Part 383

"France divided—two kings, two regencies, two armies, two governments, two nations, two nobilities, two systems of justice—met face to face: father, son, mother, uncles, nephews, citizens, and strangers, fought for the right, the soil, the throne, the cities, the spoil and the blood of the nation. The King of England died at Vincennes [August 31, 1422], and was shortly followed [October 22] by Charles VI., father of the twelve children of Isabel, leaving the kingdom to the stranger and to ruin. The Duke of Bedford insolently took possession of the Regency in the name of England, pursued the handful of nobles who wished to remain French with the dauphin, defeated them at the battle of Verneuil [August 17, 1424], and exiled the queen, who had become a burden to the government after having been an instrument of usurpation. He then concentrated the armies of England, France and Burgundy round Orleans, which was defended by some thousands of the partisans of the dauphin, and which comprised almost all that remained of the kingdom of France. The land was everywhere ravaged by the passing and repassing of these bands—sometimes friends, sometimes enemies—driving each other on, wave after wave, like the billows of the Atlantic; ravaging crops, burning towns, dispersing, robbing, and ill-treating the population. In this disorganization of the country, the young dauphin, sometimes awakened by the complaints of his people, at others absorbed in the pleasures natural to his age, was making love to Agnes Sorel in the castle of Loches. … Such was the state of the nation when Providence showed it a savior in a child." The child was Jeanne D'Arc, or Joan of Arc, better known in history as the Maid of Orleans,—daughter of a peasant who tilled his own few acres at the village of Domrémy, in Upper Lorraine. Of the visions of the pious young maiden—of the voices she heard—of the conviction which came upon her that she was called by God to deliver her country—and of the enthusiasm of faith with which she went about her mission until all people bent to her as the messenger and minister of God—the story is a familiar one to all. In April, 1429, Joan was sent by the king, from Blois, with 10,000 or 12,000 men, to the succour of Orleans, where Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, was in command. She reformed the army, purged it of all vile followers, and raised its confidence to that frenzied pitch which nothing can resist. On the 8th of May the English abandoned the siege and Orleans was saved. "Joan wasted no time in vain triumphs. She brought back the victorious army to the dauphin, to assist him in reconquering city after city of his kingdom. The dauphin and the queens received her as the messenger of God, who had found and recovered the lost keys of the kingdom. 'I have only another year,' she remarked, with a sad presentiment, which seemed to indicate that her victory led to the scaffold; 'I must therefore set to work at once.' She begged the dauphin to go and be crowned at Rheims, although that city and the intermediate provinces were still in the power of the Burgundians, Flemings, and English." Counsellors and generals opposed; but the sublime faith of the Maid overcame all opposition and all difficulties. The king's route to Rheims was rapidly cleared of his enemies. At Patay (June 18, 1429) the English suffered a heavy defeat and their famous soldier, Lord Talbot, was taken prisoner. Troyes, Chalons and Rheims opened their gates. "The Duke of Bedford, the regent, remained trembling in Paris. 'All our misfortunes,' he wrote to the Cardinal of Winchester, 'are owing to a young witch, who, by her sorcery, has restored the courage of the French.' … The king was crowned [July 17, 1429], and Joan's mission was accomplished. 'Noble king,' said she, embracing his knees in the Cathedral after the coronation, 'now is accomplished the will of God, which commanded me to bring you to this city of Rheims to receive your holy unction—now that you at last are king, and that the kingdom of France is yours.' … From that moment a great depression, and a fatal hesitation seem to have come over her. The king, the people, and the army, to whom she had given victory, wished her to remain always their prophetess, their guide, and their enduring miracle. But she was now only a weak woman, lost amid courts and camps, and she felt her weakness beneath her armor. Her heart alone remained courageous, but had ceased to be inspired." She urged an attack on Paris (Sept. 8, 1429) and experienced her first failure, being grievously wounded in the assault. The following spring, Compiègne being besieged, she entered the town to take part in the defence. The same evening (May 24, 1430) she led a sortie which was repulsed, and she was taken prisoner in the retreat. Some think she was betrayed by the commandant of the town, who ordered the raising of the drawbridge just as her horse was being spurred upon it. Once in the hands of her enemies, the doom of the unfortunate Maid was sealed. Sir Lionel de Ligny, her captor, gave his prisoner to the count of Luxembourg, who yielded her to the Duke of Burgundy, who surrendered her to the English, who delivered her to the Inquisition, by which she was tried, condemned and burned to death, at Rouen, as a witch (May 30, 1431). "It was a complex crime, in which each party got rid of responsibility, but in which the accusation rests with Paris [the University of Paris was foremost among the pursuers of the wonderful Maid], the cowardice with Luxembourg, the sentence with the Inquisition, the blame and punishment with England, and the disgrace and ingratitude with France. This bartering about Joan by her enemies, of whom the fiercest were her countrymen, had lasted six months. … During these six months, the influence of this goddess of war upon the troops of Charles VII.—her spirit, which still guided the camp and council of the king—the patriotic, though superstitious, veneration of the people, which her captivity only doubled,—and, lastly, the absence of the Duke of Burgundy, … all these causes had brought reverse after reverse upon the English, and a series of successes to Charles VII. Joan, although absent, triumphed everywhere."

_A. de Lamartine, Memoirs of Celebrated Characters: Joan of Arc._

"It seems natural to ask what steps the King of France had taken … to avert her doom. If ever there had been a sovereign indebted to a subject, that sovereign was Charles VII., that subject Joan of Arc. … Yet, no sooner was she captive than she seems forgotten. We hear nothing of any attempt at rescue, of any proposal for ransom; neither the most common protest against her trial, nor the faintest threat of reprisals; nay, not even after her death, one single expression of regret! Charles continued to slumber in his delicious retreats beyond the Loire, engrossed by dames of a very different character from Joan's, and careless of the heroine to whom his security in that indolence was due. Her memory on the other hand was long endeared to the French people, and long did they continue to cherish a romantic hope that she might still survive. {1177} So strong was this feeling, that in the year 1436 advantage was taken of it by a female imposter, who pretended to be Joan of Arc escaped from her captivity. She fixed her abode at Metz, and soon afterwards married a knight of good family, the Sire des Armoises. Strange to say, it appears from a contemporary chronicle, that Joan's two surviving brothers acknowledged this woman as their sister. Stranger still, other records prove that she made two visits to Orleans, one before and one after her marriage, and on each occasion was hailed as the heroine returned. … The brothers of Joan of Arc might possibly have hopes of profit by the fraud; but how the people of Orleans, who had seen her so closely, who had fought side by side with her in the siege, could be deceived as to the person, we cannot understand, nor yet what motive they could have in deceiving. The interest which Joan of Arc inspires at the present day extends even to the house where she dwelt, and to the family from which she sprung. Her father died of grief at the tidings of her execution; her mother long survived it, but fell into great distress. Twenty years afterwards we find her in receipt of a pension from the city of Orleans; three francs a month; 'to help her to live.' Joan's brothers and their issue took, the name of Du Lis from the Lily of France, which the King had assigned as their arms. … It will be easy to trace the true character of Joan. … Nowhere do modern annals display a character more pure—more generous—more humble amidst fancied visions and undoubted victories—more free from all taint of selfishness—more akin to the champions and martyrs of old times. All this is no more than justice and love of truth would require us to say. But when we find some French historians, transported by an enthusiasm almost equal to that of Joan herself, represent her us filling the part of a general or statesman—as skilful in leading armies, or directing councils—we must withhold our faith. Such skill, indeed, from a country girl, without either education or experience, would be, had she really possessed it, scarcely less supernatural than the visions which she claimed. But the facts are far otherwise. In affairs of state, Joan's voice was never heard; in affairs of war, all her proposals will be found to resolve themselves into two—either to rush headlong upon the enemy, often in the very point where he was strongest, or to offer frequent and public prayers to the Almighty. We are not aware of any single instance in which her military suggestions were not these, or nearly akin to these. … Of Joan's person no authentic resemblance now remains. A statue to her memory had been raised upon the bridge at Orleans, at the sole charge … of the matrons and maids of that city: this probably preserved some degree of likeness, but unfortunately perished in the religious wars of the sixteenth century. There is no portrait extant; the two earliest engravings are of 1606 and 1612, and they greatly differ."

_Lord Mahon, Historical Essays, pages 53-57._

"A few days before her death, when urged to resume her woman's dress, she said: 'When I shall have accomplished that for which I was sent from God, I will take the dress of a woman.' Yet, in one sense her mission did end at Rheims. The faith of the people still followed her, but her enemies—not the English, but those in the heart of the court of Charles—began to be too powerful for her. We may, indeed, conceive what a hoard of envy and malice was gathering in the hearts of those hardened politicians at seeing themselves superseded by a peasant girl. They, accustomed to dark and tortuous ways, could not comprehend or coalesce with the divine simplicity of her designs and means. A successful intrigue was formed against her. It was resolved to keep her still in the camp as a name and a figure, but to take from her all power, all voice in the direction of affairs. So accordingly it was done. … Her ways and habits during the year she was in arms are attested by a multitude of witnesses. Dunois and the Duke of Alençon bear testimony to what they term her extraordinary talents for war, and to her perfect fearlessness in action; but in all other things she was the most simple of creatures. She wept when she first saw men slain in battle, to think that they should have died without confession. She wept at the abominable epithets which the English heaped upon her; but she was without a trace of vindictiveness. 'Ah, Glacidas, Glacidas!' she said to Sir William Glasdale at Orleans, 'you have called me foul names; but I have pity upon your soul and the souls of your men. Surrender to the King of Heaven!' And she was once seen, resting the head of a wounded Englishman on her lap, comforting and consoling him. In her diet she was abstemious in the extreme, rarely eating until evening, and then for the most part, only of bread and water sometimes mixed with wine. In the field she slept in her armour, but when she came into a city she always sought out some honourable matron, under whose protection she placed herself; and there is wonderful evidence of the atmosphere of purity which she diffused around her, her very presence banishing from men's hearts all evil thoughts and wishes. Her conversation, when it was not of the war, was entirely of religion. She confessed often, and received communion twice in the week. 'And it was her custom,' says Dunois, 'at twilight every day, to retire to the church and make the bells be rung for half an hour, and she gathered the mendicant religious who followed the King's army, and made them sing an antiphon of the Blessed Mother of God.' From presumption, as from superstition, she was entirely free. When women brought her crosses and chaplets to bless, she said: 'How can I bless them? Your own blessing would be as good as mine.'"

_J. O'Hagan, Joan of Arc, pages 61-66._

"What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that—like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea—rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. {1178} The boy rose to a splendour, and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. … This pure creature—pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious—never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints;—these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard for ever."

_T. De Quincey, Joan of Arc (Collected Writings, volume 5)._

A discussion of doubts that have been raised concerning the death of Joan at the stake will be found in

_Octave Delepierre's Historical Difficulties and Contested Events, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _J. Michelet, History of France, book 10._

_E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 2, chapters 57-105._

_H. Parr, Life and Death of Joan of Arc._

_J. Tuckey, Joan of Arc._

_Mrs. A. E. Bray, Joan of Arc._

FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453. The English expelled.

"In Joan of Arc the English certainly destroyed the cause of their late reverses. But the impulse had been given, and the crime of base vengeance could not stay it. Fortune declared every where and in every way against them. In vain was Henry VI. brought to Paris, crowned at Notre Dame, and made to exercise all the functions of royalty in court and parliament. The duke of Burgundy, disgusted with the English, became at last reconciled to Charles; who spared no sacrifice to win the support of so powerful a subject. The amplest possible amends were made for the murder of the late duke. The towns beyond the Somme were ceded to Burgundy, and the reigning duke [but not his successors] was exempted from all homage towards the king of France. Such was the famous treaty of Arras [September 21, 1435], which restored to Charles his throne, and deprived the English of all hopes of retaining their conquests in the kingdom. The crimes and misrule of the Orleans faction were forgotten; popularity ebbed in favour of Charles. … One of the gates of Paris was betrayed by the citizens to the constable and Dunois [April, 1436]. Willoughby, the governor, was obliged to shut himself up in the Bastile with his garrison, from whence they retired to Rouen. Charles VII. entered his capital, after twenty years' exclusion from it, in November, 1437. Thenceforward the war lost its serious character. Charles was gradually established on his throne, and the struggle between the two nations was feebly carried on, broken merely by a few sieges and enterprises, mostly to the disadvantage of the English. … There had been frequent endeavours and conferences towards a peace between the French and English. The demands on either side proved irreconcilable. A truce was however concluded, in 1444, which lasted four years; it was sealed by the marriage of Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Réné, and granddaughter of Louis, who had perished while leading an army to the conquest of Naples. … In 1449 the truce was allowed to expire. The quarrels of York and Lancaster had commenced, and England was unable to defend her foreign possessions. Normandy was invaded. The gallant Talbot could not preserve Rouen with a disaffected population, and Charles recovered without loss of blood [1449] the second capital of his dominions. The only blow struck by the English for the preservation of Normandy was at Fourmigny near Bayeux. … Normandy was for ever lost to the English after this action or skirmish. The following year Guyenne was invaded by the count de Dunois. He met with no resistance. The great towns at that day had grown wealthy, and their maxim was to avoid a siege at all hazards." Lord Talbot was killed in an engagement at Castillon (1450), and "with that hero expired the last hopes of his country in regard to France. Guyenne was lost [A. D. 1453] as well as Normandy, and Calais remained to England the only fruit of so much blood spilt and so many victories achieved."

_E. E. Crowe, History of France, volume 1, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _J. Michelet, History of France, book 11._

_E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 2, chapter 109, book 3, chapter 65._

See, also, AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.

FRANCE: A. D. 1438. Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII. Reforming decrees of the Council of Basel adopted for the Gallican church.

After the rupture between the reforming Council of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448), Charles VII. of France "determined to adopt in his own kingdom such of the decrees of the Council as were for his advantage, seeing that no opposition could be made by the Pope. Accordingly a Synod was summoned at Bourges on May 1, 1438. The embassadors of Pope and Council urged their respective causes. It was agreed that the King should write to Pope and Council to stay their hands in proceeding against one another; meanwhile, that the reformation be not lost, some of the Basel decrees should be maintained in France by royal authority. The results of the synod's deliberation were laid before the King, and on July 7 were made binding as a pragmatic sanction on the French Church. The Pragmatic Sanction enacted that General Councils were to be held every ten years, and recognised the authority of the Council of Basel. The Pope was no longer to reserve any of the greater ecclesiastical appointments, but elections were to be duly made by the rightful patrons. Grants to benefices in expectancy, 'whence all agree that many evils arise,' were to cease, as well as reservations. In all cathedral churches, one prebend was to be given to a theologian who had studied for ten years in a university, and who was to lecture or preach at least once a week. Benefices were to be conferred in future, one-third on graduates, two-thirds on deserving clergy. Appeals to Rome, except for important causes, were forbidden. The number of Cardinals was to be 24, each of the age of 30 at least. Annates and first-fruits were no longer to be paid to the Pope, but only the necessary legal fees on institution. Regulations were made for greater reverence in the conduct of Divine service; prayers were to be said by the priest in an audible voice; mummeries in churches were forbidden, and clerical concubinage was to be punished by suspension for three months. Such were the chief reforms of its own special grievances, which France wished to establish. It was the first step in the assertion of the rights of national Churches to arrange for themselves the details of their own ecclesiastical organisation."

_M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 3, chapter 9 (volume 2)._

{1179}

FRANCE: A. D. 1447. Origin of the claims of the house of Orleans to the duchy of Milan.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

FRANCE: A. D. 1453-1461. The reconstructed kingdom. The new plant of Absolutism.