Part 82 (1/2)

At Christmas, in the year 1429, the flying squadron of _beguines_ being a.s.sembled at Jargeau,[1879] this good Brother said ma.s.s and administered the communion thrice to Jeanne the Maid and twice to that Pierronne of Lower Brittany, with whom our Lord conversed as friend with friend. Such an action might well be regarded, if not as a formal violation of the Church's laws, at any rate as an unjustifiable abuse of the sacrament.[1880] A menacing theological tempest was then gathering and was about to break over the heads of Friar Richard's daughters in the spirit. A few days after the attack on Paris, the venerable University had had composed or rather transcribed a treatise, _De bono et maligno spiritu_, with a view probably to finding therein arguments against Friar Richard and his prophetess Jeanne, who had both appeared before the city with the Armagnacs.[1881]

[Footnote 1879: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 106.]

[Footnote 1880: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 271.]

[Footnote 1881: Morosini, vol. iii, pp. 232, 233. Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Cartularium Univ. Paris_, vol. iv, p. 515.]

About the same time, a clerk of the faculty of law had published a summary reply to Chancellor Gerson's memorial concerning the Maid. ”It sufficeth not,” he wrote, ”that one simply affirm that he is sent of G.o.d; every heretic maketh such a claim; but he must prove the truth of that mysterious mission by some miraculous work or by some special testimony in the Bible.” This Paris clerk denies that the Maid has presented any such proof, and to judge her by her acts, he believes her rather to have been sent by the Devil than by G.o.d. He reproaches her with wearing a dress forbidden to women under penalty of anathema, and he refutes the excuses for her conduct in this matter urged by Gerson. He accuses her of having excited between princes and Christian people a greater war than there had ever been before. He holds her to be an idolatress using enchantments and making false prophecies. He charges her with having induced men to slay their fellows on the two high festivals of the Holy Virgin, the a.s.sumption and the Nativity.

”Sins committed by the Enemy of Mankind, through this woman, against the Creator and his most glorious Mother. And albeit there ensued certain murders, thanks be to G.o.d they were not so many as the Enemy had intended.”

”All these things do manifestly prove error and heresy,” adds this devout son of the University. Whence he concludes that the Maid should be taken before the Bishop and the Inquisitor; and he ends by quoting this text from Saint Jerome: ”The unhealthy flesh must be cut off; the diseased sheep must be driven from the fold.”[1882]

[Footnote 1882: Noel Valois, _Un nouveau temoignage sur Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1907, in 8vo, 19 pages.]

Such was the unanimous opinion of the University of Paris concerning her in whom the French clerks beheld an Angel of the Lord. At Bruges, in November, a rumour ran and was eagerly welcomed by ecclesiastics that the University of Paris had sent an emba.s.sy to the Pope at Rome to denounce the Maid as a false prophetess and a deceiver, and likewise those who believed in her. We do not know the veritable object of this mission.[1883] But there is no doubt whatever that the doctors and masters of Paris were henceforward firmly resolved that if ever they obtained possession of the damsel they would not let her go out of their hands, and certainly would not send her to be tried at Rome, where she might escape with a mere penance, and even be enlisted as one of the Pope's mercenaries.[1884]

[Footnote 1883: Morosini, vol. iii, p. 232.]

[Footnote 1884: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 354, 355.]

In English and Burgundian lands, not only by clerks but by folk of all conditions, she was regarded as a heretic; in those countries the few who thought well of her had to conceal their opinions carefully. After the retreat from Saint-Denys, there may have remained some in Picardy, and notably at Abbeville, who were favourable to the prophetess of the French; but such persons must not be spoken of in public.

Colin Gouye, surnamed Le Sourd, and Jehannin Daix, surnamed Le Pet.i.t, a man of Abbeville, learned this to their cost. In this town about the middle of September, Le Sourd and Le Pet.i.t were near the blacksmith's forge with divers of the burgesses and other townsfolk, among whom was a herald. They fell to talking of the Maid who was making so great a stir throughout Christendom. To certain words the herald uttered concerning her, Le Pet.i.t replied eagerly:

”Well! well! Everything that woman does and says is nought but deception.”

Le Sourd spoke likewise: ”That woman,” he said, ”is not to be trusted.

Those who believe in her are mad, and there is a smell of burning about them.”[1885]

[Footnote 1885: _Sentent la persinee_: literally, smell of roast parsley. Cf. G.o.defroy, _Lexique de l'ancien francais_ at the word _persinee_. _Sentir la persinee_: to be suspected of heresy (W.S.).]

By that he meant that their destiny was obvious, and that they were sure to be burned at the stake as heretics.

Then he had the misfortune to add: ”In this town there be many with a smell of burning about them.”

Such words were for the dwellers in Abbeville a slander and a cause of suspicion. When the Mayor and the aldermen heard of this speech they ordered Le Sourd to be thrown into prison. Le Pet.i.t must have said something similar, for he too was imprisoned.[1886]

[Footnote 1886: Pardon granted to Le Sourd and Jehannin Daix, in _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 142-145.]

By saying that divers of his fellow-citizens were suspect of heresy, Le Sourd put them in danger of being sought out by the Bishop and the Inquisitor as heretics and sorcerers of notoriously evil repute. As for the Maid, she must have been suspect indeed, for a smell of burning to be caused by the mere fact of being her partisan.

While Friar Richard and his spiritual daughters were thus threatened with a bad end should they fall into the hands of the English or Burgundians, serious troubles were agitating the sisterhood. On the subject of Catherine, Jeanne entered into an open dispute with her spiritual father. Friar Richard wanted the holy dame of La Roch.e.l.le to be set to work. Fearing lest his advice should be adopted, Jeanne wrote to her King to tell him what to do with the woman, to wit that he should send her home to her husband and children.

When she came to the King the first thing she had to say to him was: ”Catherine's doings are nought but folly and futility.”

Friar Richard made no attempt to hide from the Maid his profound displeasure.[1887] He was thought much of at court, and it was doubtless with the consent of the Royal Council that he was endeavouring to compa.s.s the employment of Dame Catherine. The Maid had succeeded. Why should not another of the illuminated succeed?

[Footnote 1887: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 107.]