Joan of Arc

John the Fearless of Burgundy ("who," says a French writer, "might better have been called John the Pitiless, since the only fear he was without was that of God") was hardly less ferocious than his enemy. In one battle he slew some thousands of unarmed citizens: in another he massacred twenty-five thousand Armagnacs at one stroke. One would really think it had been the twentieth century instead of the fifteenth.

Burgundy, cunning as well as ferocious, won over to his side first Queen Isabel, false as she was fair and frail; then the Kings of Sicily and Spain. Still seeking popularity, he besieged Calais, but was driven off by the English; finally he took possession of Paris and the king, and ruled both for a time with success and satisfaction.

Both parties did homage to Henry IV. of England (1399-1413), who took the provinces they offered and kept his own counsel.

By and by there was trouble in Paris; the Butchers, a devout body, who carried axe or cleaver in one hand and rosary in the other, were scandalized by the dissolute habits of Louis the Dauphin and his followers; took it upon themselves to mend matters. They turned axe and cleaver upon the young courtiers; slew, tortured, imprisoned, at their will, with psalms and canticles on their lips. Moreover, encouraged by Burgundy, their friend and patron, they preached daily to the Dauphin, and a Carmelite monk of their following reproved him by the hour together. Bored and enraged, young Louis wrote to the Armagnacs, begging them to deliver him. They rushed with joyous ferocity to the rescue. The Butchers were dispersed; Burgundy was forced to flee from Paris, leaving the jealously guarded person of the king in the hands of the enemy. The Orleanist princes entered Paris in triumph; everybody, everything, from the Dauphin himself to the images of Virgin and saints, was draped in the white scarf of the Armagnacs.

In 1414 a peace was patched up: it was agreed that neither the white scarf nor Burgundy's cross should be worn. Nothing special was said about the murdering, which seems to have gone on none the less, albeit less openly.

In 1413 Henry (IV.) of Lancaster died, and Henry (V.) of Monmouth reigned in his stead. The day of desultory warfare was over. Unhappy France, bleeding at every pore from the blows of her own children, must now face the might of England, led by one of the world's greatest captains. Torn by factions, weakened by loss of blood, ridden first by one furious free-booter and then another, what chance had she? Trembling, her people asked the question: the answer was Agincourt.

CHAPTER II

THE LION AND THE LILIES

"Fair stood the wind for France." —Michael Drayton

I yield to no one in my love and admiration for Henry V. in his nobler aspects, but I am not writing his story now. He came to France, not as the debonair and joyous prince of our affections, but as a conqueror; came, he told the unhappy French, as the instrument of God, to punish them for their sins. The phrase may have sounded less mocking then than it does to-day. France knew all about the sins; she had suffered under them, almost to death; it seemed hard that she must bear the punishment too.

Neither John of Burgundy nor Bernard of Armagnac was at Agincourt. They hovered apart, two great eagles – or vultures, shall we say? – watching, ready to pounce when their moment struck. The battle lost and won, both chiefs made a dash for Paris and the king. Armagnac made the better speed; Burgundy arrived to find his enemy, with six thousand fierce Gascons, already in possession of the city, king and Dauphin both in his hands, and the self-constituted Constable of France, in lieu of Charles d'Albret, slain in the great battle.

Savage though he was, Armagnac was a Frenchman, and a great captain. For some months he kept not only Burgundy but England at bay, holding the royal city against all comers. He even made a dash on Harfleur (now, 1415, in the hands of the English) which might have been successful but for the cowardice of some of his followers. He promptly hanged the cowards, but the moment was lost. Returning to Paris, he found the Burgundians making headway; banished, hanged, drowned, beheaded, right and left, imposed tremendous taxes, and for a time fancied himself, and seemed almost to be, virtual king of France.

