Chapter 1 of Jeanne d'Arc, Her Life and Death This is a LibreVox recording, all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Recording by Ella Quint of Applebacksville, Pennsylvania. Jeanne d'Arc, Her Life and Death by Margaret O. Oliphante. Chapter 1, France in the 15th Century, 1412 to 1423. It is no small effort for the mind, even of the most well-informed, how much more of those whose exact knowledge is not great, which is the case with most readers and alas with most writers also, to transport itself out of this 19th century, which we know so thoroughly and which has trained us all in our present habits and modes of thought, into the 15th, for hundred years back in time, and worlds apart in every custom and action of life. What is there indeed the same in the two ages? Nothing but the man and the woman, the living agents in spheres so different, nothing but love and grief, the affections and the sufferings by which humanity is ruled and of which it is capable. Everything else has changed, the customs of life and its methods and even its motives, the ruling principles of its continuance. Peace and mutual consideration, the policy which even in its selfish developments is so far good that it enables men to live together, making existence possible, scarcely existed in those days. The highest ideal was that of war, war no doubt sometimes for good ends, to redress wrongs, to avenge injuries, to make crooked things straight, but yet always war, implying a state of affairs in which the last thing that men thought of was the golden rule and the highest attainment to be looked for was the position of a protector, doer of justice, deliverer of the oppressed. Our aim now that no one should be oppressed, that every man should have justice as by the order of nature, was a thing unthought of. What individual help did feebly for the sufferer then, the laws do for us now. Without fear or favor, which is a much greater thing to say than that the organization of modern life, the mechanical helps, the comforts, the easements of the modern world had no existence in those days. We are often told that the poorest peasant in our own time has aids to existence that had not been dreamt of for princes in the Middle Ages. Thirty years ago the world was mostly of opinion that the balance was entirely on our side and that in everything we were so much better off than our fathers. That comparison was impossible. Since then there have been many revolutions of opinion and we think it is now the general conclusion of wise men that one period has little to burst itself of against another, that one form of civilization replaces another without improving upon it, at least to the extent which appears on the surface. But yet the general prevalence of peace interrupted only by occasional wars, even when we recognize a certain large and terrible utility in war itself, must always make a difference incalculable between the condition of the nations now and then. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine any concatenation of affairs which could reduce a country now to the condition in which France was in the beginning of the 15th century. A strong and splendid kingdom to which in early ages one great man had given the force and supremacy of a United Nation, had fallen into a disintegration which seems almost incredible when regarded in the light of that warm flame of nationality which now illumines, almost above all others, the French nation. But Frenchmen were not Frenchmen. They were Burgundians, Armeniaks, Bretons, Provenceaux, 500 years ago. The interests of one part of the kingdom were not those of the other. Unity had no existence. Princes of the same family were more furious enemies to each other at the head of their respective fiefs and provinces than the traditional foes of their race. And instead of meeting an invader with a united force of patriotic resistance, one or more of these subordinate rulers was short aside with the invader and to execute greater atrocities against his own flesh and blood than anything the alien could do. When Charles VII of France began, nominally, his reign, his uncles and cousins, his nearest kinsmen, were as determinately his opponents as was Henry V of England, whose frank object was to take the crown from his head. The country was torn in pieces with different causes and cries. The English were but little farther off from the Parisian than was the Burgundian and the English king was only a trifle less French than were the members of the royal family of France. These circumstances are little taken into consideration in face of the general history, in which a careless reader sees nothing but the two nations pitted against each other as they might be now, the French united in one strong and distinct nationality. The three kingdoms of Great Britain are welded into one. In the beginning of the 15th century, the Scots fought on the French side against their intimate enemy of England, and if there had been any unity in Ireland, the Irish would have done the same. The advantages and disadvantages of subdivision were in full play. The Scots fought furiously against the English, and when the latter won, as was usually the case, the Scots contingent, whatever bounty might be shown to the French, was always exterminated. On the other side, the Burgundians, the Armaniacs, and royalists met each other almost more fiercely than the latter encountered the English. Each country was convulsed by struggles of its own, and fiercely sought its kindred foes in the ranks of its more honest and natural enemy. When we add to these strange circumstances the facts that the French king Charles VI was mad, and incapable of any real share either in the internal government of his country, or in resistance to its invader, that his only son the Dolphin was no more than a foolish boy, led by incompetent counsellors, and even of doubtful legitimacy, regarded with hesitation and uncertainty by many, everybody being willing to believe the worst of his mother, especially after the Treaty of Troy in which she virtually gave him up, that the king's brothers or cousins at the head of their respective fiefs were all seeking their own advantage, and that some of them, especially the Duke of Burgundy, had cruel wrongs to avenge. It will be more easily understood that France had reached a period of depression and apparent despair which no principle of national elasticity or new spring of national impulse was present to amend. The extraordinary aspect of whole districts in so strong and populistic country which disowned the native monarch and of towns and castles innumerable which were held by the native nobility in the name of a foreign king could scarcely have been possible under other circumstances. Everything was out of joint. It is said to be characteristic of the nation that is unable to play publicly, as we say, a losing game, but it is equally characteristic of the race to forget its humiliations as if they had never been and to come out intact when the fortune of war changes more French than ever, almost unabashed and wholly uninjured by the catastrophe which had seemed fatal. If we had any right to theorize on such a subject, which is a thing the French themselves above all other men love to do, we should be disposed to say that wars and revolutions, legislation and politics are things which go on over the head of France so to speak. Boilings on the surface with which the great personality of the nation if such a word may be used has little to do and cares but little for. While she herself the great race neither giddy nor fickle but unusually obstinate, tenacious and sober narrow even in the unwavering pursuit of a certain kind of well-being congenial to her goes steadily on less susceptible to temporary humiliation than many people's much less excitable on the surface and always coming back into sight when the commotion is over. Acquisitive, money-making, profit-loving, uninjured in any essential particular by the most horrific of convulsions. This of course is to be said more or less of every country, the strain of common life being always thank God too strong for every temporary commotion but it is true in a special way of France witness the extraordinary manner in which in our own time and under our own eyes that wonderful country rated herself after the tremendous misfortunes of the Franco-German War in which for a moment not only her prestige, her honor but her money and credit seemed to be lost. It seems rather a paradox to point attention to the extraordinary tenacity of this basis of French character the steady prudence and solidity which in the end always triumph over the light heart and light head the excitability and often rash and dangerous Elan which are popularly supposed to be the chief distinguishing features of France at the very moment of beginning such a fairy tale such a wonderful embodiment of the visionary and ideal as is the story of Jean Dark to call it a fairy tale is however disrespectful it is an angelic revelation a vision made into flesh and blood the dream of a woman's fancy more ethereal more impossible than that of any man even a poet for the man even in his most uncontrolled imaginations carries with him a certain practical limitation of what can be whereas the woman at her highest is absolute and disregards all bounds of possibility the maid of Orleans the virgin of France is the sole being of her kind who has ever attained full expression in this world she can neither be classified as her countrymen love to classify nor traced to any system of evolution as we all attempt to do nowadays she is the impossible verified and attained she is the thing in every race in every form of humanity which the dreaming girl the visionary maid held in at every turn by innumerable restrictions her feet bound her actions restrained not only by outward force but by the law of her nature more effectual still has desired to be that voiceless poet to whom what can be is nothing but only what should be if miracle could be attained to fulfill her trance and rapture of desire is held by no conditions modified by no circumstances and miracle is all around her the most credible the most real of powers the very air she breathes Jean of France is the very flower of this passion of the imagination she is altogether impossible from beginning to end of her inexplicable alone with neither rival nor even second in the one soul ineffable path yet all true as one of the oaks in her wood as one of the flowers in her garden simple actual made of the flesh and blood which are common to us all and she is all the more real because it is France impure the country of light loves and immodest passions for all that is sensual comes to the surface and the courtesan is the queen of ignoble fancy that has brought forth this most perfect embodiment of purity among the nations this is of itself one of those miracles which captivate the mind and charm the imagination the living paradox in which the soul delights how did she come out of that stalled peasant race out of that distracted and ignoble age out of riot and license and the fierce thirst for gain and failure of every noble faculty who can tell by the grace of god by the inspiration of heaven the only origins in which the student of nature which is over nature can put any trust no evolution no system of development can explain Jean there is but one of her and no more in all the astonished world with the permission of the reader I will retain her natural and beautiful name to translate it into Joan seems quite unnecessary though she is the finest emblem to the world in general of that noble fearless and spotless virginity which is one of the finest inspirations of the medieval mind yet she is inherently French though France scarcely was in her time and national though as yet there were rather the elements of a nation than any indivisible people in that great country was not she herself one of the strongest and purest threads of gold to draw that broken race together and bind it irrevocably beneficially into one it is curious that it should have been from the farthest edge of French territory that this national deliverer came it is a commonplace that a borderer should be a more hot partisan of his own country against the other from which but a line divides him in fact and scarcely so much in race than the calmer inhabitant of the midland country who knows no such press of constant antagonism and john is another example of this well-known fact it is even a question still languidly discussed whether john and her family were actually on one side of the line or the other ifo opte says m blaze de burry one of her latest biographers as if the peasant household of 1412 had inhabited an Alsatian cottage in 1872 when the line is drawn so closely it is difficult to determine but john herself does not ever seem to have entertained a moment stout on the subject and she after all is the best authority perhaps velan was thinking more of his rhyme than of absolute fact when he spoke of john le bon lorraine she was born on the 5th of january 1412 in the village of don marie on the banks of the moose one of those little gray hamlets with its little church tower and remains of a little chateau on the soft elevation of a mound not sufficient for the name of hill which are scattered everywhere through those level countries like places which have never been built which have grown out of the soil of undislaverable antiquity perhaps one feels only a hundred perhaps a thousand years old yet always inhabitable in all the ages with the same names lingering about the same surroundings the same mild rural occupations simple plenty and bare want mingling together with as little difference of level as exists in the sweeping lines of the landscape round the life was calm and so humble a corner which offered nothing to the invader or marauder of the time but yet was so much within the universal conditions of war that the next door neighbor so to speak the adjacent village of maxi held for the burgundian and english alliance while little don marie was for the king and once at least when john was a girl at home the family were startled in their quiet by the swoop of an armed party of burgundians and had to gather up babies and what portable property they might have and flee across the frontier where the good loraners received and sheltered them till they could go back to their village sacked and pillaged and devastated in the meantime by the passing storm thus even in their humility and inoffensiveness the don marie villagers knew what war and its miseries were and the recollection would no doubt be vivid among the children of that half terrible half exhilarating adventure the fright and excitement of personal participation in the troubles of which night and day from one quarter or another they must have heard don marie had originally belonged to the abbey of saint remy at rim the ancient church of which in its great antiquity is still in interest and a wonder even in comparison with the amazing splendor of the cathedral of that place so rich and ornate which draws the eyes of the visitor to itself and its greater associations it is possible that this ancient connection with rim may have brought the great ceremony for which it is ever memorable the consecration of the kings of france more distinctly before the musing vision of the village girl but i doubt whether such chance associations are ever much to be relied upon the village was on the high road to germany it must have been therefore in the way of news and of many rumors of what was going on in the centers of national life more than many towns of importance feudal bands a rustic senior with his little troop going out for their 40 days service or returning home after it must have passed along the banks of the lazy mues many days during the fighting season and indeed throughout the year for garrison duty would be as necessary in winter as in summer or a wandering pair of friars who had seen strange sites must have passed with their wallets from the neighboring convents collecting the day's provision and leaving news and gossip behind such as flowed to these monastic hostelries from all quarters tales of battles and anecdotes of the court and dreadful stories of english atrocities to stir the village and rouse ever generous sentiment and stirring of national indignation they are said by meccolette to have been no man's vassals these outlying hamlets of champagne the men were not called upon to follow their lord's banner at a day's notice as were the sons of other villages there is no appearance even of a lord of all upon this piece of church land which was we are told directly held under the king and would only therefore be touched by a general levy en masse not even perhaps by that so far off were they and so near the frontier where a reluctant man at arms could without difficulty make his escape as the unwilling conscript sometimes does now there would seem to have been no one of more importance in domarie than Jacques Dark himself and his wife respectable peasants with a little money a considerable rural property in flocks and herds and pastures and a good reputation among their kind he had three sons working with their father in the peaceful routine of the fields and two daughters of whom some authorities indicate Jean as the younger and some as the elder the cottage interior however appears more clearly to us than the outward aspect of the family life the daughters were not like the children of poorer peasants brought up to the rude outdoor laborers of the little farm painters have represented Jean as keeping her father's sheep and even the early witnesses say the same but it is contradicted by herself who ought to know best except in taking her turn to herd them into a place of safety on an alarm if she followed the flocks to the fields it must have been she says in her childhood and she has no recollection of it hers was a more sheltered and safer lot the girls were brought up by their mother indoors in all the labors of house waifery but also in the delicate art of needlework so much more exquisite in those days than now perhaps is a bow the mistress of the house was of convent training perhaps some ancient privilege in respect to the manufacture of ornaments for the altar and church vestments was so retained by the tenants of what have been church lands at all events this and other kindred works of the needle seems to have been the chief occupation to which Jean was brought up the education of this humble house seems to have come entirely from the mother it was natural that the children should not know A from B as Jean afterwards said but no one did probably in the village nor even on much higher levels than that occupied by the family of Jacques Dark but the children at their mother's knee learned the credo they learned the simple universal prayers which are common to the wisest and simplest which no great savant or poet could improve and no child failed to understand our father which art in heaven and that hail Mary full of grace which the world in that day put next these were the alphabet of life to the little champagnons in their rough woolen frocks and clattering sabbats and when the house had been set in order a house not without comfort with its big wooden presses full of linen and the part of full hung over the tearful fire came the real work perhaps embroideries for the church perhaps only good stout shirts made of flax spun by their own hands for the father and the boys and the fine distinctive coiff of the village for the women asked if she had learned any art or trade said yes that her mother had taught her to sew and spin and so well that she did not think any woman in wrong could teach her anything when the lady in the ballad makes her conditions with the peasant woman who is to bring up her boy her gay gas hawk and have him trained in the use of sword and lance she undertakes to teach the turtle do the woman child substituted for him to lay gold with her hand no doubt isabelle's child learned this difficult and dainty art and how to do the beautiful and delicate embroidery which fills the treasuries of the old churches and while they sat by the table in the window with their shining silks and gold thread the mother made the quiet hours go by with tale and legend of the saints first of all and stories from scripture quaintly interpreted into the costume and manners of their own time as one may still hear them in the primitive corners of Italy mingled with incidents of the war of the wounded man tended in the village and the victors all flushed with triumph and the defeated with trailing arms and bowed heads riding for their lives perhaps little epics and tragedies of the young knight riding by to do his duv'ois with his handful of followers all spruce and gay and the battered and diminished remnant that would come back and then the black braggundians the horrible english ogres whose names would make the children shudder no god then had got so far as don marie there was no personal knowledge to soften the picture of the invader he was unspeakable as the Turk to the imagination of the french peasant diabolical as every invader is this was the earliest training of the little maid before whom so strange and so great a fortune lay any lore whatsoever and she's so little yet everything that was wanted her prayers, her belief, the happiness of serving god and also man for when anyone was sick in the village either a little child with the measles or a wounded soldier from the wars Isabel's modest child no doubt the mother too was always ready to help it must have been a family de bion in the simple phrase of the country helpful, serviceable with charity and aid for all an honest laborer who came to speak for Jean at the second trial held long after her death gave his incontestable evidence to this i was then a child he said and it was she who nursed me in my illness they were all more or less devout in those days when faith was without question and the routine of church ceremonial was followed as a matter of course but few so much as Jean whose chief pleasure it was to say her prayers in the little dark church where perhaps in the morning sunshine as she made her early devotions they would blaze out upon her from a window a holy michael in shining armor transfixing the dragon with his spear or a saint margaret dominating the same emblem of evil with her cross in her hand so at least the historians conjecture anxious to find out some reason for her visions and there is nothing in this suggestion which is unpleasing the little country church was in the gift of saint remy and some benefactor of the vural curae might well have given a painted window to make glad the hearts of the simple people saint margaret was no warrior saint but she overcame the dragon with her cross and was thus a kind of sister spirit to the great archangel sitting much of her time at or outside the cottage door with her needlework in itself an occupation so apt to encourage musing and dreams the bells were one of genre's great pleasures we know a traveler of the calmest english temperament and sobriety of protestant fancy to whom the midday angolese always brings he says a touching reminder which he never neglects wherever he may be to uncover the head and lift up the heart how much more the devout peasant girl softly startled in the midst of her dreaming by that call to prayer she was so fond of those bells that she bribed the careless bell ringer with simple presence to be more attentive to his duty from the garden where she sat with her work the cloudy foliage of the Bois des Chen the oak wood where were legends of fairies and a magic well to which her imagination, better inspired seems to have given no great heed filled up the prospect on one side at a later period her accusers attempted to make out that she had been a devotee of these nameless woodland spirits but in vain no doubt she was one of the procession on the holy day once a year when the curae of the parish went out through the wood to the fairies well to say his mass and exercised what evil enchantments might be there but Jean's imagination was not of the kind to require such stimulus the saints were enough for her and indeed they supplied to a great extent the fairy tales of the age though it was not of love and fame and living happy ever after but of sacrifice and suffering and valorous murderdom that their glory was made up we hear of the woods the fields the cottages the little church and its bells the garden where she sat and sowed the mother's stories the morning mass in this quiet preface of the little maiden's life but nothing of the high road with its wayfarers the convoys of provisions for the war the fighting men that were coming and going yet these two must have filled a large part in the village life and it is evident that a strong impression of the pity of it all of the distraction of the country and all the cruelties and miseries of which she could not but hear must have early begun to work in Jean's being and that while she kept silence the fire burned in her heart the love of God and that love of country which has nothing to say to political patriotism but translates itself in an ardent longing and desire to do some excelling thing for the benefit and glory of that country and to heal its wounds for the two principles of her life we have not the slightest indication how much or how little of this latter sentiment was shared by the simple community about her unless from the fact that the Donmari children fought with those of Maxi their disaffected neighbors to the occasional effusion of blood we do not know even of any volunteer from the village or enthusiasm for the king the district was voiceless the little clusters of cottages fully occupied in getting their own bread and probably like most other village societies disposed to treat any military impulse among their sons as mere vagabondism and love of adventure and idleness nothing so far as anyone knows came near the most unlikely volunteer of all to lead her thoughts to that art of war of which she knew nothing and of which her little experience could only have shown her the horrors and miseries the sufferings of wounded fugitives and the ruin of sacked houses of all people in the world the little daughter of a peasant was the last who could have been expected to respond to the appeal of the wretched country she had three brothers who might have served the king and there was no doubt many a stout clodhopper about of that kind which in every country is the fittest material for fighting and food for powder but to none of these did the call come every detail goes to increase the profound impression of peacefulness which fills the atmosphere the slow river floating by the roofs clustered together the church bells tinkling their continual summons the girl with her work at the cottage door in the shadow of the apple trees to pack the little knapsack of a brother or a lover and to convoy him weeping a little way on his road to the army coming back to the silent church to pray there with the soft natural tears which the uses of common life must soon dry that is all that imagination could have demanded of Jean she was even too young for any interposition of the lover too undeveloped the French historians tell us with their astonishing frankness to the end of her short life to have been moved by any such thought she might have poured forth a song a prayer a rude but sweet lament for her country out of the still bosom of that rustic existence such things have been the trouble of the age forcing an utterance from the very depths of its inarticulate life but it was not for this that Jean Dark was born End of Chapter 1 Section 2 of Jean Dark Her Life and Death This is a LibreVox recording All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org This recording is by Ella Quint from Applebacksville, Pennsylvania Jean Dark Her Life and Death by Margaret O. Oliphant Chapter 2 Dom Rémy and Vougue Leur 1424-1429 In the year 1424 the year in which after the battle of Agincourt France was delivered over to Henry V an extraordinary event occurred in the life of this little French peasant We have not the same horror of that treaty naturally as have the French Henry V is a favorite of our history probably not so much for his own merit as because of that master magician Shakespeare who of his supreme good pleasure in the exercise of that voluntary preference which even God himself seems to show to some man has made of that monarch one of the best beloved of our hearts Dear to us as he is in East Cheap as in Agincourt and more in the former than the latter even our sense of the disgraceful character of that bargain The traite infama of Troy by which Queen Isabel betrayed her son and gave her daughter and her country to the invader is softened a little by our high estimation of the hero but this is simple national prejudice regarded from the French side or even by the impartial judgment of general humanity it was an infamous treaty and one which might well make the blood boil in French veins We look at it at present however through the atmosphere of the 19th century when France is all French and when the royal house of England has no longer any French connection if George III much more George II on the basis of his kingdom of Hanover had attempted to make himself master of a large portion of Germany the situation would have been more like that of Henry V in France than anything we can think of now It is true the kings of England were no longer dukes of Normandy but they had been so within the memory of man and that noble Duchy was a hereditary appanage of the family of the conqueror while to other portions of France they had the link of temporary possession and inheritance through French wives and mothers added to which is the fact that Jean-Zan Beurre of Burgundy thirsting to avenge his father's blood upon the dolphin would have been probably a more dangerous usurper than Henry and that the actual sovereign the unfortunate mad Charles VI was in no condition to maintain his own rights There is little evidence however that this treaty or anything so distinct in detail had made much impression on the outlying borders of France What was known there was only that the English were victorious that the rightful king of France was still uncrowned and unacknowledged and that the country was oppressed and humiliated under the foot of the invader The fact that the new king was not yet the lords anointed and had never received the seal of God as it were to his commission was a fact which struck the imagination of the village as of much more importance than many greater things being at once more visible and matter of fact and of more mystical and spiritual efficacy than any other circumstance in the dreadful tale Jean was in the garden as usual seated as we should say in Scotland at her seam not quite 13 a child in all the innocence of infancy yet full of dreams confused no doubt and vague with those impulses and wonderings impatient of trouble yearning to give help which tremble on the chaos of a young soul like the first lightning of dawn upon the earth it was summer and afternoon the time of dreams it would be easy in the employment of legitimate fancy to heighten the picturesqueness of that quiet scene the little girl with her favorite bells the birds picking up the crumbs of brown bread at her feet she was thinking of nothing most likely in a vague suspense of musing the wonder of youth the awakening of thought as yet come to little definite in her child's heart looking up from her work to note some passing change of the sky or something in the air which was new to her all at once between her and the church there shone a light on the right hand unlike anything she had ever seen before and out of it came a voice equally unknown and wonderful what did the voice say only the simplest words words fit for a child no maxim or mandate above her faculties John be good what more could an archangel what less could the peasant mother within doors say the little girl was frightened but soon composed herself the voice could be nothing but sacred and blessed which spoke thus it would not appear that she mentioned it to anyone it is such a secret as a child in that wavering between the real and unreal the world not realized of childhood would keep in mingled shyness and all uncertain wrapped in the atmosphere of vision within her own heart it is curious how often this wonderful scene has been repeated in France never connected with so high a mission but yet embracing the same circumstances the same situation the same semi-angelic nature of the woman child the little Bernadette of lords is almost of our own day she too is one who puts the scorn to silence what her visions and her voices were who can say the last historian of them is not a man credulous of good or moved towards the ideal yet he is silent except in a wandering impression of the sacred and the true before the little Bernays in her sabbats and notwithstanding the many sorted results that have followed and all that sad machinery of expected miracle through which even repulsive as it must always be a something breaks forth from time to time which no man can define and account for except in ways more incredible than miracle so is the rest of the world why has this logical skeptical doubting country so able to quench with an epigram or blow away with a breath of ridicule the finest vision become the special sphere and birthplace of the spotless infant saints this is one of the wonders which nobody attempts to account for yet Bernadette is as young though there are more than 400 years between after what intervals the vision returned we are not told nor in what circumstances it seems to have come chiefly out of doors in the silence and freedom of the fields or garden presently the heavenly radiance shaped itself into some semblance of forms and figures one of which clearer than the others was like a man but with wings and a crown on his head and the air don re put home a noble apparition before whom at first the little maid trembled but whose majestic honest regard soon gave her confidence he beat her once more to be good and that god would help her then he told her the sad story of her own suffering country was it the pity of heaven that the archangel reported to the little trembling girl or only that which woke with the word in her own childish soul he has chosen the small things of this world to confound the great Jeanne's young heart was full of pity already and of yearning over the helpless mother country which had no champion to stand for her she had great doubts at first whether it was saint michael but afterwards when he had instructed her and shown her many things she believed firmly that it was he it was this warrior angel who opened the matter to her and disclosed her mission Jeanne he said you must go to the help of the king of france and it is you who shall give him back his kingdom like a still greater maid trembling casting in her mind what this might mean she replied confused as if that simple detail were all Monsieur I am only a poor girl I cannot ride or lead armed men the vision took no notice of this plea he became minute in his directions indicating exactly what she was to do go to Monsieur de Bodurko captain of Vukula and he will take you to the king saint katharine and saint margaret will come and help you Jeanne was overwhelmed by this exactness by the sensation of receiving direct orders she cried weeping and helpless terrified to the bottom of her soul what was she that she should do this a little girl able to guide nothing but her needle or her distaff to lend her simple aid in nursing a sick child but behind all her fright and hesitation her heart was filled with the emotion thus suggested to her the immeasurable bithé her heart became heavy with this burden by degrees it came about that she could think of nothing else and her little life was confused by expectations and recollections of the celestial visitant who might arrive upon her at any moment in the midst perhaps of some innocent play or when she sat sewing in the garden before her father's humble door after a while the vrai prudent came seldom other figures more like herself soft forms of women white and shining with golden circlates and ornaments appeared to her in the great halo of the light they bowed their heads naming themselves as to a sister spirit katharine and the other margaret their voices were sweet and soft with the sound that made you weep they were both martyrs encouraging and strengthening the little martyr that was to be a lady is there in the heavens who loves thee Virgil could not say more to rouse the flagging strength of Dante when these gentle figures disappeared the little maid wept in an anguish of tenderness longing if only they would take her with them it is curious that though she describes in this vague rapture the appearance of her visitors it is always as the sight must always have been more imperfect than the message their outlines and their lovely faces might shine uncertain in the excessive light but the words were always plain the pity for france that was in their hearts spread itself into the silent rural atmosphere touching every sensitive cord in the nature of little john it was as if her mother lay dying there before her eyes curious to think how little anyone could have suspected such meetings as these in the cottage hard buy where the weary plaman from the fields would come clamping in for their meal and Dame Isabel would call to the child even sharply perhaps now and then to leave that all absorbing needlework and come in and help as Martha called Mary 1400 years before and where the priest mumbling his mass of a cold morning in the little church would smile indulgent on the faithful little worshipper when it was done sure of seeing Jean there whoever might be absent she was a shy girl blushing and drooping her head when a stranger spoke to her red and shame faced when they laughed at her in the village as a devote before her time but with nothing else to blush about in all her simple record neither to her parents nor to the curay when she made her confession though she seemed to have communicated these strange experiences though they had lasted for some time before she felt impelled to act upon them and could keep silence no longer she was but 13 when the revelations began and she was 17 when at last she set forth to fulfill her mission she had no guidance from her voices she herself says as to whether she should tell or not tell would have been communicated to her and no doubt was kept back by her shyness and by the dreamy confusion of childhood between the real and unreal one would have thought that a life in which these visions were of constant recurrence would have been wrapped altogether out of wholesome use and want and all practical service but this does not seem for a moment to have been the case Jean was no hysterical girl living with her head in a mist abstracted from the world she had all the enthousiasms even of youthful friendship of the girls surrounding her with the intimacy of the village paying her visits staying all night sharing her room and her bed she was ready to be sent for by any poor woman that needed help or nursing she was always industrious at her needle one would love to know if perhaps in the Dresaure at Reims there was some stole or mannable with flowers on it rubbed by her hands but the Dresaure at Reims is nowadays rather vulgar if truth must be told and the bottles and vases for the consecration of Charles the Tenth that Pouve Vazir are more thought of than relics of an earlier age at length however one does not know how the secret of her double life came out no doubt long brooding over these voices long intercourse with such celestial visitors and the mission continually pressed upon her meaningless to the child at first a thing only to shed terrified tears over and wonder at ripened her intelligence so that she came at last to perceive that it was practicable a thing to be done a charge to be obeyed she had this before her as a girl in ordinary circumstances has the new developments of life to think of and how to be a wife and mother and the news brought by every passerby would prove doubly interesting doubly important to Jean in her daily growing comprehension of what she was called upon to do as she felt the current more and more catching her feet sweeping her on overcoming all resistance in her own mind she must have been more and more anxious to know what was going on in the distracted world more and more touched by that great pity which had awakened her soul and all these reports were of a nature to increase that pity till it became overwhelming the tales she would hear of the English must have been tales of cruelty and horror not so many years ago what tales did not we hear of German ferocity in the French villages perhaps not true at all yet making their impression always and it was more probable in that age that every such story should be true then the compassion which no one can help feeling for a young man deprived of his rights his inheritance taken from him his very life in danger threatened by the stranger and usurper was deepened in every particular by the fact that it was the king the very impersonation of France appointed by God as the head of the country who was in danger everything that Jean heard would help to swell the stream thus she must have come step by step this extraordinary impossible suggestion once sewn in her dreaming soul to perceive a kind of miraculous reasonableness in it to see its necessity and how everything pointed towards such a deliverance it would have seemed natural to believe that the prophecies of the countryside which promised a virgin from an oak grove a maiden from Lorraine to deliver France might have affected her mind did we not have it from her own voice that she had never heard that prophecy she was however acquainted with the simpler by word that France should be destroyed by a woman and afterwards redeemed by a virgin which she quoted to several persons on her first setting out but the word of the blessed Michael so often repeated was more than an old wife's tale and the child's alarm would seem to have died away as she came to her full growth and Jean was no ethereal spirit lost in visions but a robust and capable peasant girl fearing little and full of sense and determination as well as of an inspiration so far above the level of the crowd we hear with wonder afterwards that she had the making of a great general in her untutored female soul which is perhaps the most wonderful thing in her career and saw with the eye of an experienced and able soldier as even Dunois did not always see it the fit order of an attack the best arrangement of the forces at her command this I honestly avow is to me the most incredible point in the story I am not disturbed by the apparition of the saints there is in them an ineffable appropriateness and fitness against which the imagination at least has not a word to say the wonder is not to the natural mind that such interpositions of heaven come but that they come so seldom but that Jacques Dark's daughter the little girl over her sewing whose only fault was that she went to church too often should have the genius of a soldier is too bewildering for words to say a poet yes an inspiring influence leading on to miraculous victory but a general skillful with the rude artillery of the time dividing the better way in strategy this is a wonder beyond the reach of our faculties yet according to Alonso Dunois and other military authorities it was true we have little means of finding out how it was that Jean's long musings came at last to a point at which they could be hidden no longer nor what it was which induced her at last to select the confidant she did no doubt she must have been considering and weighing the matter for a long time before she fixed upon the man who was her relation yet did not belong to Don Marie and was safer than a townsman for the extraordinary revelations she had to make one of her neighbors her gossip to whose child she was godmother had perhaps at one moment seemed to her a likely helper but he belonged to the opposite party if you were not a bourgeois young she said to him once there is something I might tell you the honest fellow took this to mean that she had some thought of marriage the most likely and natural supposition it was at this moment when her heart was burning with her great secret the voices urging her on day by day and her power of self-constraint almost at an end that providence sent the Ron Laxa her uncle by marriage to Don Marie on some family visit she would seem to have taken advantage of the opportunity with eagerness asking him privately to take her home with him and to explain to her father and mother that he wanted her to take care of his wife no doubt the girl devoured with so many thoughts would have the air of requiring a change as we say and that their mother would be very ready to accept for her an invitation which might bring back the brightness to her child Laxa was a peasant like the rest a bourbon we'll thought of among his people he lived in Buré la petite near to Vougoleur the chief place of the district and Jean already knew that it was to the captain of Vougoleur that she was to address herself thus she secured her object in the simplest and most natural way yet the reader cannot but hold his breath at the thought of what that amazing revelation must have been to the homely rustic soul her companion communicated as they went along the common road in the common daylight she said to the witness that she must go to France to the dolphin to make him to be crowned king it must have been as if a thunderbolt had fallen at his feet when the girl whom he had known in every development of her little life thus suddenly disclosed to him her secret purpose and determination all her simple excellence the good man knew and that she was no fantastic chatterer but truly un bon douceville bold in nothing but kindness with nothing to blush for but the fault of going too often to church did you never hear that France should be made desolate by a woman and restored by a maid she said and this would seem to have been an unanswerable argument he had henceforth nothing to do but to promote her purpose as best he could in every way it would not seem at all unlikely to this good man that the archangel Michael if Jean's revelation to him went so far should have named Robert de Baudrickel the chief of the district captain of the town and its forces the principal personage in all the neighborhood as the person to whom Jean's purpose was to be revealed but rather a guarantee of Saint Michael himself familiar with good society and the senior must have been more or less in good intelligence with his people not too alarming to be referred to even on so insignificant a subject as the vagaries of a country girl though these by this time must have begun to seem something more than vagaries to the half convinced peasant and it was no doubt a great relief to his mind thus to put the decision of the question into the hands of a man better informed than himself Laxa proceeded to vocular upon his mission shyly yet with confidence he would seem to have had a preliminary interview with Baudrickel before introducing Jean the stammering country man the bluff rustic noble and soldier cheerfully contemptuous receiving with a loud laugh into all the echoes the extraordinary demand that he should send a little girl from Dom Remy to the king to deliver France come before us like a picture in the country man's simple words Robert de Baudrickel would scarcely hear the story out box her ears he said and sent her home to her mother the little fool what did she know of the English those brutal downright fighters against whom no illon was sufficient who stood their ground and set up vulgar posts around their lines instead of trusting to the rush of sudden valor and the tactics of the tournament she deliver France on a much smaller argument and to put down a less ambition the half serious half-amused advisor has bitten a young phonetics ears to be boxed on many an unimportant occasion and has often been justified in so doing they would be a half hour of gaiety after poor Laxa crestfallen had got his dismissal the good man must have turned back to Jean where she waited for him in courtyard or antechamber with a heavy heart no boxing of ears was possible to him the mere thought of it was blasphemy this was on ascension day the 13th of may 1428 end of section two section three of Jean doc her life and death this is a Libra Vox recording all Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra Vox.org recording by Ella Quint of Applebacksville Pennsylvania Jean doc her life and death by Margaret O. Aldefant section three Jean however was not discouraged by M.D. Bodriku's joke and her interview with him changed his views completely she appears indeed from the moment of setting out from her father's house to have taken a new attitude these great personages of the country before whom all the peasants trembled were nothing to this village made except perhaps instruments in the hand of God to speed her on her way if they could see their privileges if not to be swept out of it like straws by the wind it had no doubt been hard for her to leave her father's house but after that disruption what did anything matter and she had gone through five years of gradual training of which no one knew the tears and terror the plea I am a poor girl I cannot even ride of her first child like alarm had given place to a profound acquaintance with the voices and their meaning they were now her familiar friends guiding her at every step and what was the commonplace burly senior with his roar of laughter to Jean she went to her audience with none of the alarm of the peasant a certain young man of Bodriku's suite Bertrand de Poulonni another young d'Ortanen seeking his fortune was present in the hall and witnessed the scene the joke would seem to have been exhausted by the time Jean appeared or her perfect gravity and simplicity and beautiful manners so unlike her rustic dress in village quaff imposed upon the senior and his little court this is how the story is told twenty-five years after by the witness then an elderly knight recalling the story of his youth she said that she came to Robert on the part of her lord that he should send to the dolphin and tell him to hold out and have no fear for the lord would send him sucker before the middle of Lent she also said that France did not belong to the dolphin but to her lord but her lord willed that the dolphin should be its king and hold it in command and that in spite of his enemies she herself would conduct him to be consecrated Robert then asked her who was this lord she answered the king of heaven this being done the witness adds she returned to her father's house with her uncle this brief and sudden preface to her career passed over and had no immediate effect indeed but for Bertrand we should have been unable to separate it from the confused narrative to which all these witnesses brought what recollection they had often without sequence or order de Rhône himself taking no notice of any interval between this first visit to Vu Couleur and the final one the episode of ascension day appears like the formal sommation of French law made as a matter of form before the appellant takes action on his own responsibility but Baudry-Coup had probably more to do with it than appears to be at all certain from the after evidence one of the persons present at all events young Pouloni above mentioned bore it in mind and pondered it in his heart meantime Jean returned home the strangest home going for by this time her mission and her aspirations could no longer be hid and rumor must have carried the news almost as quickly as any modern telegraph to startle all the echoes of the village heretofore unaware of any difference between Jean and her companions save the greater goodness to which everybody bears testimony no doubt it must have reached Jacques Dock's cottage even before she came back with the kind de Rhône a changed creature already the consecrated maid of France La Pucella apart from all others the French peasant is a hard man more fierce in his terror of the unconventional of having his domestic affairs exposed to the public eye or his family disgraced by an exhibition of anything unusual either in act or feeling than almost any other class of beings and it is evident that he took his daughter's intention according to the coarsest interpretation as a wild desire for adventure an intention of joining herself to the roving troopers the soldiers always hated and dreaded in rural life he suddenly appears in the narrative in a fever of apprehension with no imaginative alarm or anxiety about his girl but the fiercest suspicion of her and dread of disgrace to ensue we do not know what past when she returned further than that her father had a dream no doubt after the first astounding explanation of the purpose that had so long been ripening in her mind he dreamed that he saw her surrounded by armed men in the midst of the troopers the most evident and natural interpretation of her purpose for who could divine that she meant to be their leader and general on a level not with the common men at arms but of princes and nobles in the morning he told his dream to his wife and also to his sons if I could think that the thing would happen that I dreamed I would wish that she should be drowned and if you would not do it I should do it with my own hands the reader remembers with a shutter the moons flowing at the foot of the garden while the fierce peasant mad with fear lest shame should be coming to his family clenched his strong fist and made this outcry of dismay no doubt his wife smoothed the matter over as well as she could and whatever alarms were in her own mind hastily thought of a feminine expedient to mend matters and persuaded the angry father that to substitute other dreams for these would be an easier way Isabel most probably knew the village lad who would feign have had her child so good a housewife so industrious a workwoman and always so friendly and so helpful for his wife at all events there was such a one too willing to exert himself not discouraged by any refusal who could be egged up to the very strong point of appearing before the bishop atula and swearing the genre have been promised to him from her childhood so timid a girl they all thought so devout a Catholic would simply obey the bishop's decision and would not be bold enough even to remonstrate though it is curious that with the spectacle of her grave determination before them and sorrowful sense of that necessity of her mission which had sealed her to dispense with their consent they should have expected such an expedient to arrest her steps the affair we must suppose had gone through all the more usual stages of entreaty on the lover's part and persuasion on that of the parents before such an attempt was finally made but the shy Jean had by this time attained that courage of desperation which is not inconsistent with the most gentle nature and without saying anything to anyone she too went to Tua appeared before the bishop and easily freed herself from the pretended engagement though whether with any reference to her very different destination we are not told these proceedings however and the father's dreams and the remonstrances of the mother must have made trouble days in the cottage and scenes of wrath and contradiction hard to bear the winter past distracted by these contentions and it is difficult to imagine how Jean could have borne this had it not been that the period of her outset had already been indicated and that it was only in the middle of lint that her sucker was to reach the king the village no doubt was almost as much distracted as her father's house to hear of these strange discussions and of the incredible purpose of the bone du sphia whose qualities everybody knew and about whom there was nothing eccentric nothing unnatural but only simple goodness to distinguish her above her neighbors in the meantime her voices called her continually to her work they set her free from the ordinary yoke of obedience always so strong in the mind of a french girl the dreadful step of abandoning her home not to be thought of under any other circumstances was more and more urgently pressed upon her could it indeed be saints and angels who ordained a step which was outside of all the habits and first duties of nature but we have no reason to believe that this 19th century doubt of her visitors and of whether their mandates were right entered into the mind of a girl who was of her own period and not of ours she went on steadfastly search another mission now and inaccessible either to remonstrance or appeal it was towards the beginning of lint as puloni tells us that the decision was made and she left home finally to go to france as is always said but it seems to have been in january that she set out once more for vuculeur accompanied by her uncle who took her to the house of some humble folk they knew a carter and his wife where they lodged Jean wore her peasant dress of heavy red homespun her rude heavy shoes her village quaff she never made any pretense of ladyhood or superiority to her class but was always equal to the finest society in which she found herself by dint of that simple good faith sense and seriousness without excitement or exaggeration and radiant purity and straightforwardness which were apparent to all seeing eyes by this time all the little world about knew something of her purpose and followed her every step with wonder and quickly rising curiosity and no doubt the whole town was a stir women gazing at their doors all on her side from the first moment the men half interested half insolent as she went once more to the chateau to make her personal appeal simple as she was the bonus fear was not intimidated by the guard at the gates the lounging soldiers the no doubt impudent glances flung at her by these rude companions she was inaccessible to alarms of that kind which perhaps is one of the greatest safe guards against them even in more ordinary cases we find the little record of her second interview with badriku the journal do see age and the cunic both mention it as if it had been one of several which may well have been the case as she was for three weeks in vugulae it is almost impossible to arrange the incidents of this interval between her arrival there and her final departure for she known on the 23rd February during which time she made a pilgrimage to a shrine of St. Nicholas and also a visit to the Duke of Lorraine it is clear however that she must have repeated her demand with such stress and urgency that the captain of vugulae was a much perplexed man it was a very natural idea then and in accordance with every sentiment of the time that he should suspect this wonderful girl who would not be daunted of being a witch and capable of bringing an evil fate on all who crossed her all thought of boxing her ears must air this have departed from his mind he hastened to consult the curae which was the most reasonable thing to do the curae was as much puzzled as the captain the church it must be said if always ready to take advantage afterwards of such revelations has always been timid even skeptical about them at first the wisdom of the rulers secular and ecclesiastic suggested only one thing to do which was to exercise and perhaps to overall and frighten the young visionary they paid a joint in solemn visit to the carter's house where no doubt their entrance together was spied by many eager eyes and there the priest solemnly taking out his stole invested himself in his priestly robes and exercised the evil spirits bidding them come out of the girl if they were her inspiration there seems a certain absurdity in this sudden assault upon the evil one taking him as it were by surprise but it was not ridiculous to any of the performers their genre doubt looked on with serene and smiling eyes she remarked afterwards to her hostess that the curae had done wrong as he had already heard her in confession outside the populace were in no uncertainty at all as to her mission a little mob hung about the door to see her come and go chiefly to church with her good hostess in attendance as was right and seemly and a crowd streaming after them who perhaps of their own accord might have neglected mass but who would not if they could help it lose a look at the new wonder one day a young gentleman of the neighborhood was passing by and amused by the commission came through the crowd to have a word with the peasant last what are you doing here mommy the young man said is the king to be driven out of the kingdom and are we all to be made english there is a turn of banter in the speech but he had already heard of the maid from his friend Bertrand and have been affected by the other's enthusiasm Robert de Badricourt will have none of me or my words she replied nevertheless before mid-lent I must be with the king if I should wear my feet up to my knees for nobody in the world be it king duke or the king of scotland's daughter can save the kingdom of france except me alone though I would rather spin beside my poor mother and this is not my work but I must go and do it because my lord so wills it and who is your senior he asked god said the girl the young man was moved he too by that wind which bloweth where it listeth he stretched out his hands through the gaping crowd and took hers holding them between his own to give her his pledge and so swore by his faith her hands in his hands that he himself would conduct her to the king when will you go he said rather today than tomorrow answered the messenger of god this was the second convert of la pucille the peasant bonhomme first the noble gentleman after him not to say all the women wherever she went the gazing weeping admiring crowd which now followed her steps and watched every opening of the door which concealed her from their eyes the young gentleman was jean de novel l'umpon surnamed jean de messe and so moved was he by the fervour of the girl and by her strong sense of the necessity of immediate operations that he proceeded at once to make preparations for the journey they would seem to have discussed the dress she ought to wear and jean decided for many obvious reasons to adopt the costume of a man or rather boy she must one would imagine have been tall for no remark is ever made on this subject as if her dress had dwarfed her which is generally the case when a woman assumes the habit of a man and probably with her peasant birth and training she was though slim strongly made and well knit besides being at the age when the difference between boy and girl is sometimes but little noticeable in the meantime budriku had not been idle he must have been moved by the sight of jean at least to perceive a certain gravity in the business for which he was not prepared and her composure under the cura's exorcism would naturally deepen the effect which her own manners and aspect had upon all who were free of prejudice another singular event too added weight to her character and demand one day after her return from the rain february 12th 1429 she intimated to all her surroundings and specially to budriku that the king had suffered a defeat near orlean which made it still more necessary that she should be at once conducted to him it was found when there was time for the news to come that this defeat the battle of the herrings so-called had happened as she said at the exact time and such a strange fact added much to the growing enthusiasm and excitement budriku is said by mclet to have sent off a secret express to the court to ask what he should do but of this there seems to be no direct evidence though likelihood enough the court as she known contained a strong feminine element behind the scenes and it might be found that there were uses for the enthusiast even if she did not turn out to be inspired no doubt there were many comings and goings at this period which can only be traced confusedly through the depositions of zhan's companions 25 years after she had at least two interviews with budriku before the exorcism of the curee and his consequent change of procedure towards her then escorted by her uncle luxa and apparently by zhan demes she had made a pilgrimage to a shrine of saint nicolas as already mentioned on which occasion being near nancy she was sent for by the duke of lorraine then lying ill at his castle in that city who had a fancy to consult the young prophetess sorceress who could tell what she was on the subject apparently of his illness he was the son of queen yuland avanju who was mother-in-law to charles the seventh and it would no doubt be thought of some importance to secure his good opinion zhan gave the exalted patient no light on the subject of his health but only the probably unpleasing advice to flee from the wrath of god and to be reconciled with his wife from whom he was separated he too however was moved by the sight of her and her straightforward undeviating purpose he gave her four francs duran tells us not much of a present which she gave to her uncle in which helped to buy her outfit probably he made a good report of her to his mother for shortly after he returned to vukulere i again follow mclett who ought to be well informed a messenger from shinu arrived to take her to the king in the councils of that troubled court perhaps the idea of a prodigy a miraculous leader though she was nothing but a peasant girl would be not without attraction a thing to conjure with all so far as the multitude were concerned anyhow from any point of view in the hopeless condition of affairs it was expedient that nothing which gave promise of help either real or visionary should likely be rejected there was much anxiety no doubt in the careless court still dancing and singing in the midst of calamity but the reception of the ambitious peasant would form an exciting incident at least if nothing more important and notable thus the whole anxious world of france stirred round that youthful figure in the little frontier town repeating with many an alteration and exaggeration the sayings of genre and those popular superstitions about the maid from lorraine which might be so naturally applied to her it would seem indeed that she had herself attached some importance to this prophecy for both her uncle lexa and her hostess avugulae report that she asked them if they had heard it which questions stupefied the latter whose mind evidently jumped at once to the conviction that the prophecy was fulfilled not indomory me itself however were these things considered with the same austrican and admiring faith nothing had softened the mood of zhak dak it was a shame to the village bouddhom to think of his daughter away from all the protection of home living among men encountering the young seniors who cared for no maiden's reputation hearing the soldier's rude talk exposed to their insults or worse still to their kindness probably even now he thought of her as surrounded by troopers and men at arms instead of the princes and peers with whom henceforth genre's lot was to be cast but in the former case there would have perhaps been less to fear than in the latter anyhow genre's communications with her family were more painful to her than had been the jeers of badriku or the exorcism of the curee they sent her angry orders to come back threats of parental curses and abandonment we may hope that the mother grieved and helpless had little to do with this persecution the woman who had nourished her children upon saintly legend and scripture story could scarcely have been hard upon the child of whom she better than any knew the perfect purity and steadfast resolution one of the little household at least revolted by the stern father's fury perhaps secretly encouraged by the mother broke away and joined his sister at a later period but we hear during her lifetime little or nothing of pierre much time however was passed in these preliminaries the final start was not made till the 23rd of February 1429 when the permission is supposed to have come by the hands of Colette de Vien the king's messenger who attended by a single archer was to be her escort it is possible that he had no mission to this effect but he certainly did escort her to Chinon the whole town gathered before the house of badriku to see her depart badriku however does not seem to have provided any guard for her Jean de mess who had so chivalrously pledged himself to her service with his friend de boulogne equally ready for adventure each with his servant formed her soul protectors Jean de mess had already sent her the clothes of one of his retainers with the light breastplate impartial armor that suited it and the townspeople had subscribed to buy her a further outfit and a horse which seems to have cost 16 francs not so small a sum in those days as now laxin declares himself to have been responsible for this outlay though the money was afterwards paid by badriku who gave Jean a sword which some of her historians consider a very poor gift none however of her equipments would seem to have been costly the little party set out thus with a sanction of authority from the captain's gate the two gentlemen and the king's messenger at the head of the party with their attendance and the maid in the midst go and let what will happen was the parting salutation of badriku the gazers outside set up a cry when the decisive moment came and someone struck with the feeble force which was all the safeguard she had for her long journey through an agitated country perhaps a woman in the sudden passion of misgiving which often follows enthusiasm called out to Jean with an astonished outcry to ask how she could dare to go by such a dangerous road it was for that I was born answered the fear this made the last thing she had done had been to write a letter to her parents asking their pardon if she obeyed a higher command than theirs and bidding them farewell the french historians with that amazement which they always show when they find a man behaving like a gentleman towards a woman confided to his honor all pause with deep drawn breath to note that the awe of Jean's absolute purity preserved her from any unseemly overture or even evil thought on the part of her companions we need not take up even the shadow of so grave a censure upon Frenchmen in general although in the far distance of the 15th century the two young men thus starting upon a dangerous adventure pledged by their honor to protect and convey her safely to the king's presence renewable and generous cavaliers and we may well believe had no evil thoughts they were not however without an occasional chill of reflection when once they had taken the irrevocable step of setting out upon this wild errand they traveled by night to escape the danger of meeting bands of Burgundians or English on the way and sometimes had to forward a river to avoid the town where they would have found a bridge sometimes too they have many doubts Bertrand says perhaps as to the reception at Chainonne perhaps even whether their mission might not expose them to the ridicule of their kind if not to unknown dangers of magic and contact with the evil one should this wonderful girl turn out no inspired virgin but a pretender or sorceress Jean de Messe informs us that she bade them not to fear that she had been sent to do what she was now doing that her brothers in paradise would tell her how to act and that for the last four or five years her brothers in paradise and her god had told her that she must go to the war to save the kingdom of France this phrase must have struck his ear as he thus repeats it her brothers in paradise she had not apparently talked of them to anyone as yet but now no one could hinder her more and she felt herself free to speak a great calm seems to have been in her soul she had at last begun her work how it was all to end for her she neither foresaw nor asked she knew only what she had to do when they ventured into a town she insisted on stopping to hear Messe bidding them fear nothing God clears the way for me, she said I was born for this and so proceeded safe though threatened with many dangers there is something that breathes of supreme satisfaction and content in her repetition of those words and of chapter two chapter three of Jean-Luc her life and death this is a LibreVox recording all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org recording by Ella Quint of Applebacksville, Pennsylvania Jean-Luc her life and death by Margaret O. Oliphant chapter three before the king February to April 1429 Jean and her little party were 11 days on the road but did not seem to have encountered any special peril they lodged sometimes in the security of a convent sometimes in a village hostel pursuing the long and tedious way across the great levels of Midland France which has so few features of beauty except in the picturesque towns with their castles and churches which the escort avoided at length they paused in the village of Firmoye not far from Chinone where the court was in order to announce their arrival and ask for an audience which was not immediately accorded Charles held his court with incredible gaiety and folly in the midst of almost every disaster that could ever take a king in the castle of Chinone on the banks of the Vienne the situation and aspect of this noble building now in ruins is wonderfully like that of Windsor Castle the great walls interrupted and strengthened by huge towers stretch along a low ridge of Rocky Hill with the swift and clear river a little broader and swifter than the Thames flowing at its foot the red and high pitched roofs of the houses clustered between the castle hill and the stream give a point of resemblance the more the large and ample dwelling defensible but with no thought of any need of defense a Midland castle surrounded by many a level league of wealthy country which no hostile force should ever have power to get through must have looked like the home of a well-established royalty there was no sound or sight of war within its splendid enclosure noble lords and gentlemen crowded the corridors trains of gay ladies attendant upon two queens filled the castle with fine dresses and gave voices there had been but lately a dreadful and indeed shameful defeat inflicted by a mere English convoy of provisions upon a large force of French and Scottish soldiers the former led by such men as Dumois, Laïre, Saint Trelle, etc. the latter by the constable of Scotland John Stuart which defeat might well have been enough to subdue every sound of revelry yet Charles's court was ringing with music and pleasantry as if peace had reigned around it may be believed that there were many doubts and questions how to receive this peasant from the fields which prevented an immediate reply to her demand for an audience from the first, De La Tremuel, Charles's prime minister and chief advisor was strongly against any encouragement of the visionary or dealings with the supernatural but there would no doubt be others hoping if not for a miraculous maid yet at least for a passing wonder who might kindle enthusiasm in the country and rouse the ignorant with hopes of a special blessing from heaven the gayer and younger portion of the court probably expected a little amusement above all a new butt for their wit or perhaps a soothsayer to tell their fortunes and promise good things to come they had not very much to amuse them but they made the best of it the joys of Paris were very far off they were all but imprisoned in this dull province of terrain nobody knew at what moment they might be forced to leave even that refuge for the moment here was a new event a little stir of interest something to pass an hour Jean had to wait two days in Chinon before she was granted an audience but considering the carelessness of the court and the absence of any patron that was but a brief delay the chamber of audience is now in ruins a wild rose with long arching thorny branches and pale flowers straggles over the greensward where once the floor was trod by so many gay figures from the broken wall you look sheared down upon the shining river one great chimney which at that season must have been still the most pleasant center of the large drafty hall shows at the end of the room with the curious suggestion of warmth and light which makes ruin more conspicuous the room must have been on the ground floor almost level with the soil towards the interior of the castle but raised to the height of the cliffs outside it was evening an evening of march and fifty torches lighted up the ample room many noble personages almost as great as kings and clothed in the bewildering splendor of the time and more than three hundred cavaliers of the best names in France filled it to overflowing the peasant girl from Dumremme in the hose and doublet of a servant a little travel worn after her tedious journey was led in by one of those splendid seniors dazzled with the grandeur she had never seen before looking about her in wonder to see which was the king while Charles perhaps with voyage pleasure in the mystification perhaps with a little half conviction stealing over him that there might be something more in it stood among the smiling crowd the young stranger looked round upon all those amused light-minded skeptical faces and without a moment's hesitation went forward and knelt down before him gentile dolphin she said god give you good life but it is not I that I'm the king there is the king said Charles gentile prince it is you and no other she said them rising from her knee gentile dolphin I am John the maid I am sent to you by the king of heaven to tell you that you shall be consecrated and crowned a rim and shall be lieutenant of the king of heaven who is king of France the little masquerade had failed the jest was over there would be little more laughing among the courtiers when they saw the face of Charles grow grave he took the newcomer aside perhaps to that deep recess of the window where in the darkening night the glimmer of the clear flowing river the great fault of sky would still be visible dimly outside the circle of the blazing interior with all its smoky lights Charles the seventh of France was like many of his predecessors a pove sir enough he had thought more of his amusements than of the troubles of his country but a wild and senseless gaiety will sometimes spring from despair as well as from lightness of heart and after all the dread responsibility the sense that in all his helplessness and inability to do anything he was still the man who ought to do all would seem to have moved him from time to time a secret doubt in his heart divulged to no man had added bitterness to the conviction of his own weakness was he indeed the heir of France had he any right to that sustaining confidence which would have borne up his heart in the midst of every discouragement his very mother had given him up and set him aside he was described as the so-called dolphin in treaties signed by Charles and is a bow his parents if anyone knew she knew and was it possible that more powerful even than the English more cruel than the Burgundians this stain of illegitimacy was upon him making all effort vain there is no telling where the sensitive point is in any man's heart and little worthy as was this king the story we are here told has a thrill of truth in it it is reported by a certain Sala who declares that he had it from the lips of Charles's favorite and close follower the senior de Boise a courtier who after the curious custom of the time shared even the bed of his master this was confided to Boise by the king in the deepest confidence in the silence of the