Chapter IV: Part 4

A truce was at length signed, that both parties might have time to breathe. Soon afterwards, on June 8, 1376, the Black Prince died, and in June of the following year his father, Edward III., followed him to the tomb, and France was freed from its greatest foes. During his service as constable, Bertrand had recovered from English hands the provinces of Poitou, Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus done much towards the establishment of a united France.

Du Guesclin was not long to survive his great English enemies. The king treated him unjustly, and he threw up his office of constable, declaring that he would seek Spain and enter the service of Henry of Castile. This threat brought the king to his senses. He sent the Dukes of Anjou and Bourbon to beg Du Guesclin to retain his office. The indignant soldier yielded to their persuasions, accepted again the title of Constable of France, and died four days afterwards, on July 13, 1380. He had been sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and brigandage, provoked by the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou, and in this service fell sick while besieging Châteauneuf-Randon, in the Gévandan, a fortress then held by the English. He died at sixty-six years of age, with his last words exhorting the captains around him "never to forget that, in whatsoever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children, and the poor people were not their enemies."

He won victory even after his death, so say the chronicles of that day. It is related that an agreement had been made for the surrender of the besieged fortress, and that the date fixed was July 14, the day after Du Guesclin died. The new commander of the army summoned the governor to surrender, but he declared that he had given his word to Du Guesclin, and would yield the place to no other. He was told that the constable was dead.

"Very well;" he replied, "I will carry the keys of the town to his tomb."

And so he did. He marched out of the place at the head of his garrison, passed through the lines of the besieging army, knelt before Du Guesclin's corpse, and laid the keys of Châteauneuf-Randon on his bier.

And thus passed away one of the greatest and noblest warriors France had ever known, honored in life and triumphant in death.

_JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS._

At the hour of noon, on a sunny summer's day in the year of our Lord 1425, a young girl of the little village of Domremy, France, stood with bent head and thoughtful eyes in the small garden attached to her father's humble home. There was nothing in her appearance to attract a second glance. Her parents were peasants, her occupation was one of constant toil, her attire was of the humblest, her life had been hitherto spent in aiding her mother at home or in driving her father's few sheep afield. None who saw her on that day could have dreamed that this simple peasant maiden was destined to become one of the most famous women whose name history records, and that this day, was that of the beginning of her career.

She had been born at a critical period in history. Her country was in extremity. For the greater part of a century the dreadful "Hundred Years' War" had been waged, desolating France, destroying its people by the thousands, bringing it more and more under the dominion of a foreign foe. The realm of France had now reached its lowest depth of disaster, its king uncrowned, its fairest regions overrun,--here by the English, there by the Burgundians,--the whole kingdom in peril of being taken and reduced to vassalage. Never before nor since had the need of a deliverer been so vitally felt. The deliverer chosen of heaven was the young peasant girl who walked that summer noon in her father's humble garden at Domremy.

Young as she was, she had seen the horrors of war. Four years before the village had been plundered and burnt, its defenders slain or wounded, the surrounding country devastated. The story of the suffering and peril of France was in all French ears. Doubtless little Joan's soul burned with sympathy for her beloved land as she moved thoughtfully up and down the garden paths, asking herself if God could longer permit such wrongs and disasters to continue.

Suddenly, to her right, in the direction of the small village church, Joan heard a voice calling her, and, looking thither, she was surprised and frightened at seeing a great light. The voice, continued; her courage returned; "it was a worthy voice," she tells us, one that could come only from angels. "I saw them with my bodily eyes," she afterwards said. "When they departed from me I wept and would fain have had them take me with them." Again and again came to her the voices and the forms; they haunted her; and still the burden of their exhortation was the same, that she should "go to France to deliver the kingdom." The girl grew dreamy. She became lost in meditation, full of deep thoughts and budding purposes, wrought by the celestial voices into high hopes and noble aspirations, possessed with the belief that she had been chosen by heaven to deliver France from its woes and to disconcert its enemies.

The times were fitting for such a conception. Two forces ruled mens' minds,--ambition and trust in the supernatural. The powerful depended upon their own arms for aid; the weak and miserable turned to Christ and the Virgin for support; there were those who looked to see God in bodily person; His angels and ministers were thought to deal directly with man; it was an age in which force and fraud alike were dominant, in which men were governed in their bodies by the sword, in their souls by their belief in and dread of the supernatural, and in which enthusiasm had higher sway than thought. It was enthusiastic belief in her divine mission that moved Joan of Arc. It was trust in her as God's agent of deliverance that filled the soul of France with new spirit, and unnerved her foes with enfeebling fears. Joan's mission and her age were well associated. In the nineteenth century she would have been covered with ridicule; in the fifteenth she led France to victory.

Three years passed away. Joan's faith in her mission had grown with the years. Some ridiculed, many believed her. The story of her angelic voices was spreading. At length came the event that moved her to action. The English laid siege to Orleans, the most important city in the kingdom after Paris and Rouen. If this were lost, all might be lost. Some of the bravest warriors of France fought in its defence; but the garrison was weak, the English were strong, their works surrounded the walls; daily the city was more closely pressed; unless relieved it must fall.

"I must go to raise the siege of Orleans," said Joan to Robert de Baudricourt, commander of Vaucouleurs, with whom she had gained speech. "I will go, should I have to wear off my legs to the knee."

"I must be with the king before the middle of Lent," she said later to John of Metz, a knight serving with Baudricourt; "for none in the world, nor kings, nor dukes, nor daughter of the Scottish king can recover the kingdom of France; there is no help but in me. Assuredly I would far rather be spinning beside my poor mother, for this other is not my condition; but I must go and do my work because my Lord wills that I should do it."

"Who is your Lord?" asked John of Metz.

"The Lord God."

"By my faith," cried the knight, as he seized her hands. "I will take you to the king, God helping. When will you set out?"

"Rather now than to-morrow; rather to-morrow than later," said Joan.

On the 6th of March, 1429, the devoted girl arrived at Chinon, in Touraine, where the king then was. She had journeyed nearly a hundred and fifty leagues, through a country that was everywhere a theatre of war, without harm or insult. She was dressed in a coat of mail, bore lance and sword, and had a king's messenger and an archer as her train. This had been deemed necessary to her safety in those distracted times.

Interest and curiosity went before her. Baudricourt's letters to the king had prepared him for something remarkable. Certain incidents which happened during Joan's journey, and which were magnified by report into miracles, added to the feeling in her favor. The king and his council doubted if it were wise to give her an audience. That a peasant girl could succor a kingdom in extremity seemed the height of absurdity. But something must be done. Orleans was in imminent danger. If it were taken, the king might have to fly to Spain or Scotland. He had no money. His treasury, it is said, held only four crowns. He had no troops to send to the besieged city. Drowning men catch at straws. The people of Orleans had heard of Joan and clamored for her; with her, they felt sure, would come superhuman aid. The king consented to receive her.

It was the 9th of March, 1429. The hour was evening. Candles dimly lighted the great hall of the king's palace at Chinon, in which nearly three hundred knights were gathered. Charles VII., the king, was among them, distinguished by no mark or sign, more plainly dressed than most of those around him, standing retired in the throng.

Joan was introduced. The story--in which we cannot put too much faith--says that she walked straight to the king through the crowd of showily-dressed lords and knights, though she had never seen him before, and said, in quiet and humble tones,--

"Gentle dauphin" (she did not think it right to call him king until he had been crowned), "my name is Joan the maid; the King of Heaven sendeth you word by me that you shall be anointed and crowned in the city of Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is king of France. It is God's pleasure that our enemies, the English, should depart to their own country; if they depart not, evil will come to them, and the kingdom is sure to continue yours."

What followed is shrouded in doubt. Some say that Joan told Charles things that none but himself had known. However this be, the king determined to go to Poitiers and have this seeming messenger from Heaven questioned strictly as to her mission, by learned theologians of the University of Paris there present.

"In the name of God," said Joan, "I know that I shall have rough work there, but my Lord will help me. Let us go, then, for God's sake."

They went. It was an august and learned assembly into which the unlettered girl was introduced, yet for two hours she answered all their questions with simple earnestness and shrewd wit.

"In what language do the voices speak to you?" asked Father Seguin, the Dominican, "a very sour man," says the chronicle.

"Better than yours," answered Joan. The doctor spoke a provincial dialect.

"Do you believe in God?" he asked, sharply.

"More than you do," answered Joan, with equal sharpness.

"Well," he answered, "God forbids belief in you without some sign tending thereto; I shall not give the king advice to trust men-at-arms to you and put them in peril on your simple word."

"In the name of God," replied Joan, "I am not come to Poitiers to show signs. Take me to Orleans and I will give you signs of what I am sent for. Let me have ever so few men-at-arms given me and I will go to Orleans."

For a fortnight the questioning was continued. In the end the doctors pronounced in Joan's favor. Two of them were convinced of her divine mission. They declared that she was the virgin foretold in ancient prophecies, notably in those of Merlin. All united in saying that "there had been discovered in her naught but goodness, humility, devotion, honesty, and simplicity."

Charles decided. The Maid should go to Orleans. A suit of armor was made to fit her. She was given the following of a war-chief. She had a white banner made, which was studded with lilies, and bore on it a figure of God seated on clouds and bearing a globe, while below were two kneeling angels, above were the words "Jesu Maria." Her sword she required the king to provide. One would be found, she said, marked with five crosses, behind the altar in the chapel of St. Catharine de Fierbois, where she had stopped on her arrival in Chinon. Search was made, and the sword was found.

And now five weeks were passed in weary preliminaries, despite the fact that Orleans pleaded earnestly for succor. Joan had friends at court, but she had powerful enemies, whose designs her coming had thwarted, and it was they who secretly opposed her plans. At length, on the 27th of April, the march to Orleans began.

On the 29th the army of relief arrived before the city. There were ten or twelve thousand men in the train, guarding a heavy convoy of food. The English covered the approach to the walls, the only unguarded passage being beyond the Loire, which ran by the town. To the surprise and vexation of Joan her escort determined to cross the stream.

"Was it you," she asked Dunois, who had left the town to meet her, "who gave counsel for making me come hither by this side of the river, and not the direct way, over there where Talbot and the English are?"

"Yes; such was the opinion of the wisest captains," he replied.

"In the name of God, the counsel of my Lord is wiser than yours. You thought to deceive me, and you have deceived yourselves, for I am bringing you the best succor that ever had knight, or town, or city, and that is, the good-will of God and succor from the King of Heaven; not, assuredly, for love of me; it is from God only that it proceeds."

She wished to remain with the troops until they could enter the city, but Dunois urged her to cross the stream at once, with such portion of the convoy as the boats might convey immediately.

"Orleans would count it for naught," he said, "if they received the victuals without the Maid."

She decided to go, and crossed the stream with two hundred men-at-arms and part of the supplies. At eight o'clock that evening she entered the city, on horseback, in full armor, her banner preceding her, beside her Dunois, behind her the captains of the garrison and several of the most distinguished citizens. The population hailed her coming with shouts of joy, crowding on the procession, torch in hand, so closely that her banner was set on fire. Joan made her horse leap forward with the skill of a practised horseman, and herself extinguished the flame.

It was a remarkable change in her life. Three years before, a simple peasant child, she had been listening to the "voices" in her father's garden at Domremy. Now, the associate of princes and nobles, and the last hope of the kingdom, she was entering a beleaguered city at the head of an army, amid the plaudits of the population, and followed by the prayers of France. She was but seventeen years old, still a mere girl, yet her coming had filled her countrymen with hope and depressed their foes with dread. Such was the power of religious belief in that good mediæval age.

The arrival of the Maid was announced to the besiegers by a herald, who bore a summons from her to the English, bidding them to leave the land and give up the keys of the cities which they had wrongfully taken, under peril of being visited by God's judgment. They detained and threatened to burn the herald, as a warning to Joan, the sorceress, as they deemed her. Yet such was their terror that they allowed the armed force still outside the city to enter unmolested, through their intrenchments.

The warning Joan had sent them by herald she now repeated in person, mounting a bastion and bidding the English, in a loud voice, to begone, else woe and shame would come upon them.

The commandant of the bastille opposite, Sir William Gladesdale, answered with insults, bidding her to go back and mind her cows, and saying that the French were miscreants.

"You speak falsely!" cried Joan; "and in spite of yourselves shall soon depart hence; many of your people shall be slain; but as for you, you shall not see it."

Nor did he; he was drowned a few days afterwards, a shot from Orleans destroying a drawbridge on which he stood, with many companions.

What succeeded we may tell briefly. Inspired by the intrepid Maid, the besieged boldly attacked the British forts, and took them one after another. The first captured was that of St. Loup, which was carried by Joan and her troops, despite the brave defence of the English. The next day, the 6th of May, other forts were assailed and taken, the men of Orleans, led by Joan, proving irresistible. The English would not face her in the open field, and under her leadership the French intrepidly stormed their ramparts.

A memorable incident occurred during the assault on the works south of the city. Here Joan seized a scaling ladder, and was mounting it herself when an arrow struck and wounded her. She was taken aside, her armor removed, and she herself pulled out the arrow, though with some tears and signs of faintness. Her wound being dressed, she retired into a vineyard to rest and pray. Discouraged by her absence, the French began to give way. The captains ordered the retreat to be sounded.

"My God, we shall soon be inside," cried Joan to Dunois. "Give your people a little rest; eat and drink."

In a short time she resumed her arms, mounted her horse, ordered her banner to be displayed, and put herself at the head of the storming party. New courage inspired the French; the English, who had seen her fall, and were much encouraged thereby, beheld her again in arms with superstitious dread. Joan pressed on; the English retreated; the fort was taken without another blow. Back to Orleans marched the triumphant Maid, the people wild with joy. All through the night the bells rang out glad peals, and the _Te Deum_ was chanted. Much reason had they for joy: Orleans was saved.

It was on a Saturday that these events had taken place. At daybreak of the next day, Sunday, May 8, the English advanced to the moats of the city as if to offer battle. Some of the French leaders wished to accept their challenge, but Joan ran to the city gates, and bade them desist "for the love and honor of holy Sunday."

"It is God's good-will and pleasure," she said, "that they be allowed to get them gone if they be minded to go away; if they attack you, defend yourselves boldly; you will be the masters."

An altar was raised at her suggestion; mass was celebrated, and hymns of thanksgiving chanted. While this was being done, the English turned and marched away, with banners flying. Their advance had been an act of bravado.

"See," cried Joan, "are the English turning to you their faces, or verily their backs? Let them go; my Lord willeth not that there be any fighting this day; you shall have them another time."

Her words were true; the English were in full retreat; the siege of Orleans was raised. So hastily had they gone that they had left their sick and many of their prisoners behind, while the abandoned works were found to be filled with provisions and military supplies. The Maid had fulfilled her mission. France was saved.

History contains no instance to match this. A year before, Joan of Arc, a low-born peasant girl, had occupied herself in tending sheep and spinning flax; her hours of leisure being given to dreams and visions. Now, clad in armor and at the head of an army, she was gazing in triumph on the flight of a hostile army, driven from its seemingly assured prey by her courage, intrepidity, and enthusiasm, while veteran soldiers obeyed her commands, experienced leaders yielded to her judgment. Never had the world seen its like. The Maid of Orleans had made her name immortal.

Three days afterward Joan was with the king, at Tours. She advanced to meet him with her banner in her hand, her head uncovered, and making a deep obeisance over her horse's head. Charles met her with the deepest joy, taking off his cap and extending his hand, while his face beamed with warm gratitude.

She urged him to march at once against his flying enemies, and to start without delay for Rheims, there to be crowned, that her mission might be fulfilled.

"I shall hardly last more than a year," she said, with prophetic insight; "we must think of working right well this year, for there is much to do."

Charles hesitated; hesitation was natural to him. He had many advisers who opposed Joan's counsel. There were no men, no money, for so great a journey, they said. Councils were held, but nothing was decided on. Joan grew impatient and impetuous. Many supported her. Great lords from all parts of France promised their aid. One of these, Guy de Laval, thus pictures the Maid:

"It seems a thing divine to look on her and listen to her. I saw her mount on horseback, armed all in white armor, save her head, and with a little axe in her hand, on a great black charger, which, at the door of her quarters, was very restive and would not let out her mount. Then said she, 'Lead him to the cross,' which was in front of the neighboring church, on the road. There she mounted him without his moving, and as if he were tied up; and turning towards the door of the church, which was very nigh at hand, she said, in quite a womanly voice, 'You priests and churchmen, make procession and prayers to God!' Then she resumed her road, saying, 'Push forward, push forward!'"

Push forward it was. The army was infected with her enthusiasm, irresistible with belief in her. On the 10th of June she led them to the siege of the fortified places which lay around Orleans. One by one they fell. On Sunday, June 12, Jargeau was taken. Beaugency next fell. Nothing could withstand the impetuosity of the Maid and her followers, Patay was assailed.

"Have you good spurs?" she asked her captains.

"Ha! must we fly, then!" they demanded.

"No, surely; but there will be need to ride boldly; we shall give a good account of the English, and our spurs will serve us famously in pursuing them."

The French attacked, by order of Joan.

"In the name of God, we must fight," she said. "Though the English were suspended from the clouds, we should have them, for God has sent us to punish them. The gentle king shall have to-day the greatest victory he has ever had; my counsel has told me that they are ours."

Her voices counselled well. The battle was short, the victory decisive. The English were put to flight; Lord Talbot, their leader, was taken.

"Lord Talbot, this is not what you expected this morning," said the Duke d'Alençon.

"It is the fortune of war," answered Talbot, coolly.

Joan returned to the king and demanded that they should march instantly for Rheims. He hesitated still. His counsellors advised delay. The impatient Maid left the court and sought the army. She was mistress of the situation. The king and his court were obliged to follow her. On June 29 the army, about twelve thousand strong, began the march to Rheims.

There were obstacles on the road, but all gave way before her. The strong town of Troyes, garrisoned by English and Burgundians, made a show of resistance; but when her banner was displayed, and the assault began, she being at the head of the troops, the garrison lost heart and surrendered. On went the army, all opposition vanishing. On the 16th of July, King Charles entered Rheims. The coronation was fixed for the following day. "Make good use of my time," Joan repeated to the king, "for I shall hardly last longer than a year."

In less than three months she had driven the English from before Orleans, captured from them city after city, raised the sinking cause of France into a hopeful state, and now had brought the prince to be crowned in that august cathedral which had witnessed the coronation of so many kings. On the 17th the ceremony took place with much grandeur and solemnity. Joan rode between Dunois and the Archbishop of Rheims, while the air rang with the acclamations of the immense throng.

"I have accomplished that which my Lord commanded me to do," said Joan, "to raise the siege of Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. I should like it well if it should please Him to send me back to my father and mother, to keep their sheep and their cattle and do that which was my wont."

It would have been well for her if she had done so, for her future career was one of failure and misfortune. She kept in arms at the king's desire. In September she attacked Paris, and was defeated, she herself being pierced through the thigh with an arrow. It was her first repulse. During the winter we hear little of her. Her family was ennobled by royal decree, and the district of Domremy made free from all tax or tribute. In the spring the enemy attacked Compiègne. Joan threw herself into the town to save it. She had not been there many hours when, in a sortie, the French were repulsed. Joan and some of her followers remained outside fighting, while the drawbridge was raised and the portcullis dropped by the frightened commandant. The Burgundians crowded around her. Twenty of them surrounded her horse. One, a Picard archer, "a tough fellow and mighty sour," seized her and flung her to the ground. She was a prisoner in their hands.

