Part 34 (1/2)
The success of such little stories was immediate and complete.
[Footnote 786: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 82.]
[Footnote 787: Simeon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. cxliii.
_Trial_, vol. ii, p. 397.]
[Footnote 788: Letter from Perceval de Boulainvilliers to the Duke of Milan, in the _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 115, 121. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 237.]
[Footnote 789: _Journal du siege_, p. 48. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 275.]
After this examination and inquiry, the doctors came to the following conclusions: ”The King, beholding his own need and that of his realm, and considering the constant prayers to G.o.d of his poor subjects and all others who love peace and justice, ought not to repulse or reject the Maid who says that G.o.d has sent her to bring him succour, albeit these promises may be nothing[790] but the works of man; neither ought he lightly or hastily to believe in her. But, according to Holy Scripture he must try her in two ways: to wit, with human wisdom, by inquiring of her life, her morals, and her motive, as saith Saint Paul the Apostle: _Probate spiritus, si ex Deo sunt_; and by earnest prayer to ask for a sign of her work and her divine hope, by which to tell whether it is by G.o.d's will that she is come. Thus G.o.d commanded Ahaz that he should ask for a sign when G.o.d promised him victory, saying unto him: _Pete signum a Domino_; and Gideon did likewise when he asked for a sign and many others, etc. Since the coming of the said Maid, the King hath observed her in the two manners aforesaid: to wit, by trial of human wisdom and by prayer, asking G.o.d for a sign. As for the first, which is trial by human wisdom, he has tested the said Maid in her life, her origin, her morals, her intention; and has kept her near him for the s.p.a.ce of six weeks to show her to all people, whether clerks, ecclesiastics, monks, men-at-arms, wives, widows or others. In public and in private she hath conversed with persons of all conditions. But there hath been found no evil in her, nothing but good, humility, virginity, devoutness, honesty, simplicity. Of her birth, as well as of her life, many marvellous things are related.”
[Footnote 790: The word _seules_ in the text is doubtful.]
”As for the second ordeal, the King asked her for a sign, to which she replied that before Orleans she would give it, but neither earlier nor elsewhere, for thus it is ordained of G.o.d.
”Now, seeing that the King hath made trial of the aforesaid Maid as far as it was in his power to do, that he findeth no evil in her, and that her reply is that she will give a divine sign before Orleans; seeing her persistency, and the consistency of her words, and her urgent request that she be sent to Orleans to show there that the aid she brings is divine, the King should not hinder her from going to Orleans with men-at-arms, but should send her there in due state trusting in G.o.d. For to fear her or reject her when there is no appearance of evil in her would be to rebel against the Holy Ghost, and to render oneself unworthy of divine succour, as Gamaliel said of the Apostles in the Council of the Jews.”[791]
[Footnote 791: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 391, 392.]
In short, the doctors' conclusion was that as yet nothing divine appeared in the Maid's promises, but that she had been examined and been found humble, a virgin, devout, honest, simple, and wholly good; and that, since she had promised to give a sign from G.o.d before Orleans, she must be taken there, for fear that in her the gift of the Holy Ghost should be rejected.
Of these conclusions a great number of copies were made and sent to the towns of the realm as well as to the princes of Christendom. The Emperor Sigismond, for example, received a copy.[792]
[Footnote 792: Eberhard Windecke, pp. 32, 41.]
If the doctors of Poitiers had intended this six weeks inquiry, culminating in a favourable and solemn conclusion, to bring about the glorification of the Maid and the heartening of the French people by the preparation and announcement of the marvel they had before them, then they succeeded perfectly.[793]
[Footnote 793: The conclusions of the Poitiers commission were circulated everywhere. Traces of them are to be found in Brittany (Buchon and _Chronique de Morosini_), in Flanders (_Chronique de Tournai_ and _Chronique de Morosini_), in Germany (Eb. Windecke), in Dauphine (Buchon).]
That prolonged investigation, that minute examination rea.s.sured those doubting minds among the French, who suspected a woman dressed as a man of being a devil; they flattered men's imaginations with the hope of a miracle; they appealed to all hearts to judge favourably of the damsel who came forth radiant from the fire of ordeal and appeared as if glorified with a celestial halo. Her vanquis.h.i.+ng the doctors in argument made her seem like another Saint Catherine.[794] But that she should have met difficult questions with wise answers was not enough for a mult.i.tude eager for marvels. It was imagined that she had been subjected to a strange probation from which she had come forth by nothing short of a miracle. Thus a few weeks after the inquiry, the following wonderful story was related in Brittany and in Flanders: when at Poitiers she was preparing to receive the communion, the priest had one wafer that was consecrated and another that was not. He wanted to give her the unconsecrated wafer. She took it in her hand and told the priest that it was not the body of Christ her Redeemer, but that the body was in the wafer which the priest had covered with the corporal.[795] After that there could be no doubt that Jeanne was a great saint.
[Footnote 794: ”_Altra santa Catarina_” (Morosini, vol. iii, p. 52).
There is no doubt that here she is compared to Saint Catherine of Alexandria and not to Saint Catherine of Sienna.]
[Footnote 795: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 101.]
At the termination of the inquiries, a favourable opportunity for introducing the Maid into Orleans arrived in the beginning of April.
For her arming and her accoutring she was sent first to Tours.[796]
[Footnote 796: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 66, 210.]
Sixty-six years later, an inhabitant of Poitiers, almost a hundred years old, told a young fellow-citizen that he had seen the Maid set out for Orleans on horseback, in white armour.[797] He pointed to the very stone from which she had mounted her horse in the corner of the Rue Saint-Etienne. Now, when Jeanne was at Poitiers, she was not in armour. But the people of Poitou had named the stone ”the Maid's mounting stone.” With what a glad eager step the Saint must have leapt from that stone on to the horse which was to carry her away from those furred cats to the afflicted and oppressed whom she was longing to succour.[798]
[Footnote 797: Jean Bouchet, _Annales d'Aquitaine_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, pp 536, 537.]
[Footnote 798: Guilbert, _Histoire des villes de France_, vol. iv, Poitiers. Cf. B. Ledain, _La Maison de Jeanne d'Arc a Poitiers_, Saint-Maixent, 1892, in 8vo. According to M. Ledain the Hotel de la Rose was on the spot now occupied by a house, number 13 in La Rue Notre-Dame-la-Pet.i.te.]
CHAPTER IX