Anatole France

“ Can they have suspected that this woman, who in France had been considered a saint, might after all have been inspired by the devil? But if what they had once believed they still held to be true, if they believed that the Maid had come from God to lead their King to his glorious coronation, then what are we to think of those clerks, those ecclesiastics who denied the Daughter of God, on the eve of her passion? ”

“ In the shadow of her convent Dame Christine shares the hope common to every noble soul; from the Maid she expects all the good things she longs for. She believes that Jeanne will restore concord to the Christian Church. The gentlest spirits of those days looked to fire and sword for the bringing in of unity and obedience; they never dreamed that Christian charity could mean charity towards the whole human race. Wherefore, on the strength of prophecy, the poetess expects the Maid to destroy the infidel and the heretic, or in other words the Turk and the Hussite. ”

“ While his penitents were being discredited, good Friar Richard himself had fallen on evil days. The Vicars in the diocese of Poitiers and the Inquisitor of the Faith had forbidden him to preach. The great orator, who had converted so many Christian folk, could no longer thunder against gaming-tables and dice, against women's finery, and mandrakes arrayed in magnificent attire. No longer could he declare the coming of Antichrist nor prepare souls for the terrible trials which were to herald the imminent end of the world. ”

“ My hope is that thou shalt be good, upright, a friend of justice, greater than any other, that pride sully not thy prowess, that thou be gentle, favourable to thy people and fearing God who hath chosen thee to serve him.
"And thou, Maid most happy, most honoured of God, thou hast loosened the cord with which France was bound. Canst thou be praised enough, thou who hast brought peace to this land laid low by war? ”

“ I have examined all that remains of stone, of iron, or of wood worked by the hands of those old artisans, who were freer and consequently more ingenious than ours, and whose handicraft reveals a desire to animate and adorn everything. To the best of my ability I have studied figures carved and painted, not exactly in France—for there, in those days of misery and death, art was little practised—but in Flanders, in Burgundy, in Provence, where the workmanship is often in a style at once affected and naif, and frequently beautiful. ”

“ On this subject the doctors displayed an insatiable curiosity. For the sign was the exact reverse of the coronation at Reims; it was an anointing, not with divine unction but with magic charm, the crowning of the King of France by a witch. Maître Jean de la Fontaine had this advantage over Jeanne, he knew what she was going to say and what she wished to conceal. "What is the sign that was given to your King?"
"It is beautiful and honourable and very credible; it is the best and the richest in the world...." ”

“ In those days nothing appeared more natural than a miracle. But a miracle vanishes when closely observed. And they had the damsel before their very eyes. They perceived that good and saintly as she was, she wielded no supernatural power.
While the men-at-arms and all the common folk welcomed her as the maid of God and an angel sent from heaven for the salvation of the realm, these good lords thought only of profiting from the sentiments of confidence which she inspired and in which they had little share. ”

“ Confined in the castle keep, Jeanne's mind was for ever running on her return to her friends at Compiègne; her one idea was to escape. Somehow there reached her evil tidings from France. She got the idea that all the inhabitants of Compiègne over seven years of age were to be massacred, "to perish by fire and sword," she said; and indeed such a fate was bound to overtake them if the town were taken.
Confiding her distress and her unconquerable desire to Saint Catherine, she asked: "How can God abandon to destruction those good folk of Compiègne who have been so loyal to their Lord?" ”

“ At the approach of men-at-arms the watchman would ring a noisy peal of those bells, which in turn celebrated births, mourned for the dead, summoned the people to prayer, dispelled storms of thunder and lightning, and warned of danger. Half clothed the awakened villagers would rush to stable, to cattle-shed, and pell-mell drive their flocks and herds to the castle between the two arms of the River Meuse. ”

“ It is you, you who are blind and not those who have not eyes nor sight. Think ye that ye will go unpunished? Do ye not know that if God prevent not your impious violence, if he suffer you to grope on in darkness and in error, it is that he is preparing for you a greater sorrow and a greater punishment? As for me, in good sooth, were I not occupied with the English wars, I would have already come against you. ”

“ And on this point there is a mass of evidence. Rough men at arms, Jean de Novelompont, Bertrand de Poulengy, Jean d'Aulon; great nobles, the Count of Dunois and the Duke of Alençon, come forward and affirm on oath that in them Jeanne never provoked any carnal desires. Such a circumstance fills these old captains with astonishment; they boast of their past vigour and wonder that for once their youthful ardour should have been damped by a maid. It seems to them most unnatural and humanly impossible. ”

“ There is happening to her what necessarily happens to all those who believe themselves entrusted with a divine mission; they constitute themselves a spiritual and temporal power superior to the established powers and inevitably hostile to them. A dangerous illusion and productive of shocks in which the illuminated are generally the worst sufferers! Every day of her life living and holding converse with saints and angels, moving in the splendour of the Church Triumphant, this young peasant girl came to believe that in her resided all strength, all prudence, all wisdom and all counsel. ”

“ Albeit the Maid liked not the Burgundians, in her own way she realized forcibly how desirable was peace with the Duke of Burgundy. With clasped hands she entreats him to cease making war against France. "An it please you to make war then go ye against the Saracens." Already she had counselled the English to join the French and go on a crusade. The destruction of the infidel was then the dream of gentle peace-loving souls; and many pious folk believed that the son of the knight, who had been vanquished at Nicopolis, would make the Turks pay dearly for their former victory. ”

“ When the executioner tears off Saint Agnes's garments, her hair grows thicker and clothes her in a miraculous garment. When Saint Barbara is to be taken naked through the streets, an angel brings her a white tunic. These Agneses and these Dorotheas, these Catherines and these Margarets, this legion of innocent conquerors prepared men's minds to believe in the miracle of a virgin stronger than armed men. Had not Saint Geneviève turned away Attila and his barbarian warriors from Paris? ”

“ By the march to Reims the French party, those Armagnacs reviled for their cruelty and felony, that little King of Bourges compromised in an infamous ambuscade, may have won advantages greater and more solid than the conquest of the county of Maine and the duchy of Normandy and than a victorious assault on the first city of the realm. By retaking his towns of Champagne and of France without bloodshed, King Charles appeared to advantage as a good and pacific lord, as a prince wise and debonair, as the friend of the townsfolk, as the true king of cities. ”

“ The doctors had nothing to oppose to arguments so convincing. Therefore the chief among them said to the emperor: "Thou knowest that up till now no one has disputed with us without being straightway confounded. But this maid, through whom the Spirit of God speaks, fills us with wonder, and we know nothing nor dare we say anything against Christ. And we boldly confess that if thou hast no stronger arguments to bring forth in favour of the gods, whom hitherto we have worshipped, we will all of us embrace the Christian religion." ”

“ Impostors, like la Dame des Armoises, never fail to find some who will believe in them. And the Dame appeared at a time which was singularly favourable to such a delusion; intellects had been dulled by long suffering; communication between one district and another was rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned dimness, ignorance, confusion.
But even then folk would not have been imposed upon so long by this pseudo-Jeanne had it not been for the support given her by the Du Lys brothers. ”

“ God all powerful grant that he may issue forth from that sweet land which all must love, all France, where are good Christians, and may they be comforted, and may they be sustained; for the power of their adversary and his false art tempt them to withstand thy holy will. Have pity on Christendom, good lord God, on other lands as well as on France! It would be the worst of pities if so noble a kingdom as France were through much temptation to fall into perdition.... ”

“ The peasant soldiers of Bohemia and the peasant Maid of France bearing her sword amidst mendicant monks had much in common. On the one hand and on the other, we have the religious spirit in the place of the political spirit, the fear of sin in the place of obedience to the civil law, the spiritual introduced into the temporal. Here is indeed a woeful sight and a piteous; the devout set one against the other, the innocent against the innocent, the simple against the simple, the heretic against heretics ”

“ The Maid, saviour of the realm, Dame Christine compares to Moses who delivered Israel out of the Land of Egypt.
"That a Maid should proffer her breast, whence France may suck the sweet milk of peace, behold a matter which is above nature!
"Joshua was a mighty conqueror. What is there strange in that, since he was a strong man? But now behold, a woman, a shepherdess doth appear, of greater worship than any man. But with God all things are easy.
"By Esther, Judith and Deborah, women of high esteem, he delivered his oppressed people. And well I know there have been women of great worship. ”

“ Overwhelmed with the Lord's favour the people seem already to taste the delights of Paradise. The procession sets out from the palace; the clergy lead with crosses and banners, singing hymns and sacred canticles; then comes the Bishop leading the King by the hand; and lastly the Queen follows with the people. By the way the King asked the Bishop if yonder was the kingdom of God he had promised him. "No," answered the blessed Remi, "but it is the beginning of the road that leads to it." ”

“ The meanest captain, the poorest knight had his own standard. When fifty French men-at-arms went forth from Orléans against a handful of English marauders, a crowd of banners like a swarm of butterflies waved over the fields. "To raise one's standard" came to be a figure of speech for "to be puffed up." [834] So indeed it was permissible for a freebooter to raise his standard when he commanded scarce a score of men-at-arms and half-naked bowmen. ”

“ On the contrary, the terrible industrial and commercial rivalries growing up around us indicate future conflicts, and there is nothing to assure us that France will not one day find herself involved in a great European or world conflagration. Her obligation to provide for her defence increases not a little those difficulties which arise from a social order profoundly agitated by competition in production and antagonism between classes.
An absolute empire obtains its defenders by inspiring fear; democracy only by bestowing benefits. Fear or interest lies at the root of all devotion. ”

“ Give me soldiers, for by grace divine and by force of arms, I will raise the siege of Orléans and then lead you to your anointing at Reims, according as God hath commanded me, for it is his will that the English return to their country and leave in peace your kingdom which shall remain unto you. Or, if they do not quit the land, then will God cause them to perish." Further, they told how, interrogated by certain prelates, knights, squires, and doctors in law, her bearing had been found honest and her words wise. ”

“ When he learns the coming of the Maid and the deliverance of Orléans, transported with joy and wonder, he re-opens his history and consigns to its pages arguments in favour of the marvellous Maid, whose deeds appear to him more divine than human, but concerning whom he knows but little. He compares her to Deborah, Judith, Esther, and Penthesilea. "In the books of the Gentiles it is written," he says, "that Penthesilea, and a thousand virgins with her, came to the succour of King Priam and fought so valiantly that they tore the Myrmidons in pieces and slew more than two thousand Greeks." ”

“ How could it be so before the Pope and the Council had pronounced judgment concerning it? Men are free to believe in her or not to believe in her. But it is a subject of edification; and it behoves men to meditate upon it, not in a spirit of prejudice, persisting in doubt, but with an open mind and according to the Christian faith. Following the counsel of Gerson, kindly souls will believe that the Maid comes from God, just as they believe that the head of Saint Denys may be venerated by the faithful either in the Cathedral Church of Paris or in the abbey-church of Saint Denys in France. ”