attire; though, strange to say, no one had ever seemed able to
understand her motive for wearing it. All, both friends and enemies,
were scandalized by it. At the outset, she had been obliged to explain
her reasons to the woman of Poitiers; and when made prisoner, and under
the care of the ladies of Luxemburg, those excellent persons prayed her
to clothe herself as honest girls were wont to do. Above all, the
English ladies, who have always made a parade of chastity and modesty,
must have considered her so disguising herself monstrous and
insufferably indecent. The Duchess of Bedford sent her female attire;
but by whom? By a man, a tailor. The fellow, with impudent familiarity,
was about to pass it over her head, and, when she pushed him away, laid
his unmannnerly hand upon her--his tailor's hand on that hand which had
borne the flag of France. She boxed his ears.
If women could not understand this feminine question, how much less
could priests! They quoted the text of a council held in the fourth
century, which anathematized such changes of dress; not seeing that the
prohibition specially applied to a period when manners had been barely
retrieved from pagan impurities. The doctors belonging to the party of
Charles VII, the apologists of the Pucelle, find exceeding difficulty in
justifying her on this head. One of them--thought to be Gerson--makes
the gratuitous supposition that the moment she dismounted from her
horse, she was in the habit of resuming woman's apparel; confessing that
Esther and Judith had had recourse to more natural and feminine means
for their triumphs over the enemies of God's people. Entirely
preoccupied with the soul, these theologians seem to have held the body
cheap; provided the letter, the written law, be followed, the soul will
be saved; the flesh may take its chance. A poor and simple girl may be
pardoned her inability to distinguish so clearly.
On the Friday and the Saturday the unfortunate prisoner, despoiled of
her man's dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious hatred, vengeance,
might severally incite the cowards to degrade her before she perished,
to sully what they were about to burn. Besides, they might be tempted to
varnish their infamy by a "reason of state," according to the notions of
the day--by depriving her of her virginity they would undoubtedly
destroy that secret power of which the English entertained such great
dread, who perhaps might recover their courage when they knew that,
after all, she was but a woman. According to her confessor, to whom she
divulged the fact, an Englishman, not a common soldier, but a
_gentleman_, a lord, patriotically devoted himself to this
execution--bravely undertook to violate a girl laden with fetters, and,
being unable to effect his wishes, rained blows upon her.
"On the Sunday morning, Trinity Sunday, when it was time for her to
rise--as she told him who speaks--she said to her English guards, 'Leave
me, that I may get up.' One of them took off her woman's dress, emptied
the bag in which was the man's apparel, and said to her, 'Get up.'
'Gentlemen,' she said, 'you know that dress is forbidden me; excuse me,
I will not put it on.' The point was contested till noon; when, being
compelled to go out for some bodily want, she put it on. When she came
back, they would give her no other, despite her entreaties."
In reality, it was not to the interest of the English that she should
resume her man's dress, and so make null and void a retractation
obtained with such difficulty. But at this moment, their rage no longer
knew any bounds. Saintrailles had just made a bold attempt upon Rouen.
It would have been a lucky hit to have swept off the judges from the
judgment seat, and have carried Winchester and Bedford to Poitiers; the
latter was, subsequently, all but taken on his return, between Rouen and
Paris. As long as this accursed girl lived, who beyond a doubt continued
in prison to practise her sorceries, there was no safety for the
English; perish she must.
The assessors, who had notice instantly given them of her change of
dress, found some hundred English in the court to obstruct their
passage; who, thinking that if these doctors entered they might spoil
all, threatened them with their axes and swords, and chased them out,
calling them "traitors of Armagnacs." Cauchon, introduced with much
difficulty, assumed an air of gayety to pay his court to Warwick, and
said with a laugh, "She is caught."
On the Monday he returned, along with the Inquisitor and eight
assessors, to question the Pucelle, and ask her why she had resumed that
dress. She made no excuse, but, bravely facing the danger, said that the
dress was fitter for her as long as she was guarded by men, and that
faith had not been kept with her. Her saints, too, had told her "that it
was great pity she had abjured to save her life." Still, she did not
refuse to resume woman's dress. "Put me in a seemly and safe prison,"
she said; "I will be good, and do whatever the Church shall wish."
On leaving her the Bishop encountered Warwick and a crowd of English;
and to show himself a good Englishman he said in their tongue,
"Farewell, farewell." This joyous adieu was about synonymous with "Good
evening, good evening; all's over."
On the Tuesday, the judges got up at the Archbishop's palace a court of
assessors as they best might; some of them had assisted at the first
sittings only, others at none; in fact, composed of men of all sorts,
priests, legists, and even three physicians. The judges recapitulated to
them what had taken place, and asked their opinion. This opinion, quite
different from what was expected, was that the prisoner should be
summoned, and her act of abjuration be read over to her. Whether this
was in the power of the judges is doubtful. In the midst of the fury and
swords of a raging soldiery, there was in reality no judge, and no
possibility of judgment. Blood was the one thing wanted; and that of the
judges was, perhaps, not far from flowing. They hastily drew up a
summons, to be served the next morning at eight o'clock; she was not to
appear, save to be burned.
Cauchon sent her a confessor in the morning, brother Martin l'Advenu,
"to prepare her for her death, and persuade her to repentance. And when
he apprised her of the death she was to die that day, she began to cry
out grievously, to give way, and tear her hair: 'Alas! am I to be
treated so horribly and cruelly? must my body, pure as from birth, and
which was never contaminated, be this day consumed and reduced to ashes?
Ha! ha! I would rather be beheaded seven times over than be burned on
this wise! Oh! I make my appeal to God, the great judge of the wrongs
and grievances done me!'"
After this burst of grief, she recovered herself and confessed; she then
asked to communicate. The brother was embarrassed; but, consulting the
Bishop, the latter told him to administer the sacrament, "and whatever
else she might ask." Thus, at the very moment he condemned her as a
relapsed heretic, and cut her off from the Church, he gave her all that
the Church gives to her faithful. Perhaps a last sentiment of humanity
awoke in the heart of the wicked judge; he considered it enough to burn
the poor creature, without driving her to despair, and damning her.
Besides, it was attempted to do it privately, and the eucharist was
brought without stole and light. But the monk complained, and the Church
of Rouen, duly warned, was delighted to show what it thought of the
judgment pronounced by Cauchon; it sent along with the body of Christ
numerous torches and a large escort of priests, who sang litanies, and,
as they passed through the streets, told the kneeling people, "Pray for
her."
After partaking of the communion, which she received with abundance of
tears, she perceived the Bishop, and addressed him with the words,
"Bishop, I die through you." And, again, "Had you put me in the prisons
of the Church, and given me ghostly keepers, this would not have
happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God."
Then, seeing among the bystanders Pierre Morice, one of the preachers by
whom she had been addressed, she said to him, "Ah, Master Pierre, where
shall I be this evening?"
"Have you not good hope in the Lord?"
"Oh! yes; God to aid, I shall be in paradise."
It was nine o'clock: she was dressed in female attire, and placed on a
cart. On one side of her was brother Martin l'Advenu; the constable,
Massieu, was on the other. The Augustine monk, Brother Isambart, who had
already displayed much charity and courage, would not quit her.
Up to this moment the Pucelle had never despaired, with the exception,
perhaps, of her temptation in the Passion Week. While saying, as she at
times would say, "These English will kill me," she in reality did not
think so. She did not imagine that she could ever be deserted. She had
faith in her King, in the good people of France. She had said expressly:
"There will be some disturbance, either in prison or at the trial, by
which I shall be delivered, greatly, victoriously delivered." But though
King and people deserted her, she had another source of aid, and a far
more powerful and certain one from her friends above, her kind and dear
saints. When she was assaulting St. Pierre, and deserted by her
followers, her saints sent an invisible army to her aid. How could they
abandon their obedient girl, they who had so often promised her "safety
and deliverance"?
What then must her thoughts have been when she saw that she must die;
when, carried in a cart, she passed through a trembling crowd, under the
guard of eight hundred Englishmen armed with sword and lance? She wept
and bemoaned herself, yet reproached neither her King nor her saints.
She was only heard to utter, "O Rouen, Rouen! must I then die here?"
The term of her sad journey was the old market-place, the fish-market.
Three scaffolds had been raised; on one was the episcopal and royal
chair, the throne of the Cardinal of England, surrounded by the stalls
of his prelates; on another were to figure the principal personages of
the mournful drama, the preacher, the judges, and the bailiff, and,
lastly, the condemned one; apart was a large scaffolding of plaster,
groaning under a weight of wood--nothing had been grudged the stake,
which struck terror by its height alone. This was not only to add to the
solemnity of the execution, but was done with the intent that, from the
height to which it was reared, the executioner might not get at it save
at the base, and that to light it only, so that he would be unable to
cut short the torments and relieve the sufferer, as he did with others,
sparing them the flames.
On this occasion the important point was that justice should not be
defrauded of her due or a dead body be committed to the flames; they
desired that she should be really burned alive, and that, placed on the
summit of this mountain of wood, and commanding the circle of lances and
of swords, she might be seen from every part of the market-place. There
was reason to suppose that being slowly, tediously burned, before the
eyes of a curious crowd, she might at last be surprised into some
weakness, that something might escape her which could be set down as a
disavowal, at the least some confused words which might be interpreted
at pleasure, perhaps low prayers, humiliating cries for mercy, such as
proceed from a woman in despair.
The frightful ceremony began with a sermon. Master Nicolas Midy, one of
the lights of the University of Paris, preached upon the edifying text:
"When one limb of the Church is sick, the whole Church is sick." He
wound up with the formula: "Jeanne, go in peace; the Church can no
longer defend thee."
The ecclesiastical judge, the Bishop of Beauvais, then benignly
exhorted her to take care of her soul and to recall all her misdeeds, in
order that she might awaken to true repentance. The assessors had ruled
that it was the law to read over her abjuration to her; the Bishop did
nothing of the sort. He feared her denials, her disclaimers. But the
poor girl had no thought of so chicaning away life; her mind was fixed
on far other subjects. Even before she was exhorted to repentance, she
had knelt down and invoked God, the Virgin, St. Michael, and St.
Catharine, pardoning all and asking pardon, saying to the bystanders,
"Pray for me!" In particular, she besought the priests to say each a
mass for her soul. And all this so devoutly, humbly, and touchingly
that, sympathy becoming contagious, no one could any longer contain
himself; the Bishop of Beauvais melted into tears, the Bishop of
Boulogne sobbed, and the very English cried and wept as well, Winchester
with the rest.
Might it be in this moment of universal tenderness, of tears, of
contagious weakness, that the unhappy girl, softened, and relapsing into
the mere woman, confessed that she saw clearly she had erred, and that,
apparently, she had been deceived when promised deliverance? This is a
point on which we cannot implicitly rely on the interested testimony of
the English. Nevertheless, it would betray scant knowledge of human
nature to doubt, with her hopes so frustrated, her having wavered in her
faith. Whether she confessed to this effect in words is uncertain; but I
will confidently affirm that she owned it in thought.
Meanwhile the judges, for a moment put out of countenance, had recovered
their usual bearing, and the Bishop of Beauvais, drying his eyes, began
to read the act of condemnation. He reminded the guilty one of all her
crimes, of her schism, idolatry, invocation of demons, how she had been
admitted to repentance, and how, "seduced by the Prince of Lies, she had
fallen, O grief! 'like the dog which returns to his vomit.' Therefore,
we pronounce you to be a rotten limb, and, as such, to be lopped off
from the Church. We deliver you over to the secular power, praying it at
the same time to relax its sentence and to spare you death and the
mutilation of your members."