It was only seeming; Burgundy's hour was at hand. Among those banished by Armagnac was Queen Isabel, whom (after drowning one of her lovers in a sack) he had sent off to prison in the castle of Tours. Down swept John the Fearless, carried her off, proclaimed her Regent, and in her name annulled the recent tax edicts. This was a mortal blow to Armagnac. His Gascons held Paris for him, but without money he could not hold them. Furious, he laid hands on whatever he could find; "borrowed" church vessels of gold and silver and melted them down to pay his men. All would not do. Paris now hated as much as it feared him and his Gascons. A little while, and hate, aided by treachery, triumphed over fear. One night the keys of the St. Germain gate were stolen from their keeper – some say by his own son. Eight hundred Burgundians crept in, headed by the Sire de l'Isle-Adam: crept, pounced, first on that Palace where Tragedy and Madness kept watch and watch; then, the king once in their hands, on the holders of the city. The Dauphin fled to the Bastille. Armagnac and his chief followers were betrayed and imprisoned. The banished Butchers returned, thirsting for blood. The hunt was up.

What followed was a foreshadowing of St. Bartholomew, of the Terror, of the Commune. Paris went mad, mad as her king in the forest of Le Mans. All day long frenzied bands, citizens and Burgundians together, roamed the streets, seizing and slaying; all night the tocsin rang, rousing the maddened people to still wilder delirium. On the night of June 12th, 1418, they broke open the prisons and murdered their inmates without discrimination; Armagnacs, debtors, bishops, State and political prisoners, even some of their own party; a slash across the throat was the kindest death they met. Count Bernard of Armagnac was among the first victims: for days his naked body hung on view in the Palace of Justice, while in the streets the Paris children played with the stripped corpses of his followers. Private grudge or public grievance could be revenged by merely raising the cry of "Armagnac." A sword swept, and the score was wiped out. Between midnight of Saturday the twelfth and Monday the fourteenth of June (1418) sixteen hundred persons were massacred in the prisons and streets of Paris.

So fell the Armagnacs: and in their fall dragged their opponents with them.

Paris streets were full of unburied corpses; Paris gutters ran blood; Paris larders were bare of food. The surviving Armagnacs, assembled at Melun, kept supplies from entering the city on one side, the English on the other. Hunger and Plague, hand in hand, stalked through the dreadful streets. Soon fifty thousand bodies were lying there, with no sword in their vitals. Men said that those who had hand in the recent massacres died first, with cries of despair on their lips. While the city crouched terror-stricken, certain priests arose, proclaiming the need of still more bloodshed; the sacrifice was not complete, they cried. Two prisons still remained, the Grand Châtelet and the Bastille, crammed with prisoners; among them might be, doubtless were, Armagnacs held for ransom by the greedy Burgundians. To arms, once more!

Frenzied Paris responded, as – alas! – she has so often done. The public executioner, mounted on a great white horse, led the shouting mob first to one, then to the other great State Prison. Before the Bastille, John of Burgundy met them, imploring them to spare the prisoners; humbling himself even to take the hangman's bloody hand: in vain. All were slain, and the Duke had only the poor satisfaction of killing the executioner himself a few days later.

Bernard of Armagnac dead, Charles of Orleans safe, since Agincourt, in an English prison (writing, for his consolation and our delight, the rondels and triolets which will keep his name bright and fresh while Poesy endures), John the Fearless was in very truth virtual king of France. Being so, it behooved him to make some head against Henry of England, who was now besieging Rouen. This was awkward for John, as he had for some time been Henry's secret ally, but Rouen was in extremity, Paris in danger; even his own faithful followers began to look askance and to demand active measures against perfidious and all-conquering Albion. John temporized by sending four thousand horsemen to Rouen, weakening by just so much his hold on the capital. He dared not declare himself openly on the side of England; dared only make a secret treaty with Henry, recognizing his claim to the French crown.

