The Life of Joan of Arc Part 82

At Christmas, in the year 1429, the flying squadron of _beguines_ being a.s.sembled at Jargeau,[1879] this good Brother said ma.s.s and administered the communion thrice to Jeanne the Maid and twice to that Pierronne of Lower Brittany, with whom our Lord conversed as friend with friend. Such an action might well be regarded, if not as a formal violation of the Church's laws, at any rate as an unjustifiable abuse of the sacrament.[1880] A menacing theological tempest was then gathering and was about to break over the heads of Friar Richard's daughters in the spirit. A few days after the attack on Paris, the venerable University had had composed or rather transcribed a treatise, _De bono et maligno spiritu_, with a view probably to finding therein arguments against Friar Richard and his prophetess Jeanne, who had both appeared before the city with the Armagnacs.[1881]

[Footnote 1879: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 106.]

[Footnote 1880: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 271.]

[Footnote 1881: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 232, 233. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Cartularium Univ. Paris_, vol. iv, p. 515.]

About the same time, a clerk of the faculty of law had published a summary reply to Chancellor Gerson's memorial concerning the Maid. "It sufficeth not," he wrote, "that one simply affirm that he is sent of G.o.d; every heretic maketh such a claim; but he must prove the truth of that mysterious mission by some miraculous work or by some special testimony in the Bible." This Paris clerk denies that the Maid has presented any such proof, and to judge her by her acts, he believes her rather to have been sent by the Devil than by G.o.d. He reproaches her with wearing a dress forbidden to women under penalty of anathema, and he refutes the excuses for her conduct in this matter urged by Gerson. He accuses her of having excited between princes and Christian people a greater war than there had ever been before. He holds her to be an idolatress using enchantments and making false prophecies. He charges her with having induced men to slay their fellows on the two high festivals of the Holy Virgin, the a.s.sumption and the Nativity.

"Sins committed by the Enemy of Mankind, through this woman, against the Creator and his most glorious Mother. And albeit there ensued certain murders, thanks be to G.o.d they were not so many as the Enemy had intended."

"All these things do manifestly prove error and heresy," adds this devout son of the University. Whence he concludes that the Maid should be taken before the Bishop and the Inquisitor; and he ends by quoting this text from Saint Jerome: "The unhealthy flesh must be cut off; the diseased sheep must be driven from the fold."[1882]

[Footnote 1882: Noel Valois, _Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1907, in 8vo, 19 pages.]

Such was the unanimous opinion of the University of Paris concerning her in whom the French clerks beheld an Angel of the Lord. At Bruges, in November, a rumour ran and was eagerly welcomed by ecclesiastics that the University of Paris had sent an emba.s.sy to the Pope at Rome to denounce the Maid as a false prophetess and a deceiver, and likewise those who believed in her. We do not know the veritable object of this mission.[1883] But there is no doubt whatever that the doctors and masters of Paris were henceforward firmly resolved that if ever they obtained possession of the damsel they would not let her go out of their hands, and certainly would not send her to be tried at Rome, where she might escape with a mere penance, and even be enlisted as one of the Pope's mercenaries.[1884]

[Footnote 1883: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 232.]

[Footnote 1884: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355.]

In English and Burgundian lands, not only by clerks but by folk of all conditions, she was regarded as a heretic; in those countries the few who thought well of her had to conceal their opinions carefully. After the retreat from Saint-Denys, there may have remained some in Picardy, and notably at Abbeville, who were favourable to the prophetess of the French; but such persons must not be spoken of in public.

Colin Gouye, surnamed Le Sourd, and Jehannin Daix, surnamed Le Pet.i.t, a man of Abbeville, learned this to their cost. In this town about the middle of September, Le Sourd and Le Pet.i.t were near the blacksmith's forge with divers of the burgesses and other townsfolk, among whom was a herald. They fell to talking of the Maid who was making so great a stir throughout Christendom. To certain words the herald uttered concerning her, Le Pet.i.t replied eagerly:

"Well! well! Everything that woman does and says is nought but deception."

Le Sourd spoke likewise: "That woman," he said, "is not to be trusted.

Those who believe in her are mad, and there is a smell of burning about them."[1885]

[Footnote 1885: _Sentent la persinee_: literally, smell of roast parsley. Cf. G.o.defroy, _Lexique de l'ancien francais_ at the word _persinee_. _Sentir la persinee_: to be suspected of heresy (W.S.).]

