Chapter XXIV: The Hundred Years' War.--Charles VII. and Joan (2)

Dunois, the very day of his return to Orleans, after dinner, went to call upon Joan, and told her that he had heard on his way that Sir John Falstolf, the same who on the 12th of the previous February had beaten the French in the Herring affair, was about to arrive with re-enforcements and supplies for the besiegers. "Bastard, bastard," said Joan, "in the name of God I command thee, as soon as thou shalt know of this Pascot's coming, to have me warned of it, for, should he pass without my knowing of it, I promise thee that I will have thy head cut off." Dunois assured her that she should be warned. Joan was tired with the day's excitement; she threw herself upon her bed to sleep, but unsuccessfully; all at once she said to Sire Daulon, her esquire, "My counsel doth tell me to go against the English; but I know not whether against their bastilles or against this Fascot. I must arm." Her esquire was beginning to arm her when she heard it shouted in the street that the enemy were at that moment doing great damage to the French. "My God," said she, "the blood of our people is running on the ground; why was I not awakened sooner? Ah! it was ill done! . . . My arms! My arms! my horse!" Leaving behind her esquire, who was not yet armed, she went down. Her page was playing at the door: "Ah! naughty boy," said she, "not to come and tell me that the blood of France was being shed! Come! quick! my horse!" It was brought to her; she bade them hand down to her by the window her banner, which she had left behind, and, without any further waiting, she departed and went to the Burgundy gate, whence the noise seemed to come. Seeing on her way one of the townsmen passing who was being carried off wounded, she said, "Alas! I never see a Frenchman's blood but my hair stands up on my head!" It was some of the Orleannese themselves who, without consulting their chiefs, had made a sortie and attacked the Bastille St. Loup, the strongest held by the English on this side. The French had been repulsed, and were falling back in flight when Joan came up, and soon after her Dunois and a throng of men-at-arms who had been warned of the danger. The fugitives returned to the assault; the battle was renewed with ardor; the bastille of St. Loup, notwithstanding energetic resistance on the part of the English who manned it, was taken; and all its defenders were put to the sword before Talbot and the main body of the besiegers could come up to their assistance. Joan showed sorrow that so many people should have died unconfessed; and she herself was the means of saving some who had disguised themselves as priests in gowns which they had taken from the church of St. Loup. Great was the joy in Orleans, and the enthusiasm for Joan was more lively than ever. "Her voices had warned her," they said, "and apprised her that there was a battle; and then she had found by herself alone and without any guide the way to the Burgundy gate." Men-at-arms and burgesses all demanded that the attack upon the English hastilles should be resumed; but the next day, the 5th of May, was Ascension-day. Joan advocated lions repose on this holy festival, and the general feeling was in accord with her own. She recommended her comrades to fulfil their religious duties, and she herself received the communion. The chiefs of the besieged resolved to begin on the morrow a combined attack upon the English bastilles which surrounded the palace; but Joan was not in their counsels. "Tell me what you have resolved," she said to them; "I can keep this and greater secrets." Dunois made her acquainted with the plan adopted, of which she fully approved; and on the morrow, the 6th of May, a fierce struggle began again all round Orleans. For two days the bastilles erected by the besiegers against the place were repeatedly attacked by the besieged. On the first day Joan was slightly wounded in the foot. Some disagreement arose between her and Sire de Gaucourt, governor of Orleans, as to continuing the struggle; and John Boucher, her host, tried to keep her back the second day. "Stay and dine with us," said he, "to eat that shad which has just been brought." "Keep it for supper," said Joan; "I will come back this evening and bring you some goddamns (Englishman) or other to eat his share;" and she sallied forth, eager to return to the assault. On arriving at the Burgundy gate she found it closed; the governor would not allow any sortie thereby to attack on that side. "Ah! naughty man," said Joan, "you are wrong; whether you will or no, our men-at-arms shall go and win on this day as they have already won." The gate was forced; and men-at-arms and burgesses rushed out from all quarters to attack the bastille of Tournelles, the strongest of the English works. It was ten o'clock in the morning; the passive and active powers of both parties were concentrated on this point; and for a moment the French appeared weary and downcast. Joan took a scaling-ladder, set it against the rampart, and was the first to mount. There came an arrow and struck her between neck and shoulder, and she fell. Sire de Gamaches, who had but lately displayed so much temper towards her, found her where she lay. "Take my horse," said he, "and bear no malice: I was wrong; I had formed a false idea of you." "Yes," said Joan, "and bear no malice: I never saw a more accomplished knight." She was taken away and had her armor removed. The arrow, it is said, stood out almost half-a-foot behind. There was an instant of faintness and tears; but she prayed and felt her strength renewed, and pulled out the arrow with her own hand.

