In the year 1416 there was a certain woman, a native of the Duchy of Bar, Catherine Sauve by name. She was then a solitary, living at Montpellier, on the road to Lattes. Having been publicly accused, she was examined by the Inquisitor’s Vicar, Maître Raymond Cabasse, and found to be infected with the heresy of the Cathari. Among other errors she maintained that all carnal intercourse is sinful, even in wedlock. Wherefore she was delivered to the secular arm and burned at the stake on the 2nd of November in that year.
It was then commonly believed that such maidens as gave themselves to the devil were straightway stripped of their virginity; and that thus he obtained power over these unhappy creatures. Such ways accorded with what was known of his libidinous disposition. These pleasures were tempered to his woeful state. And thereby he gained a further advantage, — that of unarming his victim, — for virginity is as a coat of mail against which the darts of hell are but blades of straw. Hence it was all but certain that a soul vowed to the devil could not reside within a maid. Wherefore, there was one infallible way of proving that the peasant girl from Vaucouleurs was not given up to magic or to sorcery, and had made no pact with the Evil One. Recourse was had to it.
Jeanne was seen, visited, privately inspected, and thoroughly examined by wise women, mulieres doctas; by knowing virgins, peritas virgines; by widows and wives, viduas et conjugates. First among these matrons were: the Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, Duchess of Anjou; Dame Jeanne de Preuilly, wife of the Sire de Gaucourt, Governor of Orléans, who was about fifty-seven years of age; and Dame Jeanne de Mortemer, wife of Messire Robert le Maçon, Lord of Trèves, a man full of years. The last was only eighteen, and one would have expected her to be better acquainted with the Calendrier des Vieillards than with the formulary of matrons. It is strange with what assurance the good wives of those days undertook the solution of a problem which had appeared difficult to King Solomon in all his wisdom.
Jeanne of Domremy was found to be a maid pure and intact.
While she herself was being subjected to the interrogatories of doctors and the examination of matrons, certain clerics who had been despatched to her native province were there prosecuting an inquiry concerning her birth, her life, and her morals. The ecclesiastics had been chosen from those mendicant Friars who could pass freely along the highways and byways of the enemy’s country without exciting the suspicion of English and Burgundians. And, indeed, they were in no way molested. From Domremy and from Vaucouleurs they brought back sure testimony to the humility, the devotion, the honesty, and the simplicity of Jeanne. But, most important, they had found no difficulty in gleaning certain pious tales, such as commonly adorned the childhood of saints. To these monks we must attribute an important share in the development of those legends of Jeanne’s early years, which were so soon to become popular. From this time, apparently, dates the story that when Jeanne was in her seventh year, wolves spared her sheep, and birds of the woods came at her call and ate crumbs from her lap. Such saintly flowers suggest a Franciscan origin; among them are the wolf of Gubbio and the birds preached to by Saint Francis. These mendicants may also have furnished examples of the Maid’s prophetic gift. They may have spread abroad the story that, when she was at Vaucouleurs, on the day of the Battle of the Herrings, she knew of the great hurt inflicted on the French at Rouvray. The success of such little stories was immediate and complete.
After this examination and inquiry, the doctors came to the following conclusions: “The King, beholding his own need and that of his realm, and considering the constant prayers to God of his poor subjects and all others who love peace and justice, ought not to repulse or reject the Maid who says that God has sent her to bring him succour, albeit these promises may be nothing but the works of man; neither ought he lightly or hastily to believe in her. But, according to Holy Scripture he must try her in two ways: to wit, with human wisdom, by inquiring of her life, her morals, and her motive, as saith Saint Paul the Apostle: Probate spiritus, si ex Deo sunt; and by earnest prayer to ask for a sign of her work and her divine hope, by which to tell whether it is by God’s will that she is come. Thus God commanded Ahaz that he should ask for a sign when God promised him victory, saying unto him: Pete signum a Domino; and Gideon did likewise when he asked for a sign and many others, etc. Since the coming of the said Maid, the King hath observed her in the two manners aforesaid: to wit, by trial of human wisdom and by prayer, asking God for a sign. As for the first, which is trial by human wisdom, he has tested the said Maid in her life, her origin, her morals, her intention; and has kept her near him for the space of six weeks to show her to all people, whether clerks, ecclesiastics, monks, men-at-arms, wives, widows or others. In public and in private she hath conversed with persons of all conditions. But there hath been found no evil in her, nothing but good, humility, virginity, devoutness, honesty, simplicity. Of her birth, as well as of her life, many marvellous things are related.”
“As for the second ordeal, the King asked her for a sign, to which she replied that before Orléans she would give it, but neither earlier nor elsewhere, for thus it is ordained of God.
“Now, seeing that the King hath made trial of the aforesaid Maid as far as it was in his power to do, that he findeth no evil in her, and that her reply is that she will give a divine sign before Orléans; seeing her persistency, and the consistency of her words, and her urgent request that she be sent to Orléans to show there that the aid she brings is divine, the King should not hinder her from going to Orléans with men-at-arms, but should send her there in due state trusting in God. For to fear her or reject her when there is no appearance of evil in her would be to rebel against the Holy Ghost, and to render oneself unworthy of divine succour, as Gamaliel said of the Apostles in the Council of the Jews.”
In short, the doctors’ conclusion was that as yet nothing divine appeared in the Maid’s promises, but that she had been examined and been found humble, a virgin, devout, honest, simple, and wholly good; and that, since she had promised to give a sign from God before Orléans, she must be taken there, for fear that in her the gift of the Holy Ghost should be rejected.
Of these conclusions a great number of copies were made and sent to the towns of the realm as well as to the princes of Christendom. The Emperor Sigismond, for example, received a copy.
If the doctors of Poitiers had intended this six weeks inquiry, culminating in a favourable and solemn conclusion, to bring about the glorification of the Maid and the heartening of the French people by the preparation and announcement of the marvel they had before them, then they succeeded perfectly.
That prolonged investigation, that minute examination reassured those doubting minds among the French, who suspected a woman dressed as a man of being a devil; they flattered men’s imaginations with the hope of a miracle; they appealed to all hearts to judge favourably of the damsel who came forth radiant from the fire of ordeal and appeared as if glorified with a celestial halo. Her vanquishing the doctors in argument made her seem like another Saint Catherine. But that she should have met difficult questions with wise answers was not enough for a multitude eager for marvels. It was imagined that she had been subjected to a strange probation from which she had come forth by nothing short of a miracle. Thus a few weeks after the inquiry, the following wonderful story was related in Brittany and in Flanders: when at Poitiers she was preparing to receive the communion, the priest had one wafer that was consecrated and another that was not. He wanted to give her the unconsecrated wafer. She took it in her hand and told the priest that it was not the body of Christ her Redeemer, but that the body was in the wafer which the priest had covered with the corporal. After that there could be no doubt that Jeanne was a great saint.
At the termination of the inquiries, a favourable opportunity for introducing the Maid into Orléans arrived in the beginning of April. For her arming and her accoutring she was sent first to Tours.
Sixty-six years later, an inhabitant of Poitiers, almost a hundred years old, told a young f
ellow-citizen that he had seen the Maid set out for Orléans on horseback, in white armour. He pointed to the very stone from which she had mounted her horse in the corner of the Rue Saint-Etienne. Now, when Jeanne was at Poitiers, she was not in armour. But the people of Poitou had named the stone “the Maid’s mounting stone.” With what a glad eager step the Saint must have leapt from that stone on to the horse which was to carry her away from those furred cats to the afflicted and oppressed whom she was longing to succour.
CHAPTER IX
THE MAID AT TOURS
AT Tours the Maid lodged in the house of a dame commonly called Lapau. She was Eléonore de Paul, a woman of Anjou, who had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie of Anjou. Married to Jean du Puy, Lord of La Roche-Saint-Quentin, Councillor of the Queen of Sicily, she had remained in the service of the Queen of France.
