Chapter XV: Part 15

But all doubt on this point was soon terminated. The commissioners were tried by a commission hastily issued, and were summarily condemned and put to death. The Earl of March, it is said, revealed the plot to the King, sat as one of the judges of his two brother peers, and was taken into the King's favor. The Earl of Cambridge made a confession of his guilt. Lord Scrope, though he repudiated the imputation of disloyalty, admitted having had a guilty knowledge of the plot, which he said it had been his purpose to defeat. The one nobleman, in consideration of his royal blood, was simply beheaded; the other was drawn and quartered. We hear of no more attempts of the kind during Henry's reign.

With a fleet of one thousand five hundred sail Henry crossed the sea and landed without opposition at Chef de Caux, near Harfleur, at the mouth of the Seine. The force that he brought with him was about thirty thousand men, and he immediately employed it in laying siege to Harfleur. The place was strong, so far as walls and bulwarks could make it, but it was not well victualled, and after a five-weeks' siege it was obliged to capitulate. But the forces of the besieged were thinned by disease as well as actual fighting. Dysentery had broken out in the camp, and, though it was only September, they suffered bitterly from the coldness of the nights; so that, when the town had been won and garrisoned, the force available for further operations amounted to less than half the original strength of the invading army.

Under the circumstances it was hopeless to expect to do much before the winter set in, and many counselled the King to return to England. But Henry could not tolerate the idea of retreat or even of apparent inaction. He sent a challenge to the Dauphin, offering to refer their differences to single combat; and when no notice was taken of this proposal, he determined to cut his way, if possible, through the country to Calais, along with the remainder of his forces.

It was a difficult and hazardous march. Hunger, dysentery, and fever had already reduced the little band to less than nine thousand men, or, as good authorities say, to little more than six thousand. The country people were unfriendly, their supplies were cut off on all sides, and the scanty stock of provisions with which they set out was soon exhausted. For want of bread, many were driven to feed on nuts, while the enemy harassed them upon the way and broke down the bridges in advance of them. On one or two occasions, having repulsed an attack from a garrison town, Henry demanded and obtained from the governor a safe-conduct and a certain quantity of bread and wine, under threat of setting fire to the place if refused.

In this manner he and his army gradually approached the river Somme at Blanche Tache, where there was a ford by which King Edward III had crossed before the battle of Crécy. But while yet some distance from it, they received information from a prisoner that the ford was guarded by six thousand fighting men, and, though the intelligence was untrue, it deterred him from attempting the passage. They accordingly turned to the right and went up the river as far as Amiens, but were still unable to cross, till, after following the course of the river about fifty miles farther, they fortunately came upon an undefended ford and passed over before their enemies were aware.

Hitherto their progress had not been without adventures and skirmishes in many places. But the main army of the French only overtook them when they had arrived within about forty-five miles of Calais. On the night of October 24th they were posted at the village of Maisoncelles, with an enemy before them five or six times their number, who had resolved to stop their further progress. Both sides prepared for battle on the following morning. The English, besides being so much inferior in numbers, were wasted by disease and famine, while their adversaries were fresh and vigorous, with a plentiful commissariat. But the latter were overconfident. They spent the evening in dice-playing and making wagers about the prisoners they should take; while the English, on the contrary, confessed themselves and received the sacrament.

Heavy rain fell during the night, from which both armies suffered; but Henry availed himself of a brief period of moonlight to have the ground thoroughly surveyed. His position was an admirable one. His forces occupied a narrow field hemmed in on either side by hedges and thickets, so that they could only be attacked in front, and were in no fear of being surrounded. Early on the following morning Henry arose and heard mass; but the two armies stood facing each other for some hours, each waiting for the other to begin. The English archers were drawn up in front in form of a wedge, and each man was provided with a stake shod with iron at both ends, which being fixed into the ground before him, the whole line formed a kind of hedge bristling with sharp points, to defend them from being ridden down by the enemy's cavalry.

At length, however, Henry gave orders to commence the attack, and the archers advanced, leaving their stakes behind them fixed in the ground. The French cavalry on either side endeavored to close them in, but were soon obliged to retire before the thick showers of arrows poured in upon them, which destroyed four-fifths of their numbers. Their horses then became unmanageable, being plagued with a multitude of wounds, and the whole army was thrown into confusion. Never was a more brilliant victory won against more overwhelming odds.

One sad piece of cruelty alone tarnished the glory of that day's action, but it seems to have been dictated by fear as a means of self-preservation. After the enemy had been completely routed in front, and a multitude of prisoners taken, the King, hearing that some detachments had got round to his rear, and were endeavoring to plunder his baggage, gave orders to the whole army to put their prisoners to death. The order was executed in the most relentless fashion. One or two distinguished prisoners afterward were taken from under heaps of slain, among whom were the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon. Altogether, the slaughter of the French was enormous. There is a general agreement that it was upward of ten thousand men, and among them were the flower of the French nobility. That of the English was disproportionately small. Their own writers reckon it not more than one hundred altogether, some absurdly stating it as low as twenty or thirty, while the French authorities estimate it variously from three hundred to one thousand six hundred.

Henry called his victory the battle of Agincourt, from the name of a neighboring castle. The army proceeded in excellent order to Calais, where they were triumphantly received, and after resting there awhile recrossed to England. The news of such a splendid victory caused them to be welcomed with an enthusiasm that knew no bounds. At Dover the people rushed into the sea to meet the conquerors, and carried the King in their arms in triumph from his vessel to the shore. From thence to London his progress was like one continued triumphal procession, and the capital itself received him with every demonstration of joy.

The progress of the English arms in France did not, for a long time, induce the rival factions in that country to suspend the civil war among themselves. But at length some feeble efforts were made toward a reconciliation. The Council of Constance having healed the divisions in the Church by the election of Martin V as pope in place of the three rival popes deposed, the new Pontiff despatched two cardinals to France to aid in this important object. By their mediation a treaty was concluded between the Queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Dauphin; but it was no sooner published than the Count of Armagnac and his partisans made a vehement protest against it and accused of treason all who had promoted it.

On this, Paris rose in anger, took part with the Burgundians, fell upon all the leading Armagnacs, put them in prison, and destroyed their houses. The Dauphin was only saved by one of Armagnac's principal adherents, Tannegui du Châtel, who carried him to the Bastille. The Bastille, however, was a few days after stormed by the populace, and Du Châtel was forced to withdraw his charge to Melun. The Armagnac party, except those in prison, were entirely driven out of Paris. But even this did not satisfy the rage of the multitude. Riots continued from day to day, and, a report being spread that the King was willing to ransom the captives, the people broke open the prisons and massacred every one of the prisoners. The Count of Armagnac, his chancellor, and several bishops and officers of state were the principal victims; but no one, man or woman, was spared. State prisoners, criminals, and debtors, even women great with child, perished in this indiscriminate slaughter.

Almost the whole of Normandy was by this time in possession of the English; but Rouen, the capital of the duchy, still held out. It was a large city, strongly fortified, but Henry closed it in on every side until it was reduced to capitulate by hunger. At the beginning of the siege the authorities took measures to expel the destitute class of the inhabitants, and several thousands of poor people were thus thrown into the hands of the besiegers, who endeavored to drive them back into the town. But the gates being absolutely shut against them, they remained between the walls and the trenches, pitifully crying for help and perishing for want of food and shelter, until, on Christmas Day, when the siege had continued nearly five months, Henry ordered food to be distributed to them "in the honor of Christ's nativity."

Those within the town, meanwhile, were reduced to no less extremities. Enormous prices were given for bread and even for the bodies of dogs, cats, and rats. The garrison at length were induced to offer terms, but Henry for some time insisted on their surrendering at discretion. Hearing, however, that a desperate project was entertained of undermining the wall and suddenly rushing out upon the besiegers, he consented to grant them conditions, and the city capitulated on January 19th. The few places that remained unconquered in Normandy then opened their gates to Henry; others in Maine and the Isle of France did the same, and the English troops entered Picardy on a further career of conquest.

Both the rival factions were now seriously anxious to stop the progress of the English, either by coming at once to terms with Henry or by uniting together against him; and each in turn first tried the former course. The Dauphin offered to treat with the King of England; but Henry demanding the whole of those large possessions in the north and south of France which had been secured to Edward III by the treaty of Bretigni, he felt that it was impossible to prolong the negotiation. The Duke of Burgundy then arranged a personal interview at Meulan between Henry on the one side and himself and the French Queen on behalf of Charles, at which terms of peace were to be adjusted. The Queen brought with her the princess Catharine, her daughter, whose hand Henry himself had formerly demanded as one of the conditions on which he would have consented to forbear from invading France. It was now hoped that if he would take her in marriage he would moderate his other demands. But Henry, for his part, was altogether unyielding. He insisted on the terms of the treaty of Bretigni, and on keeping his own conquests besides, with Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and the sovereignty over Brittany.

Demands so exorbitant the Duke of Burgundy did not dare to accept, and as a last resource he and the Dauphin agreed to be reconciled and to unite in defence of their country against the enemy. They held a personal interview, embraced each other, and signed a treaty by which they promised each to love the other as a brother, and to offer a joint resistance to the invaders. A further meeting was arranged to take place about seven weeks later to complete matters and to consider their future policy. France was delighted at the prospect of internal harmony and the hope of deliverance from her enemies. But at the second interview an event occurred which marred all her prospects once more. The meeting had been appointed to take place at Montereau, where the river Yonne falls into the Seine.

The Duke, remembering doubtless how he had perfidiously murdered the Duke of Orleans, allowed the day originally appointed to pass by, and came to the place at last after considerable misgivings, which appear to have been overcome by the exhortations of treacherous friends.

When he arrived he found a place railed in with barriers for the meeting. He nevertheless advanced, accompanied by ten attendants, and, being told that the Dauphin waited for him, he came within the barriers, which were immediately closed behind him. The Dauphin was accompanied by one or two gentlemen, among whom was his devoted servant, Tannegui du Châtel, who had saved him from the Parisian massacre. This Tannegui had been formerly a servant of Louis, Duke of Orleans, whose murder he had been eagerly seeking an opportunity to revenge; and as the Duke of Burgundy knelt before the Dauphin, he struck him a violent blow on the head with a battle-axe. The attack was immediately followed up by two or three others, who, before the Duke was able to draw his sword, had closed in around him and despatched him with a multitude of wounds.

The effect of this crime was what might have been anticipated. Nothing could have been more favorable to the aggressive designs of Henry, or more ruinous to the party of the Dauphin, with whose complicity it had been too evidently committed. Philip, the son and heir of the murdered Duke of Burgundy, at once sought means to revenge his father's death. The people of Paris became more than ever enraged against the Armagnacs, and entered into negotiations with the King of England. The new Duke Philip and Queen Isabel did the same, the latter being no less eager than the former for the punishment of her own son. Within less than three months they made up their minds to waive every scruple as to the acceptance of Henry's most exorbitant demands. He was to have the princess Catharine in marriage, and, the Dauphin being disinherited, to succeed to the crown of France on her father's death. He was also to be regent during King Charles' life; and all who held honors or offices of any kind in France were at once to swear allegiance to him as their future sovereign. Henry, for his part, was to use his utmost power to reduce to obedience those towns and places within the realm which adhered to the Dauphin or the Armagnacs.

A treaty on this basis was at length concluded at Troyes in Champagne on May 21, 1420, and on Trinity Sunday, June 2d, Henry was married to the princess Catharine. Shortly afterward the treaty was formally registered by the states of the realm at Paris, when the Dauphin was condemned and attainted as guilty of the murder of the Duke of Burgundy and declared incapable of succeeding to the crown. But the state of affairs left Henry no time for honeymoon festivities. On the Tuesday after his wedding he again put himself at the head of his army, and marched with Philip of Burgundy to lay siege to Sens, which in a few days capitulated. Montereau and Melun were next besieged in succession, and each, after some resistance, was compelled to surrender. The latter siege lasted nearly four months, and during its continuance Henry fought a single combat with the governor in the mines, each combatant having his vizor down and being unknown to the other. The governor's name was Barbason, and he was one of those accused of complicity in the murder of the Duke of Orleans; but in consequence of this incident, Henry saved him from the capital punishment which he would otherwise have incurred on his capture.

Toward the end of the year Henry entered Paris in triumph with the French King and the Duke of Burgundy. He there kept Christmas, and shortly afterward moved with his Queen into Normandy on his return into England. He held a parliament at Rouen to confirm his authority in the duchy, after which he passed through Picardy and Calais, and, crossing the sea, came by Dover and Canterbury to London. By his own subjects, and especially in the capital, he and his bride were received with profuse demonstrations of joy. The Queen was crowned at Westminster with great magnificence, and afterward Henry went a progress with her through the country, making pilgrimages to several of the more famous shrines in England.

But while he was thus employed, a great calamity befell the English power in France, which, when the news arrived in England, made it apparent that the King's presence was again much needed across the Channel. His brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom he had left as his lieutenant, was defeated and slain at Beaugé in Anjou by an army of French and Scots, a number of English noblemen being also slain or taken prisoners. This was the first important advantage the Dauphin had gained, and the credit of the victory was mainly due to his Scotch allies. For the Duke of Albany, who was regent of Scotland, though it is commonly supposed that he was unwilling to give needless offence to England lest Henry should terminate his power by setting the Scotch King at liberty, had been compelled by the general sympathy of the Scots with France to send a force under his son the Earl of Buchan to serve against the English. The service which they did in that battle was so great that the Earl of Buchan was created, by the Dauphin, constable of France.

Again Henry crossed the sea with a new army, having borrowed large sums for the expenses of the expedition. Before he left England he made a private treaty with his prisoner King James of Scotland, promising to let him return to his country after the campaign in France on certain specified conditions, among which it was agreed that he should take the command of a body of troops in aid of the English. James had accompanied him in his last campaign, and Henry had endeavored to make use of his authority to forbid the Scots in France from taking part in the war, but they had refused to acknowledge themselves bound to a king who was a captive.

By this agreement, however, Henry obtained real assistance and coöperation from his prisoner, whom he employed, in concert with the Duke of Gloucester, in the siege of Dreux, which very soon surrendered. He himself meanwhile marched toward the Loire to meet the Dauphin, and took Beaugency; then, returning northward, first reduced Villeneuve on the Yonne, and afterward laid siege to Meaux on the Marne. The latter place held out for seven months, and while Henry lay before it he received intelligence that his Queen had borne him a son at Windsor, who was christened Henry.

