JOAN OF ARC
The most remarkable, the most heroic and pathetic instance of religious hallucination in Europe is that of Joan of Arc, known as the Maid of Orleans, born in 1412 and burned at the stake in 1431, and recently beatified as the patron saint of France. Naturally of a contemplative disposition, she was accustomed from earliest childhood to long fasts and solitary communings, in which she brooded over the miserable condition of her country, then overrun by English armies. When 13 years of age, she had a vision in which a voice spoke to her from out of a great light, telling her that God had chosen her to restore France. She immediately fell on her knees and made a vow of virginity and entire devotion to the cause, and from that day to the time of her cruel death she believed herself inspired and guided by supernatural voices to lead her countrymen against the invader. A simple peasant girl, she sought out the royal court and boldly announced to the king her divine mission. Her manner made such an impression that she was assigned a command, and putting on a soldier’s dress and carrying a sword which she claimed had come to her through miraculous means, she led the armies of France, performing superhuman feats of courage and endurance and winning victory after victory for three years until she was finally captured. After a long and harassing mockery of a trial, in which the whole machinery of the law and the church was brought into action for the destruction of one poor girl barely 19 years of age, she was finally condemned and burned at Rouen, ostensibly as a witch and a heretic, but really as the most dangerous enemy of English tyranny in France.
PL. CXVIII
THE GHOST DANCE—UNCONSCIOUS
She was forever hearing these spirit voices, which she called “her voices” or “her counsel.” They spoke to her with articulate words in the ripple of the village fountain, in the vesper bells, in the rustling of the leaves, and in the sighing of the wind. Sometimes it was the warlike archangel Michael, but oftener it was the gentle Saint Katherine, who appeared to her as a beautiful woman wearing a crown. Her visions must be ascribed to the effect of the troubled times in which she lived, acting on an enthusiastic, unquestioning religious temperament. She is described as physically robust and intellectually keen, aside from her hallucination, as was proven in her trial, and there is no evidence that she was subject to epilepsy or other abnormal conditions such as belonged to Mohammed and most others of the same class. Her long and frequent fasts unquestionably aided the result. She claimed no supernatural powers outside of her peculiar mission, and in every public undertaking relied entirely on the guidance of her voices.
Toward the end these voices were accompanied by other hallucinations, together with presentiments of her coming death. On one occasion, while assaulting a garrison, her men fled, leaving her standing on the moat with only four or five soldiers. Seeing her danger, a French officer galloped up to rescue her and impatiently asked her why she stood there alone. Lifting her helmet from her face she looked at him with astonishment and replied that she was not alone—that she had 50,000 men with her—and then, despite his entreaties, she turned to her phantom army and shouted out her commands to bring logs to bridge the moat. It was in April, while standing alone on the ramparts of Mélun, that the voices first told her that she would be taken before midsummer. From that time the warning was constantly repeated, and although she told no one and still exposed herself fearlessly, she no longer assumed the responsibility of command. Two months later she was in the hands of her enemies.
Throughout the trial every effort was made by her enemies to shake her statement as to the voices, or, failing in that, to prove them from the devil, but to the last she steadfastly maintained that the voices were with her and came from heaven. According to her own statement these voices were three—one remained always with her, another visited her at short intervals, while both deliberated with the third. On one occasion, when hard pressed by her enemies, she answered solemnly, “I believe firmly, as firmly as I believe the Christian faith and that God has redeemed us from the pains of hell, that the voice comes from God and by his command.” And again she asserted, “I have seen Saint Michael and the two saints so well that I know they are saints of paradise. I have seen them with my bodily eyes, and I believe they are saints as firmly as I believe that God exists.”
When questioned as to her original inspiration, she stated that the voice had first come to her when she was about 13 years of age. “The first time I heard it I was very much afraid. It was in my father’s garden at noon in the summer. I had fasted the day before. The voice came from the right hand by the church, and there was a great light with it. When I came into France, I heard it frequently. I believe it was sent me from God. After I heard it three times, I knew it was the voice of an angel. I understand perfectly what it says. It bade me be good and go to church often, and it told me I must go into France. Two or three times a week it said I must go into France, until I could no longer rest where I was. It told me I should raise the siege of Orleans, and that Robert de Baudricourt would give me people to conduct me. Twice he repulsed me, but the third time he received me and sped me on my way.”
The examiners were very curious to know by what sign she had recognized the king when she had first seen him in the midst of his courtiers. To this question she said she must first consult with Saint Katherine before replying, and afterward continued: “The sign was a crown. The first time I saw the king he had the sign, and it signified that he should hold the kingdom of France. I neither touched it nor kissed it. The angel came by the command of God and entered by the door of the room. I came with the angel up the steps to the king’s room and the angel came before the king and bowed and inclined himself before the king, and said: ‘My lord, here is your sign; take it.’ He departed by the way he had come. There were a number of other angels with him, and Saint Katherine and Saint Margaret. In the little chapel he left me. I was neither glad nor afraid, but I was very sorrowful, and I wish he had taken away my soul with him.”
PL. CXIX
THE CROW DANCE
To another question she replied emphatically: “If I were at judgment, if I saw the fire kindled and the fagots ablaze and the executioner ready to stir the fire, and if I were in the fire, I would say no more, and to the death I would maintain what I have said in the trial.”
The end came at last in the market place of Rouen, when this young girl, whose name for years had been a terror to the whole English army, was dragged in her white shroud and bound to the stake, and saw the wood heaped up around her and the cruel fire lighted under her feet. “Brother Martin, standing almost in the draft of the flames, heard her sob with a last sublime effort of faith, bearing her witness to God whom she trusted: ‘My voices have not deceived me!’ And then came death.” ([Parr], Jeanne d’Arc.)