第17章 BEFORE THE KING.FEB.-APRIL,(3)

Accordingly,after some preliminary handling by half a dozen bishops,Jeanne was taken to Poitiers--where the university and the local parliament,all the learning,law,and ecclesiastical wisdom which were on the side of the King,were assembled--to undergo this investigation.It is curious that the entire history of this wildest and strangest of all visionary occurrences is to be found in a series of processes at law,each part recorded and certified under oath;but so it is.The village maid was placed at the bar,before a number of acute legists,ecclesiastics,and statesmen,to submit her to a not-too-benevolent cross-examination.Several of these men were still alive at the time of the Rehabilitation and gave their recollections of this examination,though its formal records have not been preserved.A Dominican monk,Aymer,one of an order she loved,addressed her gravely with the severity with which that institution is always credited."You say that God will deliver France;if He has so determined,He has no need of men-at-arms.""Ah!"cried the girl,with perhaps a note of irritation in her voice,"the men must fight;it is God who gives the victory."To another discomfited Brother,Jeanne,exasperated,answered with a little roughness,showing that our Maid,though gentle as a child to all gentle souls,was no piece of subdued perfection,but a woman of the fields,and lately much in the company of rough-spoken men.He was of Limoges,a certain Brother Seguin,"/bien aigre homme/,"and disposed apparently to weaken the trial by questions without importance:he asked her what language her celestial visitors spoke?"Better than yours,"answered the peasant girl.He could not have been,as we say in Scotland,altogether "an ill man,"for he acknowledged that he spoke the patois of his district,and therefore that the blow was fair.But perhaps for the moment he was irritated too.He asked her,a question equally unnecessary,"do you believe in God?"to which with more and more impatience she made a similar answer:"Better than you do."There was nothing to be made of one so well able to defend herself."Words are all very well,"said the monk,"but God would not have us believe you,unless you show us some sign."To this Jeanne made an answer more dignified,though still showing signs of exasperation,"I have not come to Poitiers to give signs,"she said;"but take me to Orleans--I will then show the signs I am sent to show.Give me as small a band as you please,but let me go."The situation of Orleans was at the time a desperate one.It was besieged by a strong army of English,who had built a succession of towers round the city,from which to assail it,after the manner of the times.The town lies in the midst of the plain of the Loire,with not so much as a hillock to offer any advantage to the besiegers.

Therefore these great works were necessary in face of a very strenuous resistance,and the possibility of provisioning the besieged,which their river secured.The English from their high towers kept up a disastrous fire,which,though their artillery was of the rudest kind,did great execution.The siege was conducted by eminent generals.The works were of themselves great fortifications,the assailants numerous,and strengthened by the prestige of almost unbroken success;there seemed no human hope of the deliverance of the town unless by an overwhelming army,which the King's party did not possess,or by some wonderful and utterly unexpected event.Jeanne had always declared the destruction of the English and the relief of Orleans to be the first step in her mission.

Besides the formal and official examination of her faith and character,held at Poitiers,private inquests of all kinds were made concerning of the claims of the miraculous maid.She was visited by every curious person,man or woman,in the neighbourhood,and plied with endless questions,so that her simple personal story,and that of her revelations--/mes voix/,as she called them--became familiarly known from her own report,to the whole country round about.The women pressed a question specially interesting--for no doubt,many a good mother half convinced otherwise,shook her head at Jeanne's costume--Why she wore the dress of a man?for which the Maid gave very good reasons:in the first place because it was the only dress for fighting,which,though so far from her desires or from the habits of her life,was henceforward to be her work;and also because in her strange circumstances,constrained as she was to live among men,she considered it safest for herself--statements which evidently convinced the minds of the questioners.It was,no doubt,good policy to make her thus widely and generally known,and the result was a daily growing enthusiasm for her and belief in her,in all classes.The result of the formal process was that the doctors could find nothing against her,and they reluctantly allowed that the King might lawfully take what advantage he could of her offered services.