A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume III Part 2

Henry V. demanded that "all the men of the town should place themselves at his disposal." "When the commonalty of Rouen heard this answer, they all cried out that it were better to die all together sword in hand against their enemies than place themselves at the disposal of yonder king, and they were for shoring up with planks a loosened layer of the wall inside the city, and, having armed themselves and joined all of them together, men, women, and children, for setting fire to the city, throwing down the said layer of wall into the moats, and getting them gone by night whither it might please G.o.d to direct them." Henry V. was unwilling to confront such heroic despair; and on the 13th of January, 1419, he granted the Rouennese a capitulation, from which seven persons only were excepted, Robert Delivet, the archbishop's vicar-general, who from the top of the ramparts had excommunicated the foreign conqueror; D'Houdetot, baillie of the city; John Segneult, the mayor; Alan Blanchard, the captain of the militia-crossbowmen, and three other burgesses. The last-named, the hero of the siege, was the only one who paid for his heroism with his life; the baillie, the mayor, and the vicar bought themselves off. On the 19th of January, at midday, the English, king and army, made their solemn entry into the city. It was two hundred and fifteen years since Philip Augustus had won Rouen by conquest from John Lackland, King of England; and happily his successors were not to be condemned to deplore the loss of it very long.

These successes of the King of England were so many reverses and perils for the Count of Armagnac. He had in his hands Paris, the king, and the _dauphin_; in the people's eyes the responsibility of government and of events rested on his shoulders; and at one time he was doing nothing, at another he was unsuccessful in what he did. Whilst Henry V. was becoming master of nearly all the towns of Normandy, the constable, with the king in his army, was besieging Senlis; and he was obliged to raise the siege. The legates of Pope Martin V. had set about establis.h.i.+ng peace between the Burgundians and Armagnacs, as well as between France and England; they had prepared, on the basis of the treaty of Arras, a new treaty, with which a great part of the country, and even of the burgesses of Paris, showed themselves well pleased; but the constable had it rejected on the ground of its being adverse to the interests of the king and of France; and his friend, the chancellor, Henry de Marle, declared that, if the king were disposed to sign it, he would have to seal it himself, for that, as for him, the chancellor, he certainly would not seal it. Bernard of Armagnac and his confidential friend, Tanneguy Duchatel, a Breton n.o.bleman, provost of Paris, were hard and haughty.

When a complaint was made to them of any violent procedure, they would answer, "What business had you there? If it were the Burgundians, you would make no complaint." The Parisian population was becoming every day more Burgundian. In the latter days of May. 1418, a plot was contrived for opening to the Burgundians one of the gates of Paris. Perrinet Leclerc, son of a rich iron-merchant having influence in the quarter of St. Germain des Pros, stole the keys from under the bolster of his father's bed; a troop of Burgundian men-at-arms came in, and they were immediately joined by a troop of Parisians. They spread over the city, shouting, "Our Lady of peace! Hurrah for the king! Hurrah for Burgundy!

Let all who wish for peace take arms and follow us!" The people swarmed from the houses and followed them accordingly. The Armagnacs were surprised and seized with alarm. Tanneguy Duchatel, a man of prompt and resolute spirit, ran to the _dauphin_'s, wrapped him in his bed-clothes, and carried him off to the Bastille, where he shut him up with several of his partisans. The Count of Armagnac, towards whose house the mult.i.tude thronged, left by a back-door, and took refuge at a mason's, where he believed himself secure. In a few hours the Burgundians were masters of Paris. Their chief, the lord of Isle-Adam, had the doors of the hostel of St. Paul broken in, and presented himself before the king. "How fares my cousin of Burgundy?" said Charles VI.; "I have not seen him for some time." That was all he said. He was set on horseback and marched through the streets. He showed no astonishment at anything; he had all but lost memory as well as reason, and no longer knew the difference between Armagnac and Burgundian. A devoted Burgundian, Sire Guy de Bar, was named provost of Paris in the place of Tanneguy Duchatel. The mason with whom Bernard of Armagnac had taken refuge went and told the new provost that the constable was concealed at his house. Thither the provost hurried, made the constable mount behind him, and carried him off to prison at the Chatelet, at the same time making honorable exertions to prevent ma.s.sacre and plunder.

But factions do not so soon give up either their vengeance or their hopes. On the 11th of June, 1418, hardly twelve days after Paris had fallen into the hands of the Burgundians, a body of sixteen hundred men issued from the Bastille, and rushed into the street St. Antoine, shouting, "Hurrah for the king, the _dauphin_, and the Count of Armagnac!"

They were Tanneguy Duchatel and some of the chiefs of the Armagnacs who were attempting to regain Paris, where they had observed that the Burgundians were not numerous. Their attempt had no success, and merely gave the Burgundians the opportunity and the signal for a ma.s.sacre of their enemies. The little band of Tanneguy Duchatel was instantly repulsed, hemmed in, and forced to re-enter the Bastille with a loss of four hundred men. Tanneguy saw that he could make no defence there; so he hastily made his way out, taking the _dauphin_ with him to Melun. The ma.s.sacre of the Armagnacs had already commenced on the previous evening: they were harried in the hostelries and houses; they were cut down with axes in the streets. On the night between the 12th and 13th of June a rumor spread about that there were bands of Armagnacs coming to deliver their friends in prison. "They are at the St. Germain gate," said some.

No, it is the St. Marceau gate," said others. The mob a.s.sembled and made a furious rush upon the prison-gates. "The city and burgesses will have no peace," was the general saying, "so long as there is one Armagnac left! Hurrah for peace! Hurrah for the Duke of Burgundy!" The provost of Paris, the lord of Isle-Adam, and the princ.i.p.al Burgundian chieftains, galloped up with a thousand horse, and strove to pacify these madmen, numbering, it is said, some forty thousand. They were received with a stout of, "A plague of your justice and pity! Accursed be he whosoever shall have pity on these traitors of Armagnacs. They are English; they are hounds. They had already made banners for the King of England, and would fain have planted them upon the gates of the city. They made us work for nothing, and when we asked for our due they said, 'You rascals, haven't ye a sou to buy a cord and go hang yourselves? In the devil's name speak no more of it; it will be no use, whatever you say.'" The provost of Paris durst not oppose such fury as this. "Do what you please," said he. The mob ran to look for the constable Armagnac and the chancellor de Marle in the Palace-tower, in which they had been shut up, and they were at once torn to pieces amidst ferocious rejoicings. All the prisons were ransacked and emptied; the prisoners who attempted resistance were smoked out; they were hurled down from the windows upon pikes held up to catch them. The ma.s.sacre lasted from four o'clock in the morning to eleven. The common report was, that fifteen hundred persons had perished in it; the account rendered to parliament made the number eight hundred. The servants of the Duke of Burgundy mentioned to him no more than four hundred.

It was not before the 14th of July that he, with Queen Isabel, came back to the city; and he came with a sincere design, if not of punis.h.i.+ng the cut-throats, at least of putting a stop to all ma.s.sacre and pillage; but there is nothing more difficult than to suppress the consequences of a mischief of which you dare not attack the cause. One Bertrand, head of one of the companies of butchers, had been elected captain of St. Denis because he had saved the abbey from the rapacity of a n.o.ble Burgundian chieftain, Hector de Saveuse. The lord, to avenge himself, had the butcher a.s.sa.s.sinated. The burgesses went to the duke to demand that the a.s.sa.s.sin should be punished; and the duke, who durst neither a.s.sent nor refuse, could only partially cloak his weakness by imputing the crime to some disorderly youngsters whom he enabled to get away. On the 20th of August an angry mob collected in front of the Chatelet, shouting out that n.o.body would bring the Armagnacs to justice, and that they were every day being set at liberty on payment of money. The great and little Chatelet were stormed, and the prisoners ma.s.sacred. The mob would have liked to serve the Bastille the same; but the duke told the rioters that he would give the prisoners up to them if they would engage to conduct them to the Chatelet without doing them any harm, and, to win them over, he grasped the hand of their head man, who was no other than Capeluche, the city executioner. Scarcely had they arrived at the court-yard of the little Chatelet when the prisoners were ma.s.sacred there without any regard for the promise made to the duke. He sent for the most distinguished burgesses, and consulted them as to what could be done to check such excesses; but they confined themselves to joining him in deploring them.

He sent for the savages once more, and said to them, "You would do far better to go and lay siege to Montlhery, to drive off the king's enemies, who have come ravaging everything up to the St. Jacques gate, and preventing the harvest from being got in." "Readily," they answered, "only give us leaders." He gave them leaders, who led six thousand of them to Montlhery. As soon as they were gone Duke John had Capeluche and two of his chief accomplices brought to trial, and Capeluche was beheaded in the market-place by his own apprentice. But the gentry sent to the siege of Montlhery did not take the place; they accused their leaders of having betrayed them, and returned to be a scourge to the neighborhood of Paris, everywhere saying that the Duke of Burgundy was the most irresolute man in the kingdom, and that if there were no n.o.bles the war would be ended in a couple of months. Duke John set about negotiating with the _dauphin_ and getting him back to Paris. The _dauphin_ replied that he was quite ready to obey and serve his mother as a good son should, but that it would be more than he could stomach to go back to a city where so many crimes and so much tyranny had but lately been practised. Terms of reconciliation were drawn up and signed on the 16th of September, 1418, at St. Maur, by the queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the pope's legates; but the _dauphin_ refused to ratify them. The unpunished and long-continued ma.s.sacres in Paris had redoubled his distrust towards the Duke of Burgundy; he had, moreover, just a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of regent of the kingdom; and he had established at Poitiers a parliament, of which Juvenal des Ursins was a member. He had promised the young Count of Armagnac to exact justice for his father's cruel death; and the old friends of the house of Orleans remained faithful to their enmities. The Duke of Burgundy had at one time to fight, and at another to negotiate with the _dauphin_ and the King of England, both at once, and always without success. The _dauphin_ and his council, though showing a little more discretion, were going on in the same alternative and unsatisfactory condition. Clearly neither France and England nor the factions in France had yet exhausted their pa.s.sions or their powers; and the day of summary vengeance was nearer than that of real reconciliation.

Nevertheless, complicated, disturbed and persistently resultless situations always end by becoming irksome to those who are entangled in them, and by inspiring a desire for extrication. The King of England, in spite of his successes and his pride, determined upon sending the Earl of Warwick to Provins, where the king and the Duke of Burgundy still were: a truce was concluded between the English and the Burgundians, and it was arranged that on the 30th of May, 1419, the two kings should meet between Mantes and Melun, and hold a conference for the purpose of trying to arrive at a peace. A few days before the time, Duke John set out from Provins with the king, Queen Isabel, and Princess Catherine, and repaired first of all to Pontoise, and then to the place fixed for the interview, on the borders of the Seine, near Meulan, where two pavilions had been prepared, one for the King of France and the other for the King of England. Charles VI., being ill, remained at Pontoise. Queen Isabel, Princess Catherine, and the Duke of Burgundy arrived at the appointed spot. Henry V. was already there; he went to meet the queen, saluted her, took her hand, and embraced her and Madame Catherine as well; Duke John slightly bent his knee to the king, who raised him up and embraced him likewise. This solemn interview was succeeded by several others to which Princess Catherine did not come. The queen requested the King of England to state exactly what he proposed; and he demanded the execution of the treaty of Bretigny, the cession of Normandy, and the absolute sovereignty, without any bond of va.s.salage, of whatever should be ceded by the treaty. A short discussion ensued upon some secondary questions.

There appeared to be no distant probability of an understanding. The English believed that they saw an inclination on the Duke of Burgundy's part not to hasten to a conclusion, and to obtain better conditions from King Henry by making him apprehensive of a reconciliation with the _dauphin_. Henry proposed to him, for the purpose of ending everything, a conference between themselves alone; and it took place on the 3d of June. "Cousin," said the king to the duke, "we wish you to know that we will have your king's daughter, and all that we have demanded with her; else we will thrust him out of his kingdom, and you too." "Sir,"

answered the duke, "you speak according to your pleasure; but before thrusting my lord and myself from the kingdom you will have what will tire you, we make no doubt, and you will have enough to do to keep yourself in your own island." Between two princes so proud there was little probability of an understanding; and they parted with no other result than mutual displeasure.

Some days before, on the 14th of May, 1419, a truce of three months had been concluded between the _dauphin_ and the Duke of Burgundy, and was to lead to a conference also between these two princes. It did not commence before the 8th of July. During this interval, Duke John had submitted for the mature deliberation of his council the question whether it were better to grant the English demands, or become reconciled to the _dauphin_. Amongst his official councillors opinions were divided; but, in his privacy, the lady of Giac, "whom he loved and trusted mightily,"

and Philip Jossequin, who had at first been his chamber attendant, and afterwards custodian of his jewels and of his privy seal, strongly urged him to make peace with the _dauphin_; and the pope's fresh legate, the Bishop of Laon, added his exhortations to these home influences. There had been fitted up at a league's distance from Melun, on the embankment of the ponds of Vert, a summer-house of branches and leaves, hung with drapery and silken stuffs; and there the first interview between the two princes took place. The _dauphin_ left in displeasure; he had found the Duke of Burgundy haughty and headstrong. Already the old servants of the late Duke of Orleans, impelled by their thirst for vengeance, were saying out loud that the matter should be decided by arms, when the lady of Giac went after the _dauphin_, who from infancy had also been very much attached to her, and she, going backwards and forwards between the two princes, was so affectionate and persuasive with both that she prevailed upon them to meet again, and to sincerely wish for an understanding. The next day but one they returned to the place of meeting, attended, each of them, by a large body of men-at-arms. They advanced towards one another with ten men only, and dismounted. The Duke of Burgundy went on bended knee. The _dauphin_ took him by the hand, embraced him, and would have raised him up. "No, my lord," said the duke; "I know how I ought to address you." The _dauphin_ a.s.sured him that he forgave every offence, if indeed he had received any, and added, "Cousin, if in the proposed treaty between us there be aught which is not to your liking, we desire that you amend it, and henceforth we will desire all you shall desire; make no doubt of it." They conversed for some time with every appearance of cordiality; and then the treaty was signed. It was really a treaty of reconciliation, in which, without dwelling upon "the suspicions and imaginings which have been engendered in the hearts of ourselves and many of our officers, and have hindered us from acting with concord in the great matters of my lord the king and his kingdom, and resisting the d.a.m.nable attempts of his and our old enemies," the two princes made mutual promises, each in language suitable to their rank and connection, "to love one another, support one another, and serve one another mutually, as good and loyal relatives, and bade all their servants, if they saw any hinderance thereto, to give them notice thereof, according to their bounden duty." The treaty was signed by all the men of note belonging to the houses of both princes; and the crowd which surrounded them shouted "Noel!" and invoked curses on whosoever should be minded henceforth to take up arms again in this d.a.m.nable quarrel. When the _dauphin_ went away, the duke insisted upon holding his stirrup, and they parted with every demonstration of amity. The _dauphin_ returned to Touraine, and the duke to Pontoise, to be near the king, who, by letters of July 19, confirmed the treaty, enjoined general forgetfulness of the past, and ordained that "all war should cease, save against the English."

There was universal and sincere joy. The peace fulfilled the requirements at the same time of the public welfare and of national feeling; it was the only means of re-establis.h.i.+ng order at home, and driving from the kingdom the foreigner who aspired to conquer it. Only the friends of the Duke of Orleans, and of the Count of Armagnac, one a.s.sa.s.sinated twelve years before, and the other ma.s.sacred but lately, remained sad and angry at not having yet been able to obtain either justice or vengeance; but they maintained reserve and silence. They were not long in once more finding for mistrust and murmuring grounds or pretexts which a portion of the public showed a disposition to take up.

The Duke of Burgundy had made haste to publish his ratification of the treaty of reconciliation; the _dauphin_ had let his wait. The Parisians were astounded not to see either the _dauphin_ or the Duke of Burgundy coming back within their walls, and at being, as it were, forgotten and deserted amidst the universal making-up. They complained that no armed force was being collected to oppose the English, and that there was an appearance of flying before them, leaving open to them Paris, in which at this time there was no captain of renown. They were still more troubled when, on the 29th of July, they saw the arrival at the St. Denis gate of a mult.i.tude of disconsolate fugitives, some wounded, and others dropping from hunger, thirst, and fatigue. When they were asked who they were, and what was the reason of their desperate condition, "We are from Pontoise," they said; "the English took the town this morning; they killed or wounded all before them; happy he whosoever could escape from their hands; never were Saracens so cruel to Christians as yonder folk are." It was a real fact. The King of England, disquieted at the reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the _dauphin_, and at the ill success of his own proposals at the conference of the 30th of May preceding, had vigorously resumed the war, in order to give both the reunited French factions a taste of his resolution and power. He had suddenly attacked and carried Pontoise, where the command was in the hands of the lord of Isle-Adam, one of the most valiant Burgundian officers. Isle-Adam, surprised and lacking sufficient force, had made a feeble resistance. There was no sign of an active union on the part of the two French factions for the purpose of giving the English battle.

Duke John, who had fallen back upon Troyes, sent order upon order for his va.s.sals from Burgundy, but they did not come up. Public alarm and distrust were day by day becoming stronger. Duke John, it was said, was still keeping up secret communications with the seditious in Paris and with the King of England; why did he not act with more energy against this latter, the common enemy? The two princes in their conference of July 9, near Melun, had promised to meet again; a fresh interview appeared necessary in order to give efficacy to their reconciliation.

Duke John was very pressing for the _dauphin_ to go to Troyes, where the king and queen happened to be. The _dauphin_ on his side was earnestly solicited by the most considerable burgesses of Paris to get this interview over in order to insure the execution of the treaty of peace which had been sworn to with the Duke of Burgundy. The _dauphin_ showed a disposition to listen to these entreaties. He advanced as far as Montereau in order to be ready to meet Duke John as soon as a place of meeting should be fixed.

Duke John hesitated, from irresolution even more than from distrust. It was a serious matter for him to commit himself more and more, by his own proper motion, against the King of England and his old allies amongst the populace of Paris. Why should he be required to go in person to seek the _dauphin_? It was far simpler, he said, for Charles to come to the king his father. Tanneguy Duchatel went to Troyes to tell the duke that the _dauphin_ had come to meet him as far as Montereau, and, with the help of the lady of Giae, persuaded on his side, to Bray-sur-Seine, two leagues from Montereau. When the two princes had drawn thus near, their agents proposed that the interview should take place on the very bridge of Montereau, with the precautions and according to the forms decided on.

In the duke's household many of his most devoted servants were opposed to this interview; the place, they said, had been chosen by and would be under the ordering of the _dauphin_'s people, of the old servants of the Duke of Orleans and the Count of Armagnac. At the same time four successive messages came from Paris urging the duke to make the plunge; and at last he took his resolution. "It is my duty," said he, "to risk my person in order to get at so great a blessing as peace. Whatever happens, my wish is peace. If they kill me, I shall die a martyr. Peace being made, I will take the men of my lord the _dauphin_ to go and fight the English. He has some good men of war and some sagacious captains.

Tanneguy and Barbazan are valiant knights. Then we shall see which is the better man, Jack (Hannotin) of Flanders or Henry of Lancaster." He set out for Bray on the 10th of September, 1419, and arrived about two o'clock before Montereau. Tanneguy Duchatel came and met him there.

"Well," said the duke, "on your a.s.surance we are come to see my lord the _dauphin_, supposing that he is quite willing to keep the peace between himself and us, as we also will keep it, all ready to serve him according to his wishes." "My most dread lord," answered Tanneguy, "have ye no fear; my lord is well pleased with you, and desires henceforth to govern himself according to your counsels. You have about him good friends who serve you well." It was agreed that the _dauphin_ and the duke should, each from his own side, go upon the bridge of Montereau, each with ten men-at-arms, of whom they should previously forward a list. The _dauphin_'s people had caused to be constructed at the two ends of the bridge strong barriers closed by a gate; about the centre of the bridge was a sort of lodge made of planks, the entrance to which was, on either side, through a pretty narrow pa.s.sage; within the lodge there was no barrier in the middle to separate the two parties. Whilst Duke John and his confidants, in concert with the _dauphin_'s people, were regulating these material arrangements, a chamber-attendant ran in quite scared, shouting out, "My lord, look to yourself; without a doubt you will be betrayed." The duke turned towards Tanneguy, and said, "We trust ourselves to your word; in G.o.d's holy name, are you quite sure of what you have told us? For you would do ill to betray us." "My most dread lord," answered Tanneguy, "I would rather be dead than commit treason against you or any other: have ye no fear; I certify you that my lord meaneth you no evil." "Very well, we will go then, trusting in G.o.d and you," re-joined the duke; and he set out walking to the bridge. On arriving at the barrier on the castle side he found there to receive him Sire de Beauveau and Tanneguy Duchatel. "Come to my lord," said they; "he is awaiting you." "Gentlemen," said the duke, "you see how I come;"

and he showed them that he and his people had only their swords; then clapping Tanneguy on the shoulder, he said, "Here is he in whom I trust,"

and advanced towards the _dauphin_, who remained standing, on the town side, at the end of the lodge constructed in the middle of the bridge.

On arriving at the prince's presence Duke John took off his velvet cap and bent his knee to the ground. "My lord," said he, "after G.o.d, my duty is to obey and serve you; I offer to apply thereto and employ therein my body, my friends, my allies, and well-wishers. Say I well?" he added, fixing his eyes on the _dauphin_. "Fair cousin," answered the prince, "you say so well that none could say better; rise and be covered."

Conversation thereupon ensued between the two princes. The _dauphin_ complained of the duke's delay in coming to see him: "For eighteen days,"

he said, "you have made us await your coming in this place of Montereau, this place a prey to epidemic and mortality, at the risk of and probably with an eye to our personal danger." The duke, surprised and troubled, resumed his haughty and exacting tone: "We can neither do nor advise aught," said he, "save in your father's presence; you must come thither."

"I shall go when I think proper," said Charles, "and not at your will and pleasure; it is well known that whatever we do, we two together, the king will be content therewith." Then he reproached the duke with his inertness against the English, with the capture of Pontoise, and with his alliances amongst the promoters of civil war. The conversation was becoming more and more acrid and biting. "In so doing," added the _dauphin_, "you were wanting to your duty." "My lord," replied the duke, "I did only what it was my duty to do." "Yes, you were wanting,"

repeated Charles. "No," replied the duke. It was probably at these words that, the lookers-on also waxing wroth, Tanneguy Duchatel told the duke that the time had come for expiating the murder of the Duke of Orleans, which none of them had forgotten, and raised his battle-axe to strike the duke. Sire de Navailles, who happened to be at his master's side, arrested the weapon; but, on the other hand, the Viscount of Narbonne raised his over Navailles, saying, "Whoever stirs is a dead man." At this moment, it is said, the mob which was thronging before the barriers at the end of the bridge heard cries of "Alarm! slay, slay."

Tanneguy had struck and felled the duke; several others ran their swords into him; and he expired. The _dauphin_ had withdrawn from the scene and gone back into the town. After his departure his partisans forced the barrier, charged the dumbfounded Burgundians, sent them flying along the road to Bray, and returning on to the bridge would have cast the body of Duke John, after stripping it, into the river; but the minister of Montereau withstood them, and had it carried to a mill near the bridge.

"Next day he was put in a pauper's sh.e.l.l, with nothing on but his s.h.i.+rt and drawers, and was subsequently interred at the church of Notre-Dame de Montereau, without winding-sheet and without pall over his grave."

[Ill.u.s.tration: '"Into the River!"'----77]

The enmities of the Orleannese and the Armagnacs had obtained satisfaction; but they were transferred to the hearts of the Burgundians.

After twelve years of public crime and misfortune the murder of Louis of Orleans had been avenged; and should not that of John of Burgundy be, in its turn? Wherever the direct power or the indirect influence of the Duke of Burgundy was predominant, there was a burst of indignation and vindictive pa.s.sion. As soon as the Count of Charolais, Philip, afterwards called the Good, heard at Ghent, where he happened at that time to be, of his father's murder, he was proclaimed Duke of Burgundy.

"Mich.e.l.le," said he to his wife, sister of the _dauphin_, Charles, "your brother has murdered my father." The princess burst into tears; but the new duke calmed her by saying that nothing could alter the love and confidence he felt towards her. At Troyes Queen Isabel showed more anger than any one else against her son, the _dauphin_; and she got a letter written by King Charles VI. to the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, begging her, her and her children, "to set in motion all their relatives, friends, and va.s.sals to avenge Duke John." At Paris, on the 12th of September, the next day but one after the murder, the chancellor, the parliament, the provost royal, the provost of tradesmen, and all the councillors and officers of the king a.s.sembled, "together with great number of n.o.bles and burgesses and a great mult.i.tude of people," who all swore "to oppose with their bodies and all their might the enterprise of the criminal breakers of the peace, and to prosecute the cause of vengeance and reparation against those who were guilty of the death and homicide of the late Duke of Burgundy." Independently of party-pa.s.sion, such was, in Northern and Eastern France, the general and spontaneous sentiment of the people. The _dauphin_ and his councillors, in order to explain and justify their act, wrote in all directions to say that, during the interview, Duke John had answered the _dauphin_ "with mad words . . . He had felt for his sword in order to attack and outrage our person, the which, as we have since found out, he aspired to place in subjection . . . but, through his own madness, met death instead."

But these a.s.sertions found little credence, and one of the two knights who were singled out by the _dauphin_ to accompany him on to the bridge of Montereau, Sire de Barbazan, who had been a friend of the Duke of Orleans and of the Count of Armagnac, said vehemently to the authors of the plot, "You have destroyed our master's honor and heritage, and I would rather have died than be present at this day's work, even though I had not been there to no purpose." But it was not long before an event, easy to foresee, counterbalanced this general impression and restored credit and strength to the _dauphin_ and his party. Henry V., King of England, as soon as he heard about the murder of Duke John, set himself to work to derive from it all the advantages he antic.i.p.ated. "A great loss," said he, "is the Duke of Burgundy; he was a good and true knight and an honorable prince; but through his death we are by G.o.d's help at the summit of our wishes. We shall thus, in spite of all Frenchmen, possess Dame Catherine, whom we have so much desired." As early as the 24th of September, 1419, Henry V. gave full powers to certain of his people to treat "with the ill.u.s.trious city of Paris and the other towns in adherence to the said city." On the 17th of October was opened at Arras a congress between the plenipotentiaries of England and those of Burgundy. On the 20th of November a special truce was granted to the Parisians, whilst Henry V., in concert with Duke Philip of Burgundy, was prosecuting the war against the _dauphin_. On the 2d of December the bases were laid of an agreement between the English and the Burgundians.

The preliminaries of the treaty, which was drawn up in accordance with these bases, were signed on the 9th of April, 1420, by King Charles VI., and on the 20th communicated at Paris by the chancellor of France to the parliament and to all the religious and civil, royal and munic.i.p.al authorities of the capital. After this communication, the chancellor and the premier president of parliament went with these preliminaries to Henry V. at Pontoise, where he set out with a division of his army for Troyes, where the treaty, definitive and complete, was at last signed and promulgated in the cathedral of Troyes, on the 21st of May, 1420.

Of the twenty-eight articles in this treaty, five contained its essential points and fixed its character: 1st. The King of France, Charles VI., gave his daughter Catherine in marriage to Henry V., King of England.

2d. "Our son, King Henry, shall place no hinderance or trouble in the way of our holding and possessing as long as we live, and as at the present time, the crown, the kingly dignity of France, and all the revenues, proceeds, and profits which are attached thereto for the maintenance of our state and the charges of the kingdom. 3d. It is agreed that immediately after our death, and from that time forward, the crown and kingdom of France, with all their rights and appurtenances, shall belong perpetually and shall be continued to our son King Henry and his heirs.

4th. Whereas we are, at most times, prevented from advising by ourselves and from taking part in the disposal of the affairs of our kingdom, the power and the practice of governing and ordering the commonweal shall belong and shall be continued, during our life, to our son King Henry, with the counsel of the n.o.bles and sages of the kingdom who shall obey us and shall desire the honor and advantage of the said kingdom. 5th. Our son King Henry shall strive with all his might, and as soon as possible, to bring back to their obedience to us, all and each of the towns, cities, castles, places, districts, and persons in our kingdom that belong to the party commonly called of the _dauphin_ or Armagnac."

This subst.i.tution, in the near future, of an English for the French kings.h.i.+p; this relinquishment, in the present, of the government of France to the hands of an English prince nominated to become before long her king; this authority given to the English prince to prosecute in France, against the _dauphin_ of France, a civil war; this complete abdication of all the rights and duties of the kings.h.i.+p, of paternity and of national independence; and, to sum up all in one word, this anti-French state-stroke accomplished by a king of France, with the co-operation of him who was the greatest amongst French lords, to the advantage of a foreign sovereign--there was surely in this enough to excite the most ardent and most legitimate national feelings. They did not show themselves promptly or with a blaze. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after so many military and civil troubles, had great weaknesses and deep-seated corruption in mind and character.

Nevertheless the revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. He had great difficulty in winning John of Luxembourg and his brother Louis, Bishop of Therouenne, over to it. "It is your will," said they; "we will take this oath; but if we do, we will keep it to the hour of death."

Many less powerful lords, who had lived a long while in the household of Duke John the Fearless, quitted his son, and sorrowfully returned to their own homes. They were treated as Armagnacs, but they persisted in calling themselves good and loyal Frenchmen. In the duchy of Burgundy the majority of the towns refused to take the oath to the King of England. The most decisive and the most helpful proof of this awakening of national feeling was the ease experienced by the _dauphin_, who was one day to be Charles VII., in maintaining the war which, after the treaty of Troyes, was, in his father's and his mother's name, made upon him by the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy. This war lasted more than three years. Several towns, amongst others, Melun, Crotoy, Meaux, and St. Riquier, offered an obstinate resistance to the attacks of the English and Burgundians. On the 23d of March, 1421, the _dauphin_'s troops, commanded by Sire de la Fayette, gained a signal victory over those of Henry V., whose brother, the Duke of Clarence, was killed in action. It was in Perche, Anjou, Maine, on the banks of the Loire, and in Southern France, that the _dauphin_ found most of his enterprising and devoted partisans. The sojourn made by Henry V. at Paris, in December, 1420, with his wife, Queen Catherine, King Charles VI., Queen Isabel, and the Duke of Burgundy, was not, in spite of galas and acclamations, a substantial and durable success for him. His dignified but haughty manners did not please the French; and he either could not or would not render them more easy and amiable, even with men of note who were necessary to him. Marshal Isle-Adam one day went to see him in camp on war-business. The king considered that he did not present himself with sufficient ceremony. "Isle-Adam," said he, "is that the robe of a marshal of France?" "Sir, I had this whity-gray robe made to come hither by water aboard of Seine-boats." "Ha!" said the king, "look you a prince in the face when you speak to him?" "Sir, it is the custom in France, that when one man speaks to another, of whatever rank and puissance that other may be, he pa.s.ses for a sorry fellow, and but little honorable, if he dares not look him in the face." "It is not our fas.h.i.+on," said the king; and the subject dropped there. A popular poet of the time, Alan Chattier, const.i.tuted himself censor of the moral corruption and interpreter of the patriotic paroxysms caused by the cold and harsh supremacy of this unbending foreigner, who set himself up for king of France, and had not one feeling in sympathy with the French. Alan Chartier's _Quadriloge invectif_ is a lively and sometimes eloquent allegory, in which France personified implores her three children, the clergy, the chivalry, and the people, to forget their own quarrels and unite to save their mother whilst saving themselves; and this political pamphlet getting spread about amongst the provinces did good service to the national cause against the foreign conqueror. An event more powerful than any human eloquence occurred to give the _dauphin_ and his partisans earlier hopes. Towards the end of August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted to delude himself as to his condition, he thought no longer of anything but preparing himself for death. He had himself removed to Vincennes, called his councillors about him, and gave them his last royal instructions. "I leave you the government of France," said he to his brother, the Duke of Bedford, "unless our brother of Burgundy have a mind to undertake it; for, above all things, I conjure you not to have any dissension with him. If that should happen G.o.d preserve you from it!

--the affairs of this kingdom, which seem well advanced for us, would become bad." As soon as he had done with politics he bade his doctors tell him how long he had still to live. One of them knelt down before his bed and said, "Sir, be thinking of your soul; it seemeth to us that, saving the divine mercy, you have not more than two hours." The king summoned his confessor with the priests, and asked to have recited to him the penitential psalms. When they came to the twentieth versicle of the _Miserere,--Ut oedificentur muri Hierusalem_ (that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up),--He made them stop. "Ah!" said he, "if G.o.d had been pleased to let me live out my time, I would, after putting an end to the war in France, reducing the _dauphin_ to submission or driving him out of the kingdom in which I would have established a sound peace, have gone to conquer Jerusalem. The wars I have undertaken have had the approval of all the proper men and of the most holy personages; I commenced them and have prosecuted them without offence to G.o.d or peril to my soul." These were his last words. The chanting of the psalms was resumed around him, and he expired on the 31st of August, 1422, at the age of thirty-four. A great soul and a great king; but a great example also of the boundless errors which may be fallen into by the greatest men when they pursue with arrogant confidence their own views, forgetting the laws of justice and the rights of other men.

On the 22d of October, 1422, less than two months after the death of Henry V., Charles VI., King of France, died at Paris in the forty-third year of his reign. As soon as he had been buried at St. Denis, the Duke of Bedford, regent of France according to the will of Henry V., caused a herald to proclaim, "Long live Henry of Lancaster, King of England and of France!" The people's voice made very different proclamation. It had always been said that the public evils proceeded from the state of illness into which the unhappy King Charles had fallen. The goodness he had given glimpses of in his lucid intervals had made him an object of tender pity. Some weeks yet before his death, when he had entered Paris again, the inhabitants, in the midst of their sufferings and under the harsh government of the English, had seen with joy their poor mad king coming back amongst them, and had greeted him with thousand-fold shouts of "Noel!" His body lay in state for three days, with the face uncovered, in a hall of the hostel of St. Paul, and the mult.i.tude went thither to pray for him, saying, "Ah! dear prince, never shall we have any so good as thou Wert; never shall we see thee more. Accursed be thy death! Since thou dost leave us, we shall never have aught but wars and troubles. As for thee, thou goest to thy rest; as for us, we remain in tribulation and sorrow. We seem made to fall into the same distress as the children of Israel during the captivity in Babylon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Body of Charles VI. lying in State----84]

The people's instinct was at the same time right and wrong. France had yet many evil days to go through and cruel trials to endure; she was, however, to be saved at last; Charles VI. was to be followed by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc.

CHAPTER XXIV.----THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.--CHARLES VII. AND JOAN OF ARC. 1422-1461.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF JOAN OF ARC----85]

Whilst Charles VI. was dying at Paris, his son Charles, the _dauphin_, was on his way back from Saintonge to Berry, where he usually resided.

On the 24th of October, 1422, at Mehun-sur-Yevre, he heard of his father's death. For six days longer, from the 24th to the 29th of October, he took no style but that of regent, as if he were waiting to see what was going to happen elsewhere in respect of the succession to the throne. It was only when he knew that, on the 27th of October, the parliament of Paris had, not without some little hesitation and ambiguity, recognized "as King of England and of France, Henry VI., son of Henry V. lately deceased," that the _dauphin_ Charles a.s.sumed on the 30th of October, in his castle of Mehun-sur-Yevre, the t.i.tle of king, and repaired to Bourges to inaugurate in the cathedral of that city his reign as Charles VII.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Shepherdess of Domremy----90]

He was twenty years old, and had as yet done nothing to gain for himself, not to say anything of glory, the confidence and hopes of the people. He pa.s.sed for an indolent and frivolous prince, abandoned to his pleasures only; one whose capacity there was nothing to foreshadow, and of whom France, outside of his own court, scarcely ever thought at all. Some days before his accession he had all but lost his life at Roch.e.l.le by the sudden breaking down of the room in the episcopal palace where he was staying; and so little did the country know of what happened to him that, a short time after the accident, messengers sent by some of his partisans had arrived at Bourges to inquire if the prince were still living. At a time when not only the crown of the kingdom, but the existence and independence of the nation, were at stake, Charles had not given any signs of being strongly moved by patriotic feelings. "He was, in person, a handsome prince, and handsome in speech with all persons, and compa.s.sionate towards poor folks," says his contemporary Monstrelet; "but he did not readily put on his harness, and he had no heart for war if he could do without it." On ascending the throne, this young prince, so little of the politician and so little of the knight, encountered at the head of his enemies the most able amongst the politicians and warriors of the day in the Duke of Bedford, whom his brother Henry V. had appointed regent of France, and had charged to defend on behalf of his nephew, Henry VI., a child in the cradle, the crown of France, already more than half won. Never did struggle appear more unequal or native king more inferior to foreign pretender.

Sagacious observers, however, would have easily discerned in the cause which appeared the stronger and the better supported many seeds of weakness and danger. When Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, heard at Arras, that Charles VI. was dead, it occurred to him immediately that if he attended the obsequies of the English King of France he would be obliged, French prince as he was, and cousin-german of Charles VI., to yield precedence to John, Duke of Bedford, regent of France, and uncle of the new king, Henry VI. He resolved to hold aloof, and contented himself with sending to Paris chamberlains to make his excuses and supply his place with the regent. On the 11th of November, 1422, the Duke of Bedford followed alone at the funeral of the late king of France, and alone made offering at the ma.s.s. Alone he went, but with the sword of state borne before him as regent. The people of Paris cast down their eyes with restrained wrath. "They wept," says a contemporary, "and not without cause, for they knew not whether for a long, long while they would have any king in France." But they did not for long confine themselves to tears. Two poets, partly in Latin and partly in French, Robert Blondel, and Alan Chartier, whilst deploring the public woes, excited the popular feeling. Conspiracies soon followed the songs. One was set on foot at Paris to deliver the city to king Charles VII., but it was stifled ruthlessly; several burgesses were beheaded, and one woman was burned. In several great provincial cities, at Troyes and at Rheims, the same ferment showed itself, and drew down the same severity. William Prieuse, superior of the Carmelites, was accused of propagating sentiments favorable to the _dauphin_, as the English called Charles VII.

Being brought, in spite of the privileges of his gown, before John Cauchon, lieutenant of the captain of Rheims [related probably to Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who nine years afterwards was to sentence Joan of Arc to be burned], he stoutly replied, "Never was English king of France, and never shall be." The country had no mind to believe in the conquest it was undergoing; and the Duke of Burgundy, the most puissant ally of the English, sulkily went on eluding the consequences of the anti-national alliance he had accepted.

Such being the disposition of conquerors and conquered, the war, though still carried on with great spirit, could not, and in fact did not, bring about any decisive result from 1422 to 1429. Towns were alternately taken, lost, and retaken, at one time by the French, at another by the English or Burgundians; petty encounters and even important engagements took place with vicissitudes of success and reverses on both sides. At Crevant-sur-Yonne, on the 31st of July, 1423, and at Verneuil, in Normandy, on the 17th of August, 1424, the French were beaten, and their faithful allies, the Scots, suffered considerable loss. In the latter affair, however, several Norman lords deserted the English flag, refusing to fight against the King of France. On the 26th of September, 1423, at La Gravelle, in Maine, the French were victorious, and Du Guesclin was commemorated in their victory. Anne de Laval, granddaughter of the great Breton warrior, and mistress of a castle hard by the scene of action, sent thither her son, Andrew de Laval, a child twelve years of age, and, as she buckled with her own hands the sword which his ancestor had worn, she said to him, "G.o.d make thee as valiant as he whose sword this was!"

The boy received the order of knighthood on the field of battle, and became afterwards a marshal of France. Little bands, made up of volunteers, attempted enterprises which the chiefs of the regular armies considered impossible. Stephen de Vignolles, celebrated under the name of La Hire, resolved to succor the town of Montargis, besieged by the English; and young Dunois, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Orleans, joined him. On arriving, September 5, 1427, beneath the walls of the place, a priest was encountered in their road. La Hire asked him for absolution. The priest told him to confess. "I have no time for that," said La Hire; "I am in a hurry; I have done in the way of sins all that men of war are in the habit of doing." Whereupon, says the chronicler, the chaplain gave him absolution for what it was worth; and La Hire, putting his hands together, said, "G.o.d, I pray Thee to do for La Hire this day as much as Thou wouldst have La Hire do for Thee if he were G.o.d and Thou wert La Hire." And Montargis was rid of its besiegers. The English determined to become masters of Mont St. Michel au peril de la mer, that abbey built on a rock facing the western coast of Normandy and surrounded every day by the waves of ocean. The thirty-second abbot, Robert Jolivet, promised to give the place up to them, and went to Rouen with that design; but one of his monks, John Enault, being elected vicar-general by the chapter, and supported by some valiant Norman warriors, offered an obstinate resistance for eight years, baffled all the attacks of the English, and retained the abbey in the possession of the King of France. The inhabitants of La Roch.e.l.le rendered the same service to the king and to France in a more important case. On the 15th of August, 1427, an English fleet of a hundred and twenty sail, it is said, appeared off their city with invading troops aboard. The Roch.e.l.lese immediately levied upon themselves an extraordinary tax, and put themselves in a state of defence; troops raised in the neighborhood went and occupied the heights bordering on the coast; and a bold Breton sailor, Bernard de Kercabin, put to sea to meet the enemy, with s.h.i.+ps armed as privateers. The attempt of the English seemed to them to offer more danger than chance of success; and they withdrew. Thus Charles VII. kept possession of the only seaport remaining to the crown. Almost everywhere in the midst of a war as indecisive as it was obstinate local patriotism and the spirit of chivalry successfully disputed against foreign supremacy the scattered fragments of the fatherland and the throne.

In order to put an end to this doubtful condition of events and of minds, the Duke of Bedford determined to aim a grand blow at the national party in France and at her king. After Paris and Rouen, Orleans was the most important city in the kingdom; it was as supreme on the banks of the Loire as Paris and Rouen were on those of the Seine. After having obtained from England considerable re-enforcements commanded by leaders of experience, the English commenced, in October, 1428, the siege of Orleans. The approaches to the place were occupied in force, and bastilles closely connected one with another were constructed around the walls. As a set-off, the most valiant warriors of France, La Hire, Dunois, Xaintrailles, and the Marshal La Fayette threw themselves into Orleans, the garrison of which amounted to scarcely twelve hundred men.

Several towns, Bourges, Poitiers, and La Roch.e.l.le, sent thither money, munitions, and militia; the states-general, a.s.sembled at Chinon, voted an extraordinary aid; and Charles VII. called out the regulars and the reserves. a.s.saults on the one side and sorties on the other were begun with ardor. Besiegers and besieged quite felt that they were engaged in a decisive struggle. The first encounter was unfortunate for the Orleannese. In a fight called the Herring affair, they were unsuccessful in an attempt to carry off a supply of victuals and salt fish which Sir John Falstolf was bringing to the besiegers. Being a little discouraged, they offered the Duke of Burgundy to place their city in his hands, that it might not fall into those of the English; and Philip the Good accepted the offer, but the Duke of Bedford made a formal objection: "He didn't care," he said, "to beat the bushes for another to get the birds."

Philip in displeasure withdrew from the siege the small force of Burgundians he had sent. The English remained alone before the place, which was every day harder pressed and more strictly blockaded. The besieged were far from foreseeing what succor was preparing for them.

This very year, on the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a little village in the valley of the Meuse, between Neufchateau 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. She was no recluse; she often went with her companions to sing and eat cakes beside the fountain by the gooseberry-bush, under an old beech, which was called the fairy-tree: but dancing she did not like. She was constant at church, she delighted in the sound of the bells, she went often to confession and communion, and she blushed when her fair friends taxed her with being too religious. In 1421, when Joan was hardly nine, a band of Anglo-Burgundians penetrated into her country, and transferred thither the ravages of war. The village of Domremy and the little town of Vaucouleurs were French, and faithful to the French king-s.h.i.+p; and Joan wept to see the lads of her parish returning bruised and bleeding from encounters with the enemy.

Her relations and neighbors were one day obliged to take to flight, and at their return they found their houses burned or devastated. Joan wondered whether it could possibly be that G.o.d permitted such excesses and disasters. In 1425, on a summer's day, at noon, she was in her father's little garden. She heard a voice calling her, at her right side, in the direction of the church, and a great brightness shone upon her at the same time in the same spot. At first she was frightened, but she recovered herself on finding that "it was a worthy voice;" and, at the second call, she perceived that it was the voice of angels. "I saw them with my bodily eyes," she said, six years later, to her judges at Rouen, "as plainly as I see you; when they departed from me I wept, and would fain have had them take me with them." The apparitions came again and again, and exhorted her "to go to France for to deliver the kingdom."

She became dreamy, rapt in constant meditation. "I could endure no longer," said she, at a later period, "and the time went heavily with me as with a woman in travail." She ended by telling everything to her father, who listened to her words anxiously at first, and afterwards wrathfully. He himself one night dreamed that his daughter had followed the king's men-at-arms to France, and from that moment he kept her under strict superintendence. "If I knew of your sister's going," he said to his sons, "I would bid you drown her; and, if you did not do it, I would drown her myself." Joan submitted: there was no leaven of pride in her sublimation, and she did not suppose that her intercourse with celestial voices relieved her from the duty of obeying her parents. Attempts were made to distract her mind. A young man who had courted her was induced to say that he had a promise of marriage from her, and to claim the fulfilment of it. Joan went before the ecclesiastical judge, made affirmation that she had given no promise, and without difficulty gained her cause. Everybody believed and respected her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Joan of Arc in her Father's Garden----91]

In a village hard by Domremy she had an uncle whose wife was near her confinement; she got herself invited to go and nurse her aunt, and thereupon she opened her heart to her uncle, repeating to him a popular saying, which had spread indeed throughout the country: "Is it not said that a woman shall ruin France, and a young maid restore it?" She pressed him to take her to Vaucouleurs to Sire Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the bailiwick, for she wished to go to the _dauphin_ and carry a.s.sistance to him. Her uncle gave way, and on the 13th of May, 1428, he did take her to Vaucouleurs. "I come on behalf of my Lord," said she to Sire de Baudricourt, "to bid you send word to the _dauphin_ to keep himself well in hand, and not give battle to his foes, for my Lord will presently give him succor." "Who is thy lord?" asked Baudricourt. "The King of Heaven," answered Joan. Baudricourt set her down for mad, and urged her uncle to take her back to her parents "with a good slap o' the face."

In July, 1428, a fresh invasion of Burgundians occurred at Domremy, and redoubled the popular excitement there. Shortly afterwards, the report touching the siege of Orleans arrived there. Joan, more and more pa.s.sionately possessed with her idea, returned to Vaucouleurs. "I must go," said she to Sire de Baudricourt, "for to raise the siege of Orleans.

I will go, should I have to wear off my legs to the knee." She had returned to Vaucouleurs without taking leave of her parents. "Had I possessed," said she, in 1431, to her judges at Rouen, "a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, and had I been a king's daughter, I should have gone." Baudricourt, impressed without being convinced, did not oppose her remaining at Vaucouleurs, and sent an account of this singular young girl to Duke Charles of Lorraine, at Nancy, and perhaps even, according to some chronicles, to the king's court. Joan lodged at Vaucouleurs in a wheelwright's house, and pa.s.sed three weeks there, spinning with her hostess, and dividing her time between work and church. There was much talk in Vaucouleurs of her, and her visions, and her purpose. John of Metz [also called John of Novelompont], a knight serving with Sire de Baudricourt, desired to see her, and went to the wheelwright's. "What do you here, my dear?" said he; "must the king be driven from his kingdom, and we become English?" "I am come hither," answered Joan, "to speak to Robert de Baudricourt, that he may be pleased to take me or have me taken to the king; but he pays no heed to me or my words. However, I must be with the king before the middle of Lent, for none in the world, nor kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the Scottish king can recover the kingdom of France; there is no help but in me. a.s.suredly I would far rather be spinning beside my poor mother, for this other is not my condition; but I must go and do the work because my Lord wills that I should do it." "Who is your lord?" "The Lord G.o.d." "By my faith,"

said the knight, seizing Joan's hands, "I will take you to the king, G.o.d helping. When will you set out?" "Rather now than to-morrow; rather to-morrow than later." Vaucouleurs was full of the fame and the sayings of Joan. Another knight, Bertrand de Poulengy, offered, as John of Metz had, to be her escort, Duke Charles of Lorraine wished to see her, and sent for her to Nancy. Old and ill as he was, he had deserted the d.u.c.h.ess his wife, a virtuous lady, and was leading anything but a regular life. He asked Joan's advice about his health. "I have no power to cure you," said Joan, "but go back to your wife and help me in that for which G.o.d ordains me." The duke ordered her four golden crowns, and she returned to Vaucouleurs, thinking of nothing but her departure. There was no want of confidence and good will on the part of the inhabitants of Vaucouleurs in forwarding her preparations. John of Metz, the knight charged to accompany her, asked her if she intended to make the journey in her poor red rustic petticoats. "I would like to don man's clothes,"

answered Joan. Subscriptions were made to give her a suitable costume.

She was supplied with a horse, a coat of mail, a lance, a sword, the complete equipment, indeed, of a man-at-arms; and a king's messenger and an archer formed her train. Baudricourt made them swear to escort her safely, and on the 25th of February, 1429, he bade her farewell, and all he said was, "Away then, Joan, and come what may."