The night is darkest before the dawn, and the dawn when it comes can, in the field of human affairs, appear from the most unexpected quarter. The French, then as now, were a great people with a huge quantity of native talent which had already produced some of History's most notable characters. There now appeared a 17-year old girl who was one of the most remarkable even by her countries standards.

Joan of Arc was a peasant girl, born about 1412 in Domremy on the frontier with Lorraine. Peasant girls are used to hard labour, and she was of the customary robust constitution and appearance which came from hard work in her father's fields. She could certainly ride a horse, and it is even said that she was acquainted with weapons. In the disturbed state of France in the early 15th-century, there is no reason to be surprised at this. Even the womenfolk would on occasions find it necessary to give a rough welcome to the bandits and brigands who infested the countryside. Joan was said to hear voices and see visions, and even the Virgin Mary had appeared to her urging her to rescue France and to lead King Charles VII to his coronation in Rheims, the customary scene for the crowning of the Kings of France. Since Rheims was deep inside English-occupied France, much would have to be done before this could be achieved.

In this disbelieving age where nothing is taken on trust, but everything has to be subjected to the most rigorous scientific proof before it can be accepted, it is easy to dismiss Joan's voices and visions as the result of a bad attack of sun-stroke which she is said to have suffered at the age of 13. There are other factors in the puberty of girls which might be thought to be contributory causes. In the early 15th-century, the age of visionaries and mystics was still very much alive. It was a superstitious age when, in spite of the scepticism which many obvious frauds invited, people genuinely believed they had heard voices and seen visions and were able to convince others that they had done so. A bent nail or a fragment of wood was readily accepted as part of the True Cross, and a piece of bone was unquestionably thought to be part of a saint's body. At his coronation, King Henry IV was anointed with oil from a phial said to have been revealed by the Virgin Mary to Thomas-a-Becket in a dream.[page ] After the siege of Antioch in 1098, Peter the Hermit had a recurrent dream when St Andrew revealed to him where in Antioch he should look for the javelin which had pierced the side of Our Lord. Bishop Adhemar, the Papal Legate and spiritual leader of the 1st Crusade, was initially disposed to have Peter scourged as the charlatan he knew him to be. He changed his mind when digging revealed the javelin where St Andrew said it was to be found. Some 300 years divided Joan of Arc from the 1st Crusade, but where people's superstitions were concerned, little had changed. There was about Joan much of rough hewn country stock with little of sophisticated charm. She must have had a religious fervour which her contemporaries would have recognised and understood and this, coupled with a strong magnetism and a powerful and compelling personality, made her a person to take into account.

In early 1429, Joan, urged on by her voices and her visions, persuaded her uncle to take her to the nearest French commander. This was Robert de Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. Initially de Baudricourt was, as might be supposed,  very sceptical, but he rapidly fell under Joan's spell and agreed to send her on to King Charles VII. Having cut her hair, dressed in man's attire, and girt herself with one of de Baudricourt's swords, she appeared at the Court at Chinon in March 1429. Not surprisingly, opinion in Chinon varied between the deeply committed and welcoming to the sceptical and hostile. La Tremoille, one of the wretches who surrounded an equally wretched King but who had a great influence over him, viewed her with deep suspicion from the start. He saw her as an enemy who would undermine his influence with the King and would threaten his position as the King's Chief Minister and favourite. He wanted to treat her as a witch, and to hand her over to the Church to let it deal with her in the way that witches were disposed of at the time. In spite of all the difficulties put in her way, Joan succeeded in gaining a private interview with King Charles VII, when she convinced him that her mission was to expel the English and have him crowned at Rheims as the true King of France. He had her examined by the Clergy, who replied that they could see no harm in her, and that Charles could safely employ her. Having now come fully under Joan's spell, Charles, in a rare show of independence, over-ruled La Tremoille and appointed her 'Chef de Guerre'.

Joan, clad in a suit of armour and provided with her own banner depicting Jesus supported by two angels, was sent off to Blois to join a relief convoy for the succour of Orleans, then under siege by the English.

The siege of Orleans

From the map on page , it will be seen that the City of Orleans, defended by a high wall and several outlying bastions, was a formidable proposition to a besieger. Even King Henry V, experienced as he was in siege warfare, appears to have hesitated in laying siege to the City in 1421, although there are grounds for supposing that he saw other operations as being more important at the time. For such a siege to be successful, the English would have needed a large stock of siege artillery, sappers and miners, and sufficient soldiers to surround the City so effectively that no one could enter or leave it, and also to beat off the attempts to raise the siege which were only to be expected. They would also need to be able to prevent the use of the River Loire to reinforce and re-supply the City. They had the siege artillery and were very proficient in its use. Sappers and Miners were available who thoroughly understood their business. The number of soldiers who could be mustered was forever a problem, and they rarely, if ever, had enough. Before 1429, they were never in a position to deny the use of the waterway to the French. Until this date therefore, the English saw no realistic chance of besieging and capturing the City, however tempting and glittering the prize may have been.

Exactly why it was undertaken in October 1428 is not clear, but the perception of an opportunity seems to have played a part. In May 1428, the Regent and Philip-the-Good had agreed on a forward policy whereby the English would lay siege to Angers, capturing the towns and castles that lay in the way, whilst the Burgundians would campaign in the Dauphine. Both operations had been pursued with considerable success. By September 1428, the English had cleared most of the approaches to Angers, and Sir John de La Pole had captured Jargeau and Chateau-Neauf-sur Loire. The Burgundians in their turn had entered Sully. All these towns lie close together on the River Loire a little way above Orleans, and the English seem to have thought that the use of its waterway could be now denied to the French. In the event, this turned out to be a grave miscalculation. Nevertheless the English commander, Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, seems to have concluded that this was a heaven-sent opportunity to solve the problem of taking Orleans.

Later in 1434, when it was clear that the failure to do so was a disaster of the first magnitude for the English, the Regent was to claim that he knew not on what advice the siege of Angers was abandoned for that of Orleans. In saying this, he was scarcely being honest. It is difficult to accept that Salisbury or his subordinate commanders William de La Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and his brother Sir John de La Pole, wilfully and purposely disobeyed their orders to lay siege to Angers, and it is even more difficult to believe that the Regent did not sternly remind them what they were supposed to be doing if they were guilty of such an heinous breach of discipline. Furthermore, Salisbury was killed at a very early stage of the siege and in November 1428, the Regent appointed Suffolk to take his place. The only real probability is that the Regent was persuaded by Salisbury that the chance for taking the important City of Orleans should not be missed. If this was so, the English were to pay a very heavy price for an excess of over-confidence. They were never able entirely to prevent the French from using the waterway, and they had nowhere near enough soldiers to prevent them from entering and leaving the city whenever they needed to do so. They were to learn a bitter lesson that, as King Henry V had so often demonstrated, in siege warfare, preparation was everything.

The English attack began on 13th October 1428 with an assault from the south on a barricade which had been erected as an obstacle to the approach to the Bastille des Augustins and the Tourelles. Their aim was to capture both these works with the bridge beyond and to post siege artillery on the Isle St Anthonie. The French defenders, commanded by Jean, Compte de Dunois, the so-called Bastard of Orleans, put up a very spirited resistance, hindering the attackers with a net-work of ropes and showers of live coals, quicklime, scalding water and boiling oil which they rained down on their opponents heads. Such was the ferocity of the attack, and so effective was the English artillery, that the barricade, the Bastille and the Tourelles were in English hands by 24th October 1428. Then came two set-backs which stalled the English assault. Marshal de Boussac brought up a strong French reinforcement, presumably entering the City from the north side. By the end of October 1428, Salisbury had been mortally wounded. The Regent appointed William de La Pole, Earl of Suffolk, to take his place.

[The earldom of Salisbury now passed to Richard Neville who was married to Alice Montacute, the heiress of Thomas Montacute, the Earl who was killed in the siege of Orleans. Richard Neville was the son of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, who appears earlier in this story as a strong supporter of King Henry IV. Richard was a staunch Yorkist, and was beheaded after his capture at the battle of Wakefield 1460]

The most the English could do was to take the outlying forts and erect the earthworks which are shown on the map (page ), but the investment of the City was far from complete. Even so, they did manage to hinder the influx of supplies so that the City began to go hungry. Dunois saw it as more advantageous to keep the English engaged in the siege and so to wear their army down. If he had a problem with supplies, then so did the English, who had to bring everything up from their main base in Paris. There would always be opportunities to sally forth to attack their convoys in the last stages of their journey. Sickness among a besieging army was an ever present problem in the Middle Ages, and cold, damp and dysentery, the usual scourge, could be relied on to do their work whilst the French soldiers were comfortably quartered in the City's houses. These tactics were markedly successful until the battle of the Herrings in February 1429. This battle ended in a defeat for the French.

It should have been their victory, and it demonstrated how proficient their battlefield artillery had become even at this early stage.

In February 1429, Sir John Fastolphe was escorting an English convoy. It consisted of 'heryng and lenten stuffe' which was thought suitable for consumption during Lent. The Compte de Clermont, the son of the Duke of Bourbon who had been taken prisoner at Agincourt and was still in the Tower of London, was at Blois when he heard of the convoy. He sent word to Dunois suggesting a joint attack upon it. In a fast moving operation, Dunois slipped out of Orleans with a strong force of cavalry and joined Clermont at Janville. Fastolphe had expected an attack, and had formed his convoy into a 'lager'. Dunois and the French force remained mounted whilst the French field artillery set about demolishing the lager. It was beyond the range of the English bows, and could carry on with its work with impunity. Its fire was having some success, and would soon have forced the English out into the open country where they would have been at the mercy of the French horsemen. This sensible plan was ruined by the impetuosity of the Scots contingent. This was commanded by Sir John Stewart of Darnley, by now the Constable of the Scots in France, having been ransomed after his capture at the battle of Cravant 1423. Sir John had recovered from the wounds he had received in that battle, but had lost none of his aggressiveness towards the English, with whom he felt he had a score to settle. He and his men dismounted and charged the English. To prevent a complete disaster, Dunois had to support him. The English archers now had their chance. The Scots were decimated, Sir John was killed, and the French were badly hurt. They had no choice but to retire from the field, taking with them the gravely wounded Dunois. Fastolphe completed his journey in triumph.

[James 1, King of Scotland, had not managed to recall Sir John Stewart as he was bound by treaty to do ( page )]

The battle of the Herrings should not have been more than a set-back to Dunois' plans to weary out the English army, and neither would it have been any more than this if there had not been internecine strife among the nobles of the French Court. They seemed to be more interested in squabbling amongst themselves than in fighting the English, and were quite unable to settle their differences for long enough to combine against a common danger. The strife centred on the virulent dispute and bitter hatred that existed between Arthur of Brittany, the Constable of France, and King Charles VII's chief minister and favourite, La Tremoille. La Tremoille had been Arthur's protege, and owed his promotion to him. Having gained it, he saw no further need for Arthur's help, but instead treated him as an enemy who was an obstacle to his further advancement. There was no sign of any gratitude towards Arthur to whom he owed everything. This greatly angered Arthur, and the two were scarcely able to meet in civility, and without the danger that they would draw their swords on each other. Since King Charles VII seemed unable or unwilling to make these two compose their differences, the nobles took sides. Dunois, La Hire, and Pothon de Xantrailles supported La Tremoille, whilst Clermont, Marshal de Boussac and the Scots sided with the Constable. There had been a measure of co-operation in bringing reinforcements to Orleans and in combining against Sir John Fastolphe, but the defeat at the battle of the Herrings opened up their scarcely concealed differences, and much bad blood resulted from the recriminations which flew thick and fast as to who was to blame. Orleans, in spite of the gallantry of its defence, seemed doomed to fall to the English simply because there was dissension at Court. There should have been no real difficulty in raising a force large enough to compel the English to give up the siege, but the squabbling that went on made this a practical impossibility.

It was the duty of the King to bang heads together, and make them all see sense. He should even have been prepared to cut off one or two heads to make his point, a well accepted practice at the time when a monarch was intent on enforcing his authority. This was well beyond the capabilities of the flaccid nature of King Charles VII, who simply listened to the man who spoke to him last of all, and usually did what La Tremoille told him to do.

