Passing onward the traveller comes to the Church of St. Gervais—the oldest in Rouen and in the priory of which William the Conqueror died.
The royal dead in France were generally treated with scant respect on their final journeys. Francis II. and Louis XV. were carted in old wagons by night to St. Denis, and even this English king owes his burial to a stranger. After the siege of Nantes, wounded to death, he retired to this priory of St. Gervais to die. Deserted by his sons and plundered by his servants when scarcely dead, his body lay naked and uncared for until in pity and charity, a neighbouring knight assumed the obligation of his funeral and escorted his body to the Church of St. Étienne in Caen.
St. Gervais has suffered restoration, so let us move onward to where the Maid of Orleans is supposed to have ended her life at the stake.
Which story are we to believe as to this maiden,—that given by history and with which every schoolboy is familiar, or that related by M. Lesigne, who terms the former "a beautiful legend?" He points out that it is incredible that people should seriously believe that the English were driven out by a peasant girl even though inspired and he shows that just then the power of the French was strengthened, while that of the English was weakened by dissensions at home; that Jeanne was taken up by the war party,—not to lead its armies but to instill religious fervour and courage into the hearts of its soldiers, that she was not even aware of the first action between the contending armies but was in fact in bed at the time; that Orleans fell because the English had been abandoned by their allies of Burgundy, and he gives credit for that to "the astute policy of Charles VII.," which, by the way, is the first move denoting any brains on the part of that monarch of which we have ever been made aware; that Jeanne's triumph came during the rejoicings at Orleans, and when Charles was crowned at Rheims. Taken by the Burgundians, she was transferred to the English, whose king, as a Christian monarch, was under obligations to hand her over to stand trial before the proper ecclesiastical court, but that court had no power to inflict punishment, death, or torture. The judgment of a secular court was necessary. On threat of being consigned to that court, Jeanne signed a recantation, which was accepted, provided she promised henceforth to wear woman's dress. Condemned to life imprisonment, she passed again into the hands of the English as a prisoner of war who represented a large ransom. Left to herself she soon assumed male attire and was again handed over to the Church for trial. Again recanting, she was recommended by that court to the mercy of the secular powers, the English, who had never pronounced judgment upon her. The legend of her burning was due to a desire to make her fulfil the whole prophecy of the ancient Merlin, who was supposed to have said that the islanders would put her to death, but she seems to have subsequently married Robert des Armoises, and we possess a document drawn up in the names of Robert des Armoises, Chevalier, Seigneur of Trichiemont and "Jehanne du Lys la Pucelle de France," wife of said Trichiemont. The identity of Jehanne du Lys and Jeanne d'Arc is proven by several documents, among these a part of the chronicle of Saint Thibault de Metz, describing her meeting with her brothers and mentioning her marriage. This is the substance of M. Lesigne's book, proving that every story has two sides. However, the world in general and the Church in particular accept the story as history gives it.
She is now a regularly canonised saint of the Church of Rome and I should not like to suggest to many healthy schoolboys at home that she was not burned to death. If that did occur, it was not where this meaningless and absurd monument stands to-day, but on the site of the Théâtre Français. The scene of her imprisonment, trial, and condemnation was the ancient Castle of Philip Augustus in 1204, of which nothing now remains unless, as is claimed, the donjon tower shown to-day as the prison of Jeanne d'Arc be part thereof. It certainly was not her prison as that was torn down in 1809,—a year, by the way, which seems to have been more fatal to many of these old buildings than the period of the Revolution.
THE TOWER OF JEANNE D'ARC AT ROUEN
From an old print
This Castle of Philip was immense in size, possessed of many towers, and would be of intense interest to-day, as the illustration shows. It is said to have stood intact until 1809.