The city of Meaux surrendered on May 10, 1422. The Governor, a man who had been guilty of great cruelties, was beheaded, and his head and body were suspended from a tree on which he himself had caused a number of people to be hanged as adherents of the Duke of Burgundy. Henry was now master of the greater part of the North of France, and his Queen came over from England to join him, with reënforcements under his brother the Duke of Bedford. But he was not permitted to rest; for the Dauphin, having taken from his ally the Duke of Burgundy the town of La Charté on the Loire, proceeded to lay siege to Côsne, and, Philip having applied to Henry for assistance, he sent forward the Duke of Bedford with his army, intending shortly to follow himself. This demonstration was sufficient. The Dauphin felt that he was too weak to contend with the united English and Burgundian forces, and he withdrew from the siege.

Henry, however, was disabled from joining the army by a severe attack of dysentery; and though he had at first hoped that he might be carried in a litter to head-quarters, he soon found that his illness was far too serious to permit him to carry out his intention. He was accordingly conveyed back to Vincennes, near Paris, where he grew so rapidly worse that it was evident his end was near. In a few brief words to those about him he declared his will touching the government of England and France after his death, until his infant son should be of age. The regency of France he committed to the Duke of Bedford, in case it should be declined by the Duke of Burgundy. That of England he gave to his other brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. To his two uncles, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, he intrusted the guardianship of his child. He besought all parties to maintain the alliance with Burgundy, and never to release the Duke of Orleans and the other prisoners of Agincourt during his son's minority. Having given these instructions he expired, on the last day of August, 1422.

His death was bewailed both in England and France with no ordinary regret. The great achievements of his reign made him naturally a popular hero; nor was the regard felt for his memory diminished when, under the feeble reign of his son, all that he had gained was irrecoverably lost again, so that nothing remained of all his conquests except the story of how they had been won. Those past glories, indeed, must have seemed all the brighter when contrasted with a present which knew but disaster abroad and civil dissension at home. The early death of Henry also contributed to the popular estimate of his greatness. It was seen that in a very few years he had subdued a large part of the territory of France. It was not seen that in the nature of things this advantage could not be maintained, and that even the greatest military talents would not have succeeded in preserving the English conquests.

Nor can it be said that Henry's success, extraordinary as it was, was altogether owing to his own abilities. That he exhibited great qualities as a general cannot be denied; but these would have availed him little if the rival factions in France had not been far more bitterly opposed to each other than to him. Indeed, it is difficult after all to justify, even as a matter of policy, his interference in French affairs, except as a means of diverting public attention from the fact that he inherited from his father but an indifferent title even to the throne of England. And though success attended his efforts beyond all expectation, he most wilfully endangered the safety not only of himself, but of his gallant army, when he determined to march with reduced forces through the enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais. It was a rashness nothing less than culpable, but in his own interests rashness was good policy. Unless he could succeed in desperate enterprises against tremendous odds and so make himself a military hero and a favorite of the multitude, his throne was insecure. He succeeded; but it was only by staking everything upon the venture--his own safety and that of his army, which, if the French had exercised but a little more discretion, would inevitably have been cut to pieces or made prisoners to a man.

JEANNE D'ARC'S VICTORY AT ORLEANS

A.D. 1429

Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy

In the Hundred Years' War between England and France, a
critical period was reached when Henry V, in 1415, won the
battle of Agincourt, and five years later, by the treaty of
Troyes, secured the succession to the French throne on the
death of Charles VI. Both monarchs dying in 1422, Charles
VII was proclaimed King of France, and Henry's son--Henry
VI--succeeded to his father's throne.

France now realized that her condition was wellnigh
hopeless, for the greater part of her territory was in the
hands of her enemies. When the English began the siege of
Orleans the extinction of French independence seemed to be
inevitable. The chivalry of France had been wasted in
terrible wars, and the spirits of her soldiers were daunted
by repeated disaster. The English king had been proclaimed
in Paris, and the "native prince was a dissolute trifler,
stained with the assassination of the most powerful noble of
the land."[77] Anarchy and brigandage everywhere prevailed,
and the condition of the peasantry was too wretched to be
described.

"Such," says Lamartine, "was the state of the nation when
Providence showed it a savior in a child." This child was
Jeanne d'Arc, called _La Pucelle_ ("the Maid"--more fully,
"the Maid of Orleans"), whose character and services to her
country made her, perhaps, the most illustrious heroine of
history. She was born at Domremy, in the northeast part of
France, January 6, 1412. All that is essential concerning
her personality and life prior to the great achievement
recorded here will be found in Creasy's own introduction to
his spirited account of the victory at Orleans.

Orleans was looked upon as the last stronghold of the French national party. If the English could once obtain possession of it, their victorious progress through the residue of the kingdom seemed free from any serious obstacle. Accordingly, the Earl of Salisbury, one of the bravest and most experienced of the English generals, who had been trained under Henry V, marched to the attack of the all-important city; and, after reducing several places of inferior consequence in the neighborhood, appeared with his army before its walls on the 12th of October, 1428.

The city of Orleans itself was on the north side of the Loire, but its suburbs extended far on the southern side, and a strong bridge connected them with the town. A fortification, which in modern military phrase would be termed a _tête-du-pont_, defended the bridge head on the southern side, and two towers, called the _Tourelles_, were built on the bridge itself, at a little distance from the tête-du-pont. Indeed, the solid masonry of the bridge terminated at the Tourelles; and the communication thence with the tête-du-pont and the southern shore was by means of a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the tête-du-pont formed together a strong-fortified post, capable of containing a garrison of considerable strength; and so long as this was in possession of the Orleannais, they could communicate freely with the southern provinces, the inhabitants of which, like the Orleannais themselves, supported the cause of their dauphin against the foreigners.

Lord Salisbury rightly judged the capture of the Tourelles to be the most material step toward the reduction of the city itself. Accordingly, he directed his principal operations against this post, and after some severe repulses he carried the Tourelles by storm on the 23d of October. The French, however, broke down the arches of the bridge that were nearest to the north bank, and thus rendered a direct assault from the Tourelles upon the city impossible. But the possession of this post enabled the English to distress the town greatly by a battery of cannon which they planted there, and which commanded some of the principal streets.

It has been observed by Hume that this is the first siege in which any important use appears to have been made of artillery. And even at Orleans both besiegers and besieged seem to have employed their cannons merely as instruments of destruction against their enemy's _men_, and not to have trusted to them as engines of demolition against their enemy's walls and works. The efficacy of cannon in breaching solid masonry was taught Europe by the Turks a few years afterward, at the memorable siege of Constantinople.

In our French wars, as in the wars of the classic nations, famine was looked on as the surest weapon to compel the submission of a well-walled town; and the great object of the besiegers was to effect a complete circumvallation. The great ambit of the walls of Orleans, and the facilities which the river gave for obtaining succors and supplies, rendered the capture of the town by this process a matter of great difficulty. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Suffolk, who succeeded him in command of the English after his death by a cannon-ball, carried on the necessary works with great skill and resolution. Six strongly-fortified posts, called _bastilles_, were formed at certain intervals round the town, and the purpose of the English engineers was to draw strong lines between them. During the winter, little progress was made with the intrenchments, but when the spring of 1429 came, the English resumed their work with activity; the communications between the city and the country became more difficult, and the approach of want began already to be felt in Orleans.

The besieging force also fared hardly for stores and provisions, until relieved by the effects of a brilliant victory which Sir John Fastolf, one of the best English generals, gained at Rouvrai, near Orleans, a few days after Ash Wednesday, 1429. With only sixteen hundred fighting men, Sir John completely defeated an army of French and Scots, four thousand strong, which had been collected for the purpose of aiding the Orleannais and harassing the besiegers. After this encounter, which seemed decisively to confirm the superiority of the English in battle over their adversaries, Fastolf escorted large supplies of stores and food to Suffolk's camp, and the spirits of the English rose to the highest pitch at the prospect of the speedy capture of the city before them, and the consequent subjection of all France beneath their arms.

The Orleannais now, in their distress, offered to surrender the city into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, who, though the ally of the English, was yet one of their native princes. The regent Bedford refused these terms, and the speedy submission of the city to the English seemed inevitable. The dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant of a court, despaired of continuing any longer the struggle for his crown, and was only prevented from abandoning the country by the more masculine spirits of his mistress and his Queen. Yet neither they nor the boldest of Charles' captains could have shown him where to find resources for prolonging war; and least of all could any human skill have predicted the quarter whence rescue was to come to Orleans and to France.

In the village of Domremy, on the borders of Lorraine, there was a poor peasant of the name of Jacques d'Arc, respected in his station of life, and who had reared a family in virtuous habits and in the practice of the strictest devotion. His eldest daughter was named by her parents Jeannette, but she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinized into Johanna, and Anglicized into Joan.

At the time when Jeanne first attracted attention, she was about eighteen years of age. She was naturally of a susceptible disposition, which diligent attention to the legends of saints and tales of fairies, aided by the dreamy loneliness of her life while tending her father's flocks, had made peculiarly prone to enthusiastic fervor. At the same time, she was eminent for piety and purity of soul, and for her compassionate gentleness to the sick and the distressed.

The district where she dwelt had escaped comparatively free from the ravages of war, but the approach of roving bands of Burgundian or English troops frequently spread terror through Domremy. Once the village had been plundered by some of these marauders, and Jeanne and her family had been driven from their home, and forced to seek refuge for a time at Neufchâteau. The peasantry in Domremy were principally attached to the house of Orleans and the Dauphin, and all the miseries which France endured were there imputed to the Burgundian faction and their allies, the English, who were seeking to enslave unhappy France.

