The Maid and the Queen
Page 1
THE MAID AND THE QUEEN
ALSO BY
NANCY GOLDSTONE
Four Queens
The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
The Lady Queen
The Notorious Reign of Joanna I,
Queen of Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily
WITH LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE
The Friar and the Cipher
Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of
the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World
Out of the Flames
The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy,
and One of the Rarest Books in the World
Warmly Inscribed
The New England Forger and Other Book Tales
Slightly Chipped
Footnotes in Booklore
Used and Rare
Travels in the Book World
The Secret History
of
Joan of Arc
Nancy Goldstone
VIKING
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi— 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2012 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Nancy Goldstone, 2012
All rights reserved
Illustration credits appear on pages 281–282.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Goldstone, Nancy Bazelon.
The maid and the queen : the secret history of Joan of Arc / Nancy Goldstone.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
EISBN: 9781101561294
1. Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412–1431. 2. Yolande d’Aragon, Queen, consort of
Louis II, King of Naples, d. 1442. 3. France— History— Charles VII, 1422–1461.
4. Christian women saints— France— Biography.
5. Nobility— France— Biography. 6. Louis II, Duke of Anjou, 1377–1417.
I. Title. II. Title: Secret history of Joan of Arc.
DC104.G65 2012 944’.0260922— dc23 [B] 2011037605
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Bembo Std MT
Designed by Amy Hill
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For Larry, always
CONTENTS
List of Maps
List of Illustrations
Note on Sources
Introduction
PART I
Before Joan
CHAPTER 1 The Kingdom of the Gay Science
CHAPTER 2 To Be a Queen
CHAPTER 3 The Mad King of France
CHAPTER 4 Civil War
CHAPTER 5 A New Dauphin
PART II
Joan of Arc
CHAPTER 6 Childhood in Domrémy
CHAPTER 7 The Angels Speak to Joan
CHAPTER 8 Joan Meets the Dauphin
CHAPTER 9 The Maid of Orléans
CHAPTER 10 Capture at Compiègne
CHAPTER 11 The Trial of Joan of Arc
PART III
After Joan
CHAPTER 12 Of Politics and Prisoners
CHAPTER 13 The Queen Takes Control
CHAPTER 14 The Road to Rouen
CHAPTER 15 The Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc
EPILOGUE
Genealogy: The Extended Royal House of France in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index
MAPS
Western Europe, c. 1400
France and the Surrounding Duchies, c. 1430
Orléans Under Siege and Surrounded by the English Bastilles, 1429
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans.
A queen awards prizes at court.
Raymondin breaks his vow and spies on Melusine on a Saturday.
Portrait of Louis I of Anjou and his wife, Marie of Blois, Yolande of Aragon’s formidable mother-in-law.
Charles VI suffers his first psychotic episode, attacking his own men.
Yolande of Aragon and her husband, Louis II, escort ten-year-old Charles out of Paris.
The battle of Agincourt.
The Burgundians massacre the Armagnacs in Paris.
The earliest surviving image of Joan of Arc, doodled in the margin of a manuscript.
Portrait of the man Joan of Arc called the dauphin, the future Charles VII.
Joan addresses Charles at the royal court.
Joan raises the siege of Orléans.
The coronation of Charles VII at Reims.
The capture of Joan of Arc at Compiègne.
The execution of Joan of Arc.
The French battle the English in the final stages of the Hundred Years War.
René at home in his castle at work on a book of chivalry.
Portrait of Philip the Good.
Charles VII parades triumphantly into Paris.
Stained glass window of Yolande of Aragon at the cathedral in Le Mans.
Joan of Arc in her time.
NOTE ON SOURCES
THOSE UNFAMILIAR with the study of medieval history may wonder how it is possible to write with any certainty about events that occurred so long ago. Fortunately, the fifteenth century boasted a stunning wealth of primary source material that has survived to the present day. There is Joan’s own extensive testimony, and that of her inquisitors, from her Trial of Condemnation, as well as the depositions from the many eyewitnesses who knew the Maid and who were actively involved in the events of the Hundred Years War, which were recorded in the judicial proceedings associated with her rehabilitation. There are also numerous extant works by chroniclers of the period and a significant trove of government reports, letters, royal proclamations, and accounts. For those interested, this evidence is cited at the back of the book in the form of detailed chapter notes and biblio graphy.
All of which is a long way of saying that, as provocative and even astonishing as it sometimes may appear, what you are about to read actually happened.
INTRODUCTION
The town of Blois, on the banks of the Loire, twenty-five miles southwest of Orléans, April 1429— The narrow streets of this small provincial city, ordinarily quiet, were suddenly crowded with
traffic. Wagons piled high with foodstuffs and other provisions jostled for space with lordly knights on horseback and commoners laden with sheaves of grain. Cattle, sheep, and other livestock, some tethered to carts, others herded into hastily erected pens, spilled into the surrounding fields, filling town and countryside alike with the clamor of their bleats and bellows. Within the city’s walls an army was massing, the last stragglers of foot soldiers and crossbowmen trickling in to join the convoy of supplies while they awaited their orders.
The kingdom of France— as represented by the dauphin, the heir to the throne— had been invaded by England. The dauphin’s position was extremely precarious. Over the last few years, the French army had sustained a series of losses so devastating that the English now held most of the northwest portion of the realm, including the all-important capital city, Paris. The dauphin’s forces, by contrast, had been pushed back and were primarily concentrated in the territory south of the Loire. Perpetually on the defensive, the French troops, from the commanders down to the lowest common soldiers, were exhausted and demoralized. An aura of hopelessness had settled over the dauphin’s court like a black robe of mourning.
Determined to seize the advantage and shatter what was left of their opponents’ spirit, the English had sent home for reinforcements and raised a supplementary army that they used to launch a powerful new offensive. The attack struck at the very heart of the dauphin’s support and terrain— the walled city of Orléans. To lose Orléans meant that England would finally pierce the barrier of the Loire, allowing its soldiers to penetrate deeply into the southern countryside that served as a buffer zone between the French royal court and the front line. To lose Orléans meant there would be nothing and no one to stop the English from surrounding the dauphin and his government and precipitating their surrender or capture. To lose Orléans meant the almost certain defeat of France.
Sensible of the larger peril, the loyal inhabitants of that vital city had for six months heroically withstood the cruel siege conditions imposed upon them by the enemy. After an initial bombardment, the English commanders, finding themselves unable to scale the walls or break through Orléans’s defenses, had elected simply to surround their target, dig into entrenched positions, and wait for their opponents to either submit or starve to death.
To give voice to this struggle and provide an accurate depiction of events for posterity, the townspeople kept a daily chronicle of their ordeal, known as the Journal of the Siege of Orléans. “The Sunday…hurled the English into the city six score and four stones from bombards and great cannon, of which there was one stone weighted 116 pounds,” the entry for October 17, 1428, began. “This same week did the English cannon damage or destroy twelve mills…. The Sunday following the twenty-fourth day of October the En glish attacked and took…the end of the bridge…. Thus there was no defence because none dared any longer stay in them,” read subsequent reports.
As the months wore on and one by one the access routes into the city were successfully blockaded, stockpiles of provisions began to run dangerously low. Only small parties of horsemen, six or seven at a time, managed to smuggle any food at all into Orléans during the height of that terrible winter. Desperate to survive, the inhabitants launched a daring attempt to hijack a delivery of supplies bound for their English tormentors, but despite their superior numbers the French regiments were routed. The resulting defeat was so humiliating that it was recorded in the official journal as the infamous “day of the herrings,” a reference to the enemy’s inferior rations— salted herring in barrels— that the city had fought for but nonetheless failed to secure. As punishment for this exploit, the English tightened the grip on their victims so strongly that by spring the people of Orléans “found themselves squeezed in such necessity by the besieging enemies that they knew not whom to have recourse to for a remedy, excepting (or, unless it be) to God.”
Now, in nearby Blois, what remained of the French army stoically girded itself for one final gamble in the long struggle to fend off, or at least buy time against, the seemingly invincible English. The pens of noisy barnyard animals, the carts full of wheat, the milling soldiers— all were elements of a signal relief operation organized to resupply Orléans and stave off the specter of mass starvation. The driving force behind this initiative was a leading member of the French aristocracy and one of the dauphin’s oldest and most trusted advisers. A veteran of two decades of partisan French politics and civil war, the de facto head of the loyalist party, this high counselor had worked tirelessly for months to bring together not only the necessary provisions but also the most experienced warriors in France with whom to confront the English and save Orléans.
Only a power broker this masterful, a descendant of royalty possessed of the requisite administrative, diplomatic, and logistical skills, could have hoped to succeed at so demanding a task. Although this statesman’s influence over the events of her time was unparalleled, neither her achievements nor her dominance has ever been recognized. Even her name has been forgotten. She was Yolande of Aragon, queen of Sicily, the dauphin’s mother-in-law.
As perhaps the most astute politician of her age, Yolande of Aragon had been one of the first members of the royal council to recognize the danger represented by the English presence at Orléans, and the absolute necessity of fighting back. Determined to save her son-in-law’s kingdom, which included her own lands and estates, she had summoned every weapon in her considerable arsenal— money, spies, coercion, and persuasion— to bring the rest of the French government in line with her point of view. Only the dauphin, terrified of yet another horrific defeat, had remained unconvinced. To change his mind, Yolande had been forced to resort to a highly unorthodox approach, the repercussions of which would resonate for centuries and ultimately change the course of history.
For leading this relief effort was neither duke nor general nor battle-hardened cavalry captain, but a seventeen-year-old girl dressed in armor and carrying a banner and sword— Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans.
• • •
THE ENIGMA OF JOAN OF ARC, the brave peasant girl who heard the voices of angels and restored the dauphin to his rightful place on the throne of France, remains as irresistible today as when she first appeared some six centuries ago. How had the Maid, a lowly commoner, gained an audience at the royal court? How had she, an illiterate young woman from a tiny village at the very edge of the kingdom, come to know so much about the complex political situation in France, and indeed, to see into the deepest recesses of her sovereign’s heart? What clandestine sign had Joan revealed that convinced the dauphin of her authenticity and inspired him to follow her counsel? How had a seventeen-year-old female with no experience in warfare managed to defeat the fearsome English army, raise the siege of Orléans, and crown the king at Reims, feats that had eluded experienced French commanders twice her age?
The answers to these questions have remained hidden, not because the mystery surrounding Joan cannot be penetrated, but because their solution is inextricably tied to the life of another woman entirely, that of Yolande of Aragon, queen of Sicily. Viewed through the prism of Yolande’s experiences and perspective, Joan’s story abruptly makes sense, like a fragment torn from a page in a book that has been rediscovered and taped back into place. Pry open the Queen’s secrets and there will be found the Maid’s.
And so this is the saga of not one but two extraordinary women. It is a story filled with courage, intrigue, madness, and mysticism, which spanned a period measuring more than half a century. Best of all, although it is a work of history, at its heart lies a classic French novel, testimony to the enduring power of literature. Because Yolande’s long, eventful life bookended Joan’s short, tumultuous one, several decades and many chapters pass before the Maid finally makes her appearance. But it is only in this way— by the patient unraveling of the many curious twists and turns that came before, and which ultimately led to Joan’s thrilling introduction to the royal court— that what had been deliberately s
uppressed for so many centuries may finally be revealed.
Six hundred years is a long time to wait for answers to so prominent a mystery. For those who wonder after reading these pages how it is possible that the evidence of Yolande’s involvement in the story of Joan of Arc has never before been adequately explored, I can only respond that there is no more effective camouflage in history than to have been born a woman.
Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans.
For full fayne I wold do that might you please,
yff connyng I had in it to procede;
To me wold it be grete plesaunce and ease,
yff aught here might fourge to youre wyl in dede.
(Most gladly would I do that which might you please,
had I the cunning in it to proceed;
It would bring me great pleasure and ease,
if I might here forge something to your liking indeed.)
—The Romance of Melusine,
fifteenth-century English translation
Consider the effect and essence of the said science [poetry], which is known…as the Joyous or Gay Science and by another as the Science of Invention; that science which, shining with the most pure, honorable and courtly eloquence, civilizes the uncouth, vitalizes the slothful, softens the coarse, entices the learned…[and] disclosing the hidden, sheds light on things obscure.
—edict of John I, king of Aragon,
establishing the festival of the Gay Science,
issued at Valencia, February 20, 1393
secret n (14c) 1 a: something kept hidden or unexplained: MYSTERY
—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,
11th edition
CHAPTER 1
The Kingdom
of the