The Maid and the Queen (25 page)

With the English overwhelmingly outnumbered, the battle for Jargeau took only four hours. Again, Joan was a source of great inspiration to her troops. She climbed high atop a scaling ladder, banner in hand, and the French soldiers, following her lead, swarmed over the walls and overran the town. The earl of Suffolk tried to call for a negotiated surrender, but no one paid any attention to him and he was taken prisoner by a French squire. (“Are you a gentleman?” the earl asked his captor suspiciously after it was clear that he was cornered. The squire replied in the affirmative. “Are you a knight?” the earl pressed. Upon hearing the Frenchman was not, the earl promptly dubbed his antagonist. Honor and the social structure having been rescued, if not the
town itself, only then did the earl surrender his glove and allow himself to be taken captive.) Those serving under Suffolk were not so fortunate. With the exception of the members of the garrison who were of sufficient rank to command a ransom, the entire English force at Jargeau was executed, and the town sacked.

That was Sunday; by Wednesday, the French had taken the bridge at Meung. By Friday, the entire English garrison at Beaugency had capitulated and as part of the terms of submission abandoned the city on Saturday morning, June 18, without a fight. However, as the French turned back toward Meung to finish retaking the town, new, disquieting information arrived. “And while the English [at Beaugency] were retreating came one from La Hire’s company who said to me, as to the King’s captains, that the English were coming, that we should soon be face to face with them, and that they were about one thousand men-at-arms in number,” remembered the duke of Alençon.

It was Fastolf with the long-awaited reinforcements. La Hire’s man must have underestimated this force, as the number of English men-at-arms bearing down on the French seems to have been double that of the original assessment. The English commander had been marching to the aid of Beaugency when, halting just outside of Meung, he met up with Captain John Talbot, who was leading what was left of the original army that had besieged Orléans—just forty lances, two hundred archers, and their foot soldiers, about three hundred men in all—in the hopes of intercepting Fastolf and making a united stand against the French. Hearing from Talbot that Beaugency had fallen, and having reports of the superior numbers of the French force, Fastolf counseled falling back on Patay, about fifteen miles north of Orléans. Talbot reluctantly agreed and the English soldiers were turned around and ordered to retreat northward.

News of the arrival of the English reinforcement army threw the French military leadership into its customary panic. The duke of Alençon abruptly reverted to his former, indecisive self—a less commanding commanding officer is difficult to imagine—and appealed to Joan for guidance. “Then the lord Duke of Alençon, in the presence of the lord constable, of myself and several others, asked Joan what he ought to do,” recalled the Bastard. “She answered him in a loud voice, saying, ‘Have all good spurs,’ which hearing those present asked Joan: ‘What say you? Are we going to turn our backs on them?’
Then Joan answered: ‘No. But it will be the English who will not defend themselves and will be vanquished and you will need good spurs to run after them.’”

By this time, the French were aware that the English were falling back in order to regroup to the north, and the decision was made to follow Joan’s advice and pursue them. To prevent the enemy’s getting away, the royal army was divided into three groups: in the first wave were approximately twelve hundred of the swiftest cavalry, under the direction of La Hire; then came the main body of troops, led by the Bastard and the duke of Alençon; and finally a rear guard headed by Joan and Arthur of Richemont. Joan was upset at being consigned to the back, but she was overruled; possibly she was not skilled enough to ride with the advance guard. In the end, it did not matter, for she had already given the French soldiery, and in particular La Hire, all they needed: the confidence that they could win. This would be his battle, not hers.

Riding at full speed, unburdened by heavy artillery, the French cavalry overtook Fastolf’s men in the woods outside of Patay at about two o’clock in the afternoon. Some of the English bowmen, not realizing the enemy was so close, gave their position away by ballyhooing at a stag as it bounded through the forest. Seeing the French upon them, Captain Talbot hurriedly found what he believed to be an advantageous spot at which to arrange his troops. His strength was, as usual, heavily weighted to his archers, five hundred of whom, handpicked by their commander for their experience and ability, were instructed to dismount and dig their pikes into the ground in a long line, to make it more difficult for the French horsemen to pass. Fastolf and the rest of the English regiment ducked in behind the longbowmen and, searching for the high ground, scrambled to a ridge, ready to confront the main body of the French army when it arrived.

This battle plan was similar to that employed by the English at Agincourt to such devastating effect. But in the space of two short months, Joan had erased the stigma of defeat associated with that battle. Even though he had only a small force with him, La Hire did not have to wait for the rest of the army to catch up: he knew he could take Talbot’s men on his own; he was not afraid to lead. Consequently, unlike at Agincourt, he did not stand by and allow the English longbowmen to set up so that they could then safely slaughter their French opponents at a distance. Instead, in a move decried by English historians as most unsportsmanlike, La Hire attacked at once.
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The archers went down in a matter of minutes. The second wave of the French army arrived soon after and Fastolf, watching from the ridge, brought his men down to aid the fight. But no sooner did he get there than he saw that it was hopeless and, deserting his post, escaped with a handful of men. “And before he had gone, the French had thrown to the ground the lord de Talbot, had made him prisoner and all his men being dead, and were the French already so far advanced in battle that they could at will take or kill whomsoever they wanted to,” testified an eyewitness. It took less than an hour for the main body of the French army to decimate their opponents; at the end of that time two thousand Englishmen lay dead.

Even more than the raising of the siege of Orléans, this encounter, called the battle of Patay, was decisive. Afterward, throughout the kingdom, the English occupiers were suddenly on the defensive; they were cognizant of being in danger of losing all of their gains; most important, the home country’s attitude toward the war changed. “By the renown of Joan the Maid,” wrote a Burgundian chronicler of the time, “the courage of the English was much impaired and fallen off. They saw, it seemed to them, their fortune turn its wheel sharply against them, for they had already lost several towns and fortresses which had returned their obedience to the King of France…. They saw their men stricken down and did not now find them of such or so firm and prudent words as they were wont to be.” The erosion of the English commitment to the war may be dated from this moment. “Thus they were all… very desirous of withdrawing on to the Normandy marches, abandoning what they held in the country of France and thereabout,” observed the chronicler.

The experienced military men among the duke of Alençon’s command, understanding the significance of this victory and not wishing to give the English time to recover and regroup, pressed to continue the forward assault by marching on Paris and liberating the city, a strike that could have meant the end of the war. (The duke of Bedford was so sure that this would happen that upon hearing the news of the English defeat at Patay, he immediately went into hiding at the fort of Vincennes.) But it would have taken a bold leader to order such a move, exactly the sort of individual the duke of Alençon patently was not; moreover, Joan was against this and adamant
that Charles instead be crowned. “All that [pursuing the English to Paris] means nothing to me: now, we must go to Rheims,” she said.

And so the royal army broke off the advance to the north in order to turn around and march south to Gien, where Charles (staying safely out of the fray) had moved his court. Even so, it took another two weeks for Joan to convince the king to make the journey, and this pattern continued even as they were en route. Despite being accompanied by a substantial army, Charles expressed fear every time they drew near a Burgundian city along the way—Auxerre, Troyes, Châlons—and sought to withdraw, but in each case was dissuaded from doing so by Joan, who “told the King to advance boldly and to fear nothing, for if he would advance courageously he would recover all his kingdom,” remembered Simon Charles. She dictated letters to the various cities, informing them of the king’s approach. “Loyal Frenchmen, come out to meet King Charles,” she ordered written, “and if you do so… I promise you and certify on your lives that we shall enter with the help of God all the towns which should be of the holy kingdom, and there make good and lasting peace, let who will come against it.” Most of the towns, although ostensibly loyal to the Burgundians, were quick to note the size of the king’s army and opened their doors after a brief period of negotiation. (Auxerre, which came first, set precedent; there the inhabitants promised that “they would pay to the King the same obedience as should those of the towns of Troyes, Chalons and Rheims,” a particularly adroit bit of diplomacy that neatly handed off the responsibility for choosing between the king and the duke of Burgundy to the next in line.) At Troyes alone was it necessary to engage in a brief show of force before the town capitulated.