Thus, from infancy to girlhood, Jeanne had heard continually of the woes of the war, and had herself witnessed some of the wretchedness that it caused. A feeling of intense patriotism grew in her with her growth. The deliverance of France from the English was the subject of her reveries by day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were recollections of the miraculous interpositions of heaven in favor of the oppressed, which she had learned from the legends of her Church. Her faith was undoubting; her prayers were fervent. "She feared no danger, for she felt no sin," and at length she believed herself to have received the supernatural inspiration which she sought.

According to her own narrative, delivered by her to her merciless inquisitors in the time of her captivity and approaching death, she was about thirteen years old when her revelations commenced. Her own words describe them best. "At the age of thirteen, a voice from God came to her to help her in ruling herself, and that voice came to her about the hour of noon, in summer-time, while she was in her father's garden. And she had fasted the day before. And she heard the voice on her right, in the direction of the church; and when she heard the voice, she saw also a bright light."

Afterward St. Michael and St. Margaret and St. Catharine appeared to her. They were always in a halo of glory; she could see that their heads were crowned with jewels; and she heard their voices, which were sweet and mild. She did not distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them more frequently than she saw them; and the usual time when she heard them was when the church bells were sounding for prayer. And if she was in the woods when she heard them, she could plainly distinguish their voices drawing near to her. When she thought that she discerned the heavenly voices, she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their presence gladdened her even to tears, and after they departed she wept because they had not taken her with them back to paradise. They always spoke soothingly to her. They told her that France would be saved, and that she was to save it.

Such were the visions and the voices that moved the spirit of the girl of thirteen; and as she grew older, they became more frequent and more clear. At last the tidings of the siege of Orleans reached Domremy. Jeanne heard her parents and neighbors talk of the sufferings of its population, of the ruin which its capture would bring on their lawful sovereign, and of the distress of the Dauphin and his court. Jeanne's heart was sorely troubled at the thought of the fate of Orleans; and her "voices" now ordered her to leave her home, and warned her that she was the instrument chosen by heaven for driving away the English from that city, and for taking the Dauphin to be anointed king at Rheims. At length she informed her parents of her divine mission, and told them that she must go to the Sire de Baudricourt, who commanded at Vaucouleurs, and who was the appointed person to bring her into the presence of the King, whom she was to save.

Neither the anger nor the grief of her parents, who said that they would rather see her drowned than exposed to the contamination of the camp, could move her from her purpose. One of her uncles consented to take her to Vaucouleurs, where De Baudricourt at first thought her mad, and derided her, but by degrees was led to believe, if not in her inspiration, at least in her enthusiasm, and in its possible utility to the Dauphin's cause.

The inhabitants of Vaucouleurs were completely won over to her side by the piety and devoutness which she displayed, and by her firm assurance in the truth of her mission. She told them that it was God's will that she should go to the King, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of France. She said that she herself would rather remain with her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered her forth.

The fame of "the Maid," as she was termed, the renown of her holiness and of her mission, spread far and wide. Baudricourt sent her with an escort to Chinon, where the dauphin Charles was dallying away his time. Her "voices" had bidden her assume the arms and the apparel of a knight; and the wealthiest inhabitants of Vaucouleurs had vied with each other in equipping her with war-horse, armor, and sword. On reaching Chinon, she was, after some delay, admitted into the presence of the Dauphin. Charles designedly dressed himself far less richly than many of his courtiers were apparelled, and mingled with them, when Jeanne was introduced, in order to see if the holy Maid would address her exhortations to the wrong person. But she instantly singled him out, and, kneeling before him, said:

"Most noble Dauphin, the King of Heaven announces to you by me that you shall be anointed and crowned king in the city of Rheims, and that you shall be his vicegerent in France."

His features may probably have been seen by her previously in portraits, or have been described to her by others; but she herself believed that her "voices" inspired her when she addressed the King, and the report soon spread abroad that the holy Maid had found the King by a miracle; and this, with many other similar rumors, augmented the renown and influence that she now rapidly acquired.

The state of public feeling in France was now favorable to an enthusiastic belief in a divine interposition in favor of the party that had hitherto been unsuccessful and oppressed. The humiliations which had befallen the French royal family and nobility were looked on as the just judgments of God upon them for their vice and impiety. The misfortunes that had come upon France as a nation were believed to have been drawn down by national sins. The English, who had been the instruments of heaven's wrath against France, seemed now, by their pride and cruelty, to be fitting objects of it themselves.

France in that age was a profoundly religious country. There was ignorance, there was superstition, there was bigotry; but there was _faith_--a faith that itself worked true miracles, even while it believed in unreal ones. At this time, also, one of those devotional movements began among the clergy in France, which from time to time occur in national churches, without it being possible for the historian to assign any adequate human cause for their immediate date or extension. Numberless friars and priests traversed the rural districts and towns of France, preaching to the people that they must seek from heaven a deliverance from the pillages of the soldiery and the insolence of the foreign oppressors.

