“I thank you for what you say to me for my good,” answered Jeanne wearily. “It
seems to me, seeing how ill I am, that I am in great danger of death. If it be that God do His pleasure on me, I ask of you that I may have my confession and my
Saviour also, and that I may be put in holy ground.”
“If you desire to have the rites and Sacraments of the Church,” said Cauchon,
“you must do as good Catholics ought to do, and submit to Holy Church.”
“I can say no other thing to you,” she said, turning from them. Then they exhorted her powerfully, citing chapter and verse from the Scriptures, telling her finally that if she would not obey and submit to the Church she would be
abandoned as a “Saracen.”
“I am a good Christian,” she told them. “I have been baptized; I shall die a good Christian. I love God; I serve Him. I wish to help and sustain the Church with all my power.” And that being all they could get from her they left her for the time being.
The sittings in the room at the end of the great hall of the castle were resumed on May second, all the assessors being present. Cauchon summed up all the trial, saying that in spite of the diligence and gentleness of the doctors their efforts had produced nothing. It seemed good, therefore, that the woman should be admonished before them all. Maître Jean Chatillon, the lord Archdeacon of Evreux, was invited to make the address whereby he might “persuade her to leave the criminal path where she now is and return again to that of truth.”
Jeanne listened dutifully to a long preamble by Maître Chatillon, and finally bade her admonisher to come to the point.
“Read your book, and then I will answer,” she said. “I refer myself to God, my
master in all things. I love Him with all my heart.”
The trial was turning upon the point as to whether she was willing to submit all her words and deeds to the judgment of the holy Mother Church.
“The Church,” she exclaimed. “I love it, and desire to sustain it with my whole power, for the sake of our Christian faith. It is not I who should be hindered from going to church, and hearing mass.” As to what she had done for her King and
her country she submitted it all to God, who had sent her. The question of submission was again asked, and she replied that she submitted all to God, our
Lady, and the saints.
“And my opinion is,” she added, “that God and the Church are one.”
To Maître Jean’s specific exhortations, touching upon her submission to the Church, her dress, her visions, and revelations, she gave her old answers.
“I will say no more,” she answered briefly with some impatience, when they urged her further, and threatened her with the sentence of fire. “And if I saw the fire, I should say all that I am saying to you, and naught else.”
A week later she was led forth from her cell again, but this time she was taken to the torture chamber of the great tower, where she found nine of her judges awaiting her, and was once more adjured to speak the truth, with the threat of torture if she remained obdurate. But with the rack and screws before her, and
the executioner ready for his work, she said:
“Truly, if you were to tear me limb from limb, and separate soul from body, I will tell you nothing more; and if I were to say anything else, I should always declare that you had compelled me to do it by force.”
She told them that she had asked her Voices if, hard pressed as she was, she should submit to the Church.
“If you would have God come to your aid, wait on Him for all your doings,” was
their answer.
“Shall I burn?” she had asked them.
“Wait on our Lord. He will help you.”
Torture was spared that day, as being likely to profit her little, “considering her hardness of heart,” and she was returned to her cell. Cauchon afterward put the question of torture to fourteen of his assessors. Two voted for it: Courcelles, and the spy, Loyseleur, who held that it might be “a salutary medicine for her soul.”
The majority, however, were in favor of mercy, considering that there was enough for her condemnation without it.
A few days later the decision of the University of Paris, to whom the twelve articles had been sent, arrived. After an explanation of the consideration which had been given to each article, that learned tribunal gave its verdict upon each indictment; concluding with:
“If the beforesaid woman, charitably exhorted and admonished by competent judges, does not return spontaneously to the Catholic faith, publicly abjure her errors, and give full satisfaction to her judges, she is hereby given up to the secular judge to receive the reward of her deeds.”
In accordance with this decision the final session of the court was held on the twenty-third of May in a small room near Jeanne’s cell to hear Maître Pierre Maurice deliver their final admonition to the captive.
Jeanne listened as always with courtesy to the preacher, though he was expounding to her all her faults. All this to a girl who had lived with but one motive: the service of God, and the deliverance of her country. When he had finished she was again questioned personally. Her answer was clear and undaunted:
“What I have always said in the trial, and held, I wish still to say and maintain. If I were condemned, if I saw the torch lighted, the faggots prepared, and the
executioner ready to kindle the fire, and if I myself were in the fire, I would not say otherwise, and would maintain to the death all that I have said.”
And Manchon, the clerk, was so struck by this reply that he wrote on the margin of his paper: “Responsio Johannae superba.”
“Have you nothing further to say?” asked Cauchon of promoter and prisoner.
“No;” was the reply, and he declared the trial concluded.
“We summon you to-morrow to hear the law which will be laid down by us, to
be carried out afterward and proceeded with according to law and right.”
