Saint Joan had ardently desired peace with Burgundy; with England there could be no peace until Burgundy had been placated or subdued, and they - the English - had returned to their own country.
On the very day of the coronation at Rheims an embassy came from the Duke of Burgundy, professedly to negotiate peace, but really to gain time to complete plans altogether opposite and to allow the advance from Calais to Paris of the English forces. The Duke, while professing a desire to make peace, was sending recruits from Picardy to the English army.
Against the advice of Saint Joan, the King, instead of marching to the relief of Paris, lingered at Rheims, conferring with the envoys. Even after the treachery of the Duke had been made clear and they were on their way the King dawdled, hesitated, not marching on Compiegne, as would have been logical, and finally making a truce of fifteen days with the Duke of Burgundy, who assured him that at the end of that time he might have Paris for his own. At least so he told the Maid, who was impatient of his slow progress. He may have been as credulous as he seemed or really indifferent as to the fate of his kingdom. Be that as it may, Saint Joan was not of his mind. She had brought his army together and was now resolved to hold it together in the face of fearful odds.
"Although the truce is made," she wrote, "I am not content, and am not certain that I will keep it. If I do it will be merely for the sake of the King's honor, and in case they do not deceive the blood royal, for I will keep the King's army in readiness, at the end of the fifteen days, if peace is not made."
The action of Saint Joan, at this time, is remarkable. It will be seen by the tone of her letter that she considered herself responsible for the army of the King, as indeed she was. She was only seventeen, but she had long had familiar intercourse with supernatural beings, had fulfilled the promises made to her sovereign, and, apart from her heavenly intercourse, possessed a fund of sharp, common sense, and knowledge of military tactics which he would have done well to respect and imitate. But Saint Joan could not save her King against his will. If he had followed the advice of Saint Joan all would have been well with him and France. She had not had much experience, but good judgment and a true insight were hers. And it was not in the hour of defeat, but in the hour of triumph, that her first discouragement came.
Saint Joan said to her judges: "It was in Easter week that I was on the ramparts of Melieu. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret warned me that I should be captured before Midsummer Day, that so it must needs be; nor must I be afraid or astounded but take all things well, for God would help me. So they spoke almost every day. And I prayed that when I was taken I might die in that hour without wretchedness of long captivity. But the Voices said that so it must be. Often I asked the hour, which they told me not - had I known the hour I would not have gone into battle."
There was a touch of human nature. Saint Joan had believed implicitly in what the Voices had told her, therefore it had never occurred to her to doubt that she would be taken. Yet with a pathos which betrayed her youth and simplicity she says: "If I had known the hour I would not have gone into battle"! It was at Compiegne that Saint Joan was left almost alone - her men, panic-stricken, having fled before the superior numbers of the Duke of Burgundy. There remained with her only the Squire d' Aulon, his brother , and her own two brothers, who had joined the army after the coronation of the King. Surrounded in the meadow which she had bravely refused to leave with her flying soldiers, she was dragged from her horse and declared a prisoner.
The soldiers, overjoyed at her capture, led the Maid to their quarters. She would have preferred death to surrender, but not so her captors. It is wonderful what fear she had already inspired in the hearts of the enemy, who in view of her humble origin, youth, and inexperience, considered her in league with the evil one, as her countrymen believed her favored by God. It was at this time that the rumor began to be spread that Saint Joan was a witch, a sorceress, a woman possessed by devils. And the punishment of all such criminals was death - death at the stake.
Already, in the minds of those who were later to be her accusers and judges, had the shadow of the maid's coming fate taken dark and ominous shape. From the first the English had declared their intention of burning Saint Joan alive, should she be captured. They meant to make quick work of one who had in an incredibly short space of time gathered together the straggling forces of the rightful King of France, bravely summoned him to do the bidding of the Lord, which had been revealed to her, caused him to be crowned at Rheims, and later again reassured his wavering troops, whom, however, she could not hold, because of the folly and indifference of their sovereign. The English did not propose that the foothold they had gained in France should be taken away from them by the hands of a girl deluded or bewitched, whichever she might be.
It was Jean de Luxembourg who finally delivered the maid to the English, a man of her own blood, a Frenchman, but in the pay of the Duke of Burgundy and of the English King.
And it is here that the most infamous of Saint Joan's persecutors appears upon the scene.
In July, Pierre Cauchon, a former Franciscan and Bishop of Beauvais, who for his unexemplary conduct had been expelled from his See, a coward and traitor, also in the pay of England, presented himself to Jean de Luxembourg, saying that Saint Joan was a heretic and a sorceress, and should, on the payment of ten thousand pounds in gold, be delivered into the hands of the English King. False to his King, to his country and to his ecclesiastical oath, Cauchon hesitated at no treachery, violating every principle of honor and truth.
While he was endeavoring to accomplish his end, Saint Joan made an attempt to escape from the Tower of Beaurevoir, where she was confined. The rope by which she was descending broke and she fell to the ground, a distance of sixty feet. She was picked up, having suffered little injury from her fall, which would seem to have been certain death. But no! For the valiant Maid was reserved a death more cruel and ignominious, a death second only in ignominy to that of her crucified Saviour.
After this she was confined in the Castle of Rouen, where she was kept constantly in chains. Cauchon was paid 750 livres (about one hundred and fifty dollars) for his infamous work, and, greatest injustice of all, appointed to conduct her trial.
The English, although they were now in possession of her body, pretended to wish to do Saint Joan the justice of being tried by her own countrymen - well knowing that she had many enemies, since her short-lived day of triumph had passed. French priests and lawyers sat in judgment upon her, French witnesses condemned her, a French executioner lit the fires that surrounded her on the day of her immolation.
And through it all her King kept silent; not one protest did he make against the infamy of her trial, not once did he send her a word of comfort or counsel. From hence-forward it was decreed that Saint Joan must travel her Calvary alone. The common people, who had been the first to believe in Saint Joan, remained faithful to her to the last. At Tours every one, priests and laity, remained her friends and champions. Public prayers were offered for her deliverance, clergy and people marching in procession, walking barefoot. A prayer offered at that time in the far-off churches at Dauphiny has come down to us.
"Almighty and everlasting Father, who, of Thine unspeakable mercy and marvelous goodness hast caused a maiden to arise for the uplifting and preservation of France and for the confusion of its enemies, and hast permitted her, by their hands, to be cast into prison, as she labored to obey Thy holy commandments, grant to us, we beseech Thee, through the intercession of the ever Blessed Virgin and all the saints, that she may be delivered from their power without, and finally may accomplish the same work which Thou hast commanded her. Give ear. Almighty God, to the prayers of Thy people, and through the Sacrament of which we have partaken and by the intercession of the ever Blessed Virgin and all the saints, break in pieces the fetters of the Maid, who labored to perform the work which Thou hast appointed her and now by our enemies is held in prison. Grant that she, by Thy goodness and mercy, may go forth to finish unhurt that which remains for her to accomplish, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord."
From the tenor of this prayer it would appear that Masses had been offered and the Holy Table approached by the people in supplication for the release of the Maid from the hands of her enemies.
- taken from A Child's Life of Saint Joan of Arc, by Mary Ellen Mannix