The Life of Joan of Arc Part 13

And a voice from heaven made answer: "Come, my beloved bride; the gate of heaven is open to thee. And to those who shall invoke me through thy intercession, I promise help from on high." From the riven neck of the virgin flowed forth milk instead of blood.

Thus Madame Sainte Catherine pa.s.sed from this world to celestial happiness, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of November, which was a Friday.[277]

[Footnote 277: Voragine, _La legende doree_, 1846, pp. 789-797.

Douhet, _Dictionnaire des legendes_, 1855, pp. 824-836.]

My Lord Saint Michael, the Archangel, did not forget his promise. The ladies Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret came as he had said. On their very first visit the young peasant maid vowed to them to preserve her virginity as long as it should please G.o.d.[278] If there were any meaning in such a promise, Jeanne, however old she may then have been, could not have been quite a child. And it seems probable that the angel and the saints appeared to her first when she was on the threshold of womanhood, that is, if she ever became a woman.[279]

[Footnote 278: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 128. Hinzelin, _Chez Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 29. When we come to the trial, we shall consider whether it be possible to reconcile Jeanne's a.s.sertions with regard to this vow.]

[Footnote 279: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 128; vol. iii, p. 219.]

The saints soon entered into familiar relations with her.[280] They came to the village every day, and often several times a day. When she saw them appear in a ray of light coming down from heaven, shining and clad like queens, with golden crowns on their heads, wearing rich and precious jewels, the village maiden crossed herself devoutly and curtsied low.[281] And because they were ladies of good breeding, they returned her salutation. Each one had her own particular manner of greeting, and it was by this manner that Jeanne distinguished one from the other, for the dazzling light of their countenances rendered it impossible for her to look them in the face. They graciously permitted their earth-born friend to touch their feet, to kiss the hems of their garments, and to inhale rapturously the sweet perfume they emitted.[282] They addressed her courteously,[283] as it seemed to Jeanne. They called the lowly damsel daughter of G.o.d. They taught her to live well and go to church. Without always having anything very new to say to her, since they came so constantly, they spoke to her of things which filled her with joy, and, after they had disappeared, Jeanne ardently pressed her lips to the ground their feet had trodden.[284]

[Footnote 280: _Ibid._, index, under the words, _Voices_, _Catherine_, and _Marguerite_.]

[Footnote 281: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 71-85, 167 _seq._, 186 _seq._]

[Footnote 282: _Ibid._, pp. 185, 186.]

[Footnote 283: In the French, _humblement_. In old French _humblement_ means courteously. In Froissart there is a pa.s.sage quoted by La Curne: "_Li contes de Hainaut rechut ces seigneurs d'Engleterre, l'un apres l'autre, moult humblement._"]

[Footnote 284: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 130.]

Oftentimes she received the heavenly ladies in her little garden, close to the precincts of the church. She used to meet them near the spring; often they even appeared to their little friend surrounded by heavenly companies. "For," Isabelle's daughter used to say, "angels are wont to come down to Christians without being seen, but I see them."[285] It was in the woods, amid the light rustling of the leaves, and especially when the bells rang for matins or compline, that she heard the sweet words most distinctly. And so she loved the sound of the bells, with which her Voices mingled. So, when at nine o'clock in the evening, Perrin le Drapier, s.e.xton of the parish, forgot to ring for compline, she reproached him with his negligence, and scolded him for not doing his duty. She promised him cakes if in the future he would not forget to ring the bells.[286]

[Footnote 285: _Ibid._, p. 130.]

[Footnote 286: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 413, note 2.]

She told none of these things to her priest; for this, according to some good doctors, she must be censured, but, according to others equally excellent, she must be commended. For if on the one hand we are to consult our ecclesiastical superiors in matters of faith, on the other, where the gift of the Holy Ghost is poured out, there reigns perfect liberty.[287]

[Footnote 287: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 52, marginal comment of the d'Urfe MS.: _Celavit visiones curato, patri et matri et cuic.u.mque_, in the _Trial_, vol. i, p. 128, note. Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 471.]

