Part 31 (1/2)
She called the Duke of Alencon her fair Duke,[715] and loved him for the sake of the Duke of Orleans, 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.[716] He was young like her; she thought that he like her must be sincere and n.o.ble. And perhaps in those days he was, for doubtless he was not then seeking to discover powders with which to dry up the King.[717]
[Footnote 715: Perceval de Cagny, p. 151, _pa.s.sim_.]
[Footnote 716: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 240.]
[Footnote 717: Cf. 1 Kings xiii, 4 (W.S.). P. Dupuy, _Proces de Jean II, duc d'Alencon, 1458-1474_, 1658, in 4to. Michelet, _Histoire de France_, vol. v, p. 382. Docteur Chereau, _Medecins du quinzieme siecle_, in _l'Union Medicale_, vol. xiv, August, 1862. Joseph Guibert, _Jean II duc d'Alencon_, in _Les positions de l'ecole des Chartes_, 1893.]
It was decided that Jeanne should be taken to Poitiers to be examined by the doctors there.[718] In this town the Parlement met. Here also were gathered together many famous clerks learned in theology, secular as well as regular,[719] and grave doctors and masters were summoned to join them. Jeanne set out under escort. At first she thought she was being taken to Orleans. 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 G.o.d's name!” she said, ”much ado will be there, I know. But my Lord will help me. Now let us go on in G.o.d's strength!”[720]
[Footnote 718: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 116, 209.]
[Footnote 719: Belisaire Ledain, _Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers_, Saint-Maixent, 1891, in 8vo, 15 pages. Neuville, _Le Parlement royal a Poitiers_, in the _Revue historique_, vol. vi, p. 284.]
[Footnote 720: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 275. _Journal du siege_, p. 48. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 316.]
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 a.s.sembled 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 p.r.o.nounce 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.[721] The Attorney General, Messire Jean Jouvenel des Ursins, who owned rich lands and houses in ile-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.[722] 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 G.o.d's will, to restore the King's fortunes as well as their own. Meanwhile, s.h.i.+vering 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 G.o.d.” _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;[723] the Lord Bishop of Maguelonne;[724] Maitre Jean Lombard, doctor in theology, sometime professor of theology at the University of Paris;[725] Maitre Guillaume le Maire, bachelor of theology, canon of Poitiers;[726]
Maitre Gerard Machet, the King's Confessor;[727] Maitre Jourdain Morin;[728] Maitre Jean erault, professor of theology;[729] Maitre Mathieu Mesnage, bachelor of theology;[730] Maitre Jacques Meledon;[731] Maitre Jean Macon, a very famous doctor of civil law and of canon law;[732] 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, Amba.s.sador of his most Christian Majesty the King of France;[733] Brother Pierre Turelure, of the Order of Saint Dominic, Inquisitor at Toulouse;[734] Maitre Simon Bonnet;[735]
Brother Guillaume Aimery, of the Order of Saint-Dominic, doctor and professor of theology;[736] Brother Seguin of Seguin of the Order of Saint Dominic, doctor and professor of theology;[737] Brother Pierre Seguin, Carmelite;[738] several of the King's Councillors, licentiates of civil as well as of canon law.
[Footnote 721: Neuville, _Le Parlement royal a Poitiers_, in the _Revue historique_, vol. vi, p. 18. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, pp. 571 _et seq._]
[Footnote 722: Louis Battifol, _Jean Jouvenel, prevot des marchands de la ville de Paris_, Paris, 1894, in 8vo. Juvenal des Ursins, _Histoire de Charles VI_, pp. 359, 360.]
[Footnote 723: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 92. _Gallia Christiana_, vol. ii, col. 1198.]
[Footnote 724: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 92. Le P. Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'eglise de son temps_, p. 6.]
[Footnote 725: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 203, 204.]
[Footnote 726: _Ibid._, pp. 19, 203.]
[Footnote 727: _Ibid._, pp. 74, 75. Launoy, _Historia Collegii Navarrici_, lib. ii, _pa.s.sim_.]
[Footnote 728: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 92, 102.]
[Footnote 729: _Ibid._, pp. 74, 75.]
[Footnote 730: _Ibid._, pp. 74, 92, 102.]
[Footnote 731: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 203.]
[Footnote 732: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 27, 28.]
[Footnote 733: _Ibid._, pp. 19, 74, 92, 203. _Gallia Christiana_, vol.