Arrived at Rouen, Joan of Arc was immured in the old fortress built by
Philip Augustus. One tower alone remains of the seven massive round
towers which surrounded the circular castle. Her jailers had the
barbarity to place their prisoner in an iron cage, in which she was
fastened with iron rings and chains, one at the neck, another at the
hands, and a third confining the feet. Joan was thus caged as if she
were a wild animal until her trial commenced. After that, she was
chained to a miserable truckle bed.
A chronicler of that time, named Macy, tells the following story of an
incident which, for the sake of English manhood, one trusts is untrue.
Among others who went to see Joan of Arc in her prison came one day
the Earl of Warwick, with Lord Stafford and Ligny--Joan's former
jailer. The latter told her in a jeering way that he had come to buy
her back from the English, provided she promised never again to make
war against them.
'You are mocking me,' said Joan of Arc. 'For I know that you have not
the power to do that, neither the will.' And she added, 'I know well
that these English will kill me, thinking that by doing so they will
reconquer the kingdom of France; but even if there were one hundred
thousand Godons more in France than there are now, they will never
again conquer the kingdom!'
On hearing these words Stafford drew his dagger, and would have struck
her had not Warwick prevented the cowardly act.
Cauchon formed his tribunal of the following:--
1. John Graverent, a Dominican priest, D.D., Grand Inquisitor of
France. It was he who appointed John Lemaitre as judge in the trial of
the Maid. The following July this Graverent preached a sermon in
Paris, in which he glorified the death of Joan of Arc.
2. John Lemaitre, who represented the Inquisition on the trial. He was
a Dominican prior. He appears to have been a feeble-minded creature,
and a mere tool of Cauchon and Graverent.
3. Martin Bellarme, D.D., another Dominican, and also a member of the
Inquisition.
4. John d'Estivet, surnamed 'Benedicite,' canon of Beauvais and
Bayeux, was another of Cauchon's creatures. He acted the part of
_Procureur-General_ during the trial. D'Estivet was a gross and cruel
ecclesiastic, and it is somewhat satisfactory to know his end. He was
found dead in a muddy ditch soon after Joan of Arc's death. As M.
Fabre justly says, 'He perished in his native element.'
5. John de la Fontaine, M.A. He was _Conseille d'Instruction_ during
the trial. In the course of it he was threatened by Cauchon for having
given some friendly advice to the prisoner, and escaped from Rouen
before the conclusion of the trial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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