Part 114 (1/2)

Whereupon Jeanne said that she would liefer sign than be burned.[2489]

[Footnote 2489: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 156, 197.]

Then straightway Messire Jean Ma.s.sieu gave her a second reading of the deed of abjuration. And she repeated the words after the Usher. As she spoke her countenance seemed to express a kind of sneer. It may have been that her features were contracted by the violent emotions which swayed her and that the horrors and tortures of an ecclesiastical trial may have overclouded her reason, subject at all times to strange vagaries, and that after such bitter suffering there may have come upon her the actual paroxysm of madness. On the other hand it may have been that with sound sense and calm mind she was mocking at the clerks of Rouen; she was quite capable of it, for she had mocked at the clerks of Poitiers. At any rate she had a jesting air, and the bystanders noticed that she p.r.o.nounced the words of her abjuration with a smile.[2490] And her gaiety, whether real or apparent, roused the wrath of those burgesses, priests, artisans, and men-at-arms who desired her death.

[Footnote 2490: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 338; vol. iii, p. 147.]

”'Tis all a mockery. Jeanne doth but jest,”[2491] they cried.

[Footnote 2491: _Ibid._, pp. 55, 143.]

Among the most irate was Master Lawrence Calot, Secretary to the King of England. He was seen to be in a violent rage and to approach first the judge and then the accused. A n.o.ble of Picardy who was present, the very same who had essayed familiarities with Jeanne in the Castle of Beaurevoir, thought he saw this Englishman forcing Jeanne to sign a paper.[2492] He was mistaken. In every crowd there are those who see things that never happen. The Bishop would not have permitted such a thing; he was devoted to the Regent, but on a question of form he would never have given way. Meanwhile, under this storm of insults, amidst the throwing of stones and the clas.h.i.+ng of swords, these ill.u.s.trious masters, these worthy doctors grew pale. The Prior of Longueville was awaiting an opportunity to make an apology to the Cardinal of Winchester.[2493]

[Footnote 2492: _Ibid._, p. 123.]

[Footnote 2493: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 361. J. Quicherat, _Apercus nouveaux_, p. 135.]

On the platform a chaplain of the Cardinal violently accused the Lord Bishop. ”You do wrong to accept such an abjuration. 'Tis a mere mockery,” he said.

”You lie,” retorted my Lord Pierre. ”I, the judge of a religious suit, ought to seek the salvation of this woman rather than her death.”

The Cardinal silenced his chaplain.[2494]

[Footnote 2494: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 147, 156.]

It is said that the Earl of Warwick came up to the judges and complained of what they had done, adding: ”The King is not well served, since Jeanne escapes.”

And it is stated that one of them replied: ”Have no fear, my Lord. She will not escape us long.”[2495]

[Footnote 2495: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 376.]

It is hardly credible that any one should have actually said so, but doubtless there were many at that time who thought it.

With what scorn must the Bishop of Beauvais have regarded those dull minds, incapable of understanding the service he was rendering to Old England by forcing this damsel to acknowledge that all she had declared and maintained in honour of her King was but lying and illusion.

With a pen that Ma.s.sieu gave her Jeanne made a cross at the bottom of the deed.[2496]

[Footnote 2496: _Ibid._, p. 17; vol. iii, p. 164.]

In the midst of howls and oaths from the English, my Lord of Beauvais read the more merciful of the sentences. It relieved Jeanne from excommunication and reconciled her to Holy Mother Church.[2497] Further the sentence ran:

”... Because thou hast rashly sinned against G.o.d and Holy Church, we, thy judges, that thou mayest do salutary penance, out of our Grace and moderation, do condemn thee finally and definitely to perpetual prison, with the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, so that there thou mayest weep over thy offences and commit no other that may be an occasion of weeping.”[2498]

[Footnote 2497: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 450, 452.]

[Footnote 2498: _Ibid._, p. 452.]

This penalty, like all other penalties, save death and mutilation, lay within the power of ecclesiastical judges. They inflicted it so frequently that in the early days of the Holy Inquisition, the Fathers of the Council of Narbonne said that stones and mortar would become as scarce as money.[2499] It was a penalty doubtless, but one which in character and significance differed from the penalties inflicted by secular courts; it was a penance. According to the mercy of ecclesiastical law, prison was a place suitable for repentance, where, in one perpetual penance, the condemned might eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction.