The Executioner's Knife Part 19

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

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 a.s.sailants. 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."[78]

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 att.i.tude of the reserve corps, which was commanded by Marshal St. Sever, the English halted, and, giving up their plan of marching to the a.s.sistance 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 sc.r.a.ps of iron upon the a.s.sailants 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 s.p.a.ce.

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[79] 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 ma.s.sacre them. Joan saved them[80] 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 G.o.d. 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: "G.o.d 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."[81]

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."[82]

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 pa.s.sage 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 sanct.i.ty 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 n.o.bles 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 G.o.d."

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 ma.s.s, 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 s.e.x, 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 a.s.sailing. Not far from the bastille of St. John-le-Blanc rose the Augustinian Convent, composed of ma.s.sive 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. Prive, 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 ma.s.s, 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 a.s.sisted the magistrates of the town as well as Xaintrailles, Dunois, Marshals Retz and St. Sever, the Sire of Graville, Ambroise of Lore, Lahire and other captains. The Sire of Gaucourt presided in his quality of royal captain.[83] 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 pa.s.sive 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 p.r.o.nounced 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."[84]

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.[85]

The infernal snare was skilfully planned. The captains relied upon the Maid's intrepidity, certain that she would march without hesitation at the head of a small number of soldiers against the formidable Tournelles, and they did not doubt that in such an a.s.sault, as murderous as it was unequal, she would be either killed or taken, while the captains, sallying from Orleans at the opposite side and at the head of the bulk of the troops, would proceed against the other bastilles, that were expected to be found almost wholly deserted by the English, who would have hastened to the aid of the defenders of the Tournelles.

Finally, Joan having on the previous day taken an emphatic stand against the captains' opinion, and maintained that the raising of the siege of Orleans depended almost wholly upon the capture of the Tournelles, and that that important work should be forthwith attacked, it was expected she would imagine her views had been adopted by the council of war after mature reflection, and that, carried away by her courage, she was certain to march to her death. Thus the plot concocted long before by the Sire of La Tremouille, Gaucourt and the Bishop of Chartres was now to be put into execution.

Despite their mistrust of the captains, the councilmen failed to scent the trap laid for the Maid. She was introduced, and Gaucourt informed her of the decision of the council omitting, however, to say that the attack upon the Tournelles was only to be a feint. Gifted with rare good sense and sagacity, the Maid had too many proofs of the constant opposition that until then all her plans had met from the captains not to be astonished at seeing them suddenly adopt a plan that they had so loudly condemned the day before. Suspecting a snare, she listened silently to Gaucourt while pensively pacing up and down the hall. When he ended she stopped walking, fixed her frank and beautiful eyes upon the traitor and said boldly:

"Seigneur Gaucourt, do not hide from me anything of what has been decided. I have known and shall know how to keep other secrets than yours."[86]

These words, through which the Maid's mistrust of the captains plainly peeped, confused them. They looked at each other dumbfounded and uneasy. Dunois, the least depraved of all, felt the pangs of remorse and could not decide to remain an accomplice in the execrable scheme of betrayal. Still, not wholly daring to uncover it, he answered:

"Joan, do not get angry. You can not be told everything at once. You have been made acquainted with the first part of our plan of battle. I must now add that the attack upon the Tournelles is to be a feint, and while the English come to the help of their fellows and cross the Loire, we shall attack in good earnest their bastilles over in the Sologne, which they will have left almost empty of defenders."

Despite the belated explanation, the heroine no longer doubted the perfidy of the captains. She nevertheless concealed her indignation, and with the full power of her military superiority she declared to them point blank and with her rustic frankness that the council's plan of battle was detestable--worse yet, shameful. Did not the plan resolve itself into a ruse of war that was not merely cowardly, but fatal in its consequences? Was it not necessary, by keeping the soldiers continually on their mettle by daring, if need be vast exploits, to restore the confidence of the defenders of the town who had been so long beaten? Was it not necessary to convince them that nothing could resist their daring? "Now, then," the martial maid proceeded to argue, "granted that this pitiful feint succeeds, what a wretched victory! To march upon an enemy whom one knows is not there, and thanks to the excess of numbers crush a handful of men! To thus expose the vanquishers to a cowardly triumph, at a time when the hour has struck for heroic resolutions! A hundred times preferable would be a heroic defeat! And, finally, always granting the success of the ruse, what would have been destroyed? A few defenceless redoubts of no farther importance since the capture of the strong and large redoubt of St. Loup, which alone cut off the town's communication with the Sologne and Berry. a.s.suredly the plan is worthless, it is at all points bad and inopportune."

After thus summarizing and disposing of the captains' plans, the Maid continued:

"On the contrary, we should not to-morrow _feign_, but really and boldly _attack_ the Tournelles, by crossing the Loire a little above St.

John-le-Blanc, the first redoubt to take, then marching against the fortified Convent of the Augustinians, and finally upon the Tournelles.

These positions being taken, the English, no longer in condition to keep themselves a single day longer in the other bastilles, will find themselves forced to raise the siege."

This, Joan declared, was her plan of battle, and nothing in the world could turn her from her resolution, her "voices" having inspired her by order of G.o.d. She was accordingly determined, she declared, in case the captains opposed her project, to carry it to a successful finish despite them, demanding only the aid of the councilmen and the militia of the good town of Orleans, whom the Lord would take under his protection, because they would indeed be defending the town, France and the King against the English. Finally she would on that very day order the militia to stand ready for the next day at dawn, and, followed or not by the captains and their bands, she would march straight upon the enemy.

Laid down in a firm voice and fully approved by the councilmen, Joan's project aroused the most violent objections on the part of the captains; they declared it to be as hazardous as impracticable. The Sire of Gaucourt summed up the views of his accomplices, crying with scornful haughtiness: "The council of captains having taken a decision, it will be upheld, and they will oppose _with force_, if necessary, any attempt on the part of the soldiers of Orleans to make an attack on the morrow.[87] Such is the council's will."

"_Your_ council has decided, say you?" replied Joan with serene a.s.surance; "_my_ council has also decided--it is G.o.d's. I shall obey Him despite you!"[88]

Saying this, the Maid left the room, wounded to the quick by the obvious perfidy of the captains. Firmly resolved to put an end to so many fatal delays, and in accord with the councilmen to demand the safety of their town only from the bravery of her own citizens if need be, Joan immediately turned her attention to the preparations for the morrow's attack, and commissioned the councilmen to gather a large number of barges for the transport of the soldiers, at whose head she was to attack the English at early dawn from the side of the Tournelles.

CHAPTER VIII.

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1429.