第67章 THE JUDGES.(3)

This then was the assembly which gathered in Rouen in the beginning of 1431.Quicherat will not venture to affirm even that intimidation was directly employed to effect their decision.He says that the evidence "tends to prove"that this was the case,but honestly allows that,"it is well to remark that the witnesses contradict each other.""In all that I have said,"he adds,"my intention has been to prove that the judges of the Maid had in no way the appearance of partisans hotly pursuing a political vengeance;but that,on the contrary,their known weight,the consideration which most of them enjoyed,and the nature of the tribunal for which they were assembled,were all calculated to produce generally an expectation full of confidence and respect."Meanwhile there is not a word to be said for the treatment to which Jeanne herself was subjected,she being,so far as is apparent,entirely in English custody.She had been treated with tolerable gentleness it would seem in the first part of her captivity while in the hands of Jean de Luxembourg,the Count de Ligny.The fact that the ladies of the house were for her friends must have assured this,and there is no complaint made anywhere of cruelty or even unkindness.

When she arrived in Rouen she was confined in the middle chamber of the donjon,which was the best we may suppose,neither a dungeon under the soil,nor a room under the leads,but one to which there was access by a short flight of steps from the courtyard,and which was fully lighted and not out of reach or sight of life.But in this chamber was an iron cage,[1]within which she was bound,feet,and waist and neck,from the time of her arrival until the beginning of the trial,a period of about six weeks.Five English soldiers of the lowest class watched her night and day,three in the room itself,two at the door.It is enough to think for a moment of the probable manners and morals of these troopers to imagine what torture must have been inflicted by their presence upon a young woman who had always been sensitive above all things to the laws of personal modesty and reserve.Their course jests would no doubt be unintelligible to her,which would be an alleviation;but their coarse laughter,their revolting touch,their impure looks,would be an endless incessant misery.We are told that she indignantly bestowed a hearty buffet on the cheek of a tailor who approached her too closely when it was intended to furnish her with female dress;but she was helpless to defend herself when in her irons,and had to endure as she best could --the bars of her cage let us hope,if cage there was,affording her some little protection from the horror of the continual presence of these rude attendants,with whom it was a shame to English gentlemen and knights to surround a helpless woman.

When her trial began Jeanne was released from her cage,but was still chained by one foot to a wooden beam during the day,and at night to the posts of her bed.Sometimes her guards would wake her to tell her that she had been condemned and was immediately to be led forth to execution;but that was a small matter.Attempts were also made to inflict the barest insult and outrage upon her,and on one occasion she is said to have been saved only by the Earl of Warwick,who heard her cries and went to her rescue.By night as by day she clung to her male garb,tightly fastened by the innumerable "points"of which Shakespeare so often speaks.Such were the horrible circumstances in which she awaited her public appearance before her judges.She was brought before them every day for months together,to be badgered by the keenest wits in France,coming back and back with artful questions upon every detail of every subject,to endeavour to shake her firmness or force her into self-contradiction.Imagine a cross-examination going on for months,like those--only more cruel than those--to which we sometimes see an unfortunate witness exposed in our own courts of law.There is nothing more usual than to see people break down entirely after a day or two of such a tremendous ordeal,in which their hearts and lives are turned inside out,their minds so bewildered that they know not what they are saying,and everything they have done in their lives exhibited in the worst,often in an entirely fictitious,light,to the curiosity and amusement of the world.