THE MAID OF ORLEANS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 17, 29 April 1909, Page 650

THE MAID OF ORLEANS

HER TRIAL AND DEATH

Nearly five centuries (says the London Tablet) have gone since the Maid of Orleans was burned alive in the market place at Rouen. The work of rehabilitation which was begun by Pope Calixtus in the fifteenth century is to be completed by Pius X. in the twentieth. And, happily, the decree which raises the Maid to the altars, of the Church will find ratification in the hearts of all men. There are indeed those among her own countrymen who have lately been busy depreciating the magnitude of the work wrought by Jeanne d'Arc, belittling her military insight and success in the field, and . denying altogether the of the voices which she said had led her to victory. M. Anatole France, for instance, contends that these Voices came only from her own heart — as though that settled the question of their origin. But even M. France, while he would explain away all the supernatural element in the Maid's career, is ready to admit her supreme goodness — her purity, her wonderful courage, her simplicity of heart, and her utter disinterestedness- On our side of the Channel, Mr. Andrew Lang has come forward as a generous - oliampion against the whole school of thought represented by M. France, and his recent book,Z7ie Maid of France, entitles him to the gratitude of every Catholic. It is pleasant, also, to find that such a representative of stolid Protestant opinion as the Times is able to welcome the beatification as an honor rightly paid to heroic virtue. When the Decree for the introduction of the cause was signed our contemporary,- anticipating a decision which would allow the full honors of sainthood, said: 'When that day comes, even those who deny or deride the claims of Rome to pronounce on such matters at all will allow that few more noble figures have ever been held up to the veneration of their fellows. In the whole history of the Middle Ages there is no story more simple and more splendid, no tragedy more mournful, than that of the 'poor little shepherdess, 1 the pawpercula bergerata, who by her passionate faith raised her country from the depths rf degradation and dejection, to die the cruellest and most shameful of all deaths at the hands ,of her" enemies. The elevation and the moral beauty of Joan's character have won the hearts of all- men.' Not a little of the credit for the present state of English feeling towards the memory of the Maid is due to Mr. Douglas Murray, whose admirable book founded on Quicherat's great work has brought all the facts of the" case within the reach of our countrymen. ' Published in five volumes ' sixty years ago, Qiucherat's Proccs de Condemnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc' had long been familiar to scholars^ but Mr.

i P? vu S las Murray's work brought the whole story of both trials within the reach of the general public. And the records thus presented not only tell the story of the Maid in extraordinary detail, but have this added advantage, that they present us with a biography which consisst Wholly of Evidence Taken on Oath. And what a story it was — surely one. without parallel or example in the history of the world. All France nonth of the Loire lay subject to the boy-king", Henry VI., of England. His uncle, the Duke of Bedford, ruled tlie land by a spell* of terror born of a long line of English victories, and the French soldiers had so lost courage that it seemed they would never again have the heart to face their foes in a pitched battle. Orleans was the last strong city left to the Dauphin, and it was closely beleaguered. How low the fortunes of France had fallen may ie measured by the sworn testimony of some of her foremost citizens. Thus the Bastard of Orleans, the Count Dunois, victor of Montargis, and the successful defender of Orleans, tells us that from the hour when Lord- Talbot received Jeanne's letter bidding him go back, to England, 'the English — who, up to that time, could, 1 affirm, with two hundred of their men, have put. to rout 800 or 1000 of ours — were unable, with all their power, to resist 400 or 500 French; they" had to-be driven into their forts where they took refuge ; and from whence they dared not come forth. ' The Duke of Bedford, though he regarded the Maid as a - ' lyme ' of Satan, speaks of the English defeats as though they were permitted by Heaven as punishment for tlie superstitious fears excited by her presence' with the French forces, and we know that special proclamations, were issued in the name of Henry VI. against deserters, ' terrificatcs incantionibus puellce. 1 (terrified by the incantations of the Maid). In a word, the work of the* Maid was to break tlie spell of terror which held France helpless; and when that was done the overwhelming superiority of numbers soon did the rest. It was all over in a few months — Orleans, Patay, Troyes, Eheims, Paris, Compiegne, and -Rouen — glory, triumph, defeat, "captivity j and death. Mr. Douglas Murray accepts the view put forward by many of the witnesses who deposed, in the proceedings which led to the Rehabilitation, that from the outset the Maid knew her mission was limited to the double work of - freeing Orleans aud seeing the King crowned at Rheims. This theory seems to us to have been fairly overthrown by Father Ayroles in his exhaustive work, La Vraie Jeanne a" Arc, and receives no countenance whatever from the evidence of the Maid herself. She was so successful up to the time of the coronation at Rheims and* so unsuccessful after it, that it iV not surprising that this story found ready credence even within a few years of her death. Nor- is any serious evidence forthcoming for the suggestion that her capture by the Burgundians during the sally out from Compiegne was due to treachery on the part of Flavy. If Jeanne had believed that the draw-bridge was raised purposely to oat off -her retreat, it is incredible that she should have said no word on the subject upom the many occasions at her trial on which she referred to her capture. Another ' matter upon which modern research is ominously silent Is one that closely concerns the honor of the French King. No attempt was made by Charles either -to rescue or to ransom the Maid. If England was still too strong to He fought in the fieldj why was not some - attempt made to buy the Maid from her Burgundian captors? These were in no haste to sell her to Bedford, and it was only after months of delay that they gave her up to the Bishop of Beauvdis for a price which amounted to £16,000 — it being, well understood that the money was supplied by the Eng- ' lish. We may note here, as showing a standard of values that nine years after the Maid was burned the French authorities paid 54,000 nobles, about £36,000, as the ransom of " Louis, . Duke of Orleans, who had been takeai prisoner at Agincourt twenty-five years before. If we had to choose three epithets to fit the evidence given by Jeanne at her trial, we should select the words - 'simple,' 'truthful,' and 'fearless.' Her answers ar;e always Direct, Clear, and Absolutely' Without Fear. Again and again she tells the men who may send her to the flames that the English will certainly be expelled from France. And here it is pleasant to note the words of that witness who says : " I do not remember to have seen any English at the examination of Jeanne, with th-e exception of the guards.' A main charge against her was that she wore a man's dress. She brushed it aside as a thing of no importance, 'a small thing.' At the same time, neither, threat nor bribe could make her pledge herself never again to use it. Her ' Voices ' might call upon her to undertake new work for France. When sorely' pressed by her desire to go to Communion', she volunteers to put on a woman's dress for the occasion, but otherwise

, would not pledge herself. When her ecclesiastical Judges mrormed her that she was forbidden to attempt to escape from the Castle of Rouen, ' under pain^ of the crime of ''heresy,' she replied : / ' I do not accept sucli a prohibition; if ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated * my. faith, not having given' my word to any one, whosoever it may be.' And as she complained that she had been fastened with* chains and fetters of iron, We said to her : ' ' You have tefore, and many times, sought, We are . told, to get out of the prison, where you are detainedand it is to keep you more surely that it has been ordered . to put you in irons.' 'It is true I wished to '"escape; and so I wish stallis not this lawful for all prisoners ?' \ Questioned as^to her occupations when she was still a village girl, she replies : 'In sewing and spinning I fear no woman in Rouen.' The craft of the theologians is again and again baffled by the simple directness of the' girl fc When they asked her, the Maid of nineteen summers, who " could neither read nor ' write, whether "she • were in God's ' grace, *she answered : 'If I am not, may God place me there; if I am,, may - God so keep me. I should be the saddest in all the world if I kuew that I were not in the grace 'of God. But if I were in a state of sin, do you think the Voice would como .to me? 5 Her Voices, those of St. Michael, St.- Margaret, and St. Catherine, speak to' her in French. Asked whether St. Margaret speaks- English, she replies in naive wonder:* 'Why should she., when she is not on the English side?' • ' Do you know if Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hate the English?' - ' .? 'They love what God loves,: they hate what-^Qod hates.' . " - ??- ' Does God hate the English ?' ... - " 'Of the love .or hate God may^have Jfgr^he English, or of .what He will do for their soul^-know^bthrng: but -I know quite well that they will "be put out/, of France except those who shall die there, and that God' will send victory to the French against the English^- ' ' '" ."" ' Was God for the English when they' "were prospering m France?' - b ' 1 do notknow if God hated the French; but I believe that He wished them to be defeated for their- sins, if -they were in sin.' " - -''-^ * Sometimes the questions were more subtle: ' Which gave most help, you to your standard, or your standard to you r" , • The victory either to my standard or myself, it was all from Our Lord.' ' . ' 'The hope of being' victorious, was it founded on your standard or on yourself?' ' It was founded on Our Lord and 'nought else..' ' If any one but you had borne this standard, would he have been as fortunate as you in bearing it ?' ■ ' I know nothing about it : I wait on Our Lord.' At one point in the trial the judges and assessors hes'i- „ tated whether to torture the girl. The torturers and their ■ instruments were- arranged before the Maid, and it was actually put to- tlie vote whether the torture should begin • ' The majority voted for mercy. - The next day Jeanne ' for '" fear of the fire' recanted, and" denied her revelations; In -■ consequence of this sign- of grace, the Court sentenced Ber" only to imprisonment for life. Four days later Jeanne ie- • sumed the dress of a ' man, and was in consequence • condemned as a relapsed heretic. It is happily not necessary--' to believe the grosser tales that were told as to the means - employed to force or trap the 'Maid into again putting on the male attire. There is no contemporary evidence for them. Living always in the- presence of a guard of soldiers she may well have thought, as she said, that 'the dress' of men was the most suitable for her circumstances. Perhaps, too, in that hour of swift reaction against the shrinking from the flames which had led her to deny her Voices it may have been her heart's need to have that outward s'icn of returned faith. She said to her judges when-they came to question her in prison : - 'They said to me: "God has sent me word by St Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity it is, this treason to which I have consented, to abjure and recant in order to save my life!" Before last Thursday, niy Voices did indeed tell me what I should do -and what I did on that day. When I was on^the scaffold on Thursday my Voices said to me,' while the preacher was speaking- " Answer him boldly, this preacher I" - And in truth le is a false preachex ; he reproached me with -.many things I never did. If I said that God had not sent me,. I should damn myself, for it is true that God has sent me- my Voices have said io me since Thursday, " Thou hast dono a, great evil in declaring that what thou hast done was wrong." All I said and revoked, I said for fear of tie fire.'