Deserted thus by the Church, she put her whole trust in God. She asked
for the cross. An Englishman handed her a cross which he made out of a
stick; she took it, rudely fashioned as it was, with not less devotion,
kissed it, and placed it under her garments, next to her skin. But what
she desired was the crucifix belonging to the Church, to have it before
her eyes till she breathed her last. The good huissier Massieu and
Brother Isambart interfered with such effect that it was brought her
from St. Sauveur's. While she was embracing this crucifix, and Brother
Isambart was encouraging her, the English began to think all this
exceedingly tedious; it was now noon at least; the soldiers grumbled,
and the captains called out: "What's this, priest; do you mean us to
dine here?"
Then, losing patience, and without waiting for the order from the
bailiff, who alone had authority to dismiss her to death, they sent two
constables to take her out of the hands of the priests. She was seized
at the foot of the tribunal by the men-at-arms, who dragged her to the
executioner with the words, "Do thy office." The fury of the soldiery
filled all present with horror; and many there, even of the judges, fled
the spot, that they might see no more.
When she found herself brought down to the market-place, surrounded by
English, laying rude hands on her, nature asserted her rights and the
flesh was troubled. Again she cried out, "O Rouen, thou art then to be
my last abode!" She said no more, and, in this hour of fear and trouble,
did not sin with her lips.
She accused neither her King nor her holy ones. But when she set foot on
the top of the pile, on viewing this great city, this motionless and
silent crowd, she could not refrain from exclaiming, "Ah! Rouen, Rouen,
much do I fear you will suffer from my death!" She who had saved the
people, and whom that people deserted, gave voice to no other sentiment
when dying--admirable sweetness of soul!--than that of compassion for
it.
She was made fast under the infamous placard, mitred with a mitre on
which was read, "Heretic, relapser, apostate, idolater."
And then the executioner set fire to the pile. She saw this from above
and uttered a cry. Then, as the brother who was exhorting her paid no
attention to the fire, forgetting herself in her fear for him, she
insisted on his descending.
The proof that up to this period she had made no express recantation is,
that the unhappy Cauchon was obliged--no doubt by the high satanic will
which presided over the whole--to proceed to the foot of the pile,
obliged to face his victim to endeavor to extract some admission from
her. All that he obtained was a few words, enough to rack his soul. She
said to him mildly what she had already said: "Bishop, I die through
you. If you had put me into the Church prisons, this would not have
happened." No doubt hopes had been entertained that, on finding herself
abandoned by her King, she would at last accuse and defame him. To the
last, she defended him: "Whether I have done well or ill, my King is
faultless; it was not he who counselled me."
Meanwhile the flames rose. When they first seized her, the unhappy girl
shrieked for holy _water_--this must have been the cry of fear. But,
soon recovering, she called only on God, on her angels and her saints.
She bore witness to them, "Yes, my voices were from God, my voices have
not deceived me." The fact that all her doubts vanished at this trying
moment must be taken as a proof that she accepted death as the promised
deliverance; that she no longer understood her salvation in the Judaic
and material sense, as until now she had done, that at length she saw
clearly; and that, rising above all shadows, her gifts of illumination
and of sanctity were at the final hour made perfect unto her.
The great testimony she thus bore is attested by the sworn and compelled
witness of her death, by the Dominican who mounted the pile with her,
whom she forced to descend, but who spoke to her from its foot, listened
to her, and held out to her the crucifix.
There is yet another witness of this sainted death, a most grave
witness, who must himself have been a saint. This witness, whose name
history ought to preserve, was the Augustine monk already mentioned,
Brother Isambart de la Pierre. During the trial he had hazarded his life
by counselling the Pucelle, and yet, though so clearly pointed out to
the hate of the English, he persisted in accompanying her in the cart,
procured the parish crucifix for her, and comforted her in the midst of
the raging multitude, both on the scaffold where she was interrogated
and at the stake.
Twenty years afterward, the two venerable friars, simple monks, vowed to
poverty and having nothing to hope or fear in this world, bear witness
to the scene we have just described: "We heard her," they say, "in the
midst of the flames invoke her saints, her archangel; several times she
called on her Saviour. At the last, as her head sunk on her bosom, she
shrieked, 'Jesus!'"
"Ten thousand men wept. A few of the English alone laughed, or
endeavored to laugh. One of the most furious among them had sworn that
he would throw a fagot on the pile. Just as he brought it she breathed
her last. He was taken ill. His comrades led him to a tavern to recruit
his spirits by drink, but he was beyond recovery. 'I saw,' he exclaimed,
in his frantic despair, 'I saw a dove fly out of her mouth with her last
sigh.' Others had read in the flames the word 'Jesus,' which she so
often repeated. The executioner repaired in the evening to Brother
Isambart, full of consternation, and confessed himself; he felt
persuaded that God would never pardon him. One of the English King's
secretaries said aloud, on returning from the dismal scene: 'We are
lost; we have burned a saint.'"
Though these words fell from an enemy's mouth, they are not the less
important, and will live, uncontradicted by the future. Yes, whether
considered religiously or patriotically, Jeanne d'Arc was a saint.
Where find a finer legend than this true history? Still, let us beware
of converting it into a legend; let us piously preserve its every trait,
even such as are most akin to human nature, and respect its terrible and
touching reality.[83]
CHARLES VII ISSUES HIS PRAGMATIC SANCTION
EMANCIPATION OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH
A.D. 1438
W. H. JERVIS R. F. ROHRBACHER
"No two words," says Smedley, "convey less distinct meaning
to English ears than 'pragmatic sanction.' Perhaps 'a
well-considered ordinance' may in some degree represent
them, _i.e._, an ordinance which has been fully discussed by
men practised in state affairs." Carlyle defines "pragmatic
sanction" as "the received title for ordinances of a very
irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes in affairs that
belong wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own
rights." A dictionary definition calls it "an imperial edict
operating as a fundamental law." The term was probably first
applied to certain decrees of the Byzantine emperors for
regulating their provinces and towns, and later it was given
to imperial decrees in the West. In the present case it is
applied to the limitations set to the power of the pope in
France.
In the Council of Constance, 1414-1418, at which decrees
were passed subordinating the pope as well as the whole
Church to the authority of a general council, Gallican or
French opinion on this subject won its first great victory.
But this triumph introduced into the Western Church an
element of strife which resulted in calamities scarcely less
grave than those of the Great Schism of 1378-1417, during
which different parties adhered to rival popes. From the
Council of Constance may be dated the formal divergence of
the Gallican from the Ultramontane or strictly Roman church
government.
Pope Martin V, who was elected by the Council of Constance
after it had deposed John XXIII, Gregory XII, and Benedict
XIII, is generally considered to have assented to all its
decrees. In 1431, on the death of Martin V, Eugenius IV
succeeded to the papal throne. A council had been convened
at Pavia in 1423. After a few weeks it was transferred to
Siena, and subsequently to Basel. Fearing that it would
follow the policy of Constance, Eugenius (1431) attempted to
dissolve it and to have it reconvened at Bologna under his
own eye. A rupture followed between Pope and council,
resulting in years of confused strife.
In all this confusion our historians, Jervis and Rohrbacher,
distinguish the leading events, the most significant of
which was the issuing of the Pragmatic Sanction by Charles
VII of France. This ordinance is known, from the place of
its promulgation, as the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and
is sometimes called the "Palladium of France," also the
"Magna Charta of the Gallican Church."
W. HENLEY JERVIS
The position assumed by the Gallican Church at this junction was
peculiar and in some respects questionable. It declared decidedly in
favor of the Council of Basel; many French prelates repaired thither,
and ambassadors were sent by the King, Charles VII, to Pope Eugenius, to
beseech him to support the authority of the synod, and to protest
against its dissolution. The fathers stood firm at their posts,
appealing to the principles solemnly asserted at Constance, that the
pope is bound in certain specified cases to submit to an ecumenical
council, and that the latter cannot be translated, prorogued, or
dissolved without its own consent. The gift of infallibility, they
affirmed, resides in the collective Church. It does not belong to the
popes, several of whom have erred concerning the faith. The Church alone
has authority to enact laws which are binding on the whole body of the
faithful.