The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2)

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THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC

BY ANATOLE FRANCE

A TRANSLATION BY WINIFRED STEPHENS

IN TWO VOLS., VOL. I

[Illustration]

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX

_Copyright in U.S.A., 1908, by_
MANZI, JOYANT ET CIE

_Copyright in U.S.A., 1908, by_
JOHN LANE COMPANY

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

[Illustration: Joan of Arc]

PREFACE

TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

Scholars have been good enough to notice this book; and the majority
have treated it very kindly, doubtless because they have perceived
that the author has observed all the established rules of historical
research and accuracy. Their kindness has touched me. I am especially
grateful to MM. Gabriel Monod, Solomon Reinach and Germain
Lefevre-Pontalis, who have discovered in this work certain errors,
which will not be found in the present edition.

My English critics have a special claim to my gratitude. To the memory
of Joan of Arc they consecrate a pious zeal which is almost an
expiatory worship. Mr. Andrew Lang's praiseworthy scruples with regard
to my references have caused me to correct some and to add several.

The hagiographers alone are openly hostile. They reproach me, not with
my manner of explaining the facts, but with having explained them at
all. And the more my explanations are clear, natural, rational and
derived from the most authoritative sources, the more these
explanations displease them. They would wish the history of Joan of
Arc to remain mysterious and entirely supernatural. I have restored
the Maid to life and to humanity. That is my crime. And these zealous
inquisitors, so intent on condemning my work, have failed to discover
therein any grave fault, any flagrant inexactness. Their severity has
had to content itself with a few inadvertences and with a few
printer's errors. What flatterers could better have gratified "the
proud weakness of my heart?"[1]

PARIS, _January, 1909_.

[Footnote 1: "_De mon coeur l'orgueilleuse faiblesse_," Racine,
_Iphigenie en Aulide_, Act i, sc. i.--(W.S.)]

INTRODUCTION

My first duty should be to make known the authorities for this
history. But L'Averdy, Buchon, J. Quicherat, Vallet de Viriville,
Simeon Luce, Boucher de Molandon, MM. Robillard de Beaurepaire, Lanery
d'Arc, Henri Jadart, Alexandre Sorel, Germain Lefevre-Pontalis, L.
Jarry, and many other scholars have published and expounded various
documents for the life of Joan of Arc. I refer my readers to their
works which in themselves constitute a voluminous literature,[2] and
without entering on any new examination of these documents, I will
merely indicate rapidly and generally the reasons for the use I have
chosen to make of them. They are: first, the trial which resulted in
her condemnation; second, the chronicles; third, the trial for her
rehabilitation; fourth, letters, deeds, and other papers.

[Footnote 2: Le P. Lelong, _Bibliotheque historique de la France_,
Paris, 1768 (5 vols. folio), II, n. 17172-17242. Potthast,
_Bibliotheca medii aevi_, Berlin, 1895, 8vo, vol. i, pp. 643 _seq._ U.
Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources historiques du Moyen Age_, Paris,
8vo, 1877, pp. 1247-1255; _Jeanne d'Arc, bibliographie_, Montbeliard,
1878 [selections]; _Supplement au Repertoire_, Paris, 1883, pp.
2684-2686, 8vo. Lanery d'Arc, _Le livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc,
bibliographie raisonnee et analytique des ouvrages relatifs a Jeanne
d'Arc_, Paris, 1894, large 8vo, and supplement. A. Molinier, _Les
sources de l'histoire de France des origines aux guerres d'Italie, IV:
Les Valois, 1328-1461_, Paris, 1904, pp. 310-348.]

First, in the trial[3] which resulted in her condemnation the
historian has a mine of rich treasure. Her cross-examination cannot be
too minutely studied. It is based on information, not preserved
elsewhere, gathered from Domremy and the various parts of France
through which she passed. It is hardly necessary to say that all the
judges of 1431 sought to discover in Jeanne was idolatry, heresy,
sorcery and other crimes against the Church. Inclined as they were,
however, to discern evil in every one of the acts and in each of the
words of one whom they desired to ruin, so that they might dishonour
her king, they examined all available information concerning her life.
The high value to be set upon the Maid's replies is well known; they
are heroically sincere, and for the most part perfectly lucid.
Nevertheless they must not all be interpreted literally. Jeanne, who
never regarded either the bishop or the promoter as her judge, was not
so simple as to tell them the whole truth. It was very frank of her to
warn them that they would not know all.[4] That her memory was
curiously defective must also be admitted. I am aware that the clerk
of the court was astonished that after a fortnight she should remember
exactly the answers she had given in her cross-examination.[5] That
may be possible, although she did not always say the same thing. It is
none the less certain that after the lapse of a year she retained but
an indistinct recollection of some of the important acts of her life.
Finally, her constant hallucinations generally rendered her incapable
of distinguishing between the true and the false.

[Footnote 3: Jules Quicherat, _Proces de condamnation et de
rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 8vo, 1841, vol. i. (Called
hereafter _Trial_.--W.S.)]

[Footnote 4: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 93, _passim_.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 89, 142, 161, 176, 178, 201.]

The record of the trial is followed by an examination of Jeanne's
sayings in _articulo mortis_.[6] This examination is not signed by the
clerks of the court. Hence from a legal point of view the record is
out of order; nevertheless, regarded as a historical document, its
authenticity cannot be doubted. In my opinion the actual occurrences
cannot have widely differed from what is related in this unofficial
report. It tells of Jeanne's second recantation, and of this
recantation there can be no question, for Jeanne received the
communion before her death. The veracity of this document was never
assailed,[7] even by those who during the rehabilitation trial pointed
out its irregularity.[8]

[Footnote 6: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 478 _et seq._]

[Footnote 7: _Cf._ J. Quicherat, _Apercus nouveaux sur l'histoire de
Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1880, pp. 138-144.]

[Footnote 8: Evidence of G. Manchon, _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 14.]

Secondly, the chroniclers of the period, both French and Burgundian,
were paid chroniclers, one of whom was attached to every great baron.
Tringant says that his master did not expend any money in order to
obtain mention in the chronicles,[9] and that therefore he is omitted
from them. The earliest chronicle in which the Maid occurs is that of
Perceval de Cagny, who was in the service of the house of Alencon and
Duke John's master of the house.[10] It was drawn up in the year 1436,
that is, only six years after Jeanne's death. But it was not written
by him. According to his own confession he had "not half the sense,
memory, or ability necessary for putting this, or even a matter of
less than half its importance, down in writing."[11] This chronicle is
the work of a painstaking clerk. One is not surprised to find a
chronicler in the pay of the house of Alencon representing the
differences concerning the Maid, which arose between the Sire de la
Tremouille and the Duke of Alencon, in a light most unfavourable to
the King. But from a scribe, supposed to be writing at the dictation
of a retainer of Duke John, one would have expected a less inaccurate
and a less vague account of the feats of arms accomplished by the Maid
in company with him whom she called her fair duke. Although this
chronicle was written at a time when no one dreamed that the sentence
of 1431 would ever be revoked, the Maid is regarded as employing
supernatural means, and her acts are stripped of all verisimilitude by
being recorded in the manner of a hagiography. Further, that portion
of the chronicle attributed to Perceval de Cagny, which deals with the
Maid, is brief, consisting of twenty-seven chapters of a few lines
each. Quicherat is of opinion that it is the best chronicle of Jeanne
d'Arc[12] existing, and the others may indeed be even more worthless.

[Footnote 9: _Ne donnoit point d'argent pour soy faire mettre es
croniques._--Jean de Bueil, _Le Jouvencel_, ed. C. Fabre and L.
Lecestre, Paris, 1887, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 283.]

[Footnote 10: Perceval de Cagny, _Chroniques_, published by H.
Moranville, Paris, 1902, 8vo.]

[Footnote 11: _Le sens, memoire, ne l'abillite de savoir faire metre
par escript ce, ne autre chose mendre de plus de la moitie_, Perceval
de Cagny, p. 31.]

[Footnote 12: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 1.]

Gilles le Bouvier,[13] king at arms of the province of Berry, who was
forty-three in 1429, is somewhat more judicious than Perceval de
Cagny; and, in spite of some confusion of dates, he is better
informed of military proceedings. But his story is of too summary a
nature to tell us much.

[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, pp. 40-50. D. Godefroy, _Histoire de Charles
VII_, Paris, 1661, fol. pp. 369-474.]

Jean Chartier,[14] precentor of Saint-Denys, held the office of
chronicler of France in 1449. Two hundred years later he would have
been described as historiographer royal. His office may be divined
from the manner in which he relates Jeanne's death. After having said
that she had been long imprisoned by the order of John of Luxembourg,
he adds: "The said Luxembourg sold her to the English, who took her to
Rouen, where she was harshly treated; in so much that after long
delay, they had her publicly burnt in that town of Rouen, without a
trial, of their own tyrannical will, which was cruelly done, seeing
the life and the rule she lived, for every week she confessed and
received the body of Our Lord, as beseemeth a good catholic."[15] When
Jean Chartier says that the English burned her without trial, he means
apparently that the Bailie of Rouen did not pronounce sentence.
Concerning the ecclesiastical trial and the two accusations of lapse
and relapse he says not a word; and it is the English whom he accuses
of having burnt a good Catholic without a trial. This example proves
how seriously the condemnation of 1431 embarrassed the government of
King Charles. But what can be thought of a historian who suppresses
Jeanne's trial because he finds it inconvenient? Jean Chartier was
extremely weak-minded and trivial; he seems to believe in the magic of
Catherine's sword and in Jeanne's loss of power when she broke it;[16]
he records the most puerile of fables. Nevertheless it is interesting
to note that the official chronicler of the Kings of France, writing
about 1450, ascribes to the Maid an important share in the delivery of
Orleans, in the conquest of fortresses on the Loire and in the victory
of Patay, that he relates how the King formed the army at Gien "by the
counsel of the said maid,"[17] and that he expressly states that
Jeanne caused[18] the coronation and consecration. Such was certainly
the opinion which prevailed at the Court of Charles VII. All that we
have to discover is whether that opinion was sincere and reasonable or
whether the King of France may not have deemed it to his advantage to
owe his kingdom to the Maid. She was held a heretic by the heads of
the Church Universal, but in France her memory was honoured, rather,
however, by the lower orders than by the princes of the blood and the
leaders of the army. The services of the latter the King was not
desirous to extol after the revolt of 1440. During this
_Praguerie_,[19] the Duke of Bourbon, the Count of Vendome, the Duke
of Alencon, whom the Maid called her fair duke, and even the cautious
Count Dunois had been seen joining hands with the plunderers and
making war on the sovereign with an ardour they had never shown in
fighting against the English.

[Footnote 14: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de
France_, ed. Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1858, 3 vols., 18mo.
(_Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_).]

[Footnote 15: _Lequel Luxembourg la vendit aux Angloix, qui la
menerent a Rouen, ou elle fut durement traictee; et tellement que,
apres grant dillacion de temps, sans procez, maiz de leur voulente
indeue, la firent ardoir en icelle ville de Rouen publiquement ... qui
fut bien inhumainement fait, veu la vie et gouvernement dont elle
vivoit, car elle se confessoit et recepvoit par chacune sepmaine le
corps de Nostre Seigneur, comme bonne catholique._--Jean Chartier,
_Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France_, vol. i, p. 122.]

[Footnote 16: Jean Chartier, _Chronique de Charles VII, roi de
France_, vol. i, p. 122.]

[Footnote 17: _Par l'admonestement de ladite Pucelle_, Jean Chartier,
vol. i, p. 87.]

[Footnote 18: _Fut cause_, _ibid._, vol. i, p. 97.]

[Footnote 19: This revolt of the French nobles was so named because
various risings of a similar nature had taken place in the city of
Prague.--W.S.]

"Le Journal du Siege"[20] was doubtless kept in 1428 and 1429; but the
edition that has come down to us dates from 1467.[21] What relates to
Jeanne before her coming to Orleans is interpolated; and the
interpolator was so unskilful as to date Jeanne's arrival at Chinon in
the month of February, while it took place on March 6, and to assign
Thursday, March 10, as the date of the departure from Blois, which did
not occur until the end of April. The diary from April 28 to May 7 is
less inaccurate in its chronology, and the errors in dates which do
occur may be attributed to the copyist. But the facts to which these
dates are assigned, occasionally in disagreement with financial
records and often tinged with the miraculous, testify to an advanced
stage of Jeanne's legend. For example, one cannot possibly attribute
to a witness of the siege the error made by the scribe concerning the
fall of the Bridge of Les Tourelles.[22] What is said on page 97 of P.
Charpentier's and C. Cuissart's edition concerning the relations of
the inhabitants and the men-at-arms seems out of place, and may very
likely have been inserted there to efface the memory of the grave
dissensions which had occurred during the last week. From the 8th of
May the diary ceases to be a diary; it becomes a series of extracts
borrowed from Chartier, from Berry, and from the rehabilitation
trial. The episode of the big fat Englishman slain by Messire Jean de
Montesclere at the Siege of Jargeau is obviously taken from the
evidence of Jean d'Aulon in 1446; and even this plagiarism is
inaccurate, since Jean d'Aulon expressly says he was slain at the
Battle of Les Augustins.[23]

[Footnote 20: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), ed. P.
Charpentier and C. Cuissart, Orleans, 1896, 8vo.]

[Footnote 21: The oldest copy extant is dated 1472 (MS. fr. 14665).]

[Footnote 22: _Journal du siege d'Orleans_ (1428-1429), p. 87.
_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 162, note.]

[Footnote 23: _Journal du siege_, p. 97. _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 215.]

The chronicle entitled _La Chronique de la Pucelle_,[24] as if it were
the chief chronicle of the heroine, is taken from a history entitled
_Geste des nobles Francois_, going back as far as Priam of Troy. But
the extract was not made until the original had been changed and added
to. This was done after 1467. Even if it were proved that _La
Chronique de la Pucelle_ is the work of Cousinot, shut up in Orleans
during the siege, or even of two Cousinots, uncle and nephew according
to some, father and son according to others, it would remain none the
less true that this chronicle is largely copied from Jean Chartier,
the _Journal du Siege_ and the rehabilitation trial. Whoever the
author may have been, this work reflects no great credit upon him: no
very high praise can be given to a fabricator of tales, who, without
appearing in the slightest degree aware of the fact, tells the same
stories twice over, introducing each time different and contradictory
circumstances. _La Chronique de la Pucelle_ ends abruptly with the
King's return to Berry after his defeat before Paris.

[Footnote 24: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, or _Chronique de Cousinot_,
ed. Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1859, 16mo. (_Bibliotheque
Gauloise_).]

_Le Mystere du siege_[25] must be classed with the chronicles. It is
in fact a rhymed chronicle in dialogue, and it would be extremely
interesting for its antiquity alone were it possible to do what some
have attempted and to assign to it the date 1435. The editors, and
following them several scholars, have believed it possible to identify
this poem of 20,529 lines with a _certain mistaire_[26] played on the
sixth anniversary of the delivery of the city. They have drawn their
conclusions from the following circumstances: the Marechal de Rais,
who delighted to organise magnificent farces and mysteries, was in
Duke Charles's city expending vast sums[27] there from September,
1434, till August, 1435; in 1439 the city purchased out of its
municipal funds "a standard and a banner, which had belonged to
Monseigneur de Reys and had been used by him to represent the manner
of the storming of Les Tourelles and their capture from the
English."[28] From such a statement it is impossible to prove that in
1435 or in 1439, on May 8, there was acted a play having the Siege for
its subject and the Maid for its heroine. If, however, we take "the
manner of the storming of Les Tourelles" to mean a mystery rather than
a pageant or some other form of entertainment, and if we consider the
_certain mistaire_ of 1435 as indicating a representation of that
siege which had been laid and raised by the English, we shall thus
arrive at a mystery of the siege. But even then we must examine
whether it be that mystery the text of which has come down to us.

