After the King’s coronation, jostled by the crowd in the Rue du Parvis, one can imagine some thoughtful clerk raising his eyes to the glorious façade of the Cathedral, that Bible in stone, already appearing ancient to men, who, knowing naught of the chronicles, measured time by the span of human existence. Such a clerk would have certainly beheld on the left of the pointed arch above the rose window the colossal image of Goliath rising proudly in his coat of mail, and that same figure repeated on the right of the arch in the attitude of a man tottering and ready to fall. Then this clerk must have remembered what is written in the first book of Kings:
“And there went out a man base-born from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Geth, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had a helmet of brass upon his head and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales; and the weight of his coat of mail was five thousand sicles of brass. And standing he cried out to the bands of Israel and said to them: I bring reproach unto the armies of Israel. Choose out a man of you, and let him come down and fight hand to hand.
“Now David had gone to feed his Father’s sheep at Bethlehem. But he arose in the morning and gave the charge of the flock to the keeper. And he came to the place of Magala and to the army which was going out to fight. And, seeing Goliath, he asked: ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’
“And the words which David spoke, were rehearsed before Saul; and he sent for him. David said to Saul, ‘Let not any man’s heart be dismayed in him; I, thy servant, will go and fight against this Philistine.’ And Saul said to David ‘Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine nor to fight against him; for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth.’ And David made answer, ‘I will go against him and I will take away the reproach from Israel.’ Then Saul said to David, ‘Go and the Lord be with thee.’
“And David took his staff which he had always in his hands, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and he took a sling in his hand; and went forth against the Philistine.
“And when the Philistine looked and beheld David, he despised him. For he was a young man, and ruddy, and of a comely countenance. And the Philistine said to David: ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?’ Then said David to the Philistine: ‘Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand that all the earth may know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is his battle, and he will deliver you into our hands.’
“And when the Philistine arose and was coming and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine. And he put his hand into his scrip and took a stone, and cast it with the sling and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead, and the stone was fixed in his forehead and he fell on his face upon the earth.”
Then the clerk, meditating on these words of the Book, would reflect how God, the Unchanging, who saved Israel and struck down Goliath by the sling of a shepherd lad, had raised up the daughter of a husbandman for the deliverance of the most Christian realm and the reproach of the Leopard.
From Gien, about June the 27th, the Maid had had a letter written to the Duke of Burgundy, calling upon him to come to the King’s anointing. Having received no reply, on the day of the coronation she dictated a second letter to the Duke. Here it is:
† Jhesus Maria
“High and greatly to be feared Prince, Duke of Burgundy, Jehanne the Maid, in the name of the King of Heaven, her rightful and liege lord, requires you and the King of France to make a good peace which shall long endure. Forgive one another heartily and entirely as becometh good Christians; an if it please you to make war, go ye against the Saracens. Prince of Burgundy, I pray you, I entreat you, I beseech you as humbly as lieth in my power, that ye make war no more against the holy realm of France, and that forthwith and speedily ye withdraw those your men who are in any strongholds and fortresses of the said holy kingdom; and in the name of the fair King of France, he is ready to make peace with you, saving his honour if that be necessary. And in the name of the King of Heaven, my Sovereign liege Lord, for your good, your honour and your life, I make known unto you, that ye will never win in battle against the loyal French and that all they who wage war against the holy realm of France, will be warring against King Jhesus, King of Heaven and of the world, my lawful liege lord. And with clasped hands I beseech and entreat you that ye make no battle nor wage war against us, neither you, nor your people, nor your subjects; and be assured that whatever number of folk ye bring against us, they will gain nothing, and it will be sore pity for the great battle and the blood that shall be shed of those that come against us. And three weeks past, I did write and send you letters by a herald, that ye should come to the anointing of the King, which to-day, Sunday, the 17th day of this present month, is made in the city of Reims: to which letter I have had no answer, neither news of the said herald. To God I commend you; may he keep you, if it be his will; and I pray God to establish good peace. Written from the said place of Reims, on the said seventeenth of July.”
Addressed: “to the Duke of Burgundy.”
Had Saint Catherine of Sienna been at Reims she would not have written otherwise. Albeit the Maid liked not the Burgundians, in her own way she realized forcibly how desirable was peace with the Duke of Burgundy. With clasped hands she entreats him to cease making war against France. “An it please you to make war then go ye against the Saracens.” Already she had counselled the English to join the French and go on a crusade. The destruction of the infidel was then the dream of gentle peace-loving souls; and many pious folk believed that the son of the knight, who had been vanquished at Nicopolis, would make the Turks pay dearly for their former victory.
In this letter, the Maid, in the name of the King of Heaven, tells Duke Philip that if he fight against the King, he will be conquered. Her voices had foretold to her the victory of France over Burgundy; they had not revealed to her that at the very moment when she was dictating her letter the ambassadors of Duke Philip were at Reims; that was so, notwithstanding.
Esteeming King Charles, master of Champagne, to be a prince worthy of consideration, Duke Philip sent to Reims, David de Brimeu, Bailie of Artois, at the head of an embassy, to greet him and open negotiations for peace. The Burgundians received a hearty welcome from the Chancellor and the Council. It was hoped that peace would be concluded before their departure. The Angevin lords announced it to their queens, Yolande and Marie. By so doing they showed how little they knew the consummate old fox of Dijon. The French were not strong enough yet, neither were the English weak enough. It was agreed that in August an embassy should be sent to the Duke of Burgundy in the town of Arras. After four days negotiation, a truce for fifteen days was signed and the embassy left Reims. At the same time, the Duke at Paris solemnly renewed his complaint against Charles of Valois, his father’s assassin, and undertook to bring an army to the help of the English.
Leaving Antoine de Hellande, nephew of the Duke-Archbishop to command Reims, the King of France departed from the city on the 20th of July and went to Saint-Marcoul-de-Corbeny, where on the day after their coronation, the Kings were accustomed to touch for the evil.
Saint Marcoul cured the evil. He was of royal race, but his power, manifested long after his death, came to him especially from his name, and it was believed that Saint Marcoul was able to cure those afflicted with marks on the neck, as Saint Clare was to give sight to the blind, and Saint Fort to give strength to children. The King of France shared with him the power of healing scrofula; and as the power came to him from the holy oil brought down from heaven by a dove, it was thought that this virtue would be more effectual at the time of the anointing, all the more because by lewdness, disobedience to the Christian Church, and other irregularities, he stood in danger of losing it. That is what had happened
to King Philippe I. The Kings of England touched for the evil; notably King Edward III worked wondrous cures on scrofulous folk who were covered with scars. For these reasons scrofula was called Saint Marcoul’s evil or King’s evil. Virgins as well as kings could cure this royal malady.
King Charles worshipped and presented offerings at the shrine of Saint Marcoul, and there touched for the evil. At Corbeny he received the submission of the town of Laon. Then, on the morrow, the 22nd, he went off to a little stronghold in the valley of the Aisne, called Vailly, which belonged to the Archbishop Duke of Reims. At Vailly he received the submission of the town of Soissons. In the words of an Armagnac prophet of the time: “the keys of the war gates knew the hands that had forged them.”
CHAPTER XIX
RISE OF THE LEGEND
IT is always difficult to ascertain what happens in war. In those days it was quite impossible to form any clear idea of how things came about. At Orléans, doubtless, there were certain who were keen enough to perceive that the numerous and ingenious engines of war, gathered together by the magistrates, had been of great service; but folk generally prefer to ascribe results to miraculous causes, and the merit of their deliverance the people of Orléans attributed first to their Blessed Patrons, Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, and after them to Jeanne, the Divine Maid, believing that there was no easier, simpler, or more natural explanation of the deeds they had witnessed.
Guillaume Girault, former magistrate of the town and notary at the Châtelet, wrote and signed, with his own hand, a brief account of the deliverance of the city. Herein he states that on Wednesday, Ascension Eve, the bastion of Saint-Loup was stormed and taken as if by miracle, “there being present, and aiding in the fight, Jeanne the Maid, sent of God;” and that, on the following Saturday, the siege laid by the English to Les Tourelles at the end of the bridge was raised by the most obvious miracle since the Passion. And Guillaume Girault testifies that the Maid led the enterprise. When eye-witnesses, participators in the deeds themselves, had no clear idea of events, what could those more remote from the scene of action think of them?
The tidings of the French victories flew with astonishing rapidity. The brevity of authentic accounts was amply supplemented by the eloquence of loquacious clerks and the popular imagination. The Loire campaign and the coronation expedition were scarcely known at first save by fabulous reports, and the people only thought of them as supernatural events.
In the letters sent by royal secretaries to the towns of the realm and the princes of Christendom, the name of Jeanne the Maid was associated with all the deeds of prowess. Jeanne herself, by her monastic scribe, made known to all the great deeds which, it was her firm belief, she had accomplished.
It was believed that everything had been done through her, that the King had consulted her in all things, when in truth the King’s counsellors and the Captains rarely asked her advice, listened to it but seldom, and brought her forth only at convenient seasons. Everything was attributed to her alone. Her personality, associated with deeds attested and seemingly marvellous, became buried in a vast cycle of astonishing fables and disappeared in a forest of heroic stories.
Contrite souls there were in those days, who, ascribing all the woes of the kingdom to the sins of the people, looked for salvation to humility, repentance, and penance. They expected the end of iniquity and the kingdom of God on earth. Jeanne, at least in the beginning, was one of those pious folk. Sometimes, speaking as a mystic reformer, she would say that Jesus is King of the holy realm of France, that King Charles is his lieutenant, and does but hold the kingdom “in fief.” She uttered words which would create the impression that her mission was all charity, peace, and love, — these, for example, “I am sent to comfort the poor and needy.” Such gentle penitents as dreamed of a world pure, faithful, and good, made of Jeanne their saint and their prophetess. They ascribed to her edifying words she had never uttered.