The town of Tours belonged to the Queen of Sicily, who grew richer and richer as her son-in-law grew poorer and poorer. She aided him with money and with lands. In 1424, the duchy of Touraine with all its dependencies, except the castellany of Chinon, had come into her possession. The burgesses and commonalty of Tours earnestly desired peace. Meanwhile they made every effort to escape from pillage at the hands of men-at-arms. Neither King Charles nor Queen Yolande was able to defend them, so they must needs defend themselves. When the town watchmen announced the approach of one of those marauding chiefs who were ravaging Touraine and Anjou, the citizens shut their gates and saw to it that the culverins were in their places. Then there was a parley: the captain from the brink of the moat maintained that he was in the King’s service and on his way to fight the English; he asked for a night’s rest in the town for himself and his men. From the heights of the ramparts he was politely requested to pass on; and, in case he should be tempted to force an entry, a sum of money was offered him. Thus the citizens fleeced themselves for fear of being robbed. In like manner, only a few days before Jeanne’s coming, they had given the Scot, Kennedy, who was ravaging the district, two hundred livres to go on. When they had got rid of their defenders, their next care was to fortify themselves against the English. On the 29th of February of this same year, 1429, these citizens lent one hundred crowns to Captain La Hire, who was then doing his best for Orléans. And even on the approach of the English they consented to receive forty archers belonging to the company of the Sire de Bueil, only on condition that Bueil should lodge in the castle with twenty men, and that the others should be quartered in the inns, where they were to have nothing without paying for it. Thus it was or was not; and the Sire de Bueil went off to defend Orléans.
In Jean du Puy’s house, Jeanne was visited by an Augustinian monk, one Jean Pasquerel. He was returning from the town of Puy-en-Velay where he had met Isabelle Romée and certain of those who had conducted Jeanne to the King.
In this town, in the sanctuary of Anis, was preserved an image of the Mother of God, brought from Egypt by Saint Louis. It was of great antiquity and highly venerated, for the prophet Jeremiah had with his own hands carved it out of sycamore wood in the semblance of the virgin yet to be born, whom he had seen in a vision. In holy week, pilgrims flocked from all parts of France and of Europe, — nobles, clerks, men-at-arms, citizens and peasants; and many, for penance or through poverty, came on foot, staff in hand, begging their bread from door to door. Merchants of all kinds betook themselves thither; and it was at once the most popular of pilgrimages and one of the richest fairs in the world. All round the town the stream of travellers overflowed from the road on to vineyards, meadows, and gardens. On the day of the Festival, in the year 1407, two hundred persons perished, crushed to death in the throng.
In certain years the feast of the conception of Our Lord fell on the same day as that of his death; and thus there coincided the promise and the fulfilment of the promise of the greatest of mysteries. Then Holy Friday became still holier. It was called Great Friday, and on that day such as entered the sanctuary of Anis received plenary indulgence. On that day the crowd of pilgrims was greater than usual. Now, in the year 1429, Good Friday fell on the 25th of March, the day of the Annunciation.
There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary in Brother Pasquerel’s meeting Jeanne’s relatives at Puy during Holy Week. That a peasant woman should travel two hundred and fifty miles on foot, through a country infested with soldiers and other robbers, in a season of snows and mist, to obtain an indulgence, was an every-day matter if we remember the surname which had for long been hers. This was not La Romée’s first pilgrimage. As we do not know which members of the Maid’s escort the good Brother met, we are at liberty to conjecture that Bertrand de Poulengy was among them. We know little about him, but his speech would suggest that he was a devout person.
Jeanne’s comrades, having made friends with Pasquerel, said to him: “You must go with us to Jeanne. We will not leave you until you have taken us to her.” They travelled together. Brother Pasquerel went with them to Chinon, which Jeanne had left; then he went on to Tours, where his convent was.
The Augustinians, who claimed to have received their rule from St. Francis himself, wore the grey habit of the Franciscans. It was from their order that in the previous year the King had chosen a chaplain for his young son, the Dauphin Louis. Brother Pasquerel held the office of reader (lector) in his monastery. He was in priest’s orders. Quite young doubtless and of a wandering disposition, like many mendicant monks of those days, he had a taste for the miraculous, and was excessively credulous.
Jeanne’s comrades said to her: “Jeanne, we have brought you this good father. You will like him well when you know him.”