The remaining history of Joan of Arc presents a striking picture of the character of the age. It is beyond our purpose to give it. It will suffice to say that she was tried by the English as a sorceress, dealt with unfairly in every particular, and in the end, on May 30, 1431, was burned at the stake. Even as the flames rose she affirmed that the voices which she had obeyed came from God. Her voice was raised in prayer as death approached, the last word heard from her lips being "Jesus!"

"Would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman is!" cried two of her judges, on seeing her die.

And Tressart, secretary to Henry VI. of England, said, on his return from the place of execution, "We are all lost; we have burned a saint!"

A saint she was, an inspired one. She died, but France was saved.

_THE CAREER OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT._

Mediæval history would be of greatly reduced interest but for its sprightly stories of knights and their doings. In those days when men, "clad in complete steel," did their fighting with spear, sword, and battle-axe, and were so enamoured of hard blows and blood-letting that in the intervals of war they spent their time seeking combat and adventure, much more of the startling and romantic naturally came to pass than can be looked for in these days of the tyranny of commerce and the dominion of "villanous saltpetre." This was the more so from the fact that enchanters, magicians, demons, dragons, and all that uncanny brood, the creation of ignorance and fancy, made knighthood often no sinecure, and men's haunting belief in the supernatural were frequently more troublesome to them than their armed enemies. But with this misbegotten crew we have nothing to do. They belong to legend and fiction, not to history, and it is with the latter alone that we are here concerned. But as more than one example has been given of how knights bore themselves in battle, it behooves us to tell something of the doings of a knight-errant, one of those worthy fellows who went abroad to prove their prowess in single combat, and win glory in the tournament at spear's point.

Such a knight was Jacques de Lelaing, "the good knight without fear and without doubt," as his chroniclers entitle him, a Burgundian by birth, born in the château of Lelaing early in the fifteenth century. Jacques was well brought up for a knight. Literature was cultivated in Burgundy in those days, and the boy was taught the arts of reading and writing, the accomplishments of French and Latin, and in his later life he employed the pen as well as the sword, and did literary work of which specimens still survive.

In warlike sports he excelled. He was still but a youth when the nephew of Philip the Good of Burgundy (Philip the _Bad_ would have hit the mark more nearly) carried him off to his uncle's court to graduate in knighthood. The young adventurer sought the court of Philip well equipped for his new duties, his father, William de Lelaing, having furnished him with four fine horses, a skilful groom, and a no less skilful valet; and also with some good advice, to the effect that, "Inasmuch as you are more noble than others by birth, so should you be more noble than they by virtues," adding that, "few great men have gained renown for prowess and virtue who did not entertain love for some dame or damoiselle."

The latter part of the advice the youthful squire seemed well inclined to accept. He was handsome, gallant, bold, and eloquent, and quickly became a favorite with the fair sex. Nor was he long in gaining an opportunity to try his hand in battle, a squabble having arisen between Philip and a neighboring prince. This at an end, our hero, stirred by his "errant disposition," left Philip's court, eager, doubtless, to win his spurs by dint of battle-axe and blows of blade.

In 1445 he appeared at Nancy, then occupied by the French court, which had escorted thither Margaret of Anjou, who was to be taken to England as bride to Henry VI. The occasion was celebrated by festivals, of which a tournament was the principal feature, and here the Burgundian squire, piqued at some disparaging remarks of the French knights, rode into the lists and declared his purpose to hold them against all comers, challenging the best knight there to unhorse him if he could.

The boastful squire was richly adorned for the occasion, having already made friends among the ladies of the court, and wearing favors and jewels received at the hands of some of the fairest there. Nor was his boast an empty one. Not a man who faced him was able to hurl him from the saddle, while many of them left the lists with bruised bodies or broken bones.

"What manner of man will this be," said the onlookers, "who as a boy is so firm of seat and strong of hand?"

At the banquet which followed Jacques was as fresh and gay as if newly risen from sleep, and his conquests among the ladies were as many as he had won among the knights. That night he went to his couch the owner of a valuable diamond given him by the Duchess of Orleans, and of a ring set with a precious ruby, the gift of the Duchess of Calabria. Verily, the squire of Burgundy had made his mark.

The end of the year found our bold squire in Antwerp. Here, in the cathedral of Notre Dame, he met an arrogant Sicilian knight named Bonifazio, whose insolent bearing annoyed him. The Sicilian wore on his left leg a golden fetter-ring fastened by a chain of gold to a circlet above his knee, while his shield bore the defiant motto, "Who has fair lady, let him look to her well."

Jacques looked at the swaggering fellow, liked his bearing but little, and touched his shield by way of challenge, saying, "Thine is an impertinent device."

"And thou art but a sorry squire, though with assurance enough for a tried knight," answered the Sicilian.

"That is to prove," said Jacques, defiantly. "If my master, Duke Philip, will give me leave to fight, thou durst not deny me, being, as we are, on his Grace's territory."

Bonifazio accepted the challenge, and as the duke gave consent, a battle between squire and knight was arranged, Ghent being the chosen place of combat.

Two days it lasted, the first day's fight being a sort of horseback prelude to the main combat. In this the squire bore himself so well against his experienced antagonist, that Duke Philip judged he had fairly won his spurs, and on the next day he was formally made a knight, with the accolade and its attendant ceremonies.

