The deliverance of the city of Orléans must have gladdened the heart of the old Orleanist partisan. The Dauphin's Councillors, eager to set the Maid to work, had told him of the deliberations at Poitiers, and asked him, as a good servant of the house of France, for his opinion concerning them. In reply he wrote a compendious treatise on the Maid.
In this work he is careful from the first to distinguish between matters of faith and matters of devotion. In questions of faith doubt is forbidden. With regard to questions of devotion the unbeliever, to use a colloquial expression, is not necessarily damned. Three conditions are necessary if a question is to be considered as one of devotion: first, it must be edifying; second, it must be probable and attested by popular report or the testimony of the faithful; third, it must touch on nothing contrary to faith. When these conditions are fulfilled, it is fitting neither persistently to condemn nor to approve, but rather to appeal to the church.
For example, the conception of the very holy Virgin, indulgences, relics, are matters of faith and not of devotion. A relic may be worshipped in one place or another, or in several places at once. Recently the Parlement of Paris disputed concerning the head of Saint Denys, worshipped at Saint-Denys in France and likewise in the cathedral at Paris. This is a matter of devotion.[1133]
Whence it may be concluded that it is lawful to consider the question of the Maid as a matter of devotion, especially when one reflects on her motives, which are the restitution of his kingdom to her King and the very righteous expulsion or destruction of her very stubborn enemies.
And if there be those who make various statements concerning her idle talk, her frivolity, her guile, now is the time to quote the saying of Cato: "Common report is not our judge." According to the words of the Apostle, it doth not become us to call in question the servant of God. Much better is it to abstain from judgment, as is permitted, or to submit doubtful points to ecclesiastical superiors. This is the principle followed in the canonisation of saints. The catalogue of the saints is not, strictly speaking, necessarily a matter of faith, but of pious devotion. Nevertheless, it is not to be highly censured by any manner of man.
To come to the present case, the following circumstances are to be noted: First, the royal council and the men-at-arms were induced to believe and to obey; and they faced the risk of being put to shame by defeat under the leadership of a girl. Second, the people rejoice, and their pious faith seems to tend to the glory of God and the confounding of his enemies. Third, the enemy, even his princes, are in hiding and stricken with many terrors. They give way to weakness like a woman with child; they are overthrown like the Egyptians in the song sung by Miriam, sister of Moses, to the sound of the timbrel in the midst of the women who went out with her with timbrels and with dances: "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."[1134] And let us likewise sing the song of Miriam with the devotion which becometh our case.
Fourth, and in conclusion, this point is worthy of consideration: The Maid and her men-at-arms despise not the wisdom of men; they tempt not God. Wherefore it is plain that the Maid goes no further than what she interprets to be the instruction or inspiration received from God.
Many of the incidents of her life from childhood up have been collected in abundance and might be set forth; but these we shall not relate.
Here may be cited the examples of Deborah and of Saint Catherine who miraculously converted fifty doctors or rhetoricians, of Judith and of Judas Maccabeus. As is usually the case, there were many circumstances in their lives which were purely natural.