Saint Joan of Arc

by Vita Sackville-West

  This arrogant manner of speech, proceeding from a captive wholly in their power, provoked Stafford into drawing his dagger with the intent to stab her, but Warwick intervened.fn43 It was not soft sentiment which made him save her life: the truest kindness would have been to let Stafford deal the blow. In Warwick’s mind, she was reserved for other things.

  VII

  She had other visitors. The vexed question of her virginity was revived, and the Duchess of Bedford either came in person or sent other women to investigate the matter. Boisguillaume suggests that Bedford himself witnessed the inspection, hidden in a secret place. Whether this be true or not – and I very much doubt it – there was no privacy for poor Jeanne. Rouen was boiling with gossip, as was inevitable in a small town suddenly crowded with notables, where English archers brushed against French doctors in theology, and great churchmen, followed by their clerks, had grown as common a sight as the citizens going about their daily business. The witch incarcerated in the tower of Philip Augustus was naturally the current topic of conversation. They discussed the animosity of the English against her,fn44the partiality or the impartiality of her judges; they discussed her clothes;fn45 they discussed her virtue. Not even her most private life was sacred from the public curiosity. In connexion with her virtue it was said that, though in fact a virgin, he had suffered some injury from riding on horseback.fn46 They thrashed the question of her morals up and down. Jeannotin Simon, for instance, a tailor who had been sent by the Duchess of Bedford with the ever-renewed offer of a woman’s dress, related in the hearing of others that, when he went to try it on, she, indignant, had boxed his ears because he attempted gently to touch her breast.fn47 The Jeannotins of Rouen were not likely to hold their tongues in discretion when they had the chance of boasting that they had actually seen the celebrated Pucdle in her cell. Even the normally humiliating fact of having been fetched a box on the ear acquired a certain cachet when it was the Pucelle who had fetched it.

  One must not exaggerate the suffering caused to Jeanne by such indelicate publicity. In the first place, she probably knew nothing of the outside gossip running up and down the streets and across the squares of Rouen. In the second place, had it reached her ears, she, as a peasant, might have been flattered by it – even as peasants find some consolation in a worthy funeral in the midst of their sorrow. In the third place, it would be most rash to judge her sensibility on those particular points by the standard of our own. In the fourth place, and perhaps most pertinently, we may presume that the detachment of her intense spiritual life left her essentially indifferent to the vulgarity and intrusion of the world.

  Similarly, I suppose, we should discount much of the physical hardship she was obliged to endure. Jeanne, we must always remember, was born tough and coarse. The rooms in her home at Domremy appear to us little better than prison cells. Few of us today would accept with gratitude as a lodging the cellar-like room which is shown (rightly or wrongly) as hers. It is advisable never to sentimentalise unduly over these matters.

  It would, however, be difficult to exaggerate the suffering caused to her by the complete severance from the consolations of her Church, and by the tricks which the representatives of that Church played upon her both in public and in private. Of their public behaviour we shall speak presently; for the moment we are concerned only with what took place within that locked and guarded tower of Philip Augustus. We know, for instance, that Jean Massieu, who was charged with the function of taking her backwards and forwards between her prison and her judges, was severely rebuked by the Bishop of Beauvais’ creature, d’Estivet, for allowing her to pause in prayer before the tabernacle in a chapel on her way, and was forbidden in unmistakable terms to allow her to do so again. D’Estivet told him, in short, that he would get him locked up in such a tower that he would be unable to see the sun or the moon for a month. (Je te ferai mettre en telle tour, que tu ne verras lune ne soleil d’icy à ung mois.fn48) We know, also, by overwhelming evidence which puts the story beyond a doubt, that this same d’Estivet and another displeasing personage named Nicolas Loiselleur made a practice of introducing themselves into her cell at dead of night under false pretences to gain her confidence. Loiselleur was by far the worst offender. It is difficult to restrain one’s terms in writing of Loiselleur. A rat on a heap of garbage is not more distasteful than he. A priest, he pretended to be a countryman of Jeanne, and, having insinuated himself into her favour by giving her news of her province (en lui disant nouvelles du pays à lui plaisantes), he got himself appointed as her confessor, when, not content with betraying the secrets of the confessional to the lawyers of the trial, he introduced the two notaries Manchon and Boisguillaume, with other witnesses, secretly into a room next door, where a spy-hole enabled them to hear all that Jeanne was saying or confessingfn49 (… une chambre prouchaine, ou estoit ung trou par lequel on pouvoit escouter, affin qu’ilz peussent rapporter ce qu’elle disoit ou confessoit audit Loyseleur … pour trouver moien de la prendre captieusement). Such baseness makes Stafford’s drawn dagger shine with honesty; such baseness seems incredible, even though it is recorded by Manchon, one of the two notaries concerned. Was Manchon telling the truth? Let us hope we may doubt it. But we cannot doubt the entire story. A twist is given to the screw when we learn that Loiselleur adopted the disguise of a shoemaker from Lorraine, and, persuading her that he was a fellow-prisoner, advised her not to put her faith in the churchmen, ‘for,’ he said, ‘if you put your faith in them they will destroy you.’ This is the testimony of Boisguillaume, who adds that the Bishop of Beauvais was surely privy to the deception, otherwise Loiselleur would never have dared to practise it, and, indeed, the English guards must have had orders to admit him. D’Estivet, he says, obtained Jeanne’s confidence in the same way, by passing himself off as a fellow-prisoner. Among the many ugly stories connected with Jeanne’s trial, this is surely one of the ugliest. The plea sometimes advanced,fn50 that the role of a false confessor was compatible with inquisitorial procedure, can scarcely excuse the shameful part which Loiselleur and d’Estivet consented to play.

  15. THE TRIAL (1)

  I

  An entirely new set of characters has by now taken possession of the stage. All those familiar figures, who accompanied Jeanne during so many months, have disappeared-the gallant d’Alençon, the courteous Bastard, the fiery La Hire, the faithful fussy d’Aulon, the slippery King himself, the corpulent La Trémoïlle, and the crafty Regnault, Archbishop of Reims. In retrospect, even the last three gain something in glamour, for they were at least officially on Jeanne’s side, different from the mean snarling pack that now surrounded her, showing their teeth. The English, too, move into a different position: from being the half-perceived enemy, skirmishing on the outskirts, their voices unknown and their countenances hidden, we are now in the heart of their own fastness, seeing Warwick and Stafford move freely as men in the place where they command. Their King is there amongst them. It is Jeanne who is the stranger, no longer among the people of her own party, deserted and alone.

  It is, on the whole, a not very estimable crowd. Warwick and Stafford are well enough, straightforward soldiers who had caught an enemy and wanted her put to death, but the ecclesiastical and clerkly promoters and assessors, secretaries and scriveners, monkish lawyers and subtle theologians, all the team driven with such skill and intransigence by the Bishop of Beauvais, provoke a shudder of fear and dislike as one by one their dark figures slip in and take their place on the benches of the tribunal. The list is a long one, but only certain names detach themselves and stand out from the rank and file. Cauchon himself, cold, supple, implacable, losing his temper every now and then, enough to give a glimpse of the relentless man hidden beneath the suavity of the prelate; his fellow-judge,fn1 Jean Lemaistre, Dominican Vicar in Rouen of the Inquisitor of Prance, uneasy, unwilling, hating the case, but compelled to do as he was told; the three clerks or notaries, Boisguillaume, Taquel, and Manchon, all three of them timid and terrorised;fn2 the three assess
ors who, according to Manchon, were the most fanatically determined to ruin Jeanne, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, who was later to die of leprosy, and Jean Beaupère, who had lost his right hand in an affray with bandits; Jean Massieu, whose business it was to bring the prisoner to the court, and who later, although a kindly man, a priest and the doyen of the Cathedral of Rouen, was to get into trouble for his mauvaises mæurs and inconduite; d’Estiven, the promoter of the case, a passionate partisan of the English, who not only introduced himself falsely into Jeanne’s prison, as we have seen, but also allowed himself the pleasure of insulting her there on other occasions, calling her putain and paillarde and similar names which must have reminded her strongly of the greeting returned to her by the English from the forts of Orleans; the Abbé de Fécamp, of whom it was said that he seemed to be inspired lby hatred of Jeanne and love of the English rather than by any zeal in the cause of justice; Thomas de Courcelles, a brilliantly gifted young man of intellectual attainments but weak character, a young man who, as Pius II, who admired him, later recorded, was ‘always looking: at the ground, like one who would wish to pass unnoticed’; Guillaume Erard, violent and energetic, who received a payment of thirty-one livres tournais at the rate of twenty sols tournais a day from the Receiver-General of Normandy on behalf of the Killg of England for every day he had attended the trial of celle femme qui se faisoit nommer Jehanne la Pucelle,fn3 and whose eloquence was to be employed in the conduct of one of the most dramatic scenes of Jeanne’s whole career. It is a mixed lot. Among them were men of intelligence, probity, and compassion, men who disapproved of the way the proceedings were conducted, men who would gladly have given justice and humanity a better chance. But there were few among them who dared even to hint at such opinions. The wrath of the Bishop of Beauvais was not a thing lightly to be incurred, and there is no doubt that he held them subdued and afraid. Jean de la Fontaine, for instance, who fell under the suspicion of having given Jeanne some advice which might enable her to defeat the intentions of her judges, was obliged to leave Rouen in haste. André Marguerie, for asking a question, was harshly told to hold his tongue. Nicolas de Houppeville was actually thrown into prison for venturing on a criticism behind Cauchon’s back. Jean de Chatillon was told to keep quiet and let the judges speak, or he would only be allowed to attend the sittings when he was sent for. Isambard de la Pierre, attempting to direct Jeanne, was told to be silent in the Devil’s name. (Taceatis in nomine diaboli.) Jean Lefèvre, bishop though he was, received the same rebuke from Cauchon for remarking that a certain question was a very big question, and that Jeanne was not bound to reply to it. There was no room in the same court for Cauchon and for liberty of speech. The slightest dissentient murmur was instantly suppressed. It was quite clear who meant to be master in that court, and they all knew it.

