Part 77 (1/2)

It was a great festival and a very ancient one. Its origin is described in the following manner. There was a certain holy man, who pa.s.sed his life in meditation. On a day he called to mind that for many years, on the 8th of September, he had heard marvellous angelic music in the air, and he prayed to G.o.d to reveal to him the reason for this concert of instruments and of celestial voices. He was vouchsafed the answer that it was the anniversary of the birth of the glorious Virgin Mary; and he received the command to instruct the faithful in order that they on that solemn day might join their voices to the angelic chorus. The matter was reported to the Sovereign Pontiff and the other heads of the Church, who, after having prayed, fasted and consulted the witnesses and traditions of the Church, decreed that henceforth that day, the 8th of September, should be universally consecrated to the celebration of the birth of the Virgin Mary.[1762]

[Footnote 1762: Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_. Anquetil, _La nativite, miracle extrait de la legende doree_, in _Mem. Soc. Agr. de Bayeux_, 1883, vol. x, p. 286. Douhet, _Dictionnaire des mysteres_, 1854, p.

545.]

That day were read at ma.s.s the words of the prophet Isaiah: ”And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”

The people of Paris thought that even the Armagnacs would do no work on so high a festival and would keep the third commandment.

On this Thursday, the 8th of September, about eight o'clock in the morning, the Maid, the Dukes of Alencon and of Bourbon, the Marshals of Boussac and of Rais, the Count of Vendome, the Lords of Laval, of Albret and of Gaucourt, who with their men, to the number of ten thousand and more, had encamped in the village of La Chapelle, half-way along the road from Saint-Denys to Paris, set out on the march. At the hour of high ma.s.s, between eleven and twelve o'clock, they reached the height of Les Moulins, at the foot of which the Swine Market was held.[1763] Here there was a gibbet. Fifty-six years earlier, a woman of saintly life according to the people, but according to the holy inquisitors, a heretic and _a Turlupine_, had been burned alive on that very market-place.[1764]

[Footnote 1763: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 166, 168. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 333, 334. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 107, 109. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 456, 458. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 244, 245. _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol.

486 verso. P. Cochon, ed. Beaurepaire, p. 307. Morosini, vol. iii, p.

210.]

[Footnote 1764: Gaguin, _Hist. Francorum_, Frankfort, 1577, book viii, chap. ii, p. 158. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en France_, p. 121. Lea, History of the Inquisition in the Middle Age, vol. ii, p. 126. (The Turlupins were a German sect who called themselves ”the Brethren of the Free Spirit.” W.S.)]

Wherefore did the King's men appear first before the northern walls, those of Charles V, which were the strongest? It is impossible to tell. A few days earlier they had thrown a bridge across the River above Paris,[1765] which looks as if they intended to attack the old fortification and get into the city from the University side. Did they mean to carry out the two attacks simultaneously? It is probable. Did they renounce the project of their own accord or against their will?

We cannot tell.

[Footnote 1765: Perceval de Cagny, p. 161. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 120, note 1. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _Un detail du siege de Paris, par Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. xlvi, 1885, pp. 5 _et seq._]

Beneath the walls of Charles V they a.s.sembled a quant.i.ty of artillery, cannons, culverins, mortars; and in hand-carts they brought f.a.gots to fill up the trenches, hurdles to bridge them over and seven hundred ladders: very elaborate material for the siege, despite their having, as we shall see, forgotten what was most necessary.[1766] They came not therefore to skirmish nor to do great feats of arms. They came to attempt in broad daylight the escalading and the storming of the greatest, the most ill.u.s.trious, and the most populous town of the realm; an undertaking of vast importance, proposed doubtless and decided in the royal council and with the knowledge of the King, who can have been neither indifferent nor hostile to it.[1767] Charles of Valois wanted to retake Paris. It remains to be seen whether for the accomplishment of his desire he depended merely on men-at-arms and ladders.

[Footnote 1766: Deliberation of the Chapter of Notre Dame, _loc. cit._ _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 245. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 457.]

[Footnote 1767: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 240, 246, 298; vol. iii, pp. 425, 427; vol. v, pp. 97, 107, 130, 140.]

It would seem that the Maid had not been told of the resolutions taken.[1768] She was never consulted and was seldom informed of what had been decided. But she was as sure of entering the town that day as of going to Paradise when she died. For more than three years her Voices had been drumming the attack on Paris in her ears.[1769] But the astonis.h.i.+ng point is that, saint as she was, she should have consented to arm and fight on the day of the Nativity. It was contrary to her action on the 5th of May, Ascension Day, and inconsistent with what she had said on the 8th of the same month: ”As ye love and honour the Sacred Sabbath do not begin the battle.”[1770]

[Footnote 1768: _Ibid._, pp. 57, 146, 168, 250.]

[Footnote 1769: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 130 (letter of the 17th of July, 1429), vol. i, p. 298. ”Et hoc sciebar per revelationem.” Cf. vol. i, pp. 57, 260, 288 in contradiction.]

[Footnote 1770: _Journal du siege_, p. 89.]

True it is that afterwards, at Montepilloy, she had engaged in a skirmish on the Day of the a.s.sumption, and thus scandalized the masters of the University. She acted according to the counsel of her Voices and her decisions depended on the vaguest murmurings in her ear. Nothing is more inconstant and more contradictory than the inspirations of such visionaries, who are but the playthings of their dreams. What is certain at least is that Jeanne now as always was convinced that she was doing right and committing no sin.[1771] Arrayed on the height of Les Moulins, in front of Paris with its grey fortifications, the French had immediately before them the outermost of the trenches, dry and narrow, some sixteen or seventeen feet deep, separated by a mound from the second trench, nearly one hundred feet broad, deep and filled with water which lapped the walls of the city.

Quite close, on their right, the road to Roule led up to the Saint Honore Gate, also called the Gate of the Blind because it was near the Hospital of Les Quinze Vingts.[1772] It opened beneath a castlet flanked by turrets, and for an advanced defence it had a bulwark surrounded by wooden barriers, like those of Orleans.[1773]

[Footnote 1771: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 147, 148.]

[Footnote 1772: In 1254 Saint Louis founded this hospital for three hundred blind knights whose eyes had been put out by the Saracens.

(W.S.)]

[Footnote 1773: Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, _Paris et ses historiens_, pp. 205 and 231, note 4. Adolphe Berty, _Topographie historique du vieux Paris, region du Louvre et des Tuileries_, p. 180, and app. vi, p. ix. E. Eude, _L'attaque de Jeanne d'Arc contre Paris, 1429_, in _Cosmos_, nouv. serie, xxix (1894), pp. 241, 244.]

The Parisians did not expect to be attacked on a feast day.[1774] And yet the ramparts were by no means deserted, and on the walls standards could be seen waving, and especially a great white banner with a Saint Andrew's cross in silver gilt.[1775]

[Footnote 1774: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 246.]

[Footnote 1775: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, pp. 332, 333. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 108.]