Part 34 (2/2)
THE MAID AT TOURS
At Tours the Maid lodged in the house of a dame commonly called Lapau.[799] She was Eleonore de Paul, a woman of Anjou, who had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie of Anjou. Married to Jean du Puy, Lord of La Roche-Saint-Quentin, Councillor of the Queen of Sicily, she had remained in the service of the Queen of France.[800]
[Footnote 799: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 66.]
[Footnote 800: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes et de ma.n.u.scrits appartenant au British Museum de Londres_, in the _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, pp. 139, 140.]
The town of Tours belonged to the Queen of Sicily, who grew richer and richer as her son-in-law grew poorer and poorer. She aided him with money and with lands. In 1424, the duchy of Touraine with all its dependencies, except the castellany of Chinon, had come into her possession.[801] The burgesses and commonalty of Tours earnestly desired peace. Meanwhile they made every effort to escape from pillage at the hands of men-at-arms. Neither King Charles nor Queen Yolande was able to defend them, so they must needs defend themselves.[802]
When the town watchmen announced the approach of one of those marauding chiefs who were ravaging Touraine and Anjou, the citizens shut their gates and saw to it that the culverins were in their places. Then there was a parley: the captain from the brink of the moat maintained that he was in the King's service and on his way to fight the English; he asked for a night's rest in the town for himself and his men. From the heights of the ramparts he was politely requested to pa.s.s on; and, in case he should be tempted to force an entry, a sum of money was offered him.[803] Thus the citizens fleeced themselves for fear of being robbed. In like manner, only a few days before Jeanne's coming, they had given the Scot, Kennedy, who was ravaging the district, two hundred livres to go on. When they had got rid of their defenders, their next care was to fortify themselves against the English. On the 29th of February of this same year, 1429, these citizens lent one hundred crowns to Captain La Hire, who was then doing his best for Orleans. And even on the approach of the English they consented to receive forty archers belonging to the company of the Sire de Bueil, only on condition that Bueil should lodge in the castle with twenty men, and that the others should be quartered in the inns, where they were to have nothing without paying for it. Thus it was or was not; and the Sire de Bueil went off to defend Orleans.[804]
[Footnote 801: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p.
77.]
[Footnote 802: Vallet de Viriville, _a.n.a.lyse et fragments tires des Archives munic.i.p.ales de Tours_ in _Cabinet historique_, vol. v, pp.
102-121.]
[Footnote 803: Quicherat, _Rodrigue de Villandrando_, Paris, 1879, in 8vo, pp. 14 _et seq._]
[Footnote 804: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. i, Introduction, p. xxii, note 1.]
In Jean du Puy's house, Jeanne was visited by an Augustinian monk, one Jean Pasquerel. He was returning from the town of Puy-en-Velay where he had met Isabelle Romee and certain of those who had conducted Jeanne to the King.[805]
[Footnote 805: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 101.]
In this town, in the sanctuary of Anis, was preserved an image of the Mother of G.o.d, brought from Egypt by Saint Louis. It was of great antiquity and highly venerated, for the prophet Jeremiah had with his own hands carved it out of sycamore wood in the semblance of the virgin yet to be born, whom he had seen in a vision.[806] In holy week, pilgrims flocked from all parts of France and of Europe,--n.o.bles, clerks, men-at-arms, citizens and peasants; and many, for penance or through poverty, came on foot, staff in hand, begging their bread from door to door. Merchants of all kinds betook themselves thither; and it was at once the most popular of pilgrimages and one of the richest fairs in the world. All round the town the stream of travellers overflowed from the road on to vineyards, meadows, and gardens. On the day of the Festival, in the year 1407, two hundred persons perished, crushed to death in the throng.[807]
[Footnote 806: Francisque Mandet, _Histoire du Velay_, Le Puy, 1860-1862 (7 vols. in 12mo), vol. i, pp. 590 _et seq._ S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, ch. xii.]
[Footnote 807: Jean Juvenal des Ursins, 1407.]
In certain years the feast of the conception of Our Lord fell on the same day as that of his death; and thus there coincided the promise and the fulfilment of the promise of the greatest of mysteries. Then Holy Friday became still holier. It was called Great Friday, and on that day such as entered the sanctuary of Anis received plenary indulgence. On that day the crowd of pilgrims was greater than usual.
Now, in the year 1429, Good Friday fell on the 25th of March, the day of the Annunciation.[808]
[Footnote 808: Nicole de Savigni, _Notes sur les exploits de Jeanne d'Arc et sur divers evenements de son temps_, in the _Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de Paris_, 1, 1874, p. 43. Chanoine Lucot, _Jeanne d'Arc en Champagne_, Chalons, 1880, pp. 12, 13.]
There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary in Brother Pasquerel's meeting Jeanne's relatives at Puy during Holy Week. That a peasant woman should travel two hundred and fifty miles on foot, through a country infested with soldiers and other robbers, in a season of snows and mist, to obtain an indulgence, was an every-day matter if we remember the surname which had for long been hers.[809] This was not La Romee's first pilgrimage. As we do not know which members of the Maid's escort the good Brother met, we are at liberty to conjecture that Bertrand de Poulengy was among them. We know little about him, but his speech would suggest that he was a devout person.[810]
[Footnote 809: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 191; vol. ii, p. 74, note. La Romee may have received her surname for an entirely different reason. Most of our knowledge of Jeanne's mother is derived from doc.u.ments of very doubtful authenticity.]
[Footnote 810: Francis C. Lowell considers the idea of La Romee's pilgrimage to Puy as a ”characteristic example of the madness” of Simeon Luce (_Joan of Arc_, Boston, 1896, in 8vo, p. 72, note).
Nevertheless, after considerable hesitation, I, like Luce, have rejected the corrections proposed by Lebrun de Charmettes and Quicherat, and adopted unamended the text of the _Trial_.]
Jeanne's comrades, having made friends with Pasquerel, said to him: ”You must go with us to Jeanne. We will not leave you until you have taken us to her.” They travelled together. Brother Pasquerel went with them to Chinon, which Jeanne had left; then he went on to Tours, where his convent was.
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