PREFACE
The following Document concerning the story of the life and death of Jeanne dArc, Maid of Orleans, is probably the only known instance in which a complete biographical record, of historical importance, has been elicited by evidence taken on oath. These depositions cover the childhood of the Maid; the series of her military exploits as Commander-in-Chief of the armies of France; her capture, imprisonment, and death at the stake in the market-place of Rouen.
The official Latin text of the Trial and Rehabilitation of Jeanne dArc, rescued from oblivion among the archives of France, and published in the forties by Quicherat, has been faithfully, and now for the first time, rendered into English. This account, given by numerous contemporary witnesses, of an episode which profoundly affected the history of Europe and determined the destinies of England and France must appeal to the general reader no less than to the student.
INTRODUCTION
By the order of Pope Calixtus in 1455, the Trial of Jeanne dArc at Rouen, which had taken place twenty-four years before, was reconsidered by a great court of lawyers and churchmen, and the condemnation of Jeanne was solemnly annulled and declared wicked and unjust. By this re-trial posterity has been allowed to see the whole life of the village maiden of Domremy, as she was known first to her kinsfolk and her neighbours, and afterwards to warriors, nobles and churchmen who followed her extraordinary career. The evidence so given is unique in its minute and faith-worthy narration of a great and noble life; as indeed that life is itself unique in all human history. After all that can be done by the rationalising process, the mystery remains of an untutored and unlettered girl of eighteen years old, not only imposing her will upon captains and courtiers, but showing a skill and judgment worthy, as General Dragomiroff says, of the greatest commanders, indeed of Napoleon himself. While we must give due weight and consideration to the age in which this marvel showed itself on the stage of history, an age of portents and prophecies, of thaumaturgists and saints, yet when all allowance is made there remains this sane, strong, solid girl leaving her humble home, and in two short months accomplishing more than Csar or Alexander accomplished in so much time, and at an age when even Alexander had as yet achieved nothing.
The story is best given by the witnesses, and only indications or, so to speak, sign-posts are needed to point out the way. Before the work of Jeanne can be even vaguely apprehended something must be known of how France stood at her coming. A century of misfortune and sorrow, broken only by a parenthesis of comparative prosperity from 1380 to 1407, had left her an easy prey to the hereditary enemy. Torn asunder by factions which distracted Church and State alike, she was in no condition of health and courage to recover from the shock of the crushing disaster of Agincourt. For although the English were unable at the moment to follow up the victory they had gained, and Henry V. returned to England the bearer of barren glory, still the breathing time was not put to good account by the French, whose domestic jars made combined national action impossible. At Henrys second coming, regular resistance was hardly offered. His fleets and armies held the Channel and the ports and fortresses on both sides. The King of France was insane. His wife, Isabel of Bavaria, came to terms with the English King, and by the treaty of Troyes (1420) the Crown of France was to pass away from the Dauphin, whom his wretched mother would fain bastardise, to the issue of Henry and the Princess Catherine, the ready instrument of her mothers purpose. When Henry V. died the son born of this unhallowed marriage was declared King of France and England under the title of Henry VI. The poor child was less than a year old. His able and resolute uncle John, Duke of Bedford, ruled France as Regent, and carried the arms of England in triumph against all who dared to dispute his nephews title. The Dauphin fled to the south, and abandoned to Bedford all territory north of the Loire. Paris was occupied and held by the English. The braver members of the Parliament and the University joined the Dauphin at Poitiers, but the accommodating and timid members did homage to Bedford and duly attorned to Henry VI. as to their lawful King. Orleans alone remained, of the strong places of France, in the hands of the patriot party. If Orleans fell, all organised opposition to Bedford would melt away.
As Orleans was the key of the military, so was Rheims the key of the political, situation. Rheims was the old city where for many centuries the Kings of France had been crowned and consecrated. Such a ceremony brought with it in an especial manner the sacrosanct divinity which in the middle ages hedged a King.
It is noteworthy that Jeannes mission, as now defined and traced by French scholars, was the double one of rescuing beleaguered Orleans and crowning the Dauphin at Rheims.
Orleans had withstood a stubborn siege of many months, but its fate seemed sealed. The Dauphin had almost given up the struggle. He had made futile appeals for help to the King of Scotland, whose infant daughter was betrothed to young Louis, afterwards the terrible Louis XI. To Naples also he made appeals, but no succour or hope came, and in despair he shut himself up at Chinon, giving up the cause of France as lost unless aid came from on high. Jeanne came as the messenger of glad tidings, and announced herself as one sent by God to aid France in her extreme need.
She came from Lorraine, out of which no good thing could come, as proverbs taught; for Lorraine had ever been branded as false to God and false to man. Ambiguous in its relations to France and to the Empire, it had, like most borderlands, the unstableness of character which comes of social and political insecurity. Jeannes native town of Domremy was one of a cluster of hamlets on the verge of France, in the smiling valley through which a winding river made its way. Her father and mother were in a very humble station, having a little patch of land with rights of commonage on the village pastures, and were, from the evidence of their neighbours, frugal, hard-working, and well thought of.
Jeanne herself was in no way marked out from her girl friends by any special accomplishments or ambition. She prided herself solely on her domestic usefulness and her skill in household work. She was intensely pious, but in no way introspective or morbid. God and His angels and saints were as real to her, more real indeed, than the men and women of her native village. The thoughts of sacred things subdued her soul to an unconsciousness of self, which marks her off even from such beautiful spiritual natures as Teresa and Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Sienna, whose habit of mind was less simple and less humble than hers. She seems to have grieved long and deeply on the misfortunes of France, which was to her the only country claiming her allegiance. For, although geographically in Lorraine, Domremy was part of the French Kingdom, and its people were devotedly on the side of the Dauphin and the national party. The Duke of Burgundy, who had sided with the English, had only one adherent in Domremy, and he was treated, after the manner of good-natured peasants, with a certain humorous toleration by the patriots of the village.
