The wonderful story of Joan of Arc and the meaning of her life for Americans

JOAN OF ARC (1412-1431)

Sculpture by Chapu in Luxemburg

The Wonderful Story of

JOAN of ARC

AND THE MEANING OP HER LIFE
FOR AMERICANS

BY C. M. STEVENS

Author of "Washington," "Lincoln,1
"Bible Stories," etc.

NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

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"Foe only to the great blood-guiUy ones, c fr*^^,^

The Masters and Murderers of Mankind" ._

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— SOUTHEY. r *-*

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
CUPPLES AND LEON COMPANY

From the

INSPIRATION AND FAITH
of the

WONDER;PUL WOMAN

to

MY DAUGHTER

and to
ALL THE DAUGHTERS OF MAN AND GOD

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 1

II. ORIGINS FOR A WONDERFUL FAITH ... 28

III. EARLY INTERESTS IN THE GREAT CAUSE . 42

IV. THE FIRST BELIEVERS AND THEIR TASK . 55

V. THE PROMISED SIGN FROM THE KING OF

HEAVEN 76

VI. FREEDOM TO THE CITY OF ORLEANS ... 94

VII. THE PEACE OF A PACIFIST KINS .... 114

VIII. A DIVINE CROWN AND THE ROYAL HEAD . 133

IX. ON THE WAY TO PARIS 154

X. THE VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 174'

XI. How SELF-INTEREST DECIDES QUESTIONS

OF RIGHT AND WRONG 193

XII. "THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE WICKED

ARE CRUEL" 214

XIII. GLIMPSES OF THE INQUISITION .... 235

vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XTV. THE MIGHT OF EIGHT FOB THE SOUL . . 257

XV. PAYING UNTO WILL THE FINAL PRICE OP

FAITH 276

XVI. THE TRAGEDY OF FAITH AND THE VICTORY

OF WILL 298

XVII. CONCLUDING VALUATIONS OF A LIFE . 317

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAQH

JOAN OP ABC (1412-1431), Sculpture by Chapu in

Luxemburg Frontispiece

BIRTHPLACE OP JOAN OP ABC ........ 32

"Tnou AST THE KING" / 70

THE ENTBANCE OP JEANNE D 'ABC INTO OBLEANS . 88

CHABLES VII (1403-1461) 120

CHABLES VII AND THE MAID OP OBLEANS ENTEB-

ING EHEIMS 144

LA PUCELLE LISTENING TO HEB VOICES .... 168

JEANNE IN PBISON 200

PIEBBE CAUCHON, the prosecutor in the trial

against Joan of Arc 248

JOAN OP ABC WITH THE SWOBD OP FEEBBOIS . . . 272

"THE LAST FULL MEASUBE OP DEVOTION" . . . 300

STATUE OP JOAN OP ABC, Riverside Drive, New

York 3C8

JOAN OF ARC

AND

THE MEANING OF HER LIFE FOB
AMERICANS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS

1. At the Gates of Mystery

JOAN OP ABO was the first great warrior for the
freedom of nations. She was the first leader of
armies to make war solely against war. She was
the first woman to demonstrate, from the lowliest
scenes to the highest, ever within the qualities and
capabilities of moral womanhood, all the heroism,
endurance, and nobility ever known or claimed
for manhood. She was the first martyr, unmis-
takable, irreproachable and unsurpassable, within
the Christian Church, for freedom of conscience,
in the conduct of life, wherever it involves the
rights of man in his responsibility to God. She
was human motherhood in action for the pro-
tection of her loved ones, empowered with the
gospel of righteousness that wrong can be mas-

1

JOAN OF ARC

tered by right. Like the three years ' ministry of
the Wonderful Man, fourteen centuries before, the
three years of this wonderful woman unveiled, as
a Providential revelation and warning to coming
generations, the monstrous despotism toward
which the human will develops in the organized
masteries of man.

Joan of Arc is one of the supreme revelations
of humanity. She is a sublime masterpiece of
character. She gave a wonderful life for social
justice. She lived an unsurpassable ideal of loy-
alty to moral law. This shepherd girl of the lowly
fields opened a book of faith that had been closed
for a thousand years. She illuminated the sacred
pages of divine rights so clearly that they can be
read with unfailing hope for every one unto the
end of time. Her banner of li^ht waved away for-
ever the despair of the oppressed, demonstrated
•the might of right, and revealed the right-minded
as being endowed with the commonwealth of the
universe.

She knew in whom she believed. Spirit and
work bore witness to her truth. She believed in
the irresistible righteousness of an ever-present
God. In her faith, ' ' whosoever will ' ' might freely
come into that assurance and safety. She believed
that righteous people were empowered with an al-1
mighty divinity working through their work as
they strove for the peace and justice of lawful
government, known then in moral understanding
as the calling and office of a consecrated king.

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 3

She did not know of any organized evil but the
merciless conqueror and his ruthless conquest of
her helpless people. She did not know that be-
tween her and the divine calling of the royal
throne there was a Satanic brood of favorites,
parasites and traitors controlling the royal office,
who hated her light and were treasonable toward
the great pity she had for France. She did not
know that when she had won her heroic way
through these dark forces of evil, or that after
she had driven back the foreign foe from their in-
tervening strongholds, and had completed her task
in the holy consecration of her king to his sacred
work for her native land, that she would then have
to meet in a fight unto death a far more powerful
organization of Satanic mercenaries, who had
taken possession of her religious life, and had
seized the right of way to the love of her saints
and the law of her Lord.

The sublime figure of this wonderful woman is
the revelation of power in a child's faith glorified
and exalted in the divine light of an infinite mean-
ing for humanity. The supreme interest of her
life is in the great victory promised her when the
hideous despotism of so-called divine rights had
done its worst. The Son of Man became a celes-
tial ideal in contrast with Judas, the Jewish San-
hedrim and the Roman Caesar, but it remained
for the will of the Christian Church and State to
place itself in a far more hideous contrast with
the faith of this Daughter of God.

4 JOAN OF ARC

The heroic inspiration, and its meaning, of her
sublime sacrifice is now dawning upon humanity
through five centuries of soul-enshrouded night.
The world of wonders, known as history, is be-
coming sunlit with intelligence, and slowly we are
finding many of its sacred relics to be abominable
evils, and even more of its neglected forms to be
the noblest good. Political freedom is only begin-
ning to realize itself as moral law. Human mar-
tyrdom and sacrifice have paid infinite prices to
make free, and to help us understand, the divine
rights composing the evolutionary meaning of the
human race. The human mind is slowly and
surely understanding the social way, and when
it does there will be for every one the peace and
safety of a moral commonwealth composing new
heavens and a new earth.

3. The Will-Made Life in a Faith-Made World

The anguish and despair of conflicting conduct
arise from the inhuman struggle between faith
and will. The epic struggle of this wonderful
woman was between her immediate faith in the
might of right and the authorized will developed
in the right of might. The ancient struggle for
human rights develops as intelligence discovers
and seeks to use the freedom and power of moral
law. The chaos of selfish animalism disappears
from the cosmic order of humanity as the indi-
vidual will gives way to social reason in a com-

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 5

nranity of moral law. The creation of the heav-
ens and the earth has progressed in the order of
an infinite system, every particle having its free-
dom and its life in the universal work, but the cre-
ation of humanity and personality, however pro-
gressive its intelligence, continues in anguish and
despair, and the tragedy that tore the battlefields
of yesterday, even as ever before, is the same
Satanic interest that begins its contest for mas-
tery anew, over and over again, in every new
community and at the birth of every child.

Has intelligence discovered in such conse-
quences that the entire system is totally wrong!
It has. And it has always clearly known this.
Otherwise, it could not be defined as intelligent.
But the animal system of wills cannot yield its
selfish control, and so, has tried to satisfy intelli-
gence and keep it absorbed in constructing an in-
volved, and ever more involved, and complicated
system of contract-government, with individual
mastery as the central sun or constellation of a
will-made universe. It can't be done. It is always
falling to pieces or reforming itself in revolutions
and wars. The endless struggle of Will against
Faith has been totally illustrated in every life of
faith which Will has found it necessary to sup-
press or destroy in order to preserve its mastery
and conquest. The mark of Cain is on the brow of
every invading will, whether its imperialism is
of persons, doctrines, capitalism or dynasties.

In the fullness of time, for every epoch in the

6 JOAN OF ARC

development of humanity from its animal system,
there has come forth an embodiment of Sovereign
Faith in conflict unto death with the organization
of Sovereign Will. Sovereign Might in the al-
leged divine right of self-preservation forthwith
killed its enemy and thus exalted in all reason the
infinitely greater soul-ideal of Sovereign Law.

In the first supreme epoch of human history,
when the human will had reached its most com-
plete mastery in the name of organized law, ever
possible on earth, and all civilization was hope-
lessly enslaved in the name of Borne and Caesar,
there appeared a Man with the only possible
means of defense or defeat for that monstrous
process of inhumanity and moral chaos. He came
from the origin of Life, with all the meaning of
"Life More Abundantly," as possible only in
Faith. It was One against all the powers of or-
ganized might. He fought a sublime fight, but
they killed him, and there was "lifted up" a Won-
drous Light that was "to light the way of every
one that cometh into the world. ' '

Selfishness, always seizing every means for any
control over the minds of men, built up religions
and dynasties out of that interest in Divine Life,
in which revolution or conquest meant only a
change of masters. Europe had its starless night
known as the dark ages. For a thousand years
the people lived, believed and died according to
the will that had fought or intrigued its way to
mastery over their group. Europe was an un*

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 7

ceasing battlefield of dynastic wills. France was
almost destroyed in a hundred years' war. The
supreme organization of will in the time of Christ,
known as Rome, had degenerated during fourteen
hundred years into the most sordid and debauched
condition recorded in human history. If there
was faith anywhere on earth its light was put out
in blood and death. God seemed to have aban-
doned the world, when there appeared in the fields
of Domremy a little girl with a vision and a task.
It was the coming of a Woman with the only pos-
sible means of defense or defeat for that mon-
strous process of inhumanity and moral chaos.
She came from the origin of Life, with all the
meaning of faith in the "Life More Abundantly,"
which fourteen centuries before had been revealed
to the world.

Joan of Arc was a revelation of Faith. Her
enemies were a revelation of "Will. Faith and
Will are antagonists in the limited regions of in-
dividuals and are one only as they coalesce in the
infinite regions of the divine system of minds that
we may call the social universe. Her faith-trium-
phant in unsurpassable struggle with their will-
militant is a revelation of the Power of Faith over
the Power of Will. Humanity witnesses in this
wonderful Woman the divine secret of human life.
The Will-made world belongs to the age of beasts.
Intelligence and reason and morality and love
have no meaning except in a faith-made world.

However much of a religious interest this may

8 JOAN OF ARC

be, and however much it may be a version of relig
ions principles, it is no less a personal reality, and
there is revealed in this simple peasant girl's ex-
perience a psychological power ever available for
individual and social government. The Kingdom
of Faith was a fundamental order in her soul,
even as her enemies moved and lived and had
their beings in a Kingdom of Will. Her career
was a divine tragedy, revealing the struggle of hu-
manity between the two kingdoms of human in-
telligence. It was a final demonstration reveal-
ing the perilous inferiority of will as a practical
means in human affairs.

The Domremy shepherd girl, who delivered
France and suffered martyrdom at Rouen, reveals
with more than mathematical conviction how the
world's work is achieved through faith and is lost
through will. Her career is not a dogmatic as-
sertion to be defended or denied, except as a
match game on the chess-board of controversy be-
tween historical critics and religious logicians.
There is a life of her that is simple and clear and
that is consistently free of any mystic or partisan
controversy. She surpasses wonder, when viewed
as a child of faith, and yet no one in history is
more sincere, reasonable and natural in her career
and character. She separates with unavoidable
distinction the kingdom of imperishable value
from the kingdom of temporary mastery. She is
an indisputable definition of the human way. She
is an explanation of human history. Her experi-

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 9

ence is a living panorama of the two vital forces
contending for the control of life and mind. She
is, in the beginning, a supreme symbol of inspired
womanhood defending her family group from the
invading beasts of conquest, and then, from this
great task, she becomes the sublime revelation
of childhood-faith in an unconquerable death-
struggle against wills and organized wills, as the
religious and moral betrayers of the world.

3. Before the Doors of Life

The Maid of Orleans is a message and a way.
She is a masterpiece of evidence in faith-keeping,
and its independent power over the most resource-
ful wit and disciplined purpose possible to man.
In maintaining the faith for a sublime human
cause, considering her youth, inexperience, and
lack of learning, she becomes the most illustrious
and heroic figure in human history.

The growth of interest in that immortal child
of lowly France develops according as we appre-
ciate her possession of power that she proved to
be unassailable in the midst of inescapable despot-
ism. She was not a supernatural miracle of will
but a natural result of simple faith in the might
of right empowering the work of right-minded
men. It could not have been a thought-out pur-
pose, as she never knew or planned beyond the
day or the task. She did only as every one must,
do who desires to be worthy of being human on

10 JOAN OF ARC

the way to the divine. She gave her personal life
to the meaning of social life and her social reason
to the soul of moral law.

Her intelligence was not given to anything so
frail as human intelligence and she had no thought
of ever trying to strengthen her will with human
will. Her intelligence sought wisdom for every
need in the Infinite Eeason and her will found
strength for every trial in the Infinite Law. Her
will was often broken and defeated by other wills.
Her persistence was never consistent as being res-
olution or determination. She often cried like a
child at deception, insults, suffering and cruelty.
She trembled with fear under the menace of im-
pending wrong. Her career, considered as the
will of a woman, was ingloriously betrayed, and
was brought to the most ignoble defeat, but the
faith of the unlettered peasant girl could not be
shaken or lessened by all the prolonged torture,
treacherous reason, and exalted authority, possi-
ble in the will of the most learned and powerful
men in Europe.

The child of faith won an unsurpassable victory
over the will of men. Nothing less than the eter-
nal meaning creative in our humanity, and al-
mighty in our commonwealth of life, could have
brought forth such a star of light for the soul
of people enslaved and despoiled as they had been
for centuries under the parasite system of organ-
ized masteries.

Appreciation cannot be exaggerated nor valua-

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 11

tion overprized for this illuminating contrast be-
tween faith and will, because, as has already been
truly said, "nothing could have been put into the
story to make it more human or more divine."
The will-maker has power unto the reach of his
hands, but the faith-lover has the will of the wise
man as the way of an organized universe.

La Pucelle is an inexhaustible source of personal
reassurance. The power that sustained her ean
sustain any other in any conditions, because no
one could be placed under worse despotism or
more hopeless despair. None can ever be sur-
rounded by blacker forms of a more desperate
destiny. If there is some weary soul, defeated
and alone, imprisoned within a dungeon of suf-
fering and evil, the memory of this unconquerable
girl will bring the companionship of unlimited
power over pain and death. A vision of her light
should enable any one to seize fast hold, as she
did, on the sources of invincible soul and be aff
strong as she was strong. In the desponding hour
of souls besieged, there shall come at the call of
faith a vision of this dauntless life ; on the horizon
of hope there shall appear the light of never-fail-
ing inspiration, and in the name of love there
shall be a healing response for every need. Out
of the night of a brutal age, behold her flaming
standard coming swiftly with the sunrise of a new
day. In its shining folds is victory over hate and
despair, almighty in the faith and meaning of hu-
manity and God. It cannot fail for any one who

12 JOAN OF ARC

remembers how this young girl was a child of
light in the midst of the darkest wrongs, in all the
historical infamy of man.

The simple revelations of her loyalty and sacri-
fice for the rights of life become more appreciated,
as a precious human inspiration, when we can re-
ceive them free from the bewildering confusions
of testimonies and records concerning voices, vi-
sions and supernatural claims. Her own un-
learned explanations of her intense convictions,
whether subjective or objective, whether halluci-
native or miraculous, are not needed to feel her
inspiration or to believe in her faith and truth.
From the day in which she made her first effort
to fulfill her faith, she was subjected by enemies
and friends to soul-torturing inquisitions, requir-
ing explanations more than she could explain, but
necessary for such understandings, then prevail-
ing in the midst of the most superstitious of all
ignorant times. Historical consistency cannot be
recovered from the controversial confusions, con-
sidering the many varieties of interest and mas-
ters. She was faith. That is all and enough.
Her character and career were faith in her Lord,
the King of Heaven and Earth, a supreme ideal
of mind, that "we live and move and have our
being" in a divine universe.

The numerous views expressed in the written
testimonials of enemies and friends are of interest
mainly among the curiosities and puzzles of his-
torical criticism, and their medley of confusions

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 13

is entirely outside of the meaning that is her mes-
sage to humanity. The supreme faith-mind, re-
vealing its strength and way to every aspiring
youth or suffering soul, is a fundamental and orig-
inal value, existing Jong before any of the theo-
logical explanations were adopted that raised her
religious merit to the rank of saints. It is enough
for our consideration here that she built an inde-
structible house of faith, wherein we may find our
refuge and our strength as heirs and joint heirs
in a divine system of moral law. '

4. In the Beginning Was Meaning

A life is like a word. It is the sign of an idea.
The life-idea is fulfilled either in faith or in will.
The creative inspiration of faith as social work,
is not the same as the possessive satisfaction of
will as individual conquest. Lives that live their
inspiration in faith have a different meaning from
those that live their satisfaction as will. It may
be wise to believe that they have a different des-
tiny. The law of faith can never mean the same
as the law of will. It may be the difference that
Americans see between Washington the liberator
and Napoleon the conqueror. It may separate
more clearly for us the mind of Judas from the
mind of Christ. It may show that the human race
is divided into two kinds of beings as distinct in
class as apes and angels, especially when we try
to understand the faith of Joan of Arc in clear

14 JOAN OF ARC

contrast with the will of the conclave at Rouen.

Selfishness in control of ignorance has re-
mained master of the human way. From the be-
ginning, its slavery of suffering and madness has
possessed the whole process of civilization.
Through all the story of the human struggle, the
self as will, either in destructive anarchy or in
organized autocracy, has kept the mastery over
faith in unceasing despotism and war. Nature
has endeavored to develop mind above the will
into intelligence as the social reason of moral
law. It has brought its own house to order as
an intelligible physical system. The will of phys-
ical chaos has become extinct in the faith of cos-
mic law. Human intelligence is likewise hard at
work to make the world safe for social reason.
History is succeeding in showing that will is the
maker and meaning of miseiy and war, while in
flaming contrast it is revealing that faith is the
maker and meaning of society and science as the
ends of moral law.

The autocracy of Caesar 's will required the mar-
tyrdom and meaning of the Son of Man to make
world dominion impossible, and the anarchy of
warring wills in Europe required the martyrdom
and meaning of a Child of Faith to restore the
mind of France to the rights of nations. There
had to be some costly valuation of faith made
manifest to the oppressed and stupefied people,
yet remaining alive in the midst of the hundred
years 'war that was still ravaging western Europe.

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 15

Jeanne of the Domremy fields was one of the
keepers of the faith, who gathered into her soul
the meaning of humanity and was thus called to
show the people that one lone girl, loving life with
all the passion of youth, could be master over all
the evil possible in the art and might of men.
Now passing five centuries of time, she still lives
in immortal youth, and waves her banner of faith
to the long line of oncoming generations, with,
more worth for humanity in its golden folds than
all the arts of Greece and the powers of Rome.
Her life-meaning continues forever to be a source
of inexhaustible empowerment that surpasses all
the masteries of university logic, theological ex-
communications and decrees of empire.

5. The Almighty Wa/g

Jeanne d'Arc was the long, straight aim of
Faith. Her reason formed judgments into will
from passing events only for passing events. In-
tellect with its learning was expedient and instru-
mental among the changing values of temporal
affairs. Faith meant practical work. She prob-
ably did not know that Paul said so. She could
hardly have known that the prophets all said so.
Even her voices did not say so. They merely said,
over and over again, "Go on, Daughter of God,
go on, go on." She knew the rest. She tells us
through the best of her experiences, and on to the
end through the worst, "For that I was born."

16 JOAN OF ARC

And we at once know the same to be true as to
ourselves, because, for nothing less were we born,
than to possess eternity through faith, and to
count out, in harmony with it, the sands of time,
one by one, as moments of intelligence and will.

She had only one conception of what she stood
for before the throne of faith, and that was the de-
liverance of right from the might of wrong. This
simple understanding and her endeavor, continued
to "the last full measure of devotion," enthroned
her among the shining ones of humanity who have
kept the faith and fought the good fight for the
meaning and worth of a soul. But hers was the
task to uphold the great white light of life, as one
long besieged, helpless and alone, under the most
desperate mastery and the maddest learning ever
known. Hers was the most extensive and merci-
lessly tried-out faith, and the most completely
witnessed, of any recorded in history. The pro-
longed and exhaustive investigations of her life,
minutely exacted by both enemies and friends,
reveal all that can be known of any one, and noth-
ing could be found but the noblest of human souls.
Peasants, priests, warriors, poets, historians,
popes and kings, alike bear evidence of the pro-
foundest interest in her wonderful career. Their
testimony for her reveals the most significant vi-
sion of womanhood in all our records of the
human struggle.

The series of events composing the story of her
deeds, as told by so many varieties of witnesses,

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 17

from so many points of view, are consistent only
as they illustrate a way of triumph and martyr-
dom unsurpassed in any literature or history.
Biographical accuracy, as to time, place, persons,
explanations and statements, or the varied course
of events, is impossible, and is not essential ex-
cept as it concerns the character of her faith
whose meaning is one of the greatest human
values ever revealed in the progress of man.

6. The Meaning of Human Life

The supreme wonder-woman of the world said
that she did not know A from B, but she made an
army religious, she made brutal and brutalized
men respect all the mercies, she gave courage to
cowards, turned highwaymen into patriots, drove
mercenaries from the siege of cities, and in a few
weeks turned the tide of a hundred years' war so
that a lost nation was restored to the civilization
of the world.

After she had broken the will of war in her war
against war, and aroused a world-wide respect
second only to reverence for the mother of Christ,
she was seized by the powers of church and state,
and through long and desperate months con-
founded the most learned men of the age, defeated
the brutality of the most powerful wills in Eu-
rope, and endured in suffering far exceeding all
that any man had ever endured in keeping the
faith of man and God.

18 JOAN OF ARC

It can not be said that she knew better than we
do what her life meant. It is very doubtful if she
thought of a meaning for her life. In truth it
may be doubted if any one is ever born with vision
enough to know what his life means. We can be
sure of nothing except that meaning exists only
in a faithful life upon a loyal way.

Even as in ancient times a wonderful mother-
woman said, so she said, "Behold, the handmaid
of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy
word, ' ' and she went forth to the great fulfillment
and the great victory.

"Not my will but Thine be done" was the sur-
render she made to her soul interest as being her
only possible destiny.

She proved that there is no sign from God but
a life of faith even as there is no sign from the
eternal law but the ever recurring truth of the
universe.

7. Patriotism for the Democracy of the World

History has bequeathed to us a record of un-
paralleled completeness describing Joan of Arc as
the most wonderful woman that ever lived in all
the experiences of mystic, warrior and martyr.
Art has supplemented history with many thou-
sands of books, tragedies, romances, poems, paint-
ings and statues displaying her in holy entrance-
ments, in the wild assaults of war, and in the final
heroism of the stake. Ecclesiastic council in the

light of legend, miracle and logic doubted her,
accepted her, condemned her, burnt her and made
her a saint.

Historians, romancers, poets, painters, sculptors
and ecclesiastics have those interests, but such
values are really only incidental in her meaning
for humanity. The historical and the art work
do not give us this woman any more than they give
us Christ or God. The immortal wonder of her
character and her career is the same that made
Moses, that gave us Socrates, that sustained Paul,
that worked out the dream of religious liberty,
that is making the world safe for democracy, that
will make democracy safe for the individual, and
that shall give unto humanity the mind of the
universe as the kingdom of God.

Joan of Arc was faith in right as the mind of
God. Her voices and the light in which they live
is the light of every man that cometh into the
world. If we do not know her faith we have no
vision of the woman. If we do not understand
her hope we have no measure for her career. If
we do not appreciate her love for France we can
have no understanding of her meaning for hu-
manity. We have not yet realized what is that
divine meaning which is given for the healing of
the nations or for the salvation of man, the faith
that removes mountains and gives the victory
over death.

Human character in all its heights and depths,
engulfed in human wickedness in all its heights

20 JOAN OF ARC

and depths, with human faith unsurpassably en-
during and triumphant, is shown in Joan of Arc
as in no other human being in all the history of
mankind. No other life, inside and out, is so thor-
oughly revealed as a human document.

Tennyson in his Dream of Fair Women speaks
of her as

"Joan of Arc
A light of ancient France."

But she is supremely more. In exalting the vi-
sion of her, we are lifting on high her Light of
Faith, which can be neither described nor exag-
gerated, and the light of France is seen to be the
Light of the world.

Lamartine in his study of Joan of Arc says,
"All nations have in their annals some of those
miracles of patriotism in which a woman is the
instrument in the hands of God. When every-
thing is desperate in the cause of a people, we
need not yet despair, if the spirit of resistance
still subsists in the heart of woman. . . . This is
the concentrated recoil and reaction of a whole
nation condensing its sufferings into the heart of
one, compressing its universal wail into the shriek
of a woman, and thus marvelously accomplish-
ing by a single hand the salvation of all. . . . En-
thusiasm is a holy fire : its flame can not be ana-
lyzed. . . . Such is the spirit of this history, — a
history more resembling a story from the Bible
than an episode of the modern world. . . . Her

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 21

mission was simply the bursting into action of pa-
triotic faith. She lived in it, and died through it,
and she was lighted to victory and to heaven by
the flame of her enthusiasm as well as of her
funeral pyre. Angel, maiden, warrior, martyr,
she has become a fit blazon for the soldier's ban-
ner,— a type of France."

Shakespeare in King Henry VI wrote a wonder-
ful prophecy of her fame :

"No longer in Saint Dennis will we ery
But Joan la Purcelle shall be France's Saint."

When all the world thought her bad, he said in
the same play:

"No; misconceived Joan of Arc hath been
A virgin from her tender infancy,
Chaste and immaculate in every thought;
Whose maiden blood, thus vigorously effused
Will ery for vengeance at the gates of heaven."

8. The Price Paid for Civilization

Joan of Arc is probably the greatest human ex-
ample that ever lived of what constitutes the di-
vinity in man; that is, the faith which elevates
human nature above all the powers of the world.

The exalted faith of the Maid of Orleans and
the work she wrought that no man could do, makes
of her a singular type of symbolism for woman.

Thomas De Quincey says, "Pure, innocent,
noble-hearted girl! . . . this was amongst the

22 JOAN OF ARC

strongest pledges of thy truth, that never once
didst thou revel in vision of coronets and honor
from man. ... To suffer and to do, that was thy
portion in this life, that was thy destiny."

Ida Tarbell in her brief review of Joan's life,
when speaking of the inquisition says, ''They
went to her when she was ill and likely to die.
But they could not touch this clean white thing.
It slipped through their fingers like a ray of
light."

Samuel L. Clemens in his Joan of Arc says,
' ' The character of Joan of Arc is unique. It can
be measured by the standards of all times without
misgiving or apprehension as to the result.
Judged by any of them, judged by all of them, it
is flawless, it is still ideally perfect, it still occu-
pies the loftiest place possible to human attain-
ment. ' '

What, then, is the loftiest place possible in hu-
manity but loyalty to the ideal of human life
known to us in its highest consciousness of mind
as faith in God.

The splendid characterization made by Mark
Twain in his preface, continues, "She was per-
haps the only entirely unselfish person whose
name has a place in profane history. No vestige
or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any
word or deed of hers. . . . Joan of Arc, a mere
child in years, ignorant, unlettered, a poor village
girl, unknown and without influence, found a great
nation lying in chains, helpless and hopeless un-

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 23

der an alien dominion, its treasury bankrupt, its
soldiers disheartened and dispersed, all spirit tor-
pid, all courage dead in the hearts of the people.
. . . she laid her hand upon this nation, this
corpse, and it arose and followed her. She led it
from victory to victory, she turned back the tide
of the Hundred Years' War . . . earned the title
of Deliverer of France . . . and French priests
took the noble child, the most innocent, the most
lovely, the most adorable the ages have produced,
and burned her alive at the stake."

Carlyle, severe critic as he was, describes "The
radiance of her heart ... as clouds are gilded
by the orient light into something more beautiful
than azure itself. ' ' Ghiizot declares that * ' History
does not offer a like example so pure and effica-
cious resting on divine inspiration and patriotic
hope." Andrew Lang wrote that "Spenser and
Ariosto could not create, and Shakespeare could
not imagine, such a being as Jeanne d'Arc. "

9. The Bright and Morning Star

Previous to the time of Joan of Arc, France
could hardly be called a nation. There was no
unity of language, allegiance or government.
Joan of Arc was not only the heart from which
France came forth delivered and restored, but
also created and established. It is not enough to
call her the Deliverer of France, but, measuring
her by the soul and mind she gave to the masses

24 JOAN OF ARC

of the French people, she was herself France, the
mind and soul of France.

For a hundred years before the time of Joan
of Arc, wars had swept over France like a pesti-
lence and had left a trail of ruin like a hurricane.
Petrarch visiting France about sixty years before
her time says, "Nothing presented itself to my
eyes but a fearful solitude, an extreme poverty,
lands uncultivated, houses in ruins."

De Seres about a score of years before her birth
describes the unhappy land in the same terms,
saying, "In sooth the estate of France was most
miserable. There appeared nothing but a horri-
ble face, confusion, poverty, desolation, solitari-
ness and fear."

What a life into which a child should be born !
What could it have of social mind for the mean-
ing of humanity! In such conditions was born a
mind that did not believe this way to be the desire
of God, and that girl of faith became for all time
the noblest knight of Europe and one of the king-
liest characters of all the world.

Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, said,
"Consider the unique and imposing distinction.
Since the writing of human history began, Joan
of Arc is the only person of either sex who has
ever held supreme command of the military forces
of a nation at the age of seventeen."

Truly that distinction is quite unparalleled and
strange, but far more amazing than this spectacu-
lar distiii <L*'vn is the faith she found and kept.

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 25

Voices, power, glory and martyrdom are wonder-
ful enough, but the sounds she heard in the vesper
bells, the victory of mighty assaults against con-
querors, the confusion she brought upon the black
wit of monstrous men, and the agony of chains
and fire, are all merely the unaccountable wonders
that attend her as incidents, giving historical body
to the power of faith possible in the human soul.
According to the most reliable descriptions
gathered from those who knew her, she was a
little above medium height and of strong endur-
ing body. Her eyes were of dark blue, her hair
long, thick and very dark. Her face was of boy-
ish cast, but so fair, clear and brave that it was
beautiful and trustworthy from the first glance
of the observer. In her moments of reserve or
resolution, she had the stolid look of the op-
pressed peasant, but it was said that when the
enthusiasm of her faith was in some great test
of realization, her whole being was quickened
with power, her face shone with such a noble zeal
that cowards turned to fight unto death for her
cause, irreligious blasphemers became decent and
orderly in conduct, brigands quit their plundering
to become patriots, and many an observer sud-
denly cried out in all sincerity, "Behold the face
of an angel." Only gospel-hardened priests,
prayer-palsied ecclesiastics, and the mad logicians
of the Church universities were perverted enough
from Christian faith to be untouched by her di-
vine purpose, and to be merciless in the presence

26 JOAN OF ARC

of her wonderful womanhood. The life she gave
to Faith affords the most obvious evidence that
when the mind becomes fast-locked in the logic of
individual will it is without mercy or justice, and
in Satanic sovereignty fulfills itself without re-
gard to man or God.

The universe, as embodied in nature, in the cre-
ative process of man, has not entrusted his most
essential and vital interests either to his intellect
or his will. They are too weak, unreliable, insuf-
ficient and limited. The heart does not beat and
the brain does not work according to intellect or
will. Neither is birth or death a process in the
wisdom of man, but as children need the intelli-
gence and will of parents, so do the mature need
the intelligence and will of society, even as society
is safe only in the intelligence and will of the uni-
verse. In such "justification by faith" lived and
died Joan of Arc. Her life appears with meaning
according to the interest or need that approaches
it. As a patron saint of France, she is no less a
patron-meaning to Americans.

Creasy, in his analytical discussion of the bat-
tles that have been most important in the process
and progress of civilization, ranks her victorious
struggle at Orleans as one of the * * fifteen decisive
battles of the world, ' ' and thus places her, for that
alone, as one of the greatest benefactors, and
among the foremost warriors of history. More
than that, this lowly girl gave a life, as loyal as
was ever known, in illustrious revelation of the

INTRODUCTORY INTERESTS 27

religious principle that became the protestant ref-
ormation. As her Lord was the greatest martyr
of humanity, so was she the greatest martyr of
Christianity, for that freedom of conscience in +Si*
which "the just shall live by faith." Nearly a *J
hundred years before Martin Luther nailed his <x>
fundamental propositions on the cathedral door,
she perished at the stake for her loyalty to a life
of "justification by faith," and that life was af-
terward enrolled among the saints by the Roman
Catholic church.

Historians find a completed period of ancient
civilization revealing its characteristic achieve-
ments around the cross of Christ, and likewise,
the mediaeval period, known as the dark ages,
came to a close defining itself around the stake
that held Joan of Arc. The flames that lighted her
soul through the gates of glory illuminated the
degenerate despotism of the Middle Ages, as the
cross illustrated the selfish masteries of the an-
cient world. The lessons of both are supreme
with divine meaning for the American people and
the progress of human life. The Carpenter Man
built a place in "the house of many mansions"
for all the children of faith, and he prepared the
Way which the shepherd girl kept, through every
tribulation, revealing how all may keep the Faith
and Way on and on as the Kingdom of God.

CHAPTER H
ORIGINS FOR A WONDERFUL FAITH

1. The People and the Times

AN ancient prophecy in France, that was re-
vived about the year 1400, was that the kingdom
would some time be brought to ruin by a woman
and would be restored by a daughter of the peo-
ple. The popular version was that a maid would
come out of the deep forests of the Vosges that
were visible from the doors of the village Dom-
remy.

The first part of the prophecy was already true.

Queen Isabeau of Bavaria had been married at
the age of fourteen to Charles VI, a youth of
twenty-four, who was old with licentious dissipa-
tion and weak from every exhaustive emotion of
excess. For thirty years he was an amiable im-
becile, most of the time too weak in mind to care
for himself. His wife for her cruelty and in-
trigues became known and hated as the she-wolf
of the kingdom. Bloody civil wars demoralized
and degraded the nation. Then it was that Henry
V of England -thought the time ripe to assert the
ancient claim of the Plantagenets to the crown of
France. At the famous battle of Agincourt, in

28

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 29

1415, he destroyed the French army and then went
home to complete the conquest later at his leisure.
In the days that followed, it is said that children
died in the streets of the cities like flies, for hun-
ger, and wolves came into Paris at night and fed
on the unburied bodies of the dead. Life became
worthless, men went wild in horrible deeds and
vast numbers of the people lived like beasts.

The King of England returned in 1419, and
completed his conquest with the siege of Rouen.

Isabeau, courting the favor of Henry V, dis-
owned her son and gave her daughter as wife to
the English king, thus confirming his authority
as king of France. The following year Henry V
died and his infant son was proclaimed king of
England and France.

2. The Lawful Heir to an Outlawed Throne

Meanwhile, the imbecile husband of Queen Isa-
beau, Charles VI, had died, and a few unrecon-
ciled French knights proclaimed his son Charles,
the dauphin, as king of France, and began to
gather an army around his standard.

Charles VII was only nineteen years of age,
and little better mentally than his father, though
morally, strange to say, a much more respectable
man. His attempts to regain the territory of
France were crushed in two great defeats, and he
retired to live inactive in the seclusion of Poitiers.
But terrible marauding parties in his name, and

JOAN OF ARC

under cover of patriotism, devastated the sur-
rounding country until it became a wilderness
where no peaceful citizens dared to live. The
whole country was in a state of anarchy and utter
ruin. At last even hope was lost, when suddenly
there arose a power in the valley of the Meuse.
It was as if the other portion of the ancient proph-
ecy was about to come true, and that "a maid of
the people" had been divinely called to redeem
the land from the curse of a woman.

3. Childhood of the Wonderful Womcm

Historical evidence, according to the most emi-
nent authorities, seems to verify the date January
6, 1412, as the day when a child was born unique
in the history of civilization.

Jeanne d'Arc, romantically known as "the
Maid of Orleans," was the fourth child of Jacques
d'Arc, a prosperous villager of Domremy, on the
left bank of the Meuse in the lowlands of Lor-
raine. Strange to say, for that far off period,
now more than five hundred years ago, we have
the most minute descriptions of her life, abun-
dantly given from both herself and her neigh-
bors, and it is all as authentic as any other sworn
testimony in history. She says of herself, "I
learned well to believe, and have been brought up
well and duly to do what a good child ought to
do." She had a truly wonderful mother whose
name was Isabeau Romee, her given name being

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 31

the same as that of the wicked queen and the sur-
name indicating a parentage that had some time
earned the name Romee by a pious pilgrimage to
Rome.

There was much that was marvelous attested
by many witnesses, but the marvelous, whether
accepted or rejected, in no way alters the wonder-
working faith of her life. Her mother had a very
vivid dream, which she told to many friends, that
she would give birth to a great warrior. Merlin
the warlock had made a prophecy, that had be-
come famous in those suffering regions, that "A
wonderful Maid would come from the regions of
the Oak Wood for the healing of the nations."
Marie d 'Avignon had suffered so many things in
a dream that she came with it to the mad king
Charles VI, declaring that a Maid was to put on
armor and be the salvation of France. The won-
der-world recorded these interests as essential to
her history or as necessary to the explanation of
her life, but whether so or not, she had the faith
that was greater than will and revealed a way
that we now know is the heritage of every normal
believer in the righteous might of the moral uni-
verse.

4. Wonder-Stories Told by Credulous Neighbors

Boulainvilliers wrote a letter to the Duke of
Milan in which he says that on the night when
Joan was born, a strange ecstasy possessed all

82 JOAN OF ARC

the peasants of Domremy and throughout the
night they ran around through the darkness be-
side themselves as of something marvelous that
had come to pass. They sang sweet songs and
danced in rhythmic figures, in token of the salva-
tion they felt coming to their devastated country.

It would take volumes to tell all the wonder-
stories recorded of her childhood, but they only
increase the evidence of the pathetic yearning
magnifying every expression of hope in the minds
of the suffering people. It may explain the mean-
ing of her wonderful life to see in her the psycho-
logical demonstration of a religious patriotic
mind, becoming the organizing center of environ-
ment for the social process of making the world
safe for the rights of man.

Boulainvilliers, according to investigations
made twenty years after her death, among the
people of Domremy, tells how they understood
that the idea of her mission first came into her
mind. She with her girl playmates were watch-
ing their sheep, when they decided to run a race
for some flowers. Joan seemed to fly to the goal.
Her companions declared that her feet did not
touch the ground. When they reached her they
found her in an ecstasy among the flowers. Then
she said that a youth standing near her had told
her to go home as her mother wanted her. But,
on returning to the house, she found her mother
displeased that she had left the sheep. So, think-
ing that a joke had been played upon her, she

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 33

returned to the meadow. But all was hid from
view by a bright cloud out of which came a voice
bidding her to change her way of life, so as to be
more prayerful, because the King of Heaven had
chosen her to do marvelous deeds for the king
of France. This was in the summer of 1425, when
she was thirteen years of age. She was greatly
troubled what to do, when, a few days later, ac-
cording to the records of her story, as she was
alone in the fields, Michael, the Warrior of Heav-
en, came to her and revealed to her what she
should do to make herself strong for her task
to save France.

However superstitious in origin the prophecies
were, arising out of the pitiful miseries of the peo-
ple in that ignorant age, and however much the
ignorance and the suffering gave rise to the career
of this strangely inspired girl, there yet remains
the clear vision of her loyal struggle against
wrong, which reveals to actual experience the in-
finite social difference between faith and will in
the freedom and morality of man. The life of her
which we need most to know, in the present prog-
ress of society, is that of the real woman divested
of the ignorance and superstition of the times.
She is not to be seen even in the light of her own
explanations, because it can hardly be supposed
that she clearly knew herself or understood the
dreadfully beclouded way. Her faith in the pres-
ence of righteous might for human rights may

34 JOAN OF ARC

have been miraculous, but the miracle is equally
ready for every normal mind.

Perhaps it is miraculous for some one in an
age of chaos to do the right thing in the right
way, and to gather a collective mind sufficient for
victory in a great cause of humanity, but her sur-
roundings no more explain the origin of her char-
acter, or the loyalty of her career, than Athens
created Socrates or Jerusalem accounts for
Christ. She often went where she did not know,
and her own eternal urge, welling up from the
infinite depths of her being, were believed by her
to be this voice divine, saying to her, "Go on,
Daughter of God, go on," and it was enough for
leader and guide to victory and to death.

•
5. Explaining the Miracle of Faith

The Maid of Orleans is wholly enveloped in a
cloud of imagination composing the surrounding
public mind. Some try to picture her as a little
country girl incapable of the deeds recorded of
her. In order to explain the vast national events
that took place in her name, they make her appear
to be only a most visionary mystic used as a dupe
through which ambitious leaders could control and
unify the people. Religious writers account for
the stupendous results as possible only from one
directly inspired and strengthened for this great
work by Divine Providence. Others of merely
material views, believing that she herself initiated

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 35

and developed the power that restored France,
have accounted for her as being a great military
genius, able to see what should be done, and thus
seeing, was able to convince able men that, through
her leadership, they could reach success. Some
account for it all by picturing brave soldiers wait-
ing, as it were, ready for the word that she hap-
pened to give, but the history of various tragic
events bears no such appearance.

The many histories that have thus been built
upon her career, each pictures a woman wholly
distinct in character and personality from the
others. There is nothing with which to refute the
argument for either of these various historical
characters known to us as Joan of Arc, but, from
a common-sense view of the whole situation, the
real woman appears to be only one thing, and that
is faith in the presence of God and His righteous
might being in all work done for the rights of
man. Exalted in the intelligence and power of
that faith she moved on her way through the
swarming hosts of both good and evil to the final
restoration of a national France.

As we read the critical delineations that have
been labeled Joan of Arc, they each seem so con-
sistent as to appear quite convincing, even down
to the trial when she suffered martyrdom as a
witch, when it looked as if it were historically set-
tled that she had duped all her followers and had
been the dupe of ambitious men. It could truly
be said of her, in paraphrase of another Wonder-

36 JOAN OF ARC

ful Vision in human history, "She could save
France but herself she could not save.'*

6. A Glimpse at Simple Childhood

We have abundant evidence, unmistakably au-
thentic, that the little country girl of Domremy
grew up healthy and strong, wholesome and happy
as her companions, indistinguishable from the
other bright and well-kept children of her age.
She was surrounded by superstitions and relig-
ious fancies that were almost a normal condition
considering the equal distribution of such pious
imagination among all the people. Wild boars
and wolves abounded in the near-by forests and
sprites and fairies peopled the streams and mead-
ows. Charms and spells and prayers of many
varieties were believed to be necessary to protect
life and promote every interest.

At her trial in Rouen, she talked freely as a
child about these things to her judges, but never-
theless she used the most commendable wisdom,
considering the fearful meaning all her words
might bear for her before those men, and the prej-
udiced ignorance that possessed all concerning
such ideas. She told her judges that she had never
seen such things though her godmother, who was
a truthful woman, had seen many visions of spir-
its and fairies.

There was a great oak in Domremy, which the
people believed to be the home of the fairies. The

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 37

Lords of the Manor each year held a great festi-
val there and the children danced around the tree
and sang songs. The judges at Rouen, so cruelly
trying to fasten on her the charge of being a witch,
asked her about that tree. She described the
scenes, and her language was written down and
is still preserved, in which she said, "I have often
seen the little girls putting garlands on the
branches of this tree, and I myself have some-
times put them there with my companions. Some-
times we took the garlands away, sometimes we
left them. Since I have grown up I do not re-
member to have danced there. I have danced
there with other children, but I have sung there
more than danced."

One of the stanzas the girls sang thoughtlessly
around the Fairies' Tree was:

"Airy fairy of the tree
Made of dust and dew and fire,
Now no bigger than the bee,
Taller now than tallest spire,
Grant my heart's desire to me,
Grant to me my heart's desire."

7. A Great Pity for France

The religious mind of such a devoted soul might
easily have become possessed of the faith that she
was the Maid to be called from heaven to restore
God's kingdom in France. She may have so con-
secrated herself to such an idea that all her mind
and soul and body grew up to that divine end.

38 JOAN OF ARC

But even so, this in no way invalidates the power
of faith within her for great deeds in the rights
of man as the cause of God.

At last the time came in the midst of prayerful
meditation when she heard a voice proclaiming
her as the one chosen to restore France. So she
trained herself in saintly ways, not as a mystic,
but as one doing God's work in the world. It was
said in the sworn testimony of one who knew her
well that, "In her village she passed for a pru-
dent, industrious girl of blameless behavior, God-
fearing and charitable, a daughter to be a bless-
ing in her father's house." This does not de-
scribe a mystic but the mind of a common-sense
girl. She grew up to be a beautiful and stately
young woman, eager to understand the times and
the people of her country.

As to the miraculous in her mind, one thing is
sure, she did not receive her inspiration from any
experience in Domremy. As she said, "I felt the
great pity there was in France." In her belief,
it was God's kingdom then in the hands of his ene-
mies, and her faith was that any effort against the
enemies of right would have the protection and
help of God.

8. Voices and the Summons to Faith

Joan's visions began, according to her own
story, in the midst of the times when all the sur-
rounding country was being ravaged by bandits

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 39

from the various army camps of invading forces.
Domremy had somehow escaped these savage
raids. Only once had the village been looted and
all the stock driven off. But even then, prompt
help arrived, as by chance, the robbers were fol-
lowed, driven off and the cattle restored.

It was soon after this, when, one May day at
noon, according to one of the records, she was at
work in her father's garden, which was between
her home and the church, a small plot of ground
alongside the graveyard. She says that she sud-
denly became aware of a bright light on her right
side toward the church. In the midst of the light
was a colossal figure of the archangel Michael,
surrounded by his angels. She said she recog-
nized the figure at once as Saint Michael because
she had often seen his image in churches. She
was much frightened but the vision soon faded
away. But after that the vision returned fre-
quently and she felt a wonderful peace of soul
whenever the white light shone about her. Pres-
ently she ventured to ask what the saint wanted
of her and the reply came like the sound of vesper
bells, "Be a good girl" was the burden of every
response. "Be a good girl, Jeannette, be a good
girl and God will aid thee."

One day the voice said, " Saint Catherine and
Saint Margaret will come to thee. Act according
to their advice; for they are appointed to guide
thee and counsel thee in all that thou hast to do,
and thou mayst believe what they shall say unto

40 JOAN OF ARC

thee." Presently they came and she so loved
them that she wished they could have taken her
away with them.

At first their voices and their desire were not
clear, except that she must help France. Then
she took these voices as her guide, they became
her voice of faith, and she gave them the last full
measure of human devotion, asking nothing but
the salvation of her soul.

9. From Whence Cometh Faith

She was full of prophesying and, girl-like, could
not keep her secret. On the eve of St. John's,
probably a month after she had made her first
effort to interest the military commander, she met
a well-behaved boy whom she knew well, and she
said, " Michel Lebuin, between Coussey and Vau-
couleurs is a girl, who, in less than a year from
now, will lead the Dauphin to Rheims and cause
him to be anointed King of France."

Another day she met Gerardin d'Epinel, a good
man whom she did not like because he was un-
friendly to the cause of France. Though she had
taken the place at the baptismal font as godmoth-
er to his infant son, she could not tell him clearly
what was flowering in her soul, yet she said, "You
gossip, if you were not a Burgundian there is
something I would tell you."

Her endeavors to be good as her voices told her
did not mean the suppressing of her being the one

ORIGINS FOR A FAITH 41

chosen to restore the kingdom from the ruin of
Queen Isabeau. All the village knew her dreams,
and, while some wondered, many pointed to her
mockingly, saying, "There goes she who is to re-
store the royal house and redeem France."

No one of all her critics has ever thought of
questioning her sincerity. All students of her his-
tory know that she believed what she said. There
could be no doubt among her neighbors nor the
people of her time, as to her being inspired.
Every one from the home peasants to the learned
doctors from the University of Paris believed
she had supernatural guidance. The only ques-
tion was, whether her visions and voices came
from Satan or God. This question was as easily
settled then as are questions of good or bad set-
tled now. Was it for or against the person pass-
ing judgment? If against, then it was of Satan;
if for, then it was of God. Those whom she op-
posed, when they had her body in their power,
burnt her; those who at last realized her value
to their needs, were honest enough, when they
could do nothing better, to redeem her name and
declare her a saint. We may not always be sure
when judgment is free from will. But the great
idea was not her value for or against, it was the
revelation of faith as the infinite meaning and
power of life in victory over death and hell. This
revelation is not mystic, nor superstitious, nor re-
ligious, but the natural recognition of eternal con-
sistency in the moral universe.

CHAPTER HI

EARLY INTERESTS IN THE GREAT
CAUSE

1, In the Lowlands of Lorraine

IN the river Meuse, near Domremy, there was
an island in the center of which was an ancient
fortified castle, partially in ruins. Joan's father
with other land proprietors leased the island as
a place where they could drive their flocks and
defend themselves, when endangered by the
hordes of zuffians that ranged over the country
ravaging and slaying at will in the name of the
insane king and the wicked queen. On holidays
the people had festivals on the romantic island
and the children played at battles and sieges.

How we can dream of what visions might have
passed through the mind of the wonder-child as
she wandered about through those romantic ruins !
Could she in her wonderful imagination restore
the battling hosts that had surged around those
walls, and the victorious displays made by the
Lords of War! What did she dream prophetic
of her immortal name and what did she see of
crowns and kings and the courtly world!

Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, was a man of

42

EARLY INTERESTS 43

popular influence and strong character. Two
years before Joan declared her mission, lie had a
disturbing dream. He awoke with the noise of
battle in his ears and a vision in his eyes of his
daughter riding away in armor with men of war.
He furiously declared to his sons that such a
dream was a terrible dishonor, and must not come
true. "If such a thing should happen," he said,
"you must drown her or I will."

However little or much we may believe in super-
natural visitations, or the testimony that endeav-
ors to describe them as experiences, we do not yet
know enough to dismiss them from the life of
Joan of Arc, and equally that same ignorance is
unable to demand that they be accepted as com-
munications from supernatural truth.

2. Hopeless Misery and Superior Faith

Joan lived in an age of faith, though it was often
blind in credulities of ignorance, but there can be
no doubt that her mind was religious wholly in
every essence, that she was in all truth a sublime
religious soul. In a distracted and suffering
world, how else could such a soul live except as a
dedicated spirit, dedicated to the greatest need
of her time. Is it not so of the saints and martyrs
and heroes of all ages? The religious soul is the
dedicated life. The religious mind has a work to
do and for such cause was it brought into the
world. There is probably no other mission for

44 JOAN OF ARC

any one brought into the world and no other hu-
man reason for any one being born.

She can not be classed as a mystic, for religious
mysticism has more the appearance of religious
hypnotism. She lived only to realize her faith in
works. There was in her no characteristic of the
mystic. She was quick with expedients, always
intelligent and alert, always living normally the
life around her. Orthodox symbols and methods
were a part of her religious customs, but her faith
drove straight to the mark and she had little use
in her mission for clerks, priests and diplomats.
According to her view, the king was entitled to his
throne only as he dealt right with his people as a
political agent of God. Almost the first idea we
find her mind centering upon was, as she said, "I
had a great will and desire that my king should
have his kingdom.'* Everything she could reach
was used to nourish and enlighten that desire, but
she none the less believed in being a good girl
and a normal woman.

She testified at Eouen, in answer to her judges,
"I learnt to spin and sew, and in spinning and
sewing, I fear no women in Rouen."

3. Preparation and Understanding

It is said that she eagerly listened to the vari-
ous wayfaring men, stragglers and traveling mer-
chants who came through her village, and she was

EARLY INTERESTS 45

incessantly endeavoring to learn about the armies,
the wars and the enemies of France.

Her parents were anxious for her to marry and
they insisted on pressing the suit of a favorable
lover, but Jeanne had sworn a vow of chastity
and she believed there was a greater mission in
store for her than marriage. The youth even
brought suit against her in the courts, doubtless
with the connivance of her parents, to compel her
to marry him, but she appeared in person before
the magistrate to plead her own cause, and she
won the case. This was in 1428 when her family
had been driven out of Domremy by the English
army and had taken refuge in Neuf chateau, where
she had to mingle with the rough soldiers and en-
dure many distressing trials of faith and endur-
ance.

The written testimony of thirty-four persons
who knew her childhood intimately was taken in
the year 1439, so that in all things relating to the,
common affairs of her life, the evidence is prac-
tically unimpeachable. These commonplace inter-
ests, giving us a living woman and her priceless
inspiration for humanity, are what we need most
to know of her, as a meaning and example for
faith as being the greatest power for right life.
It matters little how much we accept or reject of
her voices and visions, or the superstitions and
miracles of her times, provided we cherish the
inexhaustible riches of her loyalty and love for
man and God.

46 JOAN OF ARC

4. Records Seventy Years Before the Discovery
of America

Nicolas Bailey examined fifteen witnesses in
Domremy for the English judges in 1431, and,
when twenty-eight witnesses were examined in
1456, he said that their testimony as to Joan and
her family was the same as those he had exam-
ined twenty-five years before. The confusions of
records, that make it impossible to write a con-
sistent and consecutive history of her sayings and
deeds, in no way invalidate an unmistakable ideal
to be seen in the harmony of her mind and in the
principles for which she sacrificed her life.

Many theories have been offered to account for
Joan of Arc, but she can hardly be thought of as
merely a religious puppet managed as the tool of
ambitious men, especially when we consider the
accounts of her long, persistent struggle through
almost insurmountable discouragements and de-
feats to get a chance to lead her people against
their enemy. When she did so, there are numer-
ous indisputable instances where there was no re-
liance but upon her own strategy, which was exe-
cuted by her in the best of military art for vic-
tory.

It was said of her that "whatever confronted
her, whatever problem she encountered, whatever
manners became her in novel situations, she un-
derstood in a moment. She solved the problems,
she assumed the manners, she met the rain of ar-

EARLY INTERESTS £T

rows and bullets, she faced doctors and clerks,
she animated her soldiers as did Napoleon four
centuries later, she spoke and acted like a captain,
like a clerk, or like an experienced woman of the
world, as the need of the hour required," and all
this when she was not yet eighteen years of age.

5. The Testimony of Nearest Friends

Michelet says, "It was by no means rare to see
women take up arms. They often fought in sieges :
witness the eighty women wounded at Amiens.
In La Pucelle's day, and in the self-same year as
she, the Bohemian women fought like men in the
wars of the Hussites. The originality of La Pu-
celle, the secret of her success, was not her cour-
age or her visions, but her good sense. Amidst
all her enthusiasm the girl of the people clearly
saw the question, and knew how to resolve it."

Michelet believes she was one of those who can
be described only as a genius, and yet, so won-
derful as to seem explainable only as a miracle.
But there have been so many of this extraordi-
nary genius that were found to be so merely in
the trivial and worthless, that they could be clas-
sified only as freaks of nature arising from the
unknowable conditions of mind.

Michelet records the testimony of Haumette,
Jeanne's heart-to-heart childhood friend, who
says, ' * She was a good girl, so simple and gentle.
She spun and attended in the house, no different

4g JOAN OF ARC

from other girls." He notes the testimony of
Simonin Mousnier, a laborer, who said, " All loved
her because she nursed the sick and was charitable
to the poor. I was a child and when I was sick
she nursed me." Others in the village of Dom-
remy are on record as saying that she was the
best girl that they ever knew, that "she grew up
strong and beautiful and true."

Jean Waterin, one of her nearest friends, a
youth of good repute, near her own age, tells of
many instances showing her sincere piety, and he
testified before the tribunal of restoration that
he several times heard her say that she was the
maid who had been chosen to deliver France and
crown the rightful king. Many of her playmates
describe how happy-hearted, patient, tender and
devoted she was to all who needed her cheer and
help. Isabellette, her neighbor's daughter, says
that no one ever saw Jeanne loitering along the
road or idling away any of her time. Mengette
was with her in their first communion at the par-
ish church and she chided Jeanne with being too
deeply in earnest, that she must not take the serv-
ice so much to heart. The bell-ringer of the
church tells how Jeanne scolded him when he for-
got to ring for the service. ' l She said I had done
wrong. Then she promised me some wool of her
flock if I would be more thoughtful. ' '

These beautiful little revelations of child char-
acter come to us through the centuries back from
an age long before the discovery of America.

EARLY INTERESTS 49

And yet, then as now, it shows how each wonder-
working mind has been one of the utmost sim-
plicity, self-forgetfulness, and singleness of pur-
pose.

One of her companions, testifying as to her
character, said, "She never swore by any of the
saints, and to affirm strongly she was satisfied to
say, * without fail.7 She was no dancer, and some-
times when the others were singing and dancing
she went to prayer."

6. Superstitions 'Alien to Faith

There was great wrong hovering around the
village of Domremy. The little maid whose mind
was sensitive, and yet strong enough to appreci-
ate the disorder, knew that what she saw was in-
harmonious with the supreme idea she had of God
as the maker of heaven and earth. Domremy was
in the marshes of Lorraine near the Burgundian
border, and in constant fear of her hated neigh-
bors. Every few days the village boys came back
from the fields from bloody frays with the ag-
gressive youths who crossed the border to punish
the Armagnacs.

"Many a time," she says, "I saw the children
of Domremy come back wounded and bleeding
from fighting with the ones who had come to them
out of the village of Maxey."

She knew that the system that made little chil-
dren fight was not of God. All that was needed
was a leader for God and He would give the vie-

50 JOAN OF ARC

toiy of peace that can come only in war against
the makers of war.

Jeanne was not superstitious. Her faith was
clear. That truth comes often to light through-
out the years, every day of which was thoroughly
searched through by her foes for the least morsel
against her, and then as strenuously searched
through a few years later by her friends for in-
disputable evidence that she was true. All of this
was recorded in sworn documents, most of which
are still to be seen in the archives of Paris.

Much was made of the Fairy Tree around which
the children of Domremy played, but she always
said of the superstitious claims, "Whether it be
true or not I do not know." And the evidence
is overwhelming that she did not care to know, for
the superstition of the Fairy Tree concerned her
faith and her mission no more than the discus-
sions of the learned doctors.

Her playmates all testified in their various
views under sworn statements how she joined
with them in their holiday plays about the Fairy
Tree, but whenever she could she slipped away
to the little near-by church and laid her garland
on the altar of Our Lady of Domremy.

Jean Waterin told how the children often
laughed at her for so much devotion to prayer.
"Often when we were all at play," he said,
"Jeanne would go away to be alone with God."
All loved her so that they tried to be good to her
and to her heart's desire.

EARLY INTERESTS 51

Hauviette was three years younger but she re-
garded it as a great joy when her mother allowed
her to go over and sleep with Jeannette. Mengette,
thirty years after, found the greatest happiness
of her life in being able to tell how she had gone
into the religious services with Jeanne in the feel-
ing that to be with her was to be near God. These
sworn testimonies from so many earnest persons
bear within themselves the evidence of being true,
and from the unceasing measure of such a relig-
ious soul must be considered every subsequent
phase of her wonderful life. Whatever is brought
forth contradictory to that loyal faith may well
be disregarded as foreign to the truth.

7. The Soul of Character and Life

Jeanne said, ' ' Kings are but lieutenants of their
Lord the King of Heaven," and she bravely as-
serted without fear or favor that their crowns
"no goldsmith on earth could fashion."

Euskin says, "The nobleness of life depends
upon its consistency, clearness of purpose, quiet
and ceaseless energy." Lord Bacon completes
the great idea when he says, * ' Man when he rest-
eth and assureth himself, upon divine Protection,
and Favour, gathereth a Force and Faith, which
Human Nature, in itself, could not obtain."

Such has been true of every noble character in
history, and it was brightly exemplified in the life
of Joan of Arc. No one has ever accused her of

52 JOAN OF ARC

living an intentional course of falsehood and no
one has ever doubted her sincerity concerning the
belief in her voices, whatever they were, or con-
cerning her mission, however it shaped her won-
derful way.

8. Guidance from the Depths of Mind

Much controversy has taken place over explana-
tions of the "voices" which Joan heard. As there
were legions of false Christs claiming to be Mes-
siahs, so there were legions of false " Maids"
claiming to be directed by "voices."

Her own recorded words about the voices, as
written down at the great trial, are as follows:
"When I was thirteen years old (or about thir-
teen) I had a voice from God, to help me in my
conduct. And the first time I was in great fear.
It came, that Voice, about midday, in summer
time, in my father's garden. I had not (this evi-
dently in answer to a question) fasted on the pre-
vious day. I heard the Voice from the right side
toward the church, and I rarely hear it without
seeing a light. The light is on the side from
which the Voice comes."

It is not an uncommon experience for persons
of sensitive and thoughtful temperaments to have
startling words "pop up," as it were, and, if cul-
tivated by one with such depths of power as Joan
of Arc, there might thus be visions and voices
such as came to her. The sound of vesper bells

53

often brought these voices to her, and it is not
uncommon for many to fancy voices in the varied
sounds of bells. But this in no wise lessens the
possibility of some divine possession in these su-
persensitive moments and there is no kind of ex-
planation that alters the personal power in her
faith or its' practical worth in character and
career.

9. The Task as Faith or Will

Jeanne very reluctantly yielded to her voices
telling her to go to the help of France. She says
that she would rather have been torn to pieces by
horses than to have gone on a mission so foreign
to her nature, if it had not been the voice of angels
from God. The almost insurmountable difficulty
may be understood when we know how conscious
she was of her weakness, that she had no friends
to help her, that her interests would be mistaken,
that it would be almost impossible for a peasant
girl, of only sixteen years of age, to see or con-
vince a king. Besides, it was four hundred and
fifty miles to the Dauphin's Chateau on the Loire,
and the way was through an enemy's country, in-
fested by robbers and murderers. But the voice
said she was born to do that work. Therefore,
there was a way, and in the cause of her Lord,
she must do it. Here the contrast and respective
service of faith and will may be seen and esti-
mated. She had no will to meet the unknown dan-
gers and difficulties that intelligence could see be-

54 JOAN OF ARC

setting the almost impossible way. The differ-
ence is in the fact that faith is the way of life,
and will is the way of individual judgment. In-
telligence is insufficient to be wise to a distant
purpose, and it is never reached as originally
willed, or found to be worth the value that first
inspired the way, but intelligence is always suffi-
cient for the process of perseverance, in which life
is a development of the infinite moral system.

Her task is not to be explained as being thought
out from any foresight of intelligence, and there-
fore could not have been planned out as any
achievement or triumph of will. The mystery is
not so much in her as in others. Gabriel Hano-
taux, in his studious analysis of her life, presents
four unexplained mysteries as the practical moral
interest in her career. The first relates to the
formation in her mind of the call to such unwaver-
ing perseverance ; the second is in her definite idea
to save Orleans and crown the king at Bheims;
the third, as in the case of Christ, the complete
abandonment of her by all her chosen friends;
and fourth, her unanimous condemnation, from
utterly innocent evidence, by the supposedly most
learned and judicially fair-minded conclave of re-
sponsible men in the world.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST BELIEVERS AND THEIR
TASK

1. Beginning to Remove the Mountains

IT was probably in May, 1428, that she no longer
doubted being called of God to right the wrongs
of France. She constantly said to her voices, ' * I
am a poor girl; I do not know how to ride or
fight." Even as Moses of enslaved Israel, it
seemed impossible for one so weak to be chosen
for so great a task. But perhaps faith is not
weak! The voices ever replied, "It is God Who
commands it." History had begun to repeat it-
self in the power of the words, * l God wills it. ' ' In
the meaning of those words may yet be found the
power of peace for all the world. The universe
has conceived the form of man out of its forces,
and, in the process of evolution, brought forth his
social intelligence in the rational order of its in-
finite system.

She had always been obedient in everything to
her parents, but now there was a higher call.
They could prevent her at the very beginning if
they knew, and her father had already been en-
raged, even in the suggestion of a dream, so that

55

56 JOAN OF ARC

he would rather drown her than, for her to go
away with soldiers.

She must get away from the control of her par-
ents, and it was a grievous thing, as she after-
ward confessed. She found a chance. There was
a cousin of her mother, by marriage, who lived at
Burey near Vaucouleurs. He needed some one to
help in his household and Jeanne was allowed to
go for that work. His name was Durand Lassois,
and on account of his age she called him uncle.

Lassois was a witness who gave his testimony
clearly, as the records show, and there is no rea-
son to doubt any part of his story.

She began her work upon him by asking, "Don't
you know the saying that France is to be made
desolate by a woman and afterward to be restored
by a maid?"

He had heard the prophecy, because it was a
common saying throughout all that country. She
told him of the Voices that had given her the mis-
sion to free France and crown the Dauphin at
Rheims. Lassois was impressed enough that he
brought a young man named Geoffrey du Fay into
council, and it was decided that she should visit
Baudricourt, who was the military commander
over that district.

We are indebted for an account of the visit to
a man named Poulengy, who was present when
Jeanne came into the presence of the military
commander. She told Baudricourt that she had
come with a message from the Lord and it must

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 57

be sent to the Dauphin. It was then the week of
the Ascension (May, 1428) and the message to the
Crown Prince was, "Let him guard himself well,
and not offer battle to his foes, for the Lord will
give him succor by mid-Lent. ' ' This would be by
March the next year. He was to be told that by
God's will she herself would lead the Dauphin to
be crowned at Rheims as Charles VII, King of
France. Furthermore, she said it must be under-
stood that the kingdom belonged to God, not to
the Dauphin, but that God desired the Dauphin
to hold the realm under Him.

Lassois, or, as he is often called, Laxart, was a
common laborer, and Joan in the coarse red cloth-
ing of the peasantry could hardly impress a hard,
rough soldier like Baudricourt, especially with
such a preposterous proposition as she brought.
He treated it as a joke. Poulengy, who was pres-
ent at the interview, said in his sworn testimony,
that Baudricourt, being licentious and vulgar,
thought to use her in an immoral way, but the
womanly dignity in her demeanor made it impos-
sible for him so much as to suggest it.

The commander's answer was to advise Las-
sois that he box the girl's ears and send her home
to her father. But the strange peasant girl would
not be turned aside and she boldly insisted. Then
Baudricourt suddenly drew his sword, loudly and
crossly saying, "What would your voices say to
this ! ' ' as he flourished it before her. As suddenly
she snatched a dagger from the belt of an attend-

58 JOAN OF ARC

ant, and brought it down upon his sword. The
knife went through his blade as through paper as
she cried, "My voices would say this!"

Baudricourt shrank back as from a miracle, and
said, "I'll see what I can do I"

2. The Mountains Begm to Move

Joan had made a prophecy from the voices that
was accordingly on the way to be fulfilled by
March. This, promise was to supply help to the
King in a national work of almost impossible
proportions, and she had so far failed to get even
a listener at home. Meanwhile the months
dragged by to January, within three months of
the appointed time.

During this time the most violent efforts were
being put forth by various commanders to retrieve
some of the fortunes of France, but with unceas-
ing disaster and defeat. But not an hour had been
lost by Jeanne. She was incessantly pleading with
any and all who might have influence to help her
somehow to reach the princely heir to the throne
and explain to him her mission.

"It is absolutely necessary," she incessantly
exclaimed, "that I should go thither, for so will
my Lord. It is on the part of the King of Heaven
that this mission is confided to me; and, were it
necessary that I repair thither on my knees, I
would go."

At last, public opinion in the district of Vau-

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 53

couleurs began to become zealous in her favor.
Her incessant conversation was like the preach-
ing of a new crusade. It became infection. The
people began to feel that such devout zeal could
not be untrue.

Her bold and confident pleadings among these
lowly commoners for a way, and her constantly
reiterated promises as a prophet of God, had no
prototype in history less than that of Peter the
Hermit, when he went up and down through Eu-
rope crying, "God wills it," that the Savior's
tomb should be delivered from the Infidel. But
his was the spectacular zeal of a long experienced
master of crowds and his cause was, in a large
measure, the pride of one religion against an-
other. The hosts of Europe were swept together
by a great storm of feeling and they gave their
lives only to failure and death. Hers was the
humble zeal of a young girl knowing only the
divine meaning in the rights of her people.

3. The Mountains Begin to Crumble

Lord de Baudricourt, military governor of the
province, could no longer withstand the public de-
mand to help her. But not being sure whether
she was insane or that it was of the devil, he de-
cided first on a test. Taking with him the priestly
enrobed curate of Vaucouleurs, he appeared sud-
denly at her door, so it is told in the depositions
of Catherine, wife of Henry, the blacksmith, where

60

she lived. In order to drive out any devils that
might be in her, the priest suddenly spread out
before her the broad-embroidered stole, from
around his neck, saying, "If you come in behalf
of the enemy of men, begone from our presence ;
but if it is upon the part of God, then remain. ' '

On seeing the use being made of the priestly
ornament, Jeanne fell humbly upon her knees, and
made fervent acknowledgment of her devotion to
the cause of God. The priest asked her many
questions to all of which she promptly replied,
so that the curate and the governor agreed that
it might be important enough for them to write a
letter to the uncrowned King.

Jean de Metz, a lawless and reckless freebooter
of the Armagnacs, though he nevertheless had
much influence in high court circles, heard of the
strange girl and he came through curiosity, about
this time, to the house where she was staying, in-
tending to make sport of her. But, when he be-
gan, with coarse familiarity, "My dear, what are
you doing here?" she told him clearly and so defi-
nitely that he was astonished. He then looked at
this Maid, clothed in the deep red of humble peas-
ants, with more than curious interest. He de-
clares, in his sworn statement, that he saw in her
appearance something impressive far above any-
thing ever before seen in any peasant girl. He
now asked her seriously to tell him what business
had brought her to Vaucouleurs. She replied, ' * I
am come to request of Robert de Baudricourt that

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 61

he will cause me to be conducted to the King,
either by himself or some other person; but he
does not concern himself either about me or what
I say. And yet it is absolutely necessary that I
see him before the middle of Lent, even if I am
compelled to wear my legs to the very knees in
the journey. For no living creature, nor kings,
nor dukes, nor the daughter of the King of Scot-
land, nor any others, can retake the kingdom of
France, since there is no succor for him save
through myself ; though I had much better like to
remain at home spinning by the side of my poor
mother ; for such is not a work fitted for me, yet,
I must go do it, for such is the will of the Lord."

"Who is this Lord!" inquired the visitor, and
she replied, "It is God."

In responsive enthusiasm, he knelt before her
kissing her hand and swore on his honor that if
God was their leader Jean de Metz would be her
knight and take her to the King.

"When do you wish to start?" he asked.

"Rather now than to-morrow," was the reply,
"rather to-morrow than any day after."

Surely, it may be well said that never had any
knight a nobler lady.

4. The Preparatory Interests of the Wonderful
Journey

One thing testifies unceasingly to the saneness
of mind with which Joan approached every task.

62 JOAN OF ARC

She never expected God to do anything for her
that she could do for herself. ' ' Men do the work, ' '
she said, * ' and only then is it so that God can give
the results.'*

Schiller in his "Maid of Orleans," referring to
her many authentic prophecies, has Johanna say
to one who was in despair for France:

"No ! there shall yet be wonders, — a white Dove
Is on the wing, and shall, with eagle boldness,
Assail these vultures that lay waste the land."

Jean de Metz asked her if she should go in the
red clothes she then wore. Women's skirts were
hardly possible for so long and hard a journey,
where peril and rough roads required freedom of
action. She said that she was willing to wear
men's clothes. Her new-found believer hastened
to have made for her a soldier 's uniform, the peas-
ants bought her a horse, and she was thus pre-
pared for the fateful journey. This knight, thus
wholly transformed in his attitude toward life,
was now in full sympathy with the long suffering
peasantry, who were yearning for any gleam of
hope in the right to live, and so together a way
was made, regardless of their humble impoverish-
ment, for her to begin her historical mission.

It is a marvelous freak of men's minds that
there should have been such extended controversy
concerning her use of men's clothes, rather than
women's, while she had to be with men. It took

FIRST BELIEFEES— THEIR TASK 63

up a large part of her trial and was the specific
charge of relapse into heresy, which brought about
her expulsion from the church to the stake. The
town folks of Vaucouleurs were the ones who first
believed in her, whose enthusiastic support made
Baudricourt act, and they were the ones who pre-
pared for her a soldier's uniform that she might
properly ride the horse they gave her, on the way
with the little band of sworn knights to see the
Dauphin.

5. On the Long, Perilous Way

This wonderful girl was practical beyond all
expectations and beyond any mystic visions of
the operations of special Providence. Her peas-
ant friends and the sanction of divine will were
not the means through which to get results in tem-
poral affairs. She must use temporal means for
temporal success.

She wanted the support of responsible men and
Baudricourt was persuaded not only to write fa-
vorably to the King, but he sent Poulengy as his
representative. Meanwhile, persons of high rank,
in the hopelessness of the times, were now begin-
ning to take notice of her. Charles, Duke of Lor-
raine, who was ill with an unknown and appar-
ently incurable disease, desired to use her sup-
posed divine power to get back his health. He
wanted the service of La Pucelle, the Maid, as
she was now becoming popularly known. She de-

64 JOAN OF ARC

cided to visit him. This was probably while she
was waiting for her soldier's uniform to be made
and for the equipment necessary for the journey
of several hundred miles. Her kinsman, Lassois,
took her to see this important friend. The Duke
made a deep inquiry into her claims but most of
all he desired her prayers that he might become
well. She told him prayers were useless so long
as he mistreated the duchess, his wife, who was
a noble and virtuous princess. Likewise, she had
a chief aim. She wanted him to cause his son,
Eene of Anjou, to conduct her mission to the
King. And thus of her own efforts, she had at
last enlisted a prince, if not in person, at least in
influence and interest, to lead her to the goal of
Voices.

Jeanne's parents had known something of her
efforts, but it was not until now that her father
realized that his dream of her was coming true,
and she was to march away with soldiers. Her
parents, in great consternation, set out in haste
for Vaucouleurs to stop their daughter from such
a mad enterprise. But it was too late. She wrote
a letter imploring their forgiveness, but she was
upon the Lord's business and could not turn back.

The expedition was indeed a hazardous enter-
prise and attended with considerable cost. Four
hundred and fifty miles was a long journey, es-
pecially through a land infested with lawless
bands of guerilla warriors, roving robbers, Eng-
lish freebooters, and Burgundian brigands. A

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 65

vast assembly from around Vaucouleurs came to
see her little conclave of seven persons start on
their momentous journey.

When the feeble little force set forth on the long,
dangerous way to the King, some one from the
crowd called out to Jeanne in warning, how dare
she face suoh peril, and she replied, "It was for
that I was born.'* So it was likewise centuries
before that a Son of Divine Faith had said when
brought face to face with the mailed fist of hu-
man will, "To this hour was I born." Faith
knows the way and the work. Only those born
of the will are limited to self and therefore blind
to the vision of humanity.

Again, when they came to a town, where she
could go into customary religious surroundings
suitable to the composure she needed, her escorts
protested against delay, but she said to them,
"Fear nothing. God clears the way for me. I
was born for this. ' ' The self or I that she and her
Savior knew was the divine faith in righteousness
as the God within them. To several childhood
friends from Domremy, who had expressed pri-
vately to her their anxiety for her safety, she cor-
respondingly expressed herself, "I do not fear
armed men. I have God for my Lord, Who will
make clear for me the road even unto my lord
the Dauphin."

Baudricourt had, with noteworthy considera-
tion, made each of her escort take oath for the
safe conduct of La Pucelle, and it is recorded

66 JOAN OF ARC

l^^™"***"*"*"^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^™ ™^^)

that they started on that wonderful way of faith,
fully convinced of a great mission, on the first
Sunday in Lent, the thirteenth of February, 1429.
According to most authorities this was a few days
after she was seventeen years old.

6. The Journey and the Great News

The sworn statements of those who accompa-
nied her, one of whom was her brother Pierre,
agree that, through all the terrors of their jour-
ney, La Pucelle was unafraid and the noble dig-
nity of her demeanor inspired them all with cour-
age to persevere. Jean de Metz says he felt to-
ward her as toward one sent from God. Bertrand
says she was as good as if she had been a saint.

After a hard, perilous journey of eleven days,
full of adventure and marvelous escapes, she ar-
rived at Fierbois, which was in the territory pro-
tected by the King and was therefore her first safe
resting place. From that place she wrote the
King a letter, telling of her desperate journey,
that she was acquainted with many things he
needed to know, and that she should know whether
she should enter the city where the King was.

The favorites of the King laughed loud in de-
rision because they did not want any one there
who might be a rival for his affections, especially
not a peasant girl from Domremy. The Arch-
bishop of Eheims was a learned politician and he
did not want any one else to share the honor of
any victory in the name of God.

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 67

But everybody had failed in France. The en-
emy was slowly mastering the siege of Orleans
and then even the little that was left of France
would be at the mercy of the conquering English.
Creasy, in his "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the
World," says that, among all the certainties re-
corded in history none seemed more clearly in-
evitable than that France was soon to disappear
as one of the nations of the earth. That a young
peasant girl should arrive at this desperate hour
capable of producing one of the most momentous
changes in all history, seems so incredible as to be
explainable only by miracle and Divine Provi-
dence.

Here was a young girl, attending three masses
in one day for her patron saint Catherine, who
had come with seven attendants, through an in-
credible journey of four hundred and fifty miles,
across the enemy 's country, and alighted without
mishap at the door of the pious lady in Fierbois.

"What God keeps is well kept," went with su-
perstitious awe from mouth to mouth. It seemed
as if in a few days all the people of France were
talking about the Maid from the marshes of Lor-
raine. The weary beleaguered citizens starving
to death in Orleans, heard of her and began talk-
ing of her as an angel sent from God for their
deliverance. They sent messengers who slipped
out through the besieging camps to inquire if it
were true. Even the English soldiers began to
ask questions and wonder. Some became fearful

68 JOAN OF ARC

and said, "What ! has God been sent against us I"
"Nay, rather say the devil," replied their relig-
ious counselors. But that was even worse and
more hopeless. They began to conjure up reasons
now why the Burgundian army would not help
them capture Orleans. Either God or the devil
against them would mean disastrous defeat. Hope
began to strew La Pucelle 's way with flowers and
fear began to grip the hearts of the enemy of
France. Already nearly every prayer in perish-
ing France bore to heaven the name of La Pucelle
the Angelic One.

A sign was appearing in the sky of men's
minds. The question began to arise whether
after all it could be that right was might, and was
it indeed true that the invader fought there in the
right with God.

7. The Test of the Divinely Appointed Mind

There was great confusion in the court of the
King. The royal council was divided about the
girl from distant Lorraine. But she was given
protection in the Castle Coudrey about three miles
from Chinon, the present home of the uncrowned
King of France. At the Castle Coudrey, she
was committed to the care of a lady of distin-
guished piety, wife of Bellier, who was master of
the royal household. Three of the King's coun-
cilors were sent to inquire into her mission.
Jean de Metz was on guard and he conducted
them to the interview. She was reluctant to tell

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 69

any one but the King. However after much per-
suasion she told them that she was sent of God
to raise the siege of Orleans and to crown the
Dauphin at Kheims.

The councilors reported to the Dauphin and
an appointment was made. Jean de Metz was
her body guard to the castle of the King.

Near the gate a horseman rode up with rude
jest and vulgar oath asking if she was the Maid
from Lorraine of whom so many were gossiping.
Looking at him sternly, she said, "How canst
thou deny God, when thou art so near death!"

Within that hour his horse had thrown him
into the castle moat, and the story of her proph-
ecy concerning the nearness of death, added to
the conviction that a prophetess had come, but
many dared not affirm surely that her inspiration
and power were not from hell. The curse of the
times then as now was not the question whether
her cause was right or wrong but from what
party did she come, and for whose pay was she
taking all this trouble. As usual, reason decided
for selfishness, and she was right for those who
profited as long as they profited, and wrong for
those whose will she opposed.

The court was called together, as was finally
decided upon, in the castle hall to receive her.
Three hundred knights, nobles and gentlemen
were assembled to see her. Fifty great torches
illuminated the aisles. This day, March 8, 1429,
was a historical crisis for France.

70 JOAN OF ARC

The Dauphin of France was dressed in civil-
ian's clothes, it is said on purpose to deceive
her, while others were robed in kingly garments.
But she went straight to the King and knelt at
his feet.

" Jeanne,*' he said, pointing to one of the richly
robed courtiers, " there is the King."

"Nay," she replied, "thou art the king and
none other. God give you good life, my gentle
lord."

Many thought there was a miracle in that
recognition, but doubtless his kind and gentle
features, from repeated descriptions, were al-
ready familiar to her. She was entirely too
practical and keen in observation not to know of
him, even as to his instability and weakness. If
he had been a regal man there would have been
no need for her to have been called to the great-
est of man's tasks from the sweet green fields of
Domremy. He would himself have delivered
France.

4 'By what name do you call yourself?" asked
the King.

"I am Jeanne the Maid," she replied.

"What is it that you want of me?" he further
asked.

"The King of Heaven sends me to save you
and your kingdom and to conduct you to Eheims
for your coronation."

The warriors in the room were scornful and
the courtiers were smiling in derision.

"THOU ART THE KING'

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 71

Rheims! it was in the very center of the ene-
mies' conquest. The road to Rheims was impas-
sable because of their fortified cities, castles and
armies.

But Charles, the Dauphin, was somehow se-
riously impressed. He led her away from the
jesting crowd and talked long and earnestly with
her. In that time she told him, so he said, some-
thing known only to himself and God. From
many sources, especially that of De Boissy, who
was the King's only confidant, there is a common
belief that he had prayed bitterly to know through
some sign from heaven that he was in reality the
true heir to the throne, and she had given him
that sign by telling him of his prayer, and con-
vincing him that he was indeed the legitimate
heir to the throne of France. It was bad enough
to be the son of Isabeau, who was not only vilely
immoral but had sold the kingdom to England.
The doubt was even worse that he might not be
the son of the late King of France.

There had been much reason for doubt, as his
enemies had been declaring, and his conscience
over this doubt had paralyzed his efforts in many
ways. It would also not do to let any one know
that he ever felt such doubts, so, in the fiercest
hours of her inquisition, when every torture of
mind and body was brought before her, to frighten
her into betraying that Something, which had be-
come known as the "King's Secret," she held her
peace an4 could not be made to betray it. This

72 JOAN OF ARC

sublime loyalty to a faithless King, who was also
a disloyal friend, adds high proof that her mar-
tyr's death in a moral cause was an immortal
victory over all the wicked ignorance and selfish-
ness of the earth.

8. The Credentials of a King

Through all the malevolent criticism of the cen-
turies, endeavoring to discredit her from all
points of view, no doubt has ever obtained a legiti-
mate place in any reason concerning the personal
genuineness of her faith.

Her great moral persuasion was unchangeable,
that she could do what she did do, that is, to save
France from its enemies, to raise the siege of Or-
leans and to crown Charles VII as King at
Eheims. She never claimed to be anything more
than a weak and ignorant girl beyond the one
great task, and she always maintained that she
had no knowledge or power or will more than was
given her through the Voices which she called
her council. She was fully persuaded and she
knew in whom she believed.

Like Paul who knew nothing but Christ and
him crucified, so La Pucelle knew nothing but the
pain of France and the crowning of the King,
who was only so, by being the servant, as she
was, of the King of Heaven.

It was a year of staggering calamity. The
church was divided into struggling factions, the

FIRST BELIEVERS—THEIR TASK 73

Turks were overrunning the Christian countries
of the East, and there were prophets of calamity
distracting the people of almost every community
in Europe.

Charles VII, the Dauphin, for whom Jeanne
had labored so long to come to his aid, was over-
timid and over-conscientious, and the counter-
currents of interests at the courts made intermin-
able delays. Meanwhile the King had a long pri-
vate interview with her in which she outlined her
policy and caused him to agree to three requests.

1. He must hold his kingdom as a trust from
God.

2. He must forgive all his kindred who had
antagonized him or done him wrong.

3. He must humble himself so as to receive
into his favor all who asked for it, great or small.
This was exactly opposite to the policy advo-
cated by the Dauphin's chief adviser, La Tre-
mouille, and it made for her in the King's court
a cruel and bitter enemy.

After this interview, the King took her to din-
ner, and then they went for a walk in the fields.

If she was to lead the armies of France she
must know how to ride like a warrior. The Duke
of AlenQon brought her a powerful horse and a
warrior's equipment. She took them as one long
accustomed to their use. Mounting the horse
without aid, she rode before the King with such
stately grace, that Alengon made her a present
of the horse and the warrior's arms.

74 JOAN OF ARC

9. More Mountains to be Removed

Such were the distractions in the court over
her that Charles could not make up his mind
what to do. Some Franciscan monks were sent
to investigate every detail of her character as
known among her neighbors in Lorraine. The
learned men of the church and the university were
gathered at Poitiers and Charles decided to have
her brought before them for decision concerning
her qualifications and character as a lawful means
to use for France.

Thus her plea for soldiers with which to save
Orleans was answered by her being sent for ex-
amination to the learned doctors of the Univer-
sity of Poitiers.

When she found that she was to be sent there
to prove her divine mission, she said, "In God's
name much ado will be there, I know. But my
Lord will help me. Now let us go on in God's
strength."

We can easily see why the theological doctors
worried and annoyed her. She could see no need
for learned men to interpret her Voices or to set
any stamp of approval upon anything coming
from God. She understood her Voices and she
knew in whom she believed. Anything more than
this was not only superfluous but absurd. This is
freedom of conscience. It is the liberty of life.
But it was her first realization that there was es-
tablished on earth certain authority and powers

FIRST BELIEVERS— THEIR TASK 75

of interpretation necessary to authenticate her
communion with God, wherever that faith
might appear as works.

The King lodged her with the family of his
advocate in Parliament at Poitiers, and for three
weeks she was constantly under critical, if not
hostile, examination by the most learned men of
the times. Her inquisition was presided over by
her enemy the Archbishop of Eheims.

For hours each day she was subjected to all
manner of shrewd questions to get her to make a
foolish remark or to contradict herself. But it
could not be done. Each reasoned from a differ-
ent beginning for a different vision of success.
From a different origin, they were on a different
way to a different land of promise and social ex-
istence. Such minds never meet. Such persons
never know each other. The faith-mind does not
live in the same world with the will mind. They
do not compose the same kind of persons. There
is no mutual means for the adjustment of any con-
flict between them but force and compulsion. The
minds that have incidents and particulars as meas-
ures and ideals for religion or morality, for pa-
triotism or humanity, are either despots or cow-
ards, fanatics or compromisers, militarists or paci-
fists, masters or quitters, and they are a different
order of beings for a different order of society
from the unconquerable souls whose measure and
ideal and way are stayed on the Eternal Meaning
known to us as God and his social universe.

CHAPTER V

THE PROMISED SIGN FROM THE KING OF
HEAVEN

'1. The Doctors of the Law

THE University of Poitiers could not trap her
in any irreligous thought or foolish mission.

"You tell us," said William Aymery, one of
the learned Dominican doctors of the law, in the
council examining her, "that God has great pity
upon the people of France and wishes to free
them. If he wishes to free them, there is no need
for the soldiers you ask for." But her Voices
were not those of a mystic. She had a practical
view.

"In God's name," replied Joan, "only as men
fight can it be so that God may give his warriors
victory. ' '

A Carmelite at last declared that nothing could
come from God without a sign, and she replied
with great dignity, "I am not come to Poitiers
to show signs. Send me to Orleans and I will
show you a sign there. Give me soldiers many or
few and I will raise the siege."

Long before this, the seeker after signs had
been condemned. The divine witness is never a

76

THE PROMISED SIGN 77

sign but always the truth. When one of the
learned doctors from the University of Paris
quoted many learned authorities to prove that
they should not believe in her, she replied, ' * There
is far more in my Lord's books than in all yours."

Some of her answers to impertinent questions
were curt enough to enlist the admiration of her
inquisitors. When Seguin, who spoke very poor
French, tried to confuse her by asking what lan-
guage her Voices spoke, she replied, ' ' They speak
a better language than you do."

After a wearisome day with these learned ques-
tioners, another delegation was brought in.

''Listen!" she said to these new tormentors of
her truth, ' ' I know neither A nor B, but only that
I am sent by the King of Heaven to raise the
siege of Orleans and to crown the King at
Rheims." Then, asking for pen, ink and paper,
she began dictating, for one of the University
doctors to write, her famous letter to the English
demanding their surrender to the French, because
they were out of order with God's laws by oc-
cupying French territory and oppressing the
French people.

In all these questionings, all the testimony of
witnesses were taken down in writing by official
notaries, and sworn to, so that every detail that
could be found, as to her thinking, as to her con-
duct or her character, was officially recorded.
But besides the examination made by the many
learned doctors, and the testimony of all who had

78 JOAN OF ARC

ever known her, Charles caused her to be visited,
privately and otherwise, by trustworthy women
of the court and by girls of her own age. She
was secretly watched and every act reported.
But all reports agreed that she was incessantly
engaged as would become one with a mission such
as hers. Her devotions were always most ear-
nest and sincere.

A few days later, she was subjected to a final
test, after everything had been done that ingenu-
ity could invent to find some imperfection in her
either from a social point of view or from the re-
quirements of the church. She was brought unex-
pectedly into the presence of Queen Yolande and
her court of royal ladies. They questioned her
and applied every test they could think of. But
there was nothing that was not beautiful, good
and true.

All evidences were now in and Queen Yolande
went into the council chamber where she publicly
announced to the assembled court and courtiers
that "no fault can be found in Jeanne d'Arc. She
is chaste, modest, simple-minded, and good; she
is truly fitted for her wonderful mission, noble in
every glory of her sex, and free from all feminine
weakness but tears."

2. The Most Remarkable Certificate of Character
in History

All possible investigation and analysis of the
character, motives and intelligence of Joan now

THE PROMISED SIGN 79

having been exhaustively searched, proven and
recorded, a document was written in the various
languages of the interested nations, and sent to
the various governors, especially to the English
camps besieging Orleans.

A condensed translation of the document is as
follows :

' * Charles VII, of France, seeing the necessity
of his kingdom, and considering the prayers of
his poor people, ought not to reject the offer
of the Maid, who says God has sent her to give
him victory. But, following God's written
word, he ought to prove her in two principal
ways : by human prudence, such as inquiry into
her life, conduct and intentions ; and by devout
prayer asking for some unmistakable witness
whether she be come by the will of God, as did
Hezekiah, Gideon and others.

"The King has done all this. For six weeks
he has proven her in every part of her mind
and life, by scholars, ecclesiastics, pious men,
men of war, noble ladies, wives, widows and
children. Publicly and privately, in every man-
ner and form, have they searched and not one
has found in her any substance or shadow of
evil, but only chastity, humility, piety, devo-
tion, simplicity and womanly honor. Besides,
of her birth and life many marvelous things
are faithfully witnessed as being true.

" As to the second means, of proving her, the

80 JOAN OF ARC

King has required of her a divine sign that she
is from God. To this she replies, that before
the beleaguered city of Orleans, she will show
him a sign, for so God has commanded her.

"Having regard to this, that no harm is found
in her ; considering her unceasing perseverance
and the urgency of her plea, to doubt her and
to set her aside in whom there is no appearance
of evil, would be to disrespect the Holy Spirit
of Grace, and to render himself unworthy of
the succor of God."

3. On the Wonderful Way.

La Pucelle was now officially acknowledged to
be the agent of the King of Heaven, divinely em-
powered to restore France to its place among the
nations. Her fame spread far and wide. Sol-
diers who had long given up all as lost now gath-
ered courage and flocked to her standard aflame
with zeal for her great work. She was soon pano-
plied in all the gorgeous display of war. But this
was not her desire. It was the court's idea of a
holy show. The people were to be impressed by
display instead of truth. She was an agent pos-
sessing given power. Divinity must have royal
robes. She had a body-guard, chaplins and atten-
dants. Two of her brothers were now with her.
She was clad in armor made for her at Tours. A
strangely wrought sword was found in Saint
Catherine's at Fierbois, as revealed to her by the

THE PROMISED SIGN 81

Voices. John Davies in his " Historic Pro-
logues," describing her, wrote,

"Soon as the saintly sword is found,
Long time entombed in holy ground,
Armed cap-a-pie, Joan takes the field,
Celestial agency her shield."

Jean de Metz was now her treasurer and she
had a well appointed household, organized by di-
rection of the King. A special flag or standard
of white linen was made for her as directed by
her Voices. The Savior of the world was pictured
on it seated on a throne in the clouds holding a
globe in his hands.

The Maid always bore this standard with her
in battle instead of a sword. When asked why
she did this, she replied, at one time, "I love my
banner forty times more than my sword"; at an-
other time she said, "I can not carry a sword to
shed blood."

Amidst all the jealousies, her conduct was al-
ways superior and faultless, so that no one ever
dared to approach her with any intent of evil.
Especially did all women devoutly believe in her.
She was always joyous and felicitous in expres-
sion. Her words of praise were always strength-
ening the courage of those around her. By the
King's commands no one should do her any dis-
pleasure and he made it known among the sol-
diers that her will was law. But she took such
responsibility with all the ease that had been

82 JOAN OF ARC

hers in attending her father's flocks in the fields
of Domremy. She took command with sternness of
attitude and imperialism of purpose equal to any
master of men in war. Most of all she demanded
that only soldiers of clean conscience should be
enrolled in her train. She required the freedom
from fear provided for in confession so that no
arm should be unnerved in battle by fear of death,
and the displeasure of God.

4. The Great Hope That Came to Orleans

Orleans was the last great stronghold between
the English-Burgundian armies and the remnant
of the French kingdom. The Duke of Orleans,
who was its masterful soldier, had been captured
at Agincourt, in 1415, and remained a prisoner
in England for twenty-five years. If Orleans fell
it was known that the enemy would roll over
France and sweep the kingdom out of existence.

According to the Orleans chronicler, at the time
when they received the first news of the appear-
ance at Chinon of La Pucelle, "All the citizens
and dwellers in Orleans were come to such straits
by reason of the besiegers that they knew not to
whom to turn for help, save to God alone."

In the midst of this despair, some adventurers
were admitted through the gates who told the
wonderful story of a girl from Lorraine who had
power from God. No one could ridicule such a
source of relief when it was their only hope.

THE PROMISED SIGN 83

Dunois, commander of the garrison, in order to
satisfy the people, sent two officers to see if there
could be any reliance in this strange new hope.
When they returned, the starving people gathered
around them and heard that through a wonderful
Maid, surely God was coming to help them.

5. The Beginning of the Sign at Orleans

La Pucelle was an unsurpassed organizer of
fragments into solidified purpose. She was going
to Orleans as the instrument and emissary of
God and her army must be god-like in both heart
and equipment. Religious enthusiasm operating
as patriotism has never known anything like this
unless it was so under Cromwell.

Her first act at Blois was to send the summons
she had dictated to the University professor at
Poitiers, ordering the English to abandon the
siege of Orleans.

Some of the characteristic interests in it are
here related.

Addressing the King of England and others in
their order, she says, "Do right to the King of
Heaven. Surrender to La Pucelle sent hither by
God, for the Dauphin of France, the keys of all
the good cities that you have taken and violated
in France. She is ready to make peace if you will
do right, and set free the kingdom of France.

"To you, archers, companions of war, gentle
and valiant, and to all others who are before the

JOAN OF ARC

cities of Orleans, in the name of God, begone into
your own land ; or else expect news from La Pu-
celle, who will see you presently, to your very
great dismay.

"King of England, I am chief of war, . . .
sent of God, hand to hand to thrust you out of
France. ... If you will not believe this word
from God by the Maid, when we meet you we will
fall on you with such a hunting-cry as has not
been heard in France for a thousand years.

"Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays that you
will not brave your destruction. If you do right
to her call, in the name of God, you may yet come
into her company, when the French shall have
performed the grandest deed that ever was done
for Christianity."

Two of Jeanne's heralds were sent to convey
the message to the English camp but the English
soldiers received it with outbursts of both deris-
ion and rage. Contrary to the rules of war, the
messengers were held under threat of being
burnt, but this was not carried out.

A bright little glimpse of the Maid, when she
went to Selles to prepare for the campaign, is to
be seen in a letter written by Guy and Andre de
Laval to their mother and grandmother. Being
kinsmen of the King's favorite, La Tremouille,
the widowed mother expected them to have a
place of honor next to the King: But when they
reached Selles they met La Pucelle and a place

THE PROMISED SIGN 85

by the King was no longer to them the place of
honor.

"To see her and hear her," they wrote, "she
seems altogether divine. "

They begged to become part of the military
guard attending her, but Joan had learned of
their mother's desire for them to be with the
King, and she advised them to wait and attend
him at his coronation in Kheims.

"But," Guy wrote in telling of their disappoint-
ment, "God can never choose me to do this, and
not go with her, and my brother says the same,
as does also my Lord of Alenc.on."

In this letter he also said, "I saw her mount,
all in white armor, except her head, on a great
white charger. . . . Then she turned toward the
church door, which was close by, and said in a
pleasant woman's voice, 'You priests and church-
men, make a procession and prayers to God.'
She then rode on, crying, ' Forward! Forward!'
her furled banner being carried by a comely

page."

6. The Warrior Maid

La Pucelle insisted vigorously on the expulsion
of all evil agencies from the camp and that it
should be purified of its immoral conditions. An
altar was erected where all religious devotions
should be performed, and she required the sever-
est discipline of religious righteousness among
all the men. Mounted upon a large white charger,

86 JOAN OF ARC

and clad in white armor, surrounded by a bril-
liant array of knights and officers, she marched
forth upon her historic way. Waving her ban-
ners, she chanted the Veni Creator, until the sa-
cred strain was taken up by the whole army.

The three days' march to Orleans was like a
triumphal procession. The arrival in sight of
the town was hailed by the starving citizens as
indeed deliverance from heaven. But the besieg-
ers had been given time, in the long delay, and
they used it in proving their belief in the genuine-
ness of the Maid's mission, by developing the
most elaborate system of siege. There was not a
single point not well guarded and strongly en-
trenched.

One of the examiners at Poitiers, knowing the
military ring around the city, said, "It would be
a famous exploit to pass enough food through
such a force to relieve Orleans."

She replied, "By my Martin-baton we shall do
it with ease! Not an Englishman will stir or
make any show of hindering us."

She proposed to send sixty wagons of supplies
and hundreds of oxen, cows, sheep and swine di-
rectly through the strongest forces that were in-
vesting Orleans. Her military commanders were
dumbfounded. Word was got through to Dunois,
the commander in the city, and he returned the
opinion that it was too rash a plan to be thought
of. But La Pucelle refused to listen to prudence
or caution. The commanders were in a quan-

THE PROMISED SIGN 87

dary. They were under strict orders to obey
her every command. As they could not change
her mind they decided to mislead her. She did
not know the way to the approaches of the city,
so they led the way to the approach most suited
to their own judgment.

The march up to the city was vision enough for
any imagination. Joan carried her standard with
all the inspiring beauty conceivable for the ' ' An-
gelic Maid, ' ' as the soldiers called her. Her quick
glance and instantly-acting judgment allowed no
detail of her plans to be abused. In an imperious
way, emphasizing her decrees against evil things,
she ordered all immoral campfollowers to be
driven away.

The army marched to the sacred chants and
the sounds of song mingled with the low of cattle
and the shouts of the herders. But the Maid
heard only one voice, in the midst of her enor-
mous responsibility. That voice was continually
her comforter and her guide.

' ' Go on, go on ! ' ' it said, ' l Jeanne, daughter of
God; I will be with thee and be thy help."

As in echoing chorus the chanted verses of a
thousand songs surrounded her like clouds of
glory. It was the profound religious cry of
France for pardon and pity, for rest and peace.
The soldiers who had been beaten till they had
lost all faith and hope looked upon her saintly fig-
ure moving on and on before them, and they felt
the power of divine might against the evil that

S8 JOAN OF ARC

had crushed the people for a hundred years. And
yet that form of hope before them was the very
name of weakness known as woman, and this one
little more than a child. But something in her
was the making of the ages. She claimed the right
that was might, before which the greed for power
and the lust for conquest must fall.

The peasant maid realized for them that the
fight for man was irresistible when it was a fight
for God. From their despairing souls a great cry
of renewed faith arose as they sang the song of
the Holy Ghost:

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 0 God,
Clothe us with love divine; hold up our wasted strength with

living might,

Be Thou our guide : our helper in the midst of fear,
Drive far the enemy and give us peace."

7. Captains Afraid to Trust the Military Wisdom
of a Girl

When the army of relief arrived at the circle
of the enemy's camps, Jeanne discovered that she
had been misled by her officers. But she had no
need to punish them for their offense. Any one
could now see that they had come to the worst
place. As if to make matters still more ill-timed,
the weather had become wild and stormy. The
only way to get into the city from this place was
in barges up the river. Still worse, the stream

THE ENTRANCE OF JEANNE D'ARC INTO ORLEANS
A Window in the Cathedral of Orleans

THE PROMISED SIGN 89

was now very low and the heavy wind dead
against them.

Some citizens, including the commander, Du-
nois, came down the river to them. La Pucelle
met them at the shore.

Singling out the commander, she cried out in a
rebuking voice, "Are you he who advised us to
come by this side of the river, instead of straight
through the English camps? If we had come as
I ordered, we could have got in the relief with
much less difficulty."

Dunois tried to excuse himself but she impa-
tiently responded, "By my Martin-baton, the
counsel of God is wiser and safer than yours.
You thought to deceive me, but you yourselves are
deceived. I have brought you the best succor that
ever knight or city had, for it is the succor of the
King of Heaven, not given for love of me, but of
God's own good will, who has had pity on Or-
leans."

The military council now acknowledged her su-
perior plan, and everything was moved on up the
river six miles. There they found that the wind
had changed, that the water from recent rains in
the upper valley was now deepening the river,
and that, true to her prophecy, the English army
made no attempt to attack her guard of troops.
The supplies were loaded upon barges, pushed
across the river, driven far around the strongly
fortified bastile of Saint Loup and on into the
starving city by the gate of Burgundy.

8. Entrance into the City

The people of Orleans had besought their offi-
cers, who had gone out to meet the Angelic Maid,
to bring her back with them. The officers, show-
ing how well the army was now organized and
committed to her cause, said that the people and
defenders in the city were in present need of her
more than her army. Accordingly with a body
guard of two hundred lancers, pages, her brother
Pierre, and numerous personal attendants, she
entered the barge and was taken safely past the
bastile of Saint Loup, where the English did not
even make a demonstration of attack upon her.
Whether it was from religious fear, or because
they did not regard her and her supplies worth an
attempt, has never been clearly settled. Doubt-
less both causes kept them within the fortress.
However, it was the historical fact that unmo-
lested she entered Orleans with her soldiers and
supplies, April 30, 1429, and the beginning of a
great epoch in the life of France was now at hand.

Ever alert for righteous obedience to moral
ideals, she rebuked the officers of Orleans for
swearing, saying that they should not swear, but,
if it seemed necessary, they might bear witness
to any important purpose, as she did, by her Mar-
tin-baton. And thereafter, at least in her pres-
ence, so the officers testified, they always swore by
their Martins.

Thoughtful for her comfort, they tried to

THE PROMISED SIGN 91

avoid the people and to get her secretly into the
city for a night of rest, after her three fatiguing
days of travel, in which she had not taken off her
armor. They waited until dark to enter the Bur-
gundy gate. But the people heard of her coming,
and when she rode in at eight o'clock, the soldiers
were lined up with a blaze of torches, and the
masses of people, starving and suffering, crowded
around with unceasing shouts of joy, striving
among one another to be the first to kiss the
ground where her horse had stepped. Her bur-
nished armor reflected the weird lights, and they
looked upon the shining one, thus bringing relief
that none else could do, with the worship due an
angel descended from heaven. Had not all the
world abandoned them, till this one came, in the
name of God with food for the starving people !
Who can imagine the feelings of the wonderful
Maid as she looked into the hunger-bitten faces of
thousands crying to her as to a saint ! No dream
of the Domremy fields could equal this reality, as
mothers lifted their children that they might be
blessed in seeing this daughter of God.

High over her head she waved her banner of
freedom, cleaving a way through the shouting
people, crying in clear tones to them at every step,
* ' 0 my people, hope thou in God ! All is well with
you ! Have all a good hope in God. Have confi-
dence in our Lord, and you shall be free! God
has sent me to deliver Orleans.'*

What else could they do than believe in that

92 JOAN OF ARC

beautiful white vision of faith, hope and love!

Slowly the soldiers, lancers and attendants ten-
derly pressed back the crowding throngs to make
way for La Pucelle. Then the crush to be near
her was so fervent that a torch was bent over
against the banner and its fringe caught fire.
Jeanne seized the flame and crushed it in her bare
hands. Everything was marvelous. It was all a
miracle. Why should they not believe that no
other girl in all history could have done this, ex-
cept God be with her!

Besides the recorded testimony of witnesses, a
writer who saw her enter Orleans describes the
scenes with great minuteness.

"All felt greatly comforted," he wrote, "and,
as it were, already unbesieged, through the divine
virtue of which they had heard in this simple
maid; whom they regarded right lovingly, both
men and women, and likewise the little children. ' '

9. The Feast of Honor and the Company of a

Child

At last this wonderful procession came to the
home of Jacques Boucher, who was chancellor and
treasurer of Orleans and whose wife was one of
the most respected and beloved women in the city.
There she was lodged with her attendants who
were under the management of her two brothers.
Her hostess helped her out of her armor into suit-
able clothing and then led her to the dining hall

THE PROMISED SIGN 93

where a great banquet was prepared with all the
notable people there, but Jeanne took only a small
cup of water and wine with some pieces of toasted
bread, and then asked to retire to her room. "We
may suppose that she had not come to a feast,
and, in a city where many were starving, she
could not sit at a table spread for a banquet. But,
these people, though their desires were no doubt
good, could not understand how much more she
loved those she had seen in the streets, that royal
display was not in harmony with her mission or
her moral law.

As she passed out of the room she noticed a
wondering child looking wistfully at her from the
door. It was the eight-year-old daughter of the
hostess, little Karlotte. La Pucelle had only one
request to make, and this was that the little child
might be her companion while she remained in
Orleans. Her war was not for those who had
already lived but for those yet to live in the need
of a better way. Of such are the Kingdom of
Heaven, who have not yet received their inheri-
tance, because of the willfulness of men. She
could not renew her strength from men of power-
ful self-assertion and great will, for her faith in
the might of right things was, as with these little
ones, in the Maker and Preserver of Life more
abundantly.

CHAPTER VI
FEEEDOM TO THE CITY OF ORLEANS

1. The Sign Given in the Miracle That Was
Promised

BEFORE Orleans in military camp was the most
renowned army then in the world, and of the most
victorious nation. God had prospered them as
they verily believed. But now, confidence as to
being the favored of a conquering God began to
fail, and the assurance of the besiegers of their
righteousness as a mighty power fled from them
like an actual spirit, and entered the French. The
whole city went with the Maid to the Cathedral
of Saint Croix to return thanks for the marvelous
goodness of God. The chronicles of that time
say, "Not one returned to his home from that
service but that did feel within him the strength
of ten men. ' ' But the English did not long enter-
tain the thought that God had deserted them to
enter the souls of Orleans. Their explanation be-
came a settled conviction that the devil was in-
spiring their enemies, and for the time being was
getting the best of God.

The flower of the English armies was there
safely housed in fortresses known as boulevards

94

95

situated at about even distances around the city.
To be sure they had let the devil's emissary get
into the city with a supply of food and reenforcing
troops, but, when the Maid's army came and tried
to break through they would capture it, and that
would be the end of the devil's experiment with
the Maid and of Orleans.

The head men in the army and government of
Orleans were glad to get the supplies, and they
welcomed the enthusiasm aroused by La Pucelle,
but they were calloused military men, and they
could not feel either faith or interest in the Maid,
except as she could serve their purpose. They
needed assistance and when it met their ap-
proval, they would accept the service either of
devil or of God. Faith derived from the con-
sciousness that eternal right is infinite might was
in deadly conflict with the personal will derived
from the reasoning of individual interest. The
natural history is self-evident. Life in nature was
the vital impulse to organized form adjusted to
environment. Out of this, intelligence arose and
it formed the animal will. As human intelligence
realizes the intelligence of the universe, faith
forms the will. So the faith-will is in conflict with
the self-will.

They deceived her in every possible way in or-
der to satisfy the people that they were obeying
her and yet to have their own way. La Pucelle
saw through it all. She was much grieved, but
she accepted their treachery merely as one of the

96 JOAN OF ARC

obstacles, and despite their blunders, led them to
victory.

Black suspicion with the credulity of ignorance
was rapidly eating into the English lust for con-
quest and breaking the will of the besiegers. They
talked among themselves how impossible it was to
war against Beelzebub and his devils.

The Duke of Bedford, who was conducting the
siege, said in a letter to King Henry VI, "Your
people, assembled before Orleans in great num-
bers, have received a heavy blow which seems to
have fallen from the skies. This check has come
to them, in my opinion, from the foolish thoughts
and unreasonable fears which have been brought
upon them by a disciple or a limb of the enemy,
called the Maid, who has used false enchantments
and sorcery. "

Those who had sought for a sign, both at Chi-
non and Poitiers, were now given one that must
have been indisputable, even if it was not convinc-
ing. The great day came on May 4, when four
thousand of the Maid's soldiers, coming by the
way which she had first ordered that they should
come, marched on into the city, about midday,
without a single move by any of the English gar-
risons to prevent them. Thus was the proof given
that had been promised the doubting doctors, the
miracle was performed that the Voices had prom-
ised the Maid, and the mission of the daughter
of God was being fulfilled. These historical facts
may be explained in most any way to suit the ex-

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 97

plainer 's fancy, but nothing explains away the
demonstration of a woman's faith that eternal
right is infinite might, as a normal process of
man's work.

2. The Challenge to the Ordeal of Baal and God

Lord Talbot was regarded as one of the most
successful English commanders. He saw that
something must be done to get the fear out of his
soldiers. He did all he could to revile the Maid
as a wanton and a witch. He derided the French
as being under the sorcery of a common camp
woman. He sent her word that he would soon
capture her when he would burn her as a devil
from hell. This word-war was as full of possible
consequence as any series of battles. It is in good
evidence that human battles may first be lost or
won in the regions of mind. It may be some ex-
planation of the long belief in the justice of duels.

When the messengers brought the worst of abu-
sive challenges daring her to show her Satanic
power, this returned challenged was issued: "Go
back," she said to the heralds, "and to Lord Tal-
bot say this for me : ' Come out of your bastiles
with your host, and I will come with mine; if I
beat you, go in peace out of France ; if you beat
me, burn me, according to your desire.' :

In the afternoon following the unmolested en-
trance of the relieving troops, La Purcelle was
weary and she retired for rest and sleep. Con-

98 JOAN OF ARC

trary to her orders, some of her over-enthusiastic
soldiers organized a sortie to capture the fortress
of Saint Loup, but Talbot, the English com-
mander, repulsed the attack and drove the French
in a rout back to the city.

Meanwhile, La Pucelle had sprung up from her
sleep, rushed out to the page in waiting, and, shak-
ing him vigorously, said, "0 blood-guilty youth,
why didst thou not warn me that French blood is
being shed. Bring my horse ! ' '

She clad herself in her armor, seized her ban-
ner, and galloped away to the Burgundy gate.
There she met some of the wounded being brought
in. A chronicler present wrote of this, that, for
a moment, she reeled on her horse, faint at the
sight of blood. Then she put spurs to her horse,
turned back the fugitives she met, and with a
great shout flung herself and her swaying banner
into the midst of the madly fighting men.

The English fell back as if every wave of the
banner was the stroke of a sword. The French
flung themselves forward with shouts of praise to
God. The fort was taken by storm and all that
threw down their arms were in mercy spared.
The next day being the Feast of the Ascension,
the Maid's army kept Holy Day in Orleans.

The next day following this service, Joan led
her soldiers against the bastile of the Augustines,
and the soldiers went in platoons, as if from
waves of her banner, over the defenses, driving
the English like sheep before them.

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 99

3. The Power of Faith in the Mind of Man

The great stronghold of Tournelles was now in
turn ready to be assailed. According to the war-
science of the time, it had been made impossible to
assault. The Orleans generals held a council and
decided that they dare not attack Tournelles un-
til they had reinforcements from the King. This
word was brought to Joan and she sent back the
statement, "You have taken your council, I have
received mine."

At break of day she was up and on the way to
lead the assault. On arriving at the Burgundy
gate, she found it closed by order of the Council
of Generals.

"You are doing a bad deed," she cried to the
keeper of the gate, "and my soldiers shall pass."

The gate was opened. Joan galloped on with
her men to the troops that had been left to hold
the fortifications captured the day before. They
rallied to her ensign and rushed on to the assault.
That day would decide the fate of Orleans.

Meanwhile, the officers of the army in the city
had been informed that La Pucelle was leading
her troops to the assault on Tournelles. Though
believing it to be impossible and that it was a fatal
blunder, they hurried to her help.

This may be noted as far more commendable
than has happened in many a crisis in the story of
Americans. The conscientious objector, and no
one has ever found anv other kind of obstruction-

100 JOAN OF ARC

ist, is too conscientious ever to help remedy a
blunder, no matter how important the need, when
made by any one who is not acting according to
the objector's judgment. This individualizing of
will as supreme for the sake of party methods and
personal decision is the soul of anarchy and the
invariable maker of despotism in any group, so-
cial, political or religious, for peace or war.

During the awful century of bloody war that
had bled France to hopelessness, for then more
than seventy years, there never had been such
valorous energy and self-sacrificing heroism, as
was given wherever eye could see the banner of
the Maid of Orleans.

Down into the ditches went the French with
sword and lance and mace. Up the walls they
swarmed on scaling ladders in the face of show-
ering arrows, lances and hatchets.

She spurred her horse forward into the thickest
of the fight, shouting to her men, "On and on to
victory for our Lord. ' '

With great shouts the English led by Gladsdale
rushed out against her, calling her all the vile
names they could think of. La Pucelle heard him
and with her standard raised aloft rode down upon
him at full speed.

"Soldiers," she cried so that her clarion voice
was heard over all the tumult of battle, "fear
not. Strike in among them boldly in God's name."

She dismounted in the midst of the fighting

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 101

mass, striking furiously with the flat of her sword
upon the enemies' heads and waving her banner
high as she could reach. Now it was down, then
up again, swaying round and round, as the center
of all the fiercest wage of war.

4. The Banner Fallen at the Walls

All through the long hot day of May 7th, the
banner of the Maid of Orleans was swung back
and forth at the front of the death struggle by
her tireless hands. In the afternoon Joan sent an
arrow over the walls into the English ranks, bear-
ing a note, demanding for the third and last time
that they surrender. Captain Gladsdale climbed
the walls and, waving the note before him, shout-
ed so she could hear, "News from the harlot of
the Armagnacs!"

She began weeping at this insult and then be-
came comforted as she called on the King of
Heaven to clear her mind of his evil words. Have
you heard a gossip slander a good name! Who
has not? It is the poisonous thinking of an im-
moral mind striving to have a congenial world.

Dunois, the commander-in-chief, was much dis-
couraged with the day's work and word came to
her that he was about to order the assault to
cease. She hurried her horse with all speed to the
commander and implored him not to give up the
fight. He would not answer. Turning her horse,
she unfurled her flag, saying, "Watch my stand-

102 JOAN OF ARC

ard; when it reaches the walls, the fortress will
be ours."

Dunois had become weary of the unavailing
struggle. He recalled the judgment of all his mili-
tary associates that the Towers could not be taken
by assault. But he could not order the soldiers
back while the banner of God was going with all
the speed of the white horse toward the English
walls. Such commands would be unheard. The
soldiers were following like a great human wave
the flowing banner and the call of the wonderful
woman.

It was turning late in the afternoon of what
seemed to be a hopeless day for Orleans and
France, as she led this final terrific assault. "On,
soldiers, on," were the words that reached the
men like the cry of a mother to her sons. "In the
name of God, the victory is ours." The weari-
ness of the long dreadful day's struggle was gone.
The power of faith gave the renewed strength of
ten men to every man.

Beaching the moat, she sprang from her horse
and crossed safely over, waving her banner and
calling victory to the soldiers still struggling to
break through or to climb over the ramparts.

Before her, against the wall, was an empty
scaling ladder from which the men had been
driven by a shower of stones. She went up to it
with the intention of climbing it herself when it
was suddenly thrown down by someone of the
enemy from above. Thrusting her banner into

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 103

the hands of an attendant, she raised the ladder
back to its place by her own strength. Then she
took the banner and began to climb, when a heavy
bolt from a crossbow struck her in the shoulder
near the neck. The blow struck her backward to
the ground, where she lay as one dead. A fierce
volley of arrows and stones drove all the soldiers
back across the moat, while loud shouts of victory
were heard all around the Towers.

5. The Wounded Warrior

The English saw her fall from the ladder, and
they believed this meant the end of resistance for
Orleans. To capture her was better than any
other victory. They rushed forth to get her body.
But Gamaches, one of the knights of her body
guard, sprang to her defense with all fury in his
battle-ax. He beat back the assailants until the
soldiers could rally to her rescue. They drove the
shouting victors back and Gamaches, though sore-
ly wounded, carried her across the moat. Then
she was placed upon a horse and removed to the
rear where she could receive proper care.

Doulon, who was present, wrote a noteworthy
account describing the feelings of the rough men
around her. The arrow had gone through her
shoulder near the neck, and it was necessary to
turn down her clothing to stop the blood in the
long ugly wound. "But the purity of her soul,
and the sight of her blood shed for her country,"

104 JOAN OF ARC

said Doulon, writing of the scene, " clothed her
with such sanctity in her nakedness that an im-
pure thought was impossible."

The soldiers looked upon her as a saint, and
yet, like a child that she was, she wept at the sight
of blood, but was brave enough to draw out the
arrow with her own hand, and to forget her pain
in the peril of her cause.

Let it be noted here again that Joan had no su-
perstitions. Friends crowded around her trying
to touch her wounds with special charms they car-
ried. She cried out for them not to do so. For
what this was to them she had nothing to say, but
for her it was a sin. God did not work His bless-
ings through inappropriate or irrelevant things.
She preferred a dressing of olive oil, though she
cried like a child with the pain as they dressed the
ragged and dangerous wound.

The French were now fast being overpowered
and in many places were in full retreat. She in-
quired for her banner. Doulon had seen it lying
in the moat where it had fallen from the ladder.
With a few brave soldiers he ran back to secure
it for her. Realizing what was happening, she
mounted Gamache's horse and rode up to them
as they came out of the ditch with her banner.
The knight handed it to her, a gust of wind caught
its folds and made it stream out toward the walls
as if pointed by the hand of God. A shout arose
among the soldiers. "The Maid is restored to
life! She beckons us to come on!" and they came

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 105

on like a returning wave of the sea. The English
were stricken with fear. They had seen her cut
through by an English bolt. They had seen her
fall. They had shouted the news of her death
throughout all the ramparts and towers. Here she
was back again. Her banner streaming toward
their walls. She could not be killed! She had
been restored to life ! Back of her the oncoming
wave of shouting soldiers witnessed her resur-
rection. Flesh and blood could not withstand
such miracles. The strength fled from their weak-
ened arms. They were unable to draw a bow-
string or hurl a stone. Every soldier, long there-
after, French, English and Burgundians, as each
told the story wherever he went, declared that he
saw legions of countless numbers coming on earth
and in the clouds. They saw the smoke and flame
of cannon and the flash of avenging swords filling
the air and sky. However it was, in that strange
hour was won the most amazing victory in the re-
gions of mind. Perhaps it may be a symbol of
how the self-system of evil goes into chaos before
the might of right. The self-made will can not
fight for evil as the faith-made mind can fight for
social justice.

Byron uses her heroic figure, seen here, for one
of his striking contrasts in English Bards and
Scotch Eeviewers, saying,

"First in the ranks, see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast of France !"

106 JOAN OF ARC

6. The Banner Over the Walls

One of the soldiers with her, writing of the bat-
tle, says that, as they fought around her, close to
the ditch at the walls, a white cloud was seen
floating around her standard. At that moment
she cried out, ''Into the fort, children; in God's
name the fort is ours. ' '

"And never," says this writer, "was seen flocks
of birds lighting on a hedge as thick as were the
French climbing up the walls."

"That night," he continues, describing how
Joan rode back victorious as she had foretold,
"all the bells of the city began ringing, and the
people were shouting their praise and thanks to
God."

They formed a procession in gratitude for
God's mercy, and, excepting only for brief inter-
vals, that procession has been continued and has
celebrated the deliverance that came with the
Maid, every year through all the changes of now
nearly five hundred years.

Several writers of that time tell us that it was
near sunset as she led the final assault upon the
stronghold called "The Towers." The English
soldiers were probably the best in Europe but
they could not fight what they could not kill. They
fled in terror panic-stricken from the tireless sol-
diers of the woman. All testify that above the
tumult of battle could be heard her cry, "In the
name of God, the victory is ours."

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 107

In a mass, the terrified soldiers driven out of
the forts crowded upon the bridge across the
Loire. Sir William Gladsdale, the commander
who had reviled her in such vulgar language and
called her the harlot of the Armagnacs, was among
them.

" Surrender ! " she cried to him. "Surrender
that I may save your life, for I have great pity on
your soul."

But he hurled back a vile epithet at her and
would not heed her mercy. Then the bridge wenf;
down, the heavy armor took all to the bottom, and
the free waters of the Loire closed over them for-
ever. "At this/' the chronicler writes, "the
Maid wept bitterly and would not be comforted
for the loss of so many good men, who should
have been Christians together, for the rescue of
the Savior 's tomb and the redemption of the Holy
Land."

In such wasteful wilfullness have many multi-
tudes of good men been lost to the unhappy world.
Intelligence has not yet been developed enough to
banish the reign of wills and give place to the
peace of faith.

Southey has her say in her note to Gladsdale :

"That gracious God
Sends me the minister of mercy forth,
Sends me to save this ravaged realm of France,
To England friendly as to all the world,
Foe only to the great blood-guilty ones,
The masters and the murderers of Mankind."

108 JOAN OF ARC

So she had been called in the vast history of
things to suffer that others might understand, and
she at last gave all to the stake for the honor of
her faith in God as the personal sanction of the
Almighty Universe to the inalienable rights and
duties of humanity.

7. A Warrior Uninterested in the Glory of War

Though Joan had been in battle twelve hours
and for several hours badly wounded, she would
not quit the field till her wounded soldiers were all
cared for, and this was not until long after mid-
night. She had eaten nothing all day and before
retiring to rest she took only a few pieces of toast
dipped in half water and half wine.

Twenty-five years later, during one of the in-
vestigations, into her character, the sworn testi-
mony of thirty persons, who were present and fa-
miliar with the conduct of La Pucelle, was writ-
ten down, and is still preserved, in which the rec-
ord of the depositions says, ''And in this they all
agreed, that they had never perceived by any
means whatever that the said Joan set to the glory
of her own valor the deeds that she had done, but
rather ascribed everything to God, and, as far
as she was able, prevented the people from hon-
oring her, or giving her the glory; for she pre-
ferred to be alone and solitary rather than to be
in the company of men, unless that was neces-
sary for the purposes of war."

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 109

Those who supposed that this wonderful child
of faith was either mystic or visionary or super-
stitious will find all the testimony to witness that
she was practical, reasonable and normal beyond
all the surrounding experiences of life. Joan
never showed the slightest trait of fanaticism or
bigotry. When she was asked to lay on her hands
to heal the sick, she answered, ' ' Touch them your-
selves. Your hands are just as good as mine."
This is the democracy of genuine faith in a rea-
sonable world. She was nowhere looking for
freaks, she had no whims, there is no record of
any capricious will. The individual will in its
drive for success strikes at opposing objects as
does a snake, leaps like a wolf upon its prey, and
quails in cowardice before the darkness of every
unknown way, but faith moves on, facing faith-
fully the far dream-shores, even though the jour-
ney must pause to suffer the judgment and sat-
isfy the wills of men at the stake and the cross.

8. The Mountain Removed

On Sunday, May 8th, the English captains in
the remaining fortifications decided to make a
final stand. They came from all the remaining
boulevards and drew themselves up in battle ar-
ray. The French soldiers all came out through
the near gates and formed their battle lines before
the walls. But the English gave no signal for the
attack.

110 JOAN OF ARC

The Maid with her banner rode up and down be-
fore her line, speaking words of pious encourage-
ment to her men. Then she ordered the priests
to erect an altar where Mass could be said. While
the priests were busy with the Mass, and she was
deep in the devotions, without turning toward the
foe, she suddenly waved her banner and shouted,
"Look and tell me if the English have their faces
to us or their backs."

"The English are retreating," was the answer-
ing shout, as the soldiers rose from their knees to
look.

* ' In God 's name, let them go, ' ' she replied. ' ' It
is not my Lord 's will that we should fight them on
the Lord's day."

Then was the name and fame of Joan of Arc
immortal in the history of the world. Forever
more it was to be high before Mankind like her
banner as a vision of faith and hope for relief
against the oppressor in the name of God and his
social universe.

Writers who were there say that in the pres-
ence of this victory her face was transfigured till
it shone like the vision of an angel.

Shakespeare in his Henry VI puts these words
into Lord Talbot's mouth, who for the first time
had seen defeat :

"My thoughts are whirled like a potters wheel ;
I know not where I am, nor what I do :
A witch, by fears not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists."

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 111

The whole civilized world was now ringing with
her fame. Thoughtful people, realizing that some-
thing of the most far-reaching consequence had
taken place in defeating treason, violence and
wrong, began to hope that God was truly appear-
ing in the affairs of man and ordering the right-
eousness of the world.

The lowly people around her were giving her
the reverence due to a saint and the proud were
heaping honors upon her as the glory due to a
mighty captain of victorious armies. She tried to
avoid it all, praying to God for protection against
all such flattery and idolatry.

An archbishop, through whom she had been
seeking the righteousness and peace of his office,
said to her, "Never was seen in any chronicles of
the world the like of the deeds that you do. In
no book can such wonders be read."

In humble negation of personal merit, and may-
be in contempt of "the little learning" that makes
men mad, she replied, "My Lord hath a book of
wonders in which no learned man has ever read."

9. The Harvest of Envy and Treason at the
Castle of Loches

La Pucelle had completed her mission to Or-
leans. Monday morning she gave her blue satin
hat to her noble hostess as a keepsake, kissed lit-
tle Karlotte farewell, and, while the priests were
saying masses in the churches for their dead, she

112 JOAN OF ARC

rode away to Balois, preliminary to a meeting
with the King at Tours.

Dunois and many of the officers, nobles and
knights of Orleans, escorted her in a triumphant
cavalcade to the appointed place of meeting. As
she saw the King awaiting her, she rode ahead
holding aloft her banner, till she came up to him,
when she stopped and bowed low her head. The
King took off his chapeau and came up to her with
uncovered head. He caressed her on the cheek
and bestowed upon her the badge of the Eoyal
Lily of France.

The people were wild with joy and hailed her
as the greatest saint since Mary, the mother of
Christ. But the wavering King could never be
sure. A poisonous sneer had come into his ear
from Tremouille. A pious doubt had been sug-
gested by the crafty Archbishop of Rheims, and
the English, to save themselves from some of the
dishonor of the defeat, were loudly proclaiming
everywhere that the French King was profiting
by the sorceries of a vile witch. All the politi-
cians, courtiers and hangers-on about the court
helped to defame her wherever they could, because
she was no friend of theirs. The officers belittled
all she had done, and in some instances, boldly
took it to themselves that they had succeeded de-
spite her crazy plans. The snake is never a slan-
derer and the hyena is never a hypocrite. The
slanderer and hypocrite alone inhabit regions

FREEDOM TO THE CITY 113

where they may live lower than any nature-made
thing.

To counteract this rising tide of hate toward
her, a mild protest in defense of her was printed
at Lyons only six days after the siege of Orleans
had been raised. This brief commendation was
written by Jean de Gerson, known as "the most
Christian Doctor."

In characterizing her he said, "She seeks
neither worldly honors nor worldly men ; she ab-
hors seditions, revenges, hatreds and vanities ; she
lives in the spirit of prayer, in works of grace, in
holiness and justice. She employs no surprises,
no deceits, and she has in view no hope of gain.
She is seen to be very firm in the faith; for she
exposes her body to wounds without taking any
extraordinary precautions to save herself. War-
riors obey her willingly, and risk the dangers of
war without fearing the disgrace which would fall
on them were they beaten, having a woman to lead
them. She clothes herself as a warrior to fight
the foes of justice, to defend her country, proving
that God can, when he will, confound the mighti-
est by the hand of a woman."

Gerson wrote from the monastery at Lyons ad-
monishing the people to be faithful to one who
could be likened only to the saints of scriptural
times, and Gelu, archbishop of Embrum, warned
the people that to fail her was to betray the voice
of God.

CHAPTER VII
THE PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING

1. The Wills and Their Ways

JEANNE wanted to take the army at once on to
Rheims but the military management refused to
consider such haste until the valley of the Loire
was cleared of English troops.

Charles retired in indolent peace to Loches and
took with him Jeanne and all her company. The
Maid of Orleans was an object of the greatest love
and veneration by all around her, but the King
left the management of all his military affairs in
the hands of his officers. Such things were not a
woman's work and Jeanne was helpless. "I have
but a year and a little more to live," she implored
of him, "and in that time there is much to do,"
but the King was satisfied.

In a few weeks all the army that had flocked to
her standard went to pieces, and the officers were
struggling with the problem of soldiers for the
sometime purpose of driving the English from the
regions of the Loire.

Jeanne did not like the court nor the presence
of officers, and she spent most of her time with
the priests and the common people who loved her
so well.

114

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 115

The Abbot of Talmont had been one of her ex-
aminers at Poitiers, and he held her in great re-
spect. One day in riding out with her, he thought
it time to reproach her for allowing so much rev-
erance, that amounted Almost to worship, from
the people. . The common folks knelt at the way-
side as she passed, they kissed her hands and her
feet, they were happy to touch her horse as it
passed.

"Does it become the Maid," he asked, "to suf-
fer such honors to be paid her? Ought she not,"
he argued, "really to guard herself against the
reverence of these simple people, that might eas-
ily become idolatry?"

Jeanne was sorely perplexed and grieved at
such a thing. She did not know how to repulse the
love of the people.

"In truth," she replied, weeping, "I know not
how to keep me, unless God will keep me." In
that reply is condensed the entire gospel of right-
eousness. It is the experience of every one who
has tried to live the will of self. It is the mean-
ing of faith in a divine universe.

The Abbot says that he was silenced, and he
used her statement in such fervent appeals to
righteousness and patriotism in her name that it
became a famous saying, and it is still on the
way of meaning for a social world.

Here and there are little incidents along the
way, that happened to get into the records, which
are worth more in understanding this wonderful

116 JOAN OF ARC

woman than any victory in battle, for it was the
deadlier battle with the treason of courtiers and
priests. One of these describes a deserter whose
family had died in the famine and he refused to
fight because he had nothing more to live for.
"Look into my eyes," she commanded when he
said this, "and tell me have you nothing to live
for while there is France and God!" A transfor-
mation took place in the man's mind as he looked
into those deep blue eyes. Another vision of ex-
istence was substituted. He kissed her hand and
fell upon his knees at her feet. Then he arose,
bravest of the brave, as the chronicler tells it, a
soldier of France and a warrior for the social jus-
tice of God.

2. Pearls of Great Price Before Swine

The month of May was coming to an end. Du-
nois came to Loches with a plan to be sanctioned
for clearing the valley of the Loire, but Jeanne
wanted an army to clear the way to Eheims so
that the King could be crowned and her mission
be finished. After that they could purge the land
of English troops.

One day when the King was holding his seem-
ingly endless session of councils, this time with a
small group of his most confidential advisers, "all
as by chance being good men believed in by
Jeanne," she knocked at the council door. They
bade her come in. She went up to the King, knelt

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 117

at his feet and embracing his knee, said, "Noble
Dauphin, do not hold so many long tedious coun-
cils, but come quickly to the task that you may
receive your crown at Kheims."

Dunois, who was present here, records an inci-
dent that gives a realistic glimpse of their atti-
tude toward her, and the possible explanation of
her Voices as being flashes of brilliant intuition,
so strong as to seem to her to be outside the
senses, and thus objectively alive to the sensitive
soul of this wonderful girl. Her description and
explanation of her Voices, in order to be reason-
able, had to fill out the intuitional vision with the
forms of her own reality. In fact, the impartial
investigator often believes he can detect evidences
of form being given to her explanations in order
to make them seem as reasonable to others as to
herself. This does not in any sense imply de-
ception, even in any attempt to clothe with reason-
able appearances whatever seems to be the most
reasonable in the reality of mind.

She had risen from her knees before the King,
as she implored him to follow up the victories and
move on to Rheims, where he would be crowned
the real King of France.

Christopher de Harcourt, Grand Master of the
Forests, asked her if her counsel had told her
thus to dispense with their council. She answered
promptly that it had.

"Will you tell us here, in the King's presence,"

118 JOAN OF ARC

he continued, "in what manner your counsel
speaks when it tells you what to do?"

"In my own mind," she answered humbly, "I
perceive what you wish to know and I will tell
you."

The King interposed kindly to save her feelings.
"Jeanne," he asked, "does it please you thus to
declare this thing before these witnesses'?"

She said it did. Then she began, in much hesi-
tation and confusion, seeking for words to convey
her meaning, by first telling them how unhappy it
made her to find they had so little faith in her
message from God. So in her grief she entreated
her Lord to tell her what to do to banish their un-
belief. She said that always in such a prayer
she clearly heard a voice saying, "Go on, Daugh-
ter of God; I am with thee to help thee; go on,
go on."

She said that in the light that shone with these
words she was in an ecstasy, in which she wished
she could remain forever, and as she told of it
there was such a look of heavenly beauty upon
her face that the witnesses said they could never
forget nor deny.

But the official staff managing the military cam-
paign would not be moved from their plan, and
the best that even the King felt able to accomplish
was that the Maid of Orleans should accompany
them. Laying aside her own feelings, she ac-
cepted the preparations made for her, and with
all her old spirit of enthusiasm fared forth on a

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 119

task which she did not regard as in any sense ad-
visable or within her call from God.

3. A Godless Task to Satisfy the Will of Men

A month after Joan had left Orleans, she re-
turned to make it her headquarters during the
process of driving the English out of the many
small garrisons dotting the regions along the
Loire.

Soldiers, citizens and peasants all met her as a
saint sent them directly out of heaven to be their
deliverer and guide. Their reverence she always
took not to herself but to her mission. Her chap-
lains and confessors all testify that she always
said everything was for her ministry. She al-
ways declared that she had not come to show signs
nor to do miracles. She had to have means to ac-
complish purposes and reach ends. Her Lord
merely showed her purposes and ends, and un-
wearyingly she toiled and toiled till she had ful-
filled the will of her Lord. All the bitter dregs
that men emptied into her cup she drank in un-
broken silence. But her success in great things
caused the people to demand success, even as a
sign in the endless procession of little things. The
demands upon her as having strength from God
for anything was cruel beyond description. As
she could do anything, she must do everything.
She must cure every ill, banish every discomfort
and restore paradise for every man, woman and

120 JOAN OF ARC

child. To do less, was to be an enemy. If she
could not do everything for them her powers were
faulty and if they were faulty they could not be of
God. If they were not of God, from whence came
they but from hell, and what of such a woman, if
not worse than the vilest denunciations of the
English. Such is the logical mind of selfishness,
however plausibly it reasons, when demanding
every meaning to be realized in all forms that can
be manipulated by will for personal benefits. It
reveals the anarchist, who thus reasons that right-
eousness should lay all values at his feet or else
every such system is his enemy.

What happened to La Pucelle, happens to every
beauty and to every good and to every truth,
where will comes in to use the machinery of logic
for the mastery of the way. Jeanne d'Arc treated
the adulation of the throngs crowding about her
always with the high spirit of a religious guide.
" Trust in God and strive to do his Will," was her
constantly repeated admonition.

She was the master of consistency in all her
diplomatic or military affairs, and all the cap-
tains testify that she had no equal in organizing
troops into battle array.

Her negotiations with the Duke of Brittany to
renew his allegiance to the King, and her success
in re-uniting the alienated fragments of France,
shows the highest and best forms of statesman-
ship. Princes and noblemen began to turn from
their hostile attitudes toward Charles* reign, and

CHARLES VII (1403-1461)

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 121

the whole fabric of intrigue against France began
rapidly to go to pieces.

4. The Hour Is Always Now for the Will of God

In the afternoon on Saturday, June 11, 1429,
the Maid rode out of Orleans with her army on
a self-imposed task to drive the English from their
strongholds along the Loire. The Armagnac
military leaders heard of heavy reinforcements
coming to the English and they became afraid.
The council was soon involved in a quarrel, fast
becoming desperate, when La Pucelle appeared
among them in great indignation, declaring that
the Lord was guiding their way and that if it were
not so she would be back in Domremy guarding
her sheep. Shamed out of their quarrel, they be-
came reconciled and went on to the assault of the
town and the stronghold of Jergeau. A detach-
ment went on ahead to capture the outside part
of the town so that the soldiers could sleep in the
houses. As Jeanne came up, she met the soldiers
returning. They had been defeated and driven
back. Taking up her standard she cried out for
them to come on where she led, and, as she ap-
proached the English fled, leaving that part of the
town to the unmolested use of the French.

On Monday morning at dawn the French artil-
lery began to batter down the walls. By nine
o 'clock an opening had been made, and the trum-
pets pealed forth the order to assault. In front

122 JOAN OF ARC

of the surging mass of soldiers came the Stand-
ard of the Maid. The Duke of Alengon had not
yet given the order to rush the breach in the walls.

"Forward, gentle Duke," she cried, "on to the
assault."

"It is not yet the time," he called out to her.

"Doubt not," she responded. "The time is
when it pleases God and he wills this hour."

The soldiers heard and swept in after the
Standard of the Angelic Maid.

"Ah, gentle Duke!" she cried back at him,
laughing in a mocking way. * ' Art afraid ! Have
I not promised thy good wife to send thee back
to her safe and sound!"

The Duke hesitated no longer but ordered the
grand assault.

The banner never faltered but moved ever in
the hottest of the fight and wherever it went the
English fell away from it and victory went with
it like waves of the sea.

She had been wounded severely in the foot, but
it never delayed her for a moment. As she mount-
ed a ladder to scale the walls with her banner, a
stone from the walls struck her standard and was
dashed into fragments on her armor. It struck
her down, but she rose with her banner, crying,
"Friends, cheer up! Cheer up, comrades! The
day is ours ! Come on ! Come on ! "

Somehow the Angelic Maid grows in the mind
as a symbol of womanhood leading humanity to
the fulfillment of courage and power, clearing

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 123

wrong from the world. If not in war-like form,
it has been so from the days when motherhood
teaches the feeble steps, and the hours when
mother encourages the infant mind to grasp the
meaning of the world.

Jergeau was mastered with all the fury and
passion of war. Not so with Jeanne d'Arc. She
protected the prisoners and her first care was
to see that they should not suffer from the en-
raged people.

Within two weeks the valley of the Loire was
cleared of its enemies.

5. Overcoming the Enemy on the Way to Rheims

Jeanne rested two nights in Orleans, most of
the time in the cathedral, at the foot of the altar,
in silent prayer. And now there was not a single
general who dared deny that she was a leader su-
perior in military strategy and foresight to them
all.

Tuesday evening she summoned to her the Duke
of Alengon.

"To-morrow, after dinner/' she announced to
him, "we go to Meun."

At that town was a strongly fortified garrison
and its subjugation meant that the way was now
being opened toward the final goal of all her tasks,
the way to Eheims.

True to her plans, her army reached Meun in
due time. The English fled from the town and

124, JOAN OF ARC

took refuge in the fortress. She took possession
and bade the soldiers to be at ease till morning.

The next morning Alengon heard that Consta-
ble de Richemont was marching to join them with
several famous knights who had joined their for-
tunes with him. The Constable was in strong dis-
favor from the King, because of much antagon-
ism, if not disloyalty, and the King had forbid-
den Alengon from receiving Richemont or his sup-
port in the royal army. Alenc.on was personally
very bitter toward Constable de Richemont and
he told La Pucelle that if she received the Con-
stable, he would withdraw from the army.

The King in conferring authority upon Jeanne
had among the specified rights at her request com-
mitted to her the power to pardon offenses done
against him and his kingdom.

Lu Pucelle reminded Alengon that if she par-
doned de Richemont he would be on equality with
Alengon both as to person and as to the King's
service, in which state of affairs Alen§on would
have no excuse to leave that would not be treason.

In any estimate of the character and career of
this strange girl, such foresight and firmness have
much significance in her history.

When the Constable met her on Friday evening,
she received him cordially on her own responsi-
bility. She told him that she would receive him
free from all disfavor from the King or any one
in authority, if he would take oath of life loyalty
to his lawful sovereign. This he was glad to do

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 125

and thus the last important faction disrupting
France was closed.

Meanwhile, a panic had seized the English in
the fortress. They begged for a council of sur-
render. This was agreed to and, according to the
terms arranged, on the next morning, the garri-
son disarmed, filed across the bridge, leaving
everything behind but their personal effects.

6. The Fortunes of War

Hardly had the last English soldier disappeared
over the bridge, when a messenger arrived with
news that a force much larger than that of the
French was approaching to relieve the fortress.
The French officers did not believe they could hold
the town against the superior force and equip-
ment of the enemy. They advised immediate re-
treat.

"By my Martin-baton, No!" cried Jeanne, who
wanted battle in the open fields. "God is sending
them to us for defeat. The King shall to-day
have the greatest of all his victories."

The trumpets were ordered to sound the call to
battle. In swift march, they hastened to meet the
enemy. Presently they came upon the English
drawn up in battle line near the village of Patay
in an advantageous position.

"There are the English," Alengon said to the
Maid. "Dare we fight them?"

Dunois and Bichemont came up.

126 JOAN OF ARC

She suddenly enquired, "Have you all good
spurs?"

"What!" cried the Duke, "Are we to be de-
feated? Shall we turn and run?"

"Nay! Nay!" she replied, "but the enemy is
about to flee. They will not stop and you must
have spurs to chase them."

Plans were therefore laid not only for battle
but for pursuit. This proved to be a most re-
markable provision for victory.

It was hardly a battle. Where the standard of
La Pucelle waved the battle became a rout and
then a desperate flight. But they could not es-
cape the horsemen prepared for the pursuit. The
cavalry spurred on ahead of the fugitives and
turned them back to the slaughter, till half were
scattered over the fields, wounded or dead.

Sir John Falstaff, the hero and knight of the
garter, made famous by Shakespeare, broke
through and fled madly on to Yenville, where the
people refused him and his associates an entrance,
and he fled on and on till he was safe within the
walls of Corbeil. But nothing he could say about
the sorcery of the witch-maid availed and he lost
his knighthood on the charge of cowardice.

In the battle of Patay was completely destroyed
the really splendid army brought over by the Earl
of Salisbury to complete the conquest of France.

It was a wonderful consummation, not open to
any commonplace explanation, when the Lords,
Earls and Knights stood captive the next morn-

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 127

ing before the Maid, who had dictated to a pro-
fessor at Poitiers, the summons commanding them
to depart from Orleans and leave the soil of
France. It was all beyond their comprehension
as it is ours. Talbot answered for them all, and
no more practical explanation has ever since been
given them, when he replied to their questions,
"It is the fortune of war.'7

7. Favorites of the King

La Pucelle was all womanly compassion for
every one suffering who was not receiving that
suffering in an act of violence against the rights
of France. That was the crime worthy of what-
ever punishment that might befall. As she rode
back from the battlefield of Patay, she saw a
French soldier driving forward some prisoners,
one of whom was wounded unto death. In the
great pity of her soul she sprang from her horse,
rebuking the cruel soldier. As the wounded man
sunk down she knelt by his side, ministering ten-
derly for him as a mother. He asked for a priest
and she had one brought forthwith to them. She
took the dying man 's head in her arms and weep-
ing over him, comforted him till he died. He
looked into her pitying eyes and it is said that he
saw angels coming to take him away from the
world of violence and blood.

That she loved the humble and the poor is well
attested in the depositions of Dunois. He says

128 JOAN OF ARC

that, as she rode by his side, through crowds of
grateful people, blessed if they could touch her
garments, happy if they could kneel upon the
earth where her horse had trod, she said, "In the
name of God, behold how good and devoted are
these poor people. There are none others to com-
pare with them."

The Angelic Maid was a soul of infinite sympa-
thy supreme as the motherhood of humanity.

In a week the Wonderful Woman had freed the
hopelessly beleagured city of Orleans ; in another
week she cleared the Loire valley of the numer-
ously garrisoned enemy, and she wanted to go on
at once to the coronation as the end of her mis-
sion. Then she could go back to her flocks in the
peaceful fields of Domremy. But the coronation
that Charles most desired was ease. He was born
to be ministered unto. Though he was grateful
to this strange and unaccountable girl, it was no
more than he should expect from his subjects,
whatever their talents, gifts or powers. Natural-
ly, anything they possessed from God on down to
taxes and service should be his.

The King showered compliments on her and lis-
tened to the usual advisers suitable to a King, the
envious favorite Tremouville and the archbishop
of Eheims.

The King's favorites were already preparing
her crown of thorns. They were already shaping
the road to the martyr's stake.

All the energy she once used striving to be

PEACE OF A PACIFIST KING 129

heard, she now used striving to organize her
means for the last of her tasks.

The King advised her to rest. She declared
that she could not rest. The peace she had made
between the King and those who were unfriendly
to him was broken by the renewal of envious an-
tagonisms. But the humble people of France were
wild to follow where she led. They came from
all parts of the kingdom only to find delay and un-
certainty. It seems that the King himself was
envious of the interest of the people. He discour-
aged them in every way that could be devised.
The King's favorites tried to have her sent off to
the conquest of Normandy. They said that the
French army could not yet get through to Eheims.
The enemy was too strongly garrisoned along the
way.

8. None So Blind as Those Who Will Not See

Jean, her second brother, arrived from Dom-
remy, in the midst of her endeavors to have the
King move on to Rheims. She loved him dearly
and inquired with deep interest about her rela-
tives and the people of Lorraine.

One thing he told her that caused her many
tears and for which she gave many prayers. He
told her that back at home they believed her power
began under the Fairy Tree, known as Beautiful
May. It was the superstition of the peasantry
and they did not know it would do her harm.

130 JOAN OF ARC

There were two accusations which always made
her scream with pain. One was any question of
her chastity and the other any suggestion that her
power or mission was from any other source than
God.

* ' What ! ' ' she cried in consternation. "Do they
believe back at home as the English believe that
my love for King and country is not of God ! ' '

Alas! for humanity! She was soon to learn
how little that King and country lived in the name
of her Lord !

At last La Pucelle, seeing that she could not en-
courage the King against his advisers, encamped
in the field before his castle with her followers,
who were paying their own expenses with their
scanty means, there awaiting his feeble decision
to come on to the coronation. But he came not.
The King's favorites wanted to have all the glory
of this final act. The Angelic Girl of the "Won-
derful Faith was like a fawn in the midst of
wolves. Her God and her Lord of Eight were
nothing but scornful jests to them.

Then Jeanne started alone for the advanced
camps of their army, to clear the way, for the
King to Eheims. This courage shamed him and
the next morning he followed her.

Town after town surrendered along the way and
supplied the army with food until they came to
Troyes, where the English and Burgundians gath-
ered their strength to block her advance.

For five days the French army, and a host that

had flocked to the standard of the Angelic Maid,
lay in the fields around Troyes, with nothing to
eat but beans.

The wonderful thing about this was that a
strange personage named Brother Richard, pos-
sessed of the most fiery eloquence and zeal, had
appeared there during the season of planting
time, with the strange order from heaven that the
people plant beans. There was no reason that
any one knew for planting beans, but the peas-
ants did it, and without that harvest of beans,
now ready, La Pucelle's army of Coronation
would have been compelled to disperse from be-
fore Troyes and abandon the attempt. The
Maid's mission would have failed and the justifi-
cation of all her sacrifice and labor would have
been lost.

La Pucelle was exclusively practical. She de-
nied all miracle. But her followers believed she
could do anything. She had only to speak to her
Lord and there would be abundance. She had
only to wave her banner in the name of God and
the enemy would become panic-stricken and pow-
erless. The incompetence of ignorance always
fails in the process of faith and supplies the
means of conquest to the wills of despotism.

9. When Will Gives Way to Faith.

•But if ever an uncouth, unequipped army
looked hopeless, this one was now so. They were

132 JOAN OF ARC

destitute in the heart of the enemies' possessions.
All around them were fortified cities. They were
not more than half fed and soon found themselves
with less than a day's supply of their meager
food. The officers were not only in doubt but in
revolt against the folly of trusting to a girl to lead
an army.

The Archbishop of Rheims declared to the coun-
cil, called by the King, that only a miracle could
save the army from famine, the city could not be
taken without artillery, and it did not seem pos-
sible that the minds of the English commanders
could be changed, as they paid no attention to the
summons of the Maid. All the counselors in their
turn spoke to the King, advising him that nothing
but retreat could save them, as there was no help
short of several days' journey.

Then Eobert le Me§on spoke. He was one of
the three who had heard Jeanne at Loches tell the
King about her Voices. He reminded the King
that the expedition had not been undertaken
through reliance upon the military power of their
soldiers. It could never have been thought of on
such grounds. It was undertaken upon the help
God was giving to the Angelic Maid, and she
should be sent for that they might hear what she
had to say.

This appealed to the King's conscience and he
decided to send for her. Faith in the power of
righteousness and the estimate of possibilities in
the struggle of wills were again on trial.

CHAPTER
A DIVINE CROWN AND THE ROYAL HEAD

1. The King Reluctantly Patronismg Another

Power

MEN of might relying upon will usually seek di-
vine power only as a substitute for avoiding fail-
ure. So long as there is any chance of winning
by their own will, they dislike the restraints im-
posed by the interference even of a temporary
substitute.

Joan of Arc must have felt that kind of con-
tempt for the weakness of Kings, when she came
into the royal presence of this man who was of
the most corrupt origin and from the most trea-
sonable political system in Europe. Could a di-
vine mission be given to such a man! But she
doubtlessly believed that her responsibility so
marvelously proven to be divine would be no less
imposing and compelling when thus conferred
upon him. A consciousness of their belittling con-
descension must have weighed heavy upon her as
she came into the council hall before these un-
worthy men.

She came in with stately bearing as one having
authority above the wills of men. She made her

133

134 JOAN OF ARC

respectful salute to the King. Then she turned to
the Archbishop with a motion for him to proceed
with what he had to say.

The Archbishop spoke at length, covering all
the reasons that had been given why the army
should save itself while it could do so in retreat.

She then turned to Charles and asked him if he
would believe her if she spoke her mind. He re-
plied that he would surely believe anything rea-
sonable.

"Gentle Dauphin," she replied, "if you will
stay two days longer before Troyes, the city shall
be yours."

"Jeanne,*' interposed the Archbishop, "we
would gladly promise to stay thrice so long, if it
could be reasonable that we could have it."

"Then never fear," replied the Maid; "you
shall have it to-morrow."

The fervor of the inspired warrior may be felt
in the words Theodosia Garrison has her say for
the freedom of France:

"And angels militant shall fling the gates of Heaven wide,
And souls new-dead whose lives were shed like leaves on war's

red tide
Shall cross their swords above our heads and cheer us as we

ride.

"For with me goes that soldier saint, Saint Michael of the

sword,

And I shall ride on his right side, a page beside his lord,
And men shall follow like swift blades to reap a sure re-
ward.

\ A DIVINE CROWN 135

"Grant that I answer this my call, yea, though the end may be
The naked shame, the biting flame, the last, long agony;
I would go singing down that road where faggots wait for
me."

The King and his advisers quickly agreed that
she should take charge and have another day. It
was to be a great day for France.

Jeanne ran out of the house, mounted her horse
and was away to the camp. With her Martin-ba-
ton she pointed out the work for the captains,
knights, squires and soldiers to do. They made
bundles of small limbs from the trees with which
to fill the moat ; they brought parts of frames from
houses torn down from which to bridge the mire
of the ditch. Some mounted the culverins and
bombards ; others prepared ladders and gathered
material at convenient places for assault. They
could work when they believed and they could
fight in the greater faith. Jeanne worked the
whole night through and aroused the same zeal in
her men. Dunois said that she did as much as any
three captains.

It was from these scenes that several of her
hard-minded warriors, in testimony concerning
her as a soldier, said, that in the art of war, in
the plannings of battle and leading soldiers in as-
sault, "she bore herself like the most skillful cap-
tain in the world," this child fresh from the pas-
ture-fields of Lorraine, who had power and in-
spired power in the name of humanity and God.

136 JOAN OF ARC

2. Brother Richard and His Assurance

The English soldiers within the besieged city
saw these preparations. They saw the Maid all
through that momentous day, and, when darkness
came, her torches showed her tireless work
through the whole night long. The enemy saw
feebleness change to power. The defeated were
working like men sure of victory. The people
could not sleep, they nocked to the cathedrals to
pray. Many of them ran wild through the streets
crying that the day of judgment had come. That
strange fanatic known as Brother Richard was
there. He went about whispering counsel that
their souls must be prepared for the day of God
that was coming with the next sunrise.

The exploits of the Maid, when she came wav-
ing her holy, banner, were told with trembling
lips with a meaning never felt before. Even the
solid stone walls could not stand before the mighty
waves set in motion from her hands.

Possibly she was from God. If so, who could
stand before her !

Brother Eichard warned them that if she were
from God it would not only be death but damna-
tion to oppose her. If she was of the devil, their
miserable death at her hands could hardly be
worse. There can be no doubt that this man of
strangely true intuitions, was preparing the psy-
chological way for the victory of the Wonderful
Woman.

A DIVINE CROWN 137

The people did not wait for the military com-
manders. At dawn they sent Brother Richard
out through the gates with a vessel of holy water
to ask her if it were indeed truth that she came
from God.

The priest came into the presence of the An-
gelic Maid with great caution. He solemnly
sprinkled the holy water upon the ground before
him to purify his steps, he signed himself with
the cross so that no devilish influence could touch
him, and then he threw the holy drops into the
space between them so that there could be no dev-
ils of the air to mar their conference. But Jeanne
had no superstitions. She had no fear of holy
water. * ' Come on boldly, ' ' she cried, laughing at
his grotesque gestures of fear. "I shall not fly
away. ' '

A few minutes' conversation was all that
Brother Richard needed. He hastened back into
the city and such was his report that the city lost
not a moment in hastening the surrender.

Many of Charles' council desired to punish the
city for its sins against him, but Jeanne would al-
low nothing that was not full pardon and peace,
as soon as they took the oath of allegiance to their
rightful King.

3. Keeping Faith with the Enemy

Europe had never achieved anything but a very
'inconsistent and variable code of honor. Per-

138 JOAN OF ARC

sonal advantage was the supreme divine right.
No one thought of keeping an oath as being bind-
ing when it was unprofitable. The measure of all
things was self, while God was merely a great self
magnified into almighty sovereignty.

But, in that most lawless and corrupt period of
all time, this marvelous child of faith was so su-
perior to her age as to believe that covenants
should be kept, and that righteousness existed be-
tween man and man only as it must be between
man and God.

Troyes was overwhelmingly convinced by
Brother Eichard that the Maid was indeed from
God and they must not be a stumbling block in
her way. The English officers saw at once that
they could not overcome the superstitious fear of
their own men, nor withstand the determination
of the citizens to surrender, and have any hope
of defeating the ever victorious woman. They
agreed to be disarmed and to leave the city, pro-
vided that they would be allowed to take away
with them their personal possessions. This was
agreed to by the Warrior Woman in the name of
the King.

It was soon learned that the English soldiers
had bound their French prisoners and were tak-
ing them along as property. This was technically
correct, as prisoners were the profitable spoils of
war. Each man capturing another held the cap-
tive for ransom. Word of what was happening
was carried to Joan. "In the name of God,*' she

A DIVINE CROWN 139

cried, ''they shall not be taken hence!" But the
English soldiers claimed that their treaty of sur-
render included the right to take away their
property.

La Pucelle mounted her horse in great indigna-
tion and galloped forward to the English com-
mander. He likewise insisted that such was the
understanding that his officers had of the treaty
made and so understood by the French officers.
She insisted that no one could inake a treaty that
was not right before God. But she believed in
keeping faith even with the enemy.

Her conclusion was instantly reached: if the
King had allowed such a treaty of surrender, he
must pay the ransom. She hastened back to the
King. He told her that the English being un-
armed could not take away the prisoners if she
would not allow it. She insisted that no such vio-
lence against a covenant between men was possi-
ble and it was equally impossible to allow the pris-
oners to be carried away into captivity. He must
pay the ransom and set the men free. And it was
done. She soon returned to the city with the pris-
oners glorifying her as their savior. Probably for
the first time in the history of Kings there was as-
serted a divine right greater than kings, even as
later on she was to pay with her life the penalty
for holding the faith that the divine right of relig-
ious conscience is superior to all the tribunals or
decrees of kings, ecclesiastical potentates, or or-
ganized masters of church and state. In this free-

140 JOAN OF ARC

dom of faith kept true is the immortal meaning of
Joan of Arc for the American rights of man and
the humanity of the world.

4. On the Marvelous Way to the Coronation

About ten o'clock on the morning of July 11,
the King in a triumphal procession rode into
Troyes. Brother Richard preached one of his
most famous sermons to them, and henceforth was
a personal follower of the Wonderful Woman.

"God does not work for the idle," was the
constant saying of La Pucelle. "Work and God
will work." She wanted to be always at work un-
til the completion of her mission. At last she got
them moving on to Rheims. Town after town sur-
rendered or fell before them. It was a triumphal
procession on to the great coronation of the King.
She never thought of it in any other way than the
fulfillment of God's will. Her religious devotions
were unfailing and she inspired the same spirit in
all around her.

Dunois says that she had the vesper bells rung
half an hour every evening wherever she was be-
cause in them she could hear the music of the
Voices, as when she was in the fields of Domremy.
He also says that wherever she came to stay all
night she always inquired for the most respectable
woman in the town, with whom she would lodge,
while guards kept watch on the outside. He, who
had been with her through so many victories, was

A DIFINE CROWN 141

one of the noblest of men, and none can doubt his
testimony. He says that "all the soldiers held
her as sacred, and so well did she bear herself in
warfare, in words and in deeds, as a follower of
God, that no evil could be said of her." Princes,
noblemen and priests all with the same respect
only extend the description of one of the noblest
women ever born to the earth.

Rheims was reached with only the delay inci-
dental to receiving the surrender of the towns, and
from performing the ceremony of allegiance by
being sworn to the Dauphin on the way to become
King.

Saturday morning, July 16, the Archbishop of
Rheims entered the city and prepared it for the
reception of the King at sunset. At the appointed
time, the triumphal entry was made, Jeanne rid-
ing by the side of the King. Her dreams in the
fields of Domremy were coming true, and it was
surely the most wonderful dream ever dreamed
by a little girl. Far more, as a testimony to the
power of faith, it was the dream of the most won-
derful little girl.

The next morning at nine o 'clock, Sunday, July
17, the historic cathedral at Rheims was ready for
the coronation of a king. In that great historic
hall, now so torn by the bombardments of the in-
vader, gorgeous colors, velvet and silver, satin
and gold, steel-pointed spears and glinting armor
were mingled with waving streams of crimson and

142 JOAN OF ARC

azure, flowing from the high windows and re-
flected from the many-figured aisles.

The holy oil with which the King must be an-
nointed at Rheims was of great historic venera-
tion. It was said to have been brought down in a
vial from heaven for the coronation of Clovis. All
was at last ready and the great day in the resur-
rection and restoration of France was now at
hand.

5. The Coronation

It was as if the impossible had come to pass.
And yet, king and archbishop never believe that
anything is impossible with God for them. Be-
ing the highest, why should the divine go any
lower for the conferring of favors or for the in-
terests of humanity ! On them was the glory and
honor. But, whatever they thought, they recog-
nized in Joan an instrument now proven to be use-
ful and they gave her a prominent place in the
coronation.

i One writer describing the scene says, "Joan
stood beside the altar, her standard in her hand.
Her celestial figure, glorified by the rays which
shone upon her through the stained glass win-
dows, seemed the personification of the angel of
France, presiding over the resurrection of her
country." Perhaps that gorgeous assembly could
not understand which was the great figure in that
coronation. It might be the King or the Arch-

A DIVINE CROWN 143

bishop but it could hardly be a woman, however
strangely God had looked upon her.

But the like of her had never been seen at any
glory of kings and never again, as there would
never again be such times, could there be such a
warrior for the rights of man in the name of God.

At the foot of the great altar, stood Charles the
Dauphin of France, ready for the mystic ointment
of Saint Eemi's oil, that was to confirm the low-
ering of the crown of France upon his head.

The Maid, clad in silver mail, holding aloft her
standard with which she had waved victory into
every fortress and hostile camp from Blois to
Rheims, stood like a guardian angel at the side of
the altar. "That banner has borne the pain," she
said, ' 1 and it should share the glory. ' '

Felicia Hemans, describing Joan at the Corona-
tion, says,

"Her helm was raised,

And the fair face revealed, that upward gazed,
Intensely worshipping — a still, clear face,
Youthful but brightly solemn ! Woman's cheek
And brow were there, in deep devotion meek,
Yet glorified with inspiration's trace
On its pure paleness; while enthroned above,
The pictured virgin with her smile of love
Seemed bending o'er her votaress."

6. The Task Completed cmd the Longing for Home

The Dauphin of France was now King accord-
ing to the ancient ceremony of 'coronation used

JOAN OF ARC

since the time of Clovis. Then a strange act
took place when the King arose with the crown
of France on his head.

Those who were near her testify that, "When
the Maid saw the King had been consecrated and
crowned, she knelt, weeping as she clasped his
knees, saying, 'Gentle King, now is accomplished
the will of God, who decreed that I should raise
the siege of Orleans, and bring you to the city of
Rheims, for your holy sacring.' "

She wanted the King to understand and with
him all the people that she now considered her
service at an end.

"And right great pity came upon all who saw
her, ' ' continues one who was present, 1 1 and many
wept."

Well might they weep, for it was not like the
age of Egypt when there arose men who knew not
Joseph, because here there were men around her,
in high places, who knew not God.

And now before the entrance of the place where
her King was crowned, unmolested by the van-
dalism that ruined the great Cathedral in the
European war, stands her statue with the sym-
bolic standard in her hands. The King is lost in
the contempt of history, but the faith of the peas-
ant girl forever flourishes in the soul of humanity.

As she rode away in the coronation procession
with the King, the people were shouting and sing-
ing in religious enthusiasm all along the way.
Jeanne was greatly moved by their devotion and

CHARLES VII AND THE MAID OF ORLEANS ENTERING

RHEIMS
From a painting about the year 1700

A DIVINE CROWN 145

she said to the Archbishop, ' * When I die I should
wish to be buried among such good people.'*

The prelate asked her how her mind in such an
hour could turn to thoughts of death.

"I know not," she replied. "My death will
come as God pleases. But I would that God let
me return home to my sister and my brothers.
They would be so glad to see me, and I have ful-
filled the will of my Savior."

7. The Task, the Woman and the King

Dunois, of Orleans, who knew her work best, in
his sworn testimony says, "When she spoke seri-
ously of the war, and of her own career and voca-
tion, she never affirmed anything but that she was
sent to raise the siege of Orleans and to lead the
King to Rheims to be crowned."

So, when she stepped forth from the great
throng at the completion of the Coronation, and
embraced the knees of the crowned monarch, say-
ing, ' ' Gentle King, now is the pleasure of God ful-
filled," we may well believe it was like unto the
cry of old, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace."

John Stirling, writing in England when she was
still thought of only as a sorceress, says of her
desire to return home, at the completion of the
coronation :

"And with many tears implored!
'Tis the sound of home restored!

146 JOAN OF ARC

And as mounts the angel show
Gliding with them she would go,
But, again to stoop below,
And, returned to green Lorraine,
Be a shepherd-child again."

Elsewhere in his poetry he speaks of her as
"the most wonderful, exquisite and complete per-
sonage in all the history of the world. ' '

Joseph Stephenson, in his "Wars of the Eng-
lish in France," says, "Had she returned home
with her parents from the coronation at Rheims,
had she escaped from prison, or even been par-
doned by her judges . . . she would have become
the heroine of romance instead of the heroine of
history. . . . Her death was her triumph, and
from the ashes of her execution-pile at Rouen
arose the regenerative liberty of France."

After naming the great promises of her
"Voices," he says, "But for Joan they had no
promise to her save this — that at the end, after
a great victory, they would take her home to Para-
dise."

The illustrious lady, Christine de Pisan, was in
her old age an inmate of the Abbey of Poissy
where her daughter had long been a nun. She
wrote at that time of the triumph at Orleans, a
poem of five hundred lines in praise of the Maid,
in which she said,

"And thou, Maid most happy, most honored
of God, thou hast loosed the cord with which

A DIVINE CROWN 147

France was bound. Canst thou be praised
enough, thou who hast brought peace to this
land laid low by war?"

In praise of women through Jeanne, she said,

' ' Honor to the feminine sex ! God loves her.
A damsel of sixteen . . . the enemy flees before
her. Many eyes behold it. She goeth forth cap-
turing towns and castles. She is the first cap-
tain of our host. Such power had not Hector
or Achilles ... in heaven shall ye have reward
and glory, for whosoever fighteth in a just
cause, winneth Paradise."

But this really learned woman proved not to be
so good a prophet. She said, "In her conquest of
the Holy Land, she will tear up the Saracens like
weeds. . . . There shall her life end."

At the close of the coronation rewards were
freely bestowed upon the princes, knights and
officers who had contributed to the victories re-
sulting in the crowning of the King. Then La
Pucelle was asked what she wanted. The Heav-
enly Maid remembered only her childhood home.
It should have all the reward. She asked that the
two villages, Domremy and Greux should be for-
ever free from taxation. The King granted her
request and caused it to be written as ' ' a favor of
and at the request of our well-beloved Jeanne the
Maid, and for the great, high, notable and profit-

148 JOAN OF ARC

able service which she has done us, and does each
day toward the recovery of our kingdom.'*

And all honor be this much unto King Charles7
word. Every year until the profligate days of
Louis XV, it was written over against the taxes
on those two villages in the tax book: "Nothing,
for the sake of the Maid."

8. After the Coronation

Joan of Arc was now at the height of her
achievements in world history, but not yet to the
greatness of her wonderful character. The King
would not let her go from his service. It seemed
to him no less preposterous now that she should
go back to her flocks in Domremy, than when he
first saw her that she should achieve the crown
for him at Rheims. As for her, if she must re-
main in the service of France, she could not be
idle or lose any time.

The Duke of Burgundy was yet in open hostil-
ity to the King, though not fully in accord with
the English. She at once wrote him a letter in
which she said, "High and mighty Prince, Duke of
Burgundy, Jeanne the Maid, in the name of the
King of Heaven, her rightful and sovereign Lord,
requires that the King of France and you make a
good, firm and lasting peace. Forgive each other
with a good heart, fully, as loyal Christians ought ;
and, if you must fight, go against the Saracens.
... I beg and pray you, with clasped hands, that

A DIVINE CROWN 149

you will make no longer war upon us, you, your
soldiers or your subjects ; for believe very surely
that how many men soever you lead against us,
they shall gain nothing, and great pity it will be
for the battle and the bloodshed."

Shakespeare in his "Joan of Arc" puts her
words into this form:

"See ! See the pining malady of France.
Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
Which thou hast given her woeful breast !
Oh, turn thy edged sword another way;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help !"

Jeanne d'Arc with her marvelous military in-
sight desired to march at once on to Paris, but
the King as if composed of the ancient traditions
of slow plodding warfare, did not dare to order
the capture of Paris. It looked like too big a task
even for "the daughter of the King of Heaven."
Such swiftness of execution was too quick for his
imagination.

The war-council decided that not Paris but the
strongholds supporting Paris should be first re-
duced, and thus was the wonderful enthusiasm of
her army to be wasted on the outposts instead of
being led to a crushing victory upon the center
at Paris. Her brilliant military strategy could
not be used for four hundred years, when Napo-
leon used her swift and direct methods with
which to win some of the greatest victories in
history.

150 JOAN OF ARC

The delay gave time for the Duke of Bedford
to rush English troops to the strengthening of
Paris, and to bring inducements to bear on the
Duke of Burgundy not to make peace with Charles
de Valois.

Bedford prevailed upon his uncle Cardinal
Beaufort to come to his aid. The Cardinal had
already sent an army to help fight down the Huss-
ites in Bohemia, and now he turned with pious
zeal to the task of the Armagnac witch known
as Joan of Arc. Bedford needed time to make
his preparations to hold Paris, and the Duke of
Burgundy, now more and more being committed
to the English Cause, delayed Charles four days
more at Bheims, on negotiations for peace. Then
he succeeded in getting a fifteen days' truce un-
der pretense of negotiating the surrender of
Paris.

9. The Road of Treason and Defeat

0

Diplomacy and intrigue had now taken the place
of the Voices of the Maid in the Councils of the
King. The little she could get done was by sheer
force of her tireless energy and will, — this girl of
seventeen! She had seen her high noon at
Rheims, but now her faith began to fear, not for
her cause but for her lack of a cause. Her work
was now more for the glory of a feeble King than
for the good of the people or the interests of any
heavenly calling. Slowly she felt about her the

A DIVINE CROWN 151

creeping coils of faithlessness and the confusions
of insatiable greed.

"I fear nothing but treachery," were her sig-
nificant words to Gerardin. . There was no more
her heavenly voices in the vesper bells. The cold
hand of man's inhumanity to man was freezing
the celestial fires in her soul.

On August 7, 1429, Bedford wrote a letter to
Charles VII in which the Duke berated the King
as one "Who accepted the help of superstitious
and reprobate folk, a woman, disorderly and de-
famed, wearing a man's attitude, and of dissolute
conduct," and whom he challenged to combat
"with all the perjured rascals of his train."

This challenge was made because the English
and the Burgundian armies were now ready. The
slothful King and his intriguing court could not
complete the restoration following the task to
which the Maid had been inspired. She was not
now in the army according to her divine call from
Domremy. Heaven had given her the sign of her
calling and had closed the mission.

The challenge to battle for the way to Paris had
its effect and the corrupted cause of the King was
to be put to the test with an unprepared army.

The fatal disbelief and slothfulness of the
King's favorites wound him about as in a net of
indifference, and the Maid often became weary
and fell into the weakness of tears. She could
not win victories with such unworthy slackness in

152 JOAN OF ARC

men. She might thus work for unworthy idlers,
but God would not.

The English leaders frequently sent her word
that if they could capture her they would burn
her as a witch, and then in response she would
cry to the King that he must come on to battle
for his rights. She said, "I cry, 'Go in to the
English and I shall go in myself.' "

But the easy mind of the King was the easy
dupe of both the Duke of Burgundy and the King
of England. He believed he was a great diplomat.
He thought he could persuade the Burgundians
from their alliance with England and thus force
a peace without further battles. "As to peace
with the English," Jeanne reiterated, "the only
peace possible is their return to their own coun-
try."

The stupidity and folly of the King is shown
in his compliance with everything suggested by
the Duke of Burgundy. Charles would not fight
him as long as the Duke promised anything in the
name of peace. Her light was darkening under
a sky so beclouded by selfish wills that she could
not see her way, and she became patient, so pa-
thetically patient. The holiness of the King was
fading from her vision. The hour of betrayal
was at hand, and she was no longer to be seen at
court when there were to be found any group of
the humble with whom she could worship.
1 It was always Jeanne and the people. Those
in authority were always opposing and obstruct-

A DIVINE CROWN 153

ing. They were glad when the day came so that
they could be rid of her interference with their
plans.

The King's court was composed of false court-
iers, artful flatterers and greedy sycophants. The
weakness that could endure no controversy, was
unable to organize his own household, and could
in no sense obtain any rights through war. The
court did not want one near who required decency
and they were glad to be rid of La Pucelle. This
reveals how absolutely essential that morality is
to humanity, and that without its divine loyalty
there is no possible meaning for a social world.

In the midst of such demoralization there could
be no peace, and the noblest of peacemakers could
have no influence upon such ignoble wills. Autoc-
racy and immorality are both disastrous and im-
possible to social justice. The American presi-
dent, defining Americanism in the European War,
made it clear that real Americans " desire peace
by the overcoming of evil, by the defeat once for
all of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and
render it impossible." As the vesper bells voiced
divine harmony in the soul of the wonderful
woman, so her life rings out as the liberty bell of
our coming civilization, not only in America, and
for France, but throughout the world.

CHAPTER IX
ON THE WAY TO PARIS

1. Mountains Unapproachable by Faith

MANY of the Maid's most devoted captains and
knights had been taken from her and scattered
over detached commands, and yet, with an almost
incredible organizing power and military insight,
she overcame the delays made to please the Duke
of Burgundy, and got the army under way to-
ward Paris.

Insurmountable as seemed the obstacles from
Domremy to Rheims, the way from Rheims to
Paris was worse from the unpatriotic stupidity
and apathy with which she had to deal. It made
little difference to most of the people whether
their masters were English, Burgundians or Ar-
magnacs.

On Sunday, August 14, her forces arrived be-
fore the English fortified about the village Notre-
Dame-des-Victoires.

There was some skirmishing back and forth be-
fore night-fall, but the real battle was expected to
take place in the morning. All night she worked
with her former zeal to have the army ready, but
the next morning the English would not come out
to battle. Every device wras made to provoke

154

O.V THE WAY TO PARIS 155

them, but they kept close behind their defenses.
Then La Pucelle took her standard and rode down
with a small detachment to the entrenchments,
striking her standard against the walls and dar-
ing them to come out. But in vain. At this, a
retreat was ordered to deceive the enemy, but in-
stead of following in an attack, Bedford withdrew
his men and marched on to Paris.

The end of the fifteen days' truce came, and
the Duke of Burgundy sent his nephew, Jean of
Luxembourg, with negotiations for more delay.
Charles, supported by the Archbishop of Eheims,
pleaded the great virtue of peaceful means and
sent a commission to a council of peace.

Meanwhile, many towns and villages, on being
summoned to surrender by Charles, readily con-
sented, because all the forces holding them, by
either Burgundians or English, were being with-
drawn to the defense of Paris.

By August 22, the envoys had returned from
their conference with the Duke of Burgundy, un-
able to report anything accomplished. Five weeks
had now been trifled away since the coronation,
which had been used by the Burgundians .and Eng-
lish to strengthen themselves against the royal
army, and to lessen the prestige of the Maid.

2. The Need for Friends and Also a Fatal Letter

Jeanne could endure the delay no longer.
"My beautiful Duke/' she commanded Alengon,

156 JOAN OF AEC

"get your men ready and your captains, for, by
my Martin-baton, I will go and see Paris, nearer
than I have seen it yet ! ' '

Her friends among the officers in the army were
yet in the majority, and it was decided to obey
her orders and move on to the capture of Paris,
even though they would be leaving the King be-
hind, and would be ending all his negotiations
with Burgundy, by moving against Paris.

The army was drawn up just ready for the
order to start, when a letter was brought to her
from the Count of Armagnac. She was in the act
of mounting her horse as the messenger gave it
to her. It was the one heartless, fatal thing
which her enemies in the church were to use for
her destruction.

There had been three claimants for the papacy
and three popes had been elected. The Count re-
cited these things in his letter and begged her "to
supplicate our Lord Jesus Christ, that from His
infinite mercy He will declare to us by you, which
of the three above named is true pope, and which
it will please Him that we henceforth obey."

It was so that, between the writing of that letter
and the delivery to Jeanne, the church had settled
its divisions and Martin V had won the decision
as pope, so as to be confirmed in the pontifical
chair. But this news had not yet reached France.

The request was not blameworthy because such
had become the fame of the Heavenly Maid, be-
yond her own army, that among all the friends

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 157

of France an old prophecy from the time of the
Crusaders was believed to mean her and her mis-
sion. To have the Dauphin crowned King of
Rheims was only a beginning of her great work.
She was destined to recover Jerusalem from the
Saracens and restore the Holy Land to the Chris-
tians. Then, after establishing the reign of the
universal faith, the Daughter of Heaven was to
die at the tomb of the Son of God.

Her answer to the Count of Armagnac was used
in her trial to show that she assumed to be greater
than the Church.

Her associate officers were impatient for orders
to advance and threatened to throw the messenger
in the moat for delaying them, but Jeanne insisted
on replying. She felt the need of friends now
and the Count of Armagnac should not be disap-
pointed. She wrote in her reply, * * Of this matter
I can not well inform you until I am in Paris or
elsewhere at rest. At present I am too busy with
the war; but when you shall hear that I am in
Paris, send me a messenger and I will let yon
know truly which you ought to believe, when I
shall have learned it by the counsel of my right-
ful Sovereign Lord, the King of All the Earth."

3. The Sordid Minds of a Royal Court

Charles VII appeared to be a King who was
always afraid of too much success. He was so
slow to avail himself of the Maid's achievements

158 JOAN OF ARC

that one might well believe he feared to owe so
much to heaven or to her. Perhaps there were
•unconscious reasons for this as her work meant
purity of purpose, and he, despite his good inten-
tions, was helplessly involved in the network of
intrigues that seemed to be not only the pastime
but the life of his favorites in the court.

Paris was filled with consternation and despair
at the approach of Joan and her army. The most
terrifying defamation of her was officially dis-
seminated. It was said that King Charles had
decided to destroy Paris, to give the city over to
pillage and massacre, to burn and destroy every-
thing, even to plow the ground and sow it with
salt, as told of Romans in the destruction of Car-
thage. The Armagnac witch was to put every
one to torture through her sorceries and there was
to be no mercy to man, woman or child in any
sanctuary or for any cause. But falsehoods for
political effects were not peculiar to those days.
The liar for political or other treasonable pur-
poses is still with us to defraud our rights of
thinking, to pervert our means of reasoning and
to deform the mind in its provisions for our lives.
"Who steals my purse steals trash/' said Shakes-
peare in comparing money with the worth of a
good name, but the divine right to a true mind is
so much greater than all, that the thief and the
slanderer are incomparably less disastrous and
Satanic than the liar. I

In the terror of their impending doom the peo-

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 159

pie gave up everything they had. The churches
yielded all their treasure. The people worked
night and day.

Battles to test the defenses were now being
hourly fought all around the walls of Paris. La
Pucelle with her banner was at the front of them
all. The Duke de Alengon was usually at her side.

But the vigorous ardor with which she won
victories for the unappreciative King lacked the
heavenly fire of her appearance before Orleans.
The success of the King as the divine cause of
her people was the life of her mission, and the
feebleness of his life in her cause began to make
uncertain the voices of the divine way. God and
France and the King were one idea in her service.
Nevertheless, she was surrounded with the most
enthusiastic youth, eager to do some heroic deed
in the sight of the Angelic Maid. But her Voices
had ceased to visit her with their sublime com-
mand, ' ' Go on ! Daughter of Heaven, go on ! " And
yet she tried to be brave in the same old wonder-
ful way.

She felt that she and her soldiers needed the
presence of their King. She urgently begged him
to come on to Saint Denis, and he promised to be
there September 2, but he did not come.

She had always held the soldiers under the
strictest moral discipline, but the little respect
shown her, becoming worse and worse, from the
sordid King, court and prelates, began to have
its influence on the soldiers and moral discipline

160 JOAN OF ARC

became lax beyond her power to prevent. The
wanton women that had been such a feature of all
armies, now appeared among the men around her
and it was like a deadly pestilence to her soul.

One day at Saint Denis the mistress of one of
her officers came riding by, made up to imitate La
Pucelle. Worse than all, the Duke of AlenQon
could see nothing to rebuke in it, as in tears pro-
testing she rode by his side. They saw nothing
in La Pucelle but a woman warrior, their religious
conception of her was only superstition, and their
minds were so sordid in sensual interests that
there could be no sensibility for any real meaning
of patriotism, religion, or of God.

The vicious insult was more than a blow at her
womanhood, — it was like a stamp of evil, placed
by her own friends upon all she had done. She
drew her sword, the sacred sword of Saint Cath-
erine de Fierbois, and the woman rode away in
terror. Jeanne spurred her horse after the ab-
horred woman and struck her across the shoul-
ders with the flat of her sword. The blade broke
in twain, and, in grief for the loss of her noble
weapon, the Maid thought no more of the wanton
woman. She sent the sword to the armorer to
be restored but they said it could not be done.
Charles heard of it and suddenly achieved the en-
ergy to be profoundly if not righteously indig-
nant. He said that Joan should have used a stick
on the woman and not a holy relic such as was the
sword of Saint Catherine.

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 161

Her soldiers took it as a bad omen. Her holy
sword had been broken ! Truly, it must be a bad
sign. The King, his court and all the priests be-
lieved it to be so. But Jeanne had no such super-
stitions of luck. In its place she put on a finely
jeweled sword which she herself had wrenched
from a Burgundian officer in the midst of battle,
and she fought with it on the fatal road to Paris
as valiantly as in the better days when she was
on the way to Rheims.

4. Religious Faith and the Confidence of
Superstition

It soon became evident to the Duke of Alenc,on
that the King must come to restore confidence.
The Duke accordingly went after him and brought
him. Confidence was at least superficially re-
stored, and the soldiers, once more rejoicing in
the old reverence for the Angelic Maid, declared
to one another that, "She will put the King in
Paris, even if it should all depend on her alone."

The day for the assault arrived and the people
of Paris crowded the churches in utter despair.
It was believed by them to be their hour of de-
struction, their day of doom.

Of all who suffered in pitiful terror none were
in deeper fear than Queen Isabeau, whom history
and prophecy alike charged with the ruin of
France. She was living in the worst of neglect
and degradation under the charity of Count Saint-

162 JOAN OF ARC

Pol. It is said that in dread of the sorcery of the
martyred woman who was to restore France from
her betrayal, she killed herself soon after the
peace of Arras, and was thrown into the moat.

The assault was begun fearlessly and fiercely.
At two o'clock the Maid decided to lead the attack
in person to the foot of the broken walls. Bearing
her standard aloft, followed by her bodyguard
and foot-soldiers, she crossed the dry moat and
mounted over the ridge separating it from the
mud-moat. There she handed her standard to a
soldier and began to test the depth of the moat
with her lance. At that moment an arrow pierced
the soldier's foot and he raised his visor so he
could see better to draw it out, when another ar-
row pierced his head, killing him instantly. She
caught the standard as it fell from his hand, in
the midst of a hail of stones and arrows falling
all around her. Heeding none of these, sh& shook
her standard at her assailants on the walls, cry-
ing, " Surrender the city to the King of Heaven
and of France."

Her men rallied around her trying to cross the
moat, but the means they had with which to make
it possible were insufficient, and, as night came
on, with the unsolved task and so many slain, the
soldiers grew weary and discouraged. <

She threw all her energy and devotion into the
cause of laboring on. She had never failed be-
fore and she would not fail now. But despite en-
treaty and prayer, Eaoul de Gaucourt, an old sol-

Q.Y THE WAY TO PARIS 163

dier, who knew nothing of the power of Faith and
Enthusiasm as helpers in fighting battles, ordered
retreat from the walls.

5. Failure

Near this spot, where she fought so valiantly
for the liberation of Paris, is a great statue of
the Maid of Orleans by Premsiet. Paris is not
the first nor the last of cities to abhor its saviors.
The intelligence of the people has not yet ad-
vanced enough to distinguish reliably between the
benefactors and the assassins of individual minds.

It is quite certain that the chief officers and fa-
vorites of the King were not sorry to see her fail.
In defiance of her orders they sounded the retreat.
It was the death-knell of her earthly career. How-
ever immortal in human history and saintly she
was among the gods, that bugle call killed in her
the sublime idea of her faith. God Himself can
not force, or at least, there is no evidence that He
ever violates His own order to force righteousness
into unwilling minds, even when the unwillingness
is the work of lies and liars. She would not leave
her task and a few brave souls remained with her
in the now hopeless conditions. At last Gaucourt
with two or three of his officers went and seized
her, set her upon a horse and forcibly took her
away.

"By my Martin-baton/' she cried in despair
and rage, "the place could have fallen."

164 JOAN OF ARC

She was taken to La Chapelle and given in
charge of Jean d'Aulon. She had been seriously
wounded in the thigh by an arrow but had given
it no heed. The wound was now dressed and from
labor that would have exhausted any man, if not
many men, she was sent to her room to sleep.
But early in the morning, she was alive again
with her former eagerness to serve her beloved
France. She sent for Alengon, entreating him to
sound the bugles for another assault on the walls
of Paris. Her Voices did not say so, but she knew
of herself that she could win Paris back from
England to France.

She had enough friends to win her cause in the
council, though Gaucourt violently opposed it and
everything planned by the Maid. While they
were discussing whether or not to follow the Maid,
there arrived from Paris the Baron Montmorency
and sixty noblemen, desiring not only to make
peace with the King, but to join the army in an
assault on Paris. This was so conclusive of the
temper of Paris that they were about to decide
for her when an order came from the King. He
had heard of the disastrous failure before the
walls of Paris, and he ordered Alengon to bring
her to him at Saint Denis.

She obeyed, but so full of despairing wrath
that she determined, when the retreating army
had reached Saint Denis, she would cross the
Seine over a bridge newly built there, and lead
the volunteers of the army around to another at-

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 165

tack on Paris. But the King heard of this plan
and that night he caused the bridge to be de-
stroyed.

6. Her Armor Returned to St. Denis

The stupidity and folly of the King, court and
captains could go no further and the betrayal of
her faith could be no worse. In these hours of
distress, her Voices came back as guides in her
personal conduct. She was forbidden to stay
where she had been taken, thus fatally restricted
as the disturber of great men's plans, but despite
all she could do or say, the King ordered her to
await his royal pleasure.

Full of heart-breaking despair, she took the
armor, in which she had been wounded before
Paris, and hung it up on a pillar before the Vir-
gin, in the Abbey church of Saint Denis. It was
her cry to God and France where the slogan of
ancient victory had been "God and Saint Denis."
She wished to show by this that her work for the
King as the inspired Daughter of God was ended.

"If any one in the King's command," said a
Burgundian writer, "had been as much of a man
as Jeanne, Paris would have been in the greatest
peril."

Many of her faithful friends had gone resent-
fully away from among her associates, or had been
treacherously sent away to distant work. Her
cause seemed to be lost in the weakness of the

366 JOAN OF ARC

King and the antagonisms of his court. "And
thus," it was written at the time by Percival de
Cagny, "was the will of the Maid and the royal
army broken."

All fear of Charles now being dissipated, bri-
gands and skirmishers were let loose by the Duke
of Burgundy to pillage the towns that had sur-
rendered to the Maid, and all her work was being
rapidly undone. Even her armor, in which she
had achieved all her victories as the Daughter
of God, was carried away from the Abbey church
in Saint Denis by the Cardinal-bishop of Win-
chester.

The whole country which had worshiped the
Maid as their deliverer was now given over to
such merciless pillage and plunder that not a
laborer was left in the fields and famine was grip-
ping fast every village in the land. La Pucelle
had not brought them the deliverance they had
believed and her name that had been a holy one
on many lips now became accursed. Such were
the results of the peace and the truce of peace
which the King had made with the Duke of Bur-
gundy.

La Pucelle was virtually a prisoner in the King's
care at Rheims, while he kept the peace with his
good friend the Duke of Burgundy. Many of
the King's favorites were in the pay of the wily
Duke and there can be little doubt that the Duke
had long been playing a game that was to win
for himself the mastery of France,

7. The Name and Fame of the Angelic Maid

Persons of great vision often neglect little
things and therefore appear to be inferior to those
who attend ever faithfully to little things. Thus
is a prophet without honor in his own country.
Jeanne d'Arc was the center of love, admiration
and wonder wherever she went. Books were be-
ing written about her, she was preached about as
a saint, images of her were being carried about
as a protection from evil by all who could get
them, and the King had a medal struck in her
honor, bearing the words, "Sustained by the coun-
sels of God." Foreign potentates of many king-
doms sent messengers and delegations to offer
their respects and to pay their homage. The Duke
of Milan tried to enlist her interest to recover his
lost lands. She was addressed as "The very hon-
orable and devout Maid, sent by the King of
Heaven for the redemption of France."

But that was of no interest to the immortal Joan
of Arc. Such adulation only wearied her. She
denied it all. She longed for her Voices again.
They were more to her than all the world. She
required her chaplain always to tell her when he
was to receive the children of the poor, and she
was always there to encourage and help them.
She gave all she had or could get to be distributed
among the suffering. Her almoner protested that
she gave too much and she replied that too much
could not be given.

168 JOAN OF ARC

Jean d'Aulon asked her to describe the counsel
that guided her life. He says that she replied,
"My counsel is three; one voice stays with me
always, another goes and comes, visiting me often,
and with the third both deliberate all three as
one." In his comment we understand that she
meant by the first, her conscience, by the second
as being prayer, and that the third was God.

Several of her chroniclers, and no one in all
those former days was ever so much written about,
say that she never was alone. There was always
some lady with her of high character and spotless
reputation. She never received any kind of com-
pany after sunset, and often some diplomatic vis-
itor or gay young gentlemen of the court tried to
win her favor with all the niceties of their courtly
insinuation, but La Pucelle's modest self-posses-
sion froze their impertinence and made them
ashamed of their sacrilegious ambition. All the
voluminous testimony agrees in almost every de-
tail of her life that she was ever the same pure-
minded, generous peasant girl who listened to the
heavenly voices and cared for her flocks in the
lovely green fields of Domremy.

No less marvelous among her strange inspira-
tions and instincts, unless we concede to her some
unusual intelligence far beyond her youth and ex-
perience, she had none of the superstitions, not
even the most prevalent religious credulities that
were then flourishing so rankly in the ignorance
of the times. Many of the good people of Bour-

A Symbolic painting of LaPucelle listening to her Voices. Made about
1600, now in the Cathedral of Rouen

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 169

ges came to her with ailments or with crosses and
chaplets for her touch. Jeanne would smile at
them and say, "I touch because you ask me, but
why not you touch them! Your touch is good as
mine."

Some distinguished visitors once said, "You
have no fear because the Lord will not allow you
to be harmed."

She vigorously replied, "It is not so. My life
is no more than that of any other soldier in the
army." She reminded them of her wounds and
that before going into battle she always prepared
to meet God with a clean soul.

Joan of Arc needs no halo of divinity to reveal
her clearly as the most remarkable woman, if not
even more than one of the noblest that ever lived.
Her purity and kindness in the midst of her faith
in right as the might of life disclose a supreme
ideal of womanhood.

8. The Peace of Inaction and Stupidity.

Nothing could be more deadly to Joan of Arc
than inaction in the face of great needs for work.
The various captains who had fought under her
inspiration were sent off on trivial expeditions,
and they often tried to induce the King to let La
Pucelle go with them but he would not consent.
At last, so insistent was she that she be given
some work to do to free France of its enemies,
that an expedition was planned for her against

170 JOAN OF ARC

the English and Burgundians who were so fear-
fully oppressing the people of the Upper Loire.

A poorly equipped force of insufficient size and
under the command of Sire d' Albert, a brother-
in-law of Tremouille, her enemy, was given her for
a winter campaign against the strongest of the
enemies* forces.

In due time her expedition arrived at Saint-
Pierre-le-Moustier, a strongly fortified town in the
Upper Loire. It was defended by strong towers
and a wide, deep moat. La Pucelle had said she
was afraid of nothing but treachery. The Arch-
bishop of Rheims and the powerful favorite Tre-
mouille had never lost a chance, even the most
despicable, to hamper her operations, to weaken
her means, and to poison her influence with the
King. There had been treachery at every step
and now it became bold. The army given her for
this heavy task was small and in charge of a sub-
ordinate officer unknown to Joan.

The siege was begun without means and car-
ried on with little support. The assault was be-
gun spiritedly enough but almost at the first re-
sponse from the garrison, the soldiers fled leaving
Jeanne standing at the drawbridge with only four
or five men near her. This is hardly explainable
on any other theory than that it had been planned
to have her captured there. But Jean d'Aulon,
her squire, who was of her bodyguard, saw her
there fighting alone, as if the army were still con-
tinuing the assault. Though wounded and sup-

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 171

ported by crutches, seeing her peril, he mounted
a horse in the pain of his wound, and, furious in
dismay at this strange cowardice of the soldiers,
ran his horse to her and brought her off to a place
of safety.

But she would not have it so! "I am not
alone," she cried. "A host of warriors are with
me in the name of the Lord. To work! All the
world ! Bring faggots ' and logs to bridge the
moat! We will take the town." It was like a
vision from the ancient prophets of Israel. Au-
lon says he looked around but saw no one. She
caught up her banner and returned to the assault.

The retreating soldiers saw her and saw her
banner waving toward the fortress. They forgot
orders to retreat. They turned, gathering wood
as they came to throw into the moat. The garri-
son on the ramparts, seeing them returning with
the Maid in their midst waving her banner, be-
came panic-stricken. They abandoned the walls
and fled out of the town by the other gate. The
Maid's soldiers climbed with her over the walls
and the fortress that was to be her doom of de-
feat was her victory. The English and Burgun-
dian commanders reported to their superiors that
countless numbers of men appeared suddenly
swarming toward them, and it seemed as if the
whole world was coming over the walls. And so
it was. All the great, good, coming world of social
justice was alive in their souls, writing a revela-
tion in the hope of man.

