Before his departure, the King appointed the Count of Clermont commander of the district with several lieutenants: the Lords of Culant, Boussac, Loré, and Foucault. He constituted joint lieutenants-general the Counts of Clermont and of Vendôme, the lords Regnault de Chartres, Christophe d’Harcourt and Jean Tudert. Regnault de Chartres established himself in the town of Senlis, the lieutenant’s headquarters. Having thus disposed, the King quitted Saint-Denys on the 13th of September. The Maid followed him against her will notwithstanding that she had the permission of her Voices to do so. She offered her armour to the image of Our Lady and to the precious body of Saint Denys. This armour was white, that is to say devoid of armorial bearings. She was thus following the custom of men-at-arms, who, after they had received a wound, if they did not die of it, offered their armour to Our Lady and the Saints as a token of thanksgiving. Wherefore, in those warlike days, chapels, like that of Notre-Dame de Fierbois, often presented the appearance of arsenals. To her armour the Maid added a sword which she had won before Paris.
CHAPTER IV
THE TAKING OF SAINT-PIERRE-LE-MOUSTIER — FRIAR RICHARD’S SPIRITUAL DAUGHTERS — THE SIEGE OF LA CHARITÉ
THE King slept at Lagny-sur-Marne on the 14th of September, then crossed the Seine at Bray, forded the Yonne near Sens and went on through Courtenay, Châteaurenard and Montargis. On the 21st of September he reached Gien. There he disbanded the army he could no longer pay, and each man went to his own home. The Duke of Alençon withdrew into his viscounty of Beaumont-sur-Oise.
Learning that the Queen was coming to meet the King, Jeanne went before her and greeted her at Selles-en-Berry. She was afterwards taken to Bourges, where my Lord d’Albret, half-brother of the Sire de la Trémouille, lodged her with Messire Régnier de Bouligny. Régnier was then Receiver General. He had been one of those whose dismissal the University had requested in 1408, as being worse than useless, for they held him responsible for many of the disorders in the kingdom. He had entered the Dauphin’s service, passed from the administration of the royal domain to that of taxes and attained the highest rank in the control of the finances. His wife, who had accompanied the Queen to Selles, beheld the Maid and wondered. Jeanne seemed to her a creature sent by God for the relief of the King and those of France who were loyal to him. She remembered the days not so very long ago when she had seen the Dauphin and her Husband not knowing where to turn for money. Her name was Marguerite La Touroulde; she was damiselle, not dame; a comfortable bourgeoise and that was all.
Three weeks Jeanne sojourned in the Receiver General’s house. She slept there, drank there, ate there. Nearly every night, Damiselle Marguerite La Touroulde slept with her; the etiquette of those days required it. No night-gowns were worn; folk slept naked in those vast beds. It would seem that Jeanne disliked sleeping with old women. Damiselle La Touroulde, although not so very old, was of matronly age; she had moreover a matron’s experience, and further she claimed, as we shall see directly, to know more than most matrons knew. Several times she took Jeanne to the bath and to the sweating-room. That also was one of the rules of etiquette; a host was not considered to be making his guests good cheer unless he took them to the bath. In this point of courtesy princes set an example; when the King and Queen supped in the house of one of their retainers or ministers, fine baths richly ornamented were prepared for them before they came to table. Mistress Marguerite doubtless did not possess what was necessary in her own house; wherefore she took Jeanne out to the bath and the sweating-room. Such are her own expressions; and they probably indicate a vapour bath not a bath of hot water.
At Bourges the sweating-rooms were in the Auron quarter, in the lower town, near the river. Jeanne was strictly devout, but she did not observe conventual rule; she, like chaste Suzannah therefore, might permit herself to bathe and she must have had great need to do so after having slept on straw. What is more remarkable is that, after having seen Jeanne in the bath, Mistress Marguerite judged her a virgin according to all appearances.
In Messire Régnier de Bouligny’s house and likewise wherever she lodged, she led the life of a béguine but did not practise excessive austerity. She confessed frequently. Many a time she asked her hostess to come with her to matins. In the cathedral and in collegiate churches there were matins every day, between four and six, at the hour of sunset. The two women often talked together; the Receiver General’s wife found Jeanne very simple and very ignorant. She was amazed to discover that the maiden knew absolutely nothing.
Among other matters, Jeanne told of her visit to the old Duke of Lorraine, and how she had rebuked him for his evil life; she spoke likewise of the interrogatory to which the doctors of Poitiers had subjected her. She was persuaded that these clerks had questioned her with extreme severity, and she firmly believed that she had triumphed over their ill-will. Alas! she was soon to know clerks even less accommodating.
Mistress Marguerite said to her one day: “If you are not afraid when you fight, it is because you know you will not be killed.” Whereupon Jeanne answered: “I am no surer of that than are the other combatants.”
Oftentimes women came to the Bouligny house, bringing paternosters and other trifling objects of devotion for the Maid to touch.
Jeanne used to say laughingly to her hostess: “Touch them yourself. Your touch will do them as much good as mine.”
This ready repartee must have shown Mistress Marguerite that Jeanne, ignorant as she may have been, was none the less capable of displaying a good grace and common sense in her conversation.
While in many matters this good woman found the Maid but a simple creature, in military affairs she deemed her an expert. Whether, when she judged the saintly damsel’s skill in wielding arms, she was giving her own opinion or merely speaking from hearsay, as would seem probable, she at any rate declared later that Jeanne rode a horse and handled a lance as well as the best of knights and so well that the army marvelled. Indeed most captains in those days could do no better.
Probably there were dice and dice-boxes in the Bouligny house, otherwise Jeanne would have had no opportunity of displaying that horror of gaming which struck her hostess. On this matter Jeanne agreed with her comrade, Friar Richard, and indeed with everyone else of good life and good doctrine.
What money she had Jeanne distributed in alms. “I am come to succour the poor and needy,” she used to say.
When the multitude heard such words they were led to believe that this Maid of God had been raised up for something more than the glorification of the Lilies, and that she was come to dispel such ills as murder, pillage and other sins grievous to God, from which the realm was suffering. Mystic souls looked to her for the reform of the Church and the reign of Jesus Christ on earth. She was invoked as a saint, and throughout the loyal provinces were to be seen carved and painted images of her which were worshipped by the faithful. Thus, even during her lifetime, she enjoyed certain of the privileges of beatification.
North of the Seine meanwhile, English and Burgundians were at their old work. The Duke of Vendôme and his company fell back on Senlis, the English descended on the town of Saint-Denys and sacked it once more. In the Abbey Church they found and carried off the Maid’s armour, thus, according to the French clergy, committing undeniable sacrilege and for this reason: because they gave the monks of the Abbey nothing in exchange.
The King was then at Mehun-sur-Yèvre, quite close to Bourges, in one of the finest châteaux in the world, rising on a rock and overlooking the town. The late Duke Jean of Berry, a great builder, had erected this château with the care that he never failed to exercise in matters of art. Mehun was King Charles’s favourite abode.
The Duke of Alençon, eager to reconquer his duchy, was waiting for troops to accompany him into Normandy, across the marches of Brittany and Maine. He sent to the King to know if it were his good pleasure to grant him the Maid. “Many there be,” said the Duke, “who would willingly come with her, while without her they will not stir from their homes.” Her
discomfiture before Paris had not, therefore, entirely ruined her prestige. The Sire de la Trémouille opposed her being sent to the Duke of Alençon, whom he mistrusted, and not without cause. He gave her into the care of his half-brother, the Sire d’Albret, Lieutenant of the King in his own country of Berry.
The Royal Council deemed it necessary to recover La Charité, left in the hands of Perrinet Gressart at the time of the coronation campaign; but it was decided first to attack Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier, which commanded the approaches to Bec-d’Allier. The garrison of this little town was composed of English and Burgundians, who were constantly plundering the villages and laying waste the fields of Berry and Bourbonnais. The army for this expedition assembled at Bourges. It was commanded by my Lord d’Albret, but popular report attributed the command to Jeanne. The common folk, the burgesses of the towns, especially the citizens of Orléans knew no other commander.
After two or three days’ siege, the King’s men stormed the town. But they were repulsed. Squire Jean d’Aulon, the Maid’s steward, who some time before had been wounded in the heel and consequently walked on crutches, had retreated with the rest. He went back and found Jeanne who had stayed almost alone by the side of the moat. Fearing lest harm should come to her, he leapt on to his horse, spurred towards her and cried: “What are you doing, all alone? Wherefore do you not retreat like the others?”
Jeanne doffed her sallet and replied: “I am not alone. With me are fifty thousand of my folk. I will not quit this spot till I have taken the town.”
Casting his eyes around, Messire Jean d’Aulon saw the Maid surrounded by but four or five men.
More loudly he cried out to her: “Depart hence and retreat like the others.”
Her only reply was a request for fagots and hurdles to fill up the moat. And straightway in a loud voice she called: “To the fagots and the hurdles all of ye, and make a bridge!”
The men-at-arms rushed to the spot, the bridge was constructed forthwith and the town taken by storm with no great difficulty. At any rate that is how the good Squire, Jean d’Aulon, told the story. He was almost persuaded that the Maid’s fifty thousand shadows had taken Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier.
With the little army on the Loire at that time were certain holy women who like Jeanne led a singular life and held communion with the Church Triumphant. They constituted, so to speak, a kind of flying squadron of béguines, which followed the men-at-arms. One of these women was called Catherine de La Rochelle; two others came from Lower Brittany.
They all had miraculous visions; Jeanne saw my Lord Saint Michael in arms and Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret wearing crowns; Pierronne beheld God in a long white robe and a purple cloak; Catherine de La Rochelle saw a white lady, clothed in cloth of gold; and, at the moment of the consecration of the host all manner of marvels of the high mystery of Our Lord were revealed unto her.
Jean Pasquerel was still with Jeanne in the capacity of chaplain. He hoped to take his penitent to fight in the Crusade against the Hussites, for it was against these heretics that he felt most bitterly. But he had been entirely supplanted by the Franciscan, Friar Richard, who, after Troyes, had joined the mendicants of Jeanne’s earlier days. Friar Richard dominated this little band of the illuminated. He was called their good Father. He it was who instructed them. His designs for these women did not greatly differ from those of Jean Pasquerel: he intended to conduct them to those wars of the Cross, which he thought were bound to precede the impending end of the world.
Meanwhile, it was his endeavour to foster a good understanding between them, which, eloquent preacher though he was, he found very difficult. Within the sisterhood there were constant suspicions and disputes. Jeanne had been on friendly terms with Catherine de la Rochelle at Montfaucon in Brie and at Jargeau; but now she began to suspect her of being a rival, and immediately she assumed an attitude of mistrust. Possibly she was right. At any moment either Catherine or the Breton women might be made use of as she had been. In those days a prophetess was useful in so many ways: in the edification of the people, the reformation of the Church, the leading of men-at-arms, the circulation of money, in war, in peace; no sooner did one appear than each party tried to get hold of her. It seems as if, after having employed the Maid Jeanne to deliver Orléans, the King’s Councillors were now thinking of employing Dame Catherine to make peace with the Duke of Burgundy. Such a task was deemed fitting for a saint less chivalrous than Jeanne. Catherine was married and the mother of a family. In this circumstance there need be no cause for astonishment; for if the gift of prophecy be more especially reserved for virgins, the example of Judith proves that the Lord may raise up strong matrons for the serving of his people.
If we believe that, as her surname indicates, she came from La Rochelle, her origin must have inspired the Armagnacs with confidence. The inhabitants of La Rochelle, all pirates more or less, were too profitably engaged in preying upon English vessels to forsake the Dauphin’s party. Moreover, he rewarded their loyalty by granting them valuable commercial privileges. They had sent gifts of money to the people of Orléans; and when, in the month of May, they learned the deliverance of Duke Charles’s city, they instituted a public festival to commemorate so happy an event.
