This deed the clerks declare thee to have committed through

cowardice turning to despair and probably to suicide. In

this matter likewise thou didst utter a rash and

presumptuous statement in asserting that thy sin is

forgiven, and thou dost err from the faith touching the

doctrine of free will.

ARTICLE IX

Item, thou hast said that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret

promised to lead thee to Paradise provided thou didst remain

a virgin; and that thou hadst vowed and promised them to

cherish thy virginity, and of that thou art as well assured

as if already thou hadst entered into the glory of the

Blessed. Thou believest that thou hast not committed mortal

sin. And it seemeth to thee that if thou wert in mortal sin

the saints would not visit thee daily as they do.

Such an assertion the clerks pronounce to be a pernicious

lie, presumptuous and rash, that therein lieth a

contradiction of what thou hadst previously said, and that

finally thy beliefs do err from the true Christian faith.

ARTICLE X

Item, thou hast declared it to be within thy knowledge that

God loveth certain living persons better than thee, and that

this thou hast learnt by revelation from Saint Catherine and

Saint Margaret: also that those saints speak French, not

English, since they are not on the side of the English. And

when thou knewest that thy Voices were for thy King, you

didst fall to disliking the Burgundians.

Such matters the clerks pronounce to be a rash and

presumptuous assertion, a superstitious divination, a

blasphemy uttered against Saint Catherine and Saint

Margaret, and a transgression of the commandment to love our

neighbours.

ARTICLE XI

Item, thou hast said that to those whom thou callest Saint

Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, thou didst do

reverence, bending the knee, taking off thy cap, kissing the

ground on which they trod, vowing to them thy virginity:

that in the instruction of these saints, whom thou didst

invoke and kiss and embrace, thou didst believe as soon as

they appeared unto thee, and without seeking counsel from

thy priest or from any other ecclesiastic. And,

notwithstanding, thou believest that these Voices came from

God as firmly as thou believest in the Christian religion

and the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover thou hast

said that did any evil spirit appear to thee in the form of

Saint Michael thou wouldest know such a spirit and

distinguish him from the saint. And again hast thou said,

that of thine own accord, thou hast sworn not to reveal the

sign thou gavest to thy King. And finally thou didst add:

"Save at God's command."

Now touching these matters, the clerks affirm that supposing

thou hast had the revelations and beheld the apparitions of

which thou boastest and in such a manner as thou dost say,

then art thou an idolatress, an invoker of demons, an

apostate from the faith, a maker of rash statements, a

swearer of an unlawful oath.

ARTICLE XII

Item, thou hast said that if the Church wished thee to

disobey the orders thou sayest God gave thee, nothing would

induce thee to do it; that thou knowest that all the deeds

of which thou hast been accused in thy trial were wrought

according to the command of God and that it was impossible

for thee to do otherwise. Touching these deeds, thou dost

refuse to submit to the judgment of the Church on earth or

of any living man, and will submit therein to God alone. And

moreover thou didst declare this reply itself not to be made

of thine own accord but by God's command; despite the

article of faith: _Unam sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam_,

having been many times declared unto thee, and

notwithstanding that it behoveth all Christians to submit

their deeds and sayings to the Church militant especially

concerning revelations and such like matters.

Wherefore the clerks declare thee to be schismatic,

disbelieving in the unity and authority of the Church,

apostate and obstinately erring from the faith.[2444]

[Footnote 2444: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 430, 437.]

Having completed the reading of the articles, Maitre Pierre Maurice,

on the invitation of the Bishop, proceeded to exhort Jeanne. He had

been rector of the University of Paris in 1428.[2445] He was esteemed

an orator. He it was who, on the 5th of June, had discoursed in the

name of the chapter, before King Henry VI on the occasion of his

entering Rouen. He would seem to have been distinguished by some

knowledge of and taste for ancient letters, and to have been possessed

of precious manuscripts, amongst which were the comedies of Terence

and the _AEneid_ of Virgil.[2446]

[Footnote 2445: Du Boulay, _Historia Universitatis Parisiensis_, vol.

v, p. 929.]

[Footnote 2446: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, p. 88.]

In terms of calculated simplicity did this illustrious doctor call

upon Jeanne to reflect on the effects of her words and sayings, and

tenderly did he exhort her to submit to the Church. After the wormwood

he offered her the honey; he spoke to her in words kind and familiar.

With remarkable adroitness he entered into the feelings and

inclinations of the maiden's heart. Seeing her filled with knightly

enthusiasm and loyalty to King Charles, whose coronation was her

doing, he drew his comparisons from chivalry, thereby essaying to

prove to her that she ought rather to believe in the Church Militant

than in her Voices and apparitions.

"If your King," he said to her, "had appointed you to defend a

fortress, forbidding you to let any one enter it, would you not refuse

to admit whomsoever claiming to come from him did not present letters

and some other token. Likewise, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, on his

ascension into heaven, committed to the Blessed Apostle Peter and to

his successors the government of his Church, he forbade them to

receive such as claimed to come in his name but brought no

credentials."

And, to bring home to her how grievous a sin it was to disobey the

Church, he recalled the time when she waged war, and put the case of a

knight who should disobey his king:

"When you were in your King's dominion," he said to her, "if a knight

or some other owing fealty to him had arisen, saying, 'I will not obey

the King; I will not submit either to him or to his officers,' would

you not have said, 'He is a man to be censured'? What say you then of

yourself, you who, engendered in Christ's religion, having become by

baptism the daughter of the Church and the bride of Christ, dost now

refuse obedience to the officers of Christ, that is, to the prelates

of the Church?"[2447]

[Footnote 2447: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 437, 441.]

Thus did Maitre Pierre Maurice endeavour to make Jeanne understand

him. He did not succeed. Against the courage of this child all the

reasons and all the eloquence of the world would have availed nothing.

When Maitre Pierre had finished speaking, Jeanne, being asked whether

she did not hold herself bound to submit her deeds and sayings to the

Church, replied:

"What I have always held and said in the trial that will I

maintain.... If I were condemned and saw the fagots lighted, and the

executioner ready to stir the fire, and I in the fire, I would say and

maintain till I died nought other than what I said during the trial."

At these words the Bishop declared the discussion at an end, and

deferred the pronouncing of the sentence till the morrow.[2448]

[Footnote 2448: _Ibid._, pp. 441, 442.]

The next day, the Thursday after Whitsuntide and the 24th day of May,

early in the morning, Maitre Jean Beaupere visited Jeanne in her

prison and warned her that she would be shortly taken to the scaffold

to hear a sermon.

"If you are a good Christian," he said, "you will agree to submit all

your deeds and sayings to Holy Mother Church, and especially to the

ecclesiastical judges."

Maitre Jean Beaupere thought he heard her reply, "So I will."[2449]

[Footnote 2449: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 21.]

If such were her answer, then it must have been because, worn out by a

flight of agony, her physical courage quailed at the thought of death

by burning.

Just when he was leaving her, as she stood near a door, Maitre Nicolas

Loiseleur gave her the same advice, and in order to induce her to

follow it, he made her a false promise:

"Jeanne, believe me," he said. "You have your deliverance in your own

hands. Wear the apparel of your sex, and do what shall be required of

you. Otherwise you stand in danger of death. If you do as I tell you,

good will come to you and no harm. You will be delivered into the

hands of the Church."[2450]

[Footnote 2450: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 146. De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur

les juges_, pp. 445 _et seq._]

She was taken in a cart and with an armed guard to that part of the

town called Bourg-l'Abbe, lying beneath the castle walls. And but a

short distance away the cart was stopped, in the cemetery of

Saint-Ouen, also called _les aitres[2451] Saint-Ouen_. Here a highly

popular fair was held every year on the feast day of the patron saint

of the Abbey.[2452] Here it was that Jeanne was to hear the sermon, as

so many other unhappy creatures had done before her. Places like this,

to which the folk could flock in crowds, were generally chosen for

these edifying spectacles. On the border of this vast charnel-house

for a hundred years there had towered a parish church, and on the

south there rose the nave of the abbey. Against the magnificent

edifice of the church two scaffolds had been erected,[2453] one large,

the other smaller. They were west of the porch which was called

_portail des Marmousets_, because of the multitudes of tiny figures

carved upon it.[2454]

[Footnote 2451: Old name for a cemetery close to a church. Godefroy,

_Lexique de l'ancien francais_ (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2452: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 351.]

[Footnote 2453: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 54.]

[Footnote 2454: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur le cimetiere de Saint-Ouen

de Rouen_, in _Precis analytique des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen_

1875-1876, pp. 211, 230, plan. U. Chevalier, _L'abjuration de Jeanne

d'Arc et l'authenticite de sa formule_, p. 44. A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne

d'Arc et la Normandie_, p. 351.]

On the great scaffold the two judges, the Lord Bishop and the

Vice-Inquisitor, took their places. They were assisted by the most

reverend Cardinal of Winchester, the Lord Bishops of Therouanne, of

Noyon, and of Norwich, the Lord Abbots of Fecamp, of Jumieges, of Bec,

of Corneilles, of Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, of Mortemart,

of Preaux, and of Saint-Ouen of Rouen, where the assembly was held,

the Priors of Longueville and of Saint-Lo, also many doctors and

bachelors in theology, doctors and licentiates in canon and civil

law.[2455] Likewise were there many high personages of the English

party. The other scaffold was a kind of pulpit. To it ascended the

doctor who, according to the use and custom of the Holy Inquisition

was to preach the sermon against Jeanne. He was Maitre Guillaume

Erard, doctor in theology, canon of the churches of Langres and of

Beauvais.[2456] At this time he was very eager to go to Flanders, where

he was urgently needed; and he confided to his young servitor,

Brother Jean de Lenisoles, that the preaching of this sermon caused

him great inconvenience. "I want to be in Flanders," he said. "This

affair is very annoying for me."[2457]

[Footnote 2455: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 442, 444. O'Reilly, _Les deux

proces_, vol. i, pp. 70-93.]

[Footnote 2456: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 402, 408.]

[Footnote 2457: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 113.]

From one point of view, however, he must have been pleased to perform

this duty, since it afforded him the opportunity of attacking the King

of France, Charles VII, and of thereby showing his devotion to the

English cause, to which he was strongly attached.

Jeanne, dressed as a man, was brought up and placed at his side,

before all the people.[2458]

[Footnote 2458: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 469, 470.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard began his sermon in the following manner:

"I take as my text the words of God in the Gospel of Saint John,

chapter xv: 'The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide

in the vine.'[2459] Thus it behoveth all Catholics to remain abiding in

Holy Mother Church, the true vine, which the hand of Our Lord Jesus

Christ hath planted. Now this Jeanne, whom you see before you, falling

from error into error, and from crime into crime, hath become separate

from the unity of Holy Mother Church and in a thousand manners hath

scandalised Christian people."

[Footnote 2459: _Ibid._, p. 444. E. Richer, _Histoire manuscrite de la

Pucelle d'Orleans_, bk. i, fol. 8; bk. ii, fol. 198, v'o.]

Then he reproached her with having failed, with having sinned against

royal Majesty and against God and the Catholic Faith; and all these

things must she henceforth eschew under pain of death by burning.

He declaimed vehemently against the pride of this woman. He said that

never had there appeared in France a monster so great as that which

was manifest in Jeanne; that she was a witch, a heretic, a schismatic,

and that the King, who protected her, risked the same reproach from

the moment that he became willing to recover his throne with the help

of such a heretic.[2460]

[Footnote 2460: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 61.]

Towards the middle of his sermon, he cried out with a loud voice:

"Ah! right terribly hast thou been deceived, noble house of France,

once the most Christian of houses! Charles, who calls himself thy head

and assumes the title of King hath, like a heretic and schismatic,

received the words of an infamous woman, abounding in evil works and

in all dishonour. And not he alone, but all the clergy in his lordship

and dominion, by whom this woman, so she sayeth, hath been examined

and not rejected. Full sore is the pity of it."[2461]

[Footnote 2461: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 15, 17.]

Two or three times did Maitre Guillaume repeat these words concerning

King Charles. Then pointing at Jeanne with his finger he said:

"It is to you, Jeanne, that I speak; and I say unto you that your King

is a heretic and a schismatic."

At these words Jeanne was deeply wounded in her love for the Lilies of

France and for King Charles. She was moved with great feeling, and she

heard her Voices saying unto her:

"Reply boldly to the preacher who is preaching to you."[2462]

[Footnote 2462: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 456, 457. U. Chevalier,

_L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 46, 47.]

Then obeying them heartily, she interrupted Maitre Jean:

"By my troth, Messire," she said to him, "saving your reverence, I

dare say unto you and swear at the risk of my life, that he is the

noblest Christian of all Christians, that none loveth better religion

and the Church, and that he is not at all what you say."[2463]

[Footnote 2463: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 15, 17, 335, 345, 353, 367.]

Maitre Guillaume ordered the Usher, Jean Massieu, to silence her.[2464]

Then he went on with his sermon, and concluded with these words:

"Jeanne, behold my Lords the Judges, who oftentimes have summoned you

and required you to submit all your acts and sayings to Mother Church.

In these acts and sayings were many things which, so it seemed to

these clerics, were good neither to say nor to maintain."[2465]

[Footnote 2464: _Ibid._, p. 17.]

[Footnote 2465: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 444, 445.]

"I will answer you," said Jeanne. Touching the article of submission

to the Church, she recalled how she had asked for all the deeds she

had wrought and the words she had uttered to be reported to Rome, to

Our Holy Father the Pope, to whom, after God, she appealed. Then she

added: "And as for the sayings I have uttered and the deeds I have

done, they have all been by God's command."[2466]

[Footnote 2466: _Ibid._, p. 445.]

She declared that she had not understood that the record of her trial

was being sent to Rome to be judged by the Pope.

"I will not have it thus," she said. "I know not what you will insert

in the record of these proceedings. I demand to be taken to the Pope

and questioned by him."[2467]

[Footnote 2467: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 358.]

They urged her to incriminate her King. But they wasted their breath.

"For my deeds and sayings I hold no man responsible, neither my King

nor another."[2468]

[Footnote 2468: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 445.]

"Will you abjure all your deeds and sayings? Will you abjure such of

your deeds and sayings as have been condemned by the clerks?"

"I appeal to God and to Our Holy Father, the Pope."

"But that is not sufficient. We cannot go so far to seek the Pope.

Each Ordinary is judge in his own diocese. Wherefore it is needful for

you to appeal to Our Holy Mother Church, and to hold as true all that

clerks and folks well learned in the matter say and determine touching

your actions and your sayings."[2469]

[Footnote 2469: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 445, 446.]

Admonished with yet a third admonition, Jeanne refused to recant.[2470]

With confidence she awaited the deliverance promised by her Voices,

certain that of a sudden there would come men-at-arms from France and

that in one great tumult of fighting-men and angels she would be

liberated. That was why she had insisted on retaining man's attire.

[Footnote 2470: _Ibid._, p. 446.]

Two sentences had been prepared: one for the case in which the accused

should abjure her error, the other for the case in which she should

persevere. By the first there was removed from Jeanne the ban of

excommunication. By the second, the tribunal, declaring that it could

do nothing more for her, abandoned her to the secular arm. The Lord

Bishop had them both with him.[2471]

[Footnote 2471: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 146.]

He took the second and began to read: "In the name of the Lord, Amen.

All the pastors of the Church who have it in their hearts faithfully

to tend their flocks...."[2472]

[Footnote 2472: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 473.]

Meanwhile, as he read, the clerks who were round Jeanne urged her to

recant, while there was yet time. Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur exhorted

her to do as he had recommended, and to put on woman's dress.[2473]

[Footnote 2473: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 146.]

Maitre Guillaume Erard was saying: "Do as you are advised and you will

be delivered from prison."[2474]

[Footnote 2474: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 17, 331; vol. iii, pp. 52, 156.]

Then straightway came the Voices unto her and said: "Jeanne, passing

sore is our pity for you! You must recant what you have said, or we

abandon you to secular justice.... Jeanne, do as you are advised.

Jeanne, will you bring death upon yourself!"[2475]

[Footnote 2475: _Ibid._, p. 123.]

The sentence was long and the Lord Bishop read slowly:

"We judges, having Christ before our eyes and also the

honour of the true faith, in order that our judgment may

proceed from the Lord himself, do say and decree that thou

hast been a liar, an inventor of revelations and apparitions

said to be divine; a deceiver, pernicious, presumptuous,

light of faith, rash, superstitious, a soothsayer, a

blasphemer against God and his saints. We declare thee to be

a contemner of God even in his sacraments, a prevaricator of

divine law, of sacred doctrine and of ecclesiastical

sanction, seditious, cruel, apostate, schismatic, having

committed a thousand errors against religion, and by all

these tokens rashly guilty towards God and Holy

Church.[2476]"

[Footnote 2476: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 474, 475.]

Time was passing. Already the Lord Bishop had uttered the greater part

of the sentence.[2477] The executioner was there, ready to take off the

condemned in his cart.[2478]

[Footnote 2477: _Ibid._, p. 473 note.]

[Footnote 2478: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 65, 147, 149, 273. De

Beaurepaire, _Recherches sur le proces_, p. 358.]

Then suddenly, with hands clasped, Jeanne cried that she was willing

to obey the Church.[2479]

[Footnote 2479: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 323.]

The judge paused in the reading of the sentence.

An uproar arose in the crowd, consisting largely of English

men-at-arms and officers of King Henry. Ignorant of the customs of the

Inquisition, which had not been introduced into their country, these

_Godons_ could not understand what was going on; all they knew was

that the witch was saved. Now they held Jeanne's death to be necessary

for the welfare of England; wherefore the unaccountable actions of

these doctors and the Lord Bishop threw them into a fury. In their

Island witches were not treated thus; no mercy was shown them, and

they were burned speedily. Angry murmurs arose; stones were thrown at

the registrars of the trial.[2480] Maitre Pierre Maurice, who was doing

his best to strengthen Jeanne in the resolution she had taken, was

threatened and the _coues_ very nearly made short work with him.[2481]

Neither did Maitre Jean Beaupere and the delegates from the University

of Paris escape their share of the insults. They were accused of

favouring Jeanne's errors.[2482] Who better than they knew the

injustice of these reproaches?

[Footnote 2480: _Ibid._, pp. 137, 376.]

[Footnote 2481: _Ibid._, p. 356; vol. iii, pp. 157, 178.]

[Footnote 2482: _Ibid._, p. 55.]

Certain of the high personages sitting on the platform at the side of

the judge complained to the Lord Bishop that he had not gone on to the

end of the sentence but had admitted Jeanne to repentance.

He was even reproached with insults, for one was heard to cry: "You

shall pay for this."

He threatened to suspend the trial.

"I have been insulted," he said. "I will proceed no further until

honourable amends have been done me."[2483]

[Footnote 2483: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 90, 147, 156.]

In the tumult, Maitre Guillaume Erard unfolded a double sheet of

paper, and read Jeanne the form of abjuration, written down according

to the opinion of the masters. It was no longer than the Lord's Prayer

and consisted of six or seven lines of writing. It was in French and

began with these words: "I, Jeanne...." The Maid submitted therein to

the sentence, the judgment, and the commandment of the Church; she

acknowledged having committed the crime of high treason and having

deceived the people. She undertook never again to bear arms or to wear

man's dress or her hair cut round her ears.[2484]

[Footnote 2484: _Ibid._, pp. 52, 65, 132, 156, 197. U. Chevalier,

_L'Abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc_.]

When Maitre Guillaume had read the document, Jeanne declared she did

not understand it, and wished to be advised thereupon.[2485] She was

heard to ask counsel of Saint Michael.[2486] She still believed firmly

in her Voices, albeit they had not aided her in her dire necessity,

neither had spared her the shame of denying them. For, simple as she

was, at the bottom of her heart she knew well what the clerks were

asking of her; she realised that they would not let her go until she

had pronounced a great recantation. All that she said was merely in

order to gain time and because she was afraid of death; yet she could

not bring herself to lie.

[Footnote 2485: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 156, 157 (evidence of Jean

Massieu, Usher of the court).]

[Footnote 2486: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 323.]

Without losing a moment Maitre Guillaume said to Messire Jean

Massieu, the Usher: "Advise her touching this abjuration."

And he passed him the document.[2487]

[Footnote 2487: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 157.]

Messire Jean Massieu at first made excuse, but afterwards he complied

and warned Jeanne of the danger she was running by her refusal to

recant.

"You must know," he said, "that if you oppose any of these articles

you will be burned. I counsel you to appeal to the Church Universal as

to whether you should abjure these articles or not."

Maitre Guillaume Erard asked Jean Massieu: "Well, what are you saying

to her?"

Jean Massieu replied: "I make known unto Jeanne the text of the deed

of abjuration and I urge her to sign it. But she declares that she

knoweth not whether she will."

At this juncture, Jeanne, who was still being pressed to sign, said

aloud: "I wish the Church to deliberate on the articles. I appeal to

the Church Universal as to whether I should abjure them. Let the

document be read by the Church and the clerks into whose hands I am to

be delivered. If it be their counsel that I ought to sign it and do

what I am told, then willingly will I do it."[2488]

[Footnote 2488: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 331; vol. iii, p. 157. This deed,

written in a large hand and containing but a few lines, appears to be

an abridgment of that contained in the _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 447, 448

(cf. vol. iii, pp. 156, 197).]

Maitre Guillaume Erard replied: "Do it now, or you will be burned this

very day."

And he forbade Jean Massieu to confer with her any longer.

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

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

Then straightway Messire Jean Massieu 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 pronounced 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 noble 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

illustrious 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 Massieu 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 God 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 Duchess 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

sex. 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 Duchess.

[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 assessors

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.]

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

In the castle yard is Maitre Andre Marguerie, bachelor in decrees,

archdeacon of Petit-Caux, King's Counsellor,[2510] who is inquiring

what has happened. He had displayed great assiduity 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 assumed 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 mass 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 mass

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 God 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

God has not sent me I should be damned. It is true that God 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 Massieu 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 brass 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, "God 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 God."

"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 God 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 assembled the tribunal in the

chapel of the Archbishop's house. The forty-two assessors present were

informed of what had happened on the previous day and invited to state

their opinions, the nature of which might easily be anticipated.[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.

"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 God'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 assessors, 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 God, 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 multitude 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 pass 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

assurance 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

Massieu, the Usher, to my Lord of Beauvais, to inform him that she

asked to be given the body of Jesus Christ.

The Bishop assembled certain doctors to confer on this subject; and

after they had deliberated, he replied to the Usher: "Tell Brother

Martin to give her the communion and all that she shall ask."[2542]

[Footnote 2542: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 158.]

Messire Massieu returned to the castle to bear this reply to Brother

Martin. For a second time Brother Martin heard Jeanne in confession

and gave her absolution.[2543]

[Footnote 2543: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 334.]

A cleric, one Pierre, brought the body of Our Lord in an unceremonious

fashion, on a paten covered with the cloth used to put over the

chalice, without lights or procession, without surplice or stole.[2544]

[Footnote 2544: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 19, 334. De Beaurepaire,

_Recherches sur le proces_, pp. 116, 117.]

This did not please Brother Martin, who sent to fetch a stole and

candles.

Then, taking the consecrated host in his fingers and presenting it to

Jeanne, he said: "Do you believe this to be the body of Christ?"

"Yes, and it alone is able to deliver me."

And she entreated that it should be given to her.

"Do you still believe in your Voices?" asked the officiating priest.

"I believe in God alone, and will place no trust in the Voices who

have thus deceived me."[2545]

[Footnote 2545: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 482, 483 (information procured

after Jeanne's death).]

And shedding many tears she received the body of Our Lord very

devoutly. Then to God, to the Virgin Mary and to the saints she

offered prayers beautiful and reverent and gave such signs of

repentance that those present were moved to tears.[2546]

[Footnote 2546: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 19, 308, 320; vol. iii, pp. 114,

158, 183, 197.]

Contrite and sorrowful she said to Maitre Pierre Maurice:[2547] "Maitre

Pierre, where shall I be this evening?"

