The Life of Joan of Arc Part 19

[Footnote 407: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 161, 176, 332. _Journal du siege_, p. 45. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 372.]

Of his own accord, or rather, acting by the advice of some wise person, Sire Robert desired to know whether Jeanne was not being inspired by an evil spirit. For the devil is cunning and sometimes a.s.sumes the mark of innocence. And as Sire Robert was not learned in such matters, he determined to take counsel with his priest.

Now one day when Catherine and Jeanne were at home spinning, they beheld the Commander coming accompanied by the priest, Messire Jean Fournier. They asked the mistress of the house to withdraw; and when they were left alone with the damsel, Messire Jean Fournier put on his stole and p.r.o.nounced some Latin words which amounted to saying: "If thou be evil, away with thee; if thou be good, draw nigh."[408]

[Footnote 408: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 446.]

It was the ordinary formula of exorcism or, to be more exact, of conjuration. In the opinion of Messire Jean Fournier these words, accompanied by a few drops of holy water, would drive away devils, if there should unhappily be any in the body of this village maiden.

Messire Jean Fournier was convinced that devils were possessed by an uncontrollable desire to enter the bodies of men, and especially of maidens, who sometimes swallowed them with their bread. They dwelt in the mouth under the tongue, in the nostrils, or penetrated down the throat into the stomach. In these various abodes their action was violent; and their presence was discerned by the contortions and howlings of the miserable victims who were possessed.

Pope St. Gregory, in his Dialogues, gives a striking example of the facility with which devils insinuate themselves into women. He tells how a nun, being in the garden, saw a lettuce which she thought looked tender. She plucked it, and, neglecting to bless it by making the sign of the cross, she ate of it and straightway fell possessed. A man of G.o.d having drawn near unto her, the demon began to cry out: "It is I!

It is I who have done it! I was seated upon that lettuce. This woman came and she swallowed me." But the prayers of the man of G.o.d drove him out.[409]

[Footnote 409: Voragine, _La legende doree_, in the Festival of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.]

The caution required in such a matter was therefore not exaggerated by Messire Jean Fournier. Possessed by the idea that the devil is subtle and woman corrupt, carefully and according to prescribed rules he proceeded to solve a difficult problem. It was generally no easy matter to recognise one possessed by the devil and to distinguish between a demoniac and a good Christian. Very great saints had not been spared the trial to which Jeanne was to be subjected.

Having recited the formula and sprinkled the holy water, Messire Jean Fournier expected, if the damsel were possessed, to see her struggle, writhe, and endeavour to take flight. In such a case he must needs have made use of more powerful formulae, have sprinkled more holy water, and made more signs of the cross, and by such means have driven out the devils until they were seen to depart with a terrible noise and a noxious odour, in the shape of dragons, camels, or fish.[410]

[Footnote 410: Migne, _Dictionnaire des sciences occultes_, Paris, 2 vols. in large 8vo, under the word _Exorcisme_.]

There was nothing suspicious in Jeanne's att.i.tude. No wild agitation, no frenzy. Merely anxious and intreating, she dragged herself on her knees towards the priest. She did not flee before G.o.d's holy name.

Messire Jean Fournier concluded that no devil was within her.

Left alone in the house with Catherine, Jeanne, who now understood the meaning of the ceremony, showed strong resentment towards Messire Jean Fournier. She reproached him with having suspected her: "It was wrong of him," she said to her hostess, "for, having heard my confession, he ought to have known me."[411]

[Footnote 411: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 446.]

She would have thanked the priest of Vaucouleurs had she known how he was furthering the fulfilment of her mission by subjecting her to this ordeal. Convinced that this maiden was not inspired by the devil, Sire Robert must have been driven to conclude that she might be inspired by G.o.d; for apparently he was a man of simple reasoning. He wrote to the Dauphin Charles concerning the young saint; and doubtless he bore witness to the innocence and goodness he beheld in her.[412]

[Footnote 412: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 115. _Journal du siege_, p. 48.

_Mirouer des femmes vertueuses_ in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 267.]

Although it looked as if the Captain would have to resign his command to my Lord de Vergy, Sire Robert did not intend to quit his country where he had dealings with all parties. Indeed he cared little enough about the Dauphin Charles, and it is difficult to see what personal interest he can have had in recommending him a prophetess. Without pretending to discover what was pa.s.sing in his mind, one may believe that he wrote to the Dauphin on Jeanne's behalf at the request of some of those persons who thought well of her, probably of Bertrand de Poulengy and of Jean de Metz. These two men-at-arms, seeing that the Dauphin's cause was lost in the Lorraine Marches, had every reason for proceeding to the banks of the Loire, where they might still fight with the hope of advantage.

On the eve of setting out, they appeared disposed to take the seeress with them, and even to defray all her expenses, reckoning on repaying themselves from the royal coffers at Chinon, and deriving honour and advantage from so rare a marvel. But they waited to be a.s.sured of the Dauphin's consent.[413]

[Footnote 413: Extract from the eighth report of Guillaume Charrier, in the _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 257 _et seq._]

Meanwhile Jeanne could not rest. She came and went from Vaucouleurs to Burey and from Burey to Vaucouleurs. She counted the days; time dragged for her as for a woman with child.[414]

[Footnote 414: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 447.]

At the end of January, feeling she could wait no longer, she resolved to go to the Dauphin Charles alone. She clad herself in garments belonging to Durand La.s.sois, and with this kind cousin set forth on the road to France.[415] A man of Vaucouleurs, one Jacques Alain, accompanied them.[416] Probably these two men expected that the damsel would herself realise the impossibility of such a journey and that they would not go very far. That is what happened. The three travellers had barely journeyed a league from Vaucouleurs, when, near the Chapel of Saint Nicholas, which rises in the valley of Septfonds, in the middle of the great wood of Saulcy, Jeanne changed her mind and said to her comrades that it was not right of her to set out thus.

Then they all three returned to the town.[417]

[Footnote 415: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 53; vol. ii, pp. 443 _et seq._]

[Footnote 416: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 445-447.]

[Footnote 417: _Ibid._, pp. 447-457.]

At length a royal messenger brought King Charles's reply to the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The messenger was called Colet de Vienne.[418] His name indicates that he came from the province which the Dauphin had governed before the death of the late King, and which had remained unswervingly faithful to the unfortunate prince. The reply was that Sire Robert should send the young saint to Chinon.[419]

[Footnote 418: _Ibid._, p. 406. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p.

160, note 6.]

[Footnote 419: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 314, 315. Anonymous poem on the arrival of the Maid, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 30.]

That which Jeanne had demanded and which it had seemed impossible to obtain was granted. She was to be taken to the King as she had desired and within the time fixed by herself. But this departure, for which she had so ardently longed, was delayed several days by a remarkable incident. The incident shows that the fame of the young prophetess had gone out through Lorraine; and it proves that in those days the great of the land had recourse to saints in their hour of need.

Jeanne was summoned to Nancy by my Lord the Duke of Lorraine.

Furnished with a safe-conduct that the Duke had sent her, she set forth in rustic jerkin and hose on a nag given her by Durand La.s.sois and Jacques Alain. It had cost them twelve francs which Sire Robert repaid them later out of the royal revenue.[420] From Vaucouleurs to Nancy is twenty-four leagues. Jean de Metz accompanied her as far as Toul; Durand La.s.sois went with her the whole way.[421]

[Footnote 420: Durand La.s.sois says it cost twelve francs, Jean de Metz, sixteen. "_Ce serait aujourd'hui un cheval de cent ecus._" It would be a horse worth one hundred crowns to-day (L. Champion, _Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere_, 1901, p. 55). According to the reckoning of P.

Clement, from 400 to 800 francs (_Jacques Coeur et Charles VII_, 1873, p. lxvi).]

[Footnote 421: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 54, 222; vol. ii, pp. 391, 406, 432, 437, 442-450, 456, 457; vol. iii, pp. 87, 115. Extract from the eighth account of Guillaume Charrier and from the thirteenth account of Hemon Raguier, in the _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 257 _et seq._]

Before going to the Duke of Lorraine's palace, Jeanne ascended the valley of the Meurthe and went to worship at the shrine of the great Saint Nicholas, whose relics were preserved in the Benedictine chapel of Saint-Nicholas-du-Port. She did well; for Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of travellers.[422]

[Footnote 422: _Et postquam ipsa Johanna fuit in peregrinacio in Sancto Nicolas et exst.i.tit versus dominum ducem Lotharingiae_, says Bertrand de Poulengy, _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 457. Cf. The Evidence of J.

