2.The House of Lancaster was fervidly orthodox. Persecution of heretics begins with Henry IV. The “Cardinal of England” (Beaufort Bishop of Winchester) was the malleus hereticorum at home and abroad. He spoke against the Hussites at the Council of Basle, and he planned Crusades against both heretics and “Saracens.”

3.The court before which Jeanne was brought to trial at Rouen was not a court of the Holy Office or Inquisition, neither was it, as the English courts for the trial of heresy were in Lancastrian times, a statutable court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction on whose decision, certified by the bishop, the sheriff was bound to act. It was a composite tribunal. The Bishop of Beauvais claimed and exercised jurisdiction as Ordinary. But the Deputy Inquisitor was joined with him as co-ordinate judge with officers of his own.

The Inquisition arose out of the troubles in Spain and South France, where heresy was to some extent necessarily a kind of treason to the polity of Christian Europe. Men were punished for heretical opinions, but these heretical opinions were in most cases lapses from allegiance at a time of national peril. The later Inquisition has no such excuse.

4.The Great Schism arose out of the Babylonian captivity at Avignon (1306–1376). Popes and anti-Popes contended for 40 years (1378–1418). France was on the side of the Avignon Popes, while the Empire and England supported the Popes in Rome. Philip the Fair, by arrangement with the Pope, changed the Papal chair to Avignon. During the seventy years of the captivity, when the Church was ruled by French Popes, France underwent the disasters of Crecy and Poitiers, and became almost a province of England.

5.It is agreed by all authorities that Jeanne was not captured in the Diocese of Beauvais, which ended at the Bridge of CompiÈgne. Jeanne was taken north of the Bridge, on the right bank of the river, and either in the Diocese of Noyon or Soissons, which of the two has not been determined. The Bishop’s assertion is distinctly untrue.

6.On January 6th, 1412. “In nocte Epiphiniarum Domini.” (Letter from Boulainvilliers to the Duke of Milan. Quicherat, vol. v., 116.)

7.The Font and Holy water stoup in the old Church at Domremy are said to be those in use in the 15th century.

8.Jeanne appears to have had a great many godparents. In the Enquiry made at Domremy in 1455, eight are mentioned, viz.: Jean Morel, Jean Barrey, Jean de Laxart, and Jean Raiguesson, as godfathers; and Jeannette ThÉvenin, Jeannette Thiesselin, Beatrix Estellin, and Edith Barrey, as godmothers.

9.John Gris, or Grey, a gentleman in the Household of the Duke of Bedford, afterwards knighted. He was appointed chief guardian to the Maid, with two assistants, all members of the King’s Body Guard. They appear to have left her entirely in the hands of the common soldiers five of whom kept constant watch over her.

10.There is no certain date for this event. By some it is placed between the first and second visits to Vaucouleurs, in 1428; by others, earlier, at the time of the Picard ravages of the neighbourhood in the September of 1426.

11.Robert de Baudricourt, Squire, Captain of Vaucouleurs in 1428; afterwards knighted and made Councillor and Chamberlain to the King and Bailly of Chaumont, 1454.

12.Of the ancient chÂteau the “Porte de France” alone survives. From this gate Jeanne rode out with her escort to visit the King at Chinon. The crypt of the chapel remains, where Jeanne constantly prayed.

13.This is said to have been on account of the impression produced on him by Jeanne’s prediction, on February 12th: “To-day the gentle Dauphin hath had great hurt near the town of Orleans, and yet greater will he have if you do not soon send me to him.” This “great hurt” proved to be the Battle of Rouvray, in which the French and Scottish troops were defeated by the English under Sir John Fastolf.

14.Charles I., the reigning Duke de Lorraine in 1428, was in very bad health, and, having no son, the succession was a matter of some anxiety. He died in 1431, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, RÉnÉ of Anjou, who had married his only daughter, Isabella. This RÉnÉ was a brother of Queen Mary, wife of Charles VII., and father of our own Queen Margaret, married in 1441 to Henry VI.

15.Jean de Novelomport, called de Metz, Bertrand de Poulengey, Colet de Vienne, the King’s Messenger, and three servants.

16.March 22nd, 1428.

17.This letter appears later, p. 36. Jeanne may have forgotten its contents, as both these expressions occur; or the Clerics who acted as her amanuenses may have inserted them without her knowledge.

18.Jeanne was entertained by command of the King in a small room on the first floor of the Tour de Coudray, within the Castle walls. Her room was approached by a staircase outside the tower. The vaulted roof of the room has fallen in and the fireplace is in ruins, but the room could easily be restored. Jeanne stayed here from March 8th to April 20th, 1429. She was two days at Chinon before she obtained access to the King.

19.Charles de Bourbon, Count de Clermont, Governor of the Duchy of the Bourbonnais and the ComtÉ of Auvergne, during the captivity of his father in England.

20.On September 8th, 1429.

21.Up to the end of her life, Jeanne spoke of the Bishop as the person responsible for her trial and death. “Bishop, I die through you,” was her last speech to him, on May 30th, the day of her martyrdom.

22.This, and a subsequent enquiry, on February 27th, as to Jeanne’s habit of fasting, would seem to suggest a desire on the part of the questioner to prove that her visions had a more or less physical cause in a weak bodily state resulting from abstinence. As Jeanne’s usual food consisted of a little bread dipped in wine and water, and as she is reported to have had when at home (not in war) but one meal a day, it need hardly be supposed that she suffered much from the results of a Lenten Fast.

23.The fifteen days’ respite would coincide with the first Examination held in the Prison, May 10th, the first day on which the Allegory of the Sign was given.

24.GÉrardin of Epinal, to whose child Jeanne was godmother, is probably the person alluded to; he gave witness in 1455 that Jeanne had called him “Burgundian.”

25.A small fortress in an island formed by two arms of the Meuse, nearly opposite the village of Domremy.

26.According to local tradition, this tree stood to within the last 50 years, and was struck by lightning; another has been planted in its place. The house, in which Jeanne was born, remained in the possession of the De Lys family till the 16th Century, when it passed into the hands of the Count de Salm, Seigneur of Domremy. In the 18th Century it became the property of Jean Gerardin, whose grandson, Nicolas, gave it up in 1818 to the Department of Vosges; so that it is now preserved as National property.

27.This is probably a survival of the Fontinalia, an old Latin festival. The custom of decorating the wells and springs was kept up in England until the last century, and still exists in a few remote villages. The name ‘Well Sunday’ survives, though the processions of youths and maidens have long passed away. The ‘fontaine aux Groseilliers’ is still in existence. It is an oblong tank of water, with the original spring flowing through it. The great beech tree stood close by.

28.Pierre de Bourlement, Head of the ancient house of Bassigny, and Lord of the Manor of Bourlement. He was the last of his race.

29.Merlin had foretold the coming of a maiden out of an Oak-wood from Lorraine; and a paper containing a prophecy to this effect had been sent, at the beginning of Jeanne’s career, to the English Commander, the Earl of Suffolk. There was also an old prophecy (quoted by Jeanne herself to Catharine Leroyer) that France, which had been “lost by a woman, should be saved by a Maid.” The conduct of Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI., might certainly be said to have fulfilled the first half of this prophecy; and a tradition in the eastern counties that “deliverance should come from a maid of the Marches of Lorraine” must have directed many hopes to the mission of the Maiden from Domremy, though she herself does not seem to have known of the last prediction until some time later. The Oak-wood covers the hills above Domremy to this day.

30.This is the first identification of the “revelations” with any name; Jeanne had always spoken of her “Voices” or her “Counsel.”

31.This Examination at Poitiers had taken place in the Chapel attached to the Palace of the Counts of Poitou, which still exists and adjoins the ‘Salle des Pas Perdus,’ now the Great Hall of the Palais de Justice. It was conducted under the direction of the Archbishop of Rheims during the months of March and April, 1429, and extended over three weeks. At the conclusion, the assembly sent, as the result of their inquiries, a resolution to the King to the effect that he should follow the Maid’s guidance, and seek for the sign she promised him in the relief of Orleans, as a proof of the Divine origin of her mission, “for,” they added, “to doubt or forsake her without any appearance of evil would be to vex the Holy Spirit, and to make himself unworthy of the help of God: so saith Gamaliel in the Council of the Jews with regard to the Apostles.”

Unfortunately, no trace of this Examination has been found: the ‘Book of Poitiers’ is referred to several times in the Trial; but it was not forthcoming at the time of the Rehabilitation. It was probably lost or destroyed by Jeanne’s enemies among her own party. The Archbishop of Rheims would have had it in his charge: and he was consistently opposed to Jeanne throughout.

During her stay at Poitiers the Maid lodged in the house of Jean Rabatier.

32.According to local tradition, this Church was originally founded by Charles Martel in 732, after his victory over the Saracens, whom he here ceased to pursue, and deposited his sword as an offering. This is by some supposed to have been the sword which later Jeanne sent for; but the legend is not of an early date, and there is no suggestion of the kind in contemporary writings.

