Part 93 (1/2)
Many Burgundian lords, and among them a knight, one Jean de Pressy, Controller of the Finances of Burgundy, offered her woman's dress, as the Luxembourg dame had done, for her own good and in order to avoid scandal; but for nothing in the world would Jeanne have cast off the garb which she had a.s.sumed according to divine command.
She also received in her prison at Arras a clerk of Tournai, one Jean Naviel, charged by the magistrates of his town to deliver to her the sum of twenty-two golden crowns. This ecclesiastic enjoyed the confidence of his fellow citizens, who employed him in the town's most urgent affairs. In the May of this year, 1430, he had been sent to Messire Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of King Charles. He had been taken by the Burgundians at the same time as Jeanne and held to ransom; but out of that predicament he soon escaped and at no great cost.
He acquitted himself well of his mission[2102] to the Maid, and, it would seem, received nothing for his trouble, doubtless because he wanted the reward of this work of mercy to be placed to his account in heaven.[2103]
[Footnote 2102: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 95, 96, 231. Canon Henri Debout, _Jeanne d'Arc prisonniere a Arras_, Arras, 1894, in 16mo; _Jeanne d'Arc et les villes d'Arras et de Tournai_, Paris, 1904, in 8vo; _Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. ii, pp. 394 _et seq._]
[Footnote 2103: On the 7th of November, 1430, a messenger from the town of Arras received forty s.h.i.+llings for having taken two sealed letters to the Duke of Burgundy, one from Jean de Luxembourg, the other from David de Brimeu, Governor of the Bailiwick of Arras; we know nothing of the tenor of these letters written concerning ”the case of the Maid.” P. Champion, _Notes sur Jeanne d'Arc, II; Jeanne d'Arc a Arras_, in _Le Moyen age_, July-August, 1907, pp. 200, 201.]
Neither the capture of the Maid nor the retreat of the men-at-arms she had brought, put an end to the siege of Compiegne. Guillaume de Flavy and his two brothers, Charles and Louis, and Captain Baretta with his Italians, and the five hundred of the garrison[2104] displayed skill, vigour, and untiring energy. The Burgundians conducted the siege in the same manner as the English had conducted that of Orleans; mines, trenches, bulwarks, cannonades and bastions, those gigantic and absurd erections good for nothing but for burning. The suburbs of the town Guillaume de Flavy had demolished because they were in the way of his firing; boats he had sunk in order to bar the river. To the mortars and huge _couillards_ of the Burgundians he replied with his artillery, and notably with those little copper culverins which did such good service.[2105] If the gay cannoneer of Orleans and Jargeau, Maitre Jean de Montesclere, were absent, there was a shoemaker of Valenciennes, an artilleryman, named Noirouffle, tall, dark, terrible to see, and terrible to hear.[2106] The townsfolk of Compiegne, like those of Orleans, made unsuccessful sallies. One day Louis de Flavy, the governor's brother, was killed by a Burgundian bullet. But none the less on that day Guillaume did as he was wont to do and made the minstrels play to keep his men-at-arms in good cheer.[2107]
[Footnote 2104: H. de Lepinois, _Notes extraites des archives communales de Compiegne_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, 1863, vol. xxiv, p. 486. A. Sorel, _Prise de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 268. P.
Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy_, pp. 38, 48 _et seq._]
[Footnote 2105: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 500 verso.]
[Footnote 2106: Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 53.]
[Footnote 2107: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 390.]
In the month of June the bulwark, defending the bridge over the Oise, like les Tourelles at Orleans which defended the bridge over the Loire, was captured by the enemy without bringing about the reduction of the town. In like manner, the capture of Les Tourelles had not occasioned the fall of the town of Duke Charles.[2108]
[Footnote 2108: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 390, 391. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 180. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 306, 307.
Chastellain, vol. ii, pp. 51, 54. A. Sorel, _La prise de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 233 _et seq._ P. Champion. _Guillaume de Flavy_, p. 50.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY VI
_From a portrait in the ”Election Chamber” at Eton, reproduced by permission of the Provost_]
As for the bastions, they were just as little good on the Oise as they had been on the Loire; everything pa.s.sed by them. The Burgundians were unable to invest Compiegne because its circ.u.mference was too great.[2109] They were short of money; and their men-at-arms, for lack of food and of pay, deserted with that perfect a.s.surance which in those days characterised alike mercenaries of the red cross and of the white.[2110] To complete his misfortunes, Duke Philip was obliged to take away some of the troops engaged in the siege and send them against the inhabitants of Liege who had revolted.[2111] On the 24th of October, a relieving army, commanded by the Count of Vendome and the Marshal de Boussac, approached Compiegne. The English and the Burgundians having turned to encounter them, the garrison and all the inhabitants of the town, even the women, fell upon the rear of the besiegers and routed them.[2112] The relieving army entered Compiegne.
The flaring of the bastions was a fine sight. The Duke of Burgundy lost all his artillery.[2113] The Sire de Luxembourg, who had come to Beaurevoir, where he had received the Count Bishop of Beauvais, now appeared before Compiegne just in time to bear his share in the disaster.[2114] The same causes which had constrained the English to depart, as they put it, from Orleans, now obliged the Burgundians to leave Compiegne. But in those days the most ordinary events must needs have a supernatural cause a.s.signed to them, wherefore the deliverance of the town was attributed to the vow of the Count of Vendome, who, in the cathedral of Senlis, had promised an annual ma.s.s to Notre-Dame-de-la-Pierre if the place were not taken.[2115]
[Footnote 2109: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. i, pp. 49 _et seq._]
[Footnote 2110: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 502 verso. P.
Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, xli, xlii, xliii.]
[Footnote 2111: _Livre des trahisons_, p. 202.]
[Footnote 2112: Monstrelet, vol. iii, pp. 410-415. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 185. _Livre des trahisons_, p. 202. A. Sorel, _La prise de Jeanne d'Arc_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, xiii, p. 341. P.
Champion, _loc. cit._, p. 176.]
[Footnote 2113: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 418. De La Fons-Melicocq, _Doc.u.ments inedits sur le siege de Compiegne_, in _La Picardie_, vol.
iii, 1857, pp. 22, 23. Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. ii, part i, p. 156.]
[Footnote 2114: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 419. P. Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy_, p. 57.]
[Footnote 2115: Sorel, _La prise de Jeanne d'Arc_, proofs and ill.u.s.trations, p. 343.]
The Lord Treasurer of Normandy raised aids to the amount of eighty thousand _livres tournois_, ten thousand of which were to be devoted to the purchase of Jeanne. The Count Bishop of Beauvais, who was taking this matter to heart, urged the Sire de Luxembourg to come to terms, mingled threats with coaxings, and caused the Norman gold to glitter before his eyes. He seemed to fear, and his fear was shared by the masters and doctors of the University, that King Charles would likewise make an offer, that he would promise more than King Henry's ten thousand golden francs and that in the end, by dint of costly gifts, the Armagnacs would succeed in winning back their fairy-G.o.dmother.[2116] The rumour ran that King Charles, hearing that the English were about to gain possession of Jeanne for a sum of money, sent an amba.s.sador to warn the Duke of Burgundy not on any account to consent to such an agreement, adding that if he did, the Burgundians in the hands of the King of France would be made to pay for the fate of the Maid.[2117] Doubtless the rumour was false; albeit the fears of the Lord Bishop and the masters of the Paris University were not entirely groundless; and it is certain that from the banks of the Loire the negotiations were being attentively followed with a view to intervention at a favourable moment.