ORLEANS CATHEDRAL.
She was good not only to the French, but also to the enemy. All this I know of a surety, for I was for a long time with her, and many times assisted in arming her.
Jeanne lamented much, and was displeased when certain good women came to her, wishing to salute her: it seemed to her like adoration, at which she was angered.
Maître Jean Barbin, Doctor of Laws, King’s Advocate.
I was sent to Poitiers, where I saw Jeanne for the first time. When she arrived at the town she was lodged in the house of Maître Jean Rabateau; and while there I have heard the wife of Rabateau say that every day after dinner she was for a long time on her knees, and also at night; and that she often went into a little oratory in the house and there prayed for a long time. Many clergy came to visit her,—to wit, Maître Pierre de Versailles, S.T.P., sometime Bishop of Meaux, and Maître Guillaume Aimery, S.T.P. There were also other graduates in theology, whose names I do not remember, who questioned her in like manner at their will.
I heard from these said Doctors that they had examined her and put many questions, to which she replied with much prudence, as if she had been a trained divine; that they marvelled at her answers, and believed that, taking into account her life and conversation, there must have been in her something divine.
In the course of these deliberations Maître Jean Erault stated that he had heard it said by Marie d’Avignon,[[175]] who had formerly come to the King, that she had told him that the kingdom of France had much to suffer and many calamities to bear: saying moreover that she had had many visions touching the desolation of the kingdom of France, and amongst others that she had seen much armour which had been presented to her; and that she was alarmed, greatly fearing that she should be forced to take it; but it had been said to her that she need fear nothing, that this armour was not for her, but that a maiden who should come afterwards should bear these arms and deliver the kingdom of France from the enemy. And he believed firmly that Jeanne was the maiden of whom Marie d’Avignon thus spoke.
All the soldiers held her as sacred. So well did she bear herself in warfare, in words and in deeds, as a follower of God, that no evil could be said of her. I heard Maître Pierre de Versailles say that he was once in the town of Loches in company with Jeanne, when the people, throwing themselves before the feet of her horse, kissed her hands and feet; and he said to Jeanne that she did wrong to allow what was not due to her, and that she ought to protect herself from it lest men should become idolatrous; to which she answered: “In truth, I know not how to protect myself, if God does not protect me.”
Dame Marguerite La Touroulde, widow of the late Réné de Bouligny, Councillor to the King.
I was at Bourges when Jeanne arrived at Chinon, where the Queen was. In those days there was in the kingdom—especially in that part still obedient to the King—such great calamity and penury as was sad to see; so that the followers of the King were almost in despair: and this I know, because my husband was then Receiver-General, and at that time neither of the King’s money nor of his own had he four crowns.