By that he meant that their destiny was obvious, and that they were sure to be burned at the stake as heretics.

Then he had the misfortune to add: "In this town there be many with a smell of burning about them."

Such words were for the dwellers in Abbeville a slander and a cause of suspicion. When the Mayor and the aldermen heard of this speech they ordered Le Sourd to be thrown into prison. Le Pet.i.t must have said something similar, for he too was imprisoned.[1886]

[Footnote 1886: Pardon granted to Le Sourd and Jehannin Daix, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 142-145.]

By saying that divers of his fellow-citizens were suspect of heresy, Le Sourd put them in danger of being sought out by the Bishop and the Inquisitor as heretics and sorcerers of notoriously evil repute. As for the Maid, she must have been suspect indeed, for a smell of burning to be caused by the mere fact of being her partisan.

While Friar Richard and his spiritual daughters were thus threatened with a bad end should they fall into the hands of the English or Burgundians, serious troubles were agitating the sisterhood. On the subject of Catherine, Jeanne entered into an open dispute with her spiritual father. Friar Richard wanted the holy dame of La Roch.e.l.le to be set to work. Fearing lest his advice should be adopted, Jeanne wrote to her King to tell him what to do with the woman, to wit that he should send her home to her husband and children.

When she came to the King the first thing she had to say to him was: "Catherine's doings are nought but folly and futility."

Friar Richard made no attempt to hide from the Maid his profound displeasure.[1887] He was thought much of at court, and it was doubtless with the consent of the Royal Council that he was endeavouring to compa.s.s the employment of Dame Catherine. The Maid had succeeded. Why should not another of the illuminated succeed?

[Footnote 1887: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 107.]

Meanwhile the Council had by no means renounced the services Jeanne was rendering to the French cause. Even after the misfortunes of Paris and of La Charite, there were many who now as before held her power to be supernatural; and there is reason to believe that there was a party at Court intending still to employ her.[1888] And even if they had wished to discard her she was now too intimately a.s.sociated with the royal lilies for her rejection not to involve them too in dishonour.

On the 29th of December, 1429, at Mehun-sur-Yevre, the King gave her a charter of n.o.bility sealed with the great seal in green wax, with a double pendant, on a strip of red and green silk.[1889]

[Footnote 1888: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 84; vol. iv, pp. 312 _et pa.s.sim_.

A. de Villaret, _loc. cit._ Proofs and ill.u.s.trations.]

[Footnote 1889: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 150-153. J. Hordal, _Heroinae n.o.bilissimae Joannae Darc, lotharingae, vulgo aurelianensis puellae historia...._ Ponti-Mussi, 1612, small 4to. C. du Lys, _Traite sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle, justifie par plusieurs patentes et arrets, enquetes et informations...._ Paris, 1633, in 4to. De la Roque, _Traite de la n.o.blesse_, Paris, 1678, in 4to, ch. xliii. Lanery d'Arc, _Jeanne d'Arc en Berry_, ch. x.]

The grant of n.o.bility was to Jeanne, her father, mother, brothers even if they were not free, and to all their posterity, male and female. It was a singular grant corresponding to the singular services rendered by a woman.

In the t.i.tle she is described as Johanna d'Ay, doubtless because her father's name was given to the King's scribes by Lorrainers who would speak with a soft drawl; but whether her name were Ay or Arc, she was seldom called by it, and was commonly spoken of as Jeanne the Maid.[1890]

[Footnote 1890: See a.n.a.lytical index, in _Trial_, vol. v, at the word _Pucelle_.]

CHAPTER V

LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF REIMS--LETTER TO THE HUSSITES--DEPARTURE FROM SULLY

The folk of Orleans were grateful to the Maid for what she had done for them. Far from reproaching her with the unfortunate conclusion of the siege of La Charite, they welcomed her into their city with the same rejoicing and with as good cheer as before. On the 19th of January, 1430, they honoured her and likewise Maitre Jean de Velly and Maitre Jean Rabateau with a banquet, at which there was abundance of capons, partridges, hares, and even a pheasant.[1891] Who that Jean de Velly was, who was feasted with her, we do not know. As for Jean Rabateau, he was none other than the King's Councillor, who had been Attorney-General at the Parlement of Poitiers since 1427.[1892] He had been the Maid's host at Orleans. His wife had often seen Jeanne kneeling in her private oratory.[1893] The citizens of Orleans offered wine to the Attorney-General, to Jean de Velly, and to the Maid. In good sooth, 'twas a fine feast and a ceremonious. The burgesses loved and honoured Jeanne, but they cannot have observed her very closely during the repast or they would not eight years later, when an adventuress gave herself out to be the Maid, have mistaken her for Jeanne, and offered her wine in the same manner and at the hands of the same city servant, Jacques Leprestre, as now presented it.[1894]

[Footnote 1891: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 270.]

[Footnote 1892: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 19, 74, 203. H. Daniel Lacombe, _L'hote de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers, Maitre Jean Rabateau, president du parlement de Paris_, in _Revue du Bas-Poitou_, 1891, pp. 48, 66.]

[Footnote 1893: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 88 _et seq._]

[Footnote 1894: Extract from the Accounts of the town of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 331.]

The standard that Jeanne loved even more than her Saint Catherine's sword had been painted at Tours by one Hamish Power. He was now marrying his daughter Heliote; and when Jeanne heard of it, she sent a letter to the magistrates of Tours, asking them to give a sum of one hundred crowns for the bride's trousseau. The nuptials were fixed for the 9th of February, 1430. The magistrates a.s.sembled twice to deliberate on Jeanne's request. They described her honourably and yet not without a certain caution as "the Maid who hath come into this realm to the King, concerning the matter of the war, announcing that she is sent by the King of Heaven against the English." In the end they refused to pay anything, because, they said, it behoved them to expend munic.i.p.al funds on munic.i.p.al matters and not otherwise; but they decided that for the affection and honour they bore the Maid, the churchmen, burgesses, and other townsfolk should be present in the church at the wedding, and should offer prayers for the bride and present her with bread and wine. This cost them four _livres_, ten _sous_.[1895]

[Footnote 1895: Vallet de Viriville, _Un episode de la vie de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. iv (1st series), p. 488. _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 154-156.]

At a time which it is impossible to fix exactly the Maid bought a house at Orleans. To be more precise she took it on lease.[1896] A lease (_bail a vente_) was an agreement by which the proprietor of a house or other property transferred the ownership to the lessee in return for an annual payment in kind or in money. The duration of such leases was usually fifty-nine years. The house that Jeanne acquired in this manner belonged to the Chapter of the Cathedral. It was in the centre of the town, in the parish of Saint-Malo, close to the Saint-Maclou Chapel, next door to the shop of an oil-seller, one Jean Feu, in the Rue des Pet.i.ts-Souliers. It was in this street that, during the siege, there had fallen into the midst of five guests seated at table a stone cannon-ball weighing one hundred and sixty-four pounds, which had done no one any harm.[1897] What price did the Maid give for this house? Apparently six crowns of fine gold (at sixty crowns to the mark), due half-yearly at Midsummer and Christmas, for fifty-nine years. In addition, she must according to custom have undertaken to keep the house in good condition and to pay out of her own purse the ecclesiastical dues as well as rates for wells and paving and all other taxes. Being obliged to have some one as surety, she chose as her guarantor a certain Guillot de Guyenne, of whom we know nothing further.[1898]

[Footnote 1896: Jules Doinel, _Note sur une maison de Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Memoires de la Societe archeologique et historique de l'Orleanais_, vol. xv, pp. 491-500.]

[Footnote 1897: _Journal du siege_, pp. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 1898: Jules Doinel, _Note sur une maison de Jeanne d'Arc_, _loc. cit._]

There is no reason to believe that the Maid did not herself negotiate this agreement. Saint as she was, she knew well what it was to possess property. Such knowledge ran in her family; her father was the best business man in his village.[1899] She herself was domesticated and thrifty; for she kept her old clothes, and even in the field she knew where to find them when she wanted to make presents of them to her friends. She counted up her possessions in arms and horses, valued them at twelve thousand crowns, and, apparently made a pretty accurate reckoning.[1900] But what was her idea in taking this house? Did she think of living in it? Did she intend when the war was over to return to Orleans and pa.s.s a peaceful old age in a house of her own? Or was she planning for her parents to dwell there, or some Vouthon uncle, or her brothers, one of whom was in great poverty and had got a doublet out of the citizens of Orleans?[1901]

[Footnote 1899: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. 360.]

[Footnote 1900: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 295.]