Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/590

576 the siege of Orleans, and to crown him, the rightful King of France, in the city of Rheims. Joan now gave way; there was nothing to he hoped from her parents but opposition; she therefore hastened secretly to Vaucouleurs, to an uncle there, who was a simple, pious man, and who had often excited her childish feelings by taking her on his knee, and telling her sorrowful stories of the wars of France. The old man, a wheelwright by trade, at once went with her to the governor. Baudricourt at first refused to see her; when she was, at length, through her importunity, admitted, he looked upon her as crazed, and told her uncle that he should send her back to her parents again, and that she ought to be well whipped. Joan said, "It was her Lord's work, and she must do it." "Who is your lord?" asked Baudricourt. "The King of Heaven!" replied Joan. This satisfied the governor of her insanity, and he rudely dismissed her. But Joan still remained at Vaucouleurs, daily praying before the high altar in the church, and asserting that the voices urged her day and night to proceed and execute her mission. The rumour of this strange maiden flew rapidly through the town and the surrounding country; the sight of her modesty and piety, and the fame of her past pure and devout life, brought numbers of people to see her, and amongst others men of high note. The Duke of Lorraine, who was labouring under an incurable disease, sent to seek her art, as a woman possessed of supernatural powers; but Joan, with that clearness and simplicity which marked her throughout, replied, "That she had no mission to him; he had never been named to her by her voices." On all such occasions her language and conduct were the same. She was totally devoid of anything like wildness and extravagance; clear in intellect; self-possessed and single in her one purpose—to relieve Orleans and crown the king. When afterwards one Friar Richard told her he could bring a woman to her who possessed supernatural powers, and who might help her, she replied, "I have nothing to do with her: the Lord has given me my work, and he will enable me to do it." She added, "Since the Sieur de Baudricourt will not listen to me, I will set out to King Charles on foot, though I should wear my legs down to my knees on the road; for neither dukes nor kings, nor yet the daughter of the King of Scotland, can raise up this suffering France. There is no help but in me. And yet, in sooth, how much rather would I stay at home and spin by my mother's side, for this is work that I am not used to; but I must do it, since my Lord wills it."

Baudricourt was compelled by the public voice to take charge of her; but not before he had tested her by a priest and the sprinkling of holy water, that she was no sorceress, nor possessed of the devil. The Seigneurs de Metz and Bortrand de Poulengi, who had conceived full faith in her, offered to accompany her, with her brother Peter, two servants, a king's messenger, and Richard, an archer of the royal guard. The journey thus undertaken in the middle of February, 1429, was, according to ordinary ideas, little short of an act of madness. The distance from Vaucouleurs to Chinon in Tourraine, where Charles's court lay, was 150 leagues, through a country abounding with hostile garrisons, and, where they were absent, with savage marauders. But Joan declared that they should go in perfect safety, and they did so. Joan rode boldly, in man's attire, and with a sword by her side, but they saw not even a single enemy. In ten days they arrived at Fierbois, a few miles from Chinon, and she sent to inform the king of her desire to wait upon him.

When the advent of so singular a champion was announced to the frivolous Charles, he burst into a loud fit of laughter. Though he was in the condition in which men catch at straws, there was something in this affair which appeared to him ludicrous, and, if he entertained it, likely to cast ridicule upon him and his cause. Some of his counsellors advised him to see her; others treated the proposition as the height of absurdity. For three days the court continued divided, and Charles unable to decide. At length it was agreed that she should be admitted; and, to test her pretensions to superhuman direction, Charles was to pass for a private person, and one of the princes to represent him. But Joan discovered the king at a glance; and, walking up to him with serious and unembarrassed all, through all the crowd of staring courtiers, bent her knee, and said, "God give you good life, gentle king!" Charles was surprised, but replied, pointing to another part of the hall, "I am not the king: he is there."

"In the name of God," rejoined Joan, "it is not they, but you who are the king. I am, most noble king, Joan the maid, sent of God to aid you and the kingdom, and by his name I announce to you that you will be crowned in the city of Rheims."

Charles took her aside; and, after an earnest conversation with her, he declared that she had told him things which were known to no one but himself and God, and that he believed that she was really sent for the delivery of France. Probably the monarch—who was not of a nature to be impressed with anything of an elevated order—had now caught the idea that the peasant girl was shrewd enough to use as a political engine. The nest day she was shown in public on horseback. She appeared about seventeen; her figure was slender and graceful, and her hair fell in rich jetty locks on her shoulders. She ran a course with a lance, and managed her horse with the utmost address. The people were struck with admiration, and with loud shouts testified their belief in her.

But the timid Charles again hesitated, and conveyed her to Poictiers to be examined before the Parliament by the most learned doctors and subtle theologians. For three weeks she was interrogated and cross-questioned in all ways. Every kind of erudite trap was laid for her, but in vain. She had but one story—that she was sent to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown the king at Rheims, now in the hands of his enemies. When asked for a miracle, she replied, "Send me to Orleans, with an escort of men-at-arms, and you shall soon see the true sign of the truth of my mission—the raising of the siege." "When not before the council, she passed her time in retirement and prayer. Having passed the most searching ordeal of the prelates and doctors, and the repeated application of holy water, she was once more brought out, armed cap-à-pie, with her banner borne before her, and equipped at all points like a knight. Mounted on a white charger, she ran a tilt with a lance, keeping such a firm seat, and displaying so steady an eye, that the soldiers and watching multitudes were enraptured.