Part 114 (2/2)
[Footnote 2499: L. Tanon, _Tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p. 454.]
How foolish was he, who by refusing to enter that prison or by escaping from it, should reject the salutary healing of his soul! By so doing he was fleeing from the gentle tribunal of penance, and the Church in sadness cut him off from the communion of the faithful. By inflicting this penalty, which a good Catholic must needs regard rather as a favour than a punishment, my Lord the Bishop and my Lord the Holy Vicar of the Inquisition were conforming to the custom, whereby our Holy Mother Church became reconciled to heretics. But had they power to execute their sentence? The prison to which they condemned Jeanne, the expiatory prison, the salutary confinement, must be in a dungeon of the Church. Could they send her there?
Jeanne, turning towards them, said: ”Now, you Churchmen, take me to your prison. Let me be no longer in the hands of the English.”[2500]
[Footnote 2500: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 14.]
Many of those clerics had promised it to her.[2501] They had deceived her. They knew it was not possible; for it had been stipulated that the King of England's men should resume possession of Jeanne after the trial.[2502]
[Footnote 2501: _Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 52, 149.]
[Footnote 2502: _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 19.]
The Lord Bishop gave the order: ”Take her back to the place whence you brought her.”[2503]
[Footnote 2503: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 14.]
He, a judge of the Church, committed the crime of surrendering the Church's daughter reconciled and penitent, to laymen. Among them she could not mourn over her sins; and they, hating her body and caring nought for her soul, were to tempt her and cause her to fall back into error.
While Jeanne was being taken back in the cart to her tower in the fields, the soldiers insulted her and their captains did not rebuke them.[2504]
[Footnote 2504: _Ibid._, p. 376.]
Thereafter, the Vice-Inquisitor and with him divers doctors and masters, went to her prison and charitably exhorted her. She promised to wear woman's apparel, and to let her head be shaved.[2505]
[Footnote 2505: _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 452-453.]
The d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, knowing that she was a virgin, saw to it that she was treated with respect.[2506] As the ladies of Luxembourg had done formerly, she essayed to persuade her to wear the clothing of her s.e.x. By a certain tailor, one Jeannotin Simon, she had had made for Jeanne a gown which she had hitherto refused to wear. Jeannotin brought the garment to the prisoner, who this time did not refuse it.
In putting it on, Jeannotin touched her bosom, which she resented. She boxed his ears;[2507] but she consented to wear the gown provided by the d.u.c.h.ess.
[Footnote 2506: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 155.]
[Footnote 2507: _Ibid._, p. 89.]
CHAPTER XIV
THE TRIAL FOR RELAPSE--SECOND SENTENCE--DEATH OF THE MAID
On the following Sunday, which was Trinity Sunday, there arose a rumour that Jeanne had resumed man's apparel. The report spread rapidly from the castle down the narrow streets where lived the clerks in the shadow of the cathedral. Straightway notaries and a.s.sessors hastened to the tower which looked on the fields.
In the outer court of the castle they found some hundred men-at-arms, who welcomed them with threats and curses.[2508] These fellows did not yet understand that the judges had conducted the trial so as to bring honour to old England and dishonour to the French. They did not realise what it meant when the Maid of the Armagnacs, who hitherto had obstinately persisted in her utterances, was at length brought to confess her impostures. They did not see how great was the advantage to their country when it was published abroad throughout the world that Charles of Valois had been conducted to his coronation by a heretic. But no, the only idea these brutes were capable of grasping was the burning of the girl prisoner who had struck terror into their hearts. The doctors and masters they treated as traitors, false counsellors and Armagnacs.[2509]
[Footnote 2508: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 148.]
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