第86章 OF THE ONFALL AT PONT L'EVEQUE,AND HOW NORMAN LESL

Now of what befell I know but little,save that I had so climbed that I looked down over the wall,when the ladder whereon I stood was wholly overthrown by two great English knights,and one of them,by his coat armour,was Messire de Montgomery himself,who commanded in Pont l'Eveque.Of all that came after I remember no more than a flight through air,and the dead stroke of a fall on earth with a stone above me.For such is the fortune of war,whereof a man knows but his own share for the most part,and even that dimly.The eyes are often blinded with swift running to be at the wall,and,what with a helm that rings to sword-blows,and what with smoke,and dust,and crying,and clamour,and roar of guns,it is but little that many a man-at-arms can tell concerning the frays wherein,may be,he has borne himself not unmanly.

This was my lot at Pont l'Eveque,and I knew but little of what passed till I found myself in very great anguish.For I had been laid in one of the carts,and so was borne along the way we had come,and at every turn of the wheels a new pang ran through me.

For my life I could not choose but groan,as others groaned that were in the same cart with me.For my right leg was broken,also my right arm,and my head was stounding as if it would burst.It was late and nigh sunset or ever we won the gates of Compiegne,having lost,indeed,but thirty men slain,but having wholly failed in our onfall.For I heard in the monastery whither I was borne that,when the Maid and Xaintrailles and their men had won their way within the walls,and had slain certain of the English,and were pushing the others hard,behold our main battle was fallen upon in the rear by the English from Noyon,some two miles distant from Pont l'Eveque.

Therefore there was no help for it but retreat we must,driving back the English to Noyon,while our wounded and all our munitions of war were carried orderly away.

As to the pains I bore in that monastery of the Jacobins,when my broken bones were set by a very good surgeon,there is no need that I should write.My fortune in war was like that of most men-at-arms,or better than that of many who are slain outright in their first skirmish.Some good fortune I had,as at St.Pierre,and again,bad fortune,of which this was the worst,that I could not be with the Maid:nay,never again did I ride under her banner.

She,for her part,was not idle,but,after tarrying certain days in Compiegne with Guillaume de Flavy,she rode to Lagny,"for there,"she said,"were men that warred well against the English,"namely,a company of our Scots.And among them,as later I heard in my bed,was Randal Rutherford,who had ransomed himself out of the hands of the French in Paris,whereat I was right glad.At Lagny,with her own men and the Scots,the Maid fought and took one Franquet d'Arras,a Burgundian "routier,"or knight of the road,who plundered that country without mercy.Him the Maid would have exchanged for an Armagnac of Paris,the host of the Bear Inn,then held in duresse by the English,for his share in a plot to yield Paris to the King.But this burgess died in the hands of the English,and the echevins {34}of Lagny,claiming Franquet d'Arras as a common thief,traitor,and murderer,tried him,and,on his confession,put him to death.This was counted a crime in the Maid by the English and Burgundian robbers,nay,even by French and Scots."For,"said they,"if a gentleman is to be judged like a manant,or a fat burgess by burgesses,there is no more profit or glory in war."Nay,I have heard gentlemen of France cry out that,as the Maid gave up Franquet to such judges as would surely condemn him,so she was rightly punished when Jean de Luxembourg sold her into the hands of unjust judges.But I answer that the Maid did not sell Franquet d'Arras,as I say De Luxembourg sold her:not a livre did she take from the folk of Lagny.And as for the slaying of robbers,this very Jean de Luxembourg had but just slain many English of his own party,for that they burned and pillaged in the Beauvais country.

Yet men murmured against the Maid not only in their hearts,but openly,and many men-at-arms ceased to love her cause,both for the slaying of Franquet d'Arras,and because she was for putting away the leaguer-lasses,and,when she might,would suffer no plundering.

Whether she was right or wrong,it behoves me not to judge,but this I know,that the King's men fought best when she was best obeyed.

And,like Him who sent her,she was ever of the part of the poor and the oppressed,against strong knights who rob and ravish and burn and torture,and hold to ransom.Therefore the Archbishop of Reims,who was never a friend of the Maid,said openly in a letter to the Reims folk that "she did her own will,rather than obeyed the commandments of God."But that God commands knights and gentlemen to rob the poor and needy (though indeed He has set a great gulf between a manant and a gentleman born)I can in nowise believe.For my part,when I have been where gentlemen and captains lamented the slaying of Franquet d'Arras,and justified the dealings of the English with the Maid,I have seemed to hear the clamour of the cruel Jews:"Tolle hunc,et dimitte nobis Barabbam."{35}For Barabbas was a robber.Howbeit on this matter,as on all,I humbly submit me to the judgment of my superiors and to Holy Church.

Meantime the Maid rode from Lagny,now to Soissons,now to Senlis,now to Crepy-en-Valois,and in Crepy she was when that befell which I am about to relate.