Great leaders: Historic portraits from the great historians
History
Great leaders: Historic portraits from the great historians
Biography
The policy of the French court detained her while the cities of the
north of France opened their gates to the newly consecrated king.
Bedford, however, who had been left without money or men, had now
received re-enforcements, and Charles, after a repulse before the walls
of Paris, fell back behind the Loire, while the towns on the Oise
submitted again to the Duke of Burgundy. In this later struggle Jeanne
fought with her usual bravery, but with the fatal consciousness that her
mission was at an end, and during the defense of Compiègne she fell into
the power of the Bastard of Vendôme, to be sold by her captor into the
hands of the Duke of Burgundy, and by the duke into the hands of the
English. To the English her triumphs were victories of sorcery, and
after a year’s imprisonment she was brought to trial on a charge of
heresy before an ecclesiastical court with the Bishop of Beauvais at its
head. Throughout the long process which followed every art was employed
to entangle her in her talk. But the simple shrewdness of the
peasant-girl foiled the efforts of her judges. “Do you believe,” they
asked, “that you are in a state of grace?” “If I am not,” she replied,
“God will put me in it. If I am, God will keep me in it.” Her capture,
they argued, showed that God had forsaken her. “Since it has pleased God
that I should be taken,” she answered, meekly, “it is for the best.”
“Will you submit,” they demanded, at last, “to the judgment of the
Church militant?” “I have come to the King of France,” Jeanne replied,
“by commission from God and from the Church triumphant above; to that
Church I submit.... I had far rather die,” she ended, passionately,
“than renounce what I have done by my Lord’s command.” They deprived
her of mass. “Our Lord can make me hear it without your aid,” she said,
weeping. “Do your voices,” asked the judges, “forbid you to submit to
the Church and the Pope?” “Ah, no! Our Lord first served.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account