wakeful night this was in the time of the good king Charles when he knew not what step to take and did nothing but think how to redeem his life for as I have told you he was surrounded by enemies on all sides the king in this extreme thought went in one morning to his oratory all alone and there he made a prayer to our lord in his heart without pronouncing any words in which he asked of him devoutly that if he were indeed the true heir descended from the royal house of France and that justly the kingdom was his that he would be pleased to guard and defend him or at the worst to give him grace to escape into Spain or Scotland whose people from all antiquity were brothers and arms friends and allies of the kings of France and that he might find a refuge there perhaps there is some excuse for a young man's endeavor to forget himself in folly or even in dissipation when his secret thoughts are so despairing as these it was soon after this melancholy moment that the arrival of Jean took place the king led her aside touched as all were by her look of perfect sincerity and good faith but it is she herself not Charles who repeats what she said to him I have to tell you said the young messenger of God on the part of my lord monsieur that you are the true heir of France and the son of the king he has sent me to conduct you to rim that you may receive your consecration and your crown perhaps here Jean caught some look which she did not understand in his eyes for she adds with one cannot but think a touch of sternness if you will was it a direct message from God and answered to his prayer uttered within his own heart without words so that no one could have guessed that secret at least it would appear that Charles thought so for how should this peasant maid know the secret fear that had not at his heart when now what's in the garden under the fig tree I saw they great was the difference between the israelite without guile and the troubled young man with whose fate the career of a great nation was entangled but it is not difficult to imagine what the effect must have been on the mind of Charles when he was met by the strange authoritative statement uttered like all that John said the impression thus made however was on Charles alone and he was surrounded by counselors so much the more pedantic and punctilious as they were incapable and placed amidst pressing necessities with which in themselves they had no power to cope it may easily be allowed also that to risk any hopes still belonging to the hapless young king on the word of a peasant girl was in itself according to every law of reason madness and folly she would seem to have had the women on her side always and at every point the church did not stir or else was hostile the commanders and military men about regarded with scornful disgust the idea that an enterprise which they considered hopeless should be confided to an ignorant woman all with perfect reason we are obliged to allow probably it was to gain time yet without losing the aid of such a stimulus to the superstitious among the masses and to retard any rash undertaking that it was proposed to subject Jean to an examination of doctors and learned men touching her faith and the character of her visions which all this time have been of continual recurrence yet charged with no further revelation no mystic creed but only with the one simple constantly repeated command accordingly after some preliminary handling by half a dozen bishops Jean was taken to poti where the university and the local parliament all the learning law and ecclesiastical wisdom which were on the side of the king were assembled to undergo this investigation it is curious that the entire history of this wildest and strangest of all visionary occurrences is to be found in a series of processes at law each part recorded and certified under oath but so it is the village maid was placed at the bar before a number of acute legists ecclesiastics and statesmen to submit her to a not too benevolent cross examination several of these men were still alive at the time of the rehabilitation and gave their recollections of this examination though its formal records have not been preserved at the minnequin monk aimer one of an order she loved addressed her gravely with the severity with which that institution is always credited you say that god would deliver France if he has so determined he has no need of men at arms ah credit girl with perhaps a note of irritation in her voice the men must fight it is god who gives the victory to another discomforted brother john exasperated answered with a little roughness showing that our maid though gentle as a child to all gentle souls was no peace of subdued perfection but a woman of the fields and lately much in the company of rough spoken men he was of limoush a certain brother segon bien agra ohm and disposed apparently to weaken the trial by questions without importance he asked her what language her celestial visitors spoke better than yours answered the peasant girl he could not have been as we say in scotland altogether an ill man for he acknowledged that he spoke the patois of his district and therefore that the blow is fair but perhaps for the moment he was irritated too he asked her a question equally unnecessary do you believe in god to which with more and more impatience she made a similar answer better than you do there was nothing to be made of one so well able to defend herself words are all very well said the monk but i would not have us believe you unless you show us some sign to this john made an answer more dignified they're still showing signs of exasperation i have not come to portier to give signs she said but take me to or leon i will then show the signs i am sent to show give me as small a band as you please but let me go the situation of or leon was at the time a desperate one it was besieged by a strong army of english who had built a succession of towers around the city from which to assail it after the manner of the times the town lies in the midst of the plane of the law with not so much as a hillock to offer any advantage to the besiegers therefore these great works were necessary in face of a very strenuous resistance and the possibility of provisioning the besieged which their river secured the english from their high towers kept up a disastrous fire which though their artillery was of the rudest kind did great execution the siege was conducted by eminent generals the works were of themselves great fortifications the assailants numerous and strengthened by the prestige of almost unbroken success there seemed no human hope of the deliverance of the town unless by an overwhelming army which the king's party did not possess were by some wonderful and utterly unexpected event john had always declared the destruction of the english and the relief of or leon to be the first step in her mission besides the formal and official examination of her faith and character held up portier private inquests of all kinds were made concerning of the claims of the miraculous maid she was visited by every curious person man or woman in the neighborhood implied with endless questions so that her simple personal story and that of her revelations may what as she called them became familiarly known from her own report to the whole country roundabout the women pressed a question specially interesting for no doubt many a good mother half convinced otherwise shook her head as john's costume why she wore the dress of a man for which the maid gave very good reasons in the first place because it was the only dress for fighting which though so far from her desires or from the habits of her life was hence forward to be her work and also because in her strange circumstances constrained as she was to live among men she considered it safest for herself statements which evidently convinced the minds of the questioners it was no doubt good policy to make her thus widely and generally known and the result was a daily growing enthusiasm for her and belief in her in all classes the result of the formal process was that the doctors could find nothing against her and they reluctantly allowed that the king might lawfully take what advantage she could of her offered services john was then brought back to chinon where she was lodged in one of the great towers still standing though no special room is pointed out as hers and there she was subjected to another process more penetrating still than the interrogations of the graver tribunals the queens and their ladies and all the women of the court took her in hand they inquired into her history in every subtle and intimate feminine way testing her innocence and purity and once more she came out triumphant the final judgment was given as follows after hearing all these reports the king taking into consideration the great goodness that was in the maid and that she declared herself to be sent by god it was by the said senior and his council determined that from hence forward he should make use of her for his wars since it was for this that she was sent it was now necessary to equip john for her service she had a maison and etat major or staff formed for her the chief of which john doulon already distinguished and worthy of such a trust never left her thanks forward until the end of her active career her chaplain john basquerel also followed her fortunes faithfully charles would have given her a sword to replace the probably indifferent weapon given her by baudry coup at vougler but john knew where to find the sword destined for her she gave orders that someone should be sent to fibois the village at which she had paused on her way to chinon to fetch a sword which would be found there buried behind the high altar of the church of saint katharine to make this as little miraculous as possible we are told by some historians that it was common for knights to be buried with their arms and the john in her visit to this church where she heard three masses in succession to make up for the absence of constant religious services on her journey had probably seen some tomb or other token that such an internment had taken place however as we are compelled to receive the far greater miracle of john herself and her work without explanation it is foolish to take the trouble to attempt any explanation of so small a matter as this the sword in fact was found by the clergy of the church and was by then cleaned and polished and put in a scabbard of crimson velvet scattered over with fleur de lis and gold for her use her standard which she considered of the greatest importance was made apparently at tour it was of white linen fringed with silk and embroidered with the figure of the savior holding a globe in his hands while an angel knelt at either side in adoration as zeus maria was inscribed at the foot a repetition of this banner which most have been recopied from age to age is to be seen now at tour having indicated the exact device to be emblazoned upon the banner as dictated to her by her saints margaret and katharine john announced her intention of carrying it herself a somewhat surprising office for one who was to act as a general but it was the command of her heavenly guides take the standard on the part of god and carry it boldly they had said she had besides a simple half childish intention of her own in this which she explained shame faced she had no wish to use her sword though she loved it and would kill no man the banner was a more safe occupation and saved her from all possibility of bloodshedding it must however have required the robust arm of a peasant to sustain the heavy weight it will show how long a time all these examinations and preparations had taken when we read the genre set out from blah where she had passed some time in military preparations only on the 27th day of april nearly two whole months had thus been taken up in testing her truth and arranging details trifling and unnecessary in her eyes a period which had been passed in great anxiety by the people of or leon with the huge best deals of the english three of which were named paris roan and london towering around them their provisions often intercepted all the business of life come to a standstill and the overwhelming responsibility upon them of being almost the last barrier between the invader and the final subjugation of france it is strange to add that judging by ordinary rules the garrison of or leon ought to have been quite sufficient in itself in numbers in science of war to have beaten and dispersed the english force which had thus succeeded in shutting them in there were many notable captains among them with dunois known as the bastard of or leon one of the most celebrated and brave of french generals at their head dunois was in no way inferior to the generals of the english army he was popular beloved by the people and soldiers alike and though illegitimate of the house of or leon one of the native seniors of the place the wonder is how he and his officers permitted the building of these towers and the shutting in of the town which they were quite strong enough to protect but it was a losing game which they were playing apart which does not suit the genius of the nation and the superstition in favor of the english who had won so many battles with all the disadvantages on their side cutting the finest armies to