  And behind the menacing figure of the Bishop was the whole power of England. Rouen, to all intents and purposes, was an English town, and everybody in Rouen knew very well that the English had no intention of letting their prisoner go. They might lend her conveniently to the ecclesiastical court appointed by the University of Paris; that was a matter of form, and so long as Jeanne died they cared very little who condemned her. But from the first it had been explicitly laid down that, if she was not found guilty of crimes against the Catholic faith, she was to be returned to the secular power vested in the King of England,fn4 which really amounted to saying that if they could not catch her on one count they would catch her on another. The stake or the Seine; but they greatly preferred the stake, and that she should go to it branded as a heretic and an idolator; therefore, whenever they thought they detected any signs of weakness or hesitation on the part of the religious tribunal, protests were registered, not always without hot words. Stafford’s sword was ever ready to leave the scabbard. It was scarcely a spirit calculated to produce an atmosphere of calm and impartial deliberation in the hall of justice: Cauchon knew that the desires of the English exactly coincided with his own. He could act in as high-handed a manner as he chose.

  Jeanne stood not the slightest chance from the first. Those who ask whether she was given a fair trial may here find their answer. She was given a trial conducted with all the impressive apparatus of ceremony, learning, and scholasticism that the Holy Catholic Church, the Court of the Inquisition and the University of Paris between them could command, but in essence the whole trial was a preordained and tragic farce. The most remarkable thing about it, to my mind, is that they troubled to give her a trial at all, let alone a trial in which one cardinal, six bishops, thirty-two doctors of theology, sixteen bachelors of theology, seven doctors of medicine, and one hundred and three other associates were involved,fn5 and that the Burgundians had not sewn her into a sack and thrown her into the Oise at Compiègne forthwith. It is an astonishing tribute to her achievement, to the awe she had inspired, and to the position she had attained in the public mind, that it never occurred to them to apply such off-hand methods as were in current use for proletarian upstarts coming forward with the claim of unusual powers. At least they paid her the compliment of treating her seriously; at least they recognised her as an enemy that must be seriously, ceremoniously, and officially dealt with, not as a mere though inconvenient adventuress who could privily be put out of the way and no questions asked. She had made too much noise in France for that. She had made so much noise that the princes and prelates of Europe addressed letters to one another about her fate. She had worked herself, in fact, into the extremely anomalous situation of being a prisoner of the highest importance and yet a prisoner without authoritative defence. She had no one whatsoever to defend her. Charles VII, her natural protector, had disappeared completely out of the picture. She was granted no advocate at the trial:fn6 no single witness was called on her behalf: no single member of the party favourable to her was among the judges: no one dared to raise his voice to assist or direct her: everyone was overawed either by Cauchon or by the English, frequently by both; no formal indictment was read to her until the end; her judges did their utmost to confuse her by a bombardment of inconsecutive and apparently irrelevant questions, whose drift must have been exceedingly difficult for her to perceive; alone, unable to read or to check the documents they prepared for her signature, she had to confront the whole assembly of learned, trained, and unscrupulous or cowardly men. Yet, tired and worn as she must have been – for she had spent some two months waiting in prison at Rouen, not to mention the six months she had spent as a captive before she ever arrived at Rouen – her wits failed her so little that she was even able to escape the traps they subtly laid for her. Questions which appeared impossible to answer without exposing herself to charges of almost sacrilegious presumption, she could evade with unexceptionable sagacity.

