ABOUT the trial and the death of the Maid, I have not the heart to write
a long story. Some points are to be remembered. The person who conducted
the trial, itself illegal, was her deadly enemy, the false Frenchman,
the Bishop of Beauvais, Cauchon, whom she and her men had turned out of
his bishoprick. It is most unjust and unheard of, that any one should be
tried by a judge who is his private enemy. Next, Joan was kept in strong
irons day and night, and she, the most modest of maidens, was always
guarded by five brutal English soldiers of the lowest rank. Again, she
was not allowed to receive the Holy Communion as she desired with tears.
Thus weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl,
was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the most cunning and
learned doctors in law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at
once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which
confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in
war. She would never swear an oath to answer _all_ their questions.
About herself, and all matters bearing on her own conduct, she would
answer. About the king and the secrets of the king, she would not
answer. If they forced her to reply about these things, she frankly
said, she would not tell them the truth. The whole object of the trial
was to prove that she dealt with powers of evil, and that her king had
been crowned and aided by the devil. Her examiners, therefore, attacked
her day by day, in public and in her dungeon, with questions about these
visions which she held sacred, and could only speak of with a blush
among her friends. Had she answered (as a lawyer said at the time), '_it
seemed to me_ I saw a saint,' no man could have condemned her. Probably
she did not know this, for she was not allowed to have an advocate of
her own party, and she, a lonely girl, was opposed to the keenest and
most learned lawyers of France. But she maintained that she certainly
did see, hear, and touch her Saints, and that they came to her by the
will of God. This was called blasphemy and witchcraft. And now came in
the fatal Fairies! She was accused of dealing with devils under the Tree
of Domremy.
Most was made of her refusal to wear woman's dress. For this she seems
to have had two reasons; first, that to give up her old dress would have
been to acknowledge that her mission was ended; next, for reasons of
modesty, she being alone in prison among ruffianly men. She would wear
woman's dress if they would let her take the Holy Communion, but this
they refused. To these points she was constant, she would not deny her
visions; she would not say one word against her king, 'the noblest
Christian in the world' she called him, who had deserted her. She would
not wear woman's dress in prison. We must remember that, as she was
being tried by churchmen, she should have been, as she often prayed to
be, in a prison of the church, attended by women. They set a spy on her,
a caitiff priest named L'Oyseleur, who pretended to be her friend, and
who betrayed her. The English soldiers were allowed to bully, threaten,
and frighten away every one who gave her any advice. They took her to
the torture-chamber, and threatened her with torture, but from this even
these priests shrunk, except a few more cruel and cowardly than the
rest. Finally, they put her up in public, opposite a pile of wood ready
for burning, and then set a priest to preach at her. All through her
trial, her Voices bade her 'answer boldly,' in three months she would
give her last answer, in three months 'she would be free with great
victory, and come into the Kingdom of Paradise.' In three months from
the first day of her trial she went free through the gate of fire.
Boldly she answered, and wisely. She would submit the truth of her
visions to the Church, that is, to God, and the Pope. But she would
_not_ submit them to 'the Church,' if that meant the clergy round her.
At last, in fear of the fire, and the stake before her, and on promise
of being taken to a kindlier prison among women, and released from
chains, she promised to 'abjure,' to renounce her visions, and submit to
the Church, that is to Cauchon, and her other priestly enemies. Some
little note on paper she now signed with a cross, and repeated 'with a
smile,' poor child, a short form of words. By some trick this signature
was changed for a long document, in which she was made to confess all
her visions false. It is certain that she did not understand her words
in this sense.
Cauchon had triumphed. The blame of heresy and witchcraft was cast on
Joan, and on her king as an accomplice. But the English were not
satisfied; they made an uproar, they threatened Cauchon, for Joan's life
was to be spared. She was to be in prison all her days, on bread and
water, but, while she lived, they dared scarcely stir against the
French. They were soon satisfied.
Joan's prison was not changed. There soon came news that she had put on
man's dress again. The judges went to her. She told them (they say),
that she put on this dress of her own free will. In confession, later,
she told her priest that she had been refused any other dress, and had
been brutally treated both by the soldiers and by an English lord. In
self-defence, she dressed in the only attire within her reach. In any
case, the promises made to her had been broken. The judge asked her if
her Voices had been with her again?
[Illustration: 'They burned Joan the Maid']
'Yes.'
'What did they say?'
'God told me by the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the
great sorrow of my treason, when I abjured to save my life; that I was
damning myself for my life's sake.'
'Do you believe the Voices come from St. Margaret and St. Catherine?'
'Yes, and that they are from God.'
She added that she had never meant to deny this, had not understood that
she had denied it.