A MONK OF FIFE
A Romance of the Days of Jeanne D'Arc - Joan of Arc
by Andrew Lang
CHAPTER XXV
OF THE ONFALL AT PONT L'EVEQUE, AND HOW
NORMAN LESLIE
WAS HURT
I have now shown wherefore the fighting, in this spring, was to be
up and down the water of Oise, whence the villagers had withdrawn
themselves, of necessity, into the good towns. For the desire of
the Duke of Burgundy was to hold the Oise, and so take Compiegne,
the better to hold Paris. And on our side the skill was to cut his
army in two, so that from east of the water of Oise neither men nor
victual might come to him.
Having this subtle device of war in her mind, the Maid rode north
from Melun, by the King's good towns, till she came to Compiegne,
that was not yet beleaguered. There they did her all the honour
that might be, and thither came to her standard Messire Jacques de
Chabennes, Messire Rigault de Fontaines, Messire Poton de
Xaintrailles, the best knight then on ground, and many other
gentlemen, some four hundred lances in all. {33} With these lances
the Maid consorted to attack Pont l'Eveque by a night onfall. This
is a small but very strong hold, on the Oise, some six leagues from
Compiegne, as you go up the river, and it lies near the town of
Noyon, which was held by the English. In Pont l'Eveque there was a
garrison of a hundred lances of the English, and our skill was to
break on them in the grey of dawn, when men least fear a surprise,
and are most easily taken. By this very device La Hire had seized
Compiegne but six years agone, wherefore our hope was the higher.
About five of the clock on an April day we rode out of Compiegne, a
great company,--too great, perchance, for that we had to do. For
our army was nigh a league in length as it went on the way, nor
could we move swiftly, for there were waggons with us and carts,
drawing guns and couleuvrines and powder, fascines wherewith to fill
the fosses, and ladders and double ladders for scaling the walls.
So the captains ordered it to be, for ever since that day by Melun
fosse, when the Saints foretold her captivity, the Maid submitted
herself in all things to the captains, which was never her manner
before.
As we rode slowly, she was now at the head of the line, now in the
midst, now at the rear, wherever was need; and as I rode at her
rein, I took heart to say -
"Madame, it is not thus that we have taken great keeps and holds, in
my country, from our enemies of England."
"Nay," said she, checking her horse to a walk, and smiling on me in
the dusk with her kind eyes. "Then tell me how you order it in your
country."
"Madame," I said, "it was with a little force, and lightly moving,
that Messire Thomas Randolph scaled the Castle rock and took
Edinburgh Castle out of the hands of the English, a keep so strong,
and set on a cliff so perilous, that no man might deem to win it by
sudden onfall. And in like manner the good Messire James Douglas
took his own castle, more than once or twice, by crafty stratagem of
war, so that the English named it Castle Perilous. But in every
such onfall few men fought for us, of such as could move secretly
and swiftly, not with long trains of waggons that cover a league of
road, and by their noise and number give warning to an enemy."
"My mind is yours," she said, with a sigh, "and so I would have made
this onslaught. But I submitted me to the will of the captains."
Through the night we pushed our way slowly, for in such a march none
may go swifter than the slowest, namely, the carts and the waggons.
Thus it befell that the Maid and the captains were in more thoughts
than one to draw back to Compiegne, for the night was clear, and the
dawn would be bright. And, indeed, after stumbling and wandering
long, and doubting of the way, we did, at last, see the church
towers and walls of Pont l'Eveque stand out against the clear sky of
morning, a light mist girdling the basement of the walls. Had we
been a smaller and swifter company, we should have arrived an hour
before the first greyness shows the shapes of things. But now,
alas! we no sooner saw the town than we heard the bells and trumpets
calling the townsfolk and men-at-arms to be on their ward. The
great guns of the keep roared at us so soon as we were in reach of
shot; nevertheless, Pothon and the Maid set companies to carry the
double ladders, for the walls were high, and others were told off to
bring up the fascines, and so, leaving our main battle to wait out
of shot, and come on as they were needed, the Maid and Pothon ran up
the first rampart, she waving her standard and crying that all was
ours. As we ran, for I must needs be by her side, the din of bells
and guns was worse than I had heard at Orleans, and on the top of
the church towers were men-at-arms waving flags, as if for a signal.
Howbeit, we sprang into the fosse, under shield, wary of stones cast
from above, and presently three ladders were set against the wall,
and we went up, the Maid leading the way.