172 JOAN OF ARC

9. The Contest Between Treason and Faith

Reginald Thierry, the King's surgeon, being
with her, wrote that the hungry soldiers began
to loot the town. The soldiers full of the lust of
victory and hate toward the enemy became rob-
bers. Word came to her of what was happening.
She mounted her horse and sped down the street
waving her banner against the enemy that was
despoiling the meaning of her war. She stopped
the looters in the midst of their fury, and one of
the priests wrote how she drove the robbers out
of the churches where they had gone for pillage,
and made them restore all the goods.

Jeanne wished to move on with her victorious
followers to other conquests but La Tremouille,
fearful of his hold on the King, and perhaps of
the rich bribes he was most likely receiving from
the Duke of Burgundy, threw every kind of a
difficulty in her way. But she accepted all diffi-
culties and endeavored to overcome them.

She wrote letters of appeal to the towns she
had delivered asking for supplies and munitions.
These letters we can read in the archives of
France. They do not have the old fire of confi-
dence. She is weary and her poor soul is droop-
ing from the sordid selfishness of those she is
helping most. And she is only a child in years.
Her letter to Riom she signs with her own hand,
guided like a child by another who can write. She
has never been taught to write. She seals that

ON THE WAY TO PARIS 173

letter in red wax making the impression with her
thumb, and a dark hair is still to be seen, a pre-
cious hair from the head of that Wonderful Wo-
man, as happening to fall under the wax while it
was still soft.

The death-blow to be given her had been marked
by her enemies for Saint Pierre, but it failed.
The King's favorites were so malevolently jealous
of her that they meant not to fail again. They
tried another plan. Like many schemes of the
present day, they sought to offer another "just
as good," and so with a substitute to belittle her
influence and kill her power.

A woman was brought forward who claimed to
have voices of superior insight to those of La Pu-
celle. Jeanne went to see her, heard her through
and advised her to go back to her husband and
children. Brother Richard, the eccentric yet elo-
quent mendicant friar, had become much im-
pressed with the powers of divination possessed
by Katherine, and he had caused the King to be
much impressed. When the King asked La Pu-
celle her opinion, she told him plainly that such
claims were folly and any one making them was
an impostor. It was the difference between su-
perstition and faith, but treason could not see
what it would not see, and the will of the court
favorites was to have power, not truth.

CHAPTER X
THE VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS

1. Nobility Conferred by an Ignoble Court

ON November 24, 1429, Jeanne went with D ' Al-
bret, brother-in-law of Tremouille, to the siege of
La Charite. The poverty of equipment was such
as to make valor absurd. The Maid tried to lead
a storming party but they were driven off and
were ordered to retreat. The siege was given
up and the report went back that the Maid had
failed.

But, however the Archbishop of Rheims and
Georges de la Tremouille might plot for her dis-
grace and downfall, the King found it profitable
to keep up her prestige in foreign courts. On
that account he decided to ennoble her and her
family. This occurred December 29, 1429, at the
King's Chateau, the same place where Charles,
many years after, starved to death for fear of
being poisoned by his son Louis XL There is no
reason to believe otherwise than that the King,
in his understanding of affairs, was sincere in de-
siring to show his appreciation. His blunders and
failures were from the complaisant stupidity of
Ms own disposition, his greater pleasure in liv-

174

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 175

ing at peace with his favorites, and his confidence
in the intrigues of diplomacy being more powerful
than his sword or the continued achievements of
the Wonderful Woman.

Joan loved the King as the righteous represen-
tative of her beloved France in the name of the
King of Heaven. For the cause he represented to
her people, she endured everything and labored on
for his good. Whatever she thought of his un-
worthiness, there was no other hope for France.

The causes and meaning of the ennoblement are
expressed in the proclamation of the King briefly
as follows:

' * Charles, by grace of God King of France, in
the perpetual memory of an event : to give glory
to the High and Divine Wisdom, for the many
and signal favors which it has pleased Him to
confer upon us by the famous ministry of our
dear and well-beloved, the Maid Joanne d'Arc
of Domremy, and which, by the aid of Divine
Clemency, we hope to see multiplied : we judge
it fit and opportune to elevate, in a manner wor-
thy of our royal majesty, this Maid and all her
family, not in recognition of her services only,'
but also to publish the praises of God, so that
being thus made illustrious, she may leave to
posterity the monument of a recompense ema-
nating from our royal liberality to perpetuate
to all ages the Divine glory, and the fame of
so many graces,"

176 JOAN OF ARC

The unrestricted ennoblement of Jeanne and
her entire family, together with the exemption of
her two native villages from taxation forever, was
the greatest of testimonials to her service, hut it
could add nothing to her real friends, who be-
lieved her to be ennobled above all earthly things
by the King of Heaven. It only confirmed Jeanne
with a place in court as a rival to the King's
worldly favorites. But with all the pious world-
liness of the King he tried in his own light and
way to be loyal and appreciative for her personal
services to him. Her higher ideal probably never
appeared in any of his worldly-minded visions.

2. The Worldly Glory of Her Fame

Joan of Arc was now a world character. She
had the equipment and income of a count. Girls
of noble birth were her attendants. The King
required that she wear the gorgeous uniforms of
the princes and grandees. Nevertheless she ex-
pressed herself as having been happier in the jer-
kin of leather thongs and the trappings of a shep-
herd maid in the fields of Domremy.

For four months she remained at the French
court in the height of worldly glory. During this
time her enemies, hating her severe piety and
the galling moral restraints she held fast upon
their licentious gaiety, began to organize them-
selves against her.

The unscrupulous fortune teller, Katherine of

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 177

Rochelle, whose envy and malice against the Maid
paused at nothing however vile that might do in-
jury, was put forward into the King's notice
whenever it could be done. She claimed that she
could influence the Duke of Burgundy to make
peace, and Charles always believed that the
scheming Duke was about to yield to him. But
La Pucelle insisted that the only peace possible
with Burgundy was at the point of the sword.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Burgundy continued to
strengthen himself and the King's powers cor-
respondingly were weakened. Between the schem-
ing aggressions of the Duke and the inactivity of
the King the lot of the people grew worse and
worse into a desperation more and more hopeless.
Jeanne visited many places trying to arouse a
united effort to bring peace in some way to her
mortally suffering France.

The testimony of many women who slept in her
chamber was that, often from month to month,
when she thought them all asleep, the Maid would
arise, and kneeling in the darkness, implore God
for light and a way to bring peace to her beloved
France.

The whole country had now become a vast scene
of reprisal, retaliation, pillage and plunder by
raiding parties from first one side and then the
other. No mercy was given by the King's sol-
diers or by the enemy. Joan's beloved troops were
now little more than guerilla bands killing and
plundering wherever they could strike the enemy.

178 JOAN OF ARC

The Duke of Burgundy no longer placed any
restraints on the Picards of his army. He was
busy celebrating his marriage to the Princess of
Portugal at Bruges, in a manner more magnifi-
cent than had ever before been seen in Flanders.
But, during this so-called truce of peace between
Charles and the Duke, the villages under Charles,
within reach of the border were so often pillaged
that they were ready for any master who could
protect them. Thus Charles was being under-
mined, so that the territory restored by the Maid
to the King was cursing him and the day they
lost the better protection of the English.

3. An Example of Faith

It was about this time, to illustrate the mon-
strous fanaticism of the age, that Pierrone of
Brittany, a little peasant girl, whom La Pucelle
had befriended, fell into the hands of the theo-
logical doctors in the regions occupied by the ene-
mies of the French King. Because she unceas-
ingly declared the praise of the Maid and would
not be stopped, she was brought before them on
a charge of blasphemy. They tried to make her
say that Joan was a witch and she stoutly declared
to their faces that the Maid of Orleans was sent
from God. They led her to the stake on the third
day of September, 1430. But the poor little Bre-
ton girl had caught the eternal faith of La Pu-
celle and she bore witness with her blood for the

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 179

name and the cause of one she had seen to know,
and what she knew she could not cast out as un-
known. Like the one she loved so much as to die
for her good name, this Little One of the Master's
fold kept the faith, and those who tried to make
her break it were anathema in the final reckoning
of the Church.

The hideous character of religious fanaticism,
in which the worst torture was used for purposes
and to obtain results that were far less reasonable
and merciful than any brutality of beasts-, has not
changed since then as to the natural development
of men's will. It does not give its culture to others
for their good but for its own increased strength.
The liquid flame and poison gas used to advance
the dynastic power of Germany in the European
War, with the hideous methods of frightfulness
and the still more hideous repudiation of moral
law, reveal the unchanged nature of the will to
mastery for the sake of a master, whose people
believe themselves to be a divinely chosen people
having a divinely-given master as the empire-sov-
ereign of the earth.

The will to power shown by the military-ecclesi-
astic organization of the dark ages and the dynas-
tic-capitalistic-socialism of Middle-Europe domin-
ion, are the same forms of will as shown in the
predatory greed of speculative business in Amer-
ica. It is the same merciless, burning, suffocating
beastliness of will as the divine right of self,

180 JOAN OF ARC

driving on to its inhuman mastery over the in-
alienable rights of the helpless child of the streets,
or in manipulation of the public mind for political
or party purposes, against the moral right and
vital need of the people to know and to do the
truth.

4. The Self-interest of Courts and Kings

The tortures, abominable and ferocious, that
were on the way through the jungles of that in-
human time to seize La Pucelle were none so ter-
rible and painful to her as the savage ravage-
ment of her people to which the enemy were daily
subjecting them.

The break in her decision came at last when she
received a letter from the terror-stricken people
at Bheims. The Duke was now on the march with
a reorganized army to join the newly-arrived
forces of the English at Paris. Utter disaster for
all that had been won was moving upon them.

Her promise to them was thus in brief : ' * Know
that you shall not be besieged if I can stay your
enemies; and if I meet them not, and they come
against you, shut your gates, and I will shortly
be with you, and drive them so hard that they
shall not know whither to betake themselves.'*

Twelve days later in answer to another cry for
help from the approaching Burgundians, she re-
plied, "I beg and pray you, my dear friends, that
you will guard your city well for the King, and

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 181

keep good watch. You shall very soon hear of my
good news."

Almost superhuman energy and skill were now
put forth by Joan in her efforts to have the King
see that the Burgundian truce was a subterfuge,
that the cause of the King was being betrayed,
and that he must meet war with war, and not with
promises, if there was to be any more a kingdom
of France.

Her failures in battle she knew had been
through treachery and her loss of influence over
the King was more treachery. Her prayers and
tears were unavailing. His three most trusted
councilors, the Archbishop Gaucourt and Tre-
mouille, all of them assured the King that their
diplomacy was succeeding and all they needed
was to fulfill the terms of the truce when Bur-
gundy would swear allegiance to him and drive
the English out of Paris.

There is a possibility that these complacent
pacifists were themselves deceived, but it seems
more merciful to concede that they were rational
men and therefore traitors in the pay of the en-
emy of the King.

La Pucelle's devotion to the King was her de-
votion to France as her religious mission on earth
for the King of Heaven. Her heart was torn with
pain at seeing the success of treachery over the
deceived King. He ordered her to cease from op-
posing the Duke. The bitter struggle was between
obedience to the intelligence of the King expressed

182 JOAN OF ARC

in his commands, and the rights of the King as
lodged in the actual truth of events for the cause
of France. In response to her higher duty she
had fled as a peasant girl from Domremy. God
had verified her voices and fulfilled the divine
cause with her. Could she now do less?

It was the hour of great decision.

Jean d'Aulon, Bertrand de Poulangy, her faith-
ful brother Pierre, her chaplain, and Jean de
Metz, with her company of bodyguards, were her
near associates who remained true. They had her
confidence in the sublime duty that could not be
seen by a favorite-blinded King.

5. Away to the Defense of the People of France

Brother Richard, believing in the divine powers
of Katherine of Rochelle, was now the center of
religious influence among the court-enemies of
Jeanne. Most of the watchful ones had gone with
these two strange persons to Orleans where the
Lent sermon was being preached by Brother Ri-
chard.

It was a good time for the flight of Jeanne from
the worldly follies of the King's court. All the
grand honors had faded away before the sunrise
of her duty to France and God.

The hour had come when something must be
done. Her intimate associates, at a given signal,
bestrode their horses as if they were away for a
merry ride. But, underneath the robes of Joan

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 183

of Arc was the armor of a warrior battling for
the cause of France and God. Her Voices had
told her that she had a year and a little more to
live and there was now not much more time to
work for France.

They rode away without farewell to any one,
away to stop the spear-thrusts in the sides of
France. The Maid never saw her beloved King
again. She left him alone in his woeful confi-
dence. But as much as she went forward to ful-
fill faith, it was as if she were leaving hope be-
hind. Her enemies at court could show the weak-
willed man that their predictions to him were true.
Joan of Arc was false to the King! She cared
nothing for his appreciation! Had he not en-
nobled this peasant girl! Made her the equal of
his favorites ! Given her a place among the high-
er human beings! And now she was destroying
the truce of peace in which diplomacy was to heal
the wounds of France !

The Maid's Voices had whispered long before
that she had not long to live. She heard them
again saying that before midsummer she would
be a prisoner in the hands of her enemies. Her
associates all testified that she had told them this.
She began to feel that her mission was ended.
She no longer tried to command the troops. She
did not go into the councils planning their expedi-
tions. She remained in almost constant prayer.
Her one wish was that she would not have to suf-
fer the cruelties of her enemies long. She had

184, JOAN OF ARC

felt her friends slipping away and the people in
their suffering had lost faith in her. But the
stunning revelation was yet to come to her, that,
with all the supreme honors and costly gifts that
had been showered upon her, there was not left
enough friendship to pay her captive's ransom
anywhere in all the world. So had her enemies
succeeded. So do they always succeed wherever
they can pervert as the liar despoils the mind.
Like not only produces like in times of peace but
it requires like to kill like in times of war.

6. The Last Battle of the Warrior Woman

Joan of Arc had yielded up her authority as
given from God, but she was never less tireless
in the labor of a warrior in the army for freedom
to the people of France. She was at the front in
numerous battles, but she believed the scenes of
life were closing around her.

The fatal time came when she heard that the
siege of Compiegne had begun. She mounted her
horse crying, "I will go to see my good friends of
Compiegne." A great bronze statue of the Maid
was erected there in recent times with these brave
words upon it.

She was warned that the roads were so infested
with the enemy that she could not get through,
but, in her faith for the great need, there was no
such word as "could not" to any right thing. She
braved the dangerous way and after several thrill-

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 185

ing escapes arrived with her bodyguard of faith-
ful friends.

Many years after, when children had grown old,
several old men and women testified that they,
with other children of the poor, were at early
mass in the Church of Saint Jacques in Com-
piegne, when the Heavenly Maid came in and
knelt before the altar. They were rapt in wonder
at the glorious woman when she arose, and stand-
ing by the pillar, looking back at the altar-image
of the Crucified One, said, ' * My children and dear
friends, I tell you that I have now learned that
I am to be sold and betrayed and will soon be
delivered over to death. I beg you to pray God
for me, for nevermore shall I have power to serve
the realm of France. "

Then she became silent, and as she told them,
a voice said to her, "Take all things well, for
thus it must be. God will aid thee."

At this she turned to the sorrowing hearts
about her, saying, "My children and dear friends,
pray for me."

The witnesses who heard her moaning at the
altar in the Church of Saint James at Compiegne,
could not have invented the words they testify
under oath, in name of their soul's salvation, that
they heard her say. Those words bear witness of
their own truth, so life-like are they in harmony
with what we know of her. She had often urged
her King and her generals to hasten her work for

186 JOAN OF ARC

she had only a year and a little more to live, and
time was on the wing.

At five o'clock that afternoon, May 23, 1429,
she with her faithful officers commanding about
five hundred men, rode out of the town for a sur-
prise attack on the besieging camp at Margny.
To make them safe in case of being driven back,
cannons were planted on the walls, and bowmen
were arranged in boats below in the stream, to
come to their rescue.

The surprise was successful as the Picards ex-
pecting no attack had laid aside their armor. But
their officers having met for a council with other
officers on the bluffs above saw the banner of the
Maid coming through the gate at Compiegne, and
they hastened to bring on the nearest companies
of Flemings and Burgundians.

With all her old heroism the Maid of Orleans
rallied the men to withstand the new assault.
But the odds were too great. The men wavered
and broke.

"Make for the gates or you are lost," cried the
captains.

But the Maid knew no such thing as defeat.

"Silence!" she cried to the captains. "Follow
me and strike."

The fleeing soldiers turned. They drove the
enemy back in disorder, when a freshly arrived
company of English struck them unexpectedly
from a side attack. Her soldiers gave way in
utter rout.

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 187

7. The Capture

English, and Picards, seeing the banner of the
Maid faltering and falling in the midst of the
panic-stricken mass, strove with one another for
the capture of so great a prize.

An eye-witness says that the Maid was the last
to yield every foot of battle-ground. Her brave
associates rallied around her. "She was the most
valiant of her band. Doing deeds beyond the
nature of woman."

Never had woman done such deeds of valor in
any history known since history began. She
fought her way to the drawbridge through an on-
slaught of soldiers from all sides. A great crowd
of fugitives were there choking the way in frantic
endeavor to get over the moat and through the
gate, back into the city. She fought more furi-
ously than ever to give her friends the chance for
escape. Then suddenly the drawbridge was lifted,
the gate was closed and the few remaining ones
outside were left to their fate.

Whether this happened in a panic, as some his-
torians suppose, or whether the governor, as gen-
erally believed, thus saw a chance to be rid of
her interference with his plans, there has never
been any way to know. But De Flavy, who was
accused of closing the gates against her, had a
notorious reputation as a man without conscience
or honor. He knew that she had left the royal
court against the orders of the King. There is

188 JOAN OF ARC

every presumption that her day of betrayal had
come.

Seeing that it was hopeless to remain where she
was, she gathered the remnant of her guard and
tried to fight her way around the moat to the
other gate. Valiantly they strove on against
overwhelming odds almost half the way. There
her enemies reached her, when all her defenders
had fallen.

One seized her horse's bridle. Another caught
a firm hold upon her wrist, but it was a Picard
archer who dragged her from the saddle by her
scarlet cloak.

"Give yourself up to me," cried an officer rid-
ing through the crowd. "Give me your faith, "
called Lyonel of Vendome over their heads.

"I have given my faith to another than you,"
she cried out sharply above all the tumult, mean-
ing to God and the King, "and that oath will I
keep." And that faith, plighted to righteousness
above all the wills of men, she did keep, as only
the faith-keeping soul is empowered to be true.

"The year and a little more" was drawing
rapidly near to the most wonderful battle ever
fought between faith and will.

Believing as she did that this capture, doubtless
on the way to death, was to come to pass soon,
yet she went on courting every danger where she
believed she could do her country any good. No-
where in human history is there a greater example

189

of devotion and courage, than this wonderful
woman, the bravest of the brave.

Theodore Roberts thus describes his vision of
the Maid, as the Spirit of Womanhood in the
midst of evil, warring against the Lords of wrong :

"Thunder of riotous hoofs over the quaking sod;

Clash of reeking squadrons, steel-capped, iron shod;

The White Maid and the White Horse and the flapping ban-
ner of God.

Black hearts riding for money, red hearts riding for fame;

The Maid who rides for France, and the King who rides for
shame.

Gentlemen, fools, and a saint riding in Christ's high name!

Like a story from some old book, that battle of long ago;

Shadows the poor French King and the might of his English
foe;

Shadows the charging nobles, and the archers kneeling a-
row —

But a flame in my heart and my eyes, the Maid with the ban-
ner of snow."

8. Views from the Men of Her Time

The last fight for France was the beginning of
her fight for the world, and this was greater than
all that had gone before on her wonderful way.

George Chastellain, a Burgundian warrior and
a bitter enemy, thus writes of her capture at Com-
piegne: "The maiden, beyond the nature of
woman, endured to do mighty deeds, and labored
sore to save her company from loss, remaining
in the rear of her retreating force as the most

190 JOAN OF ARC

valiant of her troop ; there where fortune granted
it, for the end of her glory, and the last time of
her bearing arms."

Joan of Arc did not lack for fame from Orleans
to Compiegne, as, during that time, all the world
was filled with the wonder of her work. So great
was the fear of her on the side of the enemy, that
the severest decrees had to be issued to stop de-
serting and to prevent the demoralization of the
army. In foreign friendly nations, the most noted
kings, princes and high ecclesiasts vied with one
another in doing her honor. Historians consider
it indisputable that if Charles had given her king-
like energy or support, all France would have
been cleared of its enemies in a few months, and
perhaps all Christendom united around her to
rescue the Holy Land from the Turks.

Monstrelet, secretary to the Duke of Burgundy,
wrote that there was never knight nor captain in
the French army so much feared as the Maid of
Orleans. Her capture was worth more to them
than to capture an army.

An old English Chronicle records that when the
English secured possession of the Maid, they
"were more rejoiced than if they had gained all
the gold of Lombardy." No more proclamations
would now be needed to stop the desertions from
the English army, occurring so extensively from
fear of her. It is notable that, through all history,
the greatest destroyers of right and the worst
murderers of men have always claimed the clos-

VICTORY OF EVIL MINDS 191

est alliance with God. They were doubtless sin-
cere enough in their egomania, as their God, being
a God of might, would associate only with might
and give His aid only to masteries.

The Duke of Burgundy hastened to inform his
allies of the capture of the Maid and the follow-
ing is part of his proclamation:

1 1 By the pleasure of our blessed Creator, the
thing has so happened, and such favor has been
done us, that she who is called the Maid, has
been taken. We write these tidings for your
great joy and comfort in them, that you will
give thanks and praise to our Creator who by
His blessed pleasure deigns to guide our enter-
prises to the good of our Lord the King, and
the relief of his loyal subjects."

9. Explanation of the Great News

As the vesper bells now came to the ear of the
captive girl, she no longer heard within their
music the Voices saying, * ' Go on, go on, daughter
of God, go on!" Her Voices now said, "Suffer all
for God is with you to the end." That is the voice
of "justification by faith." It is the belief that
what has happened has been from the source of
truth and that the order of truth is the order of
almighty and inevitable moral law.

The fall of a King could not cause more re-
joicing among his enemies than the capture of
Joan of Arc brought to the sordid masters whom

192 JOAN OF ARC

she had restrained in their greed and in their op-
pression of the poor.

The Archbishop of Rheims threw all his power-
ful influence into an explanation that her fall was
merited because she had become too proud of
glory! The hideous excuse to the licentious
throng that God had abandoned her for her pride
was quickly accepted, and then it was easy to say
that God had never been the source of her success.

A shepherd boy from the mountains of Gevau-
dun was brought in with the sign of the stigmata,
that is, the bleeding wounds of the Savior, who
was accepted as a prophet, saying the Maid had
been captured by her enemies because she had per-
sisted in doing her own will instead of the will
of God.

The Archbishop quoted this with his sanction
as the reason why the people should not grieve
or pray for her.

This dreadful letter, written to Orleans and
other cities she had rescued, had great weight be-
cause it was sent by the spiritual adviser of the
King. He hated her for believing that she should
take her orders from God rather than from him,
who was a real official of God. This may ex-
plain much that brought all her love and wisdom
and labor to nothing at that time, and ended in
her capture by those she had fought in the name
of France and God.

CHAPTER XI

HOW SELF-INTEEEST DECIDES QUES-
TIONS OF BIGHT AND WRONG

1. Rcmsom Money

Two days after her capture, the news reached
Paris. On the following day, May 26, by author-
ity of the University of Paris, a letter was writ-
ten to the Duke of Burgundy, in the name and
under the seal of Martin Billormi, vicar-general
of the Inquisition, demanding that the Maid of
Orleans be at once surrendered to the Holy Of-
fice, to be tried for various heretical crimes
against the honor of God.

The Duke made no reply, for he believed her
to be worth any king's ransom, and he evidently
expected Charles to be willing to give anything
in his kingdom for her freedom and restoration.

Some think that the Duke might have had some
feelings of knightly honor against giving so
knightly a person of such unimpeachable chivalry
over to such bitter foes that they would try her
as a witch and burn her at the stake. He may
have had enough of nobility in him to appreciate
her as a worthy antagonist fully entitled to all the

193

194 JOAN OF ARC

protection of an honorable prisoner taken in a
Christian war.

The Duke, no less than all others knew that,
whatever superstition had said of her, or what-
ever she had assumed to be more than the author-
ized representatives of God, she had been a noble
warrior, a generous conqueror, an unsullied wo-
man, and above all unmistakably the soul of res-
toration for the kingdom of France.

Jean of Luxembourg, who had held her as his
prisoner, refused to give her up unless he received
fair ransom money.

But she had enemies at court, and the King was
never known to move for any person or thing, not
even for his crown of France, where the opposi-
tion was any way insistent. He was the pacifist
among kings, the non-resistant mind in whose
hands were the fortunes of life for a nation.

As the measure of ransom money fell in the
estimates of Jeanne 's captor, his respect for her
lessened and the brutish resentment in him pre-
vailed.

We can not know how much to believe concern-
ing the shame or villainy in her treatment, from
the various stories of the times, but since her
enemies were fed on the slanders made to ruin
her influence, she may have been treated as foully
as the worst that has been told. But even these
enemies bear witness that neither schemes, fraud
nor violence could break her spirit of faith nor
corrupt her ideal of saintly womanhood.

, EIGHT AND WRONG 195

«•

2. Sold to the Highest Bidder

Jean of Luxembourg, who was a nephew of the
Duke, could get no money from the court of
France. The English court did not show any in-
terest because their needs were all served in her
being a prisoner away from participation in the
war. The Inquisition could not organize any
movement to put her on trial for sorcery or her-
esy, because there were numerous powerful pre-1
lates who believed, and who, like the Inquisitor
of Toulouse, did not hesitate to assert that Jeanne
d'Arc was unimpeachably a good Christian and
Catholic.

The University was renowned as having the or-
thodox scholarship of that age. It threw its in-
fluence wherever it could add to its prestige and
power. A scholarly priest, Pierre Cauchon, who
had been Bishop of Beauvais, and was driven
from there by the Maid's army, was now in high
favor with the University, and had become an
official member of the English Council. He had
secured his degree of Doctor of Arts and Canon
Law and had been made rector in 1403 of the
University of Paris. The capture having been
made in his diocese, he put forward a claim to
her and the University lent all its influence, in-
trigue and power to support him in his claim.
He had been most malignant in his hate of the
Maid, and had written much proclaiming the
wicked policy of Charles in profiting by the sor-

196 JOAN OF ARC

ceries of "the Armagnac witch." Therefore, the
University was unanimous in proclaiming him as
the rightful judge of the captured woman. He
had suffered from her Anti-Christ powers and
therefore was the best qualified to sift the evi-
dence against her!

The English council had been given charge of
the most noted French prisoners, but it was three
months before it made any move to secure cus-
tody of Jeanne d'Arc. Probably this move was
caused by rumors that the Maid had more than
once almost succeeded in escaping, and that a
powerful rescue party was being organized among
her friends. They also had little faith in the Duke
of Burgundy.

Pierre Cauchon, fugitive Bishop of Beauvais,
was the prime mover in every plan to secure the
Maid. On July 24, in great pomp and circum-
stance, he arrived among the besiegers around
Compiegne. He was accompanied by an envoy of
the University, and an apostolic notary. He
loudly proclaimed the Maid to be a witch, an idol-
atress and a heretic. Under seal of the English
King, they brought the summons.

"With all this array of authority, the Bishop of
Beauvais demanded, ''That the woman, who is
commonly called Jeanne the Maid, prisoner, be
sent to the King to be delivered to the Church,
to take her trial, because she is suspected and
accused of having committed many crimes, such

EIGHT AND WRONG 197

as sorceries, idolatries, invocation of demons and
many other things touching our faith and against
it. Considering this, she ought not to be regarded
as a prize of war, nevertheless, for the remuner-
ation of those who took and have kept her, the
King will liberally give to them the sum of six
thousand francs, and to her captor, he will assign
a pension of two or three hundred lires." The
total sum in modern values represents probably
about one hundred thousand dollars. I

The money was supplied by the English Regent
in France and was finally accounted for by a bur-
densome tax on Normandy.

3. The Justice of Wills Organized for Power and
Mastery

Some idea of the value named for La Pucelle
is seen when the cash paid for her was about five
times the amount customary for the ransom of a
King. The price of prisoners, like other commod-
ities, was quite well regulated by supply and de-
mand. As usual, the powerful lost no money, the
common people had to pay the price. She was a
prisoner of war, but she was sold like property
and was not ransomed. Thus everything done
against her was always illegal and wrong. It was
as if she, as the personification of faith, were
intended by Providence to represent the disorder
and unreason of will in the affairs of man. Every
move in the process against her was in full vio-

198 JOAN OF ARC

lation of all custom but also of both the ecclesi-
astical and civil law.

A subjoined item in the ecclesiastical demand
left no doubt as to what would be her fate. It
stated that any points at issue would be submit-
ted to learned doctors in theology and canon-law,
and to experts in all matters of jurisprudence, so
"that it may be wisely, piously, and maturely
done, to the exaltation of the faith, and the in-
struction of many who have been deceived or mis-
led on account of this woman." False facts thus
accompany false reasoning in the breeding of
more monstrous facts for the perpetuation of the
ancient meaning of hell.

The University of Paris in a long letter to the
Duke of Burgundy, very humbly yet vehemently
demanded that "the Maid be put into the hands of
justice, duly to take her trial for the idolatries
and scandals which by her means have come on
this kingdom."

Reciting the awful wickedness of this woman,
the University asserted that "so great a wrong
to the holy faith, so enormous a peril, disadvan-
tage, and injury to the people of this kingdom,
has not happened within the memory of man."

To leave no influence unused that the Maid be
delivered over to "the reverend father in God,
the Lord Bishop of Beauvais," the University
also wrote to Jean of Luxembourg.

"Very noble, honored and powerful lord," it
flatteringly began, "your noble prudence under-

EIGHT AND WRONG 199

stands well all good Catholic knights ought first
to employ their might and power in the service of
God, and afterwards for the public good."

The God-idea was a great Will-idea against
those judged to be unorthodox, and it knew noth-
ing of the faith that worked for the public good.

This idea of the public good being separate and
secondary to the service directed by the author-
ized representatives of God, was the thing that
at last brought on the conflict between political
organizations and orthodox organizations, in
which the divine right of kings first fought down
the divine rights of ecclesiastical masteries and
then had to yield to the divine right of the people
whose voice finally became known as "the voice
of God."

4. Reason as the Tool of Selfishness

The letter to Joan's captor was long and argu-
mentative. It asserted that, through the Maid,
"the honor of God has been beyond measure af-
fronted, the faith excessively wounded, and
through whose means idolatries, errors, bad doc-
trines, and other inestimable evils have come
upon this kingdom."

This recital of wrongs done by a woman to the
French-English empire and God was far worse
than those enumerated in the American Declara-
tion of Independence against England. It grossly
libeled the eulogy Shakespeare wrote for man

200 JOAN OF ARC

when lie said, ''How noble in reason!" But, in
the definition of God, such beastly minds may not
have been in men, whatever their form. All au-
tocracy of will is a tiger that crushes its innocent
prey for food with which to grow strength for
greater masteries.

The innumerable misdeeds perpetrated by this
woman against "our mild Creator" were alleged
to be an intolerable offense against the Divine
Majesty. This knowledge of God's attitude to-
ward La Pucelle did not come through any in-
tuition of voices, but it had been all reasoned out
and made into an infallible code of God.

The University of Paris and the Lord Bishop
of Beauvais were ferocious enough in their zeal
to bring every art and force to bear, but the Duke
and his nephew did not consider the time at hand.
The delegation went back without her. Mean-
while, there is no record that any attempt was
ever made anywhere by any one to ransom or re-
store her. Many theories have been offered why
this was so, but none seem to be sufficient for the
situation.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "No words
can adequately describe the disgraceful ingrati-
tude and apathy of Charles and his advisers in
leaving the Maid to her fate. If military force
had not availed, they had prisoners, like the Earl
of Suffolk, in their hands, for whom she would
have been exchanged."

Hearing of the negotiations for selling her to

JEANNE IN PRISON

RIGHT AND WRONG 201

the English Council or to the Bishop of Beauvais,
Joan made an attempt to escape, by tearing away
one of the planks in her prison wall. We have no
consistent details describing this attempt but it
was almost successful, and she was taken away to
Beaurevoir. There she was under the care of the
good old Countess of Ligny who selected one of
the knightliest of her young men to make love to
Jeanne and thus in marriage to save her from her
enemies, but the Maid treated hiir so earnestly
as merely a friend that he could not make any
advance and so gave it up.

Haimond de Macy, was this handsome and noble
cavalier. Whether he acted so as a test, or from
love of her, is not surely known, but he testified
that he endeavored to gain her affection, and that
every attempt at familiarity was turned aside.
In writing of this after her death, he said : ' ' She
was indeed of modest bearing, both in word and
deed. I believe her to be in Paradise."

She was the daughter of a superior faith, and
was now on the swift way foretold to be little
more than a year of life, and then a great triumph,
the triumph of sainthood for all time, the saint-
hood of loyalty to faith in our infinite humanity.

5. When Death Seems Better Than Life

During the period of captivity before her trial
there is no consecutive story and we know of it
only by incidents here and there told in divers

202 JOAN OF ARC

ways and assigned to various times. A few of
these are worthy of noting without attempt at
historical consistency or order.

La Pucelle was allowed to climb to the top of
the tower where she could look out for hours over
the beautiful fields of Picardy. What thoughts
and visions filled her mind during these sad mus-
ings only her tortured soul could ever know. No
doubt she often looked at the sky that lowered far
away over Chinon and wondered why she never
heard from the King. What did she think of Or-
leans, of Tours, of Blois, of Rheims, and the other
cities she had delivered in such unparalleled hero-
ism from the invader? Surely there were hosts
of heavenly visitors about her, who had given
their lives for her cause. Sure it was if she had
been at Chinon and the King had been where she
was now prisoner in the tower, what prodigies of
valor she would have done for his rescue.

She prayed but we do not know the burden of
her prayer; she grieved but we do not know the
pain of her grief; she loved but we do not know
where her love was wounded unto death. We look
back through five hundred years into that dark-
ened, blinded time and wonder without relief at
the minds of men. Where now in her despair
were the heroes who had fought so long at her
side? Where was Alenc.on and La Hire and Du-
nois? Where were her brothers and the noble
family at Domremy? Something is wrong with
history. It could not have been so! Something

RIGHT AND WRONG 203

we do not know, for some reason we do not know,
staged that more than human struggle between
faith and will.

Meanwhile, it is on record that her enemies were
haggling back and forth over the price for her
blood. The French King's ministers were busy
blackening her name. The King himself was at
peace, though it is said that he grieved much when
she was dead. It may have been so. He was
never an aggressively bad man. It was the vul-
ture's peace. It preferred to live on the remains
of the dead. He was a man of peace, of peace at
any price. Six years later, when the Duke of
Burgundy had lost beyond hope all his dreams of
dominion, the enfeebled intriguer made peace with
the King, and France fell like a wounded, starv-
ing and exhausted animal before his royal door.

In the midst of her captivity in the tower, her
only friend there, the Countess of Ligny died.
Then came the news that Compiegne was about
to be starved into submission, and the besiegers
had sworn to put all the people to the sword,
sparing only the children under seven. At the
same time, her most dreaded enemy and most
malignant foe arrived with a new proposition to
buy her from her captors. The news was now
carried to Jeanne that she was at last sold to the
infamous Pierre Cauchon, who was then at the
castle.

This infamous thing seemed impossible and the
fatal desertion seemed worst in the darkest hour

204 JOAN OF ARC

when France needed her most. In unbearable ter-
ror, she ran to the tower, and climbed the steps,
crying, "0 God, let me die nowl"

Never pausing, she stretched out her arms to-
ward her beloved France in supplication and
went on over. Maybe she believed the angels
would bear her away on their wings, maybe that
her Savior would not allow her to be crushed on
the stones below, maybe it was only to be away
from the treacherous earth, away from the strug-
gling world.

Those who found her, thought she was dead.
When she came to herself, she asked how she
came to be there. When they told her, she again
realized it all, and in meanings unutterable,
prayed for death. Then, as strength returned,
the spirit of her divine inspirations renewed the
faith within her. ' * I have done wrong, ' ' she cried
in confession. "Forgive me, 0 God, and comfort
me!"

6. Tlie Pity of a Woman Shaming the Reason
of Man

The wife of Jean of Luxembourg, having pity
on her, interceded for Jeanne and the rabid Bish-
op of Beauvais was sent away without his prey.

Joan was profoundly concerned for what was
happening to Compiegne. One of her attendants
said that, when the news was brought to her that
Compiegne was about to surrender from famine,

EIGHT AND WRONG 205

she cried out in great anguish, and in prophecy
that came true, "It shall not be, for all the places
which the King of Heaven has restored to the
gentle King Charles by my aid will never be taken
by his enemies, if he be diligent to guard them."
In this she repeated her words, that were as a
maxim of reproach to those "who do the work
of God negligently," and they have become the
words of modern philosophy, "God will work for
men who work."

Jeanne now gave herself up to prayer for Com-
piegne, that her Lord save them from the slaugh-
ter determined upon by the besiegers. Somehow a
wonderful thing happened. The people in Com-
piegne were perishing rapidly in the famine and
must yield in a few days, when the Count of Ven-
dome raised a small company, about one hundred
and fifty lancers, to see if anything was possible
to be done in such a hopeless condition. He
marched down along the banks of the Oise pro-
tected by the forests of Guise. The famine-
stricken people saw him and set up a great re-
joicing. The camps around heard and wondered.
News came in that Vendome was approaching
with an army. The English and Burgundians
drew themselves up in line of battle with their
back to the gates of Compiegne. Flavy, the gov-
ernor, saw a chance. Every man and woman in
the town was given weapons. They poured
through the gates in a torrent. With the energy
of despair they attacked a near-by fortification

206 JOAN OF ARC

manned by three hundred of the enemy. They
carried it by storm and from the walls signaled
their victory to the little bunch of lancers with
Vendome. With shouts of victory they came on
and cut their way through without the loss of a
man. Night coming over them, the Burgundians
broke camp, leaving their fortresses and towers
with all their supplies. The English drew off in
the opposite direction. The people of Compiegne
swarmed over the deserted camps and in a few
days the French soldiers were riding a wide cir-
cuit of the country driving away every remaining
force of the enemy.

"The witch-maid of the Armagnacs has done
it," passed in awestruck tones from lip to lip,
and the wise men among them became sure that
everything was being lost to them so long as the
Maid lived.

The Bishop of Beauvais was sent back with the
blood-money that was required, and the demand
on Jean of Luxembourg was renewed in the name
of God and the Church. It was now effective.
The Maid was at last sold by her captor. She
was carried to Arras. It was on the way to
Rouen, where to the hideous shame of all the
world, her ashes were to meet the sordid earth,
and from whence her martyrdom should cry out
against man's inhumanity to man, until the last
master of souls and the last beast of the will shall
be driven from the earth.

EIGHT AND WRONG 207

7. Points of Interest Along the Way

Anatole France in his history says of the Uni-
versity of Paris, " These scholars of the Univer-
sity were human ; they believed what it was their
interest to believe ; they were priests and they be-
held the devil everywhere, but especially in a
woman. Without having devoted themselves to
any profound examination of the deeds and say-
ings of this damsel, they knew enough to cause
them to demand an immediate inquiry. She called
herself the emissary of God, the daughter of God.
. . . She commanded armies, wherefore she was a
slayer of her fellow creatures, and foolhardy.
She was seditious for, are not all those seditious
who support the opposite party?"

Accordingly judgment of condemnation was al-
ready entered and now their duty became the will
to find an excuse to put that judgment into exe-
cution. Such is always the reasoning of partisan-
ship. It assumes the interest of self to be the
highest possible interest, and, from that point of
reasoning, interprets its will to be moral law.

The University no sooner heard that La Pu-
celle had been bought from her captors by the
English, than they laid claim to the right to de-
cide her fate.

This great victory over her won by souls as
tainted and money as cursed as ever bought a
Judas, was a happy chance for the proof of great
learning. The body of learned men drew up a

208 JOAN OF ARC

letter of congratulation to Henry VI, the nine-
year-old King of England and France, who was
the grandchild of Isabeau, the French Queen who
had ruined her country, and then betrayed it at
Troyes. The learned body of scholars, after re-
citing what had happened, said, "We now again
write on this matter, very dread and sovereign
lord and father, always offering our humble and
loyal recommendations that there may be no neg-
ligence in dealing with it, for the honor of our
Savior Jesus Christ. "

Jeanne was taken like a dangerous criminal to
the gloomy old castle of Crotoy. Here she re-
ceived the last marks of mercy she was ever to
know on earth, and was allowed a few evidences
of kindness that she was never again to know in
this world.

There were some good ladies, matrons and
maidens at Abbeville who petitioned to see her.
They called her in their petition, "a marvel of
her sex, and a generous soul whom God had in-
spired for the good of France." These good
women had some powerful influence to help them,
for they were allowed to visit Jeanne in prison.
They came by boat five leagues down the Somme
to do so. They said many beautiful things to La
Pucelle, those women good and true of Abbeville.
She kissed them all good-bye and asked them to
pray for her. They went away weeping and all
of them saying how wonderful was her resigna-
tion to the will of God.

EIGHT AND WRONG 209

What Jeanne suffered at Crotoy deprived of all
protection from brutal guards only heaven knows.

We do not know the prophetic vision that may
sometimes have been unveiled before the faith of
Joan of Arc, but, wherever she was mistreated,
there stands the greatest tributes to her truth.
The fortress of Crotoy overlooked the cold, gray
waters of the channel, and now, near the shore,
there stands a statue in bronze of the Maid, in the
dress worn in the fields of Domremy, looking out
over the river. The inscription reads, "To the
daughter of the people, who, full of faith in the
destinies of France, when all despaired, delivered
our country. . . . Let us remember always,
Frenchmen, that our country was born from the
heart of a woman, from her tenderness and her
tears, from the blood she shed for us."

One cold, sleety day in early December, she was
taken in an open boat across the river and lodged
in the castle of Eu. Then she was taken to Dieppe
and a few days before Christmas was placed in
the tower of the castle of Rouen.

8. When Reason Justifies the Will

Villaret says of the captured girl, "Never did
the victories of Crecy, of Poitiers, or of Agincourt
excite such transport: the feeling of the people
was carried even to a frenzy of Joy."

She was the flag of a cause, captured to be torn

210 JOAN OF ARC

and destroyed in proof of the might, and therefore
of the right, for all the enemies of her people.

Graf ton's chronicles of those times represents
the view of her enemies concerning her. There a
detailed description is given of the capture of one
"Jone of Puzeell, known as the Mayde of God,"
the account ending with her being sent "to the
duke of Bedford at Roan, where after a long ex-
amen she was brent to ashes."

After reciting the feats accredited to her by the
French, the chronicler exclaims, "0 Lorde, what
disprayse is this to the nobilitie of Fraunce : what
blot is this to the Frenche nation: what more re-
buke can be amputed to a renowned reign, than to
affirme, write and confesse that all notable vic-
tories, and honorable conquests, which neyther the
King with his power, nor the nobilitie with their
valiantness, nor the counsayle with their witte, nor
the commonaltie with their strength, could corn-
pa sse or obtaine, were gotten and achieved by a
shepherdes daughter, a chamberlein in a hostrie,
and a beggar's brat: which blinding the wittes of
the Frenche nation, by revelations, dreams, and
phantasticalle visions, did make them believe
things not to be supposed, and to geve fayth to ad-
ventures impossible."

The chronicler in rehearsing what followed as a
result, says that, "for a true declaration of the
falsitie and lewdnesse of her doing, she was taken
before the byshop and the universitie of Paris, and
was there with solemnity adjudged and con-

EIGHT AND WRONG 211

dempned for being a superstitious sorceresse, and
a devilishe blasphemer es of God, and as an er-
ronyous wretch was consumed with fyre."

After discussing the folly of many French writ-
ers who believed the girl a saint sent from God, he
offers his reasons conclusively proving, according
to the reasoning of his time, why it could not be
so.

• "For this I am sure," he emphatically affirms,
"that all auncient wryters, as well divine as pro-
phane, allege these three things besides divers
others, to apperteine of necessitie to a good
woman. First, shamefastnesse, which the Ro-
maine ladies so kept, that seldom or never were
they scene openly talking to a man ; which great
virtue at this day is holden amongst the Turkes
highly esteemed. The second is pittie: which in
a woman's hart abhorreth the spylling of the
bloud of any poore beast, or siely birde. The
thirde is womanly behavior, avoyding the occa-
sion of evill judgment and the causes appertein-
ing to slaunder."

Then the chronicler called on all good men to
witness, "Where was her shamefastnesse!" For*
the second, "Where was her womanly pittie, when
taking to her the hart of a cruelle beast, slue man,
woman and childe, whenever she might have the
upper hand." But worst of all, "Where was her
womanly behaviour, when she cladde her selfe in
a man's clothing, and was conversaunt with every

212 JOAN OF ARC

losell, geving occasion to all men to judge, and
speake eville of her doings!*'

From these logical conclusions, he decides that
"all men must needes confesse, that the cause
ceasing, the effect also ceaseth : so that these mo-
ralle virtues being lacking, she was no good
woman, then it must needes consequently follow,
that she was no saint."

"O logic!" thus many a martyr might have
cried with Madam Roland, "how many crimes
have been done in thy name."

With such irrefutable reasoning has every inci-
dent of man's inhumanity to man been made to
satisfy the conscience of every one who depends
upon thinking from premise to conclusion, in
which self is the sole judge of the moral law for
the rights of man.

9. Some Glimpses Into the Darkness of the Times

Out of the mass of reminiscences gathered from
witnesses concerning this obscure period of her
captivity, there are a few that give us some vision
of the truth.

That there was not lacking at the time a popu-
lar judgment against Charles of Valois, may be
believed from a letter sent the King, written by
the Archbishop of Embrum.

"I beg you," he concludes in his letter, "for
the recovery of this girl, and, for the ransom of
her life, spare neither effort or gold, no matter

RIGHT AND WRONG 213

at what price, unless you would incur the indelible
shame of a most disgraceful ingratitude."

We also know that the town council at Tours or-
dered public prayers for her deliverance, and a
procession was formed in which the clergy walked
bareheaded through the town.

From far-off Dauphiny there is still preserved
the prayer in which it was said, " Almighty and
Everlasting Lord God, who of Thine own un-
speakable mercy and marvelous goodness hast
caused a virgin to arise for the uplifting and pres-
ervation of France, and for the confusion of its
enemies, and hast permitted her by their hands to
be cast into prison, as she labored to obey Thy
holy commandments, grant unto us, we beseech
Thee, that she may be delivered from their power
unhurt, and finally accomplish the work which
Thou hast commanded her to do."

Loyalty can never be utterly extinguished. The
uncertain and unreasonable can never be accepted
or maintained as certain and reasonable. Unal-
terable faith means unconquerable soul. All the
powerful friends of this faith-keeping woman de-
serted her in the time of defeat even as the 1mm-
ble followers deserted Christ. But, in the flaming
heights of conspicuous contrast, it left for all who
have eyes to see the almighty meaning of faith
as the measure and ideal of unconquerable life.

CHAPTER XII

"THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE WICKED
ARE CRUEL"

1. The Way of the Cross

THE awful story of moral incompetency, when
conscience is lodged in reason or in the collective
will, can nowhere be clearer seen than in the en-
deavor to bring this immortal girl to a logical, le-
gal and justified death. The greatest system of
reasoning then in the world served by the most
learned doctors of arts and laws, was met by
such an infallible simplicity of soul, that it should
have put to shame their useless and worthless
learning, but they could understand her only as a
Satanic prodigy subverting their self-authorized
mastery as the delegated agents of God. All the
brutal will against opposition that had come up
out of the struggle of man was brought together
here in the most hideous monstrosity of reason-
ing, done to one who deserved it least.

Her capture was believed to be a final checkmate
to her King and the triumph of an insurgent polit-
ical section of the Catholic organization in
Europe. She was therefore the gage of battle be-
tween divisions of Europe that were military, po-
litical, ecclesiastic and dynastic.

214

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 215

Her first captors had some of the instincts of
chivalrous warriors, for they were acquainted
with her knightly character and her noble stand-
ard of warfare, but, as she was transferred here
and there, on down the line toward the dungeon
of Rouen, she was farther and farther away from
the enemies who respected her high ideal of honor,
and was deeper and deeper among the perverted
minds, that were blackened by the stories against
her as a sorceress and a witch.

On January 31, 1431, the English owners turned
her over to the French Inquisition and the tender
mercies of the University of Paris. Then in the
dungeon of Rouen began the world-shaking proc-
ess of the powers of evil and the might of Europe
against this peasant girl now nineteen years of
age, and yet, not less than five centuries older
than the humanity of the world.

In that dungeon was one of the bright lights of
God, and around it with all the wrath of beasts
was the shame and folly of human reason, assum-
ing to be the guide of human faith!

The desperately brutal treatment imposed on
her by her five boorish guards, who had no re-
spect for woman nor thought of God, was doubt-
less to break her spirit and force some confession
to be used against her. For two terrible months
three of the five men were always with her in the
heavy barred cage where she was ironed and fet-
tered like a beast.

There is record that the Duchess of Bedford

216 JOAN OF ARC

with some other women visited her cell and came
away testifying that Jeanne was an honest girl
deserving to be treated as such by her guards. A
knowledge of the violence of these men being car-
ried to the Earl of Warwick in England, he or-
dered them to be taken away and others placed as
guards, but these new guards were under the
same head-keeper.

It is recorded also that she was visited by a
party consisting of Jean de Luxembourg, who had
sold her to the English; his brother, the Bishop
of Therouenne ; the Earls Stafford and Warwick,
and also Haimond de Macy, who had tried hon-
orably to obtain her affection and make her his
wife. An offer was made to ransom her if she
would no more take up arms for France. But
Haimond de Macy in writing of it says that she
scorned the offer as mockery. Then, standing up
in her chains, she addressed herself to Stafford
and Warwick, "I know well that these English
will do me to death, thinking when I am dead to
gain the Kingdom of France ; but if they were a
hundred thousand Godons more than they are
now, they shall never have France."

It is said that Stafford in a rage drew his dag-
ger, but she looked him down as was told of her
in the wonder-stories of her childhood, when she
faced a wolf in the forests of Chesnu. Warwick
prevailed on Stafford to sheathe his dagger. As a
noble Earl wanted to stab her to death though

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 21?

she was in chains, what might be the evil deeds of
her brutish guard !

Chivalry and faith, once so exalting to men,
had departed from knighthood, and the greatest
of them wanted to burn one of the bravest and
truest warriors that ever lived, though that one
was a woman and among the sweetest Christians
that had lived since Christ.

2. An Allegiance That Could Not Be Limited by
Any Pledge to Men

It was claimed that she could have been released
from her chains and iron cage at any time, if she
would have given her word of faith that she would
not try to escape, but her worst enemies used
this matchless evidence of courage and character
as proof of depravity. She had said before she
was dragged from her horse, at her capture, that
she had given her faith to God and would not
therefore render it unto any man. As one called
of God in the service of God, she could not pledge
her conduct for any exchange of comfort or con-
venience. She would not be false to her word nor
to her Lord, the King of Heaven.

A peasant girl coming so insistent and timely
from her flocks in the fields of Domremy, who
could confound the most learned men in Europe
with her answers to their questions, who could
lead the armies of France to victories that re-
deemed her natiop in seven years from a hundred

218 JOAN OF ARC

years' war, who never failed to turn the points
of the most astute and ruthless inquisitors in the
world, is not to be explained by calling her the
tool of politicians, and the superstitious idea of
demoniac possession has long since been aban-
doned. Her life was an unceasing struggle against
antagonism and her wonderful deeds were always
not only against overwhelming opposition but de-
spite intrigue, envy, treachery, blocked ways, and
the least support that could be given by her su-
periors in authority.

Of the visions and voices of Joan of Arc, Grace
James, in a splendid discussion, says, " There is
in the idea something whimsical, yet fearful and
hair-lifting, something grotesque, yet appealing,
humorous, yet weird. It seems in the same in-
stant to put the whole thing on the level of a fairy-
tale, and to inspire it with the most convincing
realism. It is instinct with the blending of fa-
miliarity with awe, of intimacy with worship,
which is the characteristic feature of Medieval
Christianity, and which remains even now the
characteristic feature of a child's religion. It
awakens in the mind associations tender, roman-
tic, mysterious, echoes of all the fresh, sharp won-
der of childhood, the high faith and zest of life
that passes away so soon."

The sublime deeds of valor were hers no more.
She could go forth, this daughter of God, under
the free, wild heavens no more except on the way
to the martyr's stake, but for the inspiration in

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 219

faith of those to come, she was glorified in the soul
of man, immortal with her martyr's crown.

3. The Guilty Giving Justice to the Innocent

In order to appreciate the faith of this girl, it
should be remembered that the martyrdom of men
rarely lasted more than a few hours or days, while
hers was at its worst for more than six months.

This young girl in all those terrible months
never saw the face of a woman, only the beastly
leer of depraved men and monstrous priests.

Joan, weak and wracked with the unspeakable
torture of months, was dragged chained into the
great hall where a hundred learned doctors of the
law, surrounded by armed men, vied with one an-
other in shouting their hate at her. Alone, with
none but her faith in God, she bore their assaults
even as she had endured her beastly keepers. And
in the midst of the wild shouts around her from
that bedlam of vindictive minds, who can doubt
that she felt nearer than such hate, the heavenly
host of supporting souls, as when she fought by
the side of Aulon at Saint Pierre, and won the
victory in the name of her Lord, the King of
Heaven.

In her time, no one presumed to doubt that she
had the gift of superhuman powers. There was
then no faith in the power of faith that is right
over the will that is might. The only question was
whether it was of God or Satan, The French

220 JOAN OF ARC

people who were helped by her work believed
faithfully that her powers were of God in proof
of which she used those powers only for good;
the English, Burgundians and traitorous French,
whose fortunes were lessened by her work, be-
lieved her powers were of Satan in proof for
which she used those powers only for evil.

Numerous historical prophecies which she
made, that were indisputably recorded at the time,
all came true, and she never in any of the long
intensely artful questions of her enemies contra-
dicted herself in points of her faith, nor said any-
thing proven to be false, according to her inter-
pretation of divine guidance in events. If there
had been a possible contradiction in her spirit of
truth, the learned inquisitors would have found
it and made the most of it.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says, "Throughout
the trial Cauchon's assessors consisted almost en-
tirely of Frenchmen, for the most part theologi-
ans and doctors of the University of Paris."

At her public trial there were always fifty or
sixty judges present, and hundreds of the most
skillful and learned men in Europe. They cross-
examined her with all the skill of trained lawyers,
endeavoring to break her down or wear her out,
putting her through every detail they could gather
from hundreds of witnesses regarding every in-
cident of her life.

For six days the trial was carried on publicly
and then suddenly it went into the darkness of

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 221

privacy, with two witnesses to record the pro-
ceedings and two judges to hear the trial. Noth-
ing but the most beautiful Christian womanhood
had been found, so perfect that all the merciless
arts of her learned judges could not find a fault.
But the death of the innocent had been decreed
and it must not fail.

4. Humcmity Never Entirely Dead

Lord Roland Gower, in his study of Joan of
Arc, says, "Her presence of mind and the cour-
age she maintained day after day was supreme,
in the face of that crowd of enemies who left no
stone unturned, no subtlety of law or superstition
unused, to bring a charge of guilt against her. No
victory of arms that Joan of Arc might have ac-
complished had her career continued one bright
and unclouded success, could have shown in a
grander way the greatness of her character than
her answers and her bearing during the entire
course of her examinations before her implacable
enemies, her judicial murderers."

Though she was under the English government
and a prisoner to English masters, her trial was
conducted almost exclusively by renegade French-
men, who were chiefly ecclesiastics and doctors of
theology from the University of Paris. It was
seen at the beginning of the sixth day that a re-
action was taking place in the minds of the preju-
diced and misinformed public. One of the three

222 JOAN OF ARC

witnesses of the public trial, who seems to have
written down the evidence with the greatest care,
reported in his notes that there were frequent in-
terruptions, at last becoming so noisy that the
witnesses could not hear the testimony.

The malicious trap was often detected by the
audience when Joan gave back some of her brave
refuting replies. Then there were voices in the
great hall, which called out, "Well spoken, Joan,
that was well said !" But no one thought to ques-
tion the righteousness or authority of the system.

An English knight declared openly that he
greatly regretted "such a courageous maid had
not been born an English woman. She would not
then lack for defenders."

She had no one to advise her in anything
against that appalling mass of enemies hunting
her down like an animal beset by wolves. There
was no one to give a word of encouragement, hope
or support except the sublime faith that gave her
such sublime character.

One of the members of the hideous Inquisition
was Isambard de la Pierre, and he tried to show
La Pucelle a little pity. He sat near her when-
ever he could and by nudging her or touching her
arm, showed her his opinion of what she should
or should not do for her own sake.

But her master-inquisitor Cauchon, with the
vigilance of an evil eye, saw him and reported
it to Warwick. That noble Earl hastened over
to the offender and in the most abusive terms in-

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 223

formed him that he would be tied in a sack and
dropped in the Seine if he dared befriend the girl
again.

5. Religion in the Mmds of Hate

Day by day she was unfastened from the beam
in her cage to which she was chained and was
taken to her torture chair in the judicial inquisi-
tion. Every time she passed the door of the prison
chapel she plead to be allowed a moment of wor-
ship as she had been accustomed all her life, and
which was allowed to every criminal that had
ever been there, but in sacrilegious cruelty she
was never allowed any chance for consolation
from the service of her religion. One day as they
passed she asked one of the Sheriffs if she might
kneel in the chapel door. He was humane enough
to allow her, but when Cauchon heard of this,
word soon came to the Sheriff that another such
act of kindness to the prisoner and he would spend
his days in "a prison where no light of the sun
or moon should appear."

John Lohier, one of the Commissioners who was
a learned lawyer of considerable renown, was con-
sulted on some point by Cauchon, and in the con-
versation he declared to the prosecuting bishop
that the entire trial was illegal, null and void, not
only because it was secret, but because the ac-
cused was without benefit of counsel. Cauchon,
greatly fearing the influence of such a man, hur-
ried to Warwick to have the lawyer silenced. Lo-

224 JOAN OF ARC

hier immediately resigned as a Commissioner. He
freely expressed himself in the opinion that the
great council of doctors at law were driving a
young ignorant girl to the martyr's stake on noth-
ing more important than a grammatical distinc-
tion. He explained that the grammatical defini-
tion on which they were condemning her was be-
tween the words ''believe" and "appear." He
very boldly pointed out the merciless advantage
they were taking of the innocent peasant girl in
these recorded words, "If, instead of affirming
that she believes her visions to be real, she would
have said, as equally true, that they appeared so
to her, she could never be condemned. ' '

Considering the fierce distinctions forced upon
her in the subsequent course of the trial and the
fidelity with which she held to her belief, it is not
at all certain that any counsel given her would
have caused her to say "appeared" when she
meant "believed."

The success of their will for her condemnation
could not allow any man's reason to interfere.
Lohier was arrested on some pretext and impris-
oned. He escaped and saved his life by leaving
France. He arrived at Eome and was at once
taken into the service of the Pope. This is strong
evidence that the Pope had no friendship for the
French-Burgundian-English condition of the
Church. Doubtless the report on that faction
which he gave the Pope was so reasonable that
it had much to do with giving justice at last to the

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 225

sublime character of La Pucelle. It was partisan-
ship in the cause of will that fulfilled its wolfish
nature upon her, and their evil can not be charged
against any religious meaning in the name of faith
whose fulfillment is the hope of a social world.
Intelligence is the light of faith as faith is the in-
telligence that trusts the system of a normal uni-
verse.

6. The Dark Silence That Fell Over France

Joan of Arc, shorn of all external power, was
now helpless in the hands of political and relig-
ious fanatics, and, divested of all human rights,
was now their property according to international
custom and claims, subject absolutely to the judg-
ment and will of church and state.

At her capture a great silence fell upon France
concerning her whose name had been the highest
among names all over the world. Somehow the
exalted belief in her must have been struck dumb
by this unbelievable capture. She could save oth-
ers but herself she could not save. Just such a si-
lence fell all over the valleys of Jordan and the
plains around Jerusalem when Jesus of Nazareth
fell into the power of the Eoman law. One of
his best-beloved disciples denied him thrice at the
mere mention by a servant that he knew the man
who had lost his power to the soldiers of Rome.
The saintly maid, hailed as the Savior of France,
this Daughter of God, had failed and therefore

226 JOAN OF ARC

might be merely a witch. Verily, she hath an evil
spirit! It was the usual sin against the Holy
Ghost of Faith, which hath no forgiveness. Hu-
man conscience had then no inner witness to any
truth.

Besides, the Church, incapable of injustice, was
supposed to be doing well by her. A Council of
one hundred or more of the most learned men in
Europe were patiently sifting out every atom of
evidence in order to give her justice. There is
here a possibility of explaining the King and such
commanding generals as Dunois, Alen§on, and La
Hire. They may not have known that she was
suffering such hideous torture, chained from
throat to feet to a pillar in an iron cage with
drunken troopers. They may have thought that
she was being cared for by the Church and given
such a trial by the most learned conclave in all
history, as to vindicate her and establish the right-
eousness of France. But this is almost too much
to believe, as they must have known the tender
mercies of the cruel, and that the lamb of faith
was captive to the wolves of will. But let it be un-
derstood that these were afterward, with the ut-
most thoroughness, by the highest authority, to-
tally repudiated as being the church. They were
an ecclesiastical party, sold to a political party
having no divine grace to sanctify their claim. But
it may well be believed that the world stood in
awe of them as the apostolic representatives of

God, while this Domremy girl had nothing to
prove her claims but deeds of valor.

Strong men often break down, body and mind,
under the cross-examination of attorneys in a few
days, but here was a girl through a year's hard
soldiering, and months of enervating imprison-
ment, who endures and replies to the incessant
wits of malignant wills day after day for months,
at last to be harried and badgered unbroken to
the martyr's stake. The faith that carried her
to the King and Orleans was indeed surpassing
wonderful, and the faith that won great battles is
yet far more wonderful, but beyond all wonder is
the faith-power, unsurpassable in history, with
which she endured the martyrdom of months end-
ing in the red death at the stake.

7. The Egocentric Reasoning of Partisans

The freak of partisan reasoning and the futility
of the party mind are well illustrated in the severe
grill they put Joan of Arc through concerning
Franquet d 'Arras, who had been executed at
Lagny. He was a Burgundian raider, the leader
of a band of freebooters, who had lain in wait
for her when she was on her way from Melun to
Lagny, and through her incalculable strategy had
been captured. She had allowed him to be tried
for his crimes and executed. This had been done
on the demands of the officers of her party. They
claimed that she had no right to interfere with

228 JOAN OF ARC

the usual death-penalty given to one who did not
govern his deeds, according to the rules of hon-
orable war. But to her inquisitors such a breech
of their claims to the rights of military law was
a crime to be held against her. He should have
been kept for ransom or to be exchanged. But
here was this woman warrior guiltless of that
man's evil deeds, whom they were hounding to her
death, regardless of the honor of priest, man or
war.

Several of her most devoted followers had been
roving freebooters, hardly less considerate of mili-
tary honor than Franquet d' Arras, but, among
the wonders of her influence, they had become
chivalrous and knightly in the ennobling service
of La Pucelle. Among these reformed warriors,
perhaps the most widely known was La Hire. He
loyally believed in the strategy of the warrior
woman, and, being a master of military tactics
himself, his testimony stands well for the military
genius of the wonderful woman. Yet, sometimes,
when she undertook to accomplish the impossible,
as it appeared to him, he swore by his Martin-
baton, but a word from her made the impossible
look easy, and it was done. As an instance, when
La Hire followed her reluctantly at the assault on
Jargeau, she cried out to him, "Fear not. God's
time is the right time. When He wills it, you
must open the attack. Go forward, he will pre-
pare the, way. ' ' And they took that strongly for-
tified town with the loss of only twenty men.

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 229

La Hire had been famous throughout France
and Bungundy for his brutal rapacity and no less
savage wit, but he was the only one who could
meet with equal ferocity the hideous atrocities
of the Burgundian freebooters. However, in the
midst of the desolation and misery, this bold cav-
alryman and raider had always been known as a
typical jolly brigand of the Armagnacs. He it was
who, at the beginning of every pillaging expedition
against the Burgundians, prayed "Good Lord, I
pray Thee, deal with La Hire as he would deal
with Thee were he God and wert Thou La Hire."
He was desperately impious, but after meeting
Joan, he never swore except by his staff.

8. Incidents from One of the Few Great Trials

La Pucelle, just past nineteen, weak and weary
from nine months of harrowing treatment, enough
to break body and mind, was brought out to face
the most learned body of men in the world, sur-
rounded by those who declared her to be the wick-
edest and vilest of all creatures. Their unceasing
endeavor was to betray her into some pitfall in
her religion upon which they could condemn her to
death. It was her faith she was defending in the
name of her soul's responsibility to God, and this
was the sincerity of her mission and her life.

When one of her inquisitors became worn out
in the strain of trying to entrap her, another
would take his place. They had her mind on the

230 JOAN OF ARC

torture rack, and in striving to break it were
themselves broken.

Once she turned suddenly to Cauchon, so that
he recoiled from her words, "You say that you are
my judge. Have a care what you do I I am sent
from God and you put yourself in great peril. ' '

Fearful, after the Lawyer Lohier had reached
Borne, lest there would be cause to declare her
trial illegal, Bishop Cauchon offered her a chance,
when the trial was almost ended, to call some one
to her assistance as counsellor, but she told him
that she had no need of human counsel as all her
trust was in the Lord. Then, after some reflec-
tion, she said, " First, as to what you admonish
me for my good, I thank you and all the com-
pany. As to the counsel you offer me, I thank you
too, but I have no intention of departing from the
counsel of God." Cauchon told her that she could
go to mass, if she would put on women's clothing,
but she replied that her clothing was the symbol
of her mission. She had been told to put this
clothing on by her Lord and had not yet been told
to return to woman's apparel.

No one can appreciate the unspeakable torture
of soul to which she was subjected without con-
sidering her life-long belief in the power of the
Church. All else failed her inquisitors down to
the last test, which was, would she submit her mis-
sion to the judgment of the Church ! But she knew
that the Church in this case was a fragment rep-
resented by Count Cauchon. She begged to have

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 281

her case taken before the Pope. But the fragment
would not lose its victim by having its cause trans-
ferred to the head. The choice between the soul
in its immediate relation with God, and whether
that relation must be through the priest in the
name of the Church, was here at its test, clear and
unmistakable as anywhere in all the long, terrible,
historic struggle for freedom of conscience and
liberty of the soul.

Cauchon warned her that unless she submitted
she would be abandoned by the Church, thus los-
ing her soul through temporal fire into eternal
damnation.

But he could not thus crush her. "You can not
do to me as you say/' she declared, " without evil
befalling you both body and soul."

The dreadful torture of soul and body before
the judges and in her lonely dungeon at the hands
of beastly-minded keepers, at last threw her into
a fever in which she expected to die, but the tor-
ture went on as if it were a better opportunity
to break her faith and mind,
i "Considering how sick I am," she said to Cau-
chon, "it seems to me that I am in great peril of
death. If so be that God wills to do his pleas-
ure on me, I beg of you to let me be confessed,
and receive my Savior, and be buried in conse-
crated ground."

Cauchon told her, with fiendish piety, it could
not be so unless she submitted to the Church.
1 "If my body dies in prison," she said, "I de-

232 JOAN OF ARC

pend upon your placing it in consecrated ground ;
if you do not so, I leave it all with my Lord. ' '

Thus spoke the daughter of God against all hu-
man will to control faith or to deny its right be-
tween the soul and its Maker. Her life was in
tune with the Infinite and her soul way stayed on
God.

9. Powers That Kill the Body and Destroy the

Soul

La Pucelle was taken in her weak and worn
condition of fever and distress to the chamber of
horrors for torture. The wretch who was to tor-
ture her gave his testimony that her answers to
the questions of the assessors so amazed them
that they were afraid to place her on the rack.
Their statement of the reasons why they brought
her back without torture bear out the impression
that they were afraid she would die without con-
fession and thus escape them.

As to schemes and treachery the most infamous
act was that of Loiseleur, a priest who was put
into her cell as a prisoner. He told her he was
from near her old home and that he was impris-
oned because of his love for the French King.
She believed in him enough to enter into confes-
sion to him. Warwick and Cauchon hid them-
selves where they could hear the confession, but
the Maid had nothing to confess more than the
faith of the pure and the true. The sacrilegious

"MERCIES OF THE WICKED" 233

treachery gained them nothing, excepting that, by
Loiseleur's advice, she answered questions that
she would otherwise have avoided.

In all the history of the world, there has never
been such a systematic and scholarly attempt to
make history and therewith to blacken the char-
acter of an innocent person, and never was there
a more ignominious failure to foist such black
falsehood upon the world. Not the Maid of Or-
leans but her calumniators are anathema among
the truth-loving people of the earth. Her faith
and character survive as immortal truth. So it
was as the poet said :

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.
The eternal years of God are hers."

When the long list of horrifying falsehoods was
read to her at the end of the trial as the decision
of her judges, she said in sublime simplicity, "As
to my acts, I submit them to the Church in Heav-
en, to God, to the Holy Virgin, and to the Saints
in Paradise. I have not failed in the Christian
religion, nor will I ever do so."

And praise to the Creator of heaven and earth,
she proved from the fields of Domremy all the way
to her ashes in Rouen for every distressed soul
and to every one fighting wrong, that there can
be such faith and such character, against which
all the powers of hell can not prevail.

As one hideous crime after another was pro-

234 JOAN OF ARC

claimed against her, in that death's court, and the
loud demand made of guilty or not guilty, she said
that she had replied to all the charges, and now,
"I refer myself to my Savior."

When one of her statements was read to her,
which was worded thus, "All that I have done
has been done by the advice of my Savior," she
stopped the clerk and corrected him, saying that
he had left out the word "well" after the words
"have done." So exact were all her answers.
But the infamous executioners were determined
on her death for no other reason, and for no other
crime, than that she faithfully obeyed a loyal con-
science as the voice of God, and served her great
pity for France in the name of a righteous hu-
manity.

Bourguignon, long ago in his poems, calls her
"The most beautiful flower of Christianity." Si-
meon Luce describes her as the personification of
France at its best, and he says, ' ' There never was
a heart more strong or pure and from it the love
of country was vibrating eternally in her soul."
Truly it may be believed that she was also one
of the world's greatest patriots.

CHAPTER
GLIMPSES OF THE INQUISITION

1. The Will of the Cat and the Song of the Bird

THE supreme idea of the prisoner's faith is re-
vealed in a conclusive answer she gave to her in-
quisitors in the last days of the trial as to what
the angels first taught her.

She said, that, "Above all things I was to be a
good girl, that God would help me, and that I
must go to the aid of the Dauphin of France,
for God showed me the great pity there was for
the Kingdom of France."

What human inquisitor would not break down
there and cry out that she was guiltless of any
urge to crime. Only the partisan could thus have
steeled his heart against the divine love she had
to help bring peace to the people of her distressed
and ruined country. The truth is that under their
partisan mail of iron they could not feel the di-
vine touch. Mercy is not an attribute of will. It
belongs only to faith.

The maidenly innocence of this precious girl,
that should have struck dumb her ruthless tor-
mentors, flashes in a glimpse to us as they talked
to her about whether she would be burned at the

235

236 JOAN OF ARC

stake in her warrior clothing, and why it was that
she wanted a woman's dress. Her answer was
that she would be satisfied "if her dress was only
long." Had not her soul been burnt with the
leering, staring eyes of the drunken brutes who
had been her keepers through the terrible months !
Why did not this group of pious men ranged
round her feel their wills totter on the wicked
foundations before the childhood innocence in
this simple, patient, enduring faith of the Daugh-
ter of God? It was because their souls had been
sold to a partisan cause. They could neither feel
nor reason from anything born of faith, hope or
love. Their patriotism and their religion were
limited to the bounds of their will and to the area
of their personal interests.

Once upon a time some men learned in the law
sought to ensnare the Son of God, concerning the
doctrine of John the Baptist. And they greatly
feared, for they could not say it was of heaven
because he would ask why they had not believed,
and they could not say of men because they feared
the friends of John.

So these Pharisees of the Church, near the close
of the trial, these partisans of a special cause,
these fragments of broken reason, thought to en-
trap her, with a question of history whose event
happened before her time.

They said, speaking of an act in the reign of the
previous King, * i Did your King do well to kill the
Duke of Burgundy?" She answered, "It was a

great misfortune to France, but however it might
be, God sent me to aid the King to his throne. ' '

"Does God hate the English?" was one of their
futile searches for a morsel of heresy. As to what
God felt toward the English, she said that she
knew nothing, but this she knew, God wanted them
driven out of France and that He would do it
soon.

During the trial her learned questioners came
to the witch stories that prevailed in her native
village of Domremy. It seemed to take her back
to the scenes of her childhood so vividly that she
forgot her fear of the cruel masters listening eag-
erly for any word they might twist against her.

Bishop Baupere suddenly asked as he saw the
weary girl sink into memories, "Jeanne, would
you like to have a woman's dress again?"

In the kindly spoken words she was a little girl
again.

"Give me one," she cried appealingly, "I will
put it on and go home to my mother."

Then she saw only the wolfish stare from the
brutal faces about her and she quickly added,
"But I could not put it on here. I am content
with this, since God is pleased that I wear it. ' '

2. The Unprotected Prey of the Wolf-Pack

The two witnessing clerks, in their report of the
secret trial, show that every device of sharp in-
genuity was used on her to get from her the secret

238 JOAN OF ARC

sign by which it was said that King Charles came
to have confidence in her as one sent from God.
All trickery of questioning being unavailing, Dela-
fontaine asked her the question direct, "What is
the sign that came to your King to make him be-
lieve you were sent on the part of God?"

"It is beautiful and honorable and much to be
believed," was the enigmatical answer, "and it
is good, and the richest that can be."

Nicolas Loiseleur, the perfidious priest, who
had been sent to hear confession from her, so as
to advise her into a trap laid to ensnare her, suc-
ceeded far enough, to get a thread of evidence
which they could weave into their monstrous per-
versions for conviction. She saw the thread she
had been betrayed into giving, and which they
were now winding about her, and she struggled
with piteous endeavor to say nothing but the truth
and yet not uncover the sign she had promised her
saints not to disclose.

The Dominican Isambard, in his sworn testi-
mony, said, "The questions put to her were too
difficult, subtle and captious; so much so that the
high ecclesiastical and well-lettered men, who
were present, would with great difficulty them-
selves have known how to answer them."

Yet Jeanne quickly answered every one with a
directness, simplicity and wisdom that took speech
out of the mouths of her inquisitors and left them
dumb on that subject.
• The University of Paris, in writing their de-

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 239

fense to the King and the Pope, said, "The Chris-
tian fold in almost the whole West is infected with
the poison of the Maid."

What a joke that is on egomaniac learning, what
a travesty on reason, what a sarcasm on author-
ity, and what a high tribute to the people who
loved this daughter of God !

She strove to defeat her cruel questioners by
trying to throw them off the track. But like a
pack of wolves, they came back. They were shrewd
enough to discover her attempts and in turn they
endeavored to throw her into verbal contradic-
tions made by her evasions and allegorical state-
ments.

"Does the sign still continue?" asked the
Bishop.

"It is good to know that it does," she replied.
"It will last a thousand years or more; and it is
in the King's treasury."

A study of her desperate attempt to protect
this one sacred secret shows that the "King's
treasury" mentioned by her was figurative, mean-
ing the treasury of the King of Heaven, but in
this material thing the hair-splitting questioners
located the existence of idolatry.

"Is it gold, silver, precious stones or a crown?"
Delafontaine asked.

"I shall tell you no more about it," she replied
as if fearful of what he meant to fasten on her.
' ' No man could know how to imagine anything so
rich."

240 JOAN OF ARC

This was the imagery of a child, the wonder-
child of spiritual faith.

"What reverence did you make to the sign?"
was the next question intended to incriminate her
in idolatry.

"I knelt and uncovered my head," she rever-
ently and innocently answered, "and I thanked
Our Lord because he had delivered me from the
obstacles of the churchmen arguing to the King
against me."

3. The Sign and the Allegory

On Monday, March 12, two doctors of canon-
law were made transcribing witnesses to take
down her words. These two men, with probably
a dozen others, the Bishop and Delafontaine, went
to continue the questioning of her in the prison.

She expressed herself faithful in the belief that
her Lord had never failed her.

"Did He not fail you as to good fortune when
you were captured?" he asked.

"Not so," she replied, "since it pleased Our
Lord, that it was better that I should be taken."

"Has He not failed you in gifts of grace?"

"How so!" she answered fervently, "when He
comforts me every day."

Then they tried to entangle her as to disobey-
ing the commandment to honor father and mother.

"Was it well to set forth without leave of your

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 241

father and mother! Is it thus father and mother
should be honored?"

"They have forgiven me," she humbly replied.

"Did you know not you were sinning when you
left them?"

"Since God commanded, it was right to do it,"
she replied spiritedly. "Because God command-
ed, if I had had a hundred fathers and a hundred
mothers, and if I had been the daughter of kings,
I must have gone."

The next day was spent trying again to force
from her the secret of her sign. All else had failed
so that even resourceful and pitiless enemies
could not fasten anything upon her. Like Pontius
Pilate they heard the evidence and even their bru-
tal tongues could not say the word guilty. But
the sign! What was it? Here was something
that looked like idolatry and therefore heresy.
Throughout all that hideous darkness of her in-
quisition, her words were written down by those
seeking to destroy her, and were never seen or re-
vised by her. We get a glimpse of that fatal day
in one of the written sentences wherein she pite-
ously complains of being condemned by her judges
to perjure herself in her promise to the saints
that she would not tell the sign. What torture she
had to undergo no one can know, but, to mislead
her inquisitors, she told a long allegory in which
the meaning of the story of the sign was supposed
to be somewhere concealed, but none can know
what it was. The storv she told to satisfy them

242 JOAN OF ARC

reads like a child telling a fairy tale woven out
of some semblance of experience; And yet, it
bears the marks of her torture trying to be true
to herself and to her saints not to tell untruth,
even as she endeavored to satisfy her merciless
inquisitors.

Out of her allegory of the sign, the facts were
taken by her inquisitors that an angel had brought
the King a crown of fine gold so rich that no one
could count its richness, and signified to him that
he should recover his kingdom of France.

We may believe that story, as told by her, to be
actual happenings which she was describing as
truth, and thus was really perjuring herself to
her saints, as the judges decided, or we can be-
lieve that the angel and the crown were symbolical
in her story, and that they never got the "sign,"
and so she never perjured herself.

When the angels left her, she says, "I was
neither glad nor afraid; but I was very sorrow-
ful, and I wish they had taken away my soul with
them."

t

4. The Warning

She was asked if it was by any merit of hers
that God sent the angel with the sign, the in-
quisitors thus pretending to take the story as lit-
erally true.

' * No, ' ' she replied. ' ' He came for a great cause
and that they would leave off arguing against

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 243

me, and let me give succor to the good people of
Orleans."

"Why was the angel sent to you rather than to
another?"

"Because," she replied, "it pleased God, by a
simple maid, to drive away the adversaries of the
King."

She had very frequently warned her tireless
tormentors that they ran great risks in perverting
her meaning and twisting her words to the injury
of her Lord's truth. In this instance she warned
them again. It must have smote through their
thick consciousness to some nerve of conscience,
for they asked her about it.

The Bishop of Beauvais being her most relent-
less and merciless persecutor, must have asked
Delafontaine to get from her, during the Bishop's
absence, what she meant by her warnings.

"He says he is my judge," she replied. "I do
not know that he is. If he judge ill, and God
chastise him, I may have done my duty in warning
him."

"What is this peril or danger that he risks?"

"My Voices tell me most frequently that I shall
be delivered with a great victory, and they say to
me, 'Fear not thyself for thy martyrdom: thou
shalt come at last to the kingdom of Paradise.'
And this they tell me simply and absolutely with-
out failing me ever."

So her warning did come true in a great victory

244 JOAN OF ARC

for her and as great a shame for her evil-minded
foes.

"Thy martyrdom, Jeanne!" exclaimed the in-
quisitor, surprised that she could foresee some-
thing dire for her that must have been very clear
to him.

"The trouble and adversity I suffer in prison,
that is martyrdom. Whether I shall suffer yet
greater sorrow, I know not, but I trust God."

Then Nicole Midy scored one of the diabolical
points that constituted article nine in the twelve
charges of heresy that condemned her to the stake.
[ ' ' Since your voices have told you that you shall
come at last to the kingdom of Paradise," he
asked with the pious art of one who sees the place
for a death-stroke, ' * do you hold yourself assured
that you shall be saved, and that you shall not be
damned in hell ? ' '

Perhaps she did not know it was heresy to be
sure of the love of God. Perhaps if she had
known, her answer would have been the same. In
fact, subsequent events proved that she was one
of the great martyrs to the freedom of conscience
and for the faith immediate between the soul and
God.

"I believe firmly what my voices have told me,"
she replied, "that I shall be saved, as surely as if
I were in heaven already."

Indeed how could she do otherwise. If she had
not believed her voices in all things how would
it have been possible for her to believe enough

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 245

to have persevered through such a long series of
seemingly impossible things.

"That reply is of great weight, Jeanne," said
the vice-inquisitor.

"I hold it for a great treasure, " was her re-
sponse.

Between these two replies exists all the differ-
ence there is between the organized will to be-
lieve and the spontaneous faith of hope and love.

' ' Then you do not believe that you can fall into
mortal sin after that revelation?"

"Of that I can not know," she replied simply,
"but I trust all in God."

And for that they burnt her, those ancestors of
reason, religion and law, and we may pause to
wonder if our posterity may not see us as far
removed from them as we believe ourselves to be
from the University of Paris in 1431.

Intelligence has not yet learned the values of
faith over the spoils of will, and it has not yet
distinguished between the progress of social mu-
tuality over the business reciprocity of individual
conquest. But this we know that faith-keeping
is the divine religion of a redeemed humanity, and
that the time is at hand for a faith-breaking world
to give way to a faith-keeping universe.

5. The Source of Antagonism to Party Creeds

The whole animus of the trial comes now into
view. The crux of the inquisition is to be seen in

246 JOAN OF ARC

the jealousy of the religious organization of that
time against all immediate personal communion
and counsel from God. Such heresy disposed of
the authority or mediation of the church! To
have that office of the Church nullified by the im-
mediate communion of souls with God, appeared
to make useless the entire ecclesiastic medium-
ship. The hideous zeal of the University of Paris
to bring to disrepute the voices and visions of
Joan of Arc was, for their religious organization
and its functions, no less necessary, nor less a
question of self-preservation, than her work
against the Burgundians and English, in driving
them off the French soil, for the sake of France.

Truly the Maid did not know this. She believed
herself to be as much a daughter of the church
as a daughter of God, though she was in constant
antagonism with the officials of the church, her
mission was wrought out against their protests,
and she was at last abandoned by their excuses
and burnt by their verdict.

But the people loved her too much for her ashes
to rest in peace. The great, wide religious sys-
tem could not abide by such partisan conceptions
of divine interest or such a mongrel and spurious
alliance of church and state. There was a retrial
long after she was dead. There was a great vic-
tory for her. Justice was done to her memory
and the church repudiated the abomination of her
condemnation and martyrdom.

The prosecuting Bishop had succeeded in pro-

viding most of the minor charges. Delafontaine
had wrung from her an allegorical story of the
sign, but it was Nicole Midy who uncovered a
sufficient reason for destroying her and her claims,
if the vice-regency with its ecclesiastical body was
to function on earth as the holder of the keys of
heaven.

The vice-inquisitor, whom the church was soon
to repudiate, had evidently thought it all out. He
began the day's process with her by the priestly
warning that she must in all ways at all times re-
fer herself to the church and therefore not to any
visions or voices from God. In other words it was
now Joan of Arc who must give up claims of
power with God or the church must do so.

"Let my answers be seen and examined by the
clergy," she replied. "If they tell me there is
anything in them contrary to the Christian faith
which Our Lord taught, I will inquire of my coun-
cil about it and then I will tell you what I have
found by my council; and if there be anything
against the Christian faith, I will not uphold it,
for I should be very sorry to offend against the
faith."

This certainly disputed the authority of the
church, as there represented, in matters pertain-
ing to her conscience with God, and this irrepara-
ble conflict of authority sealed her doom. Any
authority or judgment that is not social justice is
not moral law, and is therefore outlaw intolerable
to intelligence and God.

248 JOAN OF ARC

6. By Whose Authority Believest Thou This?

She was soon put to the soul-torture of another
test that brought into conflict her relations to God
and the Church. She had said that she had put
on the vestments of a soldier because such had
been her counsel from God, and she could not
change back to woman's clothing until she had
permission from God. Here was a chance for a
final test against her assurance of salvation,
through belief in the understanding she had of
God's will.

The Church ordered her to put on the simple
slip of a shepherd girl in Domremy and wear it
henceforth, or she would be denied the consola-
tions of the church. In that condition of excom-
munication she could never reach Paradise.

The final crisis had come. Should she obey God
or the Church? It was thus not a political inter-
est that brought Joan of Arc to the martyrdom
of the stake, but a fundamental vital doctrine of
ecclesiasticism as distinct as that of Huss, Sa-
vonarola, Luther, Calvin or any others of the
great schism-revolutionists of history.

Jeanne spoke in all things as innocently as a
child in reference to anything that might be done
to her through the verdict of her inquisitors. Her
trust in God was so perfect that she had no inter-
est in any fate that man or nature might design
for her. She was sure of Paradise but she wanted
to be a faithful daughter of the Church. She

PIERRE CAUCHON

The prosecutor in the trial against Joan of Arc. The ef-
figy upon his tomb in the Cathedral of Lisieux, destroyed
in the revolution of 1793

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 249

wanted to comply with all its requirements. It
had been her cradle and her home. She had never
known any other moral environment. In that, the
only way known to her, she begged to be allowed
to attend mass.

• It had now been more than three months since
she had heard prayers in a church. She agreed
to put on the usual woman's dress for the pur-
poses of church mass, but they purposed to treat
her only as an erring girl who had run away from
peasant parents in Domremy ! No more was her
work for God to be recognized than that! Her'
soldier's uniform was all that remained to her
symbolic of her great mission and she would not
thus dishonor them!

| " Would you prefer never to hear mass than to
put on your woman's dress for always?"
! The question was squarely put now between
Church and God.

I "I will take that to my council" she said, as
immovable as any of the great religious martyrs
of history, "and when my council has told me
what to do I will tell you."

"To hear mass, you must wear your woman's
dress simply, absolutely and always."

She plead and prayed, suggesting various ways
to satisfy the ecclesiastical decision but it could
not be done.

She was not called of God, had not led armies
over obstacles great as any Napoleon, and had
not been ennobled by the King of France ! These

250 JOAN OF ARC

virtuous inquisitors acknowledged her at best to
be nothing but the runaway daughter of peasants,
in whose wicked presumptions, ignoring the office
of the Church, she was worthy only of death !

With triumphant malice they pressed the iron
sword of their creed through her soul and cruci-
fied this daughter of God as feloniously, this Uni-
versity of Paris, as did the learned men four-
teen centuries before, the Son of God.

7. Making a Public Spectacle of Disobedience

It was decided to hold a great public meeting
on May 2, so that the contradiction and conflict of
her obedience to God and to the Church, as there
represented, could be brought into clear contrast
before the people. She had asked what they meant
by the Church Militant to which they were driving
her to submit and they had told her that it was the
Pope and all the organized body of ecclesiastics
under him. She had promptly replied that she
was willing to be tried before the Pope. But now
the people must be shown that this so-called
" daughter of God" was a disobedient and he-
retical "daughter of the Church."

Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais had provided an
overawing display of sixty-two judges present.
He told the great public audience that he had
brought her before them so they could see for
themselves how she defied the holy Mother
Church.

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 251

Joan was then led conspicuously into the hall
and down the aisle to a prominent seat before her
judges. Turning to her, this bishop of mercy and
peace, representing the might of God on earth, ad-
vised Joan that he had, for the sake of her soul
and her body, brought her there to listen to the
great eloquence of the learned doctor of theology,
Archdeacon Chatillon.

The Archdeacon held in his hands his written
sermon on obedience to the Church. Without re-
ply to Cauchon she bade the learned doctor to pro-
ceed in the reading of his book. He read his pon-
derous discussion and then concluded by saying
that unless she surrendered her soul in obedience
to the Church, as he had denned, she placed her-
self in the power of the Church "to be burnt as a
heretic. ' '

He awaited her reply, and loud and clear she
said, "I will not say aught else than I have al-
ready spoken; and, were I even to see the fire, I
should say the same."

Magnificent loyalty to faith in God ! Even Man-
chon, the clerk writing down her testimony, wrote
opposite the paragraph these significant words,
"Superba responsio."

8. Facing Torture m a Chamber of Horrors

Cauchon now determined to try torture. It
would be a great thing for the English-Burgundi-
an cause if Joan could be made publicly to ac-

252 JOAN OF ARC

knowledge herself only a peasant girl, bewitched,
who had finally found Almighty salvation to be
possible only in the guidance of the University of
Paris, as the efficient representative of the
Church.

Joan, escorted by a dozen of her most notori-
ous inquisitors, was taken into the dungeon of tor-
ture.

The articles of accusation were read to her.
Then Cauchon said, "You see before you the in-
struments of torture which are prepared, and by
them stand the executioners, who are ready to do
the office at our command. You will be tortured in
order that you may be led into the way of truth,
and for the salvation of your body and soul,
which you by your lies have exposed to so great
a peril."

In front of her lay the rack which was slowly
to tear her limbs asunder.

This is what the clerk wrote down in the record
as her words, this girl just entering the age of
womanhood :

"Even if you tear me limb from limb, and even
if you kill me, yet will I not say a word more
than I have said. And even were I forced in the
delirium of pain to do so, I should afterward de-
clare that I had spoken differently only because of
the torture."

These hideous minds whose names belong to
everlasting infamy were uncertain whether or not
to order the torture, because she might die in it,

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 253

and Archdeacon Chatillon reminded them that she
should be saved for the stake, thus needed for the
edification of the world.

Bishop Cauchon asked her if her voices had told
her what was now to happen.

"I asked them," she replied, "if I should be
burnt, and they answered, 'Abide in God and He
will abide in thee.' "

The various translations and quotations of this
reply, like the differences in all other testimonies
respecting her, fundamentally agree that this won-
derful woman was wonderful from her immediate
and unassailable faith in the immanence of God.
In every instance from the beginning, it was al-
ways God, her Lord and Savior first, the rights
of her beloved France next, and only as they were
of God did she have any belief in the superiority
of saints, voices, visions, priests, prelates, ecclesi-
astics or the Church.

"As to the Church," she often said, "I love it
and would wish to maintain it with all my power,
for our Christian faith. ' ' Plainly she believed the
all-powerful political and militant Church to be no
^more than one of the human instrumentalities to-
ward helping people to know God.

If France had rallied around her and she had
been serving a noble and powerful king, so that
her great mission could have been fulfilled, un-
hampered by the folly of courts or ecclesiastics,
she might have reformed the control that the
Church militant had established between Man and

254 JOAN OF ARC

his Maker, and made unnecessary the bloody ref-
ormations and religious wars that were to follow
for the freedom of soul and the liberties of hu-
manity.

9. Inspiration That Shall Not Be Subject to the
Will of Man

To make her divine communion a question for
her enemies to pronounce true or false was im-
possible, if she were to be true either to herself
or God. She gave up all hope in man and hence-
forth her life was not to be considered answerable
to any but her Lord.

The final question was put, "Will you or will
you not, on what you have said and done, submit
yourself to the judgment of the Church 1 ' '

She knew now what her answer meant to them
and never was martyr more true to faith in God.

Submit to these fiendish minds seeking to ruin
her faith, to despoil her character, to blast her
great cause and bring her to a witch's death!
And call this the Church of God!

"All my words and works are in the hand of
God, and I submit myself to him," she firmly re-
plied. "And I assure you that I would neither do
nor say anything against the Christian faith by
our Lord established ; and if the clergy show that
I have upon me any act or deed contrary to it, I
will not sustain it, but will thrust it from me. ' '

The innocence of La Pucelle has been estab-

GLIMPSES OF INQUISITION 255

lished by a great tribunal of her Church and she
has been enrolled in the Calendar of its saints.
With such brave deeds was she ennobled by her
King and with such immortal words, said in such
undying faith, she became the wonderful woman,
not only of her beloved France, but of all the
world.

Wearily the inquisition dragged on. Scores of
learned men against one lone and dreadfully tor-
tured girl! Like the teeth of a saw the reitera-
tions cut hard upon her heart and brain, so tired
of it all!

Saturday came and it was again demanded ab-
ruptly of her if she would submit her words and
deeds to the Holy Mother Church to determine
whether they were good or evil. How could such
a thing be done with these merciless men claiming
to be the Holy Mother Church! How could she
do such treason to all her mission for her country
and her God.

"I submit myself to God who sent me," she re-
plied with schismatic finality, "to Our Lady, and
to all the blessed saints in Paradise. Our Lord
and the Church are one. It seems to me you ought
not to make any difficulty about it. Why do you
make a difficulty as if they were not one?"

They could not answer that. It was the vital
question that was soon to bring forth Luther, Cal-
vin and the host of dissenters that were to shatter
Christendom like glass into a thousand creeds. <

She was rapidly becoming conscious of the ir-

256 JOAN OF ARC

reconcilable difference between her relations as
a daughter of God and a daughter of the Church.
It was a question of her right to hear her voices
or the voices of these men. It was not that she
had been a conquering warrior but that she had
received her authority elsewhere than from a col-
lection of partisan wills claiming to be the Church.
Loyalty and integrity are the essential forms
required for the values of personal freedom and
social justice. Human rights are impossible from
the partial view of any fragment. Individual
judgments are not trustworthy for decisions to-
ward any other individual. Each has insufficient
evidence and such uncertain reasonableness as to
be wholly unqualified to decide the realities of
another. Mind and humanity require a total ideal
from which to estimate morality and decency, or
from which to realize any fulfillment of patriotism
or religion. Civilization is not possible from any
structure of covenants and contracts. Church and
state are human values only as they express the
righteousness of a total human system. The in-
carnation of Eternal Meaning at the close of an-
cient times was the Son of Man, and the personi-
fication of that meaning for the Middle Ages was
"the daughter of God," and we may well believe
that moral democracy warring against the Teu-
tonic war, symbolizes for the present age that Al-
mighty Faith as the total ideal of social meaning
necessary for moral reasoning, social justice, and
the salvation of the world.

CHAPTER XIV
THE MIGHT OF RIGHT FOR THE SOUL

1. Counsel from a Traitor in the Cause of Death

THE faith of this wonderful woman stood for
freedom of conscience and for the immediate pres-
ence of God in divine salvation. No martyr ever
went to the stake for a clearer cause than did
La Pucelle. She deserves for this faith the honor
of all mankind. This young girl drank of the cup
with Socrates and Christ.

Jeanne's fate depended on her reply to the
question put by Lafontaine. He explained,
' ' There is a Church Triumphant in which are God,
His saints, the angels and the souls that are
saved. There is also the Church Militant, which
is our Holy Father, the Pope, who is the Vicar
of God on Earth; the Cardinals, the prelates of
the church and the clergy, all good Christians and
Catholics ; and this church in its assembly can not
err, for it is moved by the Holy Ghost. Will you
appeal to the Church Militant?"

Her answer came like her assault upon the Tow-
ers at Orleans. It was direct. It was unanswer-
able. It was a great victory. One of the greatest
in the world. But this time it was not arms

257

258 JOAN OF ARC

against arms, it was faith against will, which is
the same as the beauty of a rose against the way
of a wolf.

"I am come to the King of Prance, from God,"
she said, "from the Virgin Mary and all the bless-
ed saints in Paradise, and from the Church Tri-
umphant above and by their command. To that
church I submit all the good deeds I have done
and shall do. As to replying whether I will sub-
mit to the Church Militant, I have no further an-
swer."

Pierre Maurice, Canon of Rouen, one of the
most famous learned men in Europe, was called on
to admonish her, and to make the final demand of
submission. This final session of the trial was held
on May 23.

"If your King," he said with great unction,
"had appointed you to defend a fortress, forbid-
ding you to let any one enter it, would you not
refuse to admit whosoever, claiming to come from
him, that did not present letters and some other
token? Likewise, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, on
His ascension into heaven, committed to the
Blessed Apostle Peter and to his successors the
government of His Church, He forbade them to
receive such as claimed to come in His name but
brought no credentials. So, when you were in
your King's dominion, if a knight or some other
owing fealty to him had arisen, saying, 'I will
not obey the King; I will not submit either to
him or to his officers,' would you not have said,

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT

'He is a man to be censured?7 What say you then
of yourself, you who, engendered in Christ's re-
ligion, having become by baptism the daughter of
the Church and the bride of Christ, dost now re-
fuse obedience to the officers of Christ, that is,
to the prelates of the Church!"

