Part 122 (1/2)
In the summer of 1439, la Dame des Armoises went to Orleans. The magistrates offered her wine and meat as a token of gladness and devotion. On the first of August they gave her a dinner and presented her with two hundred and ten livres of Paris as an acknowledgment of the service she had rendered to the town during the siege. These are the very terms in which this expenditure is entered in the account books of that city.[2660]
[Footnote 2660: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 570-571.]
If the folk of Orleans did actually take her for the real Maid, Jeanne, then it must have been more on account of the evidence of the Du Lys brothers, than on that of their own eyes. For, when one comes to think of it, they had seen her but very seldom. During that week in May, she had only appeared before them armed and on horseback.
Afterwards in June, 1429, and January, 1430, she had merely pa.s.sed through the town. True it was she had been offered wine and the magistrates had sat at table with her;[2661] but that was nine years ago. And the lapse of nine years works many a change in a woman's face. They had seen her last as a young girl, now they found her a woman and the mother of two children. Moreover they were guided by the opinion of her kinsfolk. Their att.i.tude provokes some astonishment, however, when one thinks of the conversation at the banquet, and of the awkward and inconsistent remarks the dame must have uttered. If they were not then undeceived, these burgesses must have been pa.s.sing simple and strongly prejudiced in favour of their guest.
[Footnote 2661: Original doc.u.ments of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, p.
270.]
And who can say that they were not? Who can say that, after having given credence to the tidings brought by Jean du Lys, the townsfolk did not begin to discover the imposture? That the belief in the survival of Jeanne was by no means general in the city, during the visit of la Dame des Armoises, is proved by the entries in the munic.i.p.al accounts of sums expended on the funeral services, which we have already mentioned. Supposing we abstract the years 1437 and 1438, the anniversary service had at any rate been held in 1439, two days before Corpus-Christi, and only about three months before the banquet on the 1st of August.[2662] Thus these grateful burgesses of Orleans were at one and the same time entertaining their benefactress at banquets and saying ma.s.ses in memory of her death.
[Footnote 2662: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 274. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 286.]
La Dame des Armoises only spent a fortnight with them. She left the city towards the end of July. Her departure would seem to have been hasty and sudden. She was invited to a supper, at which she was to have been presented with eight pints of wine, but when the wine was served she had gone, and the banquet had to be held without her.[2663]
Jean Quillier and Thevanon of Bourges were present. This Thevanon may have been that Thevenin Villedart, with whom Jeanne's brothers dwelt during the siege.[2664] In Jean Quillier we recognise the young draper who, in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple, wherewith to make a gown for the Maid.[2665]
[Footnote 2663: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 287.]
[Footnote 2664: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 260.]
[Footnote 2665: _Ibid._, pp. 112-113.]
La Dame des Armoises had gone to Tours, where she gave herself out to be the true Jeanne. She gave the Bailie of Touraine a letter for the King; and the Bailie undertook to see that it was delivered to the Prince, who was then at Orleans, having arrived there but shortly after Jeanne's departure. The Bailie of Touraine in 1439 was none other than that Guillaume Bellier who ten years before as lieutenant of Chinon had received the Maid into his house and committed her to the care of his devout wife.[2666]
[Footnote 2666: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 17; vol. v, p. 327.]
To the messenger, who bore this letter, Guillaume Bellier also gave a note for the King written by himself, and ”touching the deeds of la Dame des Armoises.”[2667] We know nothing of its purport.[2668]
[Footnote 2667: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 332. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 23-24.]
[Footnote 2668: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 332.]
Shortly afterwards the Dame went off into Poitou. There she placed herself at the service of Seigneur Gille de Rais, Marshal of France.[2669] He it was who in his early youth had conducted the Maid to Orleans, had been with her throughout the coronation campaign, had fought at her side before the walls of Paris. During Jeanne's captivity he had occupied Louviers and pushed on boldly to Rouen. Now throughout the length and breadth of his vast domains he was kidnapping children, mingling magic with debauchery, and offering to demons the blood and the limbs of his countless victims. His monstrous doings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and already the hand of the Church was upon him.
[Footnote 2669: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes et de ma.n.u.scrits appartenant au British Museum_, in _Bibliotheque de l'ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, 1846, p. 116.]
According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the Marechal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the men-at-arms,[2670] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had occupied at Lagny and Compiegne. Did she do great prowess? We do not know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[2671] In the spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[2672]
[Footnote 2670: Abbe Bossard, _Gille de Rais_, p. 174.]
[Footnote 2671: Pardon, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 332-334.]
[Footnote 2672: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 335. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]
For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[2673] The townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[2674] Even in Rouen such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the people of Orleans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.
[Footnote 2673: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 338 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp. 384 _et seq._]
[Footnote 2674: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270.]
Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just the same as it had been under Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured and respected the King of France, the guardian of its privileges and the defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The ill.u.s.trious masters felt no remorse at having demanded and obtained the chastis.e.m.e.nt of the rebel and heretic, Jeanne the Maid. Whosoever persists in error is a heretic; whosoever essays and fails to overthrow the powers that be is a rebel. It was G.o.d's will that in 1440 Charles of Valois should possess the city of Paris; it had not been G.o.d's will in 1429; wherefore the Maid had striven against G.o.d.
With equal bitterness would the University, in 1440, have proceeded against a Maid of the English.