have already suggested that after Reims a new note seems to enter into the story, as though she were striving now against odds she had very little hope of overcoming, her courageous spirit refusing to give in, but struggling on without thact absolute conviction which had previously raised her to so irresistible a state of exultation. Perhaps it is not too much to suppose that her gift of prescience whispered a subtle warning. Perhaps she was merely disheartened at last by the heavy task of dragging the reluctant and untrustworthy Charles where she wanted him to go.
They left Reims together, four days too late, and reached Soissons two days later. From here it became apparent that, far from making straight for Paris, Charles intended to sneak back into the comfort and safety of the Loire, He would not even enter the important town of Compiègne, although it was prepared to surrender without resistance. By August 2nd he had arrived at Provins, where he stayed until the 5th. By then he had concluded a fifteen-days’ truce with the Duke of Burgundy, who thereby undertook to surrender Paris peacefully to him on the fifteenth day.
Jeanne writes a letter to the citizens of Reims (August 5th) which reveals more poignantly than any comment her deep distress, anxiety, and scepticism. It is evident that she rightly has no confidence in the truce, the Duke of Burgundy, or his promises. It is really tragic to read between the lines of her letter, and to observe how she endeavours to preserve an uncritical loyalty towards the King, while still implying to her ‘dear and good friends’ of Reirns that she is fully alive to the situation, and assuring them that she will never abandon them as long as she lives. ‘Jehanne la Pucelle,’ she writes, ‘sends you news of herself, and begs and request that you shall be in no doubt as to the good quarrel that she pursues for the blood royal, and I promise and guarantee [here the letter changes from the third person to the first person singular] that I will never abandon you while I live. It is true that the King has made a truce
with the Duke of Burgundy for fifteen days, by which he is to deliver the city of Paris peacefully at the end of the fifteen days. Nevertheless do not be surprised that I should enter into it so briefly, for I am not in favour [ne soy point contente] of truces made in this way, and do not know whether I will keep it; but if I do keep it, it will only be to preserve the King’s honour, that the blood royal should suffer no harm, for I will keep the King’s army together in readiness, lest at the end of the fifteen days they should not make peace.’fn9
Jeanne, of course, was perfectly right. The exact dates of the truce are unknown, but it is evident that Burgundy never had the slightest intention of delivering Paris into the hands of the King. All that he had done was to gain a fortnight of extra time for his allies the English. That Charles should have allowed himself to be taken in is both incredible and incomprehensible. It is suggested, not without good reason, that his evil genius, La Trémoïlle, had been bribed by Burgundy; and La Trémoïlle had many a hold besides his personal influence over the wretched Charles.
An unexpected move on the part of the English, however, checked Charles’ retreat towards the Loire. His intention had been to cross the Seine by the bridge at Bray, near Provins, but, most fortunately for Jeanne and her supporters, the English elected to seize the bridge just before the King and his army could cross it.fn10 This had the effect of cutting the road, and of throwing Charles back on Château Thierry, which at least was nearer to Paris. Jeanne and her friends the Dukes of Alençon and Bar, and the Counts of Clermont, Vendôme, and Laval rejoiced, since the decision to cross the Seine had been taken entirely against her will.fn11
It now appeared as though the Duke of Bedford, having been given plenty of time to make his preparations, really intended to meet the French in the open field, for on August 7th he addressed a personal letter to Charles, challenging him in the most insulting terms to appoint a rendezvous either in the province of Brie, which was then in the joint occupation of both the English and the French armies, or in the neighbouring province of the Ile de France.fn12 Not only did he suggest that Charles was no true King of France, not only did he call Charles in plain language a murderer (i.e. guilty of the assassination of the late Duke of Burgundy), not only did he accuse Charles of being the only cause of all the distress which had come upon the people of France, but he spared no epithets to qualify Jeanne, that ‘disorderly woman dressed as a man,’ who had been his principal helper in seducing his ignorant people. It might have been supposed that Charles’ personal pride, sense of honour, chivalry, and gratitude would be stung into taking some action upon the receipt of such a letter. True, he did hang about for some days at Montépilloy, in the neighbourhood of Senlis (August 14th–16th), when a few skirmishes resulted between the outposts and patrols of the two armies, but neither Charles nor Bedford, in spite of his braggart letter, seemed in the least anxious to enter into a decisive engagement when it came to the point. After all the fanfare and advertisement, nothing much happened, except that La Trémoïlle fell off his horse, and was nearly, but not quite, taken prisoner.fn13 Jeanne did her best. She went so far as to ride up to the English stockade and to strike it with the pole of her standard.fn14 Seeing that this was of no avail, she sent to ask them to come out and fight: she could scarcely do more, even with d’Alençon gallantly backing her. In the end, the two armies withdrew in different directions – like two dogs who have stalked round and round one another growling with raised hackles, but who have finally decided on discretion rather than on valour.fn15
Bedford went back to Paris; Charles at last was persuaded to advance towards Compiègne. For the moment it looked as though Jeanne’s fortunes were again in the ascendant. Important towns once more began dropping their keys at the feet of the King or his representatives. Senlis and Beauvais both made their subjection; Compiègne welcomed the King in person. Still Jeanne was uneasy: she mistrusted the length of the stay that Charles proposed to make at Compiègne, for by his manner shejudged him so well satisfied with the favours he had received from God that the wish to undertake anything further had failed him. She was not only uneasy, she was also preoccupied, and her pre-occupation led her into a blunder – the serious blunder of dictating a letter to the Count of Armagnac even as she was about to mount her horse. This was not the moment to choose to reply to an enquiry from an important and friendly lord, and, moreover, the subject of the letter and the manner in which Jeanne in her impatience chose to answer it were alike unfortunate. For d’Armagnac had seen fit to ask her which of the three popes ought to be obeyed, and to request her to obtain guidance from Jesus Christ on the subject. Now Jeanne should never had admitted, even by implication, that she had any right to pronounce on a matter which was the sole business of the Church; still less should she have answered that she was too busy making war at the moment, but that as soon as she should be at rest in Paris, or elsewhere, she would make the necessary enquiries and would let him know.fn16 Her judges, attacking her at her trial, were little impressed by the excuse that this ill-considered letter was hurriedly dictated because some bystanders were threatening to throw the Armagnac messenger into the river. It was a piece of presumption on which they could, and did, pronounce her guilty.