Robert, in E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 33, 34. It is impossible to find in the text of the _Trial_ a redundancy such as the evidence of D.

Lannois and the woman Le Royer would lead us to expect. A. Renard, _Jeanne d'Arc. Examen d'une question de lieu_, Orleans, 1861, in 8vo, 16 pages. G. de Braux, _Jeanne d'Arc a Saint-Nicolas_, Nancy, 1889, in 8vo. De Pimodan, _La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc_, 1890, in 8vo, with maps.]

CHAPTER IV

THE JOURNEY TO NANCY--THE ITINERARY OF VAUCOULEURS--TO SAINTE-CATHERINE-DE-FIERBOIS

By giving his eldest daughter, Isabelle, the heiress of Lorraine, in marriage to Rene, the second son of Madame Yolande, Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, and d.u.c.h.ess of Anjou,[423] Duke Charles II of Lorraine, who was in alliance with the English, had recently done his cousin and friend, the Duke of Burgundy, a bad turn. Rene of Anjou, now in his twentieth year, was a man of culture as much in love with sound learning as with chivalry, and withal kind, affable, and gracious. When not engaged in some military expedition and in wielding the lance he delighted to illuminate ma.n.u.scripts. He had a taste for flower-decked gardens and stories in tapestry; and like his fair cousin the Duke of Orleans he wrote poems in French.[424] Invested with the duchy of Bar by the Cardinal Duke of Bar, his great-uncle, he would inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of Duke Charles which could not be far off. This marriage was rightly regarded as a clever stroke on the part of Madame Yolande. But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against Rene the Count of Vaudemont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was Rene of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples.[425] It was so called because the cause of war was a basketful of apples which had been brought into the town of Metz without paying duty to the officers of the Duke of Lorraine.[426]

[Footnote 423: Le Pere Anselme, _Histoire genealogique de la maison de France_, vol. ii, p. 218. Ludovic Drapeyron, _Jeanne d'Arc et Philippe le Bon_, in _Revue de Geographie_, November, 1886, p. 236. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. lxvi, cxcix.]

[Footnote 424: _Oeuvres du Roi Rene_, by Le Comte de Quatrebarbes, Angers, 1845, vol. i, preface, pp. lxxvi _et seq._ Lecoy de la Marche, _Le Roi Rene, sa vie, son administration, ses travaux artistiques et litteraires_, Paris, 1875, 2 vols. in 8vo, and Giry, Review in the _Revue critique_.]

[Footnote 425: _La guerre de la hottee de pommes._]

[Footnote 426: Dom Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. ii, col. 695, 703.]

Meanwhile Rene's mother was sending convoys of victuals from Blois to the citizens of Orleans, besieged by the English.[427] Although she was not then on good terms with the counsellors of her son-in-law, King Charles, she was vigilant in opposing the enemies of the kingdom when they threatened her own duchy of Anjou. Rene, Duke of Bar, had therefore ties of kindred, friendship, and interest binding him at the same time to the English and Burgundian party as well as to the party of France. Such was the situation of most of the French n.o.bles. Rene's communications with the Commander of Vaucouleurs were friendly and constant.[428] It is possible that Sire Robert may have told him that he had a damsel at Vaucouleurs who was prophesying concerning the realm of France. It is possible that the Duke of Bar, curious to see her, may have had her sent to Nancy, where he was to be towards the 20th of February. But it is much more likely that Rene of Anjou thought less about the Maid of Vaucouleurs, whom he had never seen, than about the little Moor and the jester who enlivened the ducal palace.[429] In this month of February, 1429, he was neither desirous nor able to concern himself greatly with the affairs of France; and although brother-in-law to King Charles, he was preparing not to succour the town of Orleans, but to besiege the town of Metz.[430]

[Footnote 427: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 93.]

[Footnote 428: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. cxcvii, clx.x.xvii, clx.x.xviii, and 236. The register of the Archives of La Meuse, B. 1051, bears trace of a regular correspondence between the Duke of Bar and Baudricourt.]