Epitaph for Three Women (21 page)

EARLY DAYS IN DOMRÉMY

S
OME
sixteen years before the siege of Orléans began Jacques d’Arc and his wife were waiting with mingled excitement and apprehension for the birth of their fourth child. It was not that the newcomer would not be welcome. Far from it. Jacques and his wife Isabelle – known affectionately as Zabillet – loved their children dearly. But times were hard – when had they been otherwise? – and the arrival of a new baby would mean that there was one more mouth to feed.

Jacques originally came from Arc-en-Barrois and having no legal name was called after his birthplace. He had in time found employment about the castle of Vaucouleurs and while there he had met Isabelle Romée. They had fallen in love and married. Isabelle – or Zabillet – though far from rich was not entirely penniless and on her marriage inherited the house in Domrémy where she settled with Jacques, and there the children were born. It was by no means a mansion but it served as a home for them and there was a small piece of land attached which enabled them to grow a few crops and with this and the permission which was given to all the villagers to graze their cattle in the nearby fields they managed to feed and clothe their young family.

Domrémy was situated on the River Meuse about twelve and a half miles from the town of Vaucouleurs and a little nearer to Neufchâteau. Adjoining it was the village of Greux and on the other side of the river was Maxey; a few miles away were Burey-le-Grand and Burey-le-Petit, and away on the heights lay the Château Bourlémont.

Until the wars had flared up again it had been a peaceful spot in which to live. News came slowly; the villagers were like one family, in and out of each other’s houses, sitting at their doors in summer, gathering round the fires in winter, very often in one or other of their dwellings that one fire might serve several, fuel being not always easy to come by. The villagers lived carefully, making the most of everything they could wring from the land and now and then saving a little money to put by for emergencies. There was some excitement when travellers came, which they did now and then, for close by was the great road which had been there since it had been built by the Romans and along this came the messengers to and from the Court; merchants travelled along it too, so Domrémy was not as cut off from the world as some villages might be. Sometimes these travellers stayed at the village and begged a bed for the night and in exchange for that hospitality would give accounts of what was happening in the outside world. Moreover because the house of Jacques d’Arc was more commodious than others in the village he was usually the one to receive the guests.

It was a long low house with a heavy slate roof held up by great beams. In the front there were put two small windows so high that the interior was very dark indeed. The floor was of earth and the house was very sparsely furnished with only the barest necessities – a rough table on trestles, a few stools and spinning wheel and kneading trough; rough partitions divided the rooms. There were window seats in the fireplace and the walls were blackened by years of smoke. But on those walls in each room hung a crucifix, for Jacques and Zabillet were fervently religious and determined to bring up their children to be the same.

So close to the house was the church that its dismal graveyard was the first thing the family saw when they emerged into daylight. The days were punctuated by the sound of bells. They seemed to be ringing all the time, not only for mass and vespers, matins and complines but for all the ceremonies of the village, christenings, marriages and burials. The church dominated the village.

So it was at that time when the fourth member of the d’Arc family was about to make an appearance. Young Jacques – named after his father and given the name Jacquemin partly out of affection and the custom in the family of bestowing nicknames and partly to distinguish him from his father – was already working in the field with his father. So was his younger brother Jean; and even little Catherine was helping in the house and learning to spin. Like all the children in the village they worked as soon as they were able. In time the new baby would join them – if it survived – and Zabillet was constantly telling Jacques that although the more children they had the more food had to be found, they all earned their daily bread. Jacques agreed and so in the little village of Domrémy they awaited the birth of their child.

There was no lack of helpers when Zabillet’s pains started. The wives crowded into the dark interior where she lay on her pallet. The men were still working in the fields but Jacques knew that as soon as the baby arrived he would be called.

Birth was easy in Domrémy – but then so was death. Zabillet was serene enough. It was the fourth time she had been in this condition; and already she loved the baby.

And so the child was born. A little girl.

Well, they had two boys and girls were useful. They could spin and cook and look after the men; they could also do their stint in the fields.

She was a perfect child and it was decided to name her after one of her godmothers. Jeannette was a name well loved in France. It was the female of Jean and Jean had been Jesus Christ’s best loved disciple. It was a good name.

Moreover it was a compliment to one of her godmothers – Jeannette de Vittel who had come to Domrémy from Neufchâteau for the ceremony and was very highly thought of because her husband Thiesselin de Vittel was a scholar and could read.

There were many godparents, as was the custom, and little Jeannette was baptised by the Curé Jean Minet in that church which was dedicated to Saint Rémy.

Jeannette was little more than three when she first noticed talk of war. It came into her parents’ conversation a great deal and her brothers often talked of it. Now other riders galloped along the great road and sometimes stayed the night. She was well aware of the excitement when the neighbours crowded into the house, if it were winter to sit around the fire and listen to the news the traveller brought, or if it were summer gather outside the house on the green.

There was a new baby now – Pierre known as Pierrelot – and it was Jeannette’s task to mind him, which in spite of her tender years she did tolerably well. She was a very serious little girl and tried hard to understand what the grown-ups were talking about and why news sometimes made them very sad and at other times pleased them.

It was at this time she first heard the word Agincourt. She did not know what it meant except that it was something bad and shameful. People grew angry when they talked of the Godons who, she guessed, were some sort of wicked devils.

As she grew a little older she began to learn more of these matters. There was a wicked and cruel enemy of France. These people were the Godons. They did not believe in God and used wicked oaths. God Damn was the one which was constantly on their lips – spoken in their barbaric tongue – and from this came their name. They had won the battle of Agincourt and so humbled France and made the King very unhappy. Another name for the Godons was the English.

Because he had a bigger house than most of the villagers but chiefly because he was a man of strong character Jacques d’Arc had become a sort of headman of the village. People came to the house to talk of their problems; if action was to be taken they listened to his advice. Jeannette liked to sit quietly in the shadows and listen and so when she was very young she came to have a fairly clear understanding of what was going on.

It was War. That was a hateful word and she wanted to shut her ears to it. People forgot it for long spells at a time and were happy, and then she would hear the word War again and they would be miserable – more than that, afraid.

‘Why do we have to have war?’ she asked Jacquemin. ‘What good does it bring? Why don’t they stop it? It only hurts people.’

Jacquemin gave her a scornful look. She did not understand, he told her. She should get on with learning to spin.

She did that, she reminded him, but she could think at the same time.

In time she learned that there was trouble between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians and that had been going on since the Duke of Burgundy had murdered the Duke of Orléans and now it seemed the Armagnacs had murdered the Duke of Burgundy in retaliation.

And what had this to do with the peasants of Domrémy? wondered Jeannette. Sometimes there was no talk of war for a long time. There were happy feast days. Jeannette loved the solemnity of them, the singing in the church, the ringing of the bells. She loved the statues in the churches and it was her delight to go and kneel before them, and she liked it best when she was alone in the church. Her mother had taught her the Paternoster, Ave Maria and the Credo. She learned these with avidity; it seemed wondrously beautiful to her to go into the church and sit on the floor in the nave below the pulpit and listen to the priest. All the women of the village went and Zabillet took her children there as soon as they could walk.

The church seemed to Jeannette something which was beautiful in a life which was full of hardship and dominated by the need to survive. The church gave a promise of paradise to some; it offered beauty and colour in drab lives. The peasants could sublimate their hard struggle in their religion. But although it was a religion of great promise of sublime happiness, it also had its dark side. It was a religion of contrasts – just like life itself – and as there was Heaven for the virtuous, there must be Hell for those who failed to achieve that perfection demanded at the pearly gates before a soul entered. It seemed one must spend one’s life earning the right to enter and Jacques and Zabillet were determined that their children should not be denied entry.

Jeannette loved Rogation Sunday when the banners were brought out and the cross lifted from the wall and all the people walked in procession led by the Curé to the sacred tree on the river’s edge known as L’Arbre des Dames. The little boys came first, then the women and the girls, and after them the men. As they went they chanted prayers and when they reached the sacred tree the Curé would read the gospels before they returned to the village chanting praises to God and the Virgin.

It was a solemn occasion but that which occurred on the fourth Sunday in Lent was less so. That was the children’s day – the day they called Laetare. Then the earth was waking to Spring and the countryside would be looking beautiful and as they tripped along carrying their precious burdens of cakes, tiny loaves, apples which had been saved through the winter, nuts, cheese and perhaps a sweetmeat or two if they were lucky, they would go to the tree and there sing and dance. Sometimes a piper came with them and played tunes for the dancing; and the children gathered wild flowers and made them into chains. These they hung on the trees or took home and cherished them in their homes until they faded, which was very soon.

The tree was a symbol. It must have been so since pre-Christian days but the villagers gave no thought to the fact that the worship of it was an inheritance from the past. There was a strong superstition in Domrémy that the fairies whom they called the Little People still inhabited certain parts of the woods. Some of the peasants laid out food for them – which they could ill afford – but the fact was that they were afraid of offending them, for fairies were not always good and some people held the theory that they were really people who were not good enough for Heaven and not bad enough for Hell and having been refused admittance to either must roam the earth.

There was a spring at the source of the river which was called La Fontaine-aux-Bonnes-Fées-Notre-Seigneur. It was but a mile or so from the village at the edge of the wood called Bois-Chesnu; and this spring was said to have magical powers. The sick came to drink its waters but as it was also a haunt of those fairies who could not be trusted, it was considered to be rather daring to visit it for instead of good health one might incur the wrath and curses of the Little People.

Jeanne – known as Jannet – Aubrit, who had been one of Jeannette’s godmothers, said she had seen the fairies dancing round L’Arbre des Dames and Jannet was the wife of a very important man who worked for the lords of Bourlémont; Jannet was too pious to have told a lie. So there were fairies but Jeannette was more interested in the saints.

Thus she was growing up in an atmosphere of extreme piety with a belief in miracles and a growing awareness of the horrors of war as it crept close to Domrémy. She heard the talk of the days before the Godons came. Then apparently all had been peace, though there had occasionally been skirmishes between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. But the Godons were devils who came from over the seas and were determined to take France from its rightful King.

When she was alone in the church Jeannette knelt before the statue of the Virgin and prayed that the Godons might be driven back to their own lands and that France might be happy again.

Jeannette had some little friends in the village. When she worked in the fields or was spinning in the house she would be joined by Isabelle Despinal and Mengette Joyart who would bring their distaffs with them and they would all laugh and talk together. Isabelle and Mengette were a little older than she was but Jeannette was advanced for her years and this passed unnoticed. There was a young girl, Hauviette Sydna, who liked to join them. She adored Jeannette who never failed to make her welcome in spite of her youth; and the girls were very happy together.