Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And DeathOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Jeanne D'Arc: Her Life And Death
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
France -- History; Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431
And there was a great deliverance to come: but not of this kind. The
voices of God--how can we deny it?--are often, though in a loftier
sense, like those fantastic voices that keep the word of promise to the
ear but break it to the heart. They promised her a great victory: and
she had it, and also the fullest deliverance: but only by the stake and
the fire, which were not less dreadful to Jeanne than to any other girl
of her age. They did not speak to deceive her, but she was deceived;
they kept their promise, but not as she understood it. "These all died
in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar
off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." Jeanne too was
persuaded of them, but was not to receive them--except in the other way.
On the afternoon of the same day (it was still Lent, and Jeanne fasted,
whatever our priests may have done), she was again closely questioned
on the subject, this time, of Franquet d'Arras, who, as has been above
narrated, was taken by her in the course of some indiscriminate fighting
in the north. She was asked if it was not mortal sin to take a man as
prisoner of war and then give him up to be executed. There was evidently
no perception of similarities in the minds of the judges, for this was
precisely what had been done in the case of Jeanne herself; but even she
does not seem to have been struck by the fact. Their object, apparently,
was by proving that she was in a state of sin, to prove also that her
voices were of no authority, as being unable to discover so simple a
principle as this.
When they spoke to her of "one named Franquet d'Arras, who was executed
at Lagny," she answered that she consented to his death, as he deserved
it, for he had confessed to being a murderer, a thief, and a traitor.
She said that his trial lasted fifteen days, the Bailli de Senlis and
the law officers of Lagny being the judges; and she added that she had
wished to have Franquet, to exchange him for a man of Paris, Seigneur de
Lours (corrected, innkeeper at the sign of l'Ours); but when she heard
that this man was dead, and when the Bailli told her that she would
go very much against justice if she set Franquet free, she said to the
Bailli: "Since my man is dead whom I wished to deliver, do with this one
whatever justice demands." Asked, if she took the money or allowed it to
be taken by him who had taken Franquet, she answered, that she was not a
money changer or a treasurer of France, to deal with money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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