The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

The page hastened to obey, while Dame Boucher and her daughter paid their adieus to the Maid. The latter raised herself upon her stirrups, took the standard that Imerguet lowered to her from the window above, and plunging her spurs into the flanks of her horse, the warrior maid waved with her hand a last good-bye to Madeleine, and departed with such swiftness that the sparks flew from the pavement under the iron shoes of her steed.[76 - The same.]

By concealing the hour of the assault from Joan, the Sire of Gaucourt had planned to keep her away and thus to injure her in the opinion of the soldiers, who would impute to cowardice her absence at the hour of danger. Planted at the Bourgogne Gate at the head of the reserves, Gaucourt saw with surprise and anger Joan approaching at a gallop, cased in her white armor and her white standard in her hand. She passed the traitor like an apparition, and soon disappeared from his sight in a cloud of dust raised by the rapid gait of her horse, that she drove with free reins down the Sologne road, while with pangs of despair she heard the detonations of the artillery increase in frequency. In the measure that she drew near the field of battle, the cries of the soldiers, the clash of arms, the formidable noise of battle reached her ear more distinctly. Finally the bastille of St. Loup hove in sight. It intercepted the Sologne road, dominating the Loire river, and was built at the foot of an old church that in itself was a powerful fortification. The church formed a second redoubt within the first, whose parapets were at that moment half concealed by the smoke of the cannons. Their fire redoubled, the last ranks of the French were descending almost perpendicularly into a deep moat, the first defense of the entrenchment, when, leaving her steaming horse, Joan rushed forward, her banner in her hands, to join the combatants who at that moment, instead of proceeding forward down into the moat were turning about and climbing out again crying:

"The bastille is impregnable!"

"The English are full of the devil!"

"The Maid is not with us!"

"God has forsaken us!"

The captains had calculated upon the enthusiasm produced by the heroine to lead the troops to the assault with the promise that she was soon to join them. Relying upon the promise the first rush of the assailants, who consisted mainly of Orleans militiamen, bourgeois and artisans, was intrepid. But the English, not seeing the Maid among the French, considered them deprived of a support that many of themselves looked upon as supernatural; the enemy's courage revived and they repelled the otherwise overpowering attack. The revulsion was instantaneous. A panic seized the front ranks of the assailants and the swiftest in the night were seeking to regain the home side of the moat when Joan appeared running towards them, with eyes full of inspiration and her face glowing with martial ardor. The fleers stopped; they imagined themselves strengthened by a superhuman power; the shame of defeat mounted to their cheeks; they blushed at the thought of fleeing under the eyes of the beautiful young girl, who, waving her banner, rushed to the moat crying in a ringing voice:

"Stand firm! Follow me! Ours is the battle by order of God! Victory to Gaul!"[77 - Journal of the Siege of Orleans, vol. III, p. 171.]

Carried away by the magic of the bravery and beauty of the heroine, the fleers fell in line behind her to the cry of:

"Good luck to Joan!"

"Joan is with us!"

These clamors, which announced the presence of the Maid, redoubled the energy of the intrepid ones who still held the middle of the moat, although they were being decimated by the stones, the bullets and the arrows hurled at them from the top of the boulevard of the redoubt. Joan, nimble, supple and strong, and supporting herself from time to time upon the shoulders of those who surrounded her, descended into the moat with them, crying:

"To the assault! Let's march bravely! God is with us! Victory to Gaul!"

The ranks opened before the heroine and closed behind her. Her bravery carried away the most timidly disposed. Arrived at the foot of the slope that had to be climbed under a shower of projectiles in order to reach a palisaded trench that protected the boulevard, Joan perceived Master John. Neither he nor the other sturdy cannoniers of Orleans had retreated an inch since the assault began. They were just making ready to climb out of the ditch on the enemy's side.

"Helloa, my good countryman," Joan called out cheerfully to the cannonier; "let us climb up there quick; the redoubt is ours!"