Joan of Arc, young as she was and unschooled in the ways of the World, nonetheless seemed to appreciate this, and to understand that she was, as a new force upon the scene, the only one who could break the dreary cycle of recrimination which lead to no constructive result and only invited further humiliations at the hands of the English. She understood that she would have to be bold, and not only bold, but successful as well. Her chance came soon enough, and she grasped it without any hesitation.

Joan of Arc before Orleans - April and May 1429

Joan left Blois with the convoy at the end of April 1429, having first required the soldiers to confess and to leave their camp-followers behind. It was borne home to them that this denial of their creature comforts whilst on campaign did not have as its sole purpose the concentration of their minds on the job in hand; as the chosen instruments of God, they were required to lead pure and sinless lives. Before leaving Blois, Joan sent a letter to the English commander which was simple and direct in its terms. The English must leave France, or in the name of God, she would make them go.

Joan's voices had told her that Orleans should be approached from the north. With the connivance of Dunois, she was deceived by the Marshals Gilles de Rais and de Boussac into believing she was doing this, whereas the convoy's route brought her to the south side of the River Loire. Indignant, she demanded of Dunois, who had crossed the Loire to meet her, if he was a party to this deception with the object of keeping her away from where 'Talebot' (Talbot) and the main body of the English were to be found. [Joan was obviously confusing the names of the English commanders] Dunois patiently explained that it was first necessary to bring the convoy's provisions into Orleans, and this could only be safely achieved from the south bank. "Ou nom De" exclaimed Joan using her favourite expression "the counsel of Messire (God) is better than the counsel of man. You thought to deceive me, but you have only deceived yourselves."

From this moment on, John, Compte de Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, like so many others before him, fell under Joan's spell and became her faithful disciple. He recognised at once her religious fervour and, unlike others, could see the regenerative force in this plain and simple country girl. He could also understand the inspiration which she could bring to their dispirited countrymen who had so often been soundly trounced by the English that they now believed them to be invincible. This did not mean that he mindlessly did everything she required him to do. Himself a soldier of great experience who would not shrink from a hazardous enterprise, he did not hesitate to guide Joan away from some of the more hair-brained schemes to which she said her voices guided her. He had the ability and the tact to persuade her that she was interpreting wrongly the bidding of her voices, and to guide her onto other paths which would achieve the same result at lesser military risk and at smaller cost. Dunois could well appreciate the value of her name to the English. To them her voices and visions would indicate the super-natural, and this was to be feared. They may have denounced her as a witch, but witches were fearful beings who wielded the powers not of God but the Devil himself. There was only one safe way to deal with witches, and that was to burn them, but first they had to catch the witch. Who could say what dreadful things might happen to whoever it was who laid hands upon the witch? It was an undertaking fraught with danger.

[It is to be assumed that the Burgundian archer who threw her from her horse and so effected her capture did not know who she was; otherwise he would, in all probability, never have gone near her]

Joan was ecstatically received in Orleans where, there at any rate, she was seen as a heavenly deliverer. One of the effects she did have on the French Court was the dispatch of two strong French forces to the north side of the City. After they had joined one another, Dunois and Joan sallied out of Orleans early in the morning of 4th May 1429 to guard their way into the City by keeping the English at a respectful distance. That same afternoon, the combined French forces sallied out again to launch a savage attack on the Bastille St Loup to the east. It was fiercely defended, and Joan was in the thick of the fighting until it fell in the evening. The next day she proposed an attack on the Bastille St Laurens to the west. From this Dunois gently dissuaded her. It was the strongest of the English forts, and an attack upon it would be both risky and costly. The siege could more easily be brought to an end by clearing the English off the south bank of the Loire where they were weaker. Besides, it was a feast day, and after their exertions the men needed their rest even if Joan could do without it.

To her credit, Joan could see the sense of this. Accordingly, on 6th May 1429, a strong French force crossed the river to attack the Bastille St Jean-le-Blanc. Its garrison destroyed and abandoned the work, and retreated into the Bastille St Augustins and the Tourelles. In her eagerness, Joan pressed on to attack the Tourelles, and the small force with her became dangerously separated from the main French body. A hail of arrows from the Augustins forced her to retreat, and the English soldiers sallied forth from the Tourelles in pursuit. Joan turned from the task of rallying her men to face them. The English soldiers stopped in their tracks, not knowing quite what to do. Was this a saint from heaven or a fiend from hell that faced them? Whoever she was, laying hands upon her could invite either heavenly or infernal retribution of a nature so unpleasant that it would matter little whence it came. Joan thrust forward her heavenly banner and cried "Ou nom De". This increased the dilemma of the English soldiers since, as everyone knew, the Devil had the power to assume a pleasing shape. After a moment of standing and looking puzzled, they retreated back to the safety of the Tourelles. Marshal Gilles de Rais persuaded Joan to attack the Bastille St Augustins. After a ferocious fight, it fell to the French assault. Joan was once again in the thick of the fighting and was slightly wounded in the foot.

On 7th May 1429, it was the turn of the Tourelles. The attack went on all day, and several times the French were repulsed. Towards evening, Dunois proposed to draw off for the night. "Ou nom De" cried Joan "Fear not, you will soon be in." Seizing a scaling ladder, she rushed forward with a party of French soldiers and placed it in position. The French soldiers, encouraged by her presence and example, swarmed up and overwhelmed the garrison. Joan was again wounded, this time more seriously. A quarrel from a cross-bow struck her in the neck and laid her senseless on the ground.

This brought the siege of Orleans to an end. The English still had one Bastion south of the Loire, the Bastille du Champ de St Prive, but the way to reinforce Orleans was now fully open from the south. There was no point in continuing the siege, and on 8th May 1429, the English army marched off. Joan had had the success she so badly needed. She went to report it to King Charles VII, and met with a mixed reception by the nobles of his Court. She had made several more converts, but she still had implacable enemies.

Joan of Arc after Orleans

Whatever jealousies and hatreds Joan found in the French Court, she was worshipped by the common people. Her name was on everyone's lips, and wherever she went, people cheered her and pushed forward to touch her person. As Dunois had foreseen, she was the inspiration which inflamed the spirits of a demoralised people, this simple peasant girl who had beaten the invincible English. She must have been sent by God to deliver France from an alien bondage and, with God's help, there was nothing she could not achieve. The country-people, hitherto passive, now began to harass the English so that they could no longer move around the country-side with the ease to which they had become accustomed. Towns and castles fell to the French army, and in mid-June, Joan and the Duke of Alencon, who was as now committed to her as was Dunois, had captured Jargeau and Beaugency. They took prisoner William de La Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and his bother Sir John. They could not save a third brother, Alexander, who was lynched by the infuriated peasantry. Now Arthur of Brittany, Constable of France, joined her army, and managed to make it clear that he was not among her supporters. If she was from God, he had no fear of her at all, and if the Devil had sent her, then he feared her even less. Joan's answer is not recorded. Nevertheless, Arthur fought valiantly, and never allowed his dislike of Joan to prejudice military operations. Indeed, he rendered her one signal service; he sent their common enemy La Tremoille packing back to the French Court. Then came the long-awaited success on the field of battle.

The battle of Patay 18th June 1429

An English army, commanded by John, Lord Talbot and Sir John Fastolphe, was marching from Paris to restore the English fortunes in the Loire valley. Near Beaugency, it found the French army ready to give battle. Early in the morning of 18th June 1429, Talbot heard of the fall of Beaugency and ordered a retreat towards Patay and Janville.

He thought the French army would attack him, so he resolved, once he had found a suitable position, to fight a defensive battle of the type in which the English soldiers excelled.

The French moved faster than he had expected them to do, and things looked rather serious when, in the early afternoon, his scouts reported that the French army was catching up, and he had still not found a position which suited his purpose. He therefore decided to hold them in check with the rear-guard, whilst the rest of the English army took up position behind the hedgerows. It was not ideal, but it would have to do. Things were not helped by the English main-body being more scattered than it should have been. It would take some time before it could get into position to receive a French attack.

It was a fine summer afternoon when the French first saw the English rear-guard standing boldly to bar their further path. The English main-body was nowhere to be seen.

