Joan made two trips to Vaucouleurs, the first in the spring of 1428. When she first told him about her mission to save France, the governor of Vaucouleurs, Sir Robert de Baudricourt, told Laxart to take her home and see that she got a beating. A few weeks after that interview, the village of Domremy suffered its first direct attack from Burgundian troops. Joan’s family and neighbors fled to the walled town of Neufchateau, where they stayed for about two weeks. They returned home to find the village church in ruins. Some historians speculate that the attack on Domremy was a warning to Joan to abandon her
Mission.
By now Joan’s mission to help the dauphin was common knowledge. Her father dreamed that he saw her leaving home in the company of soldiers. The dream upset him so much that he told his sons he’d rather see Joan dead than have her follow the army. He told Jean and Pierre to drown their sister before permitting her to become a camp follower. Jacques and Isabeau may have tried something less drastic than drowning to force Joan to give up her mission. In the summer or fall of 1428 Joan was summoned before a church court in the cathedral city of Toul. The charge was breach of promise. Because Joan had already taken a vow to remain a virgin until she’d completed her mission, it is not likely that she had betrothed herself willingly to anyone. At Toul Joan proved her ability to speak before ecclesiastical judges by successfully defending herself against the charge.
The events of 1428—Baudricourt’s rejection, the attack on Domremy, and the breach-of-promise suit—served only to strengthen Joan’s resolve. Then, in October or November, news came that the English had laid siege to the city of Orleans. If Orleans were to fall to the English, the cause of Charles VII would almost certainly be lost. Joan determined to seek a second audience with Baudricourt.
Joan’s second journey to Vaucouleurs took place in January 1429. She left home on the pretext of helping Laxart’s wife, her cousin Jeanne, with a new baby. The couple lived at Burey-le-Petit, a village only three miles from Vaucouleurs. Baudricourt again refused to help her, but this time Joan did not go home. She found lodgings with the Royer family in Vaucouleurs and proceeded to spread the word about her mission. She made friends with at least one of the governor’s men-at-arms, Jean de Metz. He was the first person of any rank to believe in her and her mission. When Joan finally did obtain an escort from Baudricourt, de Metz and a colleague, Bernard de Poulegny, financed the journey to the king’s residence at Chinon.
Vaucouleurs was a garrison town. Joan must have spent many hours in the vicinity of Baudricourt’s headquarters, waiting to be admitted and watching the soldiers as they drilled. A woman loitering about in a dress would certainly have been the target of prurient interest. By adopting doublet and hose, Joan greatly reduced the possibility of a spontaneous assault on her body. According to a description of her clothing recorded at her trial in 1431, Joan wore
Shirt, breeches, doublet, with hose joined together, long and fastened to the said doublet by twenty points, long leggings laced on the outside, a shot mantle reaching to the knee, or thereabouts, a close-cut cap, tight-fitting boots or buskins, long spurs, sword, dagger, breastplate, lance and other arms in the style of a man-at-arms.
Even Joan must have found this type of clothing an inconvenience. The hose were laced to the doublet in 20 places along the bottom edge, and then the leggings were pulled up over the hose.
Joan borrowed her first male outfit from Laxart. It must have fit none too well. DeMetz replaced it with a young servant’s hand-me-downs. Before her departure, Joan was fitted for a tailor-made page’s costume in black and gray, the gift of the citizens of Vaucouleurs. She would not wear a dress again until a few days before her death in 1431.
Joan’s clothing has received almost as much attention as her voices. Before the second half of the twentieth century, when trousers became acceptable public attire for women of all classes, defenders of Joan of Arc insisted that she wore doublet and hose to protect her virginity and for no other reason. Yet even when Joan passed nearly half a year in the protected environment of the Luxembourg home, she refused to put on women’s clothing. Joan’s choice of clothing, like her choice of a name, was an important part of the persona that set her apart. Men’s clothing freed Joan from the subservient role of a woman. It bestowed authority. For her friends it was acceptable because of the unusual nature of her mission. For her accusers it symbolized female depravity and heresy.
Joan did not wait passively for Baudricourt to grant her an escort to the king. During the nearly two months he refused to see her, she proclaimed her mission to the citizens of Vaucouleurs. The siege of Orleans that had begun in
October was on everyone’s mind. If the English succeeded in taking the city of Orleans, Charles VII would probably have to flee the country. The general view was that only a miracle could save him. People wanted to believe that God had not forsaken France. When 16-year-old Joan came along, calling herself “la Pucelle” and asserting that God had sent her to save France, people were ready to associate her with the “girl” of prophecies that had been circulating for several years.
