Part 28 (2/2)

Regularly at the canonical hours he repeated the customary prayers in addition to prayers for the dead and other orisons. Daily he confessed, and communicated on every feast day.[651] But he believed in foretelling events by means of the stars, in which he did not differ from other princes of his time. Each one of them had an astrologer in his service.[652]

[Footnote 651: The Monk of Dunfermline, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.

340. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, pp. 265 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 243.]

[Footnote 652: Simon de Phares, _Recueil des plus celebres astrologues_, fr. ms. 1357. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 306; vol. ii, p. 345, note. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. vi, p. 399.]

The late Duke of Burgundy had been constantly accompanied by a Jewish soothsayer, Maitre Mousque. On that day, the end of which he was never to see, as he was going to the Bridge of Montereau, Maitre Mousque counselled him not to advance any further, prophesying that he would not return. The Duke continued on his way and was killed.[653] The Dauphin Charles confided in Jean des Builhons, in Germain de Thibonville and in all others of the peaked cap.[654]

[Footnote 653: Chastellain, vol. iii, p. 446.]

[Footnote 654: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 173.]

He always had two or three astrologers at court. These almanac makers drew up schemes of nativity, cast horoscopes and read in the sky the approach of wars and revolutions. One of them, Maitre Rolland the Scrivener, a fellow of the University of Paris, was one night, at a certain hour, observing the heavens from his roof, when he saw the apex of Virgo in the ascendant, Venus, Mercury, and the sun half way up the sky.[655] This his colleague, Guillaume Barbin of Geneva, interpreted to mean that the English would be driven from France and the King restored by the hand of a mere maid.[656] If we may believe the Inquisitor Brehal, some time before Jeanne's coming into France, a clever astronomer of Seville, Jean de Montalcin by name, had written to the King among other things the following words: ”By a virgin's counsel thou shalt be victorious. Continue in triumph to the gates of Paris.”[657]

[Footnote 655: I here correct the text of Simon de Phares (_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 536) according to the written opinion of M. Camille Flammarion.]

[Footnote 656: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 536.]

[Footnote 657: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 341.]

At that very time the Dauphin Charles had with him at Chinon an old Norman astrologer, one Pierre, who may have been Pierre de Saint-Valerien, canon of Paris. The latter had recently returned from Scotland, whither, accompanied by certain n.o.bles, he had gone to fetch the Lady Margaret, betrothed to the Dauphin Louis. Not long afterwards this Maitre Pierre was, rightly or wrongly, believed to have read in the sky that the shepherdess from the Meuse valley was appointed to drive out the English.[658]

[Footnote 658: Recueil de Simon de Phares, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.

32, note.]

Jeanne had not long to wait in her inn. Two days after her arrival, what she had so ardently desired came to pa.s.s: she was taken to the King.[659] In the last century near the Grand-Carroy, opposite a wooden-fronted house, there was shown a well on the edge of which, according to tradition, Jeanne set foot when she alighted from her horse, before climbing the steep ascent leading to the Castle.

Through La Vieille Porte,[660] she was already crossing the moat when the King was still hesitating as to whether he would receive her. Many of his familiar advisers, and those not the least important, counselled him to beware of a strange woman whose designs might be evil. There were others who put it before him that this shepherdess was introduced by letters from Robert de Baudricourt carried through hostile provinces; that in journeying to the King she had forded many rivers in a manner almost miraculous. On these considerations the King consented to receive her.[661]

[Footnote 659: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 143.]

[Footnote 660: The kerb was removed during the Second Empire. Moreover it is admitted that no faith should be put in such traditions. G. de Cougny, _Charles VII et Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon_, Tours, 1877, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 661: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 75; vol. iii, p. 115. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 273. _Journal du siege_, pp. 46, 47. Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 68.]

The great hall was crowded. As at every audience given by the King the room was close with the breath of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude. The vast chamber presented that aspect of a market-house or of a rout which was so familiar to courtiers. It was evening; fifty torches flamed beneath the painted beams of the roof.[662] Men of middle age in robes and furs, young, smooth-faced n.o.bles, thin and narrow shouldered, of slender build, their lean legs in tight hose, their feet in long, pointed shoes; barons fully armed to the number of three hundred, according to Aulic custom, pushed, crowded and elbowed each other while the usher was here and there striking the courtiers on the head with his rod.[663]

[Footnote 662: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75, 141.]

[Footnote 663: Le Curial, in _Les oeuvres de Maistre Alain Chartier_, ed. Du Chesne, Paris, 1642, in 4to, p. 398.]

Besides the two amba.s.sadors from Orleans, Messire Jamet du Tillay and the old baron Archambaud de Villars, governor of Montargis, there were present Simon Charles, Master of Requests, as well as certain great n.o.bles, the Count of Clermont, the Sire de Gaucourt, and probably the Sire de La Tremouille and my Lord the Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor of the kingdom.[664] On hearing of Jeanne's approach, King Charles buried himself among his retainers, either because he was still mistrustful and hesitating, or because he had other persons to speak to, or for some other reason.[665] Jeanne was presented by the Count of Vendome.[666] Robust, with a firm, short neck, her figure appeared full, although confined by her man's jerkin. She wore breeches like a man,[667] but still more surprising than her hose was her head-gear and the cut of her hair. Beneath a woollen hood, her dark hair hung cut round in soup-plate fas.h.i.+on like a page's.[668] Women of all ranks and all ages were careful to hide their hair so that not one lock of it should escape from beneath the coif, the veil, or the high head-dress which was then the mode. Jeanne's flowing locks looked strange to the folk of those days.[669] She went straight to the King, took off her cap, curtsied, and said: ”G.o.d send you long life, gentle Dauphin.”[670]

[Footnote 664: According to Jeanne there were present La Tremolle and the Archbishop of Reims, but she also mentions the Duke of Alencon, who was certainly not there.]

[Footnote 665: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 115.]

[Footnote 666: _Ibid._, pp. 102-103.]

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