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
History
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
Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Among other questions, Maître Jean Lombart asked her why she had come;
that the King wished to know what had induced her to come to him. She
answered, in a grand manner, that “there had come to her, while she was
minding the cattle, a Voice, which told her that God had great
compassion for the people of France, and that she must go into France.”
On hearing this, she began to weep; the Voice then told her to go to
Vaucouleurs, where she would find a Captain who would conduct her safely
into France and to the King, and that she must not be afraid. She had
done what the Voice had ordered, and had come to the King without
meeting any obstacle.
Thereupon, Guillaume Aymerie put to her this question: “You assert that
a Voice told you, God willed to deliver the people of France from the
calamity in which they now are; but, if God wills to deliver them, it is
not necessary to have soldiers.” “In God’s Name!” Jeanne replied, “the
soldiers will fight, and God will give the victory.” With which answer
Maître Guillaume was pleased.
[Illustration:
JEANNE D’ARC.
From a Miniature of the XVth Century.
]
I, in my turn, asked Jeanne what dialect the Voice spoke? “A better one
than yours,” she replied. I speak the Limousin dialect. “Do you believe
in God?” I asked her. “In truth, more than yourself!” she answered. “But
God wills that you should not be believed unless there appear some sign
to prove that you ought to be believed; and we shall not advise the King
to trust in you, and to risk an army on your simple statement.” “In
God’s Name!” she replied, “I am not come to Poitiers to shew signs: but
send me to Orleans, where I shall shew you the signs by which I am
sent:” and she added: “Send me men in such numbers as may seem good, and
I will go to Orleans.”
And then she foretold to us—to me and to all the others who were with
me—these four things which should happen, and which did afterwards come
to pass: first, that the English would be destroyed, the siege of
Orleans raised, and the town delivered from the English; secondly, that
the King would be crowned at Rheims; thirdly, that Paris would be
restored to his dominion; and fourthly, that the Duke d’Orléans should
be brought back from England. And I who speak, I have in truth seen
these four things accomplished.
We reported all this to the Council of the King; and we were of opinion
that, considering the extreme necessity and the great peril of the town,
the King might make use of her help and send her to Orleans.
Besides this, we enquired into her life and morals; and found that she
was a good Christian, living as a Catholic, never idle. In order that
her manner of living might be better known, women were placed with her
who were commissioned to report to the Council her actions and ways.
As for me, I believed she was sent from God, because, at the time when
she appeared, the King and all the French people with him had lost hope:
no one thought of aught but to save himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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