Part 83 (1/2)
[Footnote 1901: Accounts of the fortress, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 259, 260.]
On the third of March she followed King Charles to Sully.[1902] The chateau, in which she lodged near the King, belonged to the Sire de la Tremouille, who had inherited it from his mother, Marie de Sully, the daughter of Louis I of Bourbon. It had been recaptured from the English after the deliverance of Orleans.[1903] A stronghold on the Loire, on the highroad from Paris to Autun, and commanding the plain between Orleans and Briare and the ancient bridge with twenty arches, the chateau of Sully linked together central France and those northern provinces which Jeanne had so regretfully quitted, and whither with all her heart she longed to return to engage in fresh expeditions and fresh sieges.
[Footnote 1902: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 159.]
[Footnote 1903: Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 258. _Berry_, in G.o.defroy, p. 376. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 294, notes 4, 5. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, pp. 139, 163. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p.
144.]
During the first fortnight of March, from the townsfolk of Reims she received a message in which they confided to her fears only too well grounded.[1904] On the 8th of March the Regent had granted to the Duke of Burgundy the counties of Champagne and of Brie on condition of his reconquering them.[1905] Armagnacs and English vied with each other in offering the biggest and most tempting morsels to this Gargantuan Duke. Not being able to keep their promise and deliver to him Compiegne which refused to be delivered, the French offered him in its place Pont-Sainte-Maxence.[1906] But it was Compiegne that he wanted.
The truces, which had been very imperfectly kept, were to have expired at Christmas, but first they had been prolonged till the 15th of March and then till Easter. In the year 1430 Easter fell on the 16th of April; and Duke Philip was only waiting for that date to put an army in the field.[1907]
[Footnote 1904: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 378. D. Plancher, _Histoire de Bourgogne_, vol. iv, p. 137. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 268.]
[Footnote 1905: Du Tillet, _Recueil des rois de France_, vol. ii, p. 39 (ed. 1601-1602). Rymer, _Foedera_, March, 1430.]
[Footnote 1906: P. Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy_, pp. 35, 152.]
[Footnote 1907: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp.
351, 389.]
In a manner concise and vivacious the Maid replied to the townsfolk of Reims:
”Dear friends and beloved and mightily desired. Jehenne the Maid hath received your letters making mention that ye fear a siege. Know ye that it shall not so betide, and I may but encounter them shortly. And if I do not encounter them and they do not come to you, if you shut your gates firmly, I shall shortly be with you: and if they be there, I shall make them put on their spurs so hastily that they will not know where to take them and so quickly that it shall be very soon. Other things I will not write unto you now, save that ye be always good and loyal. I pray G.o.d to have you in his keeping. Written at Sully, the 16th day of March.
I would announce unto you other tidings at which ye would mightily rejoice; but I fear lest the letters be taken on the road, and the said tidings be seen.
Signed. Jehanne.
_Addressed_ to my dear friends and beloved, churchmen, burgesses and other citizens of the town of Rains.”[1908]
[Footnote 1908: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 160, according to Rogier's copy. H.
Jadart, _Jeanne d'Arc a Reims_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations xv. Facsimile in Wallon, 1876 edition, p. 200. The original of this letter exists, likewise the original of the letter addressed on the 9th of November, 1429, to the citizens of Riom. These two letters, about one hundred and twenty-six days apart, are not written by the same scribe. The signature of neither one nor the other can be attributed to the hand which indited the rest of the letter. The seven letters of the name _Jehanne_ seem to have been written by some one whose hand was being held, which is not surprising, seeing that the Maid did not know how to write. But a comparison of the two signatures reveals their close similarity. In both the stem of the J slopes in the same direction and is of identical length; the first _n_ through one letter being written on the top of another has three pothooks instead of two; the second pothook of the second _n_ obviously written in two strokes is too long, in short the two signatures correspond exactly. We must conclude therefore that having once obtained the Maid's signature by guiding her hand, an impression was taken to serve as a model for all her other letters. To judge from the two missives of the 9th of November, 1429 and the 16th of March, 1430, this impression was most faithfully reproduced. Cf. _post_, p. 117, note 2.]
There can be no doubt that the scribe wrote this letter faithfully as it was dictated by the Maid, and that he wrote her words as they fell from her lips. In her haste she now and again forgot words and sometimes whole phrases; but the sense is clear all the same. And what confidence! ”You will have no siege if I encounter the enemy.” How completely is this the language of chivalry! On the eve of Patay she had asked: ”Have you good spurs?”[1909] Here she cries: ”I will make them put on their spurs.” She says that soon she will be in Champagne, that she is about to start. Surely we can no longer think of her shut up in the Castle of La Tremouille as in a kind of gilded cage.[1910] In conclusion, she tells her friends at Reims that she does not write unto them all that she would like for fear lest her letter should be captured on the road. She knew what it was to be cautious. Sometimes she affixed a cross to her letters to warn her followers to pay no heed to what she wrote, in the hope that the missive would be intercepted and the enemy deceived.[1911]
[Footnote 1909: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 11.]
[Footnote 1910: Perceval de Cagny, p. 172.]
[Footnote 1911: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 83.]
It was from Sully that on the 23rd of March Brother Pasquerel sent the Emperor Sigismund a letter intended for the Hussites of Bohemia.[1912]
[Footnote 1912: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 156.]
The Hussites of those days were abhorred and execrated throughout Christendom. They demanded the free preaching of G.o.d's word, communion in both kinds, and the return of the Church to that evangelical life which allowed neither the wealth of priests nor the temporal power of popes. They desired the punishment of sin by the civil magistrates, a custom which could prevail only in very holy society. They were saints indeed and heretics too on every possible point. Pope Martin held the destruction of these wicked persons to be salutary, and such was the opinion of every good Catholic. But how could this armed heresy be dealt with when it routed all the forces of the Empire and the Holy See? The Hussites were too much for that worn-out ancient chivalry of Christendom, for the knighthood of France and of Germany, which was good for nothing but to be thrown on to the refuse heaps like so much old iron. And this was precisely what the towns of the realm of France did when over these knights of chivalry they placed a peasant girl.[1913]
[Footnote 1913: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 24, 86, 87. J. Zeller, _Histoire d'Allemagne_, vol. vii, _La reforme_, Paris, 1891, pp. 78 _et seq._ E. Denis, _Jean Hus et la guerre des Hussites_ (1879); _Les origines de l'Unite des Freres Bohemes_, Angers, 1885, in 8vo, pp. 5 _et seq._]
At Tachov, in 1427, the Crusaders, blessed by the Holy Father, had fled at the mere sound of the chariot wheels of the Procops.[1914] Pope Martin knew not where to turn for defenders of Holy Church, one and indivisible. He had paid for the armament of five thousand English crusaders, which the Cardinal of Winchester was to lead against these accursed Bohemians; but in this force the Holy Father was cruelly disappointed; hardly had his five thousand crusaders landed in France, than the Regent of England diverted them from their route and sent them to Brie to occupy the attention of the Maid of the Armagnacs.[1915]