Joan of Arc. Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower
held herself aloof from them: on the contrary, Joan enjoyed to play with the lads and village lasses; and we hear of her swiftness of foot in the race, of her gracefulness in the village dance, either by the stream or around an old oak-tree in the forest, which was said to be the favourite haunt of the fairies.
Often in the midst of these sports Joan would break away from her companions, and enter some church or chapel, where she placed garlands of flowers around statues of her beloved saints.
Thus passed away the early years of the maiden's gentle life, among her native fields, with nothing especially to distinguish her from her companions beyond her goodness and piety. A great change, however, was near at hand. The first of those mysterious and supernatural events which played so all-important a part in the life of our heroine occurred in the summer of 1425, when Joan was in her thirteenth year. In her trial at Rouen, on being asked by her judges what was the first manifestation of these visions, she answered that the first indication of what she always called 'My voices' was that of St. Michel. It is not a little remarkable that this vision of St. Michel, the patron saint of the French army, should have taken place in the summer of 1425, at the time of a double defeat by land and sea of the enemy of France, and when the Holy Mount in Normandy, crowned by the chapel guarded by St. Michel, was once again in the hands of the French. At the same time, Joan of Arc experienced some of the hardships of war when the country around Domremy was overrun by the enemy; and the little household of the Arcs had to fly for shelter to the neighbouring village of Châteauneuf, in Lorraine.
I will pass somewhat rapidly over the visions, or rather revelations—for, whatever doubts one may hold as to such heavenly messengers appearing literally on this earth, no man can honestly doubt that Joan believed as firmly in these unearthly visitants coming from Heaven direct as she did in the existence of herself or of her parents. On the subject of these voices and visions no one has written with more sense than a distinguished prelate who was a contemporary of the heroine's—namely, Thomas Basin, Bishop of Lisieux, who, in a work relating to Joan of Arc, writes thus:—
'As regards her mission, and as regards the apparitions and revelations that she affirmed having had, we leave to every one the liberty to believe as he pleases, to reject or to hold, according to his point of view or way of thinking. What is important regarding these visions is the fact that Joan had herself no shadow of a doubt regarding their reality, and it was their effect upon her, and not her natural inclination, which impelled her to leave her parents and her home to undertake great perils and to endure great hardships, and, as it proved, a terrible death. It was these visions and voices, and they alone, which made her believe that she would succeed, if she obeyed them, in saving her country and in replacing her king on his throne. It was these visions and voices which finally enabled her to do those marvellous deeds, and accomplish what appeared to all the world the impossible; these voices and visions will ever be connected with Joan of Arc, and with her deathless fame and glory.'
From the year 1425 till 1428, the apparitions and voices were heard and seen more or less frequently.
It is the year 1427: all that remains to Charles of his kingdom north of the Loire, with the exception of Tournay, are a pitiful half-dozen places. Among these is Vaucouleurs, near Domremy. They are defended by a body of men under the command of a knight, Robert de Baudricourt, who is about to play an important part in the history of Joan.
In one of her visions the maid was told to seek this knight, that through his help she might be brought to the French Court; for the voices had told her she might find the King and tell him her message, by which she should deliver the land from the English, and restore him to his throne. There had not been wanting legends and prophecies upon the country-side which may have impressed Joan, and helped her to believe that it was her mission to deliver France. One of the prophecies was to the effect that a maiden from the borders of Lorraine should save France, that this maiden would appear from a place near an oak forest. This seemed to point directly to our heroine. The old oak-tree haunted by the fairies, the neighbouring country of Lorraine, were all in help of the tradition. Since the betrayal of her husband's country by the wife of Charles VI., another saying had been spread abroad throughout all that remained of that small portion of France still held by the French King—namely, that although France would be lost by a woman, a maiden should save it. Any hope to the people in those distressful days was eagerly seized on; and although the first prophecy dated from the mythical times of Merlin, it stirred the people, especially when, later on, Joan of Arc appeared among them, and her story became known.
These prophecies appear to have struck deeply into Joan's soul; they, and her voices aiding, made her believe she was the maiden by whom her country would be delivered from the presence of the enemy. But how was she to make her parents understand that it was their child who was appointed by Heaven to fulfil this great deliverance? Her father seems to have been a somewhat harsh, at any rate a practical, parent. When told of her intention to join the army, he said he would rather throw her into the river than allow her to do so. An attempt was made by her parents to induce her to marry. They tried their best, but Joan would none of it; and bringing the case before the lawyers at Toul, where she proved that she had never thought of marrying a youth whom her parents required her to wed, she gained her cause and her freedom.
In order to take the first step in her mission, Joan felt it necessary to rely on some one outside her immediate family. A distant relation of her mother's, one Durand Laxart, who with his wife lived in a little village then named Burey-le-Petit (now called Burey-en-Vaux), near Vaucouleurs, was the relation in whose care she placed her fate. With him and his wife Joan remained eight days; and it might have been then that the plan was arranged to hold an interview with Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs, in order to see whether that knight would interest himself in Joan's mission.
The interview took place about the middle of the month of May (1428), and nothing could have been less propitious. A soldier named Bertrand de Poulangy, who was one of the garrison of Vaucouleurs, was an eye-witness of the meeting. He accompanied Joan of Arc later on to Chinon, and left a record of the almost brutal manner with which Baudricourt received the Maid. From this soldier's narrative we possess one of the rare glimpses which have come down to us of the appearance of the heroine: not indeed a description of what would be of such intense interest as to make known to us the appearance and features of her face; but he describes her dress, which was that then worn by the better-to-do agricultural class of Lorraine peasant women, made of rough red serge, the cap such as is still worn by the peasantry of her native place.
It is much to be regretted that no portrait of Joan of Arc exists either in sculpture or painting. A life-size bronze statue which portrayed the Maid kneeling on one side of a crucifix, with Charles VII. opposite, forming part of a group near the old bridge of Orleans, was destroyed by the Huguenots; and all the portraits of Joan painted in oils are spurious. None are earlier than the sixteenth century, and all are mere imaginary daubs. In most of these Joan figures in a hat and feathers, of the style worn in the Court of Francis I. From various contemporary notices, it appears that her hair was dark in colour, as in Bastien Lepage's celebrated picture, which supplies as good an idea of what Joan may have been as any pictured representation of her form and face. Would that the frescoes which Montaigne describes as being painted on the front of the house upon the site of which Joan was born could have come down to us. They might have given some conception of her appearance. Montaigne saw those frescoes on his way to Italy, and says that all the front of the house was painted with representations of her deeds, but even in his day they were much injured.
When Joan at length stood before the knight of Vaucouleurs, she told him boldly that she had come to him by God's command, and that she was destined to give the King victory over the English. She even said that she was assured that early in the following March this would be accomplished, and that the Dauphin would then be crowned at Rheims, for all these things had been promised to her through her Lord.
'And who is he?' asked de Baudricourt.
'He is the King of Heaven,' she answered.
The knight treated Joan's words with derision, and Joan herself with insults; and thus ended the first of their interviews.
It was only in the season of Lent of the next year (March 1427) that Joan again sought the aid of de Baudricourt.