tax themselves for their own defence, but many brought to the common stock a larger sum than had been imposed on them; they cheerfully consented that their suburb of Portereau, on the southern bank, opposite the city, should be razed to the ground, lest it should afford any shelter to the enemy, and from the same motive all the vineyards and gardens within two miles from the walls were laid waste by the owners themselves. The men able to bear arms were enrolled in bands, and the rest formed themselves into processions solemnly to bear the holy relics from church to church, and to implore with unceasing prayer the mercy and protection of Heaven.* The first assault of Salisbury was directed against the bulwark defending the approaches of the bridge on the southern bank, or, as we should call it at present, the tête-de-pont. After a stubborn resistance and great bloodshed, he dislodged the townspeople from the place. They then took post at two towers which had been built one on each side the passage, some way forward upon the bridge, and they took care for the security of the city to break down one of the arches behind them, and only kept up their communication by planks and beams which could be readily removed. The next day, however, Sir William Gladsdale, one of the best officers in the English army, finding the waters of the Loire unusually shallow at that season, waded with his men nearly up to the towers, and succeeded in storming them. He proceeded to build a bulwark connecting the two towers, and joined them with the tête-de-pont on the shore, thus forming a fort, which he called from them La Bastille des Tournelles, and which enabled him to plant a battery full against the city. But his activity proved fatal to his chief. A very few days afterwards the Earl of Salisbury came to visit the works. He had ascended one of the towers with Sir William, to survey more clearly the wide circuit of the enemy's walls, when a cannon-ball fired from them (for this, as Hume observes, is among the first sieges where cannon were found to be of importance) broke a splinter from the casement and struck on his face with a mortal wound. At his decease the Earl of Suffolk succeeded to his command, though not to his full influence and authority. Having tried in several attacks the great number of the besieged, as well as their stubborn resolution, he determined to turn the siege into a blockade, to surround the city with forts or bastilles,' and to reduce it by famine. The works for this purpose were continued steadily throughout the winter. Frequent assaults on the one side, frequent sallies on the other, proved the fiery ardour of the besiegers and the unfailing constancy of the besieged. In the unfinished * Barante, Ducs de Bourgogne, vol. v. p. 254. state state of the English works, supplies and reinforcements could still at intervals be brought into Orleans, and as the French light troops ravaged the open country beyond, it sometimes happened that there was no less dearth and scarcity in the English camp than in the beleaguered city. But upon the whole, both the stores and the garrison of Orleans wasted away much faster than they could be renewed; they saw tower after tower, and redoubt after redoubt, rising up to complete the line-each a link in the long chain which was to bind them; they perceived that, while they declined, the English were gradually growing in strength and numbers; and it became evident, even to themselves, that, unless some great effort could be made for their deliverance, they must be overpowered in the ensuing spring. It was the news of this siege that kindled to the highest pitch the fervent imagination of Joan of Arc. Her enthusiasm, as we have seen, was twofold, political and religious. The former would impel her to free King Charles from his present and pressing danger, the latter to sanctify his claim by his coronation. For, until his head had been encircled with the ancient crown and anointed with the holy oil at Rheims, Charles was not truly King to priestly or to popular eyes, but only Dauphin, not the real possessor, only the rightful heir. From this time, then, the visions of Joan, hitherto unsettled and wavering, steadily fixed on two objects which she believed herself commissioned from Heaven to achieve to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown the Dauphin at Rheims. And if we compare the greatness and the difficulty of such objects with the sex, the station, and the years of the person aiming at them, we cannot but behold with admiration the undaunted intrepidity that did not quail from such a task. The scheme of Joan was to go to the neighbouring town of Vaucouleurs, reveal her visions to the governor, Robert de Baudricourt, a zealous adherent of Charles, and entreat his aid and protection for enabling her to reach the King's presence. From her parents she was well aware that she could expect no encouragement. Her first step, therefore, was, on the plea of a few days' visit, to repair to the house of her uncle Durand Laxart, who lived at the village of Petit Burey, between Domremy and Vaucouleurs. To him she then imparted all her inspirations and intentions. The astonishment of the honest villager may be easily imagined. But the energy and earnestness of Joan wrought so powerfully on his mind as to convince him of the truth of her mission, and he undertook to go in her place to Vaucouleurs, and do her bidding with the Sire de Baudricourt. His promises of divine deliverance by the hands of a peasant-girl were, however, received received by the stern old warrior with the utmost contempt and derision: Box your niece's ears well,' said he, 'and send her home to her father.'* Far from being disconcerted at her uncle's ill success, the Maid immediately set out herself for Vaucouleurs in company with Laxart. It was with some difficulty that she could obtain admission to the Governor, or a patient hearing from him even when admitted to his presence. Baudricourt, unmoved by her eloquence, continued to set at nought her promises and her requests. But Joan now displayed that energy and strength of will which so seldom fail to triumph where success is possible. She resolved to remain at Vaucouleurs, again and again appealing to the Governor, and conjuring him not to neglect the voice of God, who spoke through her, and passing the rest of her time in fervent prayers at the church. Once she went back for a little time with her uncle to his village, but she soon induced him to return; another time she had determined to begin with him and on foot her journey of one hundred and fifty leagues to the French Court. On further reflection, however, she felt unwilling to proceed without at least a letter from Baudricourt. At length he consented to write, and refer the question of her journey to the decision of King Charles. Upon his own mind she had made little or no impression, but several other persons in the town, struck with her piety and perseverance, became converts to her words. One of these was a gentleman named Jean de Novelompont, and surnamed De Metz, who afterwards deposed on oath to these transactions: Child," said he, as he met her in the street, "what are you doing here? Must we not submit to seeing the King expelled his kingdom, and to ourselves becoming English?" "I am come here," said the Maid, "to ask of the Sire de Baudricourt to send me before the Dauphin: he has no care for me, or for words of mine; and yet it is needful that before Mid-Lent I should stand in the Dauphin's presence, should I even in reaching him wear through my feet, and have to crawl upon my knees. For no one upon this earth, neither King, nor Duke, nor daughter of King of Scots,† no one but myself is appointed to recover this realm of France. Yet I would more willingly remain to spin by the side of my poor mother, for war seems no work for me. But go I must, because the Lord my Master so wills it.' 66 And who is the Lord your Master ?" said Jean de Metz. "The King of Heaven," she replied. De Metz declared * Collection des Mémoires, vol. viii. p. 246. On négociait alors le mariage du Dauphin Louis, fils de Charles VII., avec la fille du Roi d'Ecosse, qui promettait d'envoyer de nouveaux secours.' (Note to the Collection des Mémoires, vol. viii. p. 249.) that that her tone of inspiration had convinced him; he gave her his hand, and promised her that he would, on the faith of a gentleman, and under the conduct of God, lead her himself before the King. He asked her when she desired to begin her journey: "To-day rather than to-morrow," replied the heroine.' * Another gentleman, Bertrand de Poulengy, who has also left a deposition on oath to these facts, and who had been present at the first interview between Joan and Baudricourt, became convinced of her divine commission, and resolved to escort her in her journey. It does not clearly appear whether Baudricourt had received any answer from the Court of France: but a reluctant assent to the journey was extorted from him by the entreaties of De Metz and Poulengy, and by the rising force of popular opinion. The Duke of Lorraine himself had by this time heard of the fame of Joan; and sent for her as to one endowed with natural powers to cure him from a mortal disease. But Joan replied, with her usual simplicity of manner, that her mission was not to that Prince, nor for such an object, and the Duke dismissed her with a gift of four livres. super