The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo

4

pe were turned toward

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ndependence of their

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has contributed the most to the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany, England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming France as clearly next in merit. It is impossible to deny her paramount importance in history. Besides the formidable part that she has for nearly three centuries played, as the Bellona of the European commonwealth of states, her influence during all this period over the arts, th

and led by the ablest captains then known in the world, occupied the fairest portions of her territory. Worse to her even than the fierceness and the strength of her foes were the factions, the vices, and the crimes of her own children. Her native prince was a dissolute trifler, stained with the assassination of the most powerful noble of the land, whose son, in revenge, had leagued himself with the enemy. Many

oile but the carkasses of these poore miserable creatures, wandering up and down like ghostes drawne out of their graves. The least farmes and hamlets were fortified by these robbers, English, Bourguegnons, and French, every one striving to do his worst; all men-of-war w

n as the last stronghold of the French national party. If the English could once obtain possession of it, their victorious progress through the residue of the kingdom seemed free from any serious obstacle. Accordingly, the Earl of Salisbury, one of the bravest and most e

the tete-du-pont on the southern shore was by means of a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the tete-du-pont formed together a strong fortified post, capable of containing a garrison of considerable strength; and so long as this was in possession of the Orleannais, they could communicate freely with the southern provinces, the inhabitants of which, like the Orleannais themselves, supported the cause of their Dauphin against the foreigners. Lord Salisbury rightly judged the capture of the Tourelles to be the most material step towards the

ars of the classic nations, famine was looked on as the surest weapon to compel the submission of a well-walled town and the great object of the besiegers was to effect a complete circumvallation. The great ambit of the walls of Orleans, and the facilities which the river gave for obtaining succour and supplies, rendered the capture of the place by this process a matter of great difficulty. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Suffolk, who succeeded him in command of the English after his death by a cannon-ball, c

ng men, Sir John completely defeated an army of French and Scots, four thousand strong, which had been collected for the purpose of aiding the Orleannais, and harassing the besiegers. After this encounter, which seemed decisively to confirm the superiority of the English in battl

the English seemed inevitable. The Dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant of a court, despaired of maintaining any longer the struggle for his crown; and was only prevented from abandoning the country by the more masculine spirits of his mistr

uous habits and in the practice of the strictest devotion. His eldest daughter was named by her parents Jeannette, but she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinised int

ion to the legends of saints, and tales of fairies, aided by the dreamy loneliness of her life while tending her father's flocks, had made peculiarly prone

th of his Joan of Arc, has made her beautifully describe

solitude

rst, amid the

ed nature.

ists of mornin

ntain's wooded

rly dawn, and

ers glowing, as

peness pour'd a

oon beside th

and watch the th

Fancy's wil

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lock at eveni

o our little

indness bid me

servant at an inn, is the circumstance of her having been once, with the rest of her family, obliged to take refuge in an AUBERGE in

ge had been plundered by some of these marauders, and Joan and her family had been driven from their home, and forced to seek refuge for a time at Neufchateau. The peasantry in Domremy were principally atta

f France from the English was the subject of her reveries by day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspirations were recollections of the miraculous interpositions of Heaven in favour of the oppressed, which she had learn

al time when she heard them was when the church bells were sounding for prayer. And if she was in the woods when she heard them, she could plainly distinguish their voices drawing near to her. When she thought that she discerned the Heavenly Voices, she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their presence gladdened her even to tears; and after they departed she wept because they had not taken her with them back to Paradise. They always spoke soothingly to her. They told her that France would be saved, and that she was to save it." Such were the visions and the Voices that moved the spirit of the girl of thirteen; and as she grew older they became more frequent and more clear. At last the tidings of the siege of Orleans reached Domremy, Joan heard her parents and neighbours talk of the sufferings of its population, of the ruin which its capture would bring on their lawful sovereign, and of the distress of the Dauphin and his court. Joan's

ying away his time. Her Voices had bidden her assume the arms and the apparel of a knight; and the wealthiest inhabitants of Vaucouleurs had vied with each other in equipping her with warhorse, armour, and sword. On reaching Chinon, she was, after some delay, admitted into the presence of the Dauphin. Charles designedly dressed himself far less richly than many of his courtiers were apparelled, and mingled with them, when Jean was introduced, in order to see if the Holy Maid would address her exhortations to the wrong person. But she instantly singled him out, and kneeling before him, said, "Most n

