The Life of Joan of Arc Part 110

[Footnote 2423: _Ibid._, pp. 381, 382.]

[Footnote 2424: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 114, 117.]

Jeanne replied as before.[2425] On the morrow, Thursday, the 3rd of May, the day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her. She was not sure whether she had seen him before. But this time she had no doubt. Her Voices told her that it was he, and she was greatly comforted.

[Footnote 2425: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 383, 399.]

That same day she asked her Voices whether she should submit to the Church and obey the exhortation of the clerics.

Her Voices replied: "If thou desirest help from Our Lord, then submit to him all thy doings."

Jeanne wanted to know from her Voices whether she would be burned.

Her Voices told her to wait upon the Lord and he would help her.[2426]

This mystic aid strengthened Jeanne's heart.

[Footnote 2426: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 400, 401.]

Among heretics and those possessed, such obstinacy as hers was not unparalleled. Ecclesiastical judges were well acquainted with the stiff-neckedness of women who had been deceived by the Devil. In order to force them to tell the truth, when admonitions and exhortations failed, recourse was had to torture. And even such a measure did not always succeed. Many of these wicked females (_mulierculae_) endured the cruellest suffering with a constancy pa.s.sing the ordinary strength of human nature. The doctors would not believe such constancy to be natural; they attributed it to the machinations of the Evil One. The devil was capable of protecting his servants even when they had fallen into the hands of judges of the Church; he granted them strength to bear the torture in silence. This strength was called the gift of taciturnity.[2427]

[Footnote 2427: Nicolas Eymeric, _Directorium inquisitorium...._ Rome, 1586, in fol. p. 24, col. 1. Ludovicus a Paramo, _De origine et progressu officii sanctae inquisitionis_, MDXCIIX, in fol., lib. III, questio 5, p. 709.]

On Wednesday, the 9th of May, Jeanne was taken to the great tower of the castle, into the torture-chamber. There my Lord of Beauvais, in the presence of the Vice Inquisitor and nine doctors and masters, read her the articles, to which she had hitherto refused to reply; and he threatened her that if she did not confess the whole truth she would be put to the torture.[2428]

[Footnote 2428: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 399.]

The instruments were prepared; the two executioners, Mauger Leparmentier, a married clerk, and his companion, were in readiness close by her, awaiting the Bishop's orders.

Six days before Jeanne had received great comfort from her Voices. Now she replied resolutely: "Verily, if you were to tear my limbs asunder and drive my soul out of my body, naught else would I tell you, and if I did say anything unto you, I would always maintain afterwards that you had dragged it from me by force."[2429]

[Footnote 2429: _Ibid._, pp. 399, 400.]

My Lord of Beauvais decided to defer the torture, fearing that it would do no good to so hardened a subject.[2430] On the following Sat.u.r.day, he deliberated in his house, with the Vice-Inquisitor and thirteen doctors and masters; opinion was divided. Maitre Raoul Roussel advised that Jeanne should not be tortured lest ground for complaint should be given against a trial so carefully conducted. It would seem that he antic.i.p.ated the Devil's granting Jeanne the gift of taciturnity, whereby in diabolical silence she would be able to brave the tortures of the Holy Inquisition. On the other hand Maitre Aubert Morel, licentiate in canon law, counsellor to the Official of Rouen, Canon of the Cathedral, and Maitre Thomas de Courcelles, deemed it expedient to apply torture. Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur, master of arts, Canon of Rouen, whose share in the proceedings had been to act Saint Catherine and the Lorraine shoemaker, had no very decided opinion on the subject, still it seemed to him by no means unprofitable that Jeanne for her soul's welfare should be tortured. The majority of doctors and masters agreed that for the present there was no need to subject her to this trial. Some gave no reasons, others alleged that it behoved them yet once again to warn her charitably. Maitre Guillaume Erard, doctor in theology, held that sufficient material for the p.r.o.nouncing of a sentence existed already.[2431] Thus among those, who spared Jeanne the torture, were to be found the least merciful; for the spirit of ecclesiastical tribunals was such that to refuse to torture an accused was in certain cases to refuse him mercy.

[Footnote 2430: _Ibid._, pp. 401, 402.]

[Footnote 2431: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 402, 404.]