This gift was probably the more welcome, since Baudricourt, even while giving his consent to her journey, refused to incur any cost on behalf of it; he presented to her nothing but a sword, and at parting said to her only these words: Va, et advienne que pourra.' Her uncle, assisted by another countryman, had borrowed money to buy a horse for her use, and the expenses of the journey were defrayed by Jean de Metz, for which, as appears by the Household Books, he was afterwards reimbursed by the King. Joan herself, by command of her 'Voices,' as she said, assumed male apparel, and never wore any other during the remainder of her expedition. . At the news that their daughter was already at Vaucouleurs and going forward to the wars, Jacques d'Arc and his wife hastened in the utmost consternation from their village, but could not succeed in withholding her. I saw them in the town,' says Jean De Metz; they seemed hard-working, honest, God-fearing people.' Joan herself declared in her examinations that they had been almost distracted with grief at her departure, but that she had since sent back letters to them, and that they had forgiven her. It would appear that none of her brothers was amongst her companions on this journey, although one of them, Pierre d'Arc, soon afterwards joined her in Touraine.† Joan pour * Dépositions de Jean de Metz au Procès de Révision. 'On a dit que Pierre d'Arc, troisième frère de la Pucelle, partit alors avec elle la France, et on fondait cette opinion sur ce que Pierre, dans une requête présentée en 1444 au Duc d'Orléans, exposait être parti de son pays pour servir aux guerres du Roi et de Monsieur le Duc en la compagnie de Jehanne la Pucelle, sa sœur. D'après la construction Joan set forth from Vaucouleurs on the first Sunday in Lent, the 13th of February, 1429. Her escort consisted of six persons, the Sires de Metz and de Poulengy, with one attendant of each, Colet de Vienne, who is styled a King's messenger, and Richard, a King's archer. It was no slight enterprise to pass through so wide a track of hostile country, exposed to fall in every moment with wandering parties of English or Burgundian soldiery, or obliged, in order to avoid them, to ford large rivers, to thread extensive forests, and to select unfrequented by-paths at that wintry season. The Maid herself took little heed of toil or danger; her chief complaint was that her companions would not allow her to stop every morning to hear Mass. They, on the contrary, felt from time to time their confidence decline and strange misgivings arise in their minds; more than once the idea occurred to them that after all they might only be conducting a mad woman or a sorceress, and they were tempted to hurl her down some stonequarry as they passed, or to leave her alone upon the road. Joan, however, happily surmounting these dangers, both from her enemies and from her escort, succeeded in crossing the Loire at Gien, after which she found herself on friendly ground. There she openly announced to all she met that she was sent from God to crown the King and to free the good city of Orleans. The tidings began to spread, even to Orleans itself, and, as drowning men are said to catch at straws, so the poor besieged, now hardpressed and well nigh hopeless, eagerly welcomed this last faint gleam for their deliverance. On earthly succour they could indeed no longer rely. While Joan was yet delayed at Vaucouleurs, they had been urging the King in repeated embassies to afford them some assistance. It was with difficulty that Charles could muster an army of 3000 men-so dispirited were his soldiers, and so unwilling to serve!— whose command he intrusted to his kinsman the Count of Clermont. On these troops approaching Orleans they were joined by Dunois and another thousand men from the garrison, and they resolved to intercept a large convoy of provisions which Sir John Fastolf was escorting from Paris. Fastolf had under his command scarcely more than 2000 soldiers; nevertheless, in the action which ensued the French were completely routed, and construction de cette phrase on ne saurait décider si ce jeune homme est parti avec sa sœur, ou s'il est allé la rejoindre plus tard. Les chroniques ni les interrogatoires ne font aucune mention de lui au moment du départ, pendant la route, ni à l'époque de l'arrivée à Chinon. Tout porte ainsi à croire qu'il n'était pas du voyage.' (Suppl. aux Mémoires, Collection, vol. viii. p. 253.) This conclusion is confirmed, and indeed placed beyond doubt, by an original letter from the Sire de Laval, in May 1429, which we shall hereafter have occasion to quote; it mentions Pierre d'Arc as having arrived to join his sister only eight days before. left |