The Life of Joan of Arc Part 16

Durand de Maillane, _Dictionnaire de droit canonique_, 1770, vol. i, pp. 567 _et seq._]

[Footnote 338: See _ante_, p. 59, _post_, pp. 177, 178.]

Touching things spiritual Jeanne held converse with several priests; among others with Messire Arnolin, of Gondrecourt-le-Chateau, and Messire Dominique Jacob, priest of Moutier-sur-Saulx, who was her confessor.[339] It is a pity we do not know what these ecclesiastics thought of the insatiable cruelty of the English, of the pride of my Lord Duke of Burgundy, of the misfortunes of the Dauphin, and whether they did not hope that one day Our Lord Jesus Christ at the prayer of the common folk would condescend to grant the kingdom _en commande_ to Charles, son of Charles. It was possibly from one of these that Jeanne derived her theocratic ideas.[340]

[Footnote 339: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 392, 393, 458, 459.]

[Footnote 340: As for Nicolas de Vouthon, priest of the Abbey of Cheminon, what is stated concerning him in the evidence of the 2nd and 3rd November, 1476, seems improbable. _Trial_, vol. v, p. 252. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. xviii _et seq._, 9.]

While she was speaking to Sire Robert there was present, and not by chance merely, a certain knight of Lorraine, Bertrand de Poulengy, who possessed lands near Gondrecourt and held an office in the provostship of Vaucouleurs.[341] He was then about thirty-six years of age. He was a man who a.s.sociated with churchmen; at least he was familiar with the manner of speech of devout persons.[342] Perhaps he now saw Jeanne for the first time; but he must certainly have heard of her; and he knew her to be good and pious. Twelve years before he had frequently visited Domremy; he knew the country well; he had sat beneath _l'Arbre des Dames_, and had been several times to the house of Jacques d'Arc and Romee, whom he held to be good honest farmer folk.[343]

[Footnote 341: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 475. Servais, in _Memoires de la Societe des Lettres, Sciences et Arts de Bar-le-Duc_, vol. vi, p. 139.

E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, p. xxviii.

S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations xcv, p.

143 and note 3. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p.

204.]

[Footnote 342: This appears from the manner in which he reports Jeanne's words.]

[Footnote 343: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 451, 458.]

It may be that Bertrand de Poulengy was struck by the damsel's speech and bearing; it is more likely that the knight was in touch with certain ecclesiastics unknown to us, who were instructing the peasant seeress with an eye to rendering her better able to serve the realm of France and the Church. However that may be, in Bertrand she had a friend who was to be her strong support in the future.

For the nonce, however, if our information be correct, he did nothing and spoke not a word. Perhaps he judged it best to wait until the commander of the town should be ready to grant a more favourable hearing to the saint's request. Sire Robert understood nothing of all this; one point only appeared plain to him, that Jeanne would make a fine camp-follower and that she would be a great favourite with the men-at-arms.[344]

[Footnote 344: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 72. _Journal du siege_, p. 35.]

In dismissing the villein who had brought her, he gave him a piece of advice quite in keeping with the wisdom of the time concerning the chastising of daughters: "Take her back to her father and box her ears well."

Sire Robert held such discipline to be excellent, for more than once he urged Uncle La.s.sois to take Jeanne home well whipped.[345]

[Footnote 345: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 444. L. Mougenot, _Jeanne d'Arc, le Duc de Lorraine et le Sire de Baudricourt_, Nancy, 1895, in 8vo.]

After a week's absence she returned to the village. Neither the Captain's contumely nor the garrison's insults had humiliated or discouraged her. Imagining that her Voices had foretold them,[346] she held them to be proofs of the truth of her mission. Like those who walk in their sleep she was calm in the face of obstacles and yet quietly persistent. In the house, in the garden, in the meadow, she continued to sleep that marvellous slumber, in which she dreamed of the Dauphin, of his knights, and of battles with angels hovering above.

[Footnote 346: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 53.]

She found it impossible to be silent; on all occasions her secret escaped from her. She was always prophesying, but she was never believed. On St. John the Baptist's Eve, about a month after her return, she said sententiously to Michel Lebuin, a husbandman of Burey, who was quite a boy: "Between Coussey and Vaucouleurs is a girl who in less than a year from now will cause the Dauphin to be anointed King of France."[347]

[Footnote 347: _Ibid._, p. 440.]

One day meeting Gerardin d'Epinal, the only man at Domremy not of the Dauphin's party, whose head according to her own confession she would willingly have cut off, although she was G.o.dmother to his son, she could not refrain from announcing even to him in veiled words her mystic dealing with G.o.d: "Gossip, if you were not a Burgundian there is something I would tell you."[348]

[Footnote 348: _Ibid._, p. 423.]

The good man thought it must be a question of an approaching betrothal and that Jacques d'Arc's daughter was about to marry one of the lads with whom she had broken bread under _l'Arbre des Fees_ and drunk water from the Gooseberry Spring.

Alas! how greatly would Jacques d'Arc have desired the secret to be of that nature. This upright man was very strict; he was careful concerning his children's conduct; and Jeanne's behaviour caused him anxiety. He knew not that she heard Voices. He had no idea that all day Paradise came down into his garden, that from Heaven to his house a ladder was let down, on which there came and went without ceasing more angels than had ever trodden the ladder of the Patriarch Jacob; neither did he imagine that for Jeannette alone, without any one else perceiving it, a mystery was being played, a thousand times richer and finer than those which on feast days were acted on platforms, in towns like Toul and Nancy. He was miles away from suspecting such incredible marvels. But what he did see was that his daughter was losing her senses, that her mind was wandering, and that she was giving utterance to wild words. He perceived that she could think of nothing but cavalcades and battles. He must have known something of the escapade at Vaucouleurs. He was terribly afraid that one day the unhappy child would go off for good on her wanderings. This agonising anxiety haunted him even in his sleep. One night he dreamed that he saw her fleeing with men-at-arms; and this dream was so vivid that he remembered it when he awoke. For several days he said over and over again to his sons, Jean and Pierre: "If I really believed that what I dreamed of my daughter would ever come true, I would rather see her drowned by you; and if you would not do it I would drown her myself."[349]

[Footnote 349: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 131, 132, 219.]

Isabelle repeated these words to her daughter hoping that they might alarm her and cause her to correct her ways. Devout as she was, Jeanne's mother shared her father's fears. The idea that their daughter was in danger of becoming a worthless creature was a cruel thought to these good people. In those troubled times there was a whole mult.i.tude of these wild women whom the men-at-arms carried with them on horseback. Each soldier had his own.

It is not uncommon for saints in their youth by the strangeness of their behaviour to give rise to such suspicions. And Jeanne displayed those signs of sainthood. She was the talk of the village. Folk pointed at her mockingly, saying: "There goes she who is to restore France and the royal house."[350]

[Footnote 350: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 421, cf. p. 433, "_et alii juvenes de ea deridebant_," said Colin's son, referring to her piety.]

The neighbours had no difficulty in finding a cause for the strangeness which possessed the damsel. They attributed it to some magic spell. She had been seen beneath the _Beau Mai_ bewreathing it with garlands. The old beech was known to be haunted as well as the spring near by. It was well known, too, that the fairies cast spells.

There were those who discovered that Jeanne had met a wicked fairy there. "Jeannette has met her fate beneath _l'Arbre des Fees_,"[351]

they said. Would that none but peasants had believed that story!

[Footnote 351: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 68.]

On the 22nd of June, from the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France for Henry VI, Antoine de Vergy, Governor of Champagne, received a commission to furnish forth a thousand men-at-arms for the purpose of bringing the castellany of Vaucouleurs into subjection to the English.

Three weeks later, commanded by the two Vergy, Antoine and Jean, the little company set forth. It consisted of four knights-banneret, fourteen knights-bachelor, and three hundred and sixty-three men-at-arms. Pierre de Trie, commander of Beauvais, Jean, Count of Neufchatel and Fribourg, were ordered to join the main body.[352]

[Footnote 352: Report of Andre d'Epernon in S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. clxvii and proofs and ill.u.s.trations, pp. 217, 218, 220.]

On the march, as was his custom, Antoine de Vergy laid waste all the villages of the castellany with fire and sword. Threatened once again with a disaster with which they were only too well acquainted, the folk of Domremy and Greux already beheld their cattle captured, their barns set on fire, their wives and daughters ravished. Having experienced before that the Castle on the Island was not secure enough, they determined to flee and seek refuge in their market town of Neufchateau, only five miles away from Domremy. Thus they set out towards the middle of July. Abandoning their houses and fields and driving their cattle before them, they followed the road, through the fields of wheat and rye and up the vine-clad hills to the town, wherein they lodged as best they could.[353]

[Footnote 353: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 51, 214; vol. ii, pp. 391-454. S.

Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. clxxvi.]

The d'Arc family was taken in by the wife of Jean Waldaires, who was called La Rousse. She kept an inn, where lodged soldiers, monks, merchants, and pilgrims. There were some who suspected her of harbouring bad women.[354] And there is reason to believe that certain of her women customers were of doubtful reputation. Albeit she herself was of good standing, that is to say, she was rich. She had money enough to lend sometimes to her fellow-citizens.[355] Although Neufchateau belonged to the Duke of Lorraine, who was of the Burgundian party, it has been thought that the hostess of this inn inclined towards the Armagnacs; but it is vain to attempt to discover the sentiments of La Rousse concerning the troubles of the kingdom of France.[356]

[Footnote 354: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 214.]

[Footnote 355: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. clxxvii.]

[Footnote 356: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 51, 214; vol. ii, p. 402.]

At Neufchateau as at Domremy Jeanne drove her father's beasts to the field and kept his flocks.[357] Handy and robust she used also to help La Rousse in her household duties.[358] This circ.u.mstance gave rise to the malicious report set on foot by the Burgundians that she had been serving maid in an inn frequented by drunkards and bad women.[359] The truth is that Jeanne, when she was not tending the cattle, and helping her hostess, pa.s.sed all her time in church.[360]

[Footnote 357: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 409, 423, 428, 463.]

[Footnote 358: _Ibid._, pp. 416, 417.]

[Footnote 359: Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 314.]

[Footnote 360: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 51.]

There were two fine religious houses in the town, one belonging to the Grey Friars, the other to the Sisters of St. Claire, the sons and daughters of good St. Francis.[361] The monastery of the Grey Friars had been built two hundred years earlier by Mathieu II of Lorraine.

The reigning duke had recently added richly to its endowments. n.o.ble ladies, great lords, and among others a Bourlemont lord of Domremy and Greux lay there beneath bra.s.ses.[362]

[Footnote 361: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. clxxvii.]

[Footnote 362: Expilly, _Dictionnaire geographique de la France_, under the word _Neufchateau_.]

In the flower of their history these mendicant monks of old had welcomed to their third order crowds of citizens and peasants as well as mult.i.tudes of princes and kings.[363] Now they languished corrupt and decadent among the French friars. Quarrels and schisms were frequent. Notwithstanding Colette of Corbie's attempted restoration of the rule, the old discipline was nowhere observed.[364] These mendicants distributed leaden medals, taught short prayers to serve as charms, and vowed special devotion to the holy name of Jesus.[365]