The Life of Joan of Arc Part 10

With regard to feudal overlordship the village of Domremy was divided into two distinct parts. The southern part, with the chateau on the Meuse and some thirty homesteads, belonged to the lords of Bourlemont and was in the domain of the castellany of Grondrecourt, held in fief from the crown of France. It was a part of Lorraine and of Bar. The northern half of the village, in which the monastery was situated, was subject to the provost of Monteclaire and Andelot and was in the bailiwick of Chaumont in Champagne.[217] It was sometimes called Domremy de Greux because it seemed to form a part of the village of Greux adjoining it on the highroad in the direction of Vaucouleurs.[218]

The serfs of Bourlemont were separated from the king's men by a brook, close by towards the west, flowing from a threefold source and hence called, so it is said, the Brook of the Three Springs. Modestly the stream flowed beneath a flat stone in front of the church, and then rushed down a rapid incline into the Meuse, opposite Jacques d'Arc's house, which it pa.s.sed on the left, leaving it in the land of Champagne and of France.[219] So far we may be fairly certain; but we must beware of knowing more than was known in that day. In 1429 King Charles' council was uncertain as to whether Jacques d'Arc was a freeman or a serf.[220] And Jacques d'Arc himself doubtless was no better informed. On both banks of the brook, the men of Lorraine and Champagne were alike peasants leading a life of toil and hardship.

Although they were subject to different masters they formed none the less one community closely united, one single rural family. They shared interests, necessities, feelings--everything. Threatened by the same dangers, they had the same anxieties.

[Footnote 217: E. Misset, _Jeanne d'Arc champenoise_, Paris, s.d.

(1894), 8vo. Concerning the nationality of Joan of Arc there is a whole literature extremely rich, the bibliography of which it is impossible to give here. Cf. Lanery d'Arc, _Livre d'or_, pp. 295 _et seq._]

[Footnote 218: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 208.]

[Footnote 219: P. Jollois, _Histoire abregee de la vie et des exploits de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1821, engraving I, p. 190. A. Renard, _La patrie de Jeanne d'Arc_, Langres, 1880, in 18mo, p. 6. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, supplement with proofs and ill.u.s.trations, pp. 281, 282.]

[Footnote 220: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 152.]

Lying at the extreme south of the castellany of Vaucouleurs, the village of Domremy was between Bar and Champagne on the east, and Lorraine on the west.[221] They were terrible neighbours, always warring against each other, those dukes of Lorraine and Bar, that Count of Vaudemont, that Damoiseau of Commercy, those Lord Bishops of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. But theirs were the quarrels of princes. The villagers observed them just as the frog in the old fable looked on at the bulls fighting in the meadow. Pale and trembling, poor Jacques saw himself trodden underfoot by these fierce warriors. At a time when the whole of Christendom was given up to pillage, the men-at-arms of the Lorraine Marches were renowned as the greatest plunderers in the world. Unfortunately for the labourers of the castellany of Vaucouleurs, close to this domain, towards the north, there lived Robert de Saarbruck, Damoiseau of Commercy, who, subsisting on plunder, was especially given to the Lorraine custom of marauding. He was of the same way of thinking as that English king who said that warfare without burnings was no good, any more than chitterlings without mustard.[222] One day, when he was besieging a little stronghold in which the peasants had taken refuge, the Damoiseau set fire to the crops of the neighbourhood and let them burn all night long, so that he might see more clearly how to place his men.[223]

[Footnote 221: Colonel de Boureulle, _Le pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, Saint-Die, 1890, in 8vo, 28 small engravings. J. Ch. Chappellier, _etude historique sur Domremy, pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, 2 plans; C.

Niobe, _Le pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Memoires de la Societe academique de l'Aube_, 1894, 3d series, vol. x.x.xi, pp. 307 _et seq._]

[Footnote 222: Juvenal des Ursins, in the _Collection Michaud et Poujoulat_, col. 561.]

[Footnote 223: A. Tuetey, _Les ecorcheurs sous Charles VII_, Montbeliard, 1874, vol. i, p. 87.]