At the same time it is clear that Jeanne could lave resumed a man's dress only by the connivance of the gaolers, who left it within her reach. When she recanted to save her life, she denied 'that she had ever had any revelations — now she was ta begin to doubt -whether after all her Voiced came from God. The gay courage with which she had faced her persecutors for so many weeks failed her at last, and "for Jeanne the ■worst bitterness of death was over before the faggots were, iired. The clergy who attended her in prison pointed out to her that the Voices "which had promised her deliverance had deceived ,her, and so must be assumed to have come from evil spirits. And the girl acquiesced.' But whatever doubts may have assailed her at last as to the reality of her mission,^"her impulse in death as in life was still to Trust Herself Wholly to the Mercy of God. Ysambard de la Pierre thus describes the end : ' Jeanne had, at the end, so great contrition and such, beautiful penitence that it was a thing to be admired, saying such pitiful, devout,, and Catholic words, " that those who saw her in great numbers wept, and that the -Cardinal of England and ' many other English were forced to weop and to feel compassion. 'As I was near her at the end, the poor woman' be- ' sought and humbly begged me to go into the church near by and bring her the Cross, to hold it upright on high before her eyes until the moment of death, so that the Cross on which God was hanging might be in life continually before' her eyes. ' Being in the flames, she ceased not to call in a loud voice the Holy Name of Jesus, imploring and invoking without ceasing the aid of the Saints in Paradise; again, what is more, in giving up the ghost and bending her head, she littered the Name of Jesus as a sign that she was fervent in the faith of God, just as we read of Saint Ignatius and of many other martyrs;' The evidence of her purity of life and thought, of her unfailing kindness and courtesy^ of her simplicity and courage, andr-Bingle-minded devotion to the cause to which she consecrated- her life is overwhelmingly arrayed in the depositions taken during the process which led to the Rehabilitation. The Papal Delegates can have had little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the Rouen sentence ought to be annulled, and after an inquiry which extended over many years this was formally done in June, 1456. The Court, however, took up a very detached position as to the reality of Jeanne's Visions and Voices, and dismissed the subject with the remark that ' on the question of revelations it is most difficult to furnish a certain judgment, the Blessed Paul having, on the subject of his own revelations, Nsaid that he knew not if they came to' him in the body or in the spirit, and having on this point referred himself to God.' There, are two sentences in the voluminoxis depositions of the witnesses in the second trial which may here be noted. Messire Thomas Marie, Prior of St. Michel, said : ' I can well believe that if the English had had such a woman they would have honored her much, and not have treated her in such a manner.' The young Guy de Laval wrote to his mother : ' She seemed to me a thing divine in all she did and all I saw and heard. 5 That testimony of an eye-witness still echoes across the ages, and finds its final ratification in the decision of the Holy See, that in the Maid of Orleans the virtues of faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance were found in an heroic degree. And to none can that decision be more welcome than to the Catholics of England.