The Maid and the Queen

by Nancy Goldstone

  The English, who had been kept deliberately uninformed of the earlier conference at Nevers, and who were consequently surprised by the invitation to attend a general peace summit, had to scramble to come up with a sufficiently prestigious deputation. They at first asked Philip the Good to lead their embassy, but the duke of Burgundy, for reasons that would become obvious to his former allies only later, delicately declined to undertake this responsibility. The duke of Bedford, seriously ill in Rouen, was unable to attend, so the English ended up with Cardinal Henry Beaufort (Henry VI’s great-uncle and one of the most influential men in the government) and the archbishop of York as its lead negotiators instead. However, as it was important to demonstrate that Henry VI was the legitimate king of both England and France, a number of Frenchmen were included as principal envoys as well. These were more difficult to find, as many of the regency’s formerly loyal subjects, sensing the change in mood, had already defected to Charles VII. But there were still a number who, as a result of the salaries paid them, could be relied upon, and of these the most prominent was none other than Pierre Cauchon. Subsequent to his successful prosecution of Joan of Arc, Cauchon had received the consolation prize of the bishopric of Lisieux—not quite so prestigious a posting as archbishop of Rouen, for which he had initially hoped, but a profitable benefice nonetheless. So enthusiastic a collaborator was he that when the archbishop of York fell ill early in the proceedings it would be Pierre Cauchon who would speak for the English in their negotiations with the French.

  The duke of Burgundy of course brought his own entourage, which included some 115 noblemen and their respective households from throughout his domains. He was not a mediator in this instance—two cardinals and bishops assumed that role—but rather the hospitable provider of lodgings and the master of entertainment, an avocation into which he zealously threw himself. There were succulent feasts and late-night suppers accompanied by music, wine, and dancing, and parties at which were played amusing games of chance; the crowning event was an elaborate tournament, where a pair of knights in magnificent armor jousted for the benefit of spectators. The entire affair was staged exactly as though a brilliant medieval wedding was taking place—which in a sense it was, except that, unbeknownst to the English, one of the suitors was about to get jilted at the altar.

  Care was taken by the duke of Burgundy to obscure the true state of his relationship with France. Under the guise of providing due protection—after all, the French and the English were enemy combatants, and since each delegation had arrived with an armed guard, the possibility that violence might erupt was not inconsequential—the envoys from England and France, and all of their retinues, were housed at a substantial distance from each other. The English were given their lodgings in the center of the city proper, while the French stayed alongside their host in the comfortable village adjacent to Philip the Good’s castle. During the entire length of the congress, the ambassadors from England and France, along with their numerous respective counselors, never met face-to-face but communicated only by presenting their cases and proposals to the mediators, who passed them along to the opposite side and vice versa. The only member of the English delegation ever to venture into the French or Burgundian living space was the duke of Suffolk, who made a ceremonial appearance on the day of the jousting.

  While this separation prevented the English from observing the secret meetings between Philip the Good and Arthur of Richemont (which took place nightly), it did not entirely disguise the growing cordiality that existed between the delegations of Burgundy and France. By the end of the second week of August, the English began to notice that their French counterparts heard mass daily with their Burgundian hosts and later made merry, drinking and carousing until the early hours of the morning, and generally behaving like the best of friends, and that Philip the Good showered many marks of affection and courtesy on those who were, at least in theory, his sworn enemies. “The English ambassadors were not well pleased at these entertainments; and from the frequent intercourse that took place between the French and the duke, they suspected some treaties were in agitation that would not be for the advantage of their country,” Enguerrand de Monstrelet reported.

  The format for the talks had been established in advance and the conference proceeded according to the agreed-upon routine. On August 12, 1435, Pierre Cauchon presented the first peace proposal on behalf of the English to the mediators in a large room in the abbey of Saint-Vaast that had been assigned for this purpose. The arbitrators took notes, after which the English delegation, having finished its presentation, filed out, the signal for the French embassy, which had been waiting in another room, to file in. The French envoys were then informed of the details of the opposition’s offer by the cardinals and the two bishops. The English overtures were derisively rebuffed; and so it became the turn of the French to put forth a counterproposal, which proposition was duly and laboriously recorded by the mediators. Then the French filed out, and the English, who had been waiting in another room, filed in, and the whole process began over again.

  As the English were unaware that their military and diplomatic position had been seriously undermined at Nevers, and the French were only too cognizant that the balance of power had shifted seriously in their favor and that consequently there was no need for them to concede to any of the enemy’s terms, there was not much overlap between the various proposals. The issue of sovereignty, as might be expected, was particularly divisive. The English held fast to the theory of the double monarchy and insisted that Henry VI be recognized as king of both England and France. They were willing to allow Charles VII to keep his lands south of the Loire, but only if he did homage to Henry VI for them, which meant that Charles would become Henry’s vassal. They absolutely refused to consider surrendering any of the territory currently under occupation, including Normandy, Maine, and Paris, although as a concession they threw out the idea of a marriage between Henry VI and one of Charles’s daughters, the implication being that by joining the two bloodlines the conflict would be resolved when the crown passed to Henry’s progeny.

