Joan, Maid of France

By J. Christopher Herold

Acclaimed author J. Christopher Herold wrote extensively on French Historical subjects for an adult audience, but here gives a fascinating account of the life of Joan of Arc for a younger audience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
• Release date: Oct 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781787201156

Book preview

This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books—[e-mail]

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1952 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

JOAN, MAID OF FRANCE

BY

J. CHRISTOPHER HEROLD

Illustrated by Frederick T. Chapman

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 5

THE VILLAGE AND THE TREE 7

THE VOICES 15

THE DECISION 22

THE DAUPHIN 28

GIVE US A SIGN! 34

TO ORLÉANS! 43

GLASDALE, SURRENDER! 49

THE SIGN IS GIVEN 57

THE FORTUNE OF WAR 68

KING CHARLES THE WELL-SERVED 82

TIME IS RUNNING SHORT 91

THE LEAP 101

THE BLAZE OF VICTORY 106

AFTERMATH 117

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 120

DEDICATION

To my Mother

THE VILLAGE AND THE TREE

ON a grey February day, in the ancient city of Rouen, a prisoner was being led in chains across the courtyard of the royal castle. Faces were watching from every window along the bleak palace walls, watching curiously and in silence. Half hidden by an escort of men-at-arms, the prisoner entered the door of the king’s chapel. A court of justice had assembled there.

This was in the year 1431, more than five hundred years ago. The soldiers who were leading the prisoner were English soldiers. Half of France, and Rouen with it, had been conquered by the English in war. And in the dark castle of Rouen there lived an English king. Henry the Sixth, by the grace of God, King of England and of France, he called himself, though he was barely ten years old.

The prisoner seemed able to walk only by a great effort. His hair was cut short in a circle above the ears, as was the fashion for men. If his hair had been longer, one might have taken him for a young page-boy—and one might have wondered why so frail a child should have been thus loaded with chains and guarded with pikes and halberds. But the fact was that the prisoner was neither a boy nor a man. The prisoner was a young woman—the one person in France whom the English feared and hated most. They would cross themselves when her name was mentioned, for she was the witch who had led the French against the English armies and defeated them in battle after battle. She had threatened that no Englishmen were to remain on the soil of France except dead Englishmen.

But now, at last, the English had got hold of her and a court of churchmen was to try her as a witch and a heretic. Her judges were all Frenchmen who had sold out to the English. They would see to it that she was burned at the stake, for in those days people believed in witches, and witches were burned. The court was waiting for her—its president, Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, and some fifty other judges, clerks, and notaries, all in their priestly or monastic robes. They looked grim as she, alone, without counsel or defender, faced them for the first time in the taper-lit chapel.

When she had sworn to tell the truth, the bishop asked her to state her name.

In my village, she answered, they called me Jeannette, and after I came to France they called me Joan.

Her voice was clear, unafraid, and quiet.

The bishop kept on questioning her, while the clerks wrote down her answers. Where was she born? Who were her parents? Where was she baptized? And on, and on, and on. Joan answered patiently.

I was born in the village of Domremy. My father’s name was Jacques d’Arc, my mother’s, Isabeau. I was baptized in the church of Domremy. One of my godmothers was called Agnes, another Joan, another Sibilla. I had several other godmothers, as I have heard my mother say.

The English nobles and their ladies who had come to watch the trial stared at her. She certainly did not look like a witch or speak like a witch. But the Devil, they knew, could take on the most innocent disguises. For how, without the aid of the Devil, could this peasant girl have made cowards out of English soldiers, the bravest there were? And it was she, the girl standing there, they thought with shame and anger, to whom they had shown their heels. How old could she be?

How old are you? the bishop droned on. He was fat and looked like a pig. His name was Cauchon, and Cauchon is pronounced cochon, which means pig in French.

About nineteen years, it seems to me.

Joan had become a little absent-minded and drowsy. What difference did it make how old she was?

Who has taught you your religion?

Joan came back to life. "My mother taught me the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and the Creed. Nobody else has instructed me in my faith, only my mother."

The first day of the trial soon came to an end, and Joan was taken back to her dungeon. But, in the following days, the judges kept coming back at her again and again, with their questions on her childhood in Domremy. What did they want to prove? What sort of child had she been?

