The Life of Joan of Arc | Page 5

could the vampire of Machecoul have been represented to the people of Orléans as fighting for their deliverance? How could the Maid and Blue Beard be associated in a heroic action? It is hard to answer such a question, because we cannot possibly tell how much of that kind of thing could be tolerated by the barbarism of those rude old times. Perhaps our text itself, if properly examined, will be found to contain internal evidence as to whether it is of an earlier or later date than 1440.
The bastard of Orléans was created Count of Dunois on July 14, 1439.[29] The lines of the mystery, in which he is called by this title, cannot therefore be anterior to that date. They are numerous, and, by a singularity which has never been explained, are all in the first third of the book. When Dunois reappears later he is the Bastard again. From this fact the editors of 1862 concluded that five thousand lines were prefixed to the primitive text subsequently, although they in no way differ from the rest, either in language, style, or prosody. But may the rest of the poem be assigned to 1435 or 1439?
[Footnote 29: Mistère du siège, preface, p. x.]
That is not my opinion. In the lines 12093 and 12094 the Maid tells Talbot he will die by the hand of the King's men. This prophecy must have been made after the event: it is an obvious allusion to the noble captain's end, and these lines must have been written after 1453.
Six years after the siege no clerk of Orléans would have thought of travestying Jeanne as a lady of noble birth.
In line 10199 and the following of the "Mistère du Siège" the Maid replies to the first President of the Parlement of Poitiers when he questions her concerning her family:
"As for my father's mansion, it is in the Bar country; and he is of gentle birth and rank right noble, a good Frenchman and a loyal."[30]
[Footnote 30:
Quant est de l'ostel de mon père, Il est en pays de Barois; Gentilhomme et de noble afaire Honneste et loyal Fran?ois.
Mistère du siège, pp. 397-398.]
Before a clerk would write thus, Jeanne's family must have been long ennobled and the first generation must have died out, which happened in 1469; there must have come into existence that numerous family of the Du Lys, whose ridiculous pretensions had to be humoured. Not content with deriving their descent from their aunt, the Du Lys insisted on connecting the good peasant Jacquot d'Arc with the old nobility of Bar.
Notwithstanding that Jeanne's reference to "her father's mansion" conflicts with other scenes in the same mystery, this lengthy work would appear to be all of a piece.
It was apparently compiled during the reign of Louis XI, by a citizen of Orléans who was a fair master of his subject. It would be interesting to make a more detailed study of his authorities than has been done hitherto. This poet seems to have known a Journal du siège very different from the one we possess.
Was his mystery acted during the last thirty years of the century at the festival instituted to commemorate the taking of Les Tourelles? The subject, the style, and the spirit are all in harmony with such an occasion. But it is curious that a poem composed to celebrate the deliverance of Orléans on May 8 should assign that deliverance to May 9. And yet this is what the author of the mystery does when he puts the following lines into the mouth of the Maid:
"Remember how Orléans was delivered in the year one thousand four hundred and twenty-nine, and forget not also that of May it was the ninth day."[31]
[Footnote 31:
... Ayez en souvenance.... Comment Orléans eult délivrance.... L'an mil iiijc xxix; Faites en mémoire tous dis; Des jours de may ce fut le neuf.
Mistère du siège, lines 14375-14381, p. 559.]
Such are the chief chroniclers on the French side who have written of the Maid. Others who came later or who have only dealt with certain episodes in her life, need not be quoted here; their testimony will be best examined when we come to that of the facts in detail. Placing on one side any information to be obtained from La Chronique de l'établissement de la fête,[32] from La Relation[33] of the Clerk of La Rochelle and other contemporary documents, we are now in a position to realise that if we depended on the French chroniclers for our knowledge of Jeanne d'Arc we should know just as much about her as we know of Sakya Muni.
[Footnote 32: Trial, vol. v, pp. 285 et seq.]
[Footnote 33: Relation inédite sur Jeanne d'Arc, extraite du livre noir de l'h?tel de ville de La Rochelle, ed. J. Quicherat, Orléans, 1879, 8vo, and La