Part 101 (1/2)
She was not permitted to say.
She was asked whether she had received permission from G.o.d to go into France and whether G.o.d had commanded her to put on man's dress.
By keeping silence on this point she became liable to be suspected of heresy, and however she replied she laid herself open to serious charges,--she either took upon herself homicide and abomination, or she attributed it to G.o.d, which manifestly was to blaspheme.
Concerning her coming into France, she said: ”I would rather have been dragged by the hair of my head than have come into France without permission from Messire.” Concerning her dress she added: ”Dress is but a little thing, less than nothing. It was not according to the counsel of any man of this world that I put on man's clothing. I neither wore this attire nor did anything save by the command of Messire and his angels.”[2285]
[Footnote 2285: _Ibid._, pp. 74, 75.]
Maitre Jean Beaupere asked: ”When you behold this Voice coming towards you, is there any light?”
Then she replied with a jest, as at Poitiers: ”Every light cometh not to you, my fair lord.”[2286]
[Footnote 2286: _Ibid._, p. 75. I have re-inserted ”my fine lord”
according to _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 80.]
After all it was virtually against the King of France that these doctors of Rouen were proceeding with craft and with cunning.
Maitre Jean Beaupere threw out the question: ”How did your King come to have faith in your sayings?”
”Because they were proved good to him by signs and also because of his clerks.”
”What revelations were made unto your King?”
”That you will not hear from me this year.”
As he listened to the damsel's words, must not my Lord of Beauvais, who was in the counsels of King Henry, have reflected on that verse in the Book of Tobias (xii, 7): ”It is good to keep close the secret of a king”?
Thereafter Jeanne was called upon to reply at length concerning the sword of Saint Catherine. The clerks suspected her of having found it by the art of divination, and by invoking the aid of demons, and of having cast a spell over it. All that she was able to say did not remove their suspicions.[2287]
[Footnote 2287: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 75-77.]
Then they pa.s.sed on to the sword she had captured from a Burgundian.
”I wore it at Compiegne,” she said, ”because it was good for dealing sound clouts and good buffets.”[2288] The buffet was a flat blow, the clout was a side stroke. Some moments later, on the subject of her banner, she said that, in order to avoid killing any one, she bore it herself when they charged the enemy. And she added: ”I have never slain any one.”[2289]
[Footnote 2288: _Ibid._, pp. 77, 78.]
[Footnote 2289: _Ibid._, p. 78.]
The doctors found that her replies varied.[2290] Of course they varied.
But if like her every hour of the day and night the doctors had been seeing the heavens descending, if all their thoughts, all their instincts, good and bad, all their desires barely formulated, had been undergoing instant transformation into divine commands, their replies would likewise have varied, and they would have doubtless been in such a state of illusion that in their words and in their actions they would have displayed less good sense, less gentleness and less courage.
[Footnote 2290: _Ibid._, p. 34; vol. ii, p. 318.]
The examinations were long; they lasted between three and four hours.[2291] Before closing this one, Maitre Jean Beaupere wished to know whether Jeanne had been wounded at Orleans. This was an interesting point. It was generally admitted that witches lost their power when they shed blood. Finally, the doctors quibbled over the capitulation of Jargeau, and the court adjourned.[2292]
[Footnote 2291: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 350, 365.]
[Footnote 2292: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 79, 80.]
A famous Norman clerk, Maitre Jean Lohier, having come to Rouen, the Count Bishop of Beauvais commanded that he should be informed concerning the trial. On the first Sat.u.r.day in Lent, the 24th of February, the Bishop summoned him to his house near Saint-Nicolas-le-Painteur, and invited him to give his opinion of the proceedings. The views of Maitre Jean Lohier greatly disturbed the Bishop. Off he rushed to the doctors and masters, Jean Beaupere, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Thomas de Courcelles, Nicolas Loiseleur, and said to them: