Isabel Shepperson

What France won in three years (1428-1431) under the leadership of Joan of Arc restored all that France had lost during the Hundred Years’ War. Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt were negatived by Orleans.

More wonderful than any myth of any nation under the sun, than any concept of poetic fancy throughout all literatures, than any vision of poet-sage or seer in all Sybilline rhapsodies—is the plain historical narrative of the life and deeds of Joan of Arc. Some power beyond the natural worked thro’ the peasant maid of Domremy.

“The people of Orleans when they first saw her in their city thought that it was an angel from Heaven that had come down to save them”, said an eye-witness of the scene who testified at the reversal of Jeanne’s sentence ten years after her death. On the contrary the Duke of Bedford, in a letter still extant, writing to Henry VI. and lamenting recent disasters to the English army says: “And alle thing there prospered for you til the tyme of the Siege of Orleans taken in hand God knoweth by what advis.

“At the which tyme, after the adventure fallen to the person of my cousin of Salisbury, whom God assoile, there fell by the hand of God as it seemeth, a great strook upon your peuple that was assembled there in grete nombre, caused in great part as I trowe, of lakke of sadde beleve, and of unlevefull doubte, that they had of a disciple and limb of the Feende, called the Pucelle, that used fals enchantments and sorcerie.”

“So certainly

As morn returneth in her radiant light

Infallibly the day of truth shall come”

said the Maid of Orleans.

That day of truth has come. Around Joan of Arc the charmed circle of the Church of Rome is drawn. Let no man dare to call evil that which the Church calls good; let no man dare to attribute imposture, hysterical exaltation, or necromantic might to one whom the Church calls Blessed. Vindicated, rehabilitated, restored, cherished, Blessed is now the Maid who died five hundred years ago burned at the stake as a witch.

Condemned by the University of Paris, an ecclesiastical tribunal? Yes. Hounded to the stake by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais? Yes. But the Church can shake off and disclaim the clinging hands of her children whose touch pollutes her; and the Church of all ages can outshine the lurid darkness of any one age, and deprecate, and deplore and denounce the deeds done in that lurid darkness. Splendidly, too, and with stern magnanimity, defying apparent self-contradiction, can the Church reverse the decrees of ecclesiastical tribunals, and stoop down to pick up and restore and rehabilitate and bless a strangely foolish child whom kings and courts and the great University of Paris had condemned and cast away.

The Church of the Middle Ages must ever stand darkly enigmatic to the non-Catholic student of history. He cannot rightly appreciate the binding force of spiritual authority. The withering away from fear of Church censure, the clinging claim upon all the powers of the soul in the prayers and ceremonies and sacraments of the Church, the isolating horrors of her excommunications, the abject fear of her spiritual punishments, powerful alike over prince and potentate and peasant—are practically meaningless to the non-Catholic.

That scene in “Richelieu” by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, well illustrates the power of the Church in the Middle Ages. King Louis XIII. has sent to demand that Julie de Mortemar, Cardinal Richelieu’s orphan ward, shall be immediately sent to the court subject to the king’s pleasure. The girl clings to the Cardinal for protection. To these messengers Cardinal Richelieu replies,

They go. But soon again comes Baradas, favorite of the king, First Gentleman of the Chamber, and about to be made premier to succeed the temporarily deposed Cardinal Richelieu. To Baradas’ insolent importunities the eloquent old Cardinal in righteous wrath exclaims:

Baradas abashed retires, the king’s suit ceases; the Church has triumphed.

La Pucelle.

France is assuredly a genius-mad nation: whether genius or madness shall ultimately prevail is an answerless question. The Republic shall go down in “a slough of mire and blood” is the current prophecy today; but, then, France has gone down in mire and blood many and many a time and, phoenix like, she has risen and soared aloft led onward and upward by some strong Genius-Child.

Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte stand unique in history; each picked up torn, bleeding, fragmentary France and restored her to her rightful place in the family of nations. That Napoleon Bonaparte, a man, a soldier, and a master of opportune occasion, should have rescued France is not wonderful; but that the Maid of Domremy, a timid girl aged seventeen, who “knew not how to ride or to handle a sword”, whose hand never shed blood, should have, amid most inopportune occasion, prevailed in battle against Talbot, Gladsdale, Falstofe and the flower of the English Army is, past all credence, wonderful.

France as a nation was extinguished by the Treaty of Troyes. Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI. deliberately and exultantly aided the trembling hand of the imbecile king as he signed away his kingdom. Henry VI. of England, infant son of Henry V. and Catharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France, was proclaimed heir of the united kingdoms France and England: later, at the death of Henry V. this child was crowned at Paris king of England and of France. Isabeau of Bavaria aided in the coronation ceremony, graciously accepting young Harry Lancaster as king of France to the exclusion of the rightful heir, her own son, Charles the dauphin.

As Schiller says:

Surely the first part of Merlin’s prophecy had been ominously fulfilled: France was lost by a woman. Would a woman save France? And far away—among the wooded hills of Domremy wandered the splendid Dreamer who should, in three bright, bitter years—flame-cut into fame forever—undo what Isabeau had done, throw off the incubus of alien authority, negative the Treaty of Troyes, and save France.

