The Executioner's Knife Part 18

CHAPTER VI.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1429.

Feeling certain of battling on the morrow, Joan slept on Tuesday night the peaceful sleep of a child, while Madeleine, on the contrary, remained almost constantly awake, tossed about by painful uneasiness, and thinking with no little alarm that her companion was to deliver a murderous battle in the early morning. Joan awoke at dawn, made her morning prayer, invoked her good saints, and was a.s.sisted by Madeleine in putting on her armor. A touching and charming picture! One of the two girls, delicate and blonde, raising with difficulty the pieces of the iron armor that she helped her virile and dark complexioned friend to case herself in, and rendering the service with a degree of inexperience that caused herself to smile through the tears that she did her best to repress and that welled up at the thought of the near dangers that threatened the martial maid.

"You must excuse me, Joan, I am more in the habit of lacing my linen gorget than a gorget of iron," said Madeleine, "but with time I shall be able, I hope, to arm you as quickly as could your equerry. To arm you!

Good G.o.d! I can not p.r.o.nounce the dreadful word without weeping! Is it quite certain that you are to lead an a.s.sault this morning?"

"Yes; and if it please G.o.d, Madeleine, we shall drive hence these English who have caused so much damage to your good town of Orleans and to the poor people of France!"

The Maid said this as she strapped the jambards over her buckskin hose whose waistband outlined her supple and robust shape. Her shoulders and bosom were then almost exposed. She hastened to b.u.t.ton up her chemise, while blushing with chaste embarra.s.sment although she was in the presence of a girl of her own age; but such was Joan's modesty, that on a similar occasion she would have blushed before her own mother! Putting on a slightly padded skin jacket that the friction with her armor had already begun to blacken, she cased her breast in her iron corselet, that Madeleine strapped on as well as she could.

"May this cuira.s.s protect you, Joan, against the enemy's swords! Alack!

To have a young girl fight! To have her face such dangers!"

"Oh, dear Madeleine, before leaving Vaucouleurs, I said to the Sire of Baudricourt, the seigneur who helped me to reach the Dauphin of France: 'I would prefer to remain and sew and spin near my mother; but I must fulfil the orders of the Lord.'"

"What dangers you have run, my dear Joan, and still are to run in the fulfilment of your mission!"

"Danger troubles me little; I place myself in the hands of G.o.d. What troubles me is the slowness I encounter in having my services availed of. These delays are fatal to Gaul--because it seems to me that my days are numbered."[70]

The martial maid p.r.o.nounced these last words with so sweet a melancholy that Madeleine's tears started to flow afresh. Placing back upon a table the casque that she was about to place upon her friend's head, she threw herself into her arms without uttering a word, and embraced her, sobbing, as she would have embraced her sister at the supreme hour of an eternal farewell. Dame Boucher entered at that moment precipitately and said:

"Joan, Joan, the Sire of Villars and Jamet of Tilloy, two councilmen, are downstairs in the hall. They wish to speak with you immediately.

Your page has just led up your horse. It seems that something unexpected has happened."

"Adieu, till we meet again, my dear Madeleine," said Joan to the weeping girl. "Be comforted. My saints and the Lord will protect me, if not against wounds, at least against death until I shall have carried out the mission that they have laid upon me;" and hastily taking up her casque, her sword and the small baton that she habitually carried in her hand, the Maid descended quickly into the large hall.

"Joan," said the Councilman Jamet of Tilloy, an honest and brave townsman, "everything was ready, agreeable to yesterday's decision, to attack the bastille of St. Loup this morning. But before dawn a messenger ran in to announce to us the approach of a large convoy of provisions and munitions of war that the people of Blois, Tours and Angers send us, under the command of Marshal St. Sever, by way of the Sologne. The escort of the convoy is not strong enough to pa.s.s without danger under the bastille of St. Loup, which commands the only available wagon road. The English may sally from their redoubt and attack the train which the town has been impatiently expecting. The captains, who are a.s.sembled in council at this hour, are debating the point whether it is better to attack the bastille of St. Loup or to go forward to meet Marshal St. Sever, who is waiting for reinforcements before resuming his march."

"How far is the convoy from here, sir?" asked Joan.

"About two leagues. It can not choose but pa.s.s under the bastille of St.

Loup. There is where the danger lies."

After a moment's reflection, Joan answered with composure:

"Let us first of all see to the provisions and munitions of war. We can not fight without victuals. Let us help the convoy to enter the town this morning; we shall immediately after attack and take the bastille with the help of G.o.d."

The Maid's advice seemed wise. She mounted her horse, and accompanied by the Sire of Villars rode to the town hall, whither the Councilman Jamet of Tilloy preceded her in haste while ordering the militia to be called to arms under its captains of tens and of forties and giving the Bourgogne Gate as the rendezvous. On this occasion the captains yielded without a contest to the will of Joan, who was strongly seconded by the councilmen. She marched out of the Bourgogne Gate at the head of two thousand men, who, loudly clamoring for battle, and impatient to wipe out their previous defeats, were fired by the sight of the martial maid, who gracefully rode her white charger with her banner in her hand. At a little distance from the bastille of St. Loup, a veritable fortress that held a garrison of over three thousand men, Joan took the command of the vanguard which was to clear the path for the column. Whether it was a superst.i.tious terror caused by the presence of the Maid, whom they recognized from a distance by her white armor and standard, or whether they were merely reserving their strength to sally forth and attack the convoy itself, the English remained behind their entrenchments and limited themselves to shooting a few almost inoffensive volleys of arrows and artillery b.a.l.l.s at the Orleans column. The obvious timidity of an enemy who was usually so daring increased the confidence of the French. They soon left the bastille behind them and met near St.

Laurent, an advance post that covered the convoy. At the sight of the reinforcement from Orleans, that reached them without hindrance from the English in their bastille, the escort of the convoy attributed the successful operation to the influence of the Maid, and felt in turn elated. Himself struck by the successful move, that was due to the promptness of Joan's manoeuvre, Marshal St. Sever still feared, and not without good reason, that the enemy's purpose was to allow the French to pa.s.s out freely in order all the more effectively to fall upon them on their return, hampered as they would then be by the large train of carts and cattle that the convoy had to escort. The Marshal was undecided what to do.

"Forward and resolutely!" replied Joan. "Our bold front will impress the English; if they come out of their redoubt we shall fight them; if they do not come out, we shall soon be in Orleans with the convoy. After that we shall immediately return and attack the bastille, and we shall conquer with the aid of G.o.d. Have confidence, Marshal!"

These words, p.r.o.nounced in a firm voice, overheard by some of the soldiers, repeated by them and carried from rank to rank raised the troop's enthusiasm. The march to Orleans was struck with the carts and cattle in the center, and Joan leading the van with a strong vanguard determined to sustain the first shock of the enemy. But the latter did not show himself. It was later learned from several English prisoners that their captains, aware of the decisive effect for good or evil that the first battle with the Maid would have upon the temper of their troops, and realizing that their courage had begun to waver at the marvelous accounts that reached them about her, had determined not to be drawn into a battle until conditions should render triumph certain.

Hence their inaction at the pa.s.sage of the convoy, which, without striking a blow, entered Orleans to the unutterable delight of the people and the militiamen. The people were carried away with a fanatic zeal at the successful stroke of the Maid. Wishing to turn their enthusiasm to immediate account, Joan proposed to turn about on the spot and attack the bastille of St. Loup. The captains argued that their men should first have time to eat, and promised to notify her when they should be ready for the a.s.sault. Joan yielded to these protestations, returned to the house of James Boucher, fed, as was her custom, on a little bread dipped in wine and water, had her cuira.s.s unbuckled, and threw herself upon her bed, where, thus, half armed, she fell asleep.

Her mind being full of the events of the morning, the Maid dreamed that the troops were marching without her against the enemy. The painful impression of the dream woke her up, and no sooner awake than she bounded out of bed at the distant noise that reached her of detonating artillery. Her dream had not deceived her.[71] They had begun to attack the redoubt. The Sire of Gaucourt, who had been commissioned to notify the Maid, had left her in ignorance. She ran to the window, saw her little page Imerguet holding his own horse by the bridle and talking at the door with Dame Boucher and her daughter. Neither the equerry nor the page of Joan had been informed of the sally.[72] But not aware of that, the martial maid leaned out of the window and addressed Imerguet in a reproachful tone:

"Oh, bad boy! They are attacking the entrenchments without me, and you did not come to tell me that French blood was flowing![73] Madeleine, come quick, I beg you, to help me put on my cuira.s.s! Alack! We are losing time."

Madeleine and her mother quickly ascended to Joan's room. She was helped on with her armor, descended to the street and leaped upon the horse of her page. At that moment it occurred to her that she had forgotten her banner near her bed where she always placed it. She said to Imerguet:

"Run up quick for my standard! It is in the room. Hand it to me through the window in order to lose less time."[74]

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.[75]

By concealing the hour of the a.s.sault 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 pa.s.sed 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!"

"G.o.d has forsaken us!"

The captains had calculated upon the enthusiasm produced by the heroine to lead the troops to the a.s.sault with the promise that she was soon to join them. Relying upon the promise the first rush of the a.s.sailants, 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 a.s.sailants 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 G.o.d! Victory to Gaul!"[76]

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 a.s.sault! Let's march bravely! G.o.d 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 st.u.r.dy cannoniers of Orleans had retreated an inch since the a.s.sault began. They were just making ready to climb out of the ditch on the enemy's side.

"h.e.l.loa, 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 a.s.sailants. Inspired by her example, these soon reached the summit of the slope. Many fell dead or wounded by the shower of b.a.l.l.s 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 G.o.d!"[77]

Master John and his men hewed down the posts with their axes; a breach was effected; the flood of the a.s.sailants 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 succ.u.mbed to the superst.i.tious 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 a.s.sault 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 a.s.sailants 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 ma.s.s 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: