*29 Historical Difficulties and Contested Events. By Octave Delepierre, LL. D., F. S. A., Secretary of Legation to the King of the Belgians. 8vo. London: Murray. 1868.
History, says Sainte-Beuve, is in great part a set of fables which people agree to believe in. And, on reading books like the present, one certainly needs a good deal of that discipline acquired by long familiarity with vexed historical questions, in order to check the disposition to accept the great critic’s ironical remark in sober earnest. Much of what is currently accredited as authentic history is in fact a mixture of flattery and calumny, myth and fable. Yet in this set of fables, whatever may have been the case in past times, people will no longer agree to believe. During the present century the criticism of recorded events has gone far toward assuming the developed and systematized aspect of a science, and canons of belief have been established. which it is not safe to disregard. Great occurrences, such as the Trojan War and the Siege of Thebes, not long ago faithfully described by all historians of Greece, have been found to be part of the common mythical heritage of the Aryan nations. Achilleus and Helena, Oidipous and Iokasta, Oinone and Paris, have been discovered in India and again in Scandinavia, and so on, until their nonentity has become the legitimate inference from their very ubiquity. Legislators like Romulus and Numa, inventors like Kadmos, have evaporated into etymologies. Whole legions of heroes, dynasties of kings, and adulteresses as many as Dante saw borne on the whirlwind, have vanished from the face of history, and terrible has been the havoc in the opening pages of our chronological tables. Nor is it primitive history alone which has been thus metamorphosed. Characters unduly exalted or defamed by party spirit are daily being set before us in their true, or at least in a truer, light. What Mr. Froude has done for Henry VIII. we know; and he might have done more if he had not tried to do so much. Humpbacked Richard turns out to have been one of the handsomest kings that ever sat on the throne of England. Edward I., in his dealings with Scotland, is seen to have been scrupulously just; while the dignity of the patriot hero Wallace has been somewhat impaired. Elizabeth is proved to have befriended the false Mary Stuart much longer than was consistent with her personal safety. Eloquent Cicero has been held up as an object of contempt; and even weighty Tacitus has been said to owe much of his reputation to his ability to give false testimony with a grave face. It has lately been suspected that gloomy Tiberius, apart from his gloominess, may have been rather a good fellow; not so licentious as puritanical, not cruel so much as exceptionally merciful — a rare general, a sagacious statesman, and popular to boot with all his subjects save the malignant oligarchy which he consistently snubbed, and which took revenge on him by writing his life. And, to crown all, even Catiline, abuser of our patience, seducer of vestal nuns, and drinker of children’s blood — whose very name suggests murder, incest, and robbery — even Catiline has found an able defender in Professor Beesly. It is claimed that Catiline was a man of great abilities and average good character, a well-calumniated leader of the Marian party which Caesar afterwards led to victory, and that his famous plot for burning Rome never existed save in the unscrupulous Ciceronian fancy. And those who think it easy to refute these conclusions of Professor Beesly had better set to work and try it. Such are a few of the surprising questions opened by recent historical research; and in the face of them the public is quite excusable if it declares itself at a loss what to believe.
These, however, are cases in which criticism has at least made some show of ascertaining the truth and detecting the causes of the prevalent misconception. That men like Catiline and Tiberius should have had their characters blackened is quite easily explicable. President Johnson would have little better chance of obtaining justice at the hands of posterity, if the most widely read history of his administration should happen to be written by a radical member of the Rump Congress. But the cases which Mr. Delepierre invites us to contemplate are of a different character. They come neither under the head of myths nor under that of misrepresentations. Some of them are truly vexed questions which it may perhaps always be impossible satisfactorily to solve. Others may be dealt with more easily, but afford no clew to the origin of the popularly received error. Let us briefly examine a few of Mr. Delepierre’s “difficulties.” And first, because simplest, we will take the case of the Alexandrian Library.
Every one has heard how Amrou, after his conquest of Egypt, sent to Caliph Omar to know what should be done with the Alexandrian Library. “If the books agree with the Koran,” said the Caliph, “they are superfluous; if they contradict it, they are damnable; in either case, destroy them.” So the books were taken and used to light the fires which heated water for the baths; and so vast was the number that, used in this way, they lasted six months! All this happened because John the Grammarian was over-anxious enough to request that the books might be preserved, and thus drew Amrou’s attention to them. Great has been the obloquy poured upon Omar for this piece of vandalism, and loud has been the mourning over the treasures of ancient science and literature supposed to have been irrecoverably lost in this ignominious conflagration Theologians, Catholic and Protestant, have been fond of quoting it as an instance of the hostility of Mahometanism to knowledge, and we have even heard an edifying sermon preached about it. On seeing the story put to such uses, one feels sometimes like using the ad hominem argument, and quoting the wholesale destruction of pagan libraries under Valens, the burning of books by the Latin stormers of Constantinople, the alleged annihilation of 100,000 volumes by Genoese crusaders at Tripoli, the book-burning exploits of Torquemada, the bonfire of 80,000 valuable Arabic manuscripts, lighted up in the square of Granada by order of Cardinal Ximenes, and the irreparable cremation of Aztec writings by the first Christian bishops of Mexico. These examples, with perhaps others which do not now occur to us, might be applied in just though ungentle retort by Mahometan doctors. Yet the most direct rejoinder would probably not occur to them: the Alexandrian Library was NOT destroyed by the orders of Omar, and the whole story is a figment!
The very pithiness of it, so characteristic of the excellent but bigoted Omar, is enough to cast suspicion upon it. De Quincey tells us that “if a saying has a proverbial fame, the probability is that it was never said.” How many amusing stories stand a chance of going down to posterity as the inventions of President Lincoln, of which, nevertheless, he is doubtless wholly innocent! How characteristic was Caesar’s reply to the frightened pilot! Yet in all probability Caesar never made it.
Now for the evidence. Alexandria was captured by Armrou in 640. The story of the burning of the library occurs for the first time in the works of Abulpharagius, who flourished in 1264. Six hundred years had elapsed. It is as if a story about the crusades of Louis IX. were to be found for the first time in the writings of Mr. Bancroft. The Byzantine historians were furiously angry with the Saracens; why did they, one and all, neglect to mention such an outrageous piece of vandalism? Their silence must be considered quite conclusive. Moreover we know “that the caliphs had forbidden under severe penalties the destruction” of Jewish and Christian books, a circumstance wholly inconsistent with this famous story. And finally, what a mediaeval recklessness of dates is shown in lugging into the story John the Grammarian, who was dead and in his grave when Alexandria was taken by Amrou!
But the chief item of proof remains to be mentioned. The Saracens did not burn the library, because there was no library there for them to burn! It had been destroyed just two hundred and fifty years before by a rabble of monks, incited by the patriarch Theophilus, who saw in such a vast collection of pagan literature a perpetual insult and menace to religion. In the year 390 this turbulent bigot sacked the temple of Serapis, where the books were kept, and drove out the philosophers who lodged there. Of this violent deed we have contemporary evidence, for Orosius tells us that less than fifteen years afterwards, while passing through Alexandria, he saw the empty shelves. This fact disposes of the story.
Passing from Egypt to France, and from the seventh century to the fifteenth, we meet with a much more difficult problem. That Jeanne d’Arc was burnt at the stake, at Rouen, on the 30th of May, 1431, and her bones and ashes thrown into the Seine, is generally supposed to be as indisputable as any event in modern history. Such is, however, hardly the case. Plausible evidence has been brought to prove that Jeanne d’Arc was never burnt at the stake, but lived to a ripe age, and was even happily married to a nobleman of high rank and reputation. We shall abridge Mr. Delepierre’s statement of this curious case.
In the archives of Metz, Father Vignier discovered the following remarkable entry: “In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was Sheriff of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year came the maid Jeanne, who had been in France, to La Grange of Ormes, near St. Prive, and was taken there to confer with any one of the sieurs of Metz, and she called herself Claude; and on the same day there came to see her there her two brothers, one of whom was a knight, and was called Messire Pierre, and the other ‘petit Jehan,’ a squire, and they thought that she had been burnt, but as soon as they saw her they recognized her and she them. And on Monday, the 21st day of the said month, they took their sister with them to Boquelon, and the sieur Nicole, being a knight, gave her a stout stallion of the value of thirty francs, and a pair of saddle-cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a riding-hood, the sieur Nicole Groguet, a sword; and the said maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and said several things to the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that it was she who had been in France; and she was recognized by many tokens to be the maid Jeanne of France who escorted King Charles to Rheims, and several declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she spoke mostly in parables. She afterwards returned to the town of Marnelle for the feast of Pentecost, and remained there about three weeks, and then set off to go to Notre Dame d’Alliance. And when she wished to leave, several of Metz went to see her at the said Marnelle and gave her several jewels, and they knew well that she was the maid Jeanne of France; and she then went to Erlon, in the Duchy of Luxembourg, where she was thronged,. . . . and there was solemnized the marriage of Monsieur de Hermoise, knight, and the said maid Jeanne, and afterwards the said sieur Hermoise, with his wife, the Maid, came to live at Metz, in the house the said sieur had, opposite St. Seglenne, and remained there until it pleased them to depart.”
This is surprising enough; but more remains behind. Dining shortly afterwards with M. des Armoises, member of one of the oldest families in Lorraine, Father Vignier was invited to look over the family archives, that he might satisfy his curiosity regarding certain ancestors of his host. And on looking over the family register, what was his astonishment at finding a contract of marriage between Robert des Armoises, Knight, and Jeanne d’Arcy, the so-called Maid of Orleans!
In 1740, some time after these occurrences, there was found, in the town hall of Orleans, a bill of one Jacques l’Argentier, of the year 1436, in which mention is made of a small sum paid for refreshments furnished to a messenger who had brought letters from the Maid of Orleans, and of twelve livres given to Jean du Lis, brother of Jeanne d’Arc, to help him pay the expenses of his journey back to his sister. Then come two charges which we shall translate literally. “To the sieur de Lis, 18th October, 1436, for a journey which he made through the said city while on his way to the Maid, who was then at Erlon in Luxembourg, and for carrying letters from Jeanne the Maid to the King at Loicher, where he was then staying, six livres.” And again: “To Renard Brune, 25th July, 1435, at evening, for paying the hire of a messenger who was carrying letters from Jeanne the Maid, and was on his way to William Beliers, bailiff of Troyes, two livres.”
As no doubt has been thrown upon the genuineness of these documents, it must be considered established that in 1436, five years after the public execution at Rouen, a young woman, believed to be the real Jeanne d’Arc, was alive in Lorraine and was married to a M. Hermoises or Armoises. She may, of course, have been an impostor; but in this case it is difficult to believe that her brothers, Jean and Pierre, and the people of Lorraine, where she was well known, would not have detected the imposture at once. And that Jean du Lis, during a familiar intercourse of at least several months, as indicated in the above extracts, should have continued to mistake a stranger for his own sister, with whom he had lived from childhood, seems a very absurd supposition. Nor is it likely that an impostor would have exposed herself to such a formidable test. If it had been a bold charlatan who, taking advantage of the quite general belief, to which we have ample testimony, that there was something more in the execution at Rouen than was allowed to come to the surface, had resolved to usurp for herself the honours due to the woman who had saved France, she would hardly have gone at the outset to a part of the country where the real Maid had spent nearly all her life. Her instant detection and exposure, perhaps a disgraceful punishment, would have been inevitable. But if this person were the real Jeanne, escaped from prison or returning from an exile dictated by prudence, what should she have done but go straightway to the haunts of her childhood, where she might meet once more her own friends and family?
But the account does not end here. M. Wallon, in his elaborate history of Jeanne d’Arc, states that in 1436 the supposed Maid visited France, and appears to have met some of the men-at-arms with whom she had fought. In 1439 she came to Orleans, for in the accounts of the town we read, “July 28, for ten pints of wine presented to Jeanne des Armoises, 14 sous.” And on the day of her departure, the citizens of Orleans, by a special decree of the town-council, presented her with 210 livres, “for the services which she had rendered to the said city during the siege.” At the same time the annual ceremonies for the repose of her soul were, quite naturally, suppressed. Now we may ask if it is at all probable that the people of Orleans, who, ten years before, during the siege, must have seen the Maid day after day, and to whom her whole appearance must have been perfectly familiar, would have been likely to show such attentions as these to an impostor? “In 1440,” says Mr. Delepierre, “the people so firmly believed that Jeanne d’Arc was still alive, and that another had been sacrificed in her place, that an adventuress who endeavoured to pass herself off as the Maid of Orleans was ordered by the government to be exposed before the public on the marble stone of the palace hall, in order to prove that she was an impostor. Why were not such measures taken against the real Maid of Orleans, who is mentioned in so many public documents, and who took no pains to hide herself?”
There is yet another document bearing on this case, drawn from the accounts of the auditor of the Orleans estate, in the year 1444, which we will here translate. “An island on the River Loire is restored to Pierre du Lis, knight, ‘on account of the supplication of the said Pierre, alleging that for the acquittal of his debt of loyalty toward our Lord the King and M. the Duke of Orleans, he left his country to come to the service of the King and M. the Duke, accompanied by his sister, Jeanne the Maid, with whom, down to the time of her departure, and since, unto the present time, he has exposed his body and goods in the said service, and in the King’s wars, both in resisting the former enemies of the kingdom who were besieging the town of Orleans, and since then in divers enterprises,’ &c., &c.” Upon this Mr. Delepierre justly remarks that the brother might have presented his claims in a much stronger light, “if in 1444,” instead of saying ‘up to the time of her departure,’ he had brought forward the martyrdom of his sister, as having been the means of saving France from the yoke of England.” The expression here cited and italicized in the above translation, may indeed be held to refer delicately to her death, but the particular French phrase employed, “jusques a son absentement,” apparently excludes such an interpretation. The expression, on the other hand, might well refer to Jeanne’s departure for Lorraine, and her marriage, after which there is no evidence that she returned to France, except for brief visits. Thus a notable amount of evidence goes to show that Jeanne was not put to death in 1431, as usually supposed, but was alive, married, and flourishing in 1444. Upon this supposition, certain alleged difficulties in the traditional account are easily disposed of. Mr. Delepierre urges upon the testimony of Perceval de Cagny, that at the execution in Rouen “the victim’s face was covered when walking to the stake, while at the same time a spot had been chosen for the execution that permitted the populace to have a good view. Why this contradiction? A place is chosen to enable the people to see everything, but the vict............