The Life of Joan of Arc Part 114

Whereupon Jeanne said that she would liefer sign than be burned.[2489]

[Footnote 2489: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 156, 197.]

Then straightway Messire Jean Ma.s.sieu gave her a second reading of the deed of abjuration. And she repeated the words after the Usher. As she spoke her countenance seemed to express a kind of sneer. It may have been that her features were contracted by the violent emotions which swayed her and that the horrors and tortures of an ecclesiastical trial may have overclouded her reason, subject at all times to strange vagaries, and that after such bitter suffering there may have come upon her the actual paroxysm of madness. On the other hand it may have been that with sound sense and calm mind she was mocking at the clerks of Rouen; she was quite capable of it, for she had mocked at the clerks of Poitiers. At any rate she had a jesting air, and the bystanders noticed that she p.r.o.nounced the words of her abjuration with a smile.[2490] And her gaiety, whether real or apparent, roused the wrath of those burgesses, priests, artisans, and men-at-arms who desired her death.

[Footnote 2490: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 338; vol. iii, p. 147.]

"'Tis all a mockery. Jeanne doth but jest,"[2491] they cried.

[Footnote 2491: _Ibid._, pp. 55, 143.]

Among the most irate was Master Lawrence Calot, Secretary to the King of England. He was seen to be in a violent rage and to approach first the judge and then the accused. A n.o.ble of Picardy who was present, the very same who had essayed familiarities with Jeanne in the Castle of Beaurevoir, thought he saw this Englishman forcing Jeanne to sign a paper.[2492] He was mistaken. In every crowd there are those who see things that never happen. The Bishop would not have permitted such a thing; he was devoted to the Regent, but on a question of form he would never have given way. Meanwhile, under this storm of insults, amidst the throwing of stones and the clashing of swords, these ill.u.s.trious masters, these worthy doctors grew pale. The Prior of Longueville was awaiting an opportunity to make an apology to the Cardinal of Winchester.[2493]

[Footnote 2492: _Ibid._, p. 123.]

[Footnote 2493: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 361. J. Quicherat, _Apercus nouveaux_, p. 135.]

On the platform a chaplain of the Cardinal violently accused the Lord Bishop. "You do wrong to accept such an abjuration. 'Tis a mere mockery," he said.

"You lie," retorted my Lord Pierre. "I, the judge of a religious suit, ought to seek the salvation of this woman rather than her death."

The Cardinal silenced his chaplain.[2494]

[Footnote 2494: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 147, 156.]

It is said that the Earl of Warwick came up to the judges and complained of what they had done, adding: "The King is not well served, since Jeanne escapes."

And it is stated that one of them replied: "Have no fear, my Lord. She will not escape us long."[2495]

[Footnote 2495: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 376.]

It is hardly credible that any one should have actually said so, but doubtless there were many at that time who thought it.

With what scorn must the Bishop of Beauvais have regarded those dull minds, incapable of understanding the service he was rendering to Old England by forcing this damsel to acknowledge that all she had declared and maintained in honour of her King was but lying and illusion.

With a pen that Ma.s.sieu gave her Jeanne made a cross at the bottom of the deed.[2496]

[Footnote 2496: _Ibid._, p. 17; vol. iii, p. 164.]

In the midst of howls and oaths from the English, my Lord of Beauvais read the more merciful of the sentences. It relieved Jeanne from excommunication and reconciled her to Holy Mother Church.[2497] Further the sentence ran:

"... Because thou hast rashly sinned against G.o.d and Holy Church, we, thy judges, that thou mayest do salutary penance, out of our Grace and moderation, do condemn thee finally and definitely to perpetual prison, with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, so that there thou mayest weep over thy offences and commit no other that may be an occasion of weeping."[2498]

[Footnote 2497: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 450, 452.]

[Footnote 2498: _Ibid._, p. 452.]

This penalty, like all other penalties, save death and mutilation, lay within the power of ecclesiastical judges. They inflicted it so frequently that in the early days of the Holy Inquisition, the Fathers of the Council of Narbonne said that stones and mortar would become as scarce as money.[2499] It was a penalty doubtless, but one which in character and significance differed from the penalties inflicted by secular courts; it was a penance. According to the mercy of ecclesiastical law, prison was a place suitable for repentance, where, in one perpetual penance, the condemned might eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction.

[Footnote 2499: L. Tanon, _Tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p. 454.]

How foolish was he, who by refusing to enter that prison or by escaping from it, should reject the salutary healing of his soul! By so doing he was fleeing from the gentle tribunal of penance, and the Church in sadness cut him off from the communion of the faithful. By inflicting this penalty, which a good Catholic must needs regard rather as a favour than a punishment, my Lord the Bishop and my Lord the Holy Vicar of the Inquisition were conforming to the custom, whereby our Holy Mother Church became reconciled to heretics. But had they power to execute their sentence? The prison to which they condemned Jeanne, the expiatory prison, the salutary confinement, must be in a dungeon of the Church. Could they send her there?

Jeanne, turning towards them, said: "Now, you Churchmen, take me to your prison. Let me be no longer in the hands of the English."[2500]

[Footnote 2500: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 14.]

Many of those clerics had promised it to her.[2501] They had deceived her. They knew it was not possible; for it had been stipulated that the King of England's men should resume possession of Jeanne after the trial.[2502]

[Footnote 2501: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 52, 149.]

[Footnote 2502: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 19.]

The Lord Bishop gave the order: "Take her back to the place whence you brought her."[2503]

[Footnote 2503: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 14.]

He, a judge of the Church, committed the crime of surrendering the Church's daughter reconciled and penitent, to laymen. Among them she could not mourn over her sins; and they, hating her body and caring nought for her soul, were to tempt her and cause her to fall back into error.

While Jeanne was being taken back in the cart to her tower in the fields, the soldiers insulted her and their captains did not rebuke them.[2504]

[Footnote 2504: _Ibid._, p. 376.]

Thereafter, the Vice-Inquisitor and with him divers doctors and masters, went to her prison and charitably exhorted her. She promised to wear woman's apparel, and to let her head be shaved.[2505]

[Footnote 2505: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 452-453.]

The d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, knowing that she was a virgin, saw to it that she was treated with respect.[2506] As the ladies of Luxembourg had done formerly, she essayed to persuade her to wear the clothing of her s.e.x. By a certain tailor, one Jeannotin Simon, she had had made for Jeanne a gown which she had hitherto refused to wear. Jeannotin brought the garment to the prisoner, who this time did not refuse it.

In putting it on, Jeannotin touched her bosom, which she resented. She boxed his ears;[2507] but she consented to wear the gown provided by the d.u.c.h.ess.

[Footnote 2506: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 155.]

[Footnote 2507: _Ibid._, p. 89.]

CHAPTER XIV

THE TRIAL FOR RELAPSE--SECOND SENTENCE--DEATH OF THE MAID

On the following Sunday, which was Trinity Sunday, there arose a rumour that Jeanne had resumed man's apparel. The report spread rapidly from the castle down the narrow streets where lived the clerks in the shadow of the cathedral. Straightway notaries and a.s.sessors hastened to the tower which looked on the fields.

In the outer court of the castle they found some hundred men-at-arms, who welcomed them with threats and curses.[2508] These fellows did not yet understand that the judges had conducted the trial so as to bring honour to old England and dishonour to the French. They did not realise what it meant when the Maid of the Armagnacs, who hitherto had obstinately persisted in her utterances, was at length brought to confess her impostures. They did not see how great was the advantage to their country when it was published abroad throughout the world that Charles of Valois had been conducted to his coronation by a heretic. But no, the only idea these brutes were capable of grasping was the burning of the girl prisoner who had struck terror into their hearts. The doctors and masters they treated as traitors, false counsellors and Armagnacs.[2509]

[Footnote 2508: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 148.]