pieces was strong upon the imagination of the time it seemed a fate which no valor or skill upon the side of the french could avert dunois himself an unlikely person one would have thought to yield the honor of the fight to a woman seems to have perceived that without a strong counter motive not within the range of ordinary methods the situation was beyond hope accordingly on the 27th or 28th of april john set out at the head of her little army accompanied by a great number of generals and captains she had been equipped by the queen of sicily with the touch of that keen sense of decorative effect which belonged to the age in white armor inlaid with silver all shining like her own saint michael himself a radiance of whiteness and glory under the sun armed be his sove la dest her uncovered head rising in full relief from the dazzling breastplate and this is the description given of her by an eyewitness a little later the country is flat as the palm of one's hand the white armor must have flashed back the sun for miles and miles of the level road to the eyes which from the height of any neighboring tower watched the party setting out it is all fertile now the richest plane and even then corn and wine must have been in full version the great fresh greenness of the big leaves coming out upon such low stumps of vine as were left in the soil but the devastated country was in those days covered with a wild growth like the machia of italian wilds which half hid the movements of the expedition they went by the law to tour where john had been assigned a dwelling of her own with the estate of a general and from thence to blua where they had to wait for some days while the convoy of provisions which they were to convey to orlean was being prepared and there john fulfilled one of the preliminary duties of her mission she had informed her examiners at portier that she had been commanded to write to the english generals before attacking them appealing to them to give up their conquests and leave france to the french the letter which we quote would seem to have been dictated by her at portier probably to the confessor who now formed part of her suite and who attended her wherever she went jesus maria king of england and you duke of bedford calling herself regent of france you william de la boue compt they suffered john lord of talbot and new thomas lord of scales who call yourself lieutenants of the said bedford listen to the king of heaven give back to the maid who is here sent on the part of god the king of heaven the keys of all the good towns which you have taken by violence in his france she is ready to make peace if you will hear reason and be just towards france and pay for what you have taken and new archers brothers in arms gentiles and others who are before the town of orlean go in peace on the part of god if you do not so you will soon have news of the maid who will see you shortly to your great damage king of england if you do not this i am captain in this war and in whatsoever place in france i find your people i will make them go away i am sent here on the part of god the king of heaven to push you all forth of france if you obey i will be merciful and be not strong in your own opinion for you do not hold the kingdom from god the son of the holy mary but it is held by charles the true heir for god the king of heaven so wills and it is revealed by the maid who shall enter paris and good company if you will not believe this news on the part of god and the maid in whatever place you may find yourselves we shall make our way there it makes so great a commotion as has not been in france for a thousand years if you will not hear reason and believe this that the king of heaven will send more strength to the maid than you can bring against her in all your assaults to her and to her good men at arms you duke of bedford the maid prays and requires you to destroy no more if you act according to reason you may still come in her company where the french shall do the greatest work that has ever been done for christianity answer then if you will still continue against the city of orlean if you do so you will soon recall it to yourself by great misfortunes written the saturday of holy week 22 march 14 29 john hand by this time made a wonderful moral revolution in her little army most likely she had not been in the least aware what an army was until this moment but frank and fearless she had penetrated into every corner and it was not in her to permit those abuses at which an ordinary captain has to smile the pernicious and shameful crowd of camp followers fled before her like shadows before the day she stopped the big oaths and unthinking blasphemies which were so common so that la here one of the chief captains a rough and ready guess gone was reduced to swear by his baton no more sacred name being permitted to him perhaps this was the origin of the harmless swearing which abounds in france meaning probably just as much and as little as bigger oaths in careless mouths but no doubt the soldier's language was very unfit for gentle years john moved among the wandering ranks all radiant in her silver armor and with her virginal undaunted countenance exhorting all those rude and noisy brothers to take thought of their duties here and of the other life that awaited them she would stop the march of the army that a conscious stricken soldier might make his confession and desired the priests to hear it if necessary without ceremony or church under the first tree her tender heart was such that she shrank from any man's death and her hair rose up on her head as she said at the site of french blood shed although her mission was to shed it on all sides for a great end but the one thing she could not bear was that either frenchmen or englishmen should die unconfessed unhouseled disappointed unannealed the army went along attended by songs of choristers and masses of priests the grave and solemn music of the church accompanied strangely by the fanfares and bugle notes what a strange procession to pass along the great lua in its springfulness the raised banners and crosses and that dazzling white figure all effulgence reflected in the wayward quick flowing stream la hiere who was like a figure out of dumas and indeed did service as a model to that delightful romancer had come from orleon to escort jean upon her way and du moi met her as she approached the town there could not be found more unlikely companions than these two to conduct to a great battle the country made who was to carry the honors of the day from them both and make men fight like heroes who under them did nothing but run away the candor and true courage of such leaders in circumstances so extraordinary are beyond praise for it was an offense both to their pride and skill in their profession has she been anything less than the messenger of god which she claimed to be and these rude soldiers were not meant to be easily moved by devout imaginations there would seem however even in the case of the greater of the two to have arisen a strange friendship a mutual understanding between the famous man of war and the peasant girl jean always straightforward and simple speaks to him not with the downcast eyes of her humility but as an equal as if the great denois have been a prudhomme of her own degree there is no appearance indeed that the maid allowed herself to be overborn now by any shyness or undo humility she speaks loudly so as to be heard by those fighting men taking something of their own brief and decisive tone often even impatient as one who would not be put aside either by cunning or force her meeting with dune law makes this at once evident she had been deceived in the matter of her approach to orlean her companions among whom there were several field marshals and distinguished leaders taking advantage of her ignorance of the place to lead her by the opposite bank of the river instead of that on which the english towers were built which she desired to attack at once this was the beginning of a long series of deceits and hostile combinations by which at every step of her way she was met and retarded but it turned as these devices generally did to the discomforture of the adverse captains she crossed the river at jayce above orlean to meet dune law who had come so far to meet her it will be seen by the conversation which she held with him on his first appearance how completely jean had learned to assert herself and how much she had overcome any fear of man are you the bastard of orlean she said i am and glad of your coming he replied is it you who have had me led to this side of the river and not to the bank on which taoba is in his english he answered that he and the wisest of the leaders had thought it the best and safest way the counsel of god our lord is more sure and more powerful than yours she replied the expedition as a matter of fact had to turn back and to lose precious time their being it is to be presumed no means of transporting so large a force across the river the large convoy of provisions which jean brought was embarked in boats while the majority of the army returned to blois in order to cross by the bridge jean however having freely expressed her opinion adapted herself to the circumstances though extremely averse to separate herself from her soldiers good men who had confessed and prepared their souls for every emergency she finally consented however to ride on with dunwan and la hire the wind was against the convoy so that the heavy boats deeply laden with bees and corn had a dangerous and slow voyage before them have patience cried jean by the help of god all will go well and immediately the wind changed to the astonishment and joy of all and the boats arrived in safety in spite of the english who offered no hindrance whatsoever as she had predicted the little party made their way along the bank and in the twilight of the april evening about eight o'clock entered orlean the deliverer it need not be said was hailed with joy indescribable she was on a white horse and carried dunwan says the banner in her hand though it was carried before her when she entered the town the white figure in the midst of those darkly gleaming male men would in itself throw a certain glory through the dimness of the night as she passed the gates and came into view by the blaze of all the torches and the lights in the windows over the dark swarming crowds of the citizens her white banner waving her white armor shining it was little wonder that the throng that filled the streets received the maid as if they had seen god descending among them and they had good reason says the chronicle for they had suffered many disturbances labors and pains and what is worse great doubt whether they ever should be delivered but now all were comforted as if the siege were over by the divine strength that was in this simple maid whom they regarded most affectionately men women and little children there was a marvelous press around her to touch her or the horse on which she rode so much so that one of the torch bearers approached to near and set fire to her pen and upon which she touched her horse with her spurs and turning him cleverly extinguished the flame as if she had long followed the wars there could have been nothing she resembled so much as saint michael the warrior angel who as all the world knew was her chief counselor and guide and who no doubt blazed a familiar figure from some window in the cathedral to which this his living picture wrote without a pause to give thanks to god before she thought of refreshment or rest she spoke to the people who surrounded her on every side as she went on through the tumultuous streets bidding them be of good courage and that if they had faith they should escape from all their troubles and it was only after she had said her prayers and rendered her thanksgiving that she returned to the house selected for her the house of an important personage jack bushey treasurer to the duke of orlean not like the humble places where she had formally lodged the houses of that age were beautiful airy and light with much graceful ornament and solid comfort the arched and vaulted gothic beginning to give place to those models of domestic architecture which followed the renaissance with their ample windows and pleasant space and breath there the table was spread with a joyous meal in honor of this wonderful guest to which let us hope to moi and la hire and the rest did full justice but john was indifferent to the feast she mixed with water the wine poured for her into a silver cup and dipped her bread in it five or six small slices the visionary peasant girl cared for none of the dainty meats and then she retired to the comfort of a peaceful chamber where the little daughter of the house shared her bed strange return to the days when huvet and men jett in domre me labor her side and talked his girls love to do through half the silent night perhaps little charlotte to lay awake with awe to wonder at that other young head on the pillow a little while ago shut into the silver helmet and shining like the archangels they eat that measure the cavalier de onne john de mess and bertrand de boulogne who had never left her first friends and most faithful and her brother pierre dark were lodged in the same house it was the last night of april 1429 end of chapter three