According to one authority, the Greffier de la Rochelle, the sword was found in a reliquary, which had not been opened for twenty years or more. The Chronique de la Pucelle and the Journal of the Siege of Orleans state that it was one of many votive offerings, and was recognized by Jeanne’s description of the five crosses on the blade, possibly a Jerusalem Cross. Some of the old Chronicles say that Jeanne told the King she had never been at Fierbois: but this statement is disproved by her own words in this answer. The suggestion that, having been to three Masses in the Church, she might easily have seen the sword, is to some extent answered by the alleged difficulty of the Priests to find, among the many swords there, the one she had specially described.

Of the ultimate fate of this sword there are many versions, and no two agree exactly as to date. It was certainly broken in striking a camp-follower, one of a class the Maid had forbidden to enter the Camp; but whether this was just after the retreat from Paris or earlier, it does not seem possible to decide. Jeanne herself says she “had it up to Saint-Denis” and “Lagny,” both of which dates would imply the autumn of 1429: but most witnesses tell the story of its being broken in the July preceding, though several different places are mentioned as the scene of the incident.

33.On September 13th, 1429.

34.A small town near Auxerre. In this neighbourhood some of the chronicles place the incident referred to of the breaking of the sword. The question may, therefore, have been intended to elicit the story.

35.The armour offered at Saint-Denis was the “blanc harnois” she wore during the earlier part of her career. When the church was pillaged by the English troops shortly after, this armour was sent to the King of England; but no further trace of it is known to exist.

36.Jeanne appears to have been a good horse-woman; she rode “horses so ill-tempered that no one would dare to ride them.” The Duke de Lorraine, on her first visit to him, and the Duke d’AlenÇon, after seeing her skill in riding a course, each gave her a horse; and we read also of a gift of a war-horse from the town of Orleans, and “many horses of value” sent from the Duke of Brittany. She had entered Orleans on a white horse, according to the Journal du SiÈge d’OrlÉans; but seems to have been in the habit of riding black chargers in war; and mention is also made by ChÂtelain of a “lyart” or grey. A story, repeated in a letter from Guy de Laval, relates that, on one occasion (June 6th, 1428), when her horse, “a fine black war-horse” was brought to the door, he was so restive that he would not stand still. “Take him to the Cross,” she said; and there he stood, “as though he were tied,” while she mounted. This was at Selles; and local tradition says that, from her lodging (a Dominican Monastery now the Lion d’Or hotel) the old iron town-cross was visible. It stood until about a century ago some fifteen paces in front of the north door of the Church, and was removed when the cemetery was converted into a market place. The Monastery was the property of the monks of Glatigny.

The writers of the letter referred to above, Guy and AndrÉ de Laval, were grandsons of Bertrand du Guesclin: the letter was dated Selles, June, 1429. The following are extracts:

“... On Monday (June 6th) I left the King to go to Selles en Berry, four leagues from Saint Aignan. The King had summoned the Maid to come before him from Selles, where she then was, and many said this was much in my favour, so that I might see her. The said Maid treated my brother and me with great kindness: she was armed at all points, save the head, and bore lance in hand. After we had arrived at Selles, I went to her lodging to see her, and she called for wine for me and said she would soon have me drink it in Paris. She seemed to me a thing divine, in all she did and all I saw and heard.

“On Monday evening she left Selles to go to Romorantin.... I saw her mounting her horse armed all in white, save the head, a little axe in her hand.... And then, turning to the door of the Church, which was quite near, she said in a gentle woman’s voice, ‘You priests and clergy, make processions and prayers to God.’ Then she turned again on her way saying, ‘Draw on, draw on!’ her standard flying, borne by a gracious page, and her little axe in her hand. One of her brothers who arrived eight days since, left also with her, armed all in white.”

37.The banner was painted at Tours, while Jeanne was staying there, before her march to the relief of Orleans. The account for payment, in the “Comptes” of the Treasurer of War, gives: “À Hauvres Poulnoir, paintre, demourant À Tours, pour avoir paint et baillÉ estoffes pour une grand estandart et ung petit pour la Pucelle ... 25 livres tournois.”

The description of this banner varies in different authors. The following account is compiled from them. “A white banner, sprinkled with fleur-de-lys; on the one side, the figure of Our Lord in Glory, holding the world, and giving His benediction to a lily, held by one of two Angels who are kneeling on each side: the words ‘Jhesus Maria’ at the side; on the other side the figure of Our Lady and a shield with the arms of France supported by two Angels” (de Cagny). This banner was blessed at the Church of Saint-Sauveur at Tours (Chronique de la Pucelle and de Cagny).