as superstition there was bigotry; but there was Faith-a Faith that itself worked true miracles, even while it believed in unreal ones. At this time, also, one of those devotional movements began among the clergy in France, which from time to time occur in national Churches, without it being possible for the historian to assign any adequate human cause for their immediate date or extension. Numberless friars and priests traversed the rural districts and towns of France, preaching to the people that they must seek from Heaven a deliverance from the pillages of the soldiery, and the insolence of the foreign oppressors. [See, Sismondi vol. xiii. p. 114; Michelet, vol. v. Livre x

sts from hell." This question seemed to her countrymen to be decisively settled in her favour, by the austere sanctity of her life, by the holiness of her conversation, but, still more, by her exemplary attention to all the services and rites of the Church. The dauphin at first feared the injury that might be done to his cause

f theology, and court ladies, had been deliberating as to recognising or dismissing the Maid, a considerable period had passed away, during which a small army, the last gleanings, as it seemed, of the English sword, had been assembled at Blois, under Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and other chiefs, who to their natural valour were now beginning to unite the wisdom that is taught by misfo

ad was unhelmeted; so that all could behold her fair and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her long black hair, which was parted across her forehead, and bound by a ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe, and the consecrated sword, marked on the blade with five crosses, which had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St. Catherine at Fierbois. A page carried her banner, which she had

action were simple enough. As she herself described it-"I used to say to them, 'Go boldly in among the English,' and then I used to go boldly in myself." [Ibid.] Such, as she told her inquisitors, was the only spell she used; and it was one of power. But while interfering little with the military discipline of the troops, in all matters of moral discipline she was inflexibly strict. All the abandoned followers of the camp were driven away. She compelled both generals and soldiers to attend regularly at confessional. Her chaplain

er Hall: [Hall, f. 127.] "The Englishmen, perceiving that they within could not long continue for faute of vitaile and pouder, kepte not their watche so diligently as thei were accustomed, nor scoured now the countrey environed as thei before had orda

they already considered their deliverer. In the words used by two of them afterwards before the tribunal, which reversed the sentence, but could not restore the life of the Virgin-martyr of France, "the people of Orleans, when they first saw her in their city, thought that it was an angel from heaven that had come down to save them." Joan spoke gently in reply to their acclamations and addresses. She t

summoned the English generals in the name of the Most High to give up to the Maid who was sent by Heaven, the keys of the French cities which they had wrongfully taken: and he also solemnly adjured the English troops, whether archers, or men of the companies of war, or gentlemen, or others, who were before the city of Orleans, to depart thence to their homes, under peril of being visited by the judgment of God. On her arrival in Orleans, Joan sent another similar message; but the English scoffed at her from their towers, and threatened to burn her heralds. She determined before she shed the blood of the besiegers, to repeat the warning with her own voice; and accordingly she mounted one of the boulevards of the town, which was within hearing of the Tourelles; and thence she spoke to the English, and bade them depart, ot

g herself she mounted to ride off to where the fight was raging. In her haste she had forgotten her banner; she rode back, and, without dismounting, had it given to her from the window, and then she galloped to the gate, whence the sally had been made. On her way she met some of the wounded French who had been carried back from the fight. "Ha," she exclaimed, "I never can see French blood flow, without my hair standing on end." She rode out of the gate, and met the tide of her countrymen, who had been repulsed from the English fort, and were flying back to Orleans in confusion. At the sight of the Holy Mai

he heel, both the English bastilles of the Augustins and St. Jean de Blanc were captured. The Tourelles were now the only post which the besiegers held on the south of the river. But that post was formidably strong, and by its command of the bridge, it was the key to the deliverance of Orleans. It was known that

had created was at its height. But the enterprise was difficult. The rampart of the tete-du-pont, or landward bulwark, of the Tourelles was steep and

