DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/joanofarc01lama 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
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 Joan of Arc. 
 
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 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 By Sarah M. Grimké. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ADAMS & CO., 
 2i Bromfield Street. 
 
 1867. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
 ADAMS & COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 Stereotyped by C. J. Peters & Son, 
 13 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
 Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 ComhilL 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 Few of her biographers seem to have 
 appreciated the character of Joan of Arc. 
 Lamartine and Henri Martyn understand 
 her better than any others. To them and to 
 other authentic sources I am indebted for 
 the materials of the following sketch. In- 
 deed, it is in the main a free translation, 
 greatly condensed., of Lamartine’s “Jeanne 
 d’Arc.” 
 
 The record of her trial is still unpub- 
 lished, in the Royal Library of Paris. “ It 
 is truly disgraceful,” says Henri Martyn, 
 “ that the materials for the history of Joan 
 of Arc have not yet been collected, and 
 given to the public officially.” We learn 
 from the same source that this forgetful- 
 ness, or rather this national ingratitude, is 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 P REF A TOR Y. 
 
 about to be repaired by tlie Historical So- 
 ciety of France. 
 
 She seems to have been a being by her- 
 self, — a woman in all gentleness, tender 
 yearnings, and fortitude sublime ; a man 
 in intellect, heroic daring, and loftiest as- 
 piration ; a warrior attaining the highest 
 military honors, and wearing them with 
 utmost humility. She towers above all 
 others in the greatness of her achievements, 
 the rounded completeness of her character, 
 and in her superhuman sway alike over the 
 mightiest and the meanest in the realm. 
 
 Next to Jesus, she seeins to have been 
 the grandest medium of divine communi- 
 cation ; a being sent from a higher sphere 
 to allure and buoy us upward. Her in- 
 spiration was a summons from God, re- 
 verberating through a whole people, and 
 concentrating its power in the exaltation 
 and agony of a single soul. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 i. 
 
 Enthusiasm is a sacred flame. We do not 
 analyze it : we are dazzled, rapt, and silent be- 
 fore it. When this passion takes possession of 
 a nation, women feel it in a higher degree than 
 men. As they are by their nature more 
 sensitive, more impressible, more loving, they 
 identify themselves more fully through their 
 imagination and their affections with their 
 country : her image is incorporated with that 
 of their mothers, their husbands, their children, 
 their homes, their sepulchres, their temples, and 
 their gods. 
 
 n. 
 
 At the period when Joan arises to save her 
 country, France, torn by intestine factions, a 
 prey to the ambition of those who seek only 
 
6 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 their own aggrandizement, is France no more. 
 A large portion of her territory is in the 
 hands of the English, and the whole nation 
 abandoned to the horrors of a civil war. Her 
 king, Charles VIL, a weak and unprincipled 
 monarch, looks in vain for his subjects ; the 
 people, for their king. 
 
 The sufferings of the nobility, and even of 
 the citizens, were nothing in comparison to 
 those of the peasants, who, always oppressed, 
 even in the most prosperous times, are no 
 longer under the hand of a single master, but 
 crushed beneath the heel of a thousand tyran- 
 nical mercenaries. Dismayed, down-trodden, 
 they are plunged into that bottomless pit, where 
 humanity sinks into the horrors of desolation. 
 Into this gulf descended the pure ray of the 
 divine ideal, carrying with it life and salvation. 
 From the profound of this hell arose the deliv- 
 erer, and that deliverer a woman. 
 
 From among the country people, who are 
 more susceptible of the wild transports of reli- 
 gious enthusiasm, arose Joan of Arc. The 
 women were sunk to a more degraded condi- 
 tion than the men. They were abandoned to 
 all the outrages, all the insolent ferocity, of 
 brute force during those frightful wars which 
 drove humanity back to its primitive barbarism. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 7 
 
 By a sublime expiation, a virgin, clad in that 
 living armor with which the poets of India 
 invest their celestial warriors, was now to break 
 in pieces the sword of the oppressor. 
 
 This condition of the people presaged and 
 prepared the way for the events which followed. 
 Plunged into the abyss of despair, they had 
 abandoned all hope of human succor ; but the 
 sentiment of an indestructible nationality sur- 
 vived. Expecting nothing from man, the 
 “trampled millions’ smothered cry” went up 
 to God. A burning religious enthusiasm pre- 
 vailed, and the tradition that salvation would 
 come through a woman gained ground from 
 day to day. Everywhere reigned that in- 
 tense expectation which foreshadows a great 
 event. 
 
 Such was the state of the nation when Provi- 
 dence wrought out the redemption of France 
 through the instrumentality of a child. 
 
 m. 
 
 1st the’ village of Domrémy, in Upper Lor- 
 raine, not far from the little town of Vaucou- 
 leurs, resided a family whose name was D ’Arc. 
 The father was a husbandman ; and, if we may 
 
8 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 judge from the manners and domestic habits 
 of this family, they enjoyed the comforts and 
 the leisure which competence affords. The 
 father’s name was Jacques ; the mother’s, Isa- 
 belle Romée. There were two sons, Jacques 
 and Pierre ; and a daughter, younger than her 
 brothers, who was called Joan ; although her 
 godmother had likewise given her the name of 
 Sibyl. She used to play and wander about in 
 the adjoining forests with the little girls of the 
 village. Her mother did not know how to 
 read, and consequently could not teach Joan ; 
 but she conversed with her on subjects calcu- 
 lated to imbue her mind with religious senti- 
 ments. She taught her to sew ; and so great 
 was her skill in this department, that no matron 
 in Rouen excelled her. She also learned how 
 to spin hemp and wool. 
 
 “ No girl of her age and condition,” said one 
 of her companions interrogated concerning her 
 childhood, “ was more loved in the house of 
 her parents. How many times have I been to 
 her home ! Joan was a sweet and simple girl : 
 she loved to attend church, and to go on holy 
 pilgrimages ; she busied herself about the 
 house like other girls ; she went often to con- 
 fession ; she blushed when she was laughed at 
 about her piety, and her going too often to pray 
 
JOAN OF ABC. 
 
 9 
 
 in the sanctuary. She loved to take care of 
 the sick children in the surrounding cottages.” 
 A poor laborer told her judges that he remem- 
 bered her watching by him when he was a 
 child. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The pensive beauty of Joan attracted the 
 admiration of the youth of the village, while 
 her modesty forbade all approach to familiarity. 
 Several, however, charmed by her loveliness 
 and gentle demeanor, asked her of her parents 
 in marriage. She steadily rejected every offer, 
 feeling, by some presentiment perhaps, that 
 she was' appointed to give birth one day, not to 
 children, but to a nation. One of her lovers, 
 bolder than the rest, presumed to claim her 
 hand, swearing in court that she had promised 
 to be his wife. The poor girl, abashed, but 
 indignant, when summoned to appear at Toul 
 on the charge of breach of faith, protested that 
 the accusation was false ; and the judges, being 
 convinced of her innocence, acquitted her, and 
 sent her home. 
 
10 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 V. 
 
 Whilst her beauty delighted every eye, the 
 thoughtfulness of her countenance, the solitude 
 and silence of her life, astonished her parents 
 and her brothers. Nothing of the languor of 
 ripening womanhood betrayed her sex ; while 
 she possessed all its delicacy and its attrac- 
 tions. Neither nature, nor the passion of love, 
 asserted itself in her. Her soul, dwelling apart, 
 seemed rather to meditate than feel ; yet pitiful 
 and tender, with a pity and tenderness embra- 
 cing something grander and more distant than 
 her own horizon. She prayed without ceasing, 
 said little, and shunned company of her own 
 age. When sewing, she generally retired to a 
 little enclosure under the hedge behind the 
 house, whence she could see only the sky, the 
 tower of the church, and the distant mountains. 
 There she seemed to hear within herself those 
 voices which external noises might have si- 
 lenced. 
 
 She was but eight years old when already all 
 these signs of inspiration were manifest in her. 
 She seemed, like the ancient sibyls, marked from 
 infancy with the fatal seal of sadness, of beauty, 
 and of isolation among the daughters of men. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 11 
 
 She loved every thing that suffered, — the birds 
 and the animals, which she regarded as endowed 
 with affections like ourselves, but ungifted with 
 words to express them. They seemed to her 
 like beings condemned by God to live with man 
 in a kind of purgatory, having perfected in 
 them only the power to suffer and to love. She 
 was attracted and spell-bound by all that was 
 sublime and melancholy in nature. She de- 
 lighted in the chime of the church-bells ; and, to 
 induce the ringer to prolong the Angelas, she 
 gave him skeins of woollen yarn to contribute to 
 the autumn-gathering for the poor. 
 
 But, above all, her heart bled for the kingdom 
 of France, and for the young dauphin, without 
 mother, without country, and without crown. 
 The accounts she daily heard through monks, 
 soldiers, pilgrims, and mendicants, — the cottage 
 newsmongers of that age, — overwhelmed her 
 with anguish, and filled her heart with compas- 
 sion for her unfortunate sovereign. He was 
 associated in her mind with the calamities of 
 her country, and she regarded his restoration as 
 the means of salvation for France. 
 
12 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 VI. 
 
 She had heard her voices for a long time be- 
 fore speaking even to her mother of them. One 
 day at noon, when she was alone in the garden, 
 under the shadow of the church, she heard dis- 
 tinctly a voice- call her by name : “Joan, arise ! 
 Go to the succor of the dauphin ! Restore to 
 him his kingdom of France ! ” The splendor 
 that accompanied the command was so celestial, 
 the voice so distinct, and the summons so impera- 
 tive, that she fell on her knees, and exclaimed, 
 “ How can I do this, since I am but a poor girl, 
 and knoAV neither how to ride, nor to lead 
 armies? ” The voice was not content with these 
 excuses. “You will go to the Lord of Baudri- 
 eourt, the king’s captain at Vaucouleurs. He 
 will send you under escort to the dauphin, hear 
 nothing. St. Catharine and St. Margaret will 
 protect you.” 
 
 At this first distinct intimation of the diffi- 
 cult and dangerous task she was destined to un- 
 dertake, she trembled and wept in agony of 
 spirit, but was silent. To this divine communi- 
 cation succeeded visions. She saw St. Michael 
 armed with a lance, clothed with light, as he 
 appeared in the painting over the altar. The 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 13 
 
 archangel pictured to her the rending-asunder 
 and desolation of the kingdom, and demanded 
 of her its deliverance. St. Margaret and St. 
 Catharine also appeared to her, and spoke ten- 
 der and gentle words : crowns encircled their 
 brows, angels followed in their train, all paradise 
 seemed opened to her view. Absorbed in divine 
 communion, she forgot the peril and rigor of 
 her mission, and was lost in holy contemplation. 
 When the voices ceased, when the angelic forms 
 withdrew, when heaven closed, Joan found her- 
 self bathed in tears. “ Oh that the angels had 
 taken me with them ! ” she cried. But her 
 mission was not yet accomplished : she was to 
 ascend to the glory she yearned for from the 
 funeral-pyre of the martyr. 
 
 VII. 
 
 These conversations in which she was sum- 
 moned to her arduous task ; these spiritual joys, 
 which strengthened her sometimes wavering 
 faith ; the agony which usually followed the con- 
 viction of the grand and perilous work she was 
 called to perform, the obstacles interposed, and 
 the consequent delay, — lasted several years. At 
 length, she communicated all that had happened 
 
14 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 to her mother, who informed her father and 
 brothers. The rumor soon spread through the 
 country, a subject of wonder for the simple, of 
 doubt for the wise ; of sarcasm for some, and 
 of gossip for all. 
 
 The idea of a young girl leading armies to 
 battle, crowning her king, and delivering her 
 country, was to be found in tradition as well as 
 in the Bible. Joan made it the religion of the 
 nation. Her father, an aged and austere man, 
 was greatly troubled at the reports of these 
 visions and wonders. He did not think his 
 family worthy of these dangerous favors from 
 heaven, and of these visits of angels and saints. 
 Holding communication with spirits seemed to 
 him suspicious, especially in an age when super- 
 stition ascribed to demons so many events, and 
 when exorcism and the stake punished all who 
 were suspected of intercourse with the invisible 
 world. He thought the melancholy and illu- 
 sions of his child were owing to physical causes. 
 He therefore urged her to marry, hoping that 
 her loving and devoted nature might find in the 
 affections of a wife and mother something to 
 divert her mind from the one idea which seemed 
 to permeate and absorb her. Sometimes his 
 remonstrances were accompanied by invective. 
 He declared he would rather drown her with 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 15 
 
 his own hands than that she should go into the 
 army. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Neither the menaces of her father, nor the 
 displeasure of her mother, to whom she was 
 tenderly attached, prevented her from seeing 
 visions and hearing voices. Obedient in all else, 
 she earnestly wished to obey in this also ; but 
 her inspiration was too strong. Heaven must 
 be obeyed before men. Her visions were more 
 potent than the pleadings of nature. She suf- 
 fered much from grieving those she loved, and, 
 like her divine Exemplar, prayed that this fear- 
 ful cup might pass from her ; but in vain : like 
 Jesus, too, she said, “ Father, not my will, but 
 thine, be done.” She trusted, that, when her 
 mission was accomplished, she might obtain the 
 pardon of her parents ; and they did pardon 
 her when her success and her glory had justified 
 her disobedience. 
 
 IX 
 
 A catastrophe which desolated her village 
 helped to strengthen her intention of going forth 
 
16 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 on her mission. This little hamlet, situated at 
 a distance from the theatre of war, had hereto- 
 fore suffered little ; but in 1428 it was invaded 
 by the Burgundians, and the inhabitants of 
 Domrémy had only time to flee with their 
 flocks to Neufchâtel. When the enemy had 
 departed, and the people returned, Joan saw 
 nothing but ruin and desolation in those places 
 she had so loved. Her village had been sacked, 
 her church burnt to the ground. Was it not 
 Heaven which thus punished her delay? 
 
 X. 
 
 Joan had an uncle more simple, more tender, 
 more enthusiastic, than her father, in whose 
 heart she first found sympathy, and faith in her 
 mission. These second fathers are often more 
 truly paternal than the real ones ; perhaps be- 
 cause they love from choice, and not from duty. 
 Such seems to have been the uncle of Joan, — 
 the father of her heart, her comforter, her con- 
 fidant, and, lastly, the agent appointed by God 
 to assist her. 
 
 To shield her from the reproaches and dis- 
 pleasure of her father, he took her to his own 
 house under pretext of needing her to nurse 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 17 
 
 liis wife. Joan profited by her residence there. 
 She entreated her uncle to go to Vaucouleurs, a 
 fortified town in the vicinity of Domrémy, to ob- 
 tain the assistance of the Lord of Baudricourt, 
 commandant of the city. Her uncle, urged 
 also by his wife, consented. He went to Vau- 
 couleurs, and delivered the message with which 
 he was intrusted. The warrior was amused. 
 He could only smile at the madness .of a peasant- 
 girl of seventeen undertaking to accomplish for 
 the dauphin and the kingdom what thousands 
 of knights, politicians, and soldiers, had been 
 unable to achieve. “You have nothing to do,” 
 said Baudricourt to the messenger of miracles, 
 dismissing him, “ but to chastise your niece well, 
 and send her home.” 
 
