Part 112 (1/2)
”If you are a good Christian,” he said, ”you will agree to submit all your deeds and sayings to Holy Mother Church, and especially to the ecclesiastical judges.”
Maitre Jean Beaupere thought he heard her reply, ”So I will.”[2449]
[Footnote 2449: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 21.]
If such were her answer, then it must have been because, worn out by a flight of agony, her physical courage quailed at the thought of death by burning.
Just when he was leaving her, as she stood near a door, Maitre Nicolas Loiseleur gave her the same advice, and in order to induce her to follow it, he made her a false promise:
”Jeanne, believe me,” he said. ”You have your deliverance in your own hands. Wear the apparel of your s.e.x, and do what shall be required of you. Otherwise you stand in danger of death. If you do as I tell you, good will come to you and no harm. You will be delivered into the hands of the Church.”[2450]
[Footnote 2450: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 146. De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 445 _et seq._]
She was taken in a cart and with an armed guard to that part of the town called Bourg-l'Abbe, lying beneath the castle walls. And but a short distance away the cart was stopped, in the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, also called _les aitres[2451] Saint-Ouen_. Here a highly popular fair was held every year on the feast day of the patron saint of the Abbey.[2452] Here it was that Jeanne was to hear the sermon, as so many other unhappy creatures had done before her. Places like this, to which the folk could flock in crowds, were generally chosen for these edifying spectacles. On the border of this vast charnel-house for a hundred years there had towered a parish church, and on the south there rose the nave of the abbey. Against the magnificent edifice of the church two scaffolds had been erected,[2453] one large, the other smaller. They were west of the porch which was called _portail des Marmousets_, because of the mult.i.tudes of tiny figures carved upon it.[2454]
[Footnote 2451: Old name for a cemetery close to a church. G.o.defroy, _Lexique de l'ancien francais_ (W.S.).]
[Footnote 2452: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 351.]
[Footnote 2453: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 54.]
[Footnote 2454: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur le cimetiere de Saint-Ouen de Rouen_, in _Precis a.n.a.lytique des travaux de l'Academie de Rouen_ 1875-1876, pp. 211, 230, plan. U. Chevalier, _L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc et l'authenticite de sa formule_, p. 44. A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie_, p. 351.]
On the great scaffold the two judges, the Lord Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor, took their places. They were a.s.sisted by the most reverend Cardinal of Winchester, the Lord Bishops of Therouanne, of Noyon, and of Norwich, the Lord Abbots of Fecamp, of Jumieges, of Bec, of Corneilles, of Mont-Saint-Michel-au-Peril-de-la-Mer, of Mortemart, of Preaux, and of Saint-Ouen of Rouen, where the a.s.sembly was held, the Priors of Longueville and of Saint-Lo, also many doctors and bachelors in theology, doctors and licentiates in canon and civil law.[2455] Likewise were there many high personages of the English party. The other scaffold was a kind of pulpit. To it ascended the doctor who, according to the use and custom of the Holy Inquisition was to preach the sermon against Jeanne. He was Maitre Guillaume Erard, doctor in theology, canon of the churches of Langres and of Beauvais.[2456] At this time he was very eager to go to Flanders, where he was urgently needed; and he confided to his young servitor, Brother Jean de Lenisoles, that the preaching of this sermon caused him great inconvenience. ”I want to be in Flanders,” he said. ”This affair is very annoying for me.”[2457]
[Footnote 2455: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 442, 444. O'Reilly, _Les deux proces_, vol. i, pp. 70-93.]
[Footnote 2456: De Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_, pp. 402, 408.]
[Footnote 2457: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 113.]
From one point of view, however, he must have been pleased to perform this duty, since it afforded him the opportunity of attacking the King of France, Charles VII, and of thereby showing his devotion to the English cause, to which he was strongly attached.
Jeanne, dressed as a man, was brought up and placed at his side, before all the people.[2458]
[Footnote 2458: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 469, 470.]
Maitre Guillaume Erard began his sermon in the following manner:
”I take as my text the words of G.o.d in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter xv: 'The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine.'[2459] Thus it behoveth all Catholics to remain abiding in Holy Mother Church, the true vine, which the hand of Our Lord Jesus Christ hath planted. Now this Jeanne, whom you see before you, falling from error into error, and from crime into crime, hath become separate from the unity of Holy Mother Church and in a thousand manners hath scandalised Christian people.”
[Footnote 2459: _Ibid._, p. 444. E. Richer, _Histoire ma.n.u.scrite de la Pucelle d'Orleans_, bk. i, fol. 8; bk. ii, fol. 198, v'o.]
Then he reproached her with having failed, with having sinned against royal Majesty and against G.o.d and the Catholic Faith; and all these things must she henceforth eschew under pain of death by burning.
He declaimed vehemently against the pride of this woman. He said that never had there appeared in France a monster so great as that which was manifest in Jeanne; that she was a witch, a heretic, a schismatic, and that the King, who protected her, risked the same reproach from the moment that he became willing to recover his throne with the help of such a heretic.[2460]
[Footnote 2460: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 61.]
Towards the middle of his sermon, he cried out with a loud voice: