The day after their arrival at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Monday, the 21st of May, the Du Lys brothers took her, whom they held to be their sister, to that town of Vaucouleurs[1027] whither Isabelle Romée's daughter had gone to see Sire Robert de Baudricourt. In this town, in the year 1436, there were still living many persons of different conditions, such as the Leroyer couple and the Seigneur Aubert d'Ourches,[1028] who had seen Jeanne in February, 1429.
After a week at Vaucouleurs she went to Marville, a small town between Corny and Pont-á-Mousson. There she spent Whitsuntide and abode for three weeks in the house of one Jean Quenat.[1029] On her departure she was visited by sundry inhabitants of Metz, who gave her jewels, recognising her to be the Maid of France.[1030] Jeanne, it will be remembered, had been seen by divers knights of Metz at the time of King Charles's coronation at Reims. At Marville, Geoffroy Desch, following the example of Nicole Lowe, presented the so-called Jeanne with a horse. Geoffroy Desch belonged to one of the most influential families of the Republic of Metz. He was related to Jean Desch, municipal secretary in 1429.[1031]
From Marville, she went on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Liance, called Lienche by the Picards and known later as Notre Dame de Liesse. At Liance was worshipped a black image of the Virgin, which, according to tradition, had been brought by the crusaders from the Holy Land. The chapel containing this image was situated between Laon and Reims. It was said, by the priests who officiated there, to be one of the halting places on the route of the coronation procession, where the kings and their retinues were accustomed to stop on their return from Reims; but this is very likely not to be true. Whether it were such a halting place or no, there is no doubt that the folk of Metz displayed a particular devotion to Our Lady of Liance; and it seemed fitting that Jeanne, who had escaped from an English prison, should go and give thanks for her marvellous deliverance to the Black Virgin of Picardy.[1032]
Thence she went on her way to Arlon, to Elisabeth of Gorlitz, Duchess of Luxembourg, an aunt by marriage of the Duke of Burgundy.[1033] She was an old woman, who had been twice a widow. By extortion and oppression she had made herself detested by her vassals. By this princess Jeanne was well received. There was nothing strange in that. Persons living holy lives and working miracles were much sought after by princes and nobles who desired to discover secrets or to obtain the fulfilment of some wish. And the Duchess of Luxembourg might well believe this damsel to be the Maid Jeanne herself, since the brothers Du Lys, the nobles of Metz and the folk of Vaucouleurs were of that opinion.
For the generality of men, Jeanne's life and death were surrounded by marvels and mysteries. Many had from the first doubted her having perished by the hand of the executioner. Certain were curiously reticent on this point; they said: "the English had her publicly burnt at Rouen, or some other woman like her."[1034] Others confessed that they did not know what had become of her.[1035]
Thus, when throughout Germany and France the rumour spread that the Maid was alive and had been seen near Metz, the tidings were variously received. Some believed them, others did not. An ardent dispute, which arose between two citizens of Arles, gives some idea of the emotion aroused by such tidings. One maintained that the Maid was still alive; the other asserted that she was dead; each one wagered that what he said was true. This was no light wager, for it was made and registered in the presence of a notary, on the 27th of June, 1436, only five weeks after the interview at La Grange-aux-Ormes.[1036]
Meanwhile, in the beginning of August, the Maid's eldest brother, Jean du Lys, called Petit-Jean, had gone to Orléans to announce that his sister was alive. As a reward for these good tidings, he received for himself and his followers ten pints of wine, twelve hens, two goslings, and two leverets.[1037]
The birds had been purchased by two magistrates; the name of one, Pierre Baratin, is to be found in the account books of the fortress, in 1429,[1038] at the time of the expedition to Jargeau; the other was an old man of sixty-six, a burgess passing rich, Aignan de Saint-Mesmin.[1039]
Messengers were passing to and fro between the town of Duke Charles and the town of the Duchess of Luxembourg. On the 9th of August a letter from Arlon reached Orléans. About the middle of the month a pursuivant arrived at Arlon. He was called Cœur-de-Lis, in honour of the heraldic symbol of the city of Orléans, which was a lily-bud, a kind of trefoil. The magistrates of Orléans had sent him to Jeanne with a letter, the contents of which are unknown. Jeanne gave him a letter for the King, in which she probably requested an audience. He took it straight to Loches, where King Charles was negotiating the betrothal of his daughter Yolande to Prince Amedée of Savoie.[1040]
After forty-one days' journey the pursuivant returned to the magistrates, who had despatched him on the 2nd of September. The messenger complained of a great thirst, wherefore the magistrates, according to their wont, had him served in the chamber of the town-hall with bread, wine, pears, and green walnuts. This repast cost the town two sous four deniers of Paris, while the pursuivant's travelling expenses amounted to six livres which were paid in the following month. The town varlet who provided the walnuts was that same Jacquet Leprestre who had served during the siege. Another letter from the Maid had been received by the magistrates on the 25th of August.[1041]
Jean du Lys proceeded just as if his miracle-working sister had in very deed been restored to him. He went to the King, to whom he announced the wonderful tidings. Charles cannot have entirely disbelieved them since he ordered Jean du Lys to be given a gratuity of one hundred francs. Whereupon Jean promptly demanded these hundred francs from the King's treasurer, who gave him twenty. The coffers of the victorious King were not full even then.
Having returned to Orléans, Jean appeared before the town-council. He gave the magistrates to wit that he had only eight francs, a sum by no means sufficient to enable him and four retainers to return to Lorraine. The magistrates gave him twelve francs.[1042]
Every year until then the anniversary of the Maid had been celebrated in the church of Saint-Sanxon[1043] on the eve of Corpus Christi and on the previous day. In 1435, eight ecclesiastics of the four mendicant orders sang a mass for the repose of Jeanne's soul. In this year, 1436, the magistrates had four candles burnt, weighing together nine and a half pounds, and pendent therefrom the Maid's escutcheon, a silver shield bearing the crown of France. But when they heard the Maid was alive they cancelled the arrangements for a funeral service in her memory.[1044]
While these things were occurring in France, Jeanne was still with the Duchess of Luxembourg. There she met the young Count Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who refused to leave her. He had a handsome cuirasse made for her and took her to Cologne. She still called herself the Maid of France sent by God.[1045]
Since the 24th of June, Saint John the Baptist's Day, her power had returned to her. Count Ulrich, recognising her supernatural gifts, entreated her to employ them on behalf of himself and his friends. Being very contentious, he had become seriously involved in the schism which was then rending asunder the diocese of Trèves. Two prelates were contending for the see; one, Udalric of Manderscheit, appointed by the chapter, the other Raban of Helmstat, Bishop of Speyer, appointed by the Pope.[1046] Udalric took the field with a small force and twice besieged and bombarded the town of which he called himself the true shepherd. These proceedings brought the greater part of the diocese on to his side.[1047] But although aged and infirm, Raban too had weapons; they were spiritual but powerful: he pronounced an interdict against all such as should espouse the cause of his rival.
Count Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who was among the most zealous of Udalric's supporters, questioned the Maid of God concerning him.[1048] Similar cases had been submitted to the first Jeanne when she was in France. She had been asked, for example, which of the three popes, Benedict, Martin, or Clement, was the true father of the faithful, and without immediately pronouncing on the subject she had promised to designate the Pope to whom obedience was due, after she had reached Paris and rested there.[1049] The second Jeanne replied with even more assurance; she declared that she knew who was the true archbishop and boasted that she would enthrone him.
According to her, it was Udalric of Manderscheit, he whom the Chapter had appointed. But when Udalric was summoned before the Council of Bâle, he was declared an usurper; and the fathers did what it was by no means their unvarying rule to do,—they confirmed the nomination of the Pope.
Unfortunately the Maid's intervention in this dispute attracted the attention of the Inquisitor General of the city of Cologne, Heinrich Kalt Eysen, an illustrious professor of theology. He inquired into the rumours which were being circulated in the city touching the young prince's protégée; and he learnt that she wore unseemly apparel, danced with men, ate and drank more than she ought, and practised magic. He was informed notably that in a certain assembly the Maid tore a table-cloth and straightway restored it to its original condition, and that having broken a glass against the wall she with marvellous skill put all its pieces together again. Such deeds caused Kalt Eysen to suspect her strongly of heresy and witchcraft. He summoned her before his tribunal; she refused to appear. This disobedience displeased the Inquisitor General, and he sent to fetch the defaulter. But the young Count of Wurtemberg hid his Maid in his house, and afterwards contrived to get her secretly out of the town. Thus she escaped the fate of her whom she was willing only partially to imitate. As he could do nothing else, the Inquisitor excommunicated her.[1050] She took refuge at Arlon with her protectress, the Duchess of Luxembourg. There she met Robert des Armoises, Lord of Tichemont. She may have seen him before, in the spring, at Marville, where he usually resided. This nobleman was probably the son of Lord Richard, Governor of the Duchy of Bar in 1416. Nothing is known of him, save that he surrendered this territory to the foreigner without the Duke of Bar's consent, and then beheld it confiscated and granted to the Lord of Apremont on condition that he should conquer it.
It was not extraordinary that Lord Robert should be at Arlon, seeing that his château of Tichemont was near this town. He was poor, albeit of noble birth.[1051]
The so-called Maid married him,[1052] apparently with the approval of the Duchess of Luxembourg. According to the opinion of the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, this marriage was contracted merely to protect the woman against the interdict and to save her from the sword of the Church.[1053]
Soon after her marriage she went to live at Metz in her husband's house, opposite the church of Sainte-Ségolène, over the Sainte-Barbe Gate. Henceforth she was Jeanne du Lys, the Maid of France, the Lady of Tichemont. By these names she is described in a contract dated the 7th of November, 1436, by which Robert des Armoises and his wife, authorised by him, sell to Collard de Failly, squire, dwelling at Marville, and to Poinsette, his wife, one quarter of the lordship of Haraucourt. At the request of their dear friends, Messire Robert and Dame Jeanne, Jean de Thoneletil, Lord of Villette, and Saubelet de Dun, Provost of Marville, as well as the vendors, put their seals to the contract to testify to its validity.[1054]
In her dwelling, opposite the Sainte-Ségolène Church, la Dame des Armoises gave birth to two children.[1055] Somewhere in Languedoc[1056] there was an honest squire who, when he heard of these births, seriously doubted whether Jeanne the Maid and la Dame des Armoises could be one and the same person. This was Jean d'Aulon, who had once been Jeanne's steward. From information he had received from women who knew, he did not believe her to be the kind of woman likely to have children.[1057]
According to Brother Jean Nider, doctor in theology of the University of Vienne, this fruitful union turned out badly. A priest, and, as he says, a priest who might more appropriately be called a pander, seduced this witch with words of love and carried her off. But Brother Jean Nider adds that the priest secretly took la Dame des Armoises to Metz and there lived with her as his concubine.[1058] Now it is proved that her own home was in that very town; hence we may conclude that this friar preacher does not know what he is talking about.[1059]
The fact of the matter is that she did not remain longer than two years in the shadow of Sainte-Ségolène.
Although she had married, it was by no means her intention to forswear prophesying and chivalry. During her trial Jeanne had been asked by the examiner: "Jeanne, was it not revealed to you that if you lost your virginity your good fortune would cease and your Voices desert you?" She denied that such things had been revealed to her. And when he insisted, asking her whether she believed that if she were married her Voices would still come to her, she answered like a good Christian: "I know not, and I appeal to God."[1060] Jeanne des Armoises likewise held that good fortune had not forsaken her on account of her marriage. Moreover, in those days of prophecy there were both widows and married women who, like Judith of Bethulia, acted by divine inspiration. Such had been Dame Catherine de la Rochelle, although perhaps after all she had not done anything so very great.[1061]
In the summer of 1439, la Dame des Armoises went to Orléans. The magistrates offered her wine and meat as a token of gladness and devotion. On the first of August they gave her a dinner and presented her with two hundred and ten livres of Paris as an acknowledgment of the service she had rendered to the town during the siege. These are the very terms in which this expenditure is entered in the account books of that city.[1062]
If the folk of Orléans did actually take her for the real Maid, Jeanne, then it must have been more on account of the evidence of the Du Lys brothers, than on that of their own eyes. For, when one comes to think of it, they had seen her but very seldom. During that week in May, she had only appeared before them armed and on horseback. Afterwards in June, 1429, and January, 1430, she had merely passed through the town. True it was she had been offered wine and the magistrates had sat at table with her;[1063] but that was nine years ago. And the lapse of nine years works many a change in a woman's face. They had seen her last as a young girl, now they found her a woman and the mother of two children. Moreover they were guided by the opinion of her kinsfolk. Their attitude provokes some astonishment, however, when one thinks of the conversation at the banquet, and of the awkward and inconsistent remarks the dame must have uttered. If they were not then undeceived, these burgesses must have been passing simple and strongly prejudiced in favour of their guest.
And who can say that they were not? Who can say that, after having given credence to the tidings brought by Jean du Lys, the townsfolk did not begin to discover the imposture? That the belief in the survival of Jeanne was by no means general in the city, during the visit of la Dame des Armoises, is proved by the entries in the municipal accounts of sums expended on the funeral services, which we have already mentioned. Supposing we abstract the years 1437 and 1438, the anniversary service had at any rate been held in 1439, two days before Corpus-Christi, and only about three months before the banquet on the 1st of August.[1064] Thus these grateful burgesses of Orléans were at one and the same time entertaining their benefactress at banquets and saying masses in memory of her death.
La Dame des Armoises only spent a fortnight with them. She left the city towards the end of July. Her departure would seem to have been hasty and sudden. She was invited to a supper, at which she was to have been presented with eight pints of wine, but when the wine was served she had gone, and the banquet had to be held without her.[1065] Jean Quillier and Thévanon of Bourges were present. This Thévanon may have been that Thévenin Villedart, with whom Jeanne's brothers dwelt during the siege.[1066] In Jean Quillier we recognise the young draper who, in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple, wherewith to make a gown for the Maid.[1067]
La Dame des Armoises had gone to Tours, where she gave herself out to be the true Jeanne. She gave the Bailie of Touraine a letter for the King; and the Bailie undertook to see that it was delivered to the Prince, who was then at Orléans, having arrived there but shortly after Jeanne's departure. The Bailie of Touraine in 1439 was none other than that Guillaume Bellier who ten years before as lieutenant of Chinon had received the Maid into his house and committed her to the care of his devout wife.[1068]
To the messenger, who bore this letter, Guillaume Bellier also gave a note for the King written by himself, and "touching the deeds of la Dame des Armoises."[1069] We know nothing of its purport.[1070]
Shortly afterwards the Dame went off into Poitou. There she placed herself at the service of Seigneur Gille de Rais, Marshal of France.[1071] He it was who in his early youth had conducted the Maid to Orléans, had been with her throughout the coronation campaign, had fought at her side before the walls of Paris. During Jeanne's captivity he had occupied Louviers and pushed on boldly to Rouen. Now throughout the length and breadth of his vast domains he was kidnapping children, mingling magic with debauchery, and offering to demons the blood and the limbs of his countless victims. His monstrous doings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and already the hand of the Church was upon him.
According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the Maréchal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the men-at-arms,[1072] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had occupied at Lagny and Compiègne. Did she do great prowess? We do not know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[1073] In the spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[1074]
For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[1075] The townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[1076] Even in Rouen such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the people of Orléans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.
Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just the same as it had been under Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured and respected the King of France, the guardian of its privileges and the defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The illustrious masters felt no remorse at having demanded and obtained the chastisement of the rebel and heretic, Jeanne the Maid. Whosoever persists in error is a heretic; whosoever essays and fails to overthrow the powers that be is a rebel. It was God's will that in 1440 Charles of Valois should possess the city of Paris; it had not been God's will in 1429; wherefore the Maid had striven against God. With equal bitterness would the University, in 1440, have proceeded against a Maid of the English.