Since the two saints had been visiting Jeanne, my Lord Saint Michael had come less often; but he had not forsaken her. There came a time when he talked to her of love for the kingdom of France, of that love which she felt in her heart.[288]

[Footnote 288: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 171: "_Et luy racontet l'angle la pitie qui estoit ou royaume de France._" _Pitie_ means here occasion for tenderness and love. The angel is thinking especially of the Dauphin. For the meaning and use of this word, cf. Monstrelet, vol.

iii, p. 74: "_... et le peuple plorant de pitie et de joie qu'ils avoient a regarder leur seigneur_." Gerard de Nevers in La Curne: "_Pitie estoit de voir festoyer leur seigneur; on ne pourroit retenir ses larmes en voyant la joie qu'ils marquoient de recevoir leur seigneur._"]

And the holy visitants, whose voices grew stronger and more ardent as the maiden's soul grew holier and more heroic, revealed to her her mission. "Daughter of G.o.d," they said, "thou must leave thy village, and go to France."[289]

[Footnote 289: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 53.]

Had this idea of a holy militant mission, conceived by Jeanne through the intermediary of her Voices, come into her mind spontaneously without the intervention of any outside will, or had it been suggested to her by some one who was influencing her? It would be impossible to solve this problem were there not a slight indication to direct us.

Jeanne at Domremy was acquainted with a prophecy foretelling that France would be ruined by a woman and saved by a maiden.[290] It made an extraordinary impression upon her; and later she came to speak in a manner which proved that she not only believed it, but was persuaded that she herself was the maiden designated by the prophecy.[291] Who taught her this? Some peasant? We have reason to believe that the peasants did not know it, and that it was current among ecclesiastics.[292] Besides, it is important to notice in this connection that Jeanne was acquainted with a particular form of this prophecy, obviously arranged for her benefit, since it specified that the Maiden Redemptress should come from the borders of Lorraine. This local addition is not the work of a cowherd; it suggests rather a mind apt to direct souls and to inspire deeds. It is no longer possible to doubt that the prophecy thus revised is the work of an ecclesiastic whose intentions may be easily divined. Henceforth one is conscious of an idea agitating and possessing the young seer of visions.

[Footnote 290: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 444.]

[Footnote 291: "_Nonne alias dictum fuit quod Francia per mulierem desolaretur, et postea per Virginem restaurari debebat?_" Evidence given by Durand La.s.sois in _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 444.]

[Footnote 292: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 447. Nevertheless the woman Le Royer of Domremy remembered it and was astonished by it. _Et hunc ipsa testis haec audisse recordata est et stupefacta fuit._]

On the banks of the Meuse, among the humble folk of the countryside, some churchman, preoccupied with the lot of the poor people of France, directed Jeanne's visions to the welfare of the kingdom and to the conclusion of peace. He carried the ardour of his pious zeal so far as to collect prophecies concerning the salvation of the French crown, and to add to them with an eye to the accomplishment of his design.

For such an ecclesiastic we must seek among the priests of Lorraine or Champagne upon whom the national misfortunes imposed cruel sufferings.[293] Merchants and artizans, crushed under the burden of taxes and subsidies, and ruined by changes in the coinage,[294]

peasants, whose houses, barns, and mills had been destroyed, and whose fields had been laid waste, no longer contributed to the expenses of public worship.[295] Canons and ecclesiastics, deprived both of their feudal dues and of the contributions of the faithful, quitted the religious houses and set out to beg their bread from door to door, leaving behind in the monasteries only two or three old monks, and a few children. The fortified abbeys attracted captains and soldiers of both sides. They entrenched themselves within the walls; they plundered and burnt. When one of those holy houses succeeded in remaining standing, the wandering village folk made it their place of refuge, and it was impossible to prevent the refectories and dormitories from being invaded by women.[296] In the midst of this obscure throng of souls afflicted by the sufferings and the scandals of the Church may be divined the prophet and the director of the Maid.

[Footnote 293: Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 180. Jean Chartier, _Chronique latine_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, vol. i, p. 13. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, pp. 44 _et seq._]

[Footnote 294: Alain Chartier, _Quadriloge invectif_, ed. Andre d.u.c.h.esne, Paris, 1617, pp. 440 _et seq._ _Ordonnances_, vol. xi, pp.

