The Life of Joan of Arc Part 125

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, pa.s.sed 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 Perinet, both sons of the late Jean de Vouthon, Isabelle Romee's brother, who in his lifetime had been a thatcher by trade. Now, on a day in 1452, it befell that the cure 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 Perinet, the carpenter, and said, "I am the Maid; I come to visit my Cousin Henri."

Perinet, Poiresson, and Henri de Vouthon made her good cheer and kept her in their house, where she ate and drank as she pleased.[2738]

[Footnote 2738: Inquiry of 1476, in G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, _Nouvelles recherches_, p. 10.]

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,[2739] 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 Rene, she married one Jean Douillet; and, by a doc.u.ment 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.[2740]

[Footnote 2739: Or Chaumussay. Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, Paris, 1871, in 8vo, p. 19.]

[Footnote 2740: Lecoy de la Marche, _Une fausse Jeanne d'Arc_, in _Revue des questions historiques_, October, 1871, p. 576. _Le roi Rene_, Paris, 1875, vol. i, pp. 308-327; vol. ii, pp. 281-283.]

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 Cha.s.se-les-Usson. Her father's name was Jean Feron and she was commonly called Jeanne la Ferone.

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 Andre 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,[2741] whereupon he drew up a memorandum touching the Maid.

Herein he believes her to have been verily sent of G.o.d 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 G.o.d had vouchsafed to him the help of the Maid.[2742] Such an idea found favour with the theologians of the French party.

[Footnote 2741: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 314, note 1. _Gallia Christiana_, vol. ii, fol. 518. Du Boulay, _Hist. Univ. Paris_, vol.

v, p. 905. Le P. Ayroles, _La Pucelle devant l'eglise de son temps_, pp. 403, 404.]

[Footnote 2742: Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et consultations_, p. 247.]

The Lord Bishop, Martin Berruyer, heard Jeanne la Ferone in confession, renewed her baptism, confirmed her in the faith and gave her the name of Marie, in grat.i.tude for the abounding grace which the most Holy Virgin, Mother of G.o.d, 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 n.o.ble Christian utterances. Wherefore in praise of La Ferone he wrote many letters[2743] to princes and communities of the realm.

[Footnote 2743: Du Clercq, _Memoires_, ed. Reiffenberg, Brussels, 1823, vol. iii, pp. 98 _et seq._ Jean de Roye, _Chronique scandaleuse_, ed. Bernard de Mandrot, 1894, vol. i, pp. 13, 14.

_Chronique de Bourdigne_, ed. Quatrebarbes, vol. ii, p. 212. Dom Piolin, _Histoire de l'eglise du Mans_, vol. v, p. 163.]

The Queen of France, who was then very old and whose husband had long ago deserted her, heard tell of the Maid of Le Mans, and wrote to Messire Martin Berruyer, requesting him to make the damsel known unto her.

Thus there befel, what we have seen happening over and over again in this history, that when a devout person, leading a contemplative life uttered prophecies, those in places of authority grew curious concerning her and desired to submit her to the judgment of the Church that they might know whether the goodness that appeared in her were true or false. Certain officers of the King visited La Ferone at Le Mans.

As revelations touching the realm of France had been vouchsafed to her, she spoke to them the following words:

"Commend me very humbly to the King and bid him recognise the grace which G.o.d granteth unto him, and lighten the burdens of his people."

In the December of 1460, she was summoned before the Royal Council, which was then sitting at Tours, while the King, who was sick of an ulcer in the leg, was residing in the Chateau of Les Montils.[2744]

The Maid of Le Mans was examined in like manner as the Maid Jeanne had been, but the result was unfavourable; she was found wanting in everything. Brought before the ecclesiastical court she was convicted of imposture. It appeared that she was no maid, but was living in concubinage with a cleric, that certain persons in the service of my Lord of Le Mans instructed her in what she was to say, and that such was the origin of the revelations she made to the Reverend Father in G.o.d, Messire Martin Berruyer, under the seal of the confession.

Convicted of being a hypocrite, an idolatress, an invoker of demons, a witch, a magician, lascivious, dissolute, an enchantress, a mine of falsehood, she was condemned to have a fool's cap put on her head and to be preached at in public, in the towns of Le Mans, Tours and Laval.

On the 2nd of May, 1461, she was exhibited to the folk at Tours, wearing a paper cap and over her head a scroll on which her deeds were set forth in lines of Latin and of French. Maitre Guillaume de Chateaufort, Grand Master of the Royal College of Navarre, preached to her. Then she was cast into close confinement in a prison, there to weep over her sins for the s.p.a.ce of seven years, eating the bread of sorrow and drinking the water of affliction;[2745] at the end of which time she rented a house of ill fame.[2746]

[Footnote 2744: Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. iii, p.

444.]

[Footnote 2745: Jacques du Clercq, _Memoires_, vol. iii, pp. 107 _et seq._]

[Footnote 2746: Antoine du Faur, _Livre des femmes celebres_, in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 336.]

On Wednesday, the 22nd of July, 1461, covered with ulcers internal and external, believing himself poisoned and perhaps not without reason, Charles VII died, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, in his Chateau of Mehun-sur-Yevre.[2747]

[Footnote 2747: De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. vi, pp.

442, 451. _Chronique Martiniane_, ed. P. Champion, p. 110.]

On Thursday, the 6th of August, his body was borne to the Church of Saint-Denys in France and placed in a chapel hung with velvet; the nave was draped with black satin, the vault was covered with blue cloth embroidered with flowers-de-luce.[2748] During the ceremony, which took place on the following day, a funeral oration was delivered on Charles VII. The preacher was no less a personage than the most highly renowned professor at the University of Paris, the doctor, who according to the Princes of the Roman Church was ever aimable and modest, he who had been the stoutest defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church, the ecclesiastic who, having declined a Cardinal's hat, bore to the threshold of an ill.u.s.trious old age none other t.i.tle than that of Dean of the Canons of Notre Dame de Paris, Maitre Thomas de Courcelles.[2749] Thus it befell that the a.s.sessor of Rouen, who had been the most bitterly bent on procuring Jeanne's cruel condemnation, celebrated the memory of the victorious King whom the Maid had conducted to his solemn coronation.

[Footnote 2748: Mathieu d'Escouchy, vol. ii, p. 422. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. iii, pp. 114-121.]

[Footnote 2749: _Gallia Christiana_, vol. vii, col. 151 and 214.

Hardouin, _Acta Conciliorum_, vol. ix, col. 1423. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. vi, p. 444.]

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

LETTER FROM DOCTOR G. DUMAS

My Dear Master,--You ask for my medical opinion in the case of Jeanne d'Arc. Had I been able to examine it at my leisure with the Doctors Tiphaine and Delachambre, who were summoned before the tribunal at Rouen, I might have found it difficult to come to any definite conclusion. And even more difficult do I find it now, when my diagnosis must necessarily be retrospective and based upon examinations conducted by persons who never dreamed of attempting to discover the existence of any nervous disease. However since they ascribed what we now call disease to the influence of the devil, their questions are not without significance for us. Therefore with many reservations I will endeavour to answer your question.

Of Jeanne's inherited const.i.tution we know nothing; and of her personal antecedents we are almost entirely ignorant. Our only information concerning such matters comes from Jean d'Aulon, who, on the evidence of several women, states[2750] that she was never fully developed, a condition which frequently occurs in neurotic subjects.

[Footnote 2750: _Trial_, vol. iii. p. 219.]

We should, however, be unable to arrive at any conclusion concerning Jeanne's nervous const.i.tution had not her judges, and in particular Maitre Jean Beaupere, in the numerous examinations to which they subjected her, elicited certain significant details on the subject of her hallucinations.

Maitre Beaupere begins by inquiring very judiciously whether Jeanne had fasted the day before she first heard her voices. Whence we infer that the interdependence of inanition and hallucinations was recognised by this ill.u.s.trious professor of theology. Before condemning Jeanne as a witch he wanted to make sure that she was not merely suffering from weakness. Some time later we find Saint Theresa suspecting that the visions said to have been seen by a certain nun were merely the result of long fasting. Saint Theresa insisted on the nun's partaking of food, and the visions ceased.

Jeanne replies that she had only fasted since the morning, and Maitre Beaupere proceeds to ask:

_Q._ "In what direction did you hear the voice?"

_A._ "I heard it on the right, towards the church."