Chapter VI…

Chapter VI

THE MAID IN THE TRENCHES OF MELUN--LE SEIGNEUR DE L'OURS--THE CHILD OF LAGNY

In Easter week, Jeanne, at the head of a band of mercenaries, is before the walls of Melun.[1943] She arrives just in time to fight. The truces have expired.[1944] Is it possible that the town which was subject to King Charles[1945] can have refused to admit the Maid with her company when she came to it so generously? Apparently it was so. Was Jeanne able to communicate with the Carmelites of Melun? Probably. What misfortune befell her at the gates of the town? Did she suffer ill treatment at the hands of a Burgundian band? We know not. But when she was in the trenches she heard Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret saying unto her: "Thou wilt be taken before Saint John's Day."

[Footnote 1943: Trial, vol. i, pp. 115, 253, April 17-23. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 502 recto. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 158, note 2.]

[Footnote 1944: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 363 (April 16).]

[Footnote 1945: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 125. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 378. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 28. Melun certainly belonged to the French on the 23rd of April, 1430.]

And she entreated them: "When I am taken, let me die immediately without suffering long." And the Voices repeated that she would be taken and thus it must be.

And they added gently: "Be not troubled, be resigned. God will help thee."[1946]

[Footnote 1946: Trial, vol. i, pp. 114-116. G. Leroy, Histoire de Melun, Melun, 1887, in 8vo, ch. xvi ... x ... [Transcriber's Note: ellipses in original] Jeanne d'Arc a Melun, mi-avril, 1430, Melun, 1896, 32 pp.]

Saint John's Day was the 24th of June, in less than ten weeks. Many a time after that, Jeanne asked her saints at what hour she would be taken; but they did not tell her; and thus doubting she ceased to follow her own ideas and consulted the captains.[1947]

[Footnote 1947: Trial, vol. i, p. 147.]

On her way from Melun to Lagny-sur-Marne, in the month of May, she had to pass Corbeil. It was probably then, and in her company, that the two devout women from Lower Brittany, Pierronne and her younger sister in the spirit, were taken at Corbeil by the English.[1948]

[Footnote 1948: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 259.]

For eight months the town of Lagny had been subject to King Charles and governed by Messire Ambroise de Lore, who was energetically waging war against the English of Paris and elsewhere.[1949] For the nonce Messire Ambroise de Lore was absent; but his lieutenant, Messire Jean Foucault, commanded the garrison. Shortly after Jeanne's coming to this town, tidings were brought that a company of between three and four hundred men of Picardy and of Champagne, fighting for the Duke of Burgundy, after having ranged through l'Ile de France, were now on their way back to Picardy with much booty. Their captain was a valiant man-at-arms, one Franquet d'Arras.[1950] The French determined to cut off their retreat. Under the command of Messire Jean Foucault, Messire Geoffroy de Saint-Bellin, Lord Hugh Kennedy, a Scotchman, and Captain Baretta, they sallied forth from the town.[1951]

[Footnote 1949: Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 334, 335. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 110, 111. F.A. Denis, Le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1894, in 8vo, pp. 3 et seq.]

[Footnote 1950: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 384. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, pp. 120, 121. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173.]

[Footnote 1951: Jean Chartier, loc. cit. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 117. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 38, note.]

The Maid went with them. They encountered the Burgundians near Lagny, but failed to surprise them. Messire Franquet's archers had had time to take up their position with their backs to a hedge, in the English manner. King Charles's men barely outnumbered the enemy. A certain clerk of that time, a Frenchman, writes of the engagement. His innate ingeniousness was invincible. With candid common sense he states that this very slight numerical superiority rendered the enterprise very arduous and difficult for his party.[1952] And the battle was strong indeed. The Burgundians were mightily afraid of the Maid because they believed her to be a witch and in command of armies of devils; notwithstanding, they fought right valiantly. Twice the French were repulsed; but they returned to the attack, and finally the Burgundians were all slain or taken.[1953]

[Footnote 1952: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 121.]

[Footnote 1953: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 384.]

The conquerers returned to Lagny, loaded with booty and taking with them their prisoners, among whom was Messire Franquet d'Arras. Of noble birth and the lord of a manor, he was entitled to expect that he would be held to ransom, according to custom. Both Jean de Troissy, Bailie of Senlis,[1954] and the Maid demanded him from the soldier who was his captor. It was to the Maid that he was finally delivered.[1955] Did she obtain him in return for money? Probably, for soldiers were not accustomed to give up noble and profitable prisoners for nothing. Nevertheless, the Maid, when questioned on this subject, replied, that being neither mistress nor steward of France, it was not for her to give out money. We must suppose, therefore, that some one paid for her. However that may be, Captain Franquet d'Arras was given up to her, and she endeavoured to exchange him for a prisoner in the hands of the English. The man whom she thus desired to deliver was a Parisian who was called Le Seigneur de l'Ours.[1956]

[Footnote 1954: H. Jadart, Jeanne d'Arc a Reims, p. 61.]

[Footnote 1955: Trial, vol. i, p. 158.]

[Footnote 1956: Ibid., pp. 158, 159.]

He was not of gentle birth and his arms were the sign of his hostelry. It was the custom in those days to give the title of Seigneur to the masters of the great Paris inns. Thus Colin, who kept the inn at the Temple Gate, was known as Seigneur du Boisseau. The hotel de l'Ours stood in the Rue Saint-Antoine, near the Gate properly called La Porte Baudoyer, but commonly known as Porte Baudet, Baudet possessing the double advantage over Baudoyer of being shorter and more comprehensible.[1957] It was an ancient and famous inn, equal in renown to the most famous, to the inn of L'Arbre Sec, in the street of that name, to the Fleur de Lis near the Pont Neuf, to the Epee in the Rue Saint-Denis, and to the Chapeau Fetu of the Rue Croix-du-Tirouer. As early as King Charles V's reign the inn was much frequented. Before huge fires the spits were turning all day long, and there were hot bread, fresh herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty. But since then the plunderings of men-at-arms had laid waste the countryside, and travellers no longer ventured forth for fear of being robbed and slain. Knights and pilgrims had ceased coming into the town. Only wolves came by night and devoured little children in the streets. There were no fagots in the grate, no dough in the kneading-trough. Armagnacs and Burgundians had drunk all the wine, laid waste all the vineyards, and nought was left in the cellar save a poor piquette of apples and of plums.[1958]

[Footnote 1957: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 71, 72. Sauval, Antiquites de Paris, vol. i, p. 104. A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 118. H. Legrand, Paris en 1380, Paris, 1868, in 4to, p. 65.]

[Footnote 1958: Piquette, a sour wine or cider, made from the residue of grapes or apples. A kind of second brewing (W.S.). Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 150, 154, 156, 187. Francisque-Michel and Edouard Fournier, Histoire des hotelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis, Paris, 1851 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. ii, p. 5.]

The Seigneur de l'Ours, whom the Maid demanded, was called Jaquet Guillaume.[1959] Although Jeanne, like other folk, called him Seigneur, it is not certain that he personally directed his inn, nor even that the inn was open through these years of disaster and desolation. The only ascertainable fact is that he was the proprietor of the house with the sign of the Bear (l'Ours). He held it by right of his wife Jeannette, and had come into possession of it in the following manner.

[Footnote 1959: A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 117.]

Fourteen years before, when King Henry with his knighthood had not yet landed in France, the host of the Bear Inn had been the King's sergeant-at-arms, one Jean Roche, a man of wealth and fair fame. He was a devoted follower of the Duke of Burgundy, and that was what ruined him. Paris was then occupied by the Armagnacs. In the year 1416, in order to turn them out of the city, Jean Roche concerted with divers burgesses. The plot was to be carried out on Easter Day, which that year fell on the 29th of April. But the Armagnacs discovered it. They threw the conspirators into prison and brought them to trial. On the first Saturday in May the Seigneur de l'Ours was carried to the market place in a tumbrel with Durand de Brie, a dyer, master of the sixty cross-bowmen of Paris, and Jean Perquin, pin-maker and brasier. All three were beheaded, and the body of the Seigneur de l'Ours was hanged at Montfaucon where it remained until the entrance of the Burgundians. Six weeks after their coming, in July, 1418, his body was taken down from gibbet and buried in consecrated ground.[1960]

[Footnote 1960: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 71, 72. A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 118, note 1.]

Now the widow of Jean Roche had a daughter by a first marriage. Her name was Jeannette; she took for her first husband a certain Bernard le Breton; for her second, Jaquet Guillaume, who was not rich. He owed money to Maitre Jean Fleury, a clerk at law and the King's secretary. His wife's affairs were not more prosperous; her father's goods had been confiscated and she had been obliged to redeem a part of her maternal inheritance. In 1424, the couple were short of money, and they sold a house, concealing the fact that it was mortgaged. Being charged by the purchaser, they were thrown into prison, where they aggravated their offence by suborning two witnesses, one a priest, the other a chambermaid. Fortunately for them, they procured a pardon.[1961]

[Footnote 1961: A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, pp. 119-123.]

The Jaquet Guillaume couple, therefore, were in a sorry plight. There remained to them, however, the inheritance of Jean Roche, the inn near the Place Baudet, at the sign of the Bear, the title of which Jaquet Guillaume bore. This second Seigneur de l'Ours was to be as strongly Armagnac as the other had been Burgundian, and was to pay the same price for his opinions.

Six years had passed since his release from prison, when, in the March of 1430, there was plotted by the Carmelites of Melun and certain burgesses of Paris that conspiracy which we mentioned on the occasion of Jeanne's departure for l'Ile de France. It was not the first plot into which the Carmelites had entered; they had plotted that rising which had been on the point of breaking out on the Day of the Nativity, when the Maid was leading the attack near La Porte Saint-Honore; but never before had so many burgesses and so many notables entered into a conspiracy. A clerk of the Treasury, Maitre Jean de la Chapelle, two magistrates of the Chatelet, Maitre Renaud Savin and Maitre Pierre Morant, a very wealthy man, named Jean de Calais, burgesses, merchants, artisans, more than one hundred and fifty persons, held the threads of this vast web, and among them, Jaquet Guillaume, Seigneur de l'Ours.

The Carmelites of Melun directed the whole. Clad as artisans, they went from King to burgesses, from burgesses to King; they kept up the communications between those within and those without, and regulated all the details of the enterprise. One of them asked the conspirators for a written undertaking to bring the King's men into the city. Such a demand looks as if the majority of the conspirators were in the pay of the Royal Council.

In exchange for this undertaking these monks brought acts of oblivion signed by the King. For the people of Paris to be induced to receive the Prince, whom they still called Dauphin, they must needs be assured of a full and complete amnesty. For more than ten years, while the English and Burgundians had been holding the town, no one had felt altogether free from the reproach of their lawful sovereign and the men of his party. And all the more desirous were they for Charles of Valois to forget the past when they recalled the cruel vengeance taken by the Armagnacs after the suppression of the Butchers.

One of the conspirators, Jaquet Perdriel, advocated the sounding of a trumpet and the reading of the acts of oblivion on Sunday at the Porte Baudet.

"I have no doubt," he said, "but that we shall be joined by the craftsmen, who, in great numbers will flock to hear the reading."

He intended leading them to the Saint Antoine Gate and opening it to the King's men who were lying in ambush close by.

Some eighty or a hundred Scotchmen, dressed as Englishmen, wearing the Saint Andrew's cross, were then to enter the town, bringing in fish and cattle.

"They will enter boldly by the Saint-Denys Gate," said Perdriel, "and take possession of it. Whereupon the King's men will enter in force by the Porte Saint Antoine."

The plan was deemed good, except that it was considered better for the King's men to come in by the Saint-Denys Gate.

On Sunday, the 12th of March, the second Sunday in Lent, Maitre Jean de la Chapelle invited the magistrate Renaud Savin to come to the tavern of La Pomme de Pin and meet divers other conspirators in order to arrive at an understanding touching what was best to be done. They decided that on a certain day, under pretext of going to see his vines at Chapelle-Saint-Denys, Jean de Calais should join the King's men outside the walls, make himself known to them by unfurling a white standard and bring them into the town. It was further determined that Maitre Morant and a goodly company of citizens with him, should hold themselves in readiness in the taverns of the Rue Saint-Denys to support the French when they came in. In one of the taverns of this street must have been the Seigneur de l'Ours, who, dwelling near by, had undertaken to bring together divers folk of the neighbourhood.

The conspirators were acting in perfect agreement. All they now awaited was to be informed of the day chosen by the Royal Council; and they believed the attempt was to be made on the following Sunday. But on the 21st of March Brother Pierre d'Allee, Prior of the Carmelites of Melun, was taken by the English. Put to the torture, he confessed the plot and named his accomplices. On the information he gave, more than one hundred and fifty persons were arrested and tried. On the 8th of April, the Eve of Palm Sunday, seven of the most important were taken to the market-place on a tumbrel. They were: Jean de la Chapelle, clerk of the Treasury; Renaud Savin and Pierre Morant, magistrates at the Chatelet; Guillaume Perdriau; Jean le Francois, called Baudrin; Jean le Rigueur, baker, and Jaquet Guillaume, Seigneur de l'Ours. All seven were beheaded by the executioner, who afterwards quartered the bodies of Jean de la Chapelle and of Baudrin.

Jaquet Perdriel was merely deprived of his possessions. Jean de Calais soon procured a pardon. Jeannette, the wife of Jaquet Guillaume, was banished from the kingdom and her goods confiscated.[1962]

[Footnote 1962: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 251, 253. Falconbridge, in A. Longnon, Paris pendant la domination anglaise, p. 302, note 1. Sauval, Antiquites de Paris, vol. iii, p. 536. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 140. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 274 et seq.]

How can the Maid have known the Seigneur de l'Ours? Possibly the Carmelites of Melun had recommended him to her, and perhaps it was on their advice that she demanded his surrender. She may have seen him in the September of 1429, at Saint-Denys or before the walls of Paris, and he may have then undertaken to work for the Dauphin and his party. Why were attempts made at Lagny to save this man alone of the one hundred and fifty Parisians arrested on the information of Brother Pierre d'Allee? Rather than Renaud Savin and Pierre Morant, magistrates at the Chatelet, rather than Jean de la Chapelle, clerk of the Treasury, why choose the meanest of the band? And how could they look to exchange a man accused of treachery for a prisoner of war? All this seems to us mysterious and inexplicable.

In the early days of May, Jeanne did not know what had become of Jaquet Guillaume. When she heard that he had been tried and put to death she was sore grieved and vexed. None the less, she looked upon Franquet as a captive held to ransom. But the Bailie of Senlis, who for some unknown reason was determined on the captain's ruin, took advantage of the Maid's vexation at Jaquet Guillaume's execution, and persuaded her to give up her prisoner.

He represented to her that this man had committed many a murder, many a theft, that he was a traitor, and that consequently he ought to be brought to trial.

"You will be neglecting to execute justice," he said, "if you set this Franquet free."

These reasons decided her, or rather she yielded to the Bailie's entreaty.

"Since the man I wished to have is dead," she said, "do with Franquet as justice shall require you."[1963]

[Footnote 1963: Trial, vol. i, pp. 158, 159.]

Thus she surrendered her prisoner. Was she right or wrong? Before deciding we must ask whether it were possible for her to do otherwise than she did. She was the Maid of God, the angel of the Lord of Hosts, that is clear. But the leaders of war, the captains, paid no great heed to what she said. As for the Bailie, he was the King's man, of noble birth and passing powerful.

Assisted by the judges of Lagny, he himself conducted the trial. The accused confessed that he was a murderer, a thief, and a traitor. We must believe him; and yet we cannot forbear a doubt as to whether he really was, any more than the majority of Armagnac or Burgundian men-at-arms, any more than a Damoiseau de Commercy or a Guillaume de Flavy, for example. He was condemned to death.

Jeanne consented that he should die, if he had deserved death, and seeing that he had confessed his crimes[1964] he was beheaded.

[Footnote 1964: Ibid., p. 159.]

When they heard of the scandalous treatment of Messire Franquet, the Burgundians were loud in their sorrow and indignation.[1965] It would seem that in this matter the Bailie of Senlis and the judges of Lagny did not act according to custom. We, however, are not sufficiently acquainted with the circumstances to form an opinion. There may have been some reason, of which we are ignorant, why the King of France should have demanded this prisoner. He had a right to do so on condition that he paid the Maid the amount of the ransom. A soldier of those days, well informed in all things touching honour in war, was the author of Le Jouvencel. In his chivalrous romances he writes approvingly of the wise Amydas, King of Amydoine, who, learning that one of his enemies, the Sire de Morcellet, has been taken in battle and held to ransom, cries out that he is the vilest of traitors, ransoms him with good coins of the realm, and hands him over to the provost of the town and the officers of his council that they may execute justice upon him.[1966] Such was the royal prerogative.

[Footnote 1965: Ibid., p. 254. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 385. E. Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle, book i, folio 82.]

[Footnote 1966: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, pp. 210, 211.]

Whether it was that camp life was hardening her, or whether, like all mystics, she was subject to violent changes of mood, Jeanne showed at Lagny none of that gentleness she had displayed on the evening of Patay. The virgin who once had no other arm in battle than her standard, now wielded a sword found there, at Lagny, a Burgundian sword and a trusty. Those who regarded her as an angel of the Lord, good Brother Pasquerel, for example, might justify her by saying that the Archangel Saint Michael, the standard-bearer of celestial hosts, bore a flaming sword. And indeed Jeanne remained a saint.

While she was at Lagny, folk came and told her that a child had died at birth, unbaptized.[1967] Having entered into the mother at the time of her conception, the devil held the soul of this child, who, for lack of water, had died the enemy of its Creator. The greatest anxiety was felt concerning the fate of this soul. Some thought it was in limbo, banished forever from God's sight, but the more general and better founded opinion was that it was seething in hell; for has not Saint Augustine demonstrated that souls, little as well as great, are damned because of original sin. And how could it be otherwise, seeing that Eve's fall had effaced the divine likeness in this child? He was destined to eternal death. And to think that with a few drops of water this death might have been avoided! So terrible a disaster afflicted not only the poor creature's kinsfolk, but likewise the neighbours and all good Christians in the town of Lagny. The body was carried to the Church of Saint-Pierre and placed before the image of Our Lady, which had been highly venerated ever since the plague of 1128. It was called Notre-Dame-des-Ardents because it cured burns, and when there were no burns to be cured it was called Notre-Dame-des-Aidants, or rather Des Aidances, that is, Our Lady the Helper, because she granted succour to those in dire necessity.[1968]

[Footnote 1967: Trial, vol. i, p. 105.]

[Footnote 1968: A. Denis, Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1896, in 8vo, pp. 4 et seq. J.A. Lepaire, Jeanne d'Arc a Lagny, Lagny, 1880, in 8vo, 38 pages.]

The maidens of the town knelt before her, the little body in their midst, beseeching her to intercede with her divine Son so that this little child might have his share in the Redemption brought by our Saviour.[1969] In such cases the Holy Virgin did not always deny her powerful intervention. Here it may not be inappropriate to relate a miracle she had worked thirty-seven years before.

[Footnote 1969: Trial, vol. i, p. 105.]

At Paris, in 1393, a sinful creature, finding herself with child, concealed her pregnancy, and, when her time was come, was without aid delivered. Then, having stuffed linen into the throat of the girl she had brought forth, she went and threw her on to the dust-heap outside La Porte Saint-Martin-des-Champs. But a dog scented the body, and scratching away the other refuse, discovered it. A devout woman, who happened to be passing by, took this poor little lifeless creature, and, followed by more than four hundred people, bore it to the Church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, there placed it on the altar of Our Lady, and kneeling down with the multitude of folk and the monks of the Abbey, with all her heart prayed the Holy Virgin not to suffer this innocent babe to be condemned eternally. The child stirred a little, opened her eyes, loosened the linen, which gagged her, and cried aloud. A priest baptized her on the altar of Our Lady, and gave her the name of Marie. A nurse was found, and she was fed from the breast. She lived three hours, then died and was carried to consecrated ground.[1970]

[Footnote 1970: Religieux de Saint-Denis, vol. ii, p. 82. Jean Juvenal des Ursins, in Coll. Michaud et Poujoulat, p. 395, col. 2.]

In those days resurrections of unbaptized children were frequent. That saintly Abbess, Colette of Corbie, who, when Jeanne was at Lagny, dwelt at Moulins with the reformed Sisters of Saint Clare, had brought back to life two of these poor creatures: a girl, who received the name of Colette at the font and afterwards became nun, then abbess at Pont-a-Mousson; a boy, who was said to have been two days buried and whom the servant of the poor declared to be one of the elect. He died at six months, thus fulfilling the prophecy made by the saint.[1971]

[Footnote 1971: Acta Sanctorum, 6th of March, pp. 381 and 617. Abbe Bizouard, Histoire de Sainte Colette, pp. 35, 37. Abbe Douillet, Sainte Colette, sa vie, ses oeuvres, 1884, pp. 150-154.]

With this kind of miracle Jeanne was doubtless acquainted. About twenty-five miles from Domremy, in the duchy of Lorraine, near Luneville, was the sanctuary of Notre-Dame-des-Aviots, of which she had probably heard. Notre-Dame-des-Aviots, or Our Lady of those brought back to life, was famed for restoring life to unbaptized children. By means of her intervention they lived again long enough to be made Christians.[1972]

[Footnote 1972: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, Notre-Dame de France, Paris, in 8vo, vol. vi, 1860, p. 57.]

In the duchy of Luxembourg, near Montmedy, on the hill of Avioth,[1973] multitudes of pilgrims worshipped an image of Our Lady brought there by angels. On this hill a church had been built for her, with slim pillars and elaborate stonework in trefoils, roses and light foliage. This statue worked all manner of miracles. At its feet were placed children born dead; they were restored to life and straightway baptized.[1974]

[Footnote 1973: For the etymology of Avioth see C. Bonnabelle, Petite etude sur Avioth et son eglise, in Annuaire de la Meuse, 1883, in 18mo, p. 14.]

[Footnote 1974: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, loc. cit., vol. v, pp. 107 et seq. Bonnabelle, loc. cit., pp. 13 et seq. Jacquemain, Notre-Dame d'Avioth et son eglise monumentale, Sedan, 1876, in 8vo.]

The folk, gathered in the Church of Saint-Pierre de Lagny, around the statue of Notre-Dame-des-Aidances, hoped for a like grace. The damsels of the town prayed round the child's lifeless body. The Maid was asked to come and join them in praying to Our Lord and Our Lady. She went to the church, and knelt down with the maidens and prayed. The child was black, "as black as my coat," said Jeanne. When the Maid and the damsels had prayed, it yawned three times and its colour came back. It was baptized and straightway it died; it was buried in consecrated ground. Throughout the town this resurrection was said to be the work of the Maid. According to the tales in circulation, during the three days since its birth the child had given no sign of life;[1975] but the gossips of Lagny had doubtless extended the period of its comatose condition, like those good wives who of a single egg laid by the husband of one of them, made a hundred before the day was out.

[Footnote 1975: Trial, vol. i, pp. 105, 106.]

VII. SOISSONS AND COMPIEGNE--CAPTURE OF THE MAID

Leaving Lagny, the Maid presented herself before Senlis, with her own company and with the fighting men of the French nobles whom she had joined, in all some thousand horse. And for this force she demanded entrance into the town. No misfortune was more feared by burgesses than that of receiving men-at-arms, and no privilege more jealously guarded than that of keeping them outside the walls. King Charles had experienced it during the peaceful coronation campaign. The folk of Senlis made answer to the Maid that, seeing the poverty of the town in forage, corn, oats, victuals and wine, they offered her an entrance with thirty or forty of the most notable of her company and no more.[1976]

[Footnote 1976: Arch. mun. of Senlis in Muse des archives departementales, pp. 304, 305. J. Flammermont, Histoire de Senlis pendant la seconds partie de la guerre de cent ans, p. 245. Perceval de Cagny, p. 173. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 294, note 5.]

It is said that from Senlis Jeanne went to the Castle of Borenglise in the parish of Elincourt, between Compiegne and Ressons; and, in ignorance as to what can have taken her there, it is supposed that she made a pilgrimage to the Church of Elincourt, which was dedicated to Saint Margaret; and it is possible that she wished to worship Saint Margaret there as she had worshipped Saint Catherine at Fierbois, in order to do honour to one of those heavenly ladies who visited her every day and every hour.[1977]

[Footnote 1977: Manuscript History of Beauvais by Hermant, in Trial, vol. v, p. 165. G. Lecocq, Etude historique sur le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, Amiens, 1879, in 8vo, 13 pages. A. Peyrecave, Notes sur le sejour de Jeanne d'Arc a Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, Paris, 1875, in 8vo. Elincourt-Sainte-Marguerite, notice historique et archeologique, Compiegne, 1888. Ch. vii, pp. 113, 123.]

In those days, in the town of Angers, was a licentiate of laws, canon of the churches of Tours and Angers and Dean of Saint-Jean d'Angers. Less than ten days before Jeanne's coming to Sainte-Marguerite d'Elincourt, on April 18, about nine o'clock in the evening, he felt a pain in the head, which lasted until four o'clock in the morning, and was so severe that he thought he must die. He prayed to Saint Catherine, for whom he professed a special devotion, and straightway was cured. In thankfulness for so great a grace, he wended on foot to the sanctuary of Saint Catherine of Fierbois; and there, on Friday, the 5th of May, in a loud voice, said a mass for the King, for "the Maid divinely worthy," and for the peace and prosperity of the realm.[1978]

[Footnote 1978: Trial, vol. v, pp. 164, 165. Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine de Fierboys, pp. 16, 62, 63.]

The Council of King Charles had made over Pont-Sainte-Maxence to the Duke of Burgundy, in lieu of Compiegne, which they were unable to deliver to him since that town absolutely refused to be delivered, and remained the King's despite the King. The Duke of Burgundy kept Pont-Sainte-Maxence which had been granted him and resolved to take Compiegne.[1979]

[Footnote 1979: P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, pp. 150, 154. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 276, note 3. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176.]

On the 17th of April, when the truce had expired, he took the field with a goodly knighthood and a powerful army, four thousand Burgundians, Picards and Flemings, and fifteen hundred English, commanded by Jean de Luxembourg, Count of Ligny.[1980]

[Footnote 1980: Monstrelet, ch. xxx. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 175. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, xliv, xlv.]

Noble pieces of artillery did the Duke bring to that siege; notably, Remeswelle, Rouge Bombarde and Houppembiere, from all three of which were fired stone balls of enormous size. Mortars, which the Duke had brought and paid ready money for to Messire Jean de Luxembourg, were brought likewise; Beaurevoir and Bourgogne, also a great "coullard" and a movable engine of war. The vast states of Burgundy sent their archers and cross-bowmen to Compiegne. The Duke provided himself with bows from Prussia and from Caffa in Georgia,[1981] and with arrows barbed and unbarbed. He engaged sappers and miners to lay powder mines round the town and to throw Greek fire into it. In short my Lord Philip, richer than a king, the most magnificent lord in Christendom and skilled in all the arts of knighthood, was resolved to make a gallant siege.[1982]

[Footnote 1981: "In this country the Emperor [of Constantinople] has a city called Capha, which is a seaport belonging to the Genoese and whence is obtained wood for the making of bows and cross-bows, likewise wine called Rommenie." Le Livre de description des pays de Gilles le Bouvier. Ed. E.T. Hamy, Paris, 1908, p. 90.]

[Footnote 1982: De La Fons-Melicocq, Documents inedits sur le siege de Compiegne de 1430 in La Picardie, vol. iii, 1857, pp. 22, 23. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Proofs and illustrations, p. 176.]

The town, then one of the largest and strongest in France, was defended by a garrison of between four and five hundred men,[1983] commanded by Guillaume de Flavy. Scion of a noble house of that province, forever in dispute with the nobles his neighbours, and perpetually picking quarrels with the poor folk, he was as wicked and cruel as any Armagnac baron.[1984] The citizens would have no other captain, and in that office they maintained him in defiance of King Charles and his chamberlains. They did wisely, for none was better able to defend the town than my Lord Guillaume, none was more set on doing his duty. When the King of France had commanded him to deliver the place he had refused point-blank; and when later the Duke promised him a good round sum and a rich inheritance in exchange for Compiegne, he made answer that the town was not his, but the King's.[1985]

[Footnote 1983: Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 178. H. de Lepinois, Notes extraites des archives communales de Compiegne, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 1863, vol. xxiv, p. 486. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc devant Compiegne et l'histoire des sieges de la meme ville sous Charles VI et Charles VII, d'apres des documents inedits avec vues et plans, Paris, 1889, in 8vo, p. 268.]

[Footnote 1984: Jacques Duclercq, Memoires, ed. Reiffenberg, vol. i, p. 419. Le Temple de Bocace in Les oeuvres de Georges Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. vii, p. 95. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, capitaine de Compiegne, contribution a l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc et a l'etude de la vie militaire et privee au XV'ieme siecle, Paris, 1906, in 8vo, passim.]

[Footnote 1985: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 125. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 495 recto. Rogier, in Varin, Arch. de la ville de Reims, 11th part, Statuts, vol. i, p. 604. A. Sorel, loc. cit., p. 167. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 33.]

The Duke of Burgundy easily took Gournay-sur-Aronde, and then laid siege to Choisy-sur-Aisne, also called Choisy-au-Bac, at the junction of the Aisne and the Oise.[1986]

[Footnote 1986: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 379, 381. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 495 recto. Livre des trahisons, p. 202.]

The Gascon squire, Poton de Saintrailles and the men of his company crossed the Aisne between Soissons and Choisy, surprised the besiegers, and retired immediately, taking with them sundry prisoners.[1987]

[Footnote 1987: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 382, 383. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 49.]

On the 13th of May, the Maid entered Compiegne, where she lodged in the Rue de l'Etoile.[1988] On the morrow, the Attorneys[1989] offered her four pots of wine.[1990] They thereby intended to do her great honour, for they did no more for the Lord Archbishop of Reims, Chancellor of the realm, who was then in the town with the Count of Vendome, the King's lieutenant and divers other leaders of war. These noble lords resolved to send artillery and other munitions to the Castle of Choisy, which could not hold out much longer;[1991] and now, as before, the Maid was made use of.

[Footnote 1988: According to a note by Dom Bertheau, in A. Sorel, Sejours de Jeanne d'Arc a Compiegne, maisons ou elle a loge en 1429 et 1430, with view and plans, Paris, 1888, in 8vo, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 1989: Magistrates of the town. Cf. ante, p. 34, note 3.]

[Footnote 1990: Accounts of the town of Compiegne, CC 13, folio 291. Dom Gillesson, Antiquites de Compiegne, vol. v, p. 95. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 145, note 3.]

[Footnote 1991: Choisy surrendered on the 16th of May. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 497, verso. Livre des trahisons, p. 201. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 382. Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 49. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 145, 146. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 40-41, 162-163.]

The army marched towards Soissons in order to cross the Aisne.[1992] The captain of the town was a squire of Picardy, called by the French Guichard Bournel, by the Burgundians Guichard de Thiembronne; he had served on both sides. Jeanne knew him well; he reminded her of a painful incident. He had been one of those, who finding her wounded in the trenches before Paris, had insisted on putting her on her horse against her will. On the approach of King Charles's barons and men-at-arms, Captain Guichard made the folk of Soissons believe that the whole army was coming to encamp in their town. Wherefore they resolved not to receive them. Then happened what had already befallen at Senlis: Captain Bournel received the Lord Archbishop of Reims, the Count of Vendome and the Maid, with a small company, and the rest of the army abode that night outside the walls.[1993] On the morrow, failing to obtain command of the bridge, they endeavoured to ford the river, but without success; for it was spring and the waters were high. The army had to turn back. When it was gone, Captain Bournel sold to the Duke of Burgundy the city he was charged to hold for the King of France; and he delivered it into the hand of Messire Jean de Luxembourg for four thousand golden saluts.[1994]

[Footnote 1992: Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, pp. 49, 50.]

[Footnote 1993: F. Brun, Jeanne d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons en 1430, Soissons, 1904, p. 5 (extract from l'Argus Soissonnais). P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 41.]

[Footnote 1994: Berry, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 50. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 168. Proofs and illustrations, xxxv, p. 168. F. Brun, Nouvelles recherches sur le fait de Soissons (Jeanne d'Arc et Bournel en 1430) a propos d'un livre recent, Meulan, 1907, in 8vo.]

At the tidings of this treacherous and dishonourable action on the part of the Captain of Soissons, Jeanne cried out that if she had him, she would cut his body into four pieces, which was no empty imagining of her wrath. As the penalty of certain crimes it was the custom for the executioner, after he had beheaded the condemned, to cut his body in four pieces, which was called quartering. So that it was as if Jeanne had said that the traitor deserved quartering. The words sounded hard to Burgundian ears; certain even believed that they heard Jeanne in her wrath taking God's name in vain. They did not hear correctly. Never had Jeanne taken the name of God or of any of his saints in vain. Far from swearing when she was angered, she used to exclaim: "God's good will!" or "Saint John!" or "By Our Lady!"[1995]

[Footnote 1995: Trial, vol. i, p. 273.]

Before Soissons, Jeanne and the generals separated. The latter with their men-at-arms went to Senlis and the banks of the Marne. The country between the Aisne and the Oise was no longer capable of supporting so large a number of men or such important personages. Jeanne and her company wended their way back to Compiegne.[1996] Scarcely had she entered the town when she sallied forth to ravage the neighbourhood.

[Footnote 1996: I have rejected the story told by Alain Bouchard of Jeanne's meeting with the little children in the Church of Saint Jacques. (Les grandes croniques de Bretaigne, Paris, Galliot Du Pre, 1514, fol. cclxxxi.) M. Pierre Champion (Guillaume de Flavy, p. 283) has irrefutably demonstrated its unauthenticity.]

For example, she took part in an expedition against Pont-l'Eveque, a stronghold, some distance from Noyon, occupied by a small English garrison, commanded by Lord Montgomery.

The Burgundians, who were besieging Compiegne, made Pont-l'Eveque their base. In the middle of May, the French numbering about a thousand, commanded by Captain Poton, by Messire Jacques de Chabannes and divers others, and accompanied by the Maid, attacked the English under Lord Montgomery, and the battle was passing fierce. But the enemy, being relieved by the Burgundians of Noyon, the French must needs beat a retreat. They had slain thirty of their adversaries and had lost as many, wherefore the combat was held to have been right sanguinary.[1997] There was no longer any question of crossing the Aisne and saving Choisy.

[Footnote 1997: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 382. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 178. Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 498 verso.]

After returning to Compiegne, Jeanne, who never rested for a moment, hastened to Crepy-en-Valois, where were gathering the troops intended for the defence of Compiegne. Then, with these troops, she marched through the Forest of Guise, to the besieged town and entered it on the 23rd, at daybreak, without having encountered any Burgundians. There were none in the neighbourhood of the Forest, on the left bank of the Oise.[1998]

[Footnote 1998: Trial, vol. i, p. 114. Perceval de Cagny, p. 174. Extract from a note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 296, note 1.]

They were all on the other side of the river. There meadowland extends for some three-quarters of a mile, while beyond rises the slope of Picardy. Because this meadow was low, damp and frequently flooded, a causeway had been built leading from the bridge to the village of Margny, which rose on the steep slope of the hill. Some two miles up the river there towered the belfry of Clairoix, at the junction of the Aronde and the Oise. On the opposite bank rose the belfry of Venette, about a mile and a quarter lower down, towards Pont-Sainte-Maxence.[1999]

[Footnote 1999: Manuscript map of Compiegne in 1509, in Debout, Jeanne d'Arc, vol. ii, p. 293. Plan of the town of Compiegne, engraved by Aveline in the 17th century, reduction published by La Societe historique de Compiegne, May, 1877. Lambert de Ballyhier, Compiegne historique et monumental, 1842, 2 vols. in 8vo, engravings. Plan of the restitution of the town of Compiegne in 1430, in A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 43.]

A little band of Burgundians commanded by a knight, Messire Baudot de Noyelles, occupied the high ground of the village of Margny. Most renowned among the men of war of the Burgundian party was Messire Jean de Luxembourg. He with his Picards was posted at Clairoix, on the banks of the Aronde, at the foot of Mount Ganelon. The five hundred English of Lord Montgomery watched the Oise at Venette. Duke Philip occupied Coudun, a good two and a half miles from the town, towards Picardy.[2000] Such dispositions were in accordance with the precepts of the most experienced captains. It was their rule that when besieging a fortified town a large number of men-at-arms should never be concentrated in one spot, in one camp, as they said. In case of a sudden attack, it was thought that a large company, if it has but one base, will be surprised and routed just as easily as a lesser number, and the disaster will be grievous. Wherefore it is better to divide the besiegers into small companies and to place them not far apart, in order that they may aid one another. In this wise, when those of one body are discomfited those of another have time to put themselves in battle array for their succour. While the assailants are sore aghast at seeing fresh troops come down upon them, those who are being attacked take heart of grace. At any rate such was the opinion of Messire Jean de Bueil.[2001]

[Footnote 2000: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 383, 384.]

[Footnote 2001: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, p. 196.]

That same day, the 23rd of May, towards five o'clock in the evening[2002] riding a fine dapple-grey horse, Jeanne sallied forth, across the bridge, on to the causeway over the meadow. With her were her standard-bearer and her company of Lombards, Captain Baretta and his three or four hundred men, both horse and foot, who had entered Compiegne by night. She was girt with the Burgundian sword, found at Lagny, and over her armour she wore a surcoat of cloth of gold.[2003] Such attire would have better beseemed a parade than a sortie; but in the simplicity of her rustic and religious soul she loved all the pompous show of chivalry.

[Footnote 2002: Trial, vol. i, p. 116. Letter from Philippe le Bon to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Letter from Philippe le Bon to Amedee, Duke of Savoy in P. Champion, loc. cit. Proofs and illustrations, xxxvii. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. William Worcester, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 475, and Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255.]

[Footnote 2003: Trial, vol. i, pp. 78, 223, 224. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. The Clerk of the Brabant Chambre des Comptes, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 428.]

The enterprise had been concerted between Captain Baretta, the other leaders of the party and Messire Guillaume de Flavy. The last-named, in order to protect the line of retreat for the French, had posted archers, cross-bowmen, and cannoneers at the head of the bridge, while on the river he launched a number of small covered boats, intended if need were to bring back as many men as possible.[2004] Jeanne was not consulted in the matter; her advice was never asked. Without being told anything she was taken with the army as a bringer of good luck; she was exhibited to the enemy as a powerful enchantress, and they, especially if they were in mortal sin, feared lest she should cast a spell over them. Certain there were doubtless on both sides, who perceived that she did not greatly differ from other women;[2005] but they were folk who believed in nothing, and that manner of person is always outside public opinion.

[Footnote 2004: Notes concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 177. Chronique de Tournai, in Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, 1856, vol. iii, pp. 415, 416.]

[Footnote 2005: Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49.]

This time she had not the remotest idea of what was to be done. With her head full of dreams, she imagined she was setting forth for some great and noble emprise. It is said that she had promised to discomfit the Burgundians and bring back Duke Philip prisoner. But there was no question of that; Captain Baretta and those who commanded the soldiers of fortune proposed to surprise and plunder the little Burgundian outpost, which was nearest the town and most accessible. That was Margny, and there on a steep hill, which might be reached in twenty or twenty-five minutes along the causeway, was stationed Messire Baudot de Noyelles. The attempt was worth making. The taking of outposts constituted the perquisites of men-at-arms. And, albeit the enemy's positions were very wisely chosen, the assailants if they proceeded with extreme swiftness had a chance of success. The Burgundians at Margny were very few. Having but lately arrived, they had erected neither bastion nor bulwark, and their only defences were the outbuildings of the village.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the French set out on the march. The days being at their longest, they did not depend on the darkness for success. In those times indeed, men-at-arms were chary of venturing much in the darkness. They deemed the night treacherous, capable of serving the fool's turn as well as the wise man's, and thus ran the saw: "Night never blushes at her deed."[2006]

[Footnote 2006: Le Jouvencel, vol. i, p. 91.]

Having climbed up to Margny, the assailants found the Burgundians scattered and unarmed. They took them by surprise; and the French set to work to strike here and there haphazard. The Maid, for her part, overthrew everything before her.

Now just at this time Sire Jean de Luxembourg and the Sire de Crequy had ridden over from their camp at Clairoix.[2007] Wearing no armour, and accompanied by eight or ten gentlemen-at-arms, they were climbing the Margny hill. They were on their way to visit Messire Baudot de Noyelles, and all unsuspecting, they were thinking to reconnoitre the defences of the town from this elevated spot, as the Earl of Salisbury had formerly done from Les Tourelles at Orleans. Having fallen into a regular skirmish, they sent to Clairoix in all haste for their arms and to summon their company, which would take a good half hour to reach the scene of battle. Meanwhile, all unarmed as they were, they joined Messire Baudot's little band, to help it to hold out against the enemy.[2008] Thus to surprise my Lord of Luxembourg might be a stroke of good luck and certainly could not be bad; for in any event the Margny men would have straightway summoned their comrades of Clairoix to their aid, as they did in very deed summon the English from Venette and the Burgundians from Coudun.

[Footnote 2007: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 387. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 179. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 48. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176.]

[Footnote 2008: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, in Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Monstrelet, Lefevre de Saint-Remy, Chastellain. Notes concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit.]

Having stormed the camp and pillaged it, the assailants should in all haste have fallen back on the town with their booty; but they dallied at Margny, for what reason is not difficult to guess: that reason which so often transformed the robber into the robbed. The wearers of the white cross as well as those of the red, no matter what danger threatened them, never quitted a place as long as anything remained to be carried away.

If the mercenaries of Compiegne incurred peril by their greed, the Maid on her side by her valour and prowess ran much greater risk; never would she consent to leave a battle; she must be wounded, pierced with bolts and arrows, before she would give in.

Meanwhile, having recovered from so sudden an alarm, Messire Baudot's men armed as best they might and endeavoured to win back the village. Now they drove out the French, now they themselves were forced to retreat with great loss. The Seigneur de Crequy, among others, was sorely wounded in the face. But the hope of being reinforced gave them courage. The men of Clairoix appeared. Duke Philip himself came up with the band from Coudun. The French, outnumbered, abandoned Margny, and retreated slowly. It may be that their booty impeded their march. But suddenly espying the Godons from Venette advancing over the meadowland, they were seized with panic; to the cry of "Sauve qui peut!" they broke into one mad rush and in utter rout reached the bank of the Oise. Some threw themselves into boats, others crowded round the bulwark of the Bridge. Thus they attracted the very misfortune they feared. For the English followed so hard on the fugitives that the defenders on the ramparts dared not fire their cannon for fear of striking the French.[2009]

[Footnote 2009: Perceval de Cagny, p. 176. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. Monstrelet. Note concerning G. de Flavy; Lefevre de Saint-Remy, Chastellain, loc. cit.]

The latter having forced the barrier of the bulwark, the English were about to enter on their heels, cross the bridge and pass into the town. The captain of Compiegne saw the danger and gave the command to close the town gate. The bridge was raised and the portcullis lowered.[2010]

[Footnote 2010: Note concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit. Du Fresne de Beaucourt, Jeanne d'Arc et Guillaume de Flavy in Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France, vol. iii, 1861, pp. 173 et seq. Z. Rendu, Jeanne d'Arc et G. de Flavy, Compiegne, 1865, in 8vo, 32 pp. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 209. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, appendix i, pp. 282, 286.]

In the meadow, Jeanne still laboured under the heroic delusion of victory. Surrounded by a little band of kinsmen and personal retainers, she was withstanding the Burgundians, and imagining that she would overthrow everything before her.

Her comrades shouted to her: "Strive to regain the town or we are lost."

But her eyes were dazzled by the splendour of angels and archangels, and she made answer: "Hold your peace; it will be your fault if we are discomfited. Think of nought but of attacking them."

And once again she uttered those words which were forever in her mouth: "Go forward! They are ours!"[2011]

[Footnote 2011: Perceval de Cagny, p. 175.]

Her men took her horse by the bridle and forced her to turn towards the town. It was too late; the bulwarks commanding the bridge could not be entered: the English held the head of the causeway. The Maid with her little band was penned into the corner between the side of the bulwark and the embankment of the road. Her assailants were men of Picardy, who, striking hard and driving away her protectors, succeeded in reaching her.[2012] A bowman pulled her by her cloak of cloth of gold and threw her to the ground. They all surrounded her and together cried:

"Surrender!"

[Footnote 2012: Perceval de Cagny, p. 175. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 122; vol. iii, p. 207. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 87.]

Urged to give her parole, she replied: "I have plighted my word to another, and I shall keep my oath."[2013]

[Footnote 2013: Perceval de Cagny, p. 176.]

One of those who pressed her said that he was of gentle birth. She surrendered to him.

He was an archer, by name Lyonnel, in the company of the Bastard of Wandomme. Deeming that his fortune was made, he appeared more joyful than if he had taken a king.[2014]

[Footnote 2014: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy in Trial, vol. v, p. 166. Perceval de Cagny, p. 175. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 400. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, p. 175. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 49. Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 174. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 118. P. Champion, loc. cit., pp. 46, 49. Lanery d'Arc, Livre d'Or, pp. 513-518.]

With the Maid was taken her brother, Pierre d'Arc, Jean d'Aulon, her steward, and Jean d'Aulon's brother, Poton, surnamed the Burgundian.[2015] According to the Burgundians, the French in this engagement lost four hundred fighting men, killed or drowned;[2016] but according to the French most of the foot soldiers were taken up by the boats which were moored near the bank of the Oise.[2017]

[Footnote 2015: Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle, book iv, fol. 188 et seq. P. Champion, loc. cit. Proofs and illustrations, xxxiii. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388. Note concerning G. de Flavy, loc. cit. Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, loc. cit. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 459.]

[Footnote 2016: According to Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255, four hundred French were killed or drowned.]

[Footnote 2017: Note concerning G. de Flavy, in Trial, vol. v, p. 176. Perceval de Cagny, p. 175.]

Had it not been for the archers, cross-bowmen and cannoneers posted at the bridge end by the Sire de Flavy, the bulwark would have been captured. The Burgundians had but twenty wounded and not one slain.[2018] The Maid had not been very vigorously defended.

[Footnote 2018: Letter from the Duke of Burgundy to the inhabitants of Saint-Quentin, in Trial, vol. v, p. 166.]

She was disarmed and taken to Margny.[2019] At the tidings that the witch of the Armagnacs had been taken, cries and rejoicings resounded throughout the Burgundian camp. Duke Philip wished to see her. When he drew near to her, there were certain of his clergy and his knighthood who praised his piety, extolled his courage, and wondered that this mighty Duke was not afraid of the spawn of Hell.[2020]

[Footnote 2019: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388. Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 50. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 253 et seq.]

[Footnote 2020: Jean Jouffroy, in d'Achery, Spicilegium, iii, pp. 823 et seq.]

In this respect, his knighthood were as valiant as he, for many knights and squires flocked to satisfy this same curiosity. Among them was Messire Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a native of the County of Boulogne, a retainer of the House of Luxembourg, the author of the Chronicles. He heard the words the Duke addressed to the prisoner, and, albeit his calling required a good memory, he forgot them. Possibly he did not consider them chivalrous enough to be written in his book.[2021]

[Footnote 2021: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 388.]

Jeanne remained in the custody of Messire Jean de Luxembourg, to whom she belonged henceforward. The bowman, her captor, had given her up to his captain, the Bastard of Wandomme, who, in his turn, had yielded her to his Master, Messire Jean.[2022]

[Footnote 2022: Ibid., p. 389. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 168.]

Branches of the Luxembourg tree extended from the west to the east of Christendom, as far as Bohemia and Hungary; and it had produced six queens, an empress, four kings, and four emperors. A scion of a younger branch of this illustrious house and himself a but poorly landed cadet, Jean de Luxembourg, had with great labour won his spurs in the service of the Duke of Burgundy. When he held the Maid to ransom, he was thirty-nine years of age, covered with wounds and one-eyed.[2023]

[Footnote 2023: La Chronique des cordeliers, and Monstrelet, passim. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 165, 166.]

That very evening from his quarters at Coudun the Duke of Burgundy caused letters to be written to the towns of his dominions telling of the capture of the Maid. "Of this capture shall the fame spread far and wide," is written in the letter to the people of Saint-Quentin; "and there shall be bruited abroad the error and misbelief of all such as have approved and favoured the deeds of this woman."[2024]

[Footnote 2024: Trial, vol. v, p. 167. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 95.]

In like manner did the Duke send the tidings to the Duke of Brittany by his herald Lorraine; to the Duke of Savoy and to his good town of Ghent.[2025]

[Footnote 2025: Trial, vol. v, p. 358. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iii, p. 534. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 169-171.]

The survivors of the company the Maid had taken to Compiegne abandoned the siege, and on the morrow returned to their garrisons. The Lombard Captain, Bartolomeo Baretta, Jeanne's lieutenant, remained in the town with thirty-two men-at-arms, two trumpeters, two pages, forty-eight cross bowmen, and twenty archers or targeteers.[2026]

[Footnote 2026: Note concerning Guillaume de Flavy in Trial, vol. v, p. 177. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 333.]

VIII. THE MAID AT BEAULIEU--THE SHEPHERD OF GEVAUDAN

The tidings that Jeanne was in the hands of the Burgundians reached Paris on the morning of May the 25th.[2027] On the morrow, the 26th, the University sent a summons to Duke Philip requiring him to give up his prisoner to the Vicar-General of the Grand Inquisitor of France. At the same time, the Vicar-General himself by letter required the redoubtable Duke to bring prisoner before him the young woman suspected of divers crimes savouring of heresy.[2028]

[Footnote 2027: Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 458. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 255. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 96. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc au cimetiere de Saint-Ouen et l'authenticite de sa formule, Paris, 1902, in 8vo, p. 18.]

[Footnote 2028: Trial, vol. i, pp. 8-10. E. O'Reilly, Les deux proces, vol. ii, pp. 13, 14. P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 516, no. 2372.]

"... We beseech you in all good affection, O powerful Prince," he said, "and we entreat your noble vassals that by them and by you Jeanne be sent unto us surely and shortly, and we hope that thus ye will do as being the true protector of the faith and the defender of God's honour...."[2029]

[Footnote 2029: Trial, vol. i, p. 12. E. O'Reilly, Les deux proces.]

The Vicar-General of the Grand Inquisitor of France, Brother Martin Billoray,[2030] Master of theology, belonged to the order of friars preachers, the members of which exercised the principal functions of the Holy office. In the days of Innocent III, when the Inquisition was exterminating Cathari and Albigenses, the sons of Dominic figured in paintings in monasteries and chapels as great white hounds spotted with black, biting at the throats of the wolves of heresy.[2031] In France in the fifteenth century the Dominicans were always the dogs of the Lord; they, jointly with the bishops, drove out the heretic. The Grand Inquisitor or his Vicar was unable of his own initiative to set on foot and prosecute any judicial action; the bishops maintained their right to judge crimes committed against the Church. In matters of faith trials were conducted by two judges, the Ordinary, who might be the bishop himself or the Official, and the Inquisitor or his Vicar. Inquisitorial forms were observed.[2032]

[Footnote 2030: Trial, vol. i, pp. 3, 12; vol. iii, p. 378; vol. v, p. 392.]

[Footnote 2031: Domini canes. Thus they are represented in the frescoes of the Capella degli Spagnuoli in Santa-Maria-Novella at Florence.]

[Footnote 2032: Tanon, Histoire des tribuneaux de l'inquisition en France, ch. ii.]

In the Maid's case it was not the Bishop only who was prompting the Holy Inquisition, but the Daughter of Kings, the Mother of Learning, the Bright and Shining Sun of France and of Christendom, the University of Paris. She arrogated to herself a peculiar jurisdiction in cases of heresy or other matters of doctrine occurring in the city or its neighbourhood; her advice was asked on every hand and regarded as authoritative over the face of the whole world, wheresoever the Cross had been set up. For a year her masters and doctors, many in number and filled with sound learning, had been clamouring for the Maid to be delivered up to the Inquisition, as being good for the welfare of the Church and conducive to the interests of the faith; for they had a deep-rooted suspicion that the damsel came not from God, but was deceived and seduced by the machinations of the Devil; that she acted not by divine power but by the aid of demons; that she was addicted to witchcraft and practised idolatry.[2033]

[Footnote 2033: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 510; Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'universite de Paris, Paris, 1897, in 8vo, 32 pp.]

Such knowledge as they possessed of things divine and methods of reasoning corroborated this grave suspicion. They were Burgundians and English by necessity and by inclination; they observed faithfully the Treaty of Troyes to which they had sworn; they were devoted to the Regent who showed them great consideration; they abhorred the Armagnacs, who desolated and laid waste their city, the most beautiful in the world;[2034] they held that the Dauphin Charles had forfeited his rights to the Kingdom of the Lilies. Wherefore they inclined to believe that the Maid of the Armagnacs, the woman knight of the Dauphin Charles, was inspired by a company of loathsome demons. These scholars of the University were human; they believed what it was to their interest to believe; they were priests and they beheld the Devil everywhere, but especially in a woman. Without having devoted themselves to any profound examination of the deeds and sayings of this damsel, they knew enough to cause them to demand an immediate inquiry. She called herself the emissary of God, the daughter of God; and she appeared loquacious, vain, crafty, gorgeous in her attire. She had threatened the English that if they did not quit France she would have them all slain. She commanded armies, wherefore she was a slayer of her fellow-creatures and foolhardy. She was seditious, for are not all those seditious who support the opposite party? But recently having appeared before Paris in company with Friar Richard, a heretic, and a rebel,[2035] she had threatened to put the Parisians to death without mercy and committed the mortal sin of storming the city on the Anniversary of the Nativity of Our Lady. It was important to examine whether in all this she had been inspired by a good spirit or a bad.[2036]

[Footnote 2034: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, passim. Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 450.]

[Footnote 2035: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 237. T. Basin, Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI, vol. iv, pp. 103, 104. Monstrelet, vol. iv, ch. lxiii. Bougenot, Deux documents inedits relatifs a Jeanne d'Arc, in Revue bleue, 13 Feb., 1892, pp. 203, 204.]

[Footnote 2036: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, p. 515, no. 2370; Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'universite de Paris.]

Despite his strong attachment to the interests of the Church, the Duke of Burgundy did not respond to the urgent demand of the University; and Messire Jean de Luxembourg, after having kept the Maid three or four days in his quarters before Compiegne, had her taken to the Castle of Beaulieu in Vermandois, a few leagues from the camp.[2037] Like his master, he ever appeared the obedient son of Mother Church; but prudence counselled him to await the approach of English and French and to see what each of them would offer.

[Footnote 2037: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 389. Perceval de Cagny, p. 176. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 300-302; vol. iv, pp. 254-355. De La Fons-Melicocq, Une cite picarde au moyen age ou Noyon et les Noyonnais aux XIV'e et XV'e siecles, Noyon, 1841, vol. ii, pp. 100-105. In 1441 Lyonnel de Wandomme, who was governor of this town, was driven out by the inhabitants on the death of Jean de Luxembourg (Monstrelet, vol. v, p. 456).]

At Beaulieu, Jeanne was treated courteously and ceremoniously. Her steward, Messire Jean d'Aulon, waited on her in her prison; one day he said to her pitifully:

"That poor town of Compiegne, which you so dearly loved, will now be delivered into the hands of the enemies of France, whom it must needs obey."

She made answer: "No, that shall not come to pass. For not one of those places, which the King of Heaven hath conquered through me and restored to their allegiance to the fair King Charles, shall be recaptured by the enemy, so diligently will he guard them."[2038]

[Footnote 2038: Perceval de Cagny, p. 177, very doubtful.]

One day she tried to escape by slipping between two planks. She had intended to shut up her guards in the tower and take to the fields, but the porter saw and stopped her. She concluded that it was not God's will that she should escape this time.[2039] Notwithstanding she had far too much self-reliance to despair. Her Voices, like her enamoured of marvellous encounters and knightly adventures, told her that she must see the King of England.[2040] Thus did her dreams encourage and console her in her misfortune.

[Footnote 2039: Trial, vol. i, pp. 163-164, 249.]

[Footnote 2040: Ibid., p. 151.]

Great was the mourning on the Loire when the inhabitants of the towns loyal to King Charles learnt the disaster which had befallen the Maid. The people, who venerated her as a saint, who went so far as to say that she was the greatest of all God's saints after the Blessed Virgin Mary, who erected images of her in the chapels of saints, who ordered masses to be said for her, and collects in the churches, who wore leaden medals on which she was represented as if the Church had already canonized her,[2041] did not withdraw their trust, but continued to believe in her.[2042] Such faithfulness scandalized the doctors and masters of the University, who reproached the hapless Maid herself with it. "Jeanne," they said, "hath so seduced the Catholic people, that many have adored her as a saint in her presence, and now in her absence they adore her still."[2043]

[Footnote 2041: Vallet de Viriville, Note sur deux medailles de plomb relatives a Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1861, in 8vo, 30 pages. Forgeais, Notice sur les plombs histories trouves dans la Seine, Paris, 1860, in 8vo. J. Quicherat, Medaille frappee en l'honneur de la Pucelle, Six dessins sur Jeanne d'Arc tires d'un manuscrit du XV'e siecle, in L'autographe, No. 24, 15 Nov., 1864.]

[Footnote 2042: P. Lanery d'Arc, Le culte de Jeanne d'Arc au XV'e siecle, Paris, 1887, in 8vo, 29 pages.]

[Footnote 2043: Trial, vol. i, p. 290.]

This was indeed true of many folk and many places. The councillors of the town of Tours ordered public prayers to be offered for the deliverance of the Maid. There was a public procession in which took part the canons of the cathedral church, the clergy of the town, secular and regular, all walking barefoot.[2044]

[Footnote 2044: Carreau, Histoire manuscrite de Touraine, in Proces, vol. v, pp. 253, 254.]

In the towns of Dauphine prayers for the Maid were said at mass.

"Collect. O God, all powerful and eternal, who, in thy holy and ineffable mercy, hast commanded the Maid to restore and deliver the realm of France, and to repulse, confound and annihilate her enemies, and who hast permitted her, in the accomplishment of this holy work, ordained by thee, to fall into the hands and into the bonds of her enemies, we beseech thee, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints to deliver her out of their hands, without her having suffered any hurt, in order that she may finish the work whereto thou hast sent her."

"For the sake of Jesus Christ, etc."

"Secret. O God all powerful, Father of virtues, let thy holy benediction descend upon this sacrifice; let thy wondrous power be made manifest, that by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints, it may deliver the Maid from the prisons of the enemy so that she may finish the work whereto thou hast sent her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."

"Post Communion. O God all powerful, incline thine ear and listen unto the prayers of thy people: by the virtue of the Sacrament we have just received, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the saints, burst the bonds of the Maid, who, in the fulfilment of thy commands, hath been and is still confined in the prisons of our enemy; through thy divine compassion and thy mercy, permit her, freed from peril, to accomplish the work whereto thou hast sent her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."[2045]

[Footnote 2045: Trial, vol. v, p. 104. E. Maignien, Oraisons latines pour la delivrance de Jeanne d'Arc. Grenoble, 1867, in 8vo (Revue des Societes savantes, vol. iv, pp. 412-414). G. de Braux, Trois oraisons pour la delivrance de Jeanne d'Arc, in Journal de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine, June, 1887, pp. 125, 127.]

Learning that the Maid, whom he had once suspected of evil intentions and then recognised to be wholly good, had just fallen into the hands of the enemy of the realm, Messire Jacques Gelu, my Lord Archbishop of Embrun, despatched to King Charles a messenger bearing a letter touching the line of conduct to be adopted in such an unhappy conjuncture.[2046]

[Footnote 2046: Vita Jacobi Gelu ab ipso conscripta, in Bulletin de la Societe archeologique de Touraine, iii, 1867, pp. 266 et seq. The Rev. Father Marcellin Fornier, Histoire des Alpes Maritimes ou Cottiennes, vol. ii, pp. 313 et seq.]

Addressing the Prince, whom in childhood he had directed, Messire Jacques begins by recalling what the Maid had wrought for him by God's help and her own great courage. He beseeches him to examine his conscience and see whether he has in any wise sinned against the grace of God. For it may be that in wrath against the King the Lord hath permitted this virgin to be taken. For his own honour he urges him to strain every effort for her deliverance.

"I commend unto you," he said, "that for the recovery of this damsel and for her ransom, ye spare neither measures nor money, nor any cost, unless ye be ready to incur the ineffaceable disgrace of an ingratitude right unworthy."

Further he advises that prayers be ordered to be said everywhere for the deliverance of the Maid, so that if this disaster should have befallen through any misdoing of the King or of his people, it might please God to pardon it.[2047]

[Footnote 2047: Ibid., pp. 319, 320.]

Such were the words, lacking neither in strength nor in charity, of this aged prelate, who was more of a hermit than of a bishop. He remembered having been the Dauphin's Councillor in evil days and he dearly loved the King and the kingdom.

The Sire de la Tremouille and the Lord Archbishop of Reims have been suspected of desiring to get rid of the Maid and of having promoted her discomfiture. There are those who think they have discovered the treacherous methods employed to compass her defeat at Paris, at La Charite and at Compiegne.[2048] But in good sooth such methods were unnecessary. At Paris there was but little chance of her being able to cross the moat, since neither she nor her companions in arms had ascertained its depth; besides, it was not the fault of the King and his Council that the Carmelites, on whom they relied, failed to open the gates. The siege of La Charite was conducted not by the Maid, but by the Sire d'Albret and divers valiant captains. In the sortie from Compiegne, it was certain that any dallying at Margny would cause the French to be cut off by the English from Venette and by the Burgundians from Clairoix and to be promptly overcome by the Burgundians from Coudun. They forgot themselves in the delights of pillage; and the inevitable result followed.

[Footnote 2048: Thomassin, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 312. Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 323. Chronique de Tournai, in Recueil des chroniques de Flandre, vol. iii, p. 415. Chronique de Normandie, ed. A. Hellot, Rouen, 1881, in 8vo, pp. 77, 78. Chronique de Lorraine, ed. Abbe Marchal (Recueil de documents sur l'histoire de Lorraine, vol. v).]

And why should the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Archbishop have wanted to get rid of the Maid? She did not trouble them; on the contrary they found her useful and employed her. By her prophecy that she would cause the King to be anointed at Reims, she rendered an immense service to my Lord Regnault, who more than any other profited from the Champagne expedition, more even than the King, who, while he succeeded in being crowned, failed to recover Paris and Normandy. Notwithstanding this great advantage, the Lord Archbishop felt no gratitude towards the Maid; he was a hard man and an egoist. But did he wish her harm? Had he not need of her? At Senlis he was maintaining the King's cause; and he was maintaining it well, we may be sure, since, with the towns that had returned to their liege lord, he was defending his own episcopal and ducal city, his benefices and his canonries. Did he not intend to use her against the Burgundians? We have already noted reasons for believing that towards the end of March, he had asked the Sire de la Tremouille to send her from Sully with a goodly company to wage war in l'Ile-de-France. And our hypothesis is confirmed when, after they had been unhappily deprived of Jeanne's services, we find the bishop and the Chamberlain driven to replace her by someone likewise favoured with visions and claiming to be sent of God. Unable to discover a maid they had to make shift with a youth. This resolution they took a few days after Jeanne's capture and this is how it came about.

Some time before, a shepherd lad of Gevaudan, by name Guillaume, while tending his flocks at the foot of the Lozere Mountains and guarding them from wolf and lynx, had a revelation concerning the realm of France. This shepherd, like John, Our Lord's favourite disciple, was virgin. In one of the caves of the Mende Mountain, where the holy apostle Privat had prayed and fasted, his ear was struck by a heavenly voice, and thus he knew that God was sending him to the King of France. He went to Mende, just as Jeanne had gone to Vaucouleurs in order that he might be taken to the King. There he found pious folk, who, touched by his holiness and persuaded that there was power in him, provided for his equipment and for his journey, which provisions, in sooth, amounted to very little. The words he addressed to the King were much the same as those uttered by the Maid.

"Sire," he said, "I am commanded to go with your people; and without fail the English and Burgundians shall be discomfited."[2049]

[Footnote 2049: Summary of a letter from Regnault de Chartres to the inhabitants of Reims, Trial, vol. v, p. 168.]

The King received him kindly. The clerks who had examined the Maid must have feared lest if they repulsed this shepherd lad they might be rejecting the aid of the Holy Ghost. Amos was a shepherd, and to him God granted the gift of prophecy: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." MATT. xi, 25.

But before this shepherd could be believed he must give a sign. The clerks of Poitiers, who in those evil days languished in dire penury, did not appear exacting in their demand for proofs; they had counselled the King to employ the Maid merely on the promise that as a token of her mission she would deliver Orleans. The Gevaudan shepherd had more than promises to allege; he showed wondrous marks on his body. Like Saint Francis he had received the stigmata; and on his hands, his feet and in his side were bleeding wounds.[2050]

[Footnote 2050: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 272. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 263. Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles, vol. i, p. 124.]

The mendicant monks rejoiced that their spiritual father had thus participated in the Passion of Our Lord. A like grace had been granted to the Blessed Catherine of Sienna, of the order of Saint Dominic. But if there were miraculous stigmata imprinted by Jesus Christ himself, there were also the stigmata of enchantment, which were the work of the Devil, and very important was it to distinguish between the two.[2051] It could only be done by great knowledge and great piety. It would appear that Guillaume's stigmata were not the work of the devil; for it was resolved to employ him in the same manner as Jeanne, as Catherine de la Rochelle, and as the two Breton women, the spiritual daughters of Friar Richard.

[Footnote 2051: A. Maury, La stigmatisation et les stigmates, in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1854, ch. viii, pp. 454-482. Dr. Subled, Les stigmates selon la science, in Science catholique, 1894, vol. viii, pp. 1073 et seq.; vol. ix, pp. 2 et seq.]

When the Maid fell into the hands of the Burgundians, the Sire de la Tremouille was with the King, on the Loire, where fighting had ceased since the disastrous siege of La Charite. He sent the shepherd youth to the banks of the Oise, to the Lord Archbishop of Reims, who was there opposing the Burgundians, commanded by Duke Philip, himself. Messire Regnault had probably asked for the boy. In any case he welcomed him willingly and kept him at Beauvais, supervising and interrogating him, ready to use him at an auspicious moment. One day, either to try him or because the rumour was really in circulation, young Guillaume was told that the English had put Jeanne to death.

"Then," said he, "it will be the worse for them."[2052]

[Footnote 2052: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in Trial, vol. v, p. 168.]

By this time, after all the rivalries and jealousies which had torn asunder this company of the King's beguines, there remained to Friar Richard one only of his penitents, Dame Catherine of La Rochelle, who had the gift of discovering hidden treasure.[2053] The young shepherd approved of the Maid as little as Dame Catherine had done.

[Footnote 2053: Trial, vol. i, pp. 295 et seq.]

"God suffered Jeanne to be taken," he said, "because she was puffed up with pride and because of the rich clothes she wore and because she had not done as God commanded her but according to her own will."[2054]

[Footnote 2054: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in Ibid., vol. v, p. 168.]

Were these words suggested to him by the enemies of the Maid? That may be: but it is also possible that he derived them from inspiration. Saints are not always kind to one another.

Meanwhile Messire Regnault de Chartres believed himself possessed of a marvel far surpassing the marvel he had lost. He wrote a letter to the inhabitants of his town of Reims telling them that the Maid had been taken at Compiegne.

This misfortune had befallen her through her own fault, he added. "She would not take advice, but would follow her own will." In her stead God had sent a shepherd, "who says neither more nor less than Jeanne." God has strictly commanded him to discomfit the English and the Burgundians. And the Lord Archbishop neglects not to repeat the words by which the prophet of Gevaudan had represented Jeanne as proud, gorgeous in attire, rebellious of heart.[2055] The Reverend Father in God, my Lord Regnault, would never have consented to employ a heretic and a sorcerer; he believed in Guillaume as he had believed in Jeanne; he held both one and the other to have been divinely sent, in the sense that all which is not of the devil is of God. It was sufficient for him that no evil had been found in the child, and he intended to essay him, hoping that Guillaume would do what Jeanne had done. Whether the Archbishop thus acted rightly or wrongly the issue was to decide, but he might have exalted the shepherd without denying the Saint who was so near her martyrdom. Doubtless he deemed it necessary to distinguish between the fortune of the kingdom and the fortune of Jeanne. And he had the courage to do it.

[Footnote 2055: Ibid., p. 168.]

Chapter IX

THE MAID AT BEAUREVOIR--CATHERINE DE LA ROCHELLE AT PARIS--EXECUTION OF LA PIERRONNE

The Maid had been taken captive in the diocese of Beauvais.[2056] At that time the Bishop Count of Beauvais was Pierre Cauchon of Reims, a great and pompous clerk of the University of Paris, which had elected him rector in 1403. Messire Pierre Cauchon was not a moderate man; with great ardour he had thrown himself into the Cabochien riots.[2057] In 1414, the Duke of Burgundy had sent him on an embassy to the Council of Constance to defend the doctrines of Jean Petit;[2058] then he had appointed him Master of Requests in 1418, and finally raised him to the episcopal see of Beauvais.[2059] Standing equally high in the favour of the English, Messire Pierre was Councillor of King Henry VI, Almoner of France and Chancellor to the Queen of England. Since 1423, his usual residence had been at Rouen. By their submission to King Charles the people of Beauvais had deprived him of his episcopal revenue.[2060] And, as the English said and believed that the army of the King of France was at that time commanded by Friar Richard and the Maid, Messire Pierre Cauchon, the impoverished Bishop of Beauvais, had a personal grievance against Jeanne. It would have been better for his own reputation that he should have abstained from avenging the Church's honour on a damsel who was possibly an idolatress, a soothsayer and the invoker of devils, but who had certainly incurred his personal ill-will. He was in the Regent's pay;[2061] and the Regent was filled with bitter hatred of the Maid.[2062] Again for his reputation's sake, my Lord Bishop of Beauvais should have reflected that in prosecuting Jeanne for a matter of faith he was serving his master's wrath and furthering the temporal interests of the great of this world. On these things he did not reflect; on the contrary, this case at once temporal and spiritual, as ambiguous as his own position, excited his worst passions. He flung himself into it with all the thoughtlessness of the violent. A maiden to be denounced, a heretic and an Armagnac to boot, what a feast for the prelate, the Councillor of King Henry! After having concerted with the doctors and masters of the University of Paris, on the 14th of July, he presented himself before the camp of Compiegne and demanded the Maid as subject to his jurisdiction.[2063]

[Footnote 2056: This point was not called in question at the time; but what might be discussed is whether the Bishop of Beauvais could exercise ordinary jurisdiction over the Maid. On this subject see: Abbe Ph. H. Dunand, Histoire complete de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1899, vol. ii, pp. 412, 413.]

[Footnote 2057: Robillard de Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges et assesseurs du proces de Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 1890, p. 12. Douet d'Arcq, Choix de pieces inedites relatives au regne de Charles VI, vol. i, pp. 356, 357. Chanoine Cerf, Pierre Cauchon de Sommievre, chanoine de Reims et de Beauvais, eveque de Beauvais et de Lisieux; son origine, ses dignites, sa mort et ses sepultures, in Travaux de l'Academie de Reims, CI (1898), pp. 363 et seq., A. Sarrazin, Pierre Cauchon, juge de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1901, in 8vo, pp. 26 et seq.]

[Footnote 2058: Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. i, p. 116. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 36, 37.]

[Footnote 2059: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, 1670, vol. v, p. 912. The Abbe Delettre, Histoire du diocese de Beauvais, Beauvais, 1842, vol. ii, p. 348.]

[Footnote 2060: Robillard de Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 13.]

[Footnote 2061: A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 58 et seq.]

[Footnote 2062: Rymer, Foedera, vol. x, p. 408, passim.]

[Footnote 2063: Trial, vol. i, p. 13. Vallet de Viriville, Proces de condamnation, pp. 10 et seq. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, pp. 108 et seq.]

He supported his demand by letters from the Alma Mater to the Duke of Burgundy and the Lord Jean de Luxembourg.

The University made known to the most illustrious Prince, the Duke of Burgundy, that once before it had claimed this woman, called the Maid, and had received no reply.

"We greatly fear," continued the doctors and masters, "that by the false and seductive power of the Hellish Enemy and by the malice and subtlety of wicked persons, your enemies and adversaries who, it is said, are making every effort to deliver this woman by crooked means, will in some manner remove her out of your power.

"Wherefore, the University hopes that so great a dishonour may be spared to the most Christian name of the house of France, and again it supplicates your Highness, the Duke of Burgundy, to deliver over this woman either to the Inquisitor of the evil of heresy or to my Lord Bishop of Beauvais within whose spiritual jurisdiction she was captured."

Here follows the letter which the doctors and masters of the University entrusted to the Lord Bishop of Beauvais for the Lord Jean de Luxembourg:

Most noble, honoured and powerful lord, to your high nobility we very affectionately commend us. Your noble wisdom doth well know and recognise that all good Catholic knights should employ their strength and their power first in God's service and then for the common weal. Above all, the first oath of the order of knighthood is to defend and keep the honour of God, the Catholic Faith and holy Church. This sacred oath was present to your mind when you employed your noble power and your person in the taking of the woman who calleth herself the Maid, by whom the glory of God hath been infinitely offended, the Faith deeply wounded and the Church greatly dishonoured: for through her there have arisen in this kingdom, idolatries, errors, false doctrines and other evils and misfortunes without end. And in truth all loyal Christians must give unto you hearty thanks for having rendered so great service to our holy Faith and to all the kingdom. As for us, we thank God with all our hearts, and you we thank for your noble prowess as affectionately as we may. But such a capture alone would be but a small thing were it not followed by a worthy issue whereby this woman may answer for the offences she hath committed against our merciful Creator, his faith and his holy Church, as well as for her other evil deeds which are said to be without number. The mischief would be greater than ever, the people would be wrapped in yet grosser error than before and his Divine Majesty too insufferably offended, if matters continued in their present state, or if it befell that this woman were delivered or retaken, as we are told, is wished, plotted and endeavoured by divers of our enemies, by all secret ways and by what is even worse by bribe or by ransom. But it is our hope that God will not permit so great an evil to betide his people, and that your great and high wisdom will not suffer it so to befall but will provide against it as becometh your nobility.

For if without the retribution that behoveth she were to be delivered, irreparable would be the dishonour which should fall on your great nobility and on all those who have dealt in this matter. But your good and noble wisdom will know how to devise means whereby such scandal shall cease as soon as may be, whereof there is great need. And because all delay in this matter is very perilous and very injurious to this kingdom, very kindly and with a cordial affection do we beseech your powerful and honoured nobility to grant that for the glory of God, for the maintenance of the Holy Catholic Faith, for the good and honour of the kingdom, this woman be delivered up to justice and given over here to the Inquisitor of the Faith, who hath demanded her and doth now demand her urgently, in order that he may examine the grievous charges under which she labours, so that God may be satisfied and the folk duly edified in good and holy doctrine. Or, an it please you better, hand over this woman to the reverend Father in God, our highly honoured Lord Bishop of Beauvais, who it is said hath likewise claimed her, because she was taken within his jurisdiction. This prelate and this inquisitor are judges of this woman in matters of faith; and every Christian of whatsoever estate owes them obedience in this case under heavy penalty of the law. By so doing you will attain to the love and grace of the most High and you will be the means of exalting the holy Faith, and likewise will you glorify your own high and noble name and also that of the most high and most powerful Prince, our redoubtable Lord and yours, my Lord of Burgundy. Every man shall be required to pray God for the prosperity of your most noble worship, whom may it please God our Saviour in his grace, to guide and keep in all his affairs and finally to grant eternal joy.

Given at Paris, the 14th day of July, 1430.[2064]

[Footnote 2064: Trial, vol. i, pp. 10, 11. M. Fournier, La faculte de decret, vol. i, p. 353, note.]

At the same time that he bore these letters, the Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of Beauvais was charged to offer money.[2065] To us it seems strange indeed that just at the very time when, by the mouth of the University, he was representing to the Lord of Luxembourg that he could not sell his prisoner without committing a crime, the Bishop should himself offer to purchase her. According to these ecclesiastics, Jean would incur terrible penalties in this world and in the next, if in conformity with the laws and customs of war he surrendered a prisoner held to ransom in return for money, and he would win praise and blessing if he treacherously sold his captive to those who wished to put her to death. But at least we might expect that this Lord Bishop who had come to buy this woman for the Church, would purchase her with the Church's money. Not at all! The purchase money is furnished by the English. In the end therefore she is delivered not to the Church but to the English. And it is a priest, acting in the interests of God and of his Church, by virtue of his episcopal jurisdiction, who concludes the bargain. He offers ten thousand golden francs, a sum in return for which, he says, according to the custom prevailing in France, the King has the right to claim any prisoner even were he of the blood royal.[2066]

[Footnote 2065: Trial, vol. i, pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 2066: Trial, vol. i, p. 14.]

There can be no doubt whatever that the high and solemn ecclesiastic, Pierre Cauchon, suspected Jeanne of witchcraft. Wishing to bring her to trial, he exercised his ecclesiastical functions. But he knew her to be the enemy of the English as well as of himself; there is no doubt on that point. So when he wished to bring her to trial he acted as the Councillor of King Henry. Was it a witch or the enemy of the English he was buying with his ten thousand gold francs? And if it were merely a witch and an idolatress that the Holy Inquisitor, that the University, that the Ordinary demanded for the glory of God, and at the price of gold, wherefore so much ado, wherefore so great an expenditure of money? Would it not be better in this matter to act in concert with the ecclesiastics of King Charles's party? The Armagnacs were neither infidels nor heretics; they were neither Turks nor Hussites; they were Catholics; they acknowledged the Pope of Rome to be the true head of Christendom. The Dauphin Charles and his clergy had not been excommunicated. Neither those who regarded the Treaty of Troyes as invalid nor those who had sworn to it had been pronounced anathema by the Pope. This was not a question of faith. In the provinces ruled over by King Charles the Holy Inquisition prosecuted heresy in a curious manner and the secular arm saw to it that the sentences pronounced by the Church did not remain a dead letter. The Armagnacs burned witches just as much as the French and the Burgundians. For the present doubtless they did not believe the Maid to be possessed by devils; most of them on the contrary were inclined to regard her as a saint. But might they not be undeceived? Would it not be good Christian charity to present them with fine canonical arguments? If the Maid's case were really a case for the ecclesiastical court why not join with Churchmen of both parties and take her before the Pope and the Council? And just at that time a Council for the reformation of the Church and the establishment of peace in the kingdom was sitting in the town of Bale; the University was sending its delegates, who would there meet the ecclesiastics of King Charles, also Gallicans and firmly attached to the privileges of the Church of France.[2067] Why not have this Armagnac prophetess tried by the assembled Fathers? But for the sake of Henry of Lancaster and the glory of Old England matters had to take another turn. The Regent's Councillors were already accusing Jeanne of witchcraft when she summoned them in the name of the King of Heaven to depart out of France. During the siege of Orleans, they wanted to burn her heralds and said that if they had her they would burn her also at the stake. Such in good sooth was their firm intent and their unvarying intimation. This does not look as if they would be likely to hand her over to the Church as soon as she was taken. In their own kingdom they burned as many witches and wizards as possible; but they had never suffered the Holy Inquisition to be established in their land, and they were ill acquainted with that form of justice. Informed that Jeanne was in the hands of the Sire de Luxembourg, the Great Council of England were unanimously in favour of her being purchased at any price. Divers lords recommended that as soon as they obtained possession of the Maid she should be sewn in a sack and cast into the river. But one of them (it is said to have been the Earl of Warwick) represented to them that she ought first to be tried, convicted of heresy and witchcraft by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and then solemnly degraded in order that her King might be degraded with her.[2068] What a disgrace for Charles of Valois, calling himself King of France, if the University of Paris, if the French ecclesiastical dignitaries, bishops, abbots, canons, if in short the Church Universal were to declare that a witch had sat in his Council and that a witch led his host, that one possessed had conducted him to his impious, sacrilegious and void anointing! Thus would the trial of the Maid be the trial of Charles VII, the condemnation of the Maid the condemnation of Charles VII. The idea seemed good to them and was adopted.

[Footnote 2067: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. v, pp. 393-408. Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi decimi quinti, vol. i, pp. 70 et seq. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'Universite de Paris.]

[Footnote 2068: Valeran Varanius, ed. Prarond, Paris, 1889, book iv, p. 100.]

The Lord Bishop of Beauvais was eager to put it into execution. He, a priest and Councillor of State, was consumed with a desire, under the semblance of trying an unfortunate heretic, to sit in judgment on the descendant of Clovis, of Saint Charlemagne and of Saint Louis.

Early in August, the Sire de Luxembourg had the Maid taken from Beaulieu, which was not safe enough, to Beaurevoir, near Cambrai.[2069] There dwelt Dame Jeanne de Luxembourg and Dame Jeanne de Bethune. Jeanne de Luxembourg was the aunt of Lord Jean, whom she loved dearly. Among the great of this world she had lived as a saint, and she had never married. Formerly lady-in-waiting to Queen Ysabeau, King Charles VII's godmother, one of the most important events of her life had been to solicit from Pope Martin the canonisation of her Brother, the Cardinal of Luxembourg, who had died at Avignon in his ninetieth year. She was known as the Demoiselle de Luxembourg. She was sixty-seven years of age, infirm and near her end.[2070]

[Footnote 2069: Trial, vol. i, pp. 109, 110; vol. ii, p. 298; vol. iii, p. 121. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 389. E. Gomart, Jeanne d'Arc au chateau de Beaurevoir, Cambrai, 1865, in 8vo, 47 pages (Mem. de la Societe d'emulation de Cambrai, xxxviii, 2, pp. 305-348). L. Sambier, Jeanne d'Arc et la region du Nord, Lille, 1901, in 8vo, 63 pages. Cf. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 300, notes 3 and 4, vol. iv, supplement xxi.]

[Footnote 2070: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 231. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 402. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 2; vol. ii, pp. 72, 73.]

Jeanne de Bethune, widow of Lord Robert de Bar, slain at the Battle of Azincourt, had married Lord Jean in 1418. She was reputed pitiful, because, in 1424, she had obtained from her husband the pardon of a nobleman of Picardy, who had been brought prisoner to Beaurevoir and was in great danger of being beheaded and quartered.[2071]

[Footnote 2071: A. Duchene, Histoire de la maison de Bethune, ch. iii, and proofs and illustrations, p. 33. Vallet de Viriville, loc. cit., and Morosini, vol. iv, pp. 352, 354.]

These two ladies treated Jeanne kindly. They offered her woman's clothes or cloth with which to make them; and they urged her to abandon a dress which appeared to them unseemly. Jeanne refused, alleging that she had not received permission from Our Lord and that it was not yet time; later she admitted that had she been able to quit man's attire, she would have done so at the request of these two dames rather than for any other dame of France, the Queen excepted.[2072]

[Footnote 2072: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 231.]

A noble of the Burgundian party, one Aimond de Macy, often came to see her and was pleased to converse with her. To him she seemed modest in word and in deed. Still Sire Aimond, who was but thirty, had found her personally attractive.[2073] If certain witnesses of her own party are to be believed, Jeanne, although beautiful, did not inspire men with desire.

[Footnote 2073: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 438, 457; vol. iii, p. 121.]

This singular grace however applied to the Armagnacs only; it was not extended to the Burgundians, and Seigneur Aimond did not experience it, for one day he tried to thrust his hand into her bosom. She resisted and repulsed him with all her strength. Lord Aimond concluded as more than one would have done in his place that this was a damsel of rare virtue. He took warning.[2074]

[Footnote 2074: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 120, 121.]

Confined in the castle keep, Jeanne's mind was for ever running on her return to her friends at Compiegne; her one idea was to escape. Somehow there reached her evil tidings from France. She got the idea that all the inhabitants of Compiegne over seven years of age were to be massacred, "to perish by fire and sword," she said; and indeed such a fate was bound to overtake them if the town were taken.

Confiding her distress and her unconquerable desire to Saint Catherine, she asked: "How can God abandon to destruction those good folk of Compiegne who have been so loyal to their Lord?"[2075]

[Footnote 2075: Ibid., vol. i, p. 150.]

And in her dream, surrounded by saints, like the donors in church pictures, kneeling and in rapture, she wrestled with her heavenly counsellors for the poor folk of Compiegne.

What she had heard of their fate caused her infinite distress; she herself would rather die than continue to live after such a destruction of worthy people. For this reason she was strongly tempted to leap from the top of the keep. And because she knew all that could be said against it, she heard her Voices putting her in mind of those arguments.

Nearly every day Saint Catherine said to her: "Do not leap, God will help both you and those of Compiegne."

And Jeanne replied to her: "Since God will help those of Compiegne, I want to be there."

And once again Saint Catherine told her the marvellous story of the shepherdess and the King: "To all things must you be resigned. And you will not be delivered until you have seen the King of the English."

To which Jeanne made answer: "But in good sooth I do not desire to see him. I would rather die than fall into the hands of the English."[2076]

[Footnote 2076: Trial, vol. i, pp. 150, 151.]

One day she heard a rumour that the English had come to fetch her. The arrival of the Lord Bishop of Beauvais who came to offer the blood money at Beaurevoir may have given rise to the report.[2077] Straightway Jeanne became frantic and beside herself. She ceased to listen to her Voices, who forbade her the fatal leap. The keep was at least seventy feet high; she commended her soul to God and leapt.

[Footnote 2077: Ibid., p. 13; vol. v, p. 194.]

Having fallen to the ground, she heard cries: "She is dead."

The guards hurried to the spot. Finding her still alive, in their amazement they could only ask: "Did you leap?"

She felt sorely shaken; but Saint Catherine spoke to her and said: "Be of good courage. You will recover." At the same time the Saint gave her good tidings of her friends. "You will recover and the people of Compiegne will receive succour." And she added that this succour would come before Saint Martin's Day in the winter.[2078]

[Footnote 2078: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 110, 151, 152.]

Henceforth Jeanne believed that it was her saints who had helped her and guarded her from death. She knew well that she had been wrong in attempting such a leap, despite her Voices.

Saint Catherine said to her: "You must confess and ask God to forgive you for having leapt."

Jeanne did confess and ask pardon of Our Lord. And after her confession Saint Catherine made known unto her that God had forgiven her. For three or four days she remained without eating or drinking; then she took some food and was whole.[2079]

[Footnote 2079: Trial, vol. i, p. 166. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 268. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 53, 58.]

Another story was told of the leap from Beaurevoir; it was related that she had tried to escape through a window letting herself down by a sheet or something that broke; but we must believe the Maid: she says she leapt; if she had been attached to a cord, she would not have committed sin and would not have confessed. This leap was known and the rumour spread abroad that she had escaped and joined her own party.[2080]

[Footnote 2080: Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 507, recto. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 301-303. Chronique de Tournai, ed. Smedt, in Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, vol. iii, pp. 416, 417.]

Meanwhile the Lenten sermons at Orleans had been delivered by that good preacher, Friar Richard, who was ill content with Jeanne, and whom Jeanne disliked and had quitted. The townsfolk as a token of regard presented him with the image of Jesus sculptured in copper by a certain Philippe, a metal-worker of the city. And the bookseller, Jean Moreau, bound him a book of hours at the town's expense.[2081]

[Footnote 2081: Lottin, Recherches sur la ville d'Orleans, vol. i, p. 252. Trial, vol. i, p. 99, note 1. Journal du siege, pp. 235-238. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cclxiii, note 2.]

He brought back Queen Marie to Jargeau and succeeded in obtaining her favour. Jeanne was spared the bitterness of learning that while she was languishing in prison her friends at Orleans, her fair Dauphin and his Queen Marie, were making good cheer for the monk who had turned from her to prefer a dame Catherine whom she considered worthless.[2082] Only lately the idea of employing Dame Catherine had filled Jeanne with alarm; she wrote to her King about it, and as soon as she saw him besought him not to employ her. However the King set no store by what she had said; he agreed to Friar Richard's favourite being allowed to set forth on her mission to obtain money from the good towns and to negotiate peace with the Duke of Burgundy. But perhaps this saintly dame was not possessed of all the wisdom necessary for the performance of man's work and King's service. For immediately she became a cause of embarrassment to her friends.

[Footnote 2082: Trial, vol. i, pp. 296, 297.]

Being in the town of Tours, she fell to saying: "In this town there be carpenters who work, but not at houses, and if ye have not a care, this town is in the way to a bad end and there be those in the town that know it."[2083]

[Footnote 2083: Register of the Accounts of the town of Tours for the year 1430, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 473, note 1.]

This was a denunciation in the form of a parable. Dame Catherine was thereby accusing the churchmen and burgesses of Tours of working against Charles of Valois, their lord. The woman must have been held to have influence with the King, his kinsmen and his Council; for the inhabitants of Tours took fright and sent an Augustinian monk, Brother Jean Bourget, to King Charles, to the Queen of Sicily, to the Bishop of Seez, and to the Lord of Treves, to inquire whether the words of this holy woman had been believed by them. The Queen of Sicily and the Councillors of King Charles gave the monk letters wherein they announced to the townsfolk of Tours that they had never heard of such things, and King Charles declared that he had every confidence in the churchmen, the burgesses and the other citizens of his town of Tours.[2084]

[Footnote 2084: Trial, vol. iv, p. 473.]

Dame Catherine had in like manner slandered the inhabitants of Angers.[2085]

[Footnote 2085: Ibid., p. 473.]

Whether, following the example of the Blessed Colette of Corbie, this devout person wished to pass from one party to the other, or whether she had chanced to be taken captive by Burgundian men-at-arms, she was brought before the Official at Paris. In their interrogation of her the ecclesiastics appear to have been concerned less about her than about the Maid Jeanne, whose prosecution was then being instituted.

On the subject of the Maid, Catherine said: "Jeanne has two counsellors, whom she calls Counsellors of the Spring."[2086]

[Footnote 2086: Ibid., vol. i, p. 295.]

Such was the confused recollection of the conversations she had had at Jargeau and at Montfaucon. The term Council was the one Jeanne usually employed when speaking of her Voices; but Dame Catherine was confusing Jeanne's heavenly visitants with what the Maid had told her of the Gooseberry Spring at Domremy.

If Jeanne felt unkindly towards Catherine, Catherine did not feel kindly towards Jeanne. She did not assert Jeanne's mission to be nought; but she let it be clearly understood that the hapless damsel, then a prisoner in the hands of the Burgundians, was addicted to invoking evil spirits.

"If Jeanne be not well guarded," Catherine told the Official, "she will escape from prison with the aid of the devil."[2087]

[Footnote 2087: Trial, vol. i, p. 106, note. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 271. Vallet de Viriville, Proces de condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. lxi-lxv.]

Whether Jeanne was or was not aided by the devil was a matter to be decided between herself and the doctors of the church. But it is certain that her one thought was to burst her bonds, and that she was ceaselessly imagining means of escape. Catherine de la Rochelle knew her well and wished her ill.

Catherine was released. Her ecclesiastical judges would not have treated her so leniently had she spoken well of the Maid. The La Rochelle Dame returned to King Charles.[2088]

[Footnote 2088: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 271.]

The two religious women who had followed Jeanne on her departure from Sully and had been taken at Corbeil, Pierronne of Lower Brittany and her companion, had been confined in ecclesiastical prisons at Paris since the spring. They openly said that God had sent them to succour the Maid Jeanne. Friar Richard had been their spiritual father and they had been in the Maid's company. Wherefore they were strongly suspected of having offended against God and his Holy Religion. The Grand Inquisitor of France, Brother Jean Graverent, Prior of the Jacobins at Paris, prosecuted them according to the forms usual in that country. He proceeded in concurrence with the Ordinary, represented by the official.

Pierronne maintained and believed it to be true that Jeanne was good, and that what she did was well done and according to God's will. She admitted that on the Christmas night of that year, at Jargeau, Friar Richard had twice given her the body of Jesus Christ and had given it three times to Jeanne.[2089] Besides, the fact had been well proved by information gathered from eye-witnesses. The judges, who were authorities on this subject, held that the monk should not thus have lavished the bread of angels on such women. However, since frequent communion was not formally forbidden by canon law, Pierronne could not be censured for having received it. The informers, who were then giving evidence against Jeanne, did not remember the three communions at Jargeau.[2090]

[Footnote 2089: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 271, 272.]

[Footnote 2090: Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, article, Arc.]

Heavier charges weighed upon the two Breton women. They were labouring under the accusation of witchcraft and sorcery.

Pierronne stated and took her oath that God often appeared to her in human form and spoke to her as friend to friend, and that the last time she had seen him he was clothed in a purple cloak and a long white robe.[2091]

[Footnote 2091: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 259, 260.]

The illustrious masters who were trying her, represented to her that to speak thus of such apparitions was to blaspheme. And these women were convicted of being possessed by evil spirits, who caused them to err in word and in deed.

On Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1430, they were taken to the Parvis Notre Dame to hear a sermon. Platforms had been erected as usual, and Sunday had been chosen as the day in order that folk might benefit from this edifying spectacle. A famous doctor addressed a charitable exhortation to both women. One of them, the youngest, as she listened to him and looked at the stake that had been erected, was filled with repentance. She confessed that she had been seduced by an angel of the devil and duly renounced her error.

Pierronne, on the contrary, refused to retract. She obstinately persisted in the belief that she saw God often, clothed as she had said. The Church could do nothing for her. Given over to the secular arm, she was straightway conducted to the stake which had been prepared for her, and burned alive by the executioner.[2092]

[Footnote 2092: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 259-260, 271-272. Jean Nider, Formicarium, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 504. A. de la Borderie, Pierronne et Perrinaic, pp. 7 et seq.]

Thus did the Grand Inquisitor of France and the Bishop of Paris cruelly cause to perish by an ignominious death one of those women who had followed Friar Richard, one of the saints of the Dauphin Charles. But the most famous of these women and the most abounding in works was in their hands. The death of La Pierronne was an earnest of the fate reserved for the Maid.

X. BEAUREVOIR--ARRAS--ROUEN--THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE

In the month of September, 1430, two inhabitants of Tournai, the chief alderman, Bietremieu Carlier, and the chief Councillor, Henri Romain, were returning from the banks of the Loire, whither their town had despatched them on a mission to the King of France. They stopped at Beaurevoir. Albeit this place lay upon their direct route and afforded them a halt between two stages of their journey, one cannot help supposing some connection to have existed between their mission to Charles of Valois and their arrival in the domain of the Sire de Luxembourg. The existence of such a connection seems all the more probable when we remember the attachment of their fellow-citizens to the Fleurs-de-Lis, and when we know the relations already existing between the Maid and these emissaries.[2093]

[Footnote 2093: H. Vandenbroeck, Extraits des anciens registres des consaux de la ville de Tournai, vol. ii (1422-1430), and Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 185, 186.]

It has been said that the district of the provost of Tournai was loyal to the King of France, who had granted it freedom and privileges. Message after message it sent him; it organised public processions in his honour, and it was ready to grant him anything, so long as he demanded neither men nor money. The alderman, Carlier, and the Councillor, Romain, had both previously gone to Reims as representatives of their town to witness the anointing and the coronation of King Charles. There they had doubtless seen the Maid in her glory and had held her to be a very great saint. In those days, their town, attentively watching the progress of the royal army, was in regular correspondence with the warlike beguine, and with her confessor, Friar Richard, or more probably Friar Pasquerel. To-day they wended to the castle, wherein she was imprisoned in the hands of her cruel enemies. We know not what it was they came to say to the Sire de Luxembourg, nor even whether he received them. He cannot have refused to hear them if he thought they came to make secret offers on the part of King Charles for the ransom of the Maid, who had fought in his battles. We know not, either, whether they were able to see the prisoner. The idea that they did enter her presence is quite tenable; for in those days it was generally easy to approach captives, and passers by when they visited them were given every facility for the performance of one of the seven works of mercy.

One thing, however, is certain; that when they left Beaurevoir, they carried with them a letter which Jeanne had given them, charging them to deliver it to the magistrates of their town. In this letter she asked the folk of Tournai, for the sake of her Lord the King and in view of the good services she had rendered him, to send unto her twenty or thirty crowns, that she might employ them for her necessities.[2094]

[Footnote 2094: H. Vandenbroeck, Extraits analytiques des anciens registres des consaux de la ville de Tournai, vol. ii, pp. 338, 371-373. Canon H. Debout, Jeanne d'Arc et les villes d'Arras et de Tournai, Paris, n.d., p. 24.]

It was the custom in those days thus to permit prisoners to beg their bread.

It is said that the Demoiselle de Luxembourg, who had just made her will, and had but a few days longer to live,[2095] entreated her noble nephew not to give the Maid up to the English.[2096] But what power had this good dame against the Norman gold of the King of England and against the anathemas of Holy Church? For if my Lord Jean had refused to give up this damsel suspected of enchantments, of idolatries, of invoking devils and committing other crimes against religion, he would have been excommunicated. The venerable University of Paris had not neglected to make him aware that a refusal would expose him to heavy legal penalties.[2097]

[Footnote 2095: Le P. Anselme, Histoire genealogique de la maison de France, vol. iii, pp. 723, 724. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 175, 176. Morosini, vol. iv, supplement xix.]

[Footnote 2096: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 231.]

[Footnote 2097: Ibid., pp. 13, 14.]

The Sire de Luxembourg, meanwhile, was ill at ease; he feared that in his castle of Beaurevoir, a prisoner worth ten thousand golden livres was not sufficiently secure in case of a descent on the part of the French or of the English or of the Burgundians, or of any of those folk, who, caring nought for Burgundy or England or France, might wish to carry her off, cast her into a pit, and hold her to ransom, according to the custom of brigands in those days.[2098]

[Footnote 2098: Les miracles de madame Sainte Katerine, Bourasse, passim.]

Towards the end of September, he asked his lord, the Duke of Burgundy, who ruled over fine towns and strong cities, if he would undertake the safe custody of the Maid. My Lord Philip consented and, by his command, Jeanne was taken to Arras. This town was encircled by high walls; it had two castles, one of which, La Cour-le-Comte, was in the centre of the town. It was probably in the cells of Cour-le-Comte that Jeanne was confined, under the watch and ward of my Lord David de Brimeu, Lord of Ligny, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Governor of Arras.

At that time it was rare for prisoners to be kept in isolation.[2099] At Arras, Jeanne received visitors; and among others, a Scotsman, who showed her her portrait, in which she was represented kneeling on one knee and presenting a letter to her King.[2100] This letter might be supposed to have been from the Sire de Baudricourt, or from any other clerk or captain by whom the painter may have thought Jeanne to have been sent to the Dauphin; it might have been a letter announcing to the King the deliverance of Orleans or the victory of Patay.

[Footnote 2099: "Was waited on in prison like a lady," says Le Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 271, concerning the Rouen prison.]

[Footnote 2100: Trial, vol. i, p. 100.]

This was the only portrait of herself Jeanne ever saw and, for her own part, she never had any painted; but during the brief duration of her power, the inhabitants of the French towns placed images of her, carved and painted, in the chapels of the saints, and wore leaden medals on which she was represented; thus in her case following a custom established in honour of the saints canonised by the Church.[2101]

[Footnote 2101: Ibid., pp. 101, 206, 291; vol. iii, p. 87; vol. v, pp. 104, 305. Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. ii, p. 46. P. Lanery d'Arc, Le culte de Jeanne d'Arc au XV'e siecle, Orleans, 1887, in 8vo. Noel Valois, Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 8, 13, 18.]

Many Burgundian lords, and among them a knight, one Jean de Pressy, Controller of the Finances of Burgundy, offered her woman's dress, as the Luxembourg dame had done, for her own good and in order to avoid scandal; but for nothing in the world would Jeanne have cast off the garb which she had assumed according to divine command.

She also received in her prison at Arras a clerk of Tournai, one Jean Naviel, charged by the magistrates of his town to deliver to her the sum of twenty-two golden crowns. This ecclesiastic enjoyed the confidence of his fellow citizens, who employed him in the town's most urgent affairs. In the May of this year, 1430, he had been sent to Messire Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of King Charles. He had been taken by the Burgundians at the same time as Jeanne and held to ransom; but out of that predicament he soon escaped and at no great cost.

He acquitted himself well of his mission[2102] to the Maid, and, it would seem, received nothing for his trouble, doubtless because he wanted the reward of this work of mercy to be placed to his account in heaven.[2103]

[Footnote 2102: Trial, vol. i, pp. 95, 96, 231. Canon Henri Debout, Jeanne d'Arc prisonniere a Arras, Arras, 1894, in 16mo; Jeanne d'Arc et les villes d'Arras et de Tournai, Paris, 1904, in 8vo; Jeanne d'Arc, vol. ii, pp. 394 et seq.]

[Footnote 2103: On the 7th of November, 1430, a messenger from the town of Arras received forty shillings for having taken two sealed letters to the Duke of Burgundy, one from Jean de Luxembourg, the other from David de Brimeu, Governor of the Bailiwick of Arras; we know nothing of the tenor of these letters written concerning "the case of the Maid." P. Champion, Notes sur Jeanne d'Arc, II; Jeanne d'Arc a Arras, in Le Moyen Age, July-August, 1907, pp. 200, 201.]

Neither the capture of the Maid nor the retreat of the men-at-arms she had brought, put an end to the siege of Compiegne. Guillaume de Flavy and his two brothers, Charles and Louis, and Captain Baretta with his Italians, and the five hundred of the garrison[2104] displayed skill, vigour, and untiring energy. The Burgundians conducted the siege in the same manner as the English had conducted that of Orleans; mines, trenches, bulwarks, cannonades and bastions, those gigantic and absurd erections good for nothing but for burning. The suburbs of the town Guillaume de Flavy had demolished because they were in the way of his firing; boats he had sunk in order to bar the river. To the mortars and huge couillards of the Burgundians he replied with his artillery, and notably with those little copper culverins which did such good service.[2105] If the gay cannoneer of Orleans and Jargeau, Maitre Jean de Montesclere, were absent, there was a shoemaker of Valenciennes, an artilleryman, named Noirouffle, tall, dark, terrible to see, and terrible to hear.[2106] The townsfolk of Compiegne, like those of Orleans, made unsuccessful sallies. One day Louis de Flavy, the governor's brother, was killed by a Burgundian bullet. But none the less on that day Guillaume did as he was wont to do and made the minstrels play to keep his men-at-arms in good cheer.[2107]

[Footnote 2104: H. de Lepinois, Notes extraites des archives communales de Compiegne, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 1863, vol. xxiv, p. 486. A. Sorel, Prise de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 268. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, pp. 38, 48 et seq.]

[Footnote 2105: Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 500 verso.]

[Footnote 2106: Chastellain, vol. ii, p. 53.]

[Footnote 2107: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 390.]

In the month of June the bulwark, defending the bridge over the Oise, like les Tourelles at Orleans which defended the bridge over the Loire, was captured by the enemy without bringing about the reduction of the town. In like manner, the capture of Les Tourelles had not occasioned the fall of the town of Duke Charles.[2108]

[Footnote 2108: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 390, 391. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 180. Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 306, 307. Chastellain, vol. ii, pp. 51, 54. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 233 et seq. P. Champion. Guillaume de Flavy, p. 50.]

As for the bastions, they were just as little good on the Oise as they had been on the Loire; everything passed by them. The Burgundians were unable to invest Compiegne because its circumference was too great.[2109] They were short of money; and their men-at-arms, for lack of food and of pay, deserted with that perfect assurance which in those days characterised alike mercenaries of the red cross and of the white.[2110] To complete his misfortunes, Duke Philip was obliged to take away some of the troops engaged in the siege and send them against the inhabitants of Liege who had revolted.[2111] On the 24th of October, a relieving army, commanded by the Count of Vendome and the Marshal de Boussac, approached Compiegne. The English and the Burgundians having turned to encounter them, the garrison and all the inhabitants of the town, even the women, fell upon the rear of the besiegers and routed them.[2112] The relieving army entered Compiegne. The flaring of the bastions was a fine sight. The Duke of Burgundy lost all his artillery.[2113] The Sire de Luxembourg, who had come to Beaurevoir, where he had received the Count Bishop of Beauvais, now appeared before Compiegne just in time to bear his share in the disaster.[2114] The same causes which had constrained the English to depart, as they put it, from Orleans, now obliged the Burgundians to leave Compiegne. But in those days the most ordinary events must needs have a supernatural cause assigned to them, wherefore the deliverance of the town was attributed to the vow of the Count of Vendome, who, in the cathedral of Senlis, had promised an annual mass to Notre-Dame-de-la-Pierre if the place were not taken.[2115]

[Footnote 2109: Le Jouvencel, vol. i, pp. 49 et seq.]

[Footnote 2110: Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 502 verso. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, proofs and illustrations, xli, xlii, xliii.]

[Footnote 2111: Livre des trahisons, p. 202.]

[Footnote 2112: Monstrelet, vol. iii, pp. 410-415. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 185. Livre des trahisons, p. 202. A. Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, proofs and illustrations, xiii, p. 341. P. Champion, loc. cit., p. 176.]

[Footnote 2113: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 418. De La Fons-Melicocq, Documents inedits sur le siege de Compiegne, in La Picardie, vol. iii, 1857, pp. 22, 23. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, vol. ii, part i, p. 156.]

[Footnote 2114: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 419. P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy, p. 57.]

[Footnote 2115: Sorel, La prise de Jeanne d'Arc, proofs and illustrations, p. 343.]

The Lord Treasurer of Normandy raised aids to the amount of eighty thousand livres tournois, ten thousand of which were to be devoted to the purchase of Jeanne. The Count Bishop of Beauvais, who was taking this matter to heart, urged the Sire de Luxembourg to come to terms, mingled threats with coaxings, and caused the Norman gold to glitter before his eyes. He seemed to fear, and his fear was shared by the masters and doctors of the University, that King Charles would likewise make an offer, that he would promise more than King Henry's ten thousand golden francs and that in the end, by dint of costly gifts, the Armagnacs would succeed in winning back their fairy-godmother.[2116] The rumour ran that King Charles, hearing that the English were about to gain possession of Jeanne for a sum of money, sent an ambassador to warn the Duke of Burgundy not on any account to consent to such an agreement, adding that if he did, the Burgundians in the hands of the King of France would be made to pay for the fate of the Maid.[2117] Doubtless the rumour was false; albeit the fears of the Lord Bishop and the masters of the Paris University were not entirely groundless; and it is certain that from the banks of the Loire the negotiations were being attentively followed with a view to intervention at a favourable moment.

[Footnote 2116: Trial, vol. i, p. 9. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 175.]

[Footnote 2117: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 236. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 18, note.]

Besides, some sudden descent of the French was always to be feared. Captain La Hire was ravaging Normandy, the knight Barbazan, la Champagne, and Marshal de Boussac, the country between the Seine, the Marne and the Somme.[2118]

[Footnote 2118: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 276, note.]

At length, about the middle of November, the Sire de Luxembourg consented to the bargain; Jeanne was delivered up to the English. It was decided to take her to Rouen, through Ponthieu, along the sea-shore, through the north of Normandy, where there would be less risk of falling in with the scouts of the various parties.

From Arras she was taken to the Chateau of Drugy, where the monks of Saint-Riquier were said to have visited her in prison.[2119] She was afterwards taken to Crotoy, where the castle walls were washed by the ocean waves. The Duke of Alencon, whom she called her fair Duke, had been imprisoned there after the Battle of Verneuil.[2120] At the time of her arrival, Maitre Nicolas Gueuville, Chancellor of the Cathedral church of Notre Dame d'Amiens, was a prisoner in that castle in the hands of the English. He heard her confess and administered the Communion to her.[2121] And there on that vast Bay of the Somme, grey and monotonous, with its low sky traversed by sea-birds in their long flight, Jeanne beheld coming down to her the visitant of earlier days, the Archangel Saint Michael; and she was comforted. It was said that the damsels and burgesses of Abbeville went to see her in the castle where she was imprisoned.[2122] At the time of the coronation, these burgesses had thought of turning French; and they would have done so if King Charles had come to their town; he did not come; and perhaps it was through Christian charity that the folk of Abbeville visited Jeanne; but those among them who thought well of her did not say so, for fear they too should be suspected of heresy.[2123]

[Footnote 2119: Chronicle of Jean de la Chapelle, in Trial, vol. v, pp. 358-360. Lefils, Histoire de la ville du Crotoy et de son chateau, pp. 111-118. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, La panique anglaise, p. 8, note 5. L'Abbe Bouthors, Histoire de Saint-Riquier, Abbeville, 1902, pp. 185, 215, 220.]

[Footnote 2120: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 22, 137.]

[Footnote 2121: Trial, vol. iii, p. 121. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 63 et seq.; Lanery d'Arc, Livre d'or, p. 521.]

[Footnote 2122: Trial, vol. i, p. 89; vol. iii, p. 121. Le P. Ignace de Jesus Maria, Histoire genealogique des comtes de Ponthieu et maieurs d'Abbeville, Paris, 1657, p. 490. Trial, vol. v, p. 361.]

[Footnote 2123: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 353, 354. Trial, vol. v, p. 143.]

The doctors and masters of the University pursued her with a bitterness hardly credible. In November, after they had been informed of the conclusion of the bargain between Jean de Luxembourg and the English, they wrote through their rector to the Lord Bishop of Beauvais reproaching him for his delay in the matter of this woman and exhorting him to be more diligent.

"For you it is no slight matter, holding as you do so high an office in God's Church," ran this letter, "that the scandals committed against the Christian religion be stamped out, especially when such scandals arise within your actual jurisdiction."[2124]

[Footnote 2124: Trial, vol. i, pp. 15, 16. M. Fournier, La Faculte de decret et l'Universite de Paris, vol. i, p. 353.]

Filled with faith and zeal for the avenging of God's honour, these clerks were, as they said, always ready to burn witches. They feared the devil; but, perchance, though they may not have admitted it even to themselves, they feared him twenty times more when he was Armagnac.

Jeanne was taken out of Crotoy at high tide and conveyed by boat to Saint-Valery, then to Dieppe, as is supposed, and certainly in the end to Rouen.[2125]

[Footnote 2125: Trial, vol. i, p. 21. Le P. Ignace de Jesus Maria, in Trial, vol. v, p. 363. F. Poulaine, Jeanne d'Arc a Rouen, Paris, 1899, in 16mo. Ch. Lemire, Jeanne d'Arc en Picardie et en Normandie, Paris, 1903, p. 10, passim. Lanery d'Arc, Livre d'or, pp. 524, 549.]

She was conducted to the old castle, built in the time of Philippe-Auguste on the slope of the Bouvreuil hill.[2126] King Henry VI, who had come to France for his coronation, had been there since the end of August. He was a sad, serious child, harshly treated by the Earl of Warwick, who was governor of the castle.[2127] The castle was strongly fortified;[2128] it had seven towers, including the keep. Jeanne was placed in a tower looking on to the open country.[2129] Her room was on the middle storey, between the dungeon and the state apartment. Eight steps led up to it.[2130] It extended over the whole of that floor, which was forty-three feet across, including the walls.[2131] A stone staircase approached it at an angle. There was but a dim light, for some of the window slits had been filled in.[2132] From a locksmith of Rouen, one Etienne Castille, the English had ordered an iron cage, in which it was said to be impossible to stand upright. If the reports of the ecclesiastical registrars are to be believed, Jeanne was placed in it and chained by the neck, feet, and hands,[2133] and left there till the opening of the trial. At Jean Salvart's, at l'Ecu de France, in front of the Official's courtyard,[2134] a mason's apprentice saw the cage weighed. But no one ever found Jeanne in it. If this treatment were inflicted on Jeanne, it was not invented for her; when Captain La Hire, in the February of this same year, 1430, took Chateau Gaillard, near Rouen, he found the good knight Barbazan in an iron cage, from which he would not come out, alleging that he was a prisoner on parole.[2135] Jeanne, on the contrary, had been careful to promise nothing, or rather she had promised to escape as soon as she could.[2136] Therefore the English, who believed that she had magical powers, mistrusted her greatly.[2137] As she was being prosecuted by the Church, she ought to have been detained in an ecclesiastical prison,[2138] but the Godons were resolved to keep her in their custody. One among them said she was dear to them because they had paid dearly for her. On her feet they put shackles and round her waist a chain padlocked to a beam five or six feet long. At night this chain was carried over the foot of her bed and attached to the principal beam.[2139] In like manner, John Huss, in 1415, when he was delivered up to the Bishop of Constance and transferred to the fortress of Gottlieben, was chained night and day until he was taken to the stake.

[Footnote 2126: A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie au XV'e siecle, Rouen, 1896, in 4to, ch. v.]

[Footnote 2127: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 136-137. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 198.]

[Footnote 2128: L. de Duranville, Le chateau de Bouvreuil, in La Revue de Rouen, 1852, p. 387. A. Deville, La tour de la Pucelle du chateau de Rouen, in Precis des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen, 1865-1866, pp. 236-268. Bouquet, Notice sur le donjon du chateau de Philippe-Auguste, Rouen, 1877, pp. 7 et seq.]

[Footnote 2129: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 317, 345; vol. iii, p. 121.]

[Footnote 2130: Ibid., p. 154. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 190, note 1. L. Delisle, Revue des Societes savantes, 1867, 4th series, vol. v, p. 440. F. Bouquet, Jeanne d'Arc au donjon de Rouen, in Revue de Normandie, 1867, vol. vi, pp. 873-883. L. Delisle, Revue des Societes savantes, vol. v (1867). Lanery d'Arc, pp. 528-533.]