101 _et seq._ Viutry, _Les monnaies sous les trois premiers Valois_, Paris, 1881, in 8vo, _pa.s.sim_. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, ch. xi.]

[Footnote 295: Juvenal des Ursins and _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, _pa.s.sim_. Letter from Nicholas de Clemangis to Gerson, in _Clemangis opera omnia_, 1613, in 4to, vol. ii, pp. 159 _et seq._]

[Footnote 296: Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises, monasteres_, Macon, 1897, in 8vo, introduction.]

We shall not be tempted to recognise him in Messire Guillaume Frontey, priest of Domremy. The successor of Messire Jean Minet, if we may judge from his conversation which has been preserved, was as simple as his flock.[297] Jeanne saw many priests and monks. She was in the habit of visiting her uncle, the priest of Sermaize, and of seeing in the Abbey of Cheminon,[298] her cousin, a young ecclesiastic in minor orders, who was soon to follow her into France. She was in touch with a number of priests who would be very quick to recognise her exceptional piety, and her gift of beholding things invisible to the majority of Christians. They engaged her in conversations, which, had they been preserved, would doubtless present to us one of the sources whence she derived inspiration for her marvellous vocation.

One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.

[Footnote 297: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 298: These two persons, however, are only known to us through somewhat doubtful genealogical doc.u.ments. _Trial_, vol. v, p.

252. Boucher de Molandon, _La famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 127. G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. 7 _et seq._]

Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into France: "I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to make war."[299]

[Footnote 299: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

As soon as she began to receive these revelations she gave up her games and her excursions. Henceforth she seldom danced round the fairies' tree, and then only in play with the children.[300] It would seem that she also took a dislike to working in the fields, and especially to herding the flocks. From early childhood she had shown signs of piety. Now she gave herself up to extreme devoutness; she confessed frequently, and communicated with ecstatic fervour; she heard ma.s.s in her parish church every day. At all hours she was to be found in church, sometimes prostrate on the ground, sometimes with her hands clasped, and her face turned towards the image of Our Lord or of Our Lady. She did not always wait for Sat.u.r.day to visit the chapel at Bermont. Sometimes, when her parents thought she was tending the herds, she was kneeling at the feet of the miracle-working Virgin. The village priest, Messire Guillaume Frontey, could do nothing but praise the most guileless of his parishioners.[301] One day he happened to say with a sigh: "If Jeannette had money she would give it to me for the saying of ma.s.ses."[302]

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 404, 407, 409, 411, 414, 416, _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 301: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 302: _Ibid._, p. 402. Concerning Jeanne's religious observances, see _Ibid._, index, under the words _Messe_, _Vierge_, _Cloche_.]

As for the good man, Jacques d'Arc, it is possible that he may have occasionally complained of those pilgrimages, those meditations, and those other practices which ill accorded with the ordinary tenor of country life. Every one thought Jeanne odd and erratic. Mengette and her friends, when they found her so devout, said she was too pious.[303] They scolded her for not dancing with them. Among others, Isabellette, the young wife of Gerardin d'Epinal, the mother of little Nicholas, Jeanne's G.o.dson, roundly condemned a girl who cared so little for dancing.[304] Colin, son of Jean Colin, and all the village lads made fun of her piety. Her fits of religious ecstasy raised a smile. She was regarded as a little mad. She suffered from this persistent raillery.[305] But with her own eyes she beheld the dwellers in Paradise. And when they left her she would cry and wish that they had taken her with them.

[Footnote 303: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 429.]

[Footnote 304: _Ibid._, p. 427.]

[Footnote 305: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 432.]

"Daughter of G.o.d, thou must leave thy village and go forth into France."[306]

[Footnote 306: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

And the ladies Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret spoke again and said: "Take the standard sent down to thee by the King of Heaven, take it boldly and G.o.d will help thee." As she listened to these words of the ladies with the beautiful crowns, Jeanne was consumed with a desire for long expeditions on horseback, and for those battles in which angels hover over the heads of the warriors. But how was she to go to France? How was she to a.s.sociate with men-at-arms? Ignorant and generously impulsive like herself, the Voices she heard merely revealed to her her own heart, and left her in sad agitation of mind: "I am a poor girl, knowing neither how to bestride a horse nor how to make war."[307]