Maître Aignan Viole, Licentiate in Law, Advocate of the Court of Parliament.
On the Sunday after the taking of the Forts of the Bridge and of Saint Loup, the English were drawn up in order of battle before the town of Orleans, at which the greater part of [our] soldiers wished to give combat, and sallied from the town. Jeanne, who was wounded, was with the soldiers, dressed in her light surcoat. She put the men in array, but forbade them to attack the English, because, she said, if it pleased God and it were His will that they wished to retire, they should be allowed to go. And at that the men-at-arms returned into Orleans.
It was said that Jeanne was as expert as possible in the art of ordering an army in battle, and that even a captain bred and instructed in war could not have shown more skill; at this the captains marvelled exceedingly.
She frequently confessed, often received the Holy Sacrament, and, in all her deeds and conversation, bore herself most worthily, and in everything save in warfare she was marvellously simple.
DEPOSITIONS AT ROUEN: 1455–6.
Guillaume Colles, or Boisguillaume, Priest, Notary Public.
I knew nothing of Jeanne till she was brought to Rouen for her trial, at which I was one of the notaries. In the copy of the Process shown to me, I recognize my own signature at the end. It is the true Process made against Jeanne, and is one of five similar copies made. In the said Process were associated with me Maître Guillaume Manchon and Maître Pierre Taquel. In the morning we registered the notes and answers, and in the afternoon we collected them together. For nothing in the world would we have failed in anything that should have been done.
I remember well that Jeanne answered more prudently when questioned a second time upon a point whereon she had been already questioned; she failed not to say that she had elsewhere replied, and she told the notaries to read what she had already said.
Maître Nicolas Loyseleur, feigning to be a cobbler—a captive on the part of the King of France, and from Lorraine—obtained entrance to Jeanne’s prison, to whom he said that she should not believe the Churchmen, “because,” he added, “if you believe them, you will be destroyed.” I believe the Bishop of Beauvais knew this well, otherwise Loyseleur would not have done as he did. Many of the Assessors in the Process murmured against him. It is said that Loyseleur died suddenly at Bâle; and I have heard that, when he saw Jeanne condemned to death, he was seized with compunction and climbed into the cart, earnestly desiring her pardon; at which many of the English were indignant; and that, had it not been for the Earl of Warwick, Loyseleur would have been killed; the said Earl enjoined him to leave Rouen as soon as he possibly could, if he wished to save his life.
In the same way, Maître Guillaume d’Estivet got into the prison, feigning to be a prisoner—as Loyseleur had done. This d’Estivet was Promoter, and in this matter was much affected towards the English, whom he desired to please. He was a bad man, and often during the Process spoke ill of the notaries and of those who, as he saw, wished to act justly; and he often cruelly insulted Jeanne, calling her foul names. I think that, in the end of his days, he was punished by God; for he died miserably. He was found dead in a drain outside the gates of Rouen.