 The uncle returned, discouraged by the incre- 
 dulity of Baudricourt, and resolved to persuade 
 his wife and niece of their delusion ; but Joan 
 had such power over him, and conviction made 
 her so eloquent, that she soon revived his faith, 
 and even induced him to take her, unknown to 
 her parents, to Vaucouleurs. She felt that this 
 was the decisive step ; that, if once she left the 
 village, she would never return. She confided 
 her intention to a young girl whom she tenderly 
 loved, named Mangète. They prayed together ; 
 and, at parting, Joan commended her to God. 
 
18 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 But she concealed her departure from one whom 
 she loved still more, named Hauniette ; “ fear- 
 ing,” she said afterwards, “ that she could not 
 master her grief at leaving her if she bade her 
 good-by.” She wept much in secret, and at 
 last conquered her tears. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Habited in a red dress, such as was usually 
 worn 'by peasant-girls, Joan set out on foot 
 with her uncle. On arriving at Yaucouleurs, 
 she was hospitably received by the wife of a 
 wheelwright, a cousin of her mother. Baudri- 
 court, overcome by the entreaties of the uncle 
 and the perseverance of the niece, consented to 
 receive her, — not through faith in her mission, 
 but to rid himself of their importunity. He 
 was moved by the beauty of the young peas- 
 ant, whom her chevalier, Daulon, described, 
 about this time, as “ a young girl, beautiful and 
 well-formed, modestly revealing all womanly 
 graces.” Baudricourt having questioned her, 
 Joan answered, “ I come to you in the name of 
 God, my lord, to tell you to send word to the 
 dauphin to remain where he is, and not give 
 battle to the enemy at this time, because God 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 19 
 
 will send him succor by the middle of Lent. 
 The kingdom,” added she, “ does not belong to 
 him, but to God, his Lord. Yet God wills that 
 he shall reign. Notwithstanding all his ene- 
 mies, he shall be king ; and it is I who shall 
 lead him to be crowned at Rheims.” 
 
 Baudricourt dismissed her, undecided what 
 course to pursue. Deeply impressed by her 
 message, he dared not reject her when the 
 kingdom was trembling on the verge of ruin, 
 and incredulity might be imputed to him as a 
 crime. He prudently referred the matter to the 
 clergy, the right tribunal, he said, to judge of 
 supernatural cases. He also consulted the cu- 
 rate of Yaucouleurs, who went with him to visit 
 Joan. The curate, that his presence might be 
 more impressive, put on his priestly garments, — 
 his armor against the Tempter. He assumed an 
 air of great solemnity, exorcised the evil spirits, 
 and warned her to withdraw her claims if she 
 were in communion with Satan. But the only 
 spirits that possessed Joan were piety and pa- 
 triotism. She underwent the priestly ordeal 
 without giving offence either to the curate or 
 the warrior. They left her, deeply interested, 
 but perplexed. , 
 
20 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 XII. 
 
 This visit astonished the little town. People 
 of every condition, especially women, hastened 
 to the house. The mission of Joan was believed 
 in by some, and talked about by all. It was 
 no longer possible for Baudricourt to check the 
 prevailing excitement. Already he heard him- 
 self accused of cowardice or indifference. “ To 
 reject such assistance from Heaven, was it not 
 treachery to France and the dauphin?” A 
 nobleman, who, among many others, had come 
 to see Joan, indignant at Baudricourt, said to 
 her, “Well, my girl, then the king must be 
 driven away, and we must all become English.” 
 His complaints were echoed by the people. 
 Joan complained too, not for her own sake, 
 but for the sake of France. Yet, relying on 
 the promise which she had had from on high, 
 she said, “ Whatever betide, I will see the 
 dauphin before mid-Lent, even if I have to 
 make the journey on my knees. No one, 
 whether king, duke, or daughter of the King of 
 Scotland, can wrest the kingdom from God. 
 He will deliver it by my hand. Yet,” she add- 
 ed with sadness, “ I had rather sit beside my 
 mother, and spin. I know that fighting is not 
 
Joan of arc. 
 
 21 
 
 my work : but I must do as I am commanded ; 
 for my Lord wills it.” — “Who, then, is your 
 Lord?” they asked. “It is God,” she said. 
 
 Two knights who were pi’esent, one young, 
 the other old, were deeply moved. They swore, 
 their hands clasped in hers, that, by the help 
 of God, they would take her to the king. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The inhabitants of Yaucouleurs purchased a 
 horse for Joan, and a military suit, not only as 
 a badge of her warlike mission, but to protect 
 her from insult. Baudricourt gave her a sword. 
 The report of her departure for the army hav- 
 ing reached Domrémy, her father, her mother, 
 and her brothers, hastened to Yaucouleurs, and 
 insisted on taking her home. She wept with 
 them ; but tears, though they melted her heart, 
 could not shake her resolution. 
 
 She set out, accompanied by the two knights 
 and several horsemen, for Chinon, where the 
 dauphin then resided. Her escort traversed 
 rapidly the provinces held by the English and 
 Burgundians, lest their precious trust should be 
 captured. The soldiers, uncertain at first as to 
 the nature of her inspiration, at times wor- 
 
22 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 shipped her as a saint, and again shunned her 
 as a sorceress. Some of them even confei'red 
 together as to whether they should not rid 
 themselves of her by casting her into some 
 mountain torrent, and then pretending that she 
 had been carried off by the Devil. But often, 
 when on the point of executing their plot, they 
 were restrained by a power they dared not defy. 
 The youth, the beauty, and the holy innocence, 
 of Joan, were doubtless the charm which arrest- 
 ed their hands. Incredulous at starting, they 
 arrived convinced. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The dauphin had been informed by letter of 
 all that had happened in Lorraine. The wan- 
 dering court, now at the château of Chinon, 
 near Tours, awaited the arrival of the inspired 
 girl with various emotions. The chief counsel- 
 lors of the dauphin advised him not to listen 
 to a child, who, if not an instrument of the 
 Prince of Darkness, was certainly the victim of 
 her own delusion. Others, more credulous, 
 urged him to consult this oracle. The Queen 
 Yolande, mother-in-law of the dauphin, and the 
 ladies of the court, were proud to think that 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 23 
 
 France might owe her safety to a woman. They 
 felt that all human means had failed, and that a 
 miracle, real or imagined, could alone restore 
 confidence to the people, and enthusiasm to the 
 army. “Perhaps it was God who brought this 
 help.” Statesmanship or craft were alike good 
 in a desperate cause. The dauphin, hesitating 
 between the grave advice of his counsel and the 
 earnest solicitations of the women, found him- 
 self greatly perplexed. He was driven to rely 
 upon any thing, because he had nothing to hope. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Joan ar- 
 rived at Chinon. She was entertained in the 
 neighborhood, at the castle of the Lord of 
 Gaucourt. Visited by the lords and ladies of 
 the court, her simplicity won the hearts of the 
 latter, while it interested and edified the former. 
 The knights who held Orleans for the king had 
 too much need of a miracle to question her 
 mission. They accordingly despatched several 
 of their number to plead the cause of their 
 future liberator. The dauphin consented, at 
 length, to receive her ; but he determined, be- 
 fore giving credence to her claim, to test the 
 
24 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 truth of her inspiration. The humble peasant- 
 girl, in her shepherdess costume, was introduced 
 to the court, composed of military men, of coun- 
 sellors, of courtiers, and of queens. The dau- 
 phin, dressed with affected simplicity, mingled 
 in the groups of richly-attired noblemen ; thus 
 leaving the young girl in doubt as to who was 
 her sovereign. “ If she be truly sent of God,” 
 thought he, “ he will lead her to the only one 
 who has royal blood in his veins. If Satan 
 sent her, she will be deceived by appearances.” 
 
 Joan advanced confused, dazzled, and hesitat- 
 ing. Among the crowd, she sought with timid 
 glance the one to whom she had been sent. 
 She recognized him without questioning any 
 one, and, modestly approaching him, fell upon 
 her knees. “ It is not I who am the king,” 
 said the dauphin, pointing to one of his cour- 
 tiers : “ there is the king.” But Joan replied 
 with great earnestness, “ By my God, gracious 
 prince, you are the king, and none other.” 
 Then in a solemn voice she added, “ Most noble 
 lord, the King of kings declares through me 
 that you shall be consecrated and crowned, in 
 the city of Rheims, his vicegerent over the king- 
 dom of France.” 
 
 At these words the whole court were struck 
 with awe. The dauphin himself was deeply 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 25 
 
 moved : but be wished still further evidence ; 
 and, leading her aside into the embrasure of a 
 window, he conversed with her in a low voice 
 respecting a matter which troubled his con- 
 science, and made him doubt his right to the 
 throne. He had never mentioned the subject to 
 any one. It was. of a kind to make his mother 
 blush, and rob him of the crown. The life led 
 by Isabeau of Bavaria made it uncertain whether 
 the dauphin were really the son of Charles YI. 
 The inspired answer of Joan was inaudible to 
 the bystanders ; but they saw, by the counte- 
 nance of the dauphin, the pleasure and relief 
 that it gave him. Often, and very recently 
 too, would he shut himself in his oratory, 
 and pray God, with tears, to reveal to him in 
 some way whether he was indeed the heir to 
 the kingdom : if so, to restore to him his in- 
 heritance ; if not, to grant him a safe asylum 
 among the Spaniards or the Scots, his only 
 friends. “ I tell thee from God,” insisted Joan, 
 raising her voice, and saluting him, “ that thou 
 art the true son of the king, and the rightful 
 heir.” 
 
26 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 This conversation with the king ; the favor of 
 the princesses ; the entreaties of the knights 
 from Orleans ; the clamor of the people, ever 
 ready to put faith in the marvellous rather than 
 the possible ; and, lastly, the calculating policy 
 which encouraged a conviction so advantageous 
 to its designs, — all these causes created round 
 the stranger a respect and devotion which made 
 the least doubt a crime. The bastard of Or- 
 leans, the famous Dunois, called her by re- 
 peated messengers to Orleans, that her presence 
 might re-animate his troops. On hearing her 
 story, the Duke of Alençon, a chivalrous and 
 courteous prince, hastened to her, and embraced 
 her cause with all the warmth of youth and 
 enthusiasm. The courtiers crowded round her 
 at the Castle of Coudray. Some presented her 
 with superb war-horses ; others taught her how 
 to keep herself in the saddle, how to manage 
 her steed, how to break a lance. All were 
 charmed with the courage, strength, and grace 
 which she showed in these martial exercises. 
 It seemed as if the soul of a hero had trans- 
 fused itself into this maid of seventeen, inspir- 
 ing her with a passion for arms. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 27 
 
 The dauphin, however, still hesitated to 
 declare his full belief in the inspiration of Joan, 
 deterred by his chancellor, who feared the 
 derision of the English if France intrusted her 
 sword to a hand used only to the distaff. The 
 chancellor also feared the clergy, who might 
 ascribe her inspiration to witchcraft. The 
 king therefore thought it expedient to send her 
 to Poitiers, that she might be examined by the 
 university and the parliament. These two 
 oracles of the times, having been driven from 
 Paris, now held their sessions in that city. “ I 
 see,” said Joan, “ that a severe trial awaits 
 me at Poitiers : but God will sustain me ; my 
 trust is in him.” 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Questioned by the doctors with kindness, but 
 with great care, she confounded them all by 
 her faith in herself, as well as by her patience 
 and sweetness. One of them said to her, “But, 
 if God has resolved to save France, he does not 
 need soldiers.” — “Ah! my God,” she replied, 
 “ the soldiers will fight, and God will give the 
 victory.” Another remarked, “ If you give 
 no other evidence of the truth of your revela- 
 tions, the king can never intrust you with an 
 
28 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 army.” — “By my God ! ” replied Joan, “ it is 
 not to Poitiers I have been sent to give signs : 
 take me to Orleans with as few soldiers as you 
 please. The sign I am to give is the rais- 
 ing of the siege.” When the doctors cited 
 texts which forbade them to believe lightly in 
 such revelations, “ That is true,” she answered ; 
 “ but there are more things written in the book 
 of God than in those of men.” 
 
 At length the bishops declared that nothing 
 was impossible to God ; that the Bible was full 
 of mysteries, and of examples which might 
 authorize a humble girl to fight in the armor of 
 a man for the deliverance of her -country. The 
 Queen Yolande of Sicily, mother-in-law of the 
 dauphin, and the most honored ladies of the 
 court, testified to the pure life and chastity of 
 the prophetess. The dauphin doubted no 
 longer. He confided to her the army, which, 
 under the Duke of Alençon, her most zealous 
 friend, was destined for the relief of Orleans. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A suit of light armor was procured for her, 
 perfectly white, in token of her purity. She 
 demanded a long rusty sword, marked with five 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 29 
 
 crosses, which, as she foretold, was found hid- 
 den away in the chapel of a church near Chinon. 
 They placed in her hand a standard, also white, 
 sprinkled with fleurs de lis, the heraldic flower 
 of France. Thus she set forth, accompanied, 
 by an old and brave knight, her protector, 
 named Daulon ; by two children, her pages ; 
 two heralds-at-arms ; a chaplain ; many attend- 
 ants ; and by a crowd of people, who blessed 
 her beforehand for the miracles she was to 
 work, and the salvation she was to bring. 
 
 She was triumphantly received at Blois by 
 the chief ofBcers of the army, assembled to 
 welcome her, and to follow her divine instruc- 
 tions, — the Marshal of Boussac, Dunois, Lahire, 
 Saintrailles, and Bahdricourt, recently arrived 
 from Vaucouleurs ; all directed by the chancel- 
 lor to respect in this girl the will of God and 
 the king; But the passionate enthusiasm of 
 the people for the Virgin of Domrémy was far 
 more to the army than the orders of the dau- 
 phin. The servant of God as well as of the 
 throne, Joan began by reforming the morals 
 of the army. Cards, dice, all implements of 
 sorcery, both in the camp and in the city, were 
 cast into the flames. Popular preachers fol- 
 lowed in her footsteps, exhorting the women 
 and the soldiers. One of them was so carried 
 
30 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 away by his fanaticism, and so stirred up the 
 people, rather as a tribune than a priest, that 
 the pope had him seized by the Inquisition, and 
 burned alive, as a propagator of heresy. An- 
 other, called Friar Richard, drew such multi- 
 tudes, that thousands of men and children lay 
 on the bare ground around the platform the 
 night preceding his exhortations. The spirit 
 of God breathed on men’s souls like a tempest. 
 Religion, patriotism, war, fired the masses. 
 The humble Joan followed the preachers on 
 foot through the streets of Blois ; but her hu- 
 mility served only to inflame enthusiasm. 
 Friar Richard envied her while pretending to 
 share the fanaticism of the army. Already 
 the course of events and the passions of men 
 had prepared the way for miracles, for hatred 
 even, and, after victory, for martyrdom. 
 
 The army, purified by the discipline intro- 
 duced by Joan, was quickly filled by recruits 
 hastening from every part of the kingdom at 
 news of these prodigies. The standard of the 
 Virgin of Domrémy was indeed the oriflamme 
 of France. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 31 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The chiefs, urged to profit by this enthusi- 
 asm, set their troops in motion. Joan, whom 
 they consulted, wished that, without any refer- 
 ence to the numbers or situation of the English, 
 they should march straight to Orleans along 
 the northern bank of the river. The generals 
 pretended to consent ; but they deceived her, 
 not being willing to expose the army to the 
 danger they apprehended by following this 
 advice. Having crossed to the southern bank 
 of the Loire, thus placing the river between 
 themselves and the enemy, they advanced 
 through the woods and marshes of Sologne. 
 The chaplain of Joan rode at the head of the 
 army, bearing her banner, and singing hymns. 
 The march seemed a religious procession, head- 
 ed by the priest. 
 
 On the third day, Joan arrived before Or- 
 leans. When she discovered that the river lay 
 between herself and the enemy, she was indig- 
 nant at the deception practised upon her, but 
 still advised an immediate attack upon the for- 
 tifications of the English which surrounded the 
 city. But they restrained her ardor. 
 
 Dunois. who had the chief command both 
 
32 
 
 JOAN OF ARC, 
 
 of the army of succor and of the army within 
 the city, leaped into a frail boat as soon as he 
 saw the maid from the ramparts. “ Are you 
 the Bastard of Orleans ? ” she said, as he reached 
 the shore at the feet of her horse. “ Yes,” 
 answered Dunois ; “ and I am rejoiced at your 
 coming.” But, in a voice of sweet reproach, she 
 said, “ Was it, then, by your advice that we 
 came by way of Sologne?” — “Such was the 
 advice of the oldest and wisest captains,” said 
 Dunois. “ My lord,” replied Joan, “ the 
 counsel of God is wiser than the counsel of 
 men. You intended to deceive me : you have 
 deceived yourself. Fear nothing. God has 
 appointed my path. For this was I born. I 
 bring you the best help that ever knight or city 
 received, — the help of God.” 
 
 At this moment, the wind, which had been 
 blowing up stream, and thus prevented the 
 landing of the boats laden with food, and muni- 
 tions of war, suddenly changed as if by mira- 
 cle, and the city was provisioned in the face of 
 the English. 
 
 The next day, having dismissed the army of 
 the king, which had come only to escort the 
 convoy to the gates, and was needed for the de- 
 fence of the surrounding country, Joan entered 
 Orleans at the head of only two hundred lances, 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 33 
 
 followed by the brave chevaliers Laliire and 
 Danois. Mounted on a white charger, carry- 
 ing her standai’d in her right hand, and clad in 
 her light armor, which shone in the sunlight, 
 she seemed, alike to the people and to the sol- 
 diers, the angel of war and of peace. The 
 priests, the people, the women, the children, 
 threw themselves under her horse’s feet, only to 
 touch her spurs, thinking that some divine vir- 
 tue emanated from this envoy of God. She 
 had herself conducted to the cathedral, where 
 they sang the Te Deurn of praise for the succor 
 she brought. But the aid which encouraged 
 the people most was the supernatural aid 
 which they believed they saw and possessed 
 in the prophetess. 
 
 Joan was conducted from the church to the 
 house of the woman of fairest fame in the city, 
 that her name might remain untarnished, even 
 by suspicion, in the midst of a camp. A feast 
 had been prepared for her ; but she partook 
 only of a little bread and wine in humility, and 
 in remembrance of the frugal board of her 
 father. 
 
 a 
 
34 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Then she dictated a letter to the English, 
 which sounds like the challenges hurled at each 
 other by the heroes of Homer on the field of 
 battle. 
 
 “ King of England,” she said, “ and you, 
 Duke of Bedford, who call yourself Regent of 
 France, and you, William, Count of Suffolk, 
 John Talbot, and you, Thomas Scales, who 
 claim to be lieutenant of the Duke of Bedford, 
 obey the King of Heaven : surrender the keys 
 of the kingdom to the virgin sent of God. 
 And you, archers and men at arms before Or- 
 leans, in the name of God return to your coun- 
 try. King of England, I am, by the will of 
 God, commander of the French ; and, wherever 
 I meet you, I shall make war upon you. Be- 
 lieve me, the King of Heaven will give more 
 power to me than you can bring against me in 
 all your assaults.” She invited them to enter 
 upon negotiations for peace, promising them 
 safe conduct and an honorable reception if they 
 would come to Orleans. 
 
 Laughter, derision, and cynical railings, were 
 the only response to this letter of Joan. They 
 called her a harlot, and a keeper of kine. In 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 35 
 
 defiance of the laws of war, they detained her 
 herald-at-arms a prisoner. She sent a second 
 message to Talbot, offering him battle under the 
 ramparts of the city. “ If I am conquered,” 
 said she, “ you will have me burned alive ; if 
 I am victorious, you will raise thé siege.” 
 Talbot replied only by disdainful silence. He 
 felt himself insulted by this challenge from a 
 child and a girl. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Joan, called to a council of the generals, 
 through respect to the wishes of the king and the 
 sentiments of the people, expressed the same 
 impatience to fight, the same unswerving confi- 
 dence in the power that had been conferred upon 
 her. Dunois yielded to her in every thing, 
 sometimes even contrary to his own judgment, 
 knowing that, by so doing, he satisfied the people, 
 and inflamed the courage of the soldiers. As 
 politic as he was brave, the bastard, if he did 
 not give full credence to her revelations, had 
 faith in the enthusiasm which they kindled. 
 The irreproachable conduct, the sublime faith, 
 the wonderful power, of Joan, exerted an irre- 
 sistible influence over him. They understood 
 each other well ; he enlightening her by his ad- 
 
 i 
 
36 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 vice in counsel, she inspiring him by her hero- 
 ism in action. 
 
 The Lord of Gamaches, an old soldier, wit- 
 nessing the deference paid by Dunois and La- 
 hire to the opinions of this girl, was indignant 
 from the first that the revelations of a peasant 
 should be preferred to the advice of an experi- 
 enced general like himself. “ Since they will 
 listen,” he exclaimed, “ to an adventurer of low 
 birth in preference to a knight like me, I shall 
 say no more. My sword shall speak for me. 
 I may perish ; hut honor, as well as the interest 
 of the king, forbids me to sanction such folly. I 
 surrender my banner : henceforth I shall be a 
 simple squire. I would rather have for my 
 chief a noble knight than a girl who has been 
 I know not what.” Then, folding his banner, he 
 returned it to Dunois. 
 
 Joan breathed nothing but war ; and every 
 delay in the deliverance of her country seemed 
 to her a distrust of the divine word, and an 
 offence against God. The day after her arrival, 
 she mounted her horse to escort a detachment 
 which was going to Blois for re-enforcements. 
 On her return, she rode alone towards one of the 
 forts with which the English had girded the 
 city ; and, raising her voice that they might hear, 
 she summoned them to evacuate their strong:- 
 holds. 
 
JOAN OF AFC. 
 
 37 
 
 Two English knights, Granville and Glads- 
 dale, as famous for their courage as for their 
 cruelty to the people of Orleans, answered her 
 with insult and scorn, ordering her to return to 
 her distaff and her flocks. “ Soon you will be 
 defeated,” said Joan ; “many of your soldiers 
 will be killed ; your army will be routed : but 
 you yourselves will not live to witness it.” 
 Thus she foretold their defeat and their death. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The second re-enforcement, headed by Dunois, 
 entered the city without molestation. 
 
 Dunois went to thank Joan for her good ad- 
 vice, informing her at the same time of the 
 approach of an English army which would 
 complete the investment of the city. “Bastard, 
 bastard ! ” she exclaimed, “ I warn you to no- 
 tify me the moment the army appears ; for,” 
 added she gayly, “if I do not give them battle, 
 you shall lose your head.” Dunois promised 
 to let her know. 
 
 A few days later,, as she was lying down at 
 noon to rest, having been busily engaged in 
 enforcing the discipline she had established 
 in the army, a supernatural impression pre- 
 
38 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 vented her sleeping. Suddenly springing to 
 her feet, she called her squire, the old Lord of 
 Daulon, crying eagerly, “Arm me, arm me! 
 I am commanded to attack the enemy ; but 
 whether in their trenches, or in the open field, 
 I do not know.” Whilst the chevalier was 
 putting on her armor, a great uproar was heard 
 in the streets, the people shouting, “ The Eng- 
 lish are murdering the guards at the gates ! ” 
 “ Great God ! the blood of France is flowing ! 
 Why did you not call me sooner? My arms, 
 my arms ! — my horse, my horse ! ” and with- 
 out waiting for Daulon, who was himself un- 
 armed, she rushed from the house. 
 
 Her little page was playing on the steps. 
 “ Ah ! naughty page, why did you not tell me 
 that the blood of France was shed? Quick! 
 my horse ! ” She sprang to her saddle ; and, 
 approaching a window where her standard was 
 floating, she seized it, and rode at full speed to 
 the gates of the city. On arriving there, she 
 met a wounded soldier whom they were carry- 
 ing off. “ Alas ! ” she exclaimed, “ I never 
 see the blood of a Frenchman without shudder- 
 ing.” 
 
 The French chevaliers had attempted to sur- 
 prise the Bastille of St. Loup, and Talbot had 
 driven them back to the ramparts of Orleans. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 39 
 
 Joan rallied the fugitives, called up re-enforce- 
 ments, routed Talbot, and assailed the for- 
 tress. Great slaughter ensued, and the garri- 
 son were taken prisoners ; but the conflict over, 
 her heart melting with compassion towards the 
 dead and wounded, she wept over the slain, and 
 quickly put an end to the carnage. The mira- 
 cle of her wakefulness and her intuition ; the 
 inspiration wliich filled her, and beamed in 
 every feature of her beautiful face ; her un- 
 rivalled sway in the army, combined with her 
 tenderness, — elevated her to the dignity of a 
 prophet and a hero in the camp of the French, 
 and spread dismay through the army of the 
 English. 
 
 Resolved to make a decisive attack upon the 
 enemy if they obstinately refused to raise the 
 siege, she made one more attempt to spare 
 the effusion of blood. She mounted a tower, 
 and, tying a letter to an arrow, shot it into the 
 enemy’s camp. She summoned them to sur- 
 render, promising them mercy. They remaiued 
 deaf to her entreaties, and returned in the same 
 manner the most infamous replies. She blushed 
 on hearing them read, and could not keep back 
 her tears, but, quickly drying her eyes, ex- 
 claimed, “ God knows that these are lies ! ” 
 
40 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 By the advice of Danois, shè commanded a 
 sortie, and a general attack on the four for- 
 tresses on the left bank of the Loire. The 
 French were repulsed, and put to flight. Joan 
 watched the battle from a little island in the 
 river ; and, seeing the rout, she threw herself 
 into a light boat, and, taking her horse by the 
 bridle, landed in the midst of the mêlée. Her 
 presence, her voice, her standard, the divinity 
 which the soldiers said shone in her counte- 
 nance, electrified them. She- led them to the 
 palisades, reduced the forts, and set fire to them 
 with her own hand. The ashes of these Eng- 
 lish bastilles, reeking with the blood of their 
 defenders, were the trophy of this victory. 
 Joan returned triumphant, but wounded in the 
 foot by au arrow. She was weakened by the 
 loss of blood, but could not be persuaded to 
 taste either food or drink, having made a vow 
 to fast on that day for the redemption of her 
 people. 
 
 Dunois and his lieutenants thought they had 
 accomplished enough by driving the enemy 
 from one side of the river. “ No, no ! ” said 
 Joan: “you have had your counsellors; I 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 ■ 41 
 
 have had mine. Believe me, the commands of 
 my Lord and King must prevail. Be ready 
 to-morrow : I have a greater work to do than 
 has yet been done, and in this struggle my 
 blood will be shed.” 
 
 It was iu vain that on the following day an 
 order was issued to keep the gates closed. 
 The populace and the soldiers, filled with en- 
 thusiasm and flushed with victory, rose sedi- 
 tiously against their leaders, and even threat- 
 ened the generals. The gates were broken 
 open, and the multitude rushed like an impetu- 
 ous torrent after their deliverer. The generals 
 were forced along. Dunois, Gaucourt, Gran- 
 ville, Lahire, Saintraille, hastened to the assault 
 of the principal fortress. The English, protected 
 by ramparts and ditches, mowed down the ad- 
 vancing masses with their artillery : the ladders, 
 hewn down with axes, fell upon the assailants. 
 The foot of the fortifications was heaped with 
 dead. A panic seized the multitude. Joan 
 alone remained firm : she seized a ladder, and, 
 placing it against the rampart, was the first to 
 mount, sword in hand. At that instant, an 
 arrow struck her in the neck, near the shoulder, 
 and she fell into the ditch. The English, who 
 regarded the capture of Joan as more important 
 than any victory, rushed from their intrench- 
 
t 
 
 42 * JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 ments, and attempted to seize her ; but Ga- 
 maches sprang to her assistance, and stood over 
 her body, battle-axe in hand. At his summons, 
 the French returned to the charge, and rescued 
 her. She soon recovered from the stunning 
 effects of her fall ; and Gamaches, who had 
 perilled his life to save her, and who had 
 witnessed her heroic act, seeing her lying 
 wounded and bleeding, exclaimed, “ Accept 
 my horse ! I was wrong to have distrusted you, 
 my noble, generous, and valiant knight.” They 
 removed her to a place of safety that her 
 wound might he dressed. The arrow came 
 out behind the shoulder, making a wound 
 longer than the width of two hands, which 
 bled profusely. Like Clorinda, she was com- 
 pelled to expose her person ; “ but the purity 
 of her soul, and the sight of her blood shed 
 for her country,” says Daulon, “ clothed her 
 with such sanctity in her nakedness, that an 
 impure thought was impossible.” The soldiers 
 looked upon her more as an angel than a wo- 
 man : yet she was a woman, weak and gentle ; 
 for she- wept on seeing her own blood . flowing ; 
 but, gaining her strength, she offered up a 
 prayer to her ministering angels, and drew out 
 the arrow with her own hand. Some of the 
 soldiers tried to induce her to use magical 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 43 
 
 incantations and other superstitious remedies 
 to effect an immediate cure ; but she gently- 
 refused, saying, “ I would rather die than sin 
 thus against the will of God.” The wound 
 being dressed, she remounted her horse to fol- 
 low with regret the discouraged army. Turn- 
 ing aside, she entered a barn, and prayed fer- 
 vently for guidance in this critical moment. 
 She burned with enthusiasm to continue the 
 battle, yet feared lest she might tempt God. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Her banner still remained in the ditch, at the 
 foot of the ladder from which she had fallen. 
 Daulon, catching a glimpse of it, ran with a 
 few soldiers to save this treasure. Joan hast- 
 ened after them on horseback. When the 
 knight placed the standard in the hand of his 
 mistress, its folds, agitated by the movements 
 of the horse and by the wind, unrolled, and 
 floated in the sunlight. The French, although in 
 full retreat, mistaking it for a signal from Joan, 
 instantly rallied to her aid. The English, who 
 believed her dead, were struck with consterna- 
 tion on seeing her again on horseback at the 
 head of the assailants. They imagined they 
 
44 
 
 JOAN OF AEG. 
 
 beheld celestial beings, the tutelary divinities 
 of Orleans, in the midst of the smoke and flash 
 of the cannon, fighting, with the sword of the 
 Lord, for Joan and for France. 
 