The magistrates who had returned to their Paris homes from their long dreary exile at Poitiers sat in the Parlement side by side with the converted Burgundians.[1077] In the days of adversity these faithful servants of King Charles had set the Maid to work, but now in 1440 it was none of their business to maintain publicly the truth of her mission and the purity of her faith. Burned by the English, that was all very well. But a trial conducted by a bishop and a vice-inquisitor with the concurrence of the University is not an English trial; it is a trial at once essentially Gallican and essentially Catholic. Jeanne's name was forever branded throughout Christendom. That ecclesiastical sentence could be reversed by the Pope alone. But the Pope had no intention of doing this. He was too much afraid of displeasing the King of Catholic England; and moreover were he once to admit that an inquisitor of the faith had pronounced a wrong sentence he would undermine all human authority. The French clerks submit and are silent. In the assemblies of the clergy no one dares to utter Jeanne's name.
Fortunately for them neither the doctors and masters of the University nor the sometime members of the Parlement of Poitiers share the popular delusion touching la Dame des Armoises. They have no doubt that the Maid was burned at Rouen. And they fear lest this woman, who gives herself out to be the deliverer of Orléans, may arouse a tumult by her entrance into the city. Wherefore the Parlement and the University send out men-at-arms to meet her. She is arrested and brought to the Palais.[1078]
She was examined, tried and sentenced to be publicly exhibited. In the Palais de Justice, leading up from the court called the Cour-de-Mai, there was a marble slab on which malefactors were exhibited. La Dame des Armoises was put up there and shown to the people whom she had deceived. The usual sermon was preached at her and she was forced to confess publicly.[1079]
She declared that she was not the Maid, that she was married to a knight and had two sons. She told how one day, in her mother's presence, she heard a woman speak slightingly of her; whereupon she proceeded to attack the slanderer, and, when her mother restrained her, she turned her blows against her parent. Had she not been in a passion she would never have struck her mother. Notwithstanding this provocation, here was a special case and one reserved for the papal jurisdiction. Whosoever had raised his hand against his father or his mother, as likewise against a priest or a clerk, must go and ask forgiveness of the Holy Father, to whom alone belonged the power of convicting or acquitting the sinner. This was what she had done. "I went to Rome," she said, "attired in man's apparel. I engaged as a soldier in the war of the Holy Father Eugenius, and in this war I twice committed homicide."
When had she journeyed to Rome? Probably before the exile of Pope Eugenius to Florence, about the year 1433, when the condottieri of the Duke of Milan were advancing to the gates of the Eternal City.[1080]
We do not find either the University, or the Ordinary, or the Grand Inquisitor demanding the trial of this woman, who was suspected of witchcraft and of homicide, and who was attired in unseemly garments. She was not prosecuted as a heretic, doubtless because she was not obstinate, and obstinacy alone constitutes heresy.
Henceforth she attracted no further attention. It is believed, but on no very trustworthy evidence, that she ended by returning to Metz, to her husband, le Chevalier des Armoises, and that she lived quietly and respectably to a good old age, dwelling in the house over the door of which were her armorial bearings, or rather those of Jeanne the Maid, the sword, the crown and the Lilies.[1081]
The success of this fraud had endured four years. After all it is not so very surprising. In every age people have been loath to believe in the final end of existences which have touched their imagination; they will not admit that great personalities can be struck down by death like ordinary folk; such an end to a noble career is repugnant to them. Impostors, like la Dame des Armoises, never fail to find some who will believe in them. And the Dame appeared at a time which was singularly favourable to such a delusion; intellects had been dulled by long suffering; communication between one district and another was rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned dimness, ignorance, confusion.
But even then folk would not have been imposed upon so long by this pseudo-Jeanne had it not been for the support given her by the Du Lys brothers. Were they her dupes or her accomplices? Dull-witted as they may have been, it seems hardly credible that the adventuress could have imposed upon them. Admitting that she very closely resembled La Romée's daughter, the woman from La Grange-aux-Ormes cannot possibly for any length of time have deceived two men who knew Jeanne intimately, having been brought up with her and come with her into France.
If they were not imposed upon, then how can we account for their conduct? They had lost much when they lost their sister. When he arrived at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Pierre du Lys had just quitted a Burgundian prison; his ransom had been paid with his wife's dowry, and he was then absolutely destitute.[1082] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois, afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vaucouleurs, was hardly more prosperous.[1083] Such circumstances explained much. And yet it is unlikely that they of themselves alone and unsupported would have played a game so difficult, so risky, and so dangerous. From the little we know of their lives we should conclude that they were both too simple, too naïf, too placid, to carry on such an intrigue.
We are tempted to believe that they were urged on by some higher and greater power. Who knows? Perhaps by certain indiscreet persons in the service of the King of France. The condemnation and death of Jeanne was a serious attack upon the prestige of Charles VII. May he not have had in his household or among his counsellors certain subjects who were rashly jealous enough to invent this appearance, in order to spread abroad the belief that Jeanne the Maid had not died the death of a witch, but that by virtue of her innocence and her holiness she had escaped the flames? If this were so, then we may regard the imposture of the pseudo-Jeanne, invented at a time when it seemed impossible ever to obtain a papal revision of the trial of 1431, as an attempt, surreptitious and fraudulent and speedily abandoned, to bring about her rehabilitation.
Such a hypothesis would explain why the Du Lys brothers were not punished or even disgraced, when they had put themselves in the wrong, had deceived King and people and committed the crime of high treason. Jean continued provost of Vaucouleurs for many a long year, and then, when relieved of his office, received a sum of money in lieu of it. Pierre, as well as his mother, La Romée, was living at Orléans. In 1443 he received from Duke Charles, who had returned to France three years before, the grant of an island in the Loire, l'Île-aux-Bœufs,[1084] which was fair grazing land. Nevertheless, he remained poor, and was constantly receiving help from the Duke and the townsfolk of Orléans.[1085]
FROM year to year the Council of Bâle drew out its deliberations in a series of sessions well nigh as lengthy as the tail of the dragon in the Apocalypse. Its manner of reforming at once the Church, its members, and its head struck terror into the hearts of the sovereign Pontiff and the Sacred College. Sorrowfully did Æneus Sylvius exclaim, "There is assembled at Bâle, not the Church of God indeed, but the synagogue of Satan."[1086] But though uttered by a Roman cardinal, even such an expression can hardly be termed violent when applied to the synod which established free elections to bishoprics, suppressed the right of bestowing the pallium, of exacting annates and payments to the papal chancery, and which was endeavouring to restore the papacy to evangelical poverty. The King of France and the Emperor, on the other hand, looked favourably on the Council when it essayed to bridle the ambition and greed of the Bishop of Rome.
Now among the Fathers who displayed the greatest zeal in the reformation of the Church were the masters and doctors of the University of Paris, those who had sat in judgment on Jeanne the Maid, and notably Maître Nicolas Loiseleur and Maître Thomas de Courcelles. Charles VII convoked an assembly of the clergy of the realm in order to examine the canons of Bâle. The assembly met in the Sainte-Chapelle at Bourges, on the 1st of May, 1438. Master Thomas de Courcelles, appointed delegate by the Council, there conferred with the Lord Bishop of Castres. Now in 1438 the Bishop of Castres was that elegant humanist, that zealous counsellor of the crown, who, in style truly Ciceronian, complained in his letters that so closely was he bound to his glebe, the court, that no time remained to him to visit his spouse.[1087] He was none other than that Gérard Machet, the King's confessor, who had, in 1429, along with the clerks at Poitiers, pleaded the authority of prophecy in favour of the Maid, in whom he found nought but sincerity and goodness.[1088] Maître Thomas de Courcelles at Rouen had urged the Maid's being tortured and delivered to the secular arm.[1089] At the Bourges assembly the two churchmen agreed touching the supremacy of General Councils, the freedom of episcopal elections, the suppression of annates and the rights of the Gallican Church. At that moment it was not likely that either one or the other remembered the poor Maid. From the deliberations of this assembly, in which Maître Thomas played an important part, there issued the solemn edict promulgated by the King on the 7th of July, 1438; the Pragmatic Sanction. By this edict the canons of Bâle became the constitution of the Church of France.[1090]
The Emperor also agreed to the reforms of Bâle. So audacious did the Fathers become that they summoned Pope Eugenius to appear before their tribunal. When he refused to obey their summons, they deposed him, declaring him to be disobedient, obstinate, rebellious, a breaker of rules, a perturber of ecclesiastical unity, a perjurer, a schismatic, a hardened heretic, a squanderer of the treasures of the Church, scandalous, simoniacal, pernicious and damnable.[1091] Such was the condemnation of the Holy Fathers pronounced among other doctors by Maître Jean Beaupère, Maître Thomas de Courcelles and Maître Nicolas Loiseleur, who had all three so sternly reproached Jeanne with having refused to submit to the Pope.[1092] Maître Nicolas had been extremely energetic throughout the Maid's trial, playing alternately the parts of the Lorraine prisoner and Saint Catherine; when she was led to the stake he had run after her like a madman.[1093] This same Maître Nicolas now displayed great activity in the Council wherein he attained to some eminence. He upheld the view that the General Council canonically convoked, was superior to the Pope and in a position to depose him. And albeit this canon was a mere master of arts, he made such an impression on the Fathers at Bâle that in 1439, they despatched him to act as juris-consult at the Diet of Mainz. Meanwhile his attitude was strongly displeasing to the chapter which had sent him as deputy to the Council. The canons of Rouen sided with the Sovereign Pontiff and against the Fathers, on this point joining issue with the University of Paris. They disowned their delegate and sent to recall him on the 28th of July, 1438.[1094]
Maître Thomas de Courcelles, one of those who had declared the Pope disobedient, obstinate, rebellious and the rest, was nominated one of the commissioners to preside over the election of a new pope, and, like Loiseleur, a delegate to the Diet of Mainz. But, unlike Loiseleur, he was not disowned by those who had appointed him, for he was the deputy of the University of Paris who recognised the Pope of the Council, Felix, to be the true Father of the Faithful.[1095] In the assembly of the French clergy held at Bourges in the August of 1440, Maître Thomas spoke in the name of the Fathers of Bâle. He discoursed for two hours to the complete satisfaction of the King.[1096] Charles VII, while remaining loyal to Pope Eugenius, maintained the Pragmatic Sanction. Maître Thomas de Courcelles was henceforth one of the pillars of the French Church.
Meanwhile the English government had declared for the Pope and against the Council.[1097] My Lord Pierre Cauchon, who had become Bishop of Lisieux, was Henry VI's ambassador at the Council. And at Bâle a somewhat unpleasant experience befell him. By reason of his translation to the see of Lisieux he owed Rome annates to the amount of 400 golden florins. In Germany he was informed by the Pope's Treasurer that by his failure to pay this sum, despite the long delays granted to him, he had incurred excommunication, and that being excommunicate, by presuming to celebrate divine service he had committed irregularity.[1098] Such accusations must have caused him considerable annoyance. But after all, such occurrences were frequent and of no great consequence. On churchmen these thunderbolts fell but lightly, doing them no great hurt.
From 1444, the realm of France, disembarrassed alike of adversaries and of defenders, was free to labour, to work at various trades, to engage in commerce and to grow rich. In the intervals between wars and during truces, King Charles's government, by the interchange of natural products and of merchandise, also, we may add, by the abolition of tolls and dues on the Rivers Seine, Oise, and Loire, effected the actual conquest of Normandy. Thus, when the time for nominal conquest came, the French had only to take possession of the province. So easy had this become, that in the rapid campaign of 1449,[1099] even the Constable was not beaten, neither was the Duke of Alençon. In his royal and peaceful manner Charles VII resumed possession of his town of Rouen, just as twenty years before he had taken Troyes and Reims, as the result of an understanding with the townsfolk and in return for an amnesty and the grant of rights and privileges to the burghers. He entered the city on Monday, the 10th of November, 1449.
The French government felt itself strong enough even to attempt the reconquest of that essentially English province, Aquitaine. In 1451, my Lord the Bastard, now Count of Dunois, took possession of the fortress of Blaye. Bordeaux and Bayonne surrendered in the same year. In the following manner did the Lord Bishop of Le Mans celebrate these conquests, worthy of the majesty of the most Christian King.
"Maine, Normandy, Aquitaine, these goodly provinces have returned to their allegiance to the King. Almost without the shedding of French blood hath this been accomplished. It hath not been necessary to overthrow the ramparts of many strongly walled towns, or to demolish their fortifications or for the inhabitants to suffer either pillage or murder."[1100]
Indeed Normandy and Maine were quite content at being French once more. The town of Bordeaux was alone in regretting the English, whose departure spelt its ruin. It revolted in 1452; and then after considerable difficulty was reconquered once and for all.
King Charles, henceforth rich and victorious, now desired to efface the stain inflicted on his reputation by the sentence of 1431. He wanted to prove to the whole world that it was no witch who had conducted him to his coronation. He was now eager to appeal against the condemnation of the Maid. But this condemnation had been pronounced by the church, and the Pope alone could order it to be cancelled. The King hoped to bring the Pope to do this, although he knew it would not be easy. In the March of 1450, he proceeded to a preliminary inquiry;[1101] and matters remained in that position until the arrival in France of Cardinal d'Estouteville, the legate of the Holy See. Pope Nicolas had sent him to negotiate with the King of France a peace with England and a crusade against the Turks. Cardinal d'Estouteville, who belonged to a Norman family, was just the man to discover the weak points in Jeanne's trial. In order to curry favour with Charles, he, as legate, set on foot a new inquiry at Rouen, with the assistance of Jean Bréhal, of the order of preaching friars, the Inquisitor of the Faith in the kingdom of France. But the Pope did not approve of the legate's intervention;[1102] and for three years the revision was not proceeded with. Nicolas V would not allow it to be thought that the sacred tribunal of the most holy Inquisition was fallible and had even once pronounced an unjust sentence. And there existed at Rome a stronger reason for not interfering with the trial of 1431: the French demanded revision; the English were opposed to it; and the Pope did not wish to annoy the English, for they were then just as good and even better Catholics than the French.[1103]
In order to relieve the Pope from embarrassment and set him at his ease, the government of Charles VII invented an expedient: the King was not to appear in the suit; his place was to be taken by the family of the Maid. Jeanne's mother, Isabelle Romée de Vouthon, who lived in retirement at Orléans,[1104] and her two sons, Pierre and Jean du Lys, demanded the revision.[1105] By this legal artifice the case was converted from a political into a private suit. At this juncture Nicolas V died, on the 24th of March, 1455. His successor, Calixtus III, a Borgia, an old man of seventy-eight, by a rescript dated the 11th of June, 1455, authorised the institution of proceedings. To this end he appointed Jean Jouvenel des Ursins, Archbishop of Reims, Guillaume Chartier, Bishop of Paris, and Richard Olivier, Bishop of Coutances, who were to act conjointly with the Grand Inquisitor of France.[1106]
From the first it was agreed that certain of those concerned in the original trial were not now to be involved, "for they had been deceived." Notably it was admitted that the Daughter of Kings, the Mother of Learning, the University of Paris, had been led into error by a fraudulent indictment consisting of twelve articles. It was agreed that the whole responsibility should be thrown on to the Bishop of Beauvais and the Promoter, Guillaume d'Estivet, who were both deceased. The precaution was necessary. Had it not been taken, certain doctors very influential with the King and very dear to the Church of France would have been greatly embarrassed.
On the 7th of November, 1455, Isabelle Romée and her two sons, followed by a long procession of innumerable ecclesiasties, laymen, and worthy women, approached the church of Notre Dame in Paris to demand justice from the prelates and papal commissioners.[1107]
Informers and accusers in the trial of the late Jeanne were summoned to appear at Rouen on the 12th of December. Not one came.[1108] The heirs of the late Messire Pierre Cauchon declined all liability for the deeds of their deceased kinsman, and touching the civil responsibility, they pleaded the amnesty granted by the King on the reconquest of Normandy.[1109] As had been expected, the proceedings went forward without any obstacle or even any discussion.
Inquiries were instituted at Domremy, at Orléans, at Paris, at Rouen.[1110] The friends of Jeannette's childhood, Hauviette, Mengette, either married or grown old; Jeannette, the wife of Thévenin; Jeannette, the widow of Estellin; Jean Morel of Greux; Gérardin of Épinal, the Burgundian, and his wife Isabellette, who had been godmother to Jacques d'Arc's daughter; Perrin, the bell-ringer; Jeanne's uncle Lassois; the Leroyer couple and a score of peasants from Domremy all appeared. Bertrand de Poulengy, then sixty-three and gentleman of the horse to the King of France, was heard; likewise Jean de Novelompont, called Jean de Metz, who had been raised to noble rank and was now living at Vaucouleurs, where he held some military office. Gentlemen and ecclesiasties of Lorraine and Champagne were examined.[1111] Burgesses of Orléans were also called, and notably Jean Luillier, the draper, who in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple for Jeanne's gown and ten years later had been present at the banquet given by the magistrates of Orléans in honour of the Maid who, as it was believed, had escaped burning.[1112] Jean Luillier was the most intelligent of the witnesses; as for the others, of whom there were about two dozen townsmen and townswomen, of between fifty and sixty years of age, they did little but repeat his evidence.[1113] He spoke well; but the fear of the English dazzled him and he saw many more of them than there had ever been.
Touching the examination at Poitiers there were called an advocate, a squire, a man of business, François Garivel, who was fifteen at the time of Jeanne's interrogation.[1114] The only cleric summoned was Brother Seguin of Limousin.[1115] The clerics of Poitiers were first as disinclined to risk themselves in this matter as were those of Rouen; a burnt child dreads the fire. La Hire and Poton of Saintrailles were dead. The survivors of Orléans and of Patay were called; the Bastard Jean, now Count of Dunois and Longueville, who gave his evidence like a clerk;[1116] the old Sire de Gaucourt, who in his eighty-fifth year made some effort of memory, and for the rest gave the same evidence as the Count of Dunois;[1117] the Duke of Alençon, on the point of making an alliance with the English and of procuring a powder with which to dry up the King,[1118] but who was none the less talkative and vain-glorious;[1119] Jeanne's steward, Messire Jean d'Aulon, who had become a knight, a King's Counsellor and Seneschal of Beaucaire,[1120] and the little page Louis de Coutes, now a noble of forty-two.[1121] Brother Pasquerel too was called; even in his old-age he remained superficial and credulous.[1122] And there was heard also the widow of Maître René de Bouligny, Demoiselle Marguerite la Toroulde, who delicately and with a good grace related what she remembered.[1123]
Care was taken not to summon the Lord Archbishop of Rouen, Messire Raoul Roussel, as a witness of the actual incidents of the trial, albeit he had sat in judgment on the Maid, side by side with my Lord of Beauvais. As for the Vice Inquisitor of Religion, Brother Jean Lemaistre, he might have been dead, so completely was he ignored. Nevertheless, certain of the assessors were called: Jean Beaupère, canon of Paris, of Besançon and of Rouen; Jean de Mailly, Lord Bishop of Noyon; Jean Lefèvre, Bishop of Démétriade; divers canons of Rouen, sundry ecclesiastics who appeared some unctuous, others stern and frowning;[1124] and, finally, the most illustrious Thomas de Courcelles, who, after having been the most laborious and assiduous collaborator of the Bishop of Beauvais, recalled nothing when he came before the commissioners for the revision.[1125]
THE BASTARD OF ORLEANS
From an old engraving
Among those who had been most zealous to procure Jeanne's condemnation were those who were now most eagerly labouring for her rehabilitation. The registrars of the Lord Bishop of Beauvais, the Boisguillaumes, the Manchons, the Taquels, all those ink-pots of the Church who had been used for her death sentence, worked wonders when that sentence had to be annulled; all the zeal they had displayed in the institution of the trial they now displayed in its revision; they were prepared to discover in it every possible flaw.[1126]
And in what a poor and paltry tone did these benign fabricators of legal artifices denounce the cruel iniquity which they had themselves perpetrated in due form! Among them was the Usher, Jean Massieu, a dissolute priest,[1127] of scandalous morals, but a kindly fellow for all that, albeit somewhat crafty and the inventor of a thousand ridiculous stories against Cauchon, as if the old Bishop were not black enough already.[1128] The revision commissioners produced a couple of sorry monks, Friar Martin Ladvenu and Friar Isambart de la Pierre, from the monastery of the preaching friars at Rouen. They wept in a heart-rending manner as they told of the pious end of that poor Maid, whom they had declared a heretic, then a relapsed heretic, and had finally burned alive. There was not one of the clerks charged with the examination of Jeanne but was touched to the heart at the memory of so saintly a damsel.[1129]
Huge piles of memoranda drawn up by doctors of high repute, canonists, theologians and jurists, both French and foreign, were furnished for the trial. Their chief object was to establish by scholastic reasoning that Jeanne had submitted her deeds and sayings to the judgment of the Church and of the Holy Father. These doctors proved that the judges of 1431 had been very subtle and Jeanne very simple. Doubtless, it was the best way to make out that she had submitted to the Church; but they over-reached themselves and made her too simple. According to them she was absolutely ignorant, almost an idiot, understanding nothing, imagining that the clerics who examined her in themselves alone constituted the Church Militant. This had been the impression of the doctors on the French side in 1429. La Pucelle, "une puce," said the Lord Archbishop of Embrun.[1130]
But there was another reason for making her appear as weak and imbecile as possible. Such a representation exalted the power of God, who through her had restored the King of France to his inheritance.
Declarations confirming this view of the Maid were obtained by the commissioners from most of the witnesses. She was simple, she was very simple, she was absolutely simple, they repeated one after the other. And they all in the same words added: "Yes, she was simple, save in deeds of war, wherein she was well skilled."[1131] Then the captains said how clever she was in placing cannon, albeit they knew well to the contrary. But how could she have failed to be well versed in deeds of war, since God himself led her against the English? And in this possession of the art of war by an unskilled girl lay the miracle.
The Grand Inquisitor of France, Jean Bréhal, in his reminiscence enumerates the reasons for believing that Jeanne came from God. One of the proofs which seems to have struck him most forcibly is that her coming is foretold in the prophecies of Merlin, the Magician.[1132]
Believing that he could prove from one of Jeanne's answers that her first apparitions were in her thirteenth year, Brother Jean Bréhal argues that the fact is all the more credible seeing that this number 13, composed of 3, which indicates the Blessed Trinity, and of 10, which expresses the perfect observation of the Decalogue, is marvellously favourable to divine visitations.[1133]
On the 16th of June, 1455, the sentence of 1431 was declared unjust, unfounded, iniquitous. It was nullified and pronounced invalid.
Thus was honour restored to the messenger of the coronation, thus was her memory reconciled with the Church. But that abundant source whence on the appearance of this child there had flowed so many pious legends and heroic fables was henceforth dried up. The rehabilitation trial added little to the popular legend. It rendered it possible to connect with Jeanne's death the usual incidents narrated of the martyrdom of virgins, such as the dove taking flight from the stake, the name of Jesus written in letters of flame, the heart intact in the ashes.[1134] The miserable deaths of the wicked judges were insisted upon. True it is that Jean d'Estivet, the Promoter, was found dead in a dove-cot,[1135] that Nicolas Midi was attacked by leprosy, that Pierre Cauchon died when he was being shaved.[1136] But, among those who aided and accompanied the Maid, more than one came to a bad end. Sire Robert de Baudricourt, who had sent Jeanne to the King, died in prison, excommunicated for having laid waste the lands of the chapter of Toul.[1137] The Maréchal de Rais was sentenced to death.[1138] The Duke of Alençon, convicted of high treason, was pardoned only to fall under a new condemnation and to die in captivity.[1139]
Two years after Charles VII had ordered the preliminary inquiry into the trial of 1431, a woman, following the example of la Dame des Armoises, passed herself off as the Maid Jeanne.
At this time there lived in the little town of Sarmaize, between the Marne and the Meuse, two cousins german of the Maid, Poiresson and Périnet, both sons of the late Jean de Vouthon, Isabelle Romée's brother, who in his lifetime had been a thatcher by trade. Now, on a day in 1452, it befell that the curé of Notre Dame de Sarmaize, Simon Fauchard, being in the market-house of the town, there came to him a woman dressed as a youth who asked him to play at tennis with her.
He consented, and when they had begun their game the woman said to him, "Say boldly that you have played tennis with the Maid." And at these words Simon Fauchard was right joyful.
The woman afterwards went to the house of Périnet, the carpenter, and said, "I am the Maid; I come to visit my Cousin Henri."
Périnet, Poiresson, and Henri de Vouthon made her good cheer and kept her in their house, where she ate and drank as she pleased.[1140]
Then, when she had had enough, she went away.
Whence came she? No one knows. Whither did she go? She may probably be recognised in an adventuress, who not long afterwards, with her hair cut short and a hood on her head, wearing doublet and hose, wandered through Anjou, calling herself Jeanne the Maid. While the doctors and masters, engaged in the revision of the trial, were gathering evidence of Jeanne's life and death from all parts of the kingdom, this false Jeanne was finding credence with many folk. But she became involved in difficulties with a certain Dame of Saumoussay,[1141] and was cast into the prison of Saumur, where she lay for three months. At the end of this time, having been banished from the dominions of the good King René, she married one Jean Douillet; and, by a document dated the 3rd day of February, 1456, she received permission to return to Saumur, on condition of living there respectably and ceasing to wear man's apparel.[1142]
About this time there came to Laval in the diocese of Le Mans, a damsel between eighteen and twenty-two, who was a native of a neighbouring place called Chassé-les-Usson. Her father's name was Jean Féron and she was commonly called Jeanne la Férone.
She was inspired from heaven, and the names Jesus and Mary were for ever on her lips; yet the devil cruelly tormented her. The Dame de Laval, mother of the Lords André and Guy, being now very aged, marvelled at the piety and the sufferings of the holy damsel; and she sent her to Le Mans, to the Bishop.
Since 1449, the see of Le Mans had been held by Messire Martin Berruyer of Touraine. In his youth he had been professor of philosophy and rhetoric at the University of Paris. Later he had devoted himself to theology and had become one of the directors of the College of Navarre. Although he was infirm with age, his learning was such that he was consulted by the commissioners for the rehabilitation trial,[1143] whereupon he drew up a memorandum touching the Maid. Herein he believes her to have been verily sent of God because she was abject and very poor and appeared well nigh imbecile in everything that did not concern her mission. Messire Martin argues that it was by reason of the King's virtues that God had vouchsafed to him the help of the Maid.[1144] Such an idea found favour with the theologians of the French party.
The Lord Bishop, Martin Berruyer, heard Jeanne la Férone in confession, renewed her baptism, confirmed her in the faith and gave her the name of Marie, in gratitude for the abounding grace which the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, had granted to his servant.
This maid was subject to the violent attacks of evil spirits. Many a time did my Lord of Mans behold her covered with bleeding wounds, struggling in the grasp of the enemy, and on several occasions he delivered her by means of exorcisms. Greatly was he edified by this holy damsel, who made known unto him marvellous secrets, who abounded in pious revelations and noble Christian utterances. Wherefore in praise of La Férone he wrote many letters[1145] to princes and communities of the realm.