The Executioner's Knife Part 22

On the 12th of June, 1429, Joan took the fortified town of Meung; on the 17th of the same month she captured Jargeau, and the next day Beaugency.

In all these a.s.saults the Maid displayed the same bravery, the same military genius that distinguished her at the siege of Orleans. At the capture of Jargeau she came near being killed. This second series of triumphs was crowned by the battle of Patay, where all the English forces were a.s.sembled under the command of Warwick and their most ill.u.s.trious captains, most of whom were taken prisoner. At this b.l.o.o.d.y and hotly contested battle Joan showed herself the peer of the most famous captains by the boldness of her manoeuvres, the quickness of her eye, the use that she put the artillery to, by the enthusiasm that she knew how to fire her soldiers with, and by her imperturbable good nature. Just before the battle she said to the Duke of Alencon with a cheerfulness and terseness worthy of the best pa.s.sages of antiquity:

"Gallant sir, are your spurs good?"

"What?" asked the Duke in surprise. "Spurs? To flee?"

"No, sir--to pursue!" was the answer.[102]

Indeed, after their defeat, the enemy was pursued at the point of the lance for over three leagues. But these victories were won by the warrior maid not over the English merely, they were won also over the ill will of most of the French captains, whose envy of her increased in the same measure as her triumph. Accordingly she no longer doubted their secret animosity, and a vague presentiment told her she would be eventually betrayed by them to the enemy. The foreboding did not affect her conduct. Long before had she made a sacrifice of her life.

Considering that these last triumphs must have finally put an end to Charles's hesitancy, Joan returned to him, and said:

"Sire, Meung, Beaugency, Jargeau have all been carried by a.s.sault, is that enough? The English have been defeated in pitched battle at Patay, is that enough? Talbot, Warwick, Suffolk, are either captured or forced to flee, is that enough? Would you still hesitate to follow me to Rheims and be consecrated King by the command of G.o.d?"

The royal coward did not now hesitate, he declined point blank. The English had been driven out of Touraine, but still they held the provinces that had to be crossed in order to reach Rheims.

Joan was unable to overcome her disgust. No longer expecting anything from the coward, she was of a mind to give him up to his fate. In despair she took off her armor, left the court, and communicating her designs to none, she took to the woods where she wandered the whole day intending to return to Domremy. Towards evening, and noticing that she had lost her way, she asked for hospitality at a poor peasant house of Touraine.[103] Unarmed and in her male attire, Joan looked like a young page. She was received as such by the good people who gladly gave her shelter, treated her at their best and made room for her at their hearth. Joan sat down. The peaceful aspect of the rustic home recalled to her mind the happy days of her childhood spent in Domremy. The sweet recollections of the paternal home drew involuntary tears. Struck by her sadness, her hosts questioned her with timid and respectful interest.

"How can you cry in such happy days as these," they asked navely, "in these days of the deliverance of Gaul? They are happy days, especially for us peasants! For us who are now at last delivered from the English by the grace of the Lord and the bravery of Joan the Maid, our redeeming angel!"

In the enthusiasm of their grat.i.tude, the peasant hosts showed the tenderly touched warrior maid a bit of parchment fastened to the wall above the hearth. On the parchment the name of "Joan" was inscribed, surmounted with a cross. In default of the image of their beloved liberatrix, these poor people had inscribed her name and thus gave token of the sincere reverence that they rendered the heroine. The questions were innumerable that they plied their young guest with regarding Joan.

Perhaps he had seen her, seen that holy maid, the new Our Lady of the peasants who had suffered so grievously at the hands of the English before she drove them away. The questions were tantamount to a choir of benedictions mixed with pa.s.sionate adoration of the Maid. More and more touched by these words, Joan began to reproach herself severely for her momentary weakness. To abandon Charles VII to his fate was to abandon France; it was above all to expose these poor peasants, the humble and industrious race of which she was herself born, to fall back under the yoke of the stranger; it was to re-deliver the poor wretches to all the horrors of a war which it was her mission to put an end to. These thoughts re-invigorated her; they inspired her with the resolve to struggle onward for the accomplishment of her projects, to struggle doggedly even against the King, against his councilors, against the captains who pursued her with their hatred and whom she perhaps stood in greater fear of than of the English. The latter fought in arms in the open; the former labored in the dark, and plotted treason. Absorbed in these meditations, Joan threw herself upon a bed of fresh cut gra.s.s, the only couch that her hosts could offer her. She invoked the support and the advice of her saints, and their dear voices speedily whispered in her ear:

"Go, daughter of G.o.d; no weakness; fulfil your mission; heaven will not forsake you!"

Early the next morning, the heroine left her hosts, who remained in ignorance that their humble roof had sheltered the country's savior.

Resolved to conceal from the King the contempt she entertained for him and to see in him only an instrument for the welfare of Gaul, Joan returned to court. The Maid's disappearance had caused alarm, alarm among those whose every wish was for the termination of the English domination. Joan's project--the King's consecration at Rheims--spread abroad by the councilors in the hope of giving the widest publicity to its absurdity, met, on the contrary, with a large number of supporters, all of whom were impressed with the political grandeur and the audacity, withal, of the idea. The Maid's return was looked upon as providential, and so powerful did the popular outcry wax that the craven monarch finally resigned himself to the idea of departing at the head of his troops that were constantly swelling in numbers, thanks to the fame of the Maid. The march to Rheims was decided on and undertaken.

The journey to the royal town displayed the genius of the heroine from a side not before dreamed of. Matchlessly energetic and intrepid in her desperate combats with the foreign enemy of Gaul, she now showed herself endowed with an inexpressible power of persuasion. She undertook and succeeded in inducing the towns of the English or Burgundian party to become French again and to open their gates to Charles VII, from whom she had obtained, not without much trouble, a written promise of absolute amnesty for the dissidents. Without drawing her sword, Joan reconquered for the King all the fortified places on the route to Rheims. The heroine found in her soul, in her aversion to civil war, in her patriotism, such treasures of nave eloquence that, coupled with her fame, her words penetrated the spirits of all, unarmed all hands, and won over all hearts to the cause of the miserable prince whom she protected, whom she covered with the splendor of her own plebeian glory, and whom she caused the people to love by speaking in his name.

Upon the arrival of the royal army before a fortified town, Joan would approach the barriers alone, her standard in her hand. She swore to G.o.d she did not wish to shed French blood; she besought and implored those who heard her to renounce the English domination that was so disgraceful and so fatal to the country, to recognize the sovereignty of Charles VII, if not out of loyalty to him at least out of hatred for the foreigner, out of love for the motherland that for so many years had bled and been dishonored by an atrocious yoke. The heroine's beauty, her emotion, her sweet and vibrant voice, the immense stir made by her victories, the irresistible charm of the virginal and martial being, all combined to operate prodigies. The old Gallic blood, cold for so long a time, boiled again in the veins of even the least valorous at the cry of national deliverance uttered by the maid of seventeen, whose sword was fleshed in the victory of so many battles. The barriers of the towns fell down at her voice.

Amazed and above all delighted at not having to incur danger, the royal coward made his triumphant entry into the good towns that acclaimed the Maid. One day, however, he had a great fright. A strong English garrison occupied the town of Troyes, whose councilmen were bitter partisans of Burgundy. The gates were barricaded, the ramparts manned, and the cannons opened fire upon the royal vanguard. Charles already spoke of plying his spurs, but was with difficulty restrained by Joan, who advanced unescorted towards the barrier and requested a parley with the councilmen. The English captains answered her with insults accompanied with a shower of missiles. The soldier who bore the heroine's banner was killed at her side. A few townsmen of Troyes belonging to the French party, who happened to be on the ramparts and heard Joan's request for a parley, spread the news among the townsmen, most of whom were tired and dissatisfied with the foreign rule, but were held under by the obstinate Burgundian councilmen. A great and increasing agitation manifested itself in the town. A few English companies attempted a sally against the royal vanguard commanded by Joan and were beaten back. Encouraged by the defeat, the French party within the walls gathered courage and ran to arms. Their numbers proved unexpectedly large. The Burgundian councilmen were overthrown, a new set of munic.i.p.al magistrates was set up and they immediately took measures against the English who entrenched themselves in a fort that dominated the town. Frightened at the threatening att.i.tude of the people, the English evacuated the citadel over night and drew away. The new councilmen asked for a parley with Joan, and in their turn they experienced the irresistible charm of her beauty, her mildness and her eloquence. a.s.sured by her that none of the inhabitants would be troubled on the score of past acts, the magistrates placed the keys of the town in the hands of Joan, who took them to the King, and he thus resumed possession of one of the most important towns of his empire.

The King's march continued triumphal unto Rheims, thanks to the marvelous influence of Joan. At Chalons a delightful surprise was in store for the heroine's heart. She there met four peasants of Domremy.

Informed by public rumor that Joan was to traverse Champagne, they boldly started out to see her at her pa.s.sage. Among them was Urbain, the one-time general of the boys' army, that owed its famous victory over the boys of Maxey to Jeannette's bravery. These and many other memories of the village were exchanged between the heroine and the companions of her youth. During the conversation that they had a few words of sinister augury escaped from Joan's lips. Urbain had ingenuously asked her how she had the strength and the courage to face all the dangers of battle.

A painful smile played around her lips, she remained pensive for a moment, and then as if moved by the presentiment of the evil days that were approaching for her through the machinations of the captains, she answered Urbain:

"I fear nothing--except--TREASON!"[104]

Poor girl of Domremy! Her apprehensions did not deceive her. But before climbing her Calvary to its summit, and there experiencing her martyrdom, she was first to accomplish the sacred mission that she had a.s.sumed--deal a fatal blow to English rule in Gaul by awakening the national spirit that had lain in a stupor for over fifty years, and having Charles VII consecrated King at Rheims. It was not the man, contemptible in her eyes, that Joan wished to consecrate in the face of the world; it was the living incarnation of France in the person of the sovereign, an incarnation visible to the eyes of the people.

The warrior maid fulfilled her promise. Charles VII was led to Rheims.

He arrived there on July 16, 1429, thirty-five days after the siege of Orleans was raised--the signal for the long series of English routs that followed and that culminated with the breakdown of English rule. At Rheims Joan conceived the n.o.ble thought of putting an end to the civil strife--the furious strife that had raged between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, and that for so many years had desolated and exhausted the land, and delivered it over to the foreigner. On the day of the consecration of Charles VII she dictated the following beautiful and touching letter addressed to the Duke of Burgundy, the chief of the party that bore his name:

HIGH AND REDOUBTABLE PRINCE, DUKE OF BURGUNDY:--I, Joan, call upon you, by orders of the King of heaven, my sovereign Lord, to make a good, firm and sincere peace with the King of France, a peace that shall last long. Pardon one another with a full heart and entirely, as all loyal Christians should. If you take pleasure in war, war against the Saracens.

Duke of Burgundy, I pray you and implore you, as humbly as I can implore, do no longer wage war against the holy kingdom of France!

Do promptly order your men, who still hold several fortresses in the kingdom, to withdraw. The King of France is ready to accord you peace, without detriment to his honor! I notify you in the name of G.o.d that you will win no battle against the loyal French, none. So, then, do no longer wage war against us. Believe me, whatever the number of soldiers may be that you take to field, they will accomplish nothing. And it would be a great pity still to shed so much blood in fresh battles.

May G.o.d protect you and give us all peace!

Written at Rheims, before the consecration of King Charles, on the seventeenth day of July, 1429.

JOAN.[105]

This letter, to which, being unable to write, the warrior maid attached her "cross in G.o.d," as was her custom, was sent by a herald to Philip of Burgundy. Thereupon, putting on her white armor, mounting her fine white charger, and with her casque on her head, her sword at her side and her standard in her hand, the Maid rode on the right side of Charles VII at the head of the captains and splendidly accoutred courtiers to the ancient Cathedral of Rheims. The procession marched through a vast concourse of people who saw in the consecration of the King the end of the foreigner's rule and the termination of the misfortunes of France.

The ceremony was performed with all the pomp of the Catholic Church. By the light of thousands of wax candles, across the clouds from gold censers, in front of the high altar that was resplendent with candles and where Charles VII knelt down, the Bishop of Rheims consecrated him King to the ringing of bells, the sounding of trumpets and the booming of cannon.