So, her faith as fulfilled in her wonderful works
was no credential or evidence or token of being
from the King or for the King! It had been on
the side of the party against them and therefore
could not be of the Church or of God! .Such is
the monstrosity of a party-made mind for the
salvation of a party-made right of humanity.

Her reply was the equal of any ever made on
earth before, and can never be surpassed. This
aineteen-year-old girl was as much of a martyr
for the divine right to her faith in God as ever
strove or died for any cause in the social universe.

"What I have always held and said in the trial,
that will I maintain," she said. "If I were con-
demned and saw the faggots lighted, and the exe-
cutioner ready to stir the fire and I in the fire, I
would say and maintain till I died nought other
than what I said during the trial."

And thus it came to pass, and thus she kept the
faith!

2. Condemnation

The fatal confession of loyalty to God in the

freedom of her own conscience was written down.

There on the margin of the record where it still

JOAN OF ARC

is to be read, Manchon the clerk wrote, as he had
done two or three times before, "Responsio Jo-
hannae superba."

And now her story goes into darkness for the
coming week. The confusion of many witnesses
and many views that prevailed from the first, that
has been told of her, has always a background and
a groundwork from which a reasonable outline,
though in various ways, may be drawn of her
faith, her character, her experience and her cause.
But now comes a week of darkness from the con-
fusion of irreconcilable versions of what hap-
pened. By taking her endurance and faith up to
that time, we can reconstruct something of what
may, in general terms, have consistently hap-
pened, but only the critical historian can recon-
struct, from the mass of testimony, a plausible se-
quence of events or of reasonably verified condi-
tions and facts.

Pierre Cusquel, being a friend of the master-
mason of the castle, says he obtained permission
to have a secret look at the great prisoner. He
testified under oath that she was confined in an
iron cage, chained into a standing position by the
neck and wrists and ankles. When she walked she
was ironed to a block of log, when sleeping she
was ironed to the bed. She was more than five
months in this inhuman torture.

We have no account of how extensively her trial

was known among the people near or far, but it

tis reasonable to suppose that there were means

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 261

used to carry the news of one so extraordinary;
and so famous.

The inquisition had completed its labors and
the cause for condemnation was far from being
conclusive enough.

The judges sat around like a pack of wolves.
They were eager to tear her truth to pieces and
destroy her life. But Jeanne never sought to
conciliate any of them. She believed only in truth
and her God.

At las{ a decision was reached. The day of
Condemnation was set for May 24, 1431.

3. The Ceremony of 'Accusation

She had sought no counsel from priests or war-
riors and had asked no help or authority from
the Church or Court. These necessary values all
came from God, between her and her Creator
alone. Therefore she had against her the three
most powerful incentives of will, those of the war
commanders, the favorites around the King, and
the priesthood as the Church Militant of God.
From the war commanders she had her plans de-
feated, from the favorites at court she had treach-
ery and betrayal, and from the Church she had
treason, torture and death.

With ponderous ceremony, her accusers
brought her into a conspicuous public place for
the formal act of accusation.

All the testimony was summed up in twelve ar-

262 JOAN OF ARC

tides of heresy, all so utterly false that we won-
der how there could be any civilization having
such monstrous minds at its head in Church and
State.

These were read to her with sonorous tones in
the hearing of the awe-stricken public, and there
is some testimony given by her enemies that her
spirit was broken under the ordeal, but we can
hardly believe such weak and poorly supported
evidence that she was any less valiant in battles
for right as the might of soul, than she was brave
for right as the might of body.

The life of one composed of unconquerable
faith through such a long series of evidently in-
surmountable difficulties and tasks, we may well
believe remained consistent to the end. She who
never wavered in the front of most terrific bat-
tles, and who could not be overawed in the pres-
ence of bishops, councils or kings, may have faint-
ed in the tortures of body, but it is the grossest
unreason to believe, in the midst of the contra-
dictory partisan testimony, that she ever failed
in her faith to her call as the Daughter of God.

After the dreadful articles of heresy had been
read, came the long severe act of accusation. She
must be grilled through all the long course of the
seventy specific charges brought against her.

The preliminary accusation charged her at once
with being sorceress, given to magic arts, invoking
demons; idolatrous, sacrilegious, malicious, apos-
tate ; a blasphemer of God ; scandalous, seditious,

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 263

cruel, indecent, a liar, heretic and a seducer of the
people.

De Courcelles read through the long series of
seventy horrible charges in a clear, loud voice,
with great emphasis on the worst of his words.
She stood facing him through all these abomina-
ble accusations with the dignity of undaunted
womanhood whose faith and character and cause
were not in the hands of man or ecclesiastics, or
Church, but in the unchangeable promise of God.
She had begun with the mission to deliver her be-
loved France from the yoke of oppression, and
it was ending with her being used as the means
to commit the soul of her country into the des-
potism of ecclesiastical mastery.

The whole dreadful thing was done to her but
she returned no ill word to them. She merely
denied and let them read on. She knew in whom
she believed and that He would be with her unto
the end.

4. A New Creed for Mankind

The final question was the fatal one, "Do you
believe you are subject to the Church?"

Her fatal answer was, "Yes, God first served."

Thus was this woman not a captive of kings
but of priests. She was the victim of a religious
creed that was the servant of ambition and of
hate. She asserted a freedom that was to become
the light of the world.

At the close of the ordeal, she was returned to

264 JOAN OF ARC

her cell where she fell desperately sick. Her body
was sore afflicted with the long terrible trial,
but her soul possessed peace that passeth under-
standing. Never for any moment had there ever
been any wavering in her firm hold on God.

Her guards now mocked her, terrified her and
tortured her, in more malicious forms than ever
before.

Jacques Tiphane, a Paris physician, was sent to
see her. He found her chained, unclothed upon
an iron bed. He was one of the worst of the big-
oted and brutal throng. He abused her, called
her vile names, and, in consequence, she was
thrown into a wild fever. Then two other physi-
cians were sent who bled her profusely and mer-
cifully brought her very near to death.

Believing she was about to die she piteously
begged for the rites of the Church. Then vicious
Nicole Midy was sent to her with several other
priests. The visit was not to console her in any
way but to administer the three monitions given
to those condemned to be burned at the stake.

This was done and to her appeal for the con-
solation of the Church, the Bishop said it was
impossible for the Church to mediate in any way
for her unless she submit to the Church.

"If my body die in prison," she said, "I hope
you will let it be buried in holy ground ; if not, I
leave it to God."

They looked at the girl as she said these things
and received the impression that she was dying.

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 265

"Jeanne," said one of the priests, "you have
asked for your Savior. We will promise to give
you your Savior, if you will submit to the
Church."

"Of that submission," she replied, "I can not
answer otherwise than I have done. I am a Chris-
tian, I love God and serve him."

And so she put the final seal upon her fate.

5. The Alleged Abjuration

The crushing ruin, designed to drive every
meaning of the Maid out of the minds of men, and
annihilate all interest and value she might have
for any one, could be accomplished completely
only in her admitting that the judgment of the
Church, then trying her, was perfect in all its con-
sideration of her affairs. It was a necessary vin-
dication for them as wTell as a triumph against
all who might believe in her. Though her body
and mind had been enfeebled by the long months
of anguish, she never weakened in her belief and
the repeated statement that "God must first be
served."

It was a dramatic and spectacular display they
prepared when Joan should be called on publicly
to recant and abjure her life, or sentence of burn-
ing at the stake should be pronounced against
her.

The big cemetery of the Abbey Saint-Ouen was
to be the scene of judgment. Two great scaffolds

266 JOAN OF ARC

or elevated platforms were erected near each
other in the center of the grave-yard. On one
was seated forty or fifty of the greatest men of
the time, cardinals, bishops, abbots and assessors,
with lords and officers of the English Court. On
the other scaffold was the Archdeacon of Errard
and by his side Joan of Arc. Around them were
the prosecutors, the recording secretaries and no-
taries. The immense grave-yard was filled with
a mass of people covering the ground and the
tombs.

The preacher took for his text the words from
John 15:4-6, "A branch can not bear fruit except
it abide in the vine. ' ' The Church, even as repre-
sented there, was the vine, and the sermon ac-
cordingly was on obedience to the Church. The
prisoner sitting there was the culprit who claimed
to have direction for her conduct outside of the
Church, even from God.

" Behold the pride of this woman," he cried in
righteous fervor, with a string of atrocious accu-
sations against her, bawled forth in the coarsest
words of defamation. Raising his voice he ex-
claimed, "Great is the pity! Ah, France, thou
hast been much deceived; thou hast been always
the most Christian land, and Charles, who calls
himself King and Governor, has trusted like the
heretic schismatic that he is, to the words and
deeds of this base and wanton woman, full of all
dishonor. It is to thee, Jeanne, I speak to tell
thee that thy King is a heretic and schismatic. ' '

Then Jeanne arose, facing him with the dignity
of the freedom seen when she held her banner
aloft in the front of battle. Now it was again the
banner of truth for her beloved France.

"Say what you like of me,*' she cried loud and
clear for all to hear, "but say not so of my King.
He is a good Christian and his trust was not in
me, but in God."

The preacher, ignoring her interruption, went
on with his abuse to the final words of excom-
munication and condemnation.

6. The Sentence of Death

The awful drag and grind of a hundred strong
men against this weakened tortured girl was now
driven far beyond anything known in human en-
durance. What could not be drawn from her by
force was now attempted by trickery and falsified
replies to her questions. No friendly soul had
been near her for many months. The sting of
the serpent and the breath of the wolf was in
every move around her.

In this last chance, the vicious experts crowded
around her at the end of the final address of the
Church to her. "Let us save you," cried her tor-
mentors in her ear. "Abjure or be burnt and be
damned," cried another. The Bishop began to
read the sentence of death. He was nearly
through and it would then be too late.

"Here sign this, quickly, we pity thee," cried

268 JOAN OF ARC

the Archdeacon in her ear. There was a great
uproar among the people. The cry was not ' * Cru-
cify Him ! Crucify Him ! ' ' but it was ' ' Burn her !
Burn the witch of the Armagnacs ! ' '

Did she cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me !" as it had been interpreted that her
Lord had done in the weakness of despair ! None
know what she said, but they claim that she be-
gan to repeat the words of recantation they said
to her. The proof is desperately confused. They
said she signed a document of abjuration but all
the testimony shows she could not write. We
know that she could not read, and we do not know
what they read to her if she did sign it. Every
reasonable consistency bears witness that she did
not fail as she understood it, and that her ene-
mies, like wolves around a dying lamb, obtained
falsely all that they got from her in that dread-
ful hour.

Massieu says he offered her a pen as the Arch-
deacon yelled, "Sign now, otherwise thou shalt
end thy life in fire to-day and thy soul in hell for-
ever," and he said to her, "Better sign than
burn." He says she laughed and made a round
figure at the bottom of the document, saying "I
can not write." Laurence Callot was one of the
English secretaries sitting at her side. He says
that he seized her hand and guided the pen across
the paper so as to spell out the name, " Jehanne."
And that is without doubt all there was to her
recantation, thus claiming that she was abjuring

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 269

her work, her country and her God. It is of
course absurd. But it served the purpose of writ-
ing down a lie to be believed against the invinci-
ble and immortal God's faith born in the soul of
a woman.

As testified to by five clerks, including Jean
Massieu, who was the one that read it, the re-
cantation which Joan signed was less in length
than the Lord's prayer and was so worded that
she did not understand it as she herself said.
But a long, vicious document requiring half an
hour to read was the one used against her.

7. Back to the Dungeon of Despair

Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Bauvais, was now at
the end of his infamous task. He turned to the
Cardinal of England and asked what he should
do. Mitigate the sentence was the reply, and the
Bishop did so. Instead of reading death at the
stake, he read, that, for sins against God and His
Church, "We condemn you, in our grace and mod-
eration, to pass the rest of your days in prison on
the bread of sorrow and the water of anguish,
there to weep and lament your sins."

A little glimpse of sympathy here appears in
the black mass. Loiselleur, the one who had been
the betrayer of her confessional in prison, came
grinning up to her, offering his congratulations.
It is recorded that this was the beginning in him
of great remorse.

270 JOAN OF ARC

"Jeanne," he said, "you have done a good
day's work and, please God, you have saved your
soul."

She turned from him in great indignation and
cried out to the judges seated opposite to her on
the other platform, "Now that you men of the
Church have condemned me, take me into one of
the Church prisons. Leave me no longer in the
prison of the English."

This was now her right and the duty of the
Church, indisputably, though it had in truth been
so from the first.

Pierre Miger, friar of Longueville, evidently
desiring to hasten this decision, hurried forward,
saying, "Where shall she be taken?" At least
the friar in his sworn testimony says such was
his intention, but an English Bishop hearing his
words, turned to Cauchon, saying, "This fellow
is one who favored her. ' ' This accusation proved
to be as frightful to him as to Peter and he has-
tened to deny it.

Many of the mob hearing her and realizing that
they were not to see her burn, began throwing
stones at the judges. Several of the judges be-
gan expressing their opinion to the Bishop of
Beauvais that she should now be taken to the
church prison, but he knew that Joan had made
no recantation. There was yet work for him to
do. He cut short all talk by an order to the
guards.

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 271

' ' Take her back to the prison from whence you
brought her."

They seized her and carried her back to the dun-
geon in the castle. So this little sister of the
saints was thrust again into the iron cage in care
of those black-hearted servants of evil who had
lost all but the forms of men.

8. Forcing the So-called Relapse into Heresy

The same afternoon on which she was returned
to the military prison, the little bunch of inquisi-
tors, who gloried most in their coarse and brutal
ways toward her, visited her in prison with some
feminine clothing. They reported that she was
duly humble and contrite. They said that they
had made her take off her soldier's uniform in
their presence, to make sure it was done, and
caused her to put on woman's clothing.

They said she had done/his in the hope of be-
ing taken to one of the Cnurch prisons, but they
would not do so.

Such masters of merciless ^injustice are not in
any way believable. But it is known that five of
the most brutish British troopers were placed in
charge of her and for two days allowed no one
but themselves within the prison. Nothing can be
known of those two days. It is well known that
hardly a soldier in the English or Burgundian
army believed that any victory was possible as
long as the witch of the Armagnacs was alive.

272 JOAN OF ARC

She had no rights as woman or warrior for them
to respect. Brutality was their crucifixion and
vulgarity their crown of thorns.

Trinity Sunday came and she woke hearing the
bells ringing. She asked the guards to unchain
her so she could rise. One of them did so, at the
same time taking away her woman's clothing and
throwing back to her the soldier's clothing that
she had been forbidden to wear on pain of death
at the stake.

It is said that she plead in anguish with them,
that she knelt and prayed, but they mocked her
and abused her, and insulted her till she put on
the forbidden clothing. Then the doors were
opened. Witnesses came in crying, " Behold, the
witch is back in her wickedness."

Lord Warwick came and beheld the dreadful
sight! Then all Rouen was in great excitement.
They would soon see the burning of a witch.
Manchon, the notary, writes of this that the sol-
diers were so vicious he did not dare go near the
prisoner, without safe conduct from Lord War-
wick. A priest, who was one of the committee
to call at her cell, was so roughly thrust out, back
into the street, that he was severely wounded, and
so could account for their violence only on the
theory that they were bewitched.

All the great conclave had left Rouen excepting
the merciless prosecutors who were in the work
to do her to death. They were there ready to con-
tinue their work. But many of the priests doubt-

-S^zS^^x/yi^, ^fc~$j

JOAN OF ARC WITH THE SWORD OF FIERBOIS
The Statue by Princess Marie of Orleans in the Musee de Versailles

ed that the woman was being given a fair chance
for her life. Marguerie managed to get some
woman's clothing to her in the evening, but sure
enough she refused to take off the clothing in
which she had fought the battles of her Lord,
though she knew this meant death at the stake.
Was this La Pucelle revived, or was all this change
untrue, as reported by her enemies, and had there
never been any change in the woman of wonderful
faith f Is not her long unimpeachable consistency
to be trusted rather than the words of the most
treacherous and merciless fanatics in history!
The comparison is hardly worthy of considera-
tion. Joan of Arc was sure of God and sure of a
home in Paradise.

9. Those That Kill the Body.

She had accepted the change from death at the
stake to imprisonment for life, having nothing but
* ' the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction. ' '
Her consolation was that this would take her from
the inhuman varlets who lived with her in the iron
cage. Henceforth she would be done to death by
Christians and not by beasts.

But it was not planned by her enemies to be so.
The University of Paris wanted recantation in
proof of its religious powers and in defeat for the
priests supporting the King of France. After
that, the Earl of Warwick wanted her death, be-
cause the English soldiers believed battles could

274 JOAN OF ARC

not be won, and that their own lives were imper-
iled so long as the Armagnac witch was left to
pray for the success of the soldiers under King
Charles ! But that was no excuse, and more than
one prominent Englishman had expressed great
admiration for La Pucelle. Let the Church kill
her. The infamous henchmen of the English ruler
had it well planned when they returned the con-
demned girl to the remorseless care of the ruffians
in the lonely cell.

She had yielded, so they said, to the Church
in its decision that God required her to put off her
soldier's clothes for woman's wear. Her own
faith might yield that much without losing the
symbolism of her mission for her country and her
great work in the cause of God.

On Monday, twenty-eight of her persecutors
found her in her soldier's clothes, broken, crushed,
her body crumpled like the disfigured image of a
saint.

De la Pierre, a Dominican Friar, who saw her,
said, "I beheld her weeping, her face covered with
tears, bruised and outraged, so that I was full of
pity and compassion."

We hope for the awful shame of it all that there
was one who looked upon her with sympathy, but
we do not know if his compassion was meant for
her unjust suffering or for her sins of heresy.
He had seen her noble face and large bright eyes
before and he knew she had suffered at the hands

THE MIGHT OF RIGHT 275

of man more than the worst that has been allowed
in imagination to the devils of hell.

The Master of Galilee like the Maid from Dom-
remy had a faith that was for the salvation of
the world. Though each in an hour of despair
might cry out, "My God! My God! Why hast
Thou forsaken me!" yet each kept the faith unto
the end as the will of the Father in heaven. All
who suffer may think on these things and re-
member those who suffered more, and yet were
of unconquerable soul.

The God of Right is not long mocked by the
preposterous assumptions of will-made lives. The
right thing on the right way will always arrive
at the predestined goal of right. It was so with
the life-meaning of this wonderful woman. Qui-
cheret, whose researches were largely the means
of restoring the lost knowledge of her, prophesied
a remarkable ideal for the coming womanhood
when he wrote, "The saint of the Middle Ages,
whom the Middle Ages rejected, will become the
saint of the modern world."

CHAPTER XV

PAYING UNTO WILL THE FINAL PRICE
OF FAITH

1. The Terrible Meek

THE woman of unconquerable faith made no
complaint except to reproach her lords of the
Church for not placing her in a Church prison
where she could go to mass, receive her Savior,
have woman companions and be taken out of
irons, away from her inhuman guards.

That twenty-eight men could look upon her,
eager to see the flames about her, proves only
what men can be, for there are legions of such ex-
amples, comparable in their evil only to the mad-
ness of beasts.

Faith has never led any one to anything but
hope and love, will has never led any one to any-
thing but prejudice and hate. Any one who knows
these will-made dispositions and the traits of
them, as being yet the heritage of human condi-
tions, must pause and readjust his judgment, if
he believes that the persuasions of peace are
enough to change any will to the faith that con-
tains liberty or justice or order or truth for man.
The beast has never been driven out that way,

276

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 277

and whatever forms it takes the beast is the same
now as it was around the iron cell of Joan of
Arc.

In a voice weak from unspeakable suffering,
she said to the clerical wolf -pack around her, even
as written by her enemies in their records, "I
would rather do penance once for all (that is, die
at the stake) than to endure any longer the suffer-
ing of this prison. I have done nothing against
God or the faith, in spite of all they have made me
revoke. What was in the schedule of abjuration,
I did not understand. I did not intend to revoke
anything except according to God's good pleas-
ure. " i

Thus all they had made out of her repudiation
was repudiated, for she had never been false to
her faith, her country or her God.

It was enough. All their mad learning and all
their diabolical cruelties to crush a woman's faith
had failed, and the world had a never-dying vision
of the unconquerable strength that exists in the
sustaining belief that righteousness of soul is one
with the Lord of the Universe.

Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, now had
his revenge in the name of divine salvation. He
had at last conquered the woman who had driven
him, and his associate betrayers of their coun-
try, out of his rich holdings in France. He was
nobly revenged, for she would now die at the
stake, excommunicated from the Church, with all

278 JOAN OF ARC

the dreadful consequences of eternity. His work
was about to be successfully ended!

As he came out of the prison \7ith his crowd of
witnesses, he met the Earl of Warwick.

"Farewell, farewell!" he exclaimed proudly.
"It is done! Be of good cheer. You can dine
with a good appetite. We have caught her at
last."

But it was not done. He did not win the victory
and can not win it so long as humanity can real-
ize the difference between the will of the Bishop
of Beauvais and the faith of Joan of Arc.

She was true to her divine meaning at the end
of the third day, when no doubt her cell had be-
come no less to her than hell. No record of it,
except in fragments, has been kept. Perhaps
even the wolves at the feast feared posterity that
much. No one wants to know. We want to think
of a higher level for the human will. This much
we do know that the dark silence of those days
covers unspeakable anguish and despair, for this
child of innocence and of God. Faith superior
to this has never been known on earth. It is the
divine inheritance of womanhood for the making
of the human race.

2. Why They Hated Her unto Death

In all her life she never had an unkind word
for any one and in all her unsurpassable suffering
there is never a word of any complaint against

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 279

any one. Though this might have been an inten-
tional omission of her enemies, yet it is consist-
ent with her character.

Her entire condemnation by the Church cen-
tered in her refusal to submit to the authority of
her inquisitors as the militant infallible Church
to pass on the truth between her and God. Their
whole mind was set on branding her faith as of
Satan because it opposed their interests. But she
defeated them in that thing and they sent her to
the stake on account of the old Jewish law against
a woman wearing men's apparel as laid down in
Deuteronomy 22: 5. This was the ancient Jew-
ish law used against her : ' ' The women shall not
wear that which pertaineth to a man . . . for all
that so do are an abomination unto the Lord their
God."

Reason, for the sake of the will to hate, thus
ignored all her past in order to assert against this
innocent woman an authority claiming all the
powers of heaven and earth.
i The ecclesiastical organization hated her be-
cause all she had done was outside of its control,
the military organization of her King hated her
because she did what it could not do, and that
most of the time against its help and advice. The
King liked to profit by her success, but he disliked
the controversy that raged about his ears concern-
ing the woman. Her enemies were furious at be-
ing beaten by this mere girL As their cause was
right hers was wrong, therefore she was of the

280 JOAN OF ARC

devil. At length all were willing for her to be
rooted out of the memory of human beings. By
indisputable authority having almighty power,
this peasant girl of Domremy must be proven a
liar, a wanton, a witch, a heretic and a child of
Satan, so that every memory of her would be
anathema, and to that purpose was concentrated
all the mightiest means and powers in the world.

She longed to be considered loyal to the Church.
It had been the body of her mind through all her
life. Even as the brief schedule of repudiation
was being read, she piteously called on Saint Mi-
chael to help her because she could not understand
it.

Even if it was a moment of weakness, she was
a young girl so afraid of the fire ! God help her !

Even in the midst of it she cried out in repudi-
ation of the repudiation they were reading. * ' My
deeds I have done by God's order. I charge no
one with them. If there be any fault found in
them, the blame is on me, on me alone.'7

Saint Peter thrice denied his Lord, who had
been a personal companion, and who was then
a prisoner. He denied his Lord under no con-
straint and from the mere accusation of an hum-
ble servant girl.

Not so this girl of faith, this wonderful woman
from Domremy. On that rock Christ built his
church, the rock of faith against which the gates
of hell shall not prevail, and so, the just shall live
by faith.

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 281

3. A Vision of Faith

The lofty purity of her life reveals the possibil-
ity inherent in every mind for the tie that binds
together the righteous of the social universe.

The picture is irresistible. From the vision of
this wonderful child playing with the village chil-
dren around the Fairy Tree, we go to the ecstatic
little girl looking into the great white light and
listening as the vesper bells ring to the voices
of her soul whose meaning could come from no'
beauty of life less than God. Then she pleads
with coarse governors to lead her to the King.
Youthful knights full of the blazing zeal of aspir-
ing manhood feel the inspiration of this wonder-
ful spirit and swear to devote their lives and for-
tunes to her cause. She stands unafraid before
courtiers and Church dignitaries in the presence
of a King and names the wrong which she has
come to banish in the name of right and God.
Doubting Doctors of the Law in the name of the
highest authority available to man question her
in vain to find a place of weakness in her claim,
and it can not be done. Then she takes the sav-
age bands of ruffians, ravaging the country in the
name of the King, and they become decent men
worthy of the noblest name of soldiers redeeming
their native land. They go where her standard
goes and it strikes the hosts of her country 's ene-
mies like the wrath of God. She stands in the
great Cathedral at Rheims and sees the Dauphin

282 JOAN OF ARC

crowned King of France. Then she is taken cap-
tive and sold to the powers that in fear and de-
feat would take their vengeance out on the dam-
nation and destruction of this one who could save
others but herself she could not save. And yet
they were mistaken. They did not know of the
salvation wherewith she was saved. For long
• months they played with her mind as the tiger cat
plays with its quarry. They beat upon her nerves
with every instrument of torture that could be
devised in treachery or brutality, but they failed,
showing that all hell can not weaken the soul that
is stayed on God. The Eock of Ages sustained
her cross and eternity fixed the crown of life upon
her head. True enough a cloud came over her
and hid her from mortal eyes. She was smitten as
from the hand of fate. She is outcast from all
the peace of heaven and earth. The flames claim
her and oblivion receives her ashes in the waters
of the Seine. But her faith endures like the white
light over the churchyard of Domremy. The
voice of its meaning sounds in the music of every
soul and La Pucelle takes her place among the
Saints of light whose heroic ideal is the salvation
and perfection of humanity.

4. The Darkness of Those Who Hate the Light

We have glimpses of many characteristic events
that occurred in the period of their secret work.
They thought they were making history, even as

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 283

many have thought since then to the present time,
but, contrary to their reason and will, history was
making them. Though the merciful Church had
juggled some kind of a recantation, she insisted
all the time that she meant, "God first served,"
and for that she could not be a Church prisoner
properly attended by her own sex, but must
be left to the ruffians of the iron cell in a military
dungeon! As they found her wearing soldier's
clothes, after being ordered not to do so, she was
a relapsed heretic and must be burnt.

The machinery of the inquisition now moved
swiftly deathwards. On May 29, forty-two
judges unanimously decided that she must be
burnt as a relapsed heretic. They appointed the
following day for her to be put through the cere-
mony of abandonment by the Church, which meant
that, according to law, the military authority, then
held by the English, must execute the sentence of
death, as did the Roman soldiers when the Jew-
ish authorities condemned Christ to be crucified.
In both cases alike, a foreign military power was
required to carry out the orders of the Church.

The great spectacle was prepared suitable to
so notorious an occasion. The English and Bur-
gundians were about to be avenged of an enemy
who had shattered their hold on the Kingdom of
France, and the ecclesiastical body was about to
be relieved from one who took orders from God
rather than from the Church.

Immense platforms were erected near the stake

284 JOAN OF ARC

so that the noble heads of the Church and the
various secular magistrates could see the final
penance of their enemy, this nineteen-year-old
girl, La Pucelle d 'Orleans.

The helpless mass of people did not want that
cruel thing done. They were overawed by the
great learning that was believed to be their
Church and their salvation, they were enslaved
under the power of lance and sword, and yet,
they knelt in their homes, beseeching the saints to
have mercy on the girl that was to suffer the
supreme penance on that day. They were on their
knees in public places wherever the soldiers did
not threaten them, and there they cried aloud for
the mercy of the Lord. Beneath the prison walls
they held lighted candles, weeping and praying
against the merciless inhumanity of men in high
places. In the long record of hideous masteries,
there are on record countless numbers no less
abominable before all mind, but there are none
more long drawn out in anguish imposed by the
leaders of learning and civilization.

5. The Final Announcement

Martin the Monk was chosen to announce the
fate set for her by the judges, as a relapsed here-
tic. The black company with their foul judgment
in the name of God came suddenly and silently
into her cell. The eight or nine months, unparal-

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 285

leled in desperate inhumanity to a girl, were about
to come to an end.

She had been expecting, doubtless often pray-
ing for a swift relief, even such relief as this, that
her Lord come quickly. But these black-cowled
men, with the Satan-made brain, came in with
cruel eyes, and they told her with all the brutal
blows of deadly words.

After all La Pucelle was only a simple peasant
girl, and, when she was told that she was to be
burnt that day, it struck her with terror and dis-
may. The youth and the woman in her could
hardly endure the cruel vision of pain and death.
She cried out against such pitiless injustice, but
the monsters of ruthless frightfulness understood
no meaning but force in mastery or defeat, even
when the object was only a helpless young girl.

"Alas!" she cried in an anguish of weeping,
' ' how horribly and cruelly they treat me, that my
body, which I have never soiled, should be burnt
to ashes!"

But, faith quickly recovered her spirit, or her
spirit quickly recovered faith, and she cried, once
more alight with the beauty of heaven in her soul,
' 1 1 thank God ! To-day I shall be in Paradise. ' '

The black misery of it all faded away in the
more precious hope and she became calm.

At this time, Pierre Morrice came in, and she
asked, "Master Pierre, where shall I be to-day
at evening?"

£86 JOAN OF ARC

I "Hast thou true hope in God?" he evasively
asked.

"I have," she firmly answered, once more lay-
ing hold fast to her unconquerable faith, "and,
Christ helping me, I shall this day be in Para-
dise."

Loiseleur, the betrayer of her confessional, en-
tered as she said this. He is described as being
nervous and haggard. At that time only his own
wretched soul knew what a traitor he had been to
Jeanne, to his Church and his God.
i To ease his own burning conscience, he tried to
question her in this hour of death to bring out
more guilt against her, but she looked into his re-
morseful eyes and gave him answers that with-
ered all the excuses in his soul.
' Cauchon, the arch-conspirator against her
honor and her life, now came in.
1 Through her tears, the implacable adversary
loomed before her.

"Bishop," she cried out, "I die by you."

"Not so," he replied. "You die because you
have returned to your iniquities."

It appears that the question of what she wore
had become the greatest of all her crimes.

"Alas! Alas!" she spoke with pathetic re-
buke. "If you had put me into the prison of the
Church, and given me fit and proper keepers, this
had not happened. I appeal to God against you,"
and somewhere the great God heard. «

The last rites of the Church, after long plead-

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 287

ing, were granted her. A carriage rumbled up to
the door of her prison. Six hundred horsemen
holding aloft their lances arrived to escort her to
her final martyrdom. The great assemblage of
partisans was already impatient clamoring for the
show. The platforms were filled with robed
power in the shape of men, masters of men and
the representatives of God!

•

6. According to Law

The meaning of all this has remained un-
changed. The methods change and the victims are
made desolate in other ways. Freedom is still the
achievement of order in the rights of man for the
best ways to live best.

As we go with the woman of faith to the stake,
we must remember that her faith had no compro-
mise with treason to man or God. She believed
that right is might because order has the intelli-
gence of all time. She knew that no one can rea-
son with a conquering will because its right is
might, having no measure outside of self.

We may be sure that one so clear-minded as
La Pucelle had no illusions. There is no record
that she attempted to reason her inquisitors out
of their will. Long before this she had advised
the King that it was useless to reason with the
Duke of Burgundy or the Commanders of the
English. Diplomacy with masters is worthless.
There, was only one thing to do to save France

288 JOAN OF ARC

and that was to drive the alien enemy out of the
land by force, and to deprive the home enemies
of all their profit by defeat. So it is now. The
world is safe for democracy only as its enemies
are overpowered, the world is safe for humanity
only as might can find no way to the spoils of
conquest, and the world is safe for the individual
only as order becomes so organized that no one
dares risk even so much as to gamble with any
events against the moral system of faith in a
social world.

Whenever there remains any means for an in-
dividual or any group to achieve mastery it will
do it, and, if frightfulness will help even in the
least to retain it, ruthless frightfulness will be
used to its utmost success. The valorous Maid of
Orleans was for us a revelation of the conflict be-
tween faith and will whose meaning contains the
whole story of our human struggle. It is an epic
of liberty and law. It is a masterpiece of freedom
and government. There can be no more illustri-
ous vision than this of individual or group mas-
tery in conflict with loyalty to the meaning of
humanity.

La Pucelle met the hour of great sacrifice with
all the might of right sustaining her against the
masters of that day. Soldiers seized her, tore off
her soldier's clothing and put upon her the long
white robe customary for criminals who were to
suffer the penance of fire. On her head was
placed a white paper miter, not unlike in signifi-

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 289

cance the crown of thorns, fourteen centuries be-
fore, and on this head-dress was written in large
letters, " Heretic, relapsed, Apostate, Idolatress."

She walked before the Bishops to the carriage
and was helped to the seat. The word went from
lip to lip on down among the hosts eager for her
death. Soon would there come palsy to the arms
that had waved the banner of victory against the
foes of France; soon would all swiftness depart
forever from the feet that had run jubilantly the
way ordained of God.

Martin, her last confessor, coming through the
packed lines of glittering horsemen, mounted the
carriage to her side, and then Massieu took a
place on the other side of her. The order to go
was given, when there was a strange cry and a
violent commotion in the crowd near her. A man
with wild disheveled hair reached the carriage,
climbed up to her and threw himself screaming
at her feet.

"Pardon, Jeanne! In the name of God, par-
don!"

Loiseleur had done some better than Judas.
He had cried out for pardon to the God of Faith !
Mercy was there and we may hope that he re-
ceived some reward for being a better man in his
repentance than any there of whom we have rec-
ord. But a soldier dragged him shrieking away.
It is said that the calm-souled victim of his priest-
ly treachery stretched out her hand toward him
in token of forgiveness and peace. The Earl of

290 JOAN OF ARC

Warwick sent him away from Rouen, no one
knows where.

Nicholas de Houppeville, a noted lawyer who
had refused to have any part in the iniquitous
proceedings, says, as she came forth from the
dungeon into the light of day, and looked over tie
scene before her, he heard her exclaim, ' * 0 Rouen,
Rouen, is it here that I must die ! ' ' He said that
it was more than he could endure and he went back
sick of heart and soul to his home.

The cart was driven on in the midst of the cav-
alrymen, followed by a horrible rabble of cursing,
shouting people, through the long narrow streets
to the open space before the churchyard of the
Cathedral. There she was led up the steps by
Cauchon to the seat where she was to listen to the
sermon of damnation and death.

7. A Public Vindication of the Mercy of Men

On a huge tablet set up near the stake, in letters
written so large that the multitude could all see,
was the verdict of condemnation by the judges,
that awful caricature of human intelligence as
well as of social justice, which -declared her to be
"a liar, a wanton, a heretic, a blasphemer, a schis-
matic and apostate."

On the top of the stake was a huge scroll bear-
ing in large letters the words:

"Jehanne, who hath caused herself to be called the Maid, a
liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, supersti-

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 291

tious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant,
boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apos-
tate, schismatic and heretic."

Even her Lord at the age of thirty-three did not
bear a worse crown of thorns. He was reviled
as claiming to be king, she as a daughter of God.

The people were kept from the elevated plat-
forms by the soldiers. They climbed upon near-by
houses and wherever they could find a place to sit
upon the monuments and tombs of the churchyard.
One huge platform contained the judges and noted
personages. Another only a few feet away con-
tained the preacher, the prisoner, the two record-
ing clerks, the officers of the inquisition, and the
prison guard. The stake was about twenty steps
away, thrusting its gruesome form up through a
huge pile of wood plentifully sprinkled with pitch
and rosin. The executioner stood ready with his
long pole to stir the flames when lighted and with
a pot of sulphur in his hand to be used in case
mercy was needed.

Nicole Midy, the Archbishop of Errard, had
been very appropriately selected to deliver the
death-sermon. He chose as his text the twelfth
chapter of Corinthians, with special reference to
the twenty-sixth verse, ' ' If one member suffer, all
the members suffer with it."

His famous eloquence was now loudly used to
declaim against the heretic enemies of man and
God. Nearing the conclusion, he turned to deliver

!292 JOAN OF ARC

the final denunciation direct to her against whom
he had striven for an hour to inflame the people.

"I tell you, Joan," he said fiercely, "that your
King is heretic and schismatic. "

This was an insult to her faith in France that
she could not endure. The King to her was an
office more than a man. It was the cause to which
she had been born, the heaven-born right of
France.

"By my faith, my lord,'* she cried, "saving
your reverence, I do dare say and to swear at the
risk of my life, that he is the noblest of all Chris-
tians, loving the faith and the Church."

"Stop her!" yelled Cauchon, but she had said
it, and defended with dying breath her loyalty to
her country as to her God.

Manchon, the clerk-notary, wrote opposite to
this reply on the parchment, still preserved in the
National Library of Paris, the words, '"Responsio
Mortifera," that is, the response bearing death.

Then the Archbishop slowly pronounced the for-
mula of rejection from all rights to the mercy of
man and God, ' ' Jeanne, go in Peace ! The Church
can no longer protect thee."

With a gesture of contempt he put her away
from all hope. The will of man had finished its
task.

At this she fell forward upon her knees and be-
gan praying. Such a prayer it was as establishes
forever her faith as that of one of the saints of
God. Her soul poured forth in cries to her Savior

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 293

as one more merciful than these men. She for-
gave all who had brought her to that hour and
asked all her enemies everywhere to forgive her
for all she may have done amiss. She invoked the
help of her beloved saints and in joy cried out that
she saw the light. She accepted death as a wel-
come deliverance. She thanked God that He had
been her guide in all that she had done that was
right. Her revelations had never failed her. On
and on she prayed for half an hour, the sweetest,
noblest prayer that ever fell from mortal lips.
The Bishop of Thourenne, mercenary and sordid
beyond belief, had helped to sell her to this doom,
but now he was broken clown, sobbing and praying
for forgiveness.

The writer describing the scene says that the
Cardinal of England was staring out into the sky
as through a glassy mist, and the Bishop of Beau-
vais, hardened with inhumanity worse than any
in all that guilty mob, hid his face in his arms
upon the table and wiped the tears from his eyes.

How there could be any heart in them to be
touched, considering all the cruel work they had
done may be left as one of the mysteries with
those who were present and described these
scenes. It is perhaps most reasonable to suppose
that it was needful for them to pity her even unto
tears in order to satisfy their belief that they were
merciful and pious representatives of God. The
perverted mind is an inhuman mind, brutal as any
beast.

294 JOAN OF ARC

8. The Final Sentence

In those days of strongly mingled law, super-
stition and respect for custom, it was so that when
the Church Militant delivered its victim to the Sec-
ular Arm, the heretic was taken to the town hall
and ceremoniously sentenced, but this long-tor-
tured girl was given over to the mob straight from
the curse of the Church.

The hideous hypocrisy of it all is seen in the
sentence driving her out of the Church, and there-
fore, according to her life-time belief, into inter-
minable hell. But her faith surpassed it all. That
faith in this fiery trial is the most wonderful
known in all human history.

The Lord of Beauvais pronounced the sentence.

"We declare that thou, Jeanne, art a corrupt
member, and in order that thou mayst not infect
the other members, we are resolved to sever thee
from the unity of the Church, to tear thee from
its body, and to deliver thee to the secular power.
And we reject thee, we tear thee out, we abandon
thee, beseeching this same secular power, that,
touching death and the mutilation of limbs, it may
be pleased to moderate its sentence."

But the Secular Arm made no sentence. She
passed from the wolves of theological reason to
the wolves of military might, and the deluded peo-
ple, born with no such interests, looked upon the
spectacle as a Holy Show, because they believed
themselves so incompetent before this superior in-

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 295

telligence, and had none of the faith of the girl
they were thus hounding to death. Verily, wis-
dom then had its home only in the minds of babes.
This child was dying the death of faith in whose
redeeming power was the salvation of the world.

She asked for a cross but all seemed too dazed
to understand. Then an English soldier made one
from a broken stick and gave it to her. She
thanked him, kissed it and placed it in her bosom.
Meanwhile, the clerk of Saint Savior's had run to
the church and he brought her one with the figure
of Christ upon it. She took it and held it tightly
in her arms, now weeping and praying softly to
herself.

The ecclesiastics did not intend to be blood-
guilty ; that is, not to do more than convict her of
being a heretic. They did not condemn her to the
stake, by definite assertion, but left that to be done
officially by the secular magistrates, whose busi-
ness it was to carry out the decisions of the
Church in its cases of relapsed heretics.

As the inquisitor dramatically declaimed his
tragic words, casting her out of all hope forever
in earth or heaven, two officers began to ascend
the steps to take charge of her in the name of the
executive government. The rabble began to yell,
' * To the stake ! Away with her to the fire I"

Jeanne bowed to the priests and took hold of
the arms of the two monks attending her. One
of them says that she paused a moment, looking
out over the scene, and then said* "Ah, Rouen J

296 JOAN OF ARC

Rouen! Wilt thou be my last dwelling place on
earth."

9. Loyal Faith as the Social Meaning of Humanity

In her last passion of prayer, her faith had
passed through hope into love. She forgave her
enemies and asked their prayers for her soul.
She knew that it was not the truth within them
that had wrought this hideous infamy upon her,
but the lie they had believed and loved to the ex-
clusion of all that could inspire the mercy of man.

No higher devotion of disinterested love can be
exampled anywhere among men. She asked noth-
ing but that her soul should continue in the care
of God. That is why the memory of her can not
fail of its high meaning so long as there is mem-
ory and mind.

Vindictiveness had triumphed, vengeance had
vindicated its theory that might is right. They
had tortured her soul, falsified her truth, and de-
stroyed her from all form and figure among the
living. She was cast into the bottomless pit of
anathema and oblivion, but alas for them, vin-
dications can not reach the soul, vengeance can
not touch the spirit, torture has no power over
faith, and the destroyers are destroyed in their
own fatal curse of treason and the untrue.

The ages have caught the music of her voices,
the nations are seeing the first rose-dawn of her
light for a better day, the human mind is feeling

FINAL PRICE OF FAITH 297

the infinite power of her faith, and the first ex-
ultant notes of a new heaven and a new earth are
ringing for the sons and daughters of God. The
faith-keeping world will sometime become the
home of humanity and there shall be no more of
the will-made earth.

Her life is a withering rebuke now as it was
then to the frivolous and idle encumbering the
earth with their useless lives. Well could it be
said of her, l ' She opened her hands to the needy
and stretched forth her hands to the poor." Such'
was this gentle girl who was strong beyond the
strength of the mightiest men ! Such was the un-
surpassed chivalry of this noblest knight of Chris-
tendom, the girl who cried like a beaten child at
the thought of death in the flames, and yet in that
dreadful hour was so thoughtful as to tell her
spiritual counselors to leave her lest they be hurt
in the oncoming flames. The France that can not
rise to that ideal of womanhood, or any other
group that can not develop the faith of freedom,
will suffer with the wretches who were too blind
to see her celestial soul, and, unless we learn to
know the meaning she revealed anew along the
way to the cross, humanity lives on in a faithless,
hopeless, hate-breeding will-made world.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAGEDY OF FAITH AND THE VIC-
TORY OF WILL

1. The Spotless Woman m a World of Shame

THE English Magistry had no opportunity to
pass sentence upon her in conformity with the de-
cree of the Church. She was subjected to no proc-
ess of the law. It was a mob murder. As the two
monks, with their charge between them, came
down among the rabble of soldiers and citizens,
composed of English, Burgnndians and all varie-
ties of renegade French, she was seized as one of
the ancient Christian martyrs among the beasts
of prey. With furious cries of rage they dragged
her to the stake. The priests fled from the scene,
horror-stricken with the beastly violence. They
cried out against the brutality being used and they
were driven away by the mounted lancers. She
was dragged up the steps on to the pile of wood
and the executioner bound her to the stake. The
two monks, who had been at her side, with up-
raised crosses forced their way through the howl-
ing pack and climbed up where they could press
the great emblem against her knees. The soldiers
closed in around her, rank on rank, as if fearful

298

that this one, whom they feared more than all the ,
armies of France, might yet save herself in the
power with which she had saved others. But like
her Master of the divine light and faith, this was
not to be done.

The two priests who were at her side said that
her body trembled at the coming agony, but her
lips prayed only for forgiveness to her enemies.

And now the worst of them appeared before her.-
Why he came, whether from lust of the sight for]
which he had worked for more than a year, or
whether he hoped she might say some word he
wanted to hear in her dying anguish, none can
know. But Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais,
came down to the edge of the faggots and stood
facing her. As the flames sprang up around her,
she looked out upon the mass of inhuman faces
and saw his.

"Bishop,'* she said, as she had done twice be-
fore, "I die by you. If you had put me into the
hands of the Church, I had never come here!'*

We know that she spoke true and since then one
of the most worthy names by the side of Judas
Iscariot is that of Pierre Cauchon, the Bishop of
Beauvais.

The two Dominican monks kneeling by her side
upon the pile of faggots were weeping and pray-
ing so that they did not see the fire creeping up
around them. But she saw it and she called to
them to go down and hold the crucifix high before
her.

300 JOAN OF ARC

"Speak loud enough for me to hear you, and
hold high the cross of God before my eyes until I
die," was her last request.

Then they left her there in the red mists, look-
ing up to the King of Heaven for help, calling low
to her Savior and speaking humbly with her saints.

Then the red fangs struck into her flesh and she
began to call on the name of Jesus.

"Jesus, my Savior," she cried. "Take me
away!"

A swift tide of flame took her into its keeping
more merciful than the will of man, and faith bore
her away on the wings of hope and love.

One who witnessed this scene, and there are
many who took oath on what they saw, tells us
that the eyes of all grew dim. Many of them say
the name of Jesus appeared in great red letters in
the furnace of flame. Many more tell of a white
dove that arose through the smoke and ascended
to heaven. They said that as they looked at her
through the flames that her face became as that
of a saint and they from that time believed her
to be a daughter of God.

Joaquin Miller, in his beautiful tribute to wom-
anhood, said no more for all than for her :

"0 spotless woman in a world of shame,
With splendid and silent scorn,
Go back to God as white as you came—
The kingliest warrior bornl"

"THE LAST FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION"

THE VICTORY OF WILL 301

2. Self -made Measures of Reason

The world of authority had now accomplished
.the long, laborious work. The law of the will had
satisfied itself. According to its estimates the
body, soul and history of the Maid of Orleans
were now annihilated.

The Cardinal of Winchester, of whom it was
said that he never prayed except for the death of
some enemy, ordered her ashes to be cast into the
Seine. Thus, as they had cast her soul into eter-
nal hell, had destroyed her body from the face of
the earth, and had made her character blacker
than night, they would annihilate her from the
values of the world. But the life of faith was
made more and more alive by every act in their
infamous work. The meaning of her idea for man-
kind was raised above all battles, above all kings,
above France and given as a divine banner of im-
mortal honor forever to the growing world.

Manchon, the recorder of the trial, who was
near her until her last breath, testified that, "Un-
til the last she declared that her voices came from
God, and had not deceived her."

Martin, the Dominican monk, who stayed near-
est to her, says her last words were, "Behold, my
voices have not deceived me." Then with a loud
voice she cried out, "My Savior!" as if He had
come. Through the aisles of red she saw the gates
of Paradise. Then there was silence. Her soul
had returned to God.

302 JOAN OF ARC

Then some one gave the command, "Draw back
the fire, and show her to the people dead, that
none may ever say she escaped."

They did so and all stared speechless. Then
there were shrieks and cries through the multi-
tude.

" Unjustly condemned," were the words that
rolled back and forth with ever increasing volume
through the great crowd. "Her soul is with God.
We have burnt a saint." Evil had overdone its
work. The enemies of France and the moral law
had forever horrified the world.

The executioner came running with the word
that her heart would not burn, that it remained full
of blood ! That great heart containing the soul of
France, of faith and of humanity ! He fell at the
feet of the two monks, asking if pardon from God
was possible. Then came an English soldier who
had hated her so viciously that he must throw a
burning faggot at her feet to be satisfied. This he
had done as she uttered her last words. The
sound of her dying voice went through his brain
like a sword and he fell to the ground senseless.
He feared he could never be forgiven, and so went
out into the night of time insane for what he had
done to this creature of God.

3. Some Records of Unblessed Fate

Manchon used all his clerk's pay during the
next month to get peace for his soul.

THE VICTORY OF WILL 303

Canon Alepee, one of the assessors of the inqui-
sition, freely said to his friends, * ' God grant that
my soul may be where the soul of that woman is."

Jean Tressort, secretary to the King of Eng-
land, said openly before the officials, as they left
the scene of martyrdom, "We are lost! We have
burned a saint ! ' '

Pierre Cauchon never received the reward he
sought either from King or Pope. He became
hated and shunned of all men. Pope Calixtus VII
excommunicated him, though this infamous perse-
cutor of La Pucelle was dead. The Pope ordered
his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown into
the river Seine. Legend, if not history, consigns
every one who did not satisfy remorse with re-
pentance to a degraded death.

Of all the countless horrors that beastly minds
have inflicted upon the race of men, this alone,
considering all it involved, most deserves to rank
next to the Cross of Calvary as the most abomina-
ble malevolence in human history.

In the time of Louis XI, son of Charles VII,
only two of the Commissioners who had been in
the council of judges that condemned her, re-
mained alive. These two were tried, condemned,
excommunicated and executed for their infamous
unreason and misuse of the Church against Joan
of Arc. Verily the blood of the martyr had sancti-
f ed the cause for which she died and in her death
was greater victory for her and France

JOAN OF ARC

than in all the battles that could have been fought
in her age.

For a time Cauchon doubtless thought himself
a great man for what he had done.

Henry VI, that is, the boy King's Council, in a
few days sent Cauchon a letter, that seems to us
now so blasphemous and sacrilegious as to be in-
credible. The last paragraph is enough, "May
the Great Shepherd, when He shall appear, deign
to reward your shepherdlike care with an immor-
tal crown of glory."

1 It was only a few years later when the remains
of this "shepherd-like" man were taken from the
tomb and burned and his soul consigned to perdi-
tion by the Church for this very work. So much
do great minds differ. It is thus that wrong has
time but right is crowned with eternity.

4. An Estimate and a Contrast

De Quincey said, * ' Never, from the foundations
of the earth, was there such a trial, if it were laid
open in all its beauty of defense, and in all the
hellishness of attack. 0 Child of France, Shep-
herdess, peasant girl, trodden under foot by all
around thee, how I honor thy flashing intellect,
quick as God's lightning and as true to its mark,
that ran before France and laggard Europe by
many a century."

De Quincey, writing of Cauchon, Bishop of
Beauvais, thus compares his downy-death bed with

THE VICTORY OF WILL 305

that of the stake to which he had chained Joan.

"When the mortal mists were gathering fast
upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl — when the
pavilions of life were closing up their shadow cur-
tains about you — let us try, through the gigantic
glooms, to decipher the flying features of your
separate visions.

' ' The shepherd girl, that had delivered France,
— she, from her dungeon, she, from her duel with
the fire, as she entered her last dream, saw Dom-
remy, saw the fountain at Domremy, saw the
pomp of forests in which her childhood had wan-
dered. That Easter festival, which men had de-
nied to her languishing heart — that resurrection
of spring-time, which the darkness of dungeons
had intercepted from her, hungering after the glo-
rious liberty of the woods — these were by God
given back into her hands, as jewels that had been
stolen from her by robbers.

"Bishop of Beauvais! . . . By the fountain of
Domremy you saw a woman seated, that hid her
face. But, as you draw near, the woman raises
her veil from over her wasted features. Would
Domremy know them again for the features of
her child! Ah, but Bishop, you know them, you
know them well! Oh, Mercy! What a groan that
was, which the servants waiting outside the
bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his la-
boring heart, as at this moment he turns away
from the fountain and the woman, to seek rest in
the forest afar off. ... In the forests, to which

306 JOAN OF ARC

he prays for pity, will he find respite! What a
tumult, what a gathering of feet is there! In
glades where the wild deer should run, armies
and nations are assembling. . . . There is the
Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of the
thickets.

"What building is that which hands so rapid
are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold ! Will they
burn the Child of Domremy a second time ! No ; it
is a tribunal that rises to the clouds, and the na-
tions stand around it waiting for a trial. Shall my
Lord of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment
seat, and again number the hours for the inno-
cent? Ah! no: he is the prisoner at the bar. . . .
My Lord, have you no counsel? 'Counsel I have
none: in heaven above, nor on earth beneath.' Is
it indeed come to this! Alas! the time is short,
the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away
to infinity, but yet I will search in it for somebody
to plead your cause : I know of somebody who will
be your counsel. Ah! Who is this that cometh
from Domremy? Who is this that cometh in
bloody coronation robes from Rheims! Who is
she who cometh with blackened flesh, from walk-
ing the furnace of Rouen! This is she, the shep-
herd girl, counselor that had none for herself,
whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. It is she that
will take my Lord's explanations. She it is,
Bishop, who would plead for you: yes, Bishop,
she, — when heaven and earth are silent!"

THE VICTORY OF WILL 307

5. As Heresy Was Defined

The most unimpeachable testimony ever given
to any one was given by those who knew La Pu-
celle not only from childhood but on through to
her associates in battles and armies, among the
priests and at the court of the King, but proof
of her white soul and noble character was not
wanted by the University of Paris. Those learned
doctors of the law wanted to justify the judgment
they had consolidated into the will of King and
Church. It is even so to this day in every interest
of life, the partisan eliminates or refuses all evi-
dence but that which strengthens his judgment as
his will. That is supreme. It is his God.

When King Charles VII, in 1450, ordered an in-
vestigation by impartial attorneys having no in-
terest to please any one, there was a unanimous
decision that her trial was grossly illegal and out-
rageously unchristian.

As to Joan's submission to the Church, there
probably never was a more devoted daughter of
the Church in so far as it represented God and
not the hate of the University of Paris. The tes-
timony is not only overwhelming on that question,
but her entire life is living proof of her religious
devotion to the religious system into which she
was born. She was not born into the world to
destroy religious system but to be the greatest
symbol of all time for the unselfish power of faith
triumphant over wrong.

308 JOAN OF ARC

. The Council of Trent in its Catechism defines a
heretic as "one who, despising the authority of
the church, which he has sufficient reason to be-
lieve is the true Church of Christ, contrary to its
decision and obstinately adheres to false and im-
pious opinions."

La Pucelle was none of that.

The rehabilitation decree of July 7, 1456, says,
in condemning the false judgment against her,
"And because of the question of revelations it is
most difficult to furnish a certain judgment, Bless-
ed Paul having on the subject of his own revela-
tions said that he knew not if they came to him
in body or in spirit, and having on this point re-
ferred himself to God."

She showed to the world forever, that, however
much wrong may possess the world, nevertheless,
at the fountain of a child's heart there is always
the pure water of life, ready for the healing of
the nations, if it can only be kept from the im-
purities of the world by faith kept within, and
protected from without. The child is faith and
will. Inspiration illuminates the way of faith, and
experience drives it along the will-way of the
world.

6. The Stake and the Cross

All France, and at last all the world, now be-
gins to know the meaning of the wonderful woman
who was born at Domremy and died at Rouen.
Hers was the faith whose wealth and power have

THE VICTORY OF WILL 309

been the glory of the ages, most brilliant perhaps
in Moses, Socrates, Christ and Paul, but never so
known in the life of woman.

The shrinking Domremy girl who blushed at a
word and was timid before strangers, became
transformed into the master of armies unafraid
of anything under God. And, it was no miracle
except what the miracle of faith can do for every
one.

The hideous cruelty practiced upon this girl by
the learned doctors of the law in the name of God
gives us to know what the mind of man can be in
the form of belief made into will. It may be seen
that their individual will reached as great depths
of endurance in ghastly infamy as her social faith
reached celestial heights in human loyalty.

Upon her head they placed a bishop's miter in
paper upon which was printed the words, "Here-
tic, relapsed, Apostate, Idolatress."

Surely those Satanic souls saw through the
flames the cross upon which another martyr died
with the crown of thorns, and the inscription far
less in fearful mockery, "King of the Jews.'*

Individual-Self embodied in the will of the San-
hedrim and Social-Self formed in the faith of
Jesus came at last into deadly conflict, the tem-
poral with the immortal. They killed Him but His
faith won the victory over death. So it was with
the Maid of Orleans. The human self was the
remorseless will of the University of Paris to
break this frail form of a girl coming against their

310 JOAN OF ARC

interest from the fields of Domremy. But will
against faith is like an hour in conflict with eter-
nity. Its dog's day is that of the wolf, the vul-
ture and snake, but the shining one of faith has
the stars of glory in her crown.

Eome, with its world power, was the will that
was master over the two greatest martyrdoms in
the world. It was the same deification of will that
made the Prussian state. Those who exalt the
will as the greatest thing in man can see what
a monster they make of persons and nations.

The will can be strengthened only to increase
itself for aggression, violence and conquest, but
faith, the only unconquerable and almighty power
in the soul of man, is increased only for the hope
and love of humanity, whose infinite meaning is
expressed in the kingdom of heaven and the name
of God.

7. Those Who Think They Defeat the Moral Law

Order is slow to come into its own because it
has so much time to accumulate its system, but
no one ever lived and no one can ever live able
to beat the system.

Eapidly did the feeling of the common people
permeate the masses far and near in the fleeting
days following the death of the greatest among
women. The judges were soon pointed out in the
streets and reviled as the murderers of a saint.

In the following month of June, the English

THE VICTORY OF WILL 311

Government, endeavoring to justify itself, ad-
dressed a letter of explanation to the Pope, the
Emperor and all the kings and princes of Chris-
tendom, another was sent as a manifesto to all the
prelates, nobles and cities of France and a third
was a guarantee of sanction to all those engaged
in the trial. The University of Paris also tried
to justify its work by writing an official explana-
tion to the Pope, the Emperor and to the college
of Cardinals. To make sure that her history was
written down never to be changed, sermons were
preached in all the churches of England, Bur-
gundy and renegade France, describing the mar-
tyred girl as a demoniac from her birth who had
been escorted from her home by the " Enemy of
Hell," and that since that time she had been ''full
of wrath and bloodthirstiness, a slayer of Chris-
tian folk."

But this proves the untruth, or at least the ex-
ception to the truth, spoken by Napoleon, that,
"History is a lie well told and adhered to."

In July the French and Burgundians were
beaten in their attack to recover Beauvais. Here
the shepherd boy of Gevandun, who had been put
up by the court favorites to take La Pucelle's
place, was captured. He was in Cauchon's juris-
diction, but the Bishop of Beauvais no longer felt
his former zeal for heresy trials. He was soon
glad to turn the weak puppet over to the English.
It was at the time of King Henry's entry into
Paris, and the boy in derision led the procession,

312 JOAN OF ARC

tied upon a horse. Soon after, without trial, he
was put into a sack and thrown into the Seine.

Henry VI was crowned King of France at Notre
Dame on December 16, 1431. But the triumph
of English dominion over France was rapidly
drawing to an end.

It is recorded that, as the boy King rode by the
palace of Saint Pol, his grandmother, the hated
Isabeau of Bavaria, stood at the window. Being
told who it was, he saluted her and she turned
away weeping. Gone was the glory in which she
had come to power and all people despised her for
her betrayal of France at Troyes. She died Sep-
tember 29, 1435, on hearing of the Treaty of Ar-
ras, between the French King and the Burgundi-
ans, from which came true the dream of the Won-
derful Woman that Frenchmen should soon be at
peace, and together drive all foreign dominion
from the soil of France.

The Franco-Burgundian army peacefully en-
tered Paris in April, 1436, and so came to pass
one of the prophecies from the Voices that " With-
in seven years the English shall lose a greater
pledge than before Orleans."

On February 17, 1456, one hundred and one ar-
ticles enumerating errors and illegalities in the
trial of La Pucelle were read in the name of the
noble family Du Lis, formerly known as D'Arc,
calling for a reversal of the trial at Rouen of the
Maid. All yet living who had known and loved
her now had a chance to throw her white light

THE VICTORY OF WILL 313

against the black day on which her enemies had
defamed her. Rouen, the scene of her martyrdom,
became the place of her unanimous and unchange-
able vindication as a daughter of God.

All of Joan is gone, like her body, into the ashes
of the past. No relic exists. Gone is every ma-
terial thing. But the fair face and the sweet voice
embody a soul of endless faith, suffering every-
thing possible to suffer in the name of womanhood
and the right life of mankind.

The last of the Du Lis family, the rank of no-
bility having been restricted to the male members,
died June 29, 1760. He was Columbe Du Lis,
Canon of Champeaux and prior of Coutras. No
known descendants of the D'Arc family now live.

8. The Great News and the Beginning of Res-
toration

The University of Paris and all the mad minds
grouped about it had finished what they had hoped
would demonstrate their mastery over the way of
life, their supremacy in affairs of the Church, and
their devotion to the political fortunes of Eng-
land in its claims to the mastery of France.

But it could not be concealed that Joan of Arc
had been thrust out of the Church by the most
iniquitous farce of religious justice ever known
and that she had been burned at the stake by force
of English soldiers without any process of Eng-
lish law, not to speak of any due process of law.

314 JOAN OF ARC

The military, political and ecclesiastical masters
had made a great show of learned Church dogmas
through the University of Paris, but the mass of
human beings, however overawed by authority
and deceived through ignorance, yet knew that an
immortal human faith had been crucified, the
spirit of France had been atrociously defamed,
and the eternal meaning of woman had been un-
speakably outraged before all the humanity of
the world.

Even the dead stones of human hearts in hope-
less France once more beat red blood. La Pucelle
shall not have died in vain. The people would
not have such masters to rule and reign over them.
King Charles perceived enough of the feeling of
the times to take on some courage, but there is lit-
tle evidence to let us believe that his goodness
had any gratitude, his peace any human value, or
his pious faith any interest worthy of man or God.

One thing he did do, when all France had come
under his control, on February 15, 1449, eighteen
years after her death, he ordered Guillaume
Bouille, a doctor of theology, to collect all the
documents pertaining to her capture, imprison-
ment, trial and death. This man proceeded, under
authority from the King, with a very thorough
search for all the authentic evidence obtainable,
and caused the clerks and notaries who had made
out these documents to make oath as to their genu-
ineness.

In 1452, Cardinal d'Estouteville, archbishop of

THE VICTOEY OF WILL 315

Rouen, was commissioned as the Pope's legatee
to examine these documents, under legal advice
from the counselors of the King. Seventeen wit-
nesses were brought in for personal examination.
The King, under pressure from the faithful
French priesthood and the steady insistence of
the people, urgently supported by the family of
the martyred girl, now decided upon an appeal to
the Pope.

9. Judgment from the Highest Court

Jeanne's father and eldest brother were dead,
but the untiring mother was unceasing in her en-
deavors to obtain justice in the Church for her
child. The King decided to have her carry the
appeal to the Pope.

In 1455 Pope Calixtus HI listened to the appeal
of the mother, examined the documents, and de-
cided that an injustice had been done which the
Church could not allow to remain under its sanc-
tion. All the powers responsible for the death of
the Maid had used every effort to save their case,
but in June, 1455, the official examination of the
trial was ordered.

It was decreed that the relatives of the Maid
should be heard first before the Papal council, and
now, twenty-four years after the death of La Pu-
celle, her request to have her case before the coun-
cil of the Pope was being fulfilled.

Isabella Eomee, mother of La Pucelle, now six-

316 JOAN OF ARC

ty-seven years of age, with her two surviving sons,
presented herself before the court in the Archi-
episcopal Palace of Paris. With indescribable
emotion thrilling the court and all the people, this
wonderful mother told everything she could re-
member of her child from her birth until the last
time they had seen her.

In presenting the appeal it was then necessary
for the mother to recount how they had wronged
her daughter. She had to recount the charges and
tell why they were not so.

The recording clerks wrote of the scene as one
of indescribable sorrow. In an excess of anguish
the aged mother could not proceed and her coun-
selor was directed to finish the reading.

The opposition was powerful and the legal dif-
ficulties to be overcome seemed insurmountable,

| but the demands of the mother would not be ap-
peased, and the appeal of the Maid from her per-
secutors to the Pope at last came true. Her life
was to be reviewed in detail before the highest tri-
bunal of the Church. It was not now a fragment
of interest, schismatic as an intrigue of partisan

\ wills, that was to look into the justice and truth
of La Pucelle. The rights of her life were being
reviewed by the world-wide human interest seek-

, ing to vindicate itself from being the destroyer of

i faith through the wills of men.

CHAPTER XVII
CONCLUDING VALUATIONS OF A LIFE

1. A Thing Is Never Settled Until It Is Settled

Right

ORDINANCES were at last issued commanding all
who had taken part in the trial of Joan of Arc, or
their heirs and representatives, to appear at
Rouen on December 12, at which time testimonies
and documentary evidence were completed of
every detail of the trial from many witnesses, in-
cluding the clerks, notaries, assessors and officers
of the trial. Pierre Cauchon and the other princi-
pals were dead but their responsible representa-
tives were there with all they could supply in
sworn evidence.

A second inquiry was held at Orleans, where
Duiiois was among the scores of witnesses to give
sworn testimony taken down in writing concern-
ing La Pucelle d 'Orleans.

A third inquiry at Paris continued the exhaus-
tive research by having among the sworn wit-
nesses Jean Pasquerel, who had been her almoner
and confessor, Louis de Contes who had been her
page, and the Due d'Alengon, of the Royal House-
hold.

317

318 JOAN OF ARC

At the fourth and last inquiry held in Rouen
was Jean d'Aulon, who had been squire to Jeanne
during the time she had lived so royally in the
grace of the King's court.

One hundred and forty-four depositions were
taken as the sworn testimony of witnesses, who
were admonished as they hoped in God or ex-
pected salvation, to tell only what they of their
own experience knew to be true. These docu-
ments still exist in the National Library in Paris.
With stern impartiality the Pope's commission
examined every document and every charge, in the
light of sworn testimony, by the aid of the most
learned advisers that the Pope could supply, and
every judge on every clause in every charge de-
cided there was no ground for the imputation of
any wrong in the faith or life of Jehanne La Pu-
celle. They unanimously declared, "the whole
process is a fallacy, deceit, fraud, iniquity and de-
ception done and committed ... by Pierre Cau-
chon, late Bishop of Beauvais, and by the inquisi-
tor of the faith, pretended and wrongfully or-
dained to the diocese of Beauvais, and by Master
Jehan d'Estivet, calling himself proctor of said
diocese . . . and to the fraud and falsifying of
the process."

After a long recital of the exhaustive investiga-
tion and the extensive discovery of indisputable
proofs, the weighty document decreeing the inno-
cence of La Pucelle, continues, "Considering the
erroneous judgment pronounced against her, and

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 319

the unreasonable mode of procedure, in every re-
spect captious, fraudulent and detestable, . . .
the questions proposed being rather for her dam-
nation than for salvation, ... in regard to this
process, we decree and declare in judgment that
it is necessary to destroy, to tear up, and to cast
it into the flames."

Further along in the extended document, they
say, ' * Considering also that they fraudulently and
deceitfully drew from her an abjuration and re-
nunciation, by force and violence, in the presence
of the executioner, threatening to cause her to be
publicly and cruelly burnt, by which menaces, and
the operation of fear, they forced from her a
schedule of abjuration which Jehanne in no way
knew or comprehended, ... we break, destroy,]
annul and evacuate by all power, force, value and
virtue, and proclaim and declare the said Jehanne
... to have in no wise contracted nor acquired
any stain or slur of infamy . . . being innocent,
non-culpable, and exempt from crime and sin,
which was falsely attributed to said La Pucelle."

After still further setting forth the reasons, it
was solemnly ordered that proclamation at a cer-
tain hour should be made in the market place of
Eouen before all the people, that a sermon should
be preached on the spot in the cemetery of Saint
Ouen where she was fraudulently driven from the
Church, thus reinstating her over that iniquitous
proceeding; that the next morning a procession
should be formed, and another sermon should be

320 JOAN OF ARC

preached by a venerable doctor in theology on the
spot ' ' in the square where La Pucelle was cruelly
and horribly burnt and suffocated; and after the
solemn proceeding, there shall be placed and erect-
ed a comely crucifix, in perpetual remembrance of
said departed Pucelle ... as in other parts of
this kingdom."

First the mother and other relatives, with four-
teen of the more notable friends of Jeanne, were
brought into the Council Chamber and the decree
of innocence and reinstatement was read to them
together with the unanimous approval of all the
great names connected with the papal investiga-
tion. It was said that all the people were in tears
and that the mother fell faint in the arms of her
sons from the joy that there was now no stain
against the name of her beloved daughter. Ver-
ily, next to the great victory of the flames from
which the innocent soul of unconquerable faith
was taken home to her Father's house, was this
victory over the madness of man for the honor of
truth, mercy and justice on earth.

2. The Immortality of Faith That Has Fought the
Good Fight for Life

Charles VII, according to his disposition, ac-
cepted this vindication as being enough, and did
nothing to punish those guilty of the unpardon-
able crime, but it is recorded that his son, Louis
XI, caused two of her judges, yet living, to suffer

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 321

as they had condemned her to suffer. He had the
bodies of the others taken up, publicly burned and
the ashes scattered outside the holy ground.

Writers of that time say that Pierre Cauchon
died of apoplexy in a barber's chair, "his name
loaded with universal hatred and disgrace."
Nicholas Midi died of leprosy. De Flavy, who
was accused of closing the gates against La Pu-
celle, so that she was captured, was strangled to
death in bed by his wife. Estivet, the proctor,
was found dead in a foul pit outside the city gates
and it was believed by suicide. Loiseleur, the re-
morseful one, dropped dead at prayers in his
church. The Duke of Bedford died suddenly, if
not mysteriously, in the Castle at Rouen, where
the Maid had been endungeoned. Henry VI, King
of England, for whose cause she was sacrificed,
was twice dethroned, spent most of his life a pris-
oner in the Tower of London and was at last mur-
dered there.

But it may no longer interest ns beyond mere
curiosity concerning these historical happenings.
Science and art and every loved tribute of man
have combined to give posterity a vision in her of
the noblest faith and character known in the rec-
ords of the world. Historical critics have analyzed
and classified every detail of her career with the
estimates made of her in the voluminous sworn
testimonies of those who knew her best.

Statues and paintings, made according to the
descriptions of her, exist wherever faith and worn-

322 JOAN OF ARC

anhood are most reverenced. History and legend,
religion and morality, romance and drama, find in
her the supreme elements of profound personal
interest and noble humanity.

Apart from all that is claimed as supernatural,
this murdered girl symbolizes more than any his-
tory or philosophy can otherwise show, that, even
as the Son of man, she stood for a loyalty of faith
that passeth understanding.

Two years before the death of Jeanne, there
lived a woman poet named Christine de Pisan,
sixty-seven years of age, who wrote a poem of sev-
eral hundred stanzas, and that poem still exists,
in which La Pucelle is compared with Deborah,
Judith and Queen Esther.

Shakespeare and Schiller wrote plays about her,
in the terms of their knowledge or the prejudice
of the times, Voltaire used the worst that her ene-
mies had ever said about her in order to revile
the Church. Romance, poetry and legend have
grown enormously over her name. And thus the
wonderful woman of the wonderful faith still lives
to strengthen the meaning of life in the world.

Notwithstanding all that had been done, the lie
that had been forced into the popular history of
the times, remained to poison the minds of the
people for three or four centuries. Shakespeare,
writing for the public, accepted the popular ver-
sion of her as a witch in league with the fiends of
hell. But by the year 1611, as in Speed's history,
the true understanding began to appear, and by

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 328

the opening of the nineteenth century all writers
everywhere united in believing her to be one of
the wonderful women of the world.

Voltaire, with hatred for Church and all relig-
ious faith, declared that one set of ecclesiastics at
the behest of the King of England declared her
guilty and outside the Church, while another set
at the behest of the King of France declared her
innocent and a true daughter of the Church. This
is utterly untrue because the set who condemned
her were wholly a revengeful political group un-
der the pressure of military necessity, and the
other had no motive, but solely the question of
righteousness, though the change was direct re-
flection on the King of France and a very sore,
self-inflicted rebuke and reversal for many of the
highest officials of the Church.

3. Responsibility and Guilt

The University of Paris was French and Catho-
lic but it no more represented the Church than it
represented France.

When Joan of Arc with swift inspiration one
day said, "I appeal to the Pope," in that moment
this fragment of the vine had no more right to
deliver her to death than any other assemblage of
priests.

There was an age in history, when, if a man
said, "I am a Roman citizen and I appeal to
Caesar," he was no longer to be condemned by any

324 JOAN OF ARC

fragmentary court, but must be taken to Rome.
It was no less so when this child of God appealed
to the body of the Church Militant in the name
of the Church Triumphant from which she had
her almighty faith. It was therefore not the Cath-
olic Church that excommunicated Joan of Arc but
a conspiracy of learned political brigands who
were traitors to both France and Catholicism.

The martyrdom of Christ represents the work
of legalized authority illegitimately used, but the
great sacrifice of Joan of Arc unveils to the light
of ages all that is vicious in the government of
man. The partisan will is an individual will hav-
ing no relation to order and is the negation of
faith in the moral meaning of humanity.

The guilt of her death was not put by her upon
the Church. Though all the eloquence and per-
suasion of mighty men tried to force this down
upon her, she never for a moment believed it, but
with her dying breath repeated her accusation to
the unspeakable Bishop Cauchon, that he had
brought her to such a death. And it was this
'Cauchon, not La Pucelle, who was the branch of
the vine that was cast into the fire of eternal re-
pudiation. Because hers was the faith that in-
spires man above the beast and gives her the light
of the divine, she belongs not to Church or coun-
try but to humanity for all time.

Joan's patriotism was a noble quality of her
character, her loyalty to the Church Triumphant
;was an unsurpassable crown of life, but the faith

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 325

that is thus the making of every worthwhile mind
or soul represents the supreme greatness of her
meaning to the world. About this vital element of
her life there is no room or reason for contro-
versy. It is not a question for critical historians.
It is the one indisputable vision of her career.
About her imperishable womanhood there can be
only reverent silence in appreciation of the su-
preme and yet simplest of human endowments.

Dumas has called her "The Christ of France. "
This is true for the spirit of moral patriotism
in the sense of her faith in the righteousness of
God. Being perfect in that, as far as it is possible
to know, she therefore could not be surpassed.
But no unbeliever can ever use her name against
religion, as she lived and died in the name of
Christ, for the deliverance of her people, and the
freedom of the soul with its Maker.

4. The Loyalty of Faith in Material Work

La Pucelle could easily have had worshipers.
The credulity and superstition of the times could
have brought her fortunes. She was ennobled and
could at any time have made a royal marriage.
She was beset with requests to use the powers of
divination all the way from charming a disease
away from children to blessing little gifts for no-
ble ladies, and deciding for a prince whom to sup-
port for pope. But she was never a charlatan.
She could not be seduced from the clear pure faith

326 JOAN OF ARC

by anything in the power or wit of man to offer.

Such was the unimpeachable quality of her
presence that none of her soldiers, coarse and
hard as they were, ever felt anything but rever-
ence for her. One of the captains who had cam-
paigned with her, in looking back through twenty-
five years, testified that all she did seemed to him
more divine than human. The English had beaten
the French so continuously for so many years that
they would no longer try to fight the English.
But, after Joan came among them, all was
changed.

"Two hundred English," wrote one of the Bur-
gundian chroniclers of that day, "used to chase
five hundred Frenchmen, but, after her coming,
two hundred Frenchmen have no trouble in chas-
ing five hundred Englishmen.'*

The spirit she breathed into the heart of France
was not destroyed at her death and it became a
quality which brought it a responsible place
among nations. Protestant can rejoice with Cath-
olic in the sacred fealty of this valiant young life
to the religious convictions of her home life, for
she was not fanatic nor schismatic. To that cause
she was not born. She lived the life to which she
was born in the name of Faith.

It is historically true that Jeanne arose in the
midst of the most hopeless conditions of a hundred
years' war, wherein France had been reduced to a
demoralized fragment, and that in four months
this eighteen-year-old girl defeated the most re-

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 327

nowned generals with her greatly inferior forces,
and did more in a few weeks for her native land
than the strongest men had done in several gener-
ations. But what she inspired in them from her
inspiration was not the will to do, for they already
had that, but the miraculous power was the faith
to do, which had been departed from them for a
century.

There is no record that the Jewish Sanhedrin
ever revised the trial of Jesus and consigned to
perdition His judges. Whatever the motive as-
signed, let full honor be given to the Catholic
Church that it reversed the decision of her mur-
derers, condemned them as unfaithful, unrepre-
sentative, unjust and unfit, and cast them out of
the pale of the Church.

5. The Commonwealth of Social Truth

Sometimes the surroundings of the potential
character has brought forth the wonderful career.
But this can not be assumed of Joan of Arc. Her
surroundings may have suggested a faith and a
cause, but there was everything to suppress such
a faith and everything to overcome in such a ca-
reer. Every ingenuity possible in the evidence
has been used to give the credit for her to the
Fairies of the Tree, or to the miracles wrought
through her as an instrument of celestial beings,
or to her own religious obsessions, or to the scheme
of priests and politicians, and to manv other

328 JOAN OF ARC

forms of explanation, but, when search is made,
there remains nothing but the mystery of power
in righteous faith, that wrongs flee as a shadow
before the might of right.

Nothing in all historical evidence is more cer-
tain than that Joan arose by her own force of
mind to do her perilous work in the battle front
of armies, and to take her more perilous position
at the right hand of kings. Her greatest fear was
envious treachery, and then that the world she
had conquered might conquer her from the faith
she had given to God.

The life of this woman is a revelation of crea-
tive religion, and is more than any will or art of
creed or war. To write truly of her is not merely
to exalt a woman but more surely to bring forth
the meaning of a faith having the creative power
of God in the soul of man.

The practical meaning of her superb interest
and reasonable faith is that she took life as she
found it and used the means at hand. The mes-
sage of God was always as powerless as the in-
dividual messenger unless men received the mes-
sage and turned its faith into works. Her Lord
once said, "My Father worketh and I work."
Also, He said, * * The Father, that dwelleth in me,
He doeth the works," and further, "Believe me
for the very works* sake." She often repeated
as her inmost idea, urging her friends to action,
' ' Only as men strive can God reward. ' ' Thus the
wisdom of a child saw beyond science and philoso-

STATUE OF JOAN OF ARC
Riverside Drive, New York, by Anna Vaughn Hyatt

phy that God's work is in providing the justifica-
tion of faith in the good work thus done by man.

William T. Stead, in writing of her, said, "She
had all the distinctive notes of Jesus of Nazareth
. . . regarding the carpenter's son, of course
merely from His human side. Not merely was her
life a sacrifice and her death a martyrdom, but her
story is saturated through with the same miracu-
lous element."

But this superb woman of genius displayed no
genius. She displayed the faith that is expressed
in works, and that alone is genius, power and di-
vinity. And we do not have to say faith in what !
There is but one faith in the zenith of thought and
that is faith in God as the soul of the social uni-
verse. Faith is a higher power. It is conclusively
shown in her life to be an entity of power which
was unapproachable and unanswerable to the
most powerful means of that age.

Mr. Stead further says, "The story of the Maid
of Orleans has long been recognized as one of the
most fascinating and enthralling of all the trage-
dies of history, not inferior in pathos to any nar-
rative, sacred or profane, in any literature. . . .
All that we can say of a certainty is that the Maid
of Orleans was endued with gifts and graces and
capacities which were not natural to the Shep-
herdess of Domremy, nor, indeed, could be ac-
quired by an unlettered peasant girl, any more
than the apostles could fyave attained by aid of

330 JOAN OF ARC

the grammar and dictionary the gift of tongues
which they received at Pentecost."

And yet again, why has not the faith of a child
in God all the powers that have composed it out of
the social universe ! Why is not this a basis of
agreement for the premises of reason suitable to
all consequences for infidel, protestant or catho-
lic! Scientific faith can not be of science if it is
not comprehensive enough to be moral, and, when
morality comprehends the truth that makes us
free, it is the religion of a social universe.

6. The Social Commonwealth of a, Divine Universe

The life of the wonderful woman has not passed
away and it will not pass. As she lived in faith
so she still lives in that kingdom of God.

Ideas outside of moral faith are things of evil.
They are working entities existing in signs and
symbols as evil spirits. Many a God-idea is per-
verted until it is a more desperate evil than any
original devil-idea. The God of ideas has his le-
gions of composing thoughts and they are alive
only in a kingdom of faith. Their meaning is
within us and they are original elements of power.

There is no mysticism in this envisional concep-
tion of the forces contending for the freedom or
the mastery of the mind. It explains all the myth-
ology in orthodox religions as having a conception
of psychological truth. It brings into compara-
tive view the democracy of faith and the despot-

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 331

ism of will as ways of self, society, civilization and
humanity.

Divine faith as the maker of mind provides a
righteous way in some sacred cause for humanity.
It may be the restoration of an enslaved people,
as was that of Moses, or of the discovery of truth,
as was that of Socrates, or of the salvation of the
world, as was that of Christ. It may be for the
freedom of the people as was ancient Athens, for
religious liberty as in the struggle of Holland, or
for the safety of the individual as in the meaning
of America.

As Christ gave His life for the humanity of
the world so Joan of Arc gave hers for the human-
ity of nations. The faith of both in the name of
God was one, and it was a faith that triumphed
over death. The shepherd girl from the hills of
Lorraine has no counterpart since the boy arose
from the bulrushes of the Nile to lead captives to
the freedom of the promised land. She was his
successor in the problem of righteousness among
groups and nations. She was one who wanted to
clean the harvest fields of a people from the ver-
min of conquest and to have a region of order
safe for childhood, parentage and the peace of
those grown old in the work of the world.

Joan of Arc in the narrower vision is the in-
carnation and symbol of patriotism. But no ideal
of patriotism could give her such unconquerable
faith. She. is an unsurpassable example of devo-
tion to the Church which gave her all she knew

832 JOAN OF ARC

of the reign of God on earth, but the Church could
not give her the glorious cause in which she died,
because, in that respect it was priest against
priest and Church authority against Church au-
thority. The problem of reconciling the attitude
of the bishops had no interest for her, and she
scorned the finical wisdom of the clerks. There-
fore, it was not Church nor Country that made
Joan of Arc. It was the revolt of a superior soul
against wrong, the solution of which was to drive
the wrong-doers out of her country, and to unite
her people under a consecrated King, who should
be true to the King of Heaven to whom belonged
the people of France.

7. The Face and Form of Her

The face and form given in pictures and statues
of Joan of Arc may not be exact in detail, but the
descriptions of her were so vivid and abundant
that the statue of her by Princess Marie, daughter
of Louis Philippe, can not be much different from
the real woman.

The fate of this wonderful woman has been al-
most as strange in literature and history as in her
career. Chapelain wrote in high praise of her
soon after her death, but his high-sounding verses
have all perished excepting a few lines quoted by
Boileau. Southey, the Englishman, wrote with the
worship of youth for her heroic spirit, and Vol-
taire the Frenchman used her as a wench with

333

whom to lampoon the Church. So has her life
served almost every purpose where any one need-
ed an illustrious example.

A statue to her memory was raised on the
bridge at Orleans soon after her death, but it per-
ished in the wars that followed. All we know of it
is from the preservation of the inscription on it
which said that it was raised by the Matrons and
Maids of Orleans. The earliest engraving of her
now in existence was made in 1606, but the com-
monly accepted appearance of her is the statue
made by Princess Marie of Wiirtemburg, now in
the art galleries of Versailles.

Some unknown German priest, writing in 1793
on the spot where she was burnt, wrote a poem
from which the following stanzas are selected :

"It was no fabling story,

That strengthening glimpse of glory,
'Twas Horeb's sacred spark!

Christ did thy banner brighten,

And Christ thy pangs will lighten,

Jeanne! thou Maid of Arc.

Here naked they exposed thee,

Here martyr flames enclosed thee,

Thou holy heroine !

Here angels waved their boughs

Of palms around your brows

Thou suffer serene!"

Jeanne d'Arc lives before us as a vision of his-
tory, legend, miracle, mythology and mystery.
She is one of the morning stars awakening the

334

world from the midnight of the past. Humanity
has its heavens, that, far more than the skies, de-
clare the glory of God. She has enlarged our un-
derstanding of the faith-ideal and immortalized
the womanly beauty of our human dream.

Lives gather meaning like ideas. Their inter-
est and influence can not be held to the historical
portrait or to the changeless feature of the statue.
It is safe to say that no life is ever represented,
and that it never can be represented, as it is. Life
is what it is to us. Life exists only as its meaning
is our truth.

The details of exactness worked out in her story
would lose the meaning, even as a reproduction of
the elemental sounds in a word would convey no
idea. Being meaningless, it would be worthless
and untrue. As we desire the golden coin to be

1 gold, and the stamp of coinage to be legitimate, so
the inspiring vision must have a total meaning
harmonious with the eternal way. Such is faith
as the complete sufficiency for life, and in such
faith, no less than in that of La Pucelle, is golden
coin and legitimate coinage. Her voices continue
forever as soul-expanding notes in the music of
humanity.

Divine faith, wherever it has appeared on earth,
has strangely the same history. The parallel
stories are fundamentally alike enough to be of
the same source, the same coinage and the same
gold. The archbishops with this one wonderful

. woman were much of the same kind with the Jew-

CONCLUDING rALUATIONS 335

ish doctors and the One Wonderful Man. She in-
deed drank of the cup which her Lord drank and
was baptized with the baptism wherewith he was
baptized, this girl of nineteen, who had never
looked into the eyes of the Son of Man, and whom
she never denied even unto the dawn of her great
day. Lives thus sacrificed upon the way are given
for the healing of nations and for the making of
the world.

8. Beatification

In 1869, Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, ad-
dressed the Holy See on the cause of the Beatifica-
tion of Joan of Arc ; December 13, 1908, the proc-
ess began in declaring her sainthood, and, on
April 11, 1909, Pope Piux X, the required process
being completed, published the decree placing her
name among the Blessed in the calendar of Saints,
as she already was in the hearts of the world, and
the meaning of the divine universe.

She had written her life in the constitutions of
society, and faith had set her star of hope and
love in the constellations of light. But neither the
mystic nor the ideal, inspiring even for the finest
worth of humanity, can ever explain or formulate
her career of practical value as available to the
individual soul. Joan of Arc revealed the power
of inspiration and faith against theory and will.
In recent times, the two regions of life are still
the same for private interests, each distinguish-
able from the other as contrasts, ever visible be-

336 JOAN OF ARC

tween social sympathy and individual mastery;
but, for public world interests, the struggle still
continues to achieve through peace and war a
world of social democracy as against a world of
sovereign efficient states.

In the desperate days of the European War,
when the ruthless invader was crushing his heel
into the heart of France, there was many a prayer
to the Daughter of God, invoking her to come
forth again with her ancient power for the rights
of her people. Benjamin de Casseres wrote a
poem of which the following was the refrain :

"Sister on earth to the Man of Tears,
Madonna of France who knew no fears,
Arise with thy warriors out of the years ! — >
We summon thee back to France !"

To this summons Conde Fallen replied:

"The soul of France has wakened and Joan leads the way;
The soul of France is marching in honor's white array,
The soul of France is voicing all the glories of her past,
The soul of France is chanting to the music of the blast,
The soul of France is singing to the thunder of the gale,
And Joan leads her legions in the lightenings of her mail."

At the beatification of La Pucelle as a saint in
the calendar of the Church, five hundred years
after the childhood of the Shepherd Girl, many
thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the world
were crowded before the high altars of Saint
Peter at the Vatican. There were present all the '

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 337

high dignitaries of Church and State. The entire
Church Militant in its highest authority was there
to do her the greatest honor possible to religious
order in whose name she had suffered the most
desperate and ignoble martyrdom. The ceremo-
nies required the services of fifteen cardinals and
seventy archbishops. If the Bishop of Beauvais
and the learned doctors of law from the faculty
of the University of Paris could have seen that
gorgeous vision of religious sanction upon one
whom they so dreadfully defamed, what a wither-
ing blast it would have been upon their learning,
their piety and their law. It is a brilliant illus-
tration of the incompetency of mind, a withering
repudiation of efficiency in reasoning when devot-
ed to will and limited to self.

Upon the banner representing that of Joan of
Arc were the significant words that compose her
career and give meaning to her life. Those words
were " Faith and Country." If we can under-
stand country to mean a home safe for a child and
for the faith of a loyal woman, then "Faith and
Country" define the sainthood of Joan of Arc.

Frederick Welty, writing of her Beatification,
has this verse :

"Domremy ! Oh Domremy ! how the haunted woodland sighs,
For the falling of her footsteps, for the laughing of her eyes !
Domremy ! Oh Domremy ! Across the meadow dews,
She is coming, she is coming, by the turning of the Meuse.
They've crowned her at the Vatican, and named her Queen of
France,

338 JOAN OF ARC

And bade her rule from Vosges and recall each errant lance.
She is coming, she is coming, in the rising of the sun,
To rule, to rule in Vosges 'til the years of God are run."

9. Realizing Some Conclusions

Joan of Arc had no strength or character pecu-
liar to herself alone, nor given to herself alone,
or that is denied in any way to others among the
sons and daughters of men. To see her as one
unique in heredity, or a single example of favorit-
ism from the divine, is unreasonable and alike ab-
surd to the law and order of life. Her faith is
available to all. To be a respecter of persons is
not known in human history either for Nature or
God.

Two interests available to any one made her
one of the supreme benefactors of humanity and
developed in her the unconquerable character un-
surpassable in the history of mankind. Over and
over again she tells us herself what that immortal
meaning was to her. The first great interest noted
by her clearly identified her as one in tune with
the eternal moral law. It was this moral truth,
as she said, that had "Great Pity for France."
This means that the child of Domremy felt for
her people what the Man of Sorrows felt for His
world. Then there was the second interest, which
was merely the ultimate meaning of the first, she
had equally great faith in the God of life, that ful-
fillment is provided for all who are striving in
that divine order for fulfillment. The intuition of

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 339

the child was no less irresistible than the conclu-
sions of all logic: God and Nature were together
an almighty moral law that would defeat wrong
and sustain right wherever the people strove to-
gether in harmony with nature, law and God.

Socrates may be reckoned as the first supreme
individual example of faith in eternal order pay-
ing the tragedy of humanity to the reasoning of
collective will. His vision was the light of the
world until its righteousness became one with the
divine message that gathered all the meaning of
mankind into the Tragedy of the Cross, where the
infinite order of faith again paid the whole human
penalty to the organization of will. Over and
over again, daily, if not hourly, since human will
began, and until human will as such shall end, the
same tragedy, in all its infinite variety of torture
and ruin, continues to be repeated in every life in
every community and group, and on and on it will
be so until we know how to eliminate the liar and
traitor and assassin whose will is substituted for
social order and the moral law.

Among the countless martyrs to the rights of
life, Joan of Arc lived and died for a more com-
prehensive and practical vision of social interests,
against the mastery of a more conspicuous autoc-
racy of will by far, than is reasonable to suppose
that history ever had, or can ever have again in
the course of the world. Moreover, her prophe-
cies come true and her work for France was not
in vain. The hundred years* war came to an end

340 JOAN OF ARC

and peace was restored, as La Pucelle had pre-
dicted, within seven years, though Calais was held
until January, 1558, when the foe was thrust out
of France "except those who died there."

We may well believe that Paul, in this fulfill-
ment of her work, would surely share with her the
full measure of his triumphant soul, as he said,
* ' I have fought the good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is
laid up for me a crown of righteousness."

Sterling said, at a time when it was regarded
as good history to believe her evil beyond all other
women :

"High among the dead, who give
Better life to those who live,
See where shines the peasant Maid."

The most amazing mission and message of faith
and fulfillment anywhere on record is known to us
in meaning as far more than history can reveal in
the life of Joan of Arc. The war-lords trod across
her humble fields and withered the happiness and
rights of human beings, as grass in the way of fire.
The record is not so desperate and atrocious as
seen in our scientific war of the present Christian
age, but a religious child believing in God, knew
there was somewhere strength to stay such un-
speakable wrong. She had unconquerable and un-
faltering faith that God would give his strength
to any one laboring or fighting to overthrow such
despotism,. She was not awe-struck before the
pomp of Courts and Kings, because she served an

CONCLUDING VALUATIONS 841

infinitely greater Lord, even the Lord of lords, the
King of kings, no less than the King of heaven,
nay more, she was herself the daughter of God.

Christ named one sin as unpardonable, and that
was probably where a saintly thing is named as
coming from Satan, or where a good thing is used
as being evil. The curse of woe is upon those who
believe a lie and love it. Human history has no
example anywhere else in which such extended
high-power efforts were made to f alisfy the record
of a life, and write down one of the noblest of
characters as an enemy of Man and God. But
it all failed and very rapidly failed.

The divine reality of faith that makes possible
the process of social civilization is the same, yes-
terday, to-day and forever, for all mankind. The
learned of many lands have tried to explain the
dreaming girl of Domremy in other ways, outside
the power of faith, but none of it explains. She
grew up from the desolation of contending pas-
sions into the most treasonable and corrupt of all
ages, where faith was known only as a truce be-
tween debaucheries, and honor was a commodity
of any market. But her white life would have
none of that way.

"I have great pity for your soul," she said to
her enemies, even as she heard the voice of God,
in harmony with her feelings, saying, "I have
great pity for France.'*

Great pity for the soul of those who are wrong
is the God-like interest of all divine faith.

342 JOAN OF ARC

* * Father, forgive them ! They know not what they
do!" can be said only from the far-seeing vision
of the faith that passeth understanding, faith in
the certainty of a moral universe.

Her final and fatal problem was in being forced
to decide for the truth of the immediate God or
the immediate Church, and she never hesitated for
an instant to live and die for the immediate God.
She named the eternal freedom of conscience and
the soul long before the great reformers were
born, as she refused to allow any mastery of the
Church to come between her and her God. Inspi-
ration immediate for her soul was the source of
faith which all the most learned, powerful and un-
merciful could not touch or befoul, and which all
the suffering possible for a girl could not cause to
lessen or fail. None of the great religious reform-
ers ever replied more boldly, directly or conclu-
sively to their inquisitors than did this girl when
she said to the imposing conclave from the Uni-
versity of Paris, "There is more in the Book of
Our Lord than in all yours."

Anatole France, in his anti-religious history of
her, says, "This child's utterance sapped the very
foundation of the Church," meaning the interfer-
ence of ecclesiastics between the soul and the God
of Life. When the University professors of Poi-
tiers asked her for a sign of her divine calling, she
named victory as the sign, and it cost them six
weeks of discussion and investigation before they
could decide that it was their business to aid in

CONCLUDING VALVAT1ONS 343

bringing this sign to pass by recommending her to
the King.

She added new luster to the meaning given by
her to the independence of the soul, after she had
achieved the victory sign at Orleans. Bishop
Pasquerel said to her as he took into considera-
tion her words and deeds, 1 1 Such history as yours
there hath never been before in the world. Nought
like it can be read in any book." As to the doc-
tors of the law at Poitiers and at Paris, she re-
plied to him, "My Lord hath a book in which no
clerk, however perfect his learning, has ever
read."

And so we are slowly learning her truth, that,
as the child believes in the goodness of mankind,
so mind must forever believe in the goodness of
the Maker of mankind. The infinite system in
which we live and move and have our being, out
of which we come and into which we go, is the
truth which shall make us free, the faith that
makes us free, and the only way under heaven
whereby there can be peace on earth or salvation
for the nations of the world.

Humanity requires social justice, but the neces-
sary righteousness is not possible in any compact
of wills, however carefully they may be cove-
nanted to manage, without respect to persons, the
various abilities to get and to monopolize. The
human struggle to develop a civilization freed
from the control of individual greed, through the
management of wills by the letter of the law, is

344 JOAN OF ARC

historically demonstrated to be impossible. As
the right to life essentially requires the best ob-
tainable means for life, it follows that any dis-
loyalty to either right is a fundamental crime
against the inalienable right of man. But history
and reason have likewise demonstrated the impos-
sibility of any unaided individual mind ever be-
coming wise enough to provide what is best for the
right life. The social wisdom necessary for the
way of life and the rights of man is the refined
commonwealth of the ages. Many persons be-
lieved in Christ, but their individual understand-
ing was too feeble to be faithful when they saw the
will by which they measured him, reduced to noth-
ingness under the will of his enemies. Many be-
lieved in Joan of Arc, but their individual inter-
pretations collapsed when they saw her will pow-
erless under the will of church and state. A civili-
zation of wills has studded the sky of mind with
such fantastic notions of personal justice that we
now know a system of wills has no meaning or
consequence, but suffering, sacrifice and war.

Christ was a revelation of life and not the doc-
trine of a will. Joan of Arc was a revelation of
Christian life. She was a vision and a message
of the unconquerable Christian soul. This bright
and morning star of all the Christian centuries,
this fairest among ten thousand, this altogether
lovely soul of womanhood, drank the cup and won
for all time the victory of her Lord, the Divine
Master of the City to Come.

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