Thomas de Courcelles, a young doctor of the University, now began to read
the charges against her. The accusations were mostly frivolous, and some
were unjust. It was charged that she had received no religious training;
that she had worn mandrakes; that she dressed in man's attire; that she
had bewitched her banner and her ring (this was the poor little ring of
base metal which her father and mother had given her so long before);
that she believed her apparitions were saints and angels; that she had
blasphemed; and other charges to the number of seventy. After each one
the young doctor paused to ask?
"What have you to say to this article?"
And Jeanne would reply as she could, referring all her acts to the
judgment of God. It mattered little how she replied; she was foredoomed
by these men. For Jeanne D'Arc was guilty of one thing: she had deeply
wounded the English pride. That was her crime. She was a girl, but she
had frightened them, had driven them half the length of France, taken
them in their fortresses, and conquered them in the field. That was her
crime, and it was intolerable. Nothing but burning her alive could
satisfy the vengeance of pride so mortified.
This re-examination took several days, and then Jeanne was sent back to
her cell, but not to peace. While the seventy articles and the substance
of her replies were being reduced to twelve articles by Cauchon and a few
picked men, she was admonished "gently and charitably" in her cell, in
order to lead her back into the way of truth and to a sincere profession
of the faith.
Jeanne fell ill under the strain. Even her magnificent endurance broke
under the burden. She was ill with nausea and fever, and Warwick sent
immediately for several medical men who were among the judges.
"Do your best for her," he urged. "My King would on no account have her
die a natural death. He bought her dear, and holds her dear, and she
shall die by the law, and be burned."
Thereupon D'Estivet, Cauchon's secretary, escorted the leeches to the
prison where, weak and in chains, Jeanne lay upon her bed.
"I have eaten a fish that was sent me by the Bishop of Beauvais," she
told them when the doctors inquired what caused the indisposition. "I
doubt not that this is the cause of my illness."
"You shameful woman," shouted D'Estivet. "You have been eating herring,
and other unwholesomeness."[29]
"I have not," answered Jeanne, summoning all her strength to have it out
with him.
The doctors felt her pulse and found some fever. They reported to Earl
Warwick that she should be bled.
"Away with your bleeding," cried he. "She is artful, and might kill
herself."
Nevertheless, they bled her and she grew better. As soon as she was
somewhat recovered Cauchon proceeded with his "charitable admonitions."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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