"Go to Vaucouleurs!" the Voices had said: "go to Robert of Baudricourt, and bid him send thee to the Dauphin!" Again and yet again, "Go!"

Vaucouleurs, the "valley of color," is a little walled town on the Meuse, some thirteen miles from DomrÉmy. Its narrow streets climb a steep hill to the castle, perched on its rock like an eagle's nest. In this castle, holding the town partly for the Dauphin, but chiefly for himself, lived Robert of Baudricourt; a robber captain, neither more nor less. A step beyond the highwayman, since he had married a rich and noble widow, and had lived handsomely in (and on) Vaucouleurs for some twelve years; but still little more civilized than the band of rude and brutal soldiers under his command. It was from this man that the Maid was bidden to seek aid in her mission.

She bethought her of a kinsman, Durand Laxart (or Lassois) living at Little Burey, a village near Vaucouleurs; asked and obtained leave of her parents to visit him. This was in May, 1428. She opened her mind to her "uncle" (by courtesy: he was really only a cousin by marriage) and impressed him so much that he consented to bring her before the lord of the castle.

Baudricourt looked at the comely peasant maid in her red stuff dress, probably with some interest at first; when she quietly informed him that God had bidden her to save France, and had sent her to him for help in the task, his interest changed to amused impatience. At first he laughed; but when he was called upon in God's name to send a message to the Dauphin his mood changed.

"Let him guard himself well," the message ran, "and not offer battle to his foes, for the Lord will give him succor by mid-Lent."

Now Lent was to fall in March of the coming year.

"By God's will," the Maid added, "I myself will lead the Dauphin to be crowned."

This was too much for the lord of Vaucouleurs. Turning to Laxart, he said, "Give the wench a sound whipping and send her home!" and so dismissed the pair.

Joan made no resistance; went back to DomrÉmy and bided her time. We are to suppose that through the summer of 1428 she plied her faithful tasks at home, listening to her Voices, strengthening her purpose steadily in the quiet of her resolute heart. In October came the news that Orleans was besieged; and now once more the Voices grew urgent, imperative; yet again she must go to Vaucouleurs, yet again demand help of Robert of Baudricourt. This time the way was made easy for her. The wife of Durand Laxart was about to have a child, and needed help. There were no trained nurses then in the Meuse valley or anywhere else; it was the simple and natural thing for Joan to offer her services, and for the kinsfolk to accept them. January, 1489, found her domiciled in the Laxart household, caring for the mother and the newborn child in her own careful, competent way.

One day she told her kinsman that she must see My Lord of Baudricourt once more, and besought him to bear her company. He demurred; they had got little good of the first visit, he reminded her.

"Do you not know," asked the girl, "the saying that France is to be made desolate by a woman and restored by a Maid?" and added that she must go "into France" and lead the Dauphin to Rheims for his coronation. Laxart had heard the prophecy; most people knew it, in the Meuse valley and elsewhere. He yielded, and once more the peasant man and maid made their way up the climbing street and appeared before the lord of the castle. We do not know that the second interview prospered much better than the first. Laxart says that Baudricourt bade him "more than once" to box the girl's ears and send her home to her father; but this time Joan did not go home. After spending several weeks with her cousin's family, she went to stay with a family named Royer, where she helped in the housework, and "won the heart of her hostess by her gentle ways, her skill in sewing, and her earnest faith."[24]

This must have been a season of anguish for the Maid. France was dying: they thought it then as they thought it in 1918: she alone could save her country, and no man would give her aid, would even listen to her. Perhaps at no time—save at the last—is the heroic quality of the Maid more clearly shown than in the meagre record of these weeks of waiting. How should she sit to spin, with saints and angels calling in her ear? How should she ply her needle, when the sword was waiting for her hand? But the needle flew swiftly, the spindle whirled diligently, and day and night her prayers went up to God. People recalled afterward how often they had seen her in the church of St. Mary on the hill above the town, kneeling in rapt devotion, her face now bowed in her hands, now lifted in passionate appeal. Courage, Joan! the time is near, and help is coming.

It was in February, 1429, that the first gleam of encouragement came to her. She met in the street a young man-at-arms named Jean de Metz, often called, from the name of his estate, Jean de Novelonpont. He had heard of her: probably by this time everyone in Vaucouleurs knew of her and her mission. Seeing her in her red peasant-dress, he stopped and said, "Ma mie, what are you doing here? Must the King be walked out of his kingdom, and must we all be English?"

Joan looked at him with her clear dark eyes.

"I am come," she answered, "to a Royal town to ask Robert de Baudricourt to lead me to the King. But Baudricourt cares nothing for me and for what I say; none the less I must be with the King by mid-Lent, if I wear my legs down to the knees. No man in the world—kings, nor dukes, nor the daughter of the Scottish king—can recover the kingdom of France, nor hath our king any succor save from myself, though I would liefer be sewing beside my poor mother. For this deed is not convenient to my station. Yet go I must; and this deed I must do, because my Lord so wills it."

"And who is your Lord?" asked Jean de Metz: and the Maid replied,

"My Lord is God!"[25]

Our hearts thrill to-day as we read the words; think how they fell on the ear of the young soldier there in the village street that winter day! He needed no voice of saint or angel: this simple maiden's voice was enough. He held out his hand.

"Then I, Jean, swear to you, Maid, my hand in your hands, that I, God helping me, will lead you to the King, and I ask when you will go?"

"Better to-day than to-morrow: better to-morrow than later!"[26] was the reply.

From that day forth, Jean de Metz was Joan's faithful friend and helper.

What did she mean about help from Scotland? Why, a year before the Dauphin had sent Alain Chartier the poet to Scotland to beg help of the ancient ally of France. Help was promised; six thousand men, to arrive before Whitsuntide; to form moreover a body-guard for the little Princess of Scotland, another Margaret, who was to marry little Louis, son of the Dauphin. Joan had heard rumors of all this; but what was a baby princess three hundred leagues away? She, the Maid, was on the spot.

"Go boldly on!" said the Voices. "When you are with the King, he will have a sure sign to persuade him to believe and trust you."

As it fell out, the little princess did not come till seven years later: the six thousand men never came at all.

At last Joan had a friend who could give real help. A few days more and she had two: Bertrand of Poulangy, another young soldier, heard and believed her story, and took his stand beside her and Jean de Metz. The three together renewed the attack on Robert de Baudricourt, this time with more success. Apparently this was not so simple a case as had appeared: whipping, ear-boxing, no longer seemed adequate. What to do? Puzzled and annoyed, Baudricourt bethought him of the spiritual arm. After all, what more simple than to find out whether this counsel was of God or the devil? One evening, we are told, he entered the humble dwelling of the Royers, accompanied by the parish priest. The latter, assuming his stole, addressed the Maid in solemn tones.

"If thou be a thing of evil," he said, "begone from us! If a thing of good, approach us!"

Joan had knelt when the good father put on his garb of office; now, still on her knees, slowly and painfully (but with head held high, we may fancy) she made her way forward to where the priest stood. She was not pleased. It was ill-done of Father Fournier, she said afterward; had he not heard her fully in confession? It may be—who knows?—that the curÉ took this way to convince the lord of Baudricourt of her truth and virtue: be it as it may, Robert de Baudricourt no longer laughed at the peasant girl in her red dress; but still he was not ready to help her, and she could wait no longer. She resolved to walk to Chinon, where the Dauphin was; she borrowed clothes from her cousin Laxart, now for the first time assuming male attire; and so took her way to the shrine of St. Nicholas, on the road to France.

Now it took a horseman eleven days to ride from Vaucouleurs to Chinon; Joan soon realized that to make the journey on foot would be wasting precious time; she returned to Vaucouleurs, saddened, but no whit discouraged. About this time the Duke of Lorraine heard of the Maid who saw visions and heard voices. Being old and infirm and more interested in his own ailments than in those of the kingdom, he sent for Joan as we send for a new doctor who has cured our neighbor; sent moreover a letter of safe conduct, an important thing in those days. Here was Opportunity knocking at the door! A horse was bought—it is not clear by whom—and Joan and the faithful "uncle," accompanied by Jean de Metz, rode off in high hopes to Nancy, seventy miles away. Alas! here again disappointment awaited her. The Duke related his symptoms and asked for advice; hinted that perhaps a little miracle, even, might be performed? Such things had been done by holy maids before now! Joan told him briefly that she knew nought of these matters. Let him lend her his son-in-law, and men to lead her into France, and she would pray for his health. The son-in-law was RenÉ of Anjou, later known as the patron of minstrels and poets; an interesting if a somewhat fantastic figure. At this time his duchy of Bar was being so harried by French and English indiscriminately that he might well cry, "A plague of both your houses!" Certainly he gave no help to Joan. The old Duke of Lorraine gave her a black horse, some say, and a small sum of money; and so a second time, she returned to Vaucouleurs.

But now the town itself was roused. Every one by this time knew the Maid and had heard of her mission. Since that visit of the curÉ they held her in reverence; moreover, the news from Orleans grew worse and worse. The fall of the city was looked for any day, and with it would fall the kingdom. Since all else had failed, why not let the Maid prove her Voices to be of God?

We know not what pressure, apart from Joan's own burning words (for she never ceased her appeals), was brought to bear on Robert de Baudricourt. At last, and most reluctantly, he yielded; gave consent that Joan should seek the Dauphin at Chinon; gave her even, it would seem, a letter to the prince, testifying some belief in her supernatural powers. The good people of Vaucouleurs put together their pennies and bought a suit of clothes for her; man's clothes, befitting one who was undertaking a man's work. Thus equipped, on the twelfth of February, 1429, Joan of Arc rode out of Vaucouleurs to save France. Beside her, on either side, rode her two faithful squires, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulangy, with their servants; two more men, "Richard the Archer," and Colet de Vienne, a king's messenger, joined the little band; in all six rode out of the Gate of France. At the gate, Robert de Baudricourt, moved for once, we may hope, out of his boisterous sardonic humor, gave the Maid a sword; and as the adventurers passed on, he cried after them: "Allez! et vienne que pourra!" ("Go! and come what come may!")

