The Life of Joan of Arc Part 107

"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 a.s.surance that she would be saved and not condemned in h.e.l.l. 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 a.s.surance 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.s, or to continue in man's dress and not to hear ma.s.s?"

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

"I promise you that you shall hear ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s. But with all my heart I entreat you to leave me these clothes I am now wearing, and let me hear ma.s.s 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 ill.u.s.trations, 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 ma.s.s. 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 G.o.d will appoint them, in which they will shake nearly all France. I say it in order that when it shall come to pa.s.s, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d on earth; the cardinals, the prelates of the Church and the clergy, with all good Christians and Catholics; and this Church in its a.s.sembly cannot err, for it is moved by the Holy Ghost. Will you appeal to the Church Militant?"