There is no doubt that Jeanne had little time or thought for anything but war. To d’Alençon she said that she wanted to go and see Paris closer;fn17 hitherto, she had caught only a glimpse of Montmartre from the heights of Dammartin. D’Alençon, ever faithful, accompanied her to Saint Denis (August 23rd), and the King, hearing of their departure, sulkily removed himself to Senlis, seemingly under the influence of advice contrary to the wishes of Jeanne and d’Alençon.fn18 It took d’Alençon ten days, and a repeated coming and going, to persuade him to join them at Saint Denis after repeatedly broken promises to do so. Charles, as usual, was playing a double game; he could not break openly with d’Alençon and Jeanne, but he could, and did, continue his negotiations with the Duke of Burgundy, even to the point of concluding another truce withhim (August 28th, 1429), embodying the peculiar arrangement that, although the French might be allowed to attack Paris, the duke should equally be allowed to send Burgundian troops to the assistance of the English in Paris. This really amounted to saying that although Jeanne, Charles’ own servant, might endeavour to subject Paris on his behalf, he would yet authorise the Burgundians to help his enemies against his own servant in its defence. Perhaps he did not really believe that the Duke of Burgundy would avail himself of the permission, for at the same time we find him offering to ‘lend’ him the town of Compiègne, an offer which cannot be considered in any light other than a bribe. Fortunately, Compiègne proved more loyal to France than did its King, and nothing which the Archbishop of Reims could say would induce its citizens to allow themselves to be lent. They replied very politely to the arguments of the archbishop, d’une commune voix, that they were the humble subjects of the King, anxious to obey and serve him both with their persons and their goods, but that they could not possibly submit themselves to the Duke of Burgundy, on account of his hatred, which they had incurred owing to their loyalty to His Majesty; therefore, in all submission, they would rather be destroyed with their women and their children than fall into the hands of the said duke.fn19 Loyalty and fright could go no further. Loyalty and fright had pushed the citizens of Compiègne into refusing to obey the expressed wishes of the very sovereign they had just acknowledged. It had been hard enough for Charles’ lieutenants to recover his towns for him; now that they had been recovered, he was doing his best to give them away again. One is tempted, over and over again, to ask, What did the man really want? Did he want his kingdom, or did he not? Was he a recreant, or merely a fool? It is difficult – very difficult indeed – to follow the workings of Charles’ mind; either his intentions were furtively cowardly and dishonourable, or, if honourable, then so impractical as to be insane. Nothing will persuade any reasonable historian, as nothing could persuade Jeanne, that any agreement with the Duke of Burgundy could be reached
save at the point of the lance.
IV
Jeanne and d’Alençon were now at Saint Denis, and Saint Denis, as a place of sojourn, quite apart from its proximity to Paris, must have been entirely after Jeanne’s own heart. Not only was its abbey the burial place of the French kings and the repository of the sacred standard of France, the oriflamme, but it contained, also, enough relics to satisfy the most credulous and superstitious soul. Among the secular relics was the heart of Bertrand du Guesclin; among the religious were a piece of the True Cross, the swaddling bands of the infant Christ, a shard of the pitcher in which the water had been changed into wine at Cana, a bar from the grid of Saint Laurence, a wooden cup belonging to Saint Louis, and the chin of Saint Mary Magdalen.fn20
Jeanne, profoundly believing as she was, cannot have failed to be impressed by this remarkable collection. It is not urging the imagination too far to suppose that she spent a fair proportion of her time in worship within the already venerable abbey. But, practical as well as mystical, she also found employment, during her ten days at Saint Denis, reconnoitring the defences of Paris in order to discover their weakest points. D’Alençon, when he was not away at Senlis trying to prevail upon Charles to join them, was constantly at her side. There had been skirmishes, but no serious attack was delivered until September 8th, and even then it is doubtful whether we are justified in regarding the attack as seriously meant. The French captains appear to have acted in a most half-hearted way, neither beginning the battle early enough in the day nor employing the whole of the forces at their disposal, nor, even then, attacking in more than one place, i.e. between the gates of Saint Honoré and Saint Denis. According to the account of a contemporary witness,fn21 ‘they could not have taken the place either by storm or siege,’ even had they been four times as numerous, and their intention was therefore to stir up a panic within the city itself: rather than to attempt to carry it by assault. We are not privileged to overhear the deliberations of the French captains, nor, consequently, to judge whether they intended a real attack or a mere demonstration; we can record only that the move against Paris on September 8th stands out as the first important reverse the royal arms had sufl:ered since Jeanne first took the field at Orleans.
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