On to Reims!

After the siege of Orléans was lifted thanks to Jeanne d'Arc's motivation and inspiration, she insisted there push on to Reims, the traditional site of coronation for the kings of France. The Dauphin, Charles, let her go ahead with the army to clear a path. Doing so meant gaining control of all the bridges over the Loire River.

The army set out on this task on 11 June 1429. Jeanne, as before, was not shy about battle. While besieging the town of Jargeau, she scaled a ladder against the wall, only to be struck in the head by a stone that cracked her helmet. Jargeau was taken and many English were executed.

Beaugency, a castle along the south bank of the Loire, was the next target. Those holding Beaugency, unaware that help was on its way under the command of Sir John Fastolf, surrendered on the 18th. The main English army in the region was on the north bank, and they retreated toward Paris. On Jeanne's advice, the French pursued, caught up, and the Battle of Patay took place on the same day.

The English tried to repeat the tactic that worked at Agincourt: a barrier of stakes to stop any cavalry, and long bowmen to rain arrows on the enemy. They did not know how close behind the French were, however, and so while finding a place to make their stand, the French sent archers to the sides of the road to ambush the English. The following battle is estimated to have cost the English over 2000 deaths out of 5000. Most of the rest were captured. The French declared only 100 dead or wounded.

The wild success of Patay encouraged the French leaders to want to push on to Normandy and continue taking land back and driving English out, but Jeanne insisted that Reims and a coronation of Charles was of primary importance. Charles agreed, and on 29 June the march to Reims began. Towns along the way offered no resistance, except for Troyes with a garrison of English and Burgundians (rivals of the Dauphin's Armagnac party). They held out for four days, until Jeanne ordered the moat to be filled with wood. Fearing that the city would be destroyed by fire, Troyes surrendered.

The Dauphin, Jeanne, and the Armagnacs marched in to Reims unopposed on the evening of 16 July. The Dauphin was crowned Charles VII the next morning at Reims Cathedral, with Jeanne prominent in the ceremony. (The statue of her above is outside Reims Cathedral.)

Charles was now king, and proceeded to negotiate a fifteen-day truce with the Duke of Burgundy, his cousin who had driven him from Paris years earlier. They would agree to a peaceful transfer of Paris from the Duke and Burgundians to Charles and the Armagnacs, but at the end of the fifteen days the Duke reneged.

If Charles wanted Paris, he would have to fight for it. Let's talk about that next time.

Joan of Arc

The historical figure we call Joan of Arc was born Jeanne d'Arc c.1412 in northeast France. During a crucial time in the Hundred Years War, she managed to gain an audience with the Dauphin, the rightful heir to the French throne, who was having trouble not only with the English but also with his own countrymen.

They met in late February or early March at the Dauphin's court in Chinon, where he had retired since being driven from the capital, Paris, years earlier. Orléans was under siege at the time, and she told the Dauphin that she had come to raise the siege and ensure his coronation. This was based on a series of visions she had.

Not willing to accept the seventeen-year-old illiterate peasant girl at her word, she was sent to theologians at Poitiers to be examined. Her strong Catholic upbringing was in her favor, but they could not agree that she was in fact seeing visions of St. Michael and others. Still, if she went to Orléans and was successful, that would be the best test of her claims. First she was sent to Tours where the Dauphin's mother, Yolande of Aragon, led a team of women who examined her physically and determined that she was, indeed, a virgin as she claimed. The prophecy that a virgin would be France's savior might have been satisfied by this girl, after all.

The Dauphin was sufficiently convinced that he commissioned plate armor for his maiden warrior. She gained a sword, brought from under the altar in the church at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois. The Armagnac faction was severely demoralized at this point in the face of the Burgundian and English occupation, but Jeanne's arrival, her constant optimism, and her profound and public assurances of the divine support of their cause inspired the troops. Before going to raise the siege of Orléans in April of 1429, she dictated a letter to be delivered to the Duke of Bedford, warning him that she would drive him out of France.

She and the troops arrived at Orléans on 29 April. They managed to get her into the city where she was initially treated as a symbol, with no part in the military attempt to fight back. On 4 May, the Armagnac troops in Orléans took the offensive. Jeanne always seemed to be in the thick of the fighting, and gained the respect of the troops and their commanders, who sometimes even accepted her suggestions on where to focus their forces.

The next day was Ascension Thursday, commemorating the bodily ascension of Jesus to Heaven after the Resurrection, and therefore a day when no fighting was allowed by the Church. Jeanne dictated another letter to the English to leave France; it was tied to a crossbow bolt and fired at the enemy. On the next two days, the Armagnacs made progress, but each time they wanted to stop and consolidate their gains, Jeanne urged them to continue the forward offensive. Their progress continued from 5 - 7 May, when they attacked the main English stronghold. Jeanne, holding her banner, got an arrow in her shoulder but was part of the successful assault. On 8 May it was clear that Orléans was free of danger from the English.

For the French, like theologian Jean Gerson, the liberation of Orléans satisfied Jeanne's claim that she was sent by God. To the English, it clearly affirmed that the power behind her came from the devil.

She was famous, and there was more to come. See you next time.

Question of Succession

When Charles VI died in October 1422, the Treaty of Troyes determined that the Crown would pass to Henry V of England or his successor. Henry had died a couple months before, on 31 August, and his successor was his son, Henry VI, who was only 10 months old.

Of course there were people in France who did not ant to abide by the Treaty of Troyes, giving Charles VI's mental instability at the signing. They considered the Dauphin—Charles VI's eldest surviving son Charles—the rightful heir.

Even so, there were some who questioned the legitimacy of the Dauphin's birth, and supported the claim of his cousin Charles, the Duke of Orléans. One problem with that choice: the Duke of Orléans had been a captive of the English since the Battle of Agincourt. Henry had disallowed a ransom for Orléans' release, considering him too close to the line of succession to the French throne and (rightly) assuming he would be a threat to the terms of Troyes. (Spoiler: he would not be released until 1440!) The illustration represents him in the Tower of London.

Because of Agincourt, England already occupied northern France, including Paris. Henry V's brother, John Duke of Bedford, was regent for the child Henry and was put in control of France.

Charles and his people decided to ignore Troyes and continue the Hundred Years War. He gained some land back, executing any Frenchman who sided with the English. In December 1422 he married Marie of Anjou, the daughter of Yolande of Aragon, Duchess of Anjou and Countess of Provence, giving him an alliance that might prove useful.

Although he claimed the title King of France, he did not achieve any significant progress driving the English out of France. He operated out of Chinon. By 1429, Charles' future was looking particularly bleak because of advances by the Duke of Bedford.

Then, on 23 February 1429, a young girl arrived in Chinon to meet with the Dauphin. She was about 16 years old, from the village of Domrémy, and she had demanded of a garrison commander that he assemble an escort to take her to the Dauphin, because she had been given a mission in a vision.

Her name was Jeanne, and we will begin her part of the story next time.

Charles VII of France

Charles was born on 22 February 1403, the third "Charles" of his father's sons. His father was King Charles VI, and had a son Charles who was born and died in 1386, then a son named Charles who lived from 1392 to 1401. (He had two additional older brothers, but they died in 1415 and 1417, respectively.) You might say that the third Charles was lucky, but only if you did not know what the rest of his life was like.

His (surviving) older brothers had each held the title Dauphin of France, declaring them heirs apparent to the French throne; their deaths without children (although each had been married young) left the title Dauphin to Charles in 1417. This was no guarantee of succession, however.

In May 1418 the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, invaded Paris. He was a cousin of the current king, Charles VI, whom everyone realized was mentally unwell. Reducing a lot of rivalries to simple terms: the defeat at the Battle of Agincourt angered the Burgundians, who blamed the king and his Armagnac supporters for mismanagement. John felt he should take over, so he established himself in the capital, Paris, but the Dauphin escaped the night before, going to Bourges where he would be safe.

