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Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2
10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits’ End
THE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of March.
This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished churchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left important posts where their supervision was needed, to journey hither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and easy matter — condemn and send to death a country-lass of nineteen who could neither read nor write, knew nothing of the wiles and perplexities of legal procedure, could not call a single witness in her defense, was allowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct her case by herself against a hostile judge and a packed jury. In two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more certain that this — so they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be surprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed away like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all this, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass and not the court.
She was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were doing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court knew it, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their annoyance.
And so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that these men had made up their minds to force words from Joan to-day which should shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows that after all their experience with her they did not know her yet.
They went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the questioning to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They volleyed questions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were talking at once that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a time and not by platoons. The beginning was as usual:
“You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple.”
“I will answer to what is in the proces verbal. When I do more, I will choose the occasion for myself.”
That old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great bitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and the questionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over Joan’s apparitions — their dress, hair, general appearance, and so on — in the hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out of the replies; but with no result.
Next, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many well-worn questions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were put forward.
“Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male dress?”
“That is not in your proces.”
“Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of your sex?”
“I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and Master.”
After a while the matter of Joan’s Standard was taken up, in the hope of connecting magic and witchcraft with it.
“Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?”
“The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the rest of the forces. It was their own idea.”
“Were they often renewed?”
“Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed.”
The purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one.
“Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be lucky?”
The soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew herself up, and said with dignity and fire: “What I said to them was, ‘Ride those English down!’ and I did it myself.”
Whenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French menials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is what happened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of them on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after minute, but Joan was not disturbed.
By and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed.
It was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which had been done her when she was raising France out of the dirt and shame of a century of slavery and castigation.
“Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?”
“No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the King and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to be made.”
“Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?”
“If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I think it was no harm.”
“Did the French people believe you were sent of God?”
“As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not the less sent of God.”
“If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well thought?”
“If they believed it, their trust was not abused.”
“What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your hands, your feet, and your vestments?”
“They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could not have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor people came lovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the best I could for them according to my strength.”
See what modest little words she uses to describe that touching spectacle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the adoring multitudes: “They were glad to see me.” Glad?
Why they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss her hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the hoof-prints of her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were trying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for what other people did. No, if she was worshiped, it was enough; she was guilty of mortal sin.
Curious logic, one must say.
“Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?”
“At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in honor of the King, and the girls I named Joan.”
“Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?”
“Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it.”
“At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at the altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?”
“Yes.”
“In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches and receive the sacrament?”
“Yes.”
“In the dress of a man?”
“Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor.”
It was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission granted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call Joan’s attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she might recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and drowsed her alertness.
“It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at Lagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?”
“As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the child, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more than they.”
“Continue.”
“While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three days, and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized, then it passed from life again and was buried in holy ground.”
“Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try to escape?”
“I would go to the succor of Compiegne.”
It was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English.
“Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the power of the English?”
Joan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap:
“Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto God than that I should fall into the hands of the English.”
It was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the tower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and that she did it again when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons. She was hurt and indignant at this, and said:
“It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear.”
11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination
A HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight, Joan was gaining it.
There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being softened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her fortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her manifest purity, the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence, and the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and alone, against unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this softening process would spread further and presently bring Cauchon’s plans in danger.
Something must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished for compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it in his character. He thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues of this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a handful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not remember to modify the fatigues for the little captive.
He would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the handful himself, and he did.
He chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not intention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered.
He called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge bulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed it of all chaff, all useless matter — that is, all matter favorable to Joan; they saved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this they constructed a basis for a new trial which should have the semblance of a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the public trial had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed all over the town and had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There should be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and no spectators admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news to him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain a chance to modify before I should see him in the evening.
On the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I had seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She looked tired and weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that she was dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and said. Another court would not have taken advantage of her state, seeing that her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared her. Did this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and eager ferocity, making all it could out of this great chance, the first one it had had.
She was tortured into confusing herself concerning the “sign” which had been given the King, and the next day this was continued hour after hour. As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden by her Voices; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but allegories and visions mixed with facts.
The third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost her normal self again, and did her work well. Many attempts were made to beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in view and answered with tact and wisdom.
“Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the English?”
“They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates.”
“Does God hate the English?”
“Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing.” Then she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old audacity in her words, and added, “But I know this — that God will send victory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of France but the dead ones!”
“Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in France?”
“I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them to be chastised for their sins.”
It was a sufficiently naive way to account for a chastisement which had now strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault with it. There was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninety-six years if he could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the Lord’s being any shade less stringent than men.
“Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?”
“Yes, both of them.”
The evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that.
“When you hung garlands upon L’Arbre Fee Bourlemont, did you do it in honor of your apparitions?”
“No.”
Satisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she hung them there out of sinful love for the fairies.
“When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence, did you kneel?”
“Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could.”
A good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that these were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but devils in disguise.
Now there was the matter of Joan’s keeping her supernatural commerce a secret from her parents. Much might be made of that. In fact, particular emphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the margin of the proces: “She concealed her visions from her parents and from every one.” Possibly this disloyalty to her parents might itself be the sign of the satanic source of her mission.
“Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your parents’ leave? It is written one must honor his father and his mother.”
“I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged their forgiveness in a letter and gotten it.”
“Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going without their leave!”
Joan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:
“I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred fathers and mothers and been a king’s daughter to boot I would have gone.”
“Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?”
“They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything have given my parents that pain.”
To the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of pride. That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious adorations.
“Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?”
Joan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously:
“Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times called me Daughter of God.”
Further indications of pride and vanity were sought.
“What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave it you?”
“The King.”
“You had other things — riches — of the King?”
“For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my household.”
“Had you not a treasury?”
“Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns.” Then she said with naivete “It was not a great sum to carry on a war with.”
“You have it yet?”
“No. It is the King’s money. My brothers hold it for him.”
“What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of St. Denis?”
“My suit of silver mail and a sword.”
“Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?”
“No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war who have been wounded to make such offering there. I had been wounded before Paris.”
Nothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginations — not even this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier hanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim and dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there was nothing in it for them; nothing, unless evil and injury for that innocent creature could be gotten out of it somehow.
“Which aided most — you the Standard, or the Standard you?”
“Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing — the victories came from God.”
“But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your Standard?”
“In neither. In God, and not otherwise.”
“Was not your Standard waved around the King’s head at the Coronation?”
“No. It was not.”
“Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other captains?”
Then, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long as language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all gentle hearts wheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:
“It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor.” (1) How simple it is, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came from her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as sublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source in a great heart and were coined in a great brain.
(1) What she said has been many times translated, but never with success. There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes all efforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and escapes in the transmission. Her words were these:
“Il avait, a la peine, c’etait bien raison qu’il fut a l’honneur.”
Monseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Aix, finely speaks of it (Jeanne d’Arc la Venerable, page 197) as “that sublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the cry of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism and its faith.” — TRANSLATOR.
12 Joan’s Master-Stroke Diverted
NOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a thing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak of it with patience.
In the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the child Joan solemnly devoted her life to God, vowing her pure body and her pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried to stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul to compel her to make a marriage which she had never promised to make — a marriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear and lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable battle and sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes! And you will remember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable court and conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin’s case to rags and blew it away with a breath; and how the astonished old judge on the bench spoke of her as “this marvelous child.”
You remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false priests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone fight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around and try to make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended that he had promised to marry her, and was bent on making him do it.
Certainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop to in their hunt for that friendless girl’s life. What they wanted to show was this — that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow and trying to violate it.
Joan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she went along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he remembers yet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has swindled his way into the other.
The rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the old theme — the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan’s reasons for clinging to the male dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a better protection for her modesty than the other.
The court knew that one of Joan’s purposes had been the deliverance of the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious to know how she had intended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and her statement of it as characteristically simple and straightforward:
“I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom; and failing that, I would have invaded England and brought him out by force.”
That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and hammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between. She added with a little sigh:
“If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him.”
“Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever you can?”
“I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it.”
I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and within the prison walls, before the three months should expire.
“Would you escape if you saw the doors open?”
She spoke up frankly and said:
“Yes — for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps who help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had permission, I would not go.”
Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every time I think of it — and it struck me so at the time — that for a moment, at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same notion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upon — a rescue by her old soldiers. I think the idea of the rescue did occur to her, but only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away.
Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more that he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside there, and that he was putting himself in great danger.
“What danger?” he asked.
“I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know the form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered from this prison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a trouble by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this matter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or the other.” After a pause she added these words, memorable forever — words whose meaning she may have miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never know; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and revealed their meaning to all the world:
“But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by a great victory.” She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to me that great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the war-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought had such a short life! For now she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men still so often quote and dwell upon — words which filled me with fear, they sounded so like a prediction. “And always they say ‘Submit to whatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend into the Kingdom of Paradise.”
Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it myself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the right name for it.
It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was willing to make the most he could out of what she had said:
“As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain that that will happen and that you will not be damned in hell. Is that so?”
“I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved.”
“It is a weighty answer.”
“To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure.”
“Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit mortal sin?”
“As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to my oath to keep by body and my soul pure.”
“Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to confession?”
The snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan’s simple and humble answer left it empty:
“One cannot keep his conscience too clean.”
We were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come through the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome struggle for all concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and all had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were thoroughly vexed and dissatisfied.
However, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day’s work. This was done — March 17th. Early in the sitting a notable trap was set for Joan:
“Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and deeds, whether good or bad?”
That was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should heedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon trial, and one would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she should say no, she would render herself chargeable with the crime of heresy.
But she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of separation between the Church’s authority over her as a subject member, and the matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was ready to support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to the works done under her mission, those must be judged by God alone, who had commanded them to be done.
The judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the Church. She said:
“I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that He and His Church are one, and that there should be no difficulty about this matter.” Then she turned upon the judge and said, “Why do you make a difficulty when there is no room for any?”
Then Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one Church. There were two — the Church Triumphant, which is God, the saints, the angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heaven; and the Church Militant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates, the clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, the which Church has its seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err. “Will you not submit those matters to the Church Militant?”
“I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by its commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those things which I have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer now.”
The court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to get profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present, and a long chase was then made over the old hunting-ground — the fairies, the visions, the male attire, and all that.
In the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided over the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the finish, this question was asked by one of the judges:
“You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you would answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet there are several questions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not answer the Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais? Would you not feel obliged to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God, more fully?”
Now a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky:
“Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to.”
It made the Bishop’s purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop’s schemes to the four winds of heaven, and she didn’t know it. She had made that speech by mere instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it, and there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew; and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none was allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat, once more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was miserably worn and tired, by the long day’s struggle and by illness, or she must have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason of it.
She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted in it Cauchon’s plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of cards, and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of the century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up against that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor thing, and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty.
