Joan of Arc | Page 5

join the army, he said he would rather
throw her into the river than allow her to do so. An attempt was made
by her parents to induce her to marry. They tried their best, but Joan
would none of it; and bringing the case before the lawyers at Toul,
where she proved that she had never thought of marrying a youth
whom her parents required her to wed, she gained her cause and her
freedom.
In order to take the first step in her mission, Joan felt it necessary to
rely on some one outside her immediate family. A distant relation of
her mother's, one Durand Laxart, who with his wife lived in a little
village then named Burey-le-Petit (now called Burey-en-Vaux), near
Vaucouleurs, was the relation in whose care she placed her fate. With
him and his wife Joan remained eight days; and it might have been then
that the plan was arranged to hold an interview with Baudricourt at
Vaucouleurs, in order to see whether that knight would interest himself
in Joan's mission.
The interview took place about the middle of the month of May (1428),
and nothing could have been less propitious. A soldier named Bertrand
de Poulangy, who was one of the garrison of Vaucouleurs, was an
eye-witness of the meeting. He accompanied Joan of Arc later on to
Chinon, and left a record of the almost brutal manner with which
Baudricourt received the Maid. From this soldier's narrative we possess
one of the rare glimpses which have come down to us of the appearance
of the heroine: not indeed a description of what would be of such
intense interest as to make known to us the appearance and features of
her face; but he describes her dress, which was that then worn by the
better-to-do agricultural class of Lorraine peasant women, made of
rough red serge, the cap such as is still worn by the peasantry of her
native place.
It is much to be regretted that no portrait of Joan of Arc exists either in

sculpture or painting. A life-size bronze statue which portrayed the
Maid kneeling on one side of a crucifix, with Charles VII. opposite,
forming part of a group near the old bridge of Orleans, was destroyed
by the Huguenots; and all the portraits of Joan painted in oils are
spurious. None are earlier than the sixteenth century, and all are mere
imaginary daubs. In most of these Joan figures in a hat and feathers, of
the style worn in the Court of Francis I. From various contemporary
notices, it appears that her hair was dark in colour, as in Bastien
Lepage's celebrated picture, which supplies as good an idea of what
Joan may have been as any pictured representation of her form and face.
Would that the frescoes which Montaigne describes as being painted on
the front of the house upon the site of which Joan was born could have
come down to us. They might have given some conception of her
appearance. Montaigne saw those frescoes on his way to Italy, and says
that all the front of the house was painted with representations of her
deeds, but even in his day they were much injured.
When Joan at length stood before the knight of Vaucouleurs, she told
him boldly that she had come to him by God's command, and that she
was destined to give the King victory over the English. She even said
that she was assured that early in the following March this would be
accomplished, and that the Dauphin would then be crowned at Rheims,
for all these things had been promised to her through her Lord.
'And who is he?' asked de Baudricourt.
'He is the King of Heaven,' she answered.
The knight treated Joan's words with derision, and Joan herself with
insults; and thus ended the first of their interviews.
It was only in the season of Lent of the next year (March 1427) that
Joan again sought the aid of de Baudricourt. On the plea of attending
her cousin Laxart's wife's confinement, Joan returned to Burey-le-Petit.
She left Domremy without bidding her parents farewell; but it has been
recorded by one of her friends, named Mengeth, a neighbour of the
d'Arcs, that she told this woman of her intention of going to
Vaucouleurs, and recommended her to God's keeping, as if she felt that

she would not see her again. At Burey-le-Petit Joan remained between
the end of January until her departure for Chinon, on the 23rd of
February; and before taking final leave she asked and received her
parents' pardon for her abrupt departure from them.
While with the Laxarts, news reached Vaucouleurs that the English had
commenced the siege of Orleans. This intelligence brought matters to a
crisis, for with the