The first duty of a saint in the army, it would appear, was to collect money. Jeanne was always sending letters asking the good towns for money or for munitions of war; the burgesses always promised to grant her request and sometimes they kept their promise. Catherine de la Rochelle appears to have had special revelations concerning the funds of the party; her mission, therefore, was financial, while Jeanne’s was martial. She announced that she was going to the Duke of Burgundy to conclude peace. If one may judge from the little that is known of her, the inspirations of this holy dame were not very elevated, not very orderly, not very profound.
Meeting Jeanne at Montfaucon in Berry (or at Jargeau) she addressed her thus:
“There came unto me a white lady, attired in cloth of gold, who said to me: ‘Go thou through the good towns and let the King give unto thee heralds and trumpets to cry: “Whosoever has gold, silver or hidden treasure, let him bring it forth instantly.”’“
Dame Catherine added: “Such as have hidden treasure and do not thus, I shall know their treasure, and I shall go and find it.”
She deemed it necessary to fight against the English and seemed to believe that Jeanne’s mission was to drive them out of the land, since she obligingly offered her the whole of her miraculous takings.
“Wherewithal to pay your men-at-arms,” she said. But the Maid answered disdainfully:
“Go back to your husband, look after your household, and feed your children.”
Disputes between saints are usually bitter. In her rival’s missions Jeanne refused to see anything but folly and futility. Nevertheless it was not for her to deny the possibility of the white lady’s visitations; for to Jeanne herself did there not descend every day as many saints, angels and archangels as were ever painted on the pages of books or the walls of monasteries? In order to make up her mind on the subject, she adopted the most effectual measures. A learned doctor may reason concerning matter and substance, the origin and the form of ideas, the dawn of impressions in the intellect, but a shepherdess will resort to a surer method; she will appeal to her own eyesight.
Jeanne asked Catherine if the white lady came every night, and learning that she did: “I will sleep with you,” she said.
When night came, she went to bed with Catherine, watched till midnight, saw nothing and fell asleep, for she was young, and she had great need of sleep. In the morning, when she awoke, she asked: “Did she come?”
“She did,” replied Catherine; “you were asleep, so I did not like to wake you.”
“Will she not come to-morrow?”
Catherine assured her that she would come without fail.
This time Jeanne slept in the day in order that she might keep awake at night; so she lay down at night in the bed with Catherine and kept her e
yes open. Often she asked: “Will she not come?”
And Catherine replied: “Yes, directly.”
But Jeanne saw nothing. She held the test to be a good one. Nevertheless she could not get the white lady attired in cloth of gold out of her head. When Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret came to her, as they delayed not to do, she spoke to them concerning this white lady and asked them what she was to think of her. The reply was such as Jeanne expected:
“This Catherine,” they said, “is naught but futility and folly.”
Then was Jeanne constrained to cry: “That is just what I thought.”
The strife between these two prophetesses was brief but bitter. Jeanne always maintained the opposite of what Catherine said. When the latter was going to make peace with the Duke of Burgundy, Jeanne said to her:
“Me seemeth that you will never find peace save at the lance’s point.”
There was one matter at any rate wherein the White Lady proved a better prophetess than the Maid’s Council, to wit, the siege of La Charité. When Jeanne wished to go and deliver that town, Catherine tried to dissuade her.
“It is too cold,” she said; “I would not go.”
Catherine’s reason was not a high one; and yet it is true Jeanne would have done better not to go to the siege of La Charité.
Taken from the Duke of Burgundy by the Dauphin in 1422, La Charité had been retaken in 1424, by Perrinet Gressart, a successful captain, who had risen from the rank of mason’s apprentice to that of pantler to the Duke of Burgundy and had been created Lord of Laigny by the King of England. On the 30th of December, 1425, Perrinet’s men arrested the Sire de La Trémouille, when he was on his way to the Duke of Burgundy, having been appointed ambassador in one of those eternal negotiations, forever in process between the King and the Duke. He was for several months kept a prisoner in the fortress which his captor commanded. He must needs pay a ransom of fourteen thousand golden crowns; and, albeit he took this sum from the royal treasury, he never ceased to bear Perrinet a grudge. Wherefore it may be concluded that when he sent men-at-arms to La Charité it was in good sooth to capture the town and not with any evil design against the Maid.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 452