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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 13
SO THE second trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite result.
The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one
particular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been
communicated to Joan, therefore she had been obliged to fight in the
dark.
There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no
foreseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for them. Truly
it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this one was. One
day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy, Maetre Lohier,
happened to be in Rouen, and I will give you his opinion of that trial,
so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and that my
partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair and illegal
character. Cauchon showed Lohier the proces and asked his opinion about
the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said
that the whole thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the
trial was secret, and full freedom of speech and action on the part of
those present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the
King of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor any one
appointed to represent him; 3, because the charges against the prisoner
were not communicated to her; 4, because the accused, although young and
simple, had been forced to defend her cause without help of counsel,
notwithstanding she had so much at stake.
Did that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier with
the most savage cursings, and swore he would have him drowned. Lohier
escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so saved his
life.
Well, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite result.
But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another. And still another
and another, if necessary. He had the half-promise of an enormous
prize--the Archbishopric of Rouen--if he should succeed in burning the
body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who had never done
him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of
Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let
alone one.
So he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence,
too, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this
time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter enough
out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build up the new mass
of charges. And it was a formidable mass indeed, for it numbered
sixty-six articles.
This huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th;
and there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new trial was
begun.
Opinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the
articles read this time.
Maybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or maybe it
was hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with fatigue--for, as
it turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided
that Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and
that if she refused she should be considered convicted. You see, Cauchon
was managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he was
drawing the toils closer and closer.
Joan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to
her which ought to have made even himself blush, so laden it was with
hypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and
pious churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion
toward her, and that they had no wish to hurt her body, but only a desire
to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation.
Why, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and
those hardened slaves of his in such language as that.
And yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lovier's
hints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a proposition which, I
think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court,
recognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the
complex and difficult matters which were about to be considered, had
determined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to
choose one or more persons out of their own number to help her with
counsel and advice!
Think of that--a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles. It
was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan looked up to see
if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to be,
she declined, of course.
The Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of
fairness and could have it entered on the minutes, therefore he was
satisfied.
Then he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and
threatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do that or
delayed her answers beyond a given length of time.
Yes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step.
Thomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document,
article by article. Joan answered to each article in its turn; sometimes
merely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found
in the records of the previous trials.
What a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of
the heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made in
the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly
noble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish,
modest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields--a nature fine and
beautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document
would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she
was appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in detail.
Consider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who it
is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet, an
invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person
ignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an
idolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His saints, scandalous,
seditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the
spilling of human blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of
her sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the vocation of a
soldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors,
and has caused herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands and
her vestments to be kissed.
There it is--every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a
child she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for them
when they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree
and around their fountain--hence she was a comrade of evil spirits.
She had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for freedom,
and led her to victory after victory--hence she was a disturber of the
peace--as indeed she was, and a provoker of war--as indeed she was again!
and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many a century to
come. And she had been adored--as if she could help that, poor thing, or
was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the wavering
recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched her sword
with theirs and moved forward invincible--hence she was a sorceress.
And so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters of
life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble and beautiful
life to evidences of a foul and odious one.
Of course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things which
had come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will touch upon
this new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail
herself, usually merely saying, "That is not true--passez outre"; or, "I
have answered that before--let the clerk read it in his record," or
saying some other brief thing.
She refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly Church.
The refusal was taken note of.
She denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men's
homage. She said:
"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I
did what I could to prevent it."
She had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know
the fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing to say,
but it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she
spoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such things. Note was
taken of her remark.
She refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male
attire if she were given permission to commune. And she added this:
"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small
thing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord."
She was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that
she would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing
mass. She spoke out with spirit and said:
"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God."
She was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting
the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch of
soldierly disdain:
"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it."
It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her.
While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look
trouble and fate in the face.
"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God,
was to make war and pour out human blood."
Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war
was not her first move, but her second:
"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused,
then I would fight."
The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the
enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made
a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being
Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the
English. She said:
"As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by
his ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the English, the
only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home."
Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific
disposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation before
attacking them.
"If they had listened to me," said she, "they would have done wisely." At
this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with emphasis, "Before
seven years they will see it themselves."
Then they presently began to pester her again about her male costume, and
tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to discard it. I was never
deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their persistency in
what seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make out what their
reason could be. But we all know now. We all know now that it was another
of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting
her to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which would
quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil work until at last she
broke out and said:
"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you
cut off my head!"
At one point she corrected the proces verbal, saying:
"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the
counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said 'all which I have well
done.'"
Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the
ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that.
She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter
of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener than
he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in
simpler terms:
"It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He
will."
She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on
high. She said the form was brief and simple; then she lifted her pallid
face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:
"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love
me, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to these churchmen. As
concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I know
not in what manner I am to lay it off. I pray you tell me what to do."
She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His
saints, to assume empire over men and make herself Commander-in-Chief.
That touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for priests,
but the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions
about war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to go
into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland
indifference and military brevity.
"If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English."
Death was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter; she
dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and whenever
they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into it. She got
great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days were a desert;
these were the oases in it.
Her being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy.
She said:
"I had a woman with me when I could--in towns and lodgings. In the field
I always slept in my armor."
That she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged against
her as evidence that the source of her deeds were sordid self-seeking.
She answered that she had not asked this grace of the King; it was his
own act.
This third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite
result.
Possibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently
unconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to plan
it.
He appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixty-six
articles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new attempt. This was
done. It took several days.
Meantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and two of the
judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he could not
manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to the
examination and decision of the Church Militant--that is to say, to that
part of the Church Militant which was represented by himself and his
creatures.
Joan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in
his body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to
do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have
her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many
priests of her party as of the English party.
Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed a
tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon
turned savagely upon him and exclaimed:
"Shut up, in the devil's name!"
Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in great
fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan's submission
to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.
"No! It is not necessary."
"Ah," said poor Joan, reproachfully, "you set down everything that is
against me, but you will not set down what is for me."
It was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon
was more than that.
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