h, she placed the first ladder against the wall, and began to mount. An English archer sent an arrow at her, which pierced her corslet and wounded her severely between the neck and shoulder. She fell bleeding from the ladder; and the English were leaping down from the wall to capture her, but her followers bore her off. She was carried to the rear, and laid upon the grass; her armour was taken off, and the anguish of her wound and the sight of her blood, made her at first tremble

sh, who had thought her slain, were alarmed at her reappearance; while the French pressed furiously and fanatically forward. A Biscayan soldier was carrying Joan's banner. She had told the troops that directly the banner touched the wall they should enter. The Biscayan waved the banner forward from the edge of the fosse, and touched the wall with it; and then all the French host swarmed madly up the ladders that now were raised in all directions against the English fort. At this crisis, the efforts of the English garrison were distracted by an attach from another quarter. The French troops who had been left in Orleans, had placed some planks over the broken part of the bridge, and advanced across them to the assault of the Tourelles on the northern side. Gladsdale resolved to withdraw hi

om among the soldiery. Even Talbot now counselled retreat. On the following morning, the Orleannais, from their walls, saw the great forts called "London" and "St. Lawrence," in flames; and witnessed their invaders busy in destroying the stores and munitions which had been relied on for the destruction of Orleans. Slowly and sullenly the English army retired; but not before it had drawn up in battle array opposite to the city, as if to challenge the garrison to an e

Charles VII. of France. In the interval she had taken Jargeau, Troyes, and other strong places; and she had defeated an English army in a fair field at Patay. The enthusiasm of her countrymen knew no bounds; but the importance of her services, and especially of her primary achievement at Orleans, may perhaps be best proved by the t

TIL THE TYME OF THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS,

IT SEEMETH, A GREAT STROOK UPON YOUR PEUPLE THAT WAS ASSEMBLED THERE IN GRETE NOMBRE, CAUSED IN GRETE PARTIE, AS Y TROWE, OF LAKKE OF SADDE BELE

PEUPLE THERE, BUT AS WELL WITHDREWE THE COURAGE OF THE REMENANT IN MERVEILLOUS WYSE, AN

y lain in the way of many Frenchman when called on to support Charles VII. was now removed. He had been publicly stigmatised, even by his own parents, as no true son of the royal race of France. The queen-mother, the English, and the partisans of Burgundy, called him the "Pretender to the title of Dauphin;" but those who had been led to doubt his legitimacy, were cured of their scepticism by the victories of the Holy Maid, and by the fulfilment of her pledges. They thought that heaven had now declared itself in favour of Charles as the true heir

elieved that her career would be a short one. But Charles and his captains were loth to lose the presence of one who had such an influence upon the soldiery and the people. They persuaded her to stay with the army. She still showed the same bravery and zeal for the cause of France. She was as fervent as before in her prayers, and as exemplary in all religious duties. She still heard her Heavenly Voices, but; she now no longer thought herself the appointed minister of heaven to lead her countrymen t

ons, Compeigne, Beauvais, and other strong places; but in a premature attack on Paris, in September 1429, the French were repulsed, and Joan was severely wounded in the winter she was again in the field with some of the

at Arras, and then at a place called Crotoy, on the Flemish coast, until November, when for payment of a large s

were, and s

ry that th

in five volumes, by the Societe de l'Histoire de France. All the passages from contemporary chroniclers and poets are added; and the most ample materials are thus given for acquiring full information on a subject which is, to an Englishman, one of pai

e character of the truest heroi

ed. Let him read of the Heavenly Voice, by which Socrates believed himself to be constantly attended; which cautioned him on his way from the field of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings. [See C

VICTORY AT ORLEANS, A.D. 1429, AND THE

xpulsion of the En

e Roman empire of the East destroy

il wars in England between th

ian kingdoms of Spain und

dinand and Isabella, and end of

s discovers t

VIII. of Franc

i Gama to the East Indies r

he French by the great Spanis

e Pope, the Emperor, and the K

hes the empire of the Port

e is succeeded by his grandson Charl

especting the sale of indulgences, which

. is elected Em

tez conqu

efeated and taken prisoner b

d formed by the Protest

. renounces the

arro conq

es V. Philip II. becomes King of Spai

abeth becomes Q

feat the French at the

Spanish fleet, aided by the Venetian and the

rotestants in France on

erlands revolt

p II. conqu