*****

Domremy is a small village in the east of France. At the time when Joan was born, in January, 1412, it was right on the border between the kingdom of France and the duchy of Lorraine. Jacques d Arc’s house, where Joan was born, was barely inside France, but part of his garden, it seems, was in Lorraine. It was a modest, low-built house, for Jacques d’Arc was a simple peasant. But it was large enough, and built of solid stone. As peasants went in those days, Jacques d’Arc was fairly well off. The biggest room was the kitchen, which was also the living room. It had a large hearth, and pots and pans hung neatly from the walls. There were a spinning wheel, and Joan’s cradle, and some rough wooden tables, benches, and beds. Here Isabeau, Jacques’ wife, would sit or stand most of the day, cooking and sewing and spinning and minding the baby, while her husband was off in the fields, working. At night, the whole family would sleep here, especially in winter, and whoever slept nearest the hearth slept best. Built on to the house was the shed where the sheep, sows, and oxen were stabled. The older children—Joan’s brothers, Jacques and Jean, or her sister Catherine—would take the animals out to graze on the common pasture. They would meet the other children of the village there, who had come with their cattle. Grazing the cattle was a pleasure rather than a chore. The dogs did most of the work. But Jacques’ work was hard. His fields were little strips of land scattered here and there, and to get to them and then walk from one strip to the other was wearisome.

Behind Jacques d’Arc’s house there was a garden, with some fruit trees and vegetable beds. A brook ran through it. It came from three springs, and they called it simply the Brook of the Three Springs. And from the garden you could see the church of Domremy, where Joan had been baptized. It still stands there, with its square belfry, and so does Jacques’ house next to it. Joan grew up to the sound of its bells. At dawn, at noon, and at dusk they would ring for prayer every day: three rings a pause—three rings—a pause—three rings—a pause—and nine rings. And Isabeau soon taught Jeannette to cross herself when she heard the bells, and to say her prayer, wherever she was.

From the doorstep of her father’s house, Jeannette could see a forest, called the Oak Wood, and beyond the forest, rolling hills. Right near the village, also, the river Meuse wound its way through the hills. There was an island in it, with a half-ruined castle. That castle belonged to Sir Pierre de Bourlemont, the local lord, but he did not live there. He had another castle, a fine one, farther to the south.

Jacques d’Arc was rather an important man at Domremy. The peasants had chosen him village elder. This meant that he was in charge of collecting taxes, of making public announcements, and of commanding the watch in times of danger. He could read and write, which was more than most peasants could do in his time, and he sent his three boys to school. But for girls to learn to read and write would have been pure luxury. It was of use only to fine ladies in their castles, who spent their days reading endless romances about knights and fairies and sorcerers and damsels in distress. Catherine, Jacques’ older daughter, had learned all she needed to know from her mother. Soon she would marry and have her hands full with her own family. Jeannette, as soon as she was old enough, helped her parents by taking the animals out to graze. Her mother taught her to sew and spin and to take care of the household. In the end, God willing, Jeannette would find a husband, too.

This is what Jacques and Isabeau d’Arc thought. If they were mistaken they cannot be blamed, for Jeannette was a child like any other child. She would run about in her coarse little dress and her wooden shoes, her dark hair flying in the wind, with her friends Hauviette and Mengette, and they would play games and chatter endlessly until they remembered that they had to go home. There always was plenty to talk about—ordinary gossip as well as stories of fairies and witchcraft that made their spines tingle pleasantly. Their favourite spot was an ancient beech tree, on top of a hill, between the village and the Oak Wood. It was not an ordinary tree, and it had its own curious name...

*****

Can you remember a certain tree that was near your village?

The judge’s voice sounded expectant, as if he had sprung a trap.

Not far from Domremy, Joan answered, there is a certain tree. It is called the Ladies’ Tree by some, and by others the Fairy Tree. Nearby there is a spring. I have heard it said that people ill with fever come to drink at that spring, or have its water brought to them, to recover their health. I have seen it myself, but whether they were cured by it or not I do not know. I have heard it said that the sick, when they are well enough to get up, go to the tree to dally there. It is a large tree, and from it comes the fair May.

(Joan meant to say that from the tree came the branches that the villagers cut to decorate their houses when they celebrated the coming of May.) She went on speaking of the tree, for its memory was still sweet to her: It belonged, they say, to Sir Pierre de Bourlemont, knight. Sometimes I went there to play with the other girls, and under that tree I made wreaths of flowers for the image of Our Lady in the church of Domremy. Several times I have heard old people tell—but none of my family—that the Fairy Ladies gathered there. But I do not know if that is true or not. I never saw a fairy under the tree—not that I know.

And have you seen any elsewhere? the judge went on.

I do not know, said Joan. "I have seen the young girls hang wreaths of flowers on the branches of the tree, and I myself sometimes hung them there, with the other girls....And I do not remember if I danced under the tree after I had reached the age of reason. It may well be that I danced there with the children; but I have sung