The Life of Joan of Arc | Page 3

13: Ibid., pp. 40-50. D. Godefroy, Histoire de Charles VII,
Paris, 1661, fol. pp. 369-474.]
Jean Chartier,[14] precentor of Saint-Denys, held the office of
chronicler of France in 1449. Two hundred years later he would have
been described as historiographer royal. His office may be divined from
the manner in which he relates Jeanne's death. After having said that
she had been long imprisoned by the order of John of Luxembourg, he
adds: "The said Luxembourg sold her to the English, who took her to
Rouen, where she was harshly treated; in so much that after long delay,
they had her publicly burnt in that town of Rouen, without a trial, of

their own tyrannical will, which was cruelly done, seeing the life and
the rule she lived, for every week she confessed and received the body
of Our Lord, as beseemeth a good catholic."[15] When Jean Chartier
says that the English burned her without trial, he means apparently that
the Bailie of Rouen did not pronounce sentence. Concerning the
ecclesiastical trial and the two accusations of lapse and relapse he says
not a word; and it is the English whom he accuses of having burnt a
good Catholic without a trial. This example proves how seriously the
condemnation of 1431 embarrassed the government of King Charles.
But what can be thought of a historian who suppresses Jeanne's trial
because he finds it inconvenient? Jean Chartier was extremely
weak-minded and trivial; he seems to believe in the magic of
Catherine's sword and in Jeanne's loss of power when she broke it;[16]
he records the most puerile of fables. Nevertheless it is interesting to
note that the official chronicler of the Kings of France, writing about
1450, ascribes to the Maid an important share in the delivery of Orléans,
in the conquest of fortresses on the Loire and in the victory of Patay,
that he relates how the King formed the army at Gien "by the counsel
of the said maid,"[17] and that he expressly states that Jeanne
caused[18] the coronation and consecration. Such was certainly the
opinion which prevailed at the Court of Charles VII. All that we have
to discover is whether that opinion was sincere and reasonable or
whether the King of France may not have deemed it to his advantage to
owe his kingdom to the Maid. She was held a heretic by the heads of
the Church Universal, but in France her memory was honoured, rather,
however, by the lower orders than by the princes of the blood and the
leaders of the army. The services of the latter the King was not desirous
to extol after the revolt of 1440. During this Praguerie,[19] the Duke of
Bourbon, the Count of Vendôme, the Duke of Alençon, whom the
Maid called her fair duke, and even the cautious Count Dunois had
been seen joining hands with the plunderers and making war on the
sovereign with an ardour they had never shown in fighting against the
English.
[Footnote 14: Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France,
ed. Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1858, 3 vols., 18mo. (Bibliothèque
Elzévirienne).]

[Footnote 15: Lequel Luxembourg la vendit aux Angloix, qui la
menèrent à Rouen, où elle fut durement traictée; et tellement que, après
grant dillacion de temps, sans procez, maiz de leur voulenté indeue, la
firent ardoir en icelle ville de Rouen publiquement ... qui fut bien
inhumainement fait, veu la vie et gouvernement dont elle vivoit, car elle
se confessoit et recepvoit par chacune sepmaine le corps de Nostre
Seigneur, comme bonne catholique.--Jean Chartier, Chronique de
Charles VII, roi de France, vol. i, p. 122.]
[Footnote 16: Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France,
vol. i, p. 122.]
[Footnote 17: Par l'admonestement de ladite Pucelle, Jean Chartier, vol.
i, p. 87.]
[Footnote 18: Fut cause, ibid., vol. i, p. 97.]
[Footnote 19: This revolt of the French nobles was so named because
various risings of a similar nature had taken place in the city of
Prague.--W.S.]
"Le Journal du Siège"[20] was doubtless kept in 1428 and 1429; but the
edition that has come down to us dates from 1467.[21] What relates to
Jeanne before her coming to Orléans is interpolated; and the
interpolator was so unskilful as to date Jeanne's arrival at Chinon in the
month of February, while it took place on March 6, and to assign
Thursday, March 10, as the date of the departure from Blois, which did
not occur until the end of April. The diary from April 28 to May 7 is
less inaccurate in its chronology, and the errors in dates which do occur
may be attributed to the copyist. But the facts to which these dates are
assigned, occasionally in disagreement with financial records and often
tinged with the miraculous, testify to