She replied: “The good father pleases me. I have already heard tell of him, and even to-morrow will I confess to him.” The next day the good father heard her in confession, and chanted mass before her. He became her chaplain, and never left her.
In the fifteenth century Tours was one of the chief manufacturing towns of the kingdom. The inhabitants excelled in all kinds of trades. They wove tissues of silk, of gold, and of silver. They manufactured coats of mail; and, while not competing with the armourers of Milan, of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, they were skilled in the forging and hammering of steel. Here it was that, by the King’s command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail. The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuirass in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes. The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the corselet, in its slender grace and curious slimness, always has the air of a woman’s armour, and seems made for Queen Penthesilea or for the Roman Camilla. The Maid’s armour was white and unadorned, if one may judge from its modest price of one hundred livres tournois. The two suits of mail, made at the same time by the same armourer for Jean de Metz and his comrade, were together worth one hundred and twenty-five livres tournois. Possibly one of the skilful and renowned drapers of Tours took the Maid’s measure for a houppelande or loose coat in silk or cloth of gold or silver, such as captains wore over the cuirass. To look well, the coat, which was open in front, must be cut in scallops that would float round the horseman as he rode. Jeanne loved fine clothes but still more fine horses.
The King invited her to choose a horse from his stables. If we may believe a certain Latin poet, she selected an animal of illustrious origin, but very old. It was a war horse, which Pierre de Beauvau, Governor of Maine and Anjou, had given to one of the King’s two brothers; who had both been dead, the one thirteen years, the other twelve. This steed, or another, was brought to Lapau’s house and the Duke of Alençon went to see it. The horse must likewise be accoutred, it must be furnished with a chanfrin to protect its head and one of those wooden saddles with broad pommels which seemed to encase the rider. A shield was out of the question. Since chain-armour, which was not proof against blows, had been succ
eeded by that plate-armour, on which nothing could make an impression, they had ceased to be used save in pageants. As for the sword, — the noblest part of her accoutrement and the bright symbol of strength joined to loyalty, — Jeanne refused to take that from the royal armourer; she was resolved to receive it from the hand of Saint Catherine herself.
We know that on her coming into France she had stopped at Fierbois and heard three masses in Saint Catherine’s chapel. Therein the Virgin of Alexandria had many swords, without counting the one Charles Martel was said to have given her, and which it would not have been easy to find again. A good Touranian in Touraine, Saint Catherine was an Armagnac ever on the side of those who fought for the Dauphin Charles. When captains and soldiers of fortune stood in danger of death, or were prisoners in the hands of their enemies, she was the saint they most willingly invoked; for they knew she wished them well. She did not save them all, but she aided many. They came to render her thanks; and as a sign of gratitude they offered her their armour, so that her chapel looked like an armoury. The walls bristled with swords; and, as gifts had been flowing in for half a century, ever since the days of King Charles V, the sacristans were probably in the habit of taking down the old weapons to make room for the new, hoarding the old steel in some store-house until an opportunity arrived for selling it. Saint Catherine could not refuse a sword to the damsel, whom she loved so dearly that every day and every hour she came down from Paradise to see and talk with her on earth, — a maiden who in return had shown her devotion by travelling to Fierbois to do the Saint reverence. For we must not omit to state that Saint Catherine in company with Saint Margaret had never ceased to appear to Jeanne both at Chinon and at Tours. She was present at all those secret assemblies, which the Maid called sometimes her Council but oftener her Voices, doubtless because they appealed more to her ears and her mind than to her eyes, despite the burst of light which sometimes dazzled her, and notwithstanding the crowns she was able to discern on the heads of the saints. The Voices indicated one sword among the multitude of those in the Chapel at Fierbois. Messire Richard Kyrthrizian and Brother Gille Lecourt, both of them priests, were then custodians of the chapel. Such is the title they assumed when they signed the accounts of miracles worked by their saint. Jeanne in a letter caused them to be asked for the sword, which had been revealed to her. In the letter she said that it would be found underground, not very deep down, and behind the altar. At least these were all the directions she was able to give afterwards, and then she could not quite remember whether it was behind the altar or in front. Was she able to give the custodians of the chapel any signs by which to recognise the sword? She never explained this point, and her letter is lost.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 428