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.
This Procedure was carefully observed in the case of Jeanne. The process
_ex officio_, beginning in January, with the suppressed Domremy Enquiry,
comprised the Six Public and Nine Private Examinations, and ended with
the drawing up of the Seventy Articles, the Act of Accusation, on March
26th. The Process in Ordinary began on March 27th, with the reading of
the Seventy Articles and Jeanne’s examination upon them. She was brought
into the Torture Chamber on May the 9th; but the decision of the greater
number of the Assessors being against the use of extreme measures,
nothing was done. The Sentence was read on May 24th, condemning her to
perpetual imprisonment.
Of the legality of the Trial there were grave doubts, expressed both at
the beginning and also later on, when some opportunity had been given by
the Public Examinations for those not absolutely prejudiced against the
Accused, to form an opinion as regards the impartiality of the Judges.
On the first day, Houppeville, whose testimony was given in full at the
Rehabilitation, was present in Court; but, having dared to express his
opinion that the action to be undertaken was fraught with some danger,
he was afterwards refused admission, and was sent for by the Bishop to
be reprimanded. As he was not in the Diocese of Beauvais he refused
submission; but his appeal to his own Chapter at Rouen was disregarded,
and he was thrown into prison, from which he was only released some days
later through the intervention of the Abbot of Jumièges.
Lohier, a celebrated legal authority, who was present in Rouen during
the earlier part of the Examination, expressed his opinions to the
Bishop at some length, stating that the whole Trial was absolutely
worthless: (1) on account of its form, (2) that the Assessors were not
at liberty to hold their own views, the Trial being in the Castle and
therefore not in open Court, (3) that no opportunity was given to the
party of the French King to speak for themselves, (4) that Jeanne
herself was allowed no Counsel,[228] nor had proper documents been
prepared to support the Accusation. The Bishop, furious at this
interference, summoned a meeting at his house to discuss the matter, and
announced his decision to take no notice of the opinions thus expressed,
but to continue as before. On the following day, Lohier left Rouen,
remarking to the Registrar of the Trial: “It seems to me they act more
from hate than aught else: and for this reason I will not stay here, for
I do not wish to be in it.”
Massieu, the Usher of the Court, afterwards stated that Jeanne had asked
for Counsel, and had been refused; but there is no reference to any such
request in the message he gives from her at the time of her
citation.[229]
The Bishop’s violent resentment at any interference is noted by more
than one witness; and, indeed, the whole conduct of the Trial may be not
inaptly described in the words of one of the Assessors, Maître Grouchet:
“all was violence in this affair.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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