[Footnote 25: _Mystere du Siege d'Orleans_, first published by MM. F.
Guessard and E. de Certain, Paris, 1862, 4to, according to the only
manuscript, which is preserved in the Vatican Library.--_Cf._ _Etude
sur le mystere du siege d'Orleans_, by H. Tivier, Paris, 1868, 8vo.]

[Footnote 26: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 309.]

[Footnote 27: The Abbe E. Bossard and de Maulde, _Gilles de Rais,
Marechal de France, dit Barbe-Bleue_ (1404-1440), 2nd edition, Paris,
1886, 8vo, pp. 94-113.]

[Footnote 28: _Un estandart et banniere qui furent a Monseigneur de
Reys pour faire la maniere de l'assault comment les Tourelles furent
prinses sur les Anglois Mistere du siege_, p. viii.]

Among the one hundred and forty speaking personages in this work is
the Marechal de Rais. Hence it has been concluded that the mystery was
written and acted before the lawsuit ended by that sentence to which
effect was given above the Nantes Bridge, on October 20, 1440. How,
indeed, it has been asked, after so ignominious a death could the
vampire of Machecoul have been represented to the people of Orleans as
fighting for their deliverance? How could the Maid and Blue Beard be
associated in a heroic action? It is hard to answer such a question,
because we cannot possibly tell how much of that kind of thing could
be tolerated by the barbarism of those rude old times. Perhaps our
text itself, if properly examined, will be found to contain internal
evidence as to whether it is of an earlier or later date than 1440.

The bastard of Orleans was created Count of Dunois on July 14,
1439.[29] The lines of the mystery, in which he is called by this
title, cannot therefore be anterior to that date. They are numerous,
and, by a singularity which has never been explained, are all in the
first third of the book. When Dunois reappears later he is the Bastard
again. From this fact the editors of 1862 concluded that five thousand
lines were prefixed to the primitive text subsequently, although they
in no way differ from the rest, either in language, style, or prosody.
But may the rest of the poem be assigned to 1435 or 1439?

[Footnote 29: _Mistere du siege_, preface, p. x.]

That is not my opinion. In the lines 12093 and 12094 the Maid tells
Talbot he will die by the hand of the King's men. This prophecy must
have been made after the event: it is an obvious allusion to the
noble captain's end, and these lines must have been written after
1453.

Six years after the siege no clerk of Orleans would have thought of
travestying Jeanne as a lady of noble birth.

In line 10199 and the following of the "_Mistere du Siege_" the Maid
replies to the first President of the Parlement of Poitiers when he
questions her concerning her family:

"As for my father's mansion, it is in the Bar country; and
he is of gentle birth and rank right noble, a good Frenchman
and a loyal."[30]

[Footnote 30:

Quant est de l'ostel de mon pere,
Il est en pays de Barois;
Gentilhomme et de noble afaire
Honneste et loyal Francois.

_Mistere du siege_, pp. 397-398.]

Before a clerk would write thus, Jeanne's family must have been long
ennobled and the first generation must have died out, which happened
in 1469; there must have come into existence that numerous family of
the Du Lys, whose ridiculous pretensions had to be humoured. Not
content with deriving their descent from their aunt, the Du Lys
insisted on connecting the good peasant Jacquot d'Arc with the old
nobility of Bar.

Notwithstanding that Jeanne's reference to "her father's mansion"
conflicts with other scenes in the same mystery, this lengthy work
would appear to be all of a piece.