  The French proposals were naturally in diametric opposition to those proffered by the English. The French considered Henry VI to be a mere interloper and demanded that he immediately renounce any pretension to the throne of France, reminding the mediators that this honor had already been conferred upon Charles VII, the legitimate sovereign, by the coronation at Reims. Further, they were adamant that England, which kept a garrison in Paris, must vacate the capital at once. They were reluctantly willing to allow Henry VI to keep his possessions in Normandy, provided he did homage to Charles VII for them, but they preferred to simply pay him to get out, and offered the English 150,000 saluts of gold to leave the kingdom altogether.

  As the French conditions were deemed as unsatisfactory to the English as the English propositions had been to the French, the prospects for the signing of a general peace, which had not been particularly promising to begin with, faded altogether in the waning days of August. Despite the best efforts of the mediators, the two sides failed to come to any agreement whatever, and eventually the English lost patience with the enterprise and withdrew from negotiations. According to Enguerrand de Monstrelet, the delegation representing Henry VI left the conference on September 6, 1435, and returned to England in a bitter mood, “for they had perceived, while at Arras, that great cordiality existed between the duke and the French, which was far from pleasing to them.” The following week, on September 14, in a further harbinger of looming collapse, the indomitable duke of Bedford, who in the thirteen years since the sudden demise of his brother Henry V had held the English occupation of France together, often by sheer force of will as regent, died of his illness in Rouen.

  A week after that, on September 21, 1435, timed to fall on Saint Matthew’s Day, at a very grand and solemn ceremony at the abbey of Saint-Vaast attended by the Church mediators and all of the most important officials of both the French and Burgundian delegations, Philip the
Good signed a separate peace agreement, known as the Treaty of Arras, with the ambassadors from France and publicly swore to “acknowledge our aforesaid lord king Charles of France as our sovereign lord, in as much as regards the land and lordships we hold in that kingdom, promising for ourself and our heirs on our faith and bodily oath, on the word of a prince, on our honor, and on the loss of our expectations in this world and in that to come, to hold inviolate this treaty of peace.” And just like that every city, town, village, castle, fortress, military unit, vassal, and government official in those territories loyal to the duke of Burgundy, whether high or low, rich or poor, rural or urban, peasant or aristocrat, instantly abandoned his or her allegiance to Henry VI and instead embraced Charles VII as the rightful sovereign.

  Three days later in Paris, the once notorious queen of France, Isabeau of Bavaria, who for her own comfort had engineered the disinheritance of her last surviving son so that the English might advance into the capital and thereby take possession of the kingdom, died alone and penniless, of an illness brought on by sharp poverty and distress, in the Hôtel Saint-Pol, at the age of sixty-five. She lived just long enough to see her life’s work undone by the Treaty of Arras.

  THE NEWS that the duke of Burgundy had signed a separate peace agreement with Charles VII fell like a stone cannonball on the court of Henry VI. Philip the Good himself sent messengers and high-level ambassadors to En gland, armed with letters explaining this action, which were read aloud at a council meeting. “All persons were very much surprised,” wrote Enguerrand de Monstrelet, “and the young king Henry was so much hurt at their contents, that his eyes were filled with tears, which ran down his cheeks. He said to some of the privy counselors nearest to him, that he plainly perceived since the duke of Burgundy had acted thus disloyally toward him, and was reconciled to his enemy king Charles, that his dominions in France would fare the worse for it.” Astonishment turned to vexation, and vexation to anger. Violence broke out in London against people whose only crime was that they were identified with Flanders, Brabant, or Hainaut, and several were murdered before the king put a stop to it. The royal council determined to fight for its possessions in France, and preparations were made not only to retake territory lost to Charles VII but to declare war on Philip the Good as well.

  But it would take time to raise the necessary reinforcements, and in the interim Charles’s forces struck. “When the French or Armagnacs realized that they could not reach an agreement [with England at Arras], they began to make war again more strongly than ever,” wrote the anonymous Bourgeois of Paris. “They entered Normandy in force and soon captured some of its best seaports, Montivilliers, Dieppe, Harfleur, and a number of other good towns and castelries. Then they came nearer Paris and took Corbeil, Bois de Vincennes, Beauté, Pontoise… and other towns and castles near Paris. Thus nothing could come into Paris from Normandy or anywhere else, so that in Lent all goods were very dear, especially pickled herring.” By April, five thousand troops led by Arthur of Richemont and the Bastard of Orléans had surrounded the capital. To forestall a prolonged siege, the constable approached the gate at Saint-Jacques at the head of his force and advised those who guarded the city to open the doors and “let us into Paris peacefully, or you will all die of famine.” Joan had issued much the same appeal when she had assaulted these very same walls at the head of an army seven years before, but that was when the duke of Burgundy still stood with England. This time, those addressed “looked over the walls and saw so many armed men that they would not have thought all King Charles’ resources could have paid for even half the troops they could see; frightened at this and fearing an outbreak of violence, they agreed to let them into the town,” the Parisian chronicler reported. Some of the inhabitants loyal to Charles supplied ladders suitable for scaling, and the Bastard of Orléans, with a few of his men, climbed over the walls and opened the gate, allowing the French army to pour into the city. The English garrison, whose numbers had already been severely weakened by desertions, was so obviously outnumbered that its soldiers were allowed to leave the capital unharmed, provided they did so peacefully. The men formed into three companies and marched out of the city to the hoots and taunts of the Parisians, never to return.

