Part 116 (2/2)
Maitre Pierre Maurice, a reader of Terence and Virgil, was filled with pity for this hapless Maid.[2534] On the previous day he had declared her to have relapsed because his knowledge of theology forced him to it; and now he was concerned for the salvation of this soul in peril, which could not be saved except by recognising the falseness of its Voices.
[Footnote 2534: Robillard de Beaurepaire, _Notes sur les juges_.]
”Are they indeed real?” he asked her.
She replied, ”Whether they be good or bad, they appeared to me.”
She affirmed that with her eyes she had seen, with her ears heard, the Voices and apparitions which had been spoken of at the trial.
She heard them most frequently, she said, at the hour of compline and of matins, when the bells were ringing.[2535]
[Footnote 2535: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 480.]
Maitre Pierre Maurice, being the Pope's secretary, was debarred from openly professing the Pyrrhonic philosophy. He inclined, however, to a rational interpretation of natural phenomena, if we may judge from his remarking to Jeanne that the ringing of bells often sounded like voices.
Without describing the exact form of her apparitions, Jeanne said they came to her in a great mult.i.tude and were very tiny. She believed in them no longer, being fully persuaded that they had deceived her.
Maitre Pierre Maurice asked about the Angel who had brought the crown.
She replied that there had never been a crown save that promised by her to her King, and that the Angel was herself.[2536]
[Footnote 2536: _Ibid._, pp. 480, 481 (information furnished after her death).]
At that moment the Lord Bishop of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor entered the prison, accompanied by Maitre Thomas de Courcelles and Maitre Jacques Lecamus.[2537]
[Footnote 2537: _Ibid._, pp. 482, 483.]
At the sight of the Judge who had brought her to such a pa.s.s she cried, ”Bishop, I die through you.”
He replied by piously admonis.h.i.+ng her. ”Ah! Jeanne, bear all in patience. You die because you have not kept your promise and have returned to evil-doing.[2538] Now, Jeanne,” he asked her, ”you have always said that your Voices promised you deliverance; you behold how they have deceived you, wherefore tell us the truth.”
[Footnote 2538: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 114 (evidence of Brother Jehan Toutmouille).]
She replied, ”Verily, I see that they have deceived me.”[2539]
[Footnote 2539: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 481, 482 (information given after Jeanne's death).]
The Bishop and the Vice-Inquisitor withdrew. They had triumphed over a poor girl of twenty.
”If after their condemnation heretics repent, and if the signs of their repentance are manifest, the sacraments of confession and the eucharist may not be denied them, provided they demand them with humility.”[2540] Thus ran the sacred decretals. But no recantation, no a.s.surance of conformity, could save the relapsed heretic. He was permitted confession, absolution, and communion; which means that at the bar of the Sacrament the sincerity of his repentance and conversion was believed in. But at the same time it was declared judicially that his repentance was not believed in and that consequently he must die.[2541]
[Footnote 2540: _Textus decretalium_, lib. v, ch. iv.]
[Footnote 2541: Ignace de Doellinger, _La Papaute_, traduit par A.
Giraud-Teulon, Paris, 1904, in 8vo, p. 105.]
Brother Martin Ladvenu heard Jeanne's confession. Then he sent Messire Ma.s.sieu, the Usher, to my Lord of Beauvais, to inform him that she asked to be given the body of Jesus Christ.
<script>