Part 10 (2/2)

[Footnote 234: Voragine, _La legende de Saint-Gregoire_. Du Cange, _Glossaire_, under the word _Caudatus_. Le Roux de Lincy, _Recueil de chants historiques francais_, Paris, 1851, vol. i, pp. 300, 301. This oath is to be found current as early as Eustache Deschamps; it was still in use in the seventeenth century (_Sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle_, ed. Vallet de Viriville).]

[Footnote 235: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii. Carlier, _Histoire du Valois_, vol. ii, pp. 441 _et seq._]

[Footnote 236: Dom Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. ii, col. 631.

Bonnabelle, _Notice sur la ville de Vaucouleurs_, Bar-le-Duc, 1879, in 8vo, 75 pages.]

Only the river divided Maxey on the right bank from Domremy. The Domremy and Greux children went there to school. There were quarrels between them; the little Burgundians of Maxey fought pitched battles with the little Armagnacs of Domremy. More than once Joan, at the Bridge end in the evening, saw the lads of her village returning covered with blood.[237] It is quite possible that, pa.s.sionate as she was, she may have gravely espoused these quarrels and conceived therefrom a bitter hatred of the Burgundians. Nevertheless, we must beware of finding an indication of public opinion in these boyish games played by the sons of villeins. For centuries the brats of these two parishes were to fight and to insult each other.[238] Insults and stones fly whenever and wherever children gather in bands, and those of one village meet those of another. The peasants of Domremy, Greux, and Maxey, we may be sure, vexed themselves little about the affairs of dukes and kings. They had learnt to be as much afraid of the captains of their own side as of the captains of the opposite party, and not to draw any distinction between the men-at-arms who were their friends and those who were their enemies.

[Footnote 237: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 65, 66. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. 18 _et seq._]

[Footnote 238: N. Villiaume, _Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, 1864, in 8vo, p. 52, note 1.]

In 1429 the English occupied the bailiwick of Chaumont and garrisoned several fortresses in Ba.s.signy. Messire Robert, Lord of Baudricourt and Blaise, son of the late Messire Liebault de Baudricourt, was then captain of Vaucouleurs and bailie of Chaumont for the Dauphin Charles.

He might be reckoned a great plunderer, even in Lorraine. In the spring of this year, 1420, the Duke of Burgundy having sent an emba.s.sy to the Lord Bishop of Verdun, as the amba.s.sadors were returning they were taken prisoners by Sire Robert in league with the Damoiseau of Commercy. To avenge this offence the Duke of Burgundy declared war on the Captain of Vaucouleurs, and the castellany was ravaged by bands of English and Burgundians.[239]

[Footnote 239: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. iii.]

In 1423 the Duke of Lorraine was waging war with a terrible man, one etienne de Vignolles, a Gascon soldier of fortune already famous under the dreaded name of La Hire,[240] which he was to leave after his death to the knave of hearts in those packs of cards marked by the greasy fingers of many a mercenary. La Hire was nominally on the side of the Dauphin Charles, but in reality he only made war on his own account. At this time he was ravaging Bar west and south, burning churches and laying waste villages.

[Footnote 240: Pierre d'Alheim, _Le jargon Jobelin_, Paris, 1892, in 18mo: glossary, under the word _Hirenalle_, p. 61, and the verbal communication of M. Marcel Schwob. _Cronique Martiniane_, ed. P.

Champion, p. 8, note 3; _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270; De Montlezun, _Histoire de Gascogne_, 1847, in 8vo, p. 143; A. Castaing, _La patrie du valet de coeur_, in _Revue de Gascogne_, 1869, vol. x, pp. 29-33.]

While he was occupying Sermaize, the church of which was fortified, Jean, Count of Salm, who was governing the Duchy of Bar for the Duke of Lorraine, laid siege to it with two hundred horse. Collot Turlaut, who two years before had married Mengette, daughter of Jean de Vouthon and Jeanne's cousin-german,[241] was killed there by a bomb fired from a Lorraine mortar.

[Footnote 241: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. lxxiii, 87, note 1. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp.

4-15.]

Jacques d'Arc was then the elder (_doyen_) of the community. Many duties fell to the lot of the village elder, especially in troubled times. It was for him to summon the mayor and the aldermen to the council meetings, to cry the decrees, to command the watch day and night, to guard the prisoners. It was for him also to collect taxes, rents, and feudal dues, an ungrateful office in a ruined country.[242]

[Footnote 242: Bonvalot, _Le tiers etat d'apres la charte de Beaumont et ses filiales_, Paris, 1886, p. 412.]

Under pretence of safeguarding and protecting them, Robert de Saarbruck, Damoiseau of Commercy, who for the moment was Armagnac, was plundering and ransoming the villages belonging to Bar, on the left bank of the Meuse.[243] On the 7th of October, 1423, Jacques d'Arc, as elder, signed below the mayor and sheriff the act by which the Squire extorted from these poor people the annual payment of two _gros_ from each complete household and one from each widow's household, a tax which amounted to no less than two hundred and twenty golden crowns, which the elder was charged to collect before the winter feast of Saint-Martin.[244]

[Footnote 243: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, pp. lxxi _et seq._]

[Footnote 244: _Ibid._, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, li, p. 97.]

The following year was bad for the Dauphin Charles, for the French and Scottish hors.e.m.e.n of his party met with the worst possible treatment at Verneuil. This year the Damoiseau of Commercy turned Burgundian and was none the better or the worse for it.[245] Captain La Hire was still fighting in Bar, but now it was against the young son of Madame Yolande, the Dauphin Charles's brother-in-law, Rene d'Anjou, who had lately come of age and was now invested with the Duchy of Bar. At the point of the lance Captain La Hire was demanding certain sums of money that the Cardinal Duke of Bar owed him.[246]

[Footnote 245: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp.

16, 17.]

[Footnote 246: S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, appendix, lxii.]

At the same time Robert, Sire de Baudricourt, was fighting with Jean de Vergy, lord of Saint-Dizier, Seneschal of Burgundy.[247] It was a fine war. On both sides the combatants laid hands on bread, wine, money, silver-plate, clothes, cattle big and little, and what could not be carried off was burnt. Men, women, and children were put to ransom. In most of the villages of Ba.s.signy agriculture was suspended, nearly all the mills were destroyed.[248]

[Footnote 247: Du Chesne, _Genealogie de la maison de Vergy_, Paris, 1625, folio. _Nouvelle biographie generale_, vol. xlv, p. 1125.]

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