Part 67 (1/2)

Saints were commonly visited by doves. One day when Saint Catherine of Sienna was kneeling in the fuller's house, a dove as white as snow perched on the child's head.[1574]

[Footnote 1573: _Journal du siege_, p. 294. _Chronique de l'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la fete_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 294.]

[Footnote 1574: AA. SS., April 3rd. Didron, _Iconographie chretienne_, pp. 438, 439. Alba Mignati, _Sainte Catherine de Sienne_, p. 16.]

A tale then in circulation is interesting as showing the idea which prevailed concerning the relations of the King and the Maid; it serves, likewise, as an example of the perversions to which the story of an actual fact is subject as it pa.s.ses from mouth to mouth. Here is the tale as it was gathered by a German merchant.

On a day, in a certain town, the Maid, hearing that the English were near, went into the field; and straightway all the men-at-arms, who were in the town, leapt to their steeds and followed her. Meanwhile, the King, who was at dinner, learning that all were going forth in company with the Maid, had the gates of the town closed.

The Maid was told, and she replied without concern: ”Before the hour of nones, the King will have so great need of me, that he will follow me immediately, spurless, and barely staying to throw on his cloak.”

And thus it came to pa.s.s. For the men-at-arms shut up in the town besought the King to open the gates forthwith or they would break them down. The gates were opened and all the fighting men hastened to the Maid, heedless of the King, who threw on his cloak and followed them.

On that day a great number of the English were slain.[1575]

[Footnote 1575: Eberhard Windecke, p. 103.]

Such is the story which gives a very inaccurate representation of what happened at Orleans on the 6th of May. The citizens hastened in crowds to the Burgundian Gate, resolved to cross the Loire and attack Les Tourelles. Finding the gate closed, they threw themselves furiously on the Sire de Gaucourt who was keeping it. The aged baron had the gate opened wide and said to them, ”Come, I will be your captain.”[1576] In the story the citizens have become men-at-arms, and it is not the Sire de Gaucourt but the King who maliciously closes the gates. But the King gained nothing by it; and it is astonis.h.i.+ng to find that so early there had grown up in the minds of the people the idea that, far from aiding the Maid to drive out the English, the King had put obstacles in her way and was always the last to follow her.

[Footnote 1576: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 116, 117.]

Seen through this chaos of stories more indistinct than the clouds in a stormy sky, Jeanne appeared a wondrous marvel. She prophesied and many of her prophecies had already been fulfilled. She had foretold the deliverance of Orleans and Orleans had been delivered. She had prophesied that she would be wounded, and an arrow had pierced her above the right breast. She had prophesied that she would take the King to Reims, and the King had been crowned in that city. Other prophecies had she uttered touching the realm of France, to wit, the deliverance of the Duke of Orleans, the entering into Paris, the driving of the English from the holy kingdom, and their fulfilment was expected.[1577]

[Footnote 1577: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 55, 84 _et seq._, 133, 174, 232, 251, 252, 254, 331; vol. iii, pp. 99, 205, 254, 257, _pa.s.sim_.

_Journal du siege_, pp. 34, 44, 45, 48. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp.

212, 295. Perceval de Cagny, p. 141. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 320.

Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 143. The Clerk of the Chamber of Accounts of Brabant, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 426. _Chronique de Tournai_ (vol. iii, _du recueil des chroniques de Flandre_), p. 411.

Morosini, vol. iii, p. 121.]

Every day she prophesied and notably concerning divers persons who had failed in respect towards her and had come to a bad end.[1578]

[Footnote 1578: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 57.]

At Chinon, when she was being taken to the King, a man-at-arms who was riding near the chateau, thinking he recognised her, asked, ”Is not that the Maid? By G.o.d, an I had my way she should not be a maid long.”

Then Jeanne prophesied and said ”Ha, thou takest G.o.d's name in vain, and thou art so near thy death!”

Less than an hour later the man fell into the water and was drowned.[1579]

[Footnote 1579: Brother Pasquerel's evidence, in _Trial_, vol. iii, p.

102.]

Straightway this miracle was related in Latin verse. In the poem which records this miraculous history of Jeanne up to the deliverance of Orleans, the lewd blasphemer, who like all blasphemers, came to a bad end, is n.o.ble and by name Furtivolus.[1580]

[Footnote 1580: Anonymous poem on the Maid, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 38, lines 105 _et seq._]

_... generoso sanguine natus, Nomine Furtivolus, veneris moderator iniquus._

Captain Glasdale called Jeanne strumpet and blasphemed his Maker.

Jeanne prophesied that he would die without shedding blood; and Glasdale was drowned in the Loire.[1581]