Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

“ Compiègne looks from her girdling towers and sees a gray tide rush forward, seething and boiling, almost to her very walls; sees it met, stemmed, by a barrier of blue and brown, slender, but immovable; hears the words which shall ring through all centuries to come:
"On ne passe pas!"
Burgundy greatly desired Compiègne; would have had it before this, but for the stout hearts of its citizens. It was in Compiègne that the truce was signed, and Duke Philip asked explicitly that the city be given up to him while the compact held. Charles and La Trémoïlle were willing; anything to oblige! ”

“ This troop was commanded by De Gaucourt, the governor of the city, an old man and timid. Seeing his men and himself in danger, he would have withdrawn with them, but at the moment a cry was heard: "The Maid! the Maid!" Joan and La Hire had brought their horses over by boat, and now were galloping to the rescue, after them soldiers and townspeople in a rush. De Gaucourt would have held his soldiers back, but in vain.
"You are an evil man!" cried the Maid. "Will you nill you, the men-at-arms will follow me to victory!" ”

“ Then, for another moment—not more, since that way madness lies—think of that white, tender body of the Maid of France flaming like a torch to Heaven!
A torch indeed. Fiercely its blaze beats upon Rouen Old Market, throwing a dreadful light on those watching faces. Pierre de Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, on your face it glares most fiercely; on yours, Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of Winchester; Earl of Warwick, on yours. I think you will see that light while you live, however dark the night around you. I know that by it alone we see your faces to-day. ”

“ Joan looked at him with her clear dark eyes.
"I am come," she answered, "to a Royal town to ask Robert de Baudricourt to lead me to the King. But Baudricourt cares nothing for me and for what I say; none the less I must be with the King by mid-Lent, if I wear my legs down to the knees. No man in the world—kings, nor dukes, nor the daughter of the Scottish king—can recover the kingdom of France, nor hath our king any succor save from myself, though I would liefer be sewing beside my poor mother. ”

“ Earnestly and reverently she besought Charles to make no more delay, but ride with her at once to Rheims for his coronation.
Charles regretted the severity of the Maid's labors; was very pleased at the victories; thought she ought to take a holiday; shortly, no one knows why, left Sully and went to Châteauneuf, fifteen miles down the river. Joan followed him, and again made her prayer. She wept as she knelt before him. The cruel toil, the bloodshed and the glory—was all to be for naught? The days were flying, every day bringing her nearer the end. ”

“ D'Albert carried the Sword of State; Alençon gave the accolade. Guy de Laval was there, and La Trémoïlle, and many others whose names we know; all in their brightest armor, we may be sure, with much clanking of swords and waving of banners. We hardly see them; all our eyes are for the Maid (she also in full armor, as becomes a good soldier) , as she kneels before the King she has made, embracing his knees and weeping for joy. ”

“ Serene, unmoved, amid a storm of bullets and arrows, the Maid stood beside the water, probing its black depth with her lance; calling on her men to follow her. So she stands for all time, one of the imperishable pictures.
Another moment, and a bolt from an arblast struck her down. Still, as she lay bleeding from a wound in the thigh, she ceased not to cheer the French on to the assault. Let them only fill the ditch, she cried, and all would be well; the city would be theirs. ”

“ Far north, perched like an eagle on a crag above the sea, stood Mont St. Michel au peril de la mer, the virgin fortress-abbey; a sacred spot even under the Druids; these many hundred years now one of the holy places of France, under special patronage of St. Michael, the archangel of Joan's vision. England greatly desired this coign of vantage; made overtures thereanent to the abbot, Robert Jolivet, who listened and finally promised to surrender the place to them. He went to Rouen to conclude the bargain. ”

“ Soon fifty thousand bodies were lying there, with no sword in their vitals. Men said that those who had hand in the recent massacres died first, with cries of despair on their lips. While the city crouched terror-stricken, certain priests arose, proclaiming the need of still more bloodshed; the sacrifice was not complete, they cried. Two prisons still remained, the Grand Châtelet and the Bastille, crammed with prisoners; among them might be, doubtless were, Armagnacs held for ransom by the greedy Burgundians. To arms, once more!
Frenzied Paris responded, as—alas!—she has so often done. ”

“ Charles was now inclined to take Joan and her mission seriously, spite of the indifference (later to develop into bitter hostility) of La Trémoïlle. She had fired the despondent captains with hope of saving Orleans; had won the hearts of the court ladies, had satisfied the confessors of her orthodoxy; last and most important, she had performed what seemed to him a miracle in reading his thoughts. But nothing must be done hastily. In so important a matter, every authority must be consulted; it must be established beyond peradventure that this Maid was of God and not of Satan. ”

“ Charles, though he had given Joan money for the poor of Bourges, had none for feeding and clothing his army. The town must have yielded soon, men thought, since no one came to succor it; but the French could neither besiege nor assault on empty stomachs, and the siege was abandoned. Charles, as a sugarplum to console the heartsick Maid, conferred a patent of nobility on her and all her family; "that the memory of the divine glory and of so many favors may endure and increase forever." ”

“ Baudricourt looked at the comely peasant maid in her red stuff dress, probably with some interest at first; when she quietly informed him that God had bidden her to save France, and had sent her to him for help in the task, his interest changed to amused impatience. At first he laughed; but when he was called upon in God's name to send a message to the Dauphin his mood changed.
"Let him guard himself well," the message ran, "and not offer battle to his foes, for the Lord will give him succor by mid-Lent." ”

“ On she swept, lance in rest, crying, "In God's name, forward! forward boldly!" On swept La Hire and the rest, De Gaucourt and his men with them, carried away body and soul of them by the impetuous rush. They charged the English and drove them back to their intrenchments. Many of the defenders were slain, many taken; the rest took refuge in the boulevard, or outwork of the Tourelles.
Many of the victorious French remained on the spot, to guard against a possible night assault. ”

“ We need not concern ourselves further with Catherine of La Rochelle, though Brother Richard, the Franciscan, admired her greatly, and would fain have set her up on a pedestal beside Joan. She faded away presently, and is visible to-day only by a little reflected light from the flare of the Maid.
Winter came to an end at last, and with it the truce. Philip of Burgundy resumed hostilities, and Joan burnished her white armor, and laid her lance in rest with right good will. The end was near; all the more would she fight the good fight, so long as she was permitted. ”

“ Charles d'Orléans.
April was come, and the end seemed near, when whispers began to creep about. A bird [Pg 80] of the air carried the matter, a wind of the forest breathed it. Help was coming. A marvel had come to light: a holy Maid (or an accursed witch: it depended on which camp you were in!) had arisen, had visited the Dauphin at Chinon: was coming to rescue Orleans from its besiegers. Like wildfire the rumor spread. Brave Dunois listened, and his heart beat faster, recalling the prophecy. "France lost by a woman shall be saved by a woman!" ”

“ John, Duke of Bedford, was the solitary mourner. Alone he walked, the sword of state borne before him as Regent of France; alone he knelt at the requiem mass: an alien and a stranger. The people of Paris looked on in silence; they had nothing to say. "They wept," we are told [Pg 70] by a contemporary, "and not without cause, for they knew not whether for a long, long while they would have any king in France."
A few days before this, on October thirtieth, Charles the Dauphin had assumed the title of king, and at a high mass in the cathedral of Bourges had made his first royal communion. ”

“ This must have been a season of anguish for the Maid. France was dying: they thought [Pg 87] it then as they thought it in 1918: she alone could save her country, and no man would give her aid, would even listen to her. Perhaps at no time—save at the last—is the heroic quality of the Maid more clearly shown than in the meagre record of these weeks of waiting. How should she sit to spin, with saints and angels calling in her ear? How should she ply her needle, when the sword was waiting for her hand? ”

“ Neither the Dauphin nor his followers would have anything to do with him. Richemont, who knew that this message came in reality from La Trémoïlle, about whom he cared nothing at all, continued to advance; and on the 16th day of June came upon Alençon and the Maid riding to meet him with Dunois, La Hire, and the rest.
"Joan," said the bluff Constable, "I was told that you meant to attack me. I know not whether you come from God or not; if you are from God, I fear you not at all, for God knows my good will; if you are from the devil, I fear you still less." ”

“ She saw shining armor, and cried out, alas! she could not use it! but a voice said that it was for a Maid who should restore France. Yes, indeed, that would be a fine thing, if our fair country, ruined by a woman, should be restored by a woman from the marches of Lorraine. Pax vobiscum!
These things, and others like them, no doubt Joan heard, sitting quietly by with her sewing or knitting while the elders talked. These things by and by were to be a sword in her hand, and—later still—a torch in the hands of her enemies. ”

“ The battle of Patay was followed by a massacre of the English, which the Maid was powerless to prevent. The French had suffered too long; the iron had entered too deep into their souls. As the world stood then, they would have been more or less than human to have held their hand from the slaughter. It seemed probable that Joan did not see all of the butchery, but she saw more than enough. "She was most pitiful," says the page d'Aulon, "at the sight of so great a slaughter. ”

