Joan of Arc. Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower
III. died of a broken heart, and the fame of Rabelais, will ever be associated with the ancient castle and town. Still, the deathless interest of Chinon is owing to the residence of the Maid of Domremy—as one has a better right to call her than of Orleans—in those early days of her short career, in its burgh and castle. In or near the street La Haute Rue Saint Maurice, hard by a square which now bears the name of the heroine, Joan of Arc arrived at noon on Sunday, the 6th of March.
It would be interesting to know in which of the old gabled houses Joan resided during the two days before she was admitted to enter the castle. Local tradition reports that she dwelt with a good housewife ('chez une bonne femme'). According to a contemporary plan of Chinon, dated 1430, a house which belonged to a family named La Barre was where she lodged; and although the actual house of the La Barres cannot be identified, there are many houses in the street of Saint Maurice old enough to have witnessed the advent of the Maid on that memorable Sunday in the month of March 1430. Few French towns are so rich in the domestic architecture of the better kind dating from the early part of the fifteenth century as that of Chinon; and now that Rouen, Orleans, and Poitiers have been so terribly modernised, a journey to Chinon well repays the trouble. Little imagination is required to picture the street with its crowd of courtiers and Court hangers-on, upon their way to and from the castle above; so mercifully have time and that far greater destroyer of things of yore dealt with this old thoroughfare.
Two days elapsed before Joan was admitted to the presence of the King. A council had been summoned in the castle to determine whether the Maid should be received by the monarch. The testimony of the knights who had accompanied the Maid from Vaucouleurs carried the day in her favour.
While waiting to see the King, we have from Joan's own lips a description of how her time was passed. 'I was constantly at prayers in order that God should send the King a sign. I was lodging with a good woman when that sign was given him, and then I was summoned to the King.'
The church in which she passed her time in prayer was doubtless that of Saint Maurice, close by the place at which she lodged. It owed its origin to Henry II. of England; it is a rare and beautiful little building of good Norman architecture, but much defaced by modern restoration. Its age is marked by the depth at which its pavement stands, the ground rising many feet above its present level.
A reliable account of Joan of Arc's interview with King Charles has come down to us, as have so many other facts in her life's history, through the witnesses examined at the time of the heroine's rehabilitation. Foremost among these is the testimony of a priest named Pasquerel, who was soon to become Joan's almoner, and to accompany her in her warfare. He tells how, when Joan was on her road to enter the castle, a soldier used some coarse language as he saw the young Maid pass by—some rude remark which the fellow qualified with an oath. Turning to him, the Maid rebuked him for blaspheming, and added that he had denied his God at the very moment in which he would be summoned before his Judge, for that within an hour he would appear before the heavenly throne. The soldier was drowned within the hour. At least such is the tale as told by Priest Pasquerel.
The castle was shrouded in outer darkness, but brilliantly lit within, as Joan entered its gates. The King's Chamberlain, the Comte de Vendôme, received the Maid at the entrance of the royal apartments, and ushered her into the great gallery, of which fragments still exist—a blasted fireplace, and sufficient remains of the original stone-work to prove that this hall was the principal apartment in the palace. Flambeaux and torches glowed from the roof and from the sides of this hall, and here the Court had assembled, half amused, half serious, as to the arrival of the peasant girl, about whom there had been so much strange gossip stirring. Now the grass grows in wild luxuriance over the pavement, and the ivy clings to the old walls of that noble room, in which, perhaps, the most noteworthy of all recorded meetings between king and subject then took place. A score of torches held by pages lit the sides of the chamber. Before these were ranged the knights and ladies, the latter clothed in the fantastically rich costume of that time, with high erections on their heads, from which floated long festoons of cloth, and glittering with the emblems of their families on their storied robes. The King, in order to test the divination of the Maid, had purposely clad himself in common garb, and had withdrawn himself behind his more brilliantly attired courtiers.
Ascending the flight of eighteen steps which led into the hall, and following Vendôme, Joan passed across the threshold of the hall, and, without a moment's hesitation singling out the King at the end of the gallery, walked to within a few paces of him, and falling on her knees before him—'the length of a lance,' as one of the spectators recorded—said, 'God give you good life, noble King!' ('Dieu vous donne bonne vie, gentil Roi').
'But,' said Charles, 'I am not the King. This,' pointing to one of his courtiers, 'is the King.'
Joan, however, was not to be hoodwinked, and, finding that in spite of his subterfuges he was known, Charles acknowledged his identity, and entered at once with Joan on the subject of her mission.
HALL OF AUDIENCE—CHINON.ToList
It appears, from all the accounts which have come to us of this interview, that Charles was at first somewhat loth to take Joan and her mission seriously. He appears to have treated the Maid as a mere visionary; but after an interview which the King gave her apart from the crowded gallery, when she is supposed to have revealed to him a secret known only to himself, his whole manner changed, and from that moment Joan exercised a strong influence over the man, all-vacillating as was his character. It has never been known what words actually passed in this private interview between the pair, but the subject probably was connected with a doubt that had long tortured the mind of the King—namely, whether he were legitimately the heir to the late King's throne. At any rate the impression Joan had produced on the King was, after that conversation, a favourable one, and Charles commanded that, instead of returning to her lodging in the town, Joan should be lodged in the castle.
The tower which she occupied still exists—one of the large circular towers on the third line of the fortifications. A gloomy-looking cryptal room on the ground floor was probably the one occupied by Joan. It goes by the name of Belier's Tower—a knight whose wife, Anne de Maille, bore a reputation for great goodness among the people of the Court. Close to Belier's Tower is a chapel within another part of the castle grounds, but the church which in those days stood hard by Joan's tower has long since disappeared—its site is now a mass of wild foliage.
While Joan was at Chinon, there arrived, from his three years' imprisonment in England, the young Duke of Anjou. Of all those who were attached to the Court and related to the French sovereign, this young Prince was the most sympathetic to Joan of Arc. He seems to have fulfilled the character of some hero of romance more than any of the French princes of that time, and Joan at once found in him a chivalrous ally and a firm friend. That she admired him we cannot doubt, and she loved to call him her knight.
Hurrying to Chinon, having heard of the Maid of Domremy's arrival, he found Joan with the King. Her enthusiasm was contagious with the young Prince, who declared how eagerly he would help her in her enterprise.
'The more there are of the blood royal of France to help in our enterprise the better,' answered Joan.
Many obstacles had still to be met before the King accorded liberty of action to the Maid. La Tremoïlle and others of his stamp threw all the difficulties they could suggest in the way of Joan of Arc's expedition to deliver Orleans: these men preferred their easy life at Chinon to the arbitrament of battle. In vain Joan sought the King and pressed him to come to a decision: one day he said he would consent to her progress, and the following he refused to give his consent. He listened to the Maid, but also to the courtiers, priests, and lawyers, and among so many counsellors he could come to no determination.
Joan during these days trained herself to the vocation which her career compelled her to follow. We hear of her on one occasion surprising the King and the Court by the dexterity with which she rode and tilted with a lance. From the young Duke of Alençon she received the gift of a horse; and the King carried out on a large scale what de Baudricourt had done on a small