Heroines That Every Child Should Know Part 11

The King, half-persuaded, agreed to go, but not until the English had been driven from the Loire. The captains declared that it would be unwise to march northward while the southern provinces remained so exposed to the enemy, and Joan, whose good sense equalled her courage, deferred to their judgment. An army was a.s.sembled, and put under command of the Duke of Alencon, but the King required him to do nothing without the Maid's advice. While she was near Charles, and her brave words were in his ears, he almost believed in her.

On the 9th of June, just a month after her departure from Orleans, Joan returned there with her army. During the campaign she made the city her headquarters, to the delight of its people, who "could not have enough of gazing at her." On the 11th she led the troops against Jargeau, a strong town, bravely defended, but the a.s.sailants had the advantage of numbers, and, once their fears were forgotten, went boldly to the attack. Joan and the Duke, commanders though they were, went down into the fosse like the rest, and the Maid was climbing a scaling-ladder, when a stone hurled from the rampart struck her to the earth. But she was up in a moment, shouting:

"Friends, friends, go on! Our Lord has condemned the English! They are ours! Be of good courage!" The men swarmed over the walls, and the place was taken. The more important captives were sent down the Loire to Orleans, where Joan and Alencon returned the day after their victory. Soon after, near Patay they came upon the English, who had been warned of their approach, and were getting ready for battle. The Duke asked Joan what was to be done.

"Have you good spurs?" she inquired.

"What!" exclaimed some who stood by; "should we turn our backs?"

"Not so, in G.o.d's name!" she answered. "The English shall do that.

They will be beaten, and you will want your spurs to pursue them."

Some of the chiefs hung back.

"In G.o.d's name, we must fight them!" she cried. "Though they were hung to the clouds, we should have them. To-day the King shall have the greatest victory he has won for long. My counsel tells me they are ours."

In slain and prisoners the English lost nearly 3,000 men. Joan was very indignant at the cruelty of the victors. Seeing one of them strike down a wounded prisoner she sprang from her horse, raised the poor soldier in her arms, and held him thus while he confessed to a priest whom she had sent for, tenderly comforting him until he died.

It was always so with her. Before and during the fight she was the stern champion of France; but when it was over she became again a pitying woman, weeping for her dead enemies, and praying for their souls.

Now Joan held her rightful place in the army. Every true and honest man believed in her; even those who had doubted her at Orleans confessed now not only her goodness and courage, but also the instinctive military skill she had shown both in sieges and in the field. Soldiers and leaders were alike eager to follow her to Reims.

With nothing to consult and combat but their frank likes and dislikes, her task would have been an easy one; but to do her voices' bidding, she had to hew or wind her way through the intrigues of a court.

Charles demurred at going to Reims at all. He hated trouble, and his life in the south had been pleasant enough. All Joan's victories had as yet done him no substantial good. He was as poor as ever, and the excited men who flocked to the Maid's banner were to him objects less of pride than of distrust.

The Maid, foreseeing more delays, sick at heart of his apathy, could not control her tears, and he, bewildered by a grief he could not understand, spoke to her kindly, paid her many compliments, and advised her to take some rest. Still weeping, she besought him to have faith, promising that he should recover his kingdom and be crowned before long.

On Friday, June 24th, she brought the army of the Loire to Gien, whence she sent a letter to the loyal city of Tournay, telling its people of her late successes, and praying them to come to the coronation.

Two days after her arrival at Gien, the justly impatient girl quitted the town with some of her troops and encamped in the fields beyond it.

Her persistence carried the day. On the 29th, the King and an army of 12,000 men set out for Reims.

On July 5th it reached Troyes. Joan had written to the citizens, requiring them to receive the King, and Charles also bade them surrender, promising them amnesty and easy terms. But the place was well garrisoned, and they determined to resist.

A council was held, and nearly all who were at it advised returning southward. But among those faint hearts was one man who believed in Joan--the old chancellor--and he spoke boldly for her. "When the King undertook this journey, he did it not because of the great might of the men-at-arms, nor because of the great wealth he had, nor because the journey seemed possible to him, but because Joan told him to go forward and be crowned at Reims, such being the good pleasure of G.o.d."

While he was yet speaking, Joan herself knocked at the door. She was let in, and the Archbishop told her the cause of the debate.

She turned to the King.

"Will you believe me?" she asked.

"Speak," he replied, "and if you speak reasonably and profitably, we will gladly believe you."

"Will you believe me?" she said again.

"Yes," repeated Charles, "according to what you say."

That cold answer might well have checked her, but she spoke on:

"Gracious King of France, if you will remain before your city of Troyes, it shall be yours within three days by force or by love--doubt it not."

"We would wait six, if we could be sure of having it," said the Archbishop.

"Doubt not," she insisted, "you shall have it to-morrow."

It was then evening, but she at once mounted her horse and began preparations for an a.s.sault. Her energy cheered the soldiers, who were weary of inaction. They dragged the cannons into position, and brought bundles of wood, doors, furniture, everything they could lay hands on, to fill up the fosse. They worked far into the night--leaders, pages, men-at-arms alike--Joan directing them "better than two of the best captains could have done."

Through that night there was great excitement within Troyes. The people had heard of Orleans and Jargeau; they could see and hear Joan's preparations. At last they asked loudly why they, French by birth, should risk their city and their lives for England. A council was held, and the heads of the garrison and the city agreed to surrender. Early next morning, just as Joan was giving the signal for the a.s.sault, the city gates were opened.

The next day, Sunday, the King entered the town in state, attended by Joan and his n.o.bles.

They left Troyes, and approached Chalons on the 15th, and at some distance from the town were met by a number of citizens who had come to offer their submission. At Chalons, Joan had the great joy of meeting friends from Domremy. She asked them many questions about her home, and they looked with wonder at the girl who lived familiarly with princes, and yet spoke and behaved as simply as ever she had done in the days of her obscurity. One of them inquired whether she feared nothing.

"Nothing but treachery," was her foreboding answer.

When the people of Reims heard that Chalons had submitted, and that Charles was within four leagues, they sent deputies to tender their obedience, and that same day, Sat.u.r.day, July 16th, Charles entered the city.

Preparations were at once made for his coronation, and early next morning four n.o.bles went to the abbey of St. Remi to escort thence the ampulla containing the sacred oil which a dove had brought from heaven to the saint. The abbot, in full canonicals, carried it to the cathedral, where the Archbishop of Reims received it from him, and set it on the high altar. Below the altar stood the Dauphin, attended by the n.o.bles and clergy who acted as proxies for the peers of France who should have been with him. By his side was Joan, holding her sacred banner. The ceremony was performed according to the ancient rites, and when it was over, Joan knelt at the feet of Charles, her King indeed now, crowned and anointed.

"Gracious King," she said, "now is fulfilled the pleasure of G.o.d, whose will it was that you should come to Reims to receive your worthy coronation, showing that you are the true King to whom the kingdom should belong." As she spoke she wept, and all who were in the church wept for sympathy. Among those who witnessed her triumph was her father, who had come to Reims to see her. The good man was honourably treated; the corporation of the town paid his expenses, and when he returned to Domremy, gave him a horse for the journey.

After his coronation, when Charles was bestowing honours and rewards on his followers, Joan asked him for one favour, which he granted readily--freedom from taxation for her native Domremy and the adjoining village of Greux. For herself she wanted nothing, except what she had already claimed and failed to receive, what the King never gave her--his trust.

She had given a king to France, now she had to give France to her King. She longed to be again at work. Every day of waiting was a day of pain to her. Now that her King was crowned, she would have him press forward to Paris, defy the English, and startle the disloyal French into loyalty; but the evil advice of his courtiers and his own indolence made him catch at every excuse for delay.

During the northward march of the army, people from every place on the road crowded to welcome Joan and the King, crying, Noel, Noel, and singing _Te Deums_ before them. Joan was first. They were glad to have a French King again, but their chief love and enthusiasm were for her, the heroic girl in shining armour, with her calm face and gentle voice. The common folk called her "the angelic"; they sang songs about her; images of her were put up in little country churches; a special collect was said at ma.s.s, thanking G.o.d for her having saved France; medals were struck in her honour, and worn as amulets. The people pressed about her horse, and kissed her hands and feet. She was often vexed by this excess of homage, which brought upon her the displeasure of many churchmen.

Near Crespy, as she, riding between Dunois and Regnault de Chartres, pa.s.sed through the welcoming crowd, she said:

"What good people! I have yet seen none so joyful at the coming of their prince. May I be so happy as to die and be buried in this land!"

"Oh, Joan," said the Archbishop, "in what place do you expect to die?"

"Wherever it shall please G.o.d," she answered, "for I know not the place nor the hour any more than yourself. Would to G.o.d that I might return now, and lay down my arms, and go back to serve my parents, and guard their flocks with my sister and brothers, who would be right glad to see me." She must often have longed for her home, but never except this once did she express her longing. She had a rare reticence for one so young and simple. "She spoke little, and showed a marvellous prudence in her words."

Joan greatly desired the King's arrival before Paris, believing that his mere presence would make its gates fly open like those of Reims and Soissons. The King's folly and the ill-will of his favourites were not Joan's only troubles. The army before Paris was not like that chosen army she had led to Orleans, a company of men "confessed, penitent," who for the time seemed purified from evil desires, and followed her as to a holy war. Such a state of things, fair to the eye, but born only of the froth and ecstasy of religion, could not last, as the Maid in her young confidence perhaps expected. She had now to grieve because of her soldiers' habits of blasphemy and pillage.

On the morning of September 8th, the festival of the Virgin's nativity, they advanced to attack the city. They were divided into two corps. One, led by Joan, Gaucourt, and Retz, went at once to the a.s.sault. The attack began about noon; the bastion of the St. Honore gate having been set on fire, its defenders were forced to abandon it, and the a.s.sailants, headed by Joan, pa.s.sed the outer fosse. She climbed the ridge separating it from the inner fosse, which was full of water, and from that place summoned the city to surrender. She was answered with jeers and insults and a shower of missiles, amid which she carefully sounded the fosse with her lance, and found that it was of unusual depth. At her bidding the men brought f.a.ggots and hurdles to fill it up and make a resting-place for their ladders, but while she was directing them, an arrow wounded her in the thigh so severely that she was forced to lie down at the edge of the fosse. She suffered, as she afterwards confessed, agonies of pain, but she never ceased to encourage her men, bidding them advance boldly, for the place would be taken. The place would have been taken, but the captains who were with Joan, seeing that the hours went by and the men were struck down without achieving much, ordered a retreat. The trumpets sounded; the men withdrew, Joan, desperate in her sorrow, clung to the ground, declaring she would not go until the place was won. At about ten o'clock Gaucourt had her removed by force and set upon her horse. She was carried back to La Chapelle, suffering in body, suffering more in mind, but still resolute.

"The city would have been taken!" she insisted. "It would have been taken!"

Joan spent four weary months--how weary we conjecture chiefly from what we know of her character and her aspirations. Occasionally she rode with a few followers to visit some town where she was known, but generally she was with the Court, a sad and unwilling spectator of its festivities. Sad only because of her unfulfilled mission: had she been suffered to work it out, to see France delivered, she would doubtless have taken pleasure in show and gaiety. She was at home and happy with knights and ladies, and took a frank delight in rich garments and fine armour. She was no bigot, her sanct.i.ty was altogether wholesome: it was an exalted love for G.o.d, for France and the King, unsoured by any contempt for the common life of humanity.

Wherever she went she visited the sick, she gave all she could in alms, she was devoted to the services of the church and to prayer. The people, who knew of her greatness and saw her goodness, treated her with a reverence that was akin to superst.i.tion. They brought rings and crosses for her to touch, and so turn into amulets. "Touch them yourselves," she would say, laughing, "they will be just as good."

Some believed that she had a charmed life, and need never fear going into battle.

Joan grew desperate. Sad voices from beyond the Loire were calling her. She was greatly wanted there, and the King--her King whom she had crowned--did not want her, cared nothing for her nor for his people's trouble. She asked counsel of her other voices, of her saints, and they neither bade her go nor stay; they told her only one certain thing, that before St. John's day she would be taken. If so--if indeed, as she herself had said, she was to last only a year--then the more need to hasten with her work. One day at the end of March she left Sully with a small company, as if going for one of her usual rides. She did not bid farewell to the King, and she never saw him again.

It was a time of sad forebodings for her. A story goes, that one morning, after hearing ma.s.s in the church of St. Jacques, she went apart and leaned dejectedly against a pillar. Some grown people and a crowd of children came about her--she was always gentle to children--and she said to them: