In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

he wished to attack such a strong town and so well stocked with men and artillery, simply because it was the city of Paris.” So rationalized the author of the Journal du siège d’Orléans at the conclusion of his account of the failure of Joan of Arc to take Paris in September 1429.1 Joan of Arc’s attack on Paris had lasted for only one day before she was wounded and her soldiers withdrew. Most historians, myself included, have blamed the failure to take Paris on Charles vII, whose disinterest in the endeavor initially delayed and then precipitously ended it. but is that a fair assessment of events in September 1429? Could Paris actually have been captured as Joan planned? This article will discuss the siege of Paris and compare it to a successful conquest earlier in the fifteenth century, that of John the Fearless in 1418. His success seems only to have come when a sizeable part of the Parisian population rose up in favor of the attackers. This is what Joan counted on in taking the city but what others, including the king, did not believe would happen and so they chose to retreat rather than expend any more lives and energy. Paris’s geography does not lend itself well to defense. Split by a major river, the Seine, with the royal administration and, at least in the early Middle Ages, a large proportion of the population living on an island,it was difficult to keep riverborne invaders, such as the vikings, at bay. nor could Paris be effectively walled in the early Middle Ages, especially as it continued to grow at a rate unsurpassed by other northern european cities.“Suburbs,”areas built outside of the defensible “urbs,”meant that expensive fortification plans were often scrapped, or outgrown, before they were begun. only when the very confident and extremely wealthy Philip II Augustus occupied the royal throne did the city acquire its first circuit of walls (ca. 1200).2 “Because It Was Paris”: Joan of Arc’s Attack on Paris Reconsidered Kelly R. DeVries “ S 123 by the fifteenth century the Parisian walls measured about eight meters in height, topped with wall walks, crenellations, and arrow slits. every 110 to120 meters along the walls stood strong rectangular towers which rose high above the walls. Six gates pierced the walls into the city,and these were all protected by massive gatehouses—the Saint-Honoré gate (which would receive Joan of Arc’s most determined assault) is known from archaeological reports to have measured 18.5 meters by 8.34 meters—with angular towers,arrow slits,gunports,machicolations, murder-holes, portcullises, and drawbridges built into them, their chambers capable of garrisoning a large number of soldiers. outside these gatehouses in the later Middle Ages were boulevards, earthen fortifications filled with soldiers, archers, and gunners. All along the walls and throughout the towers, gatehouses, and boulevards were mounted a large number of gunpowder weapons. Also around the Paris city walls was a moat, three meters deep and thirty-two meters in width in some places (again confirmed by archaeology) and, depending on the level of the Seine River, filled with water. The entire fortification was a formidable defensive structure, built as much to intimidate any enemy attacker into not attacking it as it was to defend against any of their attacks.3 John the Fearless was also the only fifteenth-century attacker of Paris who succeeded in conquering the city. despite being the cousin and chief baronial advisor of the French king, the all-but-incapacitated Charles vI, John had been forced from his side, and from the city of Paris, when he was implicated in the murder of yet another cousin who vied for control of the throne, louis, duke of orléans, on november 23, 1407. This prompted the Armagnac-burgundian civil war which raged within France at the very time that england was planning to return to the Hundred Years War.4 There is little doubt that John undertook this assassination planning to take advantage of what he anticipated would be a weakened Armagnac side to extend his own lands and political power.5 later, he paid Jean Petit, a theologian at the university of Paris, to write a Justification for the murder, claiming that it was done only to put a stop to louis of orléans’s “tyrannicide .”6 Such maneuvers were able to convince or pacify some French, but only a...

Share