This day the work displayed worthily followed the promising preface. After a preliminary bout with spears, the combatants seized their battle-axes, and hewed at each other with the vigor of two woodmen felling a mighty oak. The edges of the axes being spoiled, the knights drew their well-tempered swords and renewed the combat with the lustihood of the heroes of the Round Table, fighting so fiercely that it was not easy to follow the gleam of the swift-flashing blades. In the end the Burgundian proved himself more than a match for the Sicilian, driving him back, hewing rents in his armor, and threatening him with speedy death. At this stage of the affray Duke Philip, at the request of the Duke of Orleans, flung his truncheon into the lists and ended the fight, in time to save the Sicilian knight.

His signal victory won Sir Jacques much fame. His antagonist was a man of mark, and the Burgundian knight gained from his prowess the appellation of "The Good Knight," which he maintained throughout his career. He now determined to take up the profession of knight-errant, travelling from court to court, and winning smiles and fame wherever lists were set up or men of prowess could be found. But first he sought his home and the approval of his parents.

"Go on thy way, with God's blessing," said his stout sire, who had cracked skulls in his day and was proud of his doughty son.

"Yes, go on thy way, Jacques," said his mother in milder tone, and with moist eyes. "I have put a healing ointment in thy valise, that will cure bruises. If thou shouldst break a bone, Heaven send thee a skilful surgeon."

Into France rode Sir Jacques, well mounted, and with squire and page in his train, in search of adventures and opponents, eager for fame and profit. From his left arm, fastened by a chain of gold, hung a splendid helmet, which he offered as a prize to any knight who could overcome him in single combat. To this he added a diamond, which he agreed to present to any lady whom his victor should name. Whoever should first drop his axe in the combat was to bestow a bracelet on his opponent. To this Jacques added a singular stipulation, significant of queer doings in those days, that neither knight should be fastened to his saddle. For all else, he put his trust in God and his own right arm, and in the aid that came to him from the love of "the fair lady who had more power over him than aught besides throughout the entire world."

Thus prepared and thus defying, Sir Jacques rode through Paris and the other cities of France without meeting a knight ready to accept his challenge. This was due to the king, however, rather than to his knights; Charles VII. had forbidden any of his chevaliers to fight the bold Burgundian, the fame of whose strength and prowess was already wide-spread. Through southern France, then in the hands of the English, rode our hero, with the same fortune. Many were ready to meet him at the board, none in the field. Into Spain he passed on, still without an adversary, and sore in temper despite his pride in his reputation.

At last, in the realm of the Dons, he found a knight ready to break lances with him in the field, out of pure duty to his "much loved lady," as he affirmed. This was Don Diego de Guzman, grand master of Calatrava, whom he met on the borders of Castile, and who at once accepted his challenge. Yet single combat in those days was not quite the easy affair we might imagine it, if we judged from fiction and legend. Before a knight could indulge in mortal affray he was obliged to obtain the consent of his sovereign, provided that peace ruled between his country and that of his antagonist, as was the case between Spain and Burgundy. The king of Spain was absent. An answer could not be had immediately. While awaiting it, Sir Jacques rode into Portugal, followed by a splendid retinue, and offered an open challenge to the knights of that kingdom to take the field against him.

His ride was almost a royal procession. The story of his one combat seemed to have gained Jacques world-wide fame. From the frontier to Lisbon he was met with a continuous ovation, and in the capital, where a ball was given in his honor, he was invited to open the dance with the queen for partner. And so it went,--an abundance of merry-making, unlimited feasting and dancing, but no fighting. Sir Jacques grew melancholy. He pleaded with King Alphonso.

"I have had a turn in the dance with your queen," he said; "now let me have a tourney with your knights."

"Burgundy is my good friend," answered the king, "and Heaven forbid that a knight from that court should be roughly treated by any knights of mine."

"By all the saints, I defy the best of them!" cried the irate knight.

"And so let it rest," said Alphonso, placably. "Ride back to Castile, and do thy worst upon Guzman's hard head and strong ribs."

There being nothing better to do, Jacques complied, and made his way to Valladolid, having learned that the king of Spain had graciously consented to the combat. The 3d of February, 1447, was the day which had been fixed for the battle between the two knights, "for the grace of God and the love of their ladies," and on the advent of that day the city named was so crowded with sport-loving Spaniards that its streets were barely passable. A great day in the history of knight-errantry was promised, and gentles and simples, lords and ladies alike, were anxious to see the spectacle.

When the morning of the eventful day dawned all was bustle and excitement in Valladolid, and multitudes gathered at the lists. The Burgundian was on the ground and ready by ten o'clock, but it was three before Don Guzman appeared, and then he came armed with an axe so portentously long in the handle that the Spanish umpires themselves, anxious as they were for his success, forbade its use. Yet the truculent Don gave them no small trouble before he would consent to choose another. This done, the knights were conducted to their tents, which they were not to leave till the clarions had thrice sounded the signal of battle.