The idea of a providence that works only by general laws was wholly alien to the feelings of the age. Every political event, as well as every natural phenomenon, was believed to be the immediate result of a special mandate of God. This led to the belief that his holy angels and saints were constantly employed in executing his commands and mingling in the affairs of men. The Church encouraged these feelings, and at the same time sanctioned the concurrent popular belief that hosts of evil spirits were also ever actively interposing in the current of earthly events, with whom sorcerers and wizards could league themselves, and thereby obtain the exercise of supernatural power.

Thus all things favored the influence which Jeanne obtained both over friends and foes. The French nation, as well as the English and the Burgundians, readily admitted that superhuman beings inspired her; the only question was whether these beings were good or evil angels; whether she brought with her "airs from heaven or blasts from hell." This question seemed to her countrymen to be decisively settled in her favor by the austere sanctity of her life, by the holiness of her conversation, but still more by her exemplary attention to all the services and rites of the Church. The Dauphin at first feared the injury that might be done to his cause if he laid himself open to the charge of having leagued himself with a sorceress. Every imaginable test, therefore, was resorted to in order to set Jeanne's orthodoxy and purity beyond suspicion. At last Charles and his advisers felt safe in accepting her services as those of a true and virtuous Christian daughter of the holy Church.

It is, indeed, probable that Charles himself and some of his counsellors may have suspected Jeanne of being a mere enthusiast, and it is certain that Dunois and others of the best generals took considerable latitude in obeying or deviating from the military orders that she gave. But over the mass of the people and the soldiery her influence was unbounded. While Charles and his doctors of theology, and court ladies, had been deliberating as to recognizing or dismissing the Maid, a considerable period had passed away during which a small army, the last gleanings, as it seemed, of the English sword, had been assembled at Blois, under Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and other chiefs, who to their natural valor were now beginning to unite the wisdom that is taught by misfortune. It was resolved to send Jeanne with this force and a convoy of provisions to Orleans. The distress of that city had now become urgent. But the communication with the open country was not entirely cut off: the Orleannais had heard of the holy Maid whom Providence had raised up for their deliverance, and their messengers earnestly implored the Dauphin to send her to them without delay.

Jeanne appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of brilliant white armor, mounted on a stately black war-horse, and with a lance in her right hand, which she had learned to wield with skill and grace. Her head was unhelmeted, so that all could behold her fair and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her long black hair, which was parted across her forehead, and bound by a ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe, and the consecrated sword, marked on the blade with five crosses, which had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St. Catharine at Fierbois. A page carried her banner, which she had caused to be made and embroidered as her voices enjoined. It was white satin, strewn with _fleurs-de-lis_, and on it were the words

"JHESUS MARIA,"

and the representation of the Saviour in his glory. Jeanne afterward generally bore her banner herself in battle; she said that though she loved her sword much, she loved her banner forty times as much; and she loved to carry it, because it could not kill anyone.

Thus accoutred, she came to lead the troops of France, who looked with soldierly admiration on her well-proportioned and upright figure, the skill with which she managed her war-horse, and the easy grace with which she handled her weapons. Her military education had been short, but she had availed herself of it well. She had also the good sense to interfere little with the manoeuvres of the troops, leaving these things to Dunois and others whom she had the discernment to recognize as the best officers in the camp.

Her tactics in action were simple enough. As she herself described it, "I used to say to them, 'Go boldly in among the English,' and then I used to go boldly in myself." Such, as she told her inquisitors, was the only spell she used, and it was one of power. But, while interfering little with the military discipline of the troops, in all matters of moral discipline she was inflexibly strict. All the abandoned followers of the camp were driven away. She compelled both generals and soldiers to attend regularly at confessional. Her chaplain and other priests marched with the army under her orders; and at every halt, an altar was set up and the sacrament administered. No oath or foul language passed without punishment or censure. Even the roughest and most hardened veterans obeyed her. They had put off for a time the bestial coarseness which had grown on them during a life of bloodshed and rapine; they felt that they must go forth in a new spirit to a new career, and acknowledged the beauty of the holiness in which the heaven-sent Maid was leading them to certain victory.

Jeanne marched from Blois on the 25th of April with a convoy of provisions for Orleans, accompanied by Dunois, La Hire, and the other chief captains of the French, and on the evening of the 28th they approached the town. In the words of the old chronicler Hall: "The Englishmen, perceiving that thei within could not long continue for faute of vitaile and pouder, kepte not their watche so diligently as thei were accustomed, nor scoured now the countrey environed as thei before had ordained. Whiche negligence the citizens shut in perceiving, sent worde thereof to the French captaines, which, with Pucelle, in the dedde tyme of the nighte, and in a greate rayne and thundere, with all their vitaile and artillery, entered into the citie."

When it was day, the Maid rode in solemn procession through the city, clad in complete armor, and mounted on a white horse. Dunois was by her side, and all the bravest knights of her army and of the garrison followed in her train. The whole population thronged around her; and men, women, and children strove to touch her garments or her banner or her charger. They poured forth blessings on her, whom they already considered their deliverer. In the words used by two of them afterward before the tribunal which reversed the sentence, but could not restore the life of the virgin-martyr of France, "the people of Orleans, when they first saw her in their city, thought that it was an angel from heaven that had come down to save them."

