Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France / Being the Story of Her Life, Her Achievements, and Her Death, as Attested on Oath and Set Forth in the Original Documents

by Unknown

The same woman doth say and affirm that God doth love sundry persons still living, designated by her and named, more than He doth this woman: this, she knoweth by revelation from Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who speak frequently to her, but in French and not in English, because these Saints are not on the side of the English. Since she hath known by revelation that their Voices were for the Prince aforesaid she hath ceased to love the Burgundians.

ARTICLE XI.

The same woman doth say and confess that to the Voices and the Spirits now under consideration, whom she calls Michael, Gabriel, Catherine and Margaret, she doth often do reverence, uncovering, bending the knee, kissing the earth on which they walk, vowing to them her virginity, at times kissing and embracing Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret; she hath touched them with her own hands, corporeally and physically; she hath asked of them counsel and help; at times she doth call them, and they even come to her without being called; she accedes to and obeys their counsels and their commands; she hath always obeyed them, without having asked counsel thereon from whomsoever it be—father, mother, curé, prelate, or any ecclesiastic whatsoever. She doth believe no less firmly that the Voices and the revelations she receives by the medium of the Saints of whom she speaks come from God and by His order: she believes it as firmly as she believes the Christian Faith and that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us Death and Passion. She doth add that, if it were an evil spirit who had come to her under the appearance and mask of Saint Michael she would quite well have known how to distinguish that it was not Saint Michael. Finally she saith, that of her own wish and without any one pressing her thereto, she hath sworn to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who appeared to her, to reveal to no one the sign of the crown given to the Prince to whom she was sent, until she should have permission from God to reveal it.

ARTICLE XII.

The same woman doth say and confess that if the Church wished that she should do anything contrary to the order she doth pretend to have received from God, she would not consent, whatsoever it might be. She doth affirm that she knows well, that all contained in her Trial has come to her by the order of God, and it would be impossible for her to do contrary to what she doth. Thereupon she doth not wish to refer to the decision of the Church Militant, nor to any one, whoever it be in the world, but to God alone, Our Lord, Whose commands she doth always execute, above all in what doth concern her revelations, and in what she doth in consequence. This answer and all the others are not from her own head, she saith, but she hath made and given them by order of her Voices and revelations: she doth persist [in this], although by the Judges and others of the Assessors, the Article of Faith, ‘The Church, One, Holy, Catholic,’ hath often been recalled to her, and it hath often been shewn to her that all the faithful are bound to obey the Church Militant and to submit to it their words and actions—above all in matters of faith and in all which concerns sacred Doctrine and Ecclesiastical sanction.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE REHABILITATION.

It was not until nearly twenty years after the death of Jeanne d’Arc that any attempt was made by those in authority to vindicate her memory or even to acknowledge the services she had rendered to the kingdom of France.

In 1450, however, after the occupation of Normandy and the submission of the town of Rouen, the idea appeared to have occurred to Charles VII. that to suffer the stigma of heresy and witchcraft to rest on the name of the Maid of Orleans, who had “led him to his anointing,” was to throw a doubt upon his own orthodoxy, and to justify the taunt of his enemies that he had been the mere tool of “a lyme of the Fiend.” On February 13th, 1450, therefore, he issued a Declaration empowering one of his Counsellors, Guillaume Bouillé, to enquire into the conduct of the Trial undertaken against Jeanne by “our ancient enemies the English,” who, “against reason, had cruelly put her to death,” and to report the result of his investigations to the Council.

Bouillé was Rector of the University of Paris, Dean of the Theological Faculty, Dean of Noyon, a Member of the Great Council, and at one time Ambassador to Rome. It is very probable that he was the author of the first memorial issued in favour of Jeanne, throwing doubts upon the validity of the Rouen sentence—a memorial which, according to some, was prior to the Enquiry of 1450 with which we are now dealing.

It was to an able and competent person therefore, that Charles committed the Enquiry, which was held at Rouen on March 4th and 5th, less than three weeks after the issue of the Royal Mandate.