Some one proposed to her to charm the wound by means of cabalistic words; but "I would rather die," she said, "than so sin against the will of God. I know full well that I must die some day; but I know nor where nor when nor how. If, without sin, my wound may be healed, I am right willing." A dressing of oil and lard was applied to the wound; and she retired apart into a vineyard, and was continually in prayer. Fatigue and discouragement were overcoming the French; and the captains ordered the retreat to be sounded. Joan begged Dunois to wait a while. "My God," said she, "we shall soon be inside. Give your people a little rest; eat and drink." She resumed her arms and remounted her horse; her banner floated in the air; the French took fresh courage; the English, who thought Joan half dead, were seized with surprise and fear; and one of their principal leaders, Sir William Gladesdale, made up his mind to abandon the outwork which he had hitherto so well kept, and retire within the bastille itself. Joan perceived his movement. "Yield thee," she shouted to him from afar; "yield thee to the King of Heaven! Ah! Glacidas, thou hast basely insulted me; but I have great pity on the souls of thee and thine." The Englishman continued his retreat. Whilst he was passing over the drawbridge which reached from the out-work to the bastille, a shot from the side of Orleans broke down the bridge; Gladesdale fell into the water and was drowned, together with many of his comrades; the French got into the bastille without any fresh fighting; and Joan re-entered Orleans amidst the joy and acclamations of the people. The bells rang all through the night, and the Te Deum was chanted. The day of combat was about to be succeeded by the day of deliverance.

On the morrow, the 8th of May, 1429, at daybreak, the English leaders drew up their troops close to the very moats of the city, and seemed to offer battle to the French. Many of the Orleannese leaders would have liked to accept this challenge; but Joan got up from her bed, where she was resting because of her wound, put on a light suit of armor, and ran to the city gates. "For the love and honor of holy Sunday," said she to the assembled warriors, "do not be the first to attack, and make to them no demand; it is God's good will and pleasure that they be allowed to get them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend yourselves boldly; you will be the masters." She caused an altar to be raised; thanksgivings were sung, and mass was celebrated. "See!" said Joan; "are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their backs?" They had commenced their retreat in good order, with standards flying. "Let them go: my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting to-day; you shall have them another time." The good words spoken by Joan were not so preventive but that many men set off to pursue the English, and cut off stragglers and baggage. Their bastilles were found to be full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many of their prisoners. The siege of Orleans was raised.

The day but one after this deliverance, Joan set out to go and rejoin the king, and prosecute her work at his side. She fell in with him on the 13th of May, at Tours, moved forward to meet him, with her banner in her hand and her head uncovered, and bending down over her charger's neck, made him a deep obeisance. Charles took off his cap, held out his hand to her, and, "as it seemed to many," says a contemporary chronicler, "he would fain have kissed her, for the joy that he felt." But the king's joy was not enough for Joan. She urged him to march with her against enemies who were flying, so to speak, from themselves, and to start without delay for Rheims, where he would be crowned. "I shall hardly last more than a year," said she; "we must think about working right well this year, for there is much to do." Hesitation was natural to Charles, even in the hour of victory. His favorite, La Tremoille, and his chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, opposed Joan's entreaties with all the objections that could be devised under the inspiration of their ill will: there were neither troops nor money in hand for so great a journey; and council after council was held for the purpose of doing nothing. Joan, in her impatience, went one day to Loches, without previous notice, and tapped softly at the door of the king's privy chamber (chambre de re- trait). He bade her enter. She fell upon her knees, saying, "Gentle _dauphin_, hold not so many and such long councils, but rather come to Rheims, and there assume your crown; I am much pricked to take you thither." "Joan," said the Bishop of Castres, Christopher d'Harcourt, the king's confessor, "cannot you tell the king what pricketh you?" "Ah! I see," replied Joan, with some embarrassment: "well, I will tell you. I had set me to prayer, according to my wont, and I was making complaint for that you would not believe what I said; then the voice came and said unto me, 'Go, go, my daughter; I will be a help to thee; go.' When this voice comes to me, I feel marvellously rejoiced; I would that it might endure forever." She was eager and overcome.

Joan and her voices were not alone in urging the king to shake off his doubts and his indolence. In church, and court, and army, allies were not wanting to the pious and valiant maid. In a written document dated the 14th of May, six days after the siege of Orleans was raised, the most Christian doctor of the age, as Gerson was called, sifted the question whether it were possible, whether it were a duty, to believe in the Maid. "Even if (which God forbid)," said he, "she should be mistaken in her hope and ours, it would not necessarily follow that what she does comes of the evil spirit, and not of God, but that rather our ingratitude was to blame. Let the party which hath a just cause take care how, by incredulity or injustice, it rendereth useless the divine succor so miraculously manifested, for God, without any change of counsel, changeth the upshot according to deserts." Great lords and simple gentlemen, old and young warriors, were eager to go and join Joan for the salvation of the king and of France. The constable, De Richemont, banished from the court through the jealous hatred of George la Tremoille, made a pressing application there, followed by a body of men-at-arms; and, when the king refused to see him, he resolved, though continuing in disgrace, to take an active part in the war. The young Duke of Alencon, who had been a prisoner with the English since the battle of Agincourt, hurried on the payment of his ransom in order to accompany Joan as lieutenant-general of the king in the little army which was forming. His wife, the duchess, was in grief about it. "We have just spent great sums," said she, "in buying him back from the English; if he would take my advice, he would stay at home." "Madame," said Joan, "I will bring him back to you safe and sound, nay, even in better contentment than at present; be not afraid." And on this promise the duchess took heart. Du Guesciin's widow, Joan de Laval, was still living; and she had two grandsons, Guy and Andrew de Laval, who were amongst the most zealous of those taking service in the army destined to march on Rheims. The king, to all appearance, desired to keep them near his person. "God forbid that I should do so," wrote Guy de Laval, on the 8th of June, 1429, to those most dread dames, his grandmother and his mother; "my brother says, as also my lord the Duke d'Alencon, that a good riddance of bad rubbish would he be who should stay at home." And he describes his first interview with the Maid as follows: "The king had sent for her to come and meet him at Selles-en-Berry. Some say that it was for my sake, in order that I might see her. She gave right good cheer (a kind reception) to my brother and myself; and after we had dismounted at Selles I went to see her in her quarters. She ordered wine, and told me that she would soon have me drinking some at Paris. It seems a thing divine to look on her and listen to her. I saw her mount on horseback, armed all in white armor, save her head, and with a little axe in her hand, on a great black charger, which, at the door of her quarters, was very restive, and would not let her mount. Then said she, 'Lead him to the cross,' which was in front of the neighboring church, on the road. There she mounted him without his moving, and as if he were tied up; and turning towards the door of the church, which was very nigh at hand, she said, in quite a womanly voice, 'You, priests and church-men, make procession and prayers to God.' Then she resumed her road, saying, 'Push forward, push forward.' She told me that three days before my arrival she had sent you, dear grand-mother, a little golden ring, but that it was a very small matter, and she would have liked to send you something better, having regard to your estimation."

It was amidst this burst of patriotism, and with all these valiant comrades, that Joan recommenced the campaign on the 10th of June, 1429, quite resolved to bring the king to Rheims. To complete the deliverance of Orleans, an attack was begun upon the neighboring places, Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency. Before Jargeau, on the 12th of June, although it was Sunday, Joan had the trumpets sounded for the assault. The Duke d'Alencon thought it was too soon. "Ah!" said Joan, "be not doubtful; it is the hour pleasing to God; work ye, and God will work." And she added, familiarly, "Art thou afeard, gentle duke? Knowest thou not that I have promised thy wife to take thee back safe and sound?" The assault began; and Joan soon had occasion to keep her promise. The Duke d'Alencon was watching the assault from an exposed spot, and Joan remarked a piece pointed at this spot. "Get you hence," said she to the duke; "yonder is a piece which will slay you." The Duke moved, and a moment afterwards Sire de Lude was killed at the self-same place by a shot from the said piece. Jargeau was taken. Before Beaugency a serious incident took place. The constable, De Richemont, came up with a force of twelve hundred men. When he was crossing to Loudun, Charles VII., swayed as ever by the jealous La Tremoille, had word sent to him to withdraw, and that if he advanced he would be attacked. "What I am doing in the matter," said the constable, "is for the good of the king and the realm; if anybody comes to attack me, we shall see." When he had joined the army before Beaugency, the Duke d'Alencon was much troubled. The king's orders were precise, and Joan herself hesitated. But news came that Talbot and the English were approaching. "Now," said Joan, "we must think no more of anything but helping one another." She rode forward to meet the constable, and saluted him courteously. "Joan," said he, "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." He remained, and Beaugency was taken. The English army came up. Sir John Falstolf had joined Talbot. Some disquietude showed itself amongst the French, so roughly handled for some time past in pitched battles. "Ah! fair constable," said Joan to Richemont, "you are not come by my orders, but you are right welcome." The Duke d'Alencon consulted Joan as to what was to be done. "It will be well to have horses," was suggested by those about her. She asked her neighbors, "Have you good spurs?" "Ha!" cried they, "must we fly, then?"

"No, surely," replied Joan: "but there will be need to ride boldly; we shall give a good account of the English, and our spurs will serve us famously in pursuing them." The battle began on the 18th of June, at Patay, between Orleans and Chateaudun. By Joan's advice, the French attacked. "In the name of God," said she, "we must fight. Though the English were suspended from the clouds, we should have them, for God hath sent us to punish them. The gentle king shall have to-day the greatest victory he has ever had; my counsel hath told me they are ours." The English lost heart, in their turn; the battle was short, and the victory brilliant; Lord Talbot and the most part of the English captains remained prisoners. "Lord Talbot," said the Duke d'Alencon to him, "this is not what you expected this morning." "It is the fortune of war," answered Talbot, with the cool dignity of an old warrior. Joan's immediate return to Orleans was a triumph; but even triumph has its embarrassments and perils. She demanded the speedy march of the army upon Rheims, that the king might be crowned there without delay; but objections were raised on all sides, the objections of the timid and those of the jealous. "By reason of Joan the Maid," says a contemporary chronicler, "so many folks came from all parts unto the king for to serve him at their own expense, that La Tremoille and others of the council were much wroth thereat, through anxiety for their own persons." Joan, impatient and irritated at so much hesitation and intrigue, took upon herself to act as if the decision belonged to her. On the 25th of June she wrote to the inhabitants of Tournai, "Loyal Frenchmen, I do pray and require you to be all ready to come to the coronation of the gentle King Charles, at Rheims, where we shall shortly be, and to come and meet us when ye shall learn that we are approaching." Two days afterwards, on the 27th of June, she left Gien, where the court was, and went to take up her quarters in the open country with the troops. There was nothing for it but to follow her. On the 29th of June, the king, the court (including La Tremoille), and the army, about twelve thousand strong, set out on the march for Rheims. Other obstacles were encountered on the road. In most of the towns the inhabitants, even the royalists, feared to compromise themselves by openly pronouncing against the English and the Duke of Burgundy. Those of Auxerre demanded a truce, offering provisions, and promising to do as those of Troyes, Chalons, and Rheims should do. At Troyes the difficulty was greater still. There was in it a garrison of five or six hundred English and Burgundians, who had the burgesses under their thumbs. All attempts at accommodation failed. There was great perplexity in the royal camp; there were neither provisions enough for a long stay before Troyes, nor batteries and siege trains to carry it by force. There was talk of turning back. One of the king's councillors, Robert le Macon, proposed that Joan should be summoned to the council. It was at her instance that the expedition had been undertaken; she had great influence amongst the army and the populace; the idea ought not to be given up without consulting her. Whilst he was speaking, Joan came knocking at the door; she was told to come in; and the chancellor, the Archbishop of Rheims, put the question to her. Joan, turning to the king, asked him if he would believe her. "Speak," said the king; "if you say what is reasonable and tends to profit, readily will you be believed." "Gentle king of France," said Joan, "if you be willing to abide here before your town of Troyes, it shall be at your disposal within two days, by love or by force; make no doubt of it." "Joan," replied the chancellor, "whoever could be certain of having it within six days might well wait for it; but say you true?" Joan repeated her assertion; and it was decided to wait. Joan mounted her horse, and, with her banner in her hand, she went through the camp, giving orders everywhere to prepare for the assault. She had her own tent pitched close to the ditch, "doing more," says a contemporary, "than two of the ablest captains would have done." On the next day, July 10, all was ready. Joan had the fascines thrown into the ditches, and was shouting out, "Assault!" when the inhabitants of Troyes, burgesses and men-at-arms, came demanding permission to capitulate. The conditions were easy. The inhabitants obtained for themselves and their property such guarantees as they desired; and the strangers were allowed to go out with what belonged to them. On the morrow, July 11, the king entered Troyes with all his captains, and at his side the Maid carrying her banner. All the difficulties of the journey were surmounted. On the 15th of July the Bishop of Chalons brought the keys of his town to the king, who took up his quarters there. Joan found there four or five of her own villagers, who had hastened up to see the young girl of Domremy in all her glory. She received them with a satisfaction in which familiarity was blended with gravity. To one of them, her godfather, she gave a red cap which she had worn; to another, who had been a Burgundian, she said, "I fear but one thing--treachery." In the Duke d'Alencon's presence she repeated to the king, "Make good use of my time, for I shall hardly last longer than a year." On the 16th of July King Charles entered Rheims, and the ceremony of his coronation was fixed for the morrow.

It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the Archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with the Te Deum sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. "In God's name," said Joan to Dunois, "here is a good people and a devout when I die, I should much like it to be in these parts." "Joan," inquired Dunois, "know you when you will die, and in what place?" "I know not," said she, "for I am at the will of God." Then she added, "I have accomplished that which my Lord commanded me, to raise the siege of Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. I would like it well if it should please him to send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their cattle, and do that which was my wont." "When the said lords," says the chronicler, an eye-witness, "heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes towards heaven, gave thanks to God, they the more believed that it was somewhat sent from God, and not otherwise."

