The Life of Joan of Arc Part 116

"Jeanne is and must be held a heretic. She must be delivered to the secular authority."[2524]

[Footnote 2524: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 462, 463.]

The Lord Abbot of Fecamp expressed his opinion in the following terms: "Jeanne has relapsed. Nevertheless it is well that the terms of her abjuration once read to her, be read a second time and explained, and that at the same time she be reminded of G.o.d's word. This done, it is for us, her judges, to declare her a heretic and to abandon her to the secular authority, entreating it to deal leniently with her."[2525]

[Footnote 2525: _Ibid._, p. 463.]

This plea for leniency was a mere matter of form. If the Provost of Rouen had taken it into consideration he also would have been excommunicated, with a further possibility of temporal punishment.[2526]

And yet there were certain counsellors who even wished to dispense with this empty show of pity, urging that there was no need for such a supplication.

[Footnote 2526: L. Tanon, _Tribunaux de l'inquisition_, pp. 472, 473.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard and sundry other a.s.sessors, among whom were Maitres Marguerie, Loiseleur, Pierre Maurice, and Brother Martin Ladvenu, were of the opinion of my Lord Abbot of Fecamp.[2527]

[Footnote 2527: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 463, 467.]

Maitre Thomas de Courcelles advised the woman being again charitably admonished touching the salvation of her soul.

Such likewise was the opinion of Brother Isambart de la Pierre.[2528]

[Footnote 2528: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 466.]

The Lord Bishop, having listened to these opinions, concluded that Jeanne must be proceeded against as one having relapsed. Accordingly he summoned her to appear on the morrow, the 30th of May, in the old Market Square.[2529]

[Footnote 2529: _Ibid._, pp. 467, 469.]

On the morning of that Wednesday, the 30th of May, by the command of my Lord of Beauvais, the two young friars preachers, bachelors in theology, Brother Martin Ladvenu and Brother Isambart de la Pierre, went to Jeanne in her prison. Brother Martin told her that she was to die that day.

At the approach of this cruel death, amidst the silence of her Voices, she understood at length that she would not be delivered. Cruelly awakened from her dream, she felt heaven and earth failing her, and fell into a deep despair.

"Alas!" she cried, "shall so terrible a fate betide me as that my body ever pure and intact shall to-day be burned and reduced to ashes? Ah me! Ah me! Liefer would I be seven times beheaded than thus be burned.

Alas! had I been in the prison of the Church, to which I submitted, and guarded by ecclesiastics and not by my foes and adversaries, so woeful a misfortune as this would not have befallen me. Oh! I appeal to G.o.d, the great judge, against this violence and these sore wrongs with which I am afflicted."[2530]

[Footnote 2530: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 3, 4 (evidence of Brother Isambart de la Pierre). _Ibid._, p. 8 (evidence of Brother Martin Ladvenu).]

While she was lamenting, the doctors and masters, Nicolas de Venderes, Pierre Maurice and Nicolas Loiseleur, entered the prison; they came by order of my Lord of Beauvais.[2531] On the previous day thirty-nine counsellers out of forty-two, declaring that Jeanne had relapsed, had added that they deemed it well she should be reminded of the terms of her abjuration.[2532] Wherefore, according to the counsel of these clerics, the Lord Bishop had sent certain learned doctors to the relapsed heretic and had resolved to come to her himself.

[Footnote 2531: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 481. (In the Introduction I have given my reasons for regarding the information given after the death of the Maid as possessing great historical significance.)]

[Footnote 2532: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 462-467.]

She must needs submit to one last examination.

"Do you believe that your Voices and apparitions come from good or from evil spirits?"

"I know not; but I appeal to my Mother the Church."[2533]

[Footnote 2533: _Ibid._, p. 479. Or "to such of you as are churchmen."

_Ibid._, p. 482 (information furnished after her death).]

Maitre Pierre Maurice, a reader of Terence and Virgil, was filled with pity for this hapless Maid.[2534] On the previous day he had declared her to have relapsed because his knowledge of theology forced him to it; and now he was concerned for the salvation of this soul in peril, which could not be saved except by recognising the falseness of its Voices.

[Footnote 2534: Robillard de Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_.]

"Are they indeed real?" he asked her.

She replied, "Whether they be good or bad, they appeared to me."

She affirmed that with her eyes she had seen, with her ears heard, the Voices and apparitions which had been spoken of at the trial.

She heard them most frequently, she said, at the hour of compline and of matins, when the bells were ringing.[2535]

[Footnote 2535: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 480.]

Maitre Pierre Maurice, being the Pope's secretary, was debarred from openly professing the Pyrrhonic philosophy. He inclined, however, to a rational interpretation of natural phenomena, if we may judge from his remarking to Jeanne that the ringing of bells often sounded like voices.

Without describing the exact form of her apparitions, Jeanne said they came to her in a great mult.i.tude and were very tiny. She believed in them no longer, being fully persuaded that they had deceived her.

Maitre Pierre Maurice asked about the Angel who had brought the crown.

She replied that there had never been a crown save that promised by her to her King, and that the Angel was herself.[2536]

[Footnote 2536: _Ibid._, pp. 480, 481 (information furnished after her death).]

At that moment the Lord Bishop of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor entered the prison, accompanied by Maitre Thomas de Courcelles and Maitre Jacques Lecamus.[2537]

[Footnote 2537: _Ibid._, pp. 482, 483.]

At the sight of the Judge who had brought her to such a pa.s.s she cried, "Bishop, I die through you."

He replied by piously admonishing her. "Ah! Jeanne, bear all in patience. You die because you have not kept your promise and have returned to evil-doing.[2538] Now, Jeanne," he asked her, "you have always said that your Voices promised you deliverance; you behold how they have deceived you, wherefore tell us the truth."

[Footnote 2538: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 114 (evidence of Brother Jehan Toutmouille).]

She replied, "Verily, I see that they have deceived me."[2539]

[Footnote 2539: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 481, 482 (information given after Jeanne's death).]

The Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor withdrew. They had triumphed over a poor girl of twenty.

"If after their condemnation heretics repent, and if the signs of their repentance are manifest, the sacraments of confession and the eucharist may not be denied them, provided they demand them with humility."[2540] Thus ran the sacred decretals. But no recantation, no a.s.surance of conformity, could save the relapsed heretic. He was permitted confession, absolution, and communion; which means that at the bar of the Sacrament the sincerity of his repentance and conversion was believed in. But at the same time it was declared judicially that his repentance was not believed in and that consequently he must die.[2541]

[Footnote 2540: _Textus decretalium_, lib. v, ch. iv.]

[Footnote 2541: Ignace de Doellinger, _La Papaute_, traduit par A.

Giraud-Teulon, Paris, 1904, in 8vo, p. 105.]

Brother Martin Ladvenu heard Jeanne's confession. Then he sent Messire Ma.s.sieu, the Usher, to my Lord of Beauvais, to inform him that she asked to be given the body of Jesus Christ.