Joan of Arc

by Regine Pernoud

  Boisguillaume, second notary: “I know well that the lord Bishop of Beauvais undertook the proceedings against her because he said that she had been made prisoner within the limits of the diocese of Beauvais; whether it was in hate or otherwise I leave to his conscience. I know, however, that all was done at the expense of the King of England and on the initiative of the English, and I know well that the bishop himself and the others who meddled with this trial obtained from the King of England letters of guarantee, for I saw them.” (R.197)

  One of the assessors, who was to play a great part in what remained of Joan’s life, Brother Isambart de la Pierre, a Dominican of the convent of Saint Jacques at Rouen, sums up the situation as follows: “Some of them who took part in the proceedings were pushed to it, like the Bishop of Beauvais, by their partiality. Some others, like some of the English doctors, by appetite for vengeance. Others, the doctors of Paris, by the lure of gain. Others, again, were driven by fear, like the sub-inquisitor and some others whom I do not recall; and all this was done on the initiative of the King of England, of the cardinal of Winchester, of the Earl of Warwick and of other English who paid the expenses incurred on account of this trial.” (R.199)

  COMMENTARY

  The exposition of military events takes, in the nature of things, more room in this chapter that in any other. For the sake of the reader who wishes to follow up points which we could not here treat in detail, here is a short bibliography.

  On the military events in general:

  Ed. Perroy, La Guerre de Cent Ans. Paris 1945.

  Calmette et Deprez, La France et l’Angleterre en conflit. In Histoire

  Générale published under the direction of G. Glotz, Vol. VIII.

  Paris 1937.

  On the military events of the year 1430 in particular:

  A. Bossuat, Perrinet Gressart et François de Surrienne, Agents de

  l’Angleterre. Paris 1936.

  On the Compiègne episode:

  P. Champion, Guillaume de Flavy. Paris 1906.

  J. M. Mestre, Guillaume de Flavy, n’a pas trahi Jeanne d’Arc.

  On Joan’s letters:

  C. de Maleissye, Les Lettres de Jehanne d’Arc. Paris 1911.

  In addition, of course, reference can be made to the diverse histories of Joan of Arc, the most reliable from the historical point of view still being Hanotaux’s (1911); P. H. Dunand’s, the most thorough, in three volumes (1899). There is also the excellent little résumé written by J. Calmette for the Que sais-je? series, Jeanne d’Arc, No. 211 of that collection.

  A word must be said here touching the claim that the arms granted to Joan and her family contain “proof” of her “bastardy”. (Though why, in that case, they were granted to the whole family is not clear. Is it claimed that her brothers were also Isabeau of Bavaria’s bastards?) It is claimed that if Joan was permitted to display fleurs-de-lys on her arms, that was to affirm that she was of the blood royal. This misconception derives from the same ignorance as that which we pointed out in the matter of the “Orleans livery”. The King, on this as on many other occasions, granted the right to bear the royal emblem to those he was particularly anxious to honour because their exploits had been outstandingly glorious. Examples are not far to seek: the arms granted, at the same period and for the same reasons to Gilles de Rais in September 1429, were “fleurs-delys semées en orle” (see the original deed preserved in the Archives nationales and to be seen in the Musée de l’Histoire de France, A.E. 11, 1715).

  It is further claimed that the sword which appears on these arms constitutes a “brisure” (bar, bend sinister), the sign indicating bastardy. This is false: in heraldry the sword has never been a “brisure”; it is a “meuble” exactly like the crown, fleurs-de-lys, etc. But every bastard did invariably bear the customary “brisure” on his arms, that is to say the bar of bastardy which can be seen, for example, on the arms of Dunois, Bastard of Orleans. Reference can be made to the principal works on heraldry, among others Remy Mathieu’s Le système heraldique français, Meurgey de Tupigny’s work, and others.

  * No attempt to reproduce the lame metre of the following doggerel has been made.—E.H.

  * It appears that the Burgundians had formed an ambush towards Clairoix. The falling back in great disorder was presumably to draw Joan and her company after them.

  * As of seeds in sowing: not an anachronism!—E.H.