[Footnote 2547: For Jeanne's communion see also De Beaurepaire,

_Recherches sur le proces_, pp. 116-117.]

"Do you not trust in the Lord?" asked the canon.

"Yea, God helping me, I shall be in Paradise."[2548]

[Footnote 2548: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 191.]

Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur exhorted her to correct the error she had

caused to grow up among the people.

"To this end you must openly declare that you have been deceived and

have deceived the folk and that you humbly ask pardon."

Then, fearing lest she might forget when the time came for her to be

publicly judged, she asked Brother Martin to put her in mind of this

matter and of others touching her salvation.[2549]

[Footnote 2549: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 485. Maitre N. Taquel would lead us

to believe that the interrogatories took place after Jeanne's

communion, but this can hardly be admitted.]

Maitre Loiseleur went away giving signs of violent grief. Walking

through the streets like a madman, he was howled at by the

_Godons_.[2550]

[Footnote 2550: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 320; vol. iii, p. 162.]

It was about nine o'clock in the morning when Brother Martin and

Messire Massieu took Jeanne out of the prison, wherein she had been in

bonds one hundred and seventy-eight days. She was placed in a cart,

and, escorted by eighty men-at-arms, was driven along the narrow

streets to the Old Market Square, close to the River.[2551] This square

was bordered on the east by a wooden market-house, the butcher's

market, on the west by the cemetery of Saint-Sauveur, on the edge of

which, towards the square, stood the church of Saint-Sauveur.[2552] In

this place three scaffolds had been raised, one against the northern

gable of the market-house; and in its erection several tiles of the

roof had been broken.[2553] On this scaffold Jeanne was to be

stationed, there to listen to the sermon. Another and a larger

scaffold had been erected adjoining the cemetery. There the judges and

the prelates were to sit.[2554] The pronouncing of sentence in a

religious trial was an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For the

place of its pronouncement the Inquisitor and the Ordinary preferred

consecrated territory, holy ground. True it is that a bull of Pope

Lucius forbade such sentences to be given in churches and cemeteries;

but the judges eluded this rule by recommending the secular arm to

modify its sentence. The third scaffold, opposite the second, was of

plaster, and stood in the middle of the square, on the spot whereon

executions usually took place. On it was piled the wood for the

burning. On the stake which surmounted it was a scroll bearing the

words:

"Jehanne, who hath caused herself to be called the Maid, a liar,

pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a

blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress,

cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, and

heretic."[2555]

[Footnote 2551: A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie_, p. 369.]

[Footnote 2552: Bouquet, _Rouen aux differentes epoques de son

histoire_, pp. 25 _et seq._ A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la

Normandie_, pp. 374, 375. De Beaurepaire, _Memoires sur le lieu du

supplice de Jeanne d'Arc_, with plan of the Old Market Square of Rouen

according to the _Livre de fontaine de 1525_, Rouen, 1867, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 2553: De Beaurepaire, _Note sur la prise du chateau de Rouen,

par Ricarville_, Rouen, 1857, in 8vo, p. 5.]

[Footnote 2554: Bouquet, _Jeanne d'Arc au chateau de Rouen_, p. 25. De

Beaurepaire, _Memoire sur le lieu du supplice de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 32.

A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie_, pp. 376 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2555: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 459.]

The square was guarded by one hundred and sixty men-at-arms. A crowd

of curious folk pressed behind the guards, the windows were filled and

the roofs covered with onlookers. Jeanne was brought on to the

scaffold which had its back to the market-house gable. She wore a long

gown and hood.[2556] Maitre Nicolas Midi, doctor in theology, came up

on to the same platform and began to preach to her.[2557] As the text

of his sermon he took the words of the Apostle in the first Epistle to

the Corinthians:[2558] "And whether one member suffer, all the members

suffer with it." Jeanne patiently listened to the sermon.[2559]

[Footnote 2556: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 470; vol. ii, pp. 14, 303, 328;

vol. iii, pp. 159, 173.]

[Footnote 2557: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 470; vol. ii, p. 334; vol. iii, pp.

53, 114, 159.]

[Footnote 2558: Chapter xii, 26 (W.S.).]

[Footnote 2559: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 194.]

Then my Lord of Beauvais, in his own name and that of the

Vice-Inquisitor, pronounced the sentence.

He declared Jeanne to be a relapsed heretic.

"We declare that thou, Jeanne, art a corrupt member, and in order that

thou mayest not infect the other members, we are resolved to sever

thee from the unity of the Church, to tear thee from its body, and to

deliver thee to the secular power. And we reject thee, we tear thee

out, we abandon thee, beseeching this same secular power, that

touching death and the mutilation of the limbs, it may be pleased to

moderate its sentence...."[2560]

[Footnote 2560: _Ibid._, p. 159.]

By this formula, the ecclesiastical judge withdrew from any share in

the violent death of a fellow creature: _Ecclesia abhorret a

sanguine_.[2561] But every one knew how much such an entreaty was

worth; and all were aware that if the impossible had happened and the

magistrate had granted it, he would have been subject to the same

penalties as the heretic. Things had now come to such a pass that had

the city of Rouen belonged to King Charles, he himself could not have

saved the Maid from the stake.

[Footnote 2561: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p.

374.]

When the sentence was announced Jeanne breathed heart-rending sighs.

Weeping bitterly, she fell on her knees, commended her soul to God, to

Our Lady, to the blessed saints of Paradise, many of whom she

mentioned by name. Very humbly did she ask for mercy from all manner

of folk, of whatsoever rank or condition, of her own party and of the

enemy's, entreating them to forgive the wrong she had done them and to

pray for her. She asked pardon of her judges, of the English, of King

Henry, of the English princes of the realm. Addressing all the priests

there present she besought each one to say a mass for the salvation of

her soul.[2562]

[Footnote 2562: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 19; vol. iii, p. 177.]

Thus for one half hour did she continue with sighs and tears to give

expression to the sentiments of humiliation and contrition with which

the clerics had inspired her.[2563]

[Footnote 2563: _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 19, 351.]

And even now she did not neglect to defend the honour of the fair

Dauphin, whom she had so greatly loved.

She was heard to say: "It was never my King who induced me to do

anything I have done, either good or evil."[2564]

[Footnote 2564: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 56.]

Many of the bystanders wept. A few English laughed. Certain of the

captains, who could make nothing of the edifying ceremonial of

ecclesiastical justice, grew impatient. Seeing Messire Massieu in the

pulpit and hearing him exhort Jeanne to make a good end, they cried:

"What now, priest! Art thou going to keep us here to dinner?"[2565]

[Footnote 2565: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20; vol. iii, pp. 53, 177,

186.]

At Rouen, when a heretic was given up to the secular arm, it was

customary to take him to the town hall, where the town council made

known unto him his sentence.[2566] In Jeanne's case these forms were

not observed. The Bailie, Messire le Bouteiller, who was present,

waved his hand and said: "Take her, take her."[2567] Straightway, two

of the King's sergeants dragged her to the base of the scaffold and

placed her in a cart which was waiting. On her head was set a great

fool's cap made of paper, on which were written the words:

"_Heretique, relapse, apostate, idolatre_"; and she was handed over to

the executioner.[2568]

[Footnote 2566: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 188. A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc

et la Normandie_, p. 386. Guedon and Ladvenu added to their evidence

that not long afterwards a certain Georges Folenfant was also given up

to the secular arm. But the Archbishop and the Inquisitor sent Ladvenu

to the Bailie "in order to warn him that the said Georges was not to

be treated like the Maid who was burned without the pronouncement of

any definite and final sentence." _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2567: _Ibid._, p. 344.]

[Footnote 2568: Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 459. Yet Martin

Ladvenu says "until the last hour," etc., which is obviously false.]

A bystander heard her saying: "Ah! Rouen, sorely do I fear that thou

mayest have to suffer for my death."[2569]

[Footnote 2569: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 53.]

She evidently still regarded herself as the messenger from Heaven, the

angel of the realm of France. Possibly the illusion, so cruelly reft

from her, returned at last to enfold her in its beneficent veil. At

any rate, she appears to have been crushed; all that remained to her

was an infinite horror of death and a childlike piety.

The ecclesiastical judges had barely time to descend and flee from a

spectacle which they could not have witnessed without violating the

laws of clerical procedure. They were all weeping: the Lord Bishop of

Therouanne, Chancellor of England, had his eyes full of tears. The

Cardinal of Winchester, who was said never to enter a church save to

pray for the death of an enemy,[2570] had pity on this damsel so woeful

and so contrite. Brother Pierre Maurice, the canon who was a reader of

the AEneid, could not keep back his tears. All the priests who had

delivered her to the executioner were edified to see her make so holy

an end. That is what Maitre Jean Alespee meant when he sighed: "I

would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman to

be."[2571] To himself and the hapless sufferer he applied the following

lines from the _Dies irae_:

_Qui Mariam absolvisti,

Mihi quoque spem dedisti._[2572]

[Footnote 2570: Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 1, act i, scene 1.]

[Footnote 2571: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 6; vol. iii, pp. 53, 191, 375.]

[Footnote 2572: _Missel Romain, Office des morts._ Cf. Le P. C. Clair,

_Le Dies irae, histoire, traduction et commentaire_, Paris, in 8vo,

1881, pp. 38-142.]

But none the less he must have believed that by her heresies and her

obstinacy she had brought death on herself.

The two young friars preachers and the Usher Massieu accompanied

Jeanne to the stake.

She asked for a cross. An Englishman made a tiny one out of two pieces

of wood, and gave it to her. She took it devoutly and put it in her

bosom, on her breast. Then she besought Brother Isambart to go to the

neighbouring church to fetch a cross, to bring it to her and hold it

before her, so that as long as she lived, the cross on which God was

crucified should be ever in her sight.

Massieu asked a priest of Saint-Sauveur for one, and it was brought.

Jeanne weeping kissed it long and tenderly, and her hands held it

while they were free.[2573]

[Footnote 2573: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20.]

As she was being bound to the stake she invoked the aid of Saint

Michael; and now at length no examiner was present to ask her whether

it were really he she saw in her father's garden. She prayed also to

Saint Catherine.[2574]

[Footnote 2574: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 170.]

When she saw a light put to the stake, she cried loudly, "Jesus!" This

name she repeated six times.[2575] She was also heard asking for holy

water.[2576]

[Footnote 2575: _Ibid._, p. 186.]

[Footnote 2576: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 8; vol. iii, pp. 169, 194.]

It was usual for the executioner, in order to cut short the sufferings

of the victim, to stifle him in dense smoke before the flames had had

time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the

prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have

found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the

plaster scaffold made unusually high. Wherefore the executioner

himself, hardened man that he was, judged her death to have been a

terribly cruel one.[2577]

[Footnote 2577: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 7.]

Once again Jeanne uttered the name of Jesus; then she bowed her head

and gave up her spirit.[2578]

[Footnote 2578: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 186.]

As soon as she was dead the Bailie commanded the executioner to

scatter the flames in order to see that the prophetess of the

Armagnacs had not escaped with the aid of the devil or in some other

manner.[2579] Then, after the poor blackened body had been shown to the

people, the executioner, in order to reduce it to ashes, threw on to

the fire coal, oil and sulphur.

[Footnote 2579: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 191. _Journal d'un bourgeois de

Paris_, pp. 269, 270.]

In such an execution the combustion of the corpse was rarely

complete.[2580] Among the ashes, when the fire was extinguished, the

heart and entrails were found intact. For fear lest Jeanne's remains

should be taken and used for witchcraft or other evil practices,[2581]

the Bailie had them thrown into the Seine.[2582]

[Footnote 2580: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p.

478.]

[Footnote 2581: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 507 verso. _Journal

d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 2582: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 159, 160, 185; vol. iv, p. 518.

Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 83.

Th. Cochard, _Existe-t-il des reliques de Jeanne d'Arc?_ Orleans,

1891, in 8vo.]

