The Valet's Tragedy, and Other StudiesLang, Andrew
History
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies
Lang, Andrew
History; World history
On the next day (the third of the trial) she told Beaupere that she was
fasting since yesterday afternoon. Beaupere, as we saw, conceived that
her experiences were mere subjective hallucinations, caused by fasting,
by the sound of church-bells, and so on. As to the noise of bells,
Coleridge writes that their music fell on his ears, ‘MOST LIKE
ARTICULATE SOUNDS OF THINGS TO COME.’ Beaupere’s sober common-sense did
not avail to help the Maid, but at the Rehabilitation (1456) he still
maintained his old opinion. ‘Yesterday she had heard the voices in the
morning, at vespers, and at the late ringing for Ave Maria, and she
heard them much more frequently than she mentioned.’ ‘Yesterday she
had been asleep when the voice aroused her. She sat up and clasped her
hands, and the voice bade her answer boldly. Other words she half heard
before she was quite awake, but failed to understand.’*
*Proces, i. 62.
She denied that the voices ever contradicted themselves. On this
occasion, as not having received leave from her voices, she refused to
say anything as to her visions.
At the next meeting she admitted having heard the voices in court, but
in court she could not distinguish the words, owing to the tumult. She
had now, however, leave to speak more fully. The voices were those of
St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Later she was asked if St. Margaret
‘spoke English.’ Apparently the querist thought that the English
Margaret, wife of Malcolm of Scotland, was intended. They were crowned
with fair crowns, as she had said at Poictiers two years before. She
now appealed to the record of her examination there, but it was not in
court, nor was it used in the trial of Rehabilitation. It has never been
recovered. A witness who had examined her at Poictiers threw no light
(twenty years later) on the saints and voices. Seven years ago (that
is, when she was twelve) she first saw the saints. On the attire of the
saints she had not leave to speak. They were preceded by St. Michael
‘with the angels of heaven.’ ‘I saw them as clearly as I see you, and
I used to weep when they departed, and would fain that they should have
taken me with them.’
As to the famous sword at Fierbois, she averred that she had been in the
church there, on her way to Chinon, that the voices later bade her use
a sword which was hidden under earth--she thinks behind, but possibly
in front of the altar--at Fierbois. A man unknown to her was sent from
Tours to fetch the sword, which after search was found, and she wore it.
Asked whether she had prophesied her wound by an arrow at Orleans, and
her recovery, she said ‘Yes.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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