Charles actually set up a court and a parliament in Bourges, and he was referred to sarcastically in Paris as "King of Bourges." Charles did not have the support to challenge John directly, so he agreed to meet and discuss a treaty. The two met on 11 July 1419 at a bridge where they signed the Treaty of Pouilly-le-Fort, in which they agreed to share government and not sign any treaties with other parties without discussing it first with each other. They also agreed to a second meeting on 10 September.

With peace established between them, the second meeting took place as planned. John figured he had nothing to fear, so he arrived with a small contingent of men. The Dauphin's men assassinated Duke John.

I'll pause to point out that this was during the period known as the Hundred Years War. The Battle of Agincourt had been so devastating to the French that the English were in a position to make the terms. Henry V of England had taken Charles VI's daughter Catherine of Valois (Charles VII's sister) as his wife, and their son would rule both England and France. This arrangement was supposed to be the end of hostilities forever.

The result of the assassination of the Duke of Burgundy was that his son and heir, Philip the Good, aged 24, continued the hostilities between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. He also made an alliance with Henry V. A few years later, he married his sister to the English Duke of Bedford, who was regent for Henry's son Henry VI, who was intended to be the king of both countries. Although he did not involve himself directly in major conflicts of the Hundred Years War, Philip was constantly involved in more local conflicts. It was Philip, however, who in 1430 would capture Joan of Arc and turn her over to the English.

But there's a lot that happened in France between now and then, and we'll go into more detail tomorrow.

Christine and Joan

One of the last written works by Christine de Pizan was the poem Ditié de Jehanne d'Arc ("The Tale of Joan of Arc"), published mere weeks after the coronation of Charles VII (17 July 1429). Two complete manuscripts of the poem have survived. This is the only work about Joan of Arc that was written in her lifetime. Christine never mentions here or anywhere the capture of Joan by the English, and it is assumed that Christine's death took place in 1430, preceding Joan's capture in May of that year.

Her opening prologue of a dozen stanzas offer us a bit of autobiography as well as her emotions about the end of the war, showing us a tremendous surge in national pride and optimism over the end of the war and the restoration of the original monarchy:

I.
I, Christine, who have wept for eleven years in a walled
abbey where I have lived ever since Charles (how strange
this is!) the King’s son–dare I say it?–fled in haste
from Paris, I who have lived enclosed there on account of
the treachery, now, for the first time, begin to laugh;

III.
In 1429 the sun began to shine again. It brings back the
good, new season which had not really been seen for a
long time–and because of that many people had lived
out their lives in sorrow; I myself am one of them. But I
no longer grieve over anything, now that I can see what I desire.

The following 49 stanzas tell us the story of the civil war, the first of which immediately credits the efforts of Joan of Arc:

XIII.
And you Charles, King of France, seventh of that noble
name, Who have been involved in such a great war before
things turned out at all well for you, now, thanks be to
God, see your honour exalted by the Maid Who has laid
low your enemies beneath your standard (and this is new!)

Joan's contribution to the war is considered a sign of divine intervention, as the young Maid of Orleans single-handedly renewed the fighting spirit of the French.

Christine concludes the poem with the understanding that not everyone sees the end of the war the same way as she:

LXI.
This poem was completed by Christine in the above
mentioned year, 1429, on the last day of July. But I
believe that some people will bc displeased by its
contents, for a person whose head is bowed and whose
eyes are heavy [can not] look at the light.

Christine's works were kept alive in small pockets of literary interest since her death. In 1949, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote that Christine's 1399 L'Épistre au Dieu d'amours ("Epistle to the God of Love") was "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defence of her sex." The later 20th century saw increased interest in her as the first feminist writer.

We, however, will use her last work to veer off into politics of the French civil war and the appearance of Joan of Arc. See you tomorrow.