Thank God for the enthusiasts, for those who follow their Voices! Tho’ their way lies thro’ adamantine opposition, they know it not, their eyes are fixed on the goal; and even as one in hypnotic somnambulism leaps on from toppling crag to crag unawed by the sheer depths of yawning destiny o’er which he strides, so do these enthusiasts press on to the goal: and they reach it.

Joan appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of brilliant white armor, mounted on a stately black war-horse, and with a lance in her right hand, which she had learned to wield with skill and grace. Her head was unhelmeted; so that all could behold her fair and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her long black hair, which was parted across her forehead and bound by a ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe, and the consecrated sword marked on the blade with five crosses which had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St. Catharine at Fierbois.

A page carried her banner which she had caused to be made and embroidered as her Voices enjoined. It was white satin, strewn with fleurs-de-lis; and on it were the words “Jhesus Maria”. And thus spectacularly equipped Joan made her appearance at Orleans at the head of an enthusiastic French army. The astounded English soldiers could only stare and glare; and had it not been from their greater fear of their irate commanders, these brave heroes of Agincourt would have promptly run away in panic fright from this dread Maid.

Joan advanced towards the besiegers and solemnly admonished the English generals to desist from their unlawful holding of Orleans, to withdraw at once from France, and to spare further bloodshed. Oaths and imprecations and ribald jests answered her earnest abjuration. Joan returned to her ranks and gave order for battle. Yet she shrank from the fury of the strife and her heart recoiled and sickened at the sight of suffering and death. Joan’s most trustworthy biographer tells us that her own hand never shed blood.

Joan was wounded at the battle around Orleans; an arrow from a cross-bow penetrated her armor between the neck and shoulder and remained fastened in the wound. Joan grew faint from pain and she suffered La Hire to lead her from the fray. Recovering herself in a little while, she sat up and withdrew the arrow with her own hands, then putting a little oil on the wound, she mounted and galloped back to where the battle was raging. Joan’s presence reinspired her followers; mad dash after dash was made against the fort held by Sir John Gladsdale. The English soldiers, thinking her to have been mortally wounded, were terrified at her abrupt return. Again Joan called out to Gladsdale to surrender and spare further bloodshed. With an oath the infuriated general came out upon the drawbridge shouting orders for a final desperate assault. As he stood thus conspicuous between the two armies, a cannon ball from the town crashed thro’ the drawbridge and Gladsdale fell and perished in the waters. At the sight of this disaster, and also at the attack upon the fort under the leadership of Joan in person, the English army fled. The siege of Orleans was raised. The long imprisoned Orleannais came forth and hailed Joan as their deliverer sent from Heaven.

Charles VII.

The raising of the siege of Orleans was quickly followed by the decisive battle of Patay in which Talbot, the English commander, was wounded and taken prisoner together with a large part of the English army. The way now lay open to Rheims. Thither marched the victorious French forces under Joan of Arc carrying with them the perplexed and irresolute Dauphin. In the cathedral at Rheims, July 17, 1429, with all the solemn ceremonies of the coronation of kings, this weakling was crowned Charles VII. of France.

Perhaps as the son of an imbecile sire and Isabeau of Bavaria, Charles VII. couldn’t help being what he was. So in the shadow of that comfortable Lombrosian theory we leave without reproach the man whom, in the good sunlight of common sense and honest manhood, we should scathingly reproach as dastard and ingrate.

After the crowning of Charles at Rheims, Joan desired to withdraw from the king’s service and go back to Domremy. She declared that her work was done; she, moreover, maintained that her Voices no longer urged her to remain in the field, or pointed out unerringly just what she should do. Du Nois and La Hire prevailed upon her to remain with the army.

Joan was wounded in an unsuccessful attack upon Paris. And the following spring in a sortie at Compeigne Joan was taken prisoner by the Burgundians and subsequently sold to the English.

Joan was cast into prison at Rouen. Here the indignities to which she was subjected, as related by her biographers, are almost incredible. The apathy of the fickle French towards their late “deliverer sent from Heaven”, and the dastardly indifference of Charles VII. during her imprisonment and throughout her trial and death form a conspicuous page in the black book of Human Ingratitude.

Et tu, Brute! (And thou too, O Brutus!) cried CÆsar as he fell pierced, indeed, with twenty-three wounds, but slain at the sight of his beloved Brutus among the murderers. That was death in death. And if my enemy had done this to me, verily, I could have borne it. But thou, my friend and my familiar!—This agonizing cry—shrieked so that all the world may hear by CÆsar, Wolsey, Joan—rises in bitter silence in many a heart. Only those we love have power to wound us; and we stand defenceless, unresenting, dim-wondering, yet loving. Nancy of the slums under the murderous blows of Bill Sykes, CÆsar as he gazes at Brutus, Joan of Arc blessing Charles VII. from her Calvary of flames—shine as radiant silhouettes of human nobility on the somber overshadowing background of human ingratitude.

Joan’s Voices.

