Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume II Part 17

As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She showed no temper this time. She considered herself well b.u.t.tressed by the proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate and creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and added, in a spirit of fairness and candor:

"But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the whole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope."

Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them could be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously shirked the question of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it being clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was an opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He asked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way:

"Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?"

The house took an att.i.tude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the answer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it covered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived even me, so innocent it seemed:

"Are there two?"

One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:

"By G.o.d, it was a master stroke!"

As soon as the judge was better of his embarra.s.sment he came back to the charge, but was prudent and pa.s.sed by Joan's question:

"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?"

"Yes, and answered it."

Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count's letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:

"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest."

She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.

"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he ought to obey"; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, "but as for me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome."

The matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan's first effort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the English to retire from the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly a great and fine production for an unpractised girl of seventeen.

"Do you acknowledge as your own the doc.u.ment which has just been read?"

"Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give myself too much importance." I saw what was coming; I was troubled and ashamed. "For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez au la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I did not call myself 'Commander-in-Chief' (chef de guerre). All those are words which my secretary subst.i.tuted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot what I said."

She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that embarra.s.sment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten.

I changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and ent.i.tled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and who was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that time a stick, a cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the n.o.ble Maid of Vaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck a blow.

Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me) there, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of that piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present--and not only present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but destined at a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions smuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!

"Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?"

"I do."

"Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?"

Ah, then she was indignant!

"No! Not even these chains"--and she shook them--"not even these chains can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!"--she rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words burst forth as in a flood--"I warn you now that before seven years a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of Orleans! and--"

"Silence! Sit down!"

"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!"

Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The French cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this, Joan made that prophecy--made it with perfect confidence--and it came true. For within five years Paris fell--1436--and our King marched into it flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then fulfilled--in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was a.s.sured.

Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town--Calais.

Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that, with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, "I give you twenty years to do it in."

She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish it.

Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns up correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's prophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to this day.

Twenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in the great Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon and me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the record in their testimony.

Joan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and awful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from h.e.l.l or comes down from heaven.

All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it was genuine and puissant.

They would have given their right hands to know the source of it.

At last the questions began again.

"How do you know that those things are going to happen?"

"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit here before me."

This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness.

Therefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of the way and took up one which he could enjoy more.

"What languages do your Voices speak?"

"French."

"St. Marguerite, too?"

"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!"

Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave affront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt, but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it against her; which they did. It might be useful by and by.

"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings, earrings?"

To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of serious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to her mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:

"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity.

You have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me.

If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church."