Jeanne spoke gently in reply to their acclamations and addresses. She told them to fear God, and trust in him for safety from the fury of their enemies. She first went to the principal church, where _Te Deum_ was chanted; and then she took up her abode at the house of Jacques Bourgier, one of the principal citizens, and whose wife was a matron of good repute. She refused to attend a splendid banquet which had been provided for her, and passed nearly all her time in prayer.

When it was known by the English that the Maid was in Orleans, their minds were not less occupied about her than were the minds of those in the city; but it was in a very different spirit. The English believed in her supernatural mission as firmly as the French did, but they thought her a sorceress who had come to overthrow them by her enchantments. An old prophecy, which told that a damsel from Lorraine was to save France, had long been current, and it was known and applied to Jeanne by foreigners as well as by the natives. For months the English had heard of the coming Maid, and the tales of miracles which she was said to have wrought had been listened to by the rough yeomen of the English camp with anxious curiosity and secret awe. She had sent a herald to the English generals before she marched for Orleans, and he had summoned the English generals in the name of the most High to give up to the Maid, who was sent by heaven, the keys of the French cities which they had wrongfully taken; and he also solemnly adjured the English troops, whether archers or men of the companies of war or gentlemen or others, who were before the city of Orleans, to depart thence to their homes, under peril of being visited by the judgment of God.

On her arrival in Orleans, Jeanne sent another similar message; but the English scoffed at her from their towers, and threatened to burn her heralds. She determined, before she shed the blood of the besiegers, to repeat the warning with her own voice; and accordingly she mounted one of the boulevards of the town, which was within hearing of the Tourelles, and thence she spoke to the English, and bade them depart, otherwise they would meet with shame and woe.

Sir William Gladsdale--whom the French call "Glacidas"--commanded the English post at the Tourelles, and he and another English officer replied by bidding her go home and keep her cows, and by ribald jests that brought tears of shame and indignation into her eyes. But, though the English leaders vaunted aloud, the effect produced on their army by Jeanne's presence in Orleans was proved four days after her arrival, when, on the approach of reënforcements and stores to the town, Jeanne and La Hire marched out to meet them, and escorted the long train of provision wagons safely into Orleans, between the bastiles of the English, who cowered behind their walls instead of charging fiercely and fearlessly, as had been their wont, on any French band that dared to show itself within reach.

Thus far she had prevailed without striking a blow; but the time was now come to test her courage amid the horrors of actual slaughter. On the afternoon of the day on which she had escorted the reënforcements into the city, while she was resting fatigued at home, Dunois had seized an advantageous opportunity of attacking the English bastile of St. Loup, and a fierce assault of the Orleannais had been made on it, which the English garrison of the fort stubbornly resisted. Jeanne was roused by a sound which she believed to be that of her heavenly voices; she called for her arms and horse, and, quickly equipping herself, she mounted to ride off to where the fight was raging. In her haste she had forgotten her banner; she rode back, and, without dismounting, had it given to her from the window, and then she galloped to the gate whence the sally had been made.

On her way she met some of the wounded French who had been carried back from the fight. "Ha!" she exclaimed, "I never can see French blood flow without my hair standing on end." She rode out of the gate, and met the tide of her countrymen, who had been repulsed from the English fort, and were flying back to Orleans in confusion. At the sight of the holy Maid and her banner they rallied and renewed the assault, Jeanne rode forward at their head, waving her banner and cheering them on. The English quailed at what they believed to be the charge of hell; St. Loup was stormed, and its defenders put to the sword, except some few, whom Jeanne succeeded in saving. All her woman's gentleness returned when the combat was over. It was the first time that she had ever seen a battlefield. She wept at the sight of so many bleeding corpses; and her tears flowed doubly when she reflected that they were the bodies of Christian men who had died without confession.

The next day was Ascension Day, and it was passed by Jeanne in prayer. But on the following morrow it was resolved by the chiefs of the garrison to attack the English forts on the south of the river. For this purpose they crossed the river in boats, and after some severe fighting, in which the Maid was wounded in the heel, both the English bastiles of the Augustins and St. Jean de Blanc were captured. The Tourelles were now the only posts which the besiegers held on the south of the river. But that post was formidably strong, and by its command of the bridge it was the key to the deliverance of Orleans. It was known that a fresh English army was approaching under Fastolfe to reënforce the besiegers, and, should that army arrive while the Tourelles were yet in the possession of their comrades, there was great peril of all the advantages which the French had gained being nullified, and of the siege being again actively carried on.

It was resolved, therefore, by the French to assail the Tourelles at once, while the enthusiasm which the presence and the heroic valor of the Maid had created was at its height. But the enterprise was difficult. The rampart of the tête-du-pont, or landward bulwark, of the Tourelles was steep and high, and Sir John Gladsdale occupied this all-important fort with five hundred archers and men-at-arms, who were the very flower of the English army.