It was apparently compiled during the reign of Louis XI, by a citizen
of Orleans who was a fair master of his subject. It would be
interesting to make a more detailed study of his authorities than has
been done hitherto. This poet seems to have known a _Journal du siege_
very different from the one we possess.

Was his mystery acted during the last thirty years of the century at
the festival instituted to commemorate the taking of Les Tourelles?
The subject, the style, and the spirit are all in harmony with such an
occasion. But it is curious that a poem composed to celebrate the
deliverance of Orleans on May 8 should assign that deliverance to May
9. And yet this is what the author of the mystery does when he puts
the following lines into the mouth of the Maid:

"Remember how Orleans was delivered in the year one thousand
four hundred and twenty-nine, and forget not also that of
May it was the ninth day."[31]

[Footnote 31:

... Ayez en souvenance....
Comment Orleans eult delivrance....
L'an mil iiijc xxix;
Faites en memoire tous dis;
Des jours de may ce fut le neuf.

_Mistere du siege_, lines 14375-14381, p. 559.]

Such are the chief chroniclers on the French side who have written of
the Maid. Others who came later or who have only dealt with certain
episodes in her life, need not be quoted here; their testimony will be
best examined when we come to that of the facts in detail. Placing on
one side any information to be obtained from _La Chronique de
l'etablissement de la fete_,[32] from _La Relation_[33] of the Clerk
of La Rochelle and other contemporary documents, we are now in a
position to realise that if we depended on the French chroniclers for
our knowledge of Jeanne d'Arc we should know just as much about her as
we know of Sakya Muni.

[Footnote 32: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 285 _et seq._]

[Footnote 33: _Relation inedite sur Jeanne d'Arc, extraite du livre
noir de l'hotel de ville de La Rochelle_, ed. J. Quicherat, Orleans,
1879, 8vo, and _La Revue Historique_, vol. iv, 1877, pp. 329-344.]

We shall certainly not find her explained by the Burgundian
chroniclers. They, however, furnish certain useful information. The
earliest of these Burgundian chroniclers is a clerk of Picardy, the
author of an anonymous chronicle, called _La Chronique des
Cordeliers_,[34] because the only copy of it comes from a house of the
Cordeliers at Paris. It is a history of the world from the creation to
the year 1431. M. Pierre Champion[35] has proved that Monstrelet made
use of it. This clerk of Picardy knew divers matters, and was
acquainted with sundry state documents. But facts and dates he
curiously confuses. His knowledge of the Maid's military career is
derived from a French and a popular source. A certain credence has
been attached to his story of the leap from Beaurevoir; but his
account if accurate destroys the idea that Jeanne threw herself from
the top of the keep in a fit of frenzy or despair.[36] And it does not
agree with what Jeanne said herself.

[Footnote 34: Bibl. Nat. fr. 23018: J. Quicherat, _Supplement aux
temoignages contemporains sur Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Revue Historique_,
vol. xix, May-June, 1882, pp. 72-83.]

[Footnote 35: Pierre Champion, _Guillaume de Flavy_, Paris, 1906, in
8vo, pp. xi, xii.]

[Footnote 36: _Chronique d'Antonio Morosini_, introduction and
commentary by Germain Lefevre-Pontalis, text established by Leon
Dorez, vol. iii, 1901, p. 302, and vol. iv, supplement xxi.]

Monstrelet,[37] "more drivelling at the mouth than a
mustard-pot,"[38] is a fountain of wisdom in comparison with Jean
Chartier. When he makes use of _La Chronique des Cordeliers_ he
rearranges it and presents its facts in order. What he knew of Jeanne
amounts to very little. He believed that she was an inn servant. He
has but a word to say of her indecision at Montepilloy, but that word,
to be found nowhere else, is extremely significant. He saw her in the
camp at Compiegne; but unfortunately he either did not realise or did
not wish to say what impression she made upon him.