Part 1 (2/2)
[Footnote 9: _Ne donnoit point d'argent pour soy faire mettre es croniques._--Jean de Bueil, _Le Jouvencel_, ed. C. Fabre and L.
Lecestre, Paris, 1887, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 283.]
[Footnote 10: Perceval de Cagny, _Chroniques_, published by H.
Moranville, Paris, 1902, 8vo.]
[Footnote 11: _Le sens, memoire, ne l'abillite de savoir faire metre par escript ce, ne autre chose mendre de plus de la moitie_, Perceval de Cagny, p. 31.]
[Footnote 12: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 1.]
Gilles le Bouvier,[13] king at arms of the province of Berry, who was forty-three in 1429, is somewhat more judicious than Perceval de Cagny; and, in spite of some confusion of dates, he is better informed of military proceedings. But his story is of too summary a nature to tell us much.
[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, pp. 40-50. D. G.o.defroy, _Histoire de Charles VII_, Paris, 1661, fol. pp. 369-474.]
Jean Chartier,[14] precentor of Saint-Denys, held the office of chronicler of France in 1449. Two hundred years later he would have been described as historiographer royal. His office may be divined from the manner in which he relates Jeanne's death. After having said that she had been long imprisoned by the order of John of Luxembourg, he adds: ”The said Luxembourg sold her to the English, who took her to Rouen, where she was harshly treated; in so much that after long delay, they had her publicly burnt in that town of Rouen, without a trial, of their own tyrannical will, which was cruelly done, seeing the life and the rule she lived, for every week she confessed and received the body of Our Lord, as beseemeth a good catholic.”[15] When Jean Chartier says that the English burned her without trial, he means apparently that the Bailie of Rouen did not p.r.o.nounce sentence.
Concerning the ecclesiastical trial and the two accusations of lapse and relapse he says not a word; and it is the English whom he accuses of having burnt a good Catholic without a trial. This example proves how seriously the condemnation of 1431 embarra.s.sed the government of King Charles. But what can be thought of a historian who suppresses Jeanne's trial because he finds it inconvenient? Jean Chartier was extremely weak-minded and trivial; he seems to believe in the magic of Catherine's sword and in Jeanne's loss of power when she broke it;[16]
he records the most puerile of fables. Nevertheless it is interesting to note that the official chronicler of the Kings of France, writing about 1450, ascribes to the Maid an important share in the delivery of Orleans, in the conquest of fortresses on the Loire and in the victory of Patay, that he relates how the King formed the army at Gien ”by the counsel of the said maid,”[17] and that he expressly states that Jeanne caused[18] the coronation and consecration. Such was certainly the opinion which prevailed at the Court of Charles VII. All that we have to discover is whether that opinion was sincere and reasonable or whether the King of France may not have deemed it to his advantage to owe his kingdom to the Maid. She was held a heretic by the heads of the Church Universal, but in France her memory was honoured, rather, however, by the lower orders than by the princes of the blood and the leaders of the army. The services of the latter the King was not desirous to extol after the revolt of 1440. During this _Praguerie_,[19] the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome, the Duke of Alencon, whom the Maid called her fair duke, and even the cautious Count Dunois had been seen joining hands with the plunderers and making war on the sovereign with an ardour they had never shown in fighting against the English.
[Footnote 14: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1858, 3 vols., 18mo.
(_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_).]
[Footnote 15: _Lequel Luxembourg la vendit aux Angloix, qui la menerent a Rouen, ou elle fut durement traictee; et tellement que, apres grant dillacion de temps, sans procez, maiz de leur voulente indeue, la firent ardoir en icelle ville de Rouen publiquement ... qui fut bien inhumainement fait, veu la vie et gouvernement dont elle vivoit, car elle se confessoit et recepvoit par chacune sepmaine le corps de Nostre Seigneur, comme bonne catholique._--Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, vol. i, p. 122.]
[Footnote 16: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, vol. i, p. 122.]
[Footnote 17: _Par l'admonestement de ladite Pucelle_, Jean Chartier, vol. i, p. 87.]
[Footnote 18: _Fut cause_, _ibid._, vol. i, p. 97.]
[Footnote 19: This revolt of the French n.o.bles was so named because various risings of a similar nature had taken place in the city of Prague.--W.S.]
”Le Journal du Siege”[20] was doubtless kept in 1428 and 1429; but the edition that has come down to us dates from 1467.[21] What relates to Jeanne before her coming to Orleans is interpolated; and the interpolator was so unskilful as to date Jeanne's arrival at Chinon in the month of February, while it took place on March 6, and to a.s.sign Thursday, March 10, as the date of the departure from Blois, which did not occur until the end of April. The diary from April 28 to May 7 is less inaccurate in its chronology, and the errors in dates which do occur may be attributed to the copyist. But the facts to which these dates are a.s.signed, occasionally in disagreement with financial records and often tinged with the miraculous, testify to an advanced stage of Jeanne's legend. For example, one cannot possibly attribute to a witness of the siege the error made by the scribe concerning the fall of the Bridge of Les Tourelles.[22] What is said on page 97 of P.
Charpentier's and C. Cuissart's edition concerning the relations of the inhabitants and the men-at-arms seems out of place, and may very likely have been inserted there to efface the memory of the grave dissensions which had occurred during the last week. From the 8th of May the diary ceases to be a diary; it becomes a series of extracts borrowed from Chartier, from Berry, and from the rehabilitation trial. The episode of the big fat Englishman slain by Messire Jean de Montesclere at the Siege of Jargeau is obviously taken from the evidence of Jean d'Aulon in 1446; and even this plagiarism is inaccurate, since Jean d'Aulon expressly says he was slain at the Battle of Les Augustins.[23]
[Footnote 20: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), ed. P.
Charpentier and C. Cuissart, Orleans, 1896, 8vo.]
[Footnote 21: The oldest copy extant is dated 1472 (MS. fr. 14665).]
[Footnote 22: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), p. 87.
_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 162, note.]
[Footnote 23: _Journal du siege_, p. 97. _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 215.]
The chronicle ent.i.tled _La Chronique de la Pucelle_,[24] as if it were the chief chronicle of the heroine, is taken from a history ent.i.tled _Geste des n.o.bles Francois_, going back as far as Priam of Troy. But the extract was not made until the original had been changed and added to. This was done after 1467. Even if it were proved that _La Chronique de la Pucelle_ is the work of Cousinot, shut up in Orleans during the siege, or even of two Cousinots, uncle and nephew according to some, father and son according to others, it would remain none the less true that this chronicle is largely copied from Jean Chartier, the _Journal du Siege_ and the rehabilitation trial. Whoever the author may have been, this work reflects no great credit upon him: no very high praise can be given to a fabricator of tales, who, without appearing in the slightest degree aware of the fact, tells the same stories twice over, introducing each time different and contradictory circ.u.mstances. _La Chronique de la Pucelle_ ends abruptly with the King's return to Berry after his defeat before Paris.
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