One day when the Maid and the King were talking together, the Duke of Alençon entered the hall. When he was a child, the English had taken him prisoner at Verneuil and kept him five years in the Crotoy Tower. Only recently set at liberty, he had been shooting quails near Saint-Florent-lès-Saumur, when a messenger had brought the tidings that God had sent a damsel to the King to turn the English out of France. This news interested him as much as any one because he had married the Duke of Orléans’ daughter; and straightway he had come to Chinon to see for himself. In the days of his graceful youth the Duke of Alençon appeared to advantage, but he was never renowned for his wisdom. He was weak-minded, violent, vain, jealous, and extremely credulous. He believed that ladies find favour by means of a certain herb, the mountain-heath; and later he thought himself bewitched. He had a disagreeable, harsh voice; he knew it, and the knowledge annoyed him. As soon as she saw him approaching, Jeanne asked who this noble was. When the King replied that it was his cousin Alençon, she curtsied to the Duke and said: “Be welcome. The more representatives of the blood royal are here the better.” In this she was completely mistaken. The Dauphin smiled bitterly at her words. Not much of the royal blood of France ran in the Duke’s veins.
On the next day Jeanne went to the King’s mass. When she approached her Dauphin she bowed before him. The King took her into a room and sent every one away except the Sire de la Trémouille and the Duke of Alençon.
Then Jeanne addressed to him several requests. More especially did she ask him to give his kingdom to the King of Heaven. “And afterwards,” she added, “the King of Heaven will do for you what he has done for your predecessors and will restore you to the condition of your fathers.”
In discoursing thus of things spiritual, in giving utterance to those precepts of reformation and of a new life, she was repeating what the clerks had taught her. Nevertheless she was by no means imbued with this doctrine. It was too subtle for her, and it was shortly to fade from her mind and give place to an ardour less monastic but more chivalrous.
That same day she rode out with the King and threw a lance in the meadow with so fine a grace that the Duke of Alençon, marvelling, made her a present of a horse.
A few days later this young noble took her to the Abbey of Saint-Florent-lès-Saumur, the church of which was so greatly admired that it was called La Belle d’Anjou. Here in this abbey there dwelt at that time his mother and his wife. It is said that they were glad to see Jeanne. But they had no great faith in the issue of the war. The young Dame of Alençon said to her: “Jeannette, I am full of fear for my husband. He has just come out of prison, and we have had to give so much money for his ransom that gladly would I entreat him to stay at home.” To which Jeanne replied: “Madame, have no fear. I will bring him back to you in safety, and either such as he is now or better.”
She called the Duke of Alençon her fair Duke, and loved him for the sake of the Duke of Orléans, whose daughter he had married. She loved him also because he believed in her when all others doubted or denied, and because the English had done him wrong. She loved him too because she saw he had a good will to fight. It was told how when he was a captive in the hands of the English at Verneuil, and they proposed to give him back his liberty and his goods if he would join their party, he had rejected their offer. He was young like her; she thought that he like her must be sincere and noble. And perhaps in those days he was, for doubtless he was not then seeking to discover powders with which to dry up the King.
It was decided that Jeanne should be taken to Poitiers to be examined by the doctors there. In this town the Parlement met. Here also were gathered together many famous clerks learned in theology, secular as well as regular, and grave doctors and masters were summoned to join them. Jeanne set out under escort. At first she thought she was being taken to Orléans. Her faith was like that of the ignorant but believing folk, who, having taken the cross, went forth and thought every town they approached was Jerusalem. Half way she inquired of her guides where they were taking her. When she heard that it was to Poitiers: “In God’s name!” she said, “much ado will be there, I know. But my Lord will help me. Now let us go on in God’s strength!”