[Footnote 2131: Ballin, Renseignements sur le Vieux-Chateau de Rouen, in Revue de Rouen, 1842, p. 35. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 188.]

[Footnote 2132: Trial, vol. ii, p. 7.]

[Footnote 2133: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 155.]

[Footnote 2134: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 180. A. Sarrazin, pp. 191, 192.]

[Footnote 2135: Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 240, 241.]

[Footnote 2136: Trial, vol. i, p. 47.]

[Footnote 2137: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 322.]

[Footnote 2138: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 216, 217. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 112.]

[Footnote 2139: Trial, vol. ii, p. 18.]

Five English men-at-arms,[2140] common soldiers (houspilleurs), guarded the prisoner;[2141] they were not the flower of chivalry. They mocked her and she rebuked them, a circumstance they must have found consolatory. At night two of them stayed behind the door; three remained with her, and constantly troubled her by saying first that she would die, then that she would be delivered. No one could speak to her without their consent.[2142]

[Footnote 2140: Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages (1906), vol. iii, p. 359.]

[Footnote 2141: Trial, vol. iii, p. 154.]

[Footnote 2142: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 318, 319; vol. iii, pp. 131, 140, 148, 161. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, p. 200.]

Nevertheless folk entered the prison as if it were a fair (comme au moulin); people of all ranks came to see Jeanne as they pleased. Thus Maitre Laurent Guesdon, Lieutenant of the Bailie of Rouen, came,[2143] and Maitre Pierre Manuel, Advocate of the King of England, who was accompanied by Maitre Pierre Daron, magistrate of the city of Rouen. They found her with her feet in shackles, guarded by soldiers.[2144]

[Footnote 2143: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 186, 187.]

[Footnote 2144: Ibid., pp. 199, 200.]

Maitre Pierre Manuel felt called upon to tell her that for certain she would never have come there if she had not been brought. Sensible persons were always surprised when they saw witches and soothsayers falling into a trap like any ordinary Christian. The King's Advocate must have been a sensible person, since his surprise appeared in the questions he put to Jeanne.

"Did you know you were to be taken?" he asked her.

"I thought it likely," she replied.

"Then why," asked Maitre Pierre again, "if you thought it likely, did you not take better care on the day you were captured?"

"I knew neither the day nor the hour when I should be taken, nor when it should happen."[2145]

[Footnote 2145: Ibid., p. 200.]

A young fellow, one Pierre Cusquel, who worked for Jean Salvart, also called Jeanson, the master-mason of the castle, through the influence of his employer, was permitted to enter the tower. He also found Jeanne bound with a long chain attached to a beam, and with her feet in shackles. Much later, he claimed to have warned her to be careful of what she said, because her life was involved in it. It is true that she talked volubly to her guards and that all she said was reported to her judges. And it may have happened that the young Pierre, whose master was on the English side, wished to advise her and even did so. There is a suspicion, however, that like so many others he was merely boasting.[2146]

[Footnote 2146: Trial, vol. iii, p. 179.]

The Sire Jean de Luxembourg came to Rouen. He went to the Maid's tower accompanied by his brother, the Lord Bishop of Therouanne, Chancellor of England; and also by Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, Constable of France for King Henry; and the Earl of Warwick, Governor of the Castle of Rouen. At this interview there was also present the young Seigneur de Macy, who held Jeanne to be of very modest bearing, since she had repulsed his attempted familiarity.

"Jeanne," said the Sire de Luxembourg, "I have come to ransom you if you will promise never again to bear arms against us."

These words do not accord with our knowledge of the negotiation for the purchase of the Maid. They seem to indicate that even then the contract was not complete, or at any rate that the vendor thought he could break it if he chose. But the most remarkable point about the Sire de Luxembourg's speech is the condition on which he says he will ransom the Maid. He asks her to promise never again to fight against England and Burgundy. From these words it would seem to have been his intention to sell her to the King of France or to his representative.[2147]

[Footnote 2147: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 236.]

There is no evidence, however, of this speech having made any impression on the English. Jeanne set no store by it.

"In God's name, you do but jest," she replied; "for I know well that it lieth neither within your will nor within your power."

It is related that when he persisted in his statement, she replied:

"I know that these English will put me to death, believing that afterwards they will conquer France."

Since she certainly did not believe it, it seems highly improbable that she should have said that the English would have put her to death. Throughout the trial she was expecting, on the faith of her Voices, to be delivered. She knew not how or when that deliverance would come to pass, but she was as certain of it as of the presence of Our Lord in the Holy Sacrament. She may have said to the Sire de Luxembourg: "I know that the English want to put me to death." Then she repeated courageously what she had already said a thousand times:

"But were there one hundred thousand Godons more than at present, they would not conquer the kingdom."

On hearing these words, the Earl of Stafford unsheathed his sword and the Earl of Warwick had to restrain his hand.[2148] That the English Constable of France should have raised his sword against a woman in chains would be incredible, did we not know that about this time this Earl of Stafford, hearing some one speak well of Jeanne, straightway wished to transfix him.[2149]

[Footnote 2148: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 121, 123.]

[Footnote 2149: Ibid., p. 140.]

In order that the Bishop and Vidame of Beauvais might exercise jurisdiction at Rouen it was necessary that a concession of territory should be granted him. The archiepiscopal see of Rouen was vacant.[2150] For this concession, therefore, the Bishop of Beauvais applied to the chapter, with whom he had had misunderstandings.[2151] The canons of Rouen lacked neither firmness nor independence; more of them were honest than dishonest; some were highly educated, well-lettered and even kind-hearted. None of them nourished any ill will toward the English. The Regent Bedford himself was a canon of Rouen, as Charles VII was a canon of Puy.[2152] On the 20th of October, in that same year 1430, the Regent, donning surplice and amice, had distributed the dole of bread and wine for the chapter.[2153] The canons of Rouen were not prejudiced in favour of the Maid of the Armagnacs; they agreed to the demand of the Bishop of Beauvais and granted him the formal concession of territory.[2154]

[Footnote 2150: C. de Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces de condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc, in Precis des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen, 1867-1868, pp. 470-479. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 29.]

[Footnote 2151: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 17.]

[Footnote 2152: Gallia Christiana, vol. ii, p. 732. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, pp. 213, 214. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. ccxcv.]

[Footnote 2153: C. de Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces de condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc, loc. cit. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 168, 171.]

[Footnote 2154: 28 December, 1430. Trial, vol. i, pp. 20, 23. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 46.]

On the 3rd of January, 1431, by royal decree, King Henry ordered the Maid to be given up to the Bishop and Count of Beauvais, reserving to himself the right to bring her before him, if she should be acquitted by the ecclesiastical tribunal.[2155]

[Footnote 2155: Trial, vol. i, pp. 18, 19.]

Nevertheless she was not placed in the Church prison, in one of those dungeons near the Booksellers' Porch, where in the shadow of the gigantic cathedral there rotted unhappy wretches who had erred in matters of faith.[2156] There she would have endured sufferings far more terrible than even the horrors of her military tower. The wrong the Great Council of England inflicted on Jeanne by not handing her over to the ecclesiastical powers of Rouen was far less than the indignity they thereby inflicted on her judges.

[Footnote 2156: A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 1771, 1778.]

With the way thus opened before him, the Bishop of Beauvais proceeded with all the violence one might expect from a Cabochien, albeit that violence was qualified by worldly arts and canonical knowledge.[2157] As promoter in the case, that is, as the magistrate who was to conduct the prosecution, he selected one Jean d'Estivet, called Benedicite, canon of Bayeux and of Beauvais, Promoter-General of the diocese of Beauvais. Jean d'Estivet was a friend of the Lord Bishop, and had been driven out of the diocese by the French at the same time. He was suspected of hostility to the Maid.[2158] The Lord Bishop appointed Jean de la Fontaine, master of arts, licentiate of canon law, to be "councillor commissary" of the trial.[2159] One of the clerks of the ecclesiastical court of Rouen, Guillaume Manchon, priest, he appointed first registrar.

[Footnote 2157: J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 147. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2158: Trial, vol. i, p. 24; vol. iii, p. 162. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 26. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 220.]

[Footnote 2159: Trial, vol. i, p. 25.]

In the course of instructing this official as to what would be expected of him, the Lord Bishop said to Messire Guillaume:

"You must do the King good service. It is our intention to institute an elaborate prosecution (un beau proces) against this Jeanne."[2160]

[Footnote 2160: Trial, vol. i, p. 25; vol. iii, p. 137. A. Sarrazin, loc. cit., pp. 221, 222.]

As to the King's service, the Lord Bishop did not mean that it should be rendered at the expense of justice; he was a man of some priestly pride and was not likely to reveal his own evil designs. If he spoke thus, it was because in France, for a century at least, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition had been regarded as the jurisdiction of the King.[2161] And as for the expression "an elaborate prosecution" (un beau proces), that meant a trial in which legal forms were observed and irregularities avoided, for it was a case in which were interested the doctors and masters of the realm of France and indeed the whole of Christendom. Messire Guillaume Manchon, well skilled in legal procedure, was not likely to err in a matter of legal language. An elaborate trial was a strictly regular trial. It was said, for example, that "N---- and N---- had by elaborate judicial procedure found such an one to be guilty."[2162]

[Footnote 2161: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en France, pp. 550, 551.]

[Footnote 2162: De Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces de condamnation, p. 320.]

Charged by the Bishop to choose another registrar to assist him, Guillaume Manchon selected as his colleague Guillaume Colles, surnamed Boisguillaume, who like him was a notary of the Church.[2163]

[Footnote 2163: Trial, vol. i, p. 25; vol. iii, p. 137. De Beaurepaire, Recherches.... p. 103. A. Sarrazin, loc. cit., pp. 222, 223.]

Jean Massieu, priest, ecclesiastical dean of Rouen, was appointed usher of the court.[2164]

[Footnote 2164: Trial, vol. i, p. 26. De Beaurepaire, Recherches.... p. 115. A. Sarrazin, loc. cit., pp. 223, 224.]

In that kind of trial, which was very common in those days, there were strictly only two judges, the Ordinary and the Inquisitor. But it was the custom for the Bishop to summon as councillors and assessors persons learned in both canon and civil law. The number and the rank of those councillors varied according to the case. And it is clear that the obstinate upholder of a very pestilent heresy must needs be more particularly and more ceremoniously tried than an old wife, who had sold herself to some insignificant demon, and whose spells could harm nothing more important than cabbages. For the common wizard, for the multitude of those females, or mulierculae, as they were described by one inquisitor who boasted of having burnt many, the judges were content with three or four ecclesiastical advocates and as many canons.[2165] When it was a question of a very notable personage who had set a highly pernicious example, of a king's advocate, for instance like Master Jean Segueut, who that very year, in Normandy, had spoken against the temporal power of the Church, a large assembly of doctors and prelates, English and French, were convoked, and the doctors and masters of the University of Paris were consulted in writing.[2166] Now it was fitting that the Maid of the Armagnacs should be yet more elaborately and more solemnly tried, with a yet greater concourse of doctors and of prelates; and thus it was ordained by the Lord Bishop of Beauvais. As councillors and assessors he summoned the canons of Rouen in as great a number as possible. Among those who answered his summons we may mention Raoul Roussel, treasurer of the chapter; Gilles Deschamps, who had been chaplain to the late King, Charles VI, in 1415; Pierre Maurice, doctor in theology, rector of the University of Paris in 1428; Jean Alespee, one of the sixteen who during the siege of 1418 had gone robed in black and with cheerful countenance to place at the feet of King Henry V the life and honour of the city; Pasquier de Vaux, apostolic notary at the Council of Constance, President of the Norman Chambre des Comptes; Nicolas de Venderes, whose candidature for the vacant see of Rouen was being advocated by a powerful party; and, lastly, Nicolas Loiseleur. For the same purpose, the Lord Bishop summoned the abbots of the great Norman abbeys, Mont Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, Fecamp, Jumieges, Preaux, Mortemer, Saint-Georges de Boscherville, la Trinite-du-mont-Sainte-Catherine, Saint-Ouen, Bec, Cormeilles, the priors of Saint-Lo, of Rouen, of Sigy, of Longueville, and the abbot of Saint Corneille of Compiegne. He summoned twelve ecclesiastical advocates; likewise famous doctors and masters of the University of Paris, Jean Beaupere, rector in 1412; Thomas Fiefve, rector in 1427; Guillaume Erart, Nicolas Midi,[2167] and that young doctor, abounding in knowledge and in modesty, the brightest star in the Christian firmament of the day, Thomas de Courcelles.[2168] The Lord Bishop is bent upon turning the tribunal, which is to try Jeanne, into a veritable synod; it is indeed a provincial council, before which she is cited. Moreover, in effect, it is not only Jeanne the Maid, but Charles of Valois, calling himself King of France, and lawful successor of Charles VI who is to be brought to justice. Wherefore are assembled so many croziered and mitred abbots, so many renowned doctors and masters.

[Footnote 2165: Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorium, quest. 85. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 109. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2166: De Beaurepaire, Recherches.... pp. 321 et seq.]

[Footnote 2167: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 27-114. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 103, 104. Boucher de Molandon, Guillaume Erard l'un des juges de la Pucelle, in Bulletin du comite hist. and phil., 1892, pp. 3-10.]

[Footnote 2168: Trial, vol. i, p. 30, note. Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis, Paris, vol. v, pp. 912, 920. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 105. De Beaurepaire, Notes, pp. 30, 31. A. Sarrazin, loc. cit., pp. 226, 227.]

Nevertheless, there were other bright and shining lights of the Church, whom the Bishop of Beauvais neglected to summon. He consulted the two bishops of Coutances and Lisieux; he did not consult the senior bishop of Normandy, the Bishop of Avranches, Messire Jean de Saint-Avit, whom the chapter of the cathedral had charged with the duty of ordination throughout the diocese during the vacancy of the see of Rouen. But Messire Jean de Saint-Avit was considered and rightly considered to favour King Charles.[2169] On the other hand those English doctors and masters, residing at Rouen, who had been consulted in Segueut's trial, were not consulted in that of Jeanne.[2170] The doctors and masters of the University of Paris, the abbots of Normandy, the chapter of Rouen, held firmly to the Treaty of Troyes; they were as prejudiced as the English clerks against the Maid and the Dauphin Charles, and they were less suspected; it was all to the good.[2171]

[Footnote 2169: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 5, 6. De Beaurepaire, Notes, pp. 121-125. A. Sarrazin, loc. cit., pp. 308-310.]

[Footnote 2170: De Beaurepaire, Recherches, pp. 321 et seq.]

[Footnote 2171: J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 101.]

On Tuesday, the 9th of January, my Lord of Beauvais summoned eight councillors to his house: the abbots of Fecamp and of Jumieges, the prior of Longueville, the canons Roussel, Venderes, Barbier, Coppequesne and Loiseleur.

"Before entering upon the prosecution of this woman," he said to them, "we have judged it good, maturely and fully to confer with men learned and skilled in law, human and divine, of whom, thank God, there be great number in this city of Rouen."

The opinion of the doctors and masters was that information should be collected concerning the deeds and sayings publicly imputed to this woman.

The Lord Bishop informed them that already certain information had been obtained by his command, and that he had decided to order more to be collected, which would be ultimately presented to the Council.[2172]

[Footnote 2172: Trial, vol. i, pp. 5-8.]

It is certain that a tabellion[2173] of Andelot in Champagne, Nicolas Bailly, requisitioned by Messire Jean de Torcenay, Bailie of Chaumont for King Henry, went to Domremy, and with Gerard Petit, provost of Andelot, and divers mendicant monks, made inquiry touching Jeanne's life and reputation. The interrogators heard twelve or fifteen witnesses and among others Jean Hannequin[2174] of Greux and Jean Begot, with whom they lodged.[2175] We know from Nicolas Bailly himself that they gathered not a single fact derogatory to Jeanne. And if we may believe Jean Moreau, a citizen of Rouen, Maitre Nicolas, having brought my Lord of Beauvais the result of his researches, was treated as a wicked man and a traitor; and obtained no reward for his expenditure or his labour.[2176] This is possible, but it seems strange. It can in no wise be true, however, that neither at Vaucouleurs nor at Domremy, nor in the neighbouring villages was anything discovered against Jeanne. Quite on the contrary, numbers of accusations were collected against the inhabitants in general, who were addicted to evil practices, and in particular against Jeanne, who held intercourse with fairies,[2177] carried a mandrake in her bosom, and disobeyed her father and mother.[2178]

[Footnote 2173: A notary or secretary in France under the old monarchy (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2174: Trial, vol. ii, p. 463.]

[Footnote 2175: Ibid., p. 453.]

[Footnote 2176: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 192, 193.]

[Footnote 2177: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 105, 146, 234.]

[Footnote 2178: Ibid., pp. 208, 209, 213.]

Abundant information was forthcoming, not only from Lorraine and from Paris, but from the districts loyal to King Charles, from Lagny, Beauvais, Reims, and even from so far as Touraine and Berry;[2179] which was information enough to burn ten heretics and twenty witches. Devilries were discovered which filled the priests with horror: the finding of a lost cup and gloves, the exposure of an immoral priest, the sword of Saint Catherine, the restoration of a child to life. There was also a report of a rash letter concerning the Pope and there were many other indications of witchcraft, heresy, and religious error.[2180] Such information was not to be included among the documents of the trial.[2181] It was the custom of the Holy Inquisition to keep secret the evidence and even the names of the witnesses.[2182] In this case the Bishop of Beauvais might have pleaded as an excuse for so doing the safety of the deponents, who might have suffered had he published information gathered in provinces subject to the Dauphin Charles. Even if their names were concealed, they would be identified by their evidence. For the purposes of the trial, Jeanne's own conversation in prison was the best source of information: she spoke much and without any of the reserve which prudence might have dictated.

[Footnote 2179: J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 117.]

[Footnote 2180: Trial, vol. i, pp. 245, 246.]

[Footnote 2181: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 200.]

[Footnote 2182: De Beaurepaire, Recherches, loc. cit. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 122-124. L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition, pp. 389-395.]

A painter, whose name is unknown, came to see her in her tower. He asked her aloud and before her guards what arms she bore, as if he wished to represent her with her escutcheon. In those days portraits were very seldom painted from life, except of persons of very high rank, and they were generally represented kneeling and with clasped hands in an attitude of prayer. Though in Flanders and in Burgundy there may have been a few portraits bearing no signs of devotion, they were very rare. A portrait naturally suggested a person praying to God, to the Holy Virgin, or to some saint. Wherefore the idea of painting the Maid's picture doubtless must have met with the stern disapproval of her ecclesiastical judges. All the more so because they must have feared that the painter would represent this excommunicated woman in the guise of a saint, canonised by the Church, as the Armagnacs were wont to do.

A careful consideration of this incident inclines us to think that this man was no painter but a spy. Jeanne told him of the arms which the King had granted to her brothers: an azure shield bearing a sword between two golden fleurs de lis. And our suspicion is confirmed when at the trial she is reproached with pomp and vanity for having caused her arms to be painted.[2183]

[Footnote 2183: Trial, vol. i, pp. 117, 300.]

Sundry clerks introduced into her prison gave her to believe that they were men-at-arms of the party of Charles of Valois.[2184] In order to deceive her, the Promoter himself, Maitre Jean d'Estivet, disguised himself as a poor prisoner.[2185] One of the canons of Rouen, who was summoned to the trial, by name Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur, would seem to have been especially inventive of devices for the discovery of Jeanne's heresies. A native of Chartres, he was not only a master of arts, but was greatly renowned for astuteness. In 1427 and 1428 he carried through difficult negotiations, which detained him long months in Paris. In 1430 he was one of those deputed by the chapter to go to the Cardinal of Winchester in order to obtain an audience of King Henry and commend to him the church of Rouen. Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur was therefore a persona grata with the Great Council.[2186]

[Footnote 2184: Trial, vol. ii, p. 362.]

[Footnote 2185: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 63.]

[Footnote 2186: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 72-82. A. Sorel, loc. cit., pp. 243, 247.]

Having concerted with the Bishop of Beauvais and the Earl of Warwick, he entered Jeanne's prison, wearing a short jacket like a layman. The guards had been instructed to withdraw; and Maitre Nicolas, left alone with his prisoner, confided to her that he, like herself, was a native of the Lorraine Marches, a shoemaker by trade, one who held to the French party and had been taken prisoner by the English. From King Charles he brought her tidings which were the fruit of his own imagination. No one was dearer to Jeanne than her King. Thus having won her confidence, the pseudo-shoemaker asked her sundry questions concerning the angels and saints who visited her. She answered him confidingly, speaking as friend to friend, as countryman to countryman. He gave her counsel, advising her not to believe all these churchmen and not to do all that they asked her; "For," he said, "if thou believest in them thou shalt be destroyed."

Many a time, we are told, did Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur act the part of the Lorraine shoemaker. Afterwards he dictated to the registrars all that Jeanne had said, providing thus a valuable source of information of which a memorandum was made to be used during the examination. It would even appear that during certain of these visits the registrars were stationed at a peep-hole in an adjoining room.[2187] If we may believe the rumours current in the town, Maitre Nicolas also disguised himself as Saint Catherine, and by this means brought Jeanne to say all that he wanted.

[Footnote 2187: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 10, 342; vol. iii, pp. 140, 141, 156, 160 et seq.]

He may not have been proud of such deceptions, but at any rate he made no secret of them.[2188] Many famous masters approved him; others censured him.[2189]

[Footnote 2188: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 181.]

[Footnote 2189: Ibid., p. 141.]

The angel of the schools, Thomas de Courcelles, when Nicolas told him of his disguises, counselled him to abandon them.

Afterwards the registrars pretended that it had been extremely repugnant to them thus to overhear in hiding a conversation so craftily contrived. The golden age of inquisitorial justice must have been well over when so strict a doctor as Maitre Thomas was willing thus to criticise the most solemn forms of that justice. Inquisitorial proceedings must indeed have fallen into decay when two notaries of the Church dream of eluding its most common prescriptions. The clerks who disguised themselves as soldiers, the Promoter who took on the semblance of a poor prisoner, were exercising the most regular functions of the judicial system instituted by Innocent III.

In acting the shoemaker and Saint Catherine, if he were seeking the salvation and not the destruction of the sinner, if, contrary to public report, far from inciting her to rebellion, he was reducing her to obedience, if, in short, he were but deceiving her for her own temporal and spiritual good, Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur was proceeding in conformity with established rules. In the Tractatus de Haeresi it is written: "Let no man approach the heretic, save from time to time two persons of faith and tact, who may warn him with precaution and as having compassion upon him, to eschew death by confessing his errors, and who may promise him that by so doing he shall escape death by fire; for the fear of death, and the hope of life may peradventure soften a heart which could be touched in no other wise."[2190]

[Footnote 2190: Tractatus de haeresi pauperum de Lugduno, apud Martene, Thesaurus anecd., vol. v, col. 1787. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 131, 132.]

The duty of registrars was laid down in the following manner:

"Matters shall be ordained thus, that certain persons shall be stationed in a suitable place so as to surprise the confidences of heretics and to overhear their words."[2191]

[Footnote 2191: Eymeric, Directorium, part iii, Cautelae inquisitorum contra haereticorum cavilationes et fraudes.]

As for the Bishop of Beauvais, who had ordained and permitted such procedure, he found his justification and approbation in the words of the Apostle Saint Paul to the Corinthians: "I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile." "Ego vos non gravavi; sed cum essem astutus, dolo vos cepi" (II Corinthians xii, 16).[2192]

[Footnote 2192: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en France, p. 394.]

Meanwhile, when Jeanne saw the Promoter, Jean d'Estivet, in his churchman's habit she did not recognise him. And Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur also often came to her in monkish dress. In this guise he inspired her with great confidence; she confessed to him devoutly and had no other confessor.[2193] She saw him sometimes as a shoemaker and sometimes as a canon and never perceived that he was the same person. Wherefore we must indeed believe her to have been incredibly simple in certain respects; and these great theologians must have realised that it was not difficult to deceive her.

[Footnote 2193: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 10, 342.]

It was well known to all men versed in science, divine and human, that the Enemy never entered into dealings with a maid without depriving her of her virginity.[2194] At Poitiers the French clerks had thought of it, and when Queen Yolande assured them that Jeanne was a virgin, they ceased to fear that she was sent by the devil.[2195] The Lord Bishop of Beauvais in a different hope awaited a similar examination. The Duchess of Bedford herself went to the prison. She was assisted by Lady Anna Bavon and another matron. It has been said that the Regent was hidden meanwhile in an adjoining room and looking through a hole in the wall.[2196] This is by no means certain, but it is not impossible; he was at Rouen a fortnight after Jeanne had been brought there.[2197] Whether the charge were groundless or well founded he was seriously reproached for this curiosity. If there were many who in his place would have been equally curious, every one must judge for himself; but we must bear in mind that my Lord of Bedford believed Jeanne a witch, and that it was not the custom in those days to treat witches with the respect due to ladies. We must remember also that this was a matter in which Old England was greatly concerned, and the Regent loved his country with all his heart and all his strength.

[Footnote 2194: Vallet de Viriville, Nouvelles recherches sur Agnes Sorel, pp. 33 et seq. Du Cange, Glossaire, at the word Matrimonium.]

[Footnote 2195: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 102, 209.]

[Footnote 2196: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 155, 163.]

[Footnote 2197: A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 40.]

Upon the examination of the Duchess of Bedford as upon that of the Queen of Sicily Jeanne appeared a virgin. The matrons knew various signs of virginity; but for us a more certain sign is Jeanne's own word. When she was asked wherefore she called herself the Maid, whether she were one in reality, she replied: "I may tell you that such I am."[2198] The judges, as far as we know, set no store by this favourable result of the examination. Did they believe with the wise King Solomon that in such matters all inquiry is vain, and did they reject the matrons' verdict by virtue of the saying: Virginitatis probatio non minus difficilis quam custodia? No, they knew well that she was indeed a virgin. They allowed it to be understood when they did not assert the contrary.[2199] And since they persisted in believing her a witch, it must have been because they imagined her to have given herself to devils who had left her as they found her. The morals of devils abounded in such inconsistencies, which were the despair of the most learned doctors; every day new inconsistencies were being discovered.

[Footnote 2198: Trial, vol. iii, p. 175.]

[Footnote 2199: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 217, 218.]

On Saturday, the 13th of January, the Lord Abbot of Fecamp, the doctors and masters, Nicolas de Venderes, Guillaume Haiton, Nicolas Coppequesne, Jean de la Fontaine, and Nicolas Loiseleur, met in the house of the Lord Bishop. There was read to them the information concerning the Maid gathered in Lorraine and elsewhere. And it was decided that according to this information a certain number of articles should be drawn up in due form; which was done.[2200]

[Footnote 2200: Trial, vol. i, pp. 27, 28.]

On Tuesday, the 23rd of January, the doctors and masters above named considered the terms of these articles, and, finding them sufficient, they decided that they might be used for the examination. Then they resolved that the Bishop of Beauvais should order a preliminary inquiry as to the deeds and sayings of Jeanne.[2201]

[Footnote 2201: Ibid., pp. 28, 29.]

On Tuesday, the 13th of February, Jean d'Estivet, called Benedicite, Promoter, Jean de la Fontaine, Commissioner, Boisguillaume and Manchon, Registrars, and Jean Massieu, Usher, took the oath faithfully to discharge their various offices. Then straightway Maitre Jean de la Fontaine, assisted by two registrars, proceeded to the preliminary inquiry.[2202]

[Footnote 2202: Ibid., pp. 29, 31.]

On Monday, the 19th of February, at eight o'clock in the morning, the doctors and masters assembled, to the number of eleven, in the house of the Bishop of Beauvais; there they heard the reading of the articles and the preliminary information. Whereupon they gave it as their opinion, and, in conformity with this opinion, the Bishop decided that there was matter sufficient to justify the woman called the Maid being cited and charged touching a question of faith.[2203]

[Footnote 2203: Trial, vol. i, pp. 31-33.]

But now a fresh difficulty arose. In such a trial it was necessary for the accused to appear at once before the Ordinary and before the Inquisitor. The two judges were equally necessary for the validity of the trial. Now the Grand Inquisitor for the realm of France, Brother Jean Graverent, was then at Saint-Lo, prosecuting on a religious charge a citizen of the town, one Jean Le Couvreur.[2204] In the absence of Brother Jean Graverent, the Bishop of Beauvais had invited the Vice-Inquisitor for the diocese of Rouen to proceed against Jeanne conjointly with himself. Meanwhile the Vice-Inquisitor seemed not to understand; he made no response; and the Bishop was left in embarrassment with his lawsuit on his hands.

[Footnote 2204: Ibid., p. 32. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 102. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 24-27. Le P. Chapotin, La guerre de cent ans, Jeanne d'Arc et les dominicains, pp. 141-143. A. Sarrazin, P. Cauchon, p. 124.]

This Vice-Inquisitor was Brother Jean Lemaistre, Prior of the Dominicans of Rouen, bachelor of theology, a monk right prudent and scrupulous.[2205] At length in answer to a summons from the Usher, at four o'clock on the 19th of February, 1413, he appeared in the house of the Bishop of Beauvais. He declared himself ready to intervene provided that he had the right to do so, which he doubted. As the reason for his uncertainty he alleged that he was the Inquisitor of Rouen; now the Bishop of Beauvais was exercising his jurisdiction as bishop of the diocese of Beauvais, but on borrowed territory; wherefore was it not rather for the Inquisitor of Beauvais not for the Inquisitor of Rouen, to sit on the judgment seat side by side with the Bishop?[2206] He declared that he would ask the Grand Inquisitor of France for an authorisation which should hold good for the diocese of Beauvais. Meanwhile he consented to act in order to satisfy his own conscience and to prevent the proceedings from lapsing, which, in the opinion of all, must have ensued had the trial been instituted without the concurrence of the Holy Inquisition.[2207] All preliminary difficulties were now removed. The Maid was cited to appear on Wednesday, the 21st of February,[2208] 1431.

[Footnote 2205: Trial, vol. i, p. 33.]

[Footnote 2206: Trial, vol. i, p. 35. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 394. Doinel, Memoire de la Societe archeologique-historique de l'Orleanais, 1892, vol. xxiv, p. 403. Le P. Chapotin, La guerre de cent ans, Jeanne d'Arc et les dominicains, p. 141. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 32.]

[Footnote 2207: Trial, vol. i, p. 35.]

[Footnote 2208: Ibid., pp. 40-42.]

On that day, at eight o'clock in the morning, the Bishop of Beauvais, the Vicar of the Inquisitor, and forty-one Councillors and Assessors assembled in the castle chapel. Fifteen of them were doctors in theology, five doctors in civil and canon law, six bachelors in theology, eleven bachelors in canon law, four licentiates in civil law. The Bishop sat as judge. At his side were the Councillors and Assessors, clothed either in the fine camlet of canons or in the coarse cloth of mendicants, expressive, the one of sacerdotal solemnity, the other of evangelical meekness. Some glared fiercely, others cast down their eyes. Brother Jean Lemaistre, Vice-Inquisitor of the faith, was among them, silent, in the black and white livery of poverty and obedience.[2209]

[Footnote 2209: Trial, vol. i, pp. 38, 39.]

Before bringing in the accused, the usher informed the Bishop that Jeanne, to whom the citation had been delivered, had replied that she would be willing to appear, but she demanded that an equal number of ecclesiastics of the French party should be added to those of the English party. She requested also the permission to hear mass.[2210] The Bishop refused both demands;[2211] and Jeanne was brought in, dressed as a man, with her feet in shackles. She was made to sit down at the table of the registrars.

[Footnote 2210: Ibid., pp. 42-43.]

[Footnote 2211: Ibid., p. 43.]

And now from the very outset these theologians and this damsel regarded each other with mutual horror and hatred. Contrary to the custom of her sex, a custom which even loose women did not dare to infringe, she displayed her hair, which was brown and cut short over the ears. It was possibly the first time that some of those young monks seated behind their elders had ever seen a woman's hair. She wore hose like a youth. To them her dress appeared immodest and abominable.[2212] She exasperated and irritated them. Had the Bishop of Beauvais insisted on her appearing in hood and gown their anger against her would have been less violent. This man's attire brought before their minds the works performed by the Maid in the camp of the Dauphin Charles, calling himself king. By the stroke of a magic wand she had deprived the English men-at-arms of all their strength, and thereby she had inflicted sore hurt on the majority of the churchmen who were to judge her. Some among them were thinking of the benefices of which she had despoiled them; others, doctors and masters of the University, recalled how she had been about to lay Paris waste with fire and sword;[2213] others again, canons and abbots, could not forgive her perchance for having struck fear into their hearts even in remote Normandy. Was it possible for them to pardon the havoc she had thus wrought in a great part of the Church of France, when they knew she had done it by sorcery, by divination and by invoking devils? "A man must be very ignorant if he will deny the reality of magic," said Sprenger. As they were very learned, they saw magicians and wizards where others would never have suspected them; they held that to doubt the power of demons over men and things was not only heretical and impious, but tending to subvert the whole natural and social order. These doctors, seated in the castle chapel, had burned each one of them ten, twenty, fifty witches, all of whom had confessed their crimes. Would it not have been madness after that to doubt the existence of witches?

[Footnote 2212: Ibid., p. 43.]

[Footnote 2213: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc et l'Universite de Paris.]

To us it seems curious that beings capable of causing hail-storms and casting spells over men and animals should allow themselves to be taken, judged, tortured, and burned without making any defence; but it was constantly occurring; every ecclesiastical judge must have observed it. Very learned men were able to account for it: they explained that wizards and witches lost their power as soon as they fell into the hands of churchmen. This explanation was deemed sufficient. The hapless Maid had lost her power like the others; they feared her no longer.

At least Jeanne hated them as bitterly as they hated her. It was natural for unlettered saints, for the fair inspired, frank of mind, capricious, and enthusiastic to feel an antipathy towards doctors all inflated with knowledge and stiffened with scholasticism. Such an antipathy Jeanne had recently felt towards clerks, even when as at Poitiers they had been on the French side, and had not wished her evil and had not greatly troubled her. Wherefore we may easily imagine how intense was the repulsion with which the clerks of Rouen now inspired her. She knew that they sought to compass her death. But she feared them not; confidently she awaited from her saints and angels the fulfilment of their promise, their coming for her deliverance. She knew not when nor how her deliverance should come; but that come it would she never once doubted. To doubt it would indeed have been to doubt Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and even Our Lord; it would have been to believe evil of her Voices. They had told her to fear nothing, and of nothing was she afeard.[2214] Fearless simplicity; whence came her confidence in her Voices if not from her own heart?

[Footnote 2214: Trial, vol. i, pp. 88, 94, 151, 155, passim.]

The Bishop required her to swear, according to the prescribed form with both hands on the holy Gospels, that she would reply truly to all that should be asked her.

She could not. Her Voices forbade her telling any one of the revelations they had so abundantly vouchsafed to her.

She answered: "I do not know on what you wish to question me. You might ask me things that I would not tell you."

And when the Bishop insisted on her swearing to tell the whole truth:

"Touching my father and mother and what I did after my coming into France I will willingly swear," she said; "but touching God's revelations to me, those I have neither told nor communicated to any man, save to Charles my King. And nought of them will I reveal, were I to lose my head for it."

Then, either because she wished to gain time or because she counted on receiving some new directions from her Council, she added that in a week she would know whether she might so reveal those things.

At length she took the oath, according to the prescribed form, on her knees, with both hands on the missal.[2215] Then she answered concerning her name, her country, her parents, her baptism, her godfathers and godmothers. She said that to the best of her knowledge she was about nineteen years of age.[2216]

[Footnote 2215: Trial, vol. i, p. 45.]

[Footnote 2216: Ibid., p. 46.]

Questioned concerning her education, she replied: "From my mother I learnt my Paternoster, my Ave Maria and my Credo."

But, asked to repeat her Paternoster, she refused, for, she said, she would only say it in confession. This was because she wanted the Bishop to hear her confess.[2217]

[Footnote 2217: Ibid., pp. 46-47.]

The assembly was profoundly agitated; all spoke at once. Jeanne with her soft voice had scandalised the doctors.

The Bishop forbade her to leave her prison, under pain of being convicted of the crime of heresy.

She refused to submit to this prohibition. "If I did escape," she said, "none could reproach me with having broken faith, for I never gave my word to any one."

Afterwards she complained of her chains.

The Bishop told her they were on account of her attempt to escape.

She agreed: "It is true that I wanted to escape, and I still want to, just like every other prisoner."[2218]

[Footnote 2218: Trial, vol. i, p. 47.]

Such a confession was very bold, if she had rightly understood the judge when he said that by flight from prison she would incur the punishment of a heretic. To escape from an ecclesiastical prison was to commit a crime against the Church, but it was folly as well as crime; for the prisons of the Church are penitentiaries, and the prisoner who refuses salutary penance is as foolish as he is guilty; for he is like a sick man who refuses to be cured. But Jeanne was not, strictly speaking, in an ecclesiastical prison; she was in the castle of Rouen, a prisoner of war in the hands of the English. Could it be said that if she escaped she would incur excommunication and the spiritual and temporal penalties inflicted on the enemies of religion? There lay the difficulty. The Lord Bishop removed it forthwith by an elaborate legal fiction. Three English men-at-arms, John Grey, John Berwoist, and William Talbot, were appointed by the King to be Jeanne's custodians. The Bishop, acting as an ecclesiastical judge, himself delivered to them their charge, and made them swear on the holy Gospels to bind the damsel and confine her.[2219] In this wise the Maid became the prisoner of our holy Mother, the Church; and she could not burst her bonds without falling into heresy. The second sitting was appointed for the next day, the 22nd of February.[2220]

[Footnote 2219: Ibid., pp. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 2220: Trial, vol. i, p. 48.]