CHAPTER IX. HOW JOAN DEFEATED THE ENGLISH IN FAIRFIELD

THE Maid had now driven the English away from Orleans, and had taken a strong town which they held, a thing the French, without her, had failed to do. She was next to beat their army In the open country and in fair field. We know most about this battle from a book written by a gentleman named Pierre de Cagny, who rode with the Duke of Alencon and knew what happened, and wrote all down very soon afterwards. He says that the Maid placed a garrison¹ of soldiers to keep Jargeau, and then rode to Orleans with the Duke, where the townspeople gave a great feast to her and her friends. But she did not stay long to be petted and praised at Orleans. In the evening she said to the Duke, “I am going, after dinner tomorrow, to see the English at Meun. Have the men ready to march.” She easily made Meun surrender, and then her guns fired at the town of Beaugency.

 

Then news came to Joan that the whole English army, under Talbot and Sir John Fastolf (who cannot be Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare, for the fat knight² was dead), were marching against her. Now Sir John Fastolf, though a very brave captain, thought, like the fat knight, that “discretion was the better part of valour.” He wished to be cautious, and to avoid a battle, for he saw that the French were in high spirits, while the English soldiers had lost heart. This is told in the book written by a knight named Jean de Wavrin, a Burgundian. He was, like all of them of Burgundy, on the English side, and he rode under the banner of Sir John Fastolf.

 

I tell you generally how we come to know the things done by the Maid, to show that the story is true, as the people who described it were present, and saw what happened.

 

The other English captains thought Sir John rather too cautious, and Talbot said. “By St George. I will fight if I have only my own few men with me!” Next morning the English rode out with banners flying, and again Sir John said that they were too few, and that they were risking all that Henry V. had gained in France. But Talbot and the rest would not listen to him, so the trumpets³ blew, and the horsemen rode on towards Meun, which Joan had taken. When they came to a place about three miles from Meun, and three from Beaugency, they saw the banner of the Maid, with Our Lord and the Lilies of France, and the banners of the Duke of Alençon, and Dunois, and La Hire, and young Pothon de Xaintrailles, a very gallant⁴ boy, waving over the ranks of 6000 men.

 

The English then did what Henry V. had taught them to do. They dismounted from their horses to fight on foot, and made each bowman plant his sharp stake in front of him, to stop a cavalry⁵ charge. This plan usually succeeded. The French were fond of charging with their cavalry at full speed, and then were usually shot down in heaps by the English bowmen, whom they could not reach, as they were safe behind their fence of pikes. Then the dismounted English would rush out, sword in hard, among the disordered French cavalry.

 

You see this was much like part of the battle of Waterloo, when the French cavalry many times rode at the English squares, and could not break through the bayonets, while the English were shooting at them not very straight!

 

By this plan of fighting the English had often defeated the French, and usually defeated the Scots, who generally made a wild rush at them. At the battle of Dupplin, soon after Robert Bruce died, the English archers⁶ shot from each flank till the Scots, as they charged, fell dead in heaps as high as a tall spear. But Dunois, and the fair Duke, and the Maid knew this plan. They sent a herald⁷ to bid the English go home to bed; it was late; “tomorrow we shall have a nearer view of each other.”

 

The English, therefore, went off to Meun, where nobody resisted them except the French soldiers who guarded the bridge over the Loire. The English meant to beat the French from the bridge with their cannons⁸, cross the river, and march to help their friends in Beaugency, which had not yet yielded to Joan. The English would thus take Joan’s army between two fires, that of Beaugency, and that of Talbot’s army.

 

But that very night the English in Beaugency lost heart, and yielded to the Maid, being allowed to march away with their arms and horses. Jean now bade the French captains go with her army, and look for Talbot’s and Fastolfs force, who would hear of the surrender of Beaugency, and retreat to Paris through the country called La Beauce.

 

“But how are we to find the English?” the French leaders asked Joan: for they would be in a wild, empty country covered with forests.

 

“Ride forth,” she said; “we shall take them all. As to finding them, you shall have a good guide!”

 

They had a strange guide, as you shall hear.

 

The English were marching along, in front was their advanced guard, under a knight who carried a white banner. Next came the guns, with the waggons⁹ full of provisions. Third was the main body of the army, under Talbot and Fastolf; and last rode the rear-guard. When they were near a place called Pathay, their scouts¹⁰ galloped¹¹ in, with news that they had seen the French army. The English halted, and sent out more scouts, who rode back with the same news.

 

So Talbot sent his advanced guard, the guns, and the waggons behind some tall hedges. The main body of the English army was being placed at the end of a long lane between two thick hedges, and Talbot set five hundred of his best archers to lurk¹² behind these hedges, between which the French would have to pass before they could attack the centre of his forces. If the French once entered this long lane, they would be shot down, and fall into such confusion among their own fallen men and wounded horses, that they would neither be able to go forward nor back, and would all be killed or taken prisoners.

 

The French of Joan’s army could not see what Talbot was doing, and the trap he had set, nor where his army was, the country being covered with wood and bracken, and the English being concealed¹³ by the swelling¹⁴ of the ground. However, they rode forward fast, and would bare been between the fire of the two hidden lines of English bowmen in a minute, when, lo and behold¹⁵! they had “the good guide” that Joan had promised them! As they rode they roused a stag from the bracken where he was lying: the stag rushed forward into the concealed lines of English archers, and they, being hunters like Robin¹⁶ Hood’s men, forgot to lie still, and raised a view halloo, and shot at the stag. Then the foremost riders of the French heard them, and knew where the English were lying in ambush¹⁷. When Talbot saw that his ambush was found out, he hurried the main body of hie army up to the hedges. Sir John Fastolf’s men were spurring their horses on to join their advanced guard, but the English knight of the white banner who led thought that Fastolf’s cavalry were French, and that the French were attacking: his men both in front and rear, So he and his company ran away leaving: the lane unguarded. Thus, when the battle began, Talbot was defeated by Joan’s cavalry, and taken prisoner, and 2200 of the English were killed or taken before Fastolf came up. He and his horsemen then rode away as fast as they could, to save their lives, and for this behaviour Sir John got into very deep disgrace, though, according to Wavrin, who was with him, he really could have done nothing else, as Talbot was beaten before he could arrive. As Wavrin had taken part in the flight, he had to make as good a defence of Sir John as he could. At all events, Joan and her party won a very great victory, the battle of Pathay.

 

Now look what Joan had done. She drove the English from Orleans on 8th May. Then the Dauphin took to holding long and weary councils, and she did not get another chance to fight the English till about 4th June, so nearly a month of her one year of time was wasted. On 11th June she took Jargeau, on 15th June she took Meun, on 17th June she took Beaugency, and on 18th June she destroyed Talbot’s chief army at Pathay!

 

The Duke of Alencon tells us that he himself heard Joan tell the Dauphin, again and again, that “she would only last for a year, or not much longer, and that he must make haste.” She had four things to do, she said: to drive the English in flight, to crown the King at Rheims, to deliver Orleans, and to set free the Duke of Orleans, who was a prisoner in England.

 

She did drive the English in flight, she did save Orleans, she did have the Dauphin crowned. But the French would not make haste. The Dauphin was always slow, and the stupid political advisers¹⁸ who never fought but only talked, made him more slow, and, when Joan’s year was over, for her prophecy was true, she was taken prisoner by the English. Therefore they were not driven quite out of France till about twenty years or more after the end of the year of Joan the Maid. It was not her fault. She knew that her time was short, and she told them to make haste. When she was asked how she knew things that were to happen, she said that her Voices told her, “my Council,” she called them. But there was a French noble, La Tremoïlle, the King’s favourite, and he was jealous of Jean and Dunois and the Constable¹⁹ of Brittany, an enemy of his, who had now come to ride under Joan’s flag.

 

This Tremoille, and others, did not want to fight, and hoped to make friends with the Duke of Burgundy, whose array, though really French, fought on the side of the English. Now the one chance was to keep hitting the English hard and often, while they were shaken by their defeats, and before they had time to bring a new host from home. In England there was an army ready, which had been collected by Cardinal²⁰ Beaufort, to fight the Hussites, a kind of warlike Protestants who were active in Germany. As soon as Joan had beaten the English at Orleans, they made up their minds to send this new army of theirs to protect Paris, where most of the people, and the University, were on the English side. They also made an arrangement with James I. of Scotland, so that they had nothing to fear from the Scots coming over the Border to attack them. The English were able to do all this because La Tremoïlle and his friends advised the Dauphin to loiter about, instead of making haste, as Joan desired, to keep on beating the English.

1 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

2 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

3 trumpets   

喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花

参考例句：

• A wreath was laid on the monument to a fanfare of trumpets. 在响亮的号角声中花圈被献在纪念碑前。
• A fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of the King. 嘹亮的小号声宣告了国王驾到。

4 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

5 cavalry   

n.骑兵；轻装甲部队

参考例句：

• We were taken in flank by a troop of cavalry. 我们翼侧受到一队骑兵的袭击。
• The enemy cavalry rode our men down. 敌人的骑兵撞倒了我们的人。

6 archers   

n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. 第二天晚上，西勒顿？杰克逊老先生来和阿切尔家人一起吃饭。 来自辞典例句
• Week of Archer: Double growth for Archers and Marksmen. 射手周：弓箭手与弩手（人类）产量加倍。 来自互联网

7 herald   

vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎

参考例句：

• In England, the cuckoo is the herald of spring.在英国杜鹃鸟是报春的使者。
• Dawn is the herald of day.曙光是白昼的先驱。

8 cannons   

n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cannons bombarded enemy lines. 大炮轰击了敌军阵地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• One company had been furnished with six cannons. 某连队装备了六门大炮。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 waggons   

四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车

参考例句：

• Most transport is done by electrified waggons. 大部分货物都用电瓶车运送。

10 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

11 galloped   

（使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事

参考例句：

• Jo galloped across the field towards him. 乔骑马穿过田野向他奔去。
• The children galloped home as soon as the class was over. 孩子们一下课便飞奔回家了。

12 lurk   

n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏

参考例句：

• Dangers lurk in the path of wilderness.在这条荒野的小路上隐伏着危险。
• He thought he saw someone lurking above the chamber during the address.他觉得自己看见有人在演讲时潜藏在会议厅顶上。

13 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

14 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

15 behold   

v.看，注视，看到

参考例句：

• The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
• The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。

16 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

17 ambush   

n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击

参考例句：

• Our soldiers lay in ambush in the jungle for the enemy.我方战士埋伏在丛林中等待敌人。
• Four men led by a sergeant lay in ambush at the crossroads.由一名中士率领的四名士兵埋伏在十字路口。

18 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

19 constable   

n.(英国)警察，警官

参考例句：

• The constable conducted the suspect to the police station.警官把嫌疑犯带到派出所。
• The constable kept his temper,and would not be provoked.那警察压制着自己的怒气，不肯冒起火来。

20 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。