  And then something unprecedented happened. The constable, acting on behalf of Charles, issued immunity to all Parisians, even those who had supported the regency government, and forbade all acts of retribution. “My good friends,” he was reported to have said, “the good King Charles gives you a hundred thousand thanks, and so do I on his behalf, for having so peaceably returned the chief city of the kingdom to him. If anyone of any rank, present or absent, had done any wrong to our lord the King, it is entirely forgiven him.” For the first time in three decades, the government of Paris changed hands without the massacre of a single citizen, Burgundian or Armagnac; and in that one act of enlightened statesmanship, the civil war was at long last resolved and Charles truly became king of France. “The Parisians loved them for this and before the day was out every man in Paris would have risked his life and goods to destroy the English,” the anonymous Bourgeois of Paris, a confirmed Burgundian who had reviled the Armagnacs for decades, wrote happily, obviously including himself in the general euphoria.

  It took several more months to thoroughly secure the surrounding area, but on November 12 of the following year, after being so long denied the city, Charles VII was finally able to enter Paris safely. To mark the solemnity of the occasion, he arrived in great state at the head of a long procession, and was met outside the walls by a large delegation of townspeople, who presented him with the keys to the city. Following this ceremony, a canopy of azure silk, embroidered all over with fleurs-de-lis in gold thread, which had been specially made for the occasion, was raised over his head and the king was formally escorted into the city proper. Present with Charles for this important occasion were his eldest son, Louis, now dauphin of Vienne, and all the most eminent noblemen of the kingdom, the men who had fought for this moment, their names now familiar to all—Arthur of Richemont, the count of Vendôme, the Bastard of Orléans. Even La Hire “in very grand state” rode with Charles at the head of the procession. In one of those pinpoint turnabouts of fealty at which medieval societies were so practiced, the king was celebrated with a degree of warmth that utterly belied the events of the recent past; no one viewing the scene who did not know the circumstances would ever have guessed that this reception was the result of the most savage conflict of the age. “Thus nobly accompanied, did the king make his entry into the city of Paris by the gate of St. Denis,” Enguerrand de Monstrelet recorded. “Three angels supported a shield bearing the arms of France over the gate… and underneath was written in large characters,

  “MOST EXCELLENT AND NOBLE KING,

  THE BURGHERS OF THIS LOYAL TOWN

  TO YOU THEIR GRATEFUL OFFERING BRING,

  AND BOW BEFORE YOUR ROYAL CROWN.”

  The procession proceeded into the city to noisy acclaim; prayers were said, and then Charles and all his company paraded through the capital to his father’s palace, the Hôtel Saint-Pol. “The crowd of common people was so great that it was difficult to walk the streets; and they sang carols in all the squares, and other places, as loud as they could, for the welcome return of their natural lord and king, with his son, the dauphin. Many even wept for joy at this happy event,” the chronicler enthused.

  Charles VII parades triumphantly into Paris.

  The entrance of Charles VII into Paris, while an important milestone, was largely ceremonial. The military conflict was far from over—the En glish were still firmly entrenched in Maine and Normandy, where they remained a significant threat to the rest of the kingdom—but to have retaken Paris was an undeniable accomplishment that cemented Charles’s rule and added greatly to his luster. The king himself recognized the moment as such, and that was why he had taken such pains, prior to his entrance, to surround himself in procession with those of the nobility to whom he felt an obligation, as a rew
ard for services rendered. And so on that historic day in November 1437, every person of consequence in Charles’s regime was present to savor the king’s triumph at Paris—except, of course, the two women who had put him there: Joan of Arc and Yolande of Aragon.

  * The apology was eventually ingeniously worded as follows: “The king [Charles] will declare… that the death of the late lord John, duke of Burgundy… was iniquitously and treacherously caused by those who perpetrated the deed, and through wicked counsel, which was always displeasing to him, and continues to be so in the sincerity of his heart. That if he had been aware of the consequences, and of an age to have judged of them, he would have prevented it; but at the time he was very young, having little knowledge, and inconsiderately did not prevent it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The Road

  to

  Rouen

  ITH THE TREATY OF ARRAS and the surrender of Paris, the first of the three conditions necessary to establish Joan of Arc’s place in history was achieved. In a stunning reversal of English interests, Charles was now not only the acknowledged sovereign of France, but for the first time during his reign actually in possession of three-quarters of his kingdom. Henry VI might still call himself king of France, but barring a string of further military successes, this was an empty title. For this reason, England clung to its holdings on the continent, and particularly Normandy, with a ferocity that made clear its government’s intentions to stay and fight for the legacy left by Henry V. And in the heart of Normandy lay the capital city of Rouen, in which the damning evidence of Joan’s trial was locked away. Without those records nothing could be done to rehabilitate her image.