第55章

'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.'

This prediction is singular in that it was recorded before the event. The record was copied into the registre of Brabant, from a letter written on April 22nd, 1429, by a Flemish diplomatist, De Rotselaer, then at Lyons.* De Rotselaer had the prophecy from an officer of the court of the Dauphin. The prediction was thus noted on April 22nd; the event, the arrow-wound in the shoulder, occurred on May 7th. On the fifth day of the trial Jeanne announced that, before seven years were gone, the English 'shall lose a dearer gage than Orleans; this I know by revelation, and am wroth that it is to be so long deferred.' Mr. Myers observes that 'the prediction of a great victory over the English within seven years was not fulfilled in any exact way.' The words of the Maid are 'Angli demittent majus vadium quam fecerunt coram Aurelianis,' and, as prophecies go, their loss of Paris (1436) corresponds very well to the Maid's announcement. She went on, indeed, to say that the English 'will have greater loss than ever they had, through a great French victory,' but this reads like a gloss on her original prediction.

'She knew it as well as that we were there.'** 'You shall not have the exact year, but well I wish it might be before the St. John;' however, she had already expressed her sorrow that this was NOT to be. Asked, on March 1st, whether her liberation was promised, she said, 'Ask me in three months, and I will tell you.' In three months exactly, her stainless soul was free.

*Proces, iv. 425.

**Proces, i. 84.

On the appearance, garb, and so on of her saints, she declined to answer questions.

She had once disobeyed her voices, when they forbade her to leap from the tower of Beaurevoir. She leaped, but they forgave her, and told her that Compiegne (where she was captured on May 23rd, 1430) would be relieved 'before Martinmas.' It was relieved on October 26th, after a siege of five months. On March 10th an effort was made to prove that her voices had lied to her, and that she had lied about her voices. The enemy maintained that on May 23rd, 1430, she announced a promised victory to the people of Compiegne, vowing that St. Margaret and St. Catherine had revealed it to her. Two hostile priests of Compiegne were at Rouen, and may have carried this tale, which is reported by two Burgundian chroniclers, but NOT by Monstrelet, who was with the besieging army.* In court she said n'eust autre commandement de yssir: she had no command from her voices to make her fatal sally. She was not asked whether she had pretended to have received such an order. She told the touching story of how, at Melun, in April 1430, the voices had warned her that she would be taken prisoner before midsummer; how she had prayed for death, or for tidings as to the day and hour. But no tidings were given to her, and her old belief, often expressed, that she 'should last but one year or little more,' was confirmed. The Duc d'Alencon had heard her say this several times; for the prophecy at Melun we have only her own word.

*I have examined the evidence in Macmillan's Magazine for May 1894, and, to myself, it seems inadequate.

She was now led into the allegory intended to veil the King's secret, the allegory about the Angel (herself) and the Crown (the coronation at Rheims). This allegory was fatal, but does not bear on her real belief about her experiences. She averred, returning to genuine confessions, that her voices often came spontaneously; if they did not, she summoned them by a simple prayer to God. She had seen the angelic figures moving, invisible save to her, among men.