Part 2

Although Edward III., by supporting with troops and officers, and sometimes even in person, the cause of the countess of Montfort—and Philip of Valois, by assisting in the same way Charles of Blois and Joan of Penthièvre, took a very active, if indirect, share in the war in Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling themselves at war; and when either of them proceeded to acts of unquestionable hostility, they eluded the consequences of them by hastily concluding truces incessantly violated and as incessantly renewed. They had made use of this expedient in 1340; and they had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344. The last of these truces was to have lasted up to 1346; but in the spring of 1345, Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to openly recommence war. He announced his intention to Pope Clement IV., to his own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the cities and corporations of his kingdom. The tragic death of Van Artevelde, however (1345), proved a great loss to the king of England. He was so much affected by it that he required a whole year before he could resume with any confidence his projects of war; and it was not until the 2nd of July, 1346, that he embarked at Southampton, taking with him, beside his son, the prince of Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an army which comprised, according to Froissart, seven earls, more than thirty-five barons, a great number of knights, four thousand men-at-arms, ten thousand English archers, six thousand Irish and twelve thousand Welsh infantry, in all something more than thirty-two thousand men. By the advice of Godfrey d’Harcourt, he marched his army over Normandy; he took and plundered on his way Harfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan, St. Lô, and Caen; then, continuing his march, he occupied Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Nantes, Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up his quarters in the old residence of King Robert; and thence his troops advanced and spread themselves as far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St. Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine and almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be seen “the fire and smoke from burning villages.” Philip recalled in all haste his troops from Aquitaine, commanded the burgher forces to assemble, and gave them, as he had given all his allies, St. Denis for the rallying point. At sight of so many great lords and all sorts of men of war flocking together from all points the Parisians took fresh courage. “For many a long day there had not been at St. Denis a king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle.”

Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and of finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted by an army which would soon be stronger than his own. He, accordingly, marched northward, where he flattered himself he would find partisans, counting especially on the help of the Flemings, who, in fulfillment of their promise, had already advanced as far as Béthune to support him. Philip moved with all his army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward.

When Edward, after passing the Somme, had arrived near Crécy, five leagues from Abbeville, in the countship of Ponthieu, which had formed part of his mother Isabel’s dowry, “Halt we here,” said he to his marshals; “I will go no farther till I have seen the enemy; I am on my mother’s rightful inheritance, which was given her on her marriage; I will defend it against mine adversary, Philip of Valois;” and he rested in the open fields, he and all his men, and made his marshals mark well the ground where they would set their battle in array. Philip, on his side, had moved to Abbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and whence he sent out scouts to learn the truth about the English. When he knew that they were resting in the open fields near Crécy and showed that they were awaiting their enemies, the king of France was very joyful, and said that, please God, they should fight him on the morrow [the day after Friday, August 25, 1346].

On Saturday, the 26th of August, after having heard mass, Philip started from Abbeville with all his barons. The battle began with an attack by fifteen thousand Genoese bowmen, who marched forward, and leaped thrice with a great cry; their arrows did little execution, as the strings of their bows had been relaxed by the damp; the English archers now taking their bows from their cases, poured forth a shower of arrows upon this multitude, and soon threw them into confusion; the Genoese falling back upon the French cavalry, were by them cut to pieces, and being allowed no passage, were thus prevented from again forming in the rear; this absurd inhumanity lost the battle, as the young Prince of Wales, taking advantage of the irretrievable disorder, led on his line at once to the charge. “No one can describe or imagine,” says Froissart, “the bad management and disorder of the French army, though their troops were out of number.” Philip was led from the field by John of Hainault, and he rode till he came to the walls of the castle of Broye, where he found the gates shut; ordering the governor to be summoned, when the latter inquired, it being dark, who it was that called at so late an hour, he answered; “Open, open, governor; it is the fortune of France;” and accompanied by five barons only he entered the castle.

Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his army, as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence, to reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war of conquest he had undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to possess on the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place which he might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of arrival and departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure refuge. Calais exactly fulfilled these conditions. On arriving before the place, September 3rd, 1346, Edward “immediately had built all round it,” says Froissart, “houses and dwelling places of solid carpentry, and arranged in streets, as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and whatever trouble he must spend and take. He called this new town _Villeneuve la Hardie_; and he had therein all things necessary for an army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a market on Wednesday and Saturday; and therein were mercers’ shops and butchers’ shops, and stores for the sale of cloth and bread and all other necessaries. King Edward did not have the city of Calais assaulted by his men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would starve it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of France did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege.”

Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful Burgundian knight, “the which seeing,” says Froissart, “that the king of England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without further notice.” The Calaisians endured for eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation and famine. The King of France made two attempts to relieve them. On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his troops at Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle of July, and as long before as the 23rd of June, a French fleet of ten galleys and thirty-five transports had been driven off by the English.

When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had slipped from them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer submission to the king of England, rather than die of hunger, and begged their governor, John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations for that purpose with the besiegers. Walter de Manny, instructed by Edward to reply to these overtures, said to John de Vienne, “The king’s intent is that ye put yourselves at his free will to ransom or put to death, such as it shall please him; the people of Calais have caused him so great displeasure, cost him so much money and lost him so many men, that it is not astonishing if that weighs heavily upon him.” In his final answer to the petition of the unfortunate inhabitants, Edward said: “Go, Walter, to them of Calais, and tell the governor that the greatest grace they can find in my sight is that six of the most notable burghers come forth from their town bareheaded, barefooted, with ropes round their necks and with the keys of the town and castle in their hands. With them I will do according to my will and the rest I will receive to mercy.” It is well known how the king would have put to death Eustace de St. Pierre and his companions, and how their lives were spared at the intercession of Queen Philippa.

Eustace, more concerned for the interests of his own town than for those of France, and being more of a Calaisian burgher than a national patriot, showed no hesitation, for all that appears, in serving, as a subject of the king of England, his native city, for which he had shown himself so ready to die. At his death, which happened in 1351, his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects of the king of France, and Edward confiscated away from them the possessions he had restored to their predecessor. Eustace de St. Pierre’s cousin and comrade in devotion to their native town, John d’Aire, would not enter Calais again; his property was confiscated, and his house, the finest, it is said, in the town, was given by King Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no more hesitation in accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king. Long-lived delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion.

The battle of Crécy and the loss of Calais were reverses from which Philip of Valois never even made a serious attempt to recover; he hastily concluded with Edward a truce, twice renewed, which served only to consolidate the victor’s successes.

V.—JOAN OF ARC.

On the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a little village in the valley of the Meuse, between Neufchâtel and Vaucouleurs, on the edge of the frontier from Champagne to Lorraine, the young daughter of simple tillers-of-the-soil “of good life and repute, herself a good, simple, gentle girl, no idler, occupied hitherto in sewing or spinning with her mother or driving afield her parent’s sheep and sometimes even, when her father’s turn came round, keeping for him the whole flock of the commune,” was fulfilling her sixteenth year. It was Joan of Arc, whom all her neighbors called Joannette. Her early childhood was passed amidst the pursuits characteristic of a country life; her behavior was irreproachable, and she was robust, active, and intrepid. Her imagination becoming inflamed by the distressed situation of France, she dreamed that she had interviews with St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael, who commanded her, in the name of God, to go and raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct Charles to be crowned at Rheims. Accordingly she applied to Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the neighboring town of Vaucouleurs, revealing to him her inspiration, and conjuring him not to neglect the voice of God, which spoke through her. This officer for some time treated her with neglect; but at length, prevailed on by repeated importunities, he sent her to the king at Chinon, to whom, when introduced, she said: “Gentle Dauphin, my name is Joan the Maid, the King of Heaven hath sent me to your assistance; if you please to give me troops, by the grace of God and the force of arms, I will raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct you to be crowned at Rheims, in spite of your enemies.” Her requests were now granted; she was armed _cap-a-pie_, mounted on horseback, and provided with a suitable retinue. Previous to her attempting any exploit, she wrote a long letter to the young English monarch, commanding him to withdraw his forces from France, and threatening his destruction in case of refusal. She concluded with “hear this advice from God and _la Pucelle_.”

But, side by side with these friends, she had an adversary in the king’s favorite, George de la Trémoille, an ambitious courtier, jealous of any one who seemed within the range of the king’s good graces, and opposed to a vigorous prosecution of the war, since it hampered him in the policy he wished to keep up toward the duke of Burgundy. To the ill-will of La Trémoille was added that of the majority of courtiers enlisted in the following of the powerful favorite, and that of warriors irritated at the importance acquired at their expense by a rustic and fantastic little adventuress. Here was the source of the enmities and intrigues which stood in the way of all Joan’s demands, rendered her successes more tardy, difficult, and incomplete, and were one day to cost her more dearly still.

At the end of about five weeks the expedition was in readiness. It was a heavy convoy of revictualment protected by a body of ten or twelve thousand men commanded by Marshal de Boussac, and numbering amongst them Xaintrailles and La Hire. The march began on the 27th of April, 1429. Joan had caused the removal of all women of bad character, and had recommended her comrades to confess. She took the communion in the open air, before their eyes; and a company of priests, headed by her chaplain, Pasquerel, led the way whilst chanting sacred hymns. Great was the surprise amongst the men-at-arms. Many had words of mockery on their lips. It was the time when La Hire used to say, “If God were a soldier, he would turn robber.” Nevertheless, respect got the better of habit; the most honorable were really touched; the coarsest considered themselves bound to show restraint. On the 29th of April they arrived before Orleans. But, in consequence of the road they had followed, the Loire was between the army and the town; the expeditionary corps had to be split in two; the troops were obliged to go and feel for the bridge of Blois in order to cross the river; and Joan was vexed and surprised. Dunois, arrived from Orleans in a little boat, urged her to enter the town that same evening. “Are you the bastard of Orleans?” asked she, when he accosted her. “Yes; and I am rejoiced at your coming.” “Was it you who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river and not the direct way, over yonder where Talbot and the English were?” “Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains.”

Joan’s first undertaking was against Orleans, which she entered without opposition on the 29th of April, 1429, on horseback, completely armed, preceded by her own banner, and having beside her Dunois, and behind her the captains of the garrison and several of the most distinguished burgesses of Orleans, who had gone out to meet her. The population, one and all, rushed thronging round her, carrying torches, and greeting her arrival “with joy as great as if they had seen God come down amongst them.” With admirable good sense, discovering the superior merits of Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, a celebrated captain, she wisely adhered to his instructions; and by constantly harassing the English, and beating up their intrenchments in various desperate attacks, in all of which she displayed the most heroic courage, Joan in a few weeks compelled the earl of Suffolk and his army to raise the siege, having sustained the loss of six thousand men. The proposal of crowning Charles at Rheims would formerly have appeared like madness, but the Maid of Orleans now insisted on its fulfillment. She accordingly recommenced the campaign on the 10th of June; to complete the deliverance of Orleans an attack was begun upon the neighboring places, Jargeau, Meung, and Beaugency; thousands of the late dispirited subjects of Charles now flocked to his standard, many towns immediately declared for him; and the English, who had suffered in various actions, at that of Jargeau, when the earl of Suffolk was taken prisoner, and at that of Patay, when Sir John Fastolfe fled without striking a blow, seemed now to be totally dispirited. 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 toward 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. 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 herself 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 center of the realm of which Rheims was the religious. Nothing of the sort was done. She threw herself into Compiègne, then besieged by the duke of Burgundy. The next day (May 25, 1430), heading a sally upon the enemy, she was repulsed and compelled to retreat after exerting the utmost valor; when, having nearly reached the gate of the town, an English archer pursued her and pulled her from her horse. The joy of the English at this capture was as great as if they had obtained a complete victory. Joan was committed to the care of John of Luxembourg, count of Ligny, from whom the duke of Bedford purchased the captive for ten thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred pounds a year to the bastard of Vendôme, to whom she surrendered. Joan was now conducted to Rouen, where, loaded with irons, she was thrown into a dungeon, preparatory to appear before a court assembled to judge her.

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; afterward 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 without 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 naught 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 the end she was condemned for all the crimes of which she had been accused, aggravated by that of heresy, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, to be fed during life on bread and water. The English were enraged that she was not condemned to death. “Wait but a little,” said one of the judges, “we shall soon find the means to ensnare her.” And this was effected by a grievous accusation, which, though somewhat countenanced by the Levitical law, has been seldom urged in modern times, the wearing of man’s attire. Joan had been charged with this offense, but she promised not to repeat it. A suit of man’s apparel was designedly placed in her chamber, and her own garments, as some authors say, being removed, she clothed herself in the forbidden garb, and her keepers surprising her in that dress, she was adjudged to death as a relapsed heretic, and was condemned to be burnt in the marketplace at Rouen (1431).

VI.—HENRY OF NAVARRE.