As one by one the cities surrendered peacefully, it became clear that neither the English nor the duke of Burgundy would attempt to halt the king’s progress. The realization settled in that the coronation would indeed take place, and excitement among Charles’s supporters grew proportionately. People began pouring into Reims for the ceremony. “So many came that it would be an infinite task to describe, as would be the great joy that all felt,” wrote an observer. Domrémy itself sent a small delegation, headed by Joan’s parents, to witness the magnificent ceremony engineered by a daughter of the village, proving again that, despite its remote location, news of the king and his court did in fact penetrate to this outpost in a timely fashion. There is, however, no mention at all of Robert de Baudricourt’s being in Reims on this occasion, which is surprising considering that he is credited with launching
Joan’s career. On the other hand, Yolande’s son, René of Anjou, future duke of Bar and Lorraine,
was
reported as being in attendance.

Although initially Charles had wanted his wife to accompany him, neither Yolande of Aragon nor her daughter Marie was present at the ceremony, which took place on July 17 at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims. The journey was probably deemed too dangerous for Marie, who was pregnant again, although there is also the possibility that it would have been somewhat awkward to bring the queen as it might then be expected that she be crowned along with her husband, and it was important to maintain the focus on Charles as the heir to Saint Louis. Yolande stayed home to be with her daughter.

But just because she wasn’t there didn’t mean she didn’t want to know all about it, so in her place Yolande sent three members of her household charged with the task of keeping her and her daughter informed of every particular. The report these agents sent back, addressed to both the queen of Sicily and her daughter, the queen of France, detailing the coronation ceremony and its aftermath, has survived. “Our Queens and most dread Ladies,” their letter began. “May it please you to know that yesterday the King arrived in this town of Reims where he found complete and full obedience. Today he was anointed and crowned and the beautiful mystery was most striking to behold because it was as solemn and comprised of all the accoutrements that are essential to such a ceremony, as if it had been in preparation for a full year…. Our lords the duke of Alençon, the count of Clermont, the count of Vendôme, the lords of Laval and La Trémoïlle attended in their royal garments; his lordship d’Alençon conferred knighthood on the king… his lordship d’Albret held up the sword before the king… and our lord of Reims carried out the said mystery and hence the consecration.” The holy oil used to anoint the king was carried in on horseback by four lords, magnificently attired and waving banners; the coronation lasted five hours, from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon. “And at the hour that the King was anointed and also when the crown was lowered onto his head, one and all cried out Noël! And the trumpets rang out in such a way that it seemed the church vaults might crack. And during said mystery [the mystical rite of coronation] the Maiden stood at all times by the King’s side, holding her banner high in hand. And it was beautiful to behold the gracious manners of the King and the Maiden. God knows you were missed,” the correspondents made haste to point out.

Having communicated the most important aspects of the coronation—that it was splendid and solemn enough in all respects to convey legitimacy, thereby wiping away the memory of the feeble ceremony at which Charles had declared himself king immediately after his father’s death; that the abundance of participating lords meant that the old Armagnac alliance was once again firmly in place; and that Joan’s role in bringing about this momentous event was publicly recognized by the king, as indicated by her place at his side—the three operatives then reported on recent political developments, an area of keen interest to both women. “Tomorrow the king must leave in the direction of Paris,” they wrote. “We hear in this town that the duke of Burgundy went there and then on to Lyon where he is now. He sent a messenger to the King as soon as he arrived. At this hour, we hope that a solid treaty will be ready before they take their leave. The Maiden is confident that she will succeed at obtaining compliance from Paris.”

This news was precisely what Yolande of Aragon had hoped for. Charles had been persuaded to act and as a result his old allies had flocked to his side and the diplomatic solution she had been advocating for so long—prying the duke of Burgundy away from the English by arranging for a separate treaty—was in sight. More than this, her daughter’s husband was now established as the true heir to the throne of Saint Louis and the legitimate king of France, which meant that Marie, coronation or no coronation, was the legitimate queen, and her offspring were the future heirs to the kingdom. From Reims, the army would go to Paris with every hope of victory. And all of this had happened as a result of the introduction of the Maid to the court at Chinon.