Part 40 (1/2)

286. _Chronique de la fete_, in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 285. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 61, 62.]

At last, when she heard that Brother Pasquerel would go with them to Blois, accompanied by the priests and bearing her standard, believing that her men would have a good spiritual director, she consented to stay.[942] She crossed the Loire with her brothers, her little company, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the Marshal de Boussac, the Captain La Hire, and reached Checy, which was then quite a town, with two churches, an infirmary, and a lepers' hospital.[943] She was received by a rich burgess, one Guy de Cailly, in whose manor of Reuilly she pa.s.sed the night.[944]

[Footnote 942: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 105. _Mistere du siege_, line 11,616.]

[Footnote 943: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 62, 99, note xiv, and in _Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais_, vol. iv, p. 429; vol. ix, p. 73.]

[Footnote 944: _Journal du siege_, p. 75. Ch. du Lys, _Traite sommaire tant du nom et des armes que de la naissance et parente de la Pucelle d'Orleans et de ses freres_, Paris, 1628, in 4to, p. 50. Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 344. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p.

86. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 65, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, note xv.]

On the morning of the 29th the barges, which had been anch.o.r.ed at Checy, crossed the Loire, and those who were with the convoy loaded them with victuals, ammunition, and cattle.[945] The river was high.[946] The barges were able to drift down the navigable channel near the left bank. The birches and osiers of l'ile-aux-Boeufs hid them from the English in the Saint-Loup bastion. Besides, at that moment, the enemy was occupied elsewhere. The town garrison was skirmis.h.i.+ng with them in order to distract their attention. The fighting was somewhat hard. There were slain and wounded; prisoners were taken on both sides; and the English lost a banner.[947] Beneath the deserted[948] watch of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc the barges pa.s.sed unprotected. Between l'ile-aux-Boeufs and the Islet of Les Martinets they turned starboard, to go down again, following the right bank, under l'ile-aux-Toiles, as far as La Tour Neuve, the base of which was washed by the Loire, at the south-eastern corner of the town. Then they took shelter in the moat near the Burgundian Gate.[949]

[Footnote 945: _Journal du siege_, pp. 75, 76.]

[Footnote 946: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 68.]

[Footnote 947: _Chronique de la Fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 290.]

[Footnote 948: _Journal du siege_, pp. 74, 75. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 69. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 284, 285.]

[Footnote 949: Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 51 _et seq._]

The whole day the manor of Reuilly was besieged by a procession of citizens, who could not forbear coming at the risk of their lives to see the promised Maid. It was six o'clock in the evening before she left Checy. The captains wanted her to enter the town at nightfall for fear of disorders and lest the crush around her should be too great.[950] Doubtless they pa.s.sed along the broad valleys leading from Semoy towards the south, on the borders of the parishes of Saint-Marc and Saint-Jean-de-Braye. On the way she said to those who rode with her: ”Fear nothing. No harm shall happen to you.”[951] And indeed the only danger was for pedestrians. Hors.e.m.e.n ran little risk of being pursued by the English, who were short of horses in their bastions.

[Footnote 950: _Journal du siege_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 951: _Ibid._, p. 76.]

On that Friday, the 29th of April, in the darkness, she entered Orleans, by the Burgundian Gate. She was in full armour and rode a white horse.[952] A white horse was the steed of heralds and archangels.[953] The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had placed her on his right. Before her was borne her standard, on which figured two angels, each holding a flower de luce, and her pennon, painted with the picture of the Annunciation. Then came the Marshal de Boussac, Guy de Cailly, Pierre and Jean d'Arc, Jean de Metz, and Bertrand de Poulengy, the Sire d'Aulon, and those lords, captains, men-of-war, and citizens who had come to meet her at Checy.[954] Bearing torches and rejoicing as heartily as if they had seen G.o.d himself descending among them, the townfolk of Orleans pressed around her.[955] They had suffered great privations, they had feared that help would never come; but now they were heartened and felt as if the siege had been raised already by the divine virtue, which they had been told resided in this Maid. They looked at her with love and veneration; elbowing and pus.h.i.+ng each other, men, women, and children rushed forward to touch her and her white horse, as folk touch the relics of saints. In the crush a torch set her pennon on fire. The Maid, beholding it, spurred on her horse and galloped to the flame, which she extinguished with a skill apparently miraculous; for everything in her was marvellous.[956]

Men-at-arms and citizens, enraptured, accompanied her in crowds to the Church of Sainte-Croix, whither she went first to give thanks, then to the house of Jacques Boucher, where she was to lodge.[957]

[Footnote 952: _Journal du siege_, pp. 74, 75.]

[Footnote 953: And even now trumpeters ride white horses (_Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, by Lebrun de Charmettes, 1817, in 8vo, vol. ii, p.

21).]

[Footnote 954: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 7. _Journal du siege_, p. 76.

_Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 287. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 72. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 28, 30.]

[Footnote 955: ”_Comme se ilz veissent Dieu descendre entre eulx_,”

says _Le journal du siege_, p. 76. Luillier (_Trial_, vol. iii, p. 24) calls her ”the angel of the Lord” (_l'ange de Dieu_).]

[Footnote 956: _Journal du siege_, pp. 76, 77.]

[Footnote 957: _Chronique de l'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la fete_, p. 28.]

Jacques or Jacquet Boucher, as he was called, had been the Duke of Orleans' treasurer for several years. He was a very rich man and had married the daughter of one of the most influential burgesses of the city.[958] Having stayed in the town throughout the siege, he contributed to the defence by gifts of wheat, oats, and wine, and by advancing funds for the purchase of ammunition and weapons. As the care of the ramparts fell to the burgesses, it was Jacques' duty to keep in repair and ready for defence the Renard Gate, where he dwelt, which was the most exposed to the English attack. His mansion, one of the finest and largest in the town, once inhabited by Regnart or Renard, the family which had given its name to the gate, was in the Rue des Talmeliers, quite near the fortifications. The captains held their councils of war there, when they did not meet at the house of Chancellor Guillaume Cousinot in the Rue de la Rose.[959] Jacques Boucher's dwelling was doubtless well furnished with silver plate and storied tapestry. It would appear that in one of the rooms there was a picture representing three women and bearing this inscription: _Justice, Peace, Union_.[960]

[Footnote 958: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 101; vol. iii, pp. 34, 68, 124 _et seq._, 211. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 285. Boucher de Molandon, _Jacques Boucher, sieur de Guilleville, tresorier general du district d'Orleans...._ in _Memoires de la Societe archeologique de l'Orleanais_, vol. xxii, 1889, p. 373. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 101, note xvi; proofs and ill.u.s.trations, p. 108.]