The Life of Joan of Arc Part 115

[Footnote 2509: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 14; vol. iii, p. 148.]

In the castle yard is Maitre Andre Marguerie, bachelor in decrees, archdeacon of Pet.i.t-Caux, King's Counsellor,[2510] who is inquiring what has happened. He had displayed great a.s.siduity in the trial. The Maid he held to be a crafty damsel.[2511] Now again he desired to give an expert's judgment touching what had just occurred.

[Footnote 2510: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 82 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2511: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 354.]

"That Jeanne is to be seen dressed as a man is not everything," he said. "We must know what motives induced her to resume masculine attire."

Maitre Andre Marguerie was an eloquent orator, one of the shining lights of the Council of Constance. But, when a man-at-arms raised his axe against him and called out "Traitor! Armagnac!" Maitre Marguerie asked no further questions, but speedily departed, and went to bed very sick.[2512]

[Footnote 2512: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 158, 180.]

The next day, Monday the 25th, there came to the castle the Vice-Inquisitor, accompanied by divers doctors and masters. The Registrar, Messire Guillaume Manchon, was summoned. He was such a coward that he dared not come save under the escort of one of the Earl of Warwick's men-at-arms.[2513] They found Jeanne wearing man's apparel, jerkin and short tunic, with a hood covering her shaved head.

Her face was in tears and disfigured by terrible suffering.[2514]

[Footnote 2513: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 454; vol. iii, p. 148.]

[Footnote 2514: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 5. Isambart's evidence refers to this day, the 28th.]

She was asked when and why she had a.s.sumed this attire.

She replied: "'Tis but now that I have donned man's dress and put off woman's."

"Wherefore did you put it on and who made you?"

"I put it on of my own will and without constraint. I had liefer wear man's dress than woman's."

"You promised and swore not to wear man's dress."

"I never meant to take an oath not to wear it."

"Wherefore did you return to it?"

"Because it is more seemly to take it and wear man's dress, being amongst men, than to wear woman's dress.... I returned to it because the promise made me was not kept, to wit, that I should go to ma.s.s and should receive my Saviour and be loosed from my bonds."

"Did you not abjure, and promise not to return to this dress?"

"I had liefer die than be in bonds. But if I be allowed to go to ma.s.s and taken out of my bonds and put in a prison of grace, and given a woman to be with me, I will be good and do as the Church shall command."

"Have you heard your Voices since Thursday?"

"Yes."

"What did they say unto you?"

"They told me that through Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret G.o.d gave me to wit his sore pity for the treachery, to which I consented in abjuring and recanting to save my life, and that in saving my life I was losing my soul. Before Thursday my Voices had told me what I should do and what I did do on that day. On the scaffold my Voices told me to reply boldly to the preacher. He is a false preacher....

Many things did he say that I have never done. If I were to say that G.o.d has not sent me I should be d.a.m.ned. It is true that G.o.d has sent me. My Voices have since told me that by confessing I committed a great wickedness which I ought never to have done. All that I said I uttered through fear of the fire."[2515]

[Footnote 2515: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 455-457.]

Thus spake Jeanne in sore sorrow. And now what becomes of those monkish tales of attempted violence related long afterwards by a registrar and two churchmen?[2516] And how can Messire Ma.s.sieu make us believe that Jeanne, unable to find her petticoats, put on her hose in order not to appear before her guards unclothed?[2517] The truth is very different. It is Jeanne herself who confesses bravely and simply.

She repented of her abjuration, as of the greatest sin she had ever committed. She could not forgive herself for having lied through fear of death. Her Voices, who, before the sermon at Saint-Ouen had foretold that she would deny them, now came to her and spoke of "the sore pity of her treachery." Could they say otherwise since they were the voices of her own heart? And could Jeanne fail to listen to them since she had always listened to them whenever they had counselled her to sacrifice and self-abnegation?

[Footnote 2516: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 5, 8, 365; vol. iii, pp. 148, 149.]

[Footnote 2517: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 18.]

It was out of obedience to her heavenly _Council_ that Jeanne had returned to man's apparel, because she would not purchase her life at the price of denying the Angel and the Saints, and because with her whole heart and soul she rebelled against her recantation.

Still the English were seriously to blame for having left her man's clothes. It would have been more humane to have taken them from her, since if she wore them she must needs die. They had been put in a bag.[2518] Her guards may even be suspected of having tempted her by placing under her very eyes those garments which recalled to her days of happiness. They had taken away all her few possessions, even her poor bra.s.s ring, everything save that suit which meant death to her.

[Footnote 2518: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 18.]

To blame also were her ecclesiastical judges who should not have sentenced her to imprisonment if they foresaw that they could not place her in an ecclesiastical prison, nor have commanded her a penance which they knew they were unable to enforce. Likewise to blame were the Bishop of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor; because after having, for the good of her sinful soul, prescribed the bread of bitterness and the water of affliction, they gave her not this bread and this water, but delivered her in disgrace into the hands of her cruel enemies.

When she uttered the words, "G.o.d by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hath given me to wit the sore pity of the treason to which I consented," Jeanne consummated the sacrifice of her life.[2519]

[Footnote 2519: "_Responsio mortifera_," wrote the notary Boisguillaume in the margin of his minutes. _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 456, 457.]

The Bishop and the Inquisitor had now to proceed in conformity with the law. The interrogatory however lasted a few moments longer.

"Do you believe that your Voices are Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine?"

"Yes, and they come from G.o.d."

"Tell us the truth touching the crown."

"To the best of my knowledge I told you the truth of everything at the trial."

"On the scaffold, at the time of your abjuration, you did acknowledge before us your judges and before many others, and in the presence of the people, that you had falsely boasted your Voices to be those of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret."

"I did not mean thus to do or to say. I did not deny, neither did I intend to deny, my apparitions and to say that they were not Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine. All that I have said was through fear of the fire, and I recanted nothing that was not contrary to the truth. I had liefer do my penance once and for all, to wit by dying, than endure further anguish in prison. Whatsoever abjuration I have been forced to make, I never did anything against G.o.d and religion. I did not understand what was in the deed of abjuration, wherefore I did not mean to abjure anything unless it were Our Lord's will. If the judges wish I will resume my woman's dress. But nothing else will I do."[2520]

[Footnote 2520: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 456-458.]

Coming out of the prison, my Lord of Beauvais met the Earl of Warwick accompanied by many persons. He said to him: "Farewell. _Faites bonne chere._" It is said that he added, laughing: "It is done! We have caught her."[2521] The words are his, doubtless, but we are not certain that he laughed.

[Footnote 2521: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 5, 8, 305.]

On the morrow, Tuesday the 29th, he a.s.sembled the tribunal in the chapel of the Archbishop's house. The forty-two a.s.sessors present were informed of what had happened on the previous day and invited to state their opinions, the nature of which might easily be antic.i.p.ated.[2522]

Every heretic who retracted his confession was held a perjurer, not only impenitent but relapsed. And the relapsed were given up to the secular arm.[2523]

[Footnote 2522: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 459, 467.]

[Footnote 2523: Bernard Gui, _Pratique_, part iii, p. 144. L. Tanon, _Tribunaux de l'inquisition_, pp. 464 _et seq._]

Maitre Nicholas de Venderes, canon, archdeacon, was the first to state his opinion.