Historians, and even contemporaries, have given much discussion to the question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had really limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She had said so herself several times, just as she had to Dunois at Rheims on the 17th of July, 1429; but she sometimes also spoke of more vast and varied projects, as, for instance, driving the English completely out of France, and withdrawing from his long captivity Charles, Duke of Orleans. He had been a prisoner in London ever since the battle of Agincourt, and was popular in his day, as he has continued to be in French history, on the double ground of having been the father of Louis XII. and one of the most charming poets in the ancient literature of France. The Duke d'Alencon, who was so high in the regard of Joan, attributed to her more expressly this quadruple design: "She said," according to him, "that she had four duties; to get rid of the English, to have the king anointed and crowned, to deliver Duke Charles of Orleans, and to raise the siege laid by the English to Orleans." One is inclined to believe that Joan's language to Dunois at Rheims in the hour of Charles VII.'s coronation more accurately expressed her first idea; the two other notions occurred to her naturally in proportion as her hopes as well as her power kept growing greater with success. But however lofty and daring her soul may have been, she had a simple and not at all a fantastic mind. She may have foreseen the complete expulsion of the English, and may have desired the deliverance of the Duke of Orleans, without having in the first instance premeditated anything more than she said to Dunois during the king's coronation at Rheims, which was looked upon by her as the triumph of the national cause.

However that may be, when Orleans was relieved, and Charles VII. crowned, the situation, posture, and part of Joan underwent a change. She no longer manifested the same confidence in herself and her designs. She no longer exercised over those in whose midst she lived the same authority. She continued to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, sometimes with and sometimes without success, just like La Hire and Dunois; never discouraged, never satisfied, and never looking upon her-self as triumphant. After the coronation, her advice was to march at once upon Paris, in order to take up a fixed position in it, as being the political centre of the realm of which Rheims was the religious. Nothing of the sort was done. Charles and La Tremoille once more began their course of hesitation, tergiversation, and changes of tactics and residence without doing anything of a public and decisive character. They negotiated with the Duke of Burgundy, in the hope of detaching him from the English cause; and they even concluded with him a secret, local, and temporary truce. From the 20th of July to the 23d of August Joan followed the king whithersoever he went, to Chateau-Thierry, to Senlis, to Blois, to Provins, and to Compigne, as devoted as ever, but without having her former power. She was still active, but not from inspiration and to obey her voices, simply to promote the royal policy. She wrote the Duke of Burgundy a letter full of dignity and patriotism, which had no more effect than the negotiations of La Tremoille. During this fruitless labor amongst the French the Duke of Bedford sent for five thousand men from England, who came and settled themselves at Paris. One division of this army had a white standard, in the middle of which was depicted a distaff full of cotton; a half-filled spindle was hanging to the distaff; and the field, studded with empty spindles, bore this inscription: "Now, fair one, come!" Insult to Joan was accompanied by redoubled war against France. Joan, saddened and wearied by the position of things, attempted to escape from it by a bold stroke. On the 23d of August, 1429, she set out from Compiegne with the Duke d'Alencon and "a fair company of men-at-arms;" and suddenly went and occupied St. Denis, with the view of attacking Paris. Charles VII. felt himself obliged to quit Compiegne likewise, "and went, greatly against the grain," says a contemporary chronicler, "as far as into the town of Senlis." The attack on Paris began vigorously. Joan, with the Duke d'Alencon, pitched her camp at La Chapelle. Charles took up his abode in the abbey of St. Denis. The municipal corporation of Paris received letters with the arms of the Duke d'Alencon, which called upon them to recognize the king's authority, and promised a general amnesty. The assault was delivered on the 8th of September. Joan was severely wounded, but she insisted upon remaining where she was. Night came, and the troops had not entered the breach which had been opened in the morning. Joan was still calling out to persevere. The Duke d'Alencon himself begged her, but in vain, to retire. La Tremoille gave orders to retreat; and some knights came up, set Joan on horse-back, and led her back, against her will, to La Chapelle. "By my martin" (staff of command), said she, "the place would have been taken." One hope still remained. In concert with the Duke d'Alencon she had caused a flying bridge to be thrown across the Seine opposite St. Denis. The next day but one she sent her vanguard in this direction; she intended to return thereby to the siege; but, by the king's order, the bridge had been cut adrift. St. Denis fell once more into the hands of the English. Before leaving, Joan left there, on the tomb of St. Denis, her complete suit of armor and a sword she had lately obtained possession of at the St. Honore gate of Paris, as trophy of war.

From the 13th of September, 1429, to the 24th of May, 1430, she continued to lead the same life of efforts ever equally valiant and equally ineffectual. She failed in an attempt upon Laemir. Charite-sur-Loire, undertaken, for all that appears, with the sole design of recovering an important town in the possession of the enemy. The English evacuated Paris, and left the keeping of it to the Duke of Burgundy, no doubt to test his fidelity. On the 13th of Aprils 1430, at the expiration of the truce he had concluded, Philip the Good resumed hostilities against Charles VII. Joan of Arc once more plunged into them with her wonted zeal. Ile-de-France and Picardy became the theatre of war. Compiegne was regarded as the gate of the road between these two provinces; and the Duke of Burgundy attached much importance to holding the key of it. The authority of Charles VII. was recognized there; and a young knight of Compiegne, William de Flavy, held the command there as lieutenant of La Tremoille, who had got himself appointed captain of the town. La Tremoille attempted to treat with the Duke of Burgundy for the cession of Compiegne; but the inhabitants were strenuously opposed to it. "They were," they said, "the king's most humble subjects, and they desired to serve him with body and substance; but as for trusting themselves to the lord Duke of Burgundy, they could not do it; they were resolved to suffer destruction, themselves and their wives and children, rather than be exposed to the tender mercies of the said duke." Meanwhile Joan of Arc, after several warlike expeditions in the neighborhood, re-entered Compiegne, and was received there with a popular expression of satisfaction. "She was presented," says a local chronicler, with three hogsheads of wine, a present which was large and exceeding costly, and which showed the estimate formed of this maiden's worth." Joan manifested the profound distrust with which she was inspired of the Duke of Burgundy. There is no peace possible with him," she said, "save at the point of the lance." She had quarters at the house of the king's attorney, Le Boucher, and shared the bed of his wife, Mary. "She often made the said Mary rise from her bed to go and warn the said attorney to be on his guard against several acts of Burgundian treachery." At this period, again, she said she was often warned by her voices of what must happen to her; she expected to be taken prisoner before St. John's or Midsummer-day (June 24); on what day and hour she did not know; she had received no instructions as to sorties from the place; but she had constantly been told that she would be taken, and she was distrustful of the captains who were in command there. She was, nevertheless, not the less bold and enterprising. On the 20th of May, 1430, the Duke of Burgundy came and laid siege to Compiegne. Joan was away on an expedition to Crepy in Valois, with a small band of three or four hundred brave comrades. On the 24th of May, the eve of Ascension-day, she learned that Compiegne was being besieged, and she resolved to re-enter it. She was reminded that her force was a very weak one to cut its way through the besiegers' camp. "By my martin," said she, "we are enough; I will go see my friends in Compiegne." She arrived about daybreak without hinderance, and penetrated into the town; and repaired immediately to the parish church of St. Jacques to perform her devotions on the eve of so great a festival. Many persons, attracted by her presence, and amongst others "from a hundred to six-score children," thronged to the church. After hearing mass, and herself taking the communion, Joan said to those who surrounded her, "My children and dear friends, I notify you that I am sold and betrayed, and that I shall shortly be delivered over to death; I beseech you, pray God for me." When evening came, she was not the less eager to take part in a sortie with her usual comrades and a troop of about five hundred men. William de Flavy, commandant of the place, got ready some boats on the Oise to assist the return of the troops. All the town-gates were closed, save the bridge-gate. The sortie was unsuccessful. Being severely repulsed and all but hemmed in, the majority of the soldiers shouted to Joan, "Try to quickly regain the town, or we are lost." "Silence," said Joan; "it only rests with you to throw the enemy into confusion; think only of striking at them." Her words and her bravery were in vain; the infantry flung themselves into the boats, and regained the town, and Joan and her brave comrades covered their retreat. The Burgundians were coming up in mass upon Compiegne, and Flavy gave orders to pull up the draw-bridge and let down the portcullis. Joan and some of her following lingered outside, still fighting. She wore a rich surcoat and a red sash, and all the efforts of the Burgundians were directed against her. Twenty men thronged round her horse; and a Picard archer, "a tough fellow and mighty sour," seized her by her dress, and flung her on the ground. All, at once, called on her to surrender. "Yield you to me," said one of them; "pledge your faith to me; I am a gentleman." It was an archer of the bastard of Wandonne, one of the lieutenants of John of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny. "I have pledged my faith to one other than you," said Joan, "and to Him I will keep my oath." The archer took her and conducted her to Count John, whose prisoner she became.

Was she betrayed and delivered up, as she had predicted? Did William de Flavy purposely have the drawbridge raised and the portcullis lowered before she could get back into Compiegne? He was suspected of it at the time, and many historians have indorsed the suspicion. But there is nothing to prove it. That La Tremoille, prime minister of Charles VII., and Reginald de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, had an antipathy to Joan of Arc, and did all they could on every occasion to compromise her and destroy her influence, and that they were glad to see her a prisoner, is as certain as anything can be. On announcing her capture to the inhabitants of Rheims, the arch-bishop said, "She would not listen to counsel, and did everything according to her pleasure." But there is a long distance between such expressions and a premeditated plot to deliver to the enemy the young heroine who had just raised the siege of Orleans and brought the king to be crowned at Rheims. History must not, without proof, impute crimes so odious and so shameful to even the most depraved of men.