CHAPTER XV

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID--THE END OF THE SHEPHERD--LA DAME DES

ARMOISES

In the evening, after the burning, the executioner, as was his wont,

went whining and begging to the monastery of the preaching friars. The

creature complained that he had found it very difficult to make an end

of Jeanne. According to a legend invented afterwards, he told the

monks that he feared damnation for having burned a saint.[2583] Had he

actually spoken thus in the house of the Vice-Inquisitor he would have

been straightway cast into the lowest dungeon, there to await a trial

for heresy, which would have probably resulted in his being sentenced

to suffer the death he had inflicted on her whom he had called a

saint. And what could have led him to suppose that the woman condemned

by good Father Lemaistre and my Lord of Beauvais was not a bad woman?

The truth is that in the presence of these friars he arrogated to

himself merit for having executed a witch and taken pains therein,

wherefore he came to ask for his pot of wine. One of the monks, who

happened to be a friar preacher, Brother Pierre Bosquier, forgot

himself so far as to say that it was wrong to have condemned the

Maid. These words, albeit they were heard by only a few persons, were

carried to the Inquisitor General. When he was summoned to answer for

them, Brother Pierre Bosquier declared very humbly that his words were

altogether wrong and tainted with heresy, and that indeed he had only

uttered them when he was full of wine. On his knees and with clasped

hands he entreated Holy Mother Church, his judges and the most

redoubtable lords to pardon him. Having regard to his repentance and

in consideration of his cloth and of his having spoken in a state of

intoxication, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor showed

indulgence to Brother Pierre Bosquier. By a sentence pronounced on the

8th of August, 1431, they condemned him to be imprisoned in the house

of the friars preachers and fed on bread and water until Easter.[2584]

[Footnote 2583: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 7, 352, 366.]

[Footnote 2584: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 493, 495.]

On the 12th of June the judges and counsellors, who had sat in

judgment on Jeanne, received letters of indemnity from the Great

Council. What was the object of these letters? Was it in case the

holders of them should be proceeded against by the French? But in that

event the letters would have done them more harm than good.[2585]

[Footnote 2585: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Cartularium Universitatis

Parisiensis_, vol. iv, p. 527.]

The Lord Chancellor of England sent to the Emperor, to the Kings and

to the princes of Christendom, letters in Latin; to the prelates,

dukes, counts, lords, and all the towns of France, letters in

French.[2586] Herein he made known unto them that King Henry and his

Counsellors had had sore pity on the Maid, and that if they had caused

her death it was through their zeal for the faith and their

solicitude Christian folk.[2587]

[Footnote 2586: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 240, 243.]

[Footnote 2587: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 485, 496; vol. iv, p. 403.

Monstrelet, vol. iv, ch. cv.]

In like tenor did the University of Paris write to the Holy Father,

the Emperor and the College of Cardinals.[2588]

[Footnote 2588: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 496, 500.]

On the 4th of July, the day of Saint-Martin-le-Bouillant, Master Jean

Graverent, Prior of the Jacobins, Inquisitor of the Faith, preached at

Saint-Martin-des-Champs. In his sermon he related the deeds of Jeanne,

and told how for her errors and shortcomings she had been delivered to

the secular judges and burned alive.

Then he added: "There were four, three of whom have been taken, to

wit, this Maid, Pierronne, and her companion. One, Catherine de la

Rochelle, still remaineth with the Armagnacs. Friar Richard, the

Franciscan, who attracted so great a multitude of folk when he

preached in Paris at the Innocents and elsewhere, directed these

women; he was their spiritual father."[2589]

[Footnote 2589: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 270, 272. This

sermon contains curious inaccuracies. Are they the fault of the

Inquisitor or of the author of _Le Journal_?]

With Pierronne burned in Paris, her companion eating the bread of

bitterness and drinking the water of affliction in the prison of the

Church, and Jeanne burned at Rouen, the royal company of _beguines_

was now almost entirely annihilated. There only remained to the King

the holy dame of La Rochelle, who had escaped from the hands of the

Paris Official; but her indiscreet talk had rendered her

troublesome.[2590] While his penitents were being discredited, good

Friar Richard himself had fallen on evil days. The Vicars in the

diocese of Poitiers and the Inquisitor of the Faith had forbidden him

to preach. The great orator, who had converted so many Christian folk,

could no longer thunder against gaming-tables and dice, against

women's finery, and mandrakes arrayed in magnificent attire. No longer

could he declare the coming of Antichrist nor prepare souls for the

terrible trials which were to herald the imminent end of the world. He

was ordered to lie under arrest in the Franciscan monastery at

Poitiers. And doubtless it was with no great docility that he

submitted to the sentence of his superiors; for on Friday, the 23rd of

March, 1431, we find the Ordinary and the Inquisitor, asking aid in

the execution of the sentence from the Parliament of Poitiers, which

did not refuse it. Why did Holy Church exercise such severity towards

a preacher endowed with so wondrous a power of moving sinful souls? We

may at any rate suspect the reason. For some time the English and

Burgundian clergy had been accusing him of apostasy and magic. Now,

owing to the unity of the Church in general and to that of the

Gallican Church in particular, owing also to the authority of that

bright sun of Christendom, the University of Paris, when a clerk was

suspected of error and heresy by the doctors of the English and

Burgundian party he came to be looked at askance by the clergy who

were loyal to King Charles. Especially was this so when in a matter

touching the Catholic faith, the University had pronounced against him

and in favour of the English. It is quite likely that the clerks of

Poitiers had been prejudiced against Friar Richard by Pierronne's

conviction and even by the Maid's trial. The good brother, who

persisted in preaching the end of the world, was strongly suspected of

dealing in the black art. Wherefore, realising the fate which was

threatening him, he fled, and was never heard of again.[2591]

[Footnote 2590: _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 473.]

[Footnote 2591: Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_,

vol. iv, pp. 103, 104. Monstrelet, ch. lxiii. Bougenot, _Deux

documents inedits relatifs a Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Revue bleue_, 13 Feb.,

1892, pp. 203, 204.]

None the less, however, did the counsellors of King Charles continue

to employ the devout in the army. At the time of the disappearance of

Friar Richard and his penitents, they were making use of a young

shepherd whom my Lord the Archbishop, Duke of Reims and Chancellor of

the kingdom, had proclaimed to be Jeanne's miraculous successor. And

it was in the following circumstance that the shepherd was permitted

to display his power.

The war continued. Twenty days after Jeanne's death the English in

great force marched to recapture the town of Louviers. They had

delayed till then, not, as some have stated, because they despaired of

succeeding in anything as long as the Maid lived, but because they

needed time to collect money and engines for the siege.[2592] In the

July and August of this same year, at Senlis and at Beauvais, my Lord

of Reims, Chancellor of France and the Marechal de Boussac, were

upholding the French cause. And we may be sure that my Lord of Reims

was upholding it with no little vigour since at the same time he was

defending the benefices which were so dear to him.[2593] A Maid had

reconquered them, now he intended a lad to hold them. With this object

he employed the little shepherd, Guillaume, from the Lozere Mountains,

who, like Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Sienna, had

received stigmata. A party of French surprised the Regent at Mantes

and were on the point of taking him prisoner. The alarm was given to

the army besieging Louviers; and two or three companies of men-at-arms

were despatched. They hastened to Mantes, where they learnt that the

Regent had succeeded in reaching Paris. Thereupon, having been

reinforced by troops from Gournay and certain other English garrisons,

being some two thousand strong and commanded by the Earls of Warwick,

Arundel, Salisbury, and Suffolk, and by Lord Talbot and Sir Thomas

Kiriel, the English made bold to march upon Beauvais. The French,

informed of their approach, left the town at daybreak, and marched out

to meet them in the direction of Savignies. King Charles's men,

numbering between eight hundred and one thousand combatants, were

commanded by the Marechal de Boussac, the Captains La Hire, Poton, and

others.[2594]

[Footnote 2592: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 3, 344, 348, 373; vol. iii, p.

189; vol. v, pp. 169, 179, 181. Dibon, _Essai sur Louviers_, Rouen,

1836, in 8vo, pp. 33 _et seq._ Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de

Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 246 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2593: Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises de France

vers le milieu du XV'e siecle_, vol. i, p. xvi.]

[Footnote 2594: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 132. Monstrelet,

vol. iv, p. 433. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 265.]

The shepherd Guillaume, whom they believed to be sent of God, was at

their head, riding side-saddle and displaying the miraculous wounds in

his hands, his feet, and his left side.[2595]

[Footnote 2595: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 272.]

When they were about two and a half miles from the town, just when

they least expected it, a shower of arrows came down upon them. The

English, informed by their scouts of the French approach, had lain in

wait for them in a hollow of the road. Now they attacked them closely

both in the van and in the rear. Each side fought valiantly. A

considerable number were slain, which was not the case in most of the

battles of those days, when few but the fugitives were killed. But the

French, feeling themselves surrounded, were seized with panic, and

thus brought about their own destruction. Most of them, with the

Marechal de Boussac and Captain La Hire, fled to the town of Beauvais.

Captain Poton and the shepherd, Guillaume, remained in the hands of

the English, who returned to Rouen in triumph.[2596]

[Footnote 2596: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 272.]

Poton made sure of being ransomed in the usual manner. But the little

shepherd could not hope for such a fate; he was suspected of heresy

and magic; he had deceived Christian folk and accepted from them

idolatrous veneration. The signs of our Saviour's passion that he bore

upon him helped him not a whit; on the contrary the wounds, by the

French held to have been divinely imprinted, to the English seemed the

marks of the devil.

Guillaume, like the Maid, had been taken in the diocese of Beauvais.

The Lord Bishop of this town, Messire Pierre Cauchon, who had claimed

the right to try Jeanne, made a similar claim for Guillaume; and the

shepherd was granted what the Maid had been refused, he was cast into

an ecclesiastical prison.[2597] He would seem to have been less

difficult to guard than Jeanne and also less important. But the

English had recently learnt what was involved in a trial by the

Inquisition; they now knew how lengthy and how punctilious it was.

Moreover, they did not see how it would profit them if this shepherd

were convicted of heresy. If the French had set their hope of success

in war[2598] in Guillaume as they had done in Jeanne, then that hope

was but short-lived. To put the Armagnacs to shame by proving that

their shepherd lad came from the devil, that game was not worth the

candle. The youth was taken to Rouen and thence to Paris.[2599]

[Footnote 2597: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.

ii, p. 248. De Beaurepaire, _Recherches sur les juges_, p. 43.]

[Footnote 2598: Lea, _History of the Inquisition_, vol. iii, 377 (ed.

1905).]

[Footnote 2599: Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, pp. 263, 264.]

He had been a prisoner for four months when King Henry VI, who was

nine years old, came to Paris to be crowned in the church of Notre

Dame with the two crowns of France and England. With high pomp and

great rejoicing he made his entrance into the city on Sunday, the 16th

of December. Along the route of the procession, in the Rue du

Ponceau-Saint-Denys, had been constructed a fountain adorned with

three sirens; and from their midst rose a tall lily stalk, from the

buds and blossoms of which flowed streams of wine and milk. Folk

flocked to drink of the fountain; and around its basin men disguised

as savages entertained them with games and sham fights.

From the Porte Saint-Denys to the Hotel Saint-Paul in the Marais, the

child King rode beneath a great azure canopy, embroidered with

flowers-de-luce in gold, borne first by the four aldermen hooded and

clothed in purple, then by the corporations, drapers, grocers,

money-changers, goldsmiths and hosiers. Before him went twenty-five

heralds and twenty-five trumpeters; followed by nine handsome men and

nine beautiful ladies, wearing magnificent armour and bearing great

shields, representing the nine _preux_ and the nine _preuses_, also by

a number of knights and squires. In this brilliant procession

appeared the little shepherd Guillaume; he no longer stretched out his

arms to show the wounds of the passion, for he was strongly

bound.[2600]

[Footnote 2600: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 274.]

After the ceremony he was conducted back to prison, whence he was

taken later to be sewn in a sack and thrown into the Seine.[2601] Even

the French admitted that Guillaume was but a simpleton and that his

mission was not of God.[2602]

[Footnote 2601: Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 264.]

[Footnote 2602: Martial d'Auvergne, _Vigiles_, ed. Coustelier, vol.

i.]

In 1433, the Constable, with the assistance of the Queen of Sicily,

caused the capture and planned the assassination of La Tremouille. It

was the custom of the nobles of that day to appoint counsellors for

King Charles and afterwards to kill them. However, the sword which was

to have caused the death of La Tremouille, owing to his corpulence,

failed to inflict a mortal wound. His life was saved, but his

influence was dead. King Charles tolerated the Constable as he had

tolerated the Sire de la Tremouille.[2603]

[Footnote 2603: Gruel, _Chronique d'Arthur de Richemont_, p. 81.

Vallet de Viriville, in _Nouvelle biographie generale_. De Beaucourt,

_Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 297. E. Cosneau, _Le connetable

de Richemont_, pp. 200, 201.]

The latter left behind him the reputation of having been grasping and

indifferent to the welfare of the kingdom. Perhaps his greatest fault

was that he governed in a time of war and pillage, when friends and

foes alike were devouring the realm. He was charged with the

destruction of the Maid, of whom he was said to have been jealous.

This accusation proceeds from the House of Alencon, with whom the Lord

Chamberlain was not popular.[2604] On the contrary, it must be

admitted, that after the Lord Chancellor, La Tremouille was the

boldest in employing the Maid, and if later she did thwart his plans

there is nothing to prove that it was his intention to have her

destroyed by the English. She destroyed herself and was consumed by

her own zeal.

[Footnote 2604: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 170, 173, _passim_.]

Rightly or wrongly, the Lord Chamberlain was held to be a bad man;

and, although his successor in the King's favour, the Duc de

Richemont, was avaricious, hard, violent, incredibly stupid, surly,

malicious, always beaten and always discontented, the exchange

appeared to be no loss. The Constable came in a fortunate hour, when

the Duke of Burgundy was making peace with the King of France.

In the words of a Carthusian friar, the English who had entered the

kingdom by the hole made in Duke John's head on the Bridge of

Montereau, only retained their hold on the kingdom by the hand of Duke

Philip. They were but few in number, and if the giant were to withdraw

his hand a breath of wind would suffice to blow them away. The Regent

died of sorrow and wrath, beholding the fulfilment of the horoscope of

King Henry VI: "Exeter shall lose what Monmouth hath won."[2605]

[Footnote 2605: Carlier, _Histoire des Valois_, 1764, in 4to, vol. ii,

p. 442. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p.

307. The Regent also believed in astrology (B.N. MS. 1352).]

On the 13th of April, 1436, the Count of Richemont entered Paris. The

nursing mother of Burgundian clerks and _Cabochien_ doctors, the

University herself, had helped to mediate peace.[2606]

[Footnote 2606: Gruel, _Chronique d'Arthur de Richemont_, pp. 120,

121. Dom Felibien, _Histoire de Paris_, vol. iv, p. 597.]

Now, one month after Paris had returned to her allegiance to King

Charles, there appeared in Lorraine a certain damsel. She was about

twenty-five years old. Hitherto she had been called Claude; but she

now made herself known to divers lords of the town of Metz as being

Jeanne the Maid.[2607]

[Footnote 2607: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud de Metz_, in

_Trial_, vol. v, pp. 321, 324. Jacomin Husson, _Chronique de Metz_,

ed. Michelant, Metz, 1870, pp. 64, 65. Cf. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une

fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Revue des questions historiques_, October,

1871, pp. 562 _et seq._ Vergniaud-Romagnesi, _Des portraits de Jeanne

d'Arc et de la fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Memoires de la Societe

d'Agriculture d'Orleans_, vol. i (1853), pp. 250, 253. De Puymaigre,

_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Revue nouvelle d'Alsace-Lorraine_, vol.

v (1885), pp. 533 _et seq._ A. France, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, in

_Revue des familles_, 15 February, 1891.]

At this time, Jeanne's father and eldest brother were dead.[2608]

Isabelle Romee was alive. Her two youngest sons were in the service of

the King of France, who had raised them to the rank of nobility and

given them the name of Du Lys. Jean, the eldest, called

Petit-Jean,[2609] had been appointed Bailie of Vermandois, then

Captain of Chartres. About this year, 1436, he was provost and captain

of Vaucouleurs.[2610]

[Footnote 2608: Varanius alone says that Jacques d'Arc died of sorrow

at the loss of his daughter. _Trial_, vol. v, p. 85.]

[Footnote 2609: _Ibid._, p. 280.]

[Footnote 2610: _Ibid._, pp. 279, 280. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse

Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 6, note 1.]

The youngest, Pierre, or Pierrelot, who had fallen into the hands of

the Burgundians before Compiegne at the same time as Jeanne, had just

been liberated from the prison of the Bastard of Vergy.[2611]

[Footnote 2611: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 210. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol.

ii, p. 176.]

Both brothers believed that their sister had been burned at Rouen. But

when they were told that she was living and wished to see them, they

appointed a meeting at La-Grange-aux-Ormes, a village in the meadows

of the Sablon, between the Seille and the Moselle, about two and a

half miles south of Metz. They reached this place on the 20th of May.

There they saw her and recognised her immediately to be their sister;

and she recognised them to be her brothers.[2612]

[Footnote 2612: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 321, 324.]

She was accompanied by certain lords of Metz, among whom was a man

right noble, Messire Nicole Lowe, who was chamberlain to Charles

VII.[2613] By divers tokens these nobles recognised her to be the Maid

Jeanne who had taken King Charles to be crowned at Reims. These tokens

were certain signs on the skin.[2614] Now there was a prophecy

concerning Jeanne which stated her to have a little red mark beneath

the ear.[2615] But this prophecy was invented after the events to

which it referred. Consequently we may believe the Maid to have been

thus marked. Was this the token by which the nobles of Metz recognised

her?

[Footnote 2613: _Le Metz ancien_ (Metz, 1856, 2 vol. in folio) by the

Baron d'Hannoncelles, which contains the genealogy of Nicole Lowe.]

[Footnote 2614: "And was recognised by divers tokens" (_enseignes_)

(_Trial_, vol. v, p. 322). M. Lecoy de la Marche (_Une fausse Jeanne

d'Arc_, in _Revue des questions historiques_, October, 1871, p. 565),

and M. Gaston Save (_Jehanne des Armoises, Pucelle d'Orleans_, Nancy,

1893, p. 11) understand that she was recognised by several officers or

ensigns (_enseignes_). I have interpreted _enseignes_ in the ordinary

sense of marks on the skin, birth-marks. (Cf. La Curne.)]

[Footnote 2615: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, p. 322.]

We do not know by what means she claimed to have escaped death; but

there is reason to think[2616] that she attributed her deliverance to

her holiness. Did she say that an angel had saved her from the fire?

It might be read in books how in the ancient amphitheatres lions

licked the bare feet of virgins, how boiling oil was as soothing as

balm to the bodies of holy martyrs; and how according to many of the

old stories nothing short of the sword could take the life of God's

maidens. These ancient histories rested on a sure foundation. But if

such tales had been related of the fifteenth century they might have

appeared less credible. And this damsel does not seem to have employed

them to adorn her adventure. She was probably content to say that

another woman had been burned in her place.

[Footnote 2616: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 354.]

According to a confession she made afterwards, she came from Rome,

where, accoutred in harness of war, she had fought valiantly in the

service of Pope Eugenius. She may even have told the Lorrainers of the

feats of prowess she had there accomplished.

Now Jeanne had prophesied (at least so it was believed) that she would

die in battle against the infidel and that her mantle would fall upon

a maid of Rome. But such a saying, if it were known to these nobles of

Metz, would be more likely to denounce this so-called Jeanne as an

imposture than witness to the truth of her mission.[2617] However this

might be, they believed what this woman told them.

[Footnote 2617: Nevertheless see on this subject M. Germain

Lefevre-Pontalis, who is our authority for this prophecy (Eberhard

Windecke, pp. 108-111).]

Perhaps, like many a noble of the republic,[2618] they were more

inclined to King Charles than to the Duke of Burgundy. And we may be

sure that, chivalrous knights as they were, they esteemed chivalry

wherever they found it; wherefore, because of her valour they admired

the Maid; and they made her good cheer.

[Footnote 2618: The republic of Metz (W.S.)]

Messire Nicole Lowe gave her a charger and a pair of hose. The charger

was worth thirty francs--a sum wellnigh royal--for of the two horses

which at Soissons and at Senlis the King gave the Maid Jeanne, one was

worth thirty-eight livres ten sous, and the other thirty-seven livres

ten sous.[2619] Not more than sixteen francs had been paid for the

horse with which she had been provided at Vaucouleurs.[2620]

[Footnote 2619: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, p. 322. Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles, in _Les

chroniques Messines_ of Huguenin, p. 198.]

[Footnote 2620: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 457. L. Champion, _Jeanne d'Arc

ecuyere_, ch. ii, ch. vi.]

Nicole Grognot, governor of the town,[2621] offered a sword to the

sister of the Du Lys brothers; Aubert Boullay presented her with a

hood.[2622]

[Footnote 2621: Variant of _La chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_

sent from Metz to Pierre du Puy, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 322, 324.]

[Footnote 2622: _Ibid._, pp. 322, 324.]

She rode her horse with the same skill which seven years earlier, if

we may believe some rather mythical stories, had filled with wonder

the old Duke of Lorraine.[2623] And she spoke certain words to Messire

Nicole Lowe which confirmed him in his belief that she was indeed that

same Maid Jeanne who had fared forth into France. She had the ready

tongue of a prophetess, and spoke in symbols and parables, revealing

nought of her intent.

[Footnote 2623: D. Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. vii. Proofs

and illustrations, col. vi.]

Her power would not come to her before Saint John the Baptist's Day,

she said. Now this was the very time which the Maid, after the Battle

of Patay, in 1429, had fixed for the extermination of the English in

France.[2624]

[Footnote 2624: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 322, 324. Eberhard Windecke, p.

108. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 62, note.]

This prophecy had not been fulfilled and consequently had not been

mentioned again. Jeanne, if she ever uttered it, and it is quite

possible that she did, must have been the first to forget it.

Moreover, Saint John's Day was a term commonly cited in leases, fairs,

contracts, hirings, etc., and it is quite conceivable that the

calendar of a prophetess may have been the same as that of a labourer.

The day after their arrival at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Monday, the 21st

of May, the Du Lys brothers took her, whom they held to be their

sister, to that town of Vaucouleurs[2625] whither Isabelle Romee's

daughter had gone to see Sire Robert de Baudricourt. In this town, in

the year 1436, there were still living many persons of different

conditions, such as the Leroyer couple and the Seigneur Aubert

d'Ourches,[2626] who had seen Jeanne in February, 1429.

[Footnote 2625: M. le Baron de Braux was kind enough to write to me

from Boucq near Foug, Meurthe-et-Moselle, on the 28th of June, 1896,

explaining that Bacquillon (_Trial_, vol. v, p. 322) is an erroneous

reading of one of the manuscripts of the Doyen of Saint-Thibaud. "By

comparing," he added, "the various versions (V. Quicherat and _Les

chroniques Messines_) we may ascertain that it is really Vaucouleurs,

Valquelou," mistaken for Bacquillon.]

[Footnote 2626: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 406, 408, 445, 449.]

After a week at Vaucouleurs she went to Marville, a small town between

Corny and Pont-a-Mousson. There she spent Whitsuntide and abode for

three weeks in the house of one Jean Quenat.[2627] On her departure

she was visited by sundry inhabitants of Metz, who gave her jewels,

recognising her to be the Maid of France.[2628] Jeanne, it will be

remembered, had been seen by divers knights of Metz at the time of

King Charles's coronation at Reims. At Marville, Geoffroy Desch,

following the example of Nicole Lowe, presented the so-called Jeanne

with a horse. Geoffroy Desch belonged to one of the most influential

families of the Republic of Metz. He was related to Jean Desch,

municipal secretary in 1429.[2629]

[Footnote 2627: The _Chronique de Tournai_ says of the true Jeanne

that she came from Mareville, a small town between Metz and

Pont-a-Mousson. "This Jeanne had long dwelt and served in a _metairie_

[a kind of farm] of this place."]