“When the Maid came to the King,” they said, “she caused him to make three promises: the first was to resign his kingdom, to renounce it and give it back to God, from whom he held it; the second, to pardon all such as had turned against him and afflicted him; the third, to humiliate himself so far as to receive into favour all such as should come to him, poor and rich, friend and foe.”
Or again, in apologues, simple and charming, like the following, they represented her accomplishing her mission:
“One day, the Maid asked the King to bestow a present upon her; and when he consented, she claimed as a gift the realm of France. Though astonished, the King did not withdraw his promise. Having received her present, the Maid required a deed of gift to be solemnly drawn up by four of the King’s notaries and read aloud. While the King listened to the reading, she pointed him out to those that stood by, saying: ‘Behold the poorest knight in the kingdom.’ Then, after a short time, disposing of the realm of France, she gave it back to God. Thereafter, acting in God’s name, she invested King Charles with it and commanded that this solemn act of transmission should be recorded in writing.”
It was believed that Jeanne had prophesied that on Saint John the Baptist’s Day, 1429, not an Englishman should be left in France. These simple folk expected their saint’s promises to be fulfilled on the day she had fixed. They maintained that on the 23rd of June she had entered the city of Rouen, and that on the morrow, Saint John the Baptist’s day, the inhabitants of Paris had of their own accord, opened their gates to the King of France. In the month of July these stories were being told in Avignon. Reformers, numerous it would seem in France and throughout Christendom, believed that the Maid would organise the English and French on monastic lines and make of them one nation of pious beggars, one brotherhood of penitents. According to them, the following were the intentions of the two parties and the clauses of the treaty:
“King Charles of Valois bestows universal pardon and is willing to forget all wrongs. The English and French, having turned to contrition and repentance, are endeavouring to conclude a good and binding peace. The Maid herself has imposed conditions upon them. Conforming to her will, the English and French for one year or for two will wear a grey habit, with a little cross sewn upon it; on every Friday they will live on bread and water; they will dwell in unity with their wives and will seek no other women. They promise God not to make war except for the defense of their country.”
During the coronation campaign, nothing being known of the agreement between the King’s men and the people of Auxerre, towards the end of July, it was related that the town having been taken by storm, four thousand five hundred citizens had been killed and likewise fifteen hundred men-at-arms, knights as well as squires belonging to the parties of Burgundy and Savoy. Among the nobles slain were mentioned Humbert Maréchal, Lord of Varambon, and a very famous warrior, le Viau de Bar. Stories were told of treasons and massacres, horrible adventures in which the Maid was associated with that knave of hearts who was already famous. She was said to have had twelve traitors beheaded. Such tales were real romances of chivalry. Here is one of them:
About two thousand English surrounded the King’s camp, watching to see if they could do him some hurt. Then the Maid called Captain La Hire and said to him: “Thou hast in thy time done great prowess, but to-day God prepares for thee a deed greater than any thou hast yet performed. Take thy men and go to such and such a wood two leagues herefrom, and there shalt thou find two thousand English, all lance in hand; them shalt thou take and slay.”
La Hire went forth to the English and all were taken and slain as the Maid had said.
Such were the fairy-stories told of Jeanne to the joy of simple primitive folk, who delighted in the idea of a maid slayer of giants and remover of mountains.
There was a rumour that after the sack of Auxerre, the Duke of Burgundy had been defeated and taken in a great battle, that the Regent was dead and that the Armagnacs had entered Paris. Prodigies were said to have attended the capitulation of Troyes. On the coming of the French, it was told how the tow
nsfolk beheld from their ramparts a vast multitude of men-at-arms, some five or six thousand, each man holding a white pennon in his hand. On the departure of the French, they beheld them again, ranged but a bow-shot behind King Charles. These knights with white pennons vanished when the King had gone; for they were as miraculous as those white-scarfed knights, whom the Bretons had seen riding in the sky but shortly before.
All that the people of Orléans beheld when their siege was suddenly raised, all that Armagnac mendicants and the Dauphin’s clerks related was greedily received, accredited, and amplified. Three months after her coming to Chinon, Jeanne had her legend, which grew and increased and extended into Italy, Flanders, and Germany. In the summer of 1429, this legend was already formed. All the scattered parts of what may be described as the gospel of her childhood existed.
At the age of seven Jeanne kept sheep; the wolves did not molest her flock; the birds of the field, when she called them, came and ate bread from her lap. The wicked had no power over her. No one beneath her roof need fear man’s fraud or ill-will.
When it is a Latin poet who is writing, the miracles attending Jeanne’s birth assume a Roman majesty and are clothed with the august dignity of ancient myths. Thus it is curious to find a humanist of 1429 summoning the Italian muse to the cradle of Zabillet Romée’s daughter.
“The thunder rolled, the ocean shuddered, the earth shook, the heavens were on fire, the universe rejoiced visibly; a strange transport mingled with fear moved the enraptured nations. They sing sweet verses and dance in harmonious motion at the sign of the salvation prepared for the French people by this celestial birth.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 445