 A beam thrown across the ditch served as 
 a bridge to an intrepid knight, who opened the 
 way to the ramparts, followed by the French 
 battalions. The English commander, Glads- 
 dale, gave way before this unexpected irruption, 
 and endeavored to cross a second ditch to shel- 
 ter himself within the redoubt. “ Surrender, 
 Gladsdale ! ” cried Joan. “Thou hast reviled 
 me ; but I have pity on thy soul and on thy 
 followers.” As she uttered these words, the 
 drawbridge, upon which the last handful of 
 English were bravely defending themselves, 
 was broken by the fall of a beam, and they 
 were suddenly submerged in the Loire. 
 
 After the battle, Joan entered Orleans amid 
 the ringing of bells and the shouts of rejoicing 
 multitudes. Her face was, as it were, trans- 
 figured by a holy joy at this victory, achieved, 
 as she fully believed, by the power of God, but 
 which the soldiers and the people attributed to 
 her intrepidity, her superhuman courage, and 
 the divinity which clothed her. She was their 
 glory, their salvation, their religion. The ob- 
 scurity of her former condition endeared her to 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 45 
 
 the people ; for she was one of themselves. 
 They gloried that the saviour of France was 
 born in a cottage, as the Saviour of the world 
 had formerly been born in a stable at Bethle- 
 hem. 
 
 # 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The English generals acknowledged the hand 
 of Omnipotence in the irresistible power of the 
 virgin leader of the French. They burned the 
 few fortresses they still retained in this part of 
 France, and raised the siege of Orleans. The 
 French army and the people breathed nothing 
 but vengeance. “ No,” said Joan with gentle 
 authority : “ they must not be slaughtered. Let 
 them depart.” Then, erecting an altar on the 
 ramparts of Orleans, she offered up a sacrifice 
 of pardon to her enemies, and sung hymns of 
 victory while the English filed off beneath the 
 walls of the city. 
 
 But she wasted no time in vain triumphs. 
 She conducted the victorious army to the dau- 
 phin to assist in vanquishing city after city. 
 On her arrival, the king and the queens re- 
 ceived her as the envoy of heaven, sent to 
 restore to them the lost keys of the kingdom. 
 She accepted their unbounded expressions of 
 
46 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 gratitude with diffidence ; only saying with sad- 
 ness, “ My work must be quickly accomplished : 
 I have but one year to live.” She entreated 
 the dauphin to proceed immediately to Rheims 
 to be crowned, although that city and the ad- 
 joining provinces were still in the hands of the 
 Burgundians, the Flemings, and the English. 
 The rashness of this advice struck the council 
 and the generals with amazement. The coro- 
 nation of the king at Rheims was, in the eyes of 
 all, an impossibility ; to attempt it a folly, 
 which could terminate only in the loss of the 
 prestige they had so recently gained. They 
 insisted that Normandy and the capital should 
 first be reconquered. Council after council was 
 held. Joan was tormented by the inaction and 
 listlessness of the court. IJer voices pressed 
 upon her the necessity of immediate action, and 
 she importuned the dauphin to set out without 
 delay. 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Oxe day, when the dauphin was closeted with 
 a bishop and some confidential friends, deliber- 
 ating on the course he should take, she tapped 
 gently at the door. The king, recognizing her 
 voice, opened it. “Noble dauphin,” said she, 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 47 
 
 kneeling before him, “ do not hold these long 
 debates. Go and receive your crown at Rheims. 
 The voice of God commands me to lead you 
 there.” — “Joan,” said the bishop, “ how does 
 God communicate to you his will?” — “Yes, 
 Joan,” added the king: “tell us how.” — 
 
 “Well,” she replied, “ I was at prayer, pour- 
 ing out my complaints at your want of faith, 
 when I heard a voice say, ‘ Go, my child : I 
 will be with thee.’ When I hear this voice, in 
 my heart I am happy, and long for it to speak 
 to me always.” 
 
 The dauphin, inspired with hope and confi- 
 dence by these words, no longer resisted the 
 solicitations of the virgin. He gave the com- 
 mand of the army to the Duc d’Alençon, and 
 preparations were made for their departure. 
 They first marched against the English, who 
 were headed by Suffolk. The vast numbers to 
 be encountered tided severely the confidence of 
 the court and the little band who followed 
 Joan. “ Fear nothing,” said she. “ God is our 
 captain. If it were not so, I should never have 
 left my home to encounter the perils that await 
 us.” Passing through Orleans, which still 
 echoed with the glory of her achievements, 
 they marched against Suffolk, who had retired 
 to Jergeau. On the 14th of June, they laid 
 
48 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 siege to the place. “ You are afraid, gentle 
 lord,” said Joan, smiling to the brave D ’Alençon. 
 “ But be of good cheer : I have promised to 
 return you safe and sound to your wife.” 
 
 It was on the following day, while their ar- 
 tillery was bombarding the city, that the duke 
 was standing by Joan ; when she suddenly 
 pushed him from the spot, and the next in- 
 stant the head of a gentleman who took the 
 duke’s place was carried off by a cannon-ball. 
 
 The day after, a general assault was made 
 on the fortifications. Great slaughter ensued ; 
 but Joan, impelled by a power which knew 
 neither fear nor failure, mounted the ramparts, 
 standard in hand. Instantly she was precipi- 
 tated into the ditch below by a stone, which 
 broke her helmet, and must inevitably have 
 killed her, had not the steel .casque and her 
 profusion of hair saved her. She soon rose, and 
 resumed her place ; and the city was taken by 
 storm. Suffolk surrendered to one of her 
 knights. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 She urged the immediate advance of the 
 army. They set out in pursuit of another di- 
 vision of the English, commanded by Talbot 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 49 
 
 in La Beauce. Seperated from this army by a 
 forest, Lahire, who led the advanced guard, 
 was hesitating which road to take ; when a stag, 
 passing him at full speed, took its way to the 
 camp of the English, whose shouts of delight 
 at sight of this prize informed the French of 
 their position. The English, thus surprised, 
 were totally defeated. Their most renowned 
 chiefs, Talbot and Scales, were taken prisoners, 
 and sent to the dauphin. After the battle, Joan, 
 moved to tears at sight of her bleeding enemies, 
 sprang from her horse, lifted the wounded from 
 the bloody ground, and dressed their wounds 
 with her own hands. 
 
 The Duke of Bedford trembled at Paris. 
 “ All our disasters,” he wrote to the Cardinal 
 of Winchester, “ are owing to a young magi- 
 cian, who has inspired the French by her sor- 
 ceries.” He recalled the Duke of Burgundy 
 from Flanders, that he might encourage the 
 troops, and aid in the defence of Paris. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 After this battle, Joan returned to the king, 
 and at length persuaded him to proceed with 
 her to Kheims. Their route lay through Auxerre 
 4 
 
50 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 to Troyes, the capital of Champagne. This 
 city had been the first to sign the famous treaty 
 disinheriting the dauphin, and now, stimulated 
 to resistance by a garrison of English and Bur- 
 gundians, refused to surrender. Joan wished 
 to storm the city at once : but the generals 
 feared to risk an attack ; and, after a week of 
 fruitless negotiations, the lord chancellor advised 
 the dauphin to raise the siege. Council after 
 council ensued. Joan, in despair, went one 
 day to the chamber. “ Noble dauphin,” said 
 she, “ waste no more time in these debates ; for, 
 in the name of God, in three days I shall enter 
 with you into the city.” — “ Joan,” said the 
 chancellor, “ if we could be sure of taking it in 
 six days, we would gladly remain.” — “ Oh ! 
 fear not,” she replied : “ to-morrow you shall be 
 master of Troyes.” At these words they re- 
 solved to suspend their departure, and await 
 the issue. 
 
 Joan could not defer her preparations till the 
 morrow : she hastened to the field, mounted her 
 horse, and, putting the army in motion, pitched 
 the camp on the edge of the ditch that sur- 
 rounded the city. Kuights, squires, archer’s, 
 mechanics, men of all ranks, worked together, 
 bringing from the neighboring houses doors, 
 tables, windows, and rafters, to construct a 
 temporary shelter for the troops. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 51 
 
 The tumult occasioned by these nocturnal 
 preparations began to create alarm in the city, 
 which had hitherto almost ignored the presence 
 of the royal army. The terror was increased, 
 when, at sunrise, they beheld the mysterious 
 standard of the Maid of Orleans floating before 
 their ramparts, and heard Joan cry, “ To arms, 
 to arms ! ” The French battalions, loaded with 
 fascines and ladders, advanced to the assault. 
 A sudden panic seized the city, and the terror- 
 stricken garrison offered to capitulate. 
 
 The king, in his' astonishment and joy, made 
 no difficulty about conditions ; even consenting 
 that the English should take their prisoners 
 with them. The Anglo-Burgundian garrison 
 evacuated Troyes the next day at dawn ; but, 
 when the convoy of prisoners reached the gate 
 of the city, they met Joan, and, falling on their 
 knees, implored her to deliver them. “ In the 
 name of God,” she cried, “ they shall not be 
 taken hence ! ” and she ordered the convoy to 
 stop. No one attempted to gainsay her com- 
 mands, and the prisoners were released. 
 
 The following day, at the earnest entreaty of 
 Joan, the army resumed its march. As the 
 deliverer of Orleans approached her birthplace, 
 the enthusiasm of the people increased. Her 
 family at length acknowledged her inspiration ; 
 
52 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 and her brothers, whom she had induced to join 
 the army, were distinguished at court, and the 
 king conferred upon them a coat of arms. 
 They fought and conquered under the eyes of 
 their sister. 
 
 Bu t there were some, who, jealous of her 
 fame, tried to disparage the illustrious girl, 
 whose humility amid her triumphs should have 
 called forth only veneration. At her entrance 
 into Troyes, Friar Richard, the jealous monk 
 ot whom we have already spoken, even had the 
 audacity to go and meet her, muttering exor- 
 cisms, and making the sign of the cross upon 
 her charger, as it she were an emissary of Sa- 
 tan. “ Approach,” said Joan, smiling. “ I shall 
 not fly.” 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 ^ Chalons and Rheims opened their gates. 
 The day after the arrival of the king, his coro- 
 nation took place in the Cathedral of Notre 
 Dame, according to the usual ceremonies. 
 Joan stood beside the altar, her standard in 
 her hand. Her celestial figure, glorified by 
 the rays which shone through the painted glass, 
 seemed the personification of the angel of 
 1 1 an ce presiding over the resurrection of her 
 country. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 53 
 
 After the ceremony was over, Joan ap- 
 proached Charles, and, embracing his knees, 
 exclaimed, “ O gentle king ! now the will of 
 God is accomplished. Pie commanded me to 
 lead you to Rheims to receive your crown. Be- 
 hold ! you are king, and France will become 
 subject to your sway.” 
 
 Charles was the monarch of the realm ; but 
 Joan was the palladium of the people. The 
 soldiers knelt, and kissed her standard. The 
 women touched her with their little children 
 as they would a sacred relic. But an unwonted 
 sadness seemed to fill her, and she wept. “ In 
 the name of God,” said she to the bastard, who 
 was standing beside her, “ here is a good and 
 devoted people ; and, when I die, I hope it may 
 be among them.” — “ Joan,” said Dunois, “ do 
 you know when and where you will die ?” — 
 “ Whenever it pleases God,” she replied ; “ but 
 I know neither the time nor the place. Oh 
 that it were the will of piy Creator that I should 
 lay down my arms, and return to my father 
 and mother, to tend their flocks with my broth- 
 ers ! ” 
 
 Thus she began to feel those foreshadowings 
 of the future which oppress the spirit of the 
 hero after the crisis of his destiny has passed, — 
 
54 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 the ascent to glory and to victory ; when the 
 last act of the tragedy is foreseen, — the descent 
 from the Mount of Transfiguration, and the 
 funeral-pyre of the martyr. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 The king and army quitted Rkeims the 20tl) 
 of July, and descended the Valley of the Aisne 
 on their way to Paris. 
 
 France was virtually saved. The resurrection 
 of the dauphin, summoned from the arms of his 
 mistress by the voice of a shepherdess ; the mi- 
 raculous deliverance of Orleans ; the defeat of 
 Bedford on the plains of La Beauce ; the captivity 
 or death of the most renowned English gene- 
 rals, — all combined to kindle a patriotism al- 
 most fanatic throughout the nation, and spread 
 terror in the camps of the English and Burgun- 
 dians. 
 
 The very soil of France repudiated her ene- 
 mies. They felt themselves usurpers of her 
 throne, and strangers in the land. The corona- 
 tion of the king at Rkeims, in which the people 
 saw his legitimacy decided by the hand of the 
 Almighty, secured to him, not only their love, 
 
 55 
 
56 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 but their religious veneration. To revolt 
 against him would be impiety. In defending 
 him, they were fighting for the elect of God. 
 
 Moreover, as always happens after great re- 
 verses, division, discord, rivalries, and mutual 
 recriminations, distracted the councils of the 
 English and Burgundians. The Duke of Bed- 
 ford, Regent of France, and the Cardinal of 
 Winchester, Sovereign of England under the 
 child-king, hated and circumvented each other 
 while preserving the semblance of a good under- 
 standing and mutual support. The cardinal, 
 however, becoming alarmed at the disgraceful 
 defeats of Bedford, brought a new army to 
 Paris, where the duke awaited him in trembling 
 anxiety. 
 
 All the cities of the surrounding provinces 
 declared in favor of the French. The standard 
 of Joan, unfurled before their walls, sufficed to 
 open their gates to Charles. The superstition 
 ,of the people saw floating round this standard 
 celestial flames, raying forth the divine power 
 which accompanied this envoy of God. Whole 
 villages ran to meet the king, singing Te Deum 
 Laudamus ; and pressed round Joan, weeping 
 for joy. She gently rebuked their superstitious 
 reverence and homage, disclaiming all super- 
 human virtue, and telling them that all she had 
 done had been accomplished through God. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 57 
 
 II. 
 
 After some manœuvres of the French and 
 English around Paris, the king advanced to St. 
 Denis ; and the Duke of Bedford hastened to 
 shut himself up in the city, to defend it against 
 assault from without, and treachery from within. 
 The Duke of Burgundy, beginning to see on 
 which side victory would ultimately perch, be- 
 gan to negotiate secretly with Charles. Joan, 
 consulted about these negotiations, did all in her 
 power to forward them. The letters which she 
 dictated to the duke breathed nothing but peace, 
 reciprocal good will, and the necessity of a 
 union of all members of the French family 
 against the foreign invader. 
 
 Joan urged the king to attack Paris at once : 
 but several days were wasted in attempts at ne- 
 gotiation ; and when, at length, the generals 
 decided to make a vigorous demonstration, she 
 showed a fatal reluctance which they had never 
 before witnessed. Her voices warned her to 
 remain at St. Denis ; but the generals dragged 
 her, almost perforce, to La Chapelle. 
 
 An unhappy occurrence which took place at 
 this time caused her much trouble and sadness. 
 The astonishing change which she had wrought 
 
58 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 in the morals of the soldiers had been of short 
 duration ; and they soon returned to their disso- 
 lute habits. I he chaste girl could not become 
 habituated to their gross immorality. One day, 
 indignant at some soldiers who were attempting 
 to violate a peasant-girl, she struck one of them 
 on the cuirass with the blade of her sword, 
 with such force as to break it in two. It was 
 the sword which had been like a talisman in her 
 hand. Fatal presage ! She wept bitterly over 
 its loss. She still retained, however, her white 
 standard and her little battle-axe. 
 
 III. 
 
 Tiie next day, the French troops, defiling 
 along the walls of Paris, put themselves in bat- 
 tle-array on the rising ground opposite the Gate 
 St. Honoré. A furious cannonade immediately 
 commenced on both sides*. From this eminence, 
 covered to-day with streets, houses, and churches, 
 J oan commanded the assault of the ramparts. 
 She leaped the first ditch with the Duc d’Alen- 
 çon and the other generals, under fire of the 
 city , but, on arriving at the second, was exposed, 
 almost alone, to the bullets of the enemy. Hav- 
 ing sounded the depth of the water with her 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 59 
 
 lance, she ordered the soldiers to till the ditch 
 with fascines, and, waving her standard, called 
 upon the city to surrender ; but at that instant 
 an arrow pierced her thigh, and she fell, fainting, 
 on a heap of dead and wounded. They removed 
 her to the farther side of a little hillock which 
 separated the two ditches, that the arrow might 
 be withdrawn. As soon as she recovered her 
 consciousness, she raised herself on the litter, 
 and encouraged the soldiers by voice and ges- 
 ture to continue the assault. 
 
 The brave chevaliers entreated her to be re- 
 moved to the camp. The arrows and balls fell 
 thick as hail, and strewed the ground around 
 her : the ditches were piled with the slain. She 
 would not go. At length a message came from 
 the king at St. Denis, ordering the army to re- 
 treat. Joan was in despair ; but nothing could 
 induce her to abandon the field. 
 
 Night fell upon city and plain. The Due 
 d’Alençon, trembling at the idea of losing her, 
 and, in her, the inspiration and hope of the army, 
 was forced, late at night, to seek her himself 
 among the heaps of slain, and carry her, in the 
 arms of his soldiers, from this field of carnage 
 where she wished to die. As she passed through 
 the camp, she heard the reproaches and impre- 
 cations of the soldiery. It was the first draught 
 
60 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 from that bitter chalice which she was destined 
 to drain to the dregs. 
 
 To conceal their heavy loss from the English, 
 the French carried their dead from the field, 
 and, laying them in one great funeral-pile, 
 burned them during the night. 
 
 This terrible reverse was the first blow to the 
 fame of Joan, as the deliverer sent by Heaven. 
 She began to doubt herself. Her faith was 
 staggered by this disaster. She humbled her- 
 self before God and the king, and, renouncing 
 war, hung her armor and sword on the tomb of 
 St. Denis in the cathedral. The king and gen- 
 erals entreated her to resume them, blaming 
 themselves for the defeat in not following her 
 advice, and insisting that her presence alone 
 could save the army and France. She could 
 not resist this appeal, and devoted herself anew 
 to her country, but rather with the resignation 
 of a martyr than the enthusiasm of a hero. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The army became demoralized after this ill- 
 fated enterprise against Paris. A truce was con- 
 cluded, preparatory to negotiations ; and Joan 
 went to assist the Duke of Normandy in recov- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 61 
 
 ering his personal estates from the English. 
 Lord d’Albret afterwards induced her to accom- 
 pany him to Bourges. 
 
 At the siege of St. Pierre le Moutier, her in- 
 sph'ation returned amid the smoke and thunder 
 of the assault. Almost alone on the farther side 
 of the ditch, abandoned by her soldiers, she still 
 fought. “ Joan, come back ! ” cried Daulon. 
 “ You are alone !” — “No,” she replied with ex- 
 ultation, pointing to heaven, “ I have fifty thou- 
 sand men.” Her soldiers, inspired by these 
 words, returned with fury to the assault, and, 
 scaling the walls, made themselves masters of 
 the city. 
 
 On the resumption of hostilities between 
 Charles VII. and the English, she returned 
 with her army to the king, then encamped un- 
 der the walls of Paris ; but her soul was filled 
 with fatal presentiments. Her voices had told 
 her that she would be taken prisoner in less than 
 three months. “ Be not dismayed,” they said : 
 “ God will be with thee.” Daily these sad 
 warnings were repeated. She no longer felt the 
 inspiration of certain victory, but suffered her- 
 self to be directed by the generals. She im- 
 parted to no one the thoughts which oppressed 
 her; and her companions in arms saw her always 
 displaying the same courage, always clothed 
 
62 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 with the same serenity. She prayed only that 
 she might be spared the horrors of a long im- 
 prisonment. 
 
 After routing several detachments of the 
 enemy, she hastened to Compiègne to defend it 
 against the Duke of Burgundy. The city was 
 strongly fortified and well provisioned, the gar- 
 rison numerous, and the inhabitants devoted to 
 the national cause ; but the commandant, William 
 de Flavy, although a brave soldier, was a brutal 
 and debauched man, and rumor accused him of 
 hostility to Joan. The chaste girl could scarcely 
 conceal the horror with which he inspired her ; 
 and it was natural that he should hate her, 
 whose purity and gentleness were his daily re- 
 proach. The other captains, too, chafed under 
 the stern discipline which she maintained in the 
 army, and the sleepless vigilance with which 
 she protected the people from their exactions and 
 their violence. 
 
 y. 
 
 Joan had left Compiègne to obtain men for 
 the defence of the city. Escaping the vigilance 
 of the besiegers, she re-entered the place on the 
 25th May, before sunrise. The generals had 
 decided to make a sortie before night. Joan 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 63 
 
 went in the morning to communion in the Church 
 of St. James de Compiègne. She was leaning 
 against one of the pillars of the nave, lost in 
 thought, when the poor people and the children 
 pressed round her, grieved by the sadness of 
 her face. “Alas, my good friends, my dear chil- 
 dren ! ” said she, “ my heart tells me that I have 
 been sold to the English. I shall be betrayed, and 
 abandoned to a cruel death. Pray for me. Ere 
 long, I can serve neither my king nor my coun- 
 try.” Fatal presentiment, which calls to mind 
 the words of our Saviour at the Last Supper. 
 
 For some time, they had noticed a deep sadness 
 about her. She would go at evening into the 
 churches, and kneel among the children who 
 were receiving instruction in religion. They 
 would find her absorbed in prayer under the 
 shadow of the blackest pilktrs. Here she 
 poured out the agony of her spirit like her divine 
 Master on the Mount of Olives. 
 
 Her mother, who went to see her at Rheims, 
 astonished at her intrepidity in battle, had said 
 to her one day, “But, Joan, are you afraid of 
 nothing?” — “Nothing but treason,” she had 
 replied. 
 
 About five o’clock, in obedience to the decis- 
 ion of the council of war, Joan left Compiègne 
 at the head of five or six hundred men, and, 
 
64 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 crossing the Oise, fell upon the enemy. Never 
 had she displayed more courage. Three times 
 she repulsed them, and drove them into their in- 
 trenchments ; but, at the close of the day, the 
 English and Burgundians concentrated all their 
 forces, and, surrounding the handful of knights 
 who followed Joan, bent every effort to kill or 
 capture her, whom they regarded as the soul of 
 the French army, the only cause of their for- 
 mer defeats. Surrounded and pursued in the 
 midst of her followers, she sacrilied herself to 
 save those who had confided in her. Whilst 
 they were crossing the drawbridge to re-enter 
 the city, she remained behind, alone, to protect 
 their retreat. The last soldier had passed the 
 moat in safety ; when, turning r she spurred her 
 horse to the bridge. . . . Too late : it rose at 
 that instant, leaving her to the mercy of her 
 enemies. 
 
 An archer seized her violently, and dragged 
 her from her horse. She rose, and attempted to 
 defend herself, but was instantly surrounded, and 
 disarmed. She surrendered to Lionel, Bastard 
 of Vendôme, and was conducted to the Lord of 
 Luxemburg, general of the Duke of Burgundy. 
 No victory could be of such importance to the 
 English and Burgundians as this prize, thus 
 thrown into their hands by accident or by 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 65 
 
 treachery. The Duke of Burgundy hastened to 
 assure himself of his good fortune by beholding 
 the maid with his own eyes. He conversed 
 with her long in private ; but how much influence 
 this interview had on his future conduct can 
 only be conjectured. 
 
 The cannon of the camps, and the Te Deum 
 of the cathedrals, celebrated the capture of Joan 
 df Arc in every city and province of the allies. 
 They imagined they saw the conquest of all 
 France in the capture of this young girl. 
 
 Their delight was only equalled by the terror 
 and despair of the French. Consternation 
 spread through the cities of the Loire. At Or- 
 leans, Tours, Blois, where she was cvorshipped, 
 public prayers and processions were ordained 
 for her deliverance. The people of Tours 
 marched barefoot through thé streets, weeping, 
 and chanting the Miserere. The poor bitterly 
 reproached the lords and generals with having 
 betrayed the holy virgin who had been sent by 
 God to put an end to their miseries. A deep 
 gloom fell upon the land. 
 
 The Bastard of Vendôme, having no castle 
 sufficiently strong to secure such a prisoner, 
 delivered her up to the Lord of Luxemburg, 
 whose vassal he was, and whose favor he hoped 
 to gain by this priceless gift. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 It was an infamous crime for a knight to 
 deliver up or to sell to another a prisoner 
 whom the chances of war had placed at his 
 mercy. The prison should be as sacred as 
 the fireside. Lord Lionel was bound to protect 
 his captive by the laws of honor and the usages 
 of war, which forbade him to surrender her 
 except for a ransom offered by France. Her 
 sex, her age, her beauty, the gentleness and 
 humanity she always displayed after a battle, 
 her resolution never to shed a drop of blood, 
 the purity of her morals, and the simplicity of 
 her faith, should have at least insured her pity 
 and respect. 
 
 VI. 
 
 They sent her first to the Fortress of Beau- 
 lieu ; but she was afterwards removed to 
 Beaurevoir, a castle more remote from the 
 theatre of war, and very strongly fortified. 
 The Duke of Burgundy had already bought 
 her from Luxemburg ; the English, from the 
 Duke of Burgundy ; and the Inquisition of 
 Paris now hastened to outbuy them all. 
 
 u By virtue of our office,” wrote the Vicar- 
 General of the Inquisition to the Lord of Luxem- 
 burg, in whose hands she still was, “ we demand 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 67 
 
 and enjoin, in the name of oui' holy faith, and 
 under penalty of the law, that you send, without 
 delay, Joan, suspected of heinous crimes, to be 
 tried before this court of the Holy Inquisition.” 
 Thus it was that the French were zealous to 
 avenge the English ; and the Church of France 
 rose up against the liberty of its own altars. 
 
 The Lord of Luxemburg, a foreigner, was 
 less cruel than her own countrymen ; and the 
 ladies of his household treated her with the 
 utmost tenderness and respect. The University 
 of Paris, scandalized at the kindness shown 
 her, and basely leagued with the Inquisition, 
 supported the demands of the vicar-general by 
 letters still more imperative. 
 
 In this drama of iniquity, a new actor now 
 appeared, — the famous Peter Cauclion, Bishop 
 of Beauvais, who was indeed the Caiaphas of 
 this Calvary. He was sold heart and soul to 
 the English. He now wrote to the Lord of 
 Luxemburg, demanding that “ the woman called 
 Joan the virgin ” should be delivered up to the 
 Church for trial, and offering, in the name of 
 the King of England, a reward of ten thousand 
 francs. The ladies of Luxemburg in vain ex- 
 horted Lord John to repulse indignantly this 
 infamous proposal : he did not dare to resist the 
 secret desires of the Duke of Burgundy, the 
 
68 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 commands of the English, and the orders of 
 the University and the Inquisition. 
 
 The responsibility of this atrocious crime, 
 which all seek to shun, rests upon Paris, that 
 accused her ; Luxemburg, who basely surren- 
 dered her ; the Inquisition, which sentenced her ; 
 the English, who burned her ; and on the 
 French, whose unparalleled ingratitude left 
 her in the hands of her persecutors without 
 even offering a ransom. 
 
 Thus far, Joan had borne her misfortunes 
 patiently. Her voices consoled her in her 
 captivity. She was far more concerned for 
 the deliverance of Compiègne than for her own 
 fate, although she knew at that time that she 
 had been sold to the English. The patriotism 
 of the inhabitants of this city had called forth 
 her tenderest sympathy. She knew that they 
 still defended themselves ; and she prayed God 
 to release her, that she might return to their 
 aid. The announcement, that, when Compiègne 
 was taken, the inhabitants, even the little chil- 
 dren, would be put to the sword, drove her to 
 despair. She resolved to escape, or perish in 
 the attempt; and, commending herself to God, 
 leaped from the top of the Tower of Beaurevoir 
 Her guards found her senseless in the ditch 
 below ; but she was only severely bruised. St. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 69 
 
 Catherine, as she afterwards said, consoled her, 
 and told her to ask pardon of God ; assuring 
 her, at the same time, that Compiègne would 
 receive assistance before St. Martin’s Day. 
 
 Joan recovered but too soon from the effects 
 of her fall. In the beginning of October, she 
 was taken to Arras, and thence to Rouen, to 
 await her trial. She was confined in an iron 
 cage ; and chains were fastened round her neck, 
 her ankles, and her wrists. Thus began the 
 passion of the daughter of God , as she called 
 herself when in her states of exaltation. The 
 passion of Christ lasted a few hours : that of 
 this holy maid continued six months. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The events of the war redoubled the fury of 
 the English. They thought every thing was 
 gained when Joan was captured ; but they met 
 only with fresh disasters. The spirit of this 
 angel of war still hovered over the armies of 
 France. Compiègne was relieved the last of 
 October. The Duke Vendôme, Marshal Bous- 
 sac, and Saintrailles arrived with four thousand 
 men, and fell upon the camp of the besiegers. 
 The garrison, the people, even the women, 
 
70 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 rushed out of the city, and, furiously assailing 
 the works of the English and Burgundians, met 
 the army of relief in the midst of the enemy’s 
 lines. During the night, the soldiers of the 
 allies fled, despite all their generals could do 
 to retain them. Joan, although invisible, tri- 
 umphed everywhere. The malignity of her 
 enemies turned to relentless hate : the University 
 and the Inquisition, servile partisans of the 
 English, had already determined upon her 
 death, vainly thinking to quench the patriotism 
 of France in the blood of her savior. 
 
 No time was lost after the arrival of the 
 maid at Rouen. On the 28th of December, 
 the Chapter of the Cathedral granted territorial 
 jurisdiction to Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, 
 that he might appoint the trial of Joan in a 
 diocese not his own. On the 3d of January, 
 letters-patent from the King of England de- 
 creed that Joan should be given up to the 
 bishop, to be tried according to “ God and the 
 law.” 
 
 It is said, that, a short time previous to the 
 appearance of Joan before her judges, the Lord 
 of Luxemburg, on his way through Rouen, 
 stopped to see her, taking with him the Earls of 
 Strafford aud Warwick, that they might feast 
 their eyes on the terror of the English, dis- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 71 
 
 armed, and loaded with chains. “ Joan,” said 
 he with cruel irony, “ I have come to pay your 
 ransom, and to deliver you, on condition that 
 you will promise never again to take up arms 
 against us.” — “Ah, my God!” she replied in 
 accents of gentle reproach. “ You but mock 
 me : you have neither the power nor the will. 
 Nothing hut my death will satisfy the English. 
 They think, when they have killed me, they 
 will regain their power in France ; but, if they 
 numbered a hundred thousand more, they could 
 not conquer this kingdom.” Strafford drew 
 his dagger to avenge the courageous words of 
 the captive ; but Warwick seized his arm, and 
 prevented this outrage. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The bishop, in order that the accused might 
 be under the constant surveillance of the English, 
 carried on the trial in the Castle of Rouen, 
 where she was imprisoned. 
 
 They had taken her from the iron cage in 
 which she had been at first confined ; but, dur- 
 ing the day, they still kept her feet in fetters, 
 and at night put chains round her waist and 
 legs. Her jailers were wretches chosen from 
 
72 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 the vilest of the English soldiery. Animated 
 by the most brutal hatred, they taxed their 
 ingenuity and their malice to torment her. At 
 night, they would awaken her by shouting that 
 the officers had come to lead her to execution. 
 Several times they attempted to violate lier ; and 
 one day, if the commandant of the castle had not 
 heard her shrieks, they would have effected their 
 infamous design. 
 
 A notary had been despatched to Domrémy 
 to see if any grounds of accusation could he 
 found against her there ; but in vain : all bore 
 testimony to her faith, her sincerity, and her 
 virtue. The companions of her childhood, 
 faithful to truth and to friendship, spoke of her 
 with tears of tenderness and compassion ; the 
 soldiers, with admiration ; the people, with 
 gratitude. On his return, Cauchon met him 
 with insults, calling him a traitor and a vil- 
 lain, and refused to pay his wages. It became 
 necessary to seek for grounds of accusation by 
 resorting to the most hellish plots. 
 
 They engaged a monk of Rouen, Nicolas 
 L’Oiseleur, to enter Joan’s prison in a layman’s 
 dress, and win her confidence by representing 
 himself as a loyal French prisoner. The 
 ingenuous girl, incapable of suspecting this 
 refinement of cruelty, answered his questions 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 73 
 
 about her voices, and all the incidents which 
 it was important that her enemies should know. 
 This wretch then informed her that he was a 
 priest, in order to obtain from her, under the 
 sacred seal of the confessional, the revelation 
 of her most secret thoughts. During the inter- 
 view of L’Oiseleur with Joan, notaries were 
 posted in the adjoining room to take down 
 every word she uttered ; but they blushed at 
 their office, and refused to lend themselves to 
 this infamous plot. Cauchon could, therefore, 
 obtain no official testimony against her ; but the 
 information furnished by L’Oiseleur gave him 
 subjects for interrogation. 
 
 Moi'e than a hundred learned ecclesiastics 
 and jurists were assembled at Rouen to form 
 the tribunal before which she was to be tried. 
 It seemed as though the judges fancied, that, by 
 dividing the guilt, they might ease their con- 
 sciences, and diminish the horror with which 
 they would be regarded by posterity. These 
 judges, however, could only examine the accu- 
 sations, and inform against the accused. The 
 Bishop of Beauvais, and the vicar of the 
 inquisitor-general, Jean Lemaistre, alone had 
 power to pronounce sentence upon her. That 
 sentence was already decided in their hearts. 
 
 A number of the members of the tribunal 
 
74 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 attended only through compulsion or fear. One 
 of the assessors, Nicolas de Houpeville, had 
 openly declared that neither the Bishop of 
 Beauvais nor his adherents had any right to 
 sit as judges, because they belonged to the 
 party hostile to the accused. He reminded 
 them also that Joan had been examined before 
 a higher tribunal at Poitiers ; viz., the Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims, Metropolitan of the Bishop of 
 Beauvais. Houpeville was arrested, and obliged 
 to seek safety in flight. He was soon followed 
 by another celebrated jurist, John Lohier, who 
 refused to proceed with the suit, which he de- 
 clared null and void. 
 
 The vicar of the inquisitor-general, whether 
 touched with pity or visited by conscientious 
 scruples, appears to have restrained rather than 
 excited the ferocity of the bishop, and to have 
 given to the trial some forms of justice and 
 lenity. Before this tribunal, Joan was sum- 
 moned to appear on the 21st of February, 1431. 
 Then commenced that trial which has had no 
 parallel in the history of the world since that 
 which culminated in the tragedy of Calvary. 
 
 When we review the incomplete and muti- 
 lated accounts which we have received from the 
 timid pens of the scribes, the heart is filled with 
 anguish, and the hand trembles as we turn the 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 75 
 
 yellow pages. What should we feel if we had 
 the history of this martyrdom written by a 
 witness filled with the spirit of this inspired 
 girl, imbued with the loftiness of her mission, 
 if her gestures, the tones of her voice, the emo- 
 tions of her soul, the varied expression of her 
 face, could have been preserved? 'Even the 
 imperfect compilation of the notaries, and the 
 facts stated twenty years afterwards by eye- 
 witnesses, reveal, in the prosecution of the trial, 
 a series of diabolical plots worthy of the court 
 of hell. 
 
 IX. 
 
 We are carried back in imagination to that 
 gloomy hall where rises an image of the cruci- 
 fied Jesus, as if to rebuke a second time the 
 outrages of the Pharisees ; those benches, filled 
 with dark figures in whom we see personified 
 the most malignant passions of a degraded 
 priesthood, — implacable hate, besotted egotism, 
 cupidity, and hypocrisy. Around the tribunal, 
 behind the Venetian doors, in the recesses of the 
 windows, in the obscure corners of the hall, are 
 seen the glittering arms and ferocious counte- 
 nances of the English, who threaten the accused, 
 and even the judges themselves. 
 
76 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 Joan appeared, pale, tottering, broken down by 
 two months of horrible impi'isonment. A tem- 
 pest of wrath burst forth at her appearance. 
 The questions were put to her with such rapidi- 
 ty as to render it almost impossible to reply ; 
 while summons to answer burst from all quar- 
 ters. Every word she uttered redoubled the 
 tumult. The interrogations ceased to be vio- 
 lent only to become perfidious. Joan stood 
 alone, without an advocate, without counsel. 
 Those of the assessors who sought to aid her 
 by giving her the most indispensable explana- 
 tions exposed themselves to the furious invec- 
 tives of Cauchon and the vengeance of the 
 English. These scenes were prolonged between 
 three and four hours, and were renewed some- 
 times twice a day. They hoped thus to over- 
 whelm her by bodily fatigue added to mental 
 suffering. 
 
 The bishop spoke to the accused at first with 
 great meekness, that his seeming impartiality 
 and pity might give weight to his decree. She 
 complained gently of the weight of her chains, 
 and the pressure of the iron rings on her limbs. 
 The bishop reminded her that these fetters were 
 a precaution which they had been constrained 
 to take on account of her repeated attempts to 
 escape. The prisoner replied, that, at the com- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 77 
 
 mencement of her captivity, she naturally de 
 sired liberty ; but that there was neither crime 
 nor dishonor in attempting to gain it, since she 
 had never pledged her faith not to leave the 
 castle. 
 
 The accusations against her were then read, 
 in which she was charged with crimes against 
 the holy faith, with heresy and sacrilege. In- 
 terrogated concerning her age, she answered 
 that she was about nineteen. Respecting her 
 faith, she said that her mother had taught her 
 the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave, and the Creed ; and 
 that no one except- her mother had taught her 
 any thing about religion. They commanded 
 her to repeat aloud the two prayers and the 
 creed. She was evidently afraid to obey, lest, 
 in reciting them in Latin before the doctors, 
 she should make some mistake or omission 
 which would be construed into heresy. “I 
 will recite them willingly,” she said, “ if the 
 Bishop of Beauvais will consent to hear me as 
 my confessor.” Doubtless she imagined, that, 
 by opening her heart to the priest, she would 
 convince her judge of the sincerity and ortho- 
 doxy of her faith. She was remanded, stag- 
 gering under the weight of her chains, to the 
 dungeon. 
 
 The following day, they commanded her to 
 
78 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 swear that she would answer truthfully all the 
 questions put to her. She replied, “ I will 
 speak the truth respecting all things ; but the 
 secrets of God and my king I will not betray.” 
 
 She confessed, that, from the age of thirteen, 
 she had heard voices and seen celestial lights 
 in her mother’s garden, near the church ; that 
 these voices had always given her wise counsel ; 
 that they had commanded her to go to Orleans, 
 and raise the siege ; that she had resisted ; but 
 that, after a long struggle, she had yielded, and 
 persuaded her uncle to take her to Vaucouleurs, 
 where she had an interview with the Lord of 
 Baudricourt, who, on her departure for Chinon, 
 had said to her, “ Go ; and may the will of God 
 be done ! ” 
 
 She related with simplicity her presentation 
 to the dauphin, and the divine intuition which 
 had enabled her to recognize him among the 
 crowd. They inquired what she had imparted 
 secretly to him ; but she would not tell, because, 
 by so doing, she must have revealed the doubts 
 of the king concerning his right to the crown. 
 Being asked whether she had seen any super- 
 natural sign, or beheld some celestial being 
 hovering over the dauphin, “ Excuse me,” she 
 said ; “ but I cannot answer that.” 
 
 She was remanded to her dungeon for the 
 night. 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 79 
 
 X. 
 
 The bishop, at the opening of the third ses- 
 sion, again admonished her to tell the truth, 
 even respecting affairs of state, “ My lord,” 
 she replied, “ you say that you are my judge : 
 think well of the responsibility you have as- 
 sumed. You are not my judge : you are my 
 enemy ! I came from God : leave me to the 
 judgment of Him who sent me. Beware what 
 you do ; for I am in truth the envoy of God, 
 and you place your soul in great peril.” 
 
 They resumed their interrogatories, designing 
 to draw from her some avowal by which they 
 might accuse her of witchcraft. “ Do you still 
 hear your interior voices ?” — “ Yes.” — “ When 
 did you last hear them?” — “Yesterday, and 
 again to-day.” — “ What were you doing when 
 they spoke to you?” — “I was asleep, and they 
 waked me.” — “ You threw yourself on your 
 knees?” — “No; but I blessed them for their 
 consolation, and entreated them to sustain me in 
 my distress.” — “ Did they tell you that they 
 would save you from your present peril?” — 
 “ To that I have nothing to answer.” The 
 bishop pressing her still further with questions, 
 she reminded him again that he placed his soul in 
 
80 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 great danger by being at once her judge and her 
 enemy. “ The little children,” added she, “ say 
 that the innocent are often hung for speaking the 
 truth.” — “ Do you think yourself in a state of 
 grace? ” demanded the bishop. “ If I am not,” 
 she replied, “ may it please God to receive me 
 into grace ! and, if I am, may it please him to 
 retain me there ! ” 
 
 Her accusers were wholly disconcerted by this 
 simple answer. “ Did you hate the Duke of 
 Burgundy when you were vex-y young? ” — “I 
 wished very much that the dauphin had his king- 
 dom.” They referi-ed to the apparitions she 
 had seen, hoping to find some pretext by which 
 they might accuse her of magic. She re- 
 lated with great simplicity the visits of St. Mi- 
 chael, St. Catherine, and St. Margai’et. They 
 insisted upon knowing all that those spirits had 
 revealed to her. “ The revelations,” she replied, 
 “ were addressed to the King of France, and not 
 to those who dare thus to intei'rogate me.” — 
 “ Were the spirits naked when they appeared to 
 you ?” — “ Think you that the King of Heaven 
 cannot clothe his messengers in garments of 
 light?” — “Will you tell us by what evidence 
 you convinced the dauphin of your divine mis- 
 sion ?” — “I have already said that I will never 
 speak of any thing touching the king. Go and 
 inquire of him.” 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 81 
 
 The following day, they demanded if her voices 
 had predicted her escape from death. “ That has 
 nothing to do with my trial. Do you wish me 
 to speak against myself ? My trust is in God. 
 His will be done !” — “ Wei - e you not asked to 
 lay aside your military suit, and assume the gar- 
 ments of a woman? ” — “ Yes ; and my answer 
 has always been, that I could not change my 
 dress but by the command of God. The 
 daughter of the Lord of Luxemburg, who con- 
 jured her father not to deliver me up to the 
 English, entreated me to do so ; and also the 
 ladies of Beaurevoir, whilst I was a prisoner in 
 their castle. I told them I had not God’s per- 
 mission, and that the time had not yet come. 
 If I could have done it innocently, I would have 
 complied.” 
 
 “Were not prayers put up in your name in 
 the camp and in the cities ? ” — “ If prayers were 
 offered up in my name, I was ignorant of it, and 
 certainly never would have given my consent to 
 it. If they prayed for me, there was surely no 
 crime in that. Many, it is true, rejoiced to see 
 me, and kissed my garments, my arms, my 
 standard, and whatever came within their reach ; 
 but it was because I never treated them with 
 coldness, and always protected them, as much 
 as I could, from the calamities of war. The 
 
82 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 women and the girls touched my ring with 
 theirs ; but I see nothing sinful in that. 
 
