IV
By March 27th they were back in the large hall, and an important discussion took place to decide whether the seventy articles dealing with her offences should first be read over to her, or whether she should be declared excommunicate without further delay. A fair proportion of the assessors expressing the opinion that the articles should be read, Cauchon addressed the prisoner, assuring her that the wise and learned doctors desired neither vengeance nor corporal punishment, but only to bring her back into the way of truth and salvation. She must take the oath they had always demanded of her, but, since she was not sufficiently experienced in such difficult matters, they would allow her to choose one or more from among those present to act as her adviser.
Jeanne replied with a courtesy and dignity which are all the more remarkable when we consider that she was scanning the faces of men who, for the past month, had been persecuting her both in public and in private. D’Estivet, de Courcelles, Beaupère, de la Pontaine, Jacques de Touraine, Midi-they were all there (Loiselleur was missing). It was not likely that she would choose an adviser in that company. Nor did she. ‘In the first place, I thank you in so far as you admonish me for my good. As to the counsel you offer me, I thank you also, but I have no intention of forsaking the counsel of our Lord. As to the oath you want me to take, I am ready to swear that I will tell the truth about everything which concerns your arraignment.’ This was her usual reservation, and, as usual, they had let her take the oath on her own terms.fn11
The reading of the articles was not finished until the following day, March 28th. On the 31st, Cauchon, accompanied by Beaupère, de Touraine, Midi, Lemaistre, de Courcelles, and Pierre Maurice, presented themselves in her prison and made yet another attempt to persuade her to revoke her own words. The next few days, until April 5th, were occupied in reducing d’Estivet’s seventy articles to twelve, which were to serve as the basis for the ultimate verdict, and which were then handed to the assessors with the request that they should deliver their opinion within the week. By April 12th the reports were in Cauchon’s hands. There could, of course, never have been any doubt about the decision, and indeed the word ‘heretic’ seems to be scrawled in letters of blood all across the pages. Because, however, it had been suggested that Jeanne ought to be adjured once more – and they certainly gave her every chance – on the 18th of April they again visited her in her cell.
She had not seen them for over a fortnight. ‘What that fortnight must have meant to her we can only conjecture; what we know for certain is that she was now seriously ill – so seriously that she herself thought she might be dying. Cauchon addressed her with a surprising gentleness, which personally I do not believe to have been hypocritical. He not only renewed his offer of an adviser drawn from the ranks of the tribunal, but promised to send for any other suitable person whom she might choose to nominate – a thing he had never done before. This seems fair, though of course we are not in a position to judge how he would have acted had she really availed herself of the proposal; it is, I fear, only too likely that the chosen person might not have been considered ‘suitable,’ and that some plausible excuse would have been made. Fortunately, she ignored the offer, although she thanked him for the kind words he had spoken concerning the salvation of her soul, and confined herself to requesting that if she were indeed in danger of death through her illness, as she believed herself to be, she might be allowed confession and Communion, and might be buried in consecrated ground. She added, however, with her habitual reliance on the ultimate appeal, that if they would not give her a Christian burial, she would put her trust in God.
They told her that if she would not obey the Church, they would abandon her as a Saracen. She replied only that she was a good Christian, that she had been properly baptised, and that as a good Christian she would die.fn12
V
She did not die. Another fortnight passed, which time she spent in recovering, so far as a prison cell, irons, mental suffering, and the constant company of the English soldiers may be presumed to have permitted recovery, for the next sitting (May 2nd) took place, not in the prison, but in the chambre de parement as before. There is no record of what they had all been doing during that fortnight, so in all probability they had been waiting for the prisoner to regain her strength sufficiently to permit of her being again brought before them. Sixty-five of them were present, not counting the clerks, for it was a solemn occasion and Cauchon had especially desired their attendance to hear the exhortation which the Archdeacon of Evreux, Jean de Chatillon, had been instructed to deliver. Cauchon addressed them briefly, beseeching them to do everything in their power to restore the errant lamb to the fold. They then sent for Jeanne, and the Archdeacon prepared to deliver his sermon.
Jeanne merely said, ‘Lisez vostre livre’ – for the Archdeacon had some papers in his hand, and to her, who could not read, any fid of papers constituted a book – ‘lisez vostre livre, et puis je vous respondray. Je me actens è Dieu, mon créatur, de tout: je l’ayme de tout mon cuer.’fn13
It was not a bad sermon, considering the attitude of the Church; it was not an unkind sermon. It failed only in so far as it took the point of view of the professional, which was the churchman’s, instead of the point of view of the amateur, which was Jeanne’s – the mistake which they had all made throughout. They were still, in fact, quarrelling and quibbling over that vital difference between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant. They could not grasp the simple fact–simple, at any rate, to Jeanne – that the one was subservient to the other: that the part was inferior to the whole. De Chatillon, well-meaning man, no longer young, with nearly thirty years’ experience of the University of Paris behind him, spread himself in expounding the doctrine that it was most dangerous curiously to examine those things which are beyond one’s understanding, or to put one’s faith in new things, or even to invent new and strange things, since devils are in the habit of mixing themselves up in such forms of curiosity, either by occult suggestions, or by visible manifestations whenever they appear as angels of light.fn14 It is “the eternal sermon preached by the old to the young. Jeanne remained unshaken. They threatened her with the punishment of fire. She had nothing to say but that even were she to see the fire she would still say all that she had said, and would not do otherwise – the remark which caused the clerk to write Superba responsio in the margin. Cauchon’s presidential patience on this occasion was exemplary. It was not in vain that he had encouraged his colleagues to instruct her freely for the salvation of her soul: they did everything they could to win her round. They talked about her clothes again, and about the Pope; they revived the story of the sign given to the King, and suggested that she should refer it to the Archbishop of Reims, to the maréchal de Sainte-Sévère, to Charles de Bourbon, to La Trémoïlle, and even to La Hire. If she wanted to refer to others of her party, they said, they had only to write their account under seal. If three or four clerks or knights of her party were to be brought to her under safe-conduct, would she refer to them concerning her apparitions and other things included in the trial? Would she refer to and submit herself to the church of Poitiers, where her first examination had taken place? On the face of it, it seems as though they could not have made fairer or more extensive offers. She must have had good reason, unknown to us, for the extreme scepticism of her replies: ‘Give me a messenger, and I will write to them all about this trial’; ‘Send them to me, and I will answer you then’; ‘Do you think you can catch me by these means, and thus win me to you?’fn15
Perhaps her scepticism, whatever its source, was justified, for, in spite of a renewed offer a week later to allow her to appeal to the Archbishop of Reims, he and other supporters remained undisturbed wherever they were, which was certainly not in the city of Rouen.
VI
At the end of the last session, after the admonition, Jeanne had asked for time to consider her final answer, and it appears that they must have granted her a week, for it was not until May the 8th, the anniversar
y of the day when, two years earlier, she had ridden out from a relieved and rejoicing Orleans, that she was taken before Cauchon and a mere handful of her judges in the Grosse Tour of the castle.fn16 The reason for this change of scene was soon apparent: it was so that she might be shown the torture-chamber with the executioners waiting and ready beside their instruments. There were several counts on which torture might be applied to Jeanne (for the salvation of her soul, as they explained to her) under the laws and rulings of the Inquisition. It could be applied when discrepancies had been observed in the replies given by the culprit, or when those replies were at variance with the known evidence; either of these two offences might be punished by the ordeal by water and by the stretching of the limbs with cords. Even this grim prospect failed to draw any recantation from Jeanne. ‘Truly,’ she said, ‘even if you were to tear my limbs asunder and drive my soul out of my body, I could not speak otherwise; and, if I did say anything, I should always say afterwards that you had forced me to it.’fn17
Again we must commend Cauchon’s restraint. Instead of ordering the torture to be applied there and then, he came to the conclusion that in the hardened state of her soul she would derive but little profit from its application, and sent her back to her cell until he could confer on the subject with his colleagues. This conference took place three days later, in Cauchon’s own house, Jeanne not being present, when by ten voices to three it was decided that the measure was neither necessary nor expedient. The three who were in favour of putting her to the ordeal were Aubert Morel, Thomas de Courcelles, and Nicolas Loisclleur.fn18
This was on the 12th. Proceedings had to be suspended for a week while Beaupère, de Touraine, and Nicolas Midi went to Paris to expound the whole case to the University of Paris, and to return bringing the result of their deliberations. One hardly likes to speculate on what these constant delays must have meant to the prisoner shut away in her cell. On the 19th, she again not being present, a large meeting was held in the chapel of the archiepiscopal palace. The three delegates were back from Paris, bearing long, flowery, and unequivocal documents, addressed to both the King of England and to the Bishop of Beauvais. The University had come to the decision that ‘the woman commonly called la Pucelle’ had so disseminated her poison that it had infected the very Christian flock of almost the whole W cstem world.fn19 Then followed the conclusions of the Faculties of Theology and Decretal on each of the twelve articles separately. They were utterly damning. Without one single clissentient voice, the assembled tribunal subscribed to the finding of the University – that if the prisoner persisted in her refusal to retract she must be considered as a heretic, sorceress, schismatic, and apostate.
VII
It seemed that very little remained to do except deliver the sentence and see that it was carried out. As, however, the majority had been of the opinion that yet one supreme and final admonition should be addressee! to Jeanne, and a final effort made to restore her to the fold of the Church, Cauchon and Lemaistre with the Bishops of Thérouenne and Noyon, and seven others, repaired to a room in the castle, near to her prison, where she was sent for to attend upon their pleasure. It was May the 23rd, exactly a year since she had been taken at Compiègne. She had first to listen to the long indictment founded upon the twelve articles of her accusation, read to her in French and explained to her point by point by Pierre Maurice, the canon of Rouen, and then to a long but not unkindly worded harangue from the same lips.fn20
We must do Maurice the justice of acknowledging that he employed all the powers of his oratory to point out the error of her ways in language which the simplest mind could understand. But Jeanne’s mind suffered from a form of simplicity with which Maurice was not and could not be in sympathy. She merely repeated her remark about not changing her attitude even ifshe were to see the fire lighted – again causing the clerk to write Responsio superba in the margin-though this time she strengthen,ed her refusal by adding that even if she were actually in the fire she would sustain everything she had said, to the death.fn21
On the following day, May 24th, the citizens of Rouen were privileged to witness a dramatic scene. In the walled cemetery adjoining the abbey of Saint Ouen, two stands had been erected, one of which was occupied by such dignitaries as the Cardinal-Bishop of Winchester, the Bishops of Beauvais, Thérouenne, Noyon, and Norwich, supported by abbots, priors, and doctors both of law and theology. On the other stand, two figures drew the gaze of all – the figure of Maître Guillaume Erard and the figure of the prisoner, dressed as a boy. The crowd was enormoui, and seething with excitement; it was evident that, if things did not go exactly as they wished, trouble might be expected from the English. Lord Warwick was there, not far from the Bishop of Beauvais, and there were other Englishmen, not merely soldiers among the crowd, but on the stand among the notables. Nevertheless it may be supposed that they hushed their voices to listen to the exhortation which Maître Erard was about to deliver. If we may believe his servant, Frère Jean de Lenozoles, he did not at all relish the task, and wished himself in Flanders, away from so unpleasant an affair.
He chose as his text the words of St John: ‘The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine …’ and went on to show that every Catholic must abide in the true vine of the Church, planted by Christ at his right hand. The actual report of the sermon is missing, but thanks to the accounts of Massieu and Aimond de Macy, who were both present, it is possible to reconstruct its general trend and even to supply a few details. Thus Massieu relates that when the preacher was about half-way through, he cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Ah, France, you have been much abused, and Charles, who calls himself your King and ruler, has endorsed the words and deeds of this useless, infamous, and dishonoured woman, like the heretic and schismatic that he is; and not he only, but all his clergy, by whom she has been examined and not rebuked.’ He repeated these words about the King two or three times over, then, threatening Jeanne with his finger, added, ‘I am speaking to you, Jeanne, and telling you that your King is a heretic and a schismatic.’ This was more than her loyalty could stand. She interrupted him: ‘Par ma foi, I dare to say and to swear, on my life, that he is the most noble of all Christians, who best loves the faith and the Church, and is not as you say.’ Erard turned to Massieu, saying, ‘Tell her to be quiet.’fn22
The sermon over, he formally showed her the judges, who, as he said, had so often required of her that she should submit her words and deeds to the Church.