A witness to the imposing spectacle, the young peasant girl of Domremy stood in the choir of the basilica; pensively as she leaned on the staff of her standard, her recollections wandered four years back. A tear dropped from her eyes in memory of her G.o.d-mother Sybille, and the pa.s.sage of Merlin's prophecy, now fulfilled, recurred to her mind:

"For the martial maid the steed and the armor!

But for whom the royal crown?

The angel with wings of azure holds it in his hands.

The blood has ceased to run in torrents, The thunder to peal, the lightning to flash.-- I see a serene sky; the banners float; The clarions sound; the bells ring.

Cries of joy! Chants of victory!

The martial virgin receives the royal crown From the hands of the angel of light; a man, Wearing a long mantle of ermine Is crowned by the warrior virgin.--

"It matters little what may happen-- What must be, shall be.

Gaul, lost by a woman, Is saved by a virgin From the borders of Lorraine and a forest of oaks!--"

PART IV.

ROUEN; OR, THE MYSTERY OF THE Pa.s.sION OF JOAN DARC

CHAPTER I.

BISHOP AND CANON.

In these my days, so-called "mysteries"--dialogued recitals between men and women who figure as historic personages--are frequently written and performed. These "mysteries" are imitations of the dramatic works of antiquity, such as were also the so-called "plays" of the Thirteenth Century, of which my ancestor Mylio the Trouvere left a sample behind.

Therefore, I, Jocelyn the Champion, who write this chronicle of Joan Darc, have decided to conclude it in the form of these "mysteries," now so much in vogue. I shall therein trace the "Pa.s.sion" of the plebeian heroine--for Joan, like Christ, also underwent her "Pa.s.sion," crowned with martyrdom.

The first scene is placed in a hall of the palace of the Archbishop of Rouen, an ancient building where, eight centuries and more ago, King Charles the Simple married his daughter Ghisele to old Rolf, and relinquished one of his best provinces to the Northman pirates. These bandits later invaded the country of England under William the Conqueror and there raised the breed of English captains who for so many years have been ravaging and enslaving Gaul. Normandy thus became a province of England. The Duke of Bedford, Regent, occupies Rouen. The archbishop's palace of the town serves as the residence of Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, sold, body and soul, mitre and crosier, to the English party. The month of February, 1431, approaches its end.

Daintily wadded in a robe of violet silk, Peter Cauchon is seated in an arm-chair near an open fire-place whence both heat and light radiate into the sumptuously furnished apartment. Cheerful reflections play upon the Oriental rug on the floor and the painted and gilded roof-beams overhead. A table, covered with parchment scrolls, and placed near the sculptured chimney, is lighted by a candelabrum of ma.s.sive silver furnished with burning wax candles. A chair, vacant at the moment, and on the back of which lies a black furred cloak, faces on the other side of the table the seat occupied by the Bishop. Peter Cauchon's face, at once striking and repulsive, betokens a mixture of audacity, wile and extraordinary stubbornness. His small light blue eyes, that sparkle with craftiness and occasionally glisten with ferocity, almost disappear under the folds of his fat red cheeks and heavy eyebrows, grey like his hair that is almost wholly covered under his violet skull cap. His forehead is furrowed with purplish veins. His flat nose, bored with large and hairy nostrils, helps to set off the singular prominence of his chin and jaws. When he laughs, his cruel laughter exposes two broken rows of uneven and yellowish teeth. At times he leans over the table, reads a parchment covered with a fine and close writing and rubs his hirsute hands with manifest pleasure; other times he looks impatiently towards the door as if he would hasten with his wishes the return of some absent personage. The door finally opens and another prelate appears. He is a canon of the name of Nicolas Loyseleur. His face is long and worn; his eyes are covered like a reptile's. His red eyelids are stripped of their lashes. A colorless fissure barely indicates the location of his lips whose smile bears the imprint of hypocrisy. It is at once the face of a hypocrite and a gallows-bird.

BISHOP PETER CAUCHON (half rising and with deep interest)--"What news?

What news? Good or bad?"

CANON LOYSELEUR--"The messenger sent by Captain Morris left the Maid in the prison of Breville."