[Footnote 2628: _Chronique du doyen Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_, vol.

v, pp. 322, 324. Lecoy de la Marche, _Jeanne des Armoises_, p. 566. G.

Save, _Jehanne des Armoises, pucelle d'Orleans_, p. 14.]

[Footnote 2629: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 352 _et seq._]

From Marville, she went on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Liance,

called Lienche by the Picards and known later as Notre Dame de Liesse.

At Liance was worshipped a black image of the Virgin, which, according

to tradition, had been brought by the crusaders from the Holy Land.

The chapel containing this image was situated between Laon and Reims.

It was said, by the priests who officiated there, to be one of the

halting places on the route of the coronation procession, where the

kings and their retinues were accustomed to stop on their return from

Reims; but this is very likely not to be true. Whether it were such a

halting place or no, there is no doubt that the folk of Metz displayed

a particular devotion to Our Lady of Liance; and it seemed fitting

that Jeanne, who had escaped from an English prison, should go and

give thanks for her marvellous deliverance to the Black Virgin of

Picardy.[2630]

[Footnote 2630: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, pp. 322, 324. Dom Lelong, _Histoire du diocese de Laon_, 1783,

p. 371. Abbe Ledouble, _Les origines de Liesse et du pelerinage de

Notre-Dame_, Soissons, 1885, pp. 6 _et seq._]

Thence she went on her way to Arlon, to Elisabeth of Gorlitz, Duchess

of Luxembourg, an aunt by marriage of the Duke of Burgundy.[2631] She

was an old woman, who had been twice a widow. By extortion and

oppression she had made herself detested by her vassals. By this

princess Jeanne was well received. There was nothing strange in that.

Persons living holy lives and working miracles were much sought after

by princes and nobles who desired to discover secrets or to obtain the

fulfilment of some wish. And the Duchess of Luxembourg might well

believe this damsel to be the Maid Jeanne herself, since the brothers

Du Lys, the nobles of Metz and the folk of Vaucouleurs were of that

opinion.

[Footnote 2631: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 322, note 2. G. Lefevre-Pontalis,

_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 21, note 1.]

For the generality of men, Jeanne's life and death were surrounded by

marvels and mysteries. Many had from the first doubted her having

perished by the hand of the executioner. Certain were curiously

reticent on this point; they said: "the English had her publicly burnt

at Rouen, or some other woman like her."[2632] Others confessed that

they did not know what had become of her.[2633]

[Footnote 2632: _Chronique normande_ (MS. in the British Museum), in

_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 344. Symphorien Champier, _Nef des Dames_, Lyon,

1503, _ibid._]

[Footnote 2633: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 272. _Chronique

normande_, in _Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, second series,

vol. iii, p. 116. D. Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, p. vi, proofs and

illustrations. G. Save, _Jehanne des Armoises_, pp. 6, 7. It is well

known that Gabriel Naude maintained the paradox that Jeanne was only

burned in effigy. _Considerations politiques sur les coups d'etat_,

Rome, 1639, in 4to. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p.

8.]

Thus, when throughout Germany and France the rumour spread that the

Maid was alive and had been seen near Metz, the tidings were variously

received. Some believed them, others did not. An ardent dispute, which

arose between two citizens of Arles, gives some idea of the emotion

aroused by such tidings. One maintained that the Maid was still alive;

the other asserted that she was dead; each one wagered that what he

said was true. This was no light wager, for it was made and registered

in the presence of a notary, on the 27th of June, 1436, only five

weeks after the interview at La Grange-aux-Ormes.[2634]

[Footnote 2634: Lanery d'Arc, _Le culte de Jeanne d'Arc_, Orleans,

1887, in 8vo. _Revue du Midi._]

Meanwhile, in the beginning of August, the Maid's eldest brother, Jean

du Lys, called Petit-Jean, had gone to Orleans to announce that his

sister was alive. As a reward for these good tidings, he received for

himself and his followers ten pints of wine, twelve hens, two

goslings, and two leverets.[2635]

[Footnote 2635: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 275. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol.

ii, p. 286.]

The birds had been purchased by two magistrates; the name of one,

Pierre Baratin, is to be found in the account books of the fortress,

in 1429,[2636] at the time of the expedition to Jargeau; the other was

an old man of sixty-six, a burgess passing rich, Aignan de

Saint-Mesmin.[2637]

[Footnote 2636: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 262. Lecoy de la Marche, _Jeanne

des Armoises_, p. 568.]

[Footnote 2637: He died at the age of one hundred and eighteen.

_Trial_, iii, p. 29.]

Messengers were passing to and fro between the town of Duke Charles

and the town of the Duchess of Luxembourg. On the 9th of August a

letter from Arlon reached Orleans. About the middle of the month a

pursuivant arrived at Arlon. He was called Coeur-de-Lis, in honour

of the heraldic symbol of the city of Orleans, which was a lily-bud, a

kind of trefoil. The magistrates of Orleans had sent him to Jeanne

with a letter, the contents of which are unknown. Jeanne gave him a

letter for the King, in which she probably requested an audience. He

took it straight to Loches, where King Charles was negotiating the

betrothal of his daughter Yolande to Prince Amedee of Savoie.[2638]

[Footnote 2638: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 326. Vallet de Viriville,

_Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 376, note. G. Lefevre-Pontalis,

_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 23, note 5.]

After forty-one days' journey the pursuivant returned to the

magistrates, who had despatched him on the 2nd of September. The

messenger complained of a great thirst, wherefore the magistrates,

according to their wont, had him served in the chamber of the

town-hall with bread, wine, pears, and green walnuts. This repast cost

the town two _sous_ four _deniers_ of Paris, while the pursuivant's

travelling expenses amounted to six _livres_ which were paid in the

following month. The town varlet who provided the walnuts was that

same Jacquet Leprestre who had served during the siege. Another letter

from the Maid had been received by the magistrates on the 25th of

August.[2639]

[Footnote 2639: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 327.]

Jean du Lys proceeded just as if his miracle-working sister had in

very deed been restored to him. He went to the King, to whom he

announced the wonderful tidings. Charles cannot have entirely

disbelieved them since he ordered Jean du Lys to be given a gratuity

of one hundred francs. Whereupon Jean promptly demanded these hundred

francs from the King's treasurer, who gave him twenty. The coffers of

the victorious King were not full even then.

Having returned to Orleans, Jean appeared before the town-council. He

gave the magistrates to wit that he had only eight francs, a sum by no

means sufficient to enable him and four retainers to return to

Lorraine. The magistrates gave him twelve francs.[2640]

[Footnote 2640: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 326. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i,

pp. 284-285.]

Every year until then the anniversary of the Maid had been celebrated

in the church of Saint-Sanxon[2641] on the eve of Corpus Christi and

on the previous day. In 1435, eight ecclesiastics of the four

mendicant orders sang a mass for the repose of Jeanne's soul. In this

year, 1436, the magistrates had four candles burnt, weighing together

nine and a half pounds, and pendent therefrom the Maid's escutcheon, a

silver shield bearing the crown of France. But when they heard the

Maid was alive they cancelled the arrangements for a funeral service

in her memory.[2642]

[Footnote 2641: Since 1432. But there is no evidence of any

anniversary service having been held in 1433 and 1434. It was

reinstituted in 1439.]

[Footnote 2642: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 274, 275. Lottin, _Recherches_,

vol. i, p. 286.]

While these things were occurring in France, Jeanne was still with the

Duchess of Luxembourg. There she met the young Count Ulrich of

Wurtemberg, who refused to leave her. He had a handsome cuirasse made

for her and took her to Cologne. She still called herself the Maid of

France sent by God.[2643]

[Footnote 2643: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, p. 323. Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p.

325. Lecoy de la Marche, _loc. cit._, p. 566.]

Since the 24th of June, Saint John the Baptist's Day, her power had

returned to her. Count Ulrich, recognising her supernatural gifts,

entreated her to employ them on behalf of himself and his friends.

Being very contentious, he had become seriously involved in the schism

which was then rending asunder the diocese of Treves. Two prelates

were contending for the see; one, Udalric of Manderscheit, appointed

by the chapter, the other Raban of Helmstat, Bishop of Speyer,

appointed by the Pope.[2644] Udalric took the field with a small force

and twice besieged and bombarded the town of which he called himself

the true shepherd. These proceedings brought the greater part of the

diocese on to his side.[2645] But although aged and infirm, Raban too

had weapons; they were spiritual but powerful: he pronounced an

interdict against all such as should espouse the cause of his rival.

[Footnote 2644: _Art de verifier les dates_, vol. xv, pp. 236 _et

seq._ _Gallia Christiana_, vol. xiii, pp. 970 _et seq._; Gams, _Series

Episcoporum_ (1873), pp. 317, 319.]

[Footnote 2645: Quicherat, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 502, note,

erroneously states that the contest for the Archbishopric of Treves

was between Raban of Helmstat and Jacques of Syrck. Concerning Jacques

of Syrck or Sierck, see de Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.

iv, p. 264.]

Count Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who was among the most zealous of

Udalric's supporters, questioned the Maid of God concerning him.[2646]

Similar cases had been submitted to the first Jeanne when she was in

France. She had been asked, for example, which of the three popes,

Benedict, Martin, or Clement, was the true father of the faithful, and

without immediately pronouncing on the subject she had promised to

designate the Pope to whom obedience was due, after she had reached

Paris and rested there.[2647] The second Jeanne replied with even more

assurance; she declared that she knew who was the true archbishop and

boasted that she would enthrone him.

[Footnote 2646: Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, book v, ch. viii. D.

Calmet, _Histoire de Lorraine_, vol. ii, p. 906.]

[Footnote 2647: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 245-246.]

According to her, it was Udalric of Manderscheit, he whom the Chapter

had appointed. But when Udalric was summoned before the Council of

Bale, he was declared an usurper; and the fathers did what it was by

no means their unvarying rule to do,--they confirmed the nomination of

the Pope.

Unfortunately the Maid's intervention in this dispute attracted the

attention of the Inquisitor General of the city of Cologne, Heinrich

Kalt Eysen, an illustrious professor of theology. He inquired into the

rumours which were being circulated in the city touching the young

prince's protegee; and he learnt that she wore unseemly apparel,

danced with men, ate and drank more than she ought, and practised

magic. He was informed notably that in a certain assembly the Maid

tore a table-cloth and straightway restored it to its original

condition, and that having broken a glass against the wall she with

marvellous skill put all its pieces together again. Such deeds caused

Kalt Eysen to suspect her strongly of heresy and witchcraft. He

summoned her before his tribunal; she refused to appear. This

disobedience displeased the Inquisitor General, and he sent to fetch

the defaulter. But the young Count of Wurtemberg hid his Maid in his

house, and afterwards contrived to get her secretly out of the town.

Thus she escaped the fate of her whom she was willing only partially

to imitate. As he could do nothing else, the Inquisitor excommunicated

her.[2648] She took refuge at Arlon with her protectress, the Duchess

of Luxembourg. There she met Robert des Armoises, Lord of Tichemont.

She may have seen him before, in the spring, at Marville, where he

usually resided. This nobleman was probably the son of Lord Richard,

Governor of the Duchy of Bar in 1416. Nothing is known of him, save

that he surrendered this territory to the foreigner without the Duke

of Bar's consent, and then beheld it confiscated and granted to the

Lord of Apremont on condition that he should conquer it.

[Footnote 2648: Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p.

502; vol. v, p. 324.]

It was not extraordinary that Lord Robert should be at Arlon, seeing

that his chateau of Tichemont was near this town. He was poor, albeit

of noble birth.[2649]

[Footnote 2649: H. Vincent, _La maison des Armoises, originaire de

Champagne_, in _Memoires de la Societe d'Archeologie Lorraine_, 3rd

series, vol. v (1877), p. 324. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne

d'Arc_, p. 2, note 4.]

The so-called Maid married him,[2650] apparently with the approval of

the Duchess of Luxembourg. According to the opinion of the Holy

Inquisitor of Cologne, this marriage was contracted merely to protect

the woman against the interdict and to save her from the sword of the

Church.[2651]

[Footnote 2650: In his _Histoire de Lorraine_ (vol. v, pp. clxiv _et

seq._), Dom Calmet says that the contract of marriage between Robert

des Armoises and the Maid of France, which had long been preserved in

the family, was lost in his day. There is no need to regret it, for it

is now known that this contract was forged by Father Jerome Vignier.

Le Comte de Marsy (_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc, Claude des Armoises; du

degre de confiance a accorder aux decouvertes de Jerome Vignier_,

Compiegne, 1890) and M. Tamizey de Larroque (_Revue critique_, the

20th October, 1890). For Vignier's other forgeries cf. Julien Havet,

_Questions Merovingiennes_, ii.]

[Footnote 2651: Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, bk. v, ch. viii. _Trial_,

vol. iv, pp. 503, 504.]

Soon after her marriage she went to live at Metz in her husband's

house, opposite the church of Sainte-Segolene, over the Sainte-Barbe

Gate. Henceforth she was Jeanne du Lys, the Maid of France, the Lady

of Tichemont. By these names she is described in a contract dated the

7th of November, 1436, by which Robert des Armoises and his wife,

authorised by him, sell to Collard de Failly, squire, dwelling at

Marville, and to Poinsette, his wife, one quarter of the lordship of

Haraucourt. At the request of their dear friends, Messire Robert and

Dame Jeanne, Jean de Thoneletil, Lord of Villette, and Saubelet de

Dun, Provost of Marville, as well as the vendors, put their seals to

the contract to testify to its validity.[2652]

[Footnote 2652: The preceding deed, by which "_Robert des Harmoises et

la Pucelle Jehanne d'Arc, sa femme_," acquired the estate of Fleville,

is very doubtful (D. Calmet, 2nd edition, vol. v, p. clxiv, note).]

In her dwelling, opposite the Sainte-Segolene Church, la Dame des

Armoises gave birth to two children.[2653] Somewhere in

Languedoc[2654] there was an honest squire who, when he heard of these

births, seriously doubted whether Jeanne the Maid and la Dame des

Armoises could be one and the same person. This was Jean d'Aulon, who

had once been Jeanne's steward. From information he had received from

women who knew, he did not believe her to be the kind of woman likely

to have children.[2655]

[Footnote 2653: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, p. 323. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354-355.]

[Footnote 2654: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 206, note 2.]

[Footnote 2655: _Ibid._, p. 219.]

According to Brother Jean Nider, doctor in theology of the University

of Vienne, this fruitful union turned out badly. A priest, and, as he

says, a priest who might more appropriately be called a pander,

seduced this witch with words of love and carried her off. But Brother

Jean Nider adds that the priest secretly took la Dame des Armoises to

Metz and there lived with her as his concubine.[2656] Now it is proved

that her own home was in that very town; hence we may conclude that

this friar preacher does not know what he is talking about.[2657]

[Footnote 2656: Jean Nider, _Formicarium_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p.

325.]

[Footnote 2657: _Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud_, in _Trial_,

vol. v, pp. 323-324.]

The fact of the matter is that she did not remain longer than two

years in the shadow of Sainte-Segolene.

Although she had married, it was by no means her intention to forswear

prophesying and chivalry. During her trial Jeanne had been asked by

the examiner: "Jeanne, was it not revealed to you that if you lost

your virginity your good fortune would cease and your Voices desert

you?" She denied that such things had been revealed to her. And when

he insisted, asking her whether she believed that if she were married

her Voices would still come to her, she answered like a good

Christian: "I know not, and I appeal to God."[2658] Jeanne des

Armoises likewise held that good fortune had not forsaken her on

account of her marriage. Moreover, in those days of prophecy there

were both widows and married women who, like Judith of Bethulia, acted

by divine inspiration. Such had been Dame Catherine de la Rochelle,

although perhaps after all she had not done anything so very

great.[2659]

[Footnote 2658: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 183.]

[Footnote 2659: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 106, 108, 119, 296. _Journal d'un

bourgeois de Paris._]

In the summer of 1439, la Dame des Armoises went to Orleans. The

magistrates offered her wine and meat as a token of gladness and

devotion. On the first of August they gave her a dinner and presented

her with two hundred and ten livres of Paris as an acknowledgment of

the service she had rendered to the town during the siege. These are

the very terms in which this expenditure is entered in the account

books of that city.[2660]

[Footnote 2660: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in

_Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne

d'Arc_, pp. 570-571.]

If the folk of Orleans did actually take her for the real Maid,

Jeanne, then it must have been more on account of the evidence of the

Du Lys brothers, than on that of their own eyes. For, when one comes

to think of it, they had seen her but very seldom. During that week in

May, she had only appeared before them armed and on horseback.

Afterwards in June, 1429, and January, 1430, she had merely passed

through the town. True it was she had been offered wine and the

magistrates had sat at table with her;[2661] but that was nine years

ago. And the lapse of nine years works many a change in a woman's

face. They had seen her last as a young girl, now they found her a

woman and the mother of two children. Moreover they were guided by the

opinion of her kinsfolk. Their attitude provokes some astonishment,

however, when one thinks of the conversation at the banquet, and of

the awkward and inconsistent remarks the dame must have uttered. If

they were not then undeceived, these burgesses must have been passing

simple and strongly prejudiced in favour of their guest.

[Footnote 2661: Original documents of Orleans, in _Trial_, vol. v, p.

270.]

And who can say that they were not? Who can say that, after having

given credence to the tidings brought by Jean du Lys, the townsfolk

did not begin to discover the imposture? That the belief in the

survival of Jeanne was by no means general in the city, during the

visit of la Dame des Armoises, is proved by the entries in the

municipal accounts of sums expended on the funeral services, which we

have already mentioned. Supposing we abstract the years 1437 and 1438,

the anniversary service had at any rate been held in 1439, two days

before Corpus-Christi, and only about three months before the banquet

on the 1st of August.[2662] Thus these grateful burgesses of Orleans

were at one and the same time entertaining their benefactress at

banquets and saying masses in memory of her death.

[Footnote 2662: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 274. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i,

p. 286.]

La Dame des Armoises only spent a fortnight with them. She left the

city towards the end of July. Her departure would seem to have been

hasty and sudden. She was invited to a supper, at which she was to

have been presented with eight pints of wine, but when the wine was

served she had gone, and the banquet had to be held without her.[2663]

Jean Quillier and Thevanon of Bourges were present. This Thevanon may

have been that Thevenin Villedart, with whom Jeanne's brothers dwelt

during the siege.[2664] In Jean Quillier we recognise the young draper

who, in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple,

wherewith to make a gown for the Maid.[2665]

[Footnote 2663: Extracts from the accounts of the town of Orleans, in

_Trial_, vol. v, pp. 331-332. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 287.]

[Footnote 2664: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 260.]

[Footnote 2665: _Ibid._, pp. 112-113.]

La Dame des Armoises had gone to Tours, where she gave herself out to

be the true Jeanne. She gave the Bailie of Touraine a letter for the

King; and the Bailie undertook to see that it was delivered to the

Prince, who was then at Orleans, having arrived there but shortly

after Jeanne's departure. The Bailie of Touraine in 1439 was none

other than that Guillaume Bellier who ten years before as lieutenant

of Chinon had received the Maid into his house and committed her to

the care of his devout wife.[2666]

[Footnote 2666: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 17; vol. v, p. 327.]

To the messenger, who bore this letter, Guillaume Bellier also gave a

note for the King written by himself, and "touching the deeds of la

Dame des Armoises."[2667] We know nothing of its purport.[2668]

[Footnote 2667: _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 332. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La

fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 23-24.]

[Footnote 2668: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 332.]

Shortly afterwards the Dame went off into Poitou. There she placed

herself at the service of Seigneur Gille de Rais, Marshal of

France.[2669] He it was who in his early youth had conducted the Maid

to Orleans, had been with her throughout the coronation campaign, had

fought at her side before the walls of Paris. During Jeanne's

captivity he had occupied Louviers and pushed on boldly to Rouen. Now

throughout the length and breadth of his vast domains he was

kidnapping children, mingling magic with debauchery, and offering to

demons the blood and the limbs of his countless victims. His monstrous

doings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and

already the hand of the Church was upon him.

[Footnote 2669: Vallet de Viriville, _Notices et extraits de chartes

et de manuscrits appartenant au British Museum_, in _Bibliotheque de

l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. viii, 1846, p. 116.]

According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises

practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the

Marechal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the

men-at-arms,[2670] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had

occupied at Lagny and Compiegne. Did she do great prowess? We do not

know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it

was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[2671] In the

spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[2672]

[Footnote 2670: Abbe Bossard, _Gille de Rais_, p. 174.]

[Footnote 2671: Pardon, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 332-334.]

[Footnote 2672: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 335. Lecoy de la

Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]

For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King

Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to

prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves

penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[2673] The

townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget

how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had

attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were

many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been

burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal

reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded

her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[2674] Even in Rouen

such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be

held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the

rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the

people of Orleans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the

city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.

[Footnote 2673: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 338 _et seq._

De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp. 384 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2674: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 270.]

Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just

the same as it had been under Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured

and respected the King of France, the guardian of its privileges and

the defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The illustrious

masters felt no remorse at having demanded and obtained the

chastisement of the rebel and heretic, Jeanne the Maid. Whosoever

persists in error is a heretic; whosoever essays and fails to

overthrow the powers that be is a rebel. It was God's will that in

1440 Charles of Valois should possess the city of Paris; it had not

been God's will in 1429; wherefore the Maid had striven against God.

With equal bitterness would the University, in 1440, have proceeded

against a Maid of the English.

The magistrates who had returned to their Paris homes from their long

dreary exile at Poitiers sat in the Parlement side by side with the

converted Burgundians.[2675] In the days of adversity these faithful

servants of King Charles had set the Maid to work, but now in 1440 it

was none of their business to maintain publicly the truth of her

mission and the purity of her faith. Burned by the English, that was

all very well. But a trial conducted by a bishop and a vice-inquisitor

with the concurrence of the University is not an English trial; it is

a trial at once essentially Gallican and essentially Catholic.

Jeanne's name was forever branded throughout Christendom. That

ecclesiastical sentence could be reversed by the Pope alone. But the

Pope had no intention of doing this. He was too much afraid of

displeasing the King of Catholic England; and moreover were he once to

admit that an inquisitor of the faith had pronounced a wrong sentence

he would undermine all human authority. The French clerks submit and

are silent. In the assemblies of the clergy no one dares to utter

Jeanne's name.

[Footnote 2675: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, ch.

xvi.]

Fortunately for them neither the doctors and masters of the University

nor the sometime members of the Parlement of Poitiers share the

popular delusion touching la Dame des Armoises. They have no doubt

that the Maid was burned at Rouen. And they fear lest this woman, who

gives herself out to be the deliverer of Orleans, may arouse a tumult

by her entrance into the city. Wherefore the Parlement and the

University send out men-at-arms to meet her. She is arrested and

brought to the Palais.[2676]

[Footnote 2676: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355. Lecoy

de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574.]

She was examined, tried and sentenced to be publicly exhibited. In the

Palais de Justice, leading up from the court called the Cour-de-Mai,

there was a marble slab on which malefactors were exhibited. La Dame

des Armoises was put up there and shown to the people whom she had

deceived. The usual sermon was preached at her and she was forced to

confess publicly.[2677]

[Footnote 2677: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, _loc. cit._]

She declared that she was not the Maid, that she was married to a

knight and had two sons. She told how one day, in her mother's

presence, she heard a woman speak slightingly of her; whereupon she

proceeded to attack the slanderer, and, when her mother restrained

her, she turned her blows against her parent. Had she not been in a

passion she would never have struck her mother. Notwithstanding this

provocation, here was a special case and one reserved for the papal

jurisdiction. Whosoever had raised his hand against his father or his

mother, as likewise against a priest or a clerk, must go and ask

forgiveness of the Holy Father, to whom alone belonged the power of

convicting or acquitting the sinner. This was what she had done. "I

went to Rome," she said, "attired in man's apparel. I engaged as a

soldier in the war of the Holy Father Eugenius, and in this war I

twice committed homicide."

