JOAN OF ARC
Equestrian statue by Anna V. Hyatt
She stood it until spring; then the certainty that there was danger of losing all Champagne led her to set out with a band of perhaps a hundred horse and still fewer archers, her objective Compiègne (cong-pyen) which the Duke of Burgundy was threatening. It was the thirteenth of May when she reached Compiègne. The aid she rendered seems futile enough at this distance. The truth was Joan had no knowledge of the situation, and could have no plans for relief. She was not admitted into the counsels of those who defended the town. For her attack on Orléans and her march on Rheims she had had the knowledge which during three years of devout belief in her mission she had collected unconsciously no doubt; but at Compiègne she had nothing but her Voices. She had almost full command from Orléans to Rheims: now she was little more in the minds of the commanding officers than a painted saint, a bejeweled reliquary, to be used on their sallies and in their attacks.
THE CORONATION OF CHARLES VII
The King of France was crowned in the Cathedral at Rheims, on July 17, 1429. In this painting by Bartolini, Joan of Arc stands with her banner near the kneeling king
The result was her capture. It came at a moment when she was crying, "Go forward! They are ours!" though as a matter of fact all of the French but her and her little guard had fled.
If in the few months Joan of Arc held sway over the minds of the French king and his people she showed as none outside of the Christ have ever shown the divinity in man and its power to elevate human nature, surely that which followed is as perfect an illustration of the deviltry in the human heart and what it can do to corrupt and harden men. Never were human minds so put to it to prove a saintly thing evil. All the learning that was in the University of Paris, all the authority there was in the church and state in the part of the world where Joan was finally taken for trial, was summoned to find out: not the truth,—they had no interest in the truth,—but plausible reasons for declaring her a heretic. The orders from the English government were that she should not be allowed to die save by what they called "the hand of justice"; that is, she must be proved to be of the devil. This was the business of the church.
TRIAL AND TORTURE AND DEATH
At this noble work there now was set a band of some sixty of the most learned and distinguished scholars, judges, and ministers in the land. There was an occasional one for whom the work was too abominable. One such declared boldly that to force this simple girl to reply without guidance to such great doctors, to so many masters, was mocking justice. "They mean to catch her," was his verdict. "I will stay no longer. I cannot witness it." And indeed they did mean to catch her; but what a chase she gave them! I doubt if there is such a test of wit and courage and faith in all the history of disputation.
At every point they taxed their devilish ingenuity to put her at a disadvantage. They drained her physical strength by abominable prison conditions. Joan had been a captive for seven months when she was finally taken to Rouen to trial. In the dungeon tower room given her it is said she was at first chained in an iron cage in which it was impossible to stand erect; certain it is that shackles were always on her feet, a chain round her waist by which she was padlocked to a beam. Five English guards slept in her room jeering at and insulting her. It was in this room they came to her with promises, bribes, flatteries, and threats.