XI. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE (continued)…

XI. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE (continued)

When a record of the proceedings came to be written down after the first sitting, a dispute arose between the ecclesiastical notaries and the two or three royal registrars who had likewise taken down the replies of the accused. As might be expected, the two records differed in several places. It was decided that on the contested points Jeanne should be further examined.[2221] The notaries of the Church complained also that they experienced great difficulty in seizing Jeanne's words on account of the constant interruptions of the bystanders.

[Footnote 2221: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 131-136.]

In a trial by the Inquisition there was no place fixed for the examination any more than for the other acts of the procedure. The judges might examine the accused in a chapel, in a chapter-house, or even in a prison or a torture-chamber. According to Messire Guillaume Manchon it was in order to escape from the tumult of the first sitting,[2222] and because there was no longer any reason for proceeding with such solemn ceremony as at the opening of the trial, that the judge and his councillors met in the Robing Room, a little chamber at one end of the castle hall;[2223] and two English guards were stationed at the door. According to the rules of inquisitorial procedure, the assessors were not bound to be present at all the deliberations.[2224] This time forty-two were present, twenty-six of the original ones and six newly appointed. Among these high clerics was Brother Jean Lemaistre, Vice Inquisitor of the Faith, a humble preaching friar. No longer as in the days of Saint Dominic was the Vice Inquisitor the hunting hound of the Lord, now he was but the dog of the Bishop, a poor monk, who dared neither to do nor to abstain from doing. Such was the result of the assertion of Gallican independence against papal supremacy. Dumb and timid, Brother Jean Lemaistre was the last and the least of all the brethren in that assembly, but he was ever looking for the day when he should be sovereign judge and without appeal.[2225]

[Footnote 2222: Ibid., p. 135.]

[Footnote 2223: Trial, vol. i, p. 48. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 323, 324.]

[Footnote 2224: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition, p. 420.]

[Footnote 2225: Trial, vol. i, pp. 48-50.]

Jeanne was brought in by the Usher, Messire Jean Massieu. Again she endeavoured to avoid taking the oath to tell everything; but she had to swear on the Gospel.[2226]

[Footnote 2226: Ibid., p. 50.]

She was examined by Maitre Jean Beaupere, doctor in theology. In his University of Paris he was regarded as a scholar of light and leading; it had twice appointed him rector. It had charged him with the functions of chancellor in the absence of Gerson, and, in 1419, had sent him with Messire Pierre Cauchon to the town of Troyes, to give aid and counsel to King Charles VI. Three years later it had despatched him to the Queen of England and the Duke of Gloucester to enlist their support in its endeavour to obtain the confirmation of its privileges. King Henry VI had just appointed him canon of Rouen.[2227]

[Footnote 2227: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Paris., vol. v, p. 919. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 27-30.]

Maitre Jean's first question to Jeanne was what was her age when she left her father's house. She was unable to say, although on the previous day she had stated her present age to be about nineteen.[2228]

[Footnote 2228: Trial, vol. i, p. 51.]

Interrogated as to the occupations of her childhood, she replied that she was busy with household duties and seldom went into the fields with the cattle.

"For spinning and sewing," she said, "I am as good as any woman in Rouen."[2229]

[Footnote 2229: Ibid.]

Thus even in things domestic she displayed her ardour and her chivalrous zeal; at the spinning-wheel and with the needle she challenged all the women in a town, without knowing one of them.

Questioned as to her confessions and her communions, she answered that she confessed to her parish priest or to another priest when the former was not able to hear her. But she refused to say whether she had received the communion on other feast-days than Easter.[2230]

[Footnote 2230: Ibid., pp. 51, 52.]

In order to take her unawares, Maitre Jean Beaupere proceeded without method, passing abruptly from one subject to another. Suddenly he spoke of her Voices. She gave him the following reply:

"Being thirteen years of age, I heard the Voice of God, bidding me lead a good life. And the first time I was sore afeard. And the Voice came almost at the hour of noon, in summer, in my father's garden...."

She heard the Voice on the right towards the church. Rarely did she hear it without seeing a light. This light was in the direction whence the Voice came.[2231]

[Footnote 2231: Trial, vol. i, p. 52.]

When Jeanne said that her Voice spoke to her from the right, a doctor more learned and more kindly disposed than Maitre Jean would have interpreted this circumstance favourably; for do we not read in Ezekiel that the angels were upon the right hand of the dwelling; do we not find in the last chapter of Saint Mark, that the women beheld the Angel seated on the right, and finally does not Saint Luke expressly state that the Angel appeared unto Zacharias on the right of the altar burning with incense; whereupon the Venerable Bede observes: "he appeared on the right as a sign that he was the bringer of divine mercy."[2232] But such things never occurred to the examiner. Thinking to embarrass Jeanne, he asked how she came to see the light if it appeared at her side.[2233] Jeanne made no reply, and as if distraught, she said:

"If I were in a wood I should easily hear the Voices coming towards me.... It seems to me to be a Voice right worthy. I believe that this Voice was sent to me by God. After having heard it three times I knew it to be the voice of an angel."

[Footnote 2232: Brehal, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, ed. Lanery d'Arc, p. 409.]

[Footnote 2233: See Appendix I, Letter from Doctor G. Dumas.]

"What instruction did this Voice give you for the salvation of your soul?"

"It taught me to live well, to go to church, and it told me to fare forth into France."[2234]

[Footnote 2234: Trial, vol. i, p. 52.]

Then Jeanne related how, by the command of her Voice, she had gone to Vaucouleurs, to Sire Robert de Baudricourt, whom she had recognised without ever having seen him before, how the Duke of Lorraine had summoned her to cure him, and how she had come into France.[2235]

[Footnote 2235: Ibid., pp. 53, 54.]

Thereafter she was brought to say that she knew well that God loved the Duke of Orleans and that concerning him she had had more revelations than concerning any man living, save the King; that she had been obliged to change her woman's dress for man's attire and that her Council had advised her well.[2236]

[Footnote 2236: Ibid., p. 54.]

The letter to the English was read before her. She admitted having dictated it in those terms, with the exception of three passages. She had not said body for body nor chieftain of war; and she had said surrender to the King in the place of surrender to the Maid. That the judges had not tampered with the text of the letter we may assure ourselves by comparing it with other texts, which did not pass through their hands, and which contain the expressions challenged by Jeanne.[2237]

[Footnote 2237: Ibid., pp. 55, 56; vol. v, p. 95.]

In the beginning of her career, she believed that Our Lord, the true King of France, had ordained her to deliver the government of the realm to Charles of Valois, as His deputy. The words in which she gave utterance to this idea are reported by too many persons strangers one to another for us to doubt her having spoken them. "The King shall hold the kingdom as a fief (en commande); the King of France is the lieutenant of the King of Heaven." These are her own words and she did actually say to the Dauphin: "Make a gift of your realm to the King of Heaven."[2238] But we are bound to admit that at Rouen not one of these mystic ideas persists, indeed there they seem altogether beyond her. In all her replies to her examiners, she seems incapable of any abstract reasoning whatsoever and of any speculation however simple, so that it is hard to understand how she should ever have conceived the idea of the temporal rule of Jesus Christ over the Land of the Lilies. There is nothing in her speech or in her thoughts to suggest such meditations, wherefore we are led to believe that this politico-theology had been taught her in her tender, teachable years by ecclesiastics desiring to remove the woes of Church and kingdom, but that she had failed to seize its spirit or grasp its inner meaning. Now, in the midst of a hard life lived with men-at-arms, whose simple souls accorded better with her own than the more cultivated minds of the early directors of her meditations, she had forgotten even the phraseology in which those suggested meditations were expressed. Interrogated concerning her coming to Chinon, she replied:

"Without let or hindrance I went to my King. When I reached the town of Sainte-Catherine de Fierbois, I sent first to the town of Chateau-Chinon, where my King was. I arrived there about the hour of noon and lodged in an inn, and, after dinner, I went to my King who was in his castle."

[Footnote 2238: Trial, vol. ii, p. 456; vol. iii, pp. 91, 92. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 104. Eberhard Windecke, pp. 152, 153. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 131-133. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. iv, p. 440, ch. i, La royaute de Jesus Christ.]

If we may believe the registrars, they never ceased wondering at her memory. They were amazed that she should recollect exactly what she had said a week before.[2239] Nevertheless her memory was sometimes curiously uncertain, and we have reason for thinking with the Bastard that she waited two days at the inn before being received by the King.[2240]

[Footnote 2239: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 89, 142, 161, 176, 178, 201.]

[Footnote 2240: Ibid., p. 4.]

With regard to this audience in the castle of Chinon, she told her judges she had recognised the King as she had recognised the Sire de Baudricourt, by revelation.[2241]

[Footnote 2241: Ibid., vol. i, p. 56.]

The interrogator asked her: "When the Voice revealed your King to you, was there any light?"[2242]

[Footnote 2242: Ibid., p. 56.]

This question bore upon matters which were of great moment to her judges; for they suspected the Maid of having committed a sacrilegious fraud, or rather witchcraft, with the complicity of the King of France. Indeed, they had learnt from their informers that Jeanne boasted of having given the King a sign in the form of a precious crown.[2243] The following is the actual truth of the matter:

[Footnote 2243: We find it impossible to agree with Quicherat (Apercus nouveaux) and admit that Jeanne gradually invented the fable of the crown during her examination and while her judges were questioning her as to "the sign." The manner in which the judges conducted this part of their examination proves that they were acquainted with the whole of the extraordinary story.]

The legend of Saint Catherine relates that on a day she received from the hand of an angel a resplendent crown and placed it on the head of the Empress of the Romans. This crown was the symbol of eternal blessedness.[2244] Jeanne, who had been brought up on this legend, said that the same thing had happened to her. In France she had told sundry marvellous stories of crowns, and in one of these stories she imagined herself to be in the great hall of the castle at Chinon, in the midst of the barons, receiving a crown from the hand of an angel to give it to her King.[2245] This was true in a spiritual sense, for she had taken Charles to his anointing and to his coronation. Jeanne was not quick to grasp the distinction between two kinds of truth. She may, nevertheless, have doubted the material reality of this vision. She may even have held it to be true in a spiritual sense only. In any case, she had of her own accord promised Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret not to speak of it to her judges.[2246]

[Footnote 2244: Legenda Aurea, ed. 1846, pp. 789 et seq.]

[Footnote 2245: Trial, vol. i, pp. 120-122.]

[Footnote 2246: Ibid., p. 90.]

"Saw you any angel above the King?"

She refused to reply.[2247]

[Footnote 2247: Ibid., p. 56.]

This time nothing more was said of the crown. Maitre Jean Beaupere asked Jeanne if she often heard the Voice.

"Not a day passes without my hearing it. And it is my stay in great need."[2248]

[Footnote 2248: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 57.]

She never spoke of her Voices without describing them as her refuge and relief, her consolation and her joy. Now all theologians agreed in believing that good spirits when they depart leave the soul filled with joy, with peace, and with comfort, and as proof they cited the angel's words to Zacharias and Mary: "Be not afraid."[2249] This reason, however, was not strong enough to persuade clerks of the English party that Voices hostile to the English were of God.

[Footnote 2249: Jean Brehal, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, ed. Lanery d'Arc, p. 409.]

And the Maid added: "Never have I required of them any other final reward than the salvation of my soul."[2250]

[Footnote 2250: Trial, vol. iii, p. 57.]

The examination ended with a capital charge: the attack on Paris on a feast day. It was in this connection possibly that Brother Jacques of Touraine, a friar of the Franciscan order, who from time to time put a question, asked Jeanne whether she had ever been in a place where Englishmen were being slain.

"In God's name, was I ever in such a place?" Jeanne responded vehemently. "How glibly you speak. Why did they not depart from France and go into their own country?"

A nobleman of England, who was in the chamber, on hearing these words, said to his neighbours: "By my troth she is a good woman. Why is she not English?"[2251]

[Footnote 2251: Ibid., p. 48.]

The third public sitting was appointed for two days thence, Saturday, the 24th of February.[2252]

[Footnote 2252: Ibid., vol. i, p. 57.]

It was Lent. Jeanne observed the fast very strictly.[2253]

[Footnote 2253: Ibid., pp. 61, 70.]

On Friday, the 23rd, in the morning, she was awakened by her Voices themselves. She arose from her bed and remained seated, her hands clasped, giving thanks. Then she asked what she should reply to her judges, beseeching the Voices thereupon to take counsel of Our Lord. First the Voices uttered words she could not understand. That happened sometimes, in difficult circumstances especially. Then they said:[2254] "Reply boldly, God will aid thee."

[Footnote 2254: Trial, vol. i, p. 62.]

That day she heard them a second time at the hour of vespers and a third time when the bells were ringing the Ave Maria in the evening. In the night of Friday and Saturday they came and revealed to her many secrets for the weal of the King of France. Thereupon she received great consolation.[2255] Very probably they repeated the assurance that she would be delivered from the hands of her enemies, and that on the other hand her judges stood in great danger.

[Footnote 2255: Ibid., pp. 61-64.]

She depended absolutely on her Voices for direction. When she was in difficulty as to what to say to her judges, she prayed to Our Lord; she addressed him devoutly, saying: "Good God, for the sake of thy holy Passion, I beseech thee if thou lovest me to reveal unto me what I should reply to these churchmen. Touching my dress I know well how I was commanded to put it on; but as to leaving it I know nothing. In this may it please thee to teach me."

Then straightway the Voices came.[2256]

[Footnote 2256: Ibid., p. 279.]

At the third sitting, held in the Robing Chamber, there were present sixty-two assessors, of whom twenty were new.[2257]

[Footnote 2257: Ibid., pp. 58-60.]

Jeanne showed a greater repugnance than before to swearing on the holy Gospels to reply to all that should be asked her. In charity the Bishop warned her that this obstinate refusal caused her to be suspected, and he required her to swear, under pain of being convicted upon all the charges.[2258] Such was indeed the rule in a trial by the Inquisition. In 1310 a beguine, one La Porete, refused to take the oath as required by the Holy Inquisitor of the Faith, Brother Guillaume of Paris. She was excommunicated forthwith, and without being further examined, after lengthy proceedings, she was handed over to the Provost of Paris, who caused her to be burned alive. Her piety at the stake drew tears from all the bystanders.[2259]

[Footnote 2258: Ibid., pp. 60, 61.]

[Footnote 2259: Grandes chroniques, ed. P. Paris, vol. v, p. 188.]

Still the Bishop failed to force an unconditional oath from the Maid; she swore to tell the truth on all she knew concerning the trial, reserving to herself the right to be silent on everything which in her opinion did not concern it. She spoke freely of the Voices she had heard the previous day, but not of the revelations touching the King. When, however, Maitre Jean Beaupere appeared desirous to know them, she asked for a fortnight's delay before replying, sure that before then she would be delivered; and straightway she fell to boasting of the secrets her Voices had confided to her for the King's weal.

"I would wish him to know them at this moment," she said; "even if as the result I were to drink no wine from now till Easter."[2260]

[Footnote 2260: Trial, vol. i, p. 64.]

"Drink no wine from now till Easter!" Did she thus casually use an expression common in that land of the rose-tinted wine (vin gris), a drop or two of which with a slice of bread sufficed the Domremy women for a meal?[2261] Or had she caught this manner of speech with the habit of dealing hard clouts and good blows from the men-at-arms of her company? Alas! what hypocras was she to drink during the five weeks before Easter! She was merely making use of a current phrase, as was frequently her custom, and attributing no precise meaning to it, unless it were that wine vaguely suggested to her mind the idea of cordiality and the hope that after her deliverance she would see the Lords of France filling a cup in her honour.

[Footnote 2261: E. Hinzelin, Chez Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 37, 177.]

Maitre Jean Beaupere asked her whether she saw anything when she heard her Voices.

She replied: "I cannot tell you everything. I am not permitted. The Voice is good and worthy.... To this question I am not bound to reply."

And she asked them to give her in writing the points concerning which she had not given an immediate reply.[2262]

[Footnote 2262: Trial, vol. i, pp. 64, 65.]

What use did she intend to make of this writing? She did not know how to read; she had no counsel. Did she want to show the document to some false friend, like Loiseleur, who was deceiving her? Or was it her intent to present it to her saints?

Maitre Beaupere asked whether her Voice had a face and eyes.

She refused to answer and quoted a saying frequently on the lips of children: "One is often hanged for having spoken the truth."[2263]

[Footnote 2263: Ibid., p. 65. "Souvent on est blame de trop parler," a proverb common in the 15th century. Cf. Le Roux de Lincy, Les proverbes francais, vol. ii, p. 417.]

Maitre Beaupere asked: "Do you know whether you stand in God's grace?"

This was an extremely insidious question; it placed Jeanne in the dilemma of having to avow herself sinful or of appearing unpardonably bold. One of the assessors, Maitre Jean Lefevre of the Order of the Hermit Friars, observed that she was not bound to reply. There was murmuring throughout the chamber.

But Jeanne said: "If I be not, then may God bring me into it; if I be, then may God keep me in it."[2264]

[Footnote 2264: Trial, vol. i, p. 65.]

The assessors were astonished at so ready an answer. And yet no improvement ensued in their disposition towards her. They admitted that touching her King she spoke well, but for the rest she was too subtle, and with a subtlety peculiar to women.[2265]

[Footnote 2265: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 21, 358.]

Thereafter, Maitre Jean Beaupere examined Jeanne concerning her childhood in her village. He essayed to show that she had been cruel, had displayed a homicidal tendency from her earliest years, and had been addicted to those idolatrous practices which had given the folk of Domremy a bad name.[2266]

[Footnote 2266: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 65-68.]

Then he touched on a point of prime importance in elucidating the obscure origin of Jeanne's mission:

"Were you not regarded as the one who was sent from the Oak Wood?"

In this direction he might have succeeded in obtaining important revelations. False prophecies had indeed established Jeanne's reputation in France; but these clerks were incapable of discriminating amongst all these pseudo-Bedes and pseudo-Merlins.[2267]

[Footnote 2267: Ibid., p. 68.]

Jeanne replied: "When I came to the King, certain asked me whether there were in my country a wood called the Oak Wood; because of prophecies saying that from the neighbourhood of this wood should come a damsel who would work wonders. But to such things I paid no heed."

This statement we must needs believe; but if she denied credence to the prophecy of Merlin touching the Virgin of the Oak Wood, she paid good heed to the prophecy foretelling the appearance of a Deliverer in the person of a Maid coming from the Lorraine Marches, since she repeated that prophecy to the two Leroyers and to her Uncle Lassois, with an emphasis which filled them with astonishment. Now we must admit that the two prophecies are as alike as two peas.[2268]

[Footnote 2268: The French expression runs, "se resemblent comme deux soeurs."]

Passing abruptly from Merlin the Magician, Maitre Jean Beaupere asked: "Jeanne, will you have a woman's dress?"

She answered: "Give me one; and I will accept it and depart. Otherwise I will not have it. I will be content with this one, since God is pleased for me to wear it."

On this reply, which contained two errors tending to heresy, the Lord Bishop adjourned the court.[2269]

[Footnote 2269: Trial, vol. i, p. 68.]

The morrow, the 25th of February, was the first Sunday in Lent. On that day or another, but probably on that day, my Lord Bishop sent Jeanne a shad. Having partaken of this fish she had fever and was seized with vomiting.[2270] Two masters of arts of the Paris University, both doctors of medicine, Jean Tiphaine and Guillaume Delachambre, assessors in the trial, were summoned by the Earl of Warwick, who said to them:

"According to what has been told me, Jeanne is sick. I have summoned you to devise measures for her recovery. The King would not for the world have her die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he has bought her dearly; his intent is that she die not, save by the hand of justice, and that she should be burned. Do all that may be necessary, therefore, visit her attentively, and endeavour to restore her."[2271]

[Footnote 2270: Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 48, 49.]

[Footnote 2271: Trial, vol. iii, p. 51.]

Conducted to Jeanne by Maitre Jean d'Estivet, the doctors inquired of her the cause of her suffering.

She answered that she had eaten a carp sent her by the Lord Bishop of Beauvais, and that she believed it to be the cause of her sickness.

Did Jeanne suspect the Bishop of designing to poison her? That is what Maitre Jean d'Estivet thought, for he flew into a violent rage:

"Whore!" he cried, "it is thine own doing; thou hast eaten herrings and other things which have made thee ill."

"I have not," she answered.

They exchanged insults, and Jeanne's sickness thereupon grew worse.[2272]

[Footnote 2272: Ibid., p. 49.]

The doctors examined her and found that she had fever. Wherefore they decided to bleed her.

They informed the Earl of Warwick, who became anxious:

"A bleeding!" he cried; "take heed! She is artful and might kill herself."

Nevertheless Jeanne was bled and recovered.[2273]

[Footnote 2273: Ibid., pp. 51, 52.]

On Monday, the 26th, there was no examination.[2274] On the opening of the fourth sitting, Tuesday, the 27th, Maitre Jean Beaupere asked her how she had been, which inquiry touched her but little. She replied drily:

"You can see for yourself. I am as well as it is possible for me to be."[2275]

[Footnote 2274: What induces me to fix this illness on the 25th of February is Jean Beaupere's question at the sitting of the 27th, "How have you been?" and Jeanne's ironical reply. This indisposition must not be confused, as it generally has been, with Jeanne's serious illness, which occurred after Easter. The shad and the herrings belong naturally to Lent; and Maitre Delachambre says explicitly that Jeanne recovered after the bleeding.]

[Footnote 2275: Trial, vol. i, p. 70.]

This sitting was held in the Robing Chamber in the presence of fifty-four assessors.[2276] Five of them had not been present before, and among them was Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur, canon of Rouen, whose share in the proceedings had been to act the Lorraine shoemaker and Saint Catherine of Alexandria.[2277]

[Footnote 2276: Ibid., pp. 68, 69.]

[Footnote 2277: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 332, 362; vol. iii, pp. 60, 133, 141, 156, 162, 173, 181.]

Maitre Jean Beaupere, as on the previous Saturday, was curious to know whether Jeanne had heard her Voices. She heard them every day.[2278]

[Footnote 2278: Ibid., vol. i, p. 70.]

He asked her: "Is it an angel's voice that speaketh unto you, or the voice of a woman saint or of a man saint? Or is it God speaking without an interpreter?"

Said Jeanne: "This voice is the voice of Saint Catherine and of Saint Margaret; and on their heads are beautiful crowns, right rich and right precious. I am permitted to tell you so by Messire. If you doubt it send to Poitiers, where I was examined."[2279]

[Footnote 2279: Ibid., p. 71.]

She was right in appealing to the clerks of France. The Armagnac doctors had no less authority in matters of faith than the English and Burgundian doctors. Were they not all to meet at the Council?

The examiner asked: "How know ye that they are these two saints? Know ye them one from another?"

Said Jeanne: "Well do I know who they are; and I do know one from the other."

"How?"

"By the greeting they give me."[2280]

[Footnote 2280: Trial, vol. i, p. 72.]

Let not Jeanne be hastily taxed with error or untruth. Did not the Angel salute Gideon (Judges vi), and Raphael salute Tobias (Tobit xii)?[2281]

[Footnote 2281: Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 406.]

Thereafter Jeanne gave another reason: "I know them because they call themselves by name."[2282]

[Footnote 2282: Trial, vol. i, p. 72.]

When she was asked whether her saints were both clothed alike, whether they were of the same age, whether they spoke at once, whether one of them appeared before the other, she refused to reply, saying she had not permission to do so.[2283]

[Footnote 2283: Ibid., pp. 72, 73.]

Maitre Jean Beaupere inquired which of the apparitions came to her the first when she was about thirteen.

Jeanne said: "It was Saint Michael. I beheld him with my eyes. And he was not alone, but with him were angels from heaven. It was by Messire's command alone that I came into France."

"Did you actually behold Saint Michael and these angels in the body?"

"I saw them with the eyes of my head as plainly as I see you; and when they went away I wept and should have liked them to take me with them."

"In what semblance was Saint Michael?"[2284]

[Footnote 2284: Trial, vol. i, p. 73.]

She was not permitted to say.

She was asked whether she had received permission from God to go into France and whether God had commanded her to put on man's dress.

By keeping silence on this point she became liable to be suspected of heresy, and however she replied she laid herself open to serious charges,--she either took upon herself homicide and abomination, or she attributed it to God, which manifestly was to blaspheme.

Concerning her coming into France, she said: "I would rather have been dragged by the hair of my head than have come into France without permission from Messire." Concerning her dress she added: "Dress is but a little thing, less than nothing. It was not according to the counsel of any man of this world that I put on man's clothing. I neither wore this attire nor did anything save by the command of Messire and his angels."[2285]

[Footnote 2285: Ibid., pp. 74, 75.]

Maitre Jean Beaupere asked: "When you behold this Voice coming towards you, is there any light?"

Then she replied with a jest, as at Poitiers: "Every light cometh not to you, my fair lord."[2286]

[Footnote 2286: Ibid., p. 75. I have re-inserted "my fine lord" according to Trial, vol. iii, p. 80.]

After all it was virtually against the King of France that these doctors of Rouen were proceeding with craft and with cunning.

Maitre Jean Beaupere threw out the question: "How did your King come to have faith in your sayings?"

"Because they were proved good to him by signs and also because of his clerks."

"What revelations were made unto your King?"

"That you will not hear from me this year."

As he listened to the damsel's words, must not my Lord of Beauvais, who was in the counsels of King Henry, have reflected on that verse in the Book of Tobias (xii, 7): "It is good to keep close the secret of a king"?

Thereafter Jeanne was called upon to reply at length concerning the sword of Saint Catherine. The clerks suspected her of having found it by the art of divination, and by invoking the aid of demons, and of having cast a spell over it. All that she was able to say did not remove their suspicions.[2287]

[Footnote 2287: Trial, vol. i, pp. 75-77.]

Then they passed on to the sword she had captured from a Burgundian.

"I wore it at Compiegne," she said, "because it was good for dealing sound clouts and good buffets."[2288] The buffet was a flat blow, the clout was a side stroke. Some moments later, on the subject of her banner, she said that, in order to avoid killing any one, she bore it herself when they charged the enemy. And she added: "I have never slain any one."[2289]

[Footnote 2288: Ibid., pp. 77, 78.]

[Footnote 2289: Ibid., p. 78.]

The doctors found that her replies varied.[2290] Of course they varied. But if like her every hour of the day and night the doctors had been seeing the heavens descending, if all their thoughts, all their instincts, good and bad, all their desires barely formulated, had been undergoing instant transformation into divine commands, their replies would likewise have varied, and they would have doubtless been in such a state of illusion that in their words and in their actions they would have displayed less good sense, less gentleness and less courage.

[Footnote 2290: Ibid., p. 34; vol. ii, p. 318.]

The examinations were long; they lasted between three and four hours.[2291] Before closing this one, Maitre Jean Beaupere wished to know whether Jeanne had been wounded at Orleans. This was an interesting point. It was generally admitted that witches lost their power when they shed blood. Finally, the doctors quibbled over the capitulation of Jargeau, and the court adjourned.[2292]

[Footnote 2291: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 350, 365.]

[Footnote 2292: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 79, 80.]

A famous Norman clerk, Maitre Jean Lohier, having come to Rouen, the Count Bishop of Beauvais commanded that he should be informed concerning the trial. On the first Saturday in Lent, the 24th of February, the Bishop summoned him to his house near Saint-Nicolas-le-Painteur, and invited him to give his opinion of the proceedings. The views of Maitre Jean Lohier greatly disturbed the Bishop. Off he rushed to the doctors and masters, Jean Beaupere, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Thomas de Courcelles, Nicolas Loiseleur, and said to them:

"Here's Lohier, who holds fine views concerning our trial! He wants to object to everything, and says that our proceedings are invalid. If we were to take his advice we should begin everything over again, and all we have done would be worthless! It is easy to see what he is aiming at. By Saint John, we will do nothing of the kind; we will go on with our trial now it is begun."

The next day, in the Church of Notre Dame, Guillaume Manchon met Maitre Jean Lohier and asked him:

"Have you seen anything of the records of the trial?"

"I have," replied Maitre Jean. "This trial is void. It is impossible to support it on many grounds: firstly, it is not in regular form."[2293]

[Footnote 2293: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 11, 341.]

By that he meant that proceedings should not have been taken against Jeanne without preliminary inquiries concerning the probability of her guilt; either he did not know of the inquiries instituted by my Lord of Beauvais, or he deemed them insufficient.[2294]

[Footnote 2294: See the evidence of Thomas de Courcelles in Trial, vol. iii, p. 38.]

"Secondly," continued Maitre Jean Lohier, "the judges and assessors when they are trying this case are shut up in the castle, where they are not free to utter their opinions frankly. Thirdly, the trial involves divers persons who are not called, notably it touches the reputation of the King of France, to whose party Jeanne belonged, yet neither he nor his representative is cited. Fourthly, neither documents nor definite written charges have been produced, wherefore this woman, this simple girl, is left to reply without guidance to so many masters, to such great doctors and on such grave matters, especially those concerning her revelations. For all these reasons the trial appears to me to be invalid." Then he added: "You see how they proceed. They will catch her if they can in her words. They take advantage of the statements in which she says, 'I know for certain,' concerning her apparitions. But if she were to say, 'It seems to me,' instead of 'I know for certain,' it is my opinion that no man could convict her. I perceive that the dominant sentiment which actuates them is one of hatred. Their intention is to bring her to her death. Wherefore I shall stay here no longer. I cannot witness it. What I say gives offence."[2295]

[Footnote 2295: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 12, 300, 341; vol. iii, p. 138.]

That same day Maitre Jean left Rouen.[2296]

[Footnote 2296: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 12, 203, 252, 300; vol. iii, pp. 50, 138.]

A somewhat similar incident occurred with regard to Maitre Nicolas de Houppeville, a famous cleric. In conference with certain churchmen, he expressed the opinion that to appoint as Jeanne's judges members of the party hostile to her was not a correct method of procedure; and he added that Jeanne had already been examined by the clerks of Poitiers and by the Archbishop of Reims, the metropolitan of this very Bishop of Beauvais. Hearing of this expression of opinion, my Lord of Beauvais flew into a violent rage, and summoned Maitre Nicolas to appear before him. The latter replied that the Official of Rouen was his superior, and that the Bishop of Beauvais was not his judge. If it be true, as is related, that Maitre Nicolas was thereafter cast into the King's prison, it was doubtless for a reason more strictly judicial than that of having offended the Lord Bishop of Beauvais. It is more probable, however, that this famous cleric did not wish to act as assessor, and that he left Rouen in order to avoid being summoned to take part in the trial.[2297]

[Footnote 2297: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 252, 326, 354, 356; vol. iii, pp. 171, 172.]

Certain ecclesiastics, among others Maitre Jean Pigache, Maitre Pierre Minier, and Maitre Richard de Grouchet, discovered long afterwards that being threatened they had given their opinions under the influence of fear. "We were present at that trial," they said, "but throughout the proceedings we were always contemplating flight."[2298] As a matter of fact, no violence was done to any man's opinions, and such as refused to attend the trial were in no way molested. Threats! But why should there be any? Was it difficult to convict a witch in those days? Jeanne was no witch. But, then, neither were the others. Still, between Jeanne and the other alleged witches there was this difference, that Jeanne had cast her spells in favour of the Armagnacs, and to convict her was to render a service to the English, who were the masters. This was a point to be taken into consideration; but there was something else which ought also to be borne in mind by thoughtful folk: such a conviction would at the same time offend the French, who were in a fair way to become the masters once more in the place of the English. These matters were very perplexing to the doctors; but the second consideration had less weight with them than the first; they had no idea that the French were so near reconquering Normandy.

[Footnote 2298: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 356, 359.]

The fifth session of the court took place in the usual chamber on the 1st of March, in the presence of fifty-eight assessors, of whom nine had not sat previously.[2299]

[Footnote 2299: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 80, 81.]

The first question the examiner put Jeanne was:

"What say you of our Lord the Pope, and whom think you to be the true pope?"

She adroitly made answer by asking another question: "Are there two?"[2300]

[Footnote 2300: Ibid., p. 82.]

No, there were not two; Clement VIII's abdication had put an end to the schism; the great rift in the Church had been closed for thirteen years and all Christian nations recognized the Pope of Rome; even France who had become resigned to the disappearance of her Avignon popes. There was something, however, which neither the accused nor her judges knew; on that 1st of March, 1431, far from there being two popes, there was not even one; the Holy See had fallen vacant by the death of Martin V on the 20th of February, and the vacancy was only to be filled on the 3rd of March, by the election of Eugenius IV.[2301]

[Footnote 2301: Analecta juris Pontif., vol. xiv, p. 117.]

The examiner in questioning Jeanne concerning the Holy See was not without a motive. That motive became obvious when he asked her whether she had not received a letter from the Count of Armagnac. She admitted having received the letter and having replied to it.

Copies of these two letters were included in the evidence to be used at the trial. They were read to Jeanne.

It appeared that the Count of Armagnac had asked the Maid by letter which of the three popes was the true one, and that Jeanne had replied to him, likewise by letter, that for the moment she had not time to answer, but that she would do so at her leisure when she should come to Paris.

Having heard these two letters read, Jeanne declared that the one attributed to her was only partially hers. And since she always dictated and could never read what had been taken down, it is conceivable that hasty words, uttered with her foot in the stirrup, may not have been accurately transcribed; but in a series of involved and contradictory replies she was unable to demonstrate how that which she had dictated differed from the written text;[2302] and in itself the letter appears much more likely to have proceeded from an ignorant visionary than from a clerk who would have some knowledge, however little, of church affairs.

[Footnote 2302: Trial, vol. i, pp. 82, 84.]

It contains certain words and turns of expression which are to be found in Jeanne's other letters. There can hardly be any doubt that this letter is by her; she had forgotten it. There is nothing surprising in that; her memory, as we have seen, was curiously liable to fail her.[2303]

[Footnote 2303: The expression, "A Dieu vous recommande, Dieu soit garde de vous," occurs in the letters to the people of Tournai, to those of Troyes and of Reims, and in the letter to the Duke of Burgundy. And what is still more significant, in two of these letters, one to the people of Troyes, the other to the Duke of Burgundy, are the words: "Le Roi du ciel, mon droiturier et souverain seigneur." Trial, vol. i, p. 246.]

On this document the judges based the most serious of charges; they regarded it as furnishing proof of a most blamable temerity. What arrogance on the part of this woman, so it seemed to them, to claim to have been told by God himself that which the Church alone is entitled to teach! And to undertake by means of an inner illumination to point out the true pope, was that not to commit grave sin against the Bride of Christ, and with sacrilegious hand to rend the seamless robe of our Lord?

For once Jeanne saw clearly how her judges were endeavouring to entrap her, wherefore she twice declared her belief in the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome.[2304] How bitterly she would have smiled had she known that the lights of the University of Paris, these famous doctors who held it mortal sin to believe in the wrong pope, themselves believed in his Holiness about as much as they disbelieved in him; that at that very time certain of their number, Maitre Thomas de Courcelles, so great a doctor, Maitre Jean Beaupere, the examiner, Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur, who acted the part of Saint Catherine, were hastening to despatch her, in order that they might bestride their mules and amble away to Bale, there in the Synagogue of Satan to hurl thunderbolts against the Holy Apostolic See, and diabolically to decree the subjection of the Pope to the Council, the confiscation of his annates, dearer to him than the apple of his eye, and finally his own deposition.[2305] Now would have been the time for her to have cried, with the voice of a simple soul, to the priests so keen to avenge upon her the Church's honour: "I am more of a Catholic than you!" And the words in her mouth would have been even more appropriate than on the lips of the Limousin clerk of old. Yet we must not reproach these clerics for having been good Gallicans at Bale, but rather for having been cruel and hypocritical at Rouen.

[Footnote 2304: Ibid., pp. 82, 83.]

[Footnote 2305: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 27, 32, 75, 82.]

In her prison the Maid prophesied before her guard, John Grey. Informed of these prophecies, the judges wished to hear them from Jeanne's own mouth.

"Before seven years have passed," she said to them, "the English shall lose a greater wager than any they lost at Orleans. They shall lose everything in France. They shall suffer greater loss than ever they have suffered in France, and that shall come to pass because God shall vouchsafe unto the French great victory."

"How do you know this?"

"I know it by revelation made unto me and that this shall befall within seven years. And greatly should I sorrow were it further delayed. I know it by revelation as surely as I know that you are before my eyes at this moment."

"When shall this come to pass?"

"I know neither the day nor the hour."

"But the year?"

"That ye shall not know for the present. But I should wish it to be before Saint John's Day."

"Did you not say that it should come to pass before Saint Martin in the winter?"

"I said that before Saint Martin in the winter many things should befall and it might be that the English would be discomfited."

Whereupon the examiner asked Jeanne whether when Saint Michael came to her he was accompanied by Saint Gabriel.

Jeanne replied: "I do not remember."[2306]

[Footnote 2306: Trial, vol. i, pp. 84, 85.]

She did not remember whether, in the multitude of angels who visited her, was the Angel Gabriel who had saluted Our Lady and announced unto her the salvation of mankind. So many angels and archangels had she seen that this one had not particularly impressed her.

After an answer of such perfect simplicity how could these priests proceed to question her on her visions? Were they not sufficiently edified? But no! These innocent answers whetted the examiner's zeal. With intense ardour and copious amplification, passing from angels to saints, he multiplied petty and insidious questions. Did you see the hair on their heads? Had they rings in their ears? Was there anything between their crowns and their hair? Was their hair long and hanging? Had they arms? How did they speak? What kind of voices had they?[2307]

[Footnote 2307: Trial, vol. i, p. 86.]

This last question touched on an important theological point. Demons, whose voices are as rasping as a cart wheel or a winepress screw, cannot imitate the sweet tones of saints.[2308]

[Footnote 2308: Le Loyer, iv, Livres des Spectres, Angers, 1605, in 4to.]

Jeanne replied that the Voice was beautiful, sweet, and soft, and spoke in French.

Whereupon she was asked craftily wherefore Saint Margaret did not speak English.

She replied: "How should she speak English, since she is not on the side of the English?"[2309]

[Footnote 2309: Trial, vol. i, p. 86.]

Two hundred years before, a poet of Champagne had said that the French language, which Our Lord created beautiful and graceful, was the language of Paradise.

She was afterwards asked concerning her rings. This was a hard matter; in those days there were many magic rings or rings bearing amulets. They were fashioned by magicians under the influence of planets; and, by means of wonder-working herbs and stones, these rings had spells cast upon them and received miraculous virtues. Constellation rings worked miracles. Jeanne, alas! had possessed but two poor rings, one of brass, inscribed with the names Jesus and Marie, which she received from her father and mother, the other her brother had given her. The Bishop kept the latter; the other had been taken from her by the Burgundians.[2310]

[Footnote 2310: Ibid., pp. 86, 87. Vallet de Viriville, Les anneaux de Jeanne d'Arc, in Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, vol. xxx, 1868, pp. 82, 97.]

An attempt was made to incriminate her in a pact made with the Devil near the Fairy Tree. She was not to be caught thus, but retorted by prophesying her deliverance and the destruction of her enemies. "Those who wish to banish me from this world may very likely leave it before me.... I know that my King will win the realm of France."

She was asked what she had done with her mandrake. She said she had never had one.[2311]

[Footnote 2311: Trial, vol. i, p. 86.]

Then the examiner appeared to be seized with curiosity concerning Saint Michael. "Was he clothed?"

She replied: "Doubt ye that Messire lacks wherewithal to clothe himself?"

"Had he hair?"

"Wherefore should he have cut it off?"

"Did he hold scales?"

"I don't know."[2312]

[Footnote 2312: Ibid., p. 89.]

Their object was to ascertain whether she saw Saint Michael as he was represented in the churches, with scales for weighing souls.[2313]

[Footnote 2313: A. Maury, Croyances et legendes du moyen age, pp. 171 et seq.]

When she said that at the sight of the Archangel it seemed to her she was not in a state of mortal sin, the examiner fell to arguing on the subject of her conscience. She replied like a true Christian.[2314] Then he returned to the miracle of the sign, which had not been referred to since the first sitting, to the mystery of Chinon, to that wondrous crown, which Jeanne, following Saint Catherine of Alexandria, believed she had received from the hand of an angel. But she had promised Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret to say nothing about it.

[Footnote 2314: Trial, vol. i, p. 90.]

"When you showed the King the sign was there any one with him?"

"I think there was no other person, albeit there were many folk not far off."

"Did you see a crown on the King's head when you gave him this sign?"

"I cannot say without committing perjury."

"Had your King a crown at Reims?"

"My King, methinketh, took with pleasure the crown he found at Reims. But afterwards a very rich crown was brought him. He did not wait for it, because he wished to hurry on the ceremony according to the request of the inhabitants of Reims who desired to rid their town of the burden of men-at-arms. If he had waited he would have had a crown a thousand times more rich."

"Have you seen that richer crown?"

"I cannot tell you without committing perjury. If I have not seen it I have heard tell how rich and how magnificent it is."[2315]

[Footnote 2315: Trial, vol. i, pp. 90, 91.]

Jeanne suffered intensely from being deprived of the sacraments. One day when Messire Jean Massieu, performing the office of ecclesiastical usher, was taking her before her judges, she asked him whether there were not on the way some church or chapel in which was the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.[2316]

[Footnote 2316: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 16.]

Messire Jean Massieu, dean of Rouen, was a cleric of manners dissolute; his inveterate lewdness had involved him in difficulties with the Chapter and with the Official.[2317] He may have been neither as brave nor as frank as he wished to make out, but he was not hard or pitiless.

[Footnote 2317: De Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces de condamnation, p. 115.]

He told his prisoner that there was a chapel on the way. And he pointed out to her the chapel of the castle.

Then she besought him urgently to take her into the chapel in order that she might worship Messire and pray.

Readily did Messire Jean Massieu consent; and he permitted her to kneel before the sanctuary. Devoutly bending, Jeanne offered her prayer.

The Lord Bishop, being informed of this incident, was highly displeased. He instructed the Usher that in the future such devotions must not be tolerated.

And the Promoter, Maitre Jean d'Estivet, on his part, addressed many a reprimand to Messire Jean Massieu.

"Rascal," he said, "what possesses thee to allow an excommunicated whore to approach a church without permission? If ever thou doest the like again I will imprison thee in that tower, where for a month thou wilt see neither sun nor moon."

Messire Jean Massieu heeded not this threat. And the Promoter, perceiving this, himself took up his post at the chapel door when Jeanne went that way. Thus he prevented the hapless damsel from engaging in her devotions.[2318]

[Footnote 2318: Trial, vol. ii, p. 16.]

The sixth sitting was held in the same court as before, in the presence of forty-one assessors, of whom six or seven were new, and among them was Maitre Guillaume Erart, doctor in theology.[2319]

[Footnote 2319: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 91, 92.]

In the beginning, the examiner asked Jeanne whether she had seen Saint Michael and the saints, and whether she had seen anything but their faces. He insisted: "You must say what you know."

"Rather than say all that I know, I would have my head cut off."[2320]

[Footnote 2320: Trial, vol. i, p. 93.]

They puzzled her with questions touching the nature of angelic bodies. She was simple; with her own eyes she had seen Saint Michael; she said so and could not say otherwise.

The examiner, now as always, informed of the words she had let fall in prison, asked her whether she had heard her Voices.

"Yes, in good sooth. They told me that I should be delivered. But I know neither the day nor the hour. And they told me to have good courage, and to be of good cheer."[2321]

[Footnote 2321: Ibid., p. 94.]

Of all this the judges believed nothing, because demonologists teach that witches lose their power when an officer of Holy Church lays hands upon them.

The examiner recurred to her man's dress. Then he endeavoured to find out whether she had cast spells over the banners of her companions in arms.

He sought out by what secret power she led the soldiers.

This power she was willing to reveal: "I said to them: 'Go on boldly against the English;' and at the same time I went myself."[2322]

[Footnote 2322: Ibid., pp. 95-97.]

In this examination, which was the most diffuse and the most captious of all, the following curious question was put to the accused: "When you were before Jargeau, what was it you were wearing behind your helmet? Was there not something round?"[2323]

[Footnote 2323: Ibid., p. 99.]

At the siege of Jargeau she had been struck on the head by a huge stone which had not hurt her; and this her own party deemed miraculous.[2324] Did the judges of Rouen imagine that she wore a golden halo, like the saints, and that this halo had protected her?

[Footnote 2324: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 301. Journal du siege, pp. 98, 99.]

Later she was examined on a more ordinary subject, concerning a picture in the house of her host at Orleans, representing three women: Justice, Peace, Union.

Jeanne knew nothing about it;[2325] she was no connoisseur in tapestry and in paintings, like the Duke of Bar and the Duke of Orleans; neither were her judges, not on this occasion at any rate. And if they were concerned about a picture in the house of Maitre Boucher, it was not so much on account of the painting as of the doctrine. These three women that the wealthy Maitre Boucher kept in his house were doubtless nude. The painters of those days depicted on small panels allegories and bathing scenes, and they painted nude women. Full foreheads, round heads, golden hair, short figures of small build but with embonpoint, their nudity minutely represented and but thinly veiled; many such were produced in Flanders and in Italy. The illustrious masters, to whom those pictures appeared corrupt and indecent, doubtless wished to reproach Jeanne with having looked at them in the house of the treasurer of the Duke of Orleans. It is not difficult to divine what were the doctors' suspicions when they are found asking Jeanne whether Saint Michael wore clothes, in what manner she greeted her saints, and how she gave them her rings to touch.[2326]

[Footnote 2325: Trial, vol. i, p. 101.]

[Footnote 2326: Ibid., p. 89.]

They also wanted to make her admit that she had caused herself to be honoured as a saint. She disconcerted them by the following reply: "The poor folk came to me readily, because I did them no hurt, but aided them to the best of my power."[2327]

[Footnote 2327: Trial, vol. i, p. 102.]

Then the examination ranged over many and various subjects: Friar Richard; the children Jeanne had held over the baptismal fonts; the good wives of the town of Reims who touched rings with her; the butterflies caught in a standard at Chateau Thierry.[2328]

[Footnote 2328: Ibid., p. 103.]

In this town, certain of the Maid's followers were said to have caught butterflies in her standard. Now doctors in theology knew for a certainty that necromancers sacrificed butterflies to the devil. A century before, at Pamiers, the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition had condemned the Carmelite Pierre Recordi, who was accused of having celebrated such a sacrifice. He had killed a butterfly and the devil had revealed his presence by a breath of wind.[2329] Jeanne's judges may have wished to involve her in similar fashion, or their design may have been quite different. In war a butterfly in the cap was a sign either of unconditional surrender or of the possession of a safe conduct.[2330] Were the judges accusing her or her followers of having feigned to surrender in order treacherously to attack the enemy? They were quite capable of making such a charge. However that may be, the examiner passed on to inquire concerning a lost glove found by Jeanne in the town of Reims.[2331] It was important to know whether it had been discovered by magic art. Then the magistrate returned to several of the capital charges of the trial: communion received in man's dress; the hackney of the Bishop of Senlis, which Jeanne had taken, thus committing a kind of sacrilege; the discoloured child she had brought back to life at Lagny; Catherine de La Rochelle, who had recently borne witness against her before the Official at Paris; the siege of La Charite which she had been obliged to raise; the leap which she had made in her despair from the keep of Beaurevoir, and, finally, certain blasphemy she was falsely accused of having uttered at Soissons concerning Captain Bournel.[2332]

[Footnote 2329: Lea (1906), vol. iii, p. 456.]

[Footnote 2330: Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, p. 237.]

[Footnote 2331: Trial, vol. i, p. 104.]

[Footnote 2332: Trial, vol. i, p. 111.]

Then the Lord Bishop declared the examination concluded. He added, however, that should it appear expedient to interrogate Jeanne more fully, certain doctors and masters would be appointed for that purpose.[2333]

[Footnote 2333: Ibid., pp. 111, 112.]

Accordingly, on Saturday, March the 10th, Maitre Jean de la Fontaine, the Bishop's commissioner, went to the prison. He was accompanied by Nicolas Midi, Gerard Feuillet, Jean Fecard, and Jean Massieu.[2334] The first point touched upon at this inquiry was the sortie from Compiegne. The priests took great pains to prove to Jeanne that her Voices must be bad or that she must have failed to understand them since her obedience to them had brought about her destruction. Jacques Gelu[2335] and Jean Gerson had foreseen this dilemma and had met it in anticipation with elaborate theological arguments.[2336] She was examined concerning the paintings on her standard, and she replied:

"Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret bade me take the standard and bear it boldly, and have painted upon it the King of Heaven. And this, much against my will, I told to my King. Touching its meaning I know nought else."[2337]

[Footnote 2334: Ibid., p. 113.]

[Footnote 2335: Gelu, Questio quinta, in Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc, ed. Lanery d'Arc, pp. 593 et seq.]

[Footnote 2336: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 299 et seq.]

[Footnote 2337: Ibid., vol. i, p. 117.]

They tried to make her out avaricious, proud, and ostentatious because she possessed a shield and arms, a stable, chargers, demi-chargers, and hackneys, and because she had money with which to pay her household, some ten to twelve thousand livres.[2338] But the point on which they questioned her most closely was the sign which had already been twice discussed in the public examinations. On this subject the doctors displayed an insatiable curiosity. For the sign was the exact reverse of the coronation at Reims; it was an anointing, not with divine unction but with magic charm, the crowning of the King of France by a witch. Maitre Jean de la Fontaine had this advantage over Jeanne, he knew what she was going to say and what she wished to conceal. "What is the sign that was given to your King?"

[Footnote 2338: Ibid., pp. 117, 119.]

"It is beautiful and honourable and very credible; it is the best and the richest in the world...."

"Does it still last?"

"It is well to know that it lasts and will last for a thousand years. My sign is in the King's treasury."

"Is it of gold or silver, or of precious stones, or is it a crown?"

"Nothing more will I tell unto you and no man can devise anything so rich as is this sign. Nevertheless, the sign that you need is that God should deliver me out of your hands and no surer sign can he send you...."

"When the sign came to your King what reverence did you make to it?"

"I thanked Our Lord for having delivered me from the troubles caused me by the clerks of our party, who were arguing against me. And I knelt down several times. An angel from God and from none other gave the sign to my King. And many times did I give thanks to Our Lord. The clerks ceased to attack me when they had seen the said sign."[2339]

[Footnote 2339: On the contrary it was then that they began to argue against her or that they began to argue most effectively. She seems to forget that the interview at Chinon preceded the examination at Poitiers. It is interesting to notice that Brother Pasquerel, who was informed of these matters by her, makes the same error in his evidence.]

"Did the churchmen of your party behold the sign?"

"When my King and such as were with him had seen the sign and also the angel who gave it, I asked my King whether he were pleased, and he replied that he was. Then I departed and went into a little chapel near by. I have since heard that after my departure more than three hundred persons saw the sign. For love of me and in order that I should be questioned no further, God was pleased to permit this sign to be seen by all those of my party who did see it."

"Did your King and you make any reverence to the angel when he brought the sign?"

"Yes, for my part, I did. I knelt and took off my hood."[2340]

[Footnote 2340: Trial, vol. i, pp. 120, 122.]

XII. THE TRIAL FOR LAPSE (continued)

On Monday, the 12th of March, Brother Jean Lemaistre received from Brother Jean Graverent, Inquisitor of France, an order to proceed against and to pronounce the final sentence on a certain woman, named Jeanne, commonly called the Maid.[2341] On that same day, in the morning, Maitre Jean de la Fontaine, in presence of the Bishop, for the second time examined Jeanne in her prison.[2342]

[Footnote 2341: Trial, vol. i, pp. 122-124.]

[Footnote 2342: Ibid., p. 125.]

He first returned to the sign. "Did not the angel who brought the sign speak?"

"Yes, he told my King that he must set me to work in order that the country might soon be relieved."

"Was the angel, who brought the sign, the angel who first appeared unto you or another?"

"It was always the same and never did he fail me."

"But inasmuch as you have been taken hath not the angel failed you with regard to the good things of this life?"

"Since it is Our Lord's good pleasure, I believe it was best for me to be taken."

"In the good things of grace hath not your angel failed you?"

"How can he have failed me when he comforteth me every day?"[2343]

[Footnote 2343: Trial, vol. i, p. 126.]

Maitre Jean de la Fontaine then put her a subtle question and one as nearly approaching humour as was permissible in an ecclesiastical trial.

"Did Saint Denys ever appear to you?"[2344]

[Footnote 2344: Ibid.]

Saint Denys, patron of the most Christian kings, Saint Denys, the war cry of France, had allowed the English to take his abbey, that rich church, to which queens came to receive their crowns, and wherein kings had their burying. He had turned English and Burgundian, and it was not likely he would come to hold converse with the Maid of the Armagnacs.

To the question: "Were you addressing God himself when you promised to remain a virgin?" she replied:

"It sufficed to give the promise to the messengers of God, to wit, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret."[2345]

[Footnote 2345: Ibid.]

They had sought to entrap her, for a vow must be made directly to God. However, it might be argued, that it is lawful to promise a good thing to an angel or to a man; and that this good thing, thus promised, may form the substance of a vow. One vows to God what one has promised to the saints. Pierre of Tarentaise (iv, dist: xxviii, a. 1) teaches that all vows should be made to God: either to himself directly or through the mediation of his saints.[2346]

[Footnote 2346: Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations, pp. 224, 434, 435. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. i, pp. 351 et seq., 481 et seq.]

According to a statement made during the inquiry, Jeanne had given a promise of marriage to a young peasant. Now the examiner endeavoured to prove that she had been at liberty to break her vow of virginity made in an irregular form; but Jeanne maintained that she had not promised marriage, and she added:

"The first time I heard my Voices, I vowed to remain a virgin as long as it should please God."

But this time it was Saint Michael and not the saints who had appeared to her.[2347] She herself found it difficult to unravel the tangled web of her dreams and her ecstasies. And from these vague visions of a child the doctors were laboriously essaying to elaborate a capital charge.

[Footnote 2347: Trial, vol. i, p. 128.]

Then a very grave and serious question was asked her by the examiner: "Did you speak to your priest or to any other churchman of those visions which you say were vouchsafed to you?"

"No, I spoke of them only to Robert de Baudricourt and to my King."[2348]

[Footnote 2348: Ibid.]

The vavasour of Champagne, a man of mature years and sound sense, when in the days of King John, he, like the Maid, had heard a Voice in the fields bidding him go to his King, went straightway and told his priest. The latter commanded him to fast for three days, to do penance, and then to return to the field where the Voice had spoken to him.

The vavasour obeyed. Again the Voice was heard repeating the command it had previously given. The peasant again told his priest, who said to him: "My brother, thou and I will abstain and fast for three days, and I will pray for thee to Our Lord Jesus Christ." This they did, and on the fourth day the good man returned to the field. After the Voice had spoken for the third time, the priest enjoined his parishioner to go forthwith and fulfil his mission, since such was the will of God.[2349]

[Footnote 2349: Chronique des quatre premiers Valois, p. 47.]

There is no doubt that, according to all appearances, this vavasour had acted with greater wisdom than La Romee's daughter. By concealing her visions from the priest the latter had slighted the authority of the Church Militant. Still there might be urged in her defence the words of the Apostle Paul, that where the spirit of God is there is liberty.[2350] If ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law.[2351] Was she a heretic or was she a saint? Therein lay the whole trial.

[Footnote 2350: II Corinthians, iv.]

[Footnote 2351: Galatians v, 18. Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations, p. 275.]

Then came this remarkable question: "Have you received letters from Saint Michael or from your Voices?"

She replied: "I have not permission to tell you; but in a week I will willingly say all I know."[2352]

[Footnote 2352: Trial, vol. i, p. 130.]

Such was her manner of speaking when there was something she wanted to conceal but not to deny. The question must have been embarrassing therefore. Moreover, these interrogatories were based on a good store of facts either true or false; and in the questions addressed to the Maid we may generally discern a certain anticipation of her replies. What were those letters from Saint Michael and her other saints, the existence of which she did not deny, but which were never produced by her judges? Did certain of her party send them in the hope that she would carry out their intentions, while under the impression that she was obeying divine commands?

Without insisting further for the present, the examiner passed on to another grievance:

"Have not your Voices called you daughter of God, daughter of the Church, great-hearted damsel?"

"Before the siege of Orleans and since, every day when they speak to me, many times have they called me Jeanne the Maid, daughter of God."[2353]

[Footnote 2353: Trial, vol. i, pp. 130, 131.]

The examination was suspended and resumed in the afternoon.

Maitre Jean de la Fontaine questioned Jeanne concerning a dream of her father, of which the judges had been informed in the preliminary inquiry.[2354]

[Footnote 2354: Ibid., pp. 131, 132.]

Sad it is to reflect that when Jeanne was accused of the sin of having broken God's commandment, "Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother," neither her mother nor any of her kin asked to be heard as witnesses. And yet there were churchmen in her family;[2355] but a trial on a question of faith struck terror into all hearts.

[Footnote 2355: Ibid., vol. v, p. 252. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 14, 15. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. xlvi et seq.]

Again her man's dress was reverted to, and not for the last time.[2356] We marvel at the profound meditations into which the Maid's doublet and hose plunged these clerics. They contemplated them with gloomy terror and in the light of the precepts of Deuteronomy.

[Footnote 2356: Trial, vol. i, p. 133.]

Thereafter they questioned her touching the Duke of Orleans. Their object was to show from her own replies that her Voices had deceived her when they promised the prisoner's deliverance. Here they easily succeeded. Then she pleaded that she had not had sufficient time.

"Had I continued for three years without let or hindrance I should have delivered him."

In her revelations there had been mentioned a term shorter than three years and longer than one.[2357]

[Footnote 2357: Trial, vol. i, p. 134.]

Questioned again touching the sign vouchsafed to her King, she replied that she would take counsel with Saint Catherine.

On the morrow, Tuesday, the 13th of March, the Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor went to her prison. For the first time the Vice-Inquisitor opened his mouth:[2358] "Have you promised and sworn to Saint Catherine that you will not tell this sign?"

[Footnote 2358: Ibid., pp. 134, 138.]

He spoke of the sign given to the King. Jeanne replied:

"I have sworn and I have promised that I will not myself reveal this sign, because I was too urgently pressed to tell it. I vow that never again will I speak of it to living man."[2359]

[Footnote 2359: Ibid., p. 139.]

Then she continued forthwith: "The sign was that the Angel assured my King, when bringing him the crown, that he should have the whole realm of France, with God's help and my labours, and that he should set me to work. That is to say, he should grant me men-at-arms. Otherwise he would not be so soon crowned and anointed."

"In what manner did the Angel bring the crown? Did he place it on your King's head?"

"It was given to an archbishop, to the Archbishop of Reims, meseemeth in the King's presence. The said Archbishop received it and gave it to the King; and I myself was present; and it is put in the King's treasury."

"To what place was the crown brought?"

"To the King's chamber in the castle of Chinon."

"On what day and at what hour?"

"The day I know not, the hour was full day. No further recollection have I of the hour or of the month. But meseemeth it was the month of April or March; it will be two years this month or next April. It was after Easter."[2360]

[Footnote 2360: Trial, vol. i, pp. 140, 141.]

"On the first day that you saw the sign did your King see it?"

"Yes. He had it the same day."

"Of what was the crown made?"

"It is well to know that it was of fine gold, and so rich that I cannot count its riches; and the crown meant that he would hold the realm of France."

"Were there jewels in it?"

"I have told you that I do not know."

"Did you touch it or kiss it?"

"No."

"Did the Angel who bore it come from above, or did he come from the earth?"

"He came from above. I understand that he came by Our Lord's command, and he came in by the door of the chamber."

"Did the Angel come along the ground, walking from the door of the room?"

"When he was come before the King he did him reverence, bowing low before him and uttering the words concerning the sign which I have already repeated; and thereupon the Angel recalled to the King's mind the great patience he had had in the midst of the long tribulation that had befallen him; and as he came towards the King the Angel walked and touched the ground."

"How far was it from the door to the King?"

"Methinketh it was a full lance's length;[2361] and as he had come so he returned. When the Angel came, I accompanied him and went with him up the steps into the King's chamber; and the Angel went in first. And I said to the King: 'Sire, behold your sign; take it.'"[2362]

[Footnote 2361: About ten feet (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2362: Trial, vol. i, pp. 141-142.]

In a spiritual sense we may say that this fable is true. This crown, which "flowers sweetly and will flower sweetly if it be well guarded,"[2363] is the crown of victory. When the Maid beholds the Angel who brought it, it is her own image that appears before her. Had not a theologian of her own party said that she might be called an angel? Not that she had the nature of an angel, but she did the work of one.[2364]

[Footnote 2363: "Fleure bon et fleurera bon, pourvu qu'elle soit bien gardee."]

[Footnote 2364: Lanery d'Arc, Memoires et consultations, p. 212. Le P. Ayroles, La vraie Jeanne d'Arc, vol. i, p. 346.]

She began to describe the angels who had come with her to the King:

"So far as I saw, certain among them were very like, the others different. Some had wings. Some wore crowns, others did not. And they were with Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, and they accompanied the Angel of whom I have spoken and the other angels also into the chamber of the King."[2365]

[Footnote 2365: Trial, vol. i, p. 144.]

And thus for a long time, as she was pressed by her interrogator, she continued to tell these marvellous stories one after another.

When she was asked for the second time whether the Angel had written her letters, she denied it.[2366] But now it was the Angel who bore the crown and not Saint Michael who was in question. And despite her having said they were one and the same, she may have distinguished between them. Therefore we shall never know whether she did receive letters from Saint Michael the Archangel, or from Saint Catherine and from Saint Margaret.

[Footnote 2366: Trial, vol. i, p. 145.]

Thereafter the examiner inquired touching a cup lost at Reims and found by Jeanne as well as the gloves.[2367] Saints sometimes condescended to find things that had been lost, as is proved by the example of Saint Antony of Padua. It was always with the help of God. Necromancers imitated their powers by invoking the aid of demons and by profaning sacred things.

[Footnote 2367: Ibid., p. 146.]

She was also questioned concerning the priest who had a concubine. Here again she was reproached with being possessed of a magic gift of clairvoyance. It was by magic she had known that this priest had a concubine. Many other such things were reported of her. For example, it was said that at the sight of a certain loose woman she knew that this woman had killed her child.[2368]

[Footnote 2368: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 184, 186.]

Then recurred the same old questions: "When you went to the attack on Paris did you receive a revelation from your Voices? Was it revealed to you that you should go against La Charite? Was it a revelation that caused you to go to Pont-l'Eveque?"

She denied that she had then received any revelation from her Voices.

The last question was: "Did you not say before Paris, 'Surrender the town in the name of Jesus'?"

She answered that she had not spoken those words, but had said, "Surrender the town to the King of France."[2369]

[Footnote 2369: Trial, vol. i, pp. 147, 148.]

The Parisians who were engaged in repelling the attack had heard her saying, "Surrender to us speedily in the name of Jesus." These words are consistent with all we know of Jeanne in the early years of her career. She believed it to be the will of Messire that the towns of the realm should surrender to her, whom he had sent to reconquer them. We have noticed already that at the time of her trial Jeanne had completely lost touch with her early illuminations and that she spoke in quite another language.

On the morrow, Wednesday, the 14th of March, there were two more examinations in the prison. The morning interrogatory turned on the leap from Beaurevoir. She confessed to having leapt without permission from her Voices, preferring to die rather than to fall into the hands of the English.[2370]

[Footnote 2370: Ibid., pp. 150, 152.]

She was accused of blasphemy against God; but that was false.[2371]

[Footnote 2371: Ibid., p. 157.]

The Bishop intervened: "You have said that we, the Lord Bishop, run great danger by bringing you to trial. Of what danger were you speaking? In what peril do we stand, we, your judges, and others?"

"I said to my Lord of Beauvais: 'You declare that you are my judge, I know not if you be. But take heed that ye judge not wrongly, for thus would ye run great danger; and I warn you, so that if Our Lord chastise you for it, I have done my duty by warning you.'"

"What is this peril or this danger?"

"Saint Catherine has told me that I shall have succour. I know not whether it will be my deliverance from prison, or whether, during the trial, some tumult shall arise whereby I shall be delivered. I think it will be either one or the other. My Voices most often tell me I shall be delivered by a great victory. And afterwards they say to me: 'Be thou resigned, grieve not at thy martyrdom; thou shalt come in the end to the kingdom of Paradise.' This do my Voices say unto me simply and absolutely. I mean to say without fail. And I call my martyrdom the trouble and anguish I suffer in prison. I know not whether still greater sufferings are before me, but I wait on the Lord."[2372]

[Footnote 2372: Trial, vol. i, pp. 154, 156.]

It would seem that thus her Voices promised the Maid at once a spiritual and a material deliverance, but the two could hardly occur together. This reply, expressive alike of fear and of illusion, was one to call forth pity from the hardest; and yet her judges regarded it merely as a means whereby they might entrap her. Feigning to understand that from her revelations she derived a heretical confidence in her eternal salvation, the examiner put to her an old question in a new form. She had already given it a saintly answer. He inquired whether her Voices had told her that she would finally come to the kingdom of Paradise if she continued in the assurance that she would be saved and not condemned in Hell. To this she replied with that perfect faith with which her Voices inspired her: "I believe what my Voices have told me touching my salvation as strongly as if I were already in Paradise."

Such a reply was heretical. The examiner, albeit he was not accustomed to discuss the Maid's replies, could not forbear remarking that this one was of great importance.[2373]

[Footnote 2373: Trial, vol. i, p. 156.]

Accordingly in the afternoon of that same day, she was shown a consequence of her error; to wit, that if she received from her Voices the assurance of eternal salvation she needed not to confess.[2374]

[Footnote 2374: Ibid., p. 157.]

On this occasion Jeanne was questioned touching the affair of Franquet d'Arras. The Bailie of Senlis had done wrong in asking the Maid for her prisoner,[2375] the Lord Franquet,[2376] in order to put him to death, and Jeanne's judges now incriminated her.

[Footnote 2375: See ante, pp. 124 et seq. (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2376: Trial, vol. i, pp. 158, 159.]

The examiner pointed out the mortal sins with which the accused might be charged: first, having attacked Paris on a feast-day; second, having stolen the hackney of the Lord Bishop of Senlis; third, having leapt from Beaurevoir; fourth, having worn man's dress; fifth, having consented to the death of a prisoner of war. Touching all these matters, Jeanne did not believe that she had committed mortal sin; but with regard to the leap from Beaurevoir she acknowledged that she was wrong, and that she had asked God to forgive her.[2377]

[Footnote 2377: Ibid., pp. 159, 161.]

It was sufficiently established that the accused had fallen into religious error. The tribunal of the Inquisition, out of its abounding mercy, desired the salvation of the sinner. Wherefore on the morning of the very next day, Thursday, the 15th of March, my Lord of Beauvais exhorted Jeanne to submit to the Church, and essayed to make her understand that she ought to obey the Church Militant, for the Church Militant was one thing and the Church Triumphant another. Jeanne listened to him dubiously.[2378] On that day she was again questioned touching her flight from the chateau of Beaulieu and her intention to leave the tower without the permission of my Lord of Beauvais. As to the latter she was firmly resolute.

[Footnote 2378: Trial, vol. i, p. 162.]

"Were I to see the door open, I would go, and it would be with the permission of Our Lord. I firmly believe that if I were to see the door open and if my guards and the other English were beyond power of resistance, I should regard it as my permission and as succour sent unto me by Our Lord. But without permission I would not go, save that I might essay to go, in order to know whether it were Our Lord's will. The proverb says: 'Help thyself and God will help thee.'[2379] This I say so that, if I were to go, it should not be said I went without permission."[2380]

[Footnote 2379: Ayde-toy, Dieu te aidera. Le Jouvencel, vol. ii, p. 33.]

[Footnote 2380: Trial, vol. i, pp. 163, 164.]

Then they reverted to the question of her wearing man's dress.

"Which would you prefer, to wear a woman's dress and hear mass, or to continue in man's dress and not to hear mass?"

"Promise me that I shall hear mass if I am in woman's dress, and then I will answer you."

"I promise you that you shall hear mass when you are in woman's dress."

"And what do you say if I have promised and sworn to our King not to put off these clothes? Nevertheless, I say unto you: 'Have me a robe made, long enough to touch the ground, but without a train. I will go to mass in it; then, when I come back, I will return to my present clothes.'"

"You must wear woman's dress altogether and without conditions."

"Send me a dress like that worn by your burgess's daughters, to wit, a long houppelande; and I will take it and even a woman's hood to go and hear mass. But with all my heart I entreat you to leave me these clothes I am now wearing, and let me hear mass without changing anything."[2381]

[Footnote 2381: Trial, vol. i, pp. 165, 166.]

Her aversion to putting off man's dress is not to be explained solely by the fact that this dress preserved her best against the violence of the men-at-arms; it is possible that no such objection existed. She was averse to wearing woman's dress because she had not received permission from her Voices; and we may easily divine why not. Was she not a chieftain of war? How humiliating for such an one to wear petticoats like a townsman's wife! And above all things just now, when at any moment the French might come and deliver her by some great feat of arms. Ought they not to find their Maid in man's attire, ready to put on her armour and fight with them?

Thereafter the examiner asked her whether she would submit to the Church, whether she made a reverence to her Voices, whether she believed the saints, whether she offered them lighted candles, whether she obeyed them, whether in war she had ever done anything without their permission or contrary to their command.[2382]

[Footnote 2382: Ibid., pp. 166-169.]

Then they came to the question which they held to be the most difficult of all:

"If the devil were to take upon himself the form of an angel, how would you know whether he were a good angel or a bad?"

She replied with a simplicity which appeared presumptuous: "I should easily discern whether it were Saint Michael or an imitation of him."[2383]

[Footnote 2383: Trial, vol. i, pp. 170, 171.]

Two days later, on Saturday, the 17th of March, Jeanne was examined in her prison both morning and evening.[2384]

[Footnote 2384: Ibid., p. 173.]

Hitherto she had been very loath to describe the countenance and the dress of the angel and the saints who had visited her in the village. Maitre Jean de la Fontaine endeavoured to obtain some light on this subject.

"In what form and semblance did Saint Michael come to you? Was he tall and how was he clothed?"

"He came in the form of a true prud'homme."[2385]

[Footnote 2385: Ibid.]

Jeanne was not one to believe she saw the Archangel in a long doctor's robe or wearing a cope of gold. Moreover it was not thus that he figured in the churches. There he was represented in painting and in sculpture, clothed in glittering armour, with a golden crown on his helmet.[2386] In such guise did he appear to her "in the form of a right true prud'homme," to take a word from the Chanson de Roland, where a great sword thrust is called the thrust of a prud'homme. He came to her in the garb of a great knight, like Arthur and Charlemagne, wearing full armour.

[Footnote 2386: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy. Proofs and illustrations, pp. 74, 75.]

Once again the examiner put to Jeanne that question on which her life or death depended:

"Will you submit all your deeds and sayings, good or bad, to the judgment of our mother, Holy Church?"

"As for the Church, I love her and would maintain her with all my power, for religion's sake," the Maid replied; "and I am not one to be kept from church and from hearing mass. But as for the good works which I have wrought, and touching my coming, for them I must give an account to the King of Heaven, who has sent me to Charles, son of Charles, King of France. And you will see that the French will shortly accomplish a great work, to which God will appoint them, in which they will shake nearly all France. I say it in order that when it shall come to pass, it may be remembered that I have said it."[2387]

[Footnote 2387: Trial, vol. i, p. 174.]

But she was unable to name the time when this great work should be accomplished; and Maitre Jean de la Fontaine returned to the point on which Jeanne's fate depended.

"Will you submit to the judgment of the Church?"

"I appeal to Our Lord, who hath sent me, to Our Lady and to all the blessed saints in Paradise. To my mind Our Lord and his Church are one, and no distinction should be made. Wherefore do you essay to make out that they are not one?"

In justice to Maitre Jean de la Fontaine we are bound to admit the lucidity of his reply. "There is the Church Triumphant, in which are God, his saints, the angels and the souls that are saved," he said. "There is also the Church Militant, which is our Holy Father, the Pope, the Vicar of God on earth; the cardinals, the prelates of the Church and the clergy, with all good Christians and Catholics; and this Church in its assembly cannot err, for it is moved by the Holy Ghost. Will you appeal to the Church Militant?"

"I am come to the King of France from God, from the Virgin Mary and all the blessed saints in Paradise and from the Church Victorious above and by their command. To this Church I submit all the good deeds I have done and shall do. As to replying whether I will submit to the Church Militant, for the present, I will make no further answer."[2388]

[Footnote 2388: Trial, vol. i, pp. 174, 176.]

Again she was offered a woman's dress in which to hear mass; she refused it.

"As for a woman's dress, I will not take it yet, not until it be Our Lord's will. And if it should come to pass that I be taken to judgment and there divested of my clothes, I beg my lords of the Church the favour of a woman's smock and covering for my head. I would rather die than deny what Our Lord hath caused me to do. I believe firmly that Our Lord will not let it come to pass that I should be cast so low, and that soon I shall have help from God, and that by a miracle."

Thereafter the following questions were put to her: "Do you not believe to-day that fairies are evil spirits?"

"I do not know."

"Do you know whether Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hate the English?"

"They love what Our Lord loves and hate what God hates."

"Does God hate the English?"

"Touching the love or hatred of God for the English and what he will do for their souls I know nothing. But I do know that they will all be driven out of France, save those who die there, and that God will send victory to the French and defeat to the English."

"Was God on the side of the English when they prospered in France?"

"I know not whether God hated the French. But I believe that he permitted them to be beaten for their sins, if they were in sin."[2389]

[Footnote 2389: Trial, vol. i, p. 178.]

Jeanne was asked certain questions touching the banner on which she had caused angels to be painted.

She replied that she had had angels painted as she had seen them represented in churches.[2390]

[Footnote 2390: Ibid., p. 180.]

At this point the examination was adjourned. The last interrogation in the prison[2391] took place after dinner. She had now endured fifteen in twenty-five days, but her courage never flagged. This last time the subjects were more than usually diverse and confused. First, the examiner essayed to discover by what charms and evil practices good fortune and victory had attended the standard painted with angelic figures. Then he wanted to know wherefore the clerks put on Jeanne's letters the sacred names of Jesus and Marie.[2392]

[Footnote 2391: Ibid., p. 181.]

[Footnote 2392: Ibid., pp. 182-183.]

Then came the following subtle question: "Do you believe that if you were married your Voices would come to you?"

It was well known that she dearly cherished her virginity. Certain of her words might be interpreted to mean that she considered this virginity to be the cause of her good fortune; wherefore her examiners were curious to know whether if she were adroitly approached she might not be brought to cast scorn on the married state and to condemn intercourse between husbands and wives. Such a condemnation would have been a grievous error, savouring of the heresy of the Cathari.[2393]

[Footnote 2393: Martene and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, vol. v, col. 1760 et seq.]

She replied: "I know not and I appeal to Our Lord."[2394] Then there followed another question much more dangerous for one who like Jeanne loved her King with all her heart.

[Footnote 2394: Trial, vol. i, p. 183.]

"Do you think and firmly believe that your King did right to kill or cause to be killed my Lord of Burgundy?"

"It was sore pity for the realm of France."[2395]

[Footnote 2395: Ibid., p. 184.]

Then did the examiner put to her this grave question: "Do you hold yourself bound to answer the whole truth to the Pope, God's Vicar, on all that may be asked you touching religion and your conscience?"

"I demand to be taken before him. Then will I make unto him such answer as behoveth."[2396]

[Footnote 2396: Ibid., pp. 184, 185.]

These words involved an appeal to the Pope, and such an appeal was lawful. "In doubtful matters touching on religion," said St. Thomas, "there ought always to be an appeal to the Pope or to the General Council." If Jeanne's appeal were not in regular judicial form, it was not her fault. She was ignorant of legal matters and neither guide nor counsel had been granted to her. To the best of her knowledge, and according to wont and justice, she appealed to the common father of the faithful.

The doctors and masters were silent. And thus was closed against the accused the one way of deliverance remaining to her. She was now hopelessly lost. It is not surprising that Jeanne's judges, who were partisans of England, ignored her right of appeal; but it is surprising that the doctors and masters of the French party, the clerks of the provinces loyal to King Charles, did not all and with one voice sign an appeal and demand that the Maid, who had been judged worthy by her examiners at Poitiers, should be taken before the Pope and the Council.

Instead of replying to Jeanne's request, the examiners inquired further concerning those much discussed magic rings and apparitions of demons.[2397]

[Footnote 2397: Trial, vol. i, p. 185.]

"Did you ever kiss and embrace the Saints, Catherine and Margaret?"

"I embraced them both."

"Were they of a sweet savour?"

"It is well to know. Yea, their savour was sweet."

"When embracing them did you feel heat or anything else?"

"I could not have embraced them without feeling and touching them."

"What part did you kiss, face or feet?"

"It is more fitting to kiss their feet than their faces."

"Did you not give them chaplets of flowers?"

"I have often done them honour by crowning with flowers their images in churches. But to those who appeared to me never have I given flowers as far as I can remember."

"Know you aught of those who consort with fairies?"

"I have never done so nor have I known anything about them. Yet I have heard of them and that they were seen on Thursdays; but I do not believe it, and to me it seems sorcery."[2398]

[Footnote 2398: Trial, vol. i, p. 187.]

Then came a question touching her standard, deemed enchanted by her judges. It elicited one of those epigrammatic replies she loved.

"Wherefore was your standard rather than those of the other captains carried into the church of Reims?"

"It had been in the contest, wherefore should it not share the prize?"[2399]

[Footnote 2399: Ibid.]

Now that the inquiries and examinations were concluded, it was announced that the preliminary trial was at an end. The so-called trial in ordinary opened on the Tuesday after Palm Sunday, the 27th of March, in a room near the great hall of the castle.[2400]

[Footnote 2400: Ibid., p. 194.]

Before ordering the deed of accusation to be read, my Lord of Beauvais offered Jeanne the aid of an advocate.[2401] If this offer had been postponed till then, it was doubtless because in his opinion Jeanne had not previously needed such aid. It is well known that a heretic's advocate, if he would himself escape falling into heresy, must strictly limit his methods of defence. During the preliminary inquiry he must confine himself to discovering the names of the witnesses for the prosecution and to making them known to the accused. If the heretic pleaded guilty then it was useless to grant him an advocate.[2402] Now my Lord maintained that the accusation was founded not on the evidence of witnesses but on the avowals of the accused. And this was doubtless his reason for not offering Jeanne an advocate before the opening of the trial in ordinary, which bore upon matters of doctrine.

[Footnote 2401: Ibid., p. 195.]

[Footnote 2402: J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 130, 131. E. Meru, Directorium Inquisitorium, Romae, 1578, p. 295.]

The Lord Bishop thus addressed the Maid: "Jeanne," said he, "all persons here present are churchmen of consummate knowledge, whose will and intention it is to proceed against you in all piety and kindness, seeking neither vengeance nor corporal chastisement, but your instruction and your return into the way of truth and salvation. As you are neither learned nor sufficiently instructed in letters or in the difficult matters which are to be discussed, to take counsel of yourself, touching what you should do or reply, we offer you to choose as your advocate one or more of those present, as you will. If you will not choose, then one shall be appointed for you by us, in order that he may advise you touching what you may do or say...."[2403]

[Footnote 2403: Trial, vol. i, pp. 200, 201. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 129, 130.]

Considering what the method of procedure was, this was a gracious offer. And even though my Lord of Beauvais obliged the accused to choose from among the counsellors and assessors, whom he had himself summoned to the trial, he did more than he was bound to do. The choice of a counsel did not belong to the accused; it belonged to the judge, whose duty it was to appoint an honest, upright person. Moreover, it was permissible for an ecclesiastical judge to refuse to the end to grant the accused any counsel whatsoever. Nicolas Eymeric, in his Directorium, decides that the Bishop and the Inquisitor, acting conjointly, may constitute authority sufficient for the interpretation of the law and may proceed informally, de plano, dispensing with the ceremony of appointing counsel and all the paraphernalia of a trial.[2404]

[Footnote 2404: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition, pp. 400 et seq. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 34.]

We may notice that my Lord of Beauvais offered the accused an advocate on the ground of her ignorance of things divine and human, but without taking her youthfulness into account. In other courts of law proceedings against a minor--that is, a person under twenty-five--who was not assisted by an advocate, were legally void.[2405] If this rule had been binding in Inquisitorial procedure the Bishop, by his offer of legal aid, would have avoided any breach of this rule; and as the choice of an advocate lay with him, he might well have done so without running any risk. "Our justice is not like theirs," Bernard Gui rightly said, when he was comparing inquisitorial procedure with that of the other ecclesiastical courts which conformed to the Roman law.

[Footnote 2405: Meru, Directorium Inquisitorium, p. 147.]

Jeanne did not accept the judge's offer: "First," she said, "touching what you admonish me for my good and in matters of religion, I thank you and the company here assembled. As for the advocate you offer me, I also thank you, but it is not my intent to depart from the counsel of Our Lord. As for the oath you wish me to take, I am ready to swear to speak the truth in all that concerns your suit."[2406]

[Footnote 2406: Trial, vol. i, p. 201.]

Thereupon Maitre Thomas de Courcelles began to read in French the indictment which the Promoter had drawn up in seventy articles.[2407] This text set forth in order the deeds with which Jeanne had already been reproached and which were groundlessly held to have been confessed by her and duly proved. There were no less than seventy distinct charges of horrible crimes committed against religion and Holy Mother Church. Questioned on each article, Jeanne with heroic candour repeated her previous replies. The tedious reading of this long accusation was continued and completed on the 28th of March, the Wednesday after Palm Sunday.[2408] As was her wont, she asked for delay in order to reply on certain points. On Easter Eve, the 31st of March, the time granted having expired, my Lord of Beauvais went to the prison, and, in the presence of the doctors and masters of the University, demanded the promised replies. They nearly all touched on the one accusation which included all the rest, the heresy in which all heresies were comprehended,--the refusal to obey the Church Militant. Jeanne finally declared her resolve to appeal to Our Lord rather than to any man; this was to set at naught the authority of the Pope and the Council.[2409]

[Footnote 2407: Trial, vol. i, pp. 202-323.]

[Footnote 2408: Ibid., p. 202.]

[Footnote 2409: Ibid., pp. 324, 325.]

The doctors and masters of the University of Paris advised that an epitome should be made of the Promoter's voluminous indictment, its chief points selected, and the seventy charges considerably reduced.[2410] Maitre Nicolas Midi, doctor in theology, performed this task and submitted it when done to the judges and assessors.[2411] One of them proposed emendations. Brother Jacques of Touraine, a friar of the Franciscan order, who was charged to draw up the document in its final stage, admitted most of the corrections requested.[2412] In this wise the incriminating propositions,[2413] which the judges claimed, but claimed falsely, to have derived from the replies of the accused, were resolved into twelve articles.[2414]

[Footnote 2410: Ibid., p. 327; vol. iii, p. 143.]

[Footnote 2411: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 60. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 38.]

[Footnote 2412: Trial, vol. iii, p. 232. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, pp. 124, 129.]

[Footnote 2413: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 22, 212; vol. iii, p. 306; vol. v, p. 461.]

[Footnote 2414: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 328, 336.]

These twelve articles were not communicated to Jeanne. On Thursday, the 12th of April, twenty-one masters and doctors met in the chapel of the Bishop's Palace, and, after having examined the articles, engaged in a conference, the result of which was unfavourable to the accused.[2415]

[Footnote 2415: Ibid., p. 337.]

According to them, the apparitions and revelations of which she boasted came not from God. They were human inventions, or the work of an evil spirit. She had not received signs sufficient to warrant her believing in them. In the case of this woman these doctors and masters discovered lies; a lack of verisimilitude; faith lightly given; superstitious divinings; deeds scandalous and irreligious; sayings rash, presumptuous, full of boasting; blasphemies against God and his saints. They found her to have lacked piety in her behaviour towards father and mother; to have come short in love towards her neighbour; to have been addicted to idolatry, or at any rate to the invention of lying tales and to schismatic conversation destructive of the unity, the authority and the power of the Church; and, finally, to have been skilled in the black art and to have strongly inclined to heresy.[2416]

[Footnote 2416: Trial, vol. i, pp. 337, 374.]

Had she not been sustained and comforted by her heavenly Voices, the Voices of her own heart, Jeanne would never have endured to the end of this terrible trial. Not only was she being tortured at once by the princes of the Church and the rascals of the army, but her sufferings of body and mind were such as could never have been borne by any ordinary human being. Yet she suffered them without her constancy, her faith, her divine hope, one might almost say her cheerfulness, ever being diminished. Finally she gave way; her physical strength, but not her courage, was exhausted; she fell a victim to an illness which was expected to be fatal. She seemed near her end, or rather, alas! near her release.[2417]

[Footnote 2417: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 51.]

On Wednesday, the 18th of April, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor of the Faith went to her with divers doctors and masters to exhort her in all charity; she was still very seriously sick.[2418] My Lord of Beauvais represented to her that when on certain difficult matters she had been examined before persons of great wisdom, many things she had said had been noted as contrary to religion. Wherefore, considering that she was but an unlettered woman, he offered to provide her with men learned and upright who would instruct her. He requested the doctors present to give her salutary counsel, and he invited her herself, if any other such persons were known to her, to indicate them, promising to summon them without fail.

[Footnote 2418: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 374-375.]

"The Church," he added, "never closes her heart against those who will return to her."

Jeanne answered that she thanked him for what he had said for her salvation, and she added: "Meseemeth, that seeing the sickness in which I lie, I am in great danger of death. If it be thus, then may God do with me according to his good pleasure. I demand that ye permit me to confess, that ye also give me the body of my Saviour and bury me in holy ground."

My Lord of Beauvais represented to her that if she would receive the sacraments she must submit to the Church.

"If my body die in prison," she replied, "I depend on you to have it put in holy ground; if you do not, then I appeal to Our Lord."[2419]

[Footnote 2419: Trial, vol. i, pp. 376, 378.]

Then she vehemently maintained the truth of the revelations she had received from God, Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret.

And when she was asked yet again whether she would submit herself and her acts to Holy Mother Church, she replied: "Whatever happens to me, I will never do or say aught save what I have already said at the trial."[2420]

[Footnote 2420: Ibid., p. 379.]

The doctors and masters one after the other exhorted her to submit to Holy Mother Church. They quoted numerous passages from Holy Writ. They promised her the body of Our Lord if she would obey; but she remained resolute.

"Touching this submission," she said, "I will reply naught save what I have said already. I love God, I serve him, I am a good Christian, and I wish with all my power to aid and support Holy Church."[2421]

[Footnote 2421: Ibid., pp. 380, 381.]

In times of great need recourse was had to processions. "Do you not wish," she was asked, "that a fine and famous procession be ordained to restore you to a good estate if you be not therein?"

She replied, "I desire the Church and all Catholics to pray for me."[2422]

[Footnote 2422: Trial, vol. i, p. 381.]

Among the doctors consulted there were many who recommended that she should be again instructed and charitably admonished. On Wednesday, the 2nd of May, sixty-three reverend doctors and masters met in the Robing Room of the castle.[2423] She was brought in, and Maitre Jean de Castillon, doctor in theology, Archdeacon of Evreux,[2424] read a document in French, in which the deeds and sayings with which Jeanne was reproached were summed up in six articles. Then many doctors and masters addressed to her in turn admonitions and charitable counsels. They exhorted her to submit to the Church Militant Universal, to the Holy Father the Pope and to the General Council. They warned her that if the Church abandoned her, her soul would stand in great peril of the penalty of eternal fire, whilst her body might be burned in an earthly fire, and that by the sentence of other judges.

[Footnote 2423: Ibid., pp. 381, 382.]

[Footnote 2424: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 114, 117.]

Jeanne replied as before.[2425] On the morrow, Thursday, the 3rd of May, the day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her. She was not sure whether she had seen him before. But this time she had no doubt. Her Voices told her that it was he, and she was greatly comforted.

[Footnote 2425: Trial, vol. i, pp. 383, 399.]

That same day she asked her Voices whether she should submit to the Church and obey the exhortation of the clerics.

Her Voices replied: "If thou desirest help from Our Lord, then submit to him all thy doings."

Jeanne wanted to know from her Voices whether she would be burned.

Her Voices told her to wait upon the Lord and he would help her.[2426] This mystic aid strengthened Jeanne's heart.

[Footnote 2426: Trial, vol. i, pp. 400, 401.]

Among heretics and those possessed, such obstinacy as hers was not unparalleled. Ecclesiastical judges were well acquainted with the stiff-neckedness of women who had been deceived by the Devil. In order to force them to tell the truth, when admonitions and exhortations failed, recourse was had to torture. And even such a measure did not always succeed. Many of these wicked females (mulierculae) endured the cruellest suffering with a constancy passing the ordinary strength of human nature. The doctors would not believe such constancy to be natural; they attributed it to the machinations of the Evil One. The devil was capable of protecting his servants even when they had fallen into the hands of judges of the Church; he granted them strength to bear the torture in silence. This strength was called the gift of taciturnity.[2427]

[Footnote 2427: Nicolas Eymeric, Directorium inquisitorium.... Rome, 1586, in fol. p. 24, col. 1. Ludovicus a Paramo, De origine et progressu officii sanctae inquisitionis, MDXCIIX, in fol., lib. III, questio 5, p. 709.]

On Wednesday, the 9th of May, Jeanne was taken to the great tower of the castle, into the torture-chamber. There my Lord of Beauvais, in the presence of the Vice Inquisitor and nine doctors and masters, read her the articles, to which she had hitherto refused to reply; and he threatened her that if she did not confess the whole truth she would be put to the torture.[2428]

[Footnote 2428: Trial, vol. i, p. 399.]

The instruments were prepared; the two executioners, Mauger Leparmentier, a married clerk, and his companion, were in readiness close by her, awaiting the Bishop's orders.

Six days before Jeanne had received great comfort from her Voices. Now she replied resolutely: "Verily, if you were to tear my limbs asunder and drive my soul out of my body, naught else would I tell you, and if I did say anything unto you, I would always maintain afterwards that you had dragged it from me by force."[2429]

[Footnote 2429: Ibid., pp. 399, 400.]

My Lord of Beauvais decided to defer the torture, fearing that it would do no good to so hardened a subject.[2430] On the following Saturday, he deliberated in his house, with the Vice-Inquisitor and thirteen doctors and masters; opinion was divided. Maitre Raoul Roussel advised that Jeanne should not be tortured lest ground for complaint should be given against a trial so carefully conducted. It would seem that he anticipated the Devil's granting Jeanne the gift of taciturnity, whereby in diabolical silence she would be able to brave the tortures of the Holy Inquisition. On the other hand Maitre Aubert Morel, licentiate in canon law, counsellor to the Official of Rouen, Canon of the Cathedral, and Maitre Thomas de Courcelles, deemed it expedient to apply torture. Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur, master of arts, Canon of Rouen, whose share in the proceedings had been to act Saint Catherine and the Lorraine shoemaker, had no very decided opinion on the subject, still it seemed to him by no means unprofitable that Jeanne for her soul's welfare should be tortured. The majority of doctors and masters agreed that for the present there was no need to subject her to this trial. Some gave no reasons, others alleged that it behoved them yet once again to warn her charitably. Maitre Guillaume Erard, doctor in theology, held that sufficient material for the pronouncing of a sentence existed already.[2431] Thus among those, who spared Jeanne the torture, were to be found the least merciful; for the spirit of ecclesiastical tribunals was such that to refuse to torture an accused was in certain cases to refuse him mercy.

[Footnote 2430: Ibid., pp. 401, 402.]

[Footnote 2431: Trial, vol. i, pp. 402, 404.]

To the trial of Marguerite la Porete, the judges summoned no experts.[2432] Touching the charges held as proven, they submitted a written report to the University of Paris. The University gave its opinion on everything but the truth of the charges. This reservation was merely formal, and the decision of the University had the force of a sentence. In Jeanne's trial this precedent was cited. On the 21st of April, Maitre Jean Beaupere, Maitre Jacques de Touraine and Maitre Nicolas Midi left Rouen, and, at the risk of being attacked on the road by men-at-arms, journeyed to Paris in order to present the twelve articles to their colleagues of the University.

[Footnote 2432: Recueil des historiens de la France, vol. xx, p. 601; vol. xxi, p. 34. Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. xxvii, p. 70.]

On the 28th of April, the University, meeting in its general assembly at Saint-Bernard, charged the Holy Faculty of Theology and the Venerable Faculty of Decrees with the examination of the twelve articles.[2433]

[Footnote 2433: Trial, vol. i, pp. 407, 413, 420. M. Fournier, La faculte de decret de l'Universite de Paris, p. 353. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. iv, pp. 510 et seq.]

On the 14th of May, the deliberations of the two Faculties were submitted to all the Faculties in solemn assembly, who ratified them and made them their own. The University then sent them to King Henry, beseeching his Royal Majesty to execute justice promptly, in order that the people, so greatly scandalised by this woman, be brought back to good doctrine and holy faith.[2434] It is worthy of notice that in a trial, in which the Pope, represented by the Vice-Inquisitor, was one judge, and the King, represented by the Bishop, another, the Eldest Daughter of Kings[2435] should have communicated directly with the King of France, the guardian of her privileges.

[Footnote 2434: Trial, vol. i, pp. 407, 408. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 42.]

[Footnote 2435: The University of Paris (W.S.).]

According to the Sacred Faculty of Theology, Jeanne's apparitions were fictitious, lying, deceptive, inspired by devils. The sign given to the King was a presumptuous and pernicious lie, derogatory to the dignity of angels. Jeanne's belief in the visitations of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret was an error rash and injurious because Jeanne placed it on the same plane as the truths of religion. Jeanne's predictions were but superstitions, idle divinations and vain boasting. Her statement that she wore man's dress by the command of God was blasphemy, a violation of divine law and ecclesiastical sanction, a contemning of the sacraments and tainted with idolatry. In the letters she had dictated, Jeanne appeared treacherous, perfidious, cruel, sanguinary, seditious, blasphemous and in favour of tyranny. In setting out for France she had broken the commandment to honour father and mother, she had given an occasion for scandal, she had committed blasphemy and had fallen from the faith. In the leap from Beaurevoir, she had displayed a pusillanimity bordering on despair and homicide; and, moreover, it had caused her to utter rash statements touching the remission of her sin and erroneous pronouncements concerning free will. By proclaiming her confidence in her salvation, she uttered presumptuous and pernicious lies; by saying that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret did not speak English, she blasphemed these saints and violated the precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour." The honours she rendered these saints were nought but idolatry and the worship of devils. Her refusal to submit her doings to the Church tended to schism, to the denial of the unity and authority of the Church and to apostasy.[2436]

[Footnote 2436: Trial, vol. i, pp. 414, 419.]

The doctors of the Faculty of Theology were very learned. They knew who the three evil spirits were whom Jeanne in her delusion took for Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. They were Belial, Satan, and Behemoth. Belial, worshipped by the people of Sidon, was sometimes represented as an angel of great beauty; he is the demon of disobedience. Satan is the Lord of Hell; and Behemoth is a dull, heavy creature, who feeds on hay like an ox.[2437]

[Footnote 2437: Ibid., p. 414. Migne, Dictionnaire des sciences occultes.]

The venerable Faculty of Decrees decided that this schismatic, this erring woman, this apostate, this liar, this soothsayer, be charitably exhorted and duly warned by competent judges, and that if notwithstanding she persisted in refusing to abjure her error, she must be given up to the secular arm to receive due chastisement.[2438] Such were the deliberations and decisions which the Venerable University of Paris submitted to the examination and to the verdict of the Holy Apostolic See and of the sacrosanct General Council.

[Footnote 2438: Trial, vol. i, pp. 417, 420.]

Meanwhile, where were the clerks of France? Had they nothing to say in this matter? Had they no decision to submit to the Pope and to the Council? Why did they not urge their opinions in opposition to those of the Faculties of Paris? Why did they keep silence? Jeanne demanded the record of the Poitiers trial. Wherefore did those Poitiers doctors, who had recommended the King to employ the Maid lest, by rejecting her, he should refuse the gift of the Holy Spirit, fail to send the record to Rouen?[2439] Before the Maid espoused their waning cause, these Poitiers doctors, these magistrates, these University professors banished from Paris, advocates and counsellors of an exiled Parlement, had not a robe to their backs nor shoes for their children. Now, thanks to the Maid, they were every day regaining new hope and vigour. And yet they left her, who had so nobly served their King, to be treated as a heretic and a reprobate. Where were Brother Pasquerel, Friar Richard, and all those churchmen who but lately surrounded her in France and who looked to go with her to the Crusade against the Bohemians and the Turks? Why did they not demand a safe-conduct and come and give evidence at the trial? Or at least why did they not send their evidence? Why did not the Archbishop of Embrun, who but recently gave such noble counsels to the King, send some written statement in favour of the Maid to the judges at Rouen? My Lord of Reims, Chancellor of the Kingdom, had said that she was proud but not heretical. Wherefore now, acting contrary to his own interests and honour, did he refrain from testifying in favour of her through whom he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not assert his right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in the administration of justice? Why did not the illustrious clerics, whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale, undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics of the realm, with one voice demand an appeal to the Holy Father?

[Footnote 2439: From a theological point of view the record of the Poitiers trial may have been insignificant; but at any rate it contained the arguments presented to the King and the memoranda of Gelu and of Gerson.]

They all with one accord, as if struck dumb with astonishment, remained passive and silent. Can they have feared that too searching a light would be cast on Jeanne's cause by that illustrious University, that Sun of the Church, which was consulted on religious matters by all Christian states? Can they have suspected that this woman, who in France had been considered a saint, might after all have been inspired by the devil? But if what they had once believed they still held to be true, if they believed that the Maid had come from God to lead their King to his glorious coronation, then what are we to think of those clerks, those ecclesiastics who denied the Daughter of God, on the eve of her passion?

XIII. THE ABJURATION--THE FIRST SENTENCE

On Saturday, the 19th of May, the doctors and masters, to the number of fifty, assembled in the archiepiscopal chapel of Rouen. There they unanimously declared their agreement with the decision of the University of Paris; and my Lord of Beauvais ordained that a new charitable admonition be addressed to Jeanne.[2440] Accordingly, on Wednesday the 23rd, the Bishop, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the Promoter went to a room in the castle, near Jeanne's cell. They were accompanied by seven doctors and masters, by the Lord Bishop of Noyon and by the Lord Bishop of Therouanne.[2441] The latter, brother to Messire Jean de Luxembourg who had sold the Maid, was held one of the most notable personages of the Great Council of England; he was Chancellor of France for King Henry, as Messire Regnault de Chartres was for King Charles.[2442]

[Footnote 2440: Trial, vol. i, pp. 404, 429.]

[Footnote 2441: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 429, 430.]

[Footnote 2442: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 126-127.]

The accused was brought in, and Maitre Pierre Maurice, doctor in theology, read to her the twelve articles as they had been abridged and commented upon, in conformity with the deliberations of the University; the whole was drawn up as a discourse addressed to Jeanne directly:[2443]

[Footnote 2443: Trial, vol. i, p. 430.]

ARTICLE I

First, Jeanne, thou saidst that at about the age of thirteen, thou didst receive revelations and behold apparitions of angels and of the Saints, Catherine and Margaret, that thou didst behold them frequently with thy bodily eyes, that they spoke unto thee and do still oftentimes speak unto thee, and that they have said unto thee many things that thou hast fully declared in thy trial.

