Asked, when she was before Jargeau, what it was that she wore behind her helmet, and if she had not something round it, she answered: "By my faith, there was nothing." Asked, if she knew a certain Brother Richard, she answered: "I never saw him till I was before Troyes." Asked, what cheer Brother Richard made to her, answered, that she thought the people of Troyes had sent him to her, doubting whether she had come on the part of God, and that as he approached her he made the sign of the cross, and sprinkled holy water; she said to him: "Come on boldly; I shall not fly away." Asked, if she had seen, or had caused to be made, any images or pictures of herself, she answered, that at Arras she had seen a picture in the hands of a Scot, where she was represented fully armed, kneeling on one knee, and presenting a letter to the King; but that she had never caused any image or picture of herself to be made. Asked concerning a table in the house of her host, upon which were painted three women, with /Justice, Peace, Union/ inscribed beneath, answered, that she knew nothing of it. Asked, if she knew that those of her party caused masses and prayers to be made in her honour, she answered, that she knew not; and if they did so, it was not by any command of hers; but that if they did so, her opinion was that they did no wrong. Asked, if those of her party firmly believed that she was sent from God, she answered: "I know not whether they believed it; but even if they did not believe it, I am none the less sent on the part of God." Asked, whether she thought that to believe that she was sent from god was a worthy faith, she answered, that if they believed that she was sent from God they were not mistaken. Asked, if she knew what her party meant by kissing her feet and hands and her garments, answered, that many people did it, but that her hands were kissed as little as she could help it. The poor people, however, came to her of their own free will, because she never oppressed them, but protected them as far as was in her power. Asked, what reverence the people of Troyes made to her, she answered, "None at all," and added that she believed Brother Richard came into Troyes with her army, but that she had not seen him coming in. Asked, if he had not preached at the gates when she came, answered, that she scarcely paused there at all, and knew nothing of any sermon. Asked, how long she was at Rheims, and answered, four or five days. Asked, whether she baptised (stood godmother to) children there, she answered: To one at Troyes, but did not remember any at Rheims or at Chateau-Thierry; but there were two at St. Denis; and willingly she called the boys "Charles," in honour of her King, and the girls "Jeanne," according to what their mothers wished. Asked, if the good women of the town did not touch with their rings the rings she wore, she answered, that many women touched her hands and her rings; but she did not know why they did it. Asked, what she did with the gloves in which her King was consecrated, she answered that "Gloves were distributed to the knights and nobles that came there"; and there was one who lost his; but she did not say that she would find it for him. Also she said that her standard was in the church at Rheims, and she believed near the altar, and she herself had carried it for a short time, but did not know whether Brother Richard had held it.
She was then asked if she communicated and went to confession often while moving about the country, and if she received the sacrament in her male costume; to which she answered "yes, but without her arms"; she was then questioned about a horse belonging to the Bishop of Senlis, which had not suited her, a matter completely without importance. The inference intended was that it was taken from him without being paid for; but there was no evidence that the Maid knew anything about it. We then come to the incident of Lagny.
She was asked how old the child was which she saw at Lagny, and answered, three days; it hed been brought to Lagny to the Church of N?tre Dame, and she was told that all the maids in Lagny were before our Lady praying for it, and she also wished to go and pray God and our Lady that its life might come back; and she went, and prayed with the rest. And finally life appeared; it yawned three times, and was baptised and buried in consecrated ground. It had given no sign of life for three days and was black as her coat, but when it yawned its colour began to come back. She was there with the other maids on her knees before our Lady to make her prayer.
The reader must understand that this was no special appeal to Jeanne's miraculous power, but a custom of that intense and tender charity with which the Church of Rome corrects her dogmatism upon questions of salvation. A child unbaptised could not be buried in consecrated ground, and was subject to all the sorrows of the unredeemed; but who could doubt that the priest would be easily persuaded by some wavering of the tapers on the altar upon the little dead face, some flicker of his own compassionate eyelids, that sufficient life had come back to permit the holy rite to be administered? The whole little scene is affecting in the extreme, the young creatures all kneeling, fervently appealing to the Maiden-mother, the priest ready to take instant advantage of any possible flicker, the Maid of France, no conspicuous figure, but weeping and praying among the rest. There was no thought here of the raising of the dead--the prayer was for breath enough only to allow of the holy observance, the blessed water, the last possibility of human love and effort.
Jeanne was then questioned concerning Catherine of La Rochelle, the supposed prophetess, who had been played against her by La Tremouille and his follows, and narrated how she had watched two nights to see the mysterious lady clothed in cloth of gold who was said to appear to Catherine, but had not seen her, and that she had advised the woman to return to her husband and children. Catherine's mission was to go through the "good towns" with heralds and trumpets to call upon those who had money or treasure of any kind to give it to the King, and she professed to have a supernatural knowledge where such money was hidden. [No doubt La Tremouille must have thought that to get money, which was so scarce, in such a simple way, was worth trying at least. But Jeanne's opinion was that it was folly, and that there was nothing in it; an opinion fully verified. Catherine's advice had been that Jeanne should go to the Duke of Burgundy to make peace; but Jeanne had answered that no peace could be made save at the end of the lance.]
She was then asked about the siege of La Charité; she answered, that she had made an assault: but had not sprinkled holy water, or caused it to be sprinkled. Asked, why she did not enter the city as she had the command of God to do so, she replied: "Who told you that I was commanded to enter?" Asked, if she had not had the advice of her voices, she answered, that she had desired to go into France (meaning towards Paris), but the generals had told her that it was better to go first to La Charité. She was then asked if she had been long in the tower of Beaurevoir; answered, that she was there about four months, and that when she heard the English come she was angry and much troubled. Her voices forbade her several times to attempt to escape; but at last, in the doubt she had of the English she threw herself down, commending herself to God and to our Lady, and was much hurt. But after she had done this the voice of St. Catherine said to her not to be afraid, that she should be healed, and that Compiègne would be relieved.
Also she said that she prayed always for the relief of Compiègne with her council. Asked, what she said after she had thrown herself down, she answered, that some said that she was dead; and as soon as the Burgundians saw that she was not dead, they told her that she had thrown herself down. Asked, if she had said that she would rather die than fall into the hands of the English, she answered, that she would much rather have rendered her soul to God than have fallen into the hands of the English. Asked, if she was not in a great rage, and if she did not blaspheme the name of God, she answered, that she never said evil of any saint, and that it was not her custom to swear. Asked respecting Soissons, when the captain had surrendered the town, whether she had not cursed God, and said that if she had gotten hold of the captain, she would have cut him into four pieces; she answered, that she never swore by any saint, and that those who said so had not understood her.
*****
At this point the public trial of Jeanne came to a sudden end. Either the feeling produced in the town, and even among the judges, by her undeviating, simple, and dignified testimony had begun to be more than her persecutors had calculated upon; or else they hoped to make shorter work with her when deprived of the free air of publicity, the sight no doubt of some sympathetic faces, and the consciousness of being still able to vindicate her cause and to maintain her faith before men. Two or three fierce Inquisitors within her cell, and the Bishop, that man without heart or pity at their head, might still tear admissions from her weariness, which a certain sympathetic atmosphere in a large auditory, swept by waves of natural feeling, would strengthen her to keep back. The Bishop made a proclamation that in order not to vex and tire his learned associates he would have the minutes of the previous sittings reduced into form, and submitted to them for judgment, while he himself carried on apart what further interrogatory was necessary. We are told that he was warned by a counsellor of the town that secret examinations without witnesses or advocate on the prisoner's side, were illegal; but Monseigneur de Beauvais was well aware that anything would be legal which effected his purpose, and that once Jeanne was disposed of, the legality or illegality of the proceedings would be of small importance. I have thought it right to give to the best of my power a literal translation of these examinations, notwithstanding their great length; as, except in one book, now out of print and very difficult to procure, no such detailed translation,[8] so far as I am aware, exists; and it seems to me that, even at the risk of fatiguing the reader (always capable of skipping at his pleasure), it is better to unfold the complete scene with all its tedium and badgering, which brings out by every touch the extraordinary self-command, valour, and sense of this wonderful Maid, the youngest, perhaps, and most ignorant of the assembly, yet meeting all with a modest and unabashed countenance, true, pure, and natural, --a far greater miracle in her simplicity and noble steadfastness than even in the wonders she had done. ---------- [1] She was in reality detained two days, which fact, no doubt, she judged to be an unimportant detail.
[2] Probably meaning, had been present when the voices came to her and had perceived her state of listening and abstraction.
[3] This was her special friend, Gerard of Epinal--her /compère/ and gossip; was it jesting beguiled by some childish recollection, or mock threat of youthful days that she said this?
[4] An answer evidently given in the vagueness of imperfect knowledge, meaning a very great number.
[5] Quicherat gives a note on this subject to point out that there was really was but one Pope at this moment, the question having been settled by the abdication of Clement VIII., Benedict XIV. being a mere impostor. We cannot believe, however, that this historical cutting of the knot could be known to Jeanne. She probably felt only, with her fine instinct, that there could be but one Pope, and that to be deceived on such a matter ought to have been a thing impossible to all those priests and learned men; as a matter of fact the three claimants, on account of whom the Comte d'Armagnac had appealed to her, were no longer existing at the time he wrote.
[6] She meant Paris, which was lost by the English, according to her prophecy within the time named.
[7] It should here be noted that Jeanne's sign to the King being, as he afterwards declared, the answer to his most private devotions and the final setting at rest of a doubt which might have injured him much had it been known that he entertained it--it would have been dishonourable on her part and a great wrong to him had she revealed it.
[8] The translation of M. Fabre is now, I believe, reprinted, but it is not satisfactory.
CHAPTER XIV
THE EXAMINATION IN PRISON. LENT, 1431.
It must not be forgotten, in the history of this strange trial, that the prisoner was brought from the other side of France expressly that she might be among a people who were not of her own party, and who had no natural sympathies with her, but a hereditary connection with England, which engaged all its partialities on that side. For this purpose it was that the /venue/, the town expected the coming of the Witch, and all the dark revelations that might be extracted from her, her spells, and the details of that contract with the devil which was so entrancing to the popular imagination, with excitement and eagerness. Such a /Cause Célèbre/ had never taken place among them before; and everybody no doubt looked forward to the pleasure of seeing it proved that it was not by the will of Heaven, but by some monstrous combination of black arts, that such an extraordinary result as the defeat of the invincible English soldiers had been brought about. The litigious and logical Normans no doubt looked forward to it as to the most interesting entertainment, ending in the complete vindication of their own side and the exposure of the nefarious arms used by their adversaries.
But when the proceedings had been opened, and in place of some dark- browed and termagant sorceress, with the mark of every evil passion in her face, there appeared before the spectators crowding into every available corner, the slim, youthful figure--was it boy or girl?--the serene and luminous countenance of the Maid, the flower of youth raising its whiteness and innocence in the midst of all those black- robed, subtle Doctors, it is impossible but that the very first glance must have given a shock and thrill of amazement and doubt to what may be called the lay spectators, those who had no especial bias more than common report, and whose credit or interest were not involved in bringing this unlikely criminal to condemnation. "A girl! Like our own Jeanne at home," might many a father have said, dismayed and confounded. She had, they all say, those eyes of innocence which it is so impossible not to believe, and that virginal voice, /assez femme/, which a sentimental Frenchman insists upon as belonging only to the spotless. At all events she had the bearing of honesty, purity, and truth. She was not afraid though all the powers of hell--or was it only of the Church and the Law?--were arrayed against her: no guilty mystery to be discovered, was in her countenance. But it must have been plain to the keen and not too charitable Normans that such semblances are not always to be trusted, and that the devil himself even, on occasion, can take upon himself the appearance of an angel of light; so that after the first shock of wonder they no doubt settled themselves to listen, believing that soon they would have their imaginations fed with tales of horror, and would discover the hoofs and the horns and unveil with triumph the lurking demon. The French historians never take into consideration the fact that it was the belief of Rouen and Normandy, as well as of any similar town or province in England, that the child Henry VI. was lawful king, and that whatever was on the other side was a hateful adversary, to be brought to such disaster and shame as was possible, without mercy and without delay.