However that may be, Joan remained for six months the prisoner of John of Luxembourg, who, to make his possession of her secure, sent her, under good escort, successively to his two castles of Beaulieu and Beaurevoir, one in the Vermandois and the other in the Cambresis. Twice, in July and in October, 1430, Joan attempted, unsuccessfully, to escape. The second time she carried despair and hardihood so far as to throw herself down from the platform of her prison. She was picked up cruelly bruised, but without any fracture or wound of importance. Her fame, her youth, her virtue, her courage, made her, even in her prison and in the very family of her custodian, two warm and powerful friends. John of Luxembourg had with him his wife, Joan of Bethune, and his aunt, Joan of Luxembourg, godmother of Charles VII. They both of them took a tender interest in the prisoner; and they often went to see her, and left nothing undone to mitigate the annoyances of a prison. One thing only shocked them about her--her man's clothes. "They offered her," as Joan herself said, when questioned upon this subject at a later period during her trial, "a woman's dress, or stuff to make it to her liking, and requested her to wear it; but she answered that she had not leave from our Lord, and that it was not yet time for it." John of Luxembourg's aunt was full of years and reverenced as a saint. Hearing that the English were tempting her nephew by the offer of a sum of money to give up his prisoner to them, she conjured him in her will, dated September 10, 1430, not to sully by such an act the honor of his name. But Count John was neither rich nor scrupulous; and pretexts were not wanting to aid his cupidity and his weakness. Joan had been taken at Compiegne on the 23d of May, in the evening; and the news arrived in Paris on the 25th of May, in the morning. On the morrow, the 26th, the registrar of the University, in the name and under the seal of the inquisition of France, wrote a citation to the Duke of Burgundy "to the end that the Maid should be delivered up to appear before the said inquisitor, and to respond to the good counsel, favor, and aid of the good doctors and masters of the University of Paris." Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, had been the prime mover in this step. Some weeks later, on the 14th of July, seeing that no reply arrived from the Duke of Burgundy, he caused a renewal of the same demands to be made on the part of the University in more urgent terms, and he added, in his own name, that Joan, having been taken at Compiegne, in his own diocese, belonged to him as judge spiritual. He further asserted that "according to the law, usage, and custom of France, every prisoner of war, even were it king, _dauphin_, or other prince, might be redeemed in the name of the King of England in consideration of an indemnity of ten thousand livres granted to the capturer." Nothing was more opposed to the common law of nations and to the feudal spirit, often grasping, but noble at bottom. For four months still, John of Luxembourg hesitated; but his aunt, Joan, died at Boulogne, on the 13th of November, and Joan of Arc had no longer near him this powerful intercessor. The King of England transmitted to the keeping of his coffers at Rouen, in golden coin, English money, the sum of ten thousand livres. John of Luxembourg yielded to the temptation. On the 21st of November, 1430, Joan of Arc was handed over to the King of England, and the same day the University of Paris, through its rector, Hebert, besought that sovereign, as King of France, "to order that this woman be brought to their city for to be shortly placed in the hands of the justice of the Church, that is, of our honored lord, the Bishop and Count of Beauvais, and also of the ordained inquisitor in France, in order that her trial may be conducted officially and securely."

It was not to Paris, but to Rouen, the real capital of the English in France, that Joan was taken. She arrived there on the 23d of December, 1430. On the 3d of January, 1431, an order from Henry VI., King of England, placed her in the hands of the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Some days afterwards, Count John of Luxembourg, accompanied by his brother, the English chancellor, by his esquire, and by two English lords, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, the King of England's constable in France, entered the prison. Had John of Luxembourg come out of sheer curiosity, or to relieve himself of certain scruples by offering Joan a chance for her life? "Joan," said he, "I am come hither to put you to ransom, and to treat for the price of your deliverance; only give us your promise here to no more bear arms against us." "In God's name," answered Joan, "are you making a mock of me, captain? Ransom me! You have neither the will nor the power; no, you have neither." The count persisted. "I know well," said Joan, "that these English will put me to death; but were they a hundred thousand more Goddams than have already been in France, they shall never have the kingdom."

At this patriotic burst on the heroine's part, the Earl of Stafford half drew his dagger from the sheath as if to strike Joan, but the Earl of Warwick held him back. The visitors went out from the prison and handed over Joan to the judges.

The court of Rouen was promptly formed, but not without opposition and difficulty. Though Joan had lost somewhat of her greatness and importance by going beyond her main object, and by showing recklessness, unattended by success, on small occasions, she still remained the true, heroic representative of the feelings and wishes of the nation. When she was removed from Beaurevoir to Rouen, all the places at which she stopped were like so many luminous points for the illustration of her popularity. At Arras, a Scot showed her a portrait of her which he wore, an outward sign of the devoted worship of her lieges. At Amiens, the chancellor of the cathedral gave her audience at confession and administered to her the eucharist. At Abbeville, ladies of distinction went five leagues to pay her a visit; they were glad to have had the happiness of seeing her so firm and resigned to the will of Our Lord; they wished her all the favors of heaven, and then wept affectionately on taking leave of her. Joan, touched by their sympathy and open heartedness, said, "Ah! what a good people is this! Would to God I might be so happy, when my days are ended, as to be buried in these parts!"

When the Bishop of Beauvais, installed at Rouen, set about forming his court of justice, the majority of the members he appointed amongst the clergy or the University of Paris obeyed the summons without hesitation. Some few would have refused; but their wishes were overruled. The Abbot of Jumieges, Nicholas de Houppeville, maintained that the trial was not legal. The Bishop of Beauvais, he said, belonged to the party which declared itself hostile to the Maid; and, besides, he made himself judge in a case already decided by his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Rheims, of whom Beauvais was holden, and who had approved of Joan's conduct. The bishop summoned before him the recalcitrant, who refused to appear, saying that he was under no official jurisdiction but that of Rouen. He was arrested and thrown into prison, by order of the bishop, whose authority he denied. There was some talk of banishing him, and even of throwing him into the river; but the influence of his brethren saved him. The sub-inquisitor himself allowed the trial in which he was to be one of the judges to begin without him; and he only put in an appearance at the express order of the inquisitor-general, and on a confidential hint that he would be in danger of his life if he persisted in his refusal. The court being thus constituted, Joan, after it had been put in possession of the evidence already collected, was cited, on the 20th of February, 1431, to appear on the morrow, the 21st, before her judges assembled in the chapel of Rouen Castle.

The trial lasted from the 21st of February to the 30th of May, 1431. The court held forty sittings, mostly in the chapel of the castle, some in Joan's very prison. On her arrival there, she had been put in an iron cage; afterwards she was kept no longer in the cage, but in a dark room in a tower of the castle, wearing irons upon her feet, fastened by a chain to a large piece of wood, and guarded night and day by four or five "soldiers of low grade." She complained of being thus chained; but the bishop told her that her former attempts at escape demanded this precaution. "It is true," said Joan, as truthful as heroic, "I did wish and I still wish to escape from prison, as is the right of every prisoner." At her examination, the bishop required her to take an oath to tell the truth about everything as to which she should be questioned." "I know not what you mean to question me about; perchance you may ask me things I would not tell you; touching my revelations, for instance, you might ask me to tell something I have sworn not to tell; thus I should be perjured, which you ought not to desire." The bishop insisted upon an oath absolute and with-out condition. "You are too hard on me," said Joan; I do not like to take an oath to tell the truth save as to matters which concern the faith." The bishop called upon her to swear on pain of being held guilty of the things imputed to her.

"Go on to something else," said she. And this was the answer she made to all questions which seemed to her to be a violation of her right to be silent. Wearied and hurt at these imperious demands, she one day said, "I come on God's business, and I have nought to do here; send me back to God, from whom I come." "Are you sure you are in God's grace?" asked the bishop. "If I be not," answered Joan, "please God to bring me to it; and if I be, please God to keep me in it!" The bishop himself remained dumbfounded.

There is no object in following through all its sittings and all its twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges' prejudiced servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of nineteen, who refused at one time to lie, and at another to enter into discussion with them, and made no defence beyond holding her tongue or appealing to God who had spoken to her and dictated to her that which she had done. In order to force her from her silence or bring her to submit to the Church instead of appealing from it to God, it was proposed to employ the last means of all, torture. On the 9th of May the bishop had Joan brought into the great tower of Rouen Castle; the instruments of torture were displayed before her eyes; and the executioners were ready to fulfil their office, "for to bring her back," said the bishop, "into the ways of truth, in order to insure the salvation of her soul and body, so gravely endangered by erroneous inventions." "Verily," answered Joan, "if you should have to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul from body, I should not tell you aught else; and if I were to tell you aught else, I should afterwards still tell you that you had made me tell it by force." The idea of torture was given up. It was resolved to display all the armory of science in order to subdue the mind of this young girl, whose conscience was not to be subjugated. The chapter of Rouen declared that in consequence of her public refusal to submit herself to the decision of the Church as to her deeds and her statements, Joan deserved to be declared a heretic. The University of Paris, to which had been handed in the twelve heads of accusation resulting from Joan's statements and examinations, replied that "if, having been charitably admonished, she would not make reparation and return to union with the Catholic faith, she must be left to the secular judges to undergo punishment for her crime." Armed with these documents the Bishop of Beauvais had Joan brought up, on the 23d of May, in a hall adjoining her prison, and, after having addressed to her a long exhortation, "Joan," said he, "if in the dominions of your king, when you were at large in them, a knight or any other, born under his rule and allegiance to him, had risen up, saying, 'I will not obey the king or submit to his officers,' would you not have said that he ought to be condemned? What then will you say of yourself, you who were born in the faith of Christ and became by baptism a daughter of the Church and spouse of Jesus Christ, if you obey not the officers of Christ, that is, the prelates of the Church?" Joan listened modestly to this admonition, and confined herself to answering, "As to my deeds and sayings, what I said of them at the trial I do hold to and mean to abide by." "Think you that you are not bound to submit your sayings and deeds to the Church militant or to any other than God?" "The course that I always mentioned and pursued at the trial I mean to maintain as to that. If I were at the stake, and saw the torch lighted, and the executioner ready to set fire to the fagots, even if I were in the midst of the flames, I should not say aught else, and I should uphold that which I said at the trial even unto death."