CHAPTER VII
THE MAID AT POITIERS
FOR fourteen years the town of Poitiers had been the capital of that part of France which belonged to the French. The Dauphin Charles had transferred his Parlement there, or rather had assembled there those few members who had escaped from the Parlement of Paris. The Parlement of Poitiers consisted of two chambers only. It would have judged as wisely as King Solomon had there been any questions on which to pronounce judgment, but no litigants presented themselves — they were afraid of being captured on the way by freebooters and captains in the King’s pay; besides, in the disturbed state of the kingdom justice had little to do with the settlement of disputes. The councillors, who for the most part had lands near Paris, were hard put to it for food and clothing. They were rarely paid and there were no perquisites. In vain they had inscribed their registers with the formula: Non deliberetur donec solvantur species; no payments were forthcoming from the suitors. The Attorney General, Messire Jean Jouvenel des Ursins, who owned rich lands and houses in Île-de-France, Brie, and Champagne, was filled with pity at the sight of that good and honourable lady his wife, his eleven children, and his three sons-in-law going barefoot and poorly clad through the streets of the town. As for the doctors and professors who had followed the King’s fortunes, in vain were they wells of knowledge and springs of clerkly learning, since, for lack of a University to teach in, they reaped no advantage from their eloquence and their erudition. The town of Poitiers, having become the first city in the realm, had a Parlement but no University, like a lady highly born but one-eyed withal, for the Parlement and the University are the two eyes of a great city. Thus in their doleful leisure they were consumed with a desire, if it were God’s will, to restore the King’s fortunes as well as their own. Meanwhile, shivering with cold and emaciated with hunger, they groaned and lamented. Like Israel in the desert they sighed for the day when the Lord, inclining his ear to their supplications, should say: “At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Vespere comedetis carnes et mane saturabimini panibus: scietisque quod ego sum Dominus deus vester. (Exodus xvi, 12.) It was from among these poor and faithful servants of a poverty-stricken King that were chosen for the most part the doctors and clerks charged with the examination of the Maid. They were: the Lord Bishop of Poitiers; the Lord Bishop of Maguelonne; Maître Jean Lombard, doctor in theology, sometime professor of theology at the University of Paris; Maître Guillaume le Maire, bachelor of theology, canon of Poitiers; Maître Gérard Machet, the King’s Confessor; Maître Jourdain Morin; Maître Jean Érault, professor of theology; Maître Mathieu Mesnage, bachelor of theology; Maître Jacques Meledon; Maître Jean Maçon, a very famous doctor of civil law and of canon law; Brother Pierre de Versailles, a monk of Saint-Denys in France, of the order of Saint Benedict, professor of theology, Prior of the Priory of Saint-Pierre de Chaumont, Abbot of Talmont in the diocese of Laon, Ambassador of his most Christian Majesty the King of France; Brother Pierre Turelure, of the Order of Saint Dominic, Inquisitor at Toulouse; Maître Simon Bonnet; Brother Guillaume Aimery, of the Order of Saint-Dominic, doctor and professor of theology; Brother Seguin of Seguin of the Order of Saint Dominic, doctor and professor of theology; Brother Pierre Seguin, Carmelite; several of the King’s Councillors, licentiates of civil as well as of canon law.
Here was a large assembly of doctors for the cross-examination of one shepherdess. But we must remember that in those days theology subtle and inflexible dominated all human knowledge and forced the secular arm to give effect to its judgment. Therefore, as soon as an ignorant girl caused it to be believed that she had seen God, the Virgin, the saints, and the angels, she must either pass from miracle to miracle, through an edifying death to beatification, or from heresy
to heresy through an ecclesiastical prison, to be burnt as a witch. And, as the holy inquisitors were fully persuaded that the Devil easily entered into a woman, the unhappy creature was more likely to be burnt alive than to die in an odour of sanctity. But Jeanne before the doctors at Poitiers was an exception; she ran no risk of being suspected in matters of faith. Even Brother Pierre Turelure himself had no desire to find in her one of those heretics he zealously sought to discover at Toulouse. In her presence the illustrious masters drew in their theological claws. They were churchmen, but they were Armagnacs, for the most part business men, diplomatists, old councillors of the Dauphin. As priests, doubtless they were possessed of a certain body of dogma and morality, and of a code of rules for judging matters of faith. But now it was a question not of curing the disease of heresy, but of driving out the English. Jeanne was in favour with my Lord the Duke of Alençon and with my Lord the Bastard; the inhabitants of Orléans were looking to her for their deliverance. She promised to take the King to Reims; and it happened that the cleverest and the most powerful man in France, the Chancellor of the kingdom, my Lord Regnault de Chartres, was Archbishop and Count of Reims; and that had great weight.
If it should be as she said, if God had verily sent her to the aid of the Lilies, to the mind of whomsoever possessed sense and learning it appeared marvellous but not incredible. No one denied that God could directly intervene in the affairs of kingdoms, for he himself had said: Per me reges regnant.
In this Church holy and indivisible, there were the doctors of Poitiers who deliberately pronounced God to be on the side of the Dauphin, while the University of Paris as deliberately pronounced God to be on the side of the Burgundians and the English. His messenger need not necessarily be an angel. He might employ a creature human or not human, like the raven that fed Elijah. And that a woman should engage in war accorded with what was written in books concerning Camilla, the Amazons, and Queen Penthesilea, and with what the Bible says of the strong women, Deborah, Jahel, Judith of Bethulia, raised up by God for the salvation of Israel. For it is written: “The mighty one did not fall by the young men, neither did the sons of Titans smite him, nor high giants set upon him; but Judith the daughter of Merari weakened him with the beauty of her countenance.”
Jeanne was taken to the mansion where dwelt Maître Jean Rabateau, not far from the law-courts, in the heart of the town. Maître Jean Rabateau was Lay Attorney General; all criminal cases went to him, while civil cases went to the ecclesiastical Attorney General, Jean Jouvenel. Alike King’s advocates, in the King’s service, they both represented him in cases wherein he was concerned. The King was an unprofitable client. For representing him in criminal trials Maître Jean Rabateau received four hundred livres a year. He was forbidden to appear in any but crown cases; and no one suspected him of receiving many bribes. If in addition he held the office of Councillor to the Duke of Orléans he gained little by it. Like most Parlement officials he was for the moment very poor. A stranger in Poitiers, he had no house there, but lodged in a mansion, which, because it belonged to a family named Rosier, was called the Hôtel de la Rose. It was a large dwelling. Witnesses whom it was necessary to keep securely and deal with honourably were entertained there. Jeanne was taken there although the Parlement had nothing to do with her cross-examination. Once again she was placed in charge of a man who served both the Duke of Orléans and the King of France.
Jean Rabateau’s wife, in common with the wives of all lawyers, was a woman of good reputation. While she was at La Rose, Jeanne would stay long on her knees every day after dinner. At night she would rise from her bed to pray, and pass long hours in the little oratory of the mansion. It was in this house that the doctors conducted her examination. When their coming was announced she was seized with cruel anxiety. The Blessed Saint Catherine was careful to reassure her. She likewise had disputed with doctors and confounded them. True, those doctors were heathen, but they were learned and their minds were subtle; for in the life of the Saint it is written: “The Emperor summoned fifty doctors versed in the lore of the Egyptians and the liberal arts. And when she heard that she was to dispute with the wise men, Catherine feared lest she should not worthily defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But an angel appeared unto her and said: ‘I am the Archangel Saint Michael, and I am come to tell thee that thou shalt come forth from the strife victorious and worthy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the hope and crown of those who strive for him.’ And the Virgin disputed with the doctors.”
The grave doctors and masters and the principal clerks of the Parlement of Poitiers, in companies of two and three, repaired to the house of Jean Rabateau, and each one of them in turn questioned Jeanne. The first to come were Jean Lombard, Guillaume le Maire, Guillaume Aimery, Pierre Turelure, and Jacques Meledon. Brother Jean Lombard asked: “Wherefore have you come? The King desires to know what led you to come to him.”
Jeanne’s reply greatly impressed these clerks: “As I kept my flocks a Voice appeared to me. The Voice said: ‘God has great pity on the people of France. Jeanne, thou must go into France.’ On hearing these words I began to weep. Then the Voice said unto me: ‘Go to Vaucouleurs. There shalt thou find a captain, who will take thee safely into France, to the King. Fear not.’ I did as I was bidden, and I came to the King without hindrance.”
Then the word fell to Brother Guillaume Aimery: “According to what you have said, the Voice told you that God will deliver the people of France from their distress; but if God will deliver them he has no need of men-at-arms.”
“In God’s name,” replied the Maid, “the men-at-arms will fight, and God will give the victory.”
Maître Guillaume declared himself satisfied.
On the 22nd of March, Maître Pierre de Versailles and Maître Jean Érault went together to Jean Rabateau’s lodging. The squire, Gobert Thibault, whom Jeanne had already seen at Chinon, came with them. He was a young man and very simple, one who believed without asking for a sign. As they came in Jeanne went to meet them, and, striking the squire on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, she said: “I wish I had many men as willing as you.”
With men-at-arms she felt at her ease. But the doctors she could not tolerate, and she suffered torture when they came to argue with her. Although these theologians showed her great consideration, their eternal questions wearied her; their slowness and heaviness exasperated her. She bore them a grudge for not believing in her straightway, without proof, and for asking her for a sign, which she could not give them, since neither Saint Michael nor Saint Catherine nor Saint Margaret appeared during the examination. In retirement, in the oratory, and in the lonely fields the heavenly visitants came to her in crowds; angels and saints, descending from heaven, flocked around her. But when the doctors came, immediately the Jacob’s ladder was drawn up. Besides, the clerks were theologians, and she was a saint. Relations are always strained between the heads of the Church Militant and those devout women who communicate directly with the Church Triumphant. She realised that the revelations granted to her so abundantly inspired her most favourable judges with doubts, suspicion, and even mistrust. She dared not confide to them much of the mystery of her Voices, and when the Churchmen were not present she told Alençon, her fair Duke, that she knew more and could do more than she had ever told all those clerks. It was not to them she had been sent; it was not for them that she had come. She felt awkward in their presence, and their manners were the occasion of that irritation which is discernible in more than one of her replies. Sometimes when they questioned her she retreated to the end of her bench and sulked.
“We come to you from the King,” said Maître Pierre de Versailles.
She replied with a bad grace: “I am quite aware that you are come to question me again. I don’t know A from B.” But to the question: “Wherefore do you come?” she made answer eagerly: “I come from the King of Heaven to raise the siege of Orléans, and take the King to be crowned and anointed at Reims. Maître Jean Érault, have you ink and paper? Write what I shall
tell you.” And she dictated a brief manifesto to the English captains: “You, Suffort, Clasdas, and La Poule, in the name of the King of Heaven I call upon you to return to England.”
Maître Jean Érault, who wrote at her dictation, was, like most of the clerks, favourably disposed towards her. Further, he had his own ideas. He recollected that Marie of Avignon, surnamed La Gasque, had uttered true and memorable prophecies to King Charles VI. Now La Gasque had told the King that the realm was to suffer many sorrows; and she had seen weapons in the sky. Her story of her vision had concluded with these words: “While I was afeard, believing myself called upon to take these weapons, a voice comforted me, saying: ‘They are not for thee, but for a Virgin, who shall come and with these weapons deliver the realm of France.’” Maître Jean Érault meditated on these marvellous revelations and came to believe that Jeanne was the Virgin announced by Marie of Avignon.
Maître Gérard Machet, the King’s Confessor, had found it written that a Maid should come to the help of the King of France. He remarked on it to Gobert Thibault, the Squire, who was no very great personage; and he certainly spoke of it to several others. Gérard Machet, Doctor of Theology, sometime Vice Chancellor of the University, from which he was now excluded, was regarded as one of the lights of the Church. He loved the court, although he would not admit it, and enjoyed the favour of the King, who had just rewarded his services by giving him money with which to purchase a mule. All doubts concerning the disposition of these doctors are removed by the discovery that the King’s Confessor himself put into circulation those prophecies which had been distorted in favour of the Maid from the Bois-Chenu.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 426