Before setting out from England to besiege Rouen, Henry had paid friendly visits to his prisoner-kinsmen, the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and succeeded in alarming both thoroughly. "Fair cousin," he said to the latter, "I am returning to the war, and this time I shall spare nothing: yes, this time France must pay the piper!" and again, perhaps to Orleans this time, "Fair cousin, soon I am going to Paris. It is a great pity, for they are a brave people; but, voyez vous, they are so terribly divided that they can do nothing."

Ominous words for a young gentleman to hear who was just writing, perhaps, that he would no longer be the servant of Melancholy.

"Serviteur plus de vous, Merencolie,
Je ne serez car trop fort y travaille!"

Rondel and triolet were laid aside, and the two princes wrote urgent letters to their cousin Charles, imploring him to make peace on Henry's own conditions: poor Charles, who did not know his own name or the names of his children, who still whispered, "Who is that woman? Save me from her!"

Meantime Henry sent his own messengers, in the shape of some eight thousand famishing Irishmen, whom he carried across the Channel and —dumped seems the fitting word – in Normandy, bidding them forage for themselves. Unarmed, but fearing nothing, and very hungry, the Irish roamed the country mounted on ponies or cows, whichever was "handy by," seeking what they might devour. Monstrelêt describes them; may have seen them with his own eyes. "One foot was shod, the other naked, and they had no breeches. They stole little children from the cradle, and rode off on cows, carrying the said children"; to hold them for ransom, be it said.

My little measure will not hold the siege of Rouen. It was one of the terrible sieges of history, and those who love Henry of Monmouth must read of it with heavy hearts. In January, 1419, when fifty thousand people were dead of famine in and around the city, submission was made. Henry entered the town, with no doubt in his own mind and little in those of others, as to who was actually King of France.

He found the kingdom still rent in twain. The Dauphin Louis was dead, and Charles, his younger brother, had succeeded to the title and to the leadership of the Orleans party. The weak, irresolute, hot-headed boy of sixteen was surrounded by reckless Gascons who lived by their swords and wits, caring little what they did, so money might be got, yet who were Frenchmen and had red blood in their veins. The peace now openly concluded between Henry and Burgundy roused them to frenzy. English rule was not to their mind. They beset the Dauphin with clamors for revenge to which he lent only too willing an ear. The affair was arranged, and as in the case of the murder of Orleans twelve years before, began with a reconciliation. The Dauphin longed to see his dear cousin of Burgundy; begged that they might meet; suggested the Bridge of Montereau as a fitting place for the interview. With some misgivings, the Duke consented, spite of the warnings of his friends. "Remember Louis of Orleans!" they said. "Remember Bernard of Armagnac! Be sure that those others remember them well!"

John the Fearless answered as became his reputation. It was his duty, he said, to obtain peace, even at the risk of his own life. If they killed him, he would die a martyr: if not, peace being secured, he would take the Dauphin's men and go fight the English. Then they should see which was the better man, Hannotin (Jack) of Flanders or Henry of England.

On the tenth of September (1419), he reached Montereau, and the long crooked bridge spanning the broad Seine. Over the bridge the Orleanists had built a roof, transforming it into a long gallery: in the centre, a lodge of rough planks, a narrow door on either side. This was the place of rendezvous, where the Dauphin awaited his visitor. The Burgundian retainers disliked the look of it, and besought their master not to set foot on the bridge. Let the Dauphin meet him on dry land, they said, not on a crazy bridge over deep water. The Duke, partly of his own bold will, partly through the wiles of a treacherous woman set on by his enemies, laughed at their entreaties; entered the bridge as gayly as he had entered that Paris street, hardly wider than this footway, where he had looked on at the murder of Louis of Orleans, twelve years before.

"Here is the man I trust!" he said, and clapped the shoulder of Tanneguy Duchâtel, who had come to lead him into the trap. Ten minutes later, and he was lying as Orleans had lain, hacked in pieces, while the Orleanists exulted over his body as he had done over that of their leader.

I do not know that there is much to choose between these two murders, or that we need greatly sorrow for either victim. Probably neither gentleman would be at large, had he lived in our time.