Was it hidden and out of sight, just waiting to spring an ambush? Talbot was a resourceful general with excellent junior officers and good soldiers. He could be expected use the rear-guard as a bait to spring a trap. Such a ploy would be typical of him. It looked just too obvious that an ambush was what he proposed. Or was the English army too far away to come to the help of their rear-guard, which was some sort of a forlorn hope? Had they in fact taken the English by surprise by their quick march, so that the English had had no time to set up an ambush? If so, they had a good advantage and should use it, but it was unlike the English to allow themselves to be taken by surprise. The English were a very dangerous enemy as they had proved so many times, and memories of Agincourt and Vernueil came flooding back. It seemed just too good to be true that they had surprised the English. Joan could urge an immediate attack and exclaim "Ou nom De" till the sun sank in the west, but this was not going to alter things. Just where was the English main-body? A lot of difficult questions would be answered if only they knew this.

The two bodies of men, the French army and the English rear-guard faced each other in silence for some time, neither making a move. Suddenly, far away, a stag broke cover, and the peace of the summer afternoon was broken by a cacophony of hunting calls. So that was where the English main-body was, too far away to help its rear-guard. There was now not a moment to be lost. They had after all surprised the English, and now they must exploit their opportunity.

In a brisk cavalry charge, La Hire and Pothon de Xantrailles rapidly overwhelmed the English rear-guard. The English main-body, denied the time to take up a defensive position, was ridden down by the French cavalry and scattered. The English losses were very heavy with many killed and injured. Talbot himself, together with Lord Scales, Sir Walter Hungerford and Sir Thomas Remston were taken prisoner. Sir John Fastolphe managed to restore some semblance of order into the routed English Army, and brought it into Etamps sometime after mid-night. There was no denying the fact that it had been badly mauled.

Joan's reputation soared with the news of this success, even though most of the credit should have gone to the French generals, Dunois, the Duke of Alencon, Arthur of Brittany, La Hire, and Pothon de Xantrailles, whose caution until they could see the position clearly must have been justified, and whose boldness once they could see their opportunity brought a great victory to French arms. To the English however, it was not only a great battle lost, it was a battle lost because of the super-natural powers which Joan commanded. Was there any point in trying to fight such powers? Was there any purpose in fighting further battles which the infernal powers would ensure they would always lose?

What is especially noteworthy of the battles of the Herrings and Patay, both fought in 1429, is the emergence of a new kind of French commander. There was never any reason, in whatever low esteem they were held by the English, to doubt the courage and loyalty of the French soldier and his junior officer. Previously the fault had lain with the French generals who, as at Agincourt, had shown that they relied on reckless bravery and dashing elan to win battles. Sometimes this succeeded, but more often such methods invited disastrous results. Then the Generals had been men of high rank, a Prince or at least a Duke, with little understanding and no sympathy for the discipline which binds everybody together and makes them work as a team in pursuit of the common objective. On the field of battle, this can only have been victory. Some lessons had been learnt however, and being learnt the hard way, they were learnt well. From now on, usually but not invariably, the criterion for the appointment of French commanders was their merit. Part of that merit was the ability to enforce discipline upon their subordinates so that their commands were obeyed and their wishes were followed. Not all of the old nobility had proved themselves unable to learn. Arthur of Brittany, Constable of France, and the Duke of Alencon were noblemen of the old school, who showed they were commanders of the new mould. The way was now open for men of inferior social rank who possessed the necessary merit for appointment to high command. Jean, Compte de Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, may have been a sprig of the nobility, being a natural son of the Duke of Orleans who had been taken prisoner at Agincourt and was still imprisoned in the Tower of London. Being born out of wedlock, his nobility was questionable, but there could be no doubt about his ability to command troops. La Hire and Pothon de Xaintrailles were not noblemen, and as a subsequent exploit was to show, were little better than brigands.[page ] Again there could be no question of their ability to lead troops or to manage the French field artillery, a weapon that, in spite of their overwhelming proficiency with siege artillery, the English never really understood. It is impressive how the French army at the battle of the Herrings stood back and allowed their field artillery to play on the English; it was only the indiscipline of the Scots that robbed them of a victory. It is equally impressive to see how cautious the French commanders were at the battle of Patay until they could be certain they were not riding into a trap, and how bold and resolute they were when they saw they had an opportunity. More than this, the discipline of the French soldiers was remarkable. There was no mad helter-skelter charge at the sight of the English which could have invited disaster. They held back until the order was given. In both engagements, their conduct compared very favourably with that at Agincourt.