Part 13 (2/2)

On the banks of the Meuse, among the humble folk of the countryside, some churchman, preoccupied with the lot of the poor people of France, directed Jeanne's visions to the welfare of the kingdom and to the conclusion of peace. He carried the ardour of his pious zeal so far as to collect prophecies concerning the salvation of the French crown, and to add to them with an eye to the accomplishment of his design.

For such an ecclesiastic we must seek among the priests of Lorraine or Champagne upon whom the national misfortunes imposed cruel sufferings.[293] Merchants and artizans, crushed under the burden of taxes and subsidies, and ruined by changes in the coinage,[294]

peasants, whose houses, barns, and mills had been destroyed, and whose fields had been laid waste, no longer contributed to the expenses of public wors.h.i.+p.[295] Canons and ecclesiastics, deprived both of their feudal dues and of the contributions of the faithful, quitted the religious houses and set out to beg their bread from door to door, leaving behind in the monasteries only two or three old monks, and a few children. The fortified abbeys attracted captains and soldiers of both sides. They entrenched themselves within the walls; they plundered and burnt. When one of those holy houses succeeded in remaining standing, the wandering village folk made it their place of refuge, and it was impossible to prevent the refectories and dormitories from being invaded by women.[296] In the midst of this obscure throng of souls afflicted by the sufferings and the scandals of the Church may be divined the prophet and the director of the Maid.

[Footnote 293: Monstrelet, vol. iii, p. 180. Jean Chartier, _Chronique latine_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, vol. i, p. 13. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, pp. 44 _et seq._]

[Footnote 294: Alain Chartier, _Quadriloge invectif_, ed. Andre d.u.c.h.esne, Paris, 1617, pp. 440 _et seq._ _Ordonnances_, vol. xi, pp.

101 _et seq._ Viutry, _Les monnaies sous les trois premiers Valois_, Paris, 1881, in 8vo, _pa.s.sim_. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, ch. xi.]

[Footnote 295: Juvenal des Ursins and _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, _pa.s.sim_. Letter from Nicholas de Clemangis to Gerson, in _Clemangis opera omnia_, 1613, in 4to, vol. ii, pp. 159 _et seq._]

[Footnote 296: Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises, monasteres_, Macon, 1897, in 8vo, introduction.]

We shall not be tempted to recognise him in Messire Guillaume Frontey, priest of Domremy. The successor of Messire Jean Minet, if we may judge from his conversation which has been preserved, was as simple as his flock.[297] Jeanne saw many priests and monks. She was in the habit of visiting her uncle, the priest of Sermaize, and of seeing in the Abbey of Cheminon,[298] her cousin, a young ecclesiastic in minor orders, who was soon to follow her into France. She was in touch with a number of priests who would be very quick to recognise her exceptional piety, and her gift of beholding things invisible to the majority of Christians. They engaged her in conversations, which, had they been preserved, would doubtless present to us one of the sources whence she derived inspiration for her marvellous vocation.

One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.

[Footnote 297: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 298: These two persons, however, are only known to us through somewhat doubtful genealogical doc.u.ments. _Trial_, vol. v, p.

252. Boucher de Molandon, _La famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 127. G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, _Nouvelles recherches_, pp. 7 _et seq._]

Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into France: ”I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to make war.”[299]

[Footnote 299: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

As soon as she began to receive these revelations she gave up her games and her excursions. Henceforth she seldom danced round the fairies' tree, and then only in play with the children.[300] It would seem that she also took a dislike to working in the fields, and especially to herding the flocks. From early childhood she had shown signs of piety. Now she gave herself up to extreme devoutness; she confessed frequently, and communicated with ecstatic fervour; she heard ma.s.s in her parish church every day. At all hours she was to be found in church, sometimes prostrate on the ground, sometimes with her hands clasped, and her face turned towards the image of Our Lord or of Our Lady. She did not always wait for Sat.u.r.day to visit the chapel at Bermont. Sometimes, when her parents thought she was tending the herds, she was kneeling at the feet of the miracle-working Virgin. The village priest, Messire Guillaume Frontey, could do nothing but praise the most guileless of his paris.h.i.+oners.[301] One day he happened to say with a sigh: ”If Jeannette had money she would give it to me for the saying of ma.s.ses.”[302]

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 404, 407, 409, 411, 414, 416, _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 301: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 402, 434.]

[Footnote 302: _Ibid._, p. 402. Concerning Jeanne's religious observances, see _Ibid._, index, under the words _Messe_, _Vierge_, _Cloche_.]

As for the good man, Jacques d'Arc, it is possible that he may have occasionally complained of those pilgrimages, those meditations, and those other practices which ill accorded with the ordinary tenor of country life. Every one thought Jeanne odd and erratic. Mengette and her friends, when they found her so devout, said she was too pious.[303] They scolded her for not dancing with them. Among others, Isabellette, the young wife of Gerardin d'Epinal, the mother of little Nicholas, Jeanne's G.o.dson, roundly condemned a girl who cared so little for dancing.[304] Colin, son of Jean Colin, and all the village lads made fun of her piety. Her fits of religious ecstasy raised a smile. She was regarded as a little mad. She suffered from this persistent raillery.[305] But with her own eyes she beheld the dwellers in Paradise. And when they left her she would cry and wish that they had taken her with them.

[Footnote 303: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 429.]

[Footnote 304: _Ibid._, p. 427.]

[Footnote 305: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 432.]

”Daughter of G.o.d, thou must leave thy village and go forth into France.”[306]

[Footnote 306: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 52, 53.]

And the ladies Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret spoke again and said: ”Take the standard sent down to thee by the King of Heaven, take it boldly and G.o.d will help thee.” As she listened to these words of the ladies with the beautiful crowns, Jeanne was consumed with a desire for long expeditions on horseback, and for those battles in which angels hover over the heads of the warriors. But how was she to go to France? How was she to a.s.sociate with men-at-arms? Ignorant and generously impulsive like herself, the Voices she heard merely revealed to her her own heart, and left her in sad agitation of mind: ”I am a poor girl, knowing neither how to bestride a horse nor how to make war.”[307]

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