Joan was a product of a time when most people saw the hand of God in every event. Christian kings employed court astrologers in an attempt to know the future. Prophecies mentioning a “girl” or a “maiden” began to attach themselves to Joan. One popular prophecy was “France, lost by a woman, will be restored by a maid.” Others mentioned a virgin carrying a banner, a virgin ascending the backs of archers, and a virgin coming from an oak wood to work miracles. Joan seemed to fit the prophecies: she called herself “la Pucelle” (“the Maid”); she wanted to drive the English forces, famous for their archers, out of France; an oak wood stood in the vicinity of her home. Before long, a frequently repeated prophecy was “France will be saved by a maiden from the marches of Lorraine.” As unusual and as difficult as Joan’s mission was, her way was paved by a widespread willingness to believe that she was the maid of the prophecies. The existence of these prophecies was at the root of both Joan’s acceptance by the French court in 1429 and the trouble and expense the English went to in 1431 to prove that Joan owed her successes to the devil.
Joan of Arc had a temper, but she was also blessed with good sense. Angry and impatient after nearly a month of waiting, she decided that she would go without Baudricourt’s help. Laxart and a friend bought a horse for her, and they set out for Chinon. They had not gone far when Joan realized that this was a bad idea, and they returned to Vaucouleurs. By then, news of the girl from the marches of Lorraine had reached the ears of the old duke of Lorraine, a vassal of the duke of Burgundy. Sending her a safe-conduct pass for the trip, the duke of Lorraine invited Joan to visit him at his home in Nancy, about 60 miles from Vaucouleurs. Accompanied as always by Laxart, and possibly by Jean de Metz, Joan went.
The duke of Lorraine was an old man, with many aches and pains. Although married, he’d been living for many years with a concubine, with whom he’d had five children. His chief interest in Joan seems to have been in determining whether she was the kind of holy woman who could cure his ailments. Joan was less than diplomatic. She told the duke that she wasn’t a healer but that she could give him some advice. She urged him to go back to his wife and pray. What the duke said is not recorded. He did, however, give Joan a little money before sending her back to Vaucouleurs. One account says that he gave her a horse.
Another clue that Joan was well informed about the French political situation is the fact that she asked the duke for the help of his “son.” In the closely entwined network of royal marriages, the duke of Lorraine’s son-in-law, Rene of Anjou, was Charles’s brother-in-law.
Joan’s visit to the duke of Lorraine marked a turning point in her efforts to obtain Baudricourt’s help. When she returned to Vaucouleurs, the governor agreed to receive her. During this third interview, on February 12, Joan told Baudricourt that a battle was taking place between the English and the French near the besieged city of Orleans and that the French were getting the worse of it. She said that she needed to be with the king before mid-Lent, about the middle of March. Shortly after this conversation, news of the battle of Rouvray reached Vaucouleurs. Better known as the Battle of the Herrings, this skirmish had occurred on February 12 between the French defenders of Orleans and an English supply train bringing food to the besiegers. The battle earned its nickname from the salted fish that got scattered about during the fighting. Perhaps because of Joan’s apparently miraculous knowledge of the battle, or perhaps because of her visit to the duke of Lorraine, Baudricourt finally made up his mind to provide her with an escort. Joan claimed that her voices belonged to divine messengers, but Baudricourt had to consider that the voices might be of the devil. Before granting Joan an escort and letter of introduction, he called for a priest to perform an exorcism over her. Joan submitted, but complained afterward that “It was wrong of him, for, having heard my confession, he ought to have known me.”
Upon Joan’s departure from Vaucouleurs on February 22 or 23, Baudri-court presented her with a sword and sent her on her way with the words, “Va! Va, et advienne que pourra” (“Go! Go, and come of this what may”).
The 270-mile journey from Vaucouleurs through enemy-occupied territory to the dauphin’s court at Chinon took 11 days. Joan’s escort included Jean de Metz, Bertrand de Poulegny, their servants, an archer, and a royal herald. The party rode at night much of the time and made the trip without incident. Joan’s greatest complaint was that she wasn’t able to hear Mass every day. Joan was unusual in her devotion to the Eucharist. In the fifteenth century most people received Communion once a year, at Easter. Joan received it frequently; according to one account, she took Communion every day. (One of her greatest torments later, as a prisoner in Rouen, was not being permitted to attend Mass or receive Communion.) When her party finally reached the town of Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois in French territory on March 3, Joan satisfied her spiritual hunger by hearing three masses in a row.
World History