The small banner or pennon had a representation of the Annunciation.

There was also a third banner round which the priests assembled daily for service, and on this was depicted the Crucifixion (Pasquerel).

Another banner is mentioned by the Greffier de la Rochelle, which Jeanne is said to have adopted as her own private pennon. It was made at Poitiers; and represented on a blue ground a white dove, holding in its beak a scroll, with the words, “De par le Roy du Ciel.”

38.May 7th, 1429.

39.This prophecy is recorded in a letter written, April 22nd, 1429, a fortnight before the event, by a Flemish diplomatist, De Rotslaer, then at Lyons. Her chaplain, Pasquerel, also states, in his evidence given in 1455, that she had told him of the coming injury on the previous day.

40.June 11th, 1429.

41.GallicÈ: “en leur petite cotte,” i.e., with only the light clothing worn under their armour.

42.The “three Pontiffs” referred to are Martin V. (Colonna), the real and acknowledged Pope; the schismatic, Clement VIII.; and a mere pretender, Benedict XIV., who was supported only by one Cardinal. The Schism was practically at an end at the time of this letter, as Clement had abdicated a month earlier (July 26th). Clement VIII. is the true title, though called Clement VII. in Count d’Armagnac’s letter.

43.The English lost Paris in 1436.

44.CompiÈgne was relieved early in November; Saint Martin’s Day is November 11th.

45.The mandrake was a part of the accepted paraphernalia of a sorcerer. It was kept wrapped in a silk or linen cloth, and was supposed to preserve its owner from poverty. Brother Richard had recently preached a sermon against them (April, 1429); and many had been burned in consequence.

46.The balance was a frequent accessory to Saint Michael in the French stained glass windows of the 13th and 14th centuries. A noted example in the Cathedral at Arles represents him weighing the souls of the departed in a balance as big as himself. One of the earliest examples in England is that in a fresco-painting at Preston Manor, Sussex, said to be of the reign of Edward I., in which Saint Michael appears weighing the souls of the faithful, accompanied by Jeanne’s saints, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.

47.Mary of Anjou, wife of Charles VII., daughter of Louis, Duke of Anjou and Yolande of Arragon.

48.Jeanne was taken from Beaurevoir early in August, and removed from there, when the negotiations for selling her were complete, about the middle of November.

49.Jeanne, Countess de Saint-Pol et Ligny, sister to Count Waleran de Luxembourg and aunt to Jean de Luxembourg.

50.Jeanne de Bethune, Viscountess de Meaux, wife of Jean de Luxembourg. Both these ladies were at Beaurevoir during Jeanne’s captivity, and shewed her great kindness, even interceding for her that she should not be sold to the English.

51.The Sieur de Pressy, in Artois. Present in the Burgundian camp when Jeanne was taken prisoner, and afterwards at Arras, where she was imprisoned on her way from Beaurevoir to Rouen. The questions seem to suggest that BeaupÈre had before him some information which has not come down to us.

52.This may perhaps refer to a popular belief in a halo, as of a Saint, surrounding the Maid’s head.

53.Brother Richard, a Mendicant Friar; some say, Augustan; some, Cordelier. He was preaching in Paris and the neighbourhood in 1428–9; and said, amongst other things, in a sermon at Sainte GÉneviÈve, April 16th, 1419, that “strange things would happen in 1430.” He professed to have been in Jerusalem; and his sermons were so popular that congregations were found to listen to him for 10 or 11 hours, from 5 o’clock in the morning! He was driven out of Paris by the English and went to Troyes, where he joined the Maid.

54.No absolutely authentic portraits of Jeanne are known. A head of fine work, the portrait of a young girl wearing a casque and of Jeanne’s time, is at the MusÉe Historique at Orleans. Tradition asserts that when Jeanne entered Orleans in triumph with the relieving force a sculptor modelled the head of his statue of St. Maurice from Jeanne herself. This head is a portion of the statue which formerly stood in the church at Orleans dedicated to St. Maurice. The church was demolished in 1850. A photograph from the head is given as the frontispiece to this book, and an admirable copy maybe seen at the MusÉe du TrocadÉro in Paris. It should have been stated on the frontispiece that the original is at Orleans, the copy in Paris.

55.Latin text adds: “dum rex suus consecraretur.” Tradition asserts that at the Coronation Jeanne stood on the left and slightly in front of the altar, coming direct from the sacristy of the cathedral. The coronation throne stood in front of the high altar. The cathedral and its painted glass exist as at the Coronation, with the exception of some comparatively recent stone work surrounding the choir. The Coronation of the Kings of France has taken place at Rheims Cathedral since the twelfth century. The King was not to all intents King of France until he had been anointed by the Holy Oil, brought in great state to the cathedral from the more ancient church of St. Remy.

An inscription on the front of the Hotel Maison Rouge, situated near the west entrance of the cathedral, states that the town entertained Jeanne’s father and mother in that house during the Coronation.

56.About £200.

57.November 9th, 1429.

58.The Minute adds: “and I should be cured.”

59.Surrendered July 22nd.

60.In spite of this assertion, the Bishop was present at four out of the nine Examinations.

61.On May 23rd, 1430.

62.In the Minute only.

63.Not in the Minute. Latin text reads: “quod dedit regi suo dum venit ad eum.”

64.The “sign,” i.e. the appearance of “the White Lady.”

65.Jean, Duke d’AlenÇon: son of the Duke killed at Agincourt. He was of the blood-royal of France, and had married a daughter of the Duke d’OrlÉans. Jeanne was on very friendly terms with him, and always called him her “Beau Duc.”

66.The allegory of the Angel sent with a crown, here first given to avoid “perjury,” i.e., breaking her promise to preserve the King’s secret, is explained by Jeanne herself, on the last day of her life, to mean her own mission from Heaven to lead Charles to his crowning.

67.In the Minute: “et l’admener en trois ans”: not in the Latin Text.

68.The Minute reads: “la laissant faire de prisonniers.”

69.March 8th, 1428; it was before Easter, which in that year fell on March 7th.

70.The house in which Jeanne lodged at Chinon is said to have belonged to a certain Regnier de la Barrier, whose widow or daughter is the “worthy woman” referred to. Jeanne was afterwards lodged in the Tower of Coudray, where her room may still be seen. It is approached by a staircase outside the tower. The vaulted roof has fallen in, and the fireplace is damaged, but the walls are intact, and the room could easily be restored. Jeanne stayed in this tower from March 8th to April 20th, 1429.

71.In the Minute only.

72.Charles, Duke d’OrlÉans, then a prisoner in England: one of the five princes of the blood taken at Agincourt.

73.There is no allusion to either of these in any evidence of the time.

74.May, 1430.

75.Easter week, April 16th–23rd, 1430.

76.Jeanne says that her leap from the tower was “towards the end,” and as the town of CompiÈgne was in great straits in October, she probably made her attempt at escape towards the end of that month. The army of relief under the Count de VendÔme started on October 25th, and the siege was raised early in November.

77.The Minute inverts the order of this and the following question and answer.

78.There is no fuller account of this attempt. It probably took place during the month of July, and may have been the reason for her removal to the stronger prison of Beaurevoir, early in August.

79.Henry VI. arrived in Rouen first on July 29th, 1430, when Jeanne was at Beaulieu; he was crowned at Paris in the following November, and returned to Rouen for Christmas, remaining there about six weeks, for the date of his landing at Dover is given as February 11th. It is not improbable that the prisoner may have seen the King, as they were both residing in the same Castle, and her windows looked on the fields, where he would probably take exercise.

80.“Faceret unam aggressionem;” GallicÈ, “une entreprise.”

81.In the Minute: “mesme le chaperon de femme.”

82.In the Minute: “et ne fait point de diffÉrence de celle qui est au ciel et celle qui se appert À moi.”

83.“Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint-Michel est de faire grandes rÉvÉlations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult sainct conseils.” (“Le Livre des Angeles de Dieu.”—MS. in the BibliothÈque Nationale, Paris.)

84.In the Minute.

85.In the Minute: “et toute voyes de tout, je m’en attendaye À Notre Seigneur.”

86.Given only in the Minute.

87.Guillaume Delachambre says that he was sent for by the Cardinal of England and the Earl of Warwick to attend Jeanne, with Desjardins and other Doctors; he was told by Warwick to give all attention to the patient, “as the King would not for anything in the world, that she should die a natural death; she had cost too dear for that; he had bought her dear, and he did not wish her to die except by justice and the fire.”

88.Nicolas Midi.

89.In the margin is written “Superba responsio.”

90.Jean de la Brosse, Marshal of France, called occasionally Marshal de Boussac and de Saint SevÈre, being lord of both these territories.

91.The Day of the Holy Cross, May 3rd.

92.The Minute adds: “in the evening.”

93.April 18th, May 2nd, 19th, and 23rd.

94.Against this passage is written, on the margin of the original MS. note in the hand of the Registrar Manchon, ‘Responsio JohannÆ superba.’