The Hickman courier., 1878-07-19
WAS JOAN OF ARC BURNTq


Or Did She Escape from the ScaHod by an
Artifce
1t is commonly accepted as an his
toricsl fact that Joan of Arc was burnt
at the stake in the market place OF
Rouen, on the 3lst of May, 1431 In
view of the intended erection by the
French Clerical party of national
memorial" to this martyr" a con-
sideration of the following may not be
i'll timed:
The able Lenglet, in his " Historic de
Jeanne dare" says that La Pucelle
made her appearance at Metz sometime
after supposed execution, where she was
received with due honors, was
acknowledge by her two brothers, Jean
and Pierre dare, and was married to a
gentleman of the house of Amboise in
1896. At their solicitation her sentence
was annulled in 1856" Her seemingly
miraculous escape from &c the jaws of
firery death is accounted for as follows:
' The Bishop OF Beauvais is accused by
all parties of trick and treachery in the
conduct of the trial. 1t was his known
propensity to gain his ends by stratagem,
craft, manuever, fraud and dexteTitv.
He sought out and brought forward such
testimony only as related to ecclesiastical
offenses and then handed over the de-
cision to the secular judges, whose clem-
ency be invoked. Joan said to him
publicly, You promised to restore me
to the church, and you deliver me to my
enemies (Villarst: "Historie de
France vol. XIV, p. 72.) The intenuon
OF the Bisnop, Inen, must have been that
the secular judges, for want of evidence,
should see no ofense against the state, as
tue clerical judges, Notwithstanding the
evidence, declined to see any against the
church. A fatal sentence was, however,
pronounced, and the fulfillment of it in
trusted to the ecclesiastical authorities.
Immediately after the astO Ga fe, one of
the executioners ran to the friars and
said that he had never been so shocked
at any execution, and that the English
had built up scafolding of plaster tan
eehataud de pLatre) so lofty that he could
not approach the culprit, which must
have caused her suferings to be long and
horrid. (Pasquier: Historic dor
leans" vol. stated, } at Metz some time
afterward.
The Parisisns, indeed, long remained
incredulous. They must have otherwise
have punished those ecclesiastics whose
humanity, perhaps, conspired with the
Bishop of Beauvais to withdraw her
from real execution down central CHM
ney of brick and mortar, or, as the execu
toner called it, scafolding of plaster.
The king, too, whose intimacy with
Joan before she fell into the hands of the
English was well known, is stated TO
have recognized her, as her brothers had
done, and received her with these words:
Pucelle, M annie, sOyez Ia tres bien reoenue,
an nom de eDieul She is then said to have
knelt at his majesty's feet and communi-
Gated to him the artihce by which she
had escaped.
It would be not only curious, but in
teresting to know on what authority the
above historians made these statements,
as, could their truth he proved, the
greatest stain upon England's victorious
arms would be firmly wiped away.
The Able Lenglet's Historic de Jeanne
d Arc, cierge, heroine. {, martyre detqt,
suscitee par Ia Providence pour retabir Ia
lf0narchie Francaise, was published in
1888 in 12mo; Villeret,s work about ten
years afterwards, in continuation of the
unfinished Iabors of De Velly.
May ask. through the Times, whether
these statements have ever been con-
futed? A z. VILEs.