Now of what befell I know but little, save that I had so climbed
that I looked down over the wall, when the ladder whereon I stood
was wholly overthrown by two great English knights, and one of them,
by his coat armour, was Messire de Montgomery himself, who commanded
in Pont l'Eveque. Of all that came after I remember no more than a
flight through air, and the dead stroke of a fall on earth with a
stone above me. For such is the fortune of war, whereof a man knows
but his own share for the most part, and even that dimly. The eyes
are often blinded with swift running to be at the wall, and, what
with a helm that rings to sword-blows, and what with smoke, and
dust, and crying, and clamour, and roar of guns, it is but little
that many a man-at-arms can tell concerning the frays wherein, may
be, he has borne himself not unmanly.
This was my lot at Pont l'Eveque, and I knew but little of what
passed till I found myself in very great anguish. For I had been
laid in one of the carts, and so was borne along the way we had
come, and at every turn of the wheels a new pang ran through me.
For my life I could not choose but groan, as others groaned that
were in the same cart with me. For my right leg was broken, also my
right arm, and my head was stounding as if it would burst. It was
late and nigh sunset or ever we won the gates of Compiegne, having
lost, indeed, but thirty men slain, but having wholly failed in our
onfall. For I heard in the monastery whither I was borne that, when
the Maid and Xaintrailles and their men had won their way within the
walls, and had slain certain of the English, and were pushing the
others hard, behold our main battle was fallen upon in the rear by
the English from Noyon, some two miles distant from Pont l'Eveque.
Therefore there was no help for it but retreat we must, driving back
the English to Noyon, while our wounded and all our munitions of war
were carried orderly away.
As to the pains I bore in that monastery of the Jacobins, when my
broken bones were set by a very good surgeon, there is no need that
I should write. My fortune in war was like that of most men-at-
arms, or better than that of many who are slain outright in their
first skirmish. Some good fortune I had, as at St. Pierre, and
again, bad fortune, of which this was the worst, that I could not be
with the Maid: nay, never again did I ride under her banner.
She, for her part, was not idle, but, after tarrying certain days in
Compiegne with Guillaume de Flavy, she rode to Lagny, "for there,"
she said, "were men that warred well against the English," namely, a
company of our Scots. And among them, as later I heard in my bed,
was Randal Rutherford, who had ransomed himself out of the hands of
the French in Paris, whereat I was right glad. At Lagny, with her
own men and the Scots, the Maid fought and took one Franquet
d'Arras, a Burgundian "routier," or knight of the road, who
plundered that country without mercy. Him the Maid would have
exchanged for an Armagnac of Paris, the host of the Bear Inn, then
held in duresse by the English, for his share in a plot to yield
Paris to the King. But this burgess died in the hands of the
English, and the echevins {34} of Lagny, claiming Franquet d'Arras
as a common thief, traitor, and murderer, tried him, and, on his
confession, put him to death. This was counted a crime in the Maid
by the English and Burgundian robbers, nay, even by French and
Scots. "For," said they, "if a gentleman is to be judged like a
manant, or a fat burgess by burgesses, there is no more profit or
glory in war." Nay, I have heard gentlemen of France cry out that,
as the Maid gave up Franquet to such judges as would surely condemn
him, so she was rightly punished when Jean de Luxembourg sold her
into the hands of unjust judges. But I answer that the Maid did not
sell Franquet d'Arras, as I say De Luxembourg sold her: not a livre
did she take from the folk of Lagny. And as for the slaying of
robbers, this very Jean de Luxembourg had but just slain many
English of his own party, for that they burned and pillaged in the
Beauvais country.
Yet men murmured against the Maid not only in their hearts, but
openly, and many men-at-arms ceased to love her cause, both for the
slaying of Franquet d'Arras, and because she was for putting away
the leaguer-lasses, and, when she might, would suffer no plundering.
Whether she was right or wrong, it behoves me not to judge, but this
I know, that the King's men fought best when she was best obeyed.
And, like Him who sent her, she was ever of the part of the poor and
the oppressed, against strong knights who rob and ravish and burn
and torture, and hold to ransom. Therefore the Archbishop of Reims,
who was never a friend of the Maid, said openly in a letter to the
Reims folk that "she did her own will, rather than obeyed the
commandments of God." But that God commands knights and gentlemen
to rob the poor and needy (though indeed He has set a great gulf
between a manant and a gentleman born) I can in nowise believe. For
my part, when I have been where gentlemen and captains lamented the
slaying of Franquet d'Arras, and justified the dealings of the
English with the Maid, I have seemed to hear the clamour of the
cruel Jews: "Tolle hunc, et dimitte nobis Barabbam." {35} For
Barabbas was a robber. Howbeit on this matter, as on all, I humbly
submit me to the judgment of my superiors and to Holy Church.
Meantime the Maid rode from Lagny, now to Soissons, now to Senlis,
now to Crepy-en-Valois, and in Crepy she was when that befell which
I am about to relate.
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