“ She asked for a standard: St. Margaret and St. Catherine, she told the Dauphin, had commanded her to take a standard and bear it valiantly. The King of Heaven was to be painted on it, said the crowned and gracious ladies. Furthermore, "the world was painted on it" (which Andrew Lang takes to have been "the globe in the hand of our Lord") , an angel on either side. The stuff was white linen dotted with lilies: the motto Jesus Maria. In action, the Maid always carried this standard, that she might "strike no man with the sword; she never slew any man. ”

“ The French, full of the strong wine of yesterday's victory, were eager to attack; but Joan held them back. "If they attack us," she said, "fight bravely and we shall conquer them; but do not begin the battle!"
Then she did a strange thing. She sent for a priest, and bade him celebrate mass in front of the army; and that done, to celebrate it yet again. Both services "she and all the soldiers heard with great devotion."
"Now," said the Maid, "look well, and tell me; are their faces set toward us?"
"No!" was the reply. "They have turned their backs on us, and their faces are set toward Meung." ”

“ Before the Bastille, John of Burgundy met them, imploring them to spare the prisoners; humbling himself even to take the hangman's bloody hand: in vain. All were slain, and the Duke had only the poor [Pg 24] satisfaction of killing the executioner himself a few days later.
Bernard of Armagnac dead, Charles of Orleans safe, since Agincourt, in an English prison (writing, for his consolation and our delight, the rondels and triolets which will keep his name bright and fresh while Poesy endures) , John the Fearless was in very truth virtual king of France. ”

“ Why, a year before the Dauphin had sent Alain Chartier the poet to Scotland to beg help of the ancient ally of France. Help was promised; six thousand men, to arrive before Whitsuntide; to form moreover a body-guard for the little Princess of Scotland, another Margaret, who was to marry little Louis, son of the Dauphin. Joan had heard rumors of all this; but what was a baby princess three hundred leagues away? She, the Maid, was on the spot.
"Go boldly on!" said the Voices. "When you are with the King, he will have a sure sign to persuade him to believe and trust you." ”

“ Before setting out from England to besiege Rouen, Henry had paid friendly visits to his prisoner-kinsmen, the Dukes of Orleans and [Pg 25] Bourbon, and succeeded in alarming both thoroughly. "Fair cousin," he said to the latter, "I am returning to the war, and this time I shall spare nothing: yes, this time France must pay the piper!" and again, perhaps to Orleans this time, "Fair cousin, soon I am going to Paris. It is a great pity, for they are a brave people; but, voyez vous, they are so terribly divided that they can do nothing." ”

“ Victory, when light has triumphed over darkness, as it brightened them in the hour of her agony, though God alone saw that radiance. In the white fire of that torch were fused all incoherent elements, all that turned the sword of brother against brother, Frenchman against Frenchman. From that white fire sprang, into enduring life and glory, France Imperishable. ”

“ The weaker man yielded, albeit protesting to the last moment; the old lion marshaled his troops, and on June 18th at Patay, between Orleans and Châteaudun, rode out to battle.
It was evening of the 17th when the French, arrayed in order of battle on a little hill, "une petite montagnette," saw their enemy advancing across a wide plain. Beholding them Joan the Maid cried to those beside her, "They are ours! if they were hung from the clouds above me, we must have them!" ”

“ How if the centuries should in some way juggle themselves together, and the Nineteenth come sweeping along with hound and horn before the eyes of the Maid? What would she make, I wonder, of those two lovely ladies, her of the shoulders and her of the silken tresses? What in return would they make of the slim rider in battered armor, urging her horse to the gallop? ”

“ He was shooting quails one day when word came of a mysterious Maid who had appeared before the King, claiming to be sent by God to drive out the English, and raise the siege of Orleans. Here, for once, was something interesting in these tiresome squabbles of Burgundian and Armagnac; something, it might be, more exciting than quail-shooting. He took horse and rode to Chinon; sought his cousin Charles, and found him deep in talk with the Maid herself. ”

“ Not only France, but Orleans, Joan was bidden to save. This done, she must seek the Dauphin Charles, must lead him to Rheims and there see him crowned king. What she must do thereafter was not clear; the Voices rang confusedly. Something there was about driving the English from France. But now, now, now, she must be about the work in hand. She must go to Robert of Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs, and ask him for an escort to the Dauphin.
"I am a poor girl!" cried the Maid. "I have never sat a horse; how should I lead an army?" ”