guest of his wife as long as she stayed in the city, and have his
young daughter for comrade and room-mate. The delirium of the
people went on the rest of the night, and with it the clamor of the
joy-bells and the welcoming cannon.
Joan of Arc had stepped upon her stage at last, and was ready to
begin.
Chapter 14 What the English Answered
SHE WAS ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an
army to work with.
Next morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring
after the messenger who carried her proclamation to the English
from Blois–the one which she had dictated at Poitiers. Here is a
copy of it. It is a remarkable document, for several reasons: for its
matter-of-fact directness, for its high spirit and forcible diction,
and for its na‹ve confidence in her ability to achieve the prodigious
task which she had laid upon herself, or which had been laid upon
her–which you please. All through it you seem to see the pomps of
war and hear the rumbling of the drums. In it Joan’s warrior soul is
revealed, and for the moment the soft little shepherdess has
disappeared from your view. This untaught country-damsel,
unused to dictating anything at all to anybody, much less
documents of state to kings and generals, poured out this
procession of vigorous sentences as fluently as if this sort of work
had been her trade from childhood:
JESUS MARIA
King of England and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself
Regent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you
Thomas Lord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said
Bedford–do right to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who
is sent by God the keys of all the good towns you have taken and
violated in France. She is sent hither by God, to restore the blood
royal. She is very ready to make peace if you will do her right by
giving up France and paying for what you have held. And you
archers, companions of war, noble and otherwise, who are before
the good city of Orleans, begone into your own land in God’s
name, or expect news from the Maid who will shortly go to see
you to your very great hurt. King of England, if you do not so, I am
chief of war, and whenever I shall find your people in France, I
will drive them out, willing or not willing; and if they do not obey
I will slay them all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I
am come hither by God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put
you our of France, in spite of those who would work treason and
mischief against the kingdom. Think not you shall ever hold the
kingdom from the King of Heaven, the Son of the Blessed Mary;
King Charles shall hold it, for God wills it so, and has revealed it
to him by the Maid. If you believe not the news sent by God
through the Maid, wherever we shall met you we will strike boldly
and make such a noise as has not been in France these thousand
years. Be sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than
you can bring to any assault against her and her good men-at-arms;
and then we shall see who has the better right, the King of Heaven,
or you. Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays you not to bring about
your own destruction. If you do her right, you may yet go in her
company where the French shall do the finest deed that has been
done in Christendom, and if you do not, you shall be reminded
shortly of your great wrongs.
In that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her
to rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this
proclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back.
So now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the
English to raise the siege and requiring them to restore that
missing messenger. The heralds came back without him. All they