When had she journeyed to Rome? Probably before the exile of Pope

Eugenius to Florence, about the year 1433, when the condottieri of the

Duke of Milan were advancing to the gates of the Eternal City.[2678]

[Footnote 2678: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355. Lecoy

de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 574. G. Lefevre-Pontalis,

_La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 27.]

We do not find either the University, or the Ordinary, or the Grand

Inquisitor demanding the trial of this woman, who was suspected of

witchcraft and of homicide, and who was attired in unseemly garments.

She was not prosecuted as a heretic, doubtless because she was not

obstinate, and obstinacy alone constitutes heresy.

Henceforth she attracted no further attention. It is believed, but on

no very trustworthy evidence, that she ended by returning to Metz, to

her husband, le Chevalier des Armoises, and that she lived quietly and

respectably to a good old age, dwelling in the house over the door of

which were her armorial bearings, or rather those of Jeanne the Maid,

the sword, the crown and the Lilies.[2679]

[Footnote 2679: Vergnaud-Romagnesi, _Des portraits de Jeanne d'Arc et

de la fausse Jeanne d'Arc_ and _Memoire sur les fausses Jeanne d'Arc_,

in _Les Memoires de la Societe d'Agriculture d'Orleans_, 1854, in

8vo.]

The success of this fraud had endured four years. After all it is not

so very surprising. In every age people have been loath to believe in

the final end of existences which have touched their imagination; they

will not admit that great personalities can be struck down by death

like ordinary folk; such an end to a noble career is repugnant to

them. Impostors, like la Dame des Armoises, never fail to find some

who will believe in them. And the Dame appeared at a time which was

singularly favourable to such a delusion; intellects had been dulled

by long suffering; communication between one district and another was

rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place

was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned

dimness, ignorance, confusion.

But even then folk would not have been imposed upon so long by this

pseudo-Jeanne had it not been for the support given her by the Du Lys

brothers. Were they her dupes or her accomplices? Dull-witted as they

may have been, it seems hardly credible that the adventuress could

have imposed upon them. Admitting that she very closely resembled La

Romee's daughter, the woman from La Grange-aux-Ormes cannot possibly

for any length of time have deceived two men who knew Jeanne

intimately, having been brought up with her and come with her into

France.

If they were not imposed upon, then how can we account for their

conduct? They had lost much when they lost their sister. When he

arrived at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Pierre du Lys had just quitted a

Burgundian prison; his ransom had been paid with his wife's dowry, and

he was then absolutely destitute.[2680] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois,

afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vaucouleurs,

was hardly more prosperous.[2681] Such circumstances explained much.

And yet it is unlikely that they of themselves alone and unsupported

would have played a game so difficult, so risky, and so dangerous.

From the little we know of their lives we should conclude that they

were both too simple, too naif, too placid, to carry on such an

intrigue.

[Footnote 2680: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 210, 213.]

[Footnote 2681: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 279.]

We are tempted to believe that they were urged on by some higher and

greater power. Who knows? Perhaps by certain indiscreet persons in the

service of the King of France. The condemnation and death of Jeanne

was a serious attack upon the prestige of Charles VII. May he not have

had in his household or among his counsellors certain subjects who

were rashly jealous enough to invent this appearance, in order to

spread abroad the belief that Jeanne the Maid had not died the death

of a witch, but that by virtue of her innocence and her holiness she

had escaped the flames? If this were so, then we may regard the

imposture of the pseudo-Jeanne, invented at a time when it seemed

impossible ever to obtain a papal revision of the trial of 1431, as an

attempt, surreptitious and fraudulent and speedily abandoned, to bring

about her rehabilitation.

Such a hypothesis would explain why the Du Lys brothers were not

punished or even disgraced, when they had put themselves in the wrong,

had deceived King and people and committed the crime of high treason.

Jean continued provost of Vaucouleurs for many a long year, and then,

when relieved of his office, received a sum of money in lieu of it.

Pierre, as well as his mother, La Romee, was living at Orleans. In 1443

he received from Duke Charles, who had returned to France three years

before, the grant of an island in the Loire, l'Ile-aux-Boeufs,[2682]

which was fair grazing land. Nevertheless, he remained poor, and was

constantly receiving help from the Duke and the townsfolk of Orleans.[2683]

[Footnote 2682: _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 212, 214. Lottin, _Recherches_,

vol. i, p. 287. Duleau, _Vidimus d'une charte de Charles VII,

concedant a Pierre du Lys la possession de l'Isle-aux-Boeufs_,

Orleans, 1860, in 8vo. 6. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne

d'Arc_, p. 28, note 1.]

[Footnote 2683: I have not made use of the very late evidence given by

Pierre Sala (_Trial_, vol. iv, p. 281). It is vague and somewhat

legendary, and cannot possibly be introduced into the Life of La Dame

des Armoises. For the bibliography of this interesting subject, see

Lanery d'Arc, _Le livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 573, 580, and G.

Lefevre-Pontalis, _La fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1895, in 8vo,

concerning the account given by M. Gaston Save.

There are those who have supposed, without adducing any proof, that

this pseudo-Jeanne was a sister of the Maid (Lebrun de Charmettes,

_Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. iv, pp. 291 _et seq._). Francis

Andre, _La verite sur Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1895, in 18mo, pp. 75 _et

seq._]

CHAPTER XVI

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID (_continued_)--THE ROUEN JUDGES AT THE

COUNCIL OF BALE AND THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION--THE REHABILITATION

TRIAL--THE MAID OF SARMAIZE--THE MAID OF LE MANS

From year to year the Council of Bale drew out its deliberations in a

series of sessions well nigh as lengthy as the tail of the dragon in

the Apocalypse. Its manner of reforming at once the Church, its

members, and its head struck terror into the hearts of the sovereign

Pontiff and the Sacred College. Sorrowfully did AEneus Sylvius exclaim,

"There is assembled at Bale, not the Church of God indeed, but the

synagogue of Satan."[2684] But though uttered by a Roman cardinal,

even such an expression can hardly be termed violent when applied to

the synod which established free elections to bishoprics, suppressed

the right of bestowing the pallium, of exacting annates and payments

to the papal chancery, and which was endeavouring to restore the

papacy to evangelical poverty. The King of France and the Emperor, on

the other hand, looked favourably on the Council when it essayed to

bridle the ambition and greed of the Bishop of Rome.

[Footnote 2684: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, p.

335.]

Now among the Fathers who displayed the greatest zeal in the

reformation of the Church were the masters and doctors of the

University of Paris, those who had sat in judgment on Jeanne the Maid,

and notably Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur and Maitre Thomas de Courcelles.

Charles VII convoked an assembly of the clergy of the realm in order

to examine the canons of Bale. The assembly met in the Sainte-Chapelle

at Bourges, on the 1st of May, 1438. Master Thomas de Courcelles,

appointed delegate by the Council, there conferred with the Lord

Bishop of Castres. Now in 1438 the Bishop of Castres was that elegant

humanist, that zealous counsellor of the crown, who, in style truly

Ciceronian, complained in his letters that so closely was he bound to

his glebe, the court, that no time remained to him to visit his

spouse.[2685] He was none other than that Gerard Machet, the King's

confessor, who had, in 1429, along with the clerks at Poitiers,

pleaded the authority of prophecy in favour of the Maid, in whom he

found nought but sincerity and goodness.[2686] Maitre Thomas de

Courcelles at Rouen had urged the Maid's being tortured and delivered

to the secular arm.[2687] At the Bourges assembly the two churchmen

agreed touching the supremacy of General Councils, the freedom of

episcopal elections, the suppression of annates and the rights of the

Gallican Church. At that moment it was not likely that either one or

the other remembered the poor Maid. From the deliberations of this

assembly, in which Maitre Thomas played an important part, there

issued the solemn edict promulgated by the King on the 7th of July,

1438; the Pragmatic Sanction. By this edict the canons of Bale became

the constitution of the Church of France.[2688]

[Footnote 2685: Le P. Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'eglise de son

temps_, p. 10.]

[Footnote 2686: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 565.]

[Footnote 2687: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 403.]

[Footnote 2688: _Ordonnances_, vol. xiii, pp. 267, 291. _Preuves des

libertes de l'eglise gallicane_, edited by Lenglet-Dufresnoy, second

part, p. 6. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, pp.

353, 361. N. Arlos, _Histoire de la pragmatique sanction, etc._]

The Emperor also agreed to the reforms of Bale. So audacious did the

Fathers become that they summoned Pope Eugenius to appear before their

tribunal. When he refused to obey their summons, they deposed him,

declaring him to be disobedient, obstinate, rebellious, a breaker of

rules, a perturber of ecclesiastical unity, a perjurer, a schismatic,

a hardened heretic, a squanderer of the treasures of the Church,

scandalous, simoniacal, pernicious and damnable.[2689] Such was the

condemnation of the Holy Fathers pronounced among other doctors by

Maitre Jean Beaupere, Maitre Thomas de Courcelles and Maitre Nicolas

Loiseleur, who had all three so sternly reproached Jeanne with having

refused to submit to the Pope.[2690] Maitre Nicolas had been extremely

energetic throughout the Maid's trial, playing alternately the parts

of the Lorraine prisoner and Saint Catherine; when she was led to the

stake he had run after her like a madman.[2691] This same Maitre

Nicolas now displayed great activity in the Council wherein he

attained to some eminence. He upheld the view that the General Council

canonically convoked, was superior to the Pope and in a position to

depose him. And albeit this canon was a mere master of arts, he made

such an impression on the Fathers at Bale that in 1439, they

despatched him to act as juris-consult at the Diet of Mainz. Meanwhile

his attitude was strongly displeasing to the chapter which had sent

him as deputy to the Council. The canons of Rouen sided with the

Sovereign Pontiff and against the Fathers, on this point joining issue

with the University of Paris. They disowned their delegate and sent to

recall him on the 28th of July, 1438.[2692]

[Footnote 2689: Hefele, _Histoire de l'Eglise gallicane_, vol. xx, p.

357. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, p. 363. De

Beaurepaire, _Les etats de Normandie sous la domination anglaise_, pp.

66, 67, 185, 188.]

[Footnote 2690: Du Boulay, _Hist. Universitatis_, vol. v, p. 431. De

Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, p. 28.]

[Footnote 2691: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 10, 12, 332, 362; vol. iii, pp.

60, 133, 141, 145, 156, 162, 173, 181.]

[Footnote 2692: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges et assesseurs du

proces de condamnation_, pp. 78, 82.]

Maitre Thomas de Courcelles, one of those who had declared the Pope

disobedient, obstinate, rebellious and the rest, was nominated one of

the commissioners to preside over the election of a new pope, and,

like Loiseleur, a delegate to the Diet of Mainz. But, unlike

Loiseleur, he was not disowned by those who had appointed him, for he

was the deputy of the University of Paris who recognised the Pope of

the Council, Felix, to be the true Father of the Faithful.[2693] In

the assembly of the French clergy held at Bourges in the August of

1440, Maitre Thomas spoke in the name of the Fathers of Bale. He

discoursed for two hours to the complete satisfaction of the

King.[2694] Charles VII, while remaining loyal to Pope Eugenius,

maintained the Pragmatic Sanction. Maitre Thomas de Courcelles was

henceforth one of the pillars of the French Church.

[Footnote 2693: J. Quicherat, _Apercus nouveaux_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 2694: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. iii, p.

372.]

Meanwhile the English government had declared for the Pope and against

the Council.[2695] My Lord Pierre Cauchon, who had become Bishop of

Lisieux, was Henry VI's ambassador at the Council. And at Bale a

somewhat unpleasant experience befell him. By reason of his

translation to the see of Lisieux he owed Rome annates to the amount

of 400 golden florins. In Germany he was informed by the Pope's

Treasurer that by his failure to pay this sum, despite the long delays

granted to him, he had incurred excommunication, and that being

excommunicate, by presuming to celebrate divine service he had

committed irregularity.[2696] Such accusations must have caused him

considerable annoyance. But after all, such occurrences were frequent

and of no great consequence. On churchmen these thunderbolts fell but

lightly, doing them no great hurt.