  7

  THE TRIAL OF CONDEMNATION

  The proceedings which ended in Joan’s conviction were to last five months, from January 9 to May 30, 1431, and were in three phases. First came what was called the procès d’office which we should now call the instruction of the case*. This comprised investigations and interrogations lasting from January 9th to March 26th. Then came the ordinary trial, ending in the scene of Joan’s “abjuration” (May 24th). Finally came the very short Relapse trial, on May 28th and 29th.

  In trials touching the faith, the bishop and the Inquisitor sat together as judges. We have seen how Pierre Cauchon had been appointed by means of certain procedural artifices to judge the case: his whole past, a consistent story of attachment to the English cause, as well as his quality as a jurist, a doctor of both civil and canon law, guaranteed in advance the cleverness which, in the event, he deployed. With him sat Jean Lemaitre, vicar of the Inquisition at Rouen, designated for the task by Jean Graverent, Inquisitor of France. Lemaitre was to give a pitiful performance: he was present as rarely as possible; a month after the trial had opened he had not put in an appearance. On February 20th, expressly summoned by Cauchon, he did appear; but to declare “that he would not meddle in the matter as much for the scruple of his conscience as for the surety of the instruction of the trial, were it not for the fact that he had been given the authority and in so far as he had it.” (C.29). He did not appear thereafter until March 13th, and although the minutes several times mention his presence, he did not once intervene.

  These two were Joan’s only judges. But in conformity with inquisitorial custom, to which we owe the idea of a jury in trials, a certain number of assessors had to take part, although their function was purely consultative. Cauchon, if only to add to the prestige of his court, did not fail to summon a large number of assessors, about sixty in fact, forty of whom sat fairly regularly: they were Norman and English prelates, canons of Rouen, masters of canon and civil law, advocates of the “Officialité”, an ecclesiastical court of which there was one to each bishopric, etc. Among the most assiduous of these officers of the court were the Masters delegated to Rouen by the University of Paris, Jean Beaupère, Nicholas Midy, Jacques de Touraine, Gérard Feuillet, Pierre Maurice and Thomas de Courcelles. We may be quite sure that they brought to the trial the spirit which animated the university at the time. Also present at the trial was the cardinal of Winchester, Henry Beaufort, great-uncle of the King, usually referred to as the cardinal of England in contemporary texts; and the bishop of Thérouane, Louis of Luxembourg, brother of the man who had sold Joan. At the start of the trial on January 9th Cauchon named one of his own men, Jean d’Estivet, as promoter, ironically nicknamed Master Benedicite because of his filthy language. As commissioner he chose a clerk of the diocese of Bayeux, master Jean de la Fontaine. Finally, Cauchon chose his three notaries, clerks of the court, from the Rouen “Officialité”, master Guillaume Manchon, master Guillaume Colles called Boisguillaume, and master Nicolas Taquel, while another priest of Rouen, Jean Massieu, filled the office of usher.

  It is highly instructive, in measuring the worth of these men whom Joan had to face throughout her trial, to refer back to certain earlier documents, notably to the account rolls of the King of England. We note, for example, that Louis of Luxembourg, as Chancellor of France, draws a salary of 2,000 pounds tournois; the abbot of Fécamp, Gilles de Duremort, draws a thousand a year as does the abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, Robert Jolibet (he had long since fled from his valiant abbey whose resistance to English attacks during this last phase of the Hundred Years War is well known)
. Several other assessors, notably André Marguerie, Raoul Roussel and Denis Gastinel, picked out by Cauchon at the beginning of the trial, are also to be found in receipt of regular salaries noted in the account rolls, of diverse sums. (See Joseph Stevenson’s Letters and papers illustrative of the wars of the English, London, 1864, Vol 11, pp. 561 et seq.) Nor were honours to be denied them: Gilles de Duremort was to be appointed Bishop of Coutances; another assessor, Robert Guillebert, became Bishop of London in 1436; Louis of Luxembourg became Archbishop of Rouen and Raoul Roussel succeeded him in 1444. Jean Fabri, or Lefevre, who survived at the time of the trial of Rehabilitation, became titular Bishop of Demetriade. And so forth, only Cauchon failing to obtain what he had hoped for. Hanotaux has this to say about Cauchon’s failure, that there happened to him what does happen to over-complaisant servants, who in the long run earn nothing but contempt. Cauchon had expected the archbishopric of Rouen; he had to be satisfied with the bishopric of Lisieux.

  In the course of the proces d’office diverse inquiries and examinations had to precede the interrogation. Thus, for example, and as the procedure laid down required, an inquiry was made in the neighbourhood of Joan’s birth. But nothing about this is to be found in the records of the trial, nor, as we shall see, is that the only gap in those records. In fact this inquiry was not known about until very much later; it was not until the Trial of Rehabilitation that some of the commissioners who had carried out this inquiry were to come forward, among others Nicolas Bailly, tabellion royal in the provostry of Andelot:

  “Joan came from Domremy and from the parish of that place and her father was Jacques d’Arc, a good and honest farmer (laboureur) as I saw and knew him; I know it also by hearsay and upon the report of many, for I was tabellion appointed by messire Jean de Torcenay, then bailiff of Chaumont, who held his authority from him who was then called King of France and England, at the same time as Gerard Petit, defunct, at that time provost of Andelot, to hold an enquiry in the matter of Joan the Maid who was, as it was said, detained in prison in the city of Rouen. It was I, tabellion, who made (compiled) in her time the information to which I was commissioned by messire Jean de Torcenay . . . when myself and Gerard made (compiled) . . . this information on Joan; by our diligence we so wrought that we procured twelve or fifteen witnesses to certify this information. We did this before Simon de Thermes, esquire, acting as lieutenant to the captain of Chaumont, on the subject of Joan the Maid; we were suspect because we had not done this information badly (evilly); these witnesses, before the lieutenant, attested the evidence which they had given and as it was written in their interrogatory; then the lieutenant wrote again to messire Jean, bailiff of Chaumont, that that which was written in this interrogatory made by us, tabellion and provost, was true. And when this bailiff saw the lieutenant’s report, he said we the commissioners were false Armagnacs.” (R. 89–90)

  It seems quite clear from this that Nicolas Bailly and Gerard Petit, having carried out their inquiry, were suspected of having done so in a cunningly sides-taking spirit, thus presenting a too favourable image of Joan. They were obliged to hail the witnesses before the bailiff of Chaumont’s lieutenant in order to establish their good faith. Other depositions bore witness to this inquiry, and also to its outcome, wholly negative from the judges’ point of view.

  Jean Moreau, merchant: “I know that at the time when Joan was in Rouen and they were preparing a trial against her, someone important from the country of Lorraine came to Rouen. As I was of the same country I made his acquaintance. He told me that he had come from Lorraine to Rouen because he had been especially commissioned to gather information in Joan’s country of origin to learn what reputation she had there. Which he had done. And he had reported his information to the lord Bishop of Beauvais, thinking to have compensation for his work and his expenses; but the bishop told him that he was a traitor and a bad man and that he had not done what he should have done and was ordered to do. This man complained of it to me for, from what he said, he could not get his salary paid him because his informations were not useful to the bishop. He added that in the course of (collecting) his informations he had found nothing concerning Joan which he would not have liked to find about his own sister, although he had been for information to five or six parishes near Domremy and in that town itself.” (R.88–89)

  The fact is further confirmed by yet other witnesses.

  Michel Lebuin: “When Joan was taken, I saw one called Nicolas, bailiff of Andelot, who was come with many others to Domremy, and at the demand of messire Jean de Torcenay, then bailiff of Chaumont, in the name of the so-called King of France and England, made inquest into the repute and habits of Joan, as it was said. And, as it seems, he dared not force anyone to swear, for fear of the people of Vaucouleurs. I think that Jean Begot of that town was examined, for they were lodged in his house. I believe also that when they made this inquiry they found nothing evil touching Joan.” (R. 87)

  Joan was also forced to undergo an examination into her virginity which was carried out probably during the first days of January. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford were staying in Rouen from January 1st to the 13th and it was the Duchess of Bedford who took charge of this examination, which she had done by certain matrons of her choice. The evidence establishing this was given during the Trial of Rehabilitation.

  Jean Fabri or Lefevre, one of the assessors at the Trial of Condemnation: “I know well that once, when Joan was asked why she was called the Maid and whether she was one, she answered: ‘I can well say that I am so, and if you do not believe me have me examined by some women.’ And she declared herself ready to suffer this examination provided it be done by decent women, as is the custom.”