To the trial of Marguerite la Porete, the judges summoned no experts.[2432] Touching the charges held as proven, they submitted a written report to the University of Paris. The University gave its opinion on everything but the truth of the charges. This reservation was merely formal, and the decision of the University had the force of a sentence. In Jeanne's trial this precedent was cited. On the 21st of April, Maitre Jean Beaupere, Maitre Jacques de Touraine and Maitre Nicolas Midi left Rouen, and, at the risk of being attacked on the road by men-at-arms, journeyed to Paris in order to present the twelve articles to their colleagues of the University.

[Footnote 2432: _Recueil des historiens de la France_, vol. xx, p. 601; vol. xxi, p. 34. _Histoire litteraire de la France_, vol. xxvii, p.

70.]

On the 28th of April, the University, meeting in its general a.s.sembly at Saint-Bernard, charged the Holy Faculty of Theology and the Venerable Faculty of Decrees with the examination of the twelve articles.[2433]

[Footnote 2433: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 407, 413, 420. M. Fournier, _La faculte de decret de l'Universite de Paris_, p. 353. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, vol. iv, pp. 510 _et seq._]

On the 14th of May, the deliberations of the two Faculties were submitted to all the Faculties in solemn a.s.sembly, who ratified them and made them their own. The University then sent them to King Henry, beseeching his Royal Majesty to execute justice promptly, in order that the people, so greatly scandalised by this woman, be brought back to good doctrine and holy faith.[2434] It is worthy of notice that in a trial, in which the Pope, represented by the Vice-Inquisitor, was one judge, and the King, represented by the Bishop, another, the Eldest Daughter of Kings[2435] should have communicated directly with the King of France, the guardian of her privileges.

[Footnote 2434: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 407, 408. U. Chevalier, _L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 42.]

[Footnote 2435: The University of Paris (W.S.).]

According to the Sacred Faculty of Theology, Jeanne's apparitions were fict.i.tious, lying, deceptive, inspired by devils. The sign given to the King was a presumptuous and pernicious lie, derogatory to the dignity of angels. Jeanne's belief in the visitations of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret was an error rash and injurious because Jeanne placed it on the same plane as the truths of religion. Jeanne's predictions were but superst.i.tions, idle divinations and vain boasting. Her statement that she wore man's dress by the command of G.o.d was blasphemy, a violation of divine law and ecclesiastical sanction, a contemning of the sacraments and tainted with idolatry. In the letters she had dictated, Jeanne appeared treacherous, perfidious, cruel, sanguinary, seditious, blasphemous and in favour of tyranny. In setting out for France she had broken the commandment to honour father and mother, she had given an occasion for scandal, she had committed blasphemy and had fallen from the faith. In the leap from Beaurevoir, she had displayed a pusillanimity bordering on despair and homicide; and, moreover, it had caused her to utter rash statements touching the remission of her sin and erroneous p.r.o.nouncements concerning free will. By proclaiming her confidence in her salvation, she uttered presumptuous and pernicious lies; by saying that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret did not speak English, she blasphemed these saints and violated the precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour." The honours she rendered these saints were nought but idolatry and the worship of devils. Her refusal to submit her doings to the Church tended to schism, to the denial of the unity and authority of the Church and to apostasy.[2436]

[Footnote 2436: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 414, 419.]

The doctors of the Faculty of Theology were very learned. They knew who the three evil spirits were whom Jeanne in her delusion took for Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret. They were Belial, Satan, and Behemoth. Belial, worshipped by the people of Sidon, was sometimes represented as an angel of great beauty; he is the demon of disobedience. Satan is the Lord of h.e.l.l; and Behemoth is a dull, heavy creature, who feeds on hay like an ox.[2437]

[Footnote 2437: _Ibid._, p. 414. Migne, _Dictionnaire des sciences occultes_.]

The venerable Faculty of Decrees decided that this schismatic, this erring woman, this apostate, this liar, this soothsayer, be charitably exhorted and duly warned by competent judges, and that if notwithstanding she persisted in refusing to abjure her error, she must be given up to the secular arm to receive due chastis.e.m.e.nt.[2438]

Such were the deliberations and decisions which the Venerable University of Paris submitted to the examination and to the verdict of the Holy Apostolic See and of the sacrosanct General Council.

[Footnote 2438: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 417, 420.]

Meanwhile, where were the clerks of France? Had they nothing to say in this matter? Had they no decision to submit to the Pope and to the Council? Why did they not urge their opinions in opposition to those of the Faculties of Paris? Why did they keep silence? Jeanne demanded the record of the Poitiers trial. Wherefore did those Poitiers doctors, who had recommended the King to employ the Maid lest, by rejecting her, he should refuse the gift of the Holy Spirit, fail to send the record to Rouen?[2439] Before the Maid espoused their waning cause, these Poitiers doctors, these magistrates, these University professors banished from Paris, advocates and counsellors of an exiled Parlement, had not a robe to their backs nor shoes for their children.

Now, thanks to the Maid, they were every day regaining new hope and vigour. And yet they left her, who had so n.o.bly served their King, to be treated as a heretic and a reprobate. Where were Brother Pasquerel, Friar Richard, and all those churchmen who but lately surrounded her in France and who looked to go with her to the Crusade against the Bohemians and the Turks? Why did they not demand a safe-conduct and come and give evidence at the trial? Or at least why did they not send their evidence? Why did not the Archbishop of Embrun, who but recently gave such n.o.ble counsels to the King, send some written statement in favour of the Maid to the judges at Rouen? My Lord of Reims, Chancellor of the Kingdom, had said that she was proud but not heretical. Wherefore now, acting contrary to his own interests and honour, did he refrain from testifying in favour of her through whom he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not a.s.sert his right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in the administration of justice? Why did not the ill.u.s.trious clerics, whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale, undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics of the realm, with one voice demand an appeal to the Holy Father?

[Footnote 2439: From a theological point of view the record of the Poitiers trial may have been insignificant; but at any rate it contained the arguments presented to the King and the memoranda of Gelu and of Gerson.]

They all with one accord, as if struck dumb with astonishment, remained pa.s.sive and silent. Can they have feared that too searching a light would be cast on Jeanne's cause by that ill.u.s.trious University, that Sun of the Church, which was consulted on religious matters by all Christian states? Can they have suspected that this woman, who in France had been considered a saint, might after all have been inspired by the devil? But if what they had once believed they still held to be true, if they believed that the Maid had come from G.o.d to lead their King to his glorious coronation, then what are we to think of those clerks, those ecclesiastics who denied the Daughter of G.o.d, on the eve of her pa.s.sion?

CHAPTER XIII

THE ABJURATION--THE FIRST SENTENCE

On Sat.u.r.day, the 19th of May, the doctors and masters, to the number of fifty, a.s.sembled in the archiepiscopal chapel of Rouen. There they unanimously declared their agreement with the decision of the University of Paris; and my Lord of Beauvais ordained that a new charitable admonition be addressed to Jeanne.[2440] Accordingly, on Wednesday the 23rd, the Bishop, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the Promoter went to a room in the castle, near Jeanne's cell. They were accompanied by seven doctors and masters, by the Lord Bishop of Noyon and by the Lord Bishop of Therouanne.[2441] The latter, brother to Messire Jean de Luxembourg who had sold the Maid, was held one of the most notable personages of the Great Council of England; he was Chancellor of France for King Henry, as Messire Regnault de Chartres was for King Charles.[2442]

[Footnote 2440: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 404, 429.]

[Footnote 2441: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 429, 430.]

[Footnote 2442: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 126-127.]

The accused was brought in, and Maitre Pierre Maurice, doctor in theology, read to her the twelve articles as they had been abridged and commented upon, in conformity with the deliberations of the University; the whole was drawn up as a discourse addressed to Jeanne directly:[2443]

[Footnote 2443: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 430.]

ARTICLE I

First, Jeanne, thou saidst that at about the age of thirteen, thou didst receive revelations and behold apparitions of angels and of the Saints, Catherine and Margaret, that thou didst behold them frequently with thy bodily eyes, that they spoke unto thee and do still oftentimes speak unto thee, and that they have said unto thee many things that thou hast fully declared in thy trial.

The clerks of the University of Paris and others have considered the manner of these revelations and apparitions, their object, the substance of the things revealed, the person to whom they were revealed; all points touching them have they considered. And now they p.r.o.nounce these revelations and apparitions to be either lying fictions, deceptive and dangerous, or superst.i.tions, proceeding from spirits evil and devilish.