He may not have been proud of such deceptions, but at any rate he made no secret of them.[590] Many famous masters approved him; others censured him.[591]
The angel of the schools, Thomas de Courcelles, when Nicolas told him of his disguises, counselled him to abandon them.
Afterwards the registrars pretended that it had been extremely repugnant to them thus to overhear in hiding a conversation so craftily contrived. The golden age of inquisitorial justice must have been well over when so strict a doctor as Maître Thomas was willing thus to criticise the most solemn forms of that justice. Inquisitorial proceedings must indeed have fallen into decay when two notaries of the Church dream of eluding its most common prescriptions. The clerks who disguised themselves as soldiers, the Promoter who took on the semblance of a poor prisoner, were exercising the most regular functions of the judicial system instituted by Innocent III.
In acting the shoemaker and Saint Catherine, if he were seeking the salvation and not the destruction of the sinner, if, contrary to public report, far from inciting her to rebellion, he was reducing her to obedience, if, in short, he were but deceiving her for her own temporal and spiritual good, Maître Nicolas Loiseleur was proceeding in conformity with established rules. In the Tractatus de Hæresi it is written: "Let no man approach the heretic, save from time to time two persons of faith and tact, who may warn him with precaution and as having compassion upon him, to eschew death by confessing his errors, and who may promise him that by so doing he shall escape death by fire; for the fear of death, and the hope of life may peradventure soften a heart which could be touched in no other wise."[592]
The duty of registrars was laid down in the following manner:
"Matters shall be ordained thus, that certain persons shall be stationed in a suitable place so as to surprise the confidences of heretics and to overhear their words."[593]
As for the Bishop of Beauvais, who had ordained and permitted such procedure, he found his justification and approbation in the words of the Apostle Saint Paul to the Corinthians: "I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile." "Ego vos non gravavi; sed cum essem astutus, dolo vos cepi" (II Corinthians xii, 16).[594]
Meanwhile, when Jeanne saw the Promoter, Jean d'Estivet, in his churchman's habit she did not recognise him. And Maître Nicolas Loiseleur also often came to her in monkish dress. In this guise he inspired her with great confidence; she confessed to him devoutly and had no other confessor.[595] She saw him sometimes as a shoemaker and sometimes as a canon and never perceived that he was the same person. Wherefore we must indeed believe her to have been incredibly simple in certain respects; and these great theologians must have realised that it was not difficult to deceive her.
It was well known to all men versed in science, divine and human, that the Enemy never entered into dealings with a maid without depriving her of her virginity.[596] At Poitiers the French clerks had thought of it, and when Queen Yolande assured them that Jeanne was a virgin, they ceased to fear that she was sent by the devil.[597] The Lord Bishop of Beauvais in a different hope awaited a similar examination. The Duchess of Bedford herself went to the prison. She was assisted by Lady Anna Bavon and another matron. It has been said that the Regent was hidden meanwhile in an adjoining room and looking through a hole in the wall.[598] This is by no means certain, but it is not impossible; he was at Rouen a fortnight after Jeanne had been brought there.[599] Whether the charge were groundless or well founded he was seriously reproached for this curiosity. If there were many who in his place would have been equally curious, every one must judge for himself; but we must bear in mind that my Lord of Bedford believed Jeanne a witch, and that it was not the custom in those days to treat witches with the respect due to ladies. We must remember also that this was a matter in which Old England was greatly concerned, and the Regent loved his country with all his heart and all his strength.
Upon the examination of the Duchess of Bedford as upon that of the Queen of Sicily Jeanne appeared a virgin. The matrons knew various signs of virginity; but for us a more certain sign is Jeanne's own word. When she was asked wherefore she called herself the Maid, whether she were one in reality, she replied: "I may tell you that such I am."[600] The judges, as far as we know, set no store by this favourable result of the examination. Did they believe with the wise King Solomon that in such matters all inquiry is vain, and did they reject the matrons' verdict by virtue of the saying: Virginitatis probatio non minus difficilis quam custodia? No, they knew well that she was indeed a virgin. They allowed it to be understood when they did not assert the contrary.[601] And since they persisted in believing her a witch, it must have been because they imagined her to have given herself to devils who had left her as they found her. The morals of devils abounded in such inconsistencies, which were the despair of the most learned doctors; every day new inconsistencies were being discovered.