The clerks of the University of Paris and others have considered the manner of these revelations and apparitions, their object, the substance of the things revealed, the person to whom they were revealed; all points touching them have they considered. And now they pronounce these revelations and apparitions to be either lying fictions, deceptive and dangerous, or superstitions, proceeding from spirits evil and devilish.

ARTICLE II

Item, thou hast said that thy King received a sign, by which he knew that thou wast sent of God: to wit that Saint Michael, accompanied by a multitude of angels, certain of whom had wings, others crowns, and with whom were Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, came to thee in the town of Chateau-Chinon; and that they all entered with thee and went up the staircase of the castle, into the chamber of thy King, before whom the angel who wore the crown made obeisance. And once didst thou say that this crown which thou callest a sign, was delivered to the Archbishop of Reims who gave it to thy King, in the presence of a multitude of princes and lords whom thou didst call by name.

Now concerning this sign, the aforesaid clerks declare it to lack verisimilitude, to be a presumptuous lie, deceptive, pernicious, a thing counterfeited and attacking the dignity of angels.

ARTICLE III

Item, thou hast said that thou knewest the angels and the saints by the good counsel, the comfort and the instruction they gave thee, because they told thee their names and because the saints saluted thee. Thou didst believe also that it was Saint Michael who appeared unto thee; and that the deeds and sayings of this angel and these saints are good thou didst believe as firmly as thou believest in Christ.

Now the clerks declare such signs to be insufficient for the recognition of the said saints and angels. The clerks maintain that thou hast lightly believed and rashly affirmed, and further that when thou sayst thou dost believe as firmly etc., thou dost err from the faith.

ARTICLE IV

Item, thou hast said thou art assured of certain things which are to come, that thou hast known hidden things, that thou hast also recognized men whom thou hadst never seen before, and this by the Voices of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.

Thereupon the clerks declare that in these sayings are superstition, divination, presumptuous assertion and vain boasting.

ARTICLE V

Item, thou hast said that by God's command and according to his will, thou hast worn and dost still wear man's apparel. Because thou hast God's commandment to wear this dress thou hast donned a short tunic, jerkin, and hose with many points. Thou dost even wear thy hair cut short above the ears, without keeping about thee anything to denote the feminine sex, save what nature hath given thee. And oftentimes hast thou in this garb received the Sacrament of the Eucharist. And albeit thou hast been many times admonished to leave it, thou wouldest not, saying that thou wouldst liefer die than quit this apparel, unless it were by God's command; and that if thou wert still in this dress and with those of thine own party it would be for the great weal of France. Thou sayest also that for nothing wouldst thou take an oath not to wear this dress and bear these arms; and for all this that thou doest thou dost plead divine command.

In such matters the clerks declare that thou blasphemest against God, despising him and his Sacraments, that thou dost transgress divine law, Holy Scripture and the canons of the Church, that thou thinkest evil and dost err from the faith, that thou art full of vain boasting, that thou art addicted to idolatry and worship of thyself and thy clothes, according to the customs of the heathen.

ARTICLE VI

Item, thou hast often said, that in thy letters thou hast put these names, Jhesus Maria, and the sign of the cross, to warn those to whom thou didst write not to do what was indicated in the letter. In other letters thou hast boasted that thou wouldst slay all those who did not obey thee, and that by thy blows thou wouldst prove who had God on his side. Also hast thou oftentimes said that all thy deeds were by revelation and according to divine command.

Touching such affirmations the clerks declare thee to be a traitor, perfidious, cruel, desiring human bloodshed, seditious, an instigator of tyranny, a blasphemer of God's commandments and revelations.

ARTICLE VII

Item, thou sayest that according to revelations vouchsafed unto thee at the age of seventeen, thou didst leave thy parents' house against their will, driving them almost mad. Thou didst go to Robert de Baudricourt, who, at thy request, gave thee man's apparel and a sword, also men-at-arms to take thee to thy King. And being come to the King, thou didst say unto him that his enemies should be driven away, thou didst promise to bring him into a great kingdom, to make him victorious over his foes, and that for this God had sent thee. These things thou sayest thou didst accomplish in obedience to God and according to revelation.

In such things the clerks declare thee to have been irreverent to thy father and mother, thus disobeying God's command; to have given occasion for scandal, to have blasphemed, to have erred from the faith and to have made a rash and presumptuous promise.

ARTICLE VIII

Item, thou hast said, that voluntarily thou didst leap from the Tower of Beaurevoir, preferring rather to die than to be delivered into the hands of the English and to live after the destruction of Compiegne. And albeit Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret forbade thee to leap, thou couldst not restrain thyself. And despite the great sin thou hast committed in offending these saints, thou didst know by thy Voices, that after thy confession, thy sin was forgiven thee.

This deed the clerks declare thee to have committed through cowardice turning to despair and probably to suicide. In this matter likewise thou didst utter a rash and presumptuous statement in asserting that thy sin is forgiven, and thou dost err from the faith touching the doctrine of free will.

ARTICLE IX

Item, thou hast said that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret promised to lead thee to Paradise provided thou didst remain a virgin; and that thou hadst vowed and promised them to cherish thy virginity, and of that thou art as well assured as if already thou hadst entered into the glory of the Blessed. Thou believest that thou hast not committed mortal sin. And it seemeth to thee that if thou wert in mortal sin the saints would not visit thee daily as they do.

Such an assertion the clerks pronounce to be a pernicious lie, presumptuous and rash, that therein lieth a contradiction of what thou hadst previously said, and that finally thy beliefs do err from the true Christian faith.

ARTICLE X

Item, thou hast declared it to be within thy knowledge that God loveth certain living persons better than thee, and that this thou hast learnt by revelation from Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret: also that those saints speak French, not English, since they are not on the side of the English. And when thou knewest that thy Voices were for thy King, you didst fall to disliking the Burgundians.

Such matters the clerks pronounce to be a rash and presumptuous assertion, a superstitious divination, a blasphemy uttered against Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, and a transgression of the commandment to love our neighbours.

ARTICLE XI

Item, thou hast said that to those whom thou callest Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, thou didst do reverence, bending the knee, taking off thy cap, kissing the ground on which they trod, vowing to them thy virginity: that in the instruction of these saints, whom thou didst invoke and kiss and embrace, thou didst believe as soon as they appeared unto thee, and without seeking counsel from thy priest or from any other ecclesiastic. And, notwithstanding, thou believest that these Voices came from God as firmly as thou believest in the Christian religion and the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover thou hast said that did any evil spirit appear to thee in the form of Saint Michael thou wouldest know such a spirit and distinguish him from the saint. And again hast thou said, that of thine own accord, thou hast sworn not to reveal the sign thou gavest to thy King. And finally thou didst add: "Save at God's command."

Now touching these matters, the clerks affirm that supposing thou hast had the revelations and beheld the apparitions of which thou boastest and in such a manner as thou dost say, then art thou an idolatress, an invoker of demons, an apostate from the faith, a maker of rash statements, a swearer of an unlawful oath.

ARTICLE XII

Item, thou hast said that if the Church wished thee to disobey the orders thou sayest God gave thee, nothing would induce thee to do it; that thou knowest that all the deeds of which thou hast been accused in thy trial were wrought according to the command of God and that it was impossible for thee to do otherwise. Touching these deeds, thou dost refuse to submit to the judgment of the Church on earth or of any living man, and will submit therein to God alone. And moreover thou didst declare this reply itself not to be made of thine own accord but by God's command; despite the article of faith: Unam sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, having been many times declared unto thee, and notwithstanding that it behoveth all Christians to submit their deeds and sayings to the Church militant especially concerning revelations and such like matters.

Wherefore the clerks declare thee to be schismatic, disbelieving in the unity and authority of the Church, apostate and obstinately erring from the faith.[2444]

[Footnote 2444: Trial, vol. i, pp. 430, 437.]

Having completed the reading of the articles, Maitre Pierre Maurice, on the invitation of the Bishop, proceeded to exhort Jeanne. He had been rector of the University of Paris in 1428.[2445] He was esteemed an orator. He it was who, on the 5th of June, had discoursed in the name of the chapter, before King Henry VI on the occasion of his entering Rouen. He would seem to have been distinguished by some knowledge of and taste for ancient letters, and to have been possessed of precious manuscripts, amongst which were the comedies of Terence and the AEneid of Virgil.[2446]

[Footnote 2445: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. v, p. 929.]

[Footnote 2446: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, p. 88.]

In terms of calculated simplicity did this illustrious doctor call upon Jeanne to reflect on the effects of her words and sayings, and tenderly did he exhort her to submit to the Church. After the wormwood he offered her the honey; he spoke to her in words kind and familiar. With remarkable adroitness he entered into the feelings and inclinations of the maiden's heart. Seeing her filled with knightly enthusiasm and loyalty to King Charles, whose coronation was her doing, he drew his comparisons from chivalry, thereby essaying to prove to her that she ought rather to believe in the Church Militant than in her Voices and apparitions.

"If your King," he said to her, "had appointed you to defend a fortress, forbidding you to let any one enter it, would you not refuse to admit whomsoever claiming to come from him did not present letters and some other token. Likewise, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, on his ascension into heaven, committed to the Blessed Apostle Peter and to his successors the government of his Church, he forbade them to receive such as claimed to come in his name but brought no credentials."

And, to bring home to her how grievous a sin it was to disobey the Church, he recalled the time when she waged war, and put the case of a knight who should disobey his king:

"When you were in your King's dominion," he said to her, "if a knight or some other owing fealty to him had arisen, saying, 'I will not obey the King; I will not submit either to him or to his officers,' would you not have said, 'He is a man to be censured'? What say you then of yourself, you who, engendered in Christ's religion, having become by baptism the daughter of the Church and the bride of Christ, dost now refuse obedience to the officers of Christ, that is, to the prelates of the Church?"[2447]

[Footnote 2447: Trial, vol. i, pp. 437, 441.]

Thus did Maitre Pierre Maurice endeavour to make Jeanne understand him. He did not succeed. Against the courage of this child all the reasons and all the eloquence of the world would have availed nothing. When Maitre Pierre had finished speaking, Jeanne, being asked whether she did not hold herself bound to submit her deeds and sayings to the Church, replied:

"What I have always held and said in the trial that will I maintain.... If I were condemned and saw the fagots lighted, and the executioner ready to stir the fire, and I in the fire, I would say and maintain till I died nought other than what I said during the trial."

At these words the Bishop declared the discussion at an end, and deferred the pronouncing of the sentence till the morrow.[2448]

[Footnote 2448: Ibid., pp. 441, 442.]

The next day, the Thursday after Whitsuntide and the 24th day of May, early in the morning, Maitre Jean Beaupere visited Jeanne in her prison and warned her that she would be shortly taken to the scaffold to hear a sermon.

"If you are a good Christian," he said, "you will agree to submit all your deeds and sayings to Holy Mother Church, and especially to the ecclesiastical judges."

Maitre Jean Beaupere thought he heard her reply, "So I will."[2449]

[Footnote 2449: Trial, vol. ii, p. 21.]

If such were her answer, then it must have been because, worn out by a flight of agony, her physical courage quailed at the thought of death by burning.

Just when he was leaving her, as she stood near a door, Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur gave her the same advice, and in order to induce her to follow it, he made her a false promise:

"Jeanne, believe me," he said. "You have your deliverance in your own hands. Wear the apparel of your sex, and do what shall be required of you. Otherwise you stand in danger of death. If you do as I tell you, good will come to you and no harm. You will be delivered into the hands of the Church."[2450]

[Footnote 2450: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 146. De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 445 et seq.]

She was taken in a cart and with an armed guard to that part of the town called Bourg-l'Abbe, lying beneath the castle walls. And but a short distance away the cart was stopped, in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, also called les aitres[2451] Saint-Ouen. Here a highly popular fair was held every year on the feast day of the patron saint of the Abbey.[2452] Here it was that Jeanne was to hear the sermon, as so many other unhappy creatures had done before her. Places like this, to which the folk could flock in crowds, were generally chosen for these edifying spectacles. On the border of this vast charnel-house for a hundred years there had towered a parish church, and on the south there rose the nave of the abbey. Against the magnificent edifice of the church two scaffolds had been erected,[2453] one large, the other smaller. They were west of the porch which was called portail des Marmousets, because of the multitudes of tiny figures carved upon it.[2454]

[Footnote 2451: Old name for a cemetery close to a church. Godefroy, Lexique de l'ancien francais (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2452: Trial, vol. ii, p. 351.]

[Footnote 2453: Trial, vol. iii, p. 54.]

[Footnote 2454: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur le cimetiere de Saint-Ouen de Rouen, in Precis analytique des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen 1875-1876, pp. 211, 230, plan. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc et l'authenticite de sa formule, p. 44. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 351.]

On the great scaffold the two judges, the Lord Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor, took their places. They were assisted by the most reverend Cardinal of Winchester, the Lord Bishops of Therouanne, of Noyon, and of Norwich, the Lord Abbots of Fecamp, of Jumieges, of Bec, of Corneilles, of Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, of Mortemart, of Preaux, and of Saint-Ouen of Rouen, where the assembly was held, the Priors of Longueville and of Saint-Lo, also many doctors and bachelors in theology, doctors and licentiates in canon and civil law.[2455] Likewise were there many high personages of the English party. The other scaffold was a kind of pulpit. To it ascended the doctor who, according to the use and custom of the Holy Inquisition was to preach the sermon against Jeanne. He was Maitre Guillaume Erard, doctor in theology, canon of the churches of Langres and of Beauvais.[2456] At this time he was very eager to go to Flanders, where he was urgently needed; and he confided to his young servitor, Brother Jean de Lenisoles, that the preaching of this sermon caused him great inconvenience. "I want to be in Flanders," he said. "This affair is very annoying for me."[2457]

[Footnote 2455: Trial, vol. i, pp. 442, 444. O'Reilly, Les deux proces, vol. i, pp. 70-93.]

[Footnote 2456: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 402, 408.]

[Footnote 2457: Trial, vol. iii, p. 113.]

From one point of view, however, he must have been pleased to perform this duty, since it afforded him the opportunity of attacking the King of France, Charles VII, and of thereby showing his devotion to the English cause, to which he was strongly attached.

Jeanne, dressed as a man, was brought up and placed at his side, before all the people.[2458]

[Footnote 2458: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 469, 470.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard began his sermon in the following manner:

"I take as my text the words of God in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter xv: 'The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine.'[2459] Thus it behoveth all Catholics to remain abiding in Holy Mother Church, the true vine, which the hand of Our Lord Jesus Christ hath planted. Now this Jeanne, whom you see before you, falling from error into error, and from crime into crime, hath become separate from the unity of Holy Mother Church and in a thousand manners hath scandalised Christian people."

[Footnote 2459: Ibid., p. 444. E. Richer, Histoire manuscrite de la Pucelle d'Orleans, bk. i, fol. 8; bk. ii, fol. 198, v'o.]

Then he reproached her with having failed, with having sinned against royal Majesty and against God and the Catholic Faith; and all these things must she henceforth eschew under pain of death by burning.

He declaimed vehemently against the pride of this woman. He said that never had there appeared in France a monster so great as that which was manifest in Jeanne; that she was a witch, a heretic, a schismatic, and that the King, who protected her, risked the same reproach from the moment that he became willing to recover his throne with the help of such a heretic.[2460]

[Footnote 2460: Trial, vol. iii, p. 61.]

Towards the middle of his sermon, he cried out with a loud voice:

"Ah! right terribly hast thou been deceived, noble house of France, once the most Christian of houses! Charles, who calls himself thy head and assumes the title of King hath, like a heretic and schismatic, received the words of an infamous woman, abounding in evil works and in all dishonour. And not he alone, but all the clergy in his lordship and dominion, by whom this woman, so she sayeth, hath been examined and not rejected. Full sore is the pity of it."[2461]

[Footnote 2461: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 15, 17.]

Two or three times did Maitre Guillaume repeat these words concerning King Charles. Then pointing at Jeanne with his finger he said:

"It is to you, Jeanne, that I speak; and I say unto you that your King is a heretic and a schismatic."

At these words Jeanne was deeply wounded in her love for the Lilies of France and for King Charles. She was moved with great feeling, and she heard her Voices saying unto her:

"Reply boldly to the preacher who is preaching to you."[2462]

[Footnote 2462: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 456, 457. U. Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 46, 47.]

Then obeying them heartily, she interrupted Maitre Jean:

"By my troth, Messire," she said to him, "saving your reverence, I dare say unto you and swear at the risk of my life, that he is the noblest Christian of all Christians, that none loveth better religion and the Church, and that he is not at all what you say."[2463]

[Footnote 2463: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 15, 17, 335, 345, 353, 367.]

Maitre Guillaume ordered the Usher, Jean Massieu, to silence her.[2464] Then he went on with his sermon, and concluded with these words: "Jeanne, behold my Lords the Judges, who oftentimes have summoned you and required you to submit all your acts and sayings to Mother Church. In these acts and sayings were many things which, so it seemed to these clerics, were good neither to say nor to maintain."[2465]

[Footnote 2464: Ibid., p. 17.]

[Footnote 2465: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 444, 445.]

"I will answer you," said Jeanne. Touching the article of submission to the Church, she recalled how she had asked for all the deeds she had wrought and the words she had uttered to be reported to Rome, to Our Holy Father the Pope, to whom, after God, she appealed. Then she added: "And as for the sayings I have uttered and the deeds I have done, they have all been by God's command."[2466]

[Footnote 2466: Ibid., p. 445.]

She declared that she had not understood that the record of her trial was being sent to Rome to be judged by the Pope.

"I will not have it thus," she said. "I know not what you will insert in the record of these proceedings. I demand to be taken to the Pope and questioned by him."[2467]

[Footnote 2467: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 358.]

They urged her to incriminate her King. But they wasted their breath.

"For my deeds and sayings I hold no man responsible, neither my King nor another."[2468]

[Footnote 2468: Ibid., vol. i, p. 445.]

"Will you abjure all your deeds and sayings? Will you abjure such of your deeds and sayings as have been condemned by the clerks?"

"I appeal to God and to Our Holy Father, the Pope."

"But that is not sufficient. We cannot go so far to seek the Pope. Each Ordinary is judge in his own diocese. Wherefore it is needful for you to appeal to Our Holy Mother Church, and to hold as true all that clerks and folks well learned in the matter say and determine touching your actions and your sayings."[2469]

[Footnote 2469: Trial, vol. i, pp. 445, 446.]

Admonished with yet a third admonition, Jeanne refused to recant.[2470] With confidence she awaited the deliverance promised by her Voices, certain that of a sudden there would come men-at-arms from France and that in one great tumult of fighting-men and angels she would be liberated. That was why she had insisted on retaining man's attire.

[Footnote 2470: Ibid., p. 446.]

Two sentences had been prepared: one for the case in which the accused should abjure her error, the other for the case in which she should persevere. By the first there was removed from Jeanne the ban of excommunication. By the second, the tribunal, declaring that it could do nothing more for her, abandoned her to the secular arm. The Lord Bishop had them both with him.[2471]

[Footnote 2471: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 146.]

He took the second and began to read: "In the name of the Lord, Amen. All the pastors of the Church who have it in their hearts faithfully to tend their flocks...."[2472]

[Footnote 2472: Ibid., vol. i, p. 473.]

Meanwhile, as he read, the clerks who were round Jeanne urged her to recant, while there was yet time. Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur exhorted her to do as he had recommended, and to put on woman's dress.[2473]

[Footnote 2473: Trial, vol. iii, p. 146.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard was saying: "Do as you are advised and you will be delivered from prison."[2474]

[Footnote 2474: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 17, 331; vol. iii, pp. 52, 156.]

Then straightway came the Voices unto her and said: "Jeanne, passing sore is our pity for you! You must recant what you have said, or we abandon you to secular justice.... Jeanne, do as you are advised. Jeanne, will you bring death upon yourself!"[2475]

[Footnote 2475: Ibid., p. 123.]

The sentence was long and the Lord Bishop read slowly:

"We judges, having Christ before our eyes and also the honour of the true faith, in order that our judgment may proceed from the Lord himself, do say and decree that thou hast been a liar, an inventor of revelations and apparitions said to be divine; a deceiver, pernicious, presumptuous, light of faith, rash, superstitious, a soothsayer, a blasphemer against God and his saints. We declare thee to be a contemner of God even in his sacraments, a prevaricator of divine law, of sacred doctrine and of ecclesiastical sanction, seditious, cruel, apostate, schismatic, having committed a thousand errors against religion, and by all these tokens rashly guilty towards God and Holy Church.[2476]"

[Footnote 2476: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 474, 475.]

Time was passing. Already the Lord Bishop had uttered the greater part of the sentence.[2477] The executioner was there, ready to take off the condemned in his cart.[2478]

[Footnote 2477: Ibid., p. 473 note.]

[Footnote 2478: Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 65, 147, 149, 273. De Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces, p. 358.]

Then suddenly, with hands clasped, Jeanne cried that she was willing to obey the Church.[2479]

[Footnote 2479: Trial, vol. ii, p. 323.]

The judge paused in the reading of the sentence.

An uproar arose in the crowd, consisting largely of English men-at-arms and officers of King Henry. Ignorant of the customs of the Inquisition, which had not been introduced into their country, these Godons could not understand what was going on; all they knew was that the witch was saved. Now they held Jeanne's death to be necessary for the welfare of England; wherefore the unaccountable actions of these doctors and the Lord Bishop threw them into a fury. In their Island witches were not treated thus; no mercy was shown them, and they were burned speedily. Angry murmurs arose; stones were thrown at the registrars of the trial.[2480] Maitre Pierre Maurice, who was doing his best to strengthen Jeanne in the resolution she had taken, was threatened and the coues very nearly made short work with him.[2481] Neither did Maitre Jean Beaupere and the delegates from the University of Paris escape their share of the insults. They were accused of favouring Jeanne's errors.[2482] Who better than they knew the injustice of these reproaches?

[Footnote 2480: Ibid., pp. 137, 376.]

[Footnote 2481: Ibid., p. 356; vol. iii, pp. 157, 178.]

[Footnote 2482: Ibid., p. 55.]

Certain of the high personages sitting on the platform at the side of the judge complained to the Lord Bishop that he had not gone on to the end of the sentence but had admitted Jeanne to repentance.

He was even reproached with insults, for one was heard to cry: "You shall pay for this."

He threatened to suspend the trial.

"I have been insulted," he said. "I will proceed no further until honourable amends have been done me."[2483]

[Footnote 2483: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 90, 147, 156.]

In the tumult, Maitre Guillaume Erard unfolded a double sheet of paper, and read Jeanne the form of abjuration, written down according to the opinion of the masters. It was no longer than the Lord's Prayer and consisted of six or seven lines of writing. It was in French and began with these words: "I, Jeanne...." The Maid submitted therein to the sentence, the judgment, and the commandment of the Church; she acknowledged having committed the crime of high treason and having deceived the people. She undertook never again to bear arms or to wear man's dress or her hair cut round her ears.[2484]

[Footnote 2484: Ibid., pp. 52, 65, 132, 156, 197. U. Chevalier, L'Abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc.]

When Maitre Guillaume had read the document, Jeanne declared she did not understand it, and wished to be advised thereupon.[2485] She was heard to ask counsel of Saint Michael.[2486] She still believed firmly in her Voices, albeit they had not aided her in her dire necessity, neither had spared her the shame of denying them. For, simple as she was, at the bottom of her heart she knew well what the clerks were asking of her; she realised that they would not let her go until she had pronounced a great recantation. All that she said was merely in order to gain time and because she was afraid of death; yet she could not bring herself to lie.

[Footnote 2485: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 156, 157 (evidence of Jean Massieu, Usher of the court).]

[Footnote 2486: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 323.]

Without losing a moment Maitre Guillaume said to Messire Jean Massieu, the Usher: "Advise her touching this abjuration."

And he passed him the document.[2487]

[Footnote 2487: Trial, vol. iii, p. 157.]

Messire Jean Massieu at first made excuse, but afterwards he complied and warned Jeanne of the danger she was running by her refusal to recant.

"You must know," he said, "that if you oppose any of these articles you will be burned. I counsel you to appeal to the Church Universal as to whether you should abjure these articles or not."

Maitre Guillaume Erard asked Jean Massieu: "Well, what are you saying to her?"

Jean Massieu replied: "I make known unto Jeanne the text of the deed of abjuration and I urge her to sign it. But she declares that she knoweth not whether she will."

At this juncture, Jeanne, who was still being pressed to sign, said aloud: "I wish the Church to deliberate on the articles. I appeal to the Church Universal as to whether I should abjure them. Let the document be read by the Church and the clerks into whose hands I am to be delivered. If it be their counsel that I ought to sign it and do what I am told, then willingly will I do it."[2488]

[Footnote 2488: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 331; vol. iii, p. 157. This deed, written in a large hand and containing but a few lines, appears to be an abridgment of that contained in the Trial, vol. i, pp. 447, 448 (cf. vol. iii, pp. 156, 197).]

Maitre Guillaume Erard replied: "Do it now, or you will be burned this very day."

And he forbade Jean Massieu to confer with her any longer.

Whereupon Jeanne said that she would liefer sign than be burned.[2489]

[Footnote 2489: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 156, 197.]

Then straightway Messire Jean Massieu gave her a second reading of the deed of abjuration. And she repeated the words after the Usher. As she spoke her countenance seemed to express a kind of sneer. It may have been that her features were contracted by the violent emotions which swayed her and that the horrors and tortures of an ecclesiastical trial may have overclouded her reason, subject at all times to strange vagaries, and that after such bitter suffering there may have come upon her the actual paroxysm of madness. On the other hand it may have been that with sound sense and calm mind she was mocking at the clerks of Rouen; she was quite capable of it, for she had mocked at the clerks of Poitiers. At any rate she had a jesting air, and the bystanders noticed that she pronounced the words of her abjuration with a smile.[2490] And her gaiety, whether real or apparent, roused the wrath of those burgesses, priests, artisans, and men-at-arms who desired her death.

[Footnote 2490: Trial, vol. ii, p. 338; vol. iii, p. 147.]

"'Tis all a mockery. Jeanne doth but jest,"[2491] they cried.

[Footnote 2491: Ibid., pp. 55, 143.]

Among the most irate was Master Lawrence Calot, Secretary to the King of England. He was seen to be in a violent rage and to approach first the judge and then the accused. A noble of Picardy who was present, the very same who had essayed familiarities with Jeanne in the Castle of Beaurevoir, thought he saw this Englishman forcing Jeanne to sign a paper.[2492] He was mistaken. In every crowd there are those who see things that never happen. The Bishop would not have permitted such a thing; he was devoted to the Regent, but on a question of form he would never have given way. Meanwhile, under this storm of insults, amidst the throwing of stones and the clashing of swords, these illustrious masters, these worthy doctors grew pale. The Prior of Longueville was awaiting an opportunity to make an apology to the Cardinal of Winchester.[2493]

[Footnote 2492: Ibid., p. 123.]

[Footnote 2493: Trial, vol. ii, p. 361. J. Quicherat, Apercus nouveaux, p. 135.]

On the platform a chaplain of the Cardinal violently accused the Lord Bishop. "You do wrong to accept such an abjuration. 'Tis a mere mockery," he said.

"You lie," retorted my Lord Pierre. "I, the judge of a religious suit, ought to seek the salvation of this woman rather than her death."

The Cardinal silenced his chaplain.[2494]

[Footnote 2494: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 147, 156.]

It is said that the Earl of Warwick came up to the judges and complained of what they had done, adding: "The King is not well served, since Jeanne escapes."

And it is stated that one of them replied: "Have no fear, my Lord. She will not escape us long."[2495]

[Footnote 2495: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 376.]

It is hardly credible that any one should have actually said so, but doubtless there were many at that time who thought it.

With what scorn must the Bishop of Beauvais have regarded those dull minds, incapable of understanding the service he was rendering to Old England by forcing this damsel to acknowledge that all she had declared and maintained in honour of her King was but lying and illusion.

With a pen that Massieu gave her Jeanne made a cross at the bottom of the deed.[2496]

[Footnote 2496: Ibid., p. 17; vol. iii, p. 164.]

In the midst of howls and oaths from the English, my Lord of Beauvais read the more merciful of the sentences. It relieved Jeanne from excommunication and reconciled her to Holy Mother Church.[2497] Further the sentence ran:

"... Because thou hast rashly sinned against God and Holy Church, we, thy judges, that thou mayest do salutary penance, out of our Grace and moderation, do condemn thee finally and definitely to perpetual prison, with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, so that there thou mayest weep over thy offences and commit no other that may be an occasion of weeping."[2498]

[Footnote 2497: Trial, vol. i, pp. 450, 452.]

[Footnote 2498: Ibid., p. 452.]

This penalty, like all other penalties, save death and mutilation, lay within the power of ecclesiastical judges. They inflicted it so frequently that in the early days of the Holy Inquisition, the Fathers of the Council of Narbonne said that stones and mortar would become as scarce as money.[2499] It was a penalty doubtless, but one which in character and significance differed from the penalties inflicted by secular courts; it was a penance. According to the mercy of ecclesiastical law, prison was a place suitable for repentance, where, in one perpetual penance, the condemned might eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction.

[Footnote 2499: L. Tanon, Tribunaux de l'inquisition, p. 454.]

How foolish was he, who by refusing to enter that prison or by escaping from it, should reject the salutary healing of his soul! By so doing he was fleeing from the gentle tribunal of penance, and the Church in sadness cut him off from the communion of the faithful. By inflicting this penalty, which a good Catholic must needs regard rather as a favour than a punishment, my Lord the Bishop and my Lord the Holy Vicar of the Inquisition were conforming to the custom, whereby our Holy Mother Church became reconciled to heretics. But had they power to execute their sentence? The prison to which they condemned Jeanne, the expiatory prison, the salutary confinement, must be in a dungeon of the Church. Could they send her there?

Jeanne, turning towards them, said: "Now, you Churchmen, take me to your prison. Let me be no longer in the hands of the English."[2500]

[Footnote 2500: Trial, vol. ii, p. 14.]

Many of those clerics had promised it to her.[2501] They had deceived her. They knew it was not possible; for it had been stipulated that the King of England's men should resume possession of Jeanne after the trial.[2502]

[Footnote 2501: Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 52, 149.]

[Footnote 2502: Ibid., vol. i, p. 19.]

The Lord Bishop gave the order: "Take her back to the place whence you brought her."[2503]

[Footnote 2503: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 14.]

He, a judge of the Church, committed the crime of surrendering the Church's daughter reconciled and penitent, to laymen. Among them she could not mourn over her sins; and they, hating her body and caring nought for her soul, were to tempt her and cause her to fall back into error.

While Jeanne was being taken back in the cart to her tower in the fields, the soldiers insulted her and their captains did not rebuke them.[2504]

[Footnote 2504: Ibid., p. 376.]

Thereafter, the Vice-Inquisitor and with him divers doctors and masters, went to her prison and charitably exhorted her. She promised to wear woman's apparel, and to let her head be shaved.[2505]

[Footnote 2505: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 452-453.]

The Duchess of Bedford, knowing that she was a virgin, saw to it that she was treated with respect.[2506] As the ladies of Luxembourg had done formerly, she essayed to persuade her to wear the clothing of her sex. By a certain tailor, one Jeannotin Simon, she had had made for Jeanne a gown which she had hitherto refused to wear. Jeannotin brought the garment to the prisoner, who this time did not refuse it. In putting it on, Jeannotin touched her bosom, which she resented. She boxed his ears;[2507] but she consented to wear the gown provided by the Duchess.

[Footnote 2506: Trial, vol. iii, p. 155.]

[Footnote 2507: Ibid., p. 89.]

XIV. THE TRIAL FOR RELAPSE--SECOND SENTENCE--DEATH OF THE MAID

On the following Sunday, which was Trinity Sunday, there arose a rumour that Jeanne had resumed man's apparel. The report spread rapidly from the castle down the narrow streets where lived the clerks in the shadow of the cathedral. Straightway notaries and assessors hastened to the tower which looked on the fields.

In the outer court of the castle they found some hundred men-at-arms, who welcomed them with threats and curses.[2508] These fellows did not yet understand that the judges had conducted the trial so as to bring honour to old England and dishonour to the French. They did not realise what it meant when the Maid of the Armagnacs, who hitherto had obstinately persisted in her utterances, was at length brought to confess her impostures. They did not see how great was the advantage to their country when it was published abroad throughout the world that Charles of Valois had been conducted to his coronation by a heretic. But no, the only idea these brutes were capable of grasping was the burning of the girl prisoner who had struck terror into their hearts. The doctors and masters they treated as traitors, false counsellors and Armagnacs.[2509]

[Footnote 2508: Trial, vol. iii, p. 148.]

[Footnote 2509: Trial, vol. ii, p. 14; vol. iii, p. 148.]

In the castle yard is Maitre Andre Marguerie, bachelor in decrees, archdeacon of Petit-Caux, King's Counsellor,[2510] who is inquiring what has happened. He had displayed great assiduity in the trial. The Maid he held to be a crafty damsel.[2511] Now again he desired to give an expert's judgment touching what had just occurred.

[Footnote 2510: De Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges, pp. 82 et seq.]

[Footnote 2511: Trial, vol. ii, p. 354.]

"That Jeanne is to be seen dressed as a man is not everything," he said. "We must know what motives induced her to resume masculine attire."

Maitre Andre Marguerie was an eloquent orator, one of the shining lights of the Council of Constance. But, when a man-at-arms raised his axe against him and called out "Traitor! Armagnac!" Maitre Marguerie asked no further questions, but speedily departed, and went to bed very sick.[2512]

[Footnote 2512: Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 158, 180.]

The next day, Monday the 25th, there came to the castle the Vice-Inquisitor, accompanied by divers doctors and masters. The Registrar, Messire Guillaume Manchon, was summoned. He was such a coward that he dared not come save under the escort of one of the Earl of Warwick's men-at-arms.[2513] They found Jeanne wearing man's apparel, jerkin and short tunic, with a hood covering her shaved head. Her face was in tears and disfigured by terrible suffering.[2514]

[Footnote 2513: Ibid., vol. i, p. 454; vol. iii, p. 148.]

[Footnote 2514: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 5. Isambart's evidence refers to this day, the 28th.]

She was asked when and why she had assumed this attire.

She replied: "'Tis but now that I have donned man's dress and put off woman's."

"Wherefore did you put it on and who made you?"

"I put it on of my own will and without constraint. I had liefer wear man's dress than woman's."

"You promised and swore not to wear man's dress."

"I never meant to take an oath not to wear it."

"Wherefore did you return to it?"

"Because it is more seemly to take it and wear man's dress, being amongst men, than to wear woman's dress.... I returned to it because the promise made me was not kept, to wit, that I should go to mass and should receive my Saviour and be loosed from my bonds."

"Did you not abjure, and promise not to return to this dress?"

"I had liefer die than be in bonds. But if I be allowed to go to mass and taken out of my bonds and put in a prison of grace, and given a woman to be with me, I will be good and do as the Church shall command."

"Have you heard your Voices since Thursday?"

"Yes."

"What did they say unto you?"

"They told me that through Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret God gave me to wit his sore pity for the treachery, to which I consented in abjuring and recanting to save my life, and that in saving my life I was losing my soul. Before Thursday my Voices had told me what I should do and what I did do on that day. On the scaffold my Voices told me to reply boldly to the preacher. He is a false preacher.... Many things did he say that I have never done. If I were to say that God has not sent me I should be damned. It is true that God has sent me. My Voices have since told me that by confessing I committed a great wickedness which I ought never to have done. All that I said I uttered through fear of the fire."[2515]

[Footnote 2515: Trial, vol. i, pp. 455-457.]

Thus spake Jeanne in sore sorrow. And now what becomes of those monkish tales of attempted violence related long afterwards by a registrar and two churchmen?[2516] And how can Messire Massieu make us believe that Jeanne, unable to find her petticoats, put on her hose in order not to appear before her guards unclothed?[2517] The truth is very different. It is Jeanne herself who confesses bravely and simply. She repented of her abjuration, as of the greatest sin she had ever committed. She could not forgive herself for having lied through fear of death. Her Voices, who, before the sermon at Saint-Ouen had foretold that she would deny them, now came to her and spoke of "the sore pity of her treachery." Could they say otherwise since they were the voices of her own heart? And could Jeanne fail to listen to them since she had always listened to them whenever they had counselled her to sacrifice and self-abnegation?

[Footnote 2516: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 5, 8, 365; vol. iii, pp. 148, 149.]

[Footnote 2517: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 18.]

It was out of obedience to her heavenly Council that Jeanne had returned to man's apparel, because she would not purchase her life at the price of denying the Angel and the Saints, and because with her whole heart and soul she rebelled against her recantation.

Still the English were seriously to blame for having left her man's clothes. It would have been more humane to have taken them from her, since if she wore them she must needs die. They had been put in a bag.[2518] Her guards may even be suspected of having tempted her by placing under her very eyes those garments which recalled to her days of happiness. They had taken away all her few possessions, even her poor brass ring, everything save that suit which meant death to her.

[Footnote 2518: Trial, vol. ii, p. 18.]

To blame also were her ecclesiastical judges who should not have sentenced her to imprisonment if they foresaw that they could not place her in an ecclesiastical prison, nor have commanded her a penance which they knew they were unable to enforce. Likewise to blame were the Bishop of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor; because after having, for the good of her sinful soul, prescribed the bread of bitterness and the water of affliction, they gave her not this bread and this water, but delivered her in disgrace into the hands of her cruel enemies.

When she uttered the words, "God by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hath given me to wit the sore pity of the treason to which I consented," Jeanne consummated the sacrifice of her life.[2519]

[Footnote 2519: "Responsio mortifera," wrote the notary Boisguillaume in the margin of his minutes. Trial, vol. i, pp. 456, 457.]

The Bishop and the Inquisitor had now to proceed in conformity with the law. The interrogatory however lasted a few moments longer.

"Do you believe that your Voices are Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine?"

"Yes, and they come from God."

"Tell us the truth touching the crown."

"To the best of my knowledge I told you the truth of everything at the trial."

"On the scaffold, at the time of your abjuration, you did acknowledge before us your judges and before many others, and in the presence of the people, that you had falsely boasted your Voices to be those of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret."

"I did not mean thus to do or to say. I did not deny, neither did I intend to deny, my apparitions and to say that they were not Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine. All that I have said was through fear of the fire, and I recanted nothing that was not contrary to the truth. I had liefer do my penance once and for all, to wit by dying, than endure further anguish in prison. Whatsoever abjuration I have been forced to make, I never did anything against God and religion. I did not understand what was in the deed of abjuration, wherefore I did not mean to abjure anything unless it were Our Lord's will. If the judges wish I will resume my woman's dress. But nothing else will I do."[2520]

[Footnote 2520: Trial, vol. i, pp. 456-458.]

Coming out of the prison, my Lord of Beauvais met the Earl of Warwick accompanied by many persons. He said to him: "Farewell. Faites bonne chere." It is said that he added, laughing: "It is done! We have caught her."[2521] The words are his, doubtless, but we are not certain that he laughed.

[Footnote 2521: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 5, 8, 305.]

On the morrow, Tuesday the 29th, he assembled the tribunal in the chapel of the Archbishop's house. The forty-two assessors present were informed of what had happened on the previous day and invited to state their opinions, the nature of which might easily be anticipated.[2522] Every heretic who retracted his confession was held a perjurer, not only impenitent but relapsed. And the relapsed were given up to the secular arm.[2523]

[Footnote 2522: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 459, 467.]

[Footnote 2523: Bernard Gui, Pratique, part iii, p. 144. L. Tanon, Tribunaux de l'inquisition, pp. 464 et seq.]

Maitre Nicholas de Venderes, canon, archdeacon, was the first to state his opinion.

"Jeanne is and must be held a heretic. She must be delivered to the secular authority."[2524]

[Footnote 2524: Trial, vol. i, pp. 462, 463.]

The Lord Abbot of Fecamp expressed his opinion in the following terms: "Jeanne has relapsed. Nevertheless it is well that the terms of her abjuration once read to her, be read a second time and explained, and that at the same time she be reminded of God's word. This done, it is for us, her judges, to declare her a heretic and to abandon her to the secular authority, entreating it to deal leniently with her."[2525]

[Footnote 2525: Ibid., p. 463.]

This plea for leniency was a mere matter of form. If the Provost of Rouen had taken it into consideration he also would have been excommunicated, with a further possibility of temporal punishment.[2526] And yet there were certain counsellors who even wished to dispense with this empty show of pity, urging that there was no need for such a supplication.

[Footnote 2526: L. Tanon, Tribunaux de l'inquisition, pp. 472, 473.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard and sundry other assessors, among whom were Maitres Marguerie, Loiseleur, Pierre Maurice, and Brother Martin Ladvenu, were of the opinion of my Lord Abbot of Fecamp.[2527]

[Footnote 2527: Trial, vol. i, pp. 463, 467.]

Maitre Thomas de Courcelles advised the woman being again charitably admonished touching the salvation of her soul.

Such likewise was the opinion of Brother Isambart de la Pierre.[2528]

[Footnote 2528: Trial, vol. i, p. 466.]

The Lord Bishop, having listened to these opinions, concluded that Jeanne must be proceeded against as one having relapsed. Accordingly he summoned her to appear on the morrow, the 30th of May, in the old Market Square.[2529]

[Footnote 2529: Ibid., pp. 467, 469.]

On the morning of that Wednesday, the 30th of May, by the command of my Lord of Beauvais, the two young friars preachers, bachelors in theology, Brother Martin Ladvenu and Brother Isambart de la Pierre, went to Jeanne in her prison. Brother Martin told her that she was to die that day.

At the approach of this cruel death, amidst the silence of her Voices, she understood at length that she would not be delivered. Cruelly awakened from her dream, she felt heaven and earth failing her, and fell into a deep despair.

"Alas!" she cried, "shall so terrible a fate betide me as that my body ever pure and intact shall to-day be burned and reduced to ashes? Ah me! Ah me! Liefer would I be seven times beheaded than thus be burned. Alas! had I been in the prison of the Church, to which I submitted, and guarded by ecclesiastics and not by my foes and adversaries, so woeful a misfortune as this would not have befallen me. Oh! I appeal to God, the great judge, against this violence and these sore wrongs with which I am afflicted."[2530]

[Footnote 2530: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 3, 4 (evidence of Brother Isambart de la Pierre). Ibid., p. 8 (evidence of Brother Martin Ladvenu).]

While she was lamenting, the doctors and masters, Nicolas de Venderes, Pierre Maurice and Nicolas Loiseleur, entered the prison; they came by order of my Lord of Beauvais.[2531] On the previous day thirty-nine counsellers out of forty-two, declaring that Jeanne had relapsed, had added that they deemed it well she should be reminded of the terms of her abjuration.[2532] Wherefore, according to the counsel of these clerics, the Lord Bishop had sent certain learned doctors to the relapsed heretic and had resolved to come to her himself.

[Footnote 2531: Trial, vol. i, p. 481. (In the Introduction I have given my reasons for regarding the information given after the death of the Maid as possessing great historical significance.)]

[Footnote 2532: Trial, vol. i, pp. 462-467.]

She must needs submit to one last examination.

"Do you believe that your Voices and apparitions come from good or from evil spirits?"

"I know not; but I appeal to my Mother the Church."[2533]

[Footnote 2533: Ibid., p. 479. Or "to such of you as are churchmen." Ibid., p. 482 (information furnished after her death).]

Maitre Pierre Maurice, a reader of Terence and Virgil, was filled with pity for this hapless Maid.[2534] On the previous day he had declared her to have relapsed because his knowledge of theology forced him to it; and now he was concerned for the salvation of this soul in peril, which could not be saved except by recognising the falseness of its Voices.

[Footnote 2534: Robillard de Beaurepaire, Notes sur les juges.]

"Are they indeed real?" he asked her.

She replied, "Whether they be good or bad, they appeared to me."

She affirmed that with her eyes she had seen, with her ears heard, the Voices and apparitions which had been spoken of at the trial.

She heard them most frequently, she said, at the hour of compline and of matins, when the bells were ringing.[2535]

[Footnote 2535: Trial, vol. i, p. 480.]

Maitre Pierre Maurice, being the Pope's secretary, was debarred from openly professing the Pyrrhonic philosophy. He inclined, however, to a rational interpretation of natural phenomena, if we may judge from his remarking to Jeanne that the ringing of bells often sounded like voices.

Without describing the exact form of her apparitions, Jeanne said they came to her in a great multitude and were very tiny. She believed in them no longer, being fully persuaded that they had deceived her.

Maitre Pierre Maurice asked about the Angel who had brought the crown.

She replied that there had never been a crown save that promised by her to her King, and that the Angel was herself.[2536]

[Footnote 2536: Ibid., pp. 480, 481 (information furnished after her death).]

At that moment the Lord Bishop of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor entered the prison, accompanied by Maitre Thomas de Courcelles and Maitre Jacques Lecamus.[2537]

[Footnote 2537: Ibid., pp. 482, 483.]

At the sight of the Judge who had brought her to such a pass she cried, "Bishop, I die through you."

He replied by piously admonishing her. "Ah! Jeanne, bear all in patience. You die because you have not kept your promise and have returned to evil-doing.[2538] Now, Jeanne," he asked her, "you have always said that your Voices promised you deliverance; you behold how they have deceived you, wherefore tell us the truth."

[Footnote 2538: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 114 (evidence of Brother Jehan Toutmouille).]

She replied, "Verily, I see that they have deceived me."[2539]

[Footnote 2539: Trial, vol. i, pp. 481, 482 (information given after Jeanne's death).]

The Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor withdrew. They had triumphed over a poor girl of twenty.

"If after their condemnation heretics repent, and if the signs of their repentance are manifest, the sacraments of confession and the eucharist may not be denied them, provided they demand them with humility."[2540] Thus ran the sacred decretals. But no recantation, no assurance of conformity, could save the relapsed heretic. He was permitted confession, absolution, and communion; which means that at the bar of the Sacrament the sincerity of his repentance and conversion was believed in. But at the same time it was declared judicially that his repentance was not believed in and that consequently he must die.[2541]

[Footnote 2540: Textus decretalium, lib. v, ch. iv.]

[Footnote 2541: Ignace de Doellinger, La Papaute, traduit par A. Giraud-Teulon, Paris, 1904, in 8vo, p. 105.]

Brother Martin Ladvenu heard Jeanne's confession. Then he sent Messire Massieu, the Usher, to my Lord of Beauvais, to inform him that she asked to be given the body of Jesus Christ.

The Bishop assembled certain doctors to confer on this subject; and after they had deliberated, he replied to the Usher: "Tell Brother Martin to give her the communion and all that she shall ask."[2542]

[Footnote 2542: Trial, vol. iii, p. 158.]

Messire Massieu returned to the castle to bear this reply to Brother Martin. For a second time Brother Martin heard Jeanne in confession and gave her absolution.[2543]

[Footnote 2543: Trial, vol. ii, p. 334.]

A cleric, one Pierre, brought the body of Our Lord in an unceremonious fashion, on a paten covered with the cloth used to put over the chalice, without lights or procession, without surplice or stole.[2544]

[Footnote 2544: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 19, 334. De Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces, pp. 116, 117.]

This did not please Brother Martin, who sent to fetch a stole and candles.

Then, taking the consecrated host in his fingers and presenting it to Jeanne, he said: "Do you believe this to be the body of Christ?"

"Yes, and it alone is able to deliver me."

And she entreated that it should be given to her.

"Do you still believe in your Voices?" asked the officiating priest.

"I believe in God alone, and will place no trust in the Voices who have thus deceived me."[2545]

[Footnote 2545: Trial, vol. i, pp. 482, 483 (information procured after Jeanne's death).]

And shedding many tears she received the body of Our Lord very devoutly. Then to God, to the Virgin Mary and to the saints she offered prayers beautiful and reverent and gave such signs of repentance that those present were moved to tears.[2546]

[Footnote 2546: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 19, 308, 320; vol. iii, pp. 114, 158, 183, 197.]

Contrite and sorrowful she said to Maitre Pierre Maurice:[2547] "Maitre Pierre, where shall I be this evening?"

[Footnote 2547: For Jeanne's communion see also De Beaurepaire, Recherches sur le proces, pp. 116-117.]

"Do you not trust in the Lord?" asked the canon.

"Yea, God helping me, I shall be in Paradise."[2548]

[Footnote 2548: Trial, vol. iii, p. 191.]

Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur exhorted her to correct the error she had caused to grow up among the people.

"To this end you must openly declare that you have been deceived and have deceived the folk and that you humbly ask pardon."

Then, fearing lest she might forget when the time came for her to be publicly judged, she asked Brother Martin to put her in mind of this matter and of others touching her salvation.[2549]

[Footnote 2549: Ibid., vol. i, p. 485. Maitre N. Taquel would lead us to believe that the interrogatories took place after Jeanne's communion, but this can hardly be admitted.]

Maitre Loiseleur went away giving signs of violent grief. Walking through the streets like a madman, he was howled at by the Godons.[2550]

[Footnote 2550: Trial, vol. ii, p. 320; vol. iii, p. 162.]

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when Brother Martin and Messire Massieu took Jeanne out of the prison, wherein she had been in bonds one hundred and seventy-eight days. She was placed in a cart, and, escorted by eighty men-at-arms, was driven along the narrow streets to the Old Market Square, close to the River.[2551] This square was bordered on the east by a wooden market-house, the butcher's market, on the west by the cemetery of Saint-Sauveur, on the edge of which, towards the square, stood the church of Saint-Sauveur.[2552] In this place three scaffolds had been raised, one against the northern gable of the market-house; and in its erection several tiles of the roof had been broken.[2553] On this scaffold Jeanne was to be stationed, there to listen to the sermon. Another and a larger scaffold had been erected adjoining the cemetery. There the judges and the prelates were to sit.[2554] The pronouncing of sentence in a religious trial was an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For the place of its pronouncement the Inquisitor and the Ordinary preferred consecrated territory, holy ground. True it is that a bull of Pope Lucius forbade such sentences to be given in churches and cemeteries; but the judges eluded this rule by recommending the secular arm to modify its sentence. The third scaffold, opposite the second, was of plaster, and stood in the middle of the square, on the spot whereon executions usually took place. On it was piled the wood for the burning. On the stake which surmounted it was a scroll bearing the words:

"Jehanne, who hath caused herself to be called the Maid, a liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic."[2555]

[Footnote 2551: A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 369.]

[Footnote 2552: Bouquet, Rouen aux differentes epoques de son histoire, pp. 25 et seq. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 374, 375. De Beaurepaire, Memoires sur le lieu du supplice de Jeanne d'Arc, with plan of the Old Market Square of Rouen according to the Livre de fontaine de 1525, Rouen, 1867, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 2553: De Beaurepaire, Note sur la prise du chateau de Rouen, par Ricarville, Rouen, 1857, in 8vo, p. 5.]

[Footnote 2554: Bouquet, Jeanne d'Arc au chateau de Rouen, p. 25. De Beaurepaire, Memoire sur le lieu du supplice de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 32. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, pp. 376 et seq.]

[Footnote 2555: Trial, vol. iv, p. 459.]

The square was guarded by one hundred and sixty men-at-arms. A crowd of curious folk pressed behind the guards, the windows were filled and the roofs covered with onlookers. Jeanne was brought on to the scaffold which had its back to the market-house gable. She wore a long gown and hood.[2556] Maitre Nicolas Midi, doctor in theology, came up on to the same platform and began to preach to her.[2557] As the text of his sermon he took the words of the Apostle in the first Epistle to the Corinthians:[2558] "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." Jeanne patiently listened to the sermon.[2559]

[Footnote 2556: Trial, vol. i, pp. 470; vol. ii, pp. 14, 303, 328; vol. iii, pp. 159, 173.]

[Footnote 2557: Ibid., vol. i, p. 470; vol. ii, p. 334; vol. iii, pp. 53, 114, 159.]

[Footnote 2558: Chapter xii, 26 (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2559: Trial, vol. iii, p. 194.]

Then my Lord of Beauvais, in his own name and that of the Vice-Inquisitor, pronounced the sentence.

He declared Jeanne to be a relapsed heretic.

"We declare that thou, Jeanne, art a corrupt member, and in order that thou mayest not infect the other members, we are resolved to sever thee from the unity of the Church, to tear thee from its body, and to deliver thee to the secular power. And we reject thee, we tear thee out, we abandon thee, beseeching this same secular power, that touching death and the mutilation of the limbs, it may be pleased to moderate its sentence...."[2560]

[Footnote 2560: Ibid., p. 159.]

By this formula, the ecclesiastical judge withdrew from any share in the violent death of a fellow creature: Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine.[2561] But every one knew how much such an entreaty was worth; and all were aware that if the impossible had happened and the magistrate had granted it, he would have been subject to the same penalties as the heretic. Things had now come to such a pass that had the city of Rouen belonged to King Charles, he himself could not have saved the Maid from the stake.

[Footnote 2561: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition, p. 374.]

When the sentence was announced Jeanne breathed heart-rending sighs. Weeping bitterly, she fell on her knees, commended her soul to God, to Our Lady, to the blessed saints of Paradise, many of whom she mentioned by name. Very humbly did she ask for mercy from all manner of folk, of whatsoever rank or condition, of her own party and of the enemy's, entreating them to forgive the wrong she had done them and to pray for her. She asked pardon of her judges, of the English, of King Henry, of the English princes of the realm. Addressing all the priests there present she besought each one to say a mass for the salvation of her soul.[2562]

[Footnote 2562: Trial, vol. ii, p. 19; vol. iii, p. 177.]

Thus for one half hour did she continue with sighs and tears to give expression to the sentiments of humiliation and contrition with which the clerics had inspired her.[2563]

[Footnote 2563: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 19, 351.]

And even now she did not neglect to defend the honour of the fair Dauphin, whom she had so greatly loved.

She was heard to say: "It was never my King who induced me to do anything I have done, either good or evil."[2564]

[Footnote 2564: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 56.]

Many of the bystanders wept. A few English laughed. Certain of the captains, who could make nothing of the edifying ceremonial of ecclesiastical justice, grew impatient. Seeing Messire Massieu in the pulpit and hearing him exhort Jeanne to make a good end, they cried:

"What now, priest! Art thou going to keep us here to dinner?"[2565]

[Footnote 2565: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20; vol. iii, pp. 53, 177, 186.]

At Rouen, when a heretic was given up to the secular arm, it was customary to take him to the town hall, where the town council made known unto him his sentence.[2566] In Jeanne's case these forms were not observed. The Bailie, Messire le Bouteiller, who was present, waved his hand and said: "Take her, take her."[2567] Straightway, two of the King's sergeants dragged her to the base of the scaffold and placed her in a cart which was waiting. On her head was set a great fool's cap made of paper, on which were written the words: "Heretique, relapse, apostate, idolatre"; and she was handed over to the executioner.[2568]

[Footnote 2566: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 188. A. Sarrazin, Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie, p. 386. Guedon and Ladvenu added to their evidence that not long afterwards a certain Georges Folenfant was also given up to the secular arm. But the Archbishop and the Inquisitor sent Ladvenu to the Bailie "in order to warn him that the said Georges was not to be treated like the Maid who was burned without the pronouncement of any definite and final sentence." Trial, vol. ii, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2567: Ibid., p. 344.]

[Footnote 2568: Falconbridge, in Trial, vol. iv, p. 459. Yet Martin Ladvenu says "until the last hour," etc., which is obviously false.]

A bystander heard her saying: "Ah! Rouen, sorely do I fear that thou mayest have to suffer for my death."[2569]

[Footnote 2569: Trial, vol. iii, p. 53.]

She evidently still regarded herself as the messenger from Heaven, the angel of the realm of France. Possibly the illusion, so cruelly reft from her, returned at last to enfold her in its beneficent veil. At any rate, she appears to have been crushed; all that remained to her was an infinite horror of death and a childlike piety.

The ecclesiastical judges had barely time to descend and flee from a spectacle which they could not have witnessed without violating the laws of clerical procedure. They were all weeping: the Lord Bishop of Therouanne, Chancellor of England, had his eyes full of tears. The Cardinal of Winchester, who was said never to enter a church save to pray for the death of an enemy,[2570] had pity on this damsel so woeful and so contrite. Brother Pierre Maurice, the canon who was a reader of the AEneid, could not keep back his tears. All the priests who had delivered her to the executioner were edified to see her make so holy an end. That is what Maitre Jean Alespee meant when he sighed: "I would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman to be."[2571] To himself and the hapless sufferer he applied the following lines from the Dies irae:

_Qui Mariam absolvisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti._[2572]

[Footnote 2570: Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 1, act i, scene 1.]

[Footnote 2571: Trial, vol. ii, p. 6; vol. iii, pp. 53, 191, 375.]

[Footnote 2572: Missel Romain, Office des morts. Cf. Le P. C. Clair, Le Dies irae, histoire, traduction et commentaire, Paris, in 8vo, 1881, pp. 38-142.]

But none the less he must have believed that by her heresies and her obstinacy she had brought death on herself.

The two young friars preachers and the Usher Massieu accompanied Jeanne to the stake.

She asked for a cross. An Englishman made a tiny one out of two pieces of wood, and gave it to her. She took it devoutly and put it in her bosom, on her breast. Then she besought Brother Isambart to go to the neighbouring church to fetch a cross, to bring it to her and hold it before her, so that as long as she lived, the cross on which God was crucified should be ever in her sight.

Massieu asked a priest of Saint-Sauveur for one, and it was brought. Jeanne weeping kissed it long and tenderly, and her hands held it while they were free.[2573]

[Footnote 2573: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20.]

As she was being bound to the stake she invoked the aid of Saint Michael; and now at length no examiner was present to ask her whether it were really he she saw in her father's garden. She prayed also to Saint Catherine.[2574]

[Footnote 2574: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 170.]

When she saw a light put to the stake, she cried loudly, "Jesus!" This name she repeated six times.[2575] She was also heard asking for holy water.[2576]

[Footnote 2575: Ibid., p. 186.]

[Footnote 2576: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 8; vol. iii, pp. 169, 194.]

It was usual for the executioner, in order to cut short the sufferings of the victim, to stifle him in dense smoke before the flames had had time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the plaster scaffold made unusually high. Wherefore the executioner himself, hardened man that he was, judged her death to have been a terribly cruel one.[2577]

[Footnote 2577: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 7.]

Once again Jeanne uttered the name of Jesus; then she bowed her head and gave up her spirit.[2578]

[Footnote 2578: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 186.]

As soon as she was dead the Bailie commanded the executioner to scatter the flames in order to see that the prophetess of the Armagnacs had not escaped with the aid of the devil or in some other manner.[2579] Then, after the poor blackened body had been shown to the people, the executioner, in order to reduce it to ashes, threw on to the fire coal, oil and sulphur.

[Footnote 2579: Trial, vol. iii, p. 191. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 269, 270.]

In such an execution the combustion of the corpse was rarely complete.[2580] Among the ashes, when the fire was extinguished, the heart and entrails were found intact. For fear lest Jeanne's remains should be taken and used for witchcraft or other evil practices,[2581] the Bailie had them thrown into the Seine.[2582]

[Footnote 2580: L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition, p. 478.]

[Footnote 2581: Chronique des cordeliers, fol. 507 verso. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 269.]

[Footnote 2582: Trial, vol. iii, pp. 159, 160, 185; vol. iv, p. 518. Th. Basin, Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI, vol. i, p. 83. Th. Cochard, Existe-t-il des reliques de Jeanne d'Arc? Orleans, 1891, in 8vo.]