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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 9
THE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fifty-eight
judges present--the others resting.
As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She
showed no temper this time. She considered herself well buttressed by the
proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate and
creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and added,
in a spirit of fairness and candor:
"But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the
whole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope."
Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them
could be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously shirked the
question of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it
being clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was
an opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into
peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He
asked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way:
"Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?"
The house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the
answer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it
covered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly
chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived
even me, so innocent it seemed:
"Are there two?"
One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers
there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:
"By God, it was a master stroke!"
As soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the
charge, but was prudent and passed by Joan's question:
"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking
you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?"
"Yes, and answered it."
Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had
not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count's
letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:
"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him
from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest."
She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.
"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he
ought to obey"; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded
fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, "but as for
me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome."
The matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan's first
effort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the English to retire
from the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly a great and fine
production for an unpractised girl of seventeen.
"Do you acknowledge as your own the document which has just been read?"
"Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give myself
too much importance." I saw what was coming; I was troubled and ashamed.
"For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez au la
Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I did not
call myself 'Commander-in-Chief' (chef de guerre). All those are words
which my secretary substituted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot what I
said."
She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that
embarrassment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten. I
changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and
entitled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and who
was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that time a stick, a
cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the noble Maid of
Vaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck a
blow.
Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me) there,
if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of that
piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present--and not only
present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but destined at
a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions smuggled into
it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!
"Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?"
"I do."
"Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?"
Ah, then she was indignant!
"No! Not even these chains"--and she shook them--"not even these chains
can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!"--she rose, and stood
a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words
burst forth as in a flood--"I warn you now that before seven years a
disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of
Orleans! and--"
"Silence! Sit down!"
"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!"
Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The
French cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was
no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and
take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this,
Joan made that prophecy--made it with perfect confidence--and it came
true. For within five years Paris fell--1436--and our King marched into
it flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then
fulfilled--in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our
hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured.
Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town--Calais.
Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time
that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our
King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that,
with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this
golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, "I give you
twenty years to do it in."
She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be
done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish
it.
Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she
stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible
prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns up
correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be
considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the
fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's
prophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of
its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to
this day.
Twenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in the great
Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon and me,
and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the record
in their testimony.
Joan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March
stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down
again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and
awful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or comes down from
heaven.
All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it
was genuine and puissant.
They would have given their right hands to know the source of it.
At last the questions began again.
"How do you know that those things are going to happen?"
"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit
here before me."
This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness.
Therefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of
the way and took up one which he could enjoy more.
"What languages do your Voices speak?"
"French."
"St. Marguerite, too?"
"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!"
Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave
affront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt,
but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it
against her; which they did. It might be useful by and by.
"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings, earrings?"
To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of
serious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to
her mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:
"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity.
You have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me.
If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church."
The judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the working
of enchantments.
Perhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.
"Where is the other ring?"
"The Burgundians have it."
"Where did you get it?"
"My father and mother gave it to me."
"Describe it."
"It is plain and simple and has 'Jesus and Mary' engraved upon it."
Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil's
work with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to make sure,
one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by
touching them with the ring. She said no.
"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy
whereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said that your
godmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night dancing under the
tree called l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your
pretended saints and angles are but those fairies?"
"Is that in your proces?"
She made no other answer.
"Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that
tree?"
"I do not know."
"Or by the fountain near the tree?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"What promises did they make you?"
"None but such as they had God's warrant for."
"But what promises did they make?"
"That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much: they told me that
the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies."
"And what else?"
There was a pause; then she said humbly:
"They promised to lead me to Paradise."
If faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear came
upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen
servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The
interest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness became
almost painful.
Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the
questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner very
often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you
noticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and
were to search for Joan's secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her
privacies--a fact not suspected by her--and that they had no task before
them but to trick her into exposing those secrets?
Do you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of
Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the confessional
Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything concerning her
history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations
which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one--and that the
unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?
Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long
array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and
ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember
Loyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of
Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years in
hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one
among the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that
one has not already done it--Joan of Arc.
We will return to the questionings.
"Did they make you still another promise?"
"Yes, but that is not in your proces. I will not tell it now, but before
three months I will tell it you."
The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets
this idea from his next question.
"Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three
months?"
Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the
judges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror to find
my mind (which I could not control) criticizing the Voices and saying,
"They counsel her to speak boldly--a thing which she would do without any
suggestion from them or anybody else--but when it comes to telling her
any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess their
way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending to some
other business."
I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head
they made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and thunder at the
time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and
do my work.
Joan answered:
"That is not in your proces. I do not know when I shall be set free, but
some who wish me out of this world will go from it before me."
It made some of them shiver.
"Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this prison?"
Without a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked the
question.
"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you." She said it with such
a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And Noel Rainguesson, drooping
yonder?--why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from crown to
sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from making
fatal exposure of our feelings.
She was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we saw
it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true--true to the very
day--May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her
how she was to be set free, but left her in ignorance. Home again!
That day was our understanding of it--Noel's and mine; that was our
dream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the minutes. They
would fly lightly along; they would soon be over.
Yes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and
tumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live it
out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the
friendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and
charm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes and
their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream that
carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful
fulfilment, the though of which would have killed us, I think, if we had
foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our hearts
the half of those weary days.
Our reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul was
going to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately plan a
rescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alencon and the Bastard and La
Hire, and that this rescue would take place at the end of the three
months. So we made up our minds to be ready and take a hand in it.
In the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the
exact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not the
permission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name
the precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have
believed that Joan had the idea that her deliverance was going to dome in
the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless as
she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint, an
angel, she was a clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in the
world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and
delicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three
months with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first
time she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other
girl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen
days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was not
afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she believed
the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed
happiness, not horror, when she uttered it.
Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was
captured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was coming.
They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would be taken
prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John. She begged
that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the captivity
brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement. The Voices
made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now as they did
not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan would
naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it to grow
and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told she was to
be "delivered" in three months, I think she believed it meant that she
would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she looked
happy and content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her, the time
so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward so close
at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make her patient
and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier. Save herself if
she could, of course, and try for the best, for that was the way she was
made; but die with her face to the front if die she must.
Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a
poisoned fish, her notion that she was to be "delivered" by death in the
prison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally be greatly
strengthened, you see.
But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the
time that she would be delivered from prison.
"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I am
to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you the
day. That is why I wish for delay."
"Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?"
"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I
tell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as
well as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal." She sighed
and, after a little pause, added: "I should be dead but for this
revelation, which comforts me always."
Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress and
appearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave
her pain. After a little she said:
"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling
that I am not in mortal sin."
She added, "Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me to
confess myself to them."
Here was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence.
"When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?"
But her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more to
the revelations made to the King--secrets which the court had tried again
and again to force out of Joan, but without success.
"Now as to the sign given to the King--"
"I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it."
"Do you know what the sign was?"
"As to that, you will not find out from me."
All this refers to Joan's secret interview with the King--held apart,
though two or three others were present. It was known--through Loyseleur,
of course--that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the verity of
Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this day--the nature of
the crown, I mean--and will remain a mystery to the end of time. We can
never know whether a real crown descended upon the King's head, or only a
symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision.
"Did you see a crown upon the King's head when he received the
revelation?"
"I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury."
"Did the King have that crown at Rheims?"
"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a
much richer one was brought him afterward."
"Have you seen that one?"
"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not, I
have heard say that it was rich and magnificent."
They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown,
but they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A long, hard
day for all of us.
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