The Life of Joan of Arc Part 45

[Footnote 1075: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 109. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 292, 293.]

"I would rather die," she said, "than do anything I knew to be sin or contrary to G.o.d's will."

Again she said: "I know that I am to die. But I do not know when or how, neither do I know the hour. If my wound may be healed without sin then am I willing to be made whole."[1076]

[Footnote 1076: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 109 (Pasquerel's evidence).]

Her armour was taken off. The wound was anointed with olive oil and fat, and, when it was dressed, she confessed to Brother Pasquerel, weeping and groaning. Soon she beheld coming to her her heavenly counsellors, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. They wore crowns and emitted a sweet fragrance. She was comforted.[1077] She resumed her armour and returned to the attack.[1078]

[Footnote 1077: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 79; vol. iii, p. 110.]

[Footnote 1078: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 293.]

The sun was going down; and since morning the French had been wearing themselves out in a vain attack upon the palisades of the bulwark. My Lord the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, seeing his men tired and night coming on, and afraid doubtless of the English of the Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils Camp, resolved to lead the army back to Orleans. He had the retreat sounded.

The trumpet was already summoning the combatants to Le Portereau.[1079]

The Maid came to him and asked him to wait a little.

[Footnote 1079: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 216 (Jean d'Aulon's evidence), p. 25; (evidence of J. Luillier). _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 293.]

"In G.o.d's name!" she said, "you will enter very soon. Be not afraid and the English shall have no more power over you."

According to some, she added: "Wherefore, rest a little; drink and eat."[1080]

[Footnote 1080: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 25. _Journal du siege_, pp. 85, 86. Eberhard Windecke, p. 173.]

While they were refreshing themselves, she asked for her horse and mounted it. Then, leaving her standard with a man of her company, she went alone up the hill into the vineyards, which it had been impossible to till this April, but where the tiny spring leaves were beginning to open. There, in the calm of evening, among the vine props tied together in sheaves and the lines of low vines drinking in the early warmth of the earth, she began to pray and listened for her heavenly voices.[1081] Too often tumult and noise prevented her from hearing what her angel and her saints had to say to her. She could only understand them well in solitude or when the bells were tinkling in the distance, and evening sounds soft and rhythmic were ascending from field and meadow.[1082]

[Footnote 1081: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 8 (evidence of Dunois). I emphatically reject the facts alleged by Charles du Lys, concerning Guy de Cailly, who is said to have accompanied Jeanne into the vineyard and seen the angels coming down to her. Guy de Cailly's patent of n.o.bility is apocryphal. Charles du Lys, _Traite sommaire_, pp. 50, 52.]

[Footnote 1082: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 52, 62, 153, 480; vol. ii, pp.

420, 424.]

During her absence Sire d'Aulon, who could not give up the idea of winning the day, devised one last expedient. He was the least of the n.o.bles in the army; but in the battles of those days every man was a law unto himself. The Maid's standard was still waving in front of the bulwark. The man who bore it was dropping with fatigue and had pa.s.sed it on to a soldier, surnamed the Basque, of the company of my Lord of Villars.[1083] It occurred to Sire d'Aulon, as he looked upon this standard blessed by priests and held to bring good luck, that if it were borne in front, the fighting men, who loved it dearly, would follow it and in order not to lose it would scale the bulwark. With this idea he went to the Basque and said: "If I were to enter there and go on foot up to the bulwark would you follow me?"

[Footnote 1083: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 216. The Count Couret, _Un fragment inedit des anciens registres de la Prevote d'Orleans_, Orleans, 1897, pp. 12, 20, 21, _pa.s.sim_.]

The Basque promised that he would. Straightway Sire d'Aulon went down into the ditch and protecting himself with his shield, which sheltered him from the stones fired from the cannon, advanced towards the rampart.[1084]

[Footnote 1084: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 216.]

After a quarter of an hour, the Maid, having offered a short prayer, returned to the men-at-arms and said to them: "The English are exhausted. Bring up the ladders."[1085]

[Footnote 1085: _Journal du siege_, p. 86.]

It was true. They had so little powder that their last volley fired in an insufficient charge carried no further than a stone thrown by hand.[1086] Nothing but fragments of weapons remained to them. She went towards the fort. But when she reached the ditch she suddenly beheld the standard so dear to her, a thousand times dearer than her sword, in the hands of a stranger. Thinking it was in danger, she hastened to rescue it and came up with the Basque just as he was going down into the ditch. There she seized her standard by the part known as its tail, that is the end of the flag, and pulled at it with all her might, crying:

"Ha! my standard, my standard!"

[Footnote 1086: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 293.]

The Basque stood firm, not knowing who was pulling thus from above.

And the Maid would not let it go. The n.o.bles and captains saw the standard shake, took it for a sign and rallied. Meanwhile Sire d'Aulon had reached the rampart. He imagined that the Basque was following close behind. But, when he turned round he perceived that he had stopped on the other side of the ditch, and he cried out to him: "Eh!

Basque, what did you promise me?"

At this cry the Basque pulled so hard that the Maid let go, and he bore the standard to the rampart.[1087]

[Footnote 1087: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 216, 217.]

Jeanne understood and was satisfied. To those near her she said: "Look and see when the flag of my standard touches the bulwark."

A knight replied: "Jeanne, the flag touches."

Then she cried: "All is yours. Enter."[1088]

[Footnote 1088: _Journal du siege_, p. 86. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 293.]

Straightway n.o.bles and citizens, men-at-arms, archers, townsfolk threw themselves wildly into the ditch and climbed up the palisades so quickly and in such numbers that they looked like a flock of birds descending on a hedge.[1089] And the French, who had now entered within the fortifications, saw retreating before them, but with their faces turned proudly towards the enemy, the Lords Moleyns and Poynings, Sir Thomas Giffart, Baillie of Mantes, and Captain Glasdale, who were covering the flight of their men to Les Tourelles.[1090] In his hand Glasdale was holding the standard of Chandos, which, after having waved over eighty years of victories, was now retreating before the standard of a child.[1091] For the Maid was there, standing upon the rampart. And the English, panic-stricken, wondered what kind of a witch this could be whose powers did not depart with the flowing of her blood, and who with charms healed her deep wounds. Meanwhile she was looking at them kindly and sadly and crying out, her voice broken with sobs:

"Gla.s.sidas! Gla.s.sidas! surrender, surrender to the King of Heaven.

Thou hast called me strumpet; but I have great pity on thy soul and on the souls of thy men."[1092]

[Footnote 1089: _Chronique de la fete_, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.

294.]

[Footnote 1090: _Journal du siege_, p. 87.]

[Footnote 1091: Letter from Charles VII to the inhabitants of Narbonne, 10 May, 1429, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 103. Monstrelet, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 365.]

[Footnote 1092: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 110 (Pasquerel's evidence).]

At the same time, from the walls of the town and the bulwark of La Belle Croix cannon b.a.l.l.s rained down upon Les Tourelles.[1093]

Montargis and Rifflart cast forth stones. Maitre Guillaume Duisy's new cannon, from the Chesneau postern, hurled forth b.a.l.l.s weighing one hundred and twenty pounds.[1094] Les Tourelles were attacked from the bridge side. Across the arch broken by the English a narrow footway was thrown, and Messire Nicole de Giresme, a knight in holy orders, was the first to pa.s.s over.[1095] Those who followed him set fire to the palisade which blocked the approach to the fort on that side. Thus the six hundred English, their strength and their weapons alike exhausted, found themselves a.s.sailed both in front and in the rear. In a crafty and terrible manner they were also attacked from beneath. The people of Orleans had loaded a great barge with pitch, tow, f.a.ggots, horse-bones, old shoes, resin, sulphur, ninety-eight pounds of olive oil and such other materials as might easily take fire and smoke. They had steered it under the wooden bridge, thrown by the enemy from Les Tourelles to the bulwark: they had anch.o.r.ed the barge there and set fire to its cargo. The fire from the barge had caught the bridge just when the English were retreating. Through smoke and flames the six hundred pa.s.sed over the burning platform. At length it came to the turn of William Glasdale, Lord Poynings and Lord Moleyns, who with thirty or forty captains, were the last to leave the lost bulwark; but when they set foot on the bridge, its beams, reduced to charcoal, crumbled beneath them, and they all with the Chandos standard were engulfed in the Loire.[1096]

[Footnote 1093: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 293, 294. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 31.]

[Footnote 1094: _Journal du siege_, p. 17. Jollois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 12.]

[Footnote 1095: _Journal du siege_, p. 87. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 294. _Chronique de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 294.]

[Footnote 1096: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 9, 25, 80. _Chronique de l'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 294. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 294. _Journal du siege_, pp. 87, 88. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 78. Perceval de Cagny, p. 145. Eberhard Windecke, p. 173. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 321. Morosini, vol. iii, pp.

31 _et seq._]

Jeanne moved to pity wept over the soul of Gla.s.sidas and over the souls of those drowned with him.[1097] The captains, who were with her, likewise grieved over the death of these valiant men, reflecting that they had done the French a great wrong by being drowned, for their ransom would have brought great riches.[1098]

[Footnote 1097: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 110 (Pasquerel's evidence).]

[Footnote 1098: _Journal du siege_, p. 87.]