 “ Whilst I was at Rheims, at Château Thierry, 
 at Lagny, several persons solicited me to stand 
 god-mother for their children, and I consented ; 
 but I worked no miracles. The child I stood 
 for at Lagny was three days old : it was very 
 ill, and the young gii’ls carried it to Notre Dame 
 to pray for its restoration to health. I went with 
 them to pray at the altar : the child gave signs 
 of life, its lips moved, it was baptized, and died 
 immediately.” 
 
 “ Did not the king give you a coat-of-arms 
 and money when you were in his service ?” — 
 “ The king bestowed a coat-of-arms upon my 
 brothers. I received nothing from him but 
 my horses, and money to pay my board.” They 
 tried to extort from her a confession that she 
 had taken life in battle ; but she declared that 
 she had never shed a drop of blood, and always 
 carried her standard in her hand instead of a 
 sword. They demanded what she said to en- 
 courage her troops in battle. “ I said, ‘Assault 
 the English boldly. I will lead you on!’” — 
 “ Have you ever been where the English have 
 been slain ?” — “ Yes. Why did they not leave 
 France, and return to their own country? My 
 prices reveal many things to me aside from my 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 83 
 
 trial,” she proceeded. “Mark well my words • 
 The king will reconquer the whole realm of 
 France. In less than seven years, the English 
 will abandon a greater prize than Orleans. 
 They will be driven out of France. I know this 
 as certainly as I know that you sit there before 
 me. It will come to pass within seven years. I 
 am only sorry it will be so long delayed.” 
 
 Her judges were awed by her fearlessness ; 
 they felt that -her bold predictions were not the 
 result of transient enthusiasm. She maintained 
 them during the whole trial, never expressing 
 the shadow of a doubt as to the issue of the 
 war. 
 
 The following day, they demanded if the ring 
 she wore had not some magical inscription upon 
 it, and why she looked at it during a battle. 
 “ Because the name of Jesus is engraved upon 
 it, and it reminds me sweetly of my father and 
 mother.” — “ Why did you have your standard 
 carried into the Cathedral of Rheims at the coro- 
 nation of the king? ” — “ It had been my com- 
 panion in danger,” she said: “ it was meet to 
 have it with me on the day of triumph.” 
 
 That day, as the priest, John Massieu, was 
 conducting her back to prison, a chorister be- 
 longing to the chapel of the King of England 
 
84 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 demanded of him bluntly if that woman was 
 to be burnt. “ Thus far,” replied Massieu, “ I 
 have seen in her nothing but righteousness and 
 honor ; but I know not the end. God only 
 knows.” The Englishman immediately in- 
 formed against him, and his life was in great 
 peril. That honest ecclesiastic had previously 
 been loaded with insults and threats, because 
 one day, on the way from the prison to the 
 court, he permitted Joan to stop a moment at 
 the entrance of the chapel of the castle to pray 
 before the holy sacrament of the altar. 
 
 XI. 
 
 At first they had sought to beguile the young 
 girl through her simplicity ; then they tried her 
 patriotism ; now they attacked her conscience. 
 The attempt here must be successful. The 
 University and the Inquisition were sold to the 
 English regent. To refuse obedience to this 
 body would be represented as refusing it to the 
 Church, and she would be pronounced a heretic. 
 On the other hand, to submit to the authority of 
 this tribunal would be treachery to her king and 
 country. “I leave myself in the hands of my 
 Supreme Judge,” she replied with a sublime in- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 85 
 
 spiration, which transferred her cause from a 
 human to a divine tribunal, thus confounding her 
 judges. To all their artful questions she seven 
 times returned the same simple but sublime 
 answer. “ Will you Submit to our holy father 
 the pope ?” — “ Lead me to the pope, and he shall 
 have my answer in person ; but what God has 
 revealed to me, neither bishop nor pope can 
 prevent my believing.” — “ If you do not believe 
 in the Church you are a heretic, and must be 
 burned at the stake.” — • “Although I should be- 
 hold the flames, I would say nothing but what I 
 have said.” — “ If the general council were here, 
 vrould you submit to them ?” — “You shall not 
 draw from me another word.” — “We will put 
 you to the rack.” — “Although you tear me limb 
 from limb, and separate my soul from my body, 
 I will never say otherwise than I have said.” 
 The rest of that day, she uttered no word. 
 Sorely tried, she gave vent to her anguish in 
 prayer to be delivered from temptation : “ Most 
 merciful God, I entreat thee, by thy passion, 
 that, if thou lovest me, thou wilt inspire me with 
 such answers as I ought to make to these ec- 
 clesiastics. I know well what I should say 
 regarding my life ; but as to the rest, I hear 
 nothing fi’om my voices.” Her mental conflict, 
 more terrible than the dungeon, the chains, or 
 
86 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 even death itself, brought on an illness, which in- 
 terrupted the public trial ; but the bishop and 
 his coadjutors followed her even to the foot 
 of the pillar, where she languished, loaded with 
 fetters, prostrated with fever, agonized in spirit. 
 They demanded if she would submit her cause 
 to the general council, then sitting at Basle. 
 “ What is a general council? ” she gently asked. 
 “ It is an assembly of all Christendom,” replied 
 a monk, Isambard, one of the assessors. “ There 
 are as many belonging to your party as to that 
 of the English.” — “ Oh ! if in that meeting there 
 are any of our side, I am willing to submit to 
 the Council of Basle.” — “ Hold your tongue, by 
 God ! ” cried the exasperated Cauchon ; and, 
 boldly throwing off the mask of hypocrisy, he for- 
 bade the notaries to register her words. “ Alas ! ” 
 said she, turning her eyes beseechingly on the 
 bishop, “ you write all that is against me ; but 
 you Avili not register what is in my favor.” 
 Warwick, having been informed of what had 
 happened, and meeting Isambard in the even- 
 ing, loaded him with insults, and threatened to 
 have him thrown into the Seine ; and the prison 
 was hereafter closed, even to Cauchon. 
 
 So intense was the desire for her execution, 
 that the English trembled lest death should rob 
 them of their victim. “ I would not for the 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 87 
 
 world have her die a natural death ! ” said War- 
 wick to her physicians. “ The king has purchased 
 her at too high a price not to see her burned 
 alive. Cure her as speedily as possible.” 
 
 The bishop, nevertheless, once more gained 
 access to her prison, and represented to her the 
 peril of her soul if she should die without being 
 reconciled to the Church. “ It seems to me,” 
 she replied, “that I am so ill, I am in great 
 danger of death. If it should be so, God’s will 
 be done : I only wish to confess my sins, and to 
 be bui’ied in consecrated ground.” He asked 
 her if the Church should offer up prayers for her 
 recovery. “ May the righteous pray for me ! ” 
 she replied. 
 
 They revived the accusation of suicide, found- 
 ed on her reckless attempt to escape from the 
 Chateau de Beaurevoir. She confessed that the 
 thought of being a captive while her king and 
 her people were shedding their blood had driven 
 her to distraction. In that state, she had pre- 
 cipitated herself from the battlement, at the 
 risk of her life ; but that she had seen her fault, 
 and asked pardon of her heavenly Father. 
 
88 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Her youth aided her recovery ; and she was 
 saved from one death only to meet another more 
 a.ppalling. The insults, the outrages, the joy, 
 and the songs of her jailers announced to her 
 the approaching sentence of condemnation. 
 Three soldiers slept in her chamber. They 
 talked loudly of satisfying their lust before her 
 execution. She trembled in secret at their 
 threatened outrage, and guarded vigilantly her 
 man’s apparel, determined to defend her chas- 
 tity unto death. One day, through a touching 
 feeling of modesty, she prayed, that if she were 
 condemned and stripped, as was the custom, 
 they would grant her the favor of a long gar- 
 ment when she was executed. Indeed, she 
 added that she believed God would work a mira- 
 cle rather than she should be so debased. 
 
 During Holy Week and the day of the resur- 
 rection, which Christians assemble to celebrate, 
 Joan felt more painfully her solitude, and her 
 separation from the flock of Christ. The joyous 
 sound of the bells of Easter, ringing in the res- 
 urrection of the Saviour, fell like mockery on 
 her desolate and stricken heart. 
 
 The University of Paris, when consulted rela- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 89 
 
 tive to the interrogations and answers of the 
 verbal process, pronounced her possessed of the 
 Devil, impious in her conduct towards her fami- 
 ly, and thirsting for the blood of the faithful ; 
 hut the lawyers who were consulted accused 
 her of no crime save obstinacy in her errors. 
 
 The Inquisition and the Bishop of Beauvais, 
 intimidated by the clamor of the people, whose 
 hearts began to be melted with pity for this un- 
 fortunate and innocent girl, pretended to relent, 
 and to be satisfied with condemning her to per- 
 petual imprisonment, instead of death. They 
 therefore made a last attempt to draw from their 
 victim a confession of her obstinacy ; hoping 
 thus to conciliate the populace by their seeming 
 lenity, and gratify the hatred of the English by 
 the severity of her punishment. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The prisoner was dragged from the darkness 
 of the dungeon, where she had languished for 
 four months, that her judges might torture her 
 in public. They ordered two scaffolds to be 
 erected in the Cemetery of St. Ouen, behind the 
 church. The Cardinal of Winchester, the Bishop 
 of Beauvais, the judges, the churchmen, the 
 
90 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 assessors, the representatives of the University, 
 were seated upon one. Joan, hound hand and 
 foot, tied to a post by a chain around her waist, 
 surrounded by notaries prepared to register 
 every word that fell from her lips, and by exe- 
 cutioners, armed with their instruments of tor- 
 ture, ready to put her to the rack, stood opposite, 
 on the other scaffold. 
 
 The immense and superstitious crowd, awed 
 by this imposing spectacle, and divided between 
 respect for the civil and religious authorities, 
 fear of the foreign soldiery, horror of this pre- 
 tended sorceress, and pity for the young girl, 
 whose beauty was even more touching overshad- 
 owed by the hand of death, trembled as they 
 gazed upon this scene from the square and the 
 surrounding house-tops. 
 
 A celebrated preacher, William Erard, ad- 
 dressed Joan, and endeavored by every art to 
 win from her a confession of her sins, and entire 
 submission to the decision of the Church re- 
 specting the rights of the two belligerent powers. 
 “O noble house of France,” he exclaimed, 
 thinking to strengthen his arguments by this 
 pathetic appeal to the house of Yalois, “ thou 
 who hast ever been the guardian of the faith, 
 how hast thou fallen from grace by thus attach- 
 ing thyself to a schismatic and a heretic ! Yes, 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 91 
 
 Joan, it is of thee I speak,” he added in a voice 
 of thunder ; “it is to thee I say that thy king is 
 a schismatic and a heretic.” 
 
 Joan, who had listened in silence to all the 
 insults and abuse which had been directed against 
 herself, could not suppress her indignation when 
 her sovereign was assailed. “ By my faith, 
 sire ! ” she cried, “ I swear that he is the noblest 
 of Christians. There lives not one more devoted 
 to the Church and the holy faith : he merits none 
 of the impious titles you have bestowed upon 
 him.” — “Stop her mouth!” cried the Bishop 
 of Beauvais. The officers imposed silence upon 
 her. 
 
 The bishop then read a form of abjuration, 
 which he conjured her to accept. “ I am will- 
 ing to submit to the pope,” replied Joan. “ The 
 pope is too far off,” said Cauchon. “ Well, let 
 her be burnt ! ” said the preacher. The nota- 
 ries, the executioners, the populace, all entreated 
 her to sign this act of recantation, which only 
 involved a confession of her sins of ignorance, 
 without disavowing her cause or her sentiments. 
 “ Well,” said she, “ I will sign it.” 
 
 At these words, a murmur of relief rose from 
 the crowd. The Bishop of Beauvais demanded 
 of Winchester what he should do. “You must 
 admit her confession and repentance,” said the 
 
92 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 Englishman. This was to grant her life. 
 Whilst the courtiers were wrangling with the 
 Bishop of Beauvais on the scaffold, declaring 
 that he had favored the accused, and whilst he 
 was angrily repelling the charge, a secretary ap- 
 proached Joan, and presented her with a pen to 
 sign the recantation, which she could not even 
 read. The poor girl, smiling, blushed at her ig- 
 norance, as she tried to guide the pen with those 
 fingers which had so skilfully managed the 
 sword. She traced, under the direction of the 
 secretary, a circle, and in the centre a cross. 
 Then they read her the sentence, which con- 
 demned her to pass the rest of her life in prison, 
 there to deplore her sins, to eat the bread of 
 sorrow, and drink the water of affliction. 
 
 At these words, the partisans of the regent, 
 and the English soldiers, disappointed in their 
 hope of revenge, began to move tumultuously 
 round the tribunal, picking up the stones and 
 bones scattered about the cemetery, and throw- 
 ing them upon the scaffold at the cardinal, the 
 bishop, the judges, and the assessors. “ Miser- 
 able, dastardly priests, you betray the king ! ” 
 The judges, to escape the storm of stones, and 
 to pass through the crowd in safety, said to the 
 most furious, “Be quiet: the sentence will soon 
 be reversed ! ” 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 93 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Joan was less astonished at the death which 
 she foresaw awaited her than at the hatred of 
 a people to whom her heart clung with so much 
 tenderness. She re-entered the castle, pursued 
 by the execrations of the multitude, there to 
 endure her fetters, and bè subjected anew 
 to the devices and outrages of her enemies. 
 Whilst she slept, they stole the female apparel 
 which she had worn upon the scaffold as an 
 evidence of her obedience ; thus compelling her 
 to resume her military dress, which they placed 
 beside her bed. Hardly had she put it on, 
 when they called the bishop to detect her in 
 this relapse. He scolded her violently, accus- 
 ing her of backsliding after her abjuration. 
 She protested solemnly that she had abjured 
 nothing but her sins, and that she would rather 
 die than live thus chained to the pillar of a 
 dungeon. 
 
 Cauchon, convinced that nothing would sa- 
 tiate the malice and hatred of his party but the 
 éxecution of this girl, whose very existence, 
 even in the depths of her prison, recalled the 
 defeats of the English and the treachery of the 
 Burgundians, no longer contested this point with 
 
94 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 Warwick. He persuaded the lawyers and the 
 judges of the duty of punishing her impeni- 
 tence with death ; and the ecclesiastics delivered 
 her over to the civil power, hoping, like Pilate, 
 to wash their hands of the blood of this just 
 person. 
 
 The monk Isambart announced to her the 
 decree condemning her to the stake. “ Alas, 
 alas ! ” she cried, raising her chained hands in 
 an agony of grief. “ Will they treat me so 
 cruelly ? I had rather be beheaded seven times 
 than to be burned alive. O my God ! to thee 
 I appeal from the injustice of the sufferings 
 which are heaped upon me.” 
 
 They granted her, as a last favor, the com- 
 munion of the dying in her dungeon. The 
 inmates of the castle, and the bishop, were pres- 
 ent at this solemn feast. On perceiving him, 
 she said in a tone of gentle reproach, “ Bishop, 
 I die through you.” She recognized also one 
 of the pi’iests who had admonished her before 
 the trial, and with whom she had contracted 
 that sort of familiarity which exists between a 
 prisoner and a visitor. “ Ah, Master Pierre ! ” 
 said she, melting into tears, “ where shall I be 
 to-night ? ” 
 
 They restored her woman’s apparel, that she 
 might prepare for the scaffold. She was placed 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 95 
 
 on the fatal cart beside her confessor. The 
 monk Isambart followed her on foot, praying 
 for her salvation, and manifesting the teuderest 
 pity at the foot of the scaffold. 
 
 Suddenly a great tumult arose in the crowd. 
 A man, deathly pale, rushed through the guards, 
 and, throwing himself on his knees before the 
 cart, supplicated Joan to forgive him, with sobs 
 and bitter tears. It was L’Oiseleur, the priest 
 hired by Cauchon to draw from her, under seal 
 of the confessional, avowals of her guilt. The 
 English would have massacred him on the spot, 
 but for the intervention of Warwick, who or- 
 dered him instantly to quit the city, if he would 
 escape a violent death. 
 
 The bishop, the inquisitor, the University, 
 the judges, waited her arrival upon an estrade 
 opposite a hillock covered with dry wood, pre- 
 pared for the human sacrifice. When the cart 
 stopped at the foot of the platform, “ Depart in 
 peace,” said the preacher, in the name of the 
 judges. “ The Church can no longer spread 
 over thee her protecting ægis : she surrenders 
 thee to the secular arm.” Vain and cruel pre- 
 tence of those who had pronounced the verdict, 
 and who imposed upon others the work of exe- 
 cuting their infamous decree ! Joan knelt down 
 in the cart, not to ask life of her merciless 
 
96 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 judges, but to plead with God for the pardon 
 of the bishop and the priests who condemned 
 her to the flames. She clasped her hands, 
 bowed her head, and addressing herself, some- 
 times to her angelic guardians, sometimes to 
 her executioners, she invoked their assistance, 
 their compassion, and their prayers, in accents 
 so tender, and with such heart-rending sobs, 
 that at the sight of her youth, her innocence, 
 and her beauty, about to be reduced to ashes, 
 and the sound of this cry, which seemed al- 
 most to issue from the flames, the judges, the in- 
 quisitors, the soldiers, Winchester, even the Bish- 
 op of Beauvais, melted into tears. Some of them, 
 unable to endure the sight of that countenance 
 and the sound of that voice, fearing that they 
 would be overpowered by compassion, descended 
 from the platform, and mingled in the crowd. 
 
 The dying girl then confessed, in a clear and 
 audible voice, the errors of which she might 
 have been guilty during her mission on earth. 
 Then she entreated them to give her the cross, 
 that she might receive strength by contemplat- 
 ing the symbol of the crucifixion of her Re- 
 deemer ; but they remained deaf to her prayer, 
 till an Englishman, touched with pity, handed 
 her one, which he made of two rough twigs 
 tied together. She took it, pressed it with ten- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 97 
 
 derness to her lips, and, opening her dress, laid 
 it upon her heart. The monk Isambart, atten- 
 tive to her slightest wish, seeing her desire so 
 poorly gratified, performed an act of bold gen- 
 erosity, at the risk of seeming impious in his 
 compassion. He ran to a neighboring church, 
 and, seizing the cross which stood beside the 
 altar, hastened to put it in her hands. 
 
 The executioners led her to the stake. Her 
 confessor ascended the funeral-pyre with her, 
 whispering pious encouragements in her ear. 
 So completely was he absorbed, that he did not 
 notice the approach of the flames. Joan, whose 
 presence of mind and self-forgetfulness had not 
 forsaken her, saw his danger, and exclaimed, 
 “O Jesus! G6, my father; and, when the 
 flames envelop me, elevate the cross, that my 
 dying eyes may see it ; and speak to me holy 
 words even to the end.” Then, looking with 
 compassion on the people, so eager to behold the 
 body of their deliverer wrapped in flames, she 
 wept, crying out, “ O Rouen, Rouen ! I fear 
 that one day thou wilt have to expiate my 
 death ! ” 
 
 The Bishop of Beauvais, to obtain a last 
 justification of his sentence by some accusa- 
 tions of the dying girl against herself, drew near 
 the stake. “ Bis'hop, bishop ! ” she exclaimed, 
 7 
 
98 
 
 JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 in a voice which seemed to issue from the 
 grave, “I die by you ! ” Then, raising her 
 voice, she said with rapture, “ Yes, my voices 
 were from God ! ” 
 
 Deep silence succeeded to the tumult of the 
 exasperated crowd. It seemed as though this 
 tempestuous sea of men was suddenly stilled to 
 catch the last sigh of the expiring martyr. A 
 cry of agony issued from the flames : they had 
 caught her dress and hair. “ Water, water ! ” 
 she cried : it was the last instinct of nature. 
 Enveloped by the flames which swept round 
 her like a whirlwind, confused words alone 
 escaped her lips. . . . Her head fell forward 
 upon her breast. . . . “ Jesus ! ” she sighed ; 
 and her great soul returned to God who gave 
 it. 
 
 All that remained of the savior of France was 
 a little ashes, which the Cardinal of Winchester 
 had cast into the Seine, that no vestige might 
 remain on the soil of France of the spirit and 
 the prowess of this peasant-girl, who had dis- 
 puted with him the supremacy of the kingdom. 
 
 „ He was mistaken. Joan of Arc was dead ; 
 but France was saved. 
 
 Such was the life of Joan of Arc. To en- 
 shrine her among the most sublime and touch- 
 
JOAN OF ARC. 
 
 99 
 
 ing characters of history, we need neither super- 
 stition nor imagination. Her oppressed country 
 breathed into the pure soul of this maid its 
 passion for liberty. All pertaining to her life 
 seems a mii’acle : yet the miracle is neither in 
 her visions, her standard, nor her sword ; it is 
 herself. She is the chaste image of her coun- 
 try, endeared by beauty, saved by the sword, 
 and consecrated through martyrdom. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The following extracts from Murray’s “ Guide- 
 book for France,” concerning the few surviving 
 memorials of the “ Maid of Orleans,” may be 
 interesting to the reader. 
 
 Domrémy. — The humble cottage in which Joan 
 was born, having always been treated with a sort 
 of veneration, is preserved, somewhat altered, 
 in an enclosure near the church. It stands be- 
 tween two buildings, public schools for girls of 
 the distinct, erected by the department of Vosges 
 as a monument to the memory of the virgin. 
 Louis Philippe presented to the cottage a copy 
 of the beautiful statue of Joan of Arc by his 
 own daughter, the Princess Marie, “ another 
 inspired Maid of Orleans.” 
 
 The only favor Joan ever solicited from the 
 king, for whom she had etfected so much, was 
 that her native village should be exempt from 
 every tax. This privilege was granted, and 
 
 101 
 
102 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 remained in force until the Revolution. In the 
 Registry-book of Taxes, the space opposite the 
 name Domrémy was filled up with the words, 
 “ Nothing ; for the sake of the Virgin.” 
 
 Chinon possesses a deep interest for those 
 who venerate and love the Maid of Orleans. 
 This was the place where she made her first 
 public appearance. Here she had that memora- 
 ble interview with the dauphin. The remains 
 of the castle are of vast extent : they occupy the 
 summit of a lofty platform of rock, rising nearly 
 three hundred feet above the town and the river. 
 A natural escarpment surrounds it on three 
 sides. Where the cliff was not naturally verti- 
 cal, it has been cut away ; and huge walls of 
 smooth masonry have been built to a level with 
 the top of the cliff. A deep fosse, or ditch, is cut 
 through the rock on the fourth side, to isolate the 
 promontory from the ridge, of which it forms 
 the termination. 
 
 The royal apartments are still shown, and 
 the very room iu which the Maid first saw and 
 singled out the dauphin ; but they are in a 
 deplorably dilapidated condition, and open to 
 the sky. No tradition is preserved of the cha- 
 teau in which Joan resided during the two days 
 before she gained access to the dauphin ; nor 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 103 
 
 can the church be pointed out in which she spent 
 most of each day in prayer. It was at Chinon 
 that she first girt on the mysterious sword found 
 in the Church of St. Catherine of Fierbois ; and 
 here she unfurled her white banner, sprinkled 
 with fleurs de lis , made for her under the direc- 
 tion of her “ voices.” 
 
 Orleans. — Nearly every memorial of Joan 
 of Arc has been swept away. There is, how- 
 ever, a street called by her name. An ancient 
 statue, erected on the bridge soon after her 
 death, was broken to pieces by the revolution- 
 ists of 1792 to melt into cannon. An equestrian 
 statue of her was erected on the Place du Mar- 
 troy in 1855. In the council-hall of the Hô- 
 tel de la Marie is a portrait, painted in 1581, 
 which apparently deserves little confidence as a 
 likeness. She is dressed in the female costume 
 of the fashion of Francis I. Louis Philippe 
 presented to the city a bronze caste of the 
 statue, modelled by his gifted daughter ; by far 
 the worthiest representation of the inspired 
 maid. 
 
 The house in which she lodged is only in 
 part left standing : the chamber she occupied is 
 removed, and a sort of pavilion occupies its 
 place. The scene of the chief exploits of Joan 
 
104 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 was the old bridge, wjiich stood much higher 
 up the river than the present one, and rested in 
 the centre, on an island. It was from this island 
 that she watched the battle, and threw herself 
 into a boat to go and rally the faltering troops. 
 Opposite»to the spot where the old bridge termi- 
 nated stands a small cross, called “ Cross of the 
 Virgin.” The fort is now only a damp, dirty 
 cellar ; possessing this interest alone, — that it is, 
 perhaps, the only remaining relic of the siege. 
 
 Compiegne. — The spot where the inspired 
 maid was captured is marked by the ruins of 
 the Tour tie la Pucelle, near the ancient gate- 
 way of the old bridge. 
 
 Rouen. — The Place de la Pucelle serves 
 to record the fate of Joan of Arc, who was 
 burned alive here on the spot marked to-day by 
 the contemptible modern statue which bears her 
 name, and stands upon a pump. 
 
 It was not until twenty-four years after her 
 martyrdom that a papal bull proclaimed her 
 innocence, and a cross was raised by her coun- 
 trymen on the spot where she had been bound 
 to the stake. The great tower of the old castle 
 in which she was imprisoned was demolished 
 in 1780. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 105 
 
 “ In the Musée des Monuments Français, at 
 Paris, there is a portrait of singular interest. 
 It is apparently that of a young girl, some 
 twenty years of age, whose countenance wears 
 a soft and dreamy beauty, which long haunts 
 the memory of the beholder. Upon her head is 
 a martial cap with feathers, and in her hand a 
 shield and sword. It is Joan of Arc, the shep- 
 herd-maid, whose memory, for years assailed by 
 detraction, now grows brighter as time develops 
 her character and her virtues.” — Boston Tran- 
 script. 
 
 “ The original statue modelled by the Princess 
 Marie, adorns, or rather sanctifies,, the halls of 
 Versailles.” — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 “ There may he no reliable portrait of Joan ; 
 yet who would not ascribe to her the very form 
 and features so exquisitely moulded by the 
 Princess Maine, 1 who seems to have had a soul 
 pure enough to reflect the image of the Maid of 
 Orleans, and to embody the vision in marble ’ ? 
 Who that has ever trodden the gorgeous galle- 
 ries of Versailles has not fondly lingered before 
 that noble work of art, that touching impersona- 
 tion of the Christian heroine, the head meekly 
 bended, and the hands devoutly clasping the 
 
106 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 sword, in sign of the cross ; firm resolution im- 
 printed on those closely-pressed lips, and 
 beaming from that lofty brow? Whose thoughts, 
 as he paused to gaze, and gaze again, would not 
 wander to the sculptress so highly gifted in 
 talent, in fortunes, in hopes of happiness, yet 
 doomed to an end so grievous and untimely. 
 Thus the statue has grown to be a monument 
 not only to the memory of ‘the holy virgin,’ 
 but to her own ; and thus future generations of 
 France will love to blend the artist with the 
 martyr, — Marie of Wurtemberg with Joan of 
 Arc.” — London Quarterly Review. 
 
 THE END» 
 
INDEX, 
 
 3? art First. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 Condition of France 5 
 
 Childhood of Joan 7 
 
 Her Youth ......... 9 
 
 Her First Vision 12 
 
 Her Interview with the Lord of Baudricourt . . 18 
 
 Her Departure for Chinon 21 
 
 Her Reception by the Court of Charles VII. ... 23 
 
 Examination of Joan before the University at Poitiers . 27 
 
 Arrival of the Maid before Orleans .... 31 
 
 Her First Engagement with the Enemy ... 37 
 
 Attack upon the Fortresses on the Left Bank of the Loire, 40 
 Defeat and Surrender of Gladsdale .... 43 
 
 Raising of the Siege of Orleans 45 
 
 Defeat of Suffolk at Jergeau 47 
 
 Defeat and Capture of Talbot 48 
 
 The French before Troyes 49 
 
 Coronation of the King at Rheims 52 
 
 J?art Second. 
 
 Departure of Charles for Paris 55 
 
 Enthusiasm of the Peasantry 56 
 
 Defeat of the French before Paris ..... 58 
 
 A Truce concluded 60 
 
 Siege of St. Pierre le Moutier 61 
 
 Resumption of Hostilities 61 
 
 107 
 
108 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Joan at Compïègne .62 
 
 Her Capture 63 
 
 She is delivered up to the Lord of Luxemburg . . 65 
 
 Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais .... 67 
 
 Joan is sold to the English 67 
 
 Her Attempt to escape from the Castle of Beaurevoir . 68 
 
 She is taken to Rouen 69 
 
 Relief of Compiègne 69 
 
 Luxemburg visits Joan in Prison 70 
 
 Villany of Cauchon 72 
 
 Formation of the Tribunal 73 
 
 Commencement of the Trial 75 
 
 Interruption of the Proceedings, consequent upon the 
 
 Illness of Joan 85 
 
 The Mock Trial in the Cemetery of St. Ouen . . 89 
 
 Condemnation of Joan of Arc 93 
 
 Her Death .97 
 
 Conclusion 98 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Domrémy 101 
 
 Chinon 102 
 
 Orleans 103 
 
 Compiègne 104 
 
 Rouen 104 
 
 Portrait and Statue of Joan of Arc .... 105 
 
 A 
 

Ill 
 
 11 
 
 III 
 
 1 
 
 III 
 
 D 
 
 30416 
 
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