In 1419 this baron was making war on the brothers Didier and Durand of Saint-Die. It matters not for what reason. For this war as for every war the villagers had to pay. As the men-at-arms were fighting throughout the whole castellany of Vaucouleurs, the inhabitants of Domremy began to devise means of safety, and in this wise. At Domremy there was a castle built in the meadow at the angle of an island formed by two arms of the river, one of which, the eastern arm, has long since been filled up.[224] Belonging to this castle was a chapel of Our Lady, a courtyard provided with means of defence, and a large garden surrounded by a moat wide and deep. This castle, once the dwelling of the Lords of Bourlemont, was commonly called the Fortress of the Island. The last of the lords having died without children, his property had been inherited by his niece Jeanne de Joinville. But soon after Jeanne d'Arc's birth she married a Lorraine baron, Henri d'Ogiviller, with whom she went to reside at the castle of Ogiviller and at the ducal court of Nancy. Since her departure the fortress of the island had remained uninhabited. The village folk decided to rent it and to put their tools and their cattle therein out of reach of the plunderers. The renting was put up to auction. A certain Jean Biget of Domremy and Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, being the highest bidders, and having furnished sufficient security, a lease was drawn up between them and the representatives of Dame d'Ogiviller. The fortress, the garden, the courtyard, as well as the meadows belonging to the domain, were let to Jean Biget and Jacques d'Arc for a term of nine years beginning on St. John the Baptist's Day, 1419, and in consideration of a yearly rent of fourteen _livres tournois_[225] and three _imaux_ of wheat.[226] Besides the two tenants in chief there were five sub-tenants, of whom the first mentioned was Jacquemin, the eldest of Jacques d'Arc's sons.[227]

[Footnote 224: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 66, 215.]

[Footnote 225: In 1390 one _livre tournois_ was worth 7 5_s_ of present money; in 1488, 5. Cf. Avenel, _Histoire economique_, 1894 (W.S.).]

[Footnote 226: "_Imal_," says Le Trevoux, "is a measure of corn used at Nancy." There are two _imaux_ in a quarter, and four quarters in a _real_, which contains fifteen bushels, according to the Paris measure.]

[Footnote 227: The Archives of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, collection Ruppes II, No. 28. The farm lease, dated 2nd of April, 1420, was first published by M. J. Ch. Chappellier in _Le Journal de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine_, Jan.-Feb., 1889; and _Deux actes inedits du XV siecle sur Domremy_, Nancy, 1889, 8vo, 16 pages. S.

Luce, _La France pendant la guerre de cent ans_, 1890, 18mo, pp. 274 _et seq._ Lefevre-Pontalis, _etude historique et geographique sur Domremy, pays de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. lvi, pp. 154-168.]

The precaution proved to be useful. In that very year, 1419, Robert de Saarbruck and his company met the men of the brothers Didier and Durand at the village of Maxey, the thatched roofs of which were to be seen opposite Greux, on the other bank of the Meuse, along the foot of wooded hills. The two sides here engaged in a battle, in which the victorious Damoiseau took thirty-five prisoners, whom he afterwards liberated after having exacted a high ransom, as was his wont. Among these prisoners was the Squire Thiesselin de Vittel, whose wife had held Jacques d'Arc's second daughter over the baptismal font. From one of the hills of her village, Jeanne, who was then seven or a little older, could see the battle in which her G.o.dmother's husband was taken prisoner.[228]

[Footnote 228: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 420-426. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. lxiv.]

Meanwhile matters grew worse and worse in the kingdom of France. This was well known at Domremy, situated as it was on the highroad, and hearing the news brought by wayfarers.[229] Thus it was that the villagers heard of the murder of Duke John of Burgundy on the Bridge at Montereau, when the Dauphin's Councillors made him pay the price of the blood he had shed in the Rue Barbette. These Councillors, however, struck a bad bargain; for the murder on the Bridge brought their young Prince very low. There followed the war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. From this war the English, the obstinate enemies of the kingdom, who for two hundred years had held Guyenne and carried on a prosperous trade there,[230] sucked no small advantage. But Guyenne was far away, and perhaps no one at Domremy knew that it had once been a part of the domain of the kings of France. On the other hand every one was aware that during the recent trouble the English had recrossed the sea and had been welcomed by my Lord Philip, son of the late Duke John. They occupied Normandy, Maine, Picardy, l'ile-de-France, and Paris the great city.[231] Now in France the English were bitterly hated and greatly feared on account of their reputation for cruelty.

Not that they were really more wicked than other nations.[232] In Normandy, their king, Henry, had caused women and property to be respected in all places under his dominion. But war is in itself cruel, and whosoever wages war in a country is rightly hated by the people of that country. The English were accused of treachery, and not always wrongly accused, for good faith is rare among men. They were ridiculed in various ways. Playing upon their name in Latin and in French, they were called angels. Now if they were angels they were a.s.suredly bad angels. They denied G.o.d, and their favorite oath _G.o.ddam_[233] was so often on their lips that they were called _G.o.dons_. They were devils. They were said to be _coues_, that is, to have tails behind.[234] There was mourning in many a French household when Queen Ysabeau delivered the kingdom of France to the _coues_,[235] making of the n.o.ble French lilies a litter for the leopard. Since then, only a few days apart, King Henry V of Lancaster and King Charles VI of Valois, the victorious king and the mad king, had departed to present themselves before G.o.d, the Judge of the good and the evil, the just and the unjust, the weak and the powerful. The castellany of Vaucouleurs was French.[236] Dwelling there were clerks and n.o.bles who pitied that later Joash, torn from his enemies in childhood, an orphan spoiled of his heritage, in whom centred the hope of the kingdom. But how can we imagine that poor husbandmen had leisure to ponder on these things? How can we really believe that the peasants of Domremy were loyal to the Dauphin Charles, their lawful lord, while the Lorrainers of Maxey, following their Duke, were on the side of the Burgundians?

[Footnote 229: Lienard, _Dictionnaire topographique de la Meuse_, introduction, p. x.]

[Footnote 230: Dom Devienne, _Histoire de Bordeaux_, pp. 98, 103. L.

Bachelier, _Histoire du commerce de Bordeaux_, Bordeaux, 1862, in 8vo, p. 45. D. Brissaud, _Les Anglais en Guyenne_, Paris, 1875, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 231: Ch. de Beaurepaire, _De l'administration de la Normandie sous la domination Anglaise_, Caen, 1859, in 4to; and _etats de Normandie sous la domination Anglaise_, evreux, 1859, in 8vo. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. v, pp. 40-56, 261-286.]

[Footnote 232: Thomas Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, ed. Quicherat, vol. i, p. 27.]

[Footnote 233: La Curne, under the words _Anglois_ and _G.o.ddons_.]

[Footnote 234: Voragine, _La legende de Saint-Gregoire_. Du Cange, _Glossaire_, under the word _Caudatus_. Le Roux de Lincy, _Recueil de chants historiques francais_, Paris, 1851, vol. i, pp. 300, 301. This oath is to be found current as early as Eustache Deschamps; it was still in use in the seventeenth century (_Sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle_, ed. Vallet de Viriville).]

[Footnote 235: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii. Carlier, _Histoire du Valois_, vol. ii, pp. 441 _et seq._]

[Footnote 236: Dom Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. ii, col. 631.

Bonnabelle, _Notice sur la ville de Vaucouleurs_, Bar-le-Duc, 1879, in 8vo, 75 pages.]

Only the river divided Maxey on the right bank from Domremy. The Domremy and Greux children went there to school. There were quarrels between them; the little Burgundians of Maxey fought pitched battles with the little Armagnacs of Domremy. More than once Joan, at the Bridge end in the evening, saw the lads of her village returning covered with blood.[237] It is quite possible that, pa.s.sionate as she was, she may have gravely espoused these quarrels and conceived therefrom a bitter hatred of the Burgundians. Nevertheless, we must beware of finding an indication of public opinion in these boyish games played by the sons of villeins. For centuries the brats of these two parishes were to fight and to insult each other.[238] Insults and stones fly whenever and wherever children gather in bands, and those of one village meet those of another. The peasants of Domremy, Greux, and Maxey, we may be sure, vexed themselves little about the affairs of dukes and kings. They had learnt to be as much afraid of the captains of their own side as of the captains of the opposite party, and not to draw any distinction between the men-at-arms who were their friends and those who were their enemies.

[Footnote 237: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 65, 66. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. 18 _et seq._]

[Footnote 238: N. Villiaume, _Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, 1864, in 8vo, p. 52, note 1.]

In 1429 the English occupied the bailiwick of Chaumont and garrisoned several fortresses in Ba.s.signy. Messire Robert, Lord of Baudricourt and Blaise, son of the late Messire Liebault de Baudricourt, was then captain of Vaucouleurs and bailie of Chaumont for the Dauphin Charles.

He might be reckoned a great plunderer, even in Lorraine. In the spring of this year, 1420, the Duke of Burgundy having sent an emba.s.sy to the Lord Bishop of Verdun, as the amba.s.sadors were returning they were taken prisoners by Sire Robert in league with the Damoiseau of Commercy. To avenge this offence the Duke of Burgundy declared war on the Captain of Vaucouleurs, and the castellany was ravaged by bands of English and Burgundians.[239]

[Footnote 239: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii.]

In 1423 the Duke of Lorraine was waging war with a terrible man, one etienne de Vignolles, a Gascon soldier of fortune already famous under the dreaded name of La Hire,[240] which he was to leave after his death to the knave of hearts in those packs of cards marked by the greasy fingers of many a mercenary. La Hire was nominally on the side of the Dauphin Charles, but in reality he only made war on his own account. At this time he was ravaging Bar west and south, burning churches and laying waste villages.

[Footnote 240: Pierre d'Alheim, _Le jargon Jobelin_, Paris, 1892, in 18mo: glossary, under the word _Hirenalle_, p. 61, and the verbal communication of M. Marcel Schwob. _Cronique Martiniane_, ed. P.

Champion, p. 8, note 3; _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270; De Montlezun, _Histoire de Gascogne_, 1847, in 8vo, p. 143; A. Castaing, _La patrie du valet de coeur_, in _Revue de Gascogne_, 1869, vol. x, pp. 29-33.]

While he was occupying Sermaize, the church of which was fortified, Jean, Count of Salm, who was governing the Duchy of Bar for the Duke of Lorraine, laid siege to it with two hundred horse. Collot Turlaut, who two years before had married Mengette, daughter of Jean de Vouthon and Jeanne's cousin-german,[241] was killed there by a bomb fired from a Lorraine mortar.

[Footnote 241: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. lxxiii, 87, note 1. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp.

4-15.]

Jacques d'Arc was then the elder (_doyen_) of the community. Many duties fell to the lot of the village elder, especially in troubled times. It was for him to summon the mayor and the aldermen to the council meetings, to cry the decrees, to command the watch day and night, to guard the prisoners. It was for him also to collect taxes, rents, and feudal dues, an ungrateful office in a ruined country.[242]

[Footnote 242: Bonvalot, _Le tiers etat d'apres la charte de Beaumont et ses filiales_, Paris, 1886, p. 412.]

Under pretence of safeguarding and protecting them, Robert de Saarbruck, Damoiseau of Commercy, who for the moment was Armagnac, was plundering and ransoming the villages belonging to Bar, on the left bank of the Meuse.[243] On the 7th of October, 1423, Jacques d'Arc, as elder, signed below the mayor and sheriff the act by which the Squire extorted from these poor people the annual payment of two _gros_ from each complete household and one from each widow's household, a tax which amounted to no less than two hundred and twenty golden crowns, which the elder was charged to collect before the winter feast of Saint-Martin.[244]

[Footnote 243: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. lxxi _et seq._]

[Footnote 244: _Ibid._, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, li, p. 97.]

The following year was bad for the Dauphin Charles, for the French and Scottish hors.e.m.e.n of his party met with the worst possible treatment at Verneuil. This year the Damoiseau of Commercy turned Burgundian and was none the better or the worse for it.[245] Captain La Hire was still fighting in Bar, but now it was against the young son of Madame Yolande, the Dauphin Charles's brother-in-law, Rene d'Anjou, who had lately come of age and was now invested with the Duchy of Bar. At the point of the lance Captain La Hire was demanding certain sums of money that the Cardinal Duke of Bar owed him.[246]

[Footnote 245: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp.

16, 17.]

[Footnote 246: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, appendix, lxii.]

At the same time Robert, Sire de Baudricourt, was fighting with Jean de Vergy, lord of Saint-Dizier, Seneschal of Burgundy.[247] It was a fine war. On both sides the combatants laid hands on bread, wine, money, silver-plate, clothes, cattle big and little, and what could not be carried off was burnt. Men, women, and children were put to ransom. In most of the villages of Ba.s.signy agriculture was suspended, nearly all the mills were destroyed.[248]

[Footnote 247: Du Chesne, _Genealogie de la maison de Vergy_, Paris, 1625, folio. _Nouvelle biographie generale_, vol. xlv, p. 1125.]