As the time passed without bringing either rescue, or help of any sort from her friends Jeanne uttered no word that could discredit or reproach them. There was never such loyalty as hers to her King and her party. A monk, Brother Isambard, was moved one day to give her some advice about submitting to the General Council of Basle, the Congregation of the Universal Church and of Christendom,
wherein were men of all parties. Jeanne heard of it gladly.
“Oh! If in that place there are any of our side, I am quite willing to submit to the Council of Basle,” she cried.
“Hold your tongue, in the devil’s name,” shouted Cauchon to Isambard. Turning
to Manchon, the clerk, he continued angrily: “Make no note of that answer.” But Jeanne protested:
“You write what is against me, but not what is in my favor.” Manchon had already written, “And she appeals––” He dared write no more.
In the afternoon Isambard, Brother Guillaume Duval and Jean de la Fontaine, three men who honestly wished to aid the Maid, went to the prison to give her
further advice, when Warwick intercepted them.
“If any of you take the trouble to deliver her and to advise her for her good, I will have you thrown into the Seine,” he told them.
And Brother Isambard thereafter kept silence in fear of his life, while Brother Duval fled to his convent of St. Jacques, and appeared no more. The private examinations came to an end the day before Passion Sunday, and Cauchon called
a meeting of the assessors to consider the evidence and decide upon further action. D’Estivet, his secretary, was instructed to make a digest of the proceedings which should form an act of accusation to be submitted to the assessors. The Bishop meantime visited Jeanne, offering his ultimatum:
If she consented to wear woman’s dress, she might hear mass, as she had so often desired, but not otherwise. To which Jeanne sorrowfully replied; that she would have done so before now if she could; but that it was not in her power to do so. It was for the sake of her womanhood that she retained man’s attire.
In Holy Week her troubles began again. Early Tuesday morning of that week Massieu, the usher of the court, appeared in the cell, removed her fetters, and
conducted her to the room at the end of the great hall where the court was held before. All the assessors were present, for Cauchon had sent out a general summons for them. The case was opened, and Cauchon made a prefatory speech
in which he told her how merciful were her judges, who had no wish to punish,
but rather to instruct and lead her in the right way. And now, at this late stage in the proceedings, he offered her the privilege of having as counsel one or more of the learned doctors present.
Jeanne answered him courteously:
“In the first place, concerning my good and our faith, I thank you and all the company. As for the counsellor you offer me, I thank you also, but I have no need to depart from our Lord as my counsellor.”
Thomas de Courcelles, a young doctor of the University, now began to read the
charges against her. The accusations were mostly frivolous, and some were unjust. It was charged that she had received no religious training; that she had worn mandrakes; that she dressed in man’s attire; that she had bewitched her banner and her ring (this was the poor little ring of base metal which her father and mother had given her so long before); that she believed her apparitions were saints and angels; that she had blasphemed; and other charges to the number of
seventy. After each one the young doctor paused to ask?
“What have you to say to this article?”
And Jeanne would reply as she could, referring all her acts to the judgment of God. It mattered little how she replied; she was foredoomed by these men. For
Jeanne D’Arc was guilty of one thing: she had deeply wounded the English pride. That was her crime. She was a girl, but she had frightened them, had driven them half the length of France, taken them in their fortresses, and conquered them in the field. That was her crime, and it was intolerable. Nothing but burning her alive could satisfy the vengeance of pride so mortified.
This re-examination took several days, and then Jeanne was sent back to her cell, but not to peace. While the seventy articles and the substance of her replies were being reduced to twelve articles by Cauchon and a few picked men, she was admonished “gently and charitably” in her cell, in order to lead her back into the way of truth and to a sincere profession of the faith.
Jeanne fell ill under the strain. Even her magnificent endurance broke under the burden. She was ill with nausea and fever, and Warwick sent immediately for several medical men who were among the judges.
“Do your best for her,” he urged. “My King would on no account have her die a natural death. He bought her dear, and holds her dear, and she shall die by the law, and be burned.”
Thereupon D’Estivet, Cauchon’s secretary, escorted the leeches to the prison where, weak and in chains, Jeanne lay upon her bed.
“I have eaten a fish that was sent me by the Bishop of Beauvais,” she told them when the doctors inquired what caused the indisposition. “I doubt not that this is the cause of my illness.”
“You shameful woman,” shouted D’Estivet. “You have been eating herring, and
other unwholesomeness.” [29]
“I have not,” answered Jeanne, summoning all her strength to have it out with him.
The doctors felt her pulse and found some fever. They reported to Earl Warwick
that she should be bled.
“Away with your bleeding,” cried he. “She is artful, and might kill herself.”
Nevertheless, they bled her and she grew better. As soon as she was somewhat
recovered Cauchon proceeded with his “charitable admonitions.”
“We have come to bring you consolation in your suffering,” he said. “Wise and
learned men have scrutinized your answers concerning the faith which have seemed to them perilous. But you are only a poor, illiterate woman, and we come to offer you learned and wise men, watchful and honest, who will give you, as is their duty, the knowledge which you have not. Take heed to our words, for if you be obstinate, consulting only your own unschooled brain, we must abandon you.
You see to what peril you expose yourself, and it is this we would avoid for you with all the power of our affection.”
