The Life of Joan of Arc Part 99

[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 G.o.d'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 n.o.bleman 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, Sat.u.r.day, 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 circ.u.mstances especially. Then they said:[2254] "Reply boldly, G.o.d 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 a.s.surance 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 G.o.d, for the sake of thy holy Pa.s.sion, 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 a.s.sessors, 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 doc.u.ment 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sessors, 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 G.o.d bring me into it; if I be, then may G.o.d keep me in it."[2264]

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

The a.s.sessors 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 La.s.sois, 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_."]