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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 14
WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill
the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was
growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her
cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage
out of her weakened state.
Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment--the Twelve
Lies.
Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation.
She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses to submit
herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all her acts
to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in
fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of God.
She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was
willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.
A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with
death those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause says
she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God. What
she really said was, all that she had done well--a correction made by
herself as you have already seen.
Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any
sin. She never made any such claim.
Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had
high Catholic authority for committing it--that of the Archbishop of
Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.
The Tenth Article was resentful against her for "pretending" that St.
Catherine and St.
Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their
politics.
The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology
of the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready
by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote
in the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan's mouth
which were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would not
be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not
influence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had any--which it
hadn't when acting in a political capacity, as at present--but it was a
brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same.
The Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there
was a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were flocking through all
the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had gone
abroad that Joan of Arc was sick until death. In truth, these long
seances had worn her out, and she was ill indeed. The heads of the
English party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die
uncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and
the love of the people would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death
into a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France
dead than she had been when alive.
The Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to the
castle and sent messengers flying for physicians. Warwick was a hard man,
a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick girl
stretched in her chains in her iron cage--not an object to move man to
ungentle speech, one would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her
hearing and said to the physicians:
"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have
her die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he bought her dear, and
he does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you cure
her."
The doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of
Beauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that.
Then Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused
her. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her, you
see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's most
loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan injure
his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being men who
could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got the conviction
that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by poisoning her and
thus cheating the English out of all the real value gainable by her
purchase from the Duke of Burgundy.
Joan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick
said:
"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself."
He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let
herself bleed to death.
But the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.
Not for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so
worried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted
at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought the
fever all back again.
When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure, for
here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through the
over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite admirable
cursing--admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by persons of
culture that the art of it was not good--and after that the meddler kept
still.
Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was
still very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without much
danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it. So he
called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her dungeon.
Manchon and I went along to keep the record--that is, to set down what
might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.
The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was
difficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the sad
face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often seen,
all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and the
lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It wrung
my heart to see her looking like this.
But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless
speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan that
among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger religion;
and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had
brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said
he, "We are churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well as by our
vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your body, in
every way in our power, just as we would do the like for our nearest kin
or for ourselves. In this we but follow the example of Holy Church, who
never closes the refuge of her bosom against any that are willing to
return."
Joan thanked him for these sayings and said:
"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure
of God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also
receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground."
Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body had
the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to follow.
This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and said:
"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do,
and submit to the Church."
He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender in
it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said
wearily:
"I have nothing more to say."
Cauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly and
said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to amend
her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless she would
submit to the Church. Joan said:
"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if
you will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour."
There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded
again, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to the
Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body was
weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out of that
came the steadfast answer which these people were already so familiar
with and detested so sincerely:
"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have
said already in your tribunals."
Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with reasonings
and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure of the
Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with them to
surrender her mission to the Church's judgment--that is to their
judgment--as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could
have told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never
asked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice.
Then the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import; a
threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the ground were
sinking from under him:
"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you
as if you were a pagan!"
Think of being abandoned by the Church!--that August Power in whose hands
is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter stretches beyond the
furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose authority is over
millions that live and over the billions that wait trembling in purgatory
for ransom or doom; whose smile opens the gates of heaven to you, whose
frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting hell; a Power whose
dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and shows of a village. To
be abandoned by one's King--yes, that is death, and death is much; but to
be abandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the Church! Ah, death is nothing
to that, for that is consignment to endless life--and such a life!
I could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I could
see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle and
sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw, while
she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in truth I
hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good and
deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in their
natures to do it.
But I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of Arc
was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity to
truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her
flesh--they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast
them out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was Steadfastness
incarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there she
would abide; hell itself could not move her from that place.
Her Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission
that was required, therefore she would stand fast. She would wait, in
perfect obedience, let come what might.
My heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon; but
she--she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she believed
to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences were not her
affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this serenity, full
of contented repose:
"I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I will
die."
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