The Life of Joan of Arc | Page 4

an advanced stage of Jeanne's
legend. For example, one cannot possibly attribute to a witness of the
siege the error made by the scribe concerning the fall of the Bridge of
Les Tourelles.[22] What is said on page 97 of P. Charpentier's and C.
Cuissart's edition concerning the relations of the inhabitants and the
men-at-arms seems out of place, and may very likely have been
inserted there to efface the memory of the grave dissensions which had

occurred during the last week. From the 8th of May the diary ceases to
be a diary; it becomes a series of extracts borrowed from Chartier, from
Berry, and from the rehabilitation trial. The episode of the big fat
Englishman slain by Messire Jean de Montesclère at the Siege of
Jargeau is obviously taken from the evidence of Jean d'Aulon in 1446;
and even this plagiarism is inaccurate, since Jean d'Aulon expressly
says he was slain at the Battle of Les Augustins.[23]
[Footnote 20: Journal du siège d'Orléans (1428-1429), ed. P.
Charpentier and C. Cuissart, Orléans, 1896, 8vo.]
[Footnote 21: The oldest copy extant is dated 1472 (MS. fr. 14665).]
[Footnote 22: Journal du siège d'Orléans (1428-1429), p. 87. Trial, vol.
iv, p. 162, note.]
[Footnote 23: Journal du siège, p. 97. Trial, vol. iii, p. 215.]
The chronicle entitled La Chronique de la Pucelle,[24] as if it were the
chief chronicle of the heroine, is taken from a history entitled Geste des
nobles François, going back as far as Priam of Troy. But the extract
was not made until the original had been changed and added to. This
was done after 1467. Even if it were proved that La Chronique de la
Pucelle is the work of Cousinot, shut up in Orléans during the siege, or
even of two Cousinots, uncle and nephew according to some, father and
son according to others, it would remain none the less true that this
chronicle is largely copied from Jean Chartier, the Journal du Siège and
the rehabilitation trial. Whoever the author may have been, this work
reflects no great credit upon him: no very high praise can be given to a
fabricator of tales, who, without appearing in the slightest degree aware
of the fact, tells the same stories twice over, introducing each time
different and contradictory circumstances. La Chronique de la Pucelle
ends abruptly with the King's return to Berry after his defeat before
Paris.
[Footnote 24: Chronique de la Pucelle, or Chronique de Cousinot, ed.
Vallet de Viriville, Paris, 1859, 16mo. (Bibliothèque Gauloise).]

Le Mystère du siège[25] must be classed with the chronicles. It is in
fact a rhymed chronicle in dialogue, and it would be extremely
interesting for its antiquity alone were it possible to do what some have
attempted and to assign to it the date 1435. The editors, and following
them several scholars, have believed it possible to identify this poem of
20,529 lines with a certain mistaire[26] played on the sixth anniversary
of the delivery of the city. They have drawn their conclusions from the
following circumstances: the Maréchal de Rais, who delighted to
organise magnificent farces and mysteries, was in Duke Charles's city
expending vast sums[27] there from September, 1434, till August, 1435;
in 1439 the city purchased out of its municipal funds "a standard and a
banner, which had belonged to Monseigneur de Reys and had been
used by him to represent the manner of the storming of Les Tourelles
and their capture from the English."[28] From such a statement it is
impossible to prove that in 1435 or in 1439, on May 8, there was acted
a play having the Siege for its subject and the Maid for its heroine. If,
however, we take "the manner of the storming of Les Tourelles" to
mean a mystery rather than a pageant or some other form of
entertainment, and if we consider the certain mistaire of 1435 as
indicating a representation of that siege which had been laid and raised
by the English, we shall thus arrive at a mystery of the siege. But even
then we must examine whether it be that mystery the text of which has
come down to us.
[Footnote 25: Mystère du Siège d'Orléans, first published by MM. F.
Guessard and E. de Certain, Paris, 1862, 4to, according to the only
manuscript, which is preserved in the Vatican Library.--Cf. Étude sur le
mystère du siège d'Orléans, by H. Tivier, Paris, 1868, 8vo.]
[Footnote 26: Trial, vol. v, p. 309.]
[Footnote 27: The Abbé E. Bossard and de Maulde, Gilles de Rais,
Maréchal de France, dit Barbe-Bleue (1404-1440), 2nd edition, Paris,
1886, 8vo, pp. 94-113.]
[Footnote 28: Un estandart et bannière qui furent à Monseigneur de
Reys pour faire la manière de l'assault comment les Tourelles furent
prinses sur les Anglois Mistère du siège, p.