Both the French and the English firmly believed that Joan of Arc was aided by some preternatural power; but was she borne upward by “airs from heaven or blasts from hell”? Burned at the stake as a Witch, Relapsed Heretic, Accurst—thus died the Maid whom the Church has raised to her altars.

But ere we too scathingly condemn that scene, disgraceful alike to the Church and to human nature, which was enacted in the Rouen market-place May 31, 1531; it might be well to turn a balancing gaze upon our own Cotton Mather madness which had its orgies upon Gallows Hill, Salem, June-September 1692. Nor are we of the passing day and hour sufficiently washed white of the soot of Occultism that we may conspicuously disclaim the witch-burning at Rouen. In the late Christian Science rupture accusations of “mental assassination” and the use of “malicious animal magnetism” were mutually charged. Just what that may mean in the esoteric circle, I know not; but full meaning and full knowledge would doubtless ramify back to Rouen.

Yes, infinitely more: all that the human eye can see or the ear hear or the intellect know is but as a shore-lapping wave of the infinite ocean of the Seen, the Heard, the Known. And what if some eye be abnormally endowed with vision, or some ear be attuned beyond the normal for hearing, or some finely fashioned intellect transcend ordinary knowing—shall it not inevitably see more or hear more or know more of that infinite ocean? and shall it not fearlessly and fully make known what it sees or hears or knows? And then what? Why we gregarious Little People, spitefully content in limitations, will with consenting conscience, condemn the witch to death.

Joan’s Voices spoke to her more especially when the church bells were ringing; they were mild and very kind; they always spoke soothingly. When their music stilled she lay prostrate upon the ground and wept because they had left her behind; because she had not been able to ascend with them and go home to that waiting Heaven. Joan’s Voices urged her to become the saviour of France. And when the child remonstrated that she was only a poor peasant girl and did not know how to ride a horse or handle a sword, the Voices insistently replied, “It is God who commands.” And then the Maid arose and went forth on that mighty mission.

Orleans, Jargeau, Troyes, Patay, Rheims, Laon, Soissons, Compeigne, Beauvais were her victories. Then came the rapid flame-way of her own emancipation.

As Joan stood bound to the stake, and as the smoke and flames were hiding her from the vulgus profanum, a wild-eyed monk advanced to the pyre. He held aloft a large iron cross having upon it an ivory figure of the tortured Christ. A look of infinite sympathy and love lit up the eyes of Joan as they rested upon the Christ. Her lips parted in prayer. Blessings upon Charles VII., prayerful petitions for her beloved France were heard thro’ the crackling flames. Not once did her eyes turn from the tortured form upon the cross; thence was coming the strength that enabled her to bear the pangs of death, thence, too, the grace which urged her to pray for her murderers.

Round her rolled the fire; her long black hair was blazing, her head, her face, her wondrous eyes were flooded in flame. All was ending. But the monk held aloft the Crucifix. A gust of wind parted the fire, again the charred eyes rested upon the tortured form on the cross, her lips moved in prayer; and again she was lost in flames. Thus perished Joan of Arc, aged nineteen, virgin and martyr.

Take not the ivory Christ away. ’Tis sorrow’s mutual friend; ’tis the strength of strong agony; ’tis the sympathizing consoler of the rack, the stake, the prison house of pain, the dim valley of the Shadow, the Rouen sea of flames. The Crucifix understands.

Pan? Well, yes, for the bright blue Arcadian hour in young-heart Arcady. But for the gray every day and the solemn night; for the hours of pain and loss and parting and change, sickness, old age, sorrow; for the crucial crises of life as they come in bitter pangs to us of a lost Arcady; for the mother whose boy fell at Vera Cruz; for a Joan of Arc in the flames—ah! take your grinning Pan away; we want the Crucifix, we want the thorny crowned Christ who has suffered and understands.

Ten years after the death of Joan, there was a judicial reversal of her sentence of condemnation. Twenty-five years later the Church instituted a thorough investigation of Joan’s claims, deeds, trial, condemnation, and death. The process and results of this inquiry may be found in detail in the work “Proces de Condemnation et de Rehabilitation de Jeanne D’Arc,” published in five volumes, by the SociÉtÉ de L’Histoire de France.

Many eminent English authors, besides innumerable French biographers, have written in deep sympathy with Joan of Arc; among them may be mentioned Southey, Hallam, Carlyle, Landor, de Quincy, Lang, and our own Mark Twain. Voltaire’s vulgar burlesque-epic is now generally regarded as an insult to France and a superficial satiric calumny. Schiller in The “Maid of Orleans” distorts well known historical facts.

In 1869 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans presented at the Vatican his petition and claims for the beatification of Joan of Arc. The trial proceeded slowly, but on April 11, 1909, Pius X., the present reigning pontiff, pronounced the decree which raised Joan to the first step in the process of canonization. She was solemnly declared Blessed. “A Mass and Office of Blessed Joan taken from the Commune Virginum with ‘proper’ prayers have been approved of by the Holy See for use in the diocese of Orleans.” Joan’s canonization is now under active consideration.