from vengeance or policy, was equally barbarous and dishonorable. [1431.] There was no possible reason why Joan should not be regarded as a prisoner of war, and be entitled to all the courtesy and good usage which civilized nations practise towards enemies on these occasions. She had never, in her military capacity, forfeited, by any act of treachery or cruelty, her claim to that treatment: she was unstained by any civil crime: even the virtues and the very decorums of her sex had ever been rigidly observed by her: and though her appearing in war, and leading armies to battle, may seem an exception, she had thereby performed such signal service to her prince, that she had abundantly compensated for this irregularity; and was, on that very account, the more an object of praise and ́ admiration. It was necessary, therefore, for the duke of Bedford to interest religion some way in the prosecution, and to cover under that cloak his violation of justice and humanity. The bishop of Beauvais, a man wholly devoted to the English interests, presented a petition against Joan, on pretence that she was taken within the bounds of his diocese; and he desired to have her tried by an ecclesiastical court for sorcery, impiety, idolatry, and magic: the university of Paris was so mean as to join in the same request: several prelates, among whom the cardinal of Winchester was the only Englishman, were appointed her judges: they held their court in Rouen, where the young king of England then resided: and the maid, clothed in her former military apparel, but loaded with irons, was produced before this tribunal. She first desired to be eased of her chains: her judges answered, that she had once already attempted an escape by throwing herself from a tower: she confessed the fact, maintained the justice of her intention, and owned that, if she could, she would still execute that purpose. All her other speeches showed the same firmness and intrepidity: though harassed with interrogatories during the course of near four months, she never betrayed any weakness or womanish submission; and no advantage was gained over her. The point which her judges pushed most vehemently, was her visions and revelations, and intercourse with departed saints; and they asked her, whether she would submit to the church the truth of these inspirations she replied, that she would submit them to God, the fountain of truth. They then exclaimed, that she was a heretic, and denied the authority of the church. She appealed to the pope hey rejected her appeal. They asked her, why she put trust in her standard, which had been consecrated by magical incantations: she replied that she put trust in the Supreme Being alone, whose image was impressed upon it. They demanded, why she carried in her hand that standard at the anointment and coronation of Charles at Rheims : she answered, that the person who had shared the danger was entitled to share the glory. When accused of going to war, contrary to the decorums of her sex, and of assuming government and command over men, she scrupled not to reply, that her sole purpose was to defeat the English, and to expel them the kingdom. In the issue, she was condemned for all the crimes of which she had been accused, aggravated by heresy; her revelations were declared to be inventions of the devil to delude the people; and she was sentenced to be delivered over to the secular arm. Joan, so long surrounded by inveterate enemies, who treated her with every mark of contumely; browbeaten and overawed by men of superior rank, and men invested with the ensigns of a sacred character, which she had been accustomed to revere, felt her spirit at last subdued; and those visionary dreams of inspiration, in which she had been buoyed up by the triumphs of success and the applauses of her own party, gave way to the terrors of that punishment to which she was sentenced. She publicly declared herself willing to recant; she acknowledged the illusion of those revelations which the church had rejected; and she promised never more to maintain them. Her sentence was then mitigated: she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and to be fed during life on bread and water. Enough was now done to fulfil all political views, and to convince both the French and the English, that the opinion of divine influence, which had so much encouraged the one and daunted the other, was entirely without foundation. But the barbarous vengeance of Joan's enemies was not satisfied with this victory. Suspecting that the female dress, which she had now consented to wear, was disagreeable to her, they purposely placed in her apartment a suit of men's apparel; and watched for the effects of that temptation upon her. On the sight of a dress in which she had acquired so much renown, and which, she once believed, she wore by the particular appointment of Heaven, all her former ideas and passions revived; and she ventured in her solitude to clothe herself again in the forbidden garment. Her insidious ene mies caught her in that situation: her fault was interpreted t be no less than a relapse into heresy: no recantation would now suffice; and no pardon could be granted her. She was condemned to be burned in the market-place of Rouen; and the infamous sentence was accordingly executed. This admirable heroine, to whom the more generous superstition of the ancients would have erected altars, was, on pretence of heresy and magic, delivered over alive to the flames, and expiated, by that dreadful punishment, the signal services which she had rendered to her prince and to her native country. [1432.] The affairs of the English, far from being advanced by this execution, went every day more and more to decay the great abilities of the regent were unable to resist the strong inclination which had seized the French to return under the obedience of their rightful sovereign, and which that act of cruelty was ill fitted to remove. Chartres was surprised, by a stratagem of the count of Dunois: a body of the English, under Lord Willoughby, was defeated at St. Celerin upon the Sarte:* the fair in the suburbs of Caen, seated in the midst of the English territories, was pillaged by De Lore, a French officer: the duke of Bedford himself was obliged by Dunois to raise the siege of Lagni with some loss of reputation and all these misfortunes, though light, yet being continued and uninterrupted, brought discredit on the English, and menaced them with an approaching revolution. But the chief detriment which the regent sustained, was by the death of his duchess, who had hitherto preserved some appearance of friendship between him and her brother, the duke of Burgundy: † and his marriage, soon afterwards, with Jaqueline of Luxembourg, was the beginning of a breach between them. Philip complained, that the regent had never had the civility to inform him of his intentions, and that so sudden a marriage was a slight on his sister's memory. The cardinal of Winchester meditated a reconciliation between these princes, and brought both of them to St. Omers for that purpose. The duke of Bedford here expected the first visit, both as he was son, brother, and uncle to a king, and because he had already made such advances as to come into the duke * Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 100. † Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 87. of Burgundy's territories, in order to have an interview with him: but Philip, proud of his great power and independen dominions, refused to pay this compliment to the regent: and the two princes, unable to adjust the ceremonial, parted with out seeing each other: a bad prognostic of their cordial intentions to renew past amity! * Nothing could be more repugnant to the interests of the house of Burgundy, than to unite the crowns of France and England on the same head; an event which, had it taken place, would have reduced the duke to the rank of a petty prince, and have rendered his situation entirely dependent and precarious. The title also to the crown of France, which after the failure of the elder branches, might accrue to the duke or his posterity, had been sacrificed by the treaty of Troye; and strangers and enemies were thereby irrevocably fixed upon the throne. Revenge alone had carried Philip into these impolitic measures; and a point of honor had hitherto induced him to maintain them. But as it is the nature of passion gradually to decay, while the sense of interest maintains a permanent influence and authority, the duke had, for some years, appeared sensibly to relent in his animosity against Charles, and to hearken willingly to the apologies made by that prince for the murder of the late duke of Burgundy. His extreme youth was pleaded in his favor; his incapacity to judge for himself; the ascendant gained over him by his ministers; and his inability to resent a deed which, without his knowledge, had been perpetrated by those under whose guidance he was then placed. The more to flatter the pride of Philip, the king of France had banished from his court and presence Tanegui de Chatel, and all those who were concerned in that assassination; and had offered to make every other atonement which could be required of him. The distress which Charles had already suffered, had tended to gratify the duke's revenge; the miseries to which France had been so long exposed, had begun to move his compassion; and the cries of all Europe admonished him, that his resentment, which might hitherto be deemed pious, would, if carried further, be universally condemned as barbarous and unrelenting. While the duke was in this disposition, every disgust which he received from England made a double impression upon him; the entreaties of the count of Richemont and the * Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 90. Grafton, p. 561. duke of Bourbon, who had married his two sisters, had weight; and he finally determined to unite himself to the royal family of France, from which his own was descended. [1435.] For this purpose, a congress was appointed at Arras under the mediation of deputies from the pope and the council of Basle: the duke of Burgundy came thither in person: the duke of Bourbon, the count of Richemont, and other persons of high rank, appeared as ambassadors from France: and the English having also been invited to attend, the cardinal of Winchester, the bishops of Norwich and St. David's, the earls of Huntingdon and Suffolk, with others, received from the protector and council a commission for that purpose. * The conferences were held in the a'bey of St. Vaast and began with discussing the proposals of the two crowns. which were so wide of each other as to admit of no hopes of accommodation. France offered to cede Normandy with Guienne, but both of them loaded with the usual homage and vassalage to the crown. As the claims of England upon France were universally unpopular in Europe, the mediators declared the offers of Charles very reasonable, and the cardinal of Winchester, with the other English ambassadors, without giving a particular detail of their demands, immediately left the congress. There remained nothing but to discuss the mutual pretensions of Charles and Philip. These were easily adjusted: the vassal was in a situation to give law to his superior; and he exacted conditions which, had it not been for the present necessity, would have been deemed, to the last degree, dishonorable and disadvantageous to the crown of France. Besides making repeated atonements and acknowledgments for the murder of the duke of Burgundy, Charles was obliged to cede all the towns of Picardy which lay between the Somme and the Low Countries; he yielded several other territories; he agreed that these and all the other dominions of Philip should be held by him, during his life. without doing any homage, or swearing fealty to the presen king; and he freed his subjects from all obligations to allegiance, if ever he infringed this treaty. Such were the conditions upon which France purchased the friendship of the duke of Burgundy. The duke sent a herald to England with a letter, in which * Rymer, vol. x. p. 611, 612. + Monstrelet, vol ii. p. 112. Grafton, p. 565. |