Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2 by Mark Twain (red white and royal blue hardcover txt) 📗
- Author: Mark Twain
Book online «Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2 by Mark Twain (red white and royal blue hardcover txt) 📗». Author Mark Twain
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.
14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies
WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage out of her weakened state.
Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment—the Twelve Lies.
Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation. She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses to submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all her acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of God. She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.
A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with death those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause says she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God. What she really said was, all that she had done well—a correction made by herself as you have already seen.
Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any sin. She never made any such claim.
Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had high Catholic authority for committing it—that of the Archbishop of Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.
The Tenth Article was resentful against her for “pretending” that St. Catherine and St.
Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their politics.
The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology of the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote in the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan’s mouth which were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would not be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not influence
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