What awaited the Maid in "white Chinon by the blue Vienne?" Let us see!

Pantagruel suggests that the city of the Plantagenets was founded by Cain, and named for him, but this theory is more literary than accurate. A strong little city, Chinon, from the days when Fulk Nerra, the Black Falcon, rode on his wild raids and built his crescent line of fortresses from Anjou to Amboise, cutting the "monstrous cantle" of Touraine from the domains of Blois. A fierce little city, looking down on furious quarrels of Angevin princes, French and so-called English. Here died Henry II. of England, men said of a broken heart, muttering, "Shame, shame, on a conquered king!" Here came Richard Yea-and-Nay to look on his father's body, which men said streamed blood as he approached it. Here John Lackland lived for a while with his French wife, no more beloved than he was elsewhere. Here, on Midsummer Eve, 1305, Philip Augustus entered victorious, and soon after English rule in France came to an end for the time. Here, in 1309, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was tried by a council of cardinals, set on by Charles of Valois, first of the name, who was in sore need of money and coveted the rich possessions of the great order. Master and many knights were burned (in Paris, not in the place of their trial) and the Order was dissolved.

More important, it may be, in the long sequence of human events, than any of these matters, here in 1483, was born MaÎtre FranÇois Rabelais, whose statue still looks kindly down on the city of his love. "Ville insigne, ville noble, ville antique, voire premiÈre du monde,"[27] he calls it. He remains king of it, however many crowned or uncrowned puppets may have flaunted it there by the blue Vienne.

In this year 1429, Charles the Dauphin was holding in Chinon his shadowy court. This deplorable prince, a king of shreds and patches, if ever one lived, was now twenty-seven years old, and had never done anything in particular except to pursue pleasure and to escape danger. Accounts differ as to his personal appearance. MonstrelÊt, his contemporary, calls him "a handsome prince, and handsome in speech with all persons, and compassionate toward poor folk"; but is constrained to add "he did not readily put on his harness, and he had no heart for war if he could do without it." Another chronicler gives a less favorable account of his appearance. "He was very ugly, with small gray wandering eyes; his nose was thick and bulbous, his legs bony and bandy; his thighs emaciated, with enormous knock-knees." Yet another dwells on his physical advantages, and his kindness of manner, which won the favor of the people. It does not greatly matter now what he looked like. When a flame springs up and lights the sky, we do not scrutinize the match that struck out the spark.

There he was at Chinon, surrounded by courtiers and favorites (chief among them La TrÉmoÏlle, "the evil genius of king and country") amusing himself as best he might.

"Never a king lost his kingdom so gaily!" said La Hire. One of Joan's biographers[28] says of him: "Weak in body and mind, idle, lazy, luxurious, and cowardly, he was naturally the puppet of his worst courtiers, and the despair of those who hoped for reform"; and he quotes the burning words addressed by Juvenal des Ursins to his master, when king of France: "How many times have poor human creatures come to you to bewail the grievous extortion practiced upon them! Alas, well might they cry, 'Why sleepest thou, O Lord!' But they could arouse neither you nor those about you."

Charles was not always gay: he was subject to fits of deep depression, when he despaired of crown and kingdom, questioning even his right to either. Son of a mad father and a bad mother, was he indeed the rightful heir? In these moods he would leave his parasite court and weep and pray apart. A pitiable creature, altogether.

Word was brought to Charles on a day that a young maid was at the gate, asking to see him; a maid in man's attire, riding astride a horse and five men-at-arms with her. Here was a strange matter! Charles had heard nothing of maids or missions. While he debated the matter with La TrÉmoÏlle (to whom, by the way, he had pledged Chinon for whatever it would bring) and the rest, came a letter from the Maid herself, dictated by her and sent on before, but delayed or neglected till now. She asked permission to enter his town of Chinon, for she had ridden one hundred and fifty leagues to tell him "things useful to him and known to her."[29] She would recognize him, she said, among all others.

Charles was puzzled: the courtiers shook their heads. Suppose this were a witch! For the Dauphin to receive a witch would be at once dangerous and discreditable. Let the young woman be examined, to find out whether, if she were really inspired, her inspiration were of heaven or of hell. Accordingly "certain clerks and priests, men expert in discerning good spirits from bad,"[30] visited Joan in the humble inn where she waited, and questioned her closely. She answered briefly; she could not speak freely save to the Dauphin alone. She had been sent to relieve Orleans and lead the prince to Rheims, there to be crowned king. This was all she had to say: but her simple faith, her transparent purity, so impressed the examiners, that they made a favorable report. There was no harm in the Maid, and since she professed to be the bearer of a divine message, it would be well for the Dauphin to receive her. Very reluctantly, Charles consented, and finally, one evening, a message summoned Joan to the castle.