Don Guzman, however, proved inconveniently brave and eager. At the first trumpet blast out he sprang, and muttered fiercely when ordered back. The second blast brought him out again, and this time the king himself sent him back "with an ugly word." The third blast sounded. Out now flew both combatants. Battle-axe in hand, they made at each other, and soon the ring of axe on helmet delighted the ardent souls of the thousands of lookers-on. At length, Diego's axe was hurled from his hand. Jacques, with knightly courtesy, threw down his, and an interval of wrestling for the mastery followed. Then they drew their swords, and assailed each other with undiminished fierceness. What might have been the result it is not easy to say; Sir Jacques had no carpet knight to deal with in Don Diego; but the king ended the business by throwing his truncheon into the lists, and refusing permission to the combatants to finish their fight on horseback, as they wished. They thereupon shook hands, while the air rang with the shouts of the spectators.

In the end Don Guzman behaved well. He praised the skill and courage of his antagonist, and presented him with an Andalusian horse, covered with rich trappings. In this Jacques was not to be outdone. He sent the Don a charger of great beauty and value, whose coverings were of blue velvet embroidered in gold, and the saddle of violet velvet. Banquets and balls followed the combat; the combatants were feasted to their hearts' content; and Sir Jacques at length left the court of Spain loaded with presents and covered with honor.

And now the "good knight" turned his steps homeward, challenging all champions as he went, but without finding an opponent. Feasting he found in abundance; but no fighting. Stopping at Montpelier, he became the guest of Jacques Coeur, silversmith and banker to Charles VII. His worthy host offered him money freely, and engaged to redeem any valuables which the wandering knight might have found it necessary to pawn. Sir Jacques thanked him, but said,--

"My good master, the Duke of Burgundy, provides all that is necessary for me, and allows me to want for nothing."

Soon after, our errant knight reached Philip's court, where he was received with the highest honors. Then to his paternal castle he wended his way, to be welcomed by his proud parents as gladly as if he had won the Holy Grail. Dancing and rejoicing followed, in which all the neighboring noble families participated, and many a fair damsel shed her smiles--in vain it seems--on the famous and heart-whole knight.

We next hear of Jacques de Lelaing in 1449. In that year the herald Charolais made his advent at the Scottish court, bearing a challenge from the Burgundian knight to the whole clan of the Douglases. James Douglas accepted the challenge, and Sir Jacques appeared in due time at Stirling, where a battle took place in which the Burgundian again came off victor. From Scotland Jacques sought England but failed to find in that kingdom any knight willing to accept his challenge. Yet he had but fairly got home again when an English knight, Sir Thomas Karr by name, appeared at the court of Philip the Good, and challenged Jacques de Lelaing to combat for the honor of old England.

As may well be imagined, this challenge was speedily accepted, the lists being set in a field near Bruges. The English knight was the heavier, but Jacques was the favorite, for once again he was fighting on his native soil. Fierce was the combat. It ended in the Burgundian's favor. Karr struck him a blow on the arm with his battle-axe which rendered that arm useless, it being paralyzed or broken. But the valiant Jacques dropped his axe, closed with his foe, and with the aid of his one arm flung him to the ground, falling upon him. This ended the combat, the Burgundian being pronounced victor. But as he had been the first to drop his battle-axe, he presented Sir Thomas with a rich diamond, as he had agreed in his challenge.

Jacques had been sorely hurt. His wound took a long time to heal. When his arm had grown strong again he repaired to Châlons, where he opened a tournament of his own, in which he held the lists against all comers. This was in fulfilment of a vow which he had made that he would appear in the closed lists thirty times before the completion of his thirtieth year. Much fighting was done, much blood spilt, and much honor gained by Sir Jacques. We cannot tell all that took place, but the noble tournament at Châlons was long afterwards the talk of the country-side.

As for Sir Jacques, he was now at the height of fame, and Philip the Good, to do him the highest honor in his power, created him a knight of the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece. Of his single combats afterwards we shall but speak of one fought at Brussels, in honor of the son of the Duke of Burgundy, then eighteen years old. Jacques de Lelaing was selected to tilt with the young count,--doubtless with the idea that he could be trusted not to harm him. In the first course that was run the count shattered his spear against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon and passed without touching his adversary. This complaisance displeased the duke, who sent word to the knight that if he proposed to play with his adversary he had better withdraw at once. They ran again. This time both splintered their spears, and both kept their seats, much to the delight of Duke Philip.

On the next day the grand tourney came off. To behold it there were present no less than two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons, knights, and squires. That day the youthful Count de Charolais acquitted himself nobly, breaking eighteen spears,--and possibly some bones of his antagonists. He carried off the prize, which was bestowed upon him by the ladies of his father's court, and Duke Philip gloried in the prowess of his son.

