the same place where the soul of that woman is at
this moment”; which indeed is not very different
from the authorised saying of Pierre Morice in the
prison. Guillaume Manchon, the reporter, he who
wrote
superba responsio on his margin, and
had written down every word of her long examination—his
occupation for three months,—says that he
“never wept so much for anything that happened
to himself, and that for a whole month he could not
recover his calm.” This man adds a very
characteristic touch, to wit, that “with part
of the pay which he had for the trial, he bought a
missal, that he might have a reason for praying for
her.” Jean Tressat, “secretary to
the King of England” (whatever that office may
have been), went home from the execution crying out,
“We are all lost, for we have burned a saint.”
A priest, afterwards bishop, Jean Fabry, “did
not believe that there was any man who could restrain
his tears.”
The modern historians speak of the mockeries of the
English, but none are visible in the record.
Indeed, the part of the English in it is extraordinarily
diminished on investigation; they are the supposed
inspirers of the whole proceedings; they are believed
to be continually pushing on the inquisitors; still
more, they are supposed to have bought all that large
tribunal, the sixty or seventy judges, among whom were
the most learned and esteemed Doctors in France; but
of none of this is there any proof given. That
they were anxious to procure Jeanne’s condemnation
and death, is very certain. Not one among them
believed in her sacred mission, almost all considered
her a sorceress, the most dangerous of evil influences,
a witch who had brought shame and loss to England
by her incantations and evil spells. On that point
there could be no doubt whatever. She alone had
stopped the progress of the invaders, and broken the
charm of their invariable success. But all that
she had done had been in favour of Charles, who made
no attempt to serve or help her, and who had thwarted
her plans, and hindered her work so long as it was
possible to do so, even when she was performing miracles
for his sake. And Alencon, Dunois, La Hire, where
were they and all the knights? Two of them at
least were at Louvins, within a day’s march,
but never made a step to rescue her. We need not
ask where were the statesmen and clergy on the French
side, for they were unfeignedly glad to have the burden
of condemning her taken from their hands. No one
in her own country said a word or struck a blow for
Jeanne. As for the suborning of the University
of Paris en masse, and all its best members
in particular, that is a general baseness in which
it is impossible to believe. There is no appearance
even of any particular pressure put upon the judges.
Jean de la Fontaine disappeared, we are told, and
no one ever knew what became of him: but it was
from Cauchon he fled. And nothing seems to have
happened to the monks who attended the Maid to the
scaffold, nor to the others who sobbed about the pile.
On the other side, the Doctors who condemned her were
in no way persecuted or troubled by the French authorities
when the King came to his own. There was at the
time a universal tacit consent in France to all that
was done at Rouen on the 31st of May, 1431.
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