Chapter III: The Test

Animated by conflicting sentiments, the men and women of the court of Charles VII, gathered in a gallery of the Castle of Chinon, awaited the arrival of Joan the Maid. Some, and they were few, believed the girl inspired; most of the others regarded her either as a poor visionary, a docile instrument that might be turned to account by the heads of the State, or an adventuress whom her own audacity, coupled to the credulity of fools, was pushing forward. All, however, whatever their opinion concerning the mission that the peasant girl of Domremy claimed for herself, saw in her a daughter of the rustic plebs, and asked themselves how the Lord could have chosen his elect from such a low condition.

Splendidly dressed, the Sire of Trans sat on what looked like a throne--an elevated seat placed under a canopy at one end of the gallery. He was to simulate the King, while Charles VII himself, mixing in the crowd of his favorite courtiers, was laughing in his sleeve, satisfied with the idea of the test that Joan's sagacity was to be put to. Joan presently entered, conducted by a chamberlain. She held her cap in her hand and was in man's attire--a short jacket, slashed hose and spurred boots. Intimidated at first by the sight of the courtiers, Joan quickly regained her self-possession; holding her head high and preserving a modest yet confident bearing, she stepped forward in the gallery. Vaguely suspecting the ill-will of many of the seigneurs of the King's household, the girl scented a snare, and said to the chamberlain who escorted her:

"Do not deceive me, sir; take me to the Dauphin of France."[49]

The chamberlain motioned toward the Sire of Trans, who lolled ostentatiously on the raised and canopied seat at the extremity of the gallery. The mimic King was a man of large size, corpulent and of middle age. On her journey, Joan had often interrogated the knight of Novelpont on Charles VII, his external appearance, his features. Being thus informed that the prince was of a frail physique, pale complexion and short stature, and finding no point of resemblance between that portrait and the robustious appearance of the Sire of Trans, Joan readily perceived that she was being trifled with. Wounded to the heart by the fraud, the sign of insulting mistrust or of a joke unworthy of royalty, if Charles was an accomplice in the game, Joan turned back toward the chamberlain, and said, with indignation mantling her cheek:

"You deceive me--him that you point out to me is not the King."[50]

Immediately noticing a few steps away from her a frail looking and pale young man of small stature, whose features accorded perfectly with the description that she preserved as a perpetual souvenir in her mind, Joan walked straight towards the King and bent her knee before him, saying in a sweet and firm voice: "Sir Dauphin, the Lord God sends me to you in His name to save you. Place armed men at my command, and I shall raise the siege of Orleans and drive the English from your kingdom. Before a month is over I shall take you to Rheims, where you will be crowned King of France."[51]

Some of the bystanders, convinced as they were that the peasant girl of Domremy obeyed an inspiration, considered supernatural the sagacity that she had just displayed in recognizing Charles VII from among the courtiers; they were all the more impressed by the language that she held to the King. A large number of others, attributing Joan's penetration to a freak of accident, saw in her words only a ridiculous and foolish boast, and they suppressed with difficulty their jeering disdain at this daughter of the fields daring so brazenly to promise the King that she would clear his kingdom of the English, until then the vanquishers of the most renowned captains.

Charles fixed upon Joan a defiant and libertine look that brought the blush to her cheeks, ordered her to rise, and said to her with an air of nonchalance and sarcasm that revealed mistrust in every word:

"My poor child, we are thankful for your good intentions towards us and our kingdom. You promise us miraculously to drive away the English and to restore to us our crown. That is all very well. Finally, you claim to be inspired by God--and on top of all, that you are a maid. Before placing any faith in your promises we must first make sure that you are not possessed of an evil spirit and that you are virgin. On the latter head, your pretty face at least justifies doubt. In order to remove it the venerable Yolande, Queen of Sicily and mother of my wife, will preside over a council of matrons that will be commissioned by us duly, authentically and notarially to verify your virginity.[52] After that, my pretty child, if you issue triumphant from the trial, we shall then have to establish whether you are really sent to us by God. To that end, an assembly of the most illustrious clerks in theology, convened in our town of Poitiers, where our parliament is in session, will examine and interrogate you, and it will then declare, according to the answers that you make, whether you are inspired by God or possessed of the devil. You will admit, my little girl, that it would be insane to confide to you the command of our armed men before we have become convinced that God really inspires you--and, above all, that you are really a virgin."

At these words, so full of indifference, of mistrust, and of insulting immodesty, which were received with lewd smiles by the surrounding courtiers, and that, moreover, were pronounced by the "gentle Dauphin of France," whose misfortunes had so long been rending her heart, Joan felt crushed, and her chastity and dignity revolted at the bare thought of the disgraceful and humiliating examination that her body was first to be submitted to by the orders of that very Charles VII.

A prey to bitter sorrow, for a moment, in accord with the expectations of the Sire of La Tremouille, who was the promotor of the unworthy plan, Joan thought of renouncing her mission and abandoning the King to his fate. But it immediately occurred to the warm-hearted girl that not that indolent, ungrateful and debauched prince alone was concerned in her mission, but also Gaul, for so many years the bleeding victim of the foreigners' rapacity. Gaul's deliverance was at stake, Gaul, that having drained the cup of suffering to the very dregs, had attracted the compassion of the Lord! Accordingly, strengthening her faith and her energy in the recollection of the mysterious voices that guided her, recalling the prophecies of Merlin, confident in the military genius that she felt developing within her, and drawing from the consciousness of her own chastity and from the ardor of her love of country the necessary courage to resign herself to the ignominy that she was threatened with, yet anxious to make an effort to escape it, she raised to Charles VII her eyes bathed in tears and said to him: "Oh, Sire! Why not believe me and try me! I swear to you, I have come to you by the will of heaven!"[53]