Part 109 (2/2)
v, p. 461.]
[Footnote 2414: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 328, 336.]
These twelve articles were not communicated to Jeanne. On Thursday, the 12th of April, twenty-one masters and doctors met in the chapel of the Bishop's Palace, and, after having examined the articles, engaged in a conference, the result of which was unfavourable to the accused.[2415]
[Footnote 2415: _Ibid._, p. 337.]
According to them, the apparitions and revelations of which she boasted came not from G.o.d. They were human inventions, or the work of an evil spirit. She had not received signs sufficient to warrant her believing in them. In the case of this woman these doctors and masters discovered lies; a lack of verisimilitude; faith lightly given; superst.i.tious divinings; deeds scandalous and irreligious; sayings rash, presumptuous, full of boasting; blasphemies against G.o.d and his saints. They found her to have lacked piety in her behaviour towards father and mother; to have come short in love towards her neighbour; to have been addicted to idolatry, or at any rate to the invention of lying tales and to schismatic conversation destructive of the unity, the authority and the power of the Church; and, finally, to have been skilled in the black art and to have strongly inclined to heresy.[2416]
[Footnote 2416: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 337, 374.]
Had she not been sustained and comforted by her heavenly Voices, the Voices of her own heart, Jeanne would never have endured to the end of this terrible trial. Not only was she being tortured at once by the princes of the Church and the rascals of the army, but her sufferings of body and mind were such as could never have been borne by any ordinary human being. Yet she suffered them without her constancy, her faith, her divine hope, one might almost say her cheerfulness, ever being diminished. Finally she gave way; her physical strength, but not her courage, was exhausted; she fell a victim to an illness which was expected to be fatal. She seemed near her end, or rather, alas! near her release.[2417]
[Footnote 2417: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 51.]
On Wednesday, the 18th of April, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor of the Faith went to her with divers doctors and masters to exhort her in all charity; she was still very seriously sick.[2418] My Lord of Beauvais represented to her that when on certain difficult matters she had been examined before persons of great wisdom, many things she had said had been noted as contrary to religion. Wherefore, considering that she was but an unlettered woman, he offered to provide her with men learned and upright who would instruct her. He requested the doctors present to give her salutary counsel, and he invited her herself, if any other such persons were known to her, to indicate them, promising to summon them without fail.
[Footnote 2418: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 374-375.]
”The Church,” he added, ”never closes her heart against those who will return to her.”
Jeanne answered that she thanked him for what he had said for her salvation, and she added: ”Meseemeth, that seeing the sickness in which I lie, I am in great danger of death. If it be thus, then may G.o.d do with me according to his good pleasure. I demand that ye permit me to confess, that ye also give me the body of my Saviour and bury me in holy ground.”
My Lord of Beauvais represented to her that if she would receive the sacraments she must submit to the Church.
”If my body die in prison,” she replied, ”I depend on you to have it put in holy ground; if you do not, then I appeal to Our Lord.”[2419]
[Footnote 2419: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 376, 378.]
Then she vehemently maintained the truth of the revelations she had received from G.o.d, Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret.
And when she was asked yet again whether she would submit herself and her acts to Holy Mother Church, she replied: ”Whatever happens to me, I will never do or say aught save what I have already said at the trial.”[2420]
[Footnote 2420: _Ibid._, p. 379.]
The doctors and masters one after the other exhorted her to submit to Holy Mother Church. They quoted numerous pa.s.sages from Holy Writ. They promised her the body of Our Lord if she would obey; but she remained resolute.
”Touching this submission,” she said, ”I will reply naught save what I have said already. I love G.o.d, I serve him, I am a good Christian, and I wish with all my power to aid and support Holy Church.”[2421]
[Footnote 2421: _Ibid._, pp. 380, 381.]
In times of great need recourse was had to processions. ”Do you not wish,” she was asked, ”that a fine and famous procession be ordained to restore you to a good estate if you be not therein?”
She replied, ”I desire the Church and all Catholics to pray for me.”[2422]
[Footnote 2422: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 381.]
Among the doctors consulted there were many who recommended that she should be again instructed and charitably admonished. On Wednesday, the 2nd of May, sixty-three reverend doctors and masters met in the Robing Room of the castle.[2423] She was brought in, and Maitre Jean de Castillon, doctor in theology, Archdeacon of evreux,[2424] read a doc.u.ment in French, in which the deeds and sayings with which Jeanne was reproached were summed up in six articles. Then many doctors and masters addressed to her in turn admonitions and charitable counsels.
They exhorted her to submit to the Church Militant Universal, to the Holy Father the Pope and to the General Council. They warned her that if the Church abandoned her, her soul would stand in great peril of the penalty of eternal fire, whilst her body might be burned in an earthly fire, and that by the sentence of other judges.
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