Part 90 (1/2)
Some time before, a shepherd lad of Gevaudan, by name Guillaume, while tending his flocks at the foot of the Lozere Mountains and guarding them from wolf and lynx, had a revelation concerning the realm of France. This shepherd, like John, Our Lord's favourite disciple, was virgin. In one of the caves of the Mende Mountain, where the holy apostle Privat had prayed and fasted, his ear was struck by a heavenly voice, and thus he knew that G.o.d was sending him to the King of France. He went to Mende, just as Jeanne had gone to Vaucouleurs in order that he might be taken to the King. There he found pious folk, who, touched by his holiness and persuaded that there was power in him, provided for his equipment and for his journey, which provisions, in sooth, amounted to very little. The words he addressed to the King were much the same as those uttered by the Maid.
”Sire,” he said, ”I am commanded to go with your people; and without fail the English and Burgundians shall be discomfited.”[2049]
[Footnote 2049: Summary of a letter from Regnault de Chartres to the inhabitants of Reims, _Trial_, vol. v, p. 168.]
The King received him kindly. The clerks who had examined the Maid must have feared lest if they repulsed this shepherd lad they might be rejecting the aid of the Holy Ghost. Amos was a shepherd, and to him G.o.d granted the gift of prophecy: ”I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” MATT. xi, 25.
But before this shepherd could be believed he must give a sign. The clerks of Poitiers, who in those evil days languished in dire penury, did not appear exacting in their demand for proofs; they had counselled the King to employ the Maid merely on the promise that as a token of her mission she would deliver Orleans. The Gevaudan shepherd had more than promises to allege; he showed wondrous marks on his body. Like Saint Francis he had received the stigmata; and on his hands, his feet and in his side were bleeding wounds.[2050]
[Footnote 2050: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 272. Lefevre de Saint-Remy, vol. ii, p. 263. Martial d'Auvergne, _Vigiles_, vol. i, p.
124.]
The mendicant monks rejoiced that their spiritual father had thus partic.i.p.ated in the Pa.s.sion of Our Lord. A like grace had been granted to the Blessed Catherine of Sienna, of the order of Saint Dominic.
But if there were miraculous stigmata imprinted by Jesus Christ himself, there were also the stigmata of enchantment, which were the work of the Devil, and very important was it to distinguish between the two.[2051] It could only be done by great knowledge and great piety. It would appear that Guillaume's stigmata were not the work of the devil; for it was resolved to employ him in the same manner as Jeanne, as Catherine de la Roch.e.l.le, and as the two Breton women, the spiritual daughters of Friar Richard.
[Footnote 2051: A. Maury, _La stigmatisation et les stigmates_, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1854, ch. viii, pp. 454-482. Dr. Subled, _Les stigmates selon la science_, in _Science catholique_, 1894, vol. viii, pp. 1073 _et seq._; vol. ix, pp. 2 _et seq._]
When the Maid fell into the hands of the Burgundians, the Sire de la Tremouille was with the King, on the Loire, where fighting had ceased since the disastrous siege of La Charite. He sent the shepherd youth to the banks of the Oise, to the Lord Archbishop of Reims, who was there opposing the Burgundians, commanded by Duke Philip, himself.
Messire Regnault had probably asked for the boy. In any case he welcomed him willingly and kept him at Beauvais, supervising and interrogating him, ready to use him at an auspicious moment. One day, either to try him or because the rumour was really in circulation, young Guillaume was told that the English had put Jeanne to death.
”Then,” said he, ”it will be the worse for them.”[2052]
[Footnote 2052: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 168.]
By this time, after all the rivalries and jealousies which had torn asunder this company of the King's _beguines_, there remained to Friar Richard one only of his penitents, Dame Catherine of La Roch.e.l.le, who had the gift of discovering hidden treasure.[2053] The young shepherd approved of the Maid as little as Dame Catherine had done.
[Footnote 2053: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 295 _et seq._]
”G.o.d suffered Jeanne to be taken,” he said, ”because she was puffed up with pride and because of the rich clothes she wore and because she had not done as G.o.d commanded her but according to her own will.”[2054]
[Footnote 2054: Letter from Regnault de Chartres, in _Ibid._, vol. v, p. 168.]
Were these words suggested to him by the enemies of the Maid? That may be: but it is also possible that he derived them from inspiration.
Saints are not always kind to one another.
Meanwhile Messire Regnault de Chartres believed himself possessed of a marvel far surpa.s.sing the marvel he had lost. He wrote a letter to the inhabitants of his town of Reims telling them that the Maid had been taken at Compiegne.
This misfortune had befallen her through her own fault, he added. ”She would not take advice, but would follow her own will.” In her stead G.o.d had sent a shepherd, ”who says neither more nor less than Jeanne.”
G.o.d has strictly commanded him to discomfit the English and the Burgundians. And the Lord Archbishop neglects not to repeat the words by which the prophet of Gevaudan had represented Jeanne as proud, gorgeous in attire, rebellious of heart.[2055] The Reverend Father in G.o.d, my Lord Regnault, would never have consented to employ a heretic and a sorcerer; he believed in Guillaume as he had believed in Jeanne; he held both one and the other to have been divinely sent, in the sense that all which is not of the devil is of G.o.d. It was sufficient for him that no evil had been found in the child, and he intended to essay him, hoping that Guillaume would do what Jeanne had done.
Whether the Archbishop thus acted rightly or wrongly the issue was to decide, but he might have exalted the shepherd without denying the Saint who was so near her martyrdom. Doubtless he deemed it necessary to distinguish between the fortune of the kingdom and the fortune of Jeanne. And he had the courage to do it.
[Footnote 2055: _Ibid._, p. 168.]
CHAPTER IX
THE MAID AT BEAUREVOIR--CATHERINE DE LA ROCh.e.l.lE AT PARIS--EXECUTION OF LA PIERRONNE
The Maid had been taken captive in the diocese of Beauvais.[2056] At that time the Bishop Count of Beauvais was Pierre Cauchon of Reims, a great and pompous clerk of the University of Paris, which had elected him rector in 1403. Messire Pierre Cauchon was not a moderate man; with great ardour he had thrown himself into the Cabochien riots.[2057]