Part 35 (1/2)
The Augustinians, who claimed to have received their rule from St.
Francis himself, wore the grey habit of the Franciscans. It was from their order that in the previous year the King had chosen a chaplain for his young son, the Dauphin Louis. Brother Pasquerel held the office of reader (_lector_) in his monastery.[811] He was in priest's orders. Quite young doubtless and of a wandering disposition, like many mendicant monks of those days, he had a taste for the miraculous, and was excessively credulous.
[Footnote 811: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 101. For the meaning of _Lector_, professor of theology, cf. Du Cange.]
Jeanne's comrades said to her: ”Jeanne, we have brought you this good father. You will like him well when you know him.”
She replied: ”The good father pleases me. I have already heard tell of him, and even to-morrow will I confess to him.” The next day the good father heard her in confession, and chanted ma.s.s before her. He became her chaplain, and never left her.[812]
[Footnote 812: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 101 _et seq._]
In the fifteenth century Tours was one of the chief manufacturing towns of the kingdom. The inhabitants excelled in all kinds of trades.
They wove tissues of silk, of gold, and of silver. They manufactured coats of mail; and, while not competing with the armourers of Milan, of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, they were skilled in the forging and hammering of steel.[813] Here it was that, by the King's command, the master armourer made Jeanne a suit of mail.[814] The suit he furnished was of wrought iron; and, according to the custom of that time, consisted of a helmet, a cuira.s.s in four parts, with epaulets, armlets, elbow-pieces, fore-armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, knee-pieces, greaves and shoes.[815] The maker had doubtless no thought of accentuating the feminine figure. But the armour of that period, full in the bust, slight in the waist, with broad skirts beneath the corselet, in its slender grace and curious slimness, always has the air of a woman's armour, and seems made for Queen Penthesilea or for the Roman Camilla. The Maid's armour was white and unadorned, if one may judge from its modest price of one hundred _livres tournois_. The two suits of mail, made at the same time by the same armourer for Jean de Metz and his comrade, were together worth one hundred and twenty-five _livres tournois_.[816] Possibly one of the skilful and renowned drapers of Tours took the Maid's measure for a _houppelande_ or loose coat in silk or cloth of gold or silver, such as captains wore over the cuira.s.s. To look well, the coat, which was open in front, must be cut in scallops that would float round the horseman as he rode. Jeanne loved fine clothes but still more fine horses.[817]
[Footnote 813: E. Giraudet, _Histoire de la ville de Tours_, Tours, 1874, 2 vols. in 8vo, _pa.s.sim_.]
[Footnote 814: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210; vol. iv, pp. 3, 301, 363.]
[Footnote 815: J. Quicherat, _Histoire du costume en France_, Paris, 1875, large 8vo, pp. 270, 271.]
[Footnote 816: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 67, 94, 210. _Relation du greffier de La Roch.e.l.le_, p. 60. ”The white armour of fifteenth century soldiers, simple as it was, was expensive; it cost about ten thousand francs of our present money. But the complete horse's armour was included in this” (Maurice Maindron, _Pour l'histoire de l'armure_, in _Le monde moderne_, 1896). According to the calculation of P. Clement (_Jacques Coeur et Charles VII_, 1873, p. lxvi), 100 livres would be equal to 4000 francs of present money.]
[Footnote 817: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 76. Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers, _ibid._, vol. v, p. 120. Greffier de la Chambre des comptes of Brabant, _ibid._, vol. iv, p. 428. Le Fevre de Saint-Remy, _ibid._, p. 439.]
The King invited her to choose a horse from his stables. If we may believe a certain Latin poet, she selected an animal of ill.u.s.trious origin, but very old. It was a war horse, which Pierre de Beauvau, Governor of Maine and Anjou, had given to one of the King's two brothers; who had both been dead, the one thirteen years, the other twelve.[818] This steed, or another, was brought to Lapau's house and the Duke of Alencon went to see it. The horse must likewise be accoutred, it must be furnished with a chanfrin to protect its head and one of those wooden saddles with broad pommels which seemed to encase the rider.[819] A s.h.i.+eld was out of the question. Since chain-armour, which was not proof against blows, had been succeeded by that plate-armour, on which nothing could make an impression, they had ceased to be used save in pageants. As for the sword,--the n.o.blest part of her accoutrement and the bright symbol of strength joined to loyalty,--Jeanne refused to take that from the royal armourer; she was resolved to receive it from the hand of Saint Catherine herself.
[Footnote 818: Anonymous poem in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 38 and note.]
[Footnote 819: Capitaine Champion, _Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere_, pp. 146 _et seq._]
We know that on her coming into France she had stopped at Fierbois and heard three ma.s.ses in Saint Catherine's chapel.[820] Therein the Virgin of Alexandria had many swords, without counting the one Charles Martel was said to have given her, and which it would not have been easy to find again. A good Touranian in Touraine, Saint Catherine was an Armagnac ever on the side of those who fought for the Dauphin Charles. When captains and soldiers of fortune stood in danger of death, or were prisoners in the hands of their enemies, she was the saint they most willingly invoked; for they knew she wished them well. She did not save them all, but she aided many. They came to render her thanks; and as a sign of grat.i.tude they offered her their armour, so that her chapel looked like an armoury.[821] The walls bristled with swords; and, as gifts had been flowing in for half a century, ever since the days of King Charles V, the sacristans were probably in the habit of taking down the old weapons to make room for the new, h.o.a.rding the old steel in some store-house until an opportunity arrived for selling it.[822] Saint Catherine could not refuse a sword to the damsel, whom she loved so dearly that every day and every hour she came down from Paradise to see and talk with her on earth,--a maiden who in return had shown her devotion by travelling to Fierbois to do the Saint reverence. For we must not omit to state that Saint Catherine in company with Saint Margaret had never ceased to appear to Jeanne both at Chinon and at Tours. She was present at all those secret a.s.semblies, which the Maid called sometimes her Council but oftener her Voices, doubtless because they appealed more to her ears and her mind than to her eyes, despite the burst of light which sometimes dazzled her, and notwithstanding the crowns she was able to discern on the heads of the saints. The Voices indicated one sword among the mult.i.tude of those in the Chapel at Fierbois. Messire Richard Kyrthrizian and Brother Gille Lecourt, both of them priests, were then custodians of the chapel. Such is the t.i.tle they a.s.sumed when they signed the accounts of miracles worked by their saint.
Jeanne in a letter caused them to be asked for the sword, which had been revealed to her. In the letter she said that it would be found underground, not very deep down, and behind the altar. At least these were all the directions she was able to give afterwards, and then she could not quite remember whether it was behind the altar or in front.
Was she able to give the custodians of the chapel any signs by which to recognise the sword? She never explained this point, and her letter is lost.[823]
[Footnote 820: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 56, 75, 76, 77.]
[Footnote 821: Abbe Boura.s.se, _Les miracles de madame sainte Katerine de Fierboys en Touraine_ (1375-1446), Tours, 1858, in 8vo, _pa.s.sim_.]
[Footnote 822: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 277. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 69.]
[Footnote 823: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 77. _Les miracles de madame sainte Katerine_, _pa.s.sim_.]
It is certain, however, that she believed the sword had been shown to her in a vision and in no other manner. An armourer of Touraine, whom she did not know (afterwards she maintained that she had never seen him), was appointed to carry the letter to Fierbois. The custodians of the chapel gave him a sword marked with five crosses, or with five little swords on the blade, not far from the hilt. In what part of the chapel had they found it? No one knows. A contemporary says it was in a coffer with some old iron. If it had been buried and hidden it was not very long before, because the rust could easily be removed by rubbing. The priests were careful to offer it to the Maid with great ceremony[824] before giving it to the armourer who had come for it.
They enclosed it in a sheath of red velvet, embroidered with the royal flowers de luce. When Jeanne received it she recognised it to be the one revealed to her in a celestial vision and promised her by her Voices, and she failed not to let the little company of monks and soldiers who surrounded her know that it was so. This they took to be a good omen and a sign of victory.[825] To protect Saint Catherine's sword the priests of the town gave her a second sheath; this one was of black cloth. Jeanne had a third made of very tough leather.[826]
[Footnote 824: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 76, 234, 236. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 277. _Journal du siege_, p. 49. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 69, 70. Guerneri Berni, in the _Trial_, vol.
iv, p. 519. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 267. Morosini, vol.
iii, p. 109. _Relation du greffier de La Roch.e.l.le_, pp. 337, 338.