Part 107 (1/2)
”Saint Catherine has told me that I shall have succour. I know not whether it will be my deliverance from prison, or whether, during the trial, some tumult shall arise whereby I shall be delivered. I think it will be either one or the other. My Voices most often tell me I shall be delivered by a great victory. And afterwards they say to me: 'Be thou resigned, grieve not at thy martyrdom; thou shalt come in the end to the kingdom of Paradise.' This do my Voices say unto me simply and absolutely. I mean to say without fail. And I call my martyrdom the trouble and anguish I suffer in prison. I know not whether still greater sufferings are before me, but I wait on the Lord.”[2372]
[Footnote 2372: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 154, 156.]
It would seem that thus her Voices promised the Maid at once a spiritual and a material deliverance, but the two could hardly occur together. This reply, expressive alike of fear and of illusion, was one to call forth pity from the hardest; and yet her judges regarded it merely as a means whereby they might entrap her. Feigning to understand that from her revelations she derived a heretical confidence in her eternal salvation, the examiner put to her an old question in a new form. She had already given it a saintly answer. He inquired whether her Voices had told her that she would finally come to the kingdom of Paradise if she continued in the a.s.surance that she would be saved and not condemned in h.e.l.l. To this she replied with that perfect faith with which her Voices inspired her: ”I believe what my Voices have told me touching my salvation as strongly as if I were already in Paradise.”
Such a reply was heretical. The examiner, albeit he was not accustomed to discuss the Maid's replies, could not forbear remarking that this one was of great importance.[2373]
[Footnote 2373: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 156.]
Accordingly in the afternoon of that same day, she was shown a consequence of her error; to wit, that if she received from her Voices the a.s.surance of eternal salvation she needed not to confess.[2374]
[Footnote 2374: _Ibid._, p. 157.]
On this occasion Jeanne was questioned touching the affair of Franquet d'Arras. The Bailie of Senlis had done wrong in asking the Maid for her prisoner,[2375] the Lord Franquet,[2376] in order to put him to death, and Jeanne's judges now incriminated her.
[Footnote 2375: See _ante_, pp. 124 _et seq._ (W.S.).]
[Footnote 2376: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 158, 159.]
The examiner pointed out the mortal sins with which the accused might be charged: first, having attacked Paris on a feast-day; second, having stolen the hackney of the Lord Bishop of Senlis; third, having leapt from Beaurevoir; fourth, having worn man's dress; fifth, having consented to the death of a prisoner of war. Touching all these matters, Jeanne did not believe that she had committed mortal sin; but with regard to the leap from Beaurevoir she acknowledged that she was wrong, and that she had asked G.o.d to forgive her.[2377]
[Footnote 2377: _Ibid._, pp. 159, 161.]
It was sufficiently established that the accused had fallen into religious error. The tribunal of the Inquisition, out of its abounding mercy, desired the salvation of the sinner. Wherefore on the morning of the very next day, Thursday, the 15th of March, my Lord of Beauvais exhorted Jeanne to submit to the Church, and essayed to make her understand that she ought to obey the Church Militant, for the Church Militant was one thing and the Church Triumphant another. Jeanne listened to him dubiously.[2378] On that day she was again questioned touching her flight from the chateau of Beaulieu and her intention to leave the tower without the permission of my Lord of Beauvais. As to the latter she was firmly resolute.
[Footnote 2378: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 162.]
”Were I to see the door open, I would go, and it would be with the permission of Our Lord. I firmly believe that if I were to see the door open and if my guards and the other English were beyond power of resistance, I should regard it as my permission and as succour sent unto me by Our Lord. But without permission I would not go, save that I might essay to go, in order to know whether it were Our Lord's will.
The proverb says: 'Help thyself and G.o.d will help thee.'[2379] This I say so that, if I were to go, it should not be said I went without permission.”[2380]
[Footnote 2379: _Ayde-toy, Dieu te aidera._ _Le Jouvencel_, vol. ii, p.
33.]
[Footnote 2380: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 163, 164.]
Then they reverted to the question of her wearing man's dress.
”Which would you prefer, to wear a woman's dress and hear ma.s.s, or to continue in man's dress and not to hear ma.s.s?”
”Promise me that I shall hear ma.s.s if I am in woman's dress, and then I will answer you.”
”I promise you that you shall hear ma.s.s when you are in woman's dress.”
”And what do you say if I have promised and sworn to our King not to put off these clothes? Nevertheless, I say unto you: 'Have me a robe made, long enough to touch the ground, but without a train. I will go to ma.s.s in it; then, when I come back, I will return to my present clothes.'”
”You must wear woman's dress altogether and without conditions.”
”Send me a dress like that worn by your burgess's daughters, to wit, a long _houppelande_; and I will take it and even a woman's hood to go and hear ma.s.s. But with all my heart I entreat you to leave me these clothes I am now wearing, and let me hear ma.s.s without changing anything.”[2381]
[Footnote 2381: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 165, 166.]