Volume II Part 17 (1/2)
As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She showed no temper this time. She considered herself well b.u.t.tressed by the proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate and creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and added, in a spirit of fairness and candor:
”But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the whole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope.”
Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them could be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously s.h.i.+rked the question of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it being clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was an opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He asked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way:
”Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?”
The house took an att.i.tude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the answer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it covered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived even me, so innocent it seemed:
”Are there two?”
One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:
”By G.o.d, it was a master stroke!”
As soon as the judge was better of his embarra.s.sment he came back to the charge, but was prudent and pa.s.sed by Joan's question:
”Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?”
”Yes, and answered it.”
Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count's letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:
”So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest.”
She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.
”I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he ought to obey”; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, ”but as for me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome.”
The matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan's first effort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the English to retire from the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly a great and fine production for an unpractised girl of seventeen.
”Do you acknowledge as your own the doc.u.ment which has just been read?”
”Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give myself too much importance.” I saw what was coming; I was troubled and ashamed. ”For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez au la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I did not call myself 'Commander-in-Chief' (chef de guerre). All those are words which my secretary subst.i.tuted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot what I said.”
She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that embarra.s.sment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten.
I changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and ent.i.tled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and who was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that time a stick, a cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the n.o.ble Maid of Vaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck a blow.
Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me) there, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of that piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present--and not only present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but destined at a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions smuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!
”Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?”
”I do.”
”Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?”
Ah, then she was indignant!
”No! Not even these chains”--and she shook them--”not even these chains can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!”--she rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words burst forth as in a flood--”I warn you now that before seven years a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of Orleans! and--”
”Silence! Sit down!”