  ‘Do you consider yourself to be in a state of grace?’ they asked her.

  ‘If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may He keep mein it.’fn7

  II

  Having thus presented the prisoner’s point of view, and having insisted on the fact that the verdict was a foregone conclusion, it is only fair to consider also the point of view of the judges. In the first instance it is necessary to realise and to remember that the case was being tried, not on political, but on religious grounds. Although the English pressed so close and so revengeful round the court, watching Cauchon like lynxes to detect any possible sign of clemency dawning in those clever episcopal eyes, they bore, technically and officially, no part in the charges brought against the prisoner. She was being tried, not on a charge of high treason against the English King who, in their sight, was also King of France, but on a charge of heresy, blasphemy, idolatory, and sorcery, and to the mind of a mediaeval churchman there could be no more heinous or dangerous profession than that of a heretic and a witch. On neither count could she reasonably expect to escape the burning. Her answers would have had to be very satisfactory, her recantations very complete, to make it impossible for the tribunal decently to hand her over to the waiting executioner. No dou
bt they would have preferred her to recant, when they could have condemned her to a minor penalty such as imprisonmem for life or for a term of years, for the Church, on principle, was reluctant to shed human blood, but failing a recantation they were quite prepared to go to all lengths. It is true that they were determined to do so if necessary, but it is also true that a genuine fear and conviction were at the root of their determination. This being so, it would be perfectly possible to make out a case proving that Cauchon personally had treated Jeanne with remarkably long-suffering leniency. He did, in fact, make repeated attempts to reconcile her to what he believed to be the only Church whose authority she ought, as a Catholic, to recognise. He could have condemned her long before he did. He knew quite well that any delay was resented by the English, and that he himself would be the first to suffer from any suspicion of clemency or partiality. The English were thick in Rouen. He was in close and constant contact with such dominating figures as the magnificent Warwick, the impetuous Stafford, and the Cardinal-Bishop of Winchester – men who had ample and daily opportunity of telling him exactly what they thought of the progress of the trial. Such comments cannot have been, and indeed were not, always agreeable. Yet he gave Jeanne chance after chance. He allowed over a month (April 18th to May 24th) in which to give her chances at intervals. On several occasions he addressed her in kindly terms, and never seems to have lost his temper with her even when she gave him plenty of provocation to do so.fn8 I find no difficulty in believing that Cauchon, with the better side of himself, genuinely desired to restore an apostate to the right way of thinking, and that he took every risk thus to persuade her, before committing her definitely to the stake. I find no difficulty in believing that Cauchon quite sincerely found himself faced with a problem in which his worldly and his religious convictions were at war. The same tolerance might apply to many members of the tribunal. I find no difficulty in believing that the majority of these sons of the Church, including Cauchon himself, were genuinely persuaded that Jeanne, as all others of her sect, had most perilously menaced and insulted their Mother. Men of the world and scholars though they might be, learning in the fifteenth century was no proof against the terror of superstition, nor could any considerations such as humane pity for youth, sex, or ignorance be allowed to obtain for a moment. The humane virtues in that rough age were but a trifling weight anyhow; and, when dread of the Powers of Darkness came into the balance, there could be little doubt on which side the scales would fall. One must accept, a priori, the principle that Jeanne had to be regarded either as saint or devil. There was no middle course. They elected to regard her as a devil. Ruthless suppression therefore became a stem and sacred duty. Where the Bishop of Beauvais and his fellows erred was in the unfairness in their conduct of the trial, not in their conviction that heresy and sorcery must be stamped out, or that Jeanne, as a guilty wretch, if they could not tum her from her wickedness, must be destroyed.