Saint Joan of Arc by Vita Sackville-West

Author:Vita Sackville-West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

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It is a noticeable but odd fact that mediaeval chroniclers seldom if ever make any reference to the weather. They refer to the weather only in its more unpleasant and inconvenient aspects, such as excessive rains or the flooding of an otherwise fordable river. When they remain silent on the subject, we may suppose that the season was behaving according to its normal mood; thus, although it would add considerably to the vividness of our impressions were we to be told for certain whether the day of July 17th, 1429, was bright or clouded, we can only conjecture, in the absence of other evidence, that, the date being the height of summer and the situation being the favoured plain of Champagne, the day was warm and sunny, as might reasonably be expected en cette heure et en ce lieu. Had the heavens chosen to be overcast, or even to open themselves in tears, on such an occasion as the long-deferred translation of the Dauphin into the King, friendly chroniclers might possibly have suppressed the fact, but hostile chroniclers would certainly have seized with delight upon its symbolism. We may take it, therefore, that the day was gay when, at nine in the morning, Charles rode to the cathedral in full procession, accompanied by the Duke of Alençon, the Duke de la Trémoïlle, the Count of Clermont, the Count of Vendôme, and the young de Lavals, representing the peers of France. The maréchal de Sainte-Sévère, the maréchal de Rais, the seigneur de Graville, and Louis de Coulen, Admiral of France, had already gone to St Rémy to escort the Abbot bearing the miraculously holy oil. They brought him, dressed in his pontifical vestments, richly ornamented with gold, to Notre Dame, where they were met by the Archbishop, surrounded by his clergy, who, receiving the vessel from the Abbot, placed it upon the altar. There were present also such other dignitaries of the Church as the Archbishop of Châlons and the Bishops of Seez and Orleans, and an enormous concourse of knights and soldiers filling the vast cathedral.

The ceremony was conducted with all its accustomed pomp. The Duke of Alençon knighted the King; the seigneur d’Albret held the sword. The Archbishop of Reims performed his traditional duty. But a single figure drew all eyes, the cause, as they said, after God, of this coronation and of all that assembly:fn52 Jeanne d’Arc, who kept her place standing beside the King, in armour, her standard in her hand. ‘Il avait été à la peine,’ she said, when they asked why her standard had figured at the sacre, ‘c’était bien raison qu’il fut à l’honneur.fn53

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