The Life of Joan of Arc | Page 7

here attributed to the Maid, which on the contrary are all imaginary and
fabulous. In the Chronique de Morosini,[44] every single fact
concerning Jeanne is presented in a wrong character and in a false light.
And yet Morosini's correspondents are men of business, thoughtful,
subtle Venetians. These letters reveal how there were being circulated

throughout Christendom a whole multitude of fictitious stories,
imitated some from the Romances of Chivalry, others from the Golden
Legend, concerning that Demoiselle as she is called, at once famous
and unknown.
[Footnote 44: Chronique d'Antonio Morosini, ed. Léon Dorez and
Germain Lefèvre-Pontalis, Paris, 1900-1902, 4 vols. in 8vo.]
Another document, the diary of a German merchant, one Eberhard de
Windecke,[45] a conscientious and clever edition of which has also
been published by M. Germain Lefèvre-Pontalis, presents the same
phenomenon. Nothing here related of the Maid is even probable. As
soon as she appears a whole cycle of popular stories grow up round her
name. Eberhard obviously delights to relate them. Thus we learn from
these good foreign merchants that at no period of her existence was
Jeanne known otherwise than by fables, and that if she moved
multitudes it was by the spreading abroad of countless legends which
sprang up wherever she passed and made way before her. And indeed,
there is much food for thought in that dazzling obscurity, which from
the very first enwrapped the Maid, in those radiant clouds of myth,
which, while concealing her, rendered her all the more imposing.
[Footnote 45: G. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Les sources allemandes de l'histoire
de Jeanne d'Arc, Eberhard Windecke, Paris, 1903, in 8vo.]
Thirdly, with its memoranda, its consultations, and its one hundred and
forty depositions, furnished by one hundred and twenty-three
deponents, the rehabilitation trial forms a very valuable collection of
documents.[46] M. Lanéry d'Arc has done well to publish in their
entirety the memoranda of the doctors as well as the treatise of the
Archbishop of Embrun, the propositions of Master Heinrich von
Gorcum and the Sibylla Francica.[47] From the trial of 1431 we learn
what theologians on the English side thought of the Maid. But were it
not for the consultations of Théodore de Leliis and of Paul Pontanus
and the opinions included in the later trial we should not know how she
was regarded by the doctors of Italy and France. It is important to
ascertain what were the views held by the whole Church concerning a
damsel condemned during her lifetime, when the English were in

power, and rehabilitated after her death when the French were
victorious.
[Footnote 46: Trial, vols. ii to iii, 1844-1845 (vols. v and vi, 1846-1847,
contain the evidence).]
[Footnote 47: Lanéry d'Arc, Mémoires et consultations en faveur de
Jeanne d'Arc, 1889, in 8vo. Trial, vol. iii, pp. 411-468.]
Doubtless many matters were elucidated by the one hundred and
twenty-three witnesses heard at Domremy, at Vaucouleurs, at Toul, at
Orléans, at Paris, at Rouen, at Lyon, witnesses drawn from all ranks of
life--churchmen, princes, captains, burghers, peasants, artisans. But we
are bound to admit that they come far short of satisfying our curiosity,
and for several reasons. First, because they replied to a list of questions
drawn up with the object of establishing a certain number of facts
within the scope of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Holy Inquisitor who
conducted the trial was curious, but his curiosity was not ours. This is
the first reason for the insufficiency of the evidence from our point of
view.[48]
[Footnote 48: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 378-463.]
But there are other reasons. Most of the witnesses appear excessively
simple and lacking in discernment. In so large a number of men of all
ages and of all ranks it is sad to find how few were equipped with lucid
and judicial minds. It would seem as if the human intellect of those
days was enwrapped in twilight and incapable of seeing anything
distinctly. Thought as well as speech was curiously puerile. Only a
slight acquaintance with this dark age is enough to make one feel as if
among children. Want and ignorance and wars interminable had
impoverished the mind of man and starved his moral nature. The scanty,
slashed, ridiculous garments of the nobles and the wealthy betray an
absurd poverty of taste and weakness of intellect.[49] One of the most
striking characteristics of these small minds is their triviality; they are
incapable of attention; they retain nothing. No one who reads the
writings of the period can fail to be struck by this almost universal
weakness.

[Footnote 49: J. Quicherat, Histoire du costume, Paris, 1875, large 8vo,
passim. G. Demay, Le costume au moyen âge d'après les sceaux, Paris,
1880, p. 121, figs. 76 and 77.]
By no means all the evidence given in these one hundred and forty
depositions can be treated seriously. The