She said, ‘I will answer you. As for my submission to the Church, I have already given them my answer. Let all my words and deeds be sent to Rome, to our Holy Father the Pope, to whom, after God, I will refer myself. As to what I have said and done, I have done it through God. I charge no one, neither my King nor any other; if there is any fault, it is mine alone.’
They told her that this would not suffice; that the Pope was too far away, and that the Ordinaries were judges, each in his own diocese. But as she refused to give any further reply, the Bishop of Beauvais at length rose and began to read the sentence.
He had got the greater part of the way through it, when Jeanne interrupted him. ‘For these reasons we declare you excommunicate and heretical, and pronounce that you shall be abandoned to secular justice, as a limb of Satan severed from the Church.…’ After all these months and weeks of superb and undaunted resolution, the fatal words as she ,heard them rolling out, the sight of the executioner waiting with his cart, the cruel and avid crowd, the upturned faces, were too much for her. She gave way completely, until nothing was left of her proud denials. She would defer in all things to the Church and her judges. She would no longer support or believe in the apparitions and revelations she had pretended to have. She said this several times over, as though she wished to make quite sure that she had been perfectly understood, and said again that in everything she would follow her judges and the Church.
It is a little difficult to know precisely what happened then, for the excitement of the crowd seem
s to have broken out into a sort of tumult. Witnesses say that she called upon Saint Michael (Bouchier). Aimond de Macy (whose memory, however, was capable of making him confuse Nicolas Midi with Guillaume Erard as the preacher) says that an English secretary named Lawrence Calot took a little document out of his sleeve, and offered it to Jeanne with a pen to sign. He had already heard her saying that they were taking a great deal of trouble to make her perjure herself. ‘But,’ she said then, according to de Macy, ‘I know neither how to read nor write.’ Calot still insisting, she took the pen and derisively drew a round 0. Then Calot took her hand and made her trace another sign. De Macy had forgotten what the second sign was.
This story may or may not be true. The part about the secretary taking the document from his sleeve has a circumstantial air, but it is much more likely that the secretary was a Frenchman, perhaps Massieu, for what would a secretary of the King of England be doing with a ready prepared Act of Abjuration? What we learn from Massieu is that Erard first read out the document, and then, on Jeanne saying that she did not understand it and wanted advice, passed it to Massieu, who read it out to her again. Still following Massieu’s account it seems that the crowd began to murmur as it was seen that she was being urged to sign; the murmur grew to a tumult, and stones were thrown, though Massieu did not know at whom. The Bishop of Beauvais appeared to be angry with someone, for Massieu heard him saying, ‘You shall pay for this. I have been insulted. I will not proceed until I have been satisfied.’ Massieu did not know what had happened, and it is only from the evidences of the witnesses (Dudesart, Bouchier, de Mailly, Migiet, Marcel, Marguerie) that we learn of an altercation between the Bishop and an English churchman attached to the Bishop of Winchester. ‘You are favouring Jeanne.’ ‘You lie,’ said Cauchon, and the Bishop of Winchester had to intervene (de Mailly). Yet another witness (Bouchier) says that Cauchon threw his papers in anger on the ground, saying he would go no further that day. Meanwhile Jeanne still hesitated, and contradictory rumours ran through the crowd: had she signed or had she not? (de Lenozoles). Massieu and Erard were both telling her that she would be burnt ifshe did not sign. The English, seeing their victim about to escape them, grew restive. The Bishop of Noyon heard people saying that it was all trickery (pure trufferie), and that Jeanne was laughing at them. Although none of the accounts tally exactly, they tally sufficiently to give us the impression of a general confusion, and, if such confusion could exist in the minds of those whose lives were not concerned, what must have been the perplexiry of the poor prisoner? De Courcelles, that evasive young man, took advantage of the confusion, in retrospect, years later, conveniently to forget everything which had happened: he ‘forgot’ the terms of Erard’s sermon, he ‘forgot’ whether the Act of Abjuration had ever been read aloud to Jeanne or not. The one thing which does stand out as absolutely certain is that a document was produced, and that after some hesitation Jeanne signed it, either with a circle or a cross.
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