With that tournament ended the record of the single combats of Jacques de Lelaing. War followed, the duke and his robber barons fighting against the rich cities of Belgium, and spoiling many of them. In those wars Sir Jacques took part. At length, in June, 1453, siege was being made against the Château de Pouckes, a stronghold against whose walls the Burgundians plied a great piece of artillery, an arm which was then only fairly coming into use. Behind this stood Sir Jacques, with a number of other nobles, to watch the effect of the shot. Just then came whizzing through the air a stone bullet, shot from a culverin on the walls of the castle, the artillerist being a young man of Ghent, son of Henry the Blindman. This stone struck Sir Jacques on the forehead and carried away the upper half of his head, stretching him dead on the field. He was yet a young man when death thus came to him. Only eight years before he had made his first appearance in the lists, at Nancy.

Philip the Good was infuriated when he heard of the loss of his favorite knight. He vowed that when the Château was taken every soul in it should be hung from the walls. He kept his word, too, with a few exceptions, these being some priests, a leprous soldier, and a couple of boys. One of these lads made his way in all haste to Ghent, and not until well out of reach of the _good_ Philip did he reveal the truth, that it was his hand which had fired the fatal shot.

And so ended the life of our worthy knight-errant, the prize-fighter of an earlier day than ours, the main difference between past and present being that his combats were fought with battle-axe and sword instead of fists, and that his backers were princes, his admirers high-born ladies, instead of the low-lived class of bruisers who now support such _knightly_ exhibitions. Four centuries and more have passed since the days of Sir Jacques. It is to be hoped that long before another century has passed, there will be an end of all single combats in civilized lands.

_LOUIS THE POLITIC AND CHARLES THE BOLD._

In the latter half of the fifteenth century Europe had two notable sovereigns, Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold, or Charles the Rash, of Burgundy; the one famous in history for his intricate policy, the other for his lack of anything that could fairly be called policy. The relations between these two men ranged from open hostility to a peace of the most fragile character. The policy of Louis was of the kind that was as likely to get him into trouble as out of it. The rashness and headstrong temper of Charles were equally likely to bring trouble in their train. In all things the two formed a strongly contrasted pair, and their adjoining realms could hardly hope for lasting peace while these men lived.

The hand of Charles was ever on his sword. With him the blow quickly followed the word or the thought. The hand of Louis--"the universal spider," as his contemporaries named him--was ever on the web of intrigue which he had woven around him, feeling its filaments, and keeping himself in touch with every movement of his foes. He did not like war. That was too direct a means of gaining his ends. It was his delight to defeat his enemies by combinations of state policy, to play off one against another, and by incessant intrigue to gain those ends which other men gained by hard blows.

Yet it is possible for a schemer to overdo himself, for one who trusts to his plots and his policy to defeat himself by the very neatness and intricacy of his combinations, and so it proved on one occasion in the dealings between these two men. The incident which we propose to relate forms the subject of "Quentin Durward," one of the best-known novels by Sir Walter Scott, and is worth telling for itself without the allurements of romance.

"Louis had a great idea of the influence he gained over people by his wits and his language," says one of his biographers. "He was always convinced that people never said what ought to be said, and that they did not set to work the right way." He liked to owe success to himself alone, and had an inordinate opinion of his power both of convincing and of deceiving people. In consequence, during one of his periods of strained relations with Charles of Burgundy, which his agents found it impossible to settle, this royal schemer determined to visit Charles in person, and try the effect on his opponent of the powers of persuasion of which he was so proud.

It was as rash a project as Charles himself could have been guilty of. The fox was about to trust himself in the den of the angry lion. But Louis persisted, despite the persuasions of his councillors, sent to Charles for a letter of safe-conduct, and under its assurance sought the Duke of Burgundy in his fortified town of Péronne, having with him as escort only fourscore of his Scotch guard and sixty men-at-arms.

It was a mad movement, and led to consequences of which Louis had not dreamed. Charles received him civily enough. Between rash duke and politic king there was every show of amity. But the negotiations went on no more rapidly now than they had done before. And soon came news which proved that Louis the schemer had, for once at least, played the fool, and put himself in a position of the utmost danger.

The policy of the royal spider had been stretched too far. His webs of plot had unluckily crossed. In truth, shortly before coming to Péronne, he had sent two secret agents to the town of Liége, to stir the unruly citizens up to rebellion against the duke. Quite forgetting this trifle of treachery, the too-hasty plotter had sought the duke's stronghold with the hope of placating him with well-concocted lies and a smooth tongue. Unluckily for him, his agents did not forget their orders.

The Liégoise broke out into rebellion, under the insidious advice of the French king's agents, advanced and took the town of Tongres, killed some few people, and made prisoner there the bishop of Liége and the lord of Humbercourt. The fugitives who brought this news to Péronne made the matter even worse than this, reporting that the bishop and lord had probably been killed. Charles believed them, and broke into a fury that augured badly for his guest.

"So the king came here only to deceive me!" he burst out. "It is he who by his ambassadors excited these bad folks of Liége! By St. George, they shall be severely punished for it, and he himself shall have cause to repent."

The measures taken by the incensed duke were certainly threatening. The gates of the town and castle were closed and guarded by archers. Louis was to all intents and purposes a prisoner, though the duke, a little ashamed, perhaps, of his action, affirmed that his purpose was to recover a box of gold and jewels that had been stolen from him.