The Life of Joan of Arc Part 65

[Footnote 1532: _Ibid._, p. 104. H. Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, p.

37.]

After the King's coronation, jostled by the crowd in the Rue du Parvis, one can imagine some thoughtful clerk raising his eyes to the glorious facade of the Cathedral, that Bible in stone, already appearing ancient to men, who, knowing naught of the chronicles, measured time by the span of human existence. Such a clerk would have certainly beheld on the left of the pointed arch above the rose window the colossal image of Goliath rising proudly in his coat of mail, and that same figure repeated on the right of the arch in the att.i.tude of a man tottering and ready to fall.[1533] Then this clerk must have remembered what is written in the first book of Kings:[1534]

[Footnote 1533: "These figures (Goliath and David) must have been sculptured at the end of the 13th century." (L. Demaison, _Notice historique sur la cathedrale de Reims_, s.d. in 4to, p. 44.) The date of the rose window is 1280 (H. Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, p.

44).]

[Footnote 1534: According to the Vulgate. First book of Samuel according to the Authorized Version (W.S.).]

"And there went out a man base-born from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Geth, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had a helmet of bra.s.s upon his head and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales; and the weight of his coat of mail was five thousand sicles of bra.s.s. And standing he cried out to the bands of Israel and said to them: I bring reproach unto the armies of Israel. Choose out a man of you, and let him come down and fight hand to hand.

"Now David had gone to feed his Father's sheep at Bethlehem. But he arose in the morning and gave the charge of the flock to the keeper.

And he came to the place of Magala and to the army which was going out to fight. And, seeing Goliath, he asked: 'Who is this uncirc.u.mcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living G.o.d?'

"And the words which David spoke, were rehea.r.s.ed before Saul; and he sent for him. David said to Saul, 'Let not any man's heart be dismayed in him; I, thy servant, will go and fight against this Philistine.'

And Saul said to David 'Thou art not able to withstand this Philistine nor to fight against him; for thou art but a boy, but he is a warrior from his youth.' And David made answer, 'I will go against him and I will take away the reproach from Israel.' Then Saul said to David, 'Go and the Lord be with thee.'

"And David took his staff which he had always in his hands, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and he took a sling in his hand; and went forth against the Philistine.

"And when the Philistine looked and beheld David, he despised him. For he was a young man, and ruddy, and of a comely countenance. And the Philistine said to David: 'Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with a staff?' Then said David to the Philistine: 'Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear and with a s.h.i.+eld: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the G.o.d of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand that all the earth may know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is his battle, and he will deliver you into our hands.'

"And when the Philistine arose and was coming and drew nigh to meet David, David made haste and ran to the fight to meet the Philistine.

And he put his hand into his scrip and took a stone, and cast it with the sling and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead, and the stone was fixed in his forehead and he fell on his face upon the earth."[1535]

[Footnote 1535: 1 Samuel xvii. Where the author quotes direct from the Vulgate the translator has followed the Douai version (W.S.).]

Then the clerk, meditating on these words of the Book, would reflect how G.o.d, the Unchanging, who saved Israel and struck down Goliath by the sling of a shepherd lad, had raised up the daughter of a husbandman for the deliverance of the most Christian realm and the reproach of the Leopard.[1536]

[Footnote 1536: See the coronation of David and that of Louis XII by an unknown painter, about 1498, in the Cluny Museum. H. Bouchot, _L'exposition des primitifs francais. La peinture en France sous les Valois_, book ii, figure C.]

From Gien, about June the 27th, the Maid had had a letter written to the Duke of Burgundy, calling upon him to come to the King's anointing. Having received no reply, on the day of the coronation she dictated a second letter to the Duke. Here it is:

[cross symbol] JHESUS MARIA

"High and greatly to be feared Prince, Duke of Burgundy, Jehanne the Maid, in the name of the King of Heaven, her rightful and liege lord, requires you and the King of France to make a good peace which shall long endure. Forgive one another heartily and entirely as becometh good Christians; an if it please you to make war, go ye against the Saracens.

Prince of Burgundy, I pray you, I entreat you, I beseech you as humbly as lieth in my power, that ye make war no more against the holy realm of France, and that forthwith and speedily ye withdraw those your men who are in any strongholds and fortresses of the said holy kingdom; and in the name of the fair King of France, he is ready to make peace with you, saving his honour if that be necessary. And in the name of the King of Heaven, my Sovereign liege Lord, for your good, your honour and your life, I make known unto you, that ye will never win in battle against the loyal French and that all they who wage war against the holy realm of France, will be warring against King Jhesus, King of Heaven and of the world, my lawful liege lord. And with clasped hands I beseech and entreat you that ye make no battle nor wage war against us, neither you, nor your people, nor your subjects; and be a.s.sured that whatever number of folk ye bring against us, they will gain nothing, and it will be sore pity for the great battle and the blood that shall be shed of those that come against us. And three weeks past, I did write and send you letters by a herald, that ye should come to the anointing of the King, which to-day, Sunday, the 17th day of this present month, is made in the city of Reims: to which letter I have had no answer, neither news of the said herald. To G.o.d I commend you; may he keep you, if it be his will; and I pray G.o.d to establish good peace. Written from the said place of Reims, on the said seventeenth of July."

Addressed: "to the Duke of Burgundy."[1537]

[Footnote 1537: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 126-127. Hennebert, _Une lettre de Jeanne d'Arc aux Tournaisiens_ in _Arch. hist. et litt. du nord de la France et du midi de la Belgique_, nouv. serie, vol. i, 1837, p.

525. Facsimile in _l'Alb.u.m des archives departementales_, no. 123.]

Had Saint Catherine of Sienna been at Reims she would not have written otherwise. Albeit the Maid liked not the Burgundians, in her own way she realized forcibly how desirable was peace with the Duke of Burgundy. With clasped hands she entreats him to cease making war against France. "An it please you to make war then go ye against the Saracens." Already she had counselled the English to join the French and go on a crusade. The destruction of the infidel was then the dream of gentle peace-loving souls; and many pious folk believed that the son of the knight, who had been vanquished at Nicopolis, would make the Turks pay dearly for their former victory.[1538]

[Footnote 1538: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 82, 83. Eberhard Windecke, p.

61, note 9, p. 108. Christine de Pisan, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 416.

Jorga, _Notes et extraits pour servir a l'histoire des croisades au XV'e siecle_, Paris, 1889-1902. 3 vols. in 8vo.]

In this letter, the Maid, in the name of the King of Heaven, tells Duke Philip that if he fight against the King, he will be conquered.

Her voices had foretold to her the victory of France over Burgundy; they had not revealed to her that at the very moment when she was dictating her letter the amba.s.sadors of Duke Philip were at Reims; that was so, notwithstanding.[1539]

[Footnote 1539: _Memoires du Pape Pie II_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, pp.

514, 515. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 190.]

Esteeming King Charles, master of Champagne, to be a prince worthy of consideration, Duke Philip sent to Reims, David de Brimeu, Bailie of Artois, at the head of an emba.s.sy, to greet him and open negotiations for peace.[1540] The Burgundians received a hearty welcome from the Chancellor and the Council. It was hoped that peace would be concluded before their departure. The Angevin lords announced it to their queens, Yolande and Marie.[1541] By so doing they showed how little they knew the consummate old fox of Dijon. The French were not strong enough yet, neither were the English weak enough. It was agreed that in August an emba.s.sy should be sent to the Duke of Burgundy in the town of Arras. After four days negotiation, a truce for fifteen days was signed and the emba.s.sy left Reims.[1542] At the same time, the Duke at Paris solemnly renewed his complaint against Charles of Valois, his father's a.s.sa.s.sin, and undertook to bring an army to the help of the English.[1543]

[Footnote 1540: _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 514, 515. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 340. _Relation du greffier de La Roch.e.l.le_, p. 37. Letter from three n.o.blemen of Anjou, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 130. Third account of Jean Abonnel in De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p.

404, no. 3.]

[Footnote 1541: Letter from three n.o.blemen of Anjou, in _Trial_, vol.

v, p. 130.]

[Footnote 1542: The 20th or 21st. Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 348 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. II, pp. 404 _et seq._]

[Footnote 1543: Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 455. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 240, 241. Stevenson, _Letters and papers_, vol. ii, pp. 101 _et seq._ Rymer, _Foedera_, vol. iv, part iv, p. 150.]

Leaving Antoine de h.e.l.lande, nephew of the Duke-Archbishop[1544] to command Reims, the King of France departed from the city on the 20th of July and went to Saint-Marcoul-de-Corbeny, where on the day after their coronation, the Kings were accustomed to touch for the evil.[1545]

[Footnote 1544: Archives de Reims, Munic.i.p.al Accounts, vol. i, years 1428-29. _Trial_, vol. v, p. 141. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 339. H.

Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 1545: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 199. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 323. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 97. _Journal du siege_, p. 114. Martial d'Auvergne, _Vigiles_, vol. i, p. 111.]

Saint Marcoul cured the evil.[1546] He was of royal race, but his power, manifested long after his death, came to him especially from his name, and it was believed that Saint Marcoul was able to cure those afflicted with marks on the neck, as Saint Clare was to give sight to the blind, and Saint Fort to give strength to children. The King of France shared with him the power of healing scrofula; and as the power came to him from the holy oil brought down from heaven by a dove, it was thought that this virtue would be more effectual at the time of the anointing, all the more because by lewdness, disobedience to the Christian Church, and other irregularities, he stood in danger of losing it. That is what had happened to King Philippe I.[1547] The Kings of England touched for the evil; notably King Edward III worked wondrous cures on scrofulous folk who were covered with scars. For these reasons scrofula was called Saint Marcoul's evil or King's evil.

Virgins as well as kings could cure this royal malady.

[Footnote 1546: _Gallia Christ_: ix, pp, 239, 51 [Transcriber's Note: so in original; does not match other citations to this work]. Le Poulle, _Notice sur Corbeny, son prieure, et le pelerinage de Saint-Marcoul_, Soissons, 1883, 8vo. E. de Barthelemy, _Notice historique sur le pelerinage de Saint-Marcoul et Corbeny_, in _Ann.

Soc. Acad. de Saint-Quentin_, 1878.]

[Footnote 1547: A. Du Laurent, _De mirabili strumas sanandi vi solis regibus Galliarum christianissimis divinitus concessa liber_, Paris, 1607, 8vo. Cerf, _Du toucher des ecrouelles par le roi de France_, in _Trav. Acad. de Reims_, 1865-1867. Dom Marlot, _Histoire de la ville de Reims_, vol. iii, pp. 196 _et seq._]

King Charles wors.h.i.+pped and presented offerings at the shrine of Saint Marcoul, and there touched for the evil. At Corbeny he received the submission of the town of Laon. Then, on the morrow, the 22nd, he went off to a little stronghold in the valley of the Aisne, called Vailly, which belonged to the Archbishop Duke of Reims. At Vailly he received the submission of the town of Soissons.[1548] In the words of an Armagnac prophet of the time: "the keys of the war gates knew the hands that had forged them."[1549]

[Footnote 1548: Perceval de Cagny, p. 160. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 323, 324. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 98. _Journal du siege_, p. 115. _Chronique des Cordeliers_, fol. 486 r'o. Morosini, iii, p. 182, note 3.]

[Footnote 1549: Brehal, in _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 345.]

CHAPTER XIX

RISE OF THE LEGEND

It is always difficult to ascertain what happens in war. In those days it was quite impossible to form any clear idea of how things came about. At Orleans, doubtless, there were certain who were keen enough to perceive that the numerous and ingenious engines of war, gathered together by the magistrates, had been of great service; but folk generally prefer to ascribe results to miraculous causes, and the merit of their deliverance the people of Orleans attributed first to their Blessed Patrons, Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, and after them to Jeanne, the Divine Maid, believing that there was no easier, simpler, or more natural explanation of the deeds they had witnessed.[1550]

[Footnote 1550: _Journal du siege_, pp. 16, 88. _Chronique de l'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 296. Lottin, _Recits historiques sur Orleans_, vol. i, p. 279.]