And now Henry of Monmouth was king indeed. A few months, and the Treaty of Troyes was signed, and Henry entered Paris in triumph, riding between King Charles (who whispered and muttered and knew little about the matter) and the new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, son of the murdered man. To that ill-omened Palace of St. Paul they rode, and there lodged together for a while. Henry's banner bore the device of a fox's brush, "in which," says Monstrelêt, the chronicler, "the wise noted many things." Henry had long been a hunter of the fox; now he came to hunt the French. Paris, still torn and bleeding from the wounds of opposing factions, welcomed anything that looked like peace with power; justice was not looked for in those days. Yet it was in the name of Justice that the two kings, sitting side by side on the same throne, heard the solemn appeal of Philip of Burgundy and his mother for judgment upon the murderers of John the Fearless. They demanded that the soi-disant Dauphin, Duchâtel and the other assassins of the Duke, in garb of penance and torch in hand, should be dragged in tumbrils round the city, in token of their shame and their repentance. The Estates of the Realm, summoned in haste, and the University of Paris, supported the demand; the two kings agreed to it. Nothing was needed save the culprits themselves, but they were not forthcoming. Appear before King and Parliament to receive his just doom? The Dauphin thanked them! If the King of England could play the hunter, Charles of Valois could play the fox; et voilà tout! "I appeal," said the Dauphin, "to the sharp end of my sword!" Thereupon he was denounced as a treacherous assassin, to be deprived of all rights to the Crown and of all property. The confiscation extended to his followers, and to all the Armagnac party, living or dead; and the good citizens of Paris, fleeced to the bare skin, helped themselves as best they might from the possessions of the outlawed Prince and his recreant nobles.

The Palace of St. Paul saw in those days the soldier-wooing of Henry V. and his wedding to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI.: saw, two years later, the death of Charles himself, who faded out of life some two months after his great conqueror; later still, in one of its obscure chambers, neglected and despairing, the death of Isabel of Bavaria. After that it saw little of note, for people avoided it; it was an unlucky place, haunted forever by those twin shadows of Madness and Terror. Gradually it crumbled, passed finally into the dimness of forgotten things. To-day no stone of it stands upon another.

CHAPTER III

DOMRÉMY

"Quand j'étais chez mon père, petite Jeanneton …"

"I thought this was a life of Joan of Arc!" some bewildered reader may protest. "I don't want to read a History of France!"

Patience, gentle one! the Maid and her France may not be separated.

Now, however, it is time to go back a little to the year 1412, and make our way to the village of Domrémy on the banks of the Meuse, near the border of Lorraine.

Domrémy is not an important place: it has to-day, as it had four hundred years ago, about forty or fifty houses. It lies pleasantly enough by the river side, amid green meadows; a straggling line of stone cottages, with roofs of thatch or tile; behind it rise low hills, now bare, once covered with forests of oak and beech. Its people are, as they have always been, grave and God-fearing; there is a saying about them that they "seldom die and never lie." They have always been farming people, growing corn, planting vineyards, raising cattle. In old times, as to-day, the cattle fed on the rich pastures of the river valley; the village children tended them by day, and at nightfall drove them back to the little stone-walled farms.

The houses were "small, of one or two or three rooms, and sometimes there was a low garret overhead. The furniture was simple: a few stools and benches, a table or a pair of trestles with a board to cover them, a few pots and pans of copper, and some pewter dishes. The housewife had in her chest two or three sheets for her feather-bed, two or three kerchiefs, a cloak, a piece of cloth ready to be made into whatever garment was most needed, and a few buttons and pins. Often there was a sword in the corner, or a spear or an arblast, but the peasants were peaceful, seldom waged war, and often were unable even to resist attack."[6 - Lowell. "Joan of Arc," p. 15.]