  Boisguillaume, the notary: “I heard it said by one, whom I no longer remember, that Joan was examined by some matrons and that she was found to be a virgin and that this examination had been made by order of the Duchess of Bedford and that the Duke of Bedford stood in a secret place from which he could see Joan examined.”

  Jean Massieu: “I know well that she was examined to discover if she was a virgin or not by some matrons and midwives, and that on the orders of the Duchess of Bedford and notably by Anna Bavon and another matron whose name I do not remember. After this examination they declared that she was a virgin and intact and that I heard said by Anna herself for which cause the Duchess of Bedford had the warders and others forbidden to offer her any violence.” (R.224–225)

  No trace of this examination into Joan’s virginity is to be found in the trial records either.

  Throughout the whole course of the trial Joan was held in a civil prison, looked after by English gaolers and kept in irons. This was in flagrant disregard of the rule of Inquisitorial tribunals by which she had a right to be held in the archbishopric prison and guarded by women. Another irregularity: Joan had no advocate, and as we shall see anyone who tried to encourage or advise her, did so at his risk and peril.

  The interrogatories began on February 21st. They began in open court in the Chapel of Rouen Castle; but after March 10th the proceedings continued in the prison itself, in camera, and with a much reduced court. Jean Massieu gives an account of how things were done: “On several occasions I took Joan from the prison to the place of jurisdiction and passing in front of the castle chapel; at Joan’s request I allowed her, in passing, to make her orison. For this I was reproved by the said Benedicite, promoter of the cause, who said to me: ‘Truant, who maketh thee so bold to allow that excommunicated whore to approach the church without permission? I will have thee put in a tower so that thou shalt see neither sun nor moon for a month if thou dost so again.’ And when the said promoter perceived that I obeyed him not, he several times placed himself before the chapel door and Joan asked deliberately: ‘Here is the body of Jesus-Christ?’ ”

  The interrogatories were conducted according to procedures which are still used by examining magistrates (juges d’instruction). Questions succeed each other without apparent order, some designed to distra
ct the accused’s attention, others, reverting suddenly to subjects already explored, intended to lead the accused to contradict himself. Joan, without any assistance, kept her end up superbly in the face of these attacks.

  Jean Massieu: “When my lord of Beauvais, who was judge in the cause, accompanied by six clerks, to wit by Beaupère, Midy, Maurice, Touraine, Courcelles and Feuillet, or some other in his place, first interrogated her, before she had given her answer to one, another of the assistants interjected another question, whereby she was often precipitate and confused in her answers. . . . The assessors with the judges put questions to her, and sometimes at the moment when one was questioning her and she was answering his question, another interrupted her answer so much so that she several times said to those who were interrogating her: ‘Fine lords, ask one at a time.’ . . . And I was astonished to see how she could answer the subtle and captious questions which were put to her, which a lettered man would have had difficulty in answering. The examination lasted usually from eight o’clock to eleven.” (R.208)

  Guillaume Manchon, the notary, describes these interrogatories in the same way: “During the trial Joan was harassed by numerous and diverse interrogations and almost every day there took place interrogatories which lasted about three or four hours and sometimes, according to what Joan said, difficult and subtle questions were extracted on the subject of which they questioned her again after the midday meal for two or three hours, and often there was translation from one question to another while changing the manner of questioning. And notwithstanding this change, she answered prudently and with a very good memory, for very often she said: ‘I have already answered on that point,’ or, again, ‘I refer to the clerk,’ pointing at me.” (R.209)

  Manchon also throws some light on the circumstances under which he filled his office: “In the first of Joan’s interrogatories there was great tumult on the first day in the chapel of Rouen Castle and almost every word of Joan’s was interrupted when she spoke of her apparitions, for there were present certain secretaries of the King of England, two or three, who registered as they liked Joan’s sayings and depositions, omitting her excuses and what might serve to acquit her. I therefore complained of that, saying that unless a better order were introduced I would no longer undertake the task of writing in that business. Because of that, on the morrow the place was changed and we gathered in the court of the castle near to the great court. And there were two Englishmen to guard the door. And as sometimes there were difficulties about Joan’s answers and sayings and there were some who said that she had not answered as I had written it, wherever there was difficulty I put nota at the head, so that she could be questioned again and light thrown on the difficulty.”