She was guided to him, she said.
‘By what sign?’
‘That I will not speak of.’
The assessors murmured amongst themselves. What sort of a trial was this where the prisoner continually refused to answer certain questions?
They turned to Beaupère, but he was biding his time. He believed he could force her into a position where she would entrap herself. That was what he wanted.
‘So these voices came to you, a humble peasant girl. You were to do this strange thing … leave your cows and sheep and lead the Dauphin to victory.’
‘That was what I was told to do.’
‘And what was to be your reward for all this?’
‘The salvation of my soul.’
Beaupère was exasperated. He had not expected such quick thinking of a peasant girl.
Cauchon was getting exasperated. The girl was making such a good impression. Of course they would find her guilty but it must be done in such a way as to leave no doubt. They did not want her to be a martyr after her death.
At the next assembly he told her that he would have no more nonsense about her refusing to take the recognised oath. But she again refused to take it.
‘I could condemn you for that,’ he said.
‘Take care,’ she warned. ‘I am sent by God. You put yourself in danger by your treatment of me.’
Beaupère smiled at her pleasantly. He pursued his questions concerning the voices – each one cleverly couched to catch her. He came at length to the rites that had been observed during her childhood. They were pagan ceremonies, he hinted, and she had taken part in them. There was a suggestion that during them she had become imbued with the witches’ craft.
At the end of the session she was taken back to her dreary prison there to stretch out on her straw pallet and pray for guidance until she fell asleep exhausted.
A great fear had come to her. She would not be allowed to go on refusing to take the oath. She knew that behind the smiling face of Beaupère there was a wolf waiting to devour her.
During the next days her weariness was apparent. Beaupère was the first to notice. He was cutting the ground around her, teasing her with seemingly innocent questions, standing by waiting for her to fall into his traps.
At last he had finished. He had done her great harm she knew, but she was not sure in what ways. He had been so quiet, had seemed so calm – even compassionate.
Cauchon took up the questions. Weary and without much hope for she knew that everything was going against her, she cried out: ‘I went to war on God’s business. I do not belong here. Send me back to my home.’
‘Are you sure you are in God’s grace?’ asked Cauchon slyly.
‘If I be not,’ she answered firmly, ‘please God to bring me to it. And if I be, please God to keep me in it.’
Cauchon despaired of bringing the trial to a satisfactory end. He consulted with his friends as to whether they should threaten her with torture.
She must stop her appeals direct to God; she must show greater respect for the Church. And yet how could they condemn her for praying to God?
She was surprised when she was allowed to stay in her prison for a day or so. She did wonder what fresh trials were being prepared for her. Then she discovered.
They came to her and releasing her from her chains led her out of prison. She gasped with horror when she saw the instruments in that dark apartment to which they had brought her. This was the torture chamber.
‘Let me bear it, oh God,’ she cried.
Cauchon regarded her steadily. ‘It is our desire to bring you back into the ways of truth,’ he said. ‘You have made wicked inventions and placed your soul in peril. Only confession can save your soul and if you will not save it without, torture may induce you to.’
In the midst of her terror a great calm suddenly descended on Jeannette and the words which came to her lips seemed to have been put there by the saints whom she so dearly loved.
‘If you will you must tear me limb from limb and I can do naught but submit. And if in the extremity of the torture your cruelty imposes on me I admit what you wish me to say, I should afterwards tell the world that it was lies forced from me by your instruments of torture.’
Beaupère laid an arm on that of Cauchon.
He withdrew him to a corner.
‘The girl is too clever,’ he said. ‘What she says is right. None would believe the confessions which are extracted under torture. It will not do in her case. Our task is to prove her guilty. We will not do it with torture. It is the sure way to setting her up as a martyr.’
They took her back to her prison and the idea of torture was abandoned.
But the end of the trial was in sight.
Back in Court she was told that she was disobedient to Christ if she did not obey his prelates of the Church.
How could Holy Church survive if all its members might make private treaties with Heaven? This was her sin. She demeaned Holy Church. If any man or woman would have contact with Heaven it could only be through the Church. In setting herself up as a confidante of God and His saints she was placing herself above Heaven’s representatives on Earth – the prelates of the Church. She had been guilty of pride and witchcraft for they would not believe her voices came from Heaven. She was guilty of bloodshed. But her great sin was in denying the supremacy of the Church and any who did that was guilty of heresy.
She lay on her pallet. Her body burned with fever. She believed she was back in the fields of Domrémy … dancing under L’Arbre des Dames. She was young, only a child, and she had not then heard the voices.
She tossed on her bed.
She was exhausted mentally and bodily. She had scarcely eaten for days – nothing but a little bread soaked in wine. She had tried to answer their eternal questions, being careful to avoid those which she believed might give offence to Heaven.
Sometimes she felt they were sustaining her, those voices. At others she felt they had deserted her. When they spoke ill of the King she defended him fiercely, but in her heart she knew that he had deserted her too.
They came to take her to the Court. She looked at them with unseeing eyes.
‘God help us, she is sick,’ said Cauchon. ‘She is sick unto death.’
They sent doctors to her. She must not die. That would never do. They must have her condemned; that must show her to have been the tool of the Devil.
Cauchon sent the best doctors to her. She was exhausted, was all they could say. She needed rest, food, peace of mind.
The two first she could have. It was hardly likely that the third would be available to her.
After a few days when Cauchon came to see her he was relieved to hear that she was a little better.
‘I rejoice to see you are recovering,’ he said.
‘For what purpose should I recover?’ she asked.
‘I sent doctors to you to comfort and ease you in your illness. Your answers at the trial were very wayward,’ he told her, ‘but I bear in mind that you are an unlettered girl. I can send good men to you to instruct and bring you back into the ways of truth. I must warn you that if you persist in your ways you will place yourself in great peril. We who are your mentors in Holy Church wish to lead you away from this danger.’
Jeannette smiled feebly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But I shall continue to rely on God. If I die, I trust it will please you to bury me in holy ground.’
‘If you disobey the Church’s laws,’ replied Cauchon, ‘you cannot be granted the Church’s privileges.’