The people of Domrémy were vassals of the lords of Bourlemont, whose castle still overlooks the Meuse valley. The relationship was a friendly one in the main. The dues were heavy, to be sure. "Twice a year a tax must be paid on each animal drawing a cart; the lord's harvest must be gathered, his hay cut and stored, firewood drawn to his house, fowls and beef and bacon furnished to his table. Those who had no carts must carry his letters."[7 - Lowell. "Joan of Arc," p. 18.]

But this was the common lot of French peasants. In return, the lord of Bourlemont recognized certain responsibilities for them in time of trouble. His own castle was four miles distant, but in the village itself he owned a little fortress called the Castle of the Island, which the villagers guarded for him in time of peace and where they could take refuge in time of danger. Sometimes even, the Seigneur seems to have had pangs of conscience concerning his villagers, as when, in 1399, the then lord provided in his will that "if the people of Domrémy can show that they have been unjustly compelled to give him two dozen goslings, restitution shall be made."[8 - Luce. "Jeanne d'Arc à Domrémy," p. 19.]

In one of the stone cottages (standing still, though overmuch restored) lived, early in the fifteenth century, Jacques d'Arc and Isabel his wife. Jacques was a responsible man, liked and respected by his neighbors. As dean of the village, he inspected weights and measures, commanded the watch, collected the taxes. Dame Isabel had enough learning to teach her five children their Credo, Pater and Ave, but probably little more; she spun and wove, and was doubtless a good house-mother. With four of the children we have little concern; our affair is with the fifth, a daughter born (probably) in January, 1412, and named Jeanne or Jehane. All her names are beautiful: "Jeanne la Pucelle," "the Maid of Orleans," "the Maid of France"; most familiar of all to our Anglo-Saxon ears, "Joan of Arc."

Joan was three years old when Agincourt was lost and won. It was a far cry from upper Normandy to the province of Bar where Domrémy lay; the Meuse flowed tranquilly by, but no echoes of the English war reached it at this time. Life went peacefully on; the children, as I have said, drove the cattle to the river meadows, frolicked beside the clear stream, gathering flowers, singing the immemorial songs of France; and as evening closed, drove them home again to the farm: or they tended their sheep on the Common, or followed their pigs through the oak forest that stretched behind and above it. In the forest lurked romance and adventure, possible danger. There were wolves there; no doubt about that. There were also, most people thought, fairies, both good and bad. Near the village itself stood the great beech tree known as "the Ladies' Tree," or the "Fairies' Tree," with its fountain close by, the Fountain of the Gooseberry Bushes, where people came to be healed of various diseases. Another great tree was called "Le Beau Mai," and was even more mystical. Who knows from what far Druid time came the custom of dancing around its huge trunk and hanging garlands on its gnarled boughs? They were pious garlands now, dedicated to Our Lady of Domrémy; but it was whispered that the fairies still held their revels there. The lord of Bourlemont and his lady sometimes joined the dancing; had not his ancestor loved a fairy when time was, and been loved of her? They never failed to join the rustic festival that was held under the Fairy Tree on the "Sunday in Lent called Laetere, or des Fontaines." One of Joan's godmothers said she had seen the fairies: Joan never did. She hung garlands, with the other little girls; danced with them hand in hand, singing. One would like to know the songs they sang. Was one of them the quaint ditty whose opening lines head this chapter?

"Quand j'étais chez mon père, petite Jeanneton,
La glin glon glon,
M'envôit a la fontaine pour remplir mon cruchon!"

Or was it the story of that vigneron who had a daughter whom he would give to neither poor nor rich, lon la, and whom he finally saw carried off by a cavalier of Hungary,

"La prit et l'importa,
Sur son cheval d'Hongrie, lon la!"

A warning to selfish Papas. Or did there come to Domrémy, wandering down the Meuse as the wind wanders, some of those wild, melancholy sea-songs that the Corsairs and the fishermen sang, as they sharpened their cutlasses or drew their nets in harbor?

"Il était trois mâtelots de Grois,