|WE might suppose that there was not a rich man in France, or even a
poor man, who would not have given what he could, much or little, to
help to pay the ransom of the Maid. Jean de Luxembourg only wanted
the money, and, as she was a prisoner of war, she might expect to be
ransomed like other prisoners. It was the more needful to get the money
and buy her freedom, as the priests of the University of Paris, who were
on the English side, at once wrote to Jean de Luxembourg (July 14), and
asked him to give Joan up to the Inquisition, to be tried by the laws
of the Inquisition for the crimes of witchcraft, idolatry, and wrong
doctrines about religion.
The Inquisitor was the head of a kind of religious Court, which tried
people for not holding the right belief, or for witchcraft, or other
religious offences. The rules of the Court, and the way of managing the
trials, were what we think very unfair. But they were not more unfair
than the methods used in Scotland after the Reformation. With us old
women were tortured till they confessed that they were witches, and then
were burned alive, sometimes seven or eight of them at once, for crimes
which nobody could possibly commit.
That went on in Scotland till the country was united to England, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, and the laws against witchcraft
were not abolished till 1736. Many of the Presbyterian ministers,
who were active in hunting for witches and having them put to horrid
tortures, were very angry that the witchcraft laws were abolished. The
Inquisition was better than the ministers and magistrates in one way: if
a witch confessed, and promised not to do it again, she was not put to
death, but kept in prison. In Scotland the people accused of witchcraft
had not even this chance, which did not help Joan, as we shall see.
All this is told here, to show that the French were not more stupid
and cruel four hundred years ago, than we were in Scotland, two hundred
years ago. But it was a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
Inquisition, and therefore the French King and his subjects should have
paid Joan’s ransom at once or rescued her by force of arms. But not a
coin was paid, and not a sword was drawn to ransom or to rescue her. The
people who advised the King had never liked her, and now the King left
her to her fate. She could have taken a bitter revenge on him, if she
had chosen to tell tales; but she was loyal to the last, like Montrose
to Charles II.
Of course Joan was not a witch, and was a most religious girl, but
she did not deny that she had talked with spirits, the spirits of the
Saints; and her judges, who hated her, could say, and did say, that
these spirits were devils, in disguise, and that therefore she was a
witch. She always had known that they would do this, if they got the
chance.
Jean de Luxembourg did not hand Joan over to the priests at once:
probably he was waiting to see if he could not get a better price from
her French friends than from her English enemies. The Bishop of Beauvais
was Joan’s worst enemy: his odious name was Pierre Cauchon, and in July
he kept pressing the Duke of Burgundy, then still besieging Compiègne,
to make Jean give up the Maid. Jean kept the Maid in a castle called
Beaulieu till August, and then sent her to another castle, Beaurevoir,
near Cambrai, far to the north, where it would be more difficult for her
friends like Dunois and d’Alencon to come and rescue her by force, which
we do not hear that they ever tried to do, though perhaps they did. The
brave Xaintrailles was doing a thing that Joan longed for even more
than for her freedom. She was taken in fighting to help the town of
Compiègne, of which she was very fond, and her great grief at Beaulieu
and Beaurevoir was that Compiègne was likely to be taken by the
Burgundians and English, who threatened to put the people to death. All
this while Xaintrailles was preparing a small army to deliver Compiègne.
At Beaurevoir the ladies of the castle were kinsfolk of Jean de
Luxembourg. They were good women, and very kind to Joan, and they knelt
to Jean, weeping, and asking him to give her back to her friends. But
he wanted his money, like the men who sold Sir William Wallace to the
English, and the great Montrose to the preachers and Parliament.
So Jean sold the Maid to the English. Joan knew this, and knew what she
had to expect. She was allowed to take the air on the flat roof of the
great tower at Leaurevoir, which was 60 feet high. She was not thinking
so much of herself as of Compiègne. If she could escape she would try
to make her way to Compiègne, and help the people to fight for their
liberty and their lives. But how could she escape? She hoped that, if
she leaped from the top of the tower, her Saints would bear her up in
their arms, and not let her be hurt by the fall. So she asked them if
she might leap down, but St. Catherine said, No; she must not leap. God
would help her and the people of Compiègne.
But Jean would not listen, this time, to the Voice. She said that, if
the leap was wrong, she would rather trust her soul to the mercy of God,
than her body to the English. And she _must_ go to Compiègne, for she
heard that, when the town was taken, all the people, old and young, were
to be put to the sword.
[Illustration: 0119]
Then she leaped, and there she lay. She was not hurt, not a bone of her
was broken, which is an extraordinary thing, but she could not move
a limb. The people of the castle came and took her back to her prison
room. She did not know what had happened, and for three days she ate
nothing. Then her memory came back to her and to her sorrows. Why was
she not allowed to die! St. Catherine told her that she had sinned, and
must confess, and ask the Divine mercy. But she was to go through with
her appointed task. “Take no care for thy torment,” said the Voice;
“thence shalt thou come into Paradise.” Moreover, St. Catherine
promised that Compiègne should be rescued before Martinmas. That was the
last good news, and the last happy thing that came to Joan in the
days of her life; for, just before Martinmas, her friend, Pothon
de Xaintrailles, rode with his men-at-arms through the forest of
Compiègne, whilst others of the French attacked the English and
Burgundians on the farther side of the Oise, and so the Saint kept her
promise, and Compiègne was saved.