And supporting herself upon the staff of her standard in order to scale the steep slope, the Maid soon was several steps in the lead of the front ranks of the assailants. Inspired by her example, these soon reached the summit of the slope. Many fell dead or wounded by the shower of balls and bolts near the heroine. She was the first to set foot upon the narrow strip surrounding the moat and beyond which rose the palisaded entrenchment. Turning to those who followed her, Joan cried:

"To the palisade! To the palisade! Courage! The English are beaten! I tell you so by order of God!"[78 - Journal of the Siege of Orleans, vol. III, p. 171.]

Master John and his men hewed down the posts with their axes; a breach was effected; the flood of the assailants rushed through the gap like a torrent through a sluice; and a furious hand-to-hand encounter was joined between the French and the English.

"Forward!" cried Joan keeping her sword in its scabbard and merely waving her banner; "heaven protects us! Forward!"

"We shall see whether heaven protects you, accursed witch!" cried an English captain, whereat he dealt a furious blow with his sabre upon the head of the Maid. Her casque protected her. Immediately another blow from a heavy iron mace fell upon her right shoulder. Dazed by these repeated strokes, she staggered for a moment; Master John supported her while two of his cannoniers threw themselves before her to protect her with their bodies. The shock was quickly overcome. Joan recovered herself, stood daring and erect, and rushed into action with redoubled spirit. The enthusiasm of the warrior maiden was irresistible; the boulevard was soon heaped with the dead of both sides. Driven back, the English again succumbed to the superstitious terror that the Maid inspired them with and they sought safety behind the numerous frame buildings that served as barracks to the garrison of the bastille and as lodgings for the officers. The struggle continued with unabated fury, without mercy or pity, through the causeways that separated the vast frame structures. Each lodging of the captains, each barrack, became a redoubt that had to be carried. Fired by the presence of the Maid, the French attacked and carried them one after the other. The English who survived the fury of the first assault defended the ground inch by inch and succeeded in retreating in good order into the church that crowned the boulevard – a church with thick walls, surmounted by a belfry. Entrenched in this last fort, whose doors they barricaded from within, the English archers riddled their assailants with arrows, shot through the narrow windows, while other English soldiers, posted on the platform of the belfry, rolled down heavy stones, placed there in advance, upon the heads of the French. Gathered in a mass near the portico of the church, and entirely exposed, the French were being crushed and decimated by the invisible enemy, not an arrow or stone of whom was lost. The Maid noticed that her men began to waver. Banner in hand she rushed forward:

"Victory to Gaul! Break in the door! Let us boldly enter the church. It is ours by the order of God!"

Master John, together with several determined men, attacked with hatchets the iron studded door, while a shower of arrows, shot through a narrow slit in an adjoining building, rained upon the cannonier and his companions. Their efforts were vain. Many of Master John's aides fell beside him, his own arm was pierced by a shaft. The English who entrenched themselves in the tower of the church, sawed off the framework of the roofing, and with the aid of levers, threw it down upon their assailants. The avalanche of stones, lead, slates and beams despatched all those upon whom it fell. A panic now threatened.

"Forward!" cried Joan. "We needed beams to beat in the doors. The English now furnish us with them. Take up the heaviest of them. Ram the door. It will give. We shall have those Englishmen even if they are hidden in the clouds."[79 - Trial and Condemnation, vol. I, p. 49.]

Again reanimated by her words, the soldiers obeyed the orders of the Maid. Despite his wound, Master John directed the operation. An enormous beam was taken from the debris, raised by twenty men, and plied like a ram against the door of the church. Suddenly, the French soldiers, who, standing on the brow of the parapet, overlooked the plain, cried out:

"We are lost! The enemy is coming in large numbers out of the bastille of St. Pouaire!"

"They are going to take us in the rear!"

"We shall be between these fresh troops and the English entrenched in the church!"

This move, skilfully foreseen and prepared for by Joan, who had issued the necessary orders to meet it, was in fact made by the enemy.

"Fear not!" said the martial maid to those near her, who were petrified by the news, "a reserve troop will sally from the town and cut off the English. Look not behind, but before you! Fall to bravely! Take the church!"

Hardly had Joan uttered these words when the precipitate ringing of the town hall bell was heard, and it was immediately followed by a sally headed by a cavalry corps. The infantry marched out of the town at the double quick and in good order, and planted itself in battle array across the road that led from the bastille of St. Pouaire to that of St. Loup. Intimidated by the resolute attitude of the reserve corps, which was commanded by Marshal St. Sever, the English halted, and, giving up their plan of marching to the assistance of their fellows at St. Loup, returned to their own entrenchments. Seeing Joan's words thus verified, her soldiers placed implicit faith in her divine prescience. Feeling perfectly safe in their rear and fired by their own success, they turned upon the church with redoubled determination to carry it. Two enormous beams were now plied by twenty men apiece shattering the iron-studded door, despite all the arrows of the enemy. The dying and the wounded were quickly replaced by fresh forces. Joan, intrepid, ever near the combatants and her banner on high, encouraged them with voice and gesture while escaping a thousand deaths, thanks to the excellent temper of her armor. The door finally broke down under the unceasing blows of the beams, and fell inside the church, but at the same moment, a cannon, placed within and opposite the door, ready for action, vomited with a terrible detonation a discharge of stones and scraps of iron upon the assailants at the gap. Many fell mortally wounded, the rest rushed into the vast and dark basilica where a new hand-to-hand encounter, stubborn and murderous, took place. The struggle continued from step to step up the staircase of the tower to the platform, now stripped of its roof, and from the summit of which the English were finally hurled into space. Just as the sun was tinting with its westering rays the placid waters of the Loire, the standard of Joan was seen floating from the summit of the church, and the cry of the vanquishers echoed and re-echoed a thousand times:

"Good luck! Good luck to the Maid!"

The victory won and the intoxication of battle dissipated, the heroine became again a girl, full of tenderness for the vanquished. Descending from the belfry of the church whither her bravery had carried her, the Maid wept[80 - Chronicle of the Maid, pp. 220-224, cited by Quicherat, vol. IV. Also the Journal of the Siege of Orleans.] at the sight of the steps red with blood and almost concealed under the corpses. She implored her men to desist from carnage and to spare the prisoners. Among these were three captains. Hoping thereby to escape death they had put on some friars' robes that had been left in a corner of the sacristy and had there lain unnoticed since the English had taken possession of the Church of St. Loup. The three false prelates were found hidden in a dark chapel. The vanquishers wished to massacre them. Joan saved them[81 - Chronicle of the Maid, p. 224.] and, together with others, they were taken prisoners. The frame barracks and lodgings were put to the flame, and the vast conflagration, struggling against the first shadows of the thickening night, threw consternation into the other redoubts of the English, while it lighted the departure of the French.

When, to the light of torches, Joan re-entered Orleans at the head of the troops, the belfry of the town hall and all the bells of the churches were ringing their loudest and merriest; cannon boomed; the whole town was in transports of joy, hope and enthusiasm. The Maid had by her first triumph given the "sign" so oft demanded of her that she was truly the envoy of God. She was received as a liberator by the people, idolatrous with thankfulness.

Upon her return to the house of Master James Boucher, where she was whelmed with caresses by his wife and Madeleine, Joan convoked the captains and said to them: "God has so far supported us, sirs; but we are only at the beginning of our task; let us finish it quickly. Help yourselves, and heaven will help you! We must to-morrow at daybreak profit by the discouragement into which our victory of to-day must have cast the English. We must bravely return to the attack of the other redoubts."[82 - Chronicle of the Maid, p. 225.]

The close of this day, so glorious to the martial maid, had a bitter sorrow in store for her. Even Lahire, Dunois and Xaintrailles, all of whom were animated with less ill will than the other captains towards Joan, recoiled before her brave resolution, and taxed her with foolhardiness. Promptly availing himself of the opportunity, Gaucourt and the captains who were openly hostile to the Maid caused the council of war to declare that "In view of the religious solemnity of the following day, Thursday, the feast of the Ascension, it would be outrageously impious to go to battle; the council would meet at noon only to consider what measures should be next taken."[83 - The same.]

This deplorable decision afforded the English time to recover from the stupor of their defeat; it also ran the risk of losing the fruits of Joan's first victory. The blindness, the perfidy or the cowardice of the captains filled her with indignation. Steeped in sorrow she withdrew to her own room where, all in tears, she knelt down and implored the advice of her good saints; and with her eyes still wet with tears that her friend Madeleine wiped in sadness and surprise, unable to understand the cause of her friend's grief after so glorious a day, Joan fell asleep, evoking in thought as a means of solace the passage of the prophecy so miraculously fulfilled, in which Merlin announced:

"Oh, how much blood do I see! How much blood do I see!
It steams! Its vapor rises, rises like an autumn mist to heaven,
Where the thunder peals and the lightning flashes! —
Across that crimson mist, I see a martial virgin;
White is her steed, white is her armor —
She battles, she battles, she battles still,
In the midst of a forest of lances,
And seems to be riding on the backs of the enemy's archers!"

CHAPTER VII

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1429

Despite the ingenuousness of her loyal nature, Joan could no longer doubt the ill will or jealousy of the captains. They hypocritically invoked the sanctity of the feast of the Ascension merely for the purpose of paralyzing her movements by calculated inertia. In this extremity she asked the advice of her mysterious "voices," and these were now more than ever the echo of her excellent judgment, of her patriotism and of her military genius. The mysterious "voices" answered:

"These captains, like almost all the nobles who make of war a trade, are devoured with envy. Their jealous hatred is irritated at you, poor child of the field, because your genius crushes them. They would prefer to see the English take possession of Orleans rather than have the siege raised by your valor. They may perhaps not dare openly to refuse to second you, fearing to arouse the indignation of their own soldiers, above all of the bourgeois militiamen and of the people of Orleans. But these captains will traitorously resist your plans until the day when the general exasperation will compel them to follow you with their bands of mercenaries. Accordingly, you can rely for the accomplishment of your mission of liberation only upon yourself, and upon the councilmen and the town militia of Orleans. These do not fight out of vainglory or as a trade; they fight in the defence of their hearths, their families, their town. These love and respect you. You are their redeeming angel. Their confidence in you, increased by the victory of yesterday, is to-day boundless. Lean boldly upon these loyal people; you will triumph over the envious and the enemy combined; and you will triumph with the aid of God."

The advice, given to Joan through the intermediary of her good saints, comforted her. Furthermore she learned in the morning that the capture of the bastille of St. Loup had an immense result. As that bastille commanded at once the roads to the Sologne district and to Berry, and the Loire above Orleans, it had rendered difficult the provisioning and reinforcing of the town. Learning, however, of the destruction of the formidable redoubt, the surrounding peasants promptly began to pour into town with their products as on a market day. Thanks to these fresh supplies, besides the convoy of the previous day, abundance succeeded scarcity, and the inhabitants glorified Joan for the happy change of things. There was another precious result. Numerous well armed bands, fanaticized by the accounts that they received of the Maid, entered the town from the side of the Sologne, and offered their help to march against the English with the urban militia. The heroine immediately realized that she had a powerful counterpoise to the ill will of the captains, and was not slow in putting it to use. Accordingly, she ordered her equerry Daulon to convoke the captains and councilmen for the hour of noon after high mass, at the house of Master Boucher, and she pressed upon her host to see that none of the magistrates be absent; the Maid then requested Madeleine to procure her a dress of one of the servants of the house and a hooded cloak, took off her male clothes, donned the attire of her sex, carefully wrapped herself so as to be discovered of none in the town, went to the banks of the Loire, took a boat and ordered the boatman to cross the river and land at a good distance from the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc situated on the opposite bank and face to face with the still smoldering debris of the bastille of St. Loup.

Joan disembarked and proceeded, according to her custom, to examine the entrenchments that she contemplated assailing. Not far from the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc rose the Augustinian Convent, composed of massive buildings that were strongly fortified. Beyond that, the bastille of the Tournelles, a veritable citadel flanked with high wooden towers, spread its wings towards the Beauce and Touraine and faced the bridge of Orleans that had long been cut off by the enemy. Still another formidable redoubt, that of St. Privé, situated to the left and not far from the Tournelles completed the besieging works of the English to the south of the town. The martial maid proposed to carry the four formidable positions one after the other, after which the English would be compelled to abandon the other and less important bastilles which they had raised to the west, these being incapable of resistance after the destruction of the more important works. Joan long and leisurely observed the approaches of these works and revolved her plan of attack. Her woman's clothes aroused no suspicion with the English sentinels. After she had gathered full information with a quick and intelligent eye, she returned to her boat and re-entered the house of Master Boucher so well wrapped in her mantle that she actually escaped the observation of all eyes. She forthwith resumed her male attire to attend the high mass, where she again took the communion. The enthusiastic acclamations that broke out along her route to and from the church proved to her that she could count with the support of the people of Orleans. She entered the house of Master James Boucher where the captains and councilmen were gathered. The council soon went into session, but Joan was not summoned at the start.

At this session there assisted the magistrates of the town as well as Xaintrailles, Dunois, Marshals Retz and St. Sever, the Sire of Graville, Ambroise of Loré, Lahire and other captains. The Sire of Gaucourt presided in his quality of royal captain.[84 - John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 57. Given by Quicherat.] The recent victory of the Maid, a victory in which several of the captains least hostile to her had played a secondary role, inspired them all with secret and bitter envy. They had expected to serve themselves with the young peasant girl as a passive instrument of their will, to utilize her influence to their own advantage and to issue their commands through her. It had turned out otherwise. Forced, especially after the battle of the day before, to admit that Joan excelled them all in the profession of war, irritated at the injury done to their military fame, and convinced that the military successes would be wholly placed to the credit of Joan, the one time less hostile captains now went wholly though secretly over to her pronounced enemies, and the following plan of battle was unanimously adopted for the morrow:

"A feint shall be made against the fortress of the Tournelles in order to deceive the enemy and cause it to sally out of the redoubts that lie on the other side of the Loire and hasten to bring help to the threatened position. The enemy will be readily duped. A few detachments shall continue skirmishing on the side of the Tournelles. But the royal troops and the companies of mercenaries will move upon and easily capture the other bastilles where the English, in their hurry to hasten to the defence of an important post, will have left but feeble garrisons behind."[85 - John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 58, cited by Quicherat. The decision of the council is here given literally from the records. There can be no doubt on this abominable attempt at treason.]

This plan of battle, whether good or bad from the viewpoint of strategy, concealed an act of cowardly perfidy, an infamous, horrible snare spread for Joan. Speaking in the name of the councilmen, and answering the Sire of Gaucourt, who explained the plan that the captains had adopted, Master James Boucher observed that the Maid should be summoned so as to submit to her the projects of the council.

The Sire of Gaucourt hastened to object in the name of all the captains, on the ground that they were not sure the young girl would know how to keep so delicate a matter secret, and that, seeing the doubt existed, she should be informed only upon the plan of attack against the Tournelles, but should not be apprised that the manoeuvre was only a feint, a ruse of war. Accordingly, during a skirmish commanded by the Maid in person, the bulk of the army was to carry out the real plan of battle, on which Joan was to be kept in the dark.[86 - John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 58.]