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.
Before them hath been resumed the reading, begun the preceding day, of
the Articles in the document produced by the Promoter. Their contents in
French, being shewn to Jeanne, Article by Article, she hath been
questioned on each of these Articles and hath continued to reply, as
here followeth, after having anew sworn to speak truth on everything
touching the Trial.[260]
ARTICLE XXXI. From the time of her childhood and since, Jeanne hath
boasted, and every day still doth boast, of having had, and of still
having, numerous revelations and visions on the subject which, although
she hath been on this charitably admonished and legally required to
swear, she hath not made, nor wished to make, nor is now willing to
make, any oath. She will not even make known the revelations made to
her, by words nor by signs. This she hath postponed, contested, refused,
and doth now also postpone, contest, and refuse. Many times hath she
said and affirmed in a formal manner, in Court and outside, that she
will not make known these revelations and visions to you, her Judges,
even if her head should be cut off, or her body dismembered. “They shall
not drag it from my mouth,” she hath said, “neither the sign that God
revealed to me, nor the means whereby I knew that this sign came to me
from God.”
“What have you to say on this Article?”
“As to revealing the sign and the other things, of which you speak, I
may well have said I will not reveal them. I add, to what I before
acknowledged that I should have said I would not reveal it without leave
from Our Lord.”[261]
ARTICLE XXXII. By this refusal to make known these pretended
revelations, you may and should presume strongly that the revelations
and visions of Jeanne, if she had them always, came to her from lying
and evil spirits rather than from good. And all the world may take it
for certain, considering her cruelty, her pride, her dress, her actions,
her lies, the contradictions here given in various Articles, that all
these together constitute in this respect the most powerful of
presumptions, both of law and right.
“What have you to say on this Article?”
“I did it by revelation, from Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret; and I
will maintain it even unto death. If I put on my letters the names
‘Jhésus Maria,’ it was because I was advised to do so by certain persons
of my party; sometimes I used these names, sometimes not. As to that
passage in my answer of which you remind me, ‘All that I did, I did by
the counsel of Our Lord,’ it should be completed thus: ‘All that I did
_well_.’”
“Did you do well or ill to advance on La Charité?”
“If it were ill done, it will be confessed.”
“Did you do well to advance on Paris?”
“The